CHAPTER 9
CELESTE
The next morning, I’m aware of being moved, and a cool breeze across my skin in the darkness. It’s quickly replaced with the cozy warmth of Razul’s sling. Rhythmic, gentle movement lulls me back to sleep.
A wash of light finally wakes me as Razul’s large, gentle hand rubs my cheek.
I glance up to see affection on his face, lit by warm, pure light.
He turns me toward the source: a gorgeous, blazing sunrise over the desert.
I gasp as I watch the desert come to life, rolling dunes cast in solid gold beneath a sky of flame.
Razul speaks, and I reach toward my translator, but he pins my arm to my side.
I relax and listen to the tones of his voice. I don’t understand what he says… but I also do. He’s reminiscing. Speaking with affection of his daily routines. Telling me about the desert he loves so much.
Why, though? When he knows I can’t parse the words?
It’s the same reason I used to talk to the office fish when I fed them, back in my database maintenance job. Why, even back on Earth, I would chat with the stray cats I offered little bits of my tuna sandwich to at lunchtime.
Companionship. Affection. Love poured out on a creature for no reason other than it exists, and it’s there, and you find it cute.
Emotion tightens in my chest, and I can’t tell if it’s relief or fear.
Somewhere in the sky, beyond this blazing sunrise, photons that once bounced off of Earth still journey through space.
And somewhere in this desert, beyond the warm wall of Razul’s chest that holds the night’s chill at bay, is a space-time telescope that may be able to find a few of those photons.
A trace of something that no longer exists.
A trace of home.
I’ve hardly let myself think that word in twenty years.
Tears spill down my cheeks, but my breath doesn’t catch. It finds the rhythm of Razul’s, slow and steady. His heart beats behind me, and I tuck my ear against its gentle pulse as his fingers play through my hair.
I could ask about the telescope, but doing so would require a pause in this game that we’re playing.
I don’t want to pause. And, more surprisingly, I find I don’t really want to see the telescope, either.
A glimpse of wavering light won’t bring Earth back.
And, if I’m honest with myself, I lost my sense of home even before the cataclysm.
The people who were supposed to nurture me hardly cared if I lived or died, let alone how I felt.
But Razul cares.
And his pulse and his warmth are a lot more present, a lot more real than a few stray photons.
Still, do I really belong here? Will Razul truly want this arrangement long-term when I have so little to offer?
Only one thing is certain: I’m here now. Wrapped in Razul’s arms, surrounded by his breath and pulse, watching a flood of light climb its way up the violet sky…
I want to tell him I appreciate this comfort. I want to ask him how he feels about the trial period: How is it going? What questions and concerns does he have, and how might I address them?
I look up at his face, gilded by the rising sun. The cut of his jaw makes my stomach go tight, and his eyes seem to glimmer with endless depths, as if they contain galaxies.
And then I suddenly realize: Razul has already given me the answers I seek.
His heart beats steadily, unburdened by concern, and his brow remains soft, unbothered by questions.
He senses my gaze and looks down at me, expression as warm as the dawn’s gentle rays.
Emotion overwhelms me again at the intensity of being perceived, and as a blush rises to my cheeks, I bury my face in my hands.
He chuckles and ruffles my hair, then gently presses me to his chest. I sink into his warmth again, and as his voice rumbles beneath me, my anxiety melts away like fog at daybreak.
We watch the sunrise until the dawn light covers the flowing dunes.
Razul presses me to his chest as he stands, then takes flight. He heads to an area downriver of his home, pausing by a broad wooden structure on the riverbank.
As best as I can tell, the structure operates like some kind of elevated chicken coop for bristly, dog-sized animals that graze on potted cactuses. They look like a cross between a porcupine and a peccary, with small faces and squinty eyes. Razul carefully selects a few animals from the group.
When I understand where this is going, I duck my head into the sling, tucking against Razul’s chest and listening to his heartbeat.
The death of the prey is silent, which means it’s painless.
Razul takes flight again. When I hear the sound of sneezing and tails slapping against sand, I peek out to see the herd of caimites eagerly awaiting their food.
They stand in a circle, jostling each other and flicking their powerful tails, but they wait patiently for Razul without snapping at him or the prey animals.
Razul speaks to them the same way he speaks to me. They blink and rhythmically tap the ground in response.
