Scorpio

Hello

Work parties suck because at least two of us have to stay behind and keep people from, you know, dying, while whoever’s left shoots the shit on the lawn beside the tower. And you can’t drink, which means three pieces of my and Sue’s going-on-leave/Misha’s birthday cake instead. I feel bad for him. We’re all down today and you could hear it in that uncomfortable song the Earthlings sing to each other. I hate to think this is the last time we’ll be together and it seems like everyone else feels the same way, which I guess means I was an okay boss. And they’re a good group. Even Cindy, who’s been watching me since the first piece of cake. Something to be said for a lady who still likes me after the third. Unless she has a kink.

They all pitched in and bought me another pair of sunglasses—fuck them—and Sue got a vinyl. He likes the way they crackle. When I met him he didn’t have anything the way humanoids have things. Maybe hands make people greedy because everyone on the homeworld shared whatever they had, and nobody ever got hungry or cold or sad when they had forty neighbors with just what they needed. Before the war, anyway. Half of them aren’t around to share anymore.

Queasy, and hating myself a little, I set the rest of the cake aside. Bite my lip. Let the salt air make clouds on my glasses before I push them down my nose. I think today might be the first day our patch of Vega isn’t hotter than hell. Too bad our ship leaves in a couple hours. Sue didn’t have anywhere to go when the government put us on administrative leave, so I asked if he wanted to come home with me. More for my benefit than his—the house is too big for one person. I figured by now I’d have a wife and kids or at least a dog but I guess pilots are more exciting than four years of your life and your undying devotion. Maybe I should get a puppy.

Misha sits down beside me in the next lawn chair, one tree-trunk arm around my shoulders, the buckle of his holowatch digging into my neck. “What did you think about your present?” he asks, pretending not to notice as I lay his arm against the chair’s arm. That stupid smirk. I would wipe it off his face if I were still in charge. Gaelin, I’m going to miss these guys.

“Your idea?” I ask, looking at him over my glasses.

Waves crash against the breakwater at our backs. Wind pulls at his hair. The smirk gets wider. “Maybe.”

“Go to hell, Smirnoff.” I move to touch his shoulder, but he pulls me into a hug. “And happy birthday.” Don’t cry. Remember how much you hate it here? Remember how much you hate the heat and the way your glasses get foggy and how some people leave the room when you come in because you’re blue? Don’t cry.

Misha lets me go. Sue and I sit for the shortest half hour of my life, saying slow goodbyes to everyone on the lawn, watching the first stars peek between the cumulus clouds on the darkening horizon. One of them is Altair. One of them is home. But I have a couple more people to see before we leave, probably forever. Going off-planet comes with the usual “keep in touch, we should get together when I come home,” but when your friends come home you don’t know them anymore and they don’t know you, and you never do get together because the people who made the plans don’t exist anymore. So you say goodbye.

I used to tell the Vegan security guards on the tower’s ground floor hello every day. Took three months before they said anything back. Now I know one has a six-year-old daughter who likes horses because she thinks they’re mythical creatures—which is fair, they don’t exist here—and the other one got married a couple months ago. I’m about to tell them hello for the last time, but they’re gone. Two sets of glowing eyes turn on me instead. Planetary Guard. “What’s going on?”

“Governor’s orders,” one says, not quite looking at me. I want to ask what she means but I’m not convinced she’s breathing. Before the room gets any frostier, the doors slide open behind me and Cindy comes in. She’s holding a little box wrapped in hizix paper, a color Earthlings can’t see. My
favorite color. Gaelin knows how she figured that out.

“Can I talk to you?” she asks, index finger tapping the box.

I glance at the soldiers. “Right here?”

“I don’t care if they listen.” Cindy moves closer. Nudges me with the package when I don’t take it. “Open it,” she tells me, smiling. She put on lipstick. Some of it ended up on her teeth.

I run a hand through my hair. Pull one end of the ribbon until it comes undone. Tear the paper at the edges. Please don’t be weird. “Oh, it’s . . .” A smaller ceramic box? Taking the packaging under one arm, I flip open the clutch with my thumb. Please don’t be—oh my gaelin.

“I’m in love with you, Thorn.”

Laughter from the robots, like holding a lock of Cindy-colored hair bound with blood-purple ribbon isn’t bad enough. “No you’re not,” I say, putting everything back where it came from, out of sight. Do people give each other hair on Earth? What the hell am I supposed to do with it?

“Not . . . what?”

“You’re not in love with me. We just work together on a planet that doesn’t want us.” I give the hair inside the small box inside the bigger box back to Cindy. Head for the elevator, my back to her. Somehow she gets to the keypad before I do. I could probably pick her up and move her if I wanted but I think she’d get the wrong idea. “Cindy, you’re sweet. Thank you for the rumig. You’re not my type.”

“I know you date off-planet. I saw a picture of you with that Rigellian girl.”

“We’re not—” I frown. “How do you know that?”

