“I don’t... er... ,” Reese stopped and sighed. “The Eldritch’s not someone I’d play with, but yes, I’ve got one. They’re as much trouble as they are in the books, but about six times more obstinate. In the books if you push them with a finger, they fall over. In real life you could ram them with a wrecking ball and they’d stay put just to spite you.”
The Harat-Shar laughed. “It sounds like you’re having quite an experience with her!”
“Him,” Reese said.
“Even worse,” the woman said. “I’ll show you where the romances are. The best romances.”
“That sounds like just what I need,” Reese said and stood.
On the other side of the shelving, the leopard-spotted woman plucked a book down and handed it to her. The cover was absolutely scandalous: not just one Harat-Shar, but two Harat-Shar men and an Eldritch woman.
“Are you sure about this?” Reese said. “It looks pornographic.”
“I think you’ll be surprised,” the woman said. “You can trust this author.”
It was so glibly said Reese didn’t know what prompted her to look up at the Harat-Shar and see the utter sobriety in the woman’s coffee-colored eyes. It was such an unexpected expression that she said, “I’ll take it.”
The woman smiled.
Outside the store with the soft copy of the novel in her data tablet, Reese wondered what she’d just missed. Shaking herself, she headed back down the avenue for the port and reached it an hour later without being tempted by any of the other stores in her way. There she began collecting quotes for her repair work, keeping alert for any rumors about which shops did better quality work than others. By the time she made it to the end of the port her feet ached and her skin felt stretched taut from the heat. She found a bench to rest and watched the passersby.
While she’d been working she hadn’t taken much notice of the balance of aliens and Harat-Shar in the port; now that she looked, she found far more aliens than natives. A lot of humans, not all of them someone she would have trusted to shake her hand. She began to wonder how safe the port was. Sascha had said something about Zhedeem being one of the few cities with a healthy mix of off-worlders and natives... maybe that wasn’t the advantage she’d been hoping for.
Reese rubbed her forehead. She was being ridiculous. Surely the pirates wouldn’t bother to follow her here. She would have trouble enough with the crew and her crazy Harat-Shariin pair without borrowing more about pirate vendettas.
At least her stomach didn’t burn up anymore. It still twisted, but it no longer burned. It was a spare blessing, but Reese counted it anyway. With a long breath she heaved herself to her feet and headed back into the port to do a few more errands.
By the time Reese let herself back into the gardens around the estate the world had turned purple after an astonishingly clear, high sunset. Irine greeted her as she let herself into one of the halls.
“You missed dinner,” Irine said.
Reese flushed. “Sorry. I got caught up in what I was doing.”
Irine shrugged. “There will be other dinners, I guess. If you want to come.”
“I do,” Reese said. “I just... I’m sorry, Irine. I’m just overwhelmed.”
“Are we that scary?” Irine asked, ears drooping.
“It’s not you,” Reese said, then sighed. “It’s not just you,” she amended. “It’s everything. It’s having so many bills and not knowing where the money’s going to come from. It’s worrying about slavers. It’s being dirtside—you know I hate the way planets smell. It’s being in an unfamiliar place. And curse it all, it’s Hirianthial.”
Irine glanced at her, catching the glow of a lantern in one mischievous eye. “So that’s it. He did say something to you.”
“He’s always saying something to me,” Reese muttered. “I thought Eldritch were supposed to be quiet and mysterious, not high-handed and insufferable.”
Irine grasped her by the elbow, pulling her down the hall. “You don’t think he’s quiet and mysterious? He’s not exactly chatty, you know.”
“Chatty would have been forgivable,” Reese said. “What he actually does is far more annoying.”
“Sascha and Kis’eh’t and I had a bet about whether he said something to annoy you,” Irine said with a chortle. “I knew I’d win! What did he say?”
“That I’d better start taking care of you people now that we’d landed here and Harat-Sharii’s laws had put you in my care,” Reese said. “Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?”
“Of course I have,” Irine said. “But you’re talking about our laws, so what else would I think? Here’s your room.”