He distributes the supplemental prey to the largest members of the group—the breeding females, I assume—and what scraps they leave behind are devoured quickly by the rest.
The raised platforms must be to keep the vibrations away from the ground so the caimites don’t eat their extra prey too early.
After the animals eat, Razul strides among them, affectionately rubbing snouts and tails. They sneeze in response, sending up little puffs of sand.
Razul’s sharp eyes spot a little black lump I would have missed, and in one swift motion, he plucks the parasite from between the caimite’s scales and crushes it.
He finds two more little freeloaders amongst the herd, but the rest are clear.
After that, he takes to the wing again, flying low over the sand to trace the caimites’ territory.
He gathers up the partially rotted skeleton of a furry creature in a waxed canvas bag that blocks the smell, then stops by a watering hole, plucking a spiky purple plant and adding it to the trash parcel.
He flies these offensive materials to a compost pile, tossing the juiciest of the bones to a stark white carrion bird perching on a cactus nearby.
Razul works until the sun climbs to late morning and the day’s heat rolls in, at which point he carries me back to his house.
He slides my sweaty body into the green stone pool, leaning low over it to splash water on himself, washing away the sweat.
I stand on the bottom of the pool and reach for him, sliding my hands along his abs. They tense under my touch, and my fingers dig eagerly in, earning a shuddering breath from Razul.
He smiles down on me, then dumps a bucket of water on my head.
I sputter, shocked.
Razul pulls me over and massages soap into my hair, earning my forgiveness. After he dries us both off, he rubs me down with lotion. His hands feel so good on my body, always firm without being too rough. When he massages my breasts, I moan happily.
Then he repeats the process with a mineral paste that leaves my skin pasty white.
I haven’t seen anything like it since back on Earth—is it sunscreen? There was no need for it on the human city ships, where the atrium glass already blocked all harmful radiation.
He sprays a puff of that mystery substance under my nose again, soothing my sinuses. I won’t suffer even the slightest discomfort living in the desert, it seems.
I try my hardest not to sneeze, and when I fail, Razul laughs and ruffles my damp hair. He then carries me out to the riverside and sets me down in an area where plants that look like squat, chubby palms, barely taller than I am, cast an area of green shade.
The sand is soft under my feet, and Razul nods encouragingly, flicking a few of the fine grains playfully at my feet.
I take a tentative step down toward the river, and there’s no reprimand, so I sit down on a warm rock and stick my feet in the cool water.
It feels amazing.
I lie back and rub my arms against the soft, silky sand.
Then I hesitate; it’s going to be a nightmare getting this out of my hair later.
Which means Razul will have to comb my hair for hours.
Impulse overwhelms me, and a mischievous smile rises to my lips as I roll around even more enthusiastically in the sand.
Razul looks on with the affectionate patience of a dog owner watching their beloved golden retriever jump gleefully into a puddle of mud.
The affection of an owner.
I’m owned.
Warmth tingles at my core, and I wiggle into a beam of sun, letting the heat soak into my body.
I’ll need to be sure to reapply sunscreen after—
Wait.
No. That’s not my problem anymore.
I take a nap in the sunbeam, and when I stir, cold anxiety flickers through my chest. I turn back—and Razul is there, still watching over me. He’s buried his beetle half most of the way under the sand, likely to keep cool since he’s in the sun, and he weaves some dried palm fronds together.
When he sees my eyes on him, he trills something and coos at me.
I don’t know what the words are, but if it’s anything like what I’d say to the stray cats I fed, it’s probably something like, what a cute little thing you are. Enjoying the sun?
I beam up at him, stretching happily, then roll myself into the cool water.
It feels amazing.
The current is gentle here, so I can swim lazily upstream and stay in more or less the same spot.
A few many-legged amphibians scurry away when they see me, and tiny silver worms swim through the water. One of them nibbles my toes, and I laugh as it tickles.
Razul clicks his tongue, and I turn to look at him. He’s holding out a handful of that green citrus fruit I like so much.
It makes me realize how thirsty I am, and I clamber over to his side. As I approach, he repeats a phrase. It’s like a little song, a warm note with a click at the end. I think it’s his name for me in his language.
I’m surprised that I don’t wonder what it means—I hear the warmth in it, and that’s all that matters.