She looked as Zoey’s bra and exhaled heavily. The humor could be heard in her breath as she helped Zoey remove the bra and instruct on how to wear one the right way. This included figuring out how to adjust the bra straps, a couple methods for fastening the backside, of which Zoey decided she preferred the one where she could do it in the front and slide it around to her back, moving her breasts in place, and then finally comparing the proper bra strap adjustments to lengths on her fingers so that Zoey could fix that on bras that had come out of the washer. The lesson was fitting in how it introduced Zoey in a couple brief minutes to a new world she never thought she’d know.
With that lesson learned and her first bra in place, Zoey learned how to navigate the interface. It doubled as a search function for the types of clothing available in the store, and could send a note to the registers to ask about ordering specific sizes or colors if necessary. Bon’sinne sat in the corner of the stall and let her try it out for a few outfits. To Zoey it looked like her adoptive mother was sitting on a short stool in the middle of a large room.
Her mom made minor suggestions in regards to color matching across multiple articles as well as her hair and eye colors. Something about matching the colors made more sense now than it had a month ago, but Zoey still didn’t want to worry too much about it if she could get away with a few simple outfits.
“Some professional advice I can give you,” said Bon’sinne, “is that on most days you can reuse a pair of pants from the day before.”
Zoey said, “Cool, that might help with the laundry.”
“Most days. That’ll change every few months or more.”
Keft’aerak could be heard in the entrance of the changing rooms as he said, “I’m going to go browse the store now.”
“You do that, honey.”
However, Zoey coughed at her own awkward pause. Then she continued to look through her plethora of options on the interface. Each time she found an outfit that she liked, Zoey pressed the “Try it” button in green. The lasers would return, but this time she felt a strange sensation as though warm cloth covered her body. She was wearing the outfit.
“Whoa!” Zoey said the first time it occurred.
“Do you like that?” asked Bon’sinne. “That will last until you swap out of your choice of projection, or until you try to walk out of here. Then it will dissolve.”
“How often do people walk out totally naked?”
“Often enough. Dasos did it once when he was five, but I don’t think he cared back then. I thought I was going to chase him across Elysium VIII back then.”
Seeing the pieces of the outfit on the interface was one thing, but it was a new experience to examine herself in the mirror on one wall. Zoey saw herself wearing these clothes while standing inside the simulated home interior. She noticed options on the interface to change the time or location, but she left it alone and basked in the midnight blue, vest over a gray shirt and pair of black pants against the daylight house interior.
The second outfit was chosen to be as simple as the first. Like the first one it was both functional and casual without looking lazy with her selections. Bon’sinne nodded to her and made note of where to find those pieces of clothing in the store. Both outfits took one pair of black shoes that stopped at her ankles, but could handle boots if she chose to get a pair at some point. The thought of boots made her contemplate them harder for the next pick.
Strangely, when she came to think about it, the shoes in this store rarely had the longer heels that Zoey both dreaded and expected to find. It was a relief to not have to learn now to walk in those things, but also odd.
On the third selection, Zoi’ne decided to dip her toes a little into formal wear that was decidedly more feminine as far as she knew. The venture ended with a skirt going down to her knees, a pair of boots with a set of heels raised by a couple centimeters, and a longer sleeve blouse.
Zoey was nervous, however. Was she really ready to wear something like this? Never in her years as a boy did she think that she would wear the same sort of clothes as the girls did. She was one, she felt right in her body, but was she up for wearing a two-piece dress like this?
She put one hand over her eyes and pressed the button.
[ 11]
Natt Grans wasn’t known for being the cleanest or best-kept of places in the galaxy, if Dasos’s secondhand knowledge was anything to go by. Many of the eateries in the station barely reflected this if only for being pubs with cracks along their rugged exteriors, and there being stains in places that Zoey could not identify if she tried.
Above the buildings Zoey marveled at the amount of space she saw. Her eyes traced the walls of the sides of the station’s rotating ring. When she had first stepped out of the garage where the ship was being repaired Zoey looked straight up at the top of the ring she was on, but Bon’sinne caught her and shielded her eyes from the central reactor and false sun that was positioned beyond the transparent ceiling. Now, as she looked at the walls, Zoey took care not to look at the reactor and risk blindness. It was hard to tell how tall the curved ceiling was, but she did notice that there was a second ring to this station that circled the same reactor. The ring that Zoey was on moved one way, passing beneath the second ring, and the second ring circled another way and passed under the first on the opposite side of the station.
Her parents led her through the commercial areas of the station’s first ring as they sought out a place to eat. Zoey volunteered to carry her new clothes during the trip. The new clothes sat in a pair of packages hanging inside the shopping bag. She wanted to wear any of the attire now, but Bon’sinne told Zoey that the clothes should be washed first. She wanted to be on the safe side from anyone else that might have worn those clothes despite how the fitting room worked.
