Page 98 of Diamond

"No way is Ree making a cloister. Fornicate that. Although, we do have a safe base now that we found Eli, so there is a bit of basic overlap. Except instead of walls its monsters in the water. She landed on an island protected by Wroahk. He's akraken."

"A what?" I ask.

"Stupid translators," Kira huffs. "He lives in the water. Ashark.Octopus. Uh. Afish. How can I not find a word that translates?"

Nasrin snorts. "His language doesn't have a word forocean. I think he's from a desert world."

"Gross," quips Kira. "You never get the sand out of your butt crack."

Nasrin groans. "As if that comment isn't gross?"

There is a defensive tone to Nasrin's words, and I don't really understand what I'm missing. Was there an insult in there I didn't get? It seems like she doesn't like Kira for some reason, but I'm not sure why.

"Hey, lighten up, Nasrin," Kira snarks back.

Nasrin whips around, anger clear in her features, and this time I know for certain that it's not tied to what is going on right now, but something already established before they met. Are their people enemies on her planet?

"Lighten up? That's all youAmericanscare about, isn't it? ThatAmericansnark of yours is a privilege. And a trap. You use it like a weapon, as if it means you are making progress in the world, but you aren't.""Whoa, whoa, there partner," Kira says, her own tone taking on a sharp edge.I don't understand her words, but Nasrin must, because she is even angrier now. "I will not! You ignore the suffering around you. Ignore the rampant loss ofhumanrights and that precious 'freedom' you say you represent and champion… but only for yourselves. All lies, while you support anyregimeyou need to get the resources youneed to feed your endless desire formaterialism. You were amarine, you say? Then those battles you fought were not about justice. They were about greed. And the women of my country needed you." She all but yells that last point, her voice raw with emotions. "Maybe then I would have learned how to 'lighten up,' instead of fearing for my life because I wanted to teach."

Drasuk pushes himself between the two females, his rock grinding voice loud now as he speaks.

Nasrin looks like she regrets her outburst afterward, but she doesn't reply."Chill,LizardBrain," Kira orders him. "She's just telling me some hard truths and we'll do better together if we just face them."

Kira takes a long, deep breath, grabs one of her forehead spikes and then speaks again, her voice calm and measured. Nothing like the snark from before. "You are right, Nasrin. Many of the battles I fought were driven by greed, though some of them were essential and were just. But not all… and after I was discharged it was one of the many things that just about wrecked me. I almost drank myself to death. I won't forget the faces of the people in all those countries I served in. The gutted, loss of hope looks in their eyes. Of course, I wish I did more. I mean… I don't know how I could have, but I wish I could go back and change something. But I can't. What we can do is make something different where we are. I mean, we might be stuck here, and I know we can make a better world if we are. I have to believe in that, or I will lose my fornicating mind."

I can see the anger seep out of Nasrin with each word Kira says. Then she takes her own deep breath. "I'm sorry," she says in a small voice. One wracked with pain. "I know you couldn't havechanged it, anymore than all of the things I tried changed it. I just get so angry sometimes when I watchAmerican TV."

Kira throws back her head and laughs. "Oh, Nasrin. I get angry when I watch that too. How about we see it as a silver lining that it's all those light years away?"

My muscles relax when I see Nasrin smile. "I can easily agree to that," she says, finally fully breaking the tension between them.

Kira turns serious again. "While I know it's not the same, I know what it's like to face discrimination. We'll have to work hard to avoid it here."

"Well, all of the glowing, scales, fur, and feathers… and who knows what else, should help put it all into perspective," Nasrin replies.

With that, the two of them walk off, close together now and acting like they weren't just about to come to blows. Drasuk and I can't speak a word of each other's language, but we still manage to communicate how baffled we are by it all. I don't think understanding their words helped me make sense of it, either. Not beyond there being cultural differences they needed to hiss at each other about so they could be friendly.

Females will never stop being strange, no matter the species.

50

Rin

I expected the argila to be terrified or Drasuk, but instead Roshan scampers right up to him for pets. Judging by the lack of reaction, Drasuk must recognize the species and he simply complies and Roshan is bleating contentedly within moments.

That brings over the rest of his little family and the last part of my anger ebbs away as I watch Kira coo at little Azar, telling him that he's the cutest giant spider thingy she's ever seen.

I hope Kira's right about us being able to make a new world. Innocents like Azar need protecting. I realize with a start that the most important thing to talk about slipped my mind after my little tirade. I hadn't known just how much resentment had been bubbling, but Kira was right. I feel better now that we faced it head on.

Of course, it will take more than just one conversation, but clearly she wants to make a world where those hard conversations can be had, just like I do.

"We found another woman. Olivia. Green hair. Then something stole her from us. We are in this valley because it took her into one of the surrounding caves. It's a cave dweller and got her from us by causing sinkholes."

"Fornicate," Kira curses. "A hunter?"

I shake my head. "I don't think so. It spoke and claimed ownership. It could have killed me, but it didn't. It didn't look like the genali, braceaar, or whatever Tehlmar was."

"Tehlmar?"