Stone in the Sky (12 page)

I quickly noted that the spaceport was a private one. It consisted of a single landing pad with an old empty-looking building covered with vines that crept up the side of the walls. An old Loor was sitting on the porch in a mechanic's jumpsuit eating the purple fruit I couldn't recognize and spitting out the seeds. He didn't look up at me when I approached him to ask if he was the person I was to meet. He just stuck his hand out and pointed to the exit.

Way down the fenced lane, I could see a hexagonal house. There was no one else waiting for me, so I headed toward it to meet whoever had called me here.

I dragged myself to the gate holding on to Trevor. It was a slow process.

Wherever I was it looked rural, as though I were far away from any urban center. I couldn't hear any of the busyness that a city or a close-by dense population made. There were only the sounds of insects, birds, wind, and the cries of animals on what I assumed was an unseen farm.

I took a deep breath. The air was real. Overwhelming. Sweet. Sticky. There were new smells everywhere. Chemicals from the landing pad. Dirt. Leaves. Rocks. Animal manure.

The sun was warm on my face. It felt so much like my sun. How had I managed with only Sunspa lamps? They were nothing compared to the real thing.

My legs shook as I stumbled forward. I was not sure that I could make my way down the lane by myself, and Trevor was too awkward to hang on to for long amounts of time. He rolled too fast for my slow steps. I let him go as I moved to the side of the road and was sick into the scrub-like grass. Then I pulled myself up to hang on to the fence posts and started dragging myself toward the house. It was a near impossible task. But I had no choice. The shuttle had taken off immediately after I left, as though it didn't want to be here any more than I did. It was already long gone.

Planet sickness.

That's what I was suffering from. I'd heard about it before, first in Kitsch Rutsok's and then in the Tin Star Café. Travelers were always laughing and telling stories about new space voyagers, who hadn't heeded the warnings of landing on new planets after long journeys.

It wasn't the gravity of the planet that was making it difficult for me to walk. Although it was slightly heavier than the Yertina Feray, I knew that was a little lighter than Earth. It was the sky I could not get used to. It was the birds. It was the wind. It was the trees. It was the sound that a planet makes. Even in the quiet of the country, it was deafening.

I was so used to the dome of the station that the sky troubled me. The largeness of it and the color, an unreal-looking indigo, confused me. It was as though the sky wanted to scoop me up and fold itself around me one million times.

As I got closer, I could see a Loor standing in the doorway of a house, observing me as I approached.

I stumbled again. My inner ear ached, and the ground in front of me spun. My balance was off. I felt a wave of vertigo wash over me. I gripped on to another fence post on the path to the house to steady myself. Trevor had stopped so that I could catch up. I pulled myself a little farther along the post, dizziness overwhelming me. When the fence ran out, I commanded Trevor to glide beside me, so I could find my balance. Eventually I stared at the ground, so I did not have to face the sky.

“How long have you been in space?”

I looked up. The Loor was female. She'd come down the road to meet me and was now offering me her hand. She was covered in scarves so I could not see her face or her antennae or the form of her body, but I could tell by her voice that she was female. Not that I cared. I gave her my hand, and she put her arm around my waist to help me walk toward the house. I was grateful that I had someone to lean on. Someone who knew how to go slow. Someone who walked, not rolled.

“Years?” she asked.

I nodded, unable to speak for fear of vomiting again. As we walked, it was as though I could feel the planet spinning on its axis. I could feel us orbiting the sun, which the Loor called Blan. Everything was moving.

“You'll be fine in a day or two. You've got planet sickness.”

I nodded.

“You'll get used to it.”

I nodded again, wanting to believe her. But I felt so sick that I had my doubts that this feeling would ever go away.

We reached the door at last, and she let me go in first as she opened it and ushered me inside.

“Please sit down. Food and drink will settle you.”

