The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers #4)(60)

Mudi

– Special training: housekeeping, home repair, egg care, first aid, tutoring (home skills, tech repair, Reskitkish)

– Favourite activities: having adventures in town, taking things apart, playing tikkit

– Favourite thing about parenting: making a bad day better





ROVEG


There was a place in the garden behind the main lawn that was perfect for people who needed a moment alone. Roveg had noted it before – a semi-circular nook surrounded by a thick wall of hedges, facing outward toward the dome and providing an uninterrupted view of the dusty hills beyond. Normally, his shuttle felt like a sanctuary, but right then, it was dead weight that could not fly. He had spent an hour after the last update – or was it more? – bouncing from one room to the next, seeking solace in his usual comforts of food, art, music. But the harder he tried to calm down, the less he was satisfied, and the deeper the frenzy in his mind crept. So, with no better ideas, he’d headed for the garden nook, hopeful that some time alone in different surroundings would quiet him.

He followed the path through the tidy hedges. As he rounded the corner, he discovered that Captain Tem had beat him to the punch.

The Aeluon was sitting in the grass atop her folded jacket, her legs crossed beneath her vertical torso in bizarre bipedal fashion. On the ground before her was a bottle, and in one hand, a cup. Her posture was as steady as ever, but there was the air of something new about her. A tension, yes, but also some change in her appearance that Roveg did not have the mental bandwidth to place. She looked different, somehow. Her scent was different, too. But how much of that difference was her and how much was the pungent liquid she was drinking, he could not determine.

‘Oh! Hello, Captain,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect anyone to be here.’

‘No worries,’ she said. The words coming out of her talkbox were ever so slightly delayed. Roveg knew, from the varied Aeluons in his social life, that operating a talkbox while imbibing became more and more of a challenge with every sip.

‘I was just looking for a place to gather my thoughts,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ Captain Tem said. ‘Me too.’ She thought for a moment, then raised the bottle. ‘If you’d like to be alone with someone, I do not need to drink all of this myself.’

This hadn’t been what Roveg had in mind, and part of him wanted nothing more than to make a polite exit. But given how badly his efforts to calm himself down had failed, perhaps company would do the trick. Company, and a strong swallow of kick. ‘Why not,’ he said. ‘So long as I don’t have to talk about said thoughts.’ He sat beside her, tucking his legs beneath his abdomen.

‘I don’t want to talk about mine, either, so … we have an accord.’ She drained the cup, refilled it, and offered it to him.

He considered the curved drinking vessel, with its wide brim and strange handle. ‘I think the bottle might work better for me,’ he said. ‘That’s not quite the right shape for my mouth.’

She retracted one arm and extended the other, handing over the bottle. As she did so, sunlight fell across her scales. They were no longer merely silver, but faintly iridescent, like the skin of a soap bubble. ‘Ah, Captain,’ Roveg said warmly. So that was what was different about her. ‘Congratu—’

‘Don’t.’ The word snapped from Captain Tem’s talkbox, unhampered by delay. She shut her eyes and took a breath, and with this, her artificial voice softened. ‘Please don’t congratulate me.’

Her reaction surprised him, but he took it in stride. ‘Is that what we’re not talking about?’

‘Yes.’

‘Noted.’ He examined the bottle now held between his toes. The glass was frosted, so there was no good way to see what awaited him within, and the label was one he’d never seen before. He did, at least, recognise the alphabet. The dizzy patterns of concentric rings were unmistakably Laru. ‘What is this?’ he asked.

Captain Tem drank from her cup, and the slightest of winces appeared around her soft eyes as the beverage hit her tongue. ‘I have no idea,’ she said.

Roveg wrapped his mouth around the pour spout and gingerly took a sip. The Laru kick shot down his oesophagus like a ship on fire, tasting of ash and bitter herbs. ‘Ho!’ he said with a hoarse laugh. ‘Oh, stars, that’d strip paint. Oof.’ He turned the bottle this way and that, as though it were a scientific specimen. ‘Ouloo’s private stash, I take it?’

‘Yep.’

‘I have to admit, I would’ve thought her more of a sugarsnap fan. Or something with a big skewer of fruit stuck in it.’

‘We all have days,’ Captain Tem said. Her cheeks became dabbled with yellow and orange; Roveg recognised this as embarrassment. ‘This isn’t the way I typically deal with mine.’

‘I didn’t have the impression that it was,’ he said. He angled his head toward her in a sympathetic way. ‘But, as you said: we all have days.’

She took another sip from her cup. She did not wince this time. ‘What kind of impression do you have of me?’

Roveg’s forelegs flexed in thought. ‘Honestly?’

‘Honestly.’

Roveg took a second swig of the caustic stuff, letting it shake his thoughts loose. ‘You strike me as someone practical. Someone smart. Someone who – normally – knows how to manage her fear within the context of what I assume is a very stressful job. You hold yourself together extraordinarily well, given the circumstances.’