Olena had come to study an alien world — and within an hour the alien world began to study her.
She walked with the scientists along the stream — Alina, Sofia, Miriam, Hana, instruments ready. The SHI-OREON LINK headset behind her ear fed the translation quietly into her lenses: Oreon, the brilliant linguist, parsing the alien tongue more precisely with every phrase. What was noise to the others became language to Olena within minutes.
By the water, two women met them.
The elder — stately, full-bodied, calm. Pregnant, late term. A face with the lines of decades and the strength of a matriarch who had nothing left to prove. Tara — the chief's senior wife. Beside her, her daughter Naira: twenty-two, tall, strong. Great curved horns ringed with silver at the base, fine tattoos on her brow