Her voice gets a few notes higher. “I saw a picture of you on Starcrossing. I know you date off-planet.”

“We aren’t friends on Starcrossing, Cindy.”

Cindy’s lips part and she makes a sound I remember hearing in a medical emergency video they made us watch. I think it was the choking one. Not the sound people really make when they’re choking—firsthand experience I don’t want to relive—just when they get caught stalking you. She lets me past, throws everything in her hands at the nearest trash bin, and runs outside. The doors shut obliviously behind her. I press my palm against the keypad. Nobody except the computer says another word.

When I come up the stairs on the top floor, everything is how it should be: distant landing lights staring Orym down at his desk, his cool voice overlapping with Angel’s frantic orders. Good kid, needs to chill. But I don’t feel right. I still don’t know how to be gentle with the Earthlings. They used to cry over everything after I took over. None of the Altairan staff could figure out why, and they’d only tell us everything was fine, so I guess it’s a cultural thing. Like how they lie when they’re not feeling well, or say one thing when people are listening and another when they’re not.

Once I came up behind Orym while he was wearing a headset and got punched hard enough to make a crash test dummy cry. I wasn’t going to try anything weird, maybe an underwhelming “boo,” but I was on the floor before I could even show him my palms and he had to handle both frequencies for a few minutes. Apologized for weeks afterward. I couldn’t find it in myself to be mad at him, just grateful I never had to see ground combat. Today, I make sure to come around near the window so he sees me before I surprise him. I try to avoid causing people trauma whenever I can, myself included. A few pilots probably tell stories about me, though. And then there’s poor Cindy.

I stop beyond fist range to wait. Halfway through a clearance, Orym smiles and moves his headset off one ear. When he’s finished clearing things up with the pilot—fourth time’s the charm—I start working the tension out of his shoulders. His head rolls backward. His fingers curl. He murmurs something radio-unfriendly and puts those pretty copper eyes on me. Most of us are blue or green-eyed, but every once in a while the powers that be bless an Altairan with brown eyes. Orym is the only one I’ve met in forty years. He’s also the only six-time divorcée I know, but that’s neither here nor there. “Careful, Thorny. You keep that up and I won’t let you leave.”

“What are you gonna do? Punch me?”

“Right now I’m thinking about—” He shuts up when I find a knot the size of my fist. Leans his head against my chest. “Oh, Gaelin.”

Angel is staring at us from his corner, hunched forward in his chair, holding a half-eaten piece of cake in one hand and a fork in the other. He looks like he wants to say something, but movement on the breakwater draws our attention before anything gets out. A car. Cindy’s car. We watch it tear past the tower, kicking up dust, barely missing the moving gate, until it disintegrates into flashes of blue under the palms beyond the fence. Shit. Can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing in her place.

“Where’s Cindy going?” Angel asks around a mouthful of vanilla.

“Huh.” Orym watches the glaring tail lights until they disappear. “Hope she’s okay.”
I bite my cheek. “Me too.”

Orym folds my hand in his and turns the chair around. “You guys are on Skylark 4407, right?” he asks, letting go of me way too soon.

“Good memory.” I lean against the desk next to his, which had an old Vegan computer on it before we put a continental breakfast there instead. We had to fill the space our new computers left with something. Everybody stashes their imports in the drawers—the only place we can get normal food on this planet. Two years ago I traded Misha a packet of rumig for something called shredded wheat and the greatest joint venture between Sol and Altair in recorded history began: the cupboard.

“Well, you’re one of eight this afternoon.” He nods at the drawer. “Get me a thing of those animal-shaped crackers.”

“Animal crackers,” Angel whispers.

“They are animal-shaped, aren’t they?” Orym rolls his eyes and watches me sift through the drawer. Gummy bears. Cool. Earthlings like their animal-shaped foods. I try to bean Orym with the last package of what Angel and the label think are called “animal crackers.” He catches them before they hit him in the temple. “Anyway,” he says, biting the head off a carbohydrate blob, unafraid, “I’m a little worried about this embargo.”

“Yeah,” I say through a sigh. “Sue isn’t taking it very well.”

“I wouldn’t be either if I lost my whole fuckin’ planet last time somebody thumbed his nose at a king.” Orym pops a few more in his mouth. “And I know you didn’t like flying Wasps.”

I didn’t like flying Wasps so much I get a little nauseous whenever somebody mentions them. “Hated it.”

“Damn shame, Thorny.” Orym sucks on his teeth. “You were a legend.”

“Like I’ve been telling everyone since I stopped flying—” which was a long fucking time ago, “—I’m happy now.”

“You weren’t grey when I met you.”

“Vega,” I say, touching my temple. My hair used to be dark, kind of the color where atmosphere meets space. Most of it is ashy now. “Vega, not the job.”

Orym scoffs. “Sure, Thorny. I’ll be home in a couple months. Let’s talk about it over a drink.”

