Chapter 14
Torian trudged back to the Destitute, feeling numb.
“Are you taking finals soon?” the student who’d handed her the puppy asked. “Or are you a professor?”
They were wearing another flowy outfit, but this one had loose slacks and a soft-looking linen shirt. It was also embroidered with leaves, which Torian was beginning to suspect was either a fashion trend or a uniform.
“I’m—just visiting.” She choked on the word.
“Oh, what town? I’m from Bayside.”
Torian couldn’t do this. She gently handed the puppy back. “I’m from Colony 13.”
The student’s eyes widened, and their hands tightened around the puppy almost protectively. “A colony?”
The tone was aghast, as if Torian might twist them into something impure, just by standing here.
It was both irritating and devastating. She suddenly didn’t want to talk with this lucky Rhymarran kid, who had educational opportunities and breathed clean air and played with puppies while Torian and Celise slummed around in a grimy space station.
“Thanks for letting me play with the puppy,” she whispered. “He’s cute.” And she fled, rejoining the tree-lined path, moving swiftly toward the docks.
She didn’t encounter Dess, the University representative, but as she neared the Destitute, another vessel caught her eye. It was sleek, black, and definitely not supposed to be here. And yet, Zenthielutos’s ship was perched adjacent to her own, stoic and silent.
Fuck. They followed her here.
He might actually pry this ship from me now, Torian thought.
She’d imagined exploring the galaxy with Celise and Moss, but—convincing Celise to come to Rhymarra had already been a struggle. Convincing her to leave everyone, everything, to visit new, alien solar systems in a starship barely big enough for one would be impossible.
Which meant that her sister would be consigned to Colony 13 for the rest of her shortened life.
Torian would stay close, probably helping with the clinic when Celise’s breathing inevitably got worse.
Moss would be trapped in yet another hangar, biding time until Torian’s obligations ended in a funeral.
Fresh tears streaked down Torian’s cheeks. She wanted to fight to keep Moss—but it wouldn’t have a better life with her. At this point, if it agreed to go with Dutch and Zen, she couldn’t blame it.
She just hoped they’d drop her back off at Colony 13 first.
As Torian approached the Destitute, the cargo doors slid open seamlessly.
She climbed the ramp and stepped inside, but didn’t have the energy to talk about her failure.
Not yet. She kicked off her boots and socks, letting her toes curl into a natural, spongy moss carpet for potentially the last time.
Even from here, she could see Dutch puttering around her kitchen.
Well, his kitchen.
Feeling a thousand years old, she climbed the stairs and collapsed onto the worn couch adjacent to the kitchenette. “Hi,” she said quietly. “I’m surprised you found me.”
“Considering you told us exactly where you were going, and then we followed you here, I’m not.
” Dutch sounded cheerful. He had found one of her prepackaged meals: noodles tossed in a cheesy sauce.
Surprisingly, it looked and smelled delicious—Torian was vaguely impressed he knew how to cook human food.
But then again, nylarians were geniuses, so.
He scooped them into a bowl, then offered them to Torian. “I assume you’re hungry?”
She might never eat again. “No. Thank you.”
Dutch raised a bushy eyebrow. His cobalt eyes were nothing like the tou’siil’s—which sparkled with hive connection and were flat and dull without it.
Dutch’s eyes were similar to a human’s, and they softened as a smile tilted his lips.
His hair follicles glowed a steady blue now, which was oddly comforting.
“Rough day?”
Torian’s nose was stuffy from crying. She wiped it with her sleeve. “How much did Moss tell you?”
“Very little. I would not betray your trust,” Moss said overhead. “However, Dutch is competent at determining outcomes.”
“Thanks, Moss,” Dutch called.
“That was an observation. Do not take it as a compliment.”
Dutch sighed, waving that away. He set the noodles in front of Torian, right beside her half-finished model of the Destitute.
The ship Torian had thought would be hers forever—but now she braced herself, waiting for the inevitable moment this alien took it back.
Torian glumly stared at the bowl of cheesy noodles, but didn’t move.
Dutch dropped to the couch, positioning himself in her peripherals. “Eat that, please. Let me guess. The University’s current headmaster wouldn’t allow you to take their exams.”
“He said I was too old,” Torian muttered.
