Chapter 9

Chapter 9

I t took a few days, but Persistence learned to use her new leg. She started with short hops through our little home while Stupid and Sweetheart played on the floor. Cleaning up after the bounders tested my patience, but I taught them to use a pan of moss and wood shavings in a corner.

I needed to thank Taesinn for the pan. While his fellow Veloc restricted how often he could visit, I appreciated his presence. While it wasn’t necessary to repay him for the pan, or so he claimed, I hunted for a good walking stick of a height good for him, I strengthened it over a fire in the evenings, and I whittled it to be a comfortable shape for him to hold.

The day of our departure, which involved the Veloc invading my home and packing it so all of my things could come with me, I gave him the stick and said, “I needed to keep my hands busy, so I made you this.”

He examined the stick, his crest snapped up. “How did you get it so smooth?”

As the rough rocks I used to polish it had already been taken away, I pointed in the direction of the stream. “There are some stones that work well for removing the rough parts from carving. I used that. And I hardened the wood over the fire in the evenings once I was finished cooking.”

“That is so clever. Thank you.”

When I thought about it, giving someone a stick was weird, and aware of that, I said, “I don’t know how useful that is, but it was something I could make.”

“We use weapons, and staves are weapons we can use,” he informed me. “I am poorly trained, but I can ask if this will withstand such a use. And if it does not, it will be an excellent walking stick.”

Persistence flew from my shoulder to a nearby branch, fluffed her feathers, and showed off how she could stand on both legs. Laughing, I praised her, aware of the bird’s general sensitivity.

I’d taken her out hunting twice since her regeneration, and I’d worried she’d leave me to join the flock. She’d enjoyed the hunt, but she’d come back to my shoulder once she’d eaten her share, and as was our ritual, I’d provided for her to reinforce she would always have a meal with me.

“Maybe someone can teach me how to fight with a stick, too. Fighting with sticks seems useful.”

“It can be!” Taesinn bobbed his head, and he used his new stick to point me in the direction of the ship. “We exercise with sticks during voyages, so someone can teach us the basics while we travel.”

I would appreciate extra time with the rainbow Veloc, who brought good cheer wherever he went despite the circumstances of his past. “I’d like that.”

“I’ll show you where we train. I don’t think you’ve seen it yet. I’ve been tasked with getting you on board the ship and showing you your quarters. They have made safe cubbies for Stupid, Sweetheart, and Persistence. They found enough spare parts for them.”

“Oh! I thought they’d have to go into the cargo with the other livestock.”

“That’s what we all thought, but they did an inventory of spare parts and realized they had enough to build a few extra cubbies. I have one for my fluffs, too. Just the females. Amberley took the males.”

“They could be weaned?”

“Barely, but yes.”

“That’s great. Have you named your fluffs yet?”

“I’m waiting for them to grow up a little first. They all have different fur patterns, so it’s not too hard to keep them straight, fortunately. And we’re used to identifying individuals from subtle markings.”

Veloc tended to share many similarities within a clan, and I still struggled to identify some of the siblings; outside of a few feathers of varying length, shade, and banding, the Veloc initially appeared to be clones of each other. “How many did you get to keep?”

“I have seventeen fluffs.”

I grinned at the pride in his tone. “Did Amberley tell you how long your fluffs will live?”

“In the wild, they rarely live more than a year or two. In captivity, they can live up to five years old without genetic modification. My fluffs will be modified, so I should have them for fifteen to twenty years. They’ll be happy as a family unit, and we’ll be modifying the ship so they will have a playroom. I’ll have to share with the others, but they’ll be my pets.”

“I’ve noticed Veloc enjoy having pets despite being predators.”

“Let’s just say we don’t tend to look dinner in the eye for too long. If we decide we’re adopting dinner, things get out of hand in a hurry. The fluffs are so small nobody wants to snack on them. They’re all fluff and no meat anyway. We’ve put several of the baby grazers into stasis to take home with us. We have enough to establish five herds on one of our worlds. We’ll come back and get more stock to better establish their numbers. Your point on their smell was listened to, but when there’s a will, there’s a way, and we found a way to get the little ones into the stasis machine.”

Veloc. I had a lot left to learn about them, but one thing was clear: they were the best sort of insane. “How many babies did you kidnap?”

“I wouldn’t call it kidnapping. I would call it population control on herds that had too many members in too little space. Their mothers were older, and while the meat is stringier, it’s edible and fine for stews, and it’s a healthy way to prune the stock.” Taesinn sniffed. “We took sixty.”

“I do not understand Veloc,” I stated.

He flashed me a toothy grin, and his crest rose. “Most days, I don’t understand us myself, so it’s okay. Let’s get boarded and get out from underfoot. The next few hours will be busy, and the others will feel better knowing you’re on the ship and settled. I’ll show you to your quarters, but you’ll be in the command area for the launch. Amberley wants you to see the whole process so you can experience space properly.”

