"Shall we go together?" Izzy said with an electric smile.
       Tiny laser-colored dots flickered like a rainbow across the air, pulsing in rhythm with her words. Mark looked at her and, as always, saw straight through her. Literally.
       Her body was transparent, like living jelly, refracting the light into shifting prisms. Soft currents of color drifted beneath her skin like luminous rivers. Yet her eyes were solid -- two blue diamonds suspended in crystal. They had captured him from the first day they met, and he found himself unable to refuse them.
       "Of course," he said.
       She clasped her hands together and began walking beside him, the gesture so natural it seemed woven into her species.
       They had come to attend the Inter-Planetarium Consortium, an annual gathering held on Aurelia Prime, a crystalline world nestled deep within the Velora Galaxy. For one month every year, representatives from every inhabited planet assembled there to share scientific discoveries and confront the challenges facing their civilizations. Each planet brought its brightest minds and its most pressing problems. For one month, the universe attempted to think together.
       The air in the grand concourse hummed with a low collective vibration. The sound of hundreds of worlds breathing, translating, and existing within the same space.
       "It looks beautiful, doesn't it?" Mark said, fumbling for something intelligent to add.
       Before Izzy could answer, a cluster of floating lights flickered between them. Blue. Green. Gold. The lights rearranged themselves into symbols before dissolving into the air. It was the Universal Lattice, the common language of the Consortium. Thousands of species spoke thousands of different tongues, but the language of light dissolved every barrier.
       Mark had arrived with Rita from Earth. Izzy had come with Akku from Nerathis, a water-rich world inhabited by translucent beings. Because their species resembled humans, their delegations had naturally formed an alliance. The resemblance, however, was only superficial.
       Humans were opaque. Nerathians were living prisms.
       Around them, the diversity of the galaxy unfolded like a moving tapestry. Some species resembled massive sentient boulders, their bodies carved from living stone. Others were tall and thin as needles, bending gracefully as they walked. One delegation appeared to be little more than floating spheres of violet mist. Another glided above the crowd on translucent wings that shimmered like glass.
       Akku was visible across the terrace, taller than Izzy, the color dots along his arms cycling through rapid, complex patterns as he addressed three delegates surrounding him. Akku was a scientist. Izzy, Mark had gathered, was something harder to translate. A diplomat, she had said when he asked. And then, after a pause -- a listener.
       For a moment, Mark forgot about the scientific sessions, the diplomatic negotiations, and the endless policy debates awaiting them. He simply walked beside Izzy.
       The light from the crystal domes passed through her body, scattering into countless colors around them. Then she turned toward him.
       "Do humans always stare this much?" she asked through the Lattice.
       Mark laughed. "Only when they're nervous."
       The blue diamonds of her eyes brightened. "Nervous?"
       "Maybe."
       A smile spread across her transparent face. Tiny rainbows danced across her cheeks.
       "On Nerathis," she said, after a moment, "we have no word for nervous. Only for waiting."
       "What's the difference?"
       She thought about it. "Nervous expects something bad. Waiting just expects something."
       Mark carried those words with him as they walked. Then it happened.
       A pulse of deep crimson flashed through the Universal Lattice above them. Every delegate on the promenade went still. The crimson held for two seconds, then dissolved as quickly as it had appeared. No announcement followed. No official voice rose from the central tower. Around them, conversation resumed as if nothing had occurred.
       But Mark noticed Akku across the terrace, no longer speaking to the delegates around him. He was looking toward the central tower with an expression the Lattice did not attempt to translate. And the color patterns along Izzy's skin had gone completely still.
       "What was that?" he asked quietly.
       Izzy looked up toward where the crimson had been.
       "Probably nothing," she said.
       "You don't sound convinced."
       For the first time since he had met her, she did not answer immediately. The dots along her collarbone cycled slowly through colors he had never seen before -- something darker, closer to indigo.
       "Some things are discussed inside the Consortium," she said at last. "And some things are discussed outside it."
       Mark waited for more. Nothing came. She smiled. But the rainbows did not return to her cheeks.
       By the end of the first week, Mark had stopped pretending he was attending every session for professional reasons.
       He sat through the atmospheric remediation panel because Izzy was presenting. He chose the corridor-level dining terrace over the upper hall because that was where the Nerathis delegation ate. He found reasons to walk the promenade at the same hour each evening, and each evening she was there, and neither of them mentioned that this was becoming a pattern.
