"There's nothing you can tell me about the Scarrens that I donıt already know," she says.

"They needed the Kalish, so they only occupied them. See how they treat the species they donıt need," he replies, handing her the neural link.

It bothers her that he speaks Sebacean in conversation, when another language would be more fitting for his mind's subtle nuances. When she was young and still in school, before the Turshnelk rebellion, but after the Scarren occupation, she used to imagine what other species would be like, based on their language. On Moya she's discovered that she was right more often than not. The Luxan is as unyielding and brutal as his words and the Hynerian as awkward and simplistic.

The only species that disappointed her, originally, were the Pilots. Such a complex, beautiful language for a species that always stays in place and obeys orders. Scorpius is a better fit for a Lelanor'n. For him, she can believe that the stars would dance.

And for him, she slides the interface in front of her closed eyes.

She opens them to a different galaxy. Below her, Scarren ships are obliterating a planet. She doesn't recognize the species' dialect or their waving tentacles, but she doesn't need a translator to understand their screams.

Blood covers the planet. Red. Nervel. Black. Yellow. Pylaen. If Crichton could see it, he would call it a rainbow, but then if Crichton could see it, maybe she wouldn't have to.

A cycle ago, she would have laughed at the possbility of a weapon that could end all wars. It's a contradiction by definition, a gentle Vortisigian bloodsucker, an oxymoron. She hears Scorpius' voice in her ear, eager and confident, promising that itıs true. But even his power can't change the fact that when he mentions wormholes, his Scarren accent thickens.

She knows a species that uses Krij, their word for war, as the root word for their entire language. On a diplomatic trip, she found a small, fierce planet of creatures who had no word for war because they thought that would put an end to it. Instead they just killed each other in silence. She knows the language of hundreds of races that eradicated themselves on purpose, but she doesnıt know any language as cruel as Scarren.

A sudden explosion sends the craft the interface is connected to wheeling into space. Sikozu recognizes the sound as a Scarren heat cannon, so sheıs not too surprised when a wall of gray smoke twists towards her. She tries not to scream, thinking of Scorpius sitting back with her body, but the planet burns and burns.

All around her, tiny ships start gathering, moving towards the next planet, a dark smudge wedged between two stars. Doomed because, because--

She knows ten thousand languages and two million ways of describing pain and she has no words for this.

"Will you help me extract the knowledge from Crichton?" he asks as the interface slips out of her fingers.

"Yes," she says.