Reese paused in the threshold, had a sense of walls, windows, and gauze curtains. Something outside was chirping... no, several somethings. Insects? Amphibians? Who knew? The fan and the night’s breeze intersected somewhere around the window, and someone had hung a hammock for her there.
“Are those seriously supposed to stay open?” Reese asked.
“How else will you stay cool?” Irine said reasonably. “You’ll get used to it.”
“And the noise?”
“Greerhorns,” Irine said. “Sort of like crickets, if you know what those are.” At Reese’s look, the tigraine shrugged and said, “Imagine long-legged insects.”
“Ugh,” Reese said. “I hope they don’t get in.”
“Don’t worry about it, you’re off the ground,” Irine said. “Now tell me more about your being annoyed.”
Reese eyed her.
“This is more than prurient curiosity, I promise,” Irine said with a grin.
With a sigh, Reese rumpled her braids and sat on the edge of the hammock. To her surprise, Allacazam rolled out from beneath her blankets and bumped into her thigh, blending a chime of welcome with a sleepy blue-violet veil. Without thinking about it, Reese started petting him. “I’m just not comfortable with dictating other people’s fates.”
“Why not?” Irine asked.
Reese stared at her.
“Really,” Irine said. “If they give you permission, why not?”
“Because you can’t make someone else’s choices for them,” Reese said. “It’s not right.”
“What if they want you to?”
“It’s not right,” Reese said again. “We’re all individuals. We all have to make our own choices. We all have to take responsibility for our actions. No one can do that for anyone else.”
“If you really feel that way, why do you read all these romances about princes and kings?” Irine asked.
Reese gawked at her.
“We don’t read your mail,” Irine said. “But everyone sees the squirts in the communication logs. It’s not exactly a big ship.” She grinned. “I like a good romance novel myself... but you seem to have a theme to your choices.”
“Well maybe I do like the princes and kings,” Reese said. “But they’re fantasies. They’re escapes.”
“They must touch something in people, otherwise why would they endure?” Irine said.
In the back of her mind Allacazam shrouded her frustrations with draping black willows that rustled in an evening breeze. Reese let the sound muffle her angry response until something more reasonable came up. “Maybe we wish we could have that much faith in people, that we could trust them to keep our hearts and lives in the forefronts of their minds. But the truth is that no one can do that... not fairly, not all the time. That’s why they’re escapes. They’re not real. And I resent having to treat you people like vassals when you’re my employees, who came to me out of free will and who should be free to make your own choices.”
Irine shrugged. “If it bothers you that much, when we bring you our temporary contracts sign them without reviewing them. Think of it as a formality if it makes you more comfortable.”
“I guess I can do that,” Reese said.
Irine stood and stretched. “I think I’ll go find a cuddle-pile. Do you want anything from the kitchen? There’s a water pitcher in the
bathroom, but no food.”
“I’m fine, I think.”
“All right. Good night, then.”
“Good night,” Reese said.
At the door, Irine said, “You know I’d trust you to make my decisions for me any day.”
“Oh, shoo,” Reese said and Irine scampered out, laughing. But sitting in the hammock, Reese felt such a confused mess of emotions she couldn’t sort them out. Allacazam touched the edge of her mind with a rising note, and to his question Reese could only murmur, “I wish I knew myself.”
There was indeed a pitcher of water in the bathroom, and Reese availed herself of it several times before finishing her preparations for sleep. Her body ached so much she decided to wait until morning for a bath. Yet when she clambered into the hammock with Allacazam, she tossed and turned, twisting herself into the netting until finally she sat up. The smell of the breeze, deep and dry, the rustling it made, the crickets, the very openness of the chamber... all of it was so unsettling she couldn’t compose herself. Allacazam sent a faint candle into her mind, questioning.
“I don’t know,” she said and sighed. “Maybe I’ll just read until I fall asleep.”