She disappeared as I sunk into the couch. I looked up, curious for a clue about where I was. Before my vertigo overtook me again, I noticed that the room was tastefully decorated with sleek angled furniture in all shades of blue. There were flowers on every available table space. In the corner there was a wooden sculpture of two Loors heads leaned into each other, antennae entwined. Red, yellow, and blue circular windows lined one wall. The sun streaming through them made beautiful hues on the floor.

She reappeared with a tray. Her scarves were a bit looser now, so I could see her face. She looked familiar.

Usually when I dealt with an alien, I knew within minutes what they wanted. On the Yertina Feray it was easy. But I could not begin to guess what this Loor wanted me here for. With the scarves on her head covering up her antennae and the loose shift she was wearing it was hard to read her body language. She could read everything about me. I tried to still my body movements and my facial tics so as to not give anything else away.

I realized I was in the presence of a master negotiator.

There was only one reason that she could possibly want me here. I must have said something that either spooked her or intrigued her when we spoke on the vidcall.

I had spoken to so many people the past two day cycles that I couldn't remember what I'd said to whom. So I couldn't imagine what I'd spun to get her interested in me.

When you are lost, be direct.
Heckleck's teachings reminded me. I broke my rule and spoke first.

“You're from the Office of Extraplanetary Excavations.”

“Yes,” she said, serving me a plate of snack-like items and a bowl with a steaming clear orange liquid. “My name is Hendala.”

“You severed the connection,” I said. Most of those I'd called had gotten me off quickly, but she had gone dark. There was a difference between hanging up and severing a connection.

“We're here talking now, aren't we?”

I nodded and took a sip of the warm liquid in front of me. It was a smoky broth that I knew Tournour was fond of.

“Why are we meeting here?”

She looked at me suspiciously.

“You are a Human unaffiliated with your own representative who was trying to make backroom deals about something that my office is not in charge of but would like to have a piece of. It would be inappropriate for me to meet with you in any kind of official capacity.”

“I didn't want to talk officially,” I said.

“What did you want?” she asked as she folded her long arms in front of her chest and leaned back in her chair as she took me in.

“I wanted a pass to get down to Bessen from Togni Station.”

“Where you would have raised many red flags and likely have been killed,” she said. Her antennae had not moved, and I knew that meant she was apprehensive about me.

“You don't know that,” I said. “I have a way of blending in.”

She laughed, and I could see her antennae had softened under her scarf, signaling that she was slightly more at ease with me.

“Do you even have papers?” she asked.

I shook my head in the way that Loor used to say no.

“You're not very smart. You're like a shosho in a glass shop. Causing havoc in its wake.”

It took a moment for the nanites to translate the word
shosho
, but I knew she meant some kind of large, lumbering dumb animal.

“A Human doesn't blend in on Bessen. There are far too few of you that are seen in public spaces. To have one rogue Human wandering around the city without an Imperium uniform the way some of you wander around space would be obvious.”

“I fit in on the Yertina Feray,” I said.

But I knew she was right. No matter how un-Human I felt sometimes, I could not deny my biology. I was a Human. I would stick out as I always had.

“You've been pressing and prodding every ministry on Bessen for a pass down from Togni Station,” she said. “Did you mean to draw that much attention to Earth? I've had twenty inquires about excavation possibilities there today.”

I sucked in my breath. It was one thing to ruin Brother Blue. It was another thing to condemn Earth. Before Earth Gov joined the Imperium, it had been isolationist and there was a policy to not accept anyone back who had left the planet. That was why the Wanderers, descendants of the first intergenerational ships, wandered and why I no longer had any great love for my planet since it had ignored me. Even now, return to Earth was only possible for those Humans who had left under Imperium rule, but the thought of it being harmed in any way was still unbearable to me. I should have been more careful.

“I just wanted a pass,” I said, opening my arms in front of me to show vulnerability.

She cocked her head to the side.

“Being loud in a time of quiet can have a disastrous effect.”

