Chapter 3 #2
And with that, my latest attempt to lighten the atmosphere and have a friendly conversation fell flat.
Well, Dr. Ardruc Husiorithae wasn’t going to ruin this momentous day, much less run me off Hyderia like he had so many others. And if he thought he could, he was about to find out how wrong he was.
I grabbed the handles of my crates. “I won’t keep you, then. If I need anything while I get settled in, I’ll let you know.”
“Please do,” he said, while his tone and the way his eyes tightened implied he preferred I didn’t.
He backed up another few steps. “I will be immersed in my own research in the imaging lab until 1800 hours, and later I will be retiring to my quarters for the evening, but I am available at any time via station comms.”
In other words, don’t come to his lab or apartment in person.
Fine. We didn’t need to be friends to work in the same station.
I had my own lab and he had his. And as long as we could pass each other in the hall and common areas with a nod and a greeting, that would be fine too.
Not great, not pleasant, and not nearly as warm and welcoming as my time at most other facilities, but fine.
I was on Hyderia with Forux. Nothing else mattered but that.
Ardruc turned on his heel and strode in the opposite direction into the station’s other research wing. At the door of what I thought was the imaging lab, he scanned his palm and disappeared inside without looking back.
Silence.
I scanned my palm to access my apartment. Slowly, with a quiet grinding noise, the door slid aside. Add a creaky door to my welcome party. Forux bared his teeth.
I squared my shoulders and wheeled my crates through the doorway.
The apartment was as small as I’d imagined, but it had a skylight and a large window that overlooked the forest. It was clean, it had a comm panel and small food and beverage synth system, and the attached bathroom’s shower was actually nice and had both sonic and water-based cleansing systems.
And in truth it wasn’t that much smaller than my quarters at Inga. It was just its relative size compared to the other apartments that made it seem tiny.
“This is good,” I told Forux, who’d jumped onto the little bed to survey his new place of residence. I left my crates in the middle of the living area and crossed to the window. “Oh, wow—just look at this view.”
A burst of shimmering red kora spread across the cobalt blue sky like an enormous spider or twenty-armed Barmian fillesquid unfurling its appendages.
I gasped and pressed my nose and hands to the window, my gaze glued to the sky as my first in-person sighting of the planet’s most famous natural wonder faded. “Forux, look,” I whispered. “It’s so beautiful.”
He jumped down from the bed and joined me at the window. I picked him up and looked skyward just in time to see another kora blossom—this one multi-colored and even larger than the red one. My skin pebbled with goosebumps as I gaped.
I knew very little about the korae other than they were enormous upper atmospheric plasma discharges hundreds of kilometers long and no one had yet discovered how they formed. No wonder Ardruc studied these phenomena.
I tried to imagine him gazing at korae in awestruck silence, but I couldn’t picture the dour dragon man expressing amazement. Well, maybe in private he looked at them in awe and wonder, the way I gazed at mushrooms, lichen, mold, and all other fungi.
Usually I unpacked immediately, moved all my equipment into my lab and got everything set up, and then explored my new station and its environment. But this time, all I could think about was getting my feet onto Hyderian soil and finding my first native fungi. Everything else could wait.
I paused just long enough to open one of my travel cases and retrieve a change of footwear. I unfastened my boots, toed them off, and perched on the side of the bed.
The bed squeaked when I sat down. And it creaked when I bounced lightly. I sighed.
I pictured Ardruc standing in the hallway outside this apartment with his chin raised, his hands folded behind his back, and his impassive golden gaze fixed on me, knowing full well he was giving me the worst accommodations on the station.
And for a moment, just a moment, I envisioned Forux biting him right on the tail.
Had I wronged Ardruc Husiorithae in another life? Or was this how he treated everyone? Maybe so, if he went through lab assistants at a rate that bordered on legendary.
Well, he’d just found someone who wouldn’t be cowed either by his smug superiority or a tiny apartment with a creaky door and a squeaky bed not much better than a cot.
My defiance had kept me alive on Aloris, so I wasn’t likely to be defeated by a grumpy dragon man.
He wanted me off Hyderia, and I was going to stay.
And if he wanted me to be dispirited, he’d find me cheerful every time we saw each other.
Newly energized, I put on a pair of comfortable shoes I’d purchased years ago on Pallasia, let out a sigh of contentment, and left my apartment with Forux at my side.
The exterior door at the end of the corridor was right next to apartment one, Ardruc’s residence.
The scanner beside the door glowed red, indicating it was locked.
The other apartment scanners, including mine, were green, meaning they could be opened by anyone’s palm scan.
In my experience, it wasn’t common practice to lock one’s door inside a secure facility, much less when there were only three people not just living on the station, but on the entire planet.
It was a small thing, but it felt significant—and more than a little insulting. Ardruc Husiorithae must not think much of his colleagues if he felt the need to lock his door.
I scanned my palm to open the exterior door and stepped outside onto the wide deck.
Nova Cal was built on a platform about five meters above the mountain slope.
I took a moment to take in the view of the valley and forest, and then hurried down the stairs to ground level.
Forux dashed ahead of me to run in circles in the clearing.
My little arval had been cooped up at Inga Station and on cruisers for much too long. So had I, in fact.
When I stepped off the stairs and stood on Hyderian soil, all my joy and disbelief filled my eyes with tears. I let out a little sob.
I was here. I was on Hyderia. The dream I’d had since I was seventeen had come true. And a wonderful warmth filled my heart as if I already felt at home.
The sky filled with massive bursts of korae in every color imaginable.
I gasped and craned my neck to look skyward.
The timing was obviously a coincidence, but I was happy to pretend the planet was as joyous at my arrival as I was.
Sharing my happiness, Forux bounced on his little legs, yipped excitedly, and took off to run full-speed around the thick columns that supported the elevated station.
As much as I yearned to sprawl out on the grass and watch the korae, I wanted to find my first Hyderian fungi.
Behind the stairs, I crouched and found beautiful blue-gray fruticose lichen growing on the shadowed, undisturbed soil. I ran my fingertips over it, feeling all the textures of the cup-like stalks. They were familiar, and yet different. Unique to this world and so beautiful.
I should take a sample, study it, uncover all its secrets, and give it a name if it didn’t already have one. But there would be plenty of time for that. Today, I just wanted to take it all in.
After all, I planned to stay on Hyderia for a long, long time.