That barn was in such a sorry state that it would have to be taken down, but the barrels were still good. And an even better discovery: automated fence bots. They would solve a heap of issues if I could get them running. I was actually humming a tune under my breath, my mood improving. Hauling barrels from one barn to the next and hosing them down to clean had never been such a relaxing task before.
By that afternoon, Mariska and I had filled all the barrels and run her entire harvest through the newly fixed machine. Working side by side had been interesting, and kind of nice. Shetalked a lot, but at the same time, she didn’t say all that much. Her voice was lovely to listen to, and I liked how she could fill a silence with pleasantness. She never asked prying questions, and I returned the favor. My skittish human was not so skittish now, and I wanted to see where that was headed before I tried to find out more. And I wanted to find out more, so much more.
“Would you like to have lunch with me?” she asked at some point. It was phrased in such a way that it sounded almost ritualistic, like it meant more than just food. I gave her a nod, but I wasn’t certain where this was headed. If it was as good as what she’d served me last night, I couldn’t possibly decline, though. If she could make wine as well as she did pastry, she’d turn a profit on this farm in no time.
It was when we were sitting down with what she called “sandwiches” on her porch that she asked me something so baffling I could only stare. She’d been so bold, demanding I come fix her pressing machine even when I said no, but now she stumbled over her words. “Look, it’s going to be Valentine’s in a few days… I know it is because I checked, not because I trusted Jess to be right. She’s a total scatterbrain, so she could have been mistaken, but she’s not. Anyway, it’s going to be Valentine’s soon, and I was wondering if you wouldn’t, well… you know?”
I did not know. This was the strangest proposition I’d ever received, and I wasn’t even sure what it was she wanted of me. “I don’t know,” I said firmly.Valentine?This sounded like it could perhaps be a name, but if so, it was not an Aderian one. Perhaps it was a Xurtal name, but why would she talk of a Xurtal male and then ask me to do something she wouldn’t name? It had to be something human, a custom perhaps… but I was not familiar with any human customs.
Her face fell, and she rose jerkily from the bench next to me, her sandwich only half-eaten and left forgotten on the plate. I eyed it, wondering if she would consider it rude if I picked it up and finished it.
“Ah, I’m explaining this terribly…” she moaned. She paced away, then ducked into her home and disappeared. I thought perhaps she’d gone to fetch something, but when she didn’t come back out, I dug into what remained of her sandwich and got back to work. This had to be some human strangeness I was probably never going to understand. I just hoped she was okay and that I hadn’t offended her.
Five minutes into my second round of shield generator repairs, my skin ached again. I felt unsettled, like something was missing. I knew what it was: Mariska. It didn’t sit right with me that she’d walked off without explaining what she wanted. I found that I very much wanted to give her whatever she’d asked of me, but how could I, if I didn’t know what?
A thought occurred to me then—one that probably never would have if I hadn’t met Mariska. I could ask for help. There was one person who might have the answer at the ready, and a source available to her to find out more. Danitalin. After we’d been rescued from our hostage situation by mercenaries hired by the Aderian government, she had chosen to stay with them. She’d even mated with their Rummicaron Weaponmaster. Far more importantly, there were humans on that ship—females, mated to other crew members of the notorious mercenaries of the Varakartoom.
I eyed the small home to make sure that Mariska was still inside and couldn’t overhear me. Then I called Danitalin’s commdevice and waited with bated breath to see if she’d answer. It had been several weeks since that situation, since I’d been dropped off on Llykhe to retire. I had lost the taste for adventure, but my friend had found hers.
“Jeltom,” she said when she answered my call, with a breathlessness I did not want to know the source of. “To what do I owe the pleasure, old friend?” It was a good thing she had not engaged the video settings, because I did not need her to see the confusion on my face. She was one of the most powerful Aderian empaths I knew, and I wondered if she could sense my feelings through a tenuous comm connection.
“I hope you’re still happy on that gloomy mercenary ship,” I said to her. It was black inside every hallway on the Varakartoom, each corridor designed to look exactly like the next, to confuse intruders. I had hated how dark it was on that ship, and I couldn’t fathom how Danitalin, of all people, didn’t mind. She laughed and wove aside my concern the same way she’d done ever since I’d woken in the Varakartoom’s medbay and discovered she had been rescued, too.
“Fine, I’ll cut to the chase. I need information on humans. You have humans on that ship, don’t you?” I already knew the answer, but I was relieved when Danitalin agreed readily anyway. She also did not ask me why I needed to know about humans, but I was certain that was going to come later. “I need to know what Valentine means. Can you find out for me? I was asked to do something for Valentine, and I don’t know what she means.”
“Aaaaah, are you playing house on Llykhe with a human, Jeltom?” Danitalin asked. She was laughing, but she wasn’tlaughing at me, she was just happy. There was not a mean bone in Danitalin’s body. In the background, her mate was calling for her, asking who she was talking to. He called her Dani, shortening her name in a way Aderians would consider rude. A human custom too, I believed; to shorten a name was considered a sign of friendship. I was tempted to ask, but I could just as easily ask that particular question of Mariska.
