ONE
Back when I was in my thirties, I’d spent five long and weary years living on the surface of Namhatanu while the dust and rubble of war had hidden the modern cities beneath corpses both human and Herl. And here I was, forty years later, voluntarily stepping out onto the surface of the planet without a piece of protective gear in sight.
Before, I’d dropped on an Interstellar Service Corps ship with a squad in a streak of plasma. Now, I glided down in first-class seats with my son-in-law and grandson on the orbital elevator from Piper Nine Station to its terminus in Tali Province, at the equator.
And walking out of the terminus onto the street, I knew I had a problem. It was crowded with vendors and so many Herl. I thought I’d be fine. I’d thought the PTSD was long behind me. But sweat coated me, and I knew that old rabbiting in my chest. So many Herl, with their backward knees and long noses. I started looking for snipers that weren’t there and drafting escape routes in my head.
Why the hell had I come back here?
Because under the lie of war had been the Herl’s culture of reckless generosity? Or because the upcoming Unification vote marked the real end to the war I’d been here to fight? Or simply because Namhatanu was not Earth?
I had memories here, sure, but not of Sam.
And my son-in-law and my grandson had no memories of Namhatanu at all. Maybe we could all lie our way past grief.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that Jax kept one hand on Tristan as we worked our way through the crowd. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my son-in-law to keep an eye on my grandson, it was just that I didn’t trust a six-year-old to stay focused, period.
“Grandma! Where’s the hotel? How much farther is it?”
“Not too far, sport! I got the route pulled up on my HUD!” I sounded so goddamned cheerful.
“Awesome!” Jax gave a thumbs-up with one hand, and with the other kept Tristan from darting for a display of wooden puzzles.
Indications of when the ISC had occupied the planet after the war were still everywhere, with signs written in Herl, English, and Chinese. We passed a small group of activists who carried signs in all three languages urging people to vote for Unification. ONE PLANET, ONE PEOPLE. The area closest to the elevator had cookie-cutter kiosks that catered to tourists, all with terrible pun names like “NamHATanu,” which sold hats. And a tanning salon—so you didn’t become orbital-pale—named “NamhaTANu.” Hell. Somewhere around here, they probably had a restaurant named “NOM NOMhatanu.” The overlay path glowed on my subdermal heads-up display. God. I remembered the days before subdermals—hell, I remembered the days before HUDs, and I did not miss navigating with a handheld.
Herl vendors kept calling out to us and to the other passengers disembarking, and I had to work to keep from flinching for no damn reason. I had plenty of Herl friends that I’d served with and kept up with over the years. I knew the difference between nose sacs puffing up in pleasure and feathered crests rising in threat. Damn it all, I was just out of practice at managing old scars. The rabbit in my chest was getting more frantic. I bent my head as if I were attending to our robosuitcases, but they were trundling along dutifully.
Around us, representatives of various species peeled away from the elevator hub. There were more Herl than any other species, which made sense on account of Namhatanu being their home. Some of them wore human-style suits,
which accentuated their ostrichlike legs. Others wore the long traditional robes of Sati Province. Most, though, had the close ribbon bindings of Tali Province. And I saw more than a few of their feather-like crests fluff in irritation at having to dodge a tourist. After the Herl, I saw fewer humans than had been deployed here during the war, and then the occasional fuzzy orb of a Fealif or the slender shape of a Pimin.
Tristan piped up, “Daddy, are we the ones who look funny here?”
Jax made a pained face, and I did not envy him navigating that bit of childish questioning. “Good thought, buddy. But remember what we said about talking about how people look? If it’s nothing they can change in less than thirty seconds, then we don’t need to point it out.”
“Oh, right! Like the bags under Grandma’s eyes.”
“Um… A better example would be that we could talk about your favorite shirt.” Jax shot me a chagrined look with his face while my HUD pinged with an incoming message. Sorry about that.
Tristan held out the hem of his green-and-white Space Mouse shirt as if discovering for the first time that he was wearing it. “I love my shirt!”
“It’s a great one.”
I subvocalized a message to send back. No worries. At seventy-eight, I know I’m old and tired. You’re doing great.
That was the thing about Jax. Even in the midst of a depressive cycle, he always put on the mask for his son. He was doing a damn fine job of solo parenting. Together, he and Sam had been amazing parents.
