“Not! Now!” she hissed.
“Here’s what I have to offer.” The ship spoke through some hidden orifice in the ceiling. Both wall displays switched to scrolling images of clothing, leaving the dragon siblings to shout their frustration.
“Sorry, Mer. You said a rodent? Did you have a particular species in mind?” Hydna turned to me with a storm in her face. Unlike her brother, who so often channeled his fury into activities I enjoyed, Hydna’s anger genuinely chilled me.
“Uh.” I eased myself off the table, carefully circling around it to place Merulo between myself and his sister. “Could we choose outfits, first? It’s just another type of research, if you think about it, finding out what these moon people wear.”
“Don’t hide behind me. I won’t protect you,” Merulo muttered, but my words had worked. The siblings regarded the displays with fresh curiosity. From the sheer number of items scrolling past, this couldn’t possibly be what the shipcontained, but, as with the limbs, what it had the potential to make.
“I need clothing, too,” I said to the ceiling. “Mine are drenched in various bodily fluids, and they’ve never quite fit.”
“So many styles.” Hydna looked hypnotized, her fingers hovering over the display. “Hey, Mer. This is how humans dress without enforced monotony. They must not have a Church. Or maybe several Churches, that’s how it used to be. And—give me the material composition please—plastics?Wasn’t that a problem in the old world, the constant creation of plastic with no means to dispose of it?”
“We have genetically altered bacteria now,” the ship chirped. “The little guys devour it, and can in turn be used for fuel, fertilizer, or various foods. There’s a pricey alcohol on Luna which comes from microorganisms fed on an exclusive diet of discarded celebrity undergarments!”
I sidled closer to Merulo, not quite daring to slide an arm around his waist, but wanting to be present and involved. Thanks to the ship’s administrations, his formerly lank hair now hung black and silky about the sharp planes of his scowl.
“What do you have that’s close to his old robe?” I asked, appraising the strange parade of items. “He never wears anything else.”
Merulo gave another cry of discontent, but my friend the ship had already obliged. “There.” I pointed. “That looks nice. Look at the shoulder spikes! The Order would piss themselves in fear, then slip in it. The piss, that is.”
“Show me what you consider most appropriate,” Merulo said with stiff politeness. The selection narrowed to three near-identical black robes. None of them had spiked shoulders.
“The left robe is most conservative, if you’re feeling dull. The middle looks closest to your old clothing, and the right isinteresting. Right would absolutely have me acting up.”
“Middle,” said the sorcerer, wrinkling his nose. Hydna failed to participate in the decision, being absorbed in her own frenzied scrolling and subvocal communication.
“My turn!” I cried, pushing the recently undeceased sorcerer aside. “Lunatic Freak, please show me what a strapping young man in his mid to late twenties might wear.Something suited to a young warrior, abandoning his faith to become a mad sorcerer’s disciple!”
“Disciple?” scoffed the sorcerer. “A magic-less oaf, scrubbing floors clean of his own bird shit? Try to contain your self-flattery. The costume of a serving wench would be more fitting.”
“He really does like me,” I assured the ship, worried that it had not changed the display at the sorcerer’s suggestion. “It’s just how he talks.”
The patching of their relationship accomplished, I gave myself up to the joys of shopping, even if it did feel curiously flattened through a screen. One displayed costume looked like a thrown net, shaped to a human form. The knots arranged the net into a lovely geometry, but it didn’t look very warm. Or modest. Another showed a dress—did the ship know I was a man?—that slit alluringly over the hips, allowing a saucy length of leg. I tapped at it. Just to get a closer look. No other reason.
“That looks appropriate.” Merulo pointed to an outfit I hadn’t planned on stopping at, and I swallowed a squeak of dismay. A crisp black shirt, form-fitting black trousers, heeled boots in, you guessed it, black. I wouldn’t have chosen it myself, but if Merulo showed interest?
“Selection locked,” came the voice, and the screen shifted to an abstract display of colour. I couldn’t help but notice that, before the options disappeared, the dress appeared to be highlighted.
“That’s done with, then.” I treated the ceiling to one of my signature smiles. I couldn’t help my relief; black would’ve looked awful with my colouring. “Thank you so much, Lunatic! Is it alright if I call you Lunatic?”
“Of course!” came that sexless voice. “And I’ll call you Cameron.” One of the machines had its eyepiece on me, I noticed, a black circle containing the faint reflection of my own face.
“I will need interior pockets in my robe,” said the sorcerer. “Hydna, I can instruct you in the enchantment needed for them.”
Hydna grunted in annoyance, but I knew how rarely she denied her brother. It was reasonable to have a soft spot for your only remaining family.
Further scrolling was interrupted as the displays swam together, merging into a cube of light that resolved into a grim face.
“Sorry to interrupt,” the captain said in Common, without a trace of accent. “But Luna has cleared us for landing. Please collect your personal belongings and prepare to deboard within the hour.” With that, the face vanished.
The sorcerer’s laughter bordered on screeching. Hydna joined him with her own booming tenor, and even I tried to add a chuckle or two, before deciding I was outmatched.
“We have everything,” Merulo wheezed, once breath had returned to him. “Everything! We win! We get it all.”
“Minus a limb or two,” I said, but he only shushed me.
“The moon!” Hydna shouted. She seized Merulo and spun him in a hopping dance and, to my surprise, he did not protest.