“I’d like that.” Gaelin, I hope he meant what he said. I turn to Angel before I have too much time to think about it. “See ya later, kiddo.”

“Bye, Boss. Safe trip.”

“That’s partially up to you guys, huh?” I make my way to the stairs. Take one last look at Orym, but he’s already out the window talking to somebody again. I have a lot more to tell him. Nothing I can tell him here. Probably nothing he wants to hear from me. I bite my lip and start down the stairs.

“Hey, Katnir?”

“What?” I ask, peeking over the wall.

“I’ll make sure you get delayed.”

“Delayed? If you guys can’t handle eight departures in an afternoon you have another thing coming,” I say.

“Not from you. You’re not my boss anymore.” Orym smiles. I melt a little. “Fly safe, Thorny.”

Our ship gets off the ground a few minutes early. I try not to take it personally. Sue has the window seat on one side and I’m across the aisle, watching the big blue sphere fall away. We have the ship mostly to ourselves, which would be cool if the galaxy wasn’t on the brink of war. Right now I miss my neighbor’s elbow digging into my ribs and someone on the other side sitting so close I can’t lean away. I can’t stop looking over my shoulder. Nobody’s there, just an old lady in the last row losing her hat to zero gravity every time I turn around and a couple pilots ahead of us. I don’t know if I want someone to be there or just want to know why I feel an extra set of eyes in the cabin. Maybe I’m dreading what follows the empty ships, the quiet starports. I’m too tired and too relieved to figure it out—I like where I’m going and hated what I’m leaving. One of the best feelings in the world.

Knowing I don’t have long until I get lost, I lean my head against the window and watch the strobe light blink against the swept wing, one of billions, the song of the engines like summer rain. Should be an easy sixteen hours, conscious or unconscious. Sue put on a movie across the aisle. He doesn’t sleep much, a few hours a week, which he told me is more sleep than most of his species gets. Something about a stressful job.

I slept through half the trip and watched like three movies with Sue for the other half, but I’m still tired when we get off the ship, and I’m not looking forward to a twenty-four hour layover in a Rigellian hotel. Rigel sucks. Not the planet, the people, the music, or the food. One person. One person ruined an entire star system for me. I’m not even mad anymore. I just want the ring back.

Things are normal here—confused people making circles in the middle of the concourse, flight attendants, pilots, businesspeople, all in a hurry to get where they’re going, none of them watching for a tiny brown fuzzball underfoot. “Thorn,” Sue squeaks after a hoard goes past. “People keep stepping on me.”

I stop to pick Sue up. He’s panting in my arms, little heart pounding against my chest. Living in a world not made for you has to be exhausting. “Are you okay?”

“Everyone is looking at their stupid watches,” he says.

Now I’m making circles in the middle of the concourse. He’s right. If I were alone I’d probably do the same thing. “How do you find me in a crowd, Sue?” I ask, worried I’ll lose him if I put him down.

“By presence.”

“I have a presence?”

“Everyone does. I can’t read you guys like my neighbors or anything, but I can feel people I know.” A pause. “I hate crowds.”

“Me too.” I squeeze Sue, myself, and our bags between some more lost people. “Is that ever frustrating? Not being able to read me?”

“Sometimes. With some humanoids. But Altairans usually just say whatever they’re thinking anyway,” Sue says. I can’t disagree.

When I figure out where we’re supposed to go, I find the shortest customs line, but it’s kind of a waste of time because they hold everyone up for twenty minutes while Sue and I try to make them understand he isn’t my pet. Hearing that directly from Sue isn’t convincing enough. Four agents I’m pretty sure don’t have the combined brainpower to change a lightbulb finally let us through when I ask why the hell a dog needs a passport and have you ever heard a dog explain Altairan naturalization policies to you and I’m too pissy to remember what happens between almost being arrested for assault and waiting for a cab in the snow outside. I get like that when I’m hungry. And when people are being unbelievably shitty.

“Rigel sucks,” Sue says.

“Yeah. Really fucking does.” Shaking, teeth digging into my bottom lip, I put him down on a bench while I get our stuff in order. It sucks even harder when I straighten up because something hits me so hard in the chest I’m on my back on the wet concrete staring into the falling snow and my heart wants to know what the fuck just happened. I don’t think either of them will get the chance to find out. The sky is already black at the edges. My palm is coated with hot, sticky purple when I pull it away from my chest. Blood. Bad. I know that much.

Then there’s a gun on the sidewalk and a fork in somebody’s eye. I don’t know how it gets there and I don’t have time to figure it out because all the people on the sidewalk are either trampling each other or congealing around Sue and me. Lots of strange faces and hands. Too many questions in too many languages to answer. I reach out for Sue, who's almost sitting on my chest. “Thorn,” he says. “Thorn, can you hear me?”

“Yeah. Um.” Gaelin, I’m freezing. “You’ve been a really good friend, Sue. I’m sorry about your planet.”

“You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay, Thorn.”

I’m going blind. But I believe him.