Seeing that the trick won't work, Sharon stops singing. The man smiles sadly and turns his head sideways, revealing that a mangled outer ear. Sharon assumes that the other ear is in the same condition.
The Babel leech had enough data to allow her to understand some Russian, but she chose to stick to Latin for now for fear of blowing her cover. Slowly, the PO turns again towards her.
"War against our corrupt enemies did this to me. Your people must have noticed what is going on."
Sharon fought to retain a smile. Was this People's Political Officier going to advertise his ideology to her?
A loud but low-fi speaker boomed across the corridor before the old man could go on, and a bright halogen light began to pulse a stream of Morse code. The officer turned to read it -- Sharon reasoned that either there was a lot of deaf personnel in the base, or underwater intercoms were not available in this reality -- and soon got as attentive as Sharon was when the Babel leech gave her that peculiar almost-understanding she hoped never to have to get used to.
LEVIATHAN ARRIVING IN 4 MINUTES... FREE THE
MAIN DOCKING AREA AND FLOOD LEVELS 0 TO 7...
LEVIATHAN ARRIVING IN 4 MINUTES... FREE THE
MAIN DOCKING AREA AND FLOOD LEVELS 0 TO 7...
When the lights stopped flashing, the PO turned to Sharon again and said, "We are compelled to hold you here for some time. I shall see you are taken care of."She hoped that the last sentence was to be taken in a positive way, and took a little breath when the airtight door closed and the compartment began to fill with water again. This was all fine and nice, but she had to get out of that hole!
Sat Nov 27 19:31:30 1999