Page 7 of Eat My Moon Dust
Marcella summarily ignored her jab, stubbornly beaming at me. Was I stepping in the middle of a diplomatic war? I was definitely stepping intosomething…“Does three weeks give you enough time? What do you have in mind?”
“Yes!” I laughed, breaking into my usual goofy smile as zealous ideas flooded my engines. I pushed my choppy brown waves off my forehead with a sigh of overwhelming excitement.“Watstakats,I have so much to think about. Can I give you a plan tomorrow? Three weeks…Three weeks!I can do this.”
Marcella’s excitement softened as I gave myself a pep talk. She patted my hand, recognizing the immense pressure I’d placed on my own shoulders. I didn’t want this to be just a half-assed White Elephant party. I was going to pull outallthe stops.
“You just let me know what I can do, Tinsley, dear. Anything you put together will be a good start.”
“Thank you, ma’am!”
“Nonna,”she corrected me gently.
Imani returned my scope, and I clutched it as I waved goodbye and marched off on wobbly knees to Omi’s hair shop on the hill. I needed to tell her the good news.
I needed tomake a list and check it twice.
I whisper-squealed to myself, hugging my scope in an effort to appear calm as I walked–not skipped–away.
As soon as I was around the corner though, I broke into a sprint.
I had elves to recruit.
02
?HUNAR?
“Hi,syali!”Piro called happily from the lockers, waving his two right hands like a human. “Are you ready to go?”
I kept my focus, squinting one golden eye down at the breadboard I was working on. With minute muscle control, I focused the magnifying lens in my bionic eye and smoothed the soldered joint with a hot macro-needle. The soft silver melted like warm clay into its mold, and I waited until it cooled to a dull grey, not a single crack in sight.
“Almost,” I gruffed over my shoulder. I set the needle on its delicate rack and flipped it off to cool as I stood and slung my overnight bag over my shoulder. “Let me close up shop.”
“You got it!” The young pilot saluted with a jovial smile and sauntered out of the workshop towards his transpo. I watched him go, my sorry attempt at a smile fading to grey in the dim, colorless dusk. My expression hardened, I snorted the smell of burnt metal out of my slitted nostrils, and I locked down my stuff.
Piro was young, on the cusp of manhood. He’d shown immense promise and was a star swimmer from an affluent family, but when it came to the harsh realities of adult life, he was still as soft as a spat’s feet. Not a callous in sight.
But I wasn’t so lucky. I’d spent a majority of my adult life embroiled in the usual obligations of shilpakaari men. Competing for affection, having to prove my worth, making enough of an income to support a woman while I scraped by. I’d worked hard, like my father had taught me, but the fruits of my labor seemed a never-ending cycle of soft gains and quick rot. Nothing stuck for long, so I’d stopped trying.
Except…
This weekend had to be different.
I checked my cache, made sure my credits were up to date, then headed out to Piro’s transpo, hovering on the tarmac. The lieutenant pilot was already in the cockpit, warming up her engines. He welcomed me aboard, confirmed I’d engaged my harness, even told me the fucking weather. I rolled my eyes but appreciated the gesture deep down. Unlike Aavar, Piro knew how to keep some professional distance.
We ascended straight up, the red ferns and palms whipping up around the treeline beyond the hangar, and the bone-deep exhaustion I’d felt for satbits seeped back in. My mane of tendrils slumped from where they explored the rivets around the windows and settled against my shoulders, too weak to enjoy the rush of fresh air. I closed my eyes and thumped my head back against the vibrating hull.
I’d grown up on the shilpakaari homeworld, Dharatee. It was a cold, harsh world with miles-deep oceans and tempestuous weather. To visit, other species had to sign liability waivers and provide proof of high-quality breathers that would filter the immense humidity from the air. As a result, I’d always felt I lingered on the brink of limbo, where time stood still and people were irrelevant. The underwater cities were ancient and underdeveloped. The outskirts were isolated, since most comm tech would rust within half an orbit.
Yaspur though, with its red jungles and turquoise skies, was paradise. The moment I’d stepped foot on this little moon, my shoulders had loosened, and my tendrils had plumped under the warm rays of that glorious golden pink sun. How had I never known our system’s sun was so beautiful? On Dharatee, it was a diffused marble of grey most of the year.
I’d sucked up the tropical air and vowed that I’d retire from fleet life to Yaspur’s only city, Samridve. I’d enjoy the music, the diversity, the sense of fun. I’d have spats and own a unit that looked out at the sunrise. I’d build myself a little life that was perfect and perfectly mine.
“Syali,we’re here!”
I jolted awake at some point later with a crick in my neck, the tips of my tendrils tingling from the constant vibration of the hull. Piro’s transpo let off exhaust as it touched down with a gentle shudder on the secure tarmac at Nilah Port, where the mists of the massive falls hid the platform from civilian view.
And also doused the entire exterior in a downpour that rivaled Dharatee’s storms.
Piro unlatched his harness just as I did, already wearing his protective hood and coveralls. He tossed me a set and stuffed my overnight bag into a waterproof duffel while I dressed.