My heart squeezed at the thought of my child, and it crowded out some of the fear. Then another Herl came up, and I turned faster than I needed to. My arthritic hip seized up and sent an ice pick through my pelvis. I stumbled and knocked one of the robosuitcases over.
“Bonnyjean!” Jax had me by the elbow, and I nearly slammed an open palm into his nose as if he were an enemy combatant.
layer of Southern sweetness. Forty years. I was a POW forty years ago. And not even in this province. I rested my weight on the remaining robosuitcases and faked a grin. “Don’t you worry none. It’s my gosh-darned hip. I just need a minute.”
Jax studied me and looked away with the rapid eye motion of someone using their HUD. “I’m going to call a cab.”
“The hotel is within walking—”
“I’m calling a cab.” His shoulders were tight and his voice had flattened the way it had done when he’d been nursing Sam and his spouse had gotten stubborn about treatment.
I swallowed my protest. “Okay.”
“Thank you.” He turned. And then he looked worried and kept turning, rising onto his toes. “Tristan?!”
“Tristan!” He had been right there. I pulled up his tracker on my HUD, and the damn thing said Tristan Low is with you right now.
“He is not with me, you stupid machine,” Jax growled, probably in response to the same goddamn message I’d gotten.
“But he’s close enough that the proximity check thinks he is.” I rose to my full height, looking for his green-and-white Space Mouse shirt with that stupid purple logo.
A raised voice, chattering rapidly in one of the Herl languages, pulled my attention back to the main street. And Tristan—
My grandson stood in front of an angular Herl, and he was holding a red sash in one plump little hand. The other end trailed on the ground.
Oh hell. That was a prayer scarf, and half the war had been about doctrinal differences. Oh no… No, no. The Herl’s crest of feather-like plumage was spread wide in clear agitation.
The drumming was back in my chest, but this time it was rage that someone was threatening my grandson.
“Oh hell, no—” I stalked toward them. I had to dodge pedestrians to get over to where Tristan was.
That Herl looked furious. Didn’t matter that he had good reason to be mad; I had uncomfortable memories of what an angry Herl could do.
The Herl rattled his plumage together, towering over my grandson. The other people in this part of the main street were either vendors or people who had just gotten off the orbital elevator, and all they’d done was activate their cameras to catch the spectacle. Lovely.
Jax sprinted over to Tristan and clapped one hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”
“I wanna go home!” The little boy drew back, still clutching the length of red cloth.
I got between my family and the Herl. The alien turned his deeply lined face toward me and scowled down the length of a narrow nose. My heart kicked up like someone was step-dancing in my chest. The Herl seemed to be aiming his monologue at me now, but none of the words matched the clicking, rattling High Herl I’d learned.
I sent a ping to my HUD, asking for translation.
Translating from Mandarin—
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I sent a reset command. A Herl was in front of me. Translating from Mandarin. Whatever he was saying was angry. I canceled the translation request and held up both hands, low and to the sides. I had learned High Herl, but not this dialect, and I couldn’t dredge a single useful word out of memory. My brain kept giving me words like “forceps” and “clamp.” “Hang on—hang on. We’re all friends here….”
The Herl continued to talk, pointing a two-thumbed hand at Tristan.
From out of the crowd, a young human woman pushed through the spectators. She wore a neatly cut suit, bound at the cuffs and wrists in the Lunar fashion, which complemented the deep sheen of her skin.
She smiled at us. “Excuse me.” With a single aggressive pivot, she faced the Herl. From her throat came that same rolling waterfall of language.
gestured back to Tristan. He made a snort, blowing the sides of that long nose out like a bullfrog’s throat.
What the devil were they talking about? Again, the Herl pointed at Tristan, who continued to cower next to Jax.
The young woman glanced back and gave a decisive nod. She turned her back on the Herl and, with all the spectators furiously filming, walked over to Tristan. She gave the little boy a wink before plucking the red scarf out of his hand.
Holding it in both hands, she lifted it over her head and turned back to the Herl. In a very clear ceremonial gesture, she lowered it in a graceful arc to the alien and barked a short phrase.
The Herl snorted again but took the cloth with an odd twist of the head. The fierce plumage hissed as it settled back into a smooth drape across the Herl’s shoulder.
I let out a sigh. “Good lord… Thank you. My system kept trying to translate from Mandarin.”