Dutch was tall enough that he could fully lean back on the couch, which explained why it was deep enough that Torian could fold herself on it comfortably.
He hooked one arm over the back of the cushions.
“If it helps, Captain Razner, Rhymarra is known outside of this solar system as a stiff, impossible entity. They think they’re nearing CSS admission—but the fact that they’re willing to separate from the rest of your species to achieve it told the Council everything.
Rhymarrans are a poor reflection of your kind. ”
“They’re the best of our kind.” It was a mantra she’d been taught since childhood.
“Oh, that isn’t true.”
“Truer than us on the colonies.”
Dutch shook his head, eyes sparkling. “Also incorrect. I’ve been watching humans for millennia. The best of your kind aren’t defined by a birthplace or exam score. They’re individuals. People who make selfless choices, even if they’re hard, to better the lives of others.”
“My data proves that you are one of those individuals, Torian,” Moss intoned overhead.
She laughed, the sound watery. “That’s flattering. Untrue, but flattering.”
“My assessments are ninety-seven point five four percent accurate. Do not question them.”
Hearing that she might be special less than an hour after Headmaster Nuun told her the opposite was giving her whiplash. She picked up the bowl of noodles, taking a small bite. It was probably very good, creamy cheese mingling with vegetables, but it tasted bland to Torian right now.
“Thanks for the pep talk,” she said around the pasta. “Are you taking back your ship?” Because that was the important thing right now.
To her surprise, Dutch pushed off the couch, stretching as if there wasn’t a care in the world. His voice was mild. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare; Moss might deplete the oxygen overnight.”
“That is also an accurate assessment,” Moss said.
Torian looked at Dutch, then at the cameras overhead, but no one said anything else. Zen wasn’t here, either, so if Dutch’s plan was to bodily remove her from the starship, he’d come unprepared.
Or maybe he was telling the truth, and one simple crisis had been averted.
Torian swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Okay … then why did you follow us to Rhymarra? Just to—to laugh when I inevitably failed?”
“I don’t make it a habit to kick folks when they’re down,” Dutch said, and his easygoing manner had vanished in favor of something far more serious. “Captain Razner, Moss and I would like to offer you an alternate option to Rhymarra.”
The alternative was flying around the galaxy in the Destitute. “Celise won’t live here—”
“Not here. Vaesa.” Dutch spread out his hands.
Everything in Torian went cold. She was no longer gloomy, despairing—now hope flickered like the spark to ignite a blowtorch. She pushed the pasta away, pivoting in her chair to meet his gaze better.
“What do you mean, Vaesa?”
The alien shrugged. “These humans don’t want you—but that old space station needs you.
” He stepped back to the table beside the kitchenette, retrieving something off the counter.
Torian hadn’t noticed it before, but a section of Moss’s colony had been meticulously cut and stored inside a clear container.
“You’re stealing a piece of Moss?” Torian spluttered. “You can’t do that!”
“This is the correct response in ninety-nine percent of other situations. In this percentage, I gifted him a thriving part of my colony.” Through the speakers, Moss sounded pleased. “Without my support, Vaesa will rot. Kerracia does not realize this, because trees are stupid.”
Dutch cleared his throat. “Vaesa’s a big space station, with multiple auxiliary domes. You haven’t seen even a quarter of it. All of those secondary domes once housed thriving biomes, but without anyone to manage them, they’re falling out of balance one by one. And frankly, that’s a damn shame.”
The dots finally connected. Her eyes widened. “You actually want us to move to Vaesa?”
She’d considered it on the space station, and discarded it just as fast. No matter how desperate she was, how desperate Celise was … that space station wasn’t hers to inhabit. It was a monument of nylarian culture and beliefs, half-frozen in time.
And now, the last surviving nylarian was just handing the metaphorical keys to her.
“Yes. Hence, this.” Dutch lifted the container of moss. Or rather … Moss, capital M. “As the biomes collapse in the auxiliary domes, remaining oxygen is cycled into the center dome to protect the kerrac tree. But even that will fail in the next few decades.”
“Why are you concerned about this now?” Torian asked, confused. “It sounds like that’s been happening for hundreds of years.”
“I haven’t been back to Vaesa in over a thousand,” Dutch said. “Not until you stole my ship.”
