Stone in the Sky (25 page)

“I can take anything you don't want off your hands. Maybe your frass.”

He considered me a moment. Then he let me come through. I filled two bags full of the horrible-smelling substance.

I had something to start with. Sure, it was insect poop, but Thado had always said that any kind of feces was helpful when he wanted to enrich the soil in the arboretum. I had traded many times with ships for their animal feces for him. If I did it right, someone would want this frass, and I would have the currency chit for later.

“Thank you,” I said. “What do you want for it?”

“Spices,” he said, flipping the ingredients on his grill. The large hard-shelled insect was placed on four long noodles. It was some kind of pill bug, and it was laid on its back with the moist soft meaty substance cut into quarters and stuffed with a mix of a pepper-like vegetables.

I could get spices for frass.

“Then you'll get me tools?” I asked.

He grunted and served me a plate, and I took my bags of frass and went to a corner table and looked out the window as I crunched on the spicy food. I allowed myself to relax. It was dry here, as if the dirt did not want to stick to the ground. It was dusty, and the air was cold. The sun was small in the sky, as though it were just stretching itself a little too far to give Quint any real warmth. Everyone was wrapped in rags to protect against the dust. Aliens crowded the streets, going either toward entertainment, the launchpad with loaded up bags to trade up at the Yertina Feray, or to get themselves some drink or fun. Others were heading out with supplies on the way to their claims.

This time, Quint was brimming with life forms.

As I understood it, Quint was not the same now as when it was mined for ores. Then, when the planet had been surveyed and found to have highly coveted ores, it was marked by the League of Worlds to be mined rather than settled. Planets made bids for tracts of land, and mining robots like Trevor came to work. They were overseen by the aliens who came down to live on Quint to protect their claims. But most aliens back then lived on the Yertina Feray. This rush had aliens down on the ground, working the land in order to keep their claims. A claim only stood if the area was being actively worked. The alin pollen was too delicate a task to leave to robots.

There was one thing that was different about the way that aliens interacted from the Yertina Feray. As I watched them move about the town, I noticed that they kept as separate as possible. Everyone seemed to stick to their own kind.

When I was done eating, I hit the entertainments tent because I knew that was the place where the most aliens would mix and mingle regardless of species. Someone there would want the frass and give me something in return and a line on where the best spices were. I also wanted to know where the best land was and who the best cultivators were. Knowledge was power.

I scanned the bar, marveling at how much more life and vigor there was in the residents that were on this planet than on the Yertina Feray. There was a real difference to the way that life thrived on a planet. Even on a cold, almost inhospitable one like Quint, there was something about air and sun and weather that made all souls uncurl from the limitations imposed by a ship or station.

While trying to figure out which game table I should infiltrate to start up a conversation, there was a silky low voice that I recognized in my ear.

“You smell like you have what I need,” it said.

“Reza,” I turned to face him. Every part of me leapt.

“Hello, Tula.”

He moved back and leaned one shoulder casually against the wall.

I soaked in his face. His warm smile. His dark eyes. The tight dreads in his hair. My insides quivered as I watched him take me in.

“I hear you're the new game in town,” Reza said. He was chewing on a kind of grass. “I hear you work for the Imperium.”

“More like workhorses,” I said. I was trying to keep calm, but there was a rising heat between us, the one that had always been there. I was excited, but my body reacting the way it did made me feel both good and guilty at the same time.

He fingered the metal band on my arm.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Still, it's good to see you.”

The skin on my arm had goose bumps that I tried to ignore. I couldn't help but wish that it was Tournour making me react this way.

“You're looking for some frass?” I said, playing it slow. Playing it cool. But still, I couldn't help but step closer to him.

“Always,” he said. “What do you want for it?”

He flashed me that smile that made my insides melt.

“Spices,” I said.

“What's your end game?” he asked. He knew there was something else I needed.

“Tools,” I said. “For the tract of land we have to work. But I want to keep the currency chit they gave me for myself. You never know when that could come in handy.”

Reza spit out the piece of grass he was chewing into a plate.

He took out a datapad and made a calculation.

“Tell that Nurlok that I can give him what he wants, but he'll have to come to my place.”

“I need something now,” I said.

He laughed.

“Well, you're not going to get it now, Human,” he said.

I looked over his shoulder and noticed that the aliens in the place had taken an interest in us. He was playing it up for them, and I was grateful that he could improvise so well.

“Why don't we step outside before we smell up the joint,” Reza said.

I followed him outside where we had a chance to talk more freely. I had so much to tell him.

“Reza, I don't know where to begin,” I said.

“How about thank you for the currency you're going to keep?” he said. “And all the currency I've sent you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Bitty's alive,” I said.

“Your sister?” he said, genuinely surprised and happy for me. “That's great news!” And then he pulled me in for a happy hug. His arms felt so good around me.

“Yes,” I said breaking away. “She survived the explosion and had been wandering with a tribe.”

“Your mother?”

“No,” I said.

His face clouded over, and he looked at me with sympathy in his dark brown eyes.

“What are you doing back here?” Reza said. “How can you belong to Brother Blue and not be dead?”

I quickly summed up what was going on and as I told him what Brother Blue was doing and the dead I'd seen on Marxuach, I watched his face fall.

“My God,” he said. “I knew he was evil, but not that evil.”

He had to stop walking as he processed it all.

“You actually went there?”

I nodded.

He shook his head in disbelief, and I could tell that he was trying not to cry.

“I have a half a mind to kill him myself,” he spat out.

“One more thing. Caleb's here,” I said.

“So you found him,” Reza said slowly. “I figured he'd have something to do with this. How did you find him?”

“I sent out messages until he found me,” I said as we started to walk again.

“How is he?”

