“Where are the other warriors and miners? Where do they hang out?” I gesture around at the empty passageway. My voice echoes, the only sound other than the low whirr of a ventilation system and the occasional drip.
He still looks confused, so I clarify. “When they’re not working or training or whatever. Where do they spend their time?”
His face brightens. “Ah! You will see in a moment.” We take another turn or two and enter a hallway with a long row of round openings on both sides, each covered by a woven panel. He moves down the row and slides a panel aside. “My quarters,” he says proudly, motioning for me to look inside.
I have to duck slightly to see into the narrow...tube? Inside are the fluffy furs that Irrans use for bedding and not much else. There’s a pillow-sized alcove at the back with one of the glowing wall lamps, some folded clothing, and an empty hook that’s probably for his weapons when he’s not wearing them. It’s like one of the Japanese capsule hotels where I’d planned to stay on my trip.
“Nice,” I say. “Surprised you fit in there, though. You’re a pretty big guy.”
He flushes an amused blue and laughs. “It squeezes my shoulders unless I sleep on my side, but I don’t mind. That’s the price you pay for the best training in the galaxy. All of us warriors sleep here.”
“Which one is mine?”
He looks horrified. “You will not stay here!”
“No girls allowed, huh?” I roll my eyes. I shouldn’t be hurt by that, but it presses on a bruise from my childhood. In most of our base housing, my four brothers were all stuffed in one bedroom, racked in bunks, and as the only girl, I had my own. They were always jealous and gave me endless shit about being spoiled. But secretly, I wished I got to stay in their room.
They shared secrets. They fought and made up. They were never lonely.
Aqen frowns at me, confused again, judging by the array of colors darting across his skin. “Of course there are female warriors. Not many,” he admits. “But you are not a warrior. You need more comforts. Come, it’s not much farther.”
He points out a couple other doors along the way where they cook their meals and bathe and a closet-sized space where they can use a comm to contact their families on other planets, but there are no true gathering places.
“What do you do for fun?” I ask.
“Spar. Or watch others spar.”
So the fights are where it’s at. “Can we visit the pits later?”
“Of course. I can show you anything you want to see, although there’s not much more. It’s not like a typical city,” Aqen explains. We turn down yet another passageway and hit a dead end with a single door. He opens it, motioning inside. “Your quarters.”
The room is cramped and just as gloomy as the passageways. It’s barely big enough to fit a single bed and a desk-sized table with storage underneath. Most of the floor is taken up withmy luggage. There’s a comm screen in the wall, though, and a small bathroom with a blue-tiled shower, both of which qualify as luxuries around here, even though it’s worse than my college dorm and most jail cells.
Plus, it’s almost a reasonable temperature. I’m starting to sweat, so I take off my gloves, hat, and outermost fur coat. “It’s warm,” I say when Aqen gives me an inquiring look, “I’m completely disoriented, though. I have no idea how we got here.”
He chuckles. “It is always that way for any new apprentices. My first week, I was lost for two days. Thought I might starve to death. But I kept going and ended up in the mining sector. They brought me back.” He says it so cheerfully, like it’s no big deal. “Do you need food? Or perhaps time to rest? I confess I’m eager to get back to the pits.”
“No, I’m ready now. Hang on, before we go, I have something for you.” I locate the scroll in my luggage and hand it to him. “It’s from Fenix. He asked me to give it to you.”
He stares at the rolled parchment in his hand, expression unreadable, but dark gray dread colors his neck. My smile falls away as he tucks it away rather than reading it in front of me. He clearly has mixed feelings about it.
Oh well, it’s none of my business. I dig a headscarf out of my luggage to swap for the ridiculous fur hat so he doesn’t catch me staring.
Funny how Aqen was rattled by a simple scroll and apparently unphased by being lost in the labyrinth of passages, thinking he was going to die. That must have been traumatic for him at the time. He was probably barely more than a teenager when he came here. But I guess few things are as traumatic as losing a parent.
I’ve worked with guys like him. Young men who saw opportunity in the military. Who were loyal and brave and all the things good soldiers are supposed to be. Who came home,years later, with broken bodies, broken minds, or both. Who sometimes couldn’t even talk about the things they experienced or put a name to their emotions.
When I was assigned a new therapy client, we’d sit in my office and draw. I’d start them with chalk pastels, making big blocks of color we’d smear with our fingers. After they’d made a whole page blue or green or orange, I’d ask, “Why did you choose that color?”
Half the time, they were so locked down, so ashamed of feelinganything,they couldn’t look at me when they answered.
The color of my first car. The color of my favorite team. The color of the flowers on your desk.
Something safe. We’d talk about that. Share opinions. Then in the next session, I’d ask them to choose another color if they were comfortable. Sometimes they couldn’t. They’d use the same color again, grinding it into the paper. Staying in that safe space. Other times they’d pick up a new shade.
My wife’s eyes. Our wedding colors.
“You’re lucky,” I say to Aqen as we walk shoulder-to-shoulder down the narrow, sloped passageway to the pits. He gives me a polite, puzzled look, so I clarify. “You Irrans. It’s so easy for you to show how you feel.”
