“It is,” Azdrei’in answered. “The spaceship will not come down until it is safe for my people. We will go up to it.” It was fortunate for him that the Earthling he’d found wasn’t afraid of leaving her planet. Knowing that humans had been bound to the earth before they’d been wiped out, he might have been concerned about being unable to convince her to travel up into space with him, but the smile on her face told him that she would join him happily. All he had to do was lead her to the private craft that he’d flown down when he’d been given his first assignment.

He waited for her to prepare herself for the trip, packing belongings and freeing the animal she had kept inside her home. It didn’t take long, and when she was finally done, he joined her at the door to head out, returning to the ruins where he had left his ship. On the way to it, he rested one hand idly on his weapon and kept watch over their surroundings to make sure there were no infected humans around to attack them. He’d originally planned to avoid bringing Artemis into the area since he’d deemed it unsafe, but it was the quickest way to their destination, so he just kept his guard up while they walked.

At her question, he glanced down at her, “You would say: [i]S’dei dra jina Artemis[/i]. We have more than one ‘hello,’ but for you, ‘S’dei’ should be enough.” In truth, there was far more nuance to the Lunvalgan language than he told her, but he didn’t know nearly enough English to explain it properly. There were different greetings for different times of day, for interactions between people of different ranks, and even for different social circumstances such as mourning or celebration. He would need to become more fluent in her tongue before he could even begin to try to teach her how his worked.

When they finally reached his ship—thankfully without running into any infected humans—Azdrei’in smiled amusedly at Artemis’s reaction to the vehicle. She was like a child who had just discovered a fascinating new toy. “If you like this, you will like the home spaceship even more,” he told her as he strode after her. It was more fun than he’d expected to introduce her to his people’s technology, and he enjoyed the way she seemed to light up with delight at the sight of it.

Stepping up beside her, he placed an open palm against the built-in reader, which flashed white in recognition of his touch just before the door eased open, folding downward from the top to become a ramp that they could walk up. “There will not be much space,” he warned her, sauntering inside the craft first and beckoning her to follow. “This was made for only one person.”

The interior was comprised mainly of a cockpit in the front and a storage space toward the rear. The ceiling was tall enough that Azdrei’in could stand almost fully upright without hitting his head, so there was plenty of room for Artemis to walk about freely. The floor and walls were made of black and dark silver metal, peppered with various odd controls for the pilot to operate in the event that the bioscanner that he mainly used stopped working. All of the controls to command the craft were located at the very front on a wide, crescent-shaped panel that bowed outward toward the nose of the vehicle.

Since the ship was only meant for one individual at a time, there was only one proper seat positioned next to the control panel. It was cushioned for comfort and placed low to the floor, so its occupant would be seated with his or her legs outstretched to reach another set of levers underneath the main band of controls.

“This is my spaceship because I am a warrior,” he explained, stepping over to the pilot’s chair and sitting down. “All warriors have to learn to use them, and we all have our own.” He strapped himself into the seat and peered over his shoulder at Artemis, considering how to make the flight easier for her when there wasn’t a second chair available. “Come,” he called her to him after a moment. “Leaving this place will be rough. If you stand, you will fall. When we are in space, you can walk around, but until then, sit.” And he gestured for her to sit on his lap.