“Well—” The young woman looked a little embarrassed. “He was speaking Mandarin.”
For a moment, my mouth hung open.
Jax made a sort of breathless laugh. “Seriously? My family’s Chinese—granted, fifth generation, but still. I don’t speak it, so why would a Herl—I mean, we’re not even on Earth.”
It took my brain that long to catch up. “Oh… We’re in Tali Province. Darn it, I’d clean forgotten that.”
“Very good! And correct.”
Jax raised an eyebrow. “Tali Province?”
“During the war, China had most of the troops in Tali.” I rubbed the back of my neck, where the old wound was. “Most English speakers, like me, were in Sati Province. Well… In any case, I’m really grateful for your help.”
The young woman smiled with a shrug. “A simple thing, friend. On our journey, we are each sometimes the helper and sometimes the helped. Today? I was the helper. Tomorrow? Perhaps our roles are reversed.”
“Be that as it may, I’m grateful for you smoothing things out.” I stuck out my hand. “Bonnyjean Stephens.”
“Desta Kessell.” The woman’s grip was firm; there were calluses across her palm as if she used her hands frequently.
“My son, Jackson Low.” That wasn’t strictly true, but I found that when I introduced him as my son-in-law, people asked him about his spouse. They expected that I wouldn’t bring a son-in-law without my actual child. It had been hard enough losing Sam without that reminder.
Desta Kessell offered her hand to Jax with a disarming smile. “A pleasure, friend.”
Jax grinned in answer, and I allowed myself a momentary fantasy that he might find romance on the trip. Or at least a fling. “Call me Jax.” And a slight pause there, to see if she recognized Jax Low. When she didn’t, his charming smile got broader. “And thank you, Mx. Kessell.”
“Jax? Then I am Desta, please.”
Was it my imagination that their handshake was a little longer than it should be? But then Jax was clearing his throat. “And the troublemaker of the hour… my son, Tristan.”
“Ah, but Tristan and I have already met, have we not?” She held out her hand to Tristan as if he were an adult.
Peering up at her like she was a curiosity seen through a window, Tristan shook her hand. “You talk like an alien.”
“Mmm… Technically, yes. We are on their planet, so we are the aliens, and thus Mandarin is an alien language. Here, but not on Earth.”
wandered off now that there was nothing dramatic to record. “Is that why he was so angry? I mean, Tristan’s obviously a kid, right? It was a mistake is all.”
She crouched next to Tristan but otherwise addressed him seriously. Made me like her that much more. “Let me explain the ‘mistake.’ During the occupation, Earth soldiers did not permit Herl to wear their prayer scarves. Now they wear them as a matter of pride, and to remove one is… upsetting.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I am certain you did not, but you see that you stumbled onto an unhealed wound, yes?”
The pride of my heart cocked his head in confusion, and I could see him trying to understand. “Like a laceration?”
Desta’s brows rose toward her hairline. “That… that is an impressive vocabulary.”
I raised my hand. “My fault. Doctor, right here.”
“Grandma’s a neurosurgeon!”
“Oh.” Desta laughed and tapped Tristan on the end of his nose. “And you sound like one as well.”
I gotta admit, I grinned with pride that could power this entire space station. “Ask him to spell cerebellum, and he’s your man. Cat or dog, though? Stiiiiill a little trouble.”
Desta’s laugh spilled out, sparkling like bells. “Your practice is here, Dr. Stephens?”
“Now, now… If you’re Desta, then I’m Bonnyjean.” I winked. “But to answer your question—Earth.”
“Earth is a large planet.” She winked back at me.
“Fair enough.” I grinned at her. “Chattanooga, Tennessee. At Erlanger.”
“What brings you all the way from Chattanooga to Namhatanu?”
“A spaceship,” I deadpanned, and ignored Jax’s eye roll. “Naw. I know what you mean. I’ve been planning a vacation for a while and…” And I’d kept putting it off while Sam was sick. “Anyway, decided to make it a big one. I wanted to show the boys Namhatanu.”
Tristan tugged at Desta’s sleeve. “Grandma saved the world!”
I winced at the gross exaggeration, even though Desta was laughing at his earnestness. “In my younger days, I was a military surgeon. Stationed here. Well, in Sati Province.”
Jax cleared his throat. “How about you, Desta? You live here?”
She smiled blandly and shook her head. “I am also a visitor.” Turning her attention back to me, she said, “Was it a direct trip from Earth?”
