Chapter 15 – All That Glitters
This waystation, with a ketaari name I didn't have a hope in hell of pronouncing, wasn't less busy than Yellow Fin, but I found it a lot less overwhelming, despite the bad juice, heavy gravity, and hot air.
Maybe it was because I had a plan, and a good one; what a novel fucking sensation.
I guess it made a big difference to have smart people around you who actually wanted you to succeed, instead of very smart people who wanted you to just not be in the way.
I did miss Alet Trident, though, even if she did steal all my residuals and punt me into space without helping me make a plan. She could have just come up with a plan, even as a fun mental exercise, and given it to me so I had something like a starchart for my own life.
She probably charged for that.
Admittedly, I also wasn't sure if Vivith wanted me to succeed because they particularly cared about me, Sashen, the human.
But they definitely wanted me to succeed because I could help Araxis, and thereby Creche Thiel.
They also struck me as the kind of person who got an immense measure of satisfaction from watching one of their twisty plans go off without a hitch.
Vivith liked to feel smarter than everyone around them, so it was a good thing that they were.
I, on the other hand, was happy to play the role of good-natured idiot. That piece of playacting almost always got me what I wanted.
I found the small ship docked near the biosphere, so as I picked my way toward its gleaming hull, I had a jarring moment of looking both at the yawning void of space beyond the humming atmoshield while also staring at massive trees that stretched upwards beyond the panes of crystal clear polymer delineating the start of the waystation's park.
It wasn't every day you saw a riot of life and the absolute nothingness of space at the same time, in such stark contrast. I hesitated, then, staring at the towering trees stretching toward the void of space.
They seemed – impossible. Did I have time to go in?
If I was maybe going to die – even if Araxis didn't think so – it would be nice to touch a tree first. Is that what people did with trees?
I'd really thought when I left Seraphim, I'd get to see and experience more.
But in the ten years that I called Yellow Fin home, I had only ventured out of the neighbourhood where the den was twice.
Once was that time I had tried my hand at pit fighting for a bit of extra coin, which had cost me a broken nose, two lost teeth, and a medical bill that made the entire venture a massive loss.
The second was to go to a play that Khrelen Tintissi had been cast in.
The whole thing was in taar, so I didn't understand any of it – but he seemed good, and he'd paid for my ticket so it was a pretty thrilling night all around.
I finished the juice, which had grown on me despite its metallic tang, and dumped the empty cup in a waste receptacle at the end of the dock. The abayan cruiser I'd earmarked looked like it was nearly done loading. Trees would have to wait.
I tossed my bag over my shoulder, adjusting my walk to make it slow and nonthreatening, but as I approached the two abaya loading crates into the open hold of their small ship, their dark eyes tightened with suspicion anyway.
But I was virra. This was my whole thing.
"Hi," I said once I was close enough to speak without raising my voice. "I am so sorry to interrupt you. It's obvious that you're busy – but I need help." I let my pack slide down to my feet, and I worked to set my face into an expression of distress that they'd recognize.
I'd seen a lot of distressed abaya over the past week and change, and clearly I'd learned well.
They looked at each other, and then straightened.
The taller and stockier of the two spoke.
"I am Norril of Creche Bathel." He inflected the first word so that I knew what pronoun to use. "This is Idralne of Creche Bathel."
The shorter, slimmer abaya inclined her chin.
If I had to guess, I'd have put both of them as irenek.
I didn't know if there was a polite way to ask, and I didn't care enough to figure it out: I was just curious if I was beginning to grasp abayan gender enough to get a read.
It felt like seeing the world through a pair of lenses that showed colours I hadn't been able to see before.
Or I was just making it all up. Who knew?
"I'm Sashen, most recently of Yellow Fin station.
I'm travelling to Thenat-6 for work. I booked passage with some traders I thought seemed nice and gave them the last of my credits, but then they dumped me on a backwater moon near Vasimia.
I don't think they were ever actually coming this way.
