Seeing Stars

by Lisabet Sarai, Justine Elyot, KS Augustin, Buffi BeCraft, Lizzie Lynn Lee, Sophie Angmering

  “I’m sure you are, Captain Haber. And may I remind you that Rhus’ arrival is only an acceleration of a plan that was already agreed to? Based on the past, I’m expecting a significant rise in commercial discoveries once both Salvia and Rhus start working together.”

  There wasn’t much of importance said after that. The voices became more relaxed, others chimed in and Salvia gathered the main, combative part of the meeting was at an end. When she heard someone enter the room, announcing the arrival of food, she knew it was time to go.

  Using measured strokes, Salvia headed out of the pipe system and into open water, increasing her speed as she hit the ocean currents. She didn’t want to be seen as being too close to the station should a technician decide to check up on her.

  She headed for her home, a cave system twenty kilometres away from the station. Although she had a bay at the station that was supposedly her own ‘room’, it had been Dr Faisbain who’d encouraged her to be more independent, telling her it wouldn’t always be practical swimming back to the base while she was, for example, exploring underwater terrain six sectors away. The biologist encouraged her to think more expansively and Salvia had taken her advice to heart, not only thinking differently about where she called home but also what she ate.

  The station had been set up to dispense daily rations and, most of the time, Salvia had dutifully gone and collected her meals. There were three of them for each day, labelled ‘Breakfast’, ‘Lunch’ and ‘Dinner’. This had amused and puzzled Salvia no end. Did the normals really regulate their lives to such an extent? When she asked Faisbain about it, the scientist had replied that, yes, most normals ate their meals three times a day.

  Salvia said nothing but she was smiling inside. What if someone suddenly became hungry in between one of these regimented meal times? What if they happened across something delicious in the course of their work? Were they supposed to ignore a tasty tidbit just because they hadn’t reached the eating part of their cycle?

  But that wasn’t the only puzzle the normals posed. Faisbain explained that, at first, the normals weren’t sure what was waiting for them under the icy crust of Europa.

  “We had expected a barren salty ocean, stretching all the way around Jupiter’s moon,” Faisbain had told her during her third physical examination. “And when we started the drilling, for the station siting…well, we discovered more surprises.”

  “Like the thickness of the ice,” Salvia said from inside the observation tank.

  “That’s right.” The older woman’s voice was distracted from referring to several monitors. “Definitely thinner than we were expecting. And the water was warmer too.”

  “And full of life.”

  Salvia had been younger then and still filled with the wonder of the dark watery world. Except it wasn’t dark to her. Her eyes had been modified so what appeared to be complete blackness to normals was actually a landscape of shading and colour to her. The currents were faint ribbons of blue, sinuously weaving their way between ridges and slowly fading into larger currents and bodies of water. Schools of marine creatures resembling fish appeared as white and silver flashes, darting across water, meeting up and dispersing, flowing around obstacles and meeting up on the other side as if they were one entity, temporarily sliced into individual streams that seamlessly coalesced again.

  Salvia’s stomach would rumble when she saw the shoals of white-fish. There were bigger predators in Europa’s oceans but Salvia knew she had a couple of advantages over them. She was quick. And smart. It didn’t take long for her to capture flapping slivers of firm flesh in her hands and mouth and crunch them between her sharp teeth. She swallowed their rich blood as she chewed and considered her small catches of fish to be superior in taste and texture to the processed blocks that the station dispensed.

  She was given medical care by the normals. And food. Dr Faisbain was kind and even joked with her from time to time. But even during her first tentative forays into Europa, Salvia knew the normals weren’t her friends. They could turn into foes at the least opportunity.

  Now she was safely in her cave, Salvia could muse a little more clearly on the meeting she’d overheard. The words Captain Haber spoke seemed to reinforce their opinion of her and Rhus as nothing more than animals trained to sniff out and recover minerals and structures that might be used by the mysterious, almighty ‘company’ to ‘increase profits’. She wondered if the station might withhold more important things if both she and Rhus refused to cooperate with the people on the station.