“Valentine? Never heard of it,” Danitalin said. “But I’ll find out for you. I was supposed to meet with Harper to do an interview anyway. She’ll know.” I did not ask who Harper was or what kind of interview Danitalin was talking about. She was a brilliant doctor and scientist, and, recently, likely the inventor of a very important cure regarding Roka production pollution. If anyone would end up in the spotlight over such a thing, it was Danitalin.
It was eking toward evening, and I’d finally spotted Mariska slip out of the house to check on her recently pressed grapes. She’d been hiding in there all afternoon, and I was certain it was because I’d messed up terribly. Unfortunately, Danitalin hadn’t gotten back to me yet about this Valentine thing, and my mind was spinning in increasingly darker circles. What had I missed? How had I hurt her feelings? What could I do to fix it?
I hadn’t the slightest idea, so I focused on the things I could solve. That started with getting this ancient shield generator to run again. I was certain I would never be able to get it to run fully automated, those circuit boards were beyond fried. Even so, you could get localized meteor alerts on your comm well ahead of time. That should be enough for Mariska to get to the generator and turn it on manually. Or me, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. I could stay close, so I could make sure the generator was on when she needed it.
Rubbing at my arm, I wondered why my skin ached again. I felt a little more worn than I usually would from the work I’d been doing. Some would blame that on my recent injury, but I knew better. This was something else, something that stirred instincts deep in the back of my mind and pulled at my heart with a kind of optimistic hope.
Hypersensitive to her presence, I sensed when Mariska came back out of the barn behind me. I tried very hard not to turn to look, but tilted my head just enough to catch her from the corner of my eye. She was rubbing at her bare arms too, either she was cold in her lovely pale green dress or she was feeling the same thing I was. I hoped she was feeling what I was feeling, but I couldn’t possibly ask.
That’s when my comm buzzed with an incoming message. I glanced at it, noticed Danitalin’s name on the screen, and hurried to click it open. It read in big letters at the top: “Valentine is a human courtship ritual.” My heart sped up in my chest as I scanned the details of the tradition outlined below it, followed by very precise, step-by-step instructions of what I should do. I was silent after I’d finished reading, and very much lost in thought. This was what she wanted? For me to court her? My heart thrilled again in my chest.
Chapter 7
Mariska
Jeltom was very lost in thought, it seemed. He stood beside the shield generator with his head down, but he wasn’t moving. His long, intriguing braid hung straight down his spine, the tail of it brushing against the sexy curve of his ass. The man knew how to fill out a pair of pants like it was nobody’s business. He was also shirtless again in the warm Llyhke afternoon heat. I shamelessly ogled the wide, muscled planes of his anthracite back.
I should try again, explain to him what I’d tried to ask over lunch today. How embarrassing that I had barely gotten the right words out, and he hadn’t understood a single thing I’d said. Then again, I’d babbled something awful about Jess and whether it was Valentine or not. I should have explained the tradition first, not rambled about the timing, what did that matter anyway? Valentine was supposed to be at the end of winter, when things were renewing and spring was approaching. On Llyhke, the weather was turning into autumn right now.
Gathering my courage, I crossed the yard and smoothed my dress over my wide hips. I couldn’t begin to describe how incredibly relieved I was to have him around for another day. Selfishly, I now wanted more: I wanted him to be here everyday to help me with the tasks that were too big for one person alone, or the ones I didn’t even know how to do.
“Hi, uh… since it’s approaching dinnertime, do you want to stick around for a hot meal? It’s the least I can do.” That was muchsmoother than this afternoon’s attempt at asking him out. He jerked his head up, as if I’d caught him by surprise, and then shoved his big wrist behind his back, as if I wasn’t allowed to see it. Was that the wrist with his comm device? Now I was instantly curious, and just a little suspicious. “Unless you have to run home to your girlfriend or something?”
He raised his other hand to brush it over the smoothed-back hair on his crown. The long braid, painted with a strand of silver, only made him look distinguished in my book. “Girlfriend? This is a friend who is female?” he asked, then immediately shook his head. “My girlfriend lives on a ship with her mate now. I would not be able to go to her for dinner.”
I raised my hand to my mouth to smother a laugh. He wasn’t trying to be funny, but his misunderstanding about the word “girlfriend” took the sting out of this afternoon’s miscommunication. A friend who is female, that was one definition. From the sounds of it, at least he definitely didn’t have some pretty, elegant Aderian lady waiting for him at home. Now I just had to find out what that guilty flinch had been about, why was he hiding his comm?
“I would very much like to eat dinner at your abode,” Jeltom said then. He glanced at my house, and his eyes turned sharp and flinty. “And I will install locks before nightfall; that is a promise. Someone should be by to deliver them shortly.” I blinked at him, surprised. He’d actually ordered locks for my doors? My gaze flicked to the dusty road toward the sleepy, colorful little town in the valley below.
“Oh, uhm, thanks! I really would like locks.” The idea of being able to lock my door again made me tremble inside. I’d grownup on one of Earth’s poor colonies, scraping for food, my parents working multiple jobs just to put clothes on our backs. Crime had been rampant in the slums we lived in, and a lock could be the difference between life and death sometimes.
