Chapter 23
23
The fallout from what would go down in history on the ship as Podgate was minimal, with the general consensus of all beings involved including some form of that was the best night of my life . Not necessarily surprising, considering the typical state of affairs on deck thirty-six. The final rule on the pod malfunction—excessive overuse—didn’t surprise me either. All the same, more stringent safety measures were being installed on all pleasure pods throughout the ship today.
Also a casualty of excessive overuse, I’d woken up brutally sore and completely worked, like I’d run a marathon—or had gotten fucked through one. At least Freddie wasn’t faring much better. He’d commed me to check in, admitting he hadn’t been able to get out of bed until the three anti-nox tabs he’d taken kicked in.
Despite the pain—and the bouts of staring off into space whenever the sense memory of being taken so many times, in so many ways, and for so long, invaded my brain—I still had a job to do. Today, that job entailed first having breakfast with Sonia, Sai, and Lena in their pod, where we’d discussed their lingering security concerns while I’d tried and failed to solve Sai’s newest puzzle. And now, because somehow this was my life, I was on my way to pick up the gigantic, hairy, and indescribably stinky Kravaxian bovine I’d miraculously secured before FFK day.
As I approached airlock A-6, the sharp, musty odor seeping into the hallway was enough to put a Gorbie off their lunch—and Gorbies thought fermented bog slugs were a delicacy. Burying my nose in the crook of my elbow, I pressed my thumb onto the techPad to sign the shipping receipt before gingerly accepting the kurot’s lead rope from the relieved-looking postal droid.
There were times in a being’s life when the realization that they were in way over their head felt as tangible as the ground beneath their feet. Walking out of the docking bay, pretending I had an ounce of control over a two-ton ungulate with a rope half the size of my wrist, was without question one of those times. Especially when she kept shying sideways at every guest that walked by, every digpic on the wall, every time the air conditioners cycled on.
“Need help with that?”
Wheeling around halfway to the Cosmic Spectacle stables, I spotted Makenna walking toward me.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” I said, and I would have fallen to my knees if it wouldn’t have put my head at the beast’s mouth. “Do you know anything about kurots? She keeps trying to eat my hair. And stars above, she smells.”
“Well, no,” Makenna said with a low, throaty laugh. “Not really. But I have been taking care of Dave for the last week, so…” She shrugged. “Heading to the stables?”
“Stars willing,” I replied.
“She’s cute,” Makenna said, taking the lead from me. “ Shaggy. But yeesh .” Her nose scrunched. “She does stink. Like cheese left out in the sun.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever get the scent out of my clothes.” I sniffed my sleeve, trying not to gag. “And don’t let her near your hair.”
Pulling her braids over her shoulder, Makenna said, “Thanks for the warning.”
With each step that drew us closer to the stables, the temptation to ask her about how things were going with Chan bubbled up inside me. But considering that every single effort I had ever made to meddle in Chan’s love life had failed miserably, I held my tongue. Or I tried to.
“How long will you be staying with us, Makenna?”
Pulling a braid the kurot had somehow managed to get in its mouth free, she muttered, “Gross,” while shaking a string of drool from her hand. “We’re here until we dock in Portis.”
“That long?” Interesting . “You’ll be here for New Year’s, then.”
“I will. Does the Ignisar celebrate?”
I scoffed. “If you thought the Fire Ball was something…”
“Better than the Fire Ball?” Her brows rose. “Is that possible?”
With a small laugh—and a huge inward smirk—I said, “I’m glad you’re staying. It was nice seeing you and Chan out together the other night. He’s always working. It takes something, or someone, extraordinary to get him to take a break. I certainly never manage to do it.” Oops , that was definitely meddling.
Slowing, turning her head toward me, she said, “Can I ask you something, Sunny?”
“Of course. ”
“Why hasn’t Chan…? Why does he still…? Why won’t he…?” She stalled out, her expression turning plaintive.
“Why is he still paralyzed?”
While her lips made a tight line, she nodded.
Modern medicine could repair the damage to Chan’s spine. But—as he’d confided in me a few years ago while we’d watched sunrise sim over an empty bottle of Venusian bourbon—his injury was important to him.
“Has he told you how he got hurt?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve never asked.”
“He’d been a lieutenant in the Asteroid Belt Wars for over a decade,” I said. “Until there was an ambush on the asteroid he was ordered to secure for LunaCorp. The fallout was catastrophic. Only he and a handful of his soldiers survived. I asked him once why he kept his injury. He told me that the soldiers he’d lost could no longer breathe or laugh or love or have children or grandchildren, and he could no longer walk. I think he feels that keeping his injury is a small price to pay so that he never forgets their sacrifice.”
“ Saints ,” Makenna said. “I guess I understand why he would feel that way. But still, does he honestly think they’d want that from him? Doesn’t he want to move on?”