Most of all, she wanted to actually wear the last one she had picked out. Zoey almost couldn’t believe that. She must have been crazy, or else it was too perfect; too right for her the way she was now.
Who was she?
Keft’aerak pulled ahead and stopped. He opened a door to a restaurant as if expecting to find this particular one. Bon’sinne rested a hand upon Zoey’s upper back and nodded at her toward the door with a smile. Zoey took a moment to examine the restaurant before moving any further. The front of the building was rounded and off-white with pink and orange tones, not counting the glass that made up the windows and door. The burgundy roof also bowed at the top, but came down the two sides more directly.
Zoey stepped inside with precarious pacing as she looked within. Two broken chairs and matching table were far off to the side, leaving a cluster still of other polished wooden tables through the modest eatery. A couple of those tables had been taken already, while a tan-skinned Aelf was wiping down a third.
The Aelf looked up at the family trio and welcomed the new visitors to this place.
“Hello,” said the young waiter. “Please sit wherever you like.”
“Is Aren in?” asked Keft’aerak.
“He should be. Who might I say is asking?”
Another tan Aelf walked into the room from the kitchen. His apron had a fair share of stains on it, telling Zoey that this man had more than likely been here a while. The man wiped his hands on a towel and scanned the room. The cook noticed Aerak instantly and said, “Now there’s a damned pirate if I’ve ever seen one.”
Bon’sinne sat down nonchalantly like the sort of person who was expecting this interaction long before it happened. She then pulled up a seat next to her for Zoey to sit, but Zoey wasn’t too certain about joining her yet. What was this pirate talk about?
“It takes a fool of the sea to know another, old friend,” said Keft’aerak.
“Friend!” the cook scoffed. “When was the last time you tried my cerveza and told me about your travels? Fah! Just sit down and enjoy yourself. I’ll be back out with your meals.”
He discarded the towel and went back into the kitchen with a roaring laughter. Aerak joined his family at the table,
and the waiter came quickly with coasters, that he set upon the surface with quick precision, and three menus.
Great, more reading and trying to figure out what things mean, Zoey thought.
Keft’aerak must have read her mind or something, because he leaned over and said, “Pick anything at random; it’s all good. I can explain what it is later.”
It was some time later, within moments of food reaching their table, when the cook from before came out without his apron on. The man brought four small glasses, all chilled from sitting in a freezer for a while, and two bottles with labels reading “Cerveza Casa del Aren’oro.”
Bon’sinne giggled at the glasses and said, “One of us is underage, Aren.”
The man shook his head with a defiant smile at first. Aren’oro said, “Hey, now; I’m only young at heart, capitán. Besides, your daughter here is what now? Twenty-one? That’s plenty old to have a drink.”
“She’s seventeen.”
“That’s close enough. What’s your name, señorita?”
Zoey answered, “It’s Zoi’ne. How—?”
“How did I know you weren’t Il’lyse? Save for what happened to her, I can always tell people apart, no matter how much they look alike.”
In an abrupt moment, Bon’sinne swiped a bottle and drank it down until it was empty. Aren’oro pulled up a fourth chair and let Bon’sinne continue to drain the whole beverage. He knew this behavior of hers and allowed it like a man on a raft letting the fish swim by him.
“Zoey dear,” Bon’sinne said when it was done, “you can have the one glass.”
Aren nodded at her and said, “It’s been a while. How’ve you all been? What brings you all to my speck in the galaxy? And where’s Dasos?”
“All of those are good questions.” Damn, she never once lost her composure after downing that beer whole. That was one of the more impressive things Zoey had ever seen, and the last week had been a ride.
The amount which they told Aren’oro was limited.
“We were taking some much time off,” Keft’aerak said, “or were planning to when there was an accident far off from here. I can’t really say what happened there, but it was time to bring Zoey home.”
“I never even knew you had a second daughter,” Aren said.
“We fully expect a lot of people to say that. It’s more complicated than anything Bonny and I have faced in our careers until now, but we’re happy to introduce her to everyone.”
Zoey wasn’t sure what to say or think about this version of events as it was being told. She sipped away at the beer between bites of her fabada and tried not to make a fool of herself over it. The last thing she needed was to say something that would get her into trouble.
“The Marslou was involved in helping us,” Bon’sinne said. “Then we ran into some trouble with the Hulda’fi on the way here, so we figured now would be a good time to drop by. We’d have had to double back later if we waited.”
Keft’aerak said, “Right, about four or five months at the earliest; I have another mission I need to return to as soon as I’m able. I’m sure my commander is doing fine for now, but I really must get back.”
