The Time Pacer: An Alien Teen Fantasy Adventure (The Time Bender Book 2)

by Debra Chapoton

  “I have no idea what you mean, but thanks. It’d sure be nice if we spoke the same language. Bra,” she said, holding up the embarrassingly small item. “Bra.” Two of the girls repeated the word. Then Renzen pulled at the neck of the stretchy material that covered her body and pronounced a two-syllable name for it. Selina began her Klaqin language lesson with the word for onesie followed by body parts. She sure hoped all the parts were the same.

  CHAPTER 4

  ♫ … no more pencils, no more books … ♫

  MUSTY GYM CLOTHES, that’s what it smelled like. Coreg couldn’t get me in to see Commander Gzeter so he took me to the language facility in the third tower. The shower-stall-sized cubicle, one of ten in the room, stank like old socks. Without much in the way of explanation he told me I’d be in the booth for the next twenty time units, then he grabbed my hand and spun my thumb ring around to set a timer. Twenty units sounded like half a Klaqin day to me if my time-measuring was right. He’d told us on the ship that we could learn their language in two days in a language cab. Well, I was in the cab, ready to learn. I hoped I wouldn’t mess things up too much if I started time-pacing. I was anxious to get back to Selina.

  Coreg pressed his fist under the viewing screen then closed the door. I heard something like a bolt locking. It didn’t trigger the panic I used to get in cramped spaces, but it did make me a little mad. He didn’t need to do that; the guard had come with us. I sat on the seat and waited. The sound system commenced with a deep get-off-the-tracks-the-train-is-coming rumble. The walls glowed brighter and brighter virtually to the point of sunlight, then changed into a single high-def picture of a man. The rumble ceased, the man spoke—Klaqin, of course—and the language lesson began. Totally interactive. More fun than a video game, I swear. I caught on quickly enough. The man walked off the screen and objects took his place. I touched them when the now disembodied voice spoke their names. A pleasant musical tone played signaling my correct responses, but a miss resulted in a discordant screech. Music was my thing and I found myself anticipating the next word based on what would produce the better sound. Honestly, half the things were not in my English vocabulary, so I had to learn the Klaqin words for plants and animals and objects I’d never seen before.

  When he switched to verbs I had to move my whole body, stand up, sit down, pretend to run, walk, bend, stretch … and then do it all again slowly or quickly or two times or in a certain order. If this was happening on Earth and there were hidden cameras my performance would go viral. I should have been sweating, but I didn’t seem to be, or maybe my body suit’s bio-materials were drinking it all up. I wiped my forehead once with my sleeve, which lightened to a charcoal gray and then darkened back to black.

  I never spoke a word, just listened and reacted, which was good because I didn’t think I’d be able to reproduce some of the clucks and back-of-the-throat gurgles. By the end of the twenty time units I must have heard thousands of words. My head was swimming and my ears were ringing from the tones. Even my muscles were sore.

  The door popped open on its own after my thumb ring vibrated. I peered out expecting to see Coreg or the sentry, but my chaperon and my guard were not there. I wandered around the room and listened at the doors of the other language cabs. Three were in use and I could tell from the musical tones—and the screeching—emanating from the cabs that two of the students were fast learners and one was not. The unmusical cab must have been torturous for the kid inside. I put my ear against the side and was surprised to hear English words pronounced in a monotone. Maybe it was Rander who was getting another lesson. I decided to interrupt, screw the consequences.

  I tapped on the door with my thumb ring. It sprang open and the screens inside went black. Rander was seated, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, looking like my buddy Niket when I beat him at chess.

  “Rander, what’s up, dude?” My slang probably confused him. “Hey, I mean, hello Rander. How are you?”

  He lifted his head. Stared at me. The silence stretched out so I paced us forward out of the awkwardness.

  “I am fine. I am fine, Alex. How are you?”

  “You don’t look fine. What’s the matter?” His eyes were red, clashing horribly with his toad skin. Yeah, pimples on a Klaqin teen.

  “English is hard. I need to learn.”

  “Well, it stumps me sometimes, too, so don’t feel bad. How long have you studied it?”