  Afraid that this might be the case, almost from the beginning, Salvia had been hoarding the rations the station provided. There was no thought of mutiny at first, just a general unease that she thought she needed insurance against. She hadn’t told Dr Faisbain of the move. After all, wasn’t Dr Faisbain also a normal? Salvia considered her small cache to be her emergency reserve, in case some disaster befell her. She had thought that that situation had occurred several months ago, when she’d gone back to the station to tell them she refused to do any more work until they provided a companion for her.

  As she’d expected, she was threatened with starvation. Until that point, the normals somehow thought she was existing on the compressed dusty bricks they called food. When she laughed at them and showed them a wriggling white-fish in her hand, then munched on it in front of them, they looked shocked. They would have threatened to withhold medical care but both parties knew Salvia was in the peak of health. She had been created to be the perfect complement to Europa and, unfortunately, she was.

  When they ran out of threats, they finally settled down and listened, while Salvia told them what she wanted.

  Salvia hadn’t cared if the companion she asked for was male or female. All she wanted was someone to share Europa with. The white-fish were too simple creatures for her to communicate with and their predators, for all that their size proclaimed some degree of prowess in Europa’s oceans, were also simple, intent on eating and breeding. There hadn’t been a single creature in her new home she could talk to or share new discoveries with. The station personnel, including Dr Faisbain, were more interested in what she found rather than how she felt. So she had refused further assignments, further scouting missions into the ocean, until she had a confidant. A friend.

  And they delivered one to her.

  What she hadn’t bargained on were the conflicting emotions that Rhus’ appearance caused. She had been expecting someone like her, quiet and curious. She hadn’t been expecting a brash male who boasted about his journey to Europa, a journey she couldn’t herself recall. She had wanted someone to share confidences with, but Rhus appeared to be somebody who was more intent on demonstrating his own superiority. She’d been happy when she heard Dr Faisbain tell the rest of the room, including Captain Haber, that Rhus’ organs were still immature. That meant he wasn’t as strong as he had first intimated. As first human inhabitant of the moon, Salvia was still its mistress and holder of more knowledge about Europa than any other person in the galaxy.

  Salvia smiled to herself. She liked the fact she had some company, at last. But she wouldn’t make the mistake of trusting Rhus too much. From the initial looks of things, he was still a tool of the ‘company’ that Salvia mistrusted. He would need to prove himself before Salvia shared her concerns with him.

  She flicked a glance to a small section of the cave floor. It was piled with the station rations she had saved. Although Salvia had laughed at the station staff when they threatened to starve her, she was hiding uncertainty. Maybe there was an annual migratory cycle she didn’t yet know about, where life would disappear to another part of the moon, too far away for her to comfortably reach. The rations were her insurance for such times.

  There was also a second way out of her cave. That exit was small and low. After finding it, Salvia rarely used it, entering and exiting her home via the larger, primary entrance. Although the normals depended on her for much of their exploration, she couldn’t discount them sending out au
tonomous marine drones of their own. In case there was any trouble between the station and herself, she didn’t want to betray her secret escape route.

  Floating in the closed comfort of her cave, Salvia let herself drift upwards until she could reach out and touch the rough ceiling. So much had happened that it was difficult to take it all in.

  Closing her eyes, she sighed and waited for the new day. And Rhus’ arrival.

  Chapter Three

  “How are you feeling?”

  Rhus twirled in the water, his skin taking on a reddish tint.

  “I’m fine,” he snapped.

  “We can take a break any time you like. Europa is a lot to take in, especially on your first work assignment.”

  Rhus frowned and didn’t reply. Why was Salvia intent on treating him like he was newly out of an incubation chamber? He may be feeling a bit out of breath, but Dr Faisbain had told him that that was entirely normal.

  “What’s so special about the Zaymen Ridge anyway?” he was finally driven to ask. “I thought you’d already explored that sector thoroughly.”