***

My quarters had a bed and a hammock, and true to Taesinn’s word, there were two clear cabinets for my pets to reside during the voyage and weren’t out and about with me. He took the time to show me inside each drawer and open every door, revealing that someone had ransacked much of my tiny home and had moved many of my things into the room.

“The things that aren’t in here need special cleaning or treatments,” he explained. “Or they don’t fit, like your tanning fluids. Some of your tanning fluid may be replaced; it’s not that there’s anything wrong with yours, but we have the same fluid in better containers to work with so it’ll be easier for you to use. So, we’ll exchange the awkward containers for ones you can work with easily.”

“Oh, that would be nice. Some of them are challenging to work with.”

“They’re meant for storage rather than using the fluid inside those drums, but it’s fine. Amberley wants to use yours to teach younglings how to work with smaller skins and pelts.” Taesinn crouched near the cage for Stupid and Sweetheart. He pressed a button, and the clear panel popped open. “This slides out, so it’s easy to clean their section. We clean their sections every twelve to fifteen hours depending on our schedule. We either work in twenty-four or thirty hour shifts. Each shift includes our sleeping period. We use the shorter shifts for short transit and the longer shifts for long hauls. We’ll be doing thirty hour ones on this voyage, but we’re doing that mostly to give you a better chance to adapt to space. The shorter shifts have less leisure time.”

I examined the interior of the bounder cage, pleased with the presence of a pan for them. With a little help from Pearrilla, we’d trained both of my bounders to use their pan reliably, which simplified cleaning my home. “This is really nice.”

“The door can be secured open, so they can roam your quarters when you are in here. If they leave your quarters, they need to be harnessed.” Taesinn rose, and he shook himself. “Everyone on board knows where your quarters are, so if you get lost, just ask. Most get lost on their first voyage — or they refuse to leave their quarters and have to be dragged out. I didn’t get lost, but I was used to space travel before joining the clan.”

Rather than ask my questions, I wondered at Taesinn’s past and if I could ferret out the truth of how he’d been separated from his birth clan. “Where do we learn to fight with sticks?”

After showing me how to secure both cages, Taesinn led me across the ship to a room with padding on the walls and floor. “We do our physical training here. The pads keep us from damaging the ship or ourselves when we’re fighting.”

I pointed at the ceiling. “But that’s not padded. I’ve seen you all hunt. I can’t believe you don’t hit the ceiling.”

“We try not to kill each other, and it’s considered dishonorable to fling our opponents into the ceiling.” Taesinn whistled his amusement. “It happens from time to time. The thrower struts. The thrown tries harder not to be thrown. The thrower repairs the ceiling, often while the thrown offers commentary on their workmanship. I have been the thrower twice.”

“And the thrown?”

“More often than I like.”

I snickered. “So, if I wish to be the thrower, I should be prepared to clean up my messes?”

“For some reason, we hold little regard for that ceiling. Perhaps one day we shall pad it.” He shrugged. “Or not.”

“How does the takeoff work?”

“First, we need to put Persistence into her cage and give her a chance to get used to it.” We returned to my new quarters, and once the bird was secured, he pressed a few buttons on the cabinet, which turned on a green light. “There. She is ready for takeoff. At most, she might get jostled a bit, but this specific cage is designed to counter the g-forces of takeoff and landing. While we’ll notice the forces, she won’t. We do not discuss this cage with Amberley. He wept while installing it.”

“But why?”

“The birds are expensive to safeguard during takeoff and landings, and he fears once the others see Persistence’s set up, they will want birds of their own to hunt with them.”

I could understand how that might become a problem. “I’d apologize, but I’m glad she can come with me.”

“She would be unhappy without you, and you would be unhappy without her. Someone will bring Stupid and Sweetheart and get them settled for takeoff, too, so don’t worry about them. Are you ready to leave this world?”

“I was ready to leave when everyone else had died,” I confessed. “But I had nowhere to go or any way to get there.”

“Well, now you can go anywhere in the universe, and you have all of the time you need to decide where you’ll venture to,” the Veloc informed me.

Something about his tone and the position of his crest, flatter than normal, indicated he disliked something about that prospect. After a moment of thought, I came up with several possibilities. One stood out among the others.

He enjoyed my company, and he would prefer if I didn’t go off adventuring across the universe without him.

I understood that.

“I’ll have to think about it. I have a lot to learn before I do any venturing. I expect after seeing the ruins of Galeize, I will not want to go on any more adventures for a while.”

“It is hard losing your home,” he replied in a soft tone.

Yes, it was — and if I could win closure for him, I would. Until then, I would do my best to make him feel like he had a place among the Veloc who had claimed him when nobody else would.

That time would come, after I learned how to voyage among the stars.

***

In the three weeks it took us to arrive at the asteroid field that had once been my home world, I learned how the Veloc traveled through space, how they prepared food during their travels, and what they did to occupy the dragging hours while hurtling through the empty expanse of space.

