by Tasha Black
“What if the youngling won’t listen to the speech?” she asked.
“I alert the parents,” Saylin said. “Is your youngling a troublemaker?”
“How do you alert the parents?” she asked.
“In whatever manner they prefer,” Saylin said. “Usually a sort of a siren sound is most effective.”
“What would you do if a stranger approached a youngling you were minding?” Phoebe asked.
In the kitchen, Tyro had stopped preparing the milk to listen.
“I would announce to the stranger that they must not come closer,” Saylin said. “Then I would sound my alarm to the parents.”
“That’s excellent,” Phoebe said. “I’m going to ask you for an alternate option to your programming. Do you have enough memory to program another chain, similar to that one?”
“Yes, Phoebe,” the droid said.
“I would like you to consider this dock farm and our yurt to be like a second youngling,” Phoebe said. “If a stranger approaches, you will ask them to leave, and you will alert Tyro and me.”
The droid blinked and whirred for a moment.
“It is done,” the droid said. “I have never acted as a guard droid before. This is clever coding, but it may have weaknesses we have not anticipated. I apologize in advance for my inexperience and hope that I may serve to your satisfaction.”
“Saylin, I thank you for your earnest efforts,” Phoebe said. “Solving problems together in ways we couldn’t alone is why I love working with droids, like you. I want you to know that I will never be angry if my coding doesn’t work. And I hope you will be honest with me if you anticipate problems with something I ask you to do.”
“Phoebe,” the droid said at once, “I anticipate a problem.”
“Excellent,” she said. “What is it?”
“From my current position I am unable to see if any strangers are approaching the dock,” the droid said. “Also, I do not have a complete list of non-strangers.”
“Thank you for your astute observations,” Phoebe said. “Most times when I want you to watch over the dock it will be because Tyro and I are sleeping, or away from the farm. Right now, it’s okay that you can’t see enough to help with this task.”
“I see,” the droid said.
“And for now, Tyro, Atlas and myself are the only non-strangers,” she said. “We are new to this place. But we hope in time there will be many more non-strangers.”
“Excellent, my lady,” the droid said.
“Can you tell me what kind of maintenance would be best for you right now?” she asked.
“My major maintenance is complete,” the droid replied. “I will prepare a list of minor servicing that might help me serve you better.”
“Thank you,” Phoebe replied. “I will be sure to attend to you in the morning, unless there is something more urgently needed.”
“No, my lady,” Saylin replied.
“Excellent,” Phoebe said. “I am very glad you have joined our home, Saylin.”
She headed for the kitchen, very pleased with her choice of droids. This one was very quick on its feet.
“That was incredible,” Tyro said, handing her a plate of something that looked like bread and butter.
“I grew up on a farm with a droid work force,” she said. “We got very lucky with Saylin. He’s a keeper.”
“You’re so gentle with him,” Tyro said. “Most people treat them like tools or just machines, no different than a pump impeller.”
“My daddy always said that it was important to treat our workers politely, whether they were organic or manufactured. He said you could tell a lot about a person by how they treated others when there was no personal gain involved,” Phoebe said fondly. “He was always kind to our droids. They understand us very well, and the relationship is always better when we are honest with them and they can trust us. Saylin could save our lives one day with his own ingenuity. But he won’t take independent action unless we make sure he knows we want him to pipe up if we’re making a mistake.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Tyro asked.
“How so?”
“What if you have just given him the freedom to do something against our interests?” Tyro asked.
“He would never do anything against our interests, would you, Saylin?” Phoebe replied indignantly.
“Of course not, my lady,” the droid replied instantly.
“His interest is in serving ours,” she said. “That is how he is programmed. The knowledge of his unparalleled service gives him pleasure.”
“Indeed, my lady understands me well,” Saylin said. “The small freedom she offers will allow me to augment my service to your home.”
“It’s important that we talked about it though, because someone else might consider being corrected by a droid to be an impertinence,” she told Tyro. “Communication is the most important part of our relationship.”
Atlas had finished his milk and let out a loud burp.
“Someone was hungry,” she said.
Atlas wiggled his little green fingers at her.
She took him in her arms, relishing his warm weight.
“Mah,” he said, leaning forward until his forehead touched hers.
“Did he just call you mama?” Tyro asked in wonder.
“No, I’m pretty sure it’s just baby talk,” she replied. But her own heart had surged with love at the sound. “He’ll know our names soon enough.”
“My lady, may I warm your meal?” Saylin offered.
“No thank you,” she said. “But there’s something you can do for us. Once Atlas falls asleep, we’ll ask you to watch over him while we go out to check on the farm.”