  They had both floated through a briefing earlier this morning and were now tens of kilometres away from the station.

  “The ridge is a very dynamic environment,” Salvia answered from a little ahead of him.

  Rhus didn’t like admitting it, but he admired the economical grace that powered Salvia. In comparison, his own swimming was clumsy and uncoordinated.

  “Every month, it appears that something has changed,” she said. “A vent has closed, or I spy a new one beginning to form.”

  Several times during their journey to the ridge, he had lagged behind, only to have Salvia patiently stop and wait for him. If she had been angry, Rhus would have felt better, but she was calm and friendly, radiating serenity and patience. Treating him like a baby. He tried tamping down his anger, but his skin continued to glow a pale red. Just to make things worse, although Salvia had to have noticed his mood, she pretended she didn’t.

  “For some reason, the Zaymen Ridge is exceptionally rich in the minerals it contains. Dr Faisbain tells me that several of my discoveries have been translated into successful products thanks to what I’ve found at the Ridge.”

  Salvia angled a look of smiling pride at Rhus before she continued her swimming.

  Rhus frowned. “The crew of the Nemo told me that there haven’t been any discoveries for months,” he said. “Is that true?”

  He saw Salvia slow her swimming and gratefully caught up. She turned in the water.

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “Is it because you’re not willing to swim out beyond the Zaymen Ridge? I mean, it’s the only formation you’ve mentioned since we met up this morning.”

  He had annoyed her. He could tell by the set expression on her face and the way her skin pulsed red and orange…and there was also a kind of irritating tug at his brain, as if something was trying to hit him in the skull with a pair of very small fists. A part of Rhus wanted to pull the words back into his mouth, but he was curious about the conversations he’d engaged in during his time on the Nemo and whether what he’d been told was the truth.

  “And what do you know about how far I’ve explored?” she asked him. Her tone was belligerent.

  There had been…things they’d said about Salvia on the ship. Things Captain Haber had specifically told him, about how uncooperative and spiteful his new co-worker was. The words ‘blackmail’, ‘coercion’ and ‘bitch’ featured prominently. Rhus thought he was able to figure out what each term meant. He still didn’t know what a ‘bitch’ was, exactly, but it hadn’t sounded complimentary.

  “I heard the crew of the Nemo talk,” he faltered. “They mentioned that there was a drop in productivity on Europa.”

  The conversations he’d been involved with had centred on how Salvia had stopped working months ago, effectively holding an entire company to ransom. As far as Rhus was concerned—and Captain Haber agreed—he didn’t think it right for one person to affect how hundreds, maybe thousands, did their work. That’s what it had sounded like to him.

  Salvia snorted and a stream of tiny bubbles rose to the water’s surface. “A drop in productivity? I bet they mentioned that.”

  Now she sounded bitter rather than gloating. How strange.

  During his trip from Earth’s moon to Europa, and in light of what he had heard, Rhus’ indignation and righteous anger had grown. Who was this Salvia who demanded unreasonable things from the company she worked for? Yet, he wasn’t feeling indignant now, not with the source of such feelings right in front of him.

  “Were they not telling me the truth?” he asked, clearly puzzled.

  “Truth is a malleable thing,” Salvia replied in a tone that sounded sarcastic. It made her appear many years older than the age she must be. “It’s like a sheet of thin metal, able to bend this way and that depending on where pressure is applied.”

  She turned again and sped off through the water. Rhus hurried to catch up.

  The crew of the Nemo had told Rhus he was a being like Salvia, with the same modifications that she had. Rhus wanted to prove he was nothing like the selfish creature Salvia was. He wouldn’t make outrageous demands like she had. He would work hard, not grumble and be rewarded. Captain Haber had already said as much.

  “You do right by us, Rhus,” Haber had told him, staring squarely into the tank on the Nemo, “and we’ll do right by you. Understand?”

  And Rhus had nodded. Yes, he understood.

