“It doesn’t, no, but that’s all right. We can do it. And if we can’t, then that’s the Goddess telling us this wasn’t the right place, or the right time.” Vasiht’h grinned at him. “Besides, we’ve done more in less time.”
A breeze blew through the mindline, like a sigh, like spring evening: Jahir’s relief made manifest. It lifted the fur up Vasiht’h’s spine. “I suppose we have, at that.”
“So, this client?”
Jahir told him about Helga as they ate, and Vasiht’h found the whole story completely unsurprising. Of course his friend attracted the attention of a person who could help him, and wanted to—because who didn’t want to help Jahir? Even Thaddeus Does-Something-With-DNA had that much right—and of course it had resulted in their first patient, plus a place to live which he had no doubt would be just right for them. The Goddess was probably smiling somewhere.
Also, the scones were tremendous, and as usual, Vasiht’h had to encourage Jahir to eat his fair share.
“They are good,” Jahir said. “Just... rather overwhelming at speed.”
“Then eat slowly,” Vasiht’h replied, amused. “And we’ll find you an ice cream place as soon as we’re settled.” He set his spoon down and added, “Would you look at that!”
Over the tops of the buildings the sky was streaked in deepening gold. As they watched, the blue over them began to creep away from the sunset, slowly, slowly, as if they really were on a world. When the waitress came by she followed their gazes and grinned, ears perked. “New to the station?”
“I am,” Vasiht’h said. “I didn’t think there would be a sunset.”
“And I never thought to question it,” Jahir admitted. “The verisimilitude of the environment is convincing.”
“We do get sunsets and sunrises,” the waitress said as she cleared their plates. “And they’re different every day, just like on a planet. They happen earlier and later in the year, depending on the time of year. The only thing we don’t get is violent weather.”
“Does it rain, then?” Vasiht’h asked.
“It dews!” She laughed. “But it’s not rain like you’re thinking, big soaking things. That would be a real mess to clean up.”
“I imagine,” Jahir murmured, and his bemusement suffused the mindline like the clouds that probably never touched the starbase’s sky.
“Feel free to stay if you want,” she finished. “It’s worth seeing. And watch out for our local stars! That’s the spindle, and all the Fleet shuttles moving around. We love our night skies.”
They did in fact stay, in perfect peace with one another, sipping their coffee and watching the sky change color. The night sky drew the spindle into relief; no longer a distant white lattice barely visible against the light blue, it glowed with rich and visible colors, pinpricks of blue and green and red and white, with streaks here and there that suggested the frame. There were lights in motion, as promised, and Vasiht’h wondered how many Fleet vessels were moving there, nuzzling into their docks for service, or being towed by tugs or swarmed over by whatever machines were needed to fix up starships.
“I hope we can stay,” he said.
“As do I, arii.”
Chapter 3
The Garden District wasn’t far from the commons. Walking the thoroughfares with their lanterns, Vasiht’h wondered if Fleet could see them as well as they could see Fleet—wouldn’t that be something! But maybe the atmosphere distorted the lights? Then again, one could see cities from space. Was the spindle closer to the city-sphere than a ship in orbit was to a planet?
“Strange thoughts,” Jahir said aloud.
“Interesting ones.” Vasiht’h hooked a hand around the strap of his messenger bag. “When I left home my plan was to get away, really expand, experience things I couldn’t while living on Anseahla. Seersana was good—the culture there’s not much like the culture we’ve got at home—but it’s still full of Pelted. And Selnor....” He trailed off, then shifted his wings, refolded them. “I didn’t really experience much of Selnor.”
“Neither did I.” Rueful, with a sour and apologetic taste. Vasiht’h wrinkled his nose and tried not to smack his lips.
“Anyway. This place... I think this place qualifies.” Glancing around, he added, “Though if you didn’t know we were on a starbase, you’d probably never realize from the architecture.”
“No,” Jahir agreed. “But it has a pleasant look, I thought. And the gardens are rife.”
“I guess that makes sense, given the name. Who’s our landlady?”