I managed to make it here but…" I trailed off, trying to look even more morose.
"What is your work?" asked the shorter abaya. While her companion's face was pinched with sympathy, she looked a little more wary.
"I'm a dancer," I said. "I've been working in a marn den, but this contract came along and I thought it might change things for me.
I guess I was pretty silly." I was laying it on thick, but I also knew that was how abaya liked virra to behave; Vivith had said as much when we'd been planning this leg of the journey and they'd looked very pleased as they muttered something about how I should just give into my fundamental nature and seem very dumb and pathetic.
Araxis had been so sharp with Vivith then that even I'd winced, and although I didn't understand what he said in abayan, it had been nice to be defended.
I didn't particularly like that the additional cultural complexity I was discovering about being virra seemed to add dumb to the hot slut designation.
Then again, if other virra were anything like me, maybe they also knew how to use what people thought to get what they needed and wanted.
Maybe ours was such a good act that we'd convinced everyone else it was real.
I wouldn't know until I met another adult virra out in the wild – and even then, it wasn't like we'd be identical.
I knelt down and grabbed Vivith's chip from my pack, holding it out. "Here's my contract, if you want to check it out. I have 54 credits too. I'd be happy to send them to you as payment, although I know it's not much."
The taller abaya waved the chip away. Next to him, the skeptical one broke into a rapid-fire string of abayan.
I didn't know enough to catch any words, so instead I focused on looking fragile and in need of help.
I smiled sadly and added, once she finished speaking, "I understand if you can't help.
It's probably pretty far out of the way. "
"It is not far out of the way," said the taller one.
The shorter abaya fluted a thin, irritated sound, and picked up another crate, stomping off with it as she vanished into the belly of the ship.
"We do not need your credits. Forgive Idralne.
She has a difficult history with…" He looked at me, lips thinning.
Virra, he wanted to say. Instead, he settled on, "With dancers."
I nodded knowingly. "I understand. Thank you, truly. You have my gratitude. I'm more than happy to help load your cargo. I like to be useful."
He trilled to himself. "Hm, I think you had best go into the hold. There are some seats that fold down from the wall. You may settle in while Idralne and I finish loading. We will be leaving very shortly – and please refrain from wandering about the ship."
I smiled prettily and stupidly at him and, as I passed him by, he added, "Perhaps I will come and sit with you on the flight and you can tell me about dancing, hm?"
I let my eyelashes flutter a little. "I would like that very much," and I pretended I didn't notice that his cheeks silvered as I tucked myself inside, my pack between my feet and my swords across my lap.
My fingers traced the seam of the swords' sheath again and again as the cargo was loaded and secured.
Before long, the ship juddered as it unclamped from the docks and teetered out of the waystation and into space beyond.
True to his word, the abaya did come and sit next to me, though he put a space of two seats between us, and he listened happily as I told him about arriving on Yellow Fin a decade ago and starting my training.
As he listened, he let his head tilt back and his eyelids close, as if he was content to just bathe in the sound of my voice.
I'd have thought he was sleeping, except that whenever I paused, he cracked open an eye and asked a question to keep me talking.
It was a relatively short hop from Thenat-2 to Thenat-6, although the system was a good size.
Not long enough that I'd run out of things to chatter about, but enough of a journey that the abaya paused me once to go and make tea for us, which I happily accepted.
The mugs on this ship were hammered metal and made me miss the earthenware that Creche Thiel used, with a strange, sharp ache.
But this was a transport ship, not a creche ship; maybe that was the difference, that a creche ship was meant to feel like home.
And it had, and then I'd left and I still wasn't sure whether I'd ever be going back.
"Hm, we will be arriving shortly," said the abaya, whose name I had long since given up remembering.
I was usually good at catching names at the first introduction – it was pretty important in my line of work – but I'd been distracted thinking about abayan gender, and to be fair, there was sort of a lot going on in my life.
"It has been very nice listening to you. "