“I bought your ship. And it basically kidnapped us to get us there.” Torian leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms stubbornly.
“Semantics. The point is, I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten—and now, it can’t be ignored. Moss is the last great nylarian invention. Its colony grows faster and produces more oxygen than normal moss. It will take time, but Moss is fully capable of revitalizing Vaesa.”
Torian had been calling it Vey-ee-sah after Moss’s pronunciation, but Dutch’s accent twisted it into something more like Vay-ah-sah.
What would it be like to know a language, and then live long enough to see it fade into oblivion? To watch a space station—once a bustling hub of his species—rot under disuse? To know his entire culture, his family and friends, abandoned him for something new?
And in the end, only Dutch remained, the last vestige of a species no one remembered.
Torian couldn’t even imagine.
“Are you sure you want me trespassing in that station?” Torian couldn’t proceed without knowing that answer.
Dutch smiled, and his enthusiasm cooled into something eons older, something calm and sad. The lights dancing along his hair faded.
“My dear, I have been a very poor representation of my people. As a result, I have avoided that station, that planet, longer than you can imagine.” He drew a slow breath.
“My time is nearly finished here. Nothing would please me—or my people—more than helping revitalize something that never should have suffered in the first place.”
Oh.
It was hard to swallow past the sudden lump in Torian’s throat. She coughed, wiping her eyes properly now. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Your input matters little,” Moss said matter-of-factly. “I am going to overtake Kerracia and laugh as she wilts beneath my moss.”
Dutch rolled his eyes. “We’ve been over this, Moss. Kerracia is a valuable symbol—”
“A wilting symbol, soon.”
“Can I bring my sister?” Torian interrupted.
Dutch laughed lightly. “Ah, was that not obvious? Apologies; lots to remember, lots to forget. Yes, of course, your sister is welcome, and any other human you’d like to bring. You are social beings—it’d be rather cruel to offer you a ‘gift’ of human isolation.”
Torian’s eyes widened, and she forgot herself for a moment. “Any human? Anyone?”
“That space station is large, and will likely need a thriving community to restore. So, yes. Anyone.”
Amelia, Torian’s brain supplied, whispering it like a prayer. It was so stupid; Amelia had moved on. And even if she hadn’t, Torian couldn’t imagine her ex-captain being tempted by a derelict space station in a dangerous nebula.
On the other hand, it was a safe, unknown location. Even if the nebula wasn’t destroying every starship on sight—provided they had the right flight path, evidently—it still held a protective reputation.
Vaesa was a smuggler’s paradise.
Not that Torian would want it devolving into that. But … if Amelia was interested, maybe they could discuss a more ethical use for her skill set and supply routes.
Or maybe this was all stupid, and Torian was just imagining her perfect home, complete with her not-dying sister and her maybe-interested ex. Torian stamped down those thoughts; she’d have to be strategic about how they built this new colony.
Especially when Dutch added, “Of course, Zen and I will help restore Vaesa where we can.”
That was actually a relief, knowing she wouldn’t have to figure out this massive undertaking alone. Hopefully Zen’s draic crew were as nice as he was—otherwise she’d have a hard time convincing any human to venture to that space station.
Still, she couldn’t believe her luck.
A new home. For her, for Celise, maybe for Amelia and her crew. Maybe for all of the people struggling to breathe on the colony space stations, or all the wayward souls expelled from Rhymarra because they failed an exam.
The possibilities were limitless, and Torian’s mind spun.
But Dutch was clearly waiting for an answer, and Torian really didn’t have a choice. Rhymarra was out, the Destitute was short-term at best. No matter how hard it would be, no matter the challenges, Vaesa was the next best option.
She just had to hope Dutch was as honest as he seemed.
“Moss,” she asked hesitantly. “Do you think this is a good idea?”
“I proposed it,” Moss replied, its mechanical voice filtering with pride.
Well. She trusted Moss, anyway. So, she nodded and held out her hand, a visual representation to seal the deal. And unlike the folk on Rhymarra, Dutch reached out and shook her hand.
“Let’s make intergalactic history,” he said.
When he put it like that, Torian couldn’t help but feel a little excited about this path forward.
After all, Vaesa just needed a little TLC …
And a lot of Moss.