“Bluh, so you say. He should leave anyway. Besteel will easily track you otherwise,” Rovender said as he unwound a length of the twine. It spooled down next to the gathered moss and the bottle that lay near his swollen ankle. Eva could see that Besteel’s snare had left a raw, open lesion cutting through Rovender’s thick calloused skin.

“Are you going to make a fire?” She picked up a clump of moss. “I can help.”

“A fire? No.” Rovender took the moss from Eva and set it on his wound. “I need my ankle to heal so that I may lead you back to your home, and continue on my way.” He uncorked the bottle. Eva saw Rovender wince as he soaked the moss, letting the cloudy liquid run over the cut on his ankle. After blowing on the wound to lessen the sting, he took a drink and grabbed the length of twine. He began wrapping it around the makeshift dressing.

“Um, I think there’s probably a better way to tend to that injury,” Eva remarked. She watched him lean over and cut the twine with his peg teeth, finishing with an elaborate knot to hold the dressing in place.

“I am fine, Eva Nine. This will do.” Rovender admired his handiwork.

“Hold on.” Eva pulled out her Omnipod. “This is Eva Nine. Initiate IMA,” she said.

The device flickered on. “Individual Medical Assistance initiated. Is this an emergency?” it asked.

“Ha! I remembered it!” said Eva, grinning. “Now I’ve got to figure out how you do the rest of this.” She scanned through a few menus within the program. “Hmmm . . . It’s not an emergency. . . . I just want to add a new patient.”

Rovender settled back and grabbed a pouch full of seedpods from his pack. He offered some to Eva.

“Naw, I’m okay.” She continued fiddling with the program. “Aha! Here it is! New patient registration. Maybe I can figure out how to heal your foot.”

“Don’t worry, Eva Nine,” said Rovender. “Really, I will be fine.” He wriggled his toes. Eva ignored him, focusing on the Omnipod. Rovender dropped a handful of seeds into his mouth.

“New patient,” Eva said to the Omnipod. “Name: Kitt, Rovender. Age: uh . . . How old are you?”

“Almost eight trilustralis,” he answered, spitting seed husks out of the side of his mouth.

“Trila . . . How do you spell? Wait, how long is that?”

“Ah, there must be no word for it in your language. You see, if the transcoder cannot find a suitable translation, it will use a similar word from your root language, whatever that may be,” Rovender explained.

Eva stared at him, confused.

“Never mind,” he continued. “The celestial time for my clan must be recorded differently than it is for yours. I am not sure what moon and star cycles your clan uses, but our trilustralian cycle is the same one that our ancestors used for generations.”