"Idiot savant." Dad had muttered this once in reference to my sudden grasp of electronics and gardening. The same phrase sprang to my mind when I witnessed Roy dancing.

We all stood with our mouths hanging open as we watched him perform...with an injured foot.

Mind blown.

Not exactly ballet. It kinda reminded me of Native American dance. He grimaced in pain quite a few times, and limped a bit, but still amazing.

How can I put this wordless masterpiece into something I can express through speech? The best I can do is tell you what I think each movement represents or implies.

First set: "I'm a baby bird with a broken leg. Baby Bird has a big short story to tell other birds." After this, I don't know, like a waterfall or stream, kind of a transition, I guess.

Second set: "I'm Warkinde, I'm taking Baby Bird's eggs and destroying trees and making...bad water...bad gas."

Third set: "I'm Baby Bird, and I'm standing up to you, Warkinde."

"I'm Warkinde, what are you going to do about it, bird?"

"I'm Baby Bird, and I have friends with me, and I'm going to get a plant thing to destroy you."

"Ha ha. I'd like to see you try."

Set Four: Smaller Baby Bird finds a...map? The birds...numerous birds...travel...

Dancing birds, moving like the Qulpari who faced us, blocking Baby Bird's path.

The headdress wearing Qulpari reacted with as much astonishment as we did. They clapped appreciatively. One wiped a tear from his eyes.

They played their glowing sticks, pounded them on the ground.

The tearful one offered Roy his staff, but Roy politely declined. "Just let us through. That's reward enough."

The dancers didn't seem too bothered by letting us continue on, but when one of them noticed the direction we traveled, he hurriedly waddled up to us. "Why are you going there?"

Roy smirked. "I thought I dance-explained that."

"The land is no good there. It's dangerous. You will get sick."

"Yeah? Sounds like the place we just left. We'll manage."

We walked.

For a moment, I glanced back. It bothered me that we'd left all the supplies and our carts a few miles back, but I trusted ET's people, so I kept going.

The only thing we had with us: Roy's recorder, my flute, Gertie's harmonica, and the communicator.

Oh, and a tablet computer. After a few incoherent croaks and clearing her throat, Jamie scribbled upon it with the attached stylus, flashing me the screen:

`What that guy said about the land here...Does that mean the Gemovo's in danger?'

I could only shrug. "I guess we'll find out."

`Dancing was incredible. Shouldn't we go back for the stuff?'

I frowned. "We're going to go back for it. This is just a detour, so we can find Gemovo's child, remember?"

She sighed, grunting in disagreement.

"You really want to drag all that stuff through that ravine and back again?"

Jamie wrote: `It's not a ravine, it's a streambed. Theft?'

"We don't have thieves on this planet...except for my girlfriend.

She scowled and scribbled, `Funny. What if Warkinde meddles with our stuff, smartass? He doesn't play by the rules!'

"We won't be gone that long."

`He could sneak in real fast!'

Gertie grabbed her hand. "You shouldn't worry, Jamie. As long as we have ET with us, it'll be okay."

Jamie only wrinkled her face.

I mentioned the equipment problem to Roy, and he paused his limping walk, rubbing his face in frustration. "You think Warkinde might slip a bomb in there or something?"

"I...don't know. Jamie's worried about it, though."

Charlie flitted in between us. "I'll check on it."

Roy just puffed air out his lips. "You think your little paws can dig in there and make sure there's no tampering?"

"Humans," Charlie scoffed, levitating a rock with his mind.

"That could have been useful when we were fighting, you know."

"I was too busy drumming." He flew off in the direction we came.

Jamie held up the tablet for me to see. `His mad dance skills?'

"Now what she...write?" Roy asked.

"Oh, just that you're a great dancer."

The man grinned at her. "Been here a long time, kid. You learn things. Knew a little before I got here, too. About the only thing I'm good at. You can ask my wife...my other wife...That, and sculpture, but that's like Elliott's tree drawings. My wife probably threw all that stuff away...Guess you can't blame her, giant mound of dirt in the living room...Did I tell you I had a son?"

I shook my head.

"Wife took him and left after I went `crazy.' Guess that's why I like you guys so much."

