9
“What’s it saying?” Florian asked.
He craned his head to get a look at a Crystalith in the space station.
Carly, his direct report, stood in front of the shimmering obelisk with a tablet in her hand. She played a minor chord on a keyboard onscreen, and the alien shimmered red and responded with a dissonant, harsh ninth, filling the room with light as bright as a siren.
“He’s not happy,” Carly said. She grabbed a stylus from behind her ear and switched to a notepad app, taking note of the inkblots that were appearing rapidly within the obelisk’s core.
Florian took a step back. The observation room they were in was a small room no bigger than a living room with a single window glimpsing into space. The cameras in the four corners of the room adjusted, noting the interaction.
“Need ou