It took a week, but I tossed a Veloc into the ceiling. Lowered gravity helped. The male refusing to hit me like he meant it gave me many opportunities, and I did my best to take advantage of them all.

Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to do much to repair the ceiling. Outside of a dent that popped out with a suction cup, I’d needed to clean up a few feathers he’d lost, which became my first trophies. The male, who remained nameless due to his preferences, had given me a small blue bauble from his crest, one designed to clip onto Veloc feathers. The gem sparkled, and at a loss for what to do with it, I had hung it from the edge of my mattress.

For at least an hour, I stared out over the asteroid field that had once been my home, my awareness that my parents were now bits of stardust floating through the void stabbing me deep within my chest. The Veloc waited with eternal patience.

I’d been told, repeatedly, I’d have all the time I needed, even if it meant we skirted the field for a month.

Only I could decide when I was ready to let go.

Glimmers of color reflected in the ship’s light, and I pointed at the ones nearby. “What is that?”

Pearrilla sighed. “That is a shiftgem, the goal of the planet busters. They had not cleared the field of its treasures before we had come calling. You have a good eye. That one is deeply embedded within the rock.” The Veloc turned to Lashanni, who controlled some complicated instrument in the command center. From my understanding, a pure white Veloc captained the ship, but he’d made a point of dodging me.

He, according to Pearrilla, did not want me to feel inferior, and he didn’t know how I’d react to someone who could, at his whim, control my fate and where I’d ventured in the universe.

“It can be retrieved,” Lashanni announced. “Would you like the stone, Kithya? It is your birthright. The laws of the universe require that any who retrieve shiftgems or any other materials return them to you. You are this world’s heir.”

I’d inherited a world in ruin, something that would haunt me for years to come. I considered her offer, and after a few moments, I nodded.

My parents weren’t one of the bits of stardust clinging to the rock and shiftgem, but I would have something to remember them by at any rate. No matter the circumstances, no matter how much I’d loathed being sent away, a simple truth remained: I’d loved them.

There would be no chance for reconciliation, nor any chance for a triumphant return. All that was left to do was say my final goodbyes, let the impossible go, and do my best to move forward. I would begin paying back my debt to the Veloc through securing closure for Taesinn.

He never said anything about his past, but I’d caught him staring into the inky void between stars, his eyes unfocused and his thoughts far away.

Another glimmer caught my attention, and like the other, it was close to the ship. I pointed at it, too. “And that?”

Lashanni’s crest snapped upward, and after a few moments, she pressed a few buttons on her console. A gentle, yellowed glow illuminated the asteroid in question, and it glimmered with a brighter intensity. “Your eye is as sharp as your wit, Kithya.” After pressing a few more buttons, a flickering green beam struck the stone, and it ceased its rotation. “Iron was a common resource within your planet, so much of the debris contains it. This beam uses magnets to attract objects containing iron. See how other stones are also coming closer?”

Sure enough, numerous of the nearby stones drifted in the direction of the ship. “Isn’t that a problem?”

“No, not at all. We’ve space enough for the entire lot, and your first stone is coming as well. The beam will attract them into the front cargo bay, which we left empty anticipating our trip here. Once on board, we will give the stones a chance to warm at a slow rate so they do not shatter. Then you will go into the cargo bay once we restore conditions to a survivable level, and you will collect what you wish to keep. If you wish to keep even the stardust, we will package it for you as a memento mori.”

“What’s a memento mori?”

“A memory of the dead,” Pearrilla explained. “It was an Earth custom, once upon a time, to capture images of the deceased with the living as a memento — a memory. The how and why of the practice is lost to us, but it is something we’ve adopted in a way. Instead of a picture of the deceased with the living, we keep an object of the deceased to remember them by.”

What an interesting tradition. “We just burned or buried them and moved on.”

In some cases, moving on had been literal; we’d been herded into a ship and sent far away, dying off one by one until only I had remained.

It would be easier to let go of my deceased home world than it would be the reality of how I’d ended up the sole survivor.

Perhaps one day, the abandonment would hurt less. In the meantime, I would keep putting one foot in front of the other until I found my place in the universe.

I stared at the glimmering stones approaching the ship. “And those glimmers are why they destroyed Galeize?”

“Yes,” Pearrilla replied in a gentle voice. “Those glimmers are why. Had they finished their work, they would have captured every stone, broke away the material that wasn’t useful, ejected it into space, and kept all the gems for themselves. Once the stones have had a chance to warm, I will teach you what planet busters do and why.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

One by one, the stones disappeared from view beneath the ship. Lashanni pressed a button, and the glow faded. She gestured to a nearby screen, and an image of a cargo bay appeared, one filled with stones. “I have begun the warming process. It will take four hours for the stones to warm up sufficiently to be handled safely. Honestly, shiftgems are notorious for surviving through thermal shock, but we prefer not to stress the metal in the cargo hold more than necessary. Once the cargo bay is of a survivable temperature, I’ll come get you and we’ll see what gift Galeize has left for you.”