  Rander twisted his thumb ring and attempted to answer in English but switched to Klaqin. And I understood him. This was his second day in the cab. He’d started learning before we arrived, having heard of the annihilation of Dace’s ship, the loss of Enrimmon, his older brother. Holy cow. I wanted to answer him in his language, but I couldn’t make myself start with a cluck.

  “Dude. I’m so sorry about your brother.” I spoke in English and he nodded like he understood, but maybe not. “We’re like cousins or something.” He cocked his head at me and all I could think to do was to lick my lips and try a few simple Klaqin words: “Our fathers … brothers.”

  He nodded, made a gesture with one hand—three fingers on his thumb, pinky up—and looked at the floor. Whoa, there was a lot more to learning a language than simply memorizing words. Gestures, looks, slang, culture. I had questions: Had I said the wrong thing? Was his hand signal something I should have copied? Why wasn’t he home with a grieving family?

  We continued a short back and forth dialog, him in his language, me in mine, and I managed to figure out some stuff before a sleepy guard and a snarly-faced Coreg burst in. Coreg yelled at Rander to leave me alone. Yeah, I understood every Klaqin word that time. I’d never heard a crescendo build and break so suddenly. The doors of the two occupied cabs banged open to punctuate the end of Coreg’s command like a conductor’s wand. I was surprised to see who came out of one of them.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  SELINA COULDN’T BELIEVE her ears. She and Renzen had circled around the harem guard who stood at perfect attention like a broomstick scarecrow guarding the corn from crows—and the girls were the corn. They crossed the field and sneaked into the language lab after their muddled attempts to learn each other’s language reached a logjam. They’d crept around the two booths that were occupied and squeezed into a single cab where together they figured out how to start it. As soon as the program to learn Klaqin began and Selina was comfortable on her own, Renzen moved to another cab and listened to English. After a while Selina was deep into a rhythm of absorbing Klaqin nouns and verbs almost unconsciously. When the muted sounds of Alex and Rander’s voices could be heard they didn’t register on Selina’s ears. She ignored them, but as soon as Coreg’s jarring bellow caused the screens to flicker she pushed her door out and let it bang. Hardly an instant passed before Renzen did the same. Selina looked at the four guys’ faces and read totally different reactions. The guard was expressionless, but Alex’s lips curled up and his hand lifted in her direction. But a sorrier expression than any she’d ever seen was plastered on the greenish face of a Klaqin youth she hadn’t seen at the parade—she would have remembered somebody who resembled Alex so much. But Coreg—somebody call the men in white coats—he was seriously in danger of busting a vein in his neck, and when he turned to see her and Renzen his face grew darker.

  It was defensive, she knew, but Selina used her time-bending efforts to control the situation. She already suspected that she and Renzen were trespassing in the boys’ towers; that was pretty obvious by how Renzen had hurried her through the hallways. Now she watched Coreg look from her to her new friend and lift a threatening fist at them that, despite her event-slowing effort, rivaled a lightning strike.

  Coreg yelled in Klaqin, then repeated in English, “Females are not allowed here.”

  Selina released her hold on time, half hoping that Alex would pace to allow her and Renzen to run off. But that didn’t happen.

  “I understood you. In Klaqin.” She stepped closer to Renzen and in the normal span of passing time Coreg took the five or
six steps to bring him chest to chest with them. Alex was instantly at her side.

  “Me too,” Alex said.

  “Females don’t learn without creating problems,” Coreg laughed.

  Renzen found her voice, clucked once, then tried English, “I speak … I learn … the English.” Her blue tinged complexion lightened as she blushed. Coreg’s eyes widened.

  Selina tucked her arm through Renzen’s and with her other hand she clasped Alex’s. “So there,” she said, defiance bringing her chin up. Then she changed the subject, “Who’s that?”

  “Meet my cousin,” Alex said, pacing them forward past the moment Coreg’s anger dissipated. “His name is Rander.”

  “Hello, Rander.”

  “Hellew.”

  Selina and Alex laughed, and Renzen and Rander, though they missed the joke, laughed with them. The guard thumbed his ring and kept his facial expression as serious as Coreg’s.

