Anhara
Ikept the pulse rifle up until the Vinduthi disappeared into his ship. Only then did I let myself breathe.
Turnip pressed against my leg, two hundred kilos of frustrated aggression vibrating through his hide. I dropped one hand to scratch behind his ear.
“I know,” I murmured. “I wanted to let you eat him too.”
But I hadn’t. Because he’d known Torek. Because Torek had mentioned him.
The ghost boy.
I went inside and lowered myself into the chair by the window.
Torek’s chair. Three years, and I still thought of it as his.
The cushion had molded to his shape, not mine.
The headrest was worn smooth where his horns had rubbed the fabric, two grooves I could trace with my fingers.
Everything about it was built for someone larger.
My feet barely touched the floor when I sat back.
I should have replaced it. I hadn’t.
Turnip squeezed through the doorway and settled at my feet, his bulk taking up half the room. His snout rested on my boot, warm and heavy.
“He’s not leaving,” I told him.
A skeptical snort.
“I know. I saw the way he moved.” I stared out the window at the ship sitting in my field. Dark and angular and patient. “Torek trained him. And Torek didn’t train quitters.”
The farmhouse was quiet around me. Same as always. Same as it had been every night since I’d buried Torek in the north field and tried to pretend the universe would leave me alone.
I’d known it would catch up eventually. The thing Torek had protected. The thing he’d made me promise to keep safe. All the ghosts he’d tried to outrun.
They’d found him anyway.
Found me.
I didn’t sleep that night.
Every time I started to drift off, some small sound jerked me awake. The creak of the house settling. Wind moving through the crops. Turnip shifting in his spot by the door.
Each time, I checked the perimeter sensors. Each time, they showed nothing. Just the Vinduthi’s ship, dark and still.
He wasn’t trying to sneak past my defenses. Wasn’t trying to break in or take what he wanted by force.
He was just waiting.
I lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling. Thought about Torek. The way he’d looked at the end, gray skin gone ashen, breathing shallow and labored. He’d known he was dying. Had known for weeks, maybe longer. But he’d kept working. Kept teaching me. Kept making sure I could survive without him.
Promise me, he’d said. Keep it safe. Keep yourself safe.
I’d promised. And I’d kept that promise for three years.
Now a ghost sat in my field, and everything was about to change.
Morning came still and cold. Mist clung to the fields, turning everything soft and strange.
I moved through my chores without thinking.
Fed the grazers in the barn. Checked the irrigation lines.
Collected eggs from what I called hens in the coop, the bright purple shells smooth and warm against my palm.
Normal things. The bones of a life I’d built from nothing.
I was hauling feed to the storage shed when the proximity alert chimed.
He was approaching again. Not sneaking. Walking straight up the main path, hands visible at his sides.
Turnip moved, positioning himself between the porch and the path. I set down the feed bucket and joined him.
“I told you to leave.”
“You did.” He stopped at a careful distance. Far enough that Turnip couldn’t charge without warning. “I’m not here to push. I just need to tell you something, and then I’ll go back to my ship.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“The Conclave might be coming.”
I went still.
“To find this place, my people had to run searches through old databases. Cross-reference property records, territory archives, anything that might point to where Torek disappeared.” He kept his voice level.
No drama in it. Just information. “If the Conclave is running their own investigation into the Regalia, they could trace the same data I did. Different methods, but the same result.”
“Could.”
“I don’t know for certain. But I’ve stayed alive this long by assuming the worst.” He spread his hands slightly. An admission of uncertainty. “If I could find this place through records and cross-referencing, so can anyone else with resources and motivation. The Conclave has both.”
I studied his face. Gray skin, sharp features, black markings curving across his cheekbones. Red eyes that gave nothing away.
He wasn’t lying. I’d learned to spot liars when I was young, back before Torek found me. This Vinduthi believed what he was saying.
That didn’t mean I had to care.
“That’s your problem,” I said. “Not mine. You’re the one who came looking.”
“And if I hadn’t, someone else would have. Eventually.” He held my gaze. “The Conclave doesn’t give up. They don’t forget. Whatever Torek was protecting, they’ve been hunting it for a long time. I just got here first.”
“There’s nothing for you here. Or anyone else.” I picked up the feed bucket. “Get off my land.”
He didn’t argue. Didn’t push. Just nodded once and turned back toward his ship.
