Starship Summer (Starship Seasons, #1)(14)

“Maddie, I understand.”

She looked up at me. “What I wish is that I could help them, David. I’ve come into physical contact with them, accidentally, and experienced a little of their pain, and more than anything I want to help them.”

Lamely, I said, “I can tell that they think very highly of you, Maddie. Your friendship helps them.”

She smiled. “Thank you, David. You’re a good person, you know that? I’m glad you decided to move to Magenta Bay.”

I smiled. “I’m glad, too.” I gestured to our empty beers. “Another one?”

“That’d be great.”

I fetched two more bottles and changed the subject. “Dinner Friday evening, is there anything you can’t eat? And do you know what Matt and Hawk like?”

“They’ll eat anything. I like spicy food, myself.”

“Great. I was thinking I’d cook Thai. What about friends of Hawk and Matt—I remember Hawk saying that Matt wasn’t with anyone at the moment. What about Hawk himself?”

“He has someone. She lives with him at the scrapyard.” Her tone struck me as odd, censorious. I knew that Maddie had felt a lot for Hawk at one time, and I took this as jealousy.

I said awkwardly, “Perhaps I should invite her?”

“It would be a mistake, David. She…well, it wouldn’t work. She wouldn’t know how to take part.”

“She’s young?” I asked, thinking that could be the only explanation.

Maddie looked up at me and nodded. “She’s young,” she said, and left it at that.





SIX



The following morning I drove under the arch bearing the legend Hawksworth and Co, braked and climbed out, staring about me with a renewal of the wonder I had first experienced on seeing this place a week ago. The sight of so many derelict ships, and dismembered sections of them, silhouetted against the bright blue sky and the mountains, gave me a jolt of joy and sadness. I wonder if every example of a supplanted technology is regarded with the same nostalgia, as the mnemonic of an earlier time when everything was better, much simpler—if only because we recall the innocent children we were back then.

I remembered the reason for my visit and called Hawk’s name. My voice echoed around the stark metal canyons but was not answered.

I tried to find the ship that Hawk used as his office-cum-home, but I was confused by so many vessels that looked alike. Then I saw movement on the observation deck of an old scoutship across the yard—the quick appearance of someone in the hatch—and I recognised the ship from my first visit.

The figure ducked back inside as I approached, and I recalled what Maddie had told me about the girl who lived with Hawk.

I climbed the steps to the platform and said, “Hello? Is Hawk around?”

Silence from within the ship. “Hello? Is anyone—?”

A figure emerged, and I received the first shock of the day.

For an instant, a fleeting second, she reminded me of my daughter.

She was small and slight and fair and ineffably beautiful, but she wasn’t human.

The Ashentay were humanoid, and might conceivably have passed for human—but a faerie strain of humanity, slim-limbed, fey, with small, broad faces that, while almost human, were also undeniably other.

The more I looked at her, the less she resembled Carrie, for which I was grateful.

Timorous, she peered out at me from around the frame of the hatch, one small hand to her mouth, the other fingering the perished rubber seal of the doorway. She was dressed in a simple brown smock and was barefoot.

“Hello?” The sound was barely audible, a faint breath.

I smiled, reassuringly. “Hi. I’m a friend of Hawk’s. Is he around?”

“A friend of Hawk’s. Is he around?” She seemed to contemplate the meaning of my words as she repeated them.

She stared at me with large blue eyes and said, “He is around, yes.”

“Right. Good. In that case can I see him?”

“See him?” she repeated. She thought about this, then said, “No, you cannot see him.”

I smiled. I realised, then, that this was my very first encounter with an alien being. Sometimes, on Earth, my dealings with different races had been difficult, fraught with misunderstandings due to language and cultural differences. How much harder might it be to successfully communicate with true aliens?

I tried again. “Will you tell Hawk that David is here? I’d like to talk to him.”

“David is here… Like to talk to him.” She stared at me, and I found her inscrutable gaze disconcerting. She went on, “No, I cannot tell Hawk. You will have to wait.”

I nodded. “But he’s here?” I persisted.

She gave a slight nod, as if the gesture had been learned and she was still unsure how to use it. “He is here.”

I smiled, trying not to laugh. “Then… look, will you take me to him?”

“Take you to him…”

Quickly, with a swiftness and grace that surprised me, she hurried from the hatch, slipped past me and danced down the steps. “Please come with me,” she said, turning at the foot of the steps and pointing to her chest.

I hurried after her. We crossed the scrapyard. She took long, barefoot strides, a strange gait that was almost a run—yet another alien aspect of this strange extraterrestrial child.