  “Females are forbidden to learn certain things.” Coreg’s face returned to its normal blend of palest green and light yellow, having already lost the tan he’d gained on Earth. “I … we have to turn you in to Commander Gzeter.”

  “Fine,” Selina said, “I’ll just talk to him in Klaqin and see what he says.”

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  I SQUEEZED SELINA’S hand. Unbelievable that all five feet nothing of her would stand up to a bully like Coreg. On Earth she’d been the opposite—a total wimp in the face of all the mean girls’ teasing comments.

  “Cool it, Coreg,” I said, thinking Rander and the pale blue girl with Selina wouldn’t understand, “no harm, no foul.” Coreg’s jaw set hard and he stared me down. I had him if I could keep up the slang. “Just chill out a sec.” I looked down at Selina and gave her a slow nod. I could tell she was pulling out all the stops to slow things down, but Coreg was on to us. He counteracted her bending with his own time-pacing. That left us all at a standstill. “Come on, man, don’t turn anyone in. Think how awesome it’d be if you let these girls learn each other’s language and then, maybe, they could learn Gleezhian too and help in the battle by being translators.”

  I waited two beats. “Come on, man.”

  He withdrew from pacing. Selina hiccupped and released her powers and we were back at an ordinary stand-off. I so wanted to punch this dude.

  Selina dropped my hand. “We’ll leave,” she said. “I made a pretty good start on learning Klaqin. Enough anyway.” She touched her hand to her nose, our secret signal, and that made me smile. “Vámonos,” she said to Renzen, then she giggled and added the Klaqin words for let’s go. I was so proud of her. She put up with kids bullying her at home, but here she was, on an alien planet where our hearts beat more slowly and people were guarded and edgy, and what did she do? She took control, showing a fearless side of herself that awed me. To me she said, “Remember what we talked about on the way back from the woods.” Oh right, like I was going to forget those particular words—the pledge we made to one another. Not a chance. This romance thing was going forward even if we were on the other side of the universe.

  Coreg let them go, then spoke roughly to Rander. He must have used a lot of Klaqin slang because I couldn’t catch it all. Rander left without a wave. So much for familial bonding.

  “There is a feast in your honor in four time units, at the double-moon crossing,” Coreg said, heading for the door Rander had left ajar.

  Yes! I was down for that. Real food. My mouth watered immediately. Okay, so my Earthling side might win out over my Klaqin side in anticipation of chewing and tasting.

  “What about Selina? Is she invited?”

  Coreg stared me down again, a troubled look in his eye. It was obvious he struggled to come up with a reason why she couldn’t come. Apparently women’s rights hadn’t reached Klaqin yet. Which was funny because my dad was the most equal opportunity rights guy around, but maybe he assimilated into Earth’s society and accepted its customs like I was going to have to accept everything about Klaqin.

  Coreg clucked and turned. “She will be fed. Do not worry. Her feast will be greater than yours.”

  Huh, that tone of his last sentence sent a quiver down my spine that matched song lyrics from The Flaming Lips: … we’re floating in space … do you realize that everyone you know someday will die …

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  SELINA SKIPPED ALONGSIDE Renzen to keep up with her as they returned to the girls’ center. She was still having a little trouble catching her breath and tried to stifle successive yawns. Renzen spoke in furious puffs of words, glancing back at the towers as they crossed the opening, and raising her voice to practice some new English words. They weren’t curses, but they might as well have been. Selina found Renzen’s fresh assessment of Coreg to be amusing: stupid boy, dump plant brain, big head Coreg. They shared some laughter and Renzen looped her arm through Selina’s and tried a few more English phrases as they reached the center.

  Selina used a Klaqin greeting on a very surprised guard who caught her wrist rather roughly as she passed him. He spun her thumb ring and locked it against his own for a moment before releasing her.

  “See you later,” she said in Klaqin, giving him her never-before-tried flirty smile while Renzen glowered at him.