It sounded like something Heckleck would say. Something I would hate to admit was right.

“What would you have done with the pass once you were on Bessen?” she asked, her hands smoothing her skirt down.

“I meant to draw attention to the alin on Quint. To speak for the Yertina Feray Space Station. For the claimants.”

The claims were the only card I had.

Despite it making the room spin again, I leaned forward in my chair.

“What authority do you have to speak for a space station or for the people speculating on Quint? You don't even work there.”

I could see her antennae moving beneath the fabric of her shawl swaying from side to side in agitation.

“I am a citizen. I'm from the underguts,” I said, touching my heart.

“You're not even on their roster of citizens,” she said. “How did you come to be there?”

Her hand stabbed the air as she pointed at me.

“My colony ship left me there.”

“On its way to its colony?” she asked, leaning forward.

“Yes, but the ship exploded soon after, and I was declared dead.”

“So you're a dead Human with inside information,” Hendala said. “Still a shosho.”

She paused. I had to defend myself. I was not a shosho, whatever that was.

“Everyone on the Yertina Feray has dealt with me in some way before. I own and run a sweets, water, and salts shop.”

Her broad shoulders relaxed.

“Smart. Everyone longs for those homeworld things in deep space,” Hendala said. “Go on.”

“Before that, I lived in the underguts of the station. I ran errands and barters for a Hort named Heckleck. They couldn't trust him, but they could trust me. I strike a fair deal.”

Her antennae peeked from under her shawl and folded toward me in a way I remembered Tournour doing; it meant curiosity.

“So you're trusted by the low and the high?”

I nodded. Talking was still a little difficult. I took another sip of the broth.

“I know the way deals are made on the Yertina Feray,” I said. “I know how we survived before the money came. The speculators don't want to pay all the fees. I wanted to bring attention to that.”

She nodded.

“Before the rush, the Yertina Feray was a ghost town, and Quint was abandoned,” I said. “Now every wing has reopened. Ships arrive in droves every day.”

I had her interested. I could tell from the way that her body settled itself and her head turned that she was beginning to trust that I knew what I was talking about.

“Is the rush really that big?” she asked. “Certainly alin pollen and its medical use derivatives have become more available since this boom, but I haven't noticed anything along the lines of what you are saying.”

That surprised me. I had assumed from the cargo I'd seen on the Per ship that more would have followed.

“It's the new economy on the station,” I said.

She leaned back, taking it all in. I could see from the slight tics in her face and shift in color of the triangle between her antennae that she realized I was the one telling the truth about Quint and the alin.

“If it's truly that big a trove, then I understand why you would use the alin to tempt someone to get a pass down to Bessen.”

“Yes,” I said. “There is money to be made. And I do have connections. I am friendly with Reza Wilson, the being who discovered that the alin had bloomed big.”

“I don't doubt it,” she said. “I've heard he's Human and has made a fortune.”

Now I was the one who blushed. I'd omitted his species so that there would be no prejudice, but of course if everyone had heard about the alin, then they'd heard that it was a stranded Human who had discovered it.

“If it's as big a bloom as you say, then I'm surprised that there are not others who have reaped as much wealth as he has.”

“It has to do with the tithe the Imperium is extracting on the claims,” I said.

“Claims are the same as excavation rights. They are simply made by the one who finds the deposit; the area is limited to what labor they themselves or a small group of the same species can do. The land has to be actively worked for the claim to stick. On most planets, it's normal for the claimants to pay a small tax to the landholder.”

“Quint has been abandoned for over two hundred years,” I said. “By your own laws, that reverts a planet to non-status. Therefore no previous claims can be repossessed and no tax should be imposed.”

I knew this because everyone in the Tin Star Café had said it a million times. The boomers knew their history when it came to non-status planets. It was why there was a rush. A true planetary land grab was a rare thing in these hyper-regulated times, and they hated that they were being forced to pay a license fee to speculate on a declared non-status planet.