The human was trying to be helpful without looking to gain anything in return? Serix found that hard to believe. He froze when she crouched down in front of him to speak with him face to face and found himself leaning further into the door. She had closed the distance between them enough that he had to look her in the eye, which was exactly what he was trying not to do at the moment. In that instant, he thought he understood the concept she called “personal space.”

[b]“Look, you obviously don't know a lot about humans, so I'll kill you in on something. No matter what your people have said about us, we are smart. We're brave. Maybe weak. But there's one thing our kind have that myself have known and every other human on this planet probably noticed before they died, and that's our nature is much different from yours. On Earth, we don't need a reason to help someone. We just do it. We don't need something in return, because what goes around comes around. That's something we humans learned, yet something your people have yet to understand.”[/b]

Serix contemplated her self-righteous little speech. So humans believed acts of goodwill were to be done without expecting to be compensated? Thinking about it now, it wasn’t a bad idea. He tried to imagine how his life would have been on the ship if the Lunairans behaved in such a selfless manner. Maybe his mother wouldn’t have embarked on her suicidal mission if she thought about her child’s best interests rather than her own. The memory made his chest tight with complex emotions, so he shoved it away.

The human stood up again and looked down at him, [b]“My father used to say that you should always help someone when you can, no matter how they are toward you, and good things will come your way. But when you're cruel to someone and you're likely to get a bullet in the back. So to say.”[/b] She crossed to one of the windows in the vessel and peered out at the rain. Another flash of light lit up her face. The booming noise that followed it was even faster and louder than before, making Serix jump again. It sounded like the Storm beast was getting closer. Still, the human wasn’t worried. If anything, she looked peaceful, staring out the window like that. Her serenity made him relax a bit.

[b]“So, you can call me weak. Maybe even say I'm stupid for having such morals in a time when I'm likely to die. But it's who I am. Deal with it,”[/b] the human said. She turned away from the window and sat back down on the bed. Serix watched her from his spot on the floor. He didn’t think her ideals were foolish. He almost wished the Earthlings and the Lunairans had tried harder to come to peaceful terms. Maybe they could have exchanged customs and information and learned to live with each other. But it was too late for that now. His people took matters into their own hands and exterminated the human beings. Such was their nature.

[b]“My turn for a question,”[/b] the human spoke up again. Serix raised a brow at her. So she was willing to trade inquiries with him again? [b]“Were there any of your kind that switched sides in this war? You know, took our side in all of this?”[/b]

“I’m not sure I know the answer to that,” Serix tilted his head. There probably weren’t any, but he didn’t remember that far back. “To my knowledge, none of my people defended the humans, but…” He frowned. Could the higher powers have kept some information from the rest of the population? Were there others who shared his opinions about the humans? If so, what happened to them? The human’s single question raised a number of others in his mind. “I suppose it’s possible.”

Serix looked at the human skeptically, “Why do you ask?”