“I can watch over him now, my lady, if you place him in his cradle,” Saylin offered. “I am programmed with many songs, stories and even light displays to help younglings feel peaceful for sleeping.”
Phoebe glanced down at Atlas.
He did look sleepy.
“Do you want Saylin to sing you songs?” she asked him softly.
She placed him gently in his cradle.
As soon as he began to protest, Saylin rolled over to him, a spectrum, of light colors glowing alternately on his front screen and soft, silly music playing from his main speaker.
Atlas stopped whimpering immediately and squeaked at the droid, waving his little hands.
“Hello, young one,” Saylin said politely. “Let’s have some resting music.”
Phoebe watched for a few minutes as the droid eased the baby into a state of peacefulness with a sweet melody, accompanied by soft, dancing lights on his front screen.
“Okay,” she told Tyro. “Come on.”
11
Tyro
Tyro stepped out of the yurt and looked around.
Though he knew already that someone had been here while they were away, he was sure that no one was around currently.
He moved aside once he was convinced it was safe, allowing Phoebe to join him.
She smiled as the breeze lifted her golden hair.
He smiled back, almost in pain from the delicious scent of her.
“So you think someone was here earlier?” she asked.
“I know it,” he said.
They walked quietly to the end of the dock to survey the scene.
The pump was just as they had left it, thankfully. With the new impeller, he hoped to be able to get it up and running tomorrow. The toolboxes all seemed to be intact, the netting was all undamaged, and so was the pulley system.
“What’s wrong?” Phoebe asked.
“Nothing,” he replied. “That’s the trouble. Who would come here and not touch anything?”
She didn’t answer, because there was no answer to that.
He leaned over the dock to look at the luxberries themselves.
“Oh,” he said, sighing as he spotted the problem.
“What?” she asked.
“There’s a hole in the containment fence,” he told her.
“Would the berries… get away?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“No,” he said. “But the lake is full of animals that would love to eat the berries or damage the farm in other ways. We need to repair the fence right away.”
“There are animals in there?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Yes,” he chuckled. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to go down there. I can take care of it.”
“Like hell,” she retorted. “I’m a farmer, and a farmer isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. A real farmer would never ask a hand to do something she can’t do herself.”
“So I’m your hand now?” he teased.
In reality he was delighted. This was exactly the proper attitude for a farmer on a frontier moon. He only hoped she was a good swimmer. If so, she would take this moon by storm.
To his surprise, and further delight, she began removing her clothing.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“My farm is in danger,” she said simply, looking at him like he was crazy. “I’m going to swim down there and protect it. My extra clothing will just weigh me down.”
Her hands were at the hem of her shift and she was clearly about to pull it over her head.
He wanted nothing more than to let her, and then feast on the view of her luminous flesh in the pink twilight. But he knew that wasn’t really an option.
“Phoebe,” he sighed. “Your motivation is admirable. But the animals in the water are extremely dangerous. The only way to swim in this lake is to wear water armor.”
“Do I have water armor?” she asked, her eyes wide.
He led her to the locked box where her armor was kept.
“You do,” he told her as he lifted it out and handed it to her.
“What about you?” she asked. “Do you know how to swim?”
“I’m a green dragon,” he said. “What do you think?”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” she asked, sliding the armor over her legs.
To most people, one dragon was pretty much the same as every other. But Tyro knew that was far from the truth.
“Dragons have different abilities, and you can guess at some of them if you know our colorations,” he explained. “As a green dragon, long distance swimming is part of my skillset.”
“Well that’s going to be handy,” she said. “You must have been jazzed that your baby was assigned to a submerged farm.”
“I was,” he said quietly. “Until I saw how unhappy it made you.”
She looked up at him, something like pain in her dark eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
She nodded, getting back to the task of donning her suit.
“Where’s your armor?”
“I don’t need it,” he said, helping her get the final pieces in place. “Benefit of being a dragon. Now we just need our tool set.”
Together they went through the tools on the dock and selected the right ones to repair the fence.
“Ready?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“If you get into trouble, just touch the silver button at your wrist,” he told her. “It will set off a signal that will alert me immediately.”
“Okay,” she told him, checking out the button.
He turned to the lake.
It had been so long since he’d had a chance to swim. The ocean back on Ignis-7 seemed like a distant memory.
He dove in and let the water embrace him as it always did.
Instantly, he could feel the life in each drop, the quiver of other creatures below, and the breath of the plant life purifying the lake.
He resurfaced and held his arms out to Phoebe. She jumped without hesitation.
Time seemed to stand still as she moved toward him, her hair lifting from her shoulders in a glossy swirl, her eyes sparkling.
Then she landed in his arms in the water with a huge splash.
He pulled her close without meaning to, pressing his lips to the top of her head.
