28. Ozadus

“Ladies and gentlemen, the captain would like to thank you for choosing Kaleidian Spaceways for your flight. Welcome to Kalei, and please enjoy your stay,” the flight attendant says.

I”m doing something I never thought I”d do in a million years. Flying commercial.

Noise erupts in the cabin as anxious passengers stand and reach for their stowed items. I’m arms-deep in my overhead cabin when I spot an entrance panel to the ship’s interior from inside the compartment.

I shake my head. I won’t say I miss the old life, not a chance, but that doesn”t mean I can’t wax familiar with the skills I used to have. A younger me could’ve snagged a ship like this before any heads could figure out what was happening.

But I see my Zhara in her mother”s lap, clinging to an in-flight magazine that she ripped to shreds during the flight, and I smile. She has no idea the things she’ll see on her first trip to Kalei. I have so much to show her and even more to teach her.

“Ozadus? Did you remember Oonie? Zhara can’t sleep without it.” Lisa frets, looking around for her favorite toy.

A smirk crosses my face as I dig into my carry-on, producing the small stuffed Oolyte I gave to my baby daughter ages ago. My heart wells with a special kind of pride that the toy has made it to the top of her preferred list. Zhara snatches it from my hand and tries to run in the opposite direction.

“Not so fast, speed demon.” I smirk, whisking her back to her mother.

As we nearly make it to the exit, a flight attendant reaches down to pin a small gold spaceship to my daughter’s dress.

“Were we a good junior pilot?” she asks.

Zhara’s only just started talking, but looks rather pleased as she puffs out her chest. “Yes! Me!”

With my wife and one-year-old on their way out, the ship”s captain stands at the main exit, shaking hands with passengers as they go.

“Did you enjoy your flight, sir?” he asks, gripping my scaly hand in his furry Odex palm.

“Sure, sure,” I say, checking to see that my wife is well down the gangplank. “You want to check those in-cabin sensors. You know?”

“Of course, sir. We always do.”

I don’t know if he catches my warning. A simple pen knife into the panel would allow any decent-sized alien into the cargo hold. But, hey, if the plane gets hijacked between here and Glimner, I can’t say I didn’t warn him.

Finally, I can take in clean Kaleidian air as I travel down the gangplanks to rejoin Zhara and Lisa in the open-air spaceport.

“What was that about?” Lisa asks, holding Zahra’s toy bag while the toddler tries to wrench it from her arms.

“Oh, nothing. Just a little friendly advice.” I smile, finding a pair of shades to cover my face with.

“Yeah, right,” Lisa says. After all the time we’ve been together, I still can”t get anything past her. I guess I had better get used to it. The girl’s just too smart to be fooled by anyone.

It”s a good thing she brought her wits with her, as I can see the swarthy form of my mother at the visitor’s entrance, holding a sign that says, Bring me my grandbaby.

“Wow, your mom doesn”t beat around the bush, does she?”

“Are you kidding me? When I suggested we honeymoon on Kalei, she flipped her lid.”

“She knows Zhara is coming with us? To the hotel, right?”

“Uh, why don’t you tell her?” I feel my face longing to camouflage away from the idea, but my mother is there, nearly throwing the sign down to grab Zhara in her arms.

“Well, isn”t she the most perfect, beautiful thing you ever saw in your life? Horto, look at her. She’s got her father’s scales!”

My father shakes my hand, in his general silent manner. “Good to have you here.”

An hour later, my dad drives us in his hover car to the treehouse resort I selected for our honeymoon. My mother sits with Zhara in her lap, somewhere between annoyed and elated.

“Are you sure? I would gladly take her all five nights.”

“We know,” Lisa soothes. “But Ozadus is looking forward to showing her his home planet. There are things he wants to do. He says the night sky isn”t to be missed, and he can’t wait to show her.”

I don”t have anything to add but pride on my face. How well my mate knows me, and how well she seems capable of navigating the pushiest woman I know.

My folks bid their goodbye, promising to pick Zhara up tomorrow for a special grandparents” day while I escort my bride around a lush world like she’s never seen. The hotel I picked is out of the way, perfect for the things I want to show her.

