Blue

The music slowly faded, and the lights that had been dimmed throughout my journey brightened up, letting me know that we had almost reached our destination. I felt annoyed; we still had more than a minute before the car would land, and the light around the door would light up with a neon green colour, letting me know it was safe to get out. I could have used this time better and tried to calm my anxious mind, which was busy trying to figure out the reason for this sudden invitation to the Ministry of Interstellar Affairs.

They should have told me what they wanted up front, I thought. There was a good chance it could have been done over a call, and I wouldn’t have needed to unexpectedly interrupt my daily routine and miss out on the hours I dedicated to my research.

On the other hand, an invitation to the ministry would have something to do with Ta’al and their language. So despite the inconvenience, a part of me was excited to think about all the confidential communication the Ministry had gathered over the years, never to release to the public.

I was so deep in my thoughts that when the car finally landed, and the green lights started to flash, followed by the sound of a door opening, I forgot to put on my sunglasses and was almost blinded by the bright sunlight.

I sighed. This was one of the many reasons I didn't like leaving the university, where I spent hours adjusting the surroundings to my liking to eliminate any unexpected elements. I put on my sunglasses, and the soft blue hue filtered the surrounding light, giving me the illusion that I was underwater. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad, I tried to tell myself, focusing on the warm pavement under my feet as I walked towards the tall glass door that led to the ministry. As I entered the lobby and felt the cold marble floor replacing the warm ground, I was excited again.

A few people gave me strange looks and raised an eyebrow at the sight of my blue jumpsuit, which was out of place here, but no one interrupted my walk towards the lift. Maybe the pass that came with the invitation did its job, or the people working here were used to the odd sights after working with Elena for many years.

I didn’t really care, I was just happy I didn't need to interact with any strangers. Having a meeting about an unknown topic was unsettling enough since I couldn’t prepare myself for it and didn’t know what to expect.

When the lift door closed behind me, I pushed a button on the control panel and let the sound of the sea fill the lift. I was astonished by its quality, but not surprised after all, as the ministry had been the first to introduce sensory sets in all its buildings. They took pride in staying on top of the current developments in the field, even after Elena had retired from her position a few years ago.

As the lights dimmed and the lift started to move, taking me higher and higher at a slow speed, I closed my eyes and focused on the rough carpet under my feet. How would you describe this sensation in Ta'al?, I asked myself, wondering which relation marker would express it in the most elegant and accurate way. My train of thought was interrupted when the sound of the sea slowly faded, and the door of the lift opened without a sound. It revealed a wide hall overgrown with hanging plants and illuminated by the sunlight that came through the tall windows on the opposite side.

It was so beautiful that, at first, I didn’t notice the elderly woman standing next to the lift door waiting for me.

“Malen thuri Nu!,” she said with a soft voice, looking at me with a smile.

I looked at her and sighed, trying to resist the urge to explain to her that her Ta’al greeting was inappropriate, as we didn’t share any relation that would justify the use of M?len. But I managed to stop myself and instead focused on the texture of the soft green carpet under my feet that was supposed to imitate grass and add to the garden-like ambience of the hall.

She was a bit startled by my reaction, and I assumed she had hoped her words would make a different impression on me. What impression, I didn’t know. I dug my toes into the green fabric, wondering, as I’d done so many times before, if there was a connection between my inability to understand people and my choosing a language spoken by extraterrestrial beings as a field of my study. It made perfect sense, somehow, even if I couldn’t explain it clearly, even to myself.

“You are like Elena, the woman said with a smile, and I could see how her body relaxed as she approached me.” I used to work with her, she added.

I didn’t know if she tried to ignite my curiosity on purpose, but she was successful regardless of her intention, and I took off my sunglasses and looked at her face, now unfiltered by the blue glass.

“Really? Tell me how she…”

I stopped mid-sentence. I had so many questions that I didn’t know where to start, but she just shook her head gently and said,

“You might get a chance to ask her directly how she managed to decode it”, she said with a smile, and gestured for me to follow her into one of the rooms.

The illusion of standing on a sandy beach, surrounded by the deep blue ocean, was so perfect that only the wooden panels under my feet created enough dissonance with the rest of my senses to let me know that I was looking at a state-of-the-art holographic display and not the real scenery.

“Do you like it?”, the woman asked as she gestured for me to sit on a comfy-looking chair next to her desk.

I smiled and sat down, pulling my legs under my chin to not destroy such a perfect illusion.

I think at that moment, I stopped regretting this invitation, even if I still didn’t know why I had been asked to come. The experience was worth more than all the discomfort I had gone through on my way here.

“It started with Elena painting the pine forest on the walls of her office when she became a minister, " the woman said as she gestured at the room.

I smiled. I had never heard that story. Elena had been an idol of mine ever since I was a child, like many other children of my generation. I remembered how she gave her speeches surrounded by the ancient pines created by holographic technology so advanced that I could not even have dreamt of affording one of those early sets.

Imagining that all of this had started with a simple painting was surprising, but I could understand why she had done it. We weren’t so different after all. I wondered how it must have been for her in the beginning, when everyone finally came to peace with the fact that a simple girl who rarely left her home had decoded the language of Ta’al. Humanity had lost hope that we would ever be able to communicate with them, and would be bound to exchange mathematical formulas and geometric patterns as a way of showing that we weren’t so different from each other.

With Elena, everything changed, and I wondered about all the communication exchanged between us that the ministry had never released to the public. Was this the reason I was here?, I wondered. It was the only explanation that made sense since someone needed to lead the linguistic section of the ministry now when Elena was gone.

I looked at the woman with curiosity as my thoughts slowly formulated in my mind, and only then did I notice the name tag on her uniform. I had never heard about anyone called Kelen who contributed to the research of Ta’al. I hoped she wasn’t one of those military linguists who wanted me to create an immersion course that soldiers, deployed in the case of potential war, could get through in the 20 hours of FTL flight that would take them from the earth to our borders deep in space.

I’d turned down so many of them, and I hoped they had finally got the message and understood how futile it was to try to learn the language of Ta’al in such a short time. It would do more harm than good if someone tried to speak with them using the incorrect relation markers, I’d remarked every time I crafted my reply to them.

I fiddled with the sunglasses still in my hand, anxious about her imminent reaction, and without looking at her, I said,

“No to the immersion course, yes to the leading linguistic section.”

She laughed quietly, leaving me confused. Had I said something funny without realizing it?

I sighed. People were even more difficult to understand than Ta’al, so maybe it wasn’t surprising that I’d decided to study something that at least felt slightly familiar.

“Is that what you believed this invitation would lead to?”, she said, looking at a screen on her desk.

I nodded, not knowing what else to say. She shook her head and said,

“There is something else the ministry has been working on for the last couple of years, but as you might guess, it has never been mentioned to the public. Some topics are a bit sensitive, as you know,” she added.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm the rising excitement.

“What is it?”, I asked, looking at her intensely.