Jax tilted his head to the side with a frown, studying Desta. Why had he suddenly gone unhappy?
“We stopped at the Lunar Station for a few days. For the transfer.”
“And may I guess as to your hotel here?” She pretended to study us, rubbing her chin. “Either the Sanderson or the Meacham?”
Jax’s brows came together and he frowned. “Why those two?”
Thank heavens Desta didn’t seem to notice his frowny face and just smiled. “Their advertising optimization is very good for English-speaking visitors.”
“What an interesting thing to know. Are you sure you’re just a visitor?” Why the devil was he suddenly being rude after this nice young woman had saved our hides? And here I had thought he might take an interest in—oh.
Oh. I’d bet dollars to donuts that just the idea of flirting with someone was probably making him feel unfaithful to Sam, even though it had been over a year since the funeral. Hell. The boy had to get out of his shell at some point.
I gestured to the kiosks that dotted the length of the street. “Can we buy you a drink?”
Desta pressed her hands together. “That’s kind of you, doctor, but unfortunately I have some business first.”
My son-in-law stuck his hands in his pockets and was about as casual as a skunk in the summer. “What business are you in, Mx. Kessell?”
her HUD. Then she lowered her finger and said, “Pardon, but perhaps we might have a drink together later?”
I grinned. “All right. We’re at the Meacham. Drinks in our suite?”
Desta tipped her head. “Charmed. And then you must let me take you to dinner.”
Oh, no. I’d never met a politeness battle that I was willing to back down from. “No. Now that’s not a fair bargain.”
Desta gestured at the area around us. “But I know the town. May I assume that you wish to escape the tourist traps?”
“Well—” I did want to give the boys a sense of the universe, and if Desta knew the town, that would be swell. As for letting her pick up the check? Ha! I knew how to pretend to go to the facilities and grab the check from the maître d’. “That’s what we came here for. Okay, Jax?”
He smiled, and I willed Desta to see how charming he was. “Okay, but I make no promises to be entertaining. Shuttle lag, you know?”
Desta twisted her head and bowed like a Herl. “To be the one who is entertaining is my fondest wish. Until later.” She nodded to Jax and me and patted Tristan on the head.
“See you later. And thanks again,” I called after her.
Desta gave us a cheerful wave and strolled off. She tucked her hands into her pockets and seemed utterly at home. I had a wave of envy because I hadn’t felt that comfortable anywhere outside of surgery since I was… since maybe not before the war.
TWO
While we waited for the car to take us to our hotel, Tristan danced beside me and was clearly hitting his limits. “Can I look at the puzzles?”
“That’s a question for your dad.”
“Not today, buddy. The car is nearly…” Jax’s voice trailed off, and he was staring back in the direction of the orbital elevator. I turned to see what had caught his attention so thoroughly.
Big street, thronged with people. The ubiquitous Herl murals curled around the elevator building, in reds and golds. Above it, stretching up into low Namhatanu orbit, was the trunk of the elevator. I didn’t see anything to catch his attention.
Our car rolled up from the opposite direction, so it wasn’t that, although the sight of it made my heart sink. He’d called one of the Herl-style transports, and the seats were all wrong for our bodies. Herl knees bent opposite the way ours did, so they straddled stools. It was going to be hell on my hip.
“Jax? Car’s here.” I grabbed a suitcase and headed toward the vehicle. “Need you to authenticate.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” Jax turned toward the car and gave his passcode. Which I could tell, mostly because the trunk and doors opened. He picked up a suitcase, glancing back the way we’d come. “Bonnyjean… Desta Kessell was talking to that Herl.”
There were about a half dozen just in easy sight. “Which one?”
“The one that was mad at Tristan. Looked like they were old chums.”
So that was what he’d been staring at. I glanced back and didn’t see either the Herl or Desta. “Okay… So they know each other. So what?”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd? That she wouldn’t mention that?”
“Culturally, maybe she couldn’t. I dunno.” I hadn’t been stationed in the equatorials. I didn’t know what was culturally appropriate here.
Jax put Tristan in the car and paused. “How the hell do the seats work?”
“Just use them like stools.” I shoved one of our cases into the boot at the front of the car. “What’s got you so bothered?”
Grabbing two of the cases, Jax came to join me in loading up the vehicle. “She set off every single one of the red flags I had from when a fan was trying to get information.”