“He's different,” I said. We were nearly at the eatery, which was filling with aliens for midday meal.

“I told you,” he said. “How could he sell you?”

“No. That was my plan. He's here to help,” I said.

“Help?” Reza asked. “Help with what?”

“With…” I said as he looked at me in a way that went all the way down to my bones. That I was attracted to Reza was very clear, but I did not feel for him the way that I had come to feel for Tournour. “Destroying Brother Blue's source of income so that he starts to lose power in the Imperium.”

“But he still skims from the tithe that everyone gives him,” Reza said as we got to the eatery. “There are fees upon fees. Everyone stays separate so as not to get more fees.”

“We have to start somewhere.”

I held the door open for him as we went into the food shop. The Nurlock and Reza haggled over the frass. Then the Nurlock gave me a plate of food to bring to the tools shop.

Reza joined me, and we continued our conversation.

“Where is Caleb now?” he asked. There was no gentleness to the voice. It was bitter. “What's he doing?”

“He's up on the Yertina Feray. Working with Brother Blue.”

“Pirating?”

“In a way. Yes,” I said. “He's keeping Brother Blue's eyes off of me. Off of us down here.”

“I don't deal with Pirates,” he said. “That is why I left.”

“Reza, you need to get over it. You, Caleb, and Tournour will have to work together now. I can't do it alone.”

He took my hand.

“Do you need me?” he asked.

“I need you,” I said. It was true. I did. But I needed all of them.

As always he wore his feelings right on the surface.

“I have to go,” I said, pulling my hand away from his. My heartbeat had quickened at his touch.

The hour was up, and I could see Myfanwy, Bitty, Traynor, and the other Humans I'd come to town with gathering in the town square.

“Come to the Human camp tonight, I'll meet you on the road and we'll talk,” I said.

I remembered what it was like to be with Reza and I allowed myself a small smile.

*   *   *

Reza showed up at sunset.

“You came,” I said.

“I did,” he said.

We walked away from the camp down the road a little bit until we were alone by a group of large rocks. It was the first time since I'd left him on the Yertina Feray that we'd been alone. I wasn't sure how to be around him. My body felt strange. I wondered if I should kiss him hello the way I'd kissed him goodbye, but sometimes there is a difference between the tender moment of potentially never seeing someone again and the moment where you realize that you must sort through all of your feelings.

“It's okay,” he said taking my hand and kissing my knuckles. “I'm here now.”

I hesitated. I wasn't sure what I wanted from him, and I wanted to be clear headed as I talked to him about what I was trying to do here on Quint.

“I've been thinking,” he said. “It's hard to help Earth fight the hold of the Imperium from here.”

We looked out down the road at the alien planet we were on. We could hear the Human camp as they sang.

“We're going to do what you want,” I said. “We're going to fight.”

“You don't know what I want anymore,” he said, leaning his head back against the large rock we were sitting on.

“I know that sending you to the Outer Rim was hard. A mistake even. But that was the best solution in that moment. This is a new moment. We either rise now,” I waved at the huge night sky, “or we are snuffed out and we lose.”

“Fine,” he said. “I'll do it because it's you.”

He pushed a lock of hair behind my ear.

“I don't really know what I can do to help,” he said. “I'm a farmer now, not a fighter. Maybe things would be different if I had gone back to Earth. But I'm here now and I don't have any intel on what's going on. I'm just a guy who trades some spices for insect poop and has a crush on a great girl.”

I slapped his broad chest playfully.

“Tell me about Quint,” I said. “That will be helpful.”

“The fertile spot on Quint is small,” he said. “Some people staked claims on the Dren Line. Others are trying to cultivate alin in less hospitable parts just outside that line, but hacking ore out of the ground is different than growing and cultivating. Some of these speculators don't have the touch, and they've lost a great deal of wealth because they don't know how to tease out the pollen or let the plant thrive. The Imperium doesn't want us working together because it doesn't want us to share what we know. It keeps them in charge of the currency flow.”

“That's why you needed the frass. It helps the soil.”

“Yes,” he said. “I experiment. Thado's been teaching me.”

He laced his fingers with mine.

“So you're saving the Humans,” Reza said. He smiled his big wide smile. The one I loved. I knew we had him. He was on my side. He leaned in close, and I could feel his breath on my cheek.

In that moment, the starlight playing on our features, I knew that peace between us had been made.

“I'll be the noisy wheel,” he said, whispering in my ear. “I'll keep Brother Blue's eyes on me so he doesn't see you.” Then he put his arms around me and pulled me to him. I could feel my body tense and then relax until I leaned my head on his strong chest and slowly slid my arms around him.

He held me all night, and I marveled at the pure astonishment of skin and heart.

Parts of me felt the same, as though we were one. But I also felt as though I were missing one piece of my true self. I felt like I was missing Tournour, no matter how alien he was. No matter how high up in the sky. Tournour made me feel Human.

“You're me and I'm you,” Reza whispered.

I answered Reza with kisses.

But my heart beat out a message in Loor.

 

37

Part of me loved being around other Humans. While we worked hard during the days in the fields, at night there were songs and laughter. We discovered the pleasure of bonfires and meals shared under an open sky.

The children, though there were not many of them, took easiest to the planet and adjusted to gravity best. Once they'd adjusted, I could see how much they loved the air and the running. They were lucky. Quint was a little lighter than base gravity on most ships, and since they'd gotten the nanites, they did not have to struggle as hard with the atmosphere.

“There will be more of them soon,” Ednette said as we watched them together from the field. “A planet gives room to spread. On the hitches we had to keep our numbers manageable.”

It made me happy to think that there would be babies born on Quint. It would be the first generation of Humans out in space not born on ships. They would be the legacy of both the intergenerational ships and the colonists. They were really the beginning.