“We adapt. World after world, we adapt. Are you all right?” He took a step toward me, his still-human hands reaching out for mine. I took them, fingers on one side and vines like tendrils on the other. “I’ve been so worried.”

“You got away.”

“They knew there were four of us. They didn’t know there were five. Thankfully.” He cocked his head. “You weren’t sure?”

“No. I couldn’t be. They haven’t let me see anyone, and it wasn’t like I could ask ‘Hey, do you have another plant person in your holding cells?’” I had only the word of my keepers that they’d released Graham and the others. Maybe they were still captive somewhere in this sprawling compound, unwitting hostages against my good behavior. I hoped not. I didn’t trust the people holding me, but I wanted to believe they were trying to do the right thing for their own species. I was the only alien here. Let the humans go.

As if he’d read my thoughts, Jeff said, “Your boyfriend and the others are fine. They’ve been going on every conspiracy-theory podcast you can think of to talk about how the government is holding you. Listening to them try to say it without outright calling you an alien invader is sort of fun, in a weird kind of way. They don’t want to turn their audience against you.”

I blinked. “Even Toni?”

“Your weird little astronomer friend? No. She’s going on a different set of podcasts, telling anyone who’ll listen that you’re coming to devour us all and we shouldn’t let the government hide you. Funny thing is, since all those podcasts have different audiences, they’re working up a pretty good head of steam. Half the listeners want to save you and the other half want you tried for treason, but they’re paying attention.”

“Huh.” It was hard to say whether or not that was a good thing. At least they were free. “How … What took you so long to find me? Where are you?”

“I’m not going to tell you that.” Jeff’s face took on a grim cast. I realized I could understand the slow twine of his tendrils, even though they were like nothing I had ever seen before. Apparently, the part of me that remembered the stars remembered what we’d looked like among them, too. “If you knew, they could try to make you tell them. Are they torturing you?”

“Not yet.” It was coming; I knew it was coming. The shape of their false flag was becoming clearer with every test they set before me. Quiz after quiz, maze after maze, even video games and books of puzzles. They were trying to figure out how smart I was, to find the places where my intelligence deviated from their ideas of the human norm. They knew if they dug deeply enough, they’d find something that could be used to distinguish the way I thought from the way the humans around me thought. After all, if I had one compulsion that betrayed my nature, why wouldn’t I have more?