“Her name is Ilea EveryLivingThing.”
Vasiht’h hmmmed. “A Tam-illee, from the name? What’s she like?”
“I’m not certain. We made the arrangements over the data tablet. She said she’d be waiting to show us the establishment.”
So blandly said that Vasiht’h almost missed the implication. He shot a glance at the Eldritch. “You haven’t looked inside the place?”
“I saw a viseo of the interior,” said Jahir, and this apology was less sour and more meek, and smelled like a delicate lady’s perfume.
Vasiht’h burst out laughing. “So if I ask you why I’m smelling flowers, you probably won’t tell me.”
“It would require chasing the association down, and I’m not certain I can.” Jahir cleared his throat. “If it doesn’t suit, we will find something else.”
“Of course we will,” Vasiht’h said, amused. “Lead on.”
Such a relief to find that Vasiht’h was not distressed! Neither over their precarious circumstance, nor over his precipitous housing arrangements. Jahir had worried. But now that the Glaseah was back, he found those worries receding beneath the pleasure of having him by again. When he’d left Vasiht’h to the remainder of his family vacation, the mindline had slowly attenuated until at some point it had become a vague film, a sense of presence without weight or detail, and while he’d been grateful that it hadn’t snapped he’d become aware that he was now... accustomed... to having company in his thoughts.
A tremendous thing, this. For one of his kind, particularly. What would his people say did they know how closely he’d yoked himself to anyone, much less an alien? Even Eldritch lovers didn’t cling to one another, mind to mind—it was considered too great an intimacy, the sort of thing parents cautioned their adult children against embracing lest it poison the union. ‘Best not to know everything about someone,’ they said. ‘Hold your privacy dear.’
So much they were missing, Jahir thought, and let some of that pleasure through, like an evening breeze, and received in return the sound of wind chimes. Perfect accord, he thought, and brought the Glaseah around the corner and down the street where their accommodations were waiting. This part he knew; he’d walked this way and seen the ‘For Rent’ sign himself before looking up the listing. He’d liked the cultivated loveliness, the neat little houses with their gardens overgrowing their delicate wooden fences, the mingled scents of their blooms, the constant shifting sunlight on the leaves that nodded in the clean-scented wind. Pedestrians had been using the thoroughfare in the afternoon, but strolling rather than striding; the businesses here were few, little corner stores with victuals and boutiques and plant nurseries. He’d found it charming.
The Garden District in evening was no less so, lit by sleek lamps with warm light and from beneath by cool-hued string-lights glowing along the edges of the walkways. And if anything, the perfume in the air had grown denser. There were still people strolling, talking together, and others on their patios, rocking in chairs or swinging on them, enjoying the weather or visiting with neighbors.
“This is beautiful,” Vasiht’h murmured.
There was an undertone there that felt like a cold shadow on Jahir’s back. He glanced down at his friend. “Arii?”
“I mean it,” Vasiht’h said. “But this is... ah... probably a very expensive neighborhood.”
Jahir had yet to understand the Alliance economic system. It was probably an impossibility, given the size of the p
olity—what was true on one world, or even in one world’s city, would not hold true for some other—but he still felt he should at least grasp the basics. In this case, “And... we would not normally be capable of affording it?”
“I certainly wouldn’t, not on a xenotherapist’s salary. Unless we became... I don’t know. Rock star xenotherapists famous throughout the known worlds, with scores of articles in juried medical journals and rounds of talks scheduled in all the prestigious universities in the Core.” Perhaps some of his puzzlement leaked, because Vasiht’h squinted up at him. “You really have no idea, do you. How money works. Does money just appear in your account, tagged to you?”
Saying ‘yes’ would probably dismay the Glaseah. Jahir settled for, “I grew up with a different system.”
“I’m betting,” Vasiht’h muttered. Then, louder, “Is that your Tam-illee?”
Since the woman was standing alongside the property, Jahir said, “It is, yes.” And calling to her, “Alet. Good evening. We are your new tenants.”