The candle trembled for a moment, then receded again. The Flitzbe’s presence in her mind faded to what sometimes felt like a distant white noise. Reese reached for her data tablet and brought up the cover with the two Harat-Shar and the Eldritch.
“Still looks pornographic,” she muttered and began to read.
“I am Karya Midwife,” the old woman said when the servant deposited Hirianthial at the chamber door. “And this is your charge, Salaena.”
Salaena looked up from her nest of cushions in the corner of the room. “Karya, I feel strange. Something’s wrong.”
“You’re probably hungry,” the old woman said dryly. “Now, girl... see, Zhemala has sent for a doctor for you. He’ll make sure you’re healthy.”
“A doctor?” The girl’s restless eyes fastened on Hirianthial’s face then slid away again. “So I am in trouble.”
“No, nothing like that,” Karya said. “He’s here to help you have the healthiest baby possible by telling you what to eat and when to rest. You’re already fine, girl. The doctor is just here to answer your questions.”
“What’s wrong with me?” Salaena asked.
Hirianthial restrained the urge to say, “You’re pregnant.” Instead he sat on a bench next to one of the broad windows and said, “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“How do you know? You haven’t even checked!”
“I’ve seen sick people before, lady,” Hirianthial said, gentling his voice. “They don’t look the way you do.” Which was only truth: even the briefest brush with his mental fingers had brought him nothing but a glowing aura and the contented nestled sendings of a still-unaware infant.
“Sometimes people look completely fine and then they just die,” Salaena said. “My mother died that way.”
“Your mother died in childbirth after hours of agonizing labor,” Karya said. “It’s not as if there wasn’t warning.”
The girl burst into tears. Karya sighed.
Hirianthial settled in for a long three hours. Salaena paced when she should have been resting, sat when she should have been enjoying the respite from the day’s heat, constantly ran her hands over her belly, searching for what Hirianthial knew not. She never ceased to tremble, and her gaze when she managed to look at anything for very long had the poor focus of panic. The Eldritch did what he could to calm her, everything from soporific, pregnancy-safe teas to examining her with Alliance equipment and explaining the positive results, but nothing seemed to allay her concerns.
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” he said when the servants began bringing lunch.
“Did you choose my lunch?” Salaena asked. “Should I eat? I can’t tell if I’m hungry. Isn’t it a bad sign if you have no appetite?”
“You’re fine, dear,” Karya said.
“Just eat what you seem to crave,” Hirianthial said and stepped out.
Karya joined him in the corridor. “Thank you. You were good with her.”
“She is beyond any of our help,” Hirianthial said. “If she doesn’t calm down she’ll hurt herself.”
“Don’t I know it,” the midwife said, exasperated. She offered him a card. “I imagine you’ll be looking for work for the rest of your hours? If you’re interested, try this hospital. I have an off-season contract with them and they’re always interested in people who can calm others.”
Mindful of the woman’s fingers, Hirianthial took the card and glanced at it. “A children’s hospital? Lady, I would rather work with adults.”
“Not here you wouldn’t,” the old woman said with a huff. When he glanced at her, she said, “Whether you wish to or not, your pretty white skin and lovely long face will get you more attention than you want. Salaena’s too self-absorbed to notice you, but no one else will be. Even I notice you, and I’m a bit far gone in these old bones to care as much about such things.”
“All the Harat-Shar I’ve worked with have been very understanding,” Hirianthial said.
“Yes, yes. You’re on Harat-Sharii now, young man. And don’t you quirk your brow at me like that. You’re probably four times my age but I’m going to die centuries before you and as far as I’m concerned that makes you a young man. Now listen to me... the first proposition might be easy to shrug off and the second, but you’re going to get tired of fending off all comers. Our babies aren’t born libertines... you may not think you like children, but you’ll far prefer our kittens to our adults. Trust me.”
He glanced at the card again.
“Besides, you have a gentle hand,” Karya said. “There are young ones who could use it.”
“Thank you,” Hirianthial said. “I’ll go see if they have openings.”
“You do that.”
