Page 27 of Eat My Moon Dust
She squared her posture unnecessarily. “On the count of three then.”
I pressed the syringe to her cheek bone, just above the red, angry cut.
“One…” she said, serious and low. “Tw–”
I pressed the release and the mediplasma disappeared into her skin faster than the blink of an eye. Tinsley gasped and clapped her hand over her cut, spine snapping straight with surprise and indignation. I waved the empty vial and grinned, depositing it into her other palm.
“See? Doesn’t hurt.”
“Did it really go?” she asked. “I didn’t feel anything at all!” I hummed in the affirmative and she dodged around me to go look in the bathroom mirror.
My mane rumbled with amusement. Maybe Tinsley wasn’tsobad. Her enthusiasm for life was genuine, at least. And she cared. I looked down at the cut on my hand and flexed it to feel the slight sting.
My brow creased though, standing next to the food bay. The spices and citrus my mane sensed didn’t come from her food bay at all. When I concentrated, the only recent printing I could taste in the air was from the hall. Warm plas and lubricant, likely for all the junk she’d stacked around the unit.
“Woah, it’s stitching up all by itself!” she called back.
“Yeah, it does that,” I grunted, pulling up my holotab. “Keep watching.”
“Okay!”
I logged into my work portal then scrolled to her unit number. Bajora was technically in charge of the domestic printing bays, but as chief engineer, I had access to all of his work orders and every unit’s diagnostics. Tinsley’s food bay hadn’t been used in two days. The printer in the hallway though…
A list of orders had been paused, dozens of items flashing in the printing bay’s queue.
INSUFFICIENT CACHE...
She’d already spent her entire stipend, and we were only just halfway through the satbit. What was she living on, nutrient bars? With a spark of surprise, I opened her cold bay.
Condiments, half a plate of wilted human food stuck between two pieces of bread, and a gallon of an amber liquid that looked slightly suspect.
“Watstakats,I’m such a bad host. Would you like some water? Orsidur?”
Tinsley hopped around the corner as she joined me, opened the cold bay without hesitation, and hefted the amber drink out onto the counter. She twisted open the cap and a fresh wave of that spicy scent perfumed the air.
“This is what you brought me earlier today,” I realized, tapping a tendril tip against the rim of the jug. The taste bloomed and saliva pooled in my mouth. It was crisp and complex, though completely alien. All I’d tasted off the cap was aluminum.
“Yeah!Sidur.Did you like it?”
Guilt caught me off guard. I’d shoved it as far behind my collection of drone parts as possible, in the dirty corner of the windowsill above my workbench. “It was, uh, good. Thank you.”
Tinsley glowed with pride. “Right? I made it myself! It’s one of the things we drink around the holidays back on Earth. Well, notthis…This is all universal ingredients. But it’s close enough to remind me ofKrismisat home. Makes me think of my dad.”
I put my hands on my hips and grimaced a little harder with each careful spoonful of the spices and pulp she added to the jar. Her expression was syrupy and faraway, thinking of home. Of Earth. Of family.Damn it.
Staring at the ceiling, I dragged the words from my throat with a belabored sigh. “What projects did you need printed?”
Tinsley dropped her spoon in the jug and it disappeared into the delicious-smelling swill. “Wait, really?!”
“Yeah,” I groaned, feeling a headache coming on. “Really.”
“Twinkle lights! And aKrismistree. And probably some garland and ornaments. I have some, but it’s definitely not enough.”
This sounded like a big project to me. I didn’t know what any of those things were, which meant I’d need to map them by hand unless there were blueprints on the open holomarket. Which there weren’t.
Tinsley sensed my skepticism and held out both hands to keep me from challenging her list of needs. “Wait, wait. Seriously, it’s not so bad! Look.”
She slid a bowl across the counter and held up some failed circuitry and colorful teardrop glass bulbs. “I tried to make twinkle lights myself, which didnotgo well, but I bet for you it’d be a piece of cake.”
