Do you speak Basic?

“Do you speak Basic?”

For a moment the alien seemed to be studying him. “Or would Sy Bisti be better?” Eli added in that language.

Barris threw a glare at him, and Eli winced. Again, stupid. He should have waited for orders. The prisoner, too, was gazing at him, though his expression seemed more thoughtful than angry.

Captain Parck, for his part, only had eyes for the prisoner. “You asked him whether he spoke Sy Bisti, I assume?”

“Yes, sir,” Eli said. “My apologies, Captain. I just thought—the stories all say that the Chiss used Sy Bisti in their—”

“The what?” Parck asked.

“The Chiss,” Eli said, feeling his face warming. “They’re a…well, they’ve always been thought of as a Wild Space myth.”

“Have they, now,” Parck said, eying the prisoner. “It would appear they’re a bit more substantial than that. But I interrupted. You were saying?”

“Just that in the stories the Chiss used Sy Bisti in their dealings with us.”

“As you also used that language with us,” the prisoner said calmly in Sy Bisti.Eli twitched. The prisoner had answered in Sy Bisti…but he’d responded to a comment that Eli had made in Basic. “Do you understand Basic?” he asked in Sy Bisti.

“I understand some,” the Chiss answered in the same language. “But I’m more comfortable with this one.”

Eli nodded. “He says he understands some Basic, but is more comfortable with Sy Bisti.”

“I see,” Parck said. “Very well. I’m Captain Parck, commander of this ship. What’s your name?”

Eli opened his mouth to translate— “No,” Parck stopped him with an upraised hand. “You can translate his answers, but I want to see how much Basic he understands. Your name, please?”

For a moment the Chiss was silent, his gaze drifting around the hangar bay. Not like a primitive overwhelmed by the size and magnificence of the place, Eli thought, but like another military man sizing up his enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. “Mitth’raw’nuruodo,” he said, bringing his glowing eyes back to Parck.

“But I believe it would be easier for you to call me Thrawn.”

~

Few lines. Chills.

Everything I know about him.

About them.

The essence, already there.

[I love them so much]

[Photo: charm by Untramen_Taro from the "Of Mitths and Legends" fanzine]