       The color dots had names, he had learned. Not official names. Izzy had explained that Nerathians did not name their expressions any more than humans named their heartbeats. But he had begun to give them names privately. The slow gold bloom meant she was pleased. The quick silver flicker meant she was thinking fast. The deep indigo, the one he had seen during the crimson pulse, he had only seen once more, briefly, when a senior delegate from the boulder worlds had said something in closed session that the Lattice rendered only partially.
       He did not ask about the indigo. He was learning, slowly, that some things Izzy would tell him and others she would carry alone, and that the difference between those two categories was something she had decided long before he arrived.
       On the eighth day he told Rita.
       They were sitting in their shared quarters on the eastern wing, the twin moons of Aurelia Prime hanging in the window like punctuation at the end of a long sentence. Rita was reviewing the next day's agenda. Mark was staring at the ceiling.
       "I think I'm in trouble," he said.
       Rita did not look up from her screen. "Define trouble."
       "Izzy."
       Now she looked up with a smile on her face.
       "I wondered when you were going to say that out loud."
       "Is it that obvious?"
       "Mark. You attended a three-hour panel on Nerathian water cycle management yesterday. You don't even like water."
       He laughed despite himself. Then stopped. "It's not going anywhere. She goes home in three weeks. I go home. That's the end of it."
       "Can I tell you something about Nerathians?" she said.
       "Please."
       "I spoke with one of the senior Consortium coordinators on day two. She has been running this gathering for thirty years." Rita folded her hands on the table. "She told me that Nerathians are the only species in the Velora Galaxy that cannot lie. Not won't. Cannot. Their biology has no mechanism for deception. Whatever they feel moves directly to the surface -- you can see it, literally, in the light patterns. They have no capacity for hidden motives, and no understanding of cruelty."
       Mark shook his head. "That sounds impossible."
       "So did faster-than-light travel once."
       "No species is that honest."
       Rita shrugged.
       "According to the coordinator, the first few years of the Consortium were difficult. Humans kept assuming Nerathians were hiding something. The Nerathians kept assuming humans weren't."
       Despite himself, Mark laughed. "That must have gone well."
       "It did not."
       Then Mark found himself thinking of the gold blooms that spread across Izzy's face when she was pleased. The silver flashes when she was curious. The indigo he had seen after the crimson pulse. If Rita was right, then none of those things were performances. They were simply truth made visible.
       "They can keep things private," he said at last.
       "That is different from deception," Rita said. "Privacy is choosing not to speak. A lie is choosing to speak falsely. Nerathians can do the first. The second is simply not available to them." She picked up her screen again. "What you are feeling, she already feels too. You can be certain of that. Whatever is in her light -- that is real."
       
       Mark found it hard to digest. He didn't know when he slept.
       The great promenade fell quiet as the floating lights retreated to their night frequency, leaving Aurelia Prime bathed in the amber glow of its twin moons.
       For the next few days he found himself watching Izzy differently. Not because she had changed. Because he had.
       On the eleventh night, after the last session ended, they wandered without direction. Neither suggested going back.
       They moved beyond the manicured terraces toward the Echo Gardens, a ridge of natural crystal overlooking the western sea. Wind moved through the hollow formations, producing low haunting notes that seemed less like music and more like memories given sound.
       They walked in silence, their fingers loosely intertwined. He looked down at her hand in his. It was like holding water -- present and warm and somehow weightless. His heart moved faster than he could account for.
       He had never been short of attention. Other women had come and gone without leaving much behind. This was different, and he could not explain why. He felt drawn toward her the way metal moves toward a magnet -- not chosen, just inevitable.
       Then a thought surfaced.
       Nerathians could not lie. No hidden motives. But was she doing something to him without knowing it? Some quality her species carried that the Consortium coordinators had never mapped? Something that slipped past all their careful documentation?
       They stopped when the Lattice flickered briefly above them -- not the full translation field, just a single pulse of amber light that moved through the crystal formations and faded. A routine broadcast. Neither of them paid attention to it.
       "Izzy?"
       She turned toward him as if she had been longing for it all evening. The silver lights along her wrists flickered curiously. "Yes?"
       Mark hesitated. For perhaps the first time in his life, he felt embarrassed by his own honesty. "Does your light always tell the truth?"
