The Best Next Thing
Stormy gave a happy whine at the sight of Charity, and Miles cast a wry look at his dog.
You and me both, girl!
He was so fucking pleased to see her. He yanked open the passenger door before she could change her mind and she offered him a grateful smile before climbing into the cabin.
Miles shut the door behind her and turned away to compose himself. He felt like a teenage boy on his first date, terrified he would do or say something to offend her or scare her off. Or just plain humiliate himself.
He placed Stormy into the doggy booster seat he had purchased—along with a shit ton of other pet paraphernalia—once he had been able to get into town again.
“So where are we headed?” she asked, as he climbed into the driver’s side.
“I thought we could go to the beach in Riversend, close to the river mouth. I hear it’s nice there.”
“Klein Bekkie? It’s very beautiful. You’ve never been?”
“No. Vicki and Hugh have gone a few times, and they always talk about how untamed it is. And how great the surf is. I’ve seen pictures, it looks like a long stretch of beach, perfect for walking. I thought it would be a great place to focus on Stormy’s recall.”
He felt like he was chattering inanely, but she seemed interested.
“What do you mean, her ‘recall’?”
“Getting her to return to me on command. According to the research I’ve done, it’s a fundamental training tool. And important especially in emergencies. I mean, take last night as an example, I would have been able to stop her in her tracks with just a word.”
And if he had, they would not be here this morning. So he couldn’t quite regret Stormy’s embarrassing invasion of her room last night.
“Think she’s ready for that?” Charity cast a doubtful glance over her shoulder at the dog.
“She’s the right age for it. And she’s clever enough to get it pretty quickly.” He didn’t want to sound too smug, but he was sure his dog was a genius.
“I haven’t been to Klein Bekkie in a while,” she said, after a short pause. “It’s quiet during winter—usually just joggers, surfers, and kite surfers around. Oh, and anglers. The fishing is pretty good there. Especially at this time of year. There will probably be some other people walking their dogs as well.”
“Well, she does need to be socialized,” Miles said, with a glance back at the dog. Stormy was staring at them with a huge grin on her endearing face. She was panting with excitement. This was only her third time in a car, but she seemed quite at home in it.
He turned on the ignition and, when the engine roared to life, the Bluetooth sound system immediately synced with his phone and his most recent audiobook blared to breathless life:
Dendroignis the Abhorrent, violator of maidens, demolisher of kingdoms, pillager of riches, scourge of the four sovereignties of Terra Arbor, will lay waste to our dwellings if apposite safeguards are not—
“Shit!” He fumbled for the dial and muted the bombastic speech. “Sorry.”
“What was that?” Charity asked as he navigated the vehicle out of the garage.
He focused on clearing the structure before answering her question. “An audiobook.”
“I gathered that much. It was very…descriptive.”
“The author does bang on but—” He shrugged offering her a small smile and appreciating how she had turned in her seat to give him her full focus. “I like it.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s a space opera.”
“Like Star Wars?”
“A bit darker. Very medieval and graphic.”
“Medieval? In space?”
“Well, their world, Terra Arbor, is primitive. They’re fighting over land and resources, using swords, burning pitch, and trebuchets in battle. That kind of thing.”
“So…no spaceships?”
“Of course they have spaceships, but…”
“How can they have spaceships but still not have evolved beyond sword fights and medieval battle tactics? What about medicine? How do they treat the gaping sword wounds?”
“Their ship, the Arbor, was part of a larger colonial fleet—humans fleeing a dying earth in the year 2250—and it crash-landed on a massive, habitable planet—”
“Of all the planets, in all the solar systems, amidst billions of galaxies, in an infinite universe, they crash-landed on a habitable one? Fortuitous…” she inserted dryly, and he shot her an unfathomable look, before continuing.
“The rest of the fleet continued on their journey, because once the ships land, they’re no longer able to take off. They become temporary hubs for the two thousand people who populate them. The ship is meant to house them and protect them, until their new planet is terraformed and suitable for human habitation. The fleet promised to send a rescue mission back for the Arboreans, but that was over five hundred years ago.
“Meanwhile, the colonists on the crashed ship learned to adapt to life on Terra Arbor. But resources are scarce, and tech has degraded badly. They inevitably broke off into clans, and formed kingdoms to keep the gene pool diverse. They created a primitive free-market and trade-based society. But there were outliers, those who wanted to control resources and amass power. Dendroignis the Abhorrent is the descendant of one of those outliers.”