“I figured from the look of you.” The foxine grinned at them. He’d seen her portrait when making arrangements; had, in fact, made those arrangements based on his instinctive reaction to the settled lineaments of her face, the perk of her ears, the vitality in her eyes. Stills could lie, of course, and were carefully chosen by their user to project a certain personality, but that she’d chosen such a forthcoming and energetic one had surely said something about her.
Meeting her now, those hopes were borne out: Ilea EveryLivingThing was a middle-aged Tam-illee, her coat some dark lustrous hue made non-specific by the gloaming, and she bounced on her heels, hands folded behind her back until their arrival prompted her to offer Vasiht’h her palm to cover.
“I’m Ilea,” she said. “And welcome. Let me show you around.”
There was a door at the gate that led to the main house, but Ilea took them to a second door, and this one took a shorter route through the garden directly to a small cottage. “As I mentioned,” the Tam-illee was saying, “It’s really not intended for multiple tenants, but if you’re sure you’re fine with small spaces—“
She opened the door. “Then this is home.”
The room she revealed was as cozy a thing as he could have imagined: a single room with a couch, a small kitchen, and a table beside the window where the flowers were doing their best to enter. The sleeping chamber, such as it was, was a nook in the back, where a single bed with a thick quilt was tucked beneath the lowered ceiling. A single window hung alongside it, open to the sweetly scented evening air.
“I know it’s a little strangely shaped,” Ilea was saying as she turned on the lights. “But there’s a ramp outside that leads to a roof garden. If you’re not sure—“
The surge of desire that flooded the mindline surprised Jahir, and delighted him. Vasiht’h said, firmly, “It’s perfect.”
“Then let me make you a cup of tea to celebrate.” The foxine beamed at them. “I’ll tell you a little about the neighborhood to get you started, since you’ll be relying on your neighbors and their shops for most things.”
“You’re not here much?” Vasiht’h asked as he investigated the table, straightened the tablecloth.
“Oh, no.” She took down a tin from a cupboard and started a kettle. Another of those magical Alliance contrivances that worked without visual evidence of heat, Jahir noted, despite the rustic furnishings. The lace curtains could have come out of an Eldritch gentlewoman’s sitting room... but no Eldritch lady would ever have had hot water within seconds of deciding she wanted it. “I’m a ranger—do you know what we do?”
“Not at all?” Jahir offered, taking one of the seats at the table. Vasiht’h sat alongside him, the mindline between them humming with the Glaseah’s excitement.
“What you’re looking at out there,” Ilea said, waving her measuring spoon, “is essentially an enormous terrarium, aletsen. The grass, the flowers, the trees, the soil, all of it... it has to be maintained by the judicious application of supportive fauna. It’s not just the farming spheres that need bees and treerunners and birds and bugs. Without those things we’d be living in a giant metal ball, full of girders and glass and steel. It would be pretty, I guess, but it would pall quickly. To thrive, we need a real ecosystem to support us. Not just mentally—” She tapped her temple, “but physically as well. I am technically a kind of environmental engineer, but here on the stations, we call ourselves rangers. We monitor the health of the station’s ecosystem.”
/Fascinating,/ Jahir murmured.
/I’ll say,/ the Glaseah replied privately before continuing aloud. “So there’s more than one of you?”
“Oh, it’s a job for several teams, certainly. That’s not even counting the Fleet folks who do the weather. They’re the ones in charge of aerating all the spheres, the gas ratios, the water.” She poured for them, brought a tray to the table and sat on the remaining chair. In the light, her fur was revealed as a glossy brown—a very handsome woman, in her prime and very settled in her work, Jahir thought. “Since the base is technically Fleet property, they feel strongly about things that are either security or infrastructure-affecting. We let them handle that. Honestly there’s enough work without worrying about oxygen leaks.” She grinned at them. “The short of it is that I’m often sleeping off in some field somewhere, trying to set traps for wildlife, or spending a few weeks tracking the penetration of new colonies of damselglitters or grubs. I love my work, but it doesn’t leave me much time to enjoy the fancy house I bought because of it.”
