Halley
Eot shakes his head, trying to loosen sand from his hair, then deftly swings up into his saddle.
As soon as he’s settled, he nudges his bimor to speed up, clearly wanting to ride alongside me.
Butterflies swarm my stomach, and I shift in my seat, feeling the still-damp gusset of my panties against my skin.
Why haven’t they dried yet? In this godforsaken heat?
I catch sight of Eot in the corner of my eye as he draws level with me.
He opens his mouth, maybe to insist I ask my private questions or maybe to ask some questions of his own—like why am I still perfuming now I know how sensitive adult Arrok noses are?
I don’t want to explain how I can’t seem able to help my physical response to his and Keelo’s nearness, even when Eot’s pheromones aren’t scenting the air and driving me to distraction.
So I frantically hunt around for another conversation topic to derail Eot before he can start speaking.
“The weather!” I practically shout my idea, and my bimor flicks her scaly ears in annoyance.
“What about the weather?” Eot asks, glancing up at the sky.
“Did you know that weather is the whole reason deserts exist?” At least on Earth. I’m guessing it’s the same on Lyd. “Did you know that, Rin?” I ask, looking behind at the slowest of the three bimors.
Rin stares back at me, not reacting.
My butterflies wilt at the sight of her innocent face.
Her cheeks are a lot rounder than either Eot’s or Keelo, betraying exactly how young she is.
Never before have I felt the need to squeeze anyone’s cheeks, but if Rin was within arm’s reach of me now, I’d be hard pressed to resist. She’s just so darn cute!
If only I could get her to smile.
Then I remember the way she rushed out of the cockpit back when Eot had said something about them never returning to their home planet.
I remember how she walked through the market looking like she’d never seen shops before.
And I remember how she showed me her bedroom and her tiny box of treasures that hadn’t really been treasures at all.
Her back is against Keelo’s chest, her upper body encircled by one of his large arms. Compared with him, she’s so small, so vulnerable.
And Keelo—he looks more like a warrior now than I’ve ever seen him, with his battleaxe strapped to his back, prepared to protect his charge.
He’s always so fucking grumpy. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t also kind—in his own way.
It isn’t a bright, in-your-face kindness like Eot’s.
It doesn’t shine from his eyes when he looks at me or fill his voice when he speaks.
It’s a quiet type of kindness, so quiet it’s hard to spot unless you’re searching for it.
“It’s really interesting,” I say, filling the silence. “When you think about deserts. It’s got to do with the fact that hot air rises and because hot air can hold a lot more water in it than cold air.”
Most people think talking about the weather is boring. Not me.
“So much of a planet’s surface is affected by the weather. For example, we wouldn’t have these sand dunes without the wind.” I ramble on, making sure to keep my voice loud enough that Keelo and Rin can hear me, even when I straighten to face the front again.
I promised the guys I could be a good teacher to Rin and now is a time to be faithful to my word.
The landscape slowly changes the farther north we travel.
The dunes start to flatten with the stone underfoot becoming visible, covered in only a thin layer of sand.
While overhead, the dual suns reach the midpoint of the sky at the same time, the larger partially eclipsing the smaller in a sight my mom would’ve paid good money to see.
Momentarily losing my train of thought, I struggle to remember what I’d been planning on saying next. “Do you, er, think it’s possible to calculate how many, er, grains of sand there are covering the ground from here to the horizon?”
I also promised math after all.
I look back at Rin again. She’s still watching me. She’s even leaning forward in the saddle.
Keelo is staring at me too, his eyes narrowed and a tight muscle jumping in his jaw. He hasn’t said anything since I started the lesson, which I decide to take as a positive sign, considering he’s never before refrained from voicing his objections to anything I’ve done that’s annoyed him.
“I personally don’t think we could be a hundred percent accurate,” I continue.
“But what if we were to count how many grains of sand there are in a space this small?” I hold up a hand to show Rin, the tip of my forefinger resting against the tip of my thumb, creating a circle about an inch in diameter.
“Do you think we could use that number to help us guess how much sand was in, say, one sand dune?”
I look to Eot. “What do you think?”
He swallows, his eyes lifting from their apparent study of my throat to meet my gaze, his expression hazy. “Think?”
I glance at his neck too. Is it possible to see pheromones? Would they dampen the cloth around his throat? Or are they microscopic odorants only, invisible to the human eye?
“Think…” I give my head a little shake. “About calculating how many grains of sand are in a dune, do you think it’s possible?”
“Hmm…” He gives my hypothetical question real consideration—or maybe that’s all show for Rin’s sake. Either way, I smile, and my butterflies take flight once more.
“What if we were to weigh a single grain and then weigh an evalu of sand?” he asks. “We could extrapolate from there.”
“Good point.” I agree and don’t fail to notice him sitting up a fraction straighter at the praise.
I don’t actually know what an “evalu” is, and there clearly isn’t an exact equivalent in English because it didn’t translate into an Earth-style measurement, but I’m guessing the logic is the same regardless of the measurement size.
“What do you think, Rin?” I risk asking her another direct question, knowing she probably won’t answer, and there’s no reply.
Except that I see her picking tiny grains of sand off her clothing and collecting them in the palm of one golden hand for closer examination.
The sight gives me butterflies for a whole different reason.