  It had all been crystal clear on the transport ship. But now he was on Europa itself, the certainty of things was beginning to blur in his mind. He had expected Salvia to be some kind of shrew, yelling at everyone, hitting the side of the hatch and generally acting in an uncontrollable fashion. That had been the tone of what he’d heard. But Salvia didn’t seem to be like that at all. She was much quieter than he had been expecting, embarrassed when she first saw him, patient with his lagging strokes. This didn’t appear to be the kind of behaviour from somebody who supposedly held the fate of an entire company in her hands and didn’t care about it.

  Rhus was suddenly filled with shame over his behaviour. He hadn’t prejudged the normals, even when they did curious things in front of him. Salvia had been polite and patient and yet he was thinking the worst of her the minute his body had hit the refreshing waters of Europa. Contrite, he swam strongly until he caught up with her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, when she still hadn’t acknowledged his presence.

  She glanced at him then, her expression clearly mirroring her frustration.

  Embarrassed, he tried to explain. “It’s just…on the Nemo…they said other things…”

  Salvia came to a sudden stop, jack-knifing in the water. Her dark eyes grew wider. “What else did they say?”

  No, he hadn’t meant it to come out like that. His hands fluttered in the water, sending little eddies rippling out in all directions.

  “What else did they say?” she repeated.

  “They said…” He swam a circle, using the water to cool his overheated skin then returning to his original position.

  “They said that you were deliberately delaying research on Europa,” he finally told her. “They said…I could be your replacement if I wanted.”

  Rhus wasn’t sure why he let that slip out. It was supposed to be a secret, Captain Haber had told him. Something between the two of them, not to be discussed with anyone else. Yet, staring into Salvia’s beautiful eyes, Rhus knew he’d be hard pressed keeping a confidence from her.

  Her mouth turned down and she flashed a morbid green. “M-my replacement?”

  She sounded so unsure, so vulnerable, that he crossed the distance between them with one flick of his feet and took her into his arms.

  Suddenly, Salvia found herself held fast in a strong embrace. Rhus’ body, hot and slick, was hard against hers. The slight swell of her breasts pressed against him and she felt the deep beat of his heart through her skin.


  When she had first requested companionship, mutinously refusing to do more work for the company until she had someone to share the emptiness of Europa with, Salvia had really been thinking of another woman. She’d harboured images of holding hands as the two of them skimmed the rocky terrain of their marine world, rocketed past the hot geothermal funnels or stroked leisurely along the sheets of ice that blanketed their world. She hadn’t been expecting to meet someone similar and yet so different. Whenever Rhus’ attention had been directed elsewhere, taking in the flashes of bioluminescence from the other dwellers of their moon, she had sneaked looks at his body. Sometimes he gleamed blue. At other times, ridges of rich purple skittered across his flesh, illuminating every curve and shallow…except for the slit low down on his belly.

  That slit remained dark and mysterious. She didn’t have one situated so high on her own torso but lower down and smaller. Rhus’ black crease mesmerised her, hinting at illicit purpose. When she looked at it, she felt a quickening in her own smooth, dusky seam and a slipperiness between her legs, though she didn’t know why. Her groin pulsed as his heat throbbed against her. The beat in her sex grew more demanding and insistent and she caught her breath as she felt something emerge from his slit, bursting through the folds of flesh to smoulder hotly against her. It was hard, long and rounded and Salvia couldn’t resist the urge to rub against it.

  Rumbles from deep within Rhus’ chest vibrated against her, exciting her and calling to the animal that seemed to have taken up residence deep inside her abdomen. There was no other description for the wild cravings that overwhelmed Salvia’s sensibilities, drowning them beneath a flood of unremitting want. Apology had turned to lust and Salvia was lost in its heat.

  She threw herself back and Rhus was on top of her, their bodies swirling wildly in the water. Cascades of orange, yellow and white lit their writhing forms, clashed against each other, and lit the surrounding darkness.