“I’d say you’re enjoying yourself fine without it!” Vasiht’h said.
She laughed. “You’re probably right, at that. So let me tell you about the neighborhood and I’ll let you all go from there. You’re paid up for six months so no pressure.”
There was a faintly ominous cloud now in the mindline that Jahir chose to ignore. “Thank you, alet. We’re listening.”
The rundown on the neighborhood was about what Vasiht’h had expected from the walk and the introduction. They had access to boutiques and farmers’ markets, all very neatly designed to be as picturesque and pleasant as possible. Unlike their landlady, their neighbors were frequently home, either running these shops or taking advantage of their wealth to rock in chairs on their porches or pursue what were probably ridiculously expensive hobbies at their leisure. From the Hinichi on the corner who was studying comparative religions when he wasn’t conducting services in the discreet chapel at the end of yet another beautiful alley to the Asanii grandmother who made wind chimes to sell to tourists, they were one and all the sorts of people Vasiht’h would have expected in a book—and not like HEALED BY HER IMMORTAL HEART. More like a cozy slice of life thing.
He knew Jahir could sense his rue through the mindline, but didn’t broach the topic even after Ilea had left. He washed the tea cups, enjoying them wistfully, and let Jahir turn down the bed and unpack. When at last he finished in the kitchen, he found the Eldritch sitting there with his hands folded in his lap, looking for all the worlds like one of Vasiht’h’s younger sibs awaiting a lecture.
He couldn’t help his laugh as he gathered the spare pillows. “It’s not a permanent solution.”
“It is a little small,” Jahir said, cautious.
The size of the place wasn’t the only problem, but since it was one of them, Vasiht’h said, “It’s fine.” Because seeing how worried his friend was, he couldn’t feel anything else. The Eldritch had tried so hard…! And it was beautiful, really. “Do we have a plan for tomorrow?”
“We should… look… for someplace to host clients,” Jahir said. “An office? But offices do not normally have beds, do they?”
“No,” Vasiht’h said, plumping a pillow. There was no space left beside the bed for a pallet, but he didn’t mind a makeshift nest on the floor. “But a bed could be brought into one, I guess. Maybe we should split up and see what we find? And then we could find out more about this client we have.”
�
�Yes,” Jahir said, exhaling, a sigh Vasiht’h caught only because the mindline magnified the otherwise minimalist sound. “I’m glad you’re not… distressed.”
“No,” Vasiht’h said, amused, settling down on the pillows. As the Eldritch went to prepare for bed, he added, “Things will work out as they should, arii.”
“I pray so.”
“So do I,” Vasiht’h murmured.
Chapter 4
“He’s completely unaware of the most fundamental things,” Vasiht’h said, “And I love him but it makes me a little crazy too.”
His sister Sehvi had her cheek in her palm, staring at him across the parsecs from her student apartment on Tam-ley, where she was studying reproductive medicine. The display in Vasiht’h’s new flat was of supremely high fidelity: he could see the darker rims around her brown irises, just before her cheeks crinkled and occluded some of them. “And there’s no advice to be found in your reading?”
Vasiht’h growled. “No, and you know it. ‘My bonded doesn’t understand money’ is a little too mundane for the romantic caricatures in that ridiculous piece of fluff.”
She laughed. “You are exasperated! Why does it bother you so much? So he’s paying for everything right now, and he doesn’t seem to understand why that’s extraordinary. Maybe he’s rich. Maybe you should enjoy it.”
“What if he’s not rich?” Vasiht’h asked. “What if he’s going to run himself into debt spending like this?” He rubbed a circle into the fur at his temple. “No, it’s almost worse if he is rich and he just doesn’t realize most people don’t live in fancy places like this, and never worry about bills.”
“That seems a little harsh,” Sehvi said. “You did rounds with him for your internship, didn’t you? Did he seem like he didn’t understand those things?”
“It didn’t really come up!” Vasiht’h forced himself to sit back and sip some of the mint tea he’d brewed before making the call.
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