  The other girls were leaving the center sleeping room as Selina and Renzen entered. Selina understood the brief exchange in Klaqin better than she expected, the gist of which was that they’d been ordered to prepare for a feast. Apparently, Selina slowly learned, she’d agreed to more than an audience with First Commander Cotay in twenty double-moons’ time. Coreg had only translated a portion of the Commander’s speech to her. Now one of the girls who had worked on Selina’s hair, a round-faced, wide-eyed blond called Makril, explained in slow Klaqin that Selina had answered yes—hotah—to performing an art ritual for the First Commanders and their wives at a time of their choosing. A message had been received. The time they chose was now. The girls had four time units to prepare Selina.

  Totally confused as to what an art ritual might be, or if she had understood correctly, Selina lifted her shoulders and held out her hands. Makril copied the gestures and repeated her words in a gravelly voice, but that did nothing to help Selina understand. Renzen tried for an English translation, stringing the few words she’d learned, mispronouncing most, and in the end leaving Selina more confused. They both sighed; at least they had that in common: shared frustration. “Hashtag question mark,” Selina mumbled.

  She followed the girls out of the sleeping room and down a hallway. They entered a small room that reminded Selina of her high school restroom; it even had a mirror-like reflecting surface. There was one embarrassingly transparent stall. Makril showed her how to glide through the liquid door and work the knobs.

  “I don’t have to get undressed?” Selina was surprised. She watched Makril as the cubicle fogged up, heard a splattery sound like raindrops on pavement, and smelled a horrid version of the oily scent she’d become accustomed to on the ship. “Are you kidding me?” She turned to Renzen. “Do we get showered with galactic lard?”

  “Galactic lard?”

  “You know, that stuff Coreg and Marcum have on their spaceships.”

  A hint of a smile pulled at Renzen’s lips. “It is called the butter of life. It … joins … connects us … all.” Makril exited, looking quite pink, her cheeks puffier, and her hair a lighter shade of blond, matted and saturated. Then Renzen slid through the watery glass next with halting instructions to Selina, “Watch, wait. I leave. You enter.”

  The glass cubicle fogged up and Renzen became a gray shadow. The sounds and smells repeated as before, then the liquid walls cleared. All in all it took half a minute. Renzen’s right shoe slid out, then the rest of her. Her face was purplish, her hair slicked back and wet.

  “When in Rome …” Selina slid through the glass of the stall. The interior space was warm. She worked the knob. The smell reached her nostrils as soon as the fog sprouted from the holes in the floor. Motor oil and diesel exhaust f
umes. It was awful. She felt tingling in her toes first then her ankles and on up her thighs. The eerie sense that a thousand spiders were crawling across her skin was bearable only because she knew the body suit she was wearing fit snuggly. She was afraid, however, that the fog, when it reached her face, would totally freak her out. She wouldn’t be able to handle the creepy-crawly sensations of this life-butter-stuff going up her nose or in her ears. A rush of hot liquid hit the top of her head as the fog reached her neck. It was forceful, stung quite a bit, but refreshed her. It ceased as quickly as it had started and she opened her eyes, stepped through the liquid glass, and touched her hair. The braids were gone. Her hair felt wet and soft. She ran a hand down her arm and discovered that her clothing was not the least bit damp. She wiggled her toes in her shoes and the squishy wet feeling changed to one of simple comfort.

  “Is this how you shower?”

  She was met with blank looks. The next girl, Sama, took her turn. She emerged with a cascade of waist-length red hair, multi-colored with shades of gold, copper, amber and cinnamon. It curled casually around her face and shoulders like a fairy tale princess.

  Okay, Selina thought, I can answer my own questions. I’m not totally stupid. Yes, this is how we shower. She moved toward the mirror where Makril and Renzen stood. They ran their fingers through their hair, plaiting and pulling and styling with ease, as if whatever galactic lard was renewed or replaced was helping in the process.

  “No combs or brushes?”

  She was met again with blank stares. Two new Klaqin words came to her mind: hair and pretty. She said them.

  “Tubah,” both Renzen and Makril responded. They pointed to Selina’s hair and wiggled their fingers. Selina peeked at the mirror and saw her own shoulder length brown hair swaying, waving, and curling upward. She clamped her fingers over the ends, rolled them under and finger-waved more strands.