Jamie wrote, `Why didn't you tell us before?'

"I don't like to think about the past."

`But he's your son.'

"No, he's my wife's son. She took him and left."

The lush vegetation became withered after a few yards, the ground turning grayer, more cracked.

Roy scowled. "Yeah, this ain't looking too good. Don't know how Gemovo Junior is going to help us if he can't even stop this."

Onward we traveled, across a semi-wasteland of dying plants and arid soil.

"I hope Warkinde's goons aren't hanging around here, because we're woefully unprepared."

It appeared as if Warkinde reserved this area for venting machinery. No extraction work, just some pipes blowing out clouds of hot gray smoke that stung the eyes and smelled like vomit and melting plastic. Jamie wrote something about plugging the vent registers, but we didn't have anything suitable for the job.

No sign of the enemy yet. Not too surprising, if you think about it. Nobody cares that much about garbage and waste byproducts, they just want the...refined petroleum...or whatever else they're selling. We marched ahead, eyes on the computer reading, avoiding the disgusting exhaust blowers.

Gertie looked up at my girlfriend, eyes almost in tears. "I'm sorry you lost your voice. Your voice is very pretty."

"Yeah," I blurted. "I liked hearing it."

Jamie gave me a pained smile, scribbling, `Thanks, guys. I miss it too. Hope there's some way to reverse this. I don't know ASL.'

My sister scratched her head. "Who's ASL?"

"American Sign Language," I explained.

Her eyes widened. "There's other kinds?"

"I...I've heard of Native American sign language...There might be others..."

She cast Vorxora a hopeful look. "ET, can you read Jamie's mind?...And talk to her tel...telepathically?"

"Yes, but not right now. My head hurts."

Gertie asked Spike the same question. Vukvuzan only shook his head. "I am from Izmardo. We speak with our mouths. It took strange forces indeed to bring an Izmardo like Pabyeba into Vorxora's arms."

`You're the matchmaker,' Jamie wrote. `You can't seriously be saying you never heard of it happening before.'

Spike couldn't read English, so I translated.

"Love is a mystifying thing, even for one such as I, who has seen many things. Yes...it does happen, but not everyone likes the intrusiveness of the Xamrobu, especially when they get emotional."

ET nodded. "I project my emotions into plants."

"Some are not so skilled in telepathy."

`My chest glowed, and I can do stuff,' Jamie wrote. `You think I can do telepathy?'

ET smiled. "Anything is possible."

From that moment on, I'd catch Jamie squinting, doing a pose like some character from Scanners, or Yoda trying to lift a spaceship...She'd pretend like she hadn't done anything when I looked back at her.

Ever since we'd left the fight with the cyborgs, ET had been walking slowly and rubbing his head. I asked if he were okay, and he said yes, just a little tired, and he'd feel better if he slept.

Roy winced, stopped walking, and rubbed his injured foot. "Hey, El. You're Jewish, right?"

I stared at him in suspicion. I guess I'd mentioned this information once or twice, or he'd overheard it during the course of conversations. "Yeah?"

"Okay, so...you guys are vegetarian..."

"No, we follow kosher laws, and it's easier sometimes to just be vegan...especially now."

"But God favors vegetarianism, right? I mean, Cain and Abel. Abel sacrificed vegetables to God, and Cain slaughtered some animals from his herds..."

"Actually, Abel gave the animal sacrifice. Cain was the farmer."

"You sure about that? I could almost swear that Abel was vegan..."

"Yes, I'm sure. I read Torah."

"Hmmm...I guess that would explain the whole sacrificial system."

"There's also a system of grain offerings."

"Yeah..." His tone said no. "Guess I've been hanging around these aliens too long."

All of a sudden, Jamie grabbed me by the back of my tunic, dragging me backwards.

"What? What, Jamie?"

She frantically pointed off to my left somewhere.

Furrowing my brow, I glance that way, but didn't see anything of note. There had been a lot of smog. "I'm sorry, Jamie, I..."

She grabbed my chin, turned my head to the side and pointed again.

There, on the ground, lay a small, unconscious Abreya.

"Ohhh."