My brows knit together, my shoulders hitching at her tone. I was sure that Chan knew his battalion wouldn’t have wanted him to carry the weight of their loss forever. I was also sure that it didn’t matter. Because Chan wasn’t ready to put that weight down yet. Maybe he never would be. Maybe it was unfair, even cruel, to expect a being to simply move on because a certain amount of time had passed. Because maybe the sun would burn out before that certain amount was even close to enough. Maybe some weights couldn’t be put down, as impossible to shed as one’s own skin. Maybe? —
The kurot blew a heart-stopping snort at a passing cleaning drone, her bushy legs jumping wide, her big, black nostrils flaring, red-brown eyes wide and rolling.
“Hush,” Makenna said, soothing the beast while I slammed my hand over my thundering heart.
Eventually deciding that the tiny cleaning drone wasn’t a mortal threat, the kurot shook herself out from nose to tail, flinging a thick string of slobber across the portrait of Brock Karlovich on the wall beside us.
“We’d better get her locked up before she sees a compactor droid and passes out from shock,” I said, forcing a laugh, forcing my memories down, back into the dark where they belonged. Where they were safe.
After leading the kurot into the stables, Makenna handed its lead rope over to a stable hand I’d never seen before. He was a young, rangy human with a beak of a nose who accepted the rope like it was a rotten fish.
“What the hell is this thing?” he asked, his accent placing him squarely from New Earth, New York. “Looks like a cow on steroids and, ugh , smells like shit.”
“It’s a kurot,” I told him. “And it will need to be milked twice a day.”
“What?” His revulsion intensified when the cow on steroids sneezed in his face.
“By hand,” I added, and because I didn’t feel like ruining this kid’s day even more, I chose not to say for Kravaxian bathwater .
While Makenna and I walked out of the stables, I squeezed her hand. “Thank you for your help, darling. You are a lifesaver.”
“Anytime,” she insisted, waving me off with a quick flick of her wrist. But color rose into her cheeks.
Never able to resist capitalizing on a blush, I tilted my head. “Chan was right,” I said, studying her. “You do have the most magnificent eyes. And he described them perfectly, like liquid amber poured into a bright-blue sea.”
“He…said that?” she asked, her lovely eyes flaring.
I smiled, nodded, and crossed my fingers behind my back that my meddling might actually work this time.
“Do I look okay?” Garran asked. Taking a night off from his customary yellow coveralls, he was devastating in a fitted black suit and a silver mask with a sun on one side and two intersecting half-moons on the other. Behind the mask, a healthy smudge of black eyeliner made his eyes glow a deep, electric purple.
“Stunning.” I kissed my fingers and flung them into the air. “Absolute perfection. Are you ready?”
Rubbing a hand over his freshly shaved chin, he said, “I think so. We have been speaking over our VCs at night, Kasa and I. After her mother goes to sleep.”
“Ooh, do tell,” I encouraged.
His cheeks turned a deep burgundy. Two for two with the blushing today. I gave myself a mental high five.
“She is funny. And we both love the same flowers. When we get back to Argos, I will plant an entire field of tulips on my farm, in a rainbow pattern, just for her. And she is proud.” His eyes softened behind his mask. “She is like you—proud, competent. I like that in a partner.”
Now it was my turn to blush. “Garran, I’m not sure you’ll need my help at all tonight. I think you’ve got this.”
“No,” he said, panicked. “I need you. Please. This is too important. I will mess it up. ”
“Fair enough,” I said, raising my hands. “Your wish is my command.”
After a beat, he asked, “Is Freddie coming?”
“I’m on my way to pick him up.” I spread my arms out wide. “How do I look?” When I’d opened my closet this evening, I’d dug it out, hoping it wouldn’t be too wrinkled. It felt risky, sliding back into my favorite little black dress, this time on purpose. But some risks were worth taking.
“Beautiful,” he said. “You look beautiful. Freddie will be pleased.”
I coughed. “What? I’m not wearing it for Fred?—”
Garran’s booming laughter rattled the walls. “You are trying to lie. But you are not good at it.”
“I beg your pardon. I am an excellent liar.”
“I do not think so.” He ducked his chin, lowered his voice. “Can I tell you something?”
When a being as large and earnest as Garran asked a question like that, the only possible response was “of course.”
“You and Freddie are drawn to each other. It’s as obvious as poppies in the snow. And yet you try to hide it. Deny it. Try, poorly , to lie about it. Why?”
My mouth swung open.
He stepped closer, covering my entire shoulder with his big hand. “I have upset you. You look like an infant after dunking day.”
Closing my mouth, I shook my head.
“I did not mean to make you uncomfortable. But you and Freddie,” he continued, his eyes going soft, “there is worth between you. Most beings do not know this, but on Argos, worth has more than one meaning. It can mean the way two bodies fit together. But on a deeper level, it means the way two hearts fit together, two lives. You may not see it yet, but you and Freddie, you fit. You have worth .” He smirked. “And not only in the obvious way.”