She snuggled closer, maddening him with her sweet scent.
“Let’s fix this fence,” she whispered.
He nearly groaned, but she was right, of course. The sooner they fixed the fence, the closer they were to a running farm.
He dove under the surface again and she joined him there, her hair a golden cloud around her. Moving slowly and carefully, he crimped each bit of the fence back into its proper shape.
After a moment she swam back up to the surface.
He was worried, but she was back again before he could check on her.
She must have been getting another breath. He had forgotten how little time these creatures could spend underwater.
She put her hand out for the tool and he handed it over and was impressed to see her following exactly what he had done before.
The fencing was lightweight but strong. It took strength and coordination to reshape it. Phoebe was obviously good with her hands.
He tried not to think of what other things those skilled hands might be good at.
They continued their work, each stage punctuated by Phoebe’s comings and goings for air.
At last, the fence was in one piece again.
He held his finger out to her to caution against touching the fencing.
She nodded.
He slid his finger against the sensor in a pattern and the fence electrified again.
He took Phoebe’s hand and they surfaced together. She filled her lungs once more before speaking.
“So the fence is charged?” she asked.
“Not enough to harm anyone,” he explained. “Just enough to make it unpleasant for fish to try to sneak inside and eat the berries.”
The sky above was darkening to a deep blue, except along the fiery horizon. Clotho was still, as if holding its breath at the midway point between day and night.
“Do we have time to check out the rest of the farm?” Phoebe asked.
“Of course,” he told her. “But let me lend you my breath this time.”
“Lend me your breath?” she echoed.
“It won’t sustain you forever underwater, but it will allow you to explore a little longer,” he told her.
“How do we do it?” she asked.
Gods love her eagerness, he wanted to lend her everything he had.
“Come close,” he told her. “This will be like a kiss.”
She moved to him quickly, tilting her head back like the leading lady in a hologram picture.
He bent and placed his lips on hers.
Sensations washed over his body, as if his life were flashing before him. But it was the future and not the past. The two of them were laughing on a picnic blanket as Atlas took his first steps. Her belly was full with a second child. He held her close under a thick fur, making love to her silently before the fire as the children slept.
It was a dream, he knew that. But he could make it real, if he didn’t push her too fast.
Phoebe whimpered and he swallowed up the sound as well as the rest of the air in her lungs.
Her hands tightened on his arms.
He filled her with a breath of his own.
She froze at the sensation, which must have been very strange to her. He could feel her body tremble as he pulled back slightly.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m a bit light headed, but that’s going away.”
“I’ve basically oversaturated your blood with oxygen,” he told her. “You won’t crave a breath for a long time now.”
“Like a hippo,” she said in a wondrous voice.
“What?” he asked.
“On old Earth, there was a creature called a hippopotamus. Children loved seeing them in the zoo and reading picture books about them, though the creatures were viciously territorial and dangerous in the wild. Hippos spend their time under water, but have to come up to take a breath every half hour or so.”
“That’s amazing,” he told h
er. “I wish I could see a picture of one.”
“I’ll draw one for you when we get home,” she told him, warming his heart by calling the yurt their home.
“Are you ready to go under water and try it out?” he asked.
“Very ready,” she told him.
“We’ll just take a quick swim around the berries and then go back,” he said.
She took his hand and they dove under the surface together.
The lake was murky, murkier than it should be for ideal farming. He was glad they had the parts ready to get the pump up and running.
He could barely see Phoebe if she wasn’t right beside him. And it was getting dark outside, which meant that soon she would have a wonderful surprise.
He fixed his eyes on her lovely face.
She was clearly enjoying the time underwater without craving air. He wished he had done it sooner. They could have worked more efficiently on the fence if she had not needed to surface for air so many times. But he hadn’t been sure if she would accept his gift so eagerly when they were still on the dock. Something about the calmness of the water had seemed to relax her a bit.
He led her along the fence line so she could see the many thousands of berries that already grew in her submerged garden.
Soon they would have even more. His mate was smart and motivated. A year from tonight, the farm would be exponentially larger. He had no doubt.
Tyro watched, and he saw the exact moment when she noticed the luxberries.
Her face went soft with wonder and then her dark eyes met his and she smiled, squeezing his hand in a way that made him warm all over.
The luxberries were glowing.
Their soft light made him think of candlelight. It was romantic, even here in the cool depths of the murky water.
He reached out slowly to stroke her cheek.
She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, and his heart was full to bursting.
She opened her eyes and pointed upward.
To Tyro, it felt like they had been underwater for a heartbeat. But it had clearly been longer if Phoebe needed a breath.
12
Phoebe
Phoebe shivered as they crawled out of the water and onto the dock and the cool air hit her wet skin.