Chapter 6 #2
Five minutes into my second round of shield generator repairs, my skin ached again.
I felt unsettled, like something was missing.
I knew what it was: Mariska. It didn’t sit right with me that she’d walked off without explaining what she wanted.
I found that I very much wanted to give her whatever she’d asked of me, but how could I, if I didn’t know what?
A thought occurred to me then—one that probably never would have if I hadn’t met Mariska.
I could ask for help. There was one person who might have the answer at the ready, and a source available to her to find out more.
Danitalin. After we’d been rescued from our hostage situation by mercenaries hired by the Aderian government, she had chosen to stay with them.
She’d even mated with their Rummicaron Weaponmaster.
Far more importantly, there were humans on that ship—females, mated to other crew members of the notorious mercenaries of the Varakartoom.
I eyed the small home to make sure that Mariska was still inside and couldn’t overhear me.
Then I called Danitalin’s comm device and waited with bated breath to see if she’d answer.
It had been several weeks since that situation, since I’d been dropped off on Llykhe to retire.
I had lost the taste for adventure, but my friend had found hers.
“Jeltom,” she said when she answered my call, with a breathlessness I did not want to know the source of.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, old friend?” It was a good thing she had not engaged the video settings, because I did not need her to see the confusion on my face.
She was one of the most powerful Aderian empaths I knew, and I wondered if she could sense my feelings through a tenuous comm connection.
“I hope you’re still happy on that gloomy mercenary ship,” I said to her.
It was black inside every hallway on the Varakartoom, each corridor designed to look exactly like the next, to confuse intruders.
I had hated how dark it was on that ship, and I couldn’t fathom how Danitalin, of all people, didn’t mind.
She laughed and wove aside my concern the same way she’d done ever since I’d woken in the Varakartoom’s medbay and discovered she had been rescued, too.
“Fine, I’ll cut to the chase. I need information on humans.
You have humans on that ship, don’t you?
” I already knew the answer, but I was relieved when Danitalin agreed readily anyway.
She also did not ask me why I needed to know about humans, but I was certain that was going to come later.
“I need to know what Valentine means. Can you find out for me? I was asked to do something for Valentine, and I don’t know what she means. ”
“Aaaaah, are you playing house on Llykhe with a human, Jeltom?” Danitalin asked.
She was laughing, but she wasn’t laughing at me, she was just happy.
There was not a mean bone in Danitalin’s body.
In the background, her mate was calling for her, asking who she was talking to.
He called her Dani, shortening her name in a way Aderians would consider rude.
A human custom too, I believed; to shorten a name was considered a sign of friendship.
I was tempted to ask, but I could just as easily ask that particular question of Mariska.
“Valentine? Never heard of it,” Danitalin said.
“But I’ll find out for you. I was supposed to meet with Harper to do an interview anyway.
She’ll know.” I did not ask who Harper was or what kind of interview Danitalin was talking about.
She was a brilliant doctor and scientist, and, recently, likely the inventor of a very important cure regarding Roka production pollution.
If anyone would end up in the spotlight over such a thing, it was Danitalin.
It was eking toward evening, and I’d finally spotted Mariska slip out of the house to check on her recently pressed grapes.
She’d been hiding in there all afternoon, and I was certain it was because I’d messed up terribly.
Unfortunately, Danitalin hadn’t gotten back to me yet about this Valentine thing, and my mind was spinning in increasingly darker circles.
What had I missed? How had I hurt her feelings? What could I do to fix it?
I hadn’t the slightest idea, so I focused on the things I could solve.
That started with getting this ancient shield generator to run again.
I was certain I would never be able to get it to run fully automated, those circuit boards were beyond fried.
Even so, you could get localized meteor alerts on your comm well ahead of time.
That should be enough for Mariska to get to the generator and turn it on manually.
Or me, a voice whispered in the back of my mind.
I could stay close, so I could make sure the generator was on when she needed it.
Rubbing at my arm, I wondered why my skin ached again.
I felt a little more worn than I usually would from the work I’d been doing.
Some would blame that on my recent injury, but I knew better.
This was something else, something that stirred instincts deep in the back of my mind and pulled at my heart with a kind of optimistic hope.
Hypersensitive to her presence, I sensed when Mariska came back out of the barn behind me.
I tried very hard not to turn to look, but tilted my head just enough to catch her from the corner of my eye.
She was rubbing at her bare arms too, either she was cold in her lovely pale green dress or she was feeling the same thing I was.
I hoped she was feeling what I was feeling, but I couldn’t possibly ask.
That’s when my comm buzzed with an incoming message.
I glanced at it, noticed Danitalin’s name on the screen, and hurried to click it open.
It read in big letters at the top: “Valentine is a human courtship ritual.” My heart sped up in my chest as I scanned the details of the tradition outlined below it, followed by very precise, step-by-step instructions of what I should do.
I was silent after I’d finished reading, and very much lost in thought.
This was what she wanted? For me to court her? My heart thrilled again in my chest.