Page 13 of All or Nothing
I blinked down at the image, flabbergasted. “I-I’ve never seen something like this before.” I picked up the tablet, caressing the screen with trembling, reverent fingers. “This isamazing,” I breathed.
Confusion settled heavily on her delicate features. “What? No, it’s akommick, it’s nothing special.”
I shook my head, insistent. “No, Joss, I’m telling you—I’ve never seen something like this in all my 26 solars. But this is what I think I want to do, to tell a story with pictures that lasts longer than what can be told in just one image.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you people have masteredintergalactic space travelbut you haven’t stumbled onkommicks?!”she burst out, her voice getting high and squeaky with disbelief.
I shrugged. “I think so? How do you spell it, I will try searching for it on the nexus.”
She carefully scrawled out C-O-M-I-C on the tablet screen, and I typed it into my browser. When it turned up nothing I flipped the screen around to show her. Her brow wrinkled.
“Try just searching for different illustrative art forms, or animation,” she demanded, coming over to sit next to me. I couldn’t decide if I liked this sudden shift to bossiness from her, but I definitely liked her sitting so close to my side.
I did, and none of the encyclopedia entries I found looked anything like what she’d drawn for me.
“This is impossible!” she cried, snatching the tablet from my hands and standing up. “I’m going to show the girls and get to the bottom of this.”
I got up and followed her out the door, admiring the swing of her hips and the way her smooth flesh shivered with her angry steps as she stomped down the hall to seek out the other females in my small rec room.
She held out the tablet to each female, showing them her little comic (as I now knew it was spelled) about the Earth animals that she’d drawn for me.
Uraka squinted at the screen with her two parallel eyes. “I am sorry, Joss, but I have never seen this before. It is cute though, did you make it?”
Joss huffed a thanks, then shoved the screen at Djelani. “Anything?” she demanded.
Djelani shook her head, grinning sheepishly. “No, I can’t say I’ve seen anything like it.”
A frustrated growl tore from Joss’s throat as she also showed a very groggy Wren, who also answered in the negative.
“I’m sorry, but this isimpossible,”she fumed, spinning around towards me again. “How in the actualfuckdoes that even happen?!”
I held up my hands, palm out, in what I hoped was a placating gesture. “Calm please, Joss. I don’t know why you are letting yourself get so worked up by this. It must be an Earth-only media.”
“B-But…how?” Joss sputtered, her eyes roving over all of us. “I’m sorry, this is just such a common thing on Earth I’m having a lot of trouble believing it’s not out here, too.” Her arm holding the tablet sagged down against her side and she shook her head, making an incredulous sound.
“I have to admit, it is very difficult to wrap my head around,” Ghena interjected softly from beside Wren. “But it does make a certain kind of sense. Just because it’s old and common back home doesn’t mean it would be everywhere.”
Joss blinked, shaking her head in disbelief. “No, you’re right. Just…wow, y’know?” She pushed her hair back out of her face and sighed. “Alright, well, thanks for your input, everyone. I don’t know why this is the thing that’s breaking my brain but man, it really is. Shit.”
Uraka chuckled, leaning forward and resting her forearms on her spread knees. “It is alright, little one. It is a shock to encounter the wider universe for the first time.”
Joss smiled at the grinning yvrenii female before turning back to me. “Well, I guess that’s that. I’m just going to have to learn how to live with this information.” Then she was turning and heading back to the ship’s tiny mess hall, chuckling and shaking her head as she went along.
Once we’d sat back down—Joss across from me once more, I noted with a pang of loss—she handed the tablet back to me. “Well, I guess if no one else has ever done it then we can invent it out here. Which is completely insane to me, but kind of cool at the same time.” Some of her words were translating oddly, and I assumed it was some sort of alien slang gumming up the works. It would likely take time for my translator to pick up all of her uses and allow me to understand her fully, and I found myself excited and delighted to realize we would have plenty of time together for that to happen: Joss was staying with me, she was going to help me.
In a stunning upset, I was excited about the future.
“Anyway, so you were describing comics as being something you’d like creating, and I think that’s amazing. If you need help writing the story I’d love to pitch in. Like I said, I like writing a lot and have done a fair amount of it.” She paused, then frowned at me, looking wary. “You guysdohave writing, right? Like, books and short stories and poems and shit?”
In a good mood and surprisingly calm for being me, I pretended I was confused again. “A book? What is that? What do you mean by writing?” A look of incredulous horror spread over her face, making me sputter with laughter.
Joss rolled her eyes and slapped my hand on the table gently. “You jerk, were you messing with me?”
I nodded. “Yes, I was only teasing. We have written forms of entertainment.”
“Anyway,” she said sternly, trying to hide a smile of her own, “that’s a great thing to aspire to, starting up a comic. But you’ll still need a day job to pay for rent and groceries and stuff, so what sorts of job skills do you have?”
I cocked my head. “To pay for rent and food? Why would you have to pay for that?”