       Her diamond-blue eyes reflected the amber moons. "It cannot do otherwise."
       "Why?"
       She smiled slightly. "To change the light would be to change the blood."
       Mark looked away toward the distant sea. "On Earth, we're afraid of things we can't see through."
       The silver lights faded.
       He continued. "When humans become attached to something too quickly, we usually assume there's a reason. A biological reason. A chemical reason."
       "You think I am a chemical reason?" Her eyes brightened with amusement.
       Mark laughed quietly. "When I look at you, sometimes I wonder if your species does something to people. Not intentionally. Just naturally. Like a flower that attracts insects without trying."
       The wind passed through the crystal ridge. The music deepened.
       For a long moment Izzy said nothing. Then she stepped closer and reached for his hand. Her fingers were warm. Not cool and crystalline as he had always imagined. Warm.
       Gently, she placed his hand against the center of her chest, just below her collarbone.
       Mark froze. Beneath his palm, he felt a rapid, steady rhythm. A heartbeat. Strong. Unmistakably alive.
       At the same moment, a deep gold glow spread outward beneath his hand. It flowed through the transparent rivers of her body, climbing her neck and illuminating her face. The color was brighter than anything he had seen from her before.
       "The light is biology, Mark," she said softly. The Lattice, sensing speech, awakened nearby and translated her words into drifting symbols.
       "But the choice is not."
       The gold brightened.
       "The choice to walk beside you."
       A little brighter.
       "The choice to look for you in crowded rooms."
       Brighter still.
       "The choice to be happy when I find you."
       Mark could not look away.
       She held his gaze with complete, terrifying honesty. "My people cannot lie." The gold spread across her cheeks. "Which means we must be very careful about who we stand near."
       Her fingers closed around his. "Because once we know the truth, we cannot pretend otherwise."
       The wind sang through the crystal gardens. Somewhere beyond the ridge, waves moved against the shore. For several seconds neither of them spoke.
       Then Mark realized something. She had not enchanted him. She had simply answered him.
       And for the first time since arriving on Aurelia Prime, Mark began to suspect that leaving her would be impossible.
       
       The days blurred together. Later, he would remember every one of them. They attended sessions together when their schedules allowed. They ate on the corridor terrace in the evenings. They walked the promenade after the Lattice dimmed to its night frequency; the distant notes of the Echo Gardens carried faintly across the terraces.
       Izzy told him about Nerathis. Nerathis was almost entirely ocean -- shallow enough to touch your feet in some places, deep and fathomless in others. It was warm and moved slowly, and the light through it produced colors that had no equivalent anywhere else she had traveled. Her family lived near the central current where the water ran clearest. Her mother was also a listener. It ran in families, she said, though she could not explain why.
       Then, as if remembering something important, she said, "Can I tell you something?"
       "Yes."
       "On Nerathis, when we first learned about humans, many of us were afraid."
       Mark looked at her. "Afraid of us?"
       "You conceal everything. Your feelings, your intentions, your truth -- all of it hidden beneath skin that shows nothing. Other worlds hide too. But they do not wear our shape. We could not understand how you trusted each other at all. How you knew when someone meant what they said." She waited. "To us, humans were the mysterious ones."
       Mark understood now that if anyone should be afraid, it was her, not him. But the doubt remained. Old habits of suspicion do not dissolve in a single conversation.
       Mark told her about Earth. The oceans, the cities, the noise of it. The way it felt to stand on a high building and look down at a million people moving through their lives without knowing each other.
       She listened with complete attention, the gold bloom spreading slowly across her face. "It sounds very loud," she said.
       "It is."
       "Do you miss it?"
       He thought about it honestly. "Less than I expected."
       The gold deepened.
       On the fifteenth day, lying awake in his quarters, Mark understood that he did not want to go home.
       The thought arrived without warning and settled without drama. He simply lay there and understood it. He wanted to go with Izzy to Nerathis. He wanted to see the warm water and the slow current and the colors that had no equivalent anywhere else. He wanted to sit beside her in her world the way she had sat beside him in his -- present, attentive, asking questions that mattered.
       Part of him still wanted an explanation. Humans always did. Chemistry. Proximity. Shared experiences. The simple mathematics of attraction.