“We’ll get to Elysium IX in time, lover.”
“I know, my darling rosentre.”
Zoey imitated a gagging reflex in Aren’oro’s direction. He chuckled at her.
* * *
Forty caskets laid in a room. All but one filled with bodies, and the last carried five service pins to represent the crew members lost and unaccounted for.
The young woman with the baby, who had waited at the escape craft for her fiancé, cried for the love of her life was in one of the caskets.
Zoey thought of Dasos, who was watching this service on a monitor with their mom. He had almost been assigned to the Marslou as an ensign to the security personnel. The ensign who was brought on, along with two other officers in that division, were now among the missing. She could hardly begin to fathom what was running through his mind right now.
Captain Druvvin walked up to the podium and said, “We gather today to honor man and woman, friend and foe. Our friends before us served in life what the stars may sing as bringing peace. Our foes fought for a freedom none of us understand, and many of us pay for.
“This terrible tragedy saw risks too great, and a cost too high for a single soul to bear. It is for this reason that we must bear it together and live. Faltering to the noise of death disservices every person here and every other person left behind. We stand here, at the final door to eternity, so that we may offer them to the cosmos, from dust to burning star, from world to endless horizon, and from this life to the last. Let these forty-four souls know respite and autonomy.”
He took a step back and turned to the caskets. Captain Druvvin saluted, and everyone else followed when Commander Consilius called for it. Zoey made a point to stand up straight and press her fist to her shoulder, though no civilian was expected to salute as well.
Music played now. One by one the caskets were led into a chamber where they were let free into space, five at a time. Once the second group departed, the young officer from earlier fell to her knees, and Tong-Chang was there to help her.
Once the funeral was over, Admiral Fjorfolia and a platinum blond Aelf, who Zoey assumed to be his wife, approached her and Keft’aerak. Zoey tried not to gaze too hard at the Lady Fjorfolia, but it was difficult not to notice that she was the first blond Aelf that Zoey had seen so far.
Lady Fjorfolia, however, did look Zoey over from ear to ear with a knowing, aristocratic smile. She said, “You must be this Zoi’ne that I have heard about. I am sorry that we missed one another, even as my husband and I waited inside that escape craft during the attack.”
“Um,” Zoey said, “how do you do?”
“Ho-ho, I am as well as can be expected. As for you? This must all have been a traumatic experience for you. Our estate will not be far from the planet of Elysium IX, should you decide to come pay me a visit.”
“I appreciate the offer.”
The admiral shook Aerak’s hand, their gesture being one of grasping one another’s wrist, and he said, “I wish we had caught up some more, Captain Thalassas. We are boarding a shuttle this evening to head back home earlier than the Marslou. I would be remiss if I didn’t extend an invitation to you and your family. It will be an honor to have you under happier circumstances than the last time.”
Keft’aerak said, “Thank you, sir, but my son is still recovering from his wound during the attack. He is a grown adult now, but we came this far on a family affair. We will be returning as a family, or I would be waiting around for my ship to pick me up without them all by me.”
“Oh yes, I suppose it wouldn’t be right to break up your family now. Well then it has been a pleasure to see you all on this ship, however brief as it was. It’s time that we took our leave. Farewell. Remene, my dear?”
The Fjorfolias locked their elbows together and walked away in one direction. Tong-Chang escorted the woman she was helping toward the ship.
* * *
She eventually made it back to the Medical Bay with one of her newly bought and cleaned sets of clothes. Sure, Zoey had borrowed clothes from a few people around the ship during the last several days, but now she was wearing something of her own. She actually was wearing a girl’s attire. It was a strange and unique feeling in its own right, made even more so by there being a handful of people present.
One of the laeknir approached her and said, “Hello, Zoi’ne. Is anything the matter?”
“Not this time, thank you,” she said. “I’m visiting my brother is all.”
“That’s good to hear. He’s right this way, as you can see.”
Zoey nodded to the laeknar and walked past him to Dasos. He appeared to be typing something on a digital pad.
“Hey there,” she said. “Are you working on anything fun?”
Das’ithrios looked up at her to answer and stopped. He looked at her up and down wide-eyed. Zoey felt her h
eart starting to sink the longer the silence went on.
“You hate it,” she said, tugging at her top.
“No, I don’t,” Das said. “I’m just surprised to see you in something that nice. How much did it cost?”
“Mom and Dad didn’t say, not that I know how money works around here yet. We went to a store in town, and they let me pick a few outfits out. Why, does this look expensive?”
“Money? Well, anyways, maybe not expensive. I’m glad they’re helping you out a little as we figure out how you’re going to live your new life, and support yourself.”
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