I stuff a crumbly piece of kwasa cake in my mouth and mumble around it, “Thought you wanted to talk about the Turning.”
She grins at me. “Did you kiss him yet?”
I chew and swallow before answering. There are only so many times I can explainwe’re just friends.
“Well?” she asks impatiently, and Oljin frowns at her over the lip of his mug. Steam from his herbal tea curls around his shaved skull and gently pointed ears, making him look like a wise creature out of a fairytale.
“Some lovers prefer privacy,” he admonishes.
I guess I have to say it again. “Harl and I aren’t lovers. He figured out Elvis’s food situation, though, and he’s already doing better. Look!” I reach for my necklace to tip him out onto the table, but Rose gives a little screech and pushes back her stool.
“No bugs at breakfast, please!”
I bite back my smile. I had a feeling that would change the subject. Five decades of spaceship living have made her a little squeamish about regular dirt and crawlies. I let go of the pendant, and it falls back to its usual position between my breasts. “So, the Turning...”
“Right.” She settles back into her seat, patting down her fly-aways before twisting her silver curls into a knot at the back of her neck. With her hair pulled back, her crown, a delicate band of gold flowers that runs across her forehead, is exposed.
Sometimes I forget that she’s a queen. To me, she’s just Rose, the other song-mother, the other human, the other woman. My friend. But in another life, she’d be Empress of the Five Planets.
She pulls up a screen on her tablet with bright blocks of color labeled in Frathik characters. “I made a chart. It’s—oh wait, I forgot.” She taps a button, and it cycles through a screen of Irran script to one with English. Rose is good with languages and has mastered several, but I’m still learning my basic Frathik characters. Once I can read the chart, I can tell it’s a schedule, with each of us marked in our own colors and extra colors added for other people who will be helping us with the heavy lifting.
Oljin leans over her shoulder to look at it and grunts. “You didn’t leave time for sleeping, Blossom.”
“Shhh.” She waves a dismissive hand at him. “It’s only a couple of days.”
“It’s three days,” he points out. “I will not survive without you in my bed for that long. If you do not put sleep into the schedule, I will drag you from the hatchery myself.”
Ruth purses her lips at him, but I can tell she’s secretly pleased by his threat. “You can drag me out, but you can’t make me sleep.”
He ducks his head to softly bite the curve of her ear. “But I can. You always sleep soundly after two or three—”
“Ican’tchange the schedule,” Rose squeaks again, her cheeks pink. “The Turning has to happen within three days or the eggs won’t hatch properly. We’d need another person to help, and right now, everyone is stretched too thin as it is. I was supposed to have six women to help me, and I only have Lena.”
“I will find someone.” Oljin rises and gives her cheek one last caress. Then he throws on a patched wrap jacket and strides out.
Rose stares after him with a gooey expression, a lavender flush staining her cheeks. When I first met her, I was shocked when her skin changed colors the first time. But she explained to me that when she accepted Oljin’s crown, the goddess gave her the ability to show her emotions on her skin just like Irrans do, and I’ve gotten used to the occasional rainbow flashes.
The lavender she’s showing right now means love. Fated love. Her soul-connection to Oljin. The kind of connection my sister, Ada, has with the new Irran Emperor. I wonder how she’s doing. I hope she’s as in love with her alien husband as Rose is with hers. She deserves it.
“I just want you to have what I have.” Rose’s gooey gaze is now fixed on me.
I wiggle my toes inside my child-size Frathik boots and clear my throat. “Okay. The schedule looks good to me, with or without extra help.” I start to say more, but I’m interrupted by a piercing tone over the base’s loudspeakers.
The tablet screen flashes, changing from Rose’s intricate Turning schedule to a scrolling text alert.
INCOMING OBJECT. BRACE FOR IMPACT.
Rose and I share an alarmed look before diving under the metal table. A minute passes, and then another.
“What do you think it is?” I whisper, although I have no reason to lower my voice.
“Meteor, probably.” Rose doesn’t sound confident. “Those rings are always spitting rocks. None of them have ever hit us, though. Not any big ones, anyway.”
Just when it’s been long enough that I think we might be in the clear, a distantcrunchsounds, and the whole building shudders. It’s subtle. Nothing gets jarred off a shelf or anything. The leaves on Rose’s plants quiver slightly, but that’s it.
For some reason, the smallness of it makes my heart thud faster, and my breath rasps loudly in my ears. It reminds me of the night Ada and I were abducted, and a small noise and slight shake woke me up just before we were taken from our little apartment. Irrationally, I’m afraid it’s happening again. Afraid I’m about to be stolen away from Rose and Harl and my babies.
Not again.
