CHAPTER 1
HELEN
I have a secret that everyone would laugh if they knew.
I’m scared of being outside.
As Adiron drags us through Port’s small town, I can’t help but stare up at the sky overhead. It makes me dizzy, seeing those clouds all the way up there. How high does the ceiling go? I don’t like it. Ships are comfortable to me. Ships have touchable walls and ceilings. This feels like…like it’s too open. I hate it. It might smell like flowers and grass, but it also smells like dirt and too many people, and I prefer the comforting, musty scent of air filters on a ship.
“Come on,” Jade says, tucking her arm through mine. “This is our last chance to get shopping in before we take off again. Might as well enjoy it while we’re here.”
“I’m enjoying!” I blurt out. I don’t want anyone to know how unnerved I am by the outdoors. It’s just another thing that makes me “other.” Ruth, Alice and Jade are all human. I’m “other,” and it becomes more apparent in Port, when there’re human faces everywhere we turn.
Sometimes it feels really lonely.
It’s a feeling I never had in the past, back on the Buoyant Star. The abandoned ship was immense, the pale gray halls empty, but it never felt lonely. I always had Jade and Alice and Ruth. We all looked different, but we were a family. We ate our meals together, we played games together, and we did chores together. I went to sleep in a room I shared with Ruth, and when I woke up, my friends were the first people I saw. I felt like part of something there, part of a family.
But now we’ve been “rescued” and I feel like my life is continually spinning out of control. Jade is pregnant and sick all the time, with Adiron hovering over her. Alice is pregnant, too, and hooking up with Kaspar. They’re all over each other constantly, and she’s got a new pet named Sterre to baby. Ruth has a sister, is pregnant, and mated to Lord Straik now.
They’ve had events happen recently. Ever since we split up on the deck of the Buoyant Star, they’ve been having all kinds of crazy adventures.
And what happened with me? I sat in an abandoned mining station with Mathiras and then came here to this wide open planet that everyone says is paradise and I’m afraid to say that I absolutely hate.
Now I’m getting all sad again and I can’t let that happen. I paste a bright smile on my face and follow Jade into the tiny store smack dab in the middle of the settlement called Port. The tables are cluttered with all kinds of goods and there’s writing on the bags and boxes and containers, but I don’t recognize half of them. I only read a smattering of Human English so I look for those familiar symbols and see them nowhere.
The male behind the counter crosses his arms at the sight of us. He’s a strange-looking alien, but I’ve been told it’s impolite to stare, so I don’t make eye contact. I keep my head bent and my hair covered by the hood I’m wearing, since I’ve been told that I might catch the attention of unsavories (whatever those are) if they realize I’m qura’aki. Apparently those are a big deal…I guess.
Navigating the universe is starting to feel like learning how to read. I feel as if I master a few letters, but if I turn the page, there’s thousands and thousands of letters and words crawling all over the rest of the book and I’m not capable of pulling it all into my head all at once. There’s so much that’s new that it just adds to the feeling of terror I’ve been experiencing lately. Even when I was on a station stuck with Mathiras, I wasn’t frightened because he was there, and our goal was to get back to my friends.
Now the goals are changing, everyone has moved on without me, and I’m struggling not to panic every day.
I pick at the things on the tables, not really seeing anything that interests me. Jade is far more fascinated, studying each item, and Alice quizzes the guy behind the counter about the types of snacks that he’s selling and what the locals make fresh. Adiron keeps picking up things and holding them out to Jade for her to look at, as if her approval means everything to him, and the way he grins every time she snorts with amusement, it’s kinda cute. I do wish Ruth had come with us today, but she stayed on board the Darkened Eye—no wait, we’re calling it the Scarlet Gaze now.
“You see anything you want, Helen?” Adiron asks me as I stand timidly behind Jade. “Stuff for the trip? We won’t be coming back here for a bit.”