She left him in the corridor to struggle with his thoughts. He hadn’t honestly thought much of children since leaving home. He didn’t really want to think of children.
Or did he?
He’d thought being around a pregnant woman would be pain enough, but Salaena’s hypochondria had been so demanding he’d barely noticed anything else about her. Perhaps the children would be similarly distracting.
“I need another one,” Reese said, standing inside the bookshop.
The leopardine looked up, brows rising. “You’re back already?”
“I stayed up all night reading,” Reese said. “I want another one by her. She got it right!”
“Right in what way?” the leopardine said, gesturing back toward the shelves.
Reese followed her. “The Eldritch. She got it just right. The way they talk. The way they act.” And the author had... from the moment the Eldritch character in the novel had stepped onto the stage, Reese had been captivated. She hadn’t turned out her lights until far too late in the night, and waking up had been difficult. She’d engage a shop today to begin the Earthrise’s repairs, but she’d known she had to stop here first.
“It didn’t disappoint you, then?”
“Disappoint me! Why would it have?”
The Harat-Shar grinned. “There’s a little less action in it than typical romances.”
Reese paused. “I hadn’t thought of that. But then again, I guess I wouldn’t have. It was about an Eldritch. I’m beginning to think they reproduce like Flitzbes, by budding.”
The woman laughed and handed her another volume. This one had a single couple on the cover, male Eldritch, female Harat-Shariin woman. “Try this one. There’s some heavy breathing in it. And it’s believable.”
“Ha!” Reese said. “I’ll take the soft-copy. Let’s see how it goes.”
“And if you like it, come back in a couple of days,” the woman said. She debited Reese’s account and transferred the copy to the data tablet, then tapped a flier on the counter. “She’s doing a book signing here.”
Reese glanced at it, expecting to see the author�
�s face and instead seeing a different cover: this one had a despondent-looking Eldritch male wilting over the arm of a couch while a human man looked on. “I’ll do that. She’s written a lot, I see.”
“Twenty-two novels so far. And all of them have Eldritch.”
Reese started laughing. “Is she obsessed?”
The leopardine grinned at her. “Who wouldn’t be? They make such useful mysterious lovers. Some of the stories get even hotter than the one you’re holding.”
“I’ll give you my review next time I come by,” Reese promised and left the store. She looked at the cover on her data tablet and shook her head. It would be something to do while waiting in line at the repair shop, she supposed. She thought of Irine and the comm logs and sighed. At least the twins wouldn’t notice these purchases—she’d never hear the end of it.
Finding a single shop that covered all her necessary repairs, did them well and offered them at a reasonable price had turned out to be impossible. Instead, Reese decided to spread the tasks across several different outfits. Arranging the schedules and haggling over the prices took her most of the afternoon and by the time she was done she realized she was going to miss another of Irine’s family dinners, but given the totals on her data tablet she couldn’t bring herself to care. The numbers shone so brilliant a red Reese thought of new blood and wondered if the person who’d chosen to display negative amounts in red had made the association on purpose. Repairing the Earthrise would put her in debt again. Substantial debt. Substantial enough that she might have to borrow money from the people she least wanted to borrow it from.
They wouldn’t just wire her the money. She’d have to visit. It wasn’t far if she took a shuttle... but she really, really didn’t want to go.
Reese rubbed her forehead. She wasn’t in trouble yet—wouldn’t be until the first two major repairs were done. That would take a month or so. A month was long enough to bolster her courage.
A month would be long enough to figure out what to say to her mother and grandmother when she came home for the first time in years... to ask for money.
The children’s hospital was in a pleasant part of town a short walk from the twins’ house, shrouded in the spiked shade of palm trees and abutted by several emerald ponds full of paddling geese. Hirianthial couldn’t help but think as he walked past them that there should be children enjoying them, but he could spot none in the gardens. Come to that he saw no adults, either, and the building when he approached had such a distinct aura of abandonment that he half-expected the corners to sag.
Earthrise (Her Instruments Book 1) Page 16