Page 19 of Eat My Moon Dust
I couldtotallywin Hunar over.
06
?TINSLEY?
There was a bounce in my step as I climbed the footpath up to the hangar in the jungle steam the next day, despite how tired I felt. I’d stayed up half the night after Piro and Naitee left, working on getting that warm mulled cider smell into my unit. Omi and Siatesh lived just a couple floors away, so she’d let me print a whole tub of potential ingredients.
Already cooked, universal ingredients that were a total crapshoot, but still. I got pretty close!
Siatesh suggested a citrus drink that tasted a lot like spicy pineapples, and agrilled Yaspurian fruit called aplurhurrbidoo…That’s not what it was actually called, but my tongue tied up every time I tried to fit the word in my mouth. It wasn’t so much a fruit as a hollow mushroom with juicy pulp on the inside. When I gently crushed the pulp against the roof of my mouth, I tasted honeysuckle and simple syrup. Together with the spicy pineapple juice, it tasted a whole lot like your basic store bought apple cider.
I expected the spices to be a lot tougher. Nutmeg with its earthy sweetness, the licorice bite of star anise, cloves and their pungent, bitter kick… How could I ever find spices that compared to some of Earth’s rarest and most sought-after edible sensations? Wars had been waged over them, entire civilizations built upon their backs and then destroyed.
But I’d sorely underestimated our shilpakaari hosts. They loved their spices just as much as us humans, and when Siatesh opened the holomarket to show me my options, my jaw hit the floor. I scoured the listings for hours, reading the taste profile of each spice.
After midnight, I’d finally settled on what I wanted to use. Omi ushered me out the door with a yawn and a threat that if I didn’t share whatever strange creation I came up with, she’d come collect, then I’d bustled back to my own unit and played Mad Scientist until dawn.
Now, nearly lunch, I clasped a jar of universal mulled cider in my hands like a vigil candle and hoped, hoped,hoped,that Hunar would be inspired when he tasted it. I stopped outside of the open hangar doors to catch my breath. I checked that my reindeer antlers were on straight and that I hadn’t smooshed the pretty green ribbon and snowflake with which I’d decorated the jar with my clammy hands.
“Stop stalling,” I huffed at myself. I closed my eyes, sighed to wash away the nerves, and walked in like I owned the place.
Which was unnecessary, because the place was abandoned. No Bree swearing and throwing her tools around. No classic rock or shilpakaari pop echoing down from the PA system. Everyone must have gone to lunch, which meant I’d have to loiter like a weirdo.
At least it wasn’t stuffy inside despite the lack of a natural breeze. Big, lazy fan blades set in the ceiling ensured the air didn’t hang thick with humidity, but condensation still clung to the metal walls from the morning.
Too busy running my fingers over the chilly metal walls, I slipped on a dollop of oil and squeaked, grabbing hold of a shelving unit. A canister of jittery screws wobbled off the shelf with a sharp clatter so loud that I winced, the screws skittering across the grated floors in all directions.
“Really?” I whined, admonishing myself. Suddenly, I didn’t mind so much that I’d have to wait. I could clean it up before Hunar got back from break. No harm, no foul, right? I crouched down, set aside my peace offering, and scooped up the biggest pile of screws in both hands.
“What are you doing?”
A pair of old, scruffy work boots with beige coveralls tucked into the toppers stopped a foot away from my mess. My guilty stare traveled all the way up two sets of crossed arms, a mane twitching with annoyance, and the sharp, greying features of the chief engineer.
I grimaced with a smile. “Hi, Hunar.”
“Miss Tinsley.”
It wasn’t a greeting, but a warning. I got to my feet, still cradling the tiny pile of screws. “I, uh, didn’t mean to? I slipped on some oil.”
Hunar scanned the floor, then his mane rumbled with a sigh as he reached into one of the hangar’s red lockers and pulled out a long metal pole. He pressed a button and swept it across the floor, gathering all the loose screws. He held the pole over the canister, pressed the button again, and all the screws fell back inside. I picked it up as I stood, and he slapped the lid back on. He tossed it on the shelf with a resounding gong, his huge bronze eyes never leaving my face.
“Why are you here?”
Ouch.
“Well… Piro told me you’d be able to help me with something.” I rocked onto my toes, trying to seem taller as Hunar squinted with suspicion. Shilpakaari had ovoid eyes three times the size of humans. Their pupils were striped, and they could have as many as five in each orb. Staring contests were a bit unnerving, and I squirmed. Hunar’s striped glare narrowed, but he shoved the magnetic pole back in its locker and waved me into the engineering lounge anyway. I breathed a sigh of relief as I slid my jar of cider back into my hands and followed, a trickle of nervous sweat inching down my neck.
Hunar wasn’t the tallest shilpakaar, nor the brightest in coloring… Actually, he was the shortest and greyest of them all. I’d never seen the color of his stripes, even though the others looked like precious stones when the sun glanced off their skin. Instead, his markings were a cloudy, muddy pink and his turquoise skin was ashy and dry… Like an old car with murky headlights and peeling paint that had just rolled over its odometer for the second time.
But he wasthick.His palms, his mane, his neck, his shoulders. Even if he never quite stood up straight, he moved with the grace of a retired athlete. And that mane of his was strong despite that it only reached his collarbones, wrinkling where it twisted over itself. I’d put money on Hunar against even Siatesh, who’d been an enslaved killer for decades before falling into Omi’s coil.
“You can submit a work order on that holoscreen,” he said, gesturing to a standing terminal tucked into the corner on top of a tool cabinet. Hunar returned to his workbench and reached for what looked like a multi-jointed pen with a red-hot tip.
“Actually!” Hunar looked up at the ceiling, sighed, and turned around on his stool. I gave him a sheepish smile. “I was hoping, maybe, we could talk?” I held out the jar, its green ribbon now askew. He creased his brow.
“What is that?” he asked with supreme suspicion.
I blinked at it. “It’s a gift.”