I watched him go. Turnip watched too, a low rumble in his chest.
“Don’t,” I told him. “Let him leave.”
Turnip made a sound that might have been disappointment. I scratched behind his ear and went back to work.
The water reclamation pump failed two hours later.
I heard it first. The hum that had been background noise for years suddenly stuttered, coughed, and went silent. By the time I reached the pump house, water was already pooling on the floor.
“No. No, no, no.”
I dropped to my knees beside the unit. The housing was hot to the touch. The intake valve was clogged with sediment, which explained the overheating. And one of the seals had cracked, which meant water was leaking into the motor assembly.
I could fix it. I’d fixed it before, three times in the last year alone.
But the seal needed replacing, not patching.
I’d ordered a new one six weeks ago. The supply shipments to this backwater came when they came, and for the last three months they hadn’t come at all.
Delayed, lost off a manifest, rerouted to somewhere that mattered more. The usual excuses.
And now here I was, on my knees in spreading water, with years of careful work threatening to fall apart because the universe didn’t care about one woman on one forgotten moon.
I started pulling the housing apart anyway. Muscle memory. Maybe I could patch the seal one more time. Maybe it would hold long enough for the replacement to arrive.
The intake valve was worse than I’d thought. Packed solid with grit. I needed to clear it before I could even assess the rest of the damage, but the angle was wrong, and I couldn’t get enough leverage with just two hands.
“I can hold that if you need to work on the valve.”
I didn’t jump. Didn’t reach for my weapon. Just went very still.
He was standing in the doorway of the pump house. Hands visible. Not coming closer.
“I heard the pump fail from the ship,” he said. “Recognized the sound.”
“You recognized the sound of a water reclamation pump failing.”
“Torek’s first lesson. A warrior who can’t maintain their equipment is a warrior who dies of thirst in the desert.” He tilted his head slightly, the light glinting off the small horns that ran back from his temples. “Or something like that. It’s been a while.”
I stared at him. He stared back. Neither of us moved.
The water kept spreading across the floor.
“Fine,” I said. “Hold this housing. Don’t touch anything else.”
He moved into the pump house. Careful. No sudden movements. He crouched beside me and took hold of the housing where I indicated, bracing it at the angle I needed.
I turned back to the valve and started clearing the sediment. Neither of us spoke. The work was delicate, requiring focus. I couldn’t afford to think about the Vinduthi crouched next to me, so near that I could smell him. Something clean and sharp, not unpleasant.
The valve came free. I set it aside and started examining the seal.
“Cracked,” I said. Mostly to myself.
“How bad?”
“Bad enough.” I sat back on my heels. “I can patch it. Might hold for a week, might hold for a day. The replacement I ordered should have been here a month ago.”
“I have adhesive compound on my ship. Military grade. It won’t replace the part, but it should hold longer than a standard patch.”
I looked at him.
“I’m not offering a trade,” he said. “I’m offering sealant. Because your pump is broken and I have what you need to fix it.”
“And you want nothing in return.”
“I want you to not die of dehydration before you decide whether to trust me.” That almost-expression again. Not quite a smile. “Self-interest.”
I should have said no. Should have sent him back to his ship and figured out the pump on my own. That’s what I would have done yesterday. That’s what the smart, careful part of me was screaming to do right now.
But my pump was broken. And he had what I needed.
“Get the sealant,” I said. “And don’t touch anything else in that ship of yours. If I see you pulling out a weapon, Turnip eats you.”
“Understood.”
He left. I sat in the spreading water and waited.
He came back ten minutes later with a small tube of compound. Handed it to me without comment. Then crouched beside the pump again and held the housing while I applied the sealant to the cracked seal.
We worked in silence. The compound set quickly. I reassembled the housing, cleared the last of the sediment from the lines, and powered up the pump.
It hummed to life. Steady. Strong.
“Thank you,” I said. The words felt strange in my mouth.
He nodded once. Stood. Didn’t push his advantage. Didn’t say ‘see, you need me’ or anything else that would have made me want to shoot him.
“I’ll be at my ship,” he said. “If you need anything else.”
He walked out of the pump house. I watched him go, same as before. Turnip materialized at my side, pressing against my leg.
“I know,” I told him. “I don’t trust him either.”
But I didn’t tell the Vinduthi to leave.
I went back to my chores, and he went back to his ship, and the uneasy silence stretched between us.