The female looked to be about my age, her face an adorable melding of American guinea pig and human. Long neon green hair, her outfit kind of a girl's tennis outfit with princess sleeves and a fancy loincloth.

Just to give you a size comparison, Norenio's face, although plump, resembled a Cuy's in its narrowness. This Abreya female, though...actually fat faced, with muskrat cheeks. The rest of her body...kinda plump too, but, you know, like a healthy kid.

The only unhealthy part: Pollution damage. Like the Qulpari I'd seen before, all the color had drained from her face. She lay groaning and weak on the dusty soil.

Roy and the others, oblivious, kept walking. Well, except ET.

"Roy! Hey! Sick Abreya!"

"Huh?" He spun around and frowned when he saw her. "Great. Another one." He took out his recorder.

ET gasped. "It's Shasta!"

"The archaeologist's kid?"

Roy lowered the recorder from his lips. "So this isn't just a wasted trip!"

When I produced my alien flute, Jamie snatched it from my hands.

I scowled at her. "Jamie! I'm trying to help this kid!"

She gave me a vigorous nod, pantomiming me singing.

I gulped. "C'mon, Jamie! You know I can't!"

Jamie silently telegraphed, `Are you freaking kidding me?'

"Look, I know you really aren't able to sing—"

She expertly played the first notes of the cleansing tune, making a conducting motion.

"Jamie, how did you—"

Jamie made a shooing motion, fluting more notes.

I cast a `Help me' glance at Gertie, but she just joined in with her harmonica.

Even Roy and ET gave me expectant looks.

"Oh all right!" I groaned. "Remember: You asked for it!"

I opened my mouth, and...clammed up. "What am I supposed to sing to her anyway? I'm not a poet!"

Jamie stopped playing and wrote: `Just make something up like I do.'

"I'm not that clever."

Jamie groaned, forcing words with her scratchy throat. "You'll have to make something up eventually." She coughed, adding the rest of the words on her tablet. `Just sing the first thing that pops into your head.'

I tried: "I hope I can make you better, I'm not good at this thing. They asked me to do this because Jamie can't sing. Please, Miss Abreya, get well right away, because I'm running out of clever things to say..."

The Abreya didn't seem to be healing any.

Jamie paused her playing to make rolling gestures.

"Uh...La la la la..."

ET put a hand to his chest, gesturing like `sing from the heart' or something. I guess he probably would have told me the same telepathically, if he didn't have the nosebleeds.

I gazed at the female for a moment, then tried again. "Shasta, Shasta, pretty Shasta, be cured of this illness, oh please, you have to..."

Jamie rolled her eyes.

The alien female fixed me with a dull, glassy stare, confusion clear on her features as I looked into her minus sign shaped pupils. My chest glowed as tender, caring feelings grew within me. "Please, Shasta, be healed, of this poison be cured, before I have to start singing some nonsense words...uh..." I glanced back at ET. He still gave me `heart' gestures.

I swallowed. "I don't really know you, but you look so unique, your plumpness is cute, and so are your buckteeth. You're friends with ET, so you can't be all bad, please get better, Shasta, don't make me sad."

Somewhere along the line, maybe after I sang with a glowing chest, the sickly grayness faded from her face, and her face took on a freckly light coffee color.

Shasta smiled at me, and I couldn't help but smile back.

Her dash pupils locked with my human ones as a grin widened on her face, exposing more of the buckteeth. "I have a Jandaga in my ear. I understood every word!"

I gulped. "Y-you did?"

She nodded. "I don't even care that it doesn't rhyme."

I could visibly see my face turning red. "It actually does in English."

Before I could adequately prepare myself, she pulled me into her arms and kissed me right on the mouth.

Her tongue had four moving parts.

I heard Jamie and Roy laughing at me. Even Gertie giggled.

I...didn't exactly ask for this, but I kinda liked it, and my chest glowed more.

I...uh...kissed back.

"Now that's something I didn't expect to happen!" Roy remarked.

A second later, a very intrusive thought popped into my brain, like I'd just had a waking dream about Jamie screaming at me.

Elliott! What the hell!

I broke away from Shasta, staring at my...human girlfriend in shock. "Did you just use telepathy?"

Jamie gaped at me, silently mouthing, "I just used telepathy!"