Fear and Aggression

by Dane Bagley

Over the next several days, Steve spent a lot of time in the lab. He had always been careful to not go to the lab too much. He didn’t want to show undue impropriety. Now, he had an entirely new motivation to be in the lab; he wanted to understand Aspiria. Because his desire to be in the lab was completely justified, he had no hesitation in spending as much time there as he desired. Tammy was thoroughly involved in her studies, and Steve was enjoying completely the time that he was spending with Aspiria. Still, he and Tammy also found time to spend together each day. She did not seem uncomfortable with the idea of sharing affection with Steve when they were alone. Steve was less comfortable, because he did not feel alone; Aspiria was there, too.

  Aspiria was more foreign than alien to him now. Both he and Aspiria worked tirelessly each day trying to understand each other. They would often laugh playfully with each other. Steve felt like he was slaughtering her language, and the looks that she would give him sometimes said the same. For her part, she was not quite as nasally now, but still he could tell that, to her, his voice and language must sound awful. Sometimes when they would laugh hard, Tammy would turn around with irritation. At other times, she would give Steve jobs to do. He would feel a little annoyed about having his important work interrupted, but he felt that Tammy was on the whole being very patient.

  On the first day, they passed the tablet through the bars on Aspiria’s cell back and forth. Steve would let her out for bathroom breaks, and escorted her without a weapon, or any other security. The next day, he let Aspiria out, and they sat next to each other at a work table. Tammy gave him a look of concern, but Steve smiled at her reassuringly. Steve was very strong, and this alien woman neither showed signs of hostility, nor did anything to indicate that she could out run or overpower him. Besides all of this, she seemed just as interested in getting to know him and his language as he was in getting to know hers. Cooperation was the working relationship, and he felt no concern as he got to know her.

  During their work, Tammy chimed in, “I don’t understand.” Steve turned around and looked at her. “Not one of our viruses has infected any of its cells. I tested them against my own cells, and every one of the viruses is virulent. But they have had no effect on its cells at all. Weird.”

  “I thought that you said that you had infected her cells, and that she had a cold.”

  “Bacteria, Steve. The bacteria caused infection in vivo, and she did get a bacterial respiratory infection. It cultured as earth bacteria, and it cleared up quickly with antibiotics. But the viruses don’t seem to be able to infect its cells.” Tammy was back to work, and didn’t seem interested in any further conversation.

  As fascinated as Steve was with Aspiria’s spoken language, he was even more fascinated by her written language. At first it seemed so simple: circles, triangles, and squares. But as he watched her try and write the words that he spoke to her, he began to notice subtleties. There were three relative sizes to each of the shapes: large, medium and small. The large shapes seemed to be in a line. The medium shapes could be squared to the top of the large shapes, or the bottom of the large shapes. The small, had this relationship to the medium shapes. The small to the large could be either squared to the top middle or bottom of the large shapes. She wrote from left to right, and the size of the shape seemed to be relative to the shape directly to the left of it. Accents were also clearly important. There seemed to be so many accents. Shapes might get a back slash through them, or they could get underlined or over-lined—sometimes, just a vertical line in the center of the shape. Occasionally the whole shape would get circled, and at other times the whole ‘word’ would get circled. The other accent that was common was two dots. They appeared horizontally over the shape, vertically to the right of the shape, or horizontally within the shape. Sometimes a shape would have multiple accents.

  As Aspiria would work to pronounce a word, she would change the shapes, relative sizes, positioning, and accents feverishly. The slightest sound difference would produce significant differences in how she formulated the word in her written language. At this stage, Steve was lost, but he still found it fascinating. Aspiria was equally lost on Arabic characters. At one point he wrote out the alphabet, in lower and capital letters. Aspiria gasped as she looked at it. She was lost, and he felt a little better by this fact. Her spoken English vocabulary was improving quickly. She had a fantastic memory and was clearly focusing. It may have been easier to have just one teaching the other, but they took turns: each trying to teach each other one another’s language. By the fifth day, rudimentary conversation was occurring, and they both felt exhausted and exhilarated.

  Aspiria was working on asking questions. She was learning the tone of questions, as opposed to the tone of statements. All of the questions were simple, and asked just for the sake of practice. That is, until she asked if they could walk around. At first Steve just encouraged her that she had asked correctly. But Aspiria looked at him in such a way, that he realized that she was making an actual request. She repeated, but differently this time, “May we go on walk?” and she indicated the door by which Steve always entered and exited.

  Steve was taken aback. He really thought of her as a person, and a partner since they had been working together on language. But he was also the ship’s Captain, and he wasn’t sure that letting her out of the lab was a good idea. He hesitated, and then said, “Not today.” Aspiria looked disappointed, but then nodded and said, “Okay.”

  Tammy had been out of the lab for a little while and came rushing in. “It’s done! The genetic reports are ready. Oh, it better not mess up again, or we’ll get replaced—quick.”

  Steve knew that she would want some space, and he was a little concerned about the fact that Aspiria had gotten comfortable enough to make a request. “I’ll meet you for dinner in a little while. I’m excited to hear your report.” He got up from the table, and walked over to Tammy. This time he initiated and gave her a hug and a kiss. “Good luck, for both of us.”

  Tammy put up her hand and crossed her fingers. She turned back to her work and Steve walked back towards Aspiria. Her countenance had fallen a bit. “You’ll go now?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Steve.

  Aspiria got up and walked herself over to her cell. She got in and Steve came and locked the door. He turned to walk away, and heard from behind, “goodbye.” He turned and Aspiria gave him a sweet smile.

  He nodded and said, “Goodbye, Aspiria;—great job today!”