Page 57 of Defiance
The speeches were over before we’d even made it to the spreads of food and drink near the front entrance. I immediately picked up a flute offurzaand tossed back the bubbly drink in two gulps.
“I’m never bloody doing that again,” I coughed, unsure if I was talking about the speech or chugging alien champagne.
“Is there anything you want to try?” Novak asked, joining us at the table. When our eyes met, he smiled, the anchor above his head glinting when he twitched his ear. I sighed with relief. I hadn’t gotten us in a mire by saying his name out loud to the whole galaxy on a live feed after all.
“Don’t make me choose,” I begged, immediately picking up another flute. “You know what I like, so just—”
I felt it in my skin and hair before I heard it.
Music.
Humanmusic, but not quite. The sound of an orchestra warming up if it were filtered through autotune. There were violins, but their song was metallic. Cellos, but as if someone were singing the part without words rather than playing it on a stringed instrument. I searched for musicians in the courtyard, but there was nothing.
“Do you like it, Ms Halloway?”
My head snapped to Director Caher. He approached with his hands behind his back and a fatherly look in his eyes.
“I—What is it?” I asked.
“A surprise for you,” he said, pointing out a shilpakaari woman studiously moving scales on her holotab near the dais. “Dr Dureyaman there has been working to analyse human music as part of her dissertation. HIXBS funds her efforts.”
I was having trouble finding a way around the wrongness. Another imitation in a room full of them. It wasn’t bad, but it was hollow. An algorithm mimicking art that humans had poured their souls into for centuries.
“It was certainly a shock.”
“I had hoped you could show us how humans dance.” He met Sath’s eye. “Perhaps with your prospective spawning partner? It would mean so much to Dr Dureyaman in particular.”
I glanced uneasily between them. “I’ve two left feet, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, there’s no expectation, of course. The simplest possible moves, yes? Others are sure to join in, and then there will be no telling whose feet belong to whom!”
He was angling for a sensational camera opp. I mentally rolled my eyes, feeling the edges of my patience for all the elbow rubbing begin to fade..
“Alright,” I mused, a plan forming in my mind. “Something slow and charming.”
He rushed off to tell Dr Dureyaman with a bounce in his step. Sath set down his plate, rotating the rings on his fingers as he brushed the crumbs off his palms. The music picked up a rhythm, soft and slow, just like I’d asked.
“Sorry Sath, but…” I turned to Novak and held out my hand. “I owe someone else the first dance.”
He stiffened. “What are you doing?”
“How much of your life is illegal, Novak?” I asked. “You can’tdance?You’ve got a whole galaxy up there watching. Young advenans too, I’d bet. If I have to dance, I’m going to dance for them. Withyou.Not for Guei and her friends.”
Time stood still as Novak studied my determined eyes. His lungs pumped in shallow breaths, tail rigid behind him.
“Dance with me,” I urged.
An eternity passed between us.
Then he took my hand.
24
Novak’s heart pounded louder than a bass drum, drowning out the odd music and the hushed whispers. Charlie brought him into the center of the courtyard with a tick in her jaw, shoulders proudly drawn back. She kept her chin high, a challenge for anyone to tell her no.
La?we followed them not far behind. He stopped at the edge of a spotlight with the other spectators, his bulbous black eyes somehow wider than before, mouth open in shock. The corner of his mouth curled up in disbelief and respect, then he cupped his hand around his mouth and hummed with traditional hjarna applause.
The room obliged, but an undercurrent of tension rode through Novak’s scales like a wave. He aired them out, feeling for attacks at his back.