“Wow, Ozadus. Very nice place,” Lisa mentions as we pull the rented hover car in and start to unload our bags. Before long, a service bot meets us with a tray of champagne. The lavish treehouse-style resort starts with an elegant wooden staircase leading up to our private cabin.

“Are you sure about her and all those stairs?” my mother frets from the car window.

“Got it covered, Ma,” I say, grabbing a zero-g belt from my carry-on and strapping it to a hover seat on my bouncing baby girl. Within seconds, she hovers at my waist, giggling with joy at her new, safe ride.

“Well, it looks like you two got it covered.” I can see the mist forming in her eyes. “Get me out of here, Horto, before I fog up the mirrors. I’ll be back tomorrow for that grandbaby, okay?”

Lisa wraps her arms around my waist as we wave them off and start our ascent into the treehouse. Zhara spins and rolls in her hover seat, flipping with joy while my bride’s eyes light up at the scene around her.

“It’s all so alive,” she says, touching gently at the wooden walls of the treehouse as we make our way up. Moss grows in the cracks, and gently lighted mushrooms leading us up to our private room. Beyond the horizon, the evening sky sets in, and my excitement grows.

As soon as I get the door to the room unlocked, I lead us inside to our lush, cozy room. The cabin, all grown from the Maneeta wood trees, is shaped into a wide circle with a large balcony overlooking the canopy of the forest below. As I make my way in, I can”t wait to rip open the sheer curtains and show my girls just how exciting a night on Kalei can be.

Lisa joins me on the balcony as the stars overtake the sky. There’s nothing beyond us but a mess of trees so thick that I can’t tell one tree from another. It’s perfectly quiet for a whole minute until the animals around us realize that night has come.

“Oh my goodness.” Lisa’s face lights up with wonder, looking out at the movement and taking note of the sounds. “It”s like a city down there.”

“I know,” I say, feeling nostalgic about the nights I had here as a teen. “My father used to say that when Kaleidians sleep, Kalei comes to life.”

A large, hollow-sounding cry reaches us from the balcony top. I look over at my daughter, whose eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen before.

“What? What?” she asks, pointing at the stars.

“A Hicihma bird,” I inform her while pulling back the ties of her hover seat so that she can”t fly out and see them for herself. “How about we go see one tomorrow? Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, looking away. I see sleep ready to claim her, and excited though I am to expose her to every one of Kalei’s hidden wonders, I know tonight is not the night. A space flight from one galaxy to another is a big ask on a small body, so I stand up and take her in my arms.

“I’ll take her to bed,” Lisa offers, though I can tell she has no desire to leave the area. Not with so much happening underneath us.

“No, I’ve got her,” I assure, leading Zhara into our room and laying her on the bed.

Lisa hasn’t moved from where I left her when I join her a few moments later.

“I”ve never heard anything like this.” She seems transfixed, and I can’t blame her. Her life before had only machines for moving parts. This is a whole natural world teeming with undiscovered life. I can imagine how quickly the gears in her mind are turning.

She points out some movement beyond. “What are the lights?”

“Hunters,” I suggest, seeing the glow down in the treeline. The jungle is so dense below us that we can only see the shadow of what has already passed. “It’s a teen’s right of passage. Night out there, alone in that wilderness. Animals on Kalei aren’t timid of higher forms like they are on other planets. They’ll eat you up the same as any skinter or folin, they won’t know the difference.”

“Good thing we’re safe up here,” she says, leaving her seat and finding a place in my lap.

As we sit on the balcony and the air around us grows colder, the noise starts to die down. From afar, a wild beast has found his kill for the night, and the gluttonous sound of his feast eventually dies down to a whisper.

“This is wild,” Lisa marvels, grabbing a blanket and wrapping us both inside it.

It hits me that there’s plenty of room on this patio bench for the two of us to curl up and spend the night here, just listening to the cries of the night. I pull her back onto the chair with me, resting her head on my shoulder while a flock of chitlies flies overhead.

If I could rewrite everything I have with Lisa and start it right here, I would. As much as I long to sleep here and sanctify this moment with perfect rest, I feel her heartbeat rising from within her chest.

I look down at her to find she”s looking up at me, and I know she’s not done with me yet.