       Being with Izzy felt like standing near a light source. You did not realize how much you were leaning toward it until you noticed the warmth on your face. But explanations felt smaller now than they once had. Whatever had drawn him toward her, the result was the same. He was here. She was here. Three weeks left.
       He began making arrangements quietly, without telling her.
       He spoke to the Consortium coordinator about the process for requesting transit to a partner planet. He sent a message to his department on Earth explaining that he would require additional leave. He reviewed the transit schedules between Nerathis and the nearest relay station. He told no one. Not even Rita.
       He wanted to tell Izzy on the last day. He had decided this clearly. He would wait until the ships were being prepared for departure, until everything was already ending, and then he would tell her that if she would have him, he would come.
       He rehearsed it in his head each night. It never came out quite right. He decided that was fine. Some things only needed to be said.
       The last day arrived, and he was eager to welcome it. The Consortium's closing ceremony was brief. Delegates exchanged formal acknowledgments through the Lattice. The senior coordinator spoke about the value of sustained collaboration. The crystal domes above Aurelia Prime caught the early light and scattered it across the assembled worlds one final time.
       Then the promenade began to empty as delegations moved toward the departure terminals.
       Mark found Izzy near the eastern railing where they had walked on the first evening. She was standing very still. The color patterns across her skin were moving slowly, cycling through shades he had come to know -- the gold, the silver, the deep quiet blue of something she was holding carefully.
       He walked toward her.
       She heard him before he spoke and turned. The blue diamonds found him immediately, and they glittered.
       Around them, the last of the delegates moved past in pairs, heading home to their respective worlds.
       Then Izzy stepped forward and put her arms around him.
       She was warm, and the soft currents he had watched moving beneath her skin for a month were moving against his arms now. He felt her shoulders move. Once. Twice. He looked down.
       Bluish tears slid down her transparent cheeks. Her face had taken on the same shade -- a soft blue wash spreading outward like dawn light across water.
       "Don't cry," Mark whispered, holding her close. "Izzy..."
       His heart pounded. This was the moment. The surprise he had carried for days. "I have something to tell you."
       She looked up at him. The blue diamonds shimmered.
       "I'm not going back to Earth."
       For a moment she simply stared.
       Mark smiled. "I arranged everything. Rita will return alone. I'm coming with you to Nerathis."
       The tears stopped. Izzy blinked. Once. Twice. Then something that looked very much like panic crossed her face. "No," she said.
       Mark laughed softly. "No?"
       "You can't."
       "Why not?"
       She opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked away. For the first time since he had known her, she seemed unable to find words.
       A familiar voice interrupted them. "Because she's not going to Nerathis." Rita stepped beside them.
       Mark frowned. "What are you talking about?"
       Rita smiled. "Ask her."
       Mark turned back. Izzy's eyes filled with fresh tears.
       "I signed the transfer papers this morning." The words barely emerged.
       "What transfer papers?"
       The deep blue across her face suddenly made sense. Her transparent fingers tightened around his hand. "I am immigrating to Earth."
       For a moment he thought he had misunderstood the Lattice. Then everything inside him stopped. The noise of the docking bays. The departing ships. All of it vanished. "What?"
       Izzy laughed through her tears. A fragile, trembling sound. "I thought you would stay on Earth."
       "I thought you would stay on Nerathis," he said. "The indigo."
       Izzy blinked. "What?"
       "The color I saw after the crimson pulse. I never asked you about it."
       For a moment she seemed surprised that he had noticed. "It means uncertainty," she said.
       "I thought it meant fear."
       "It does." She smiled quietly. "Sometimes those are the same thing."
       The blue diamonds met his eyes. "I did not know whether you would choose me."
       For several seconds they simply stared at one another.
       Then Mark asked quietly, "Was the crimson pulse connected to any of this?"
       Izzy smiled. "No."
       "Then what was it?"
       She glanced toward the departing towers. "That is a problem for another month."
       "That is a very diplomatic answer."
       "I am learning from humans," she said.
       Then, unexpectedly, Mark began to laugh.
       Izzy joined him.
       Soon both were laughing and crying at the same time. Around them, starships lifted toward distant worlds. Neither noticed.
       They were only two people standing at opposite ends of the galaxy, each quietly willing to give up an entire world for the other.
       For the first time, Mark understood what Rita had meant.
       Nerathians could not lie.
       And love, stripped of every disguise, was a terrifying thing.