“You think she’s a fan?” This was one of the problems with being the lead singer in a band that almost made it big. Would have too, probably, if Sam hadn’t gotten sick.
He shook his head, placing the last of our suitcases in the boot. “All her questions were about you. Seriously, she now knows that you’re from Earth and live in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A doctor at Erlanger. You have a son—or, well, that we’re related. Your grandson can spell ‘cerebellum.’ You went to Lunar Station. You once served on Namhatanu with a military hospital. I think she’s a scammer preying on tourists.”
“Honey… These are just the things people talk about when they’re getting to know each other.” Which he would remember if he would get out and meet people.
Jax shook his head and took my arm. “She deflected every one of our questions. If she’s a scammer, you may as well have handed her your system ID.”
“There’s not a darn thing there, including the cerebellum thing, that she couldn’t have gotten from one of my social streams.” I wouldn’t deny that Desta had been curious, but none of the questions she’d asked were out of keeping for when you met new folks. I might be a neurosurgeon, but I could still recognize his survivor’s guilt, and paranoia was a really common form of expression.
that she just happened to come to our aid? To ‘save’ us from someone she knows?”
“All right. I’ll stop being social.” I nudged him, hoping to tease him back to good humor. “Bet you’re just mad ’cause she didn’t know who you were.”
Jax glared at me for a minute and a wave of emotions went across his face, and I had this hope that he would yell at me. But he just shut down again. “Is that your formal diagnosis?”
“Jax—my formal diagnosis, and prescription, is that we ought to have drinks and not worry about it.”
THREE
The car dropped us off at an elegant facade that stood out from every other building on the street and fairly screamed COME TO ME, PEOPLE OF EARTH. The elegant doorway was covered in faux gilding and fabricated to look like an art nouveau masterpiece.
“Here we are.” I winced as I got out of the car under the curved glass canopy.
The Meacham Hotel’s system made a connection with our identification modules, and the door hissed open. A real human porter stood inside, smiling a greeting.
In the height of affectation, the human porter addressed us in High Herl. Which, really—what was the point of that if they catered to English speakers?
Oh sure, my HUD would translate. But it annoyed me that he was using language like a costume.
I’d learned High Herl and remembered enough to be polite. Please. I’m sorry. No. I’m hungry.
I shook my head, chasing old memories back into the corners. None of that would be helpful here. “My name is Bonnyjean Stephens, Dr. Stephens.”
And the porter responded by switching to English, but with a Herl accent, like he’d grown up on Namhatanu. “I’ll take care of everything, pulukulpa.”
In isolation like that, I recognized the High Herl honorific for a woman.
Well, maybe some of the old language would come back to me. Sighing, I beckoned Jax and Tristan into the hotel. Three shallow stairs led up into the main lobby, and I had to grab tight to the brass handrail to make my stride look even. Stairs always made my right hip feel like someone was driving an ice pick into it.
“There’s a ramp over—”
“Just want to get to the room.” My pride forced a smile. “Make sure you got Tristan.”
A couple of humans were coming toward the entrance, and I did not want my grandson to cause any trouble with them. Both of them were well-dressed and had that sort of pleasant polish of people who read only magazines and have personal stylists but no personal taste. The man was middle-aged and had a carefully trimmed beard and waxed mustache and seemed the sort who made a hobby out of being offended. The young woman with him couldn’t have been more than eighteen and had the same almost white-blue eyes, so I was guessing she was his daughter. She did a double take and stared at us with our luggage and six-year-old in tow. Yep. Not the sort that tolerated noise, I’d bet.
The man beckoned to the porter, who hadn’t even begun to manage our luggage yet. Then, just like they were showing off, the man opened his trap and spoke what sounded like a long string of perfect High Herl. I did my best not to gawk at him.
The porter nodded—which was not the way Herl indicated agreement unless a lot had changed in the forty years since I’d been here. But he said, “Kuma,” which was High Herl for “yes.”
Jax leaned over to whisper in my ear. “We’re being watched.”
If my eyebrows went any higher, I’d have to shave my head to find them. When I looked over my shoulder, the fancy-schmancy woman was still staring at us. And there was no question about if she was a fan.
Because her lips were rounded into a soft O and she was staring at Jax. Or more specifically, Jax Low of the Math Turtles. ...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
