“I think I’m better off without it.” She managed a half-hearted laugh. After her last dustup, she wasn’t exactly keen to test her driving skills again.
“It’s a long walk. Do you want me to give you a ride?” Minio headed her off as she started toward the gate at the property boundary. He seemed brighter today, more chipper than his usual dour affect. Eleri knew he had designs on her now that her status with S’samph was nonexistent. He wasn’t the only one. Several males in Laurus had made their interest known in varying degrees of subtlety. She’d rebuffed them all as politely as she knew how, but Minio was harder to avoid than the other strangers.
“It’s a good chance to stretch my legs. I spend a lot of time crouching in the fields and sitting in the clinic.”
“Oh, well we could walk together then. I was hoping to have a chance to talk with you more about Gaia.”
Eleri repressed the urge to narrow her eyes with suspicion. She wasn’t a naïve girl to feign oblivion to male interest, but she was also aware of her precarious position in town. Without the kindness of Minio and his family, she’d be unhoused and unfed.
“I think you’re probably needed here.”
“Pyo won’t mind.” Minio raised a wing and flapped it in the older male’s direction. “The old male hates my guts most of the time. The less time we spend in each other’s company the better.” Eleri realized she’d have no choice but to accept the unwanted company. She nodded.
“Then I’ll be happy to answer your questions about Gaia to the best of my ability.” Eleri glanced up at the wandering silver flecks in his eyes and pushed back the rising unease in her gorge. He wasn’t Rhys. She had to stop leaping to conclusions.
She took the first steps down the path into town and realized Minio had flexed his other wing, shielding her from the sun. It was a kind gesture, yet she felt unsettled all the same. “What do you want to know about Gaia?”
“Myla told me it’s a colony planet of Earth. Have you ever been to Earth? I’ve heard they throw excellent parties in the Five Houses.”
“I haven’t. Passage is too expensive for most of us.”
“I see. Sometimes I forget my family’s ability to pay for routine intergalactic travel is unusual.” His wings fluttered slightly, bringing a stale breeze to brush against her shoulders.
“What is it like there? Is it as miserable as Laurus?”
“Miserable?” Eleri balked at the descriptor. Laurus was many things, but she wouldn’t describe it as miserable. If anything, people here seemed generally much happier than anyone she knew on Gaia.
“I’m not sure if you know, but Myla and I spent most of our life on Brasnia Prime. It’s the most developed Tier I planet in this sector. Compared to there, this is a hole in the ground. Worse than a hole in the ground, most days, if I’m being honest.”
Eleri regarded an older giradey male herding a flock of squalling pichari into their enclosure nearby. The fat, flightless creatures trailed a bushel of silvery pale feathers in their wake. “Cassiaq-IV is the only planet I’ve traveled to other than Gaia. But I don’t think it’s miserable here.” If she were honest, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so at ease. Even with everything that had gone wrong with S’samph, she had somehow landed feet first beyond whatshe could have imagined for herself.
“Well, your sires certainly did you a disservice. There is nothing more enriching than interplanetary travel. How else can you possibly come to understand the richness of culture without seeing beyond your own home planet?”
Eleri cringed internally at the obvious subtext of his rhetorical question but kept her face placid. She would pretend she was speaking to a patient who had just called her a backwater hick. It had happened often enough. Patients in pain were always quick to turn on the nurses.
“It sounds like you’ve been to a great many places.”
“Yes, before they shipped me off to this agricultural wasteland, I traveled to many planets in the IA consortium. In fact, the only consortium planet I haven’t visited is Earth, and only because it’s so very complicated to get a landing permit unless you know the right people.”
He didn’t need to say it for Eleri to understand that she was not ‘the right people’. It explained his reaction to her when she’d first arrived. His interest in her as a human only held value as long as she was a direct connection to Earth. Even though the walk was only about half a standard hour, it felt like their conversation had dragged on far longer as they finally reached the outskirts of the town center.
Eleri took this as an opportunity to part ways. She made a show of checking the timekeeper at her wrist console. “I should hurry. Aglao is expecting me. Thank you for walking me and for telling me about your time on Brasnia Prime.”
Minio’s wings folded shut behind his back as he made a slight bow to her. “Let’s speak again soon, Eleri.”
“Have a good afternoon.” She started a brisk walk to the clinic, not so fast it seemed like she was running away, but quickly enough to put distance between them before the conversation could continue. His intentions were clear enough, but whatever motivation he had for pursuing her, she wanted nothing to do with it.
When Eleri arrived in the cool calmness of the clinic, she found it to be an unexpected frenzy of activity. Aglao bounced around from patient to patient in the buzzing clinic.
“Eleri, there you are. Your timing is excellent. Change into a clean uniform and then you can help me with this family who ran afoul of a herd of byglor. Eleri had learned from Pyo that the large woolly creatures were usually friendly, but they had a gland that released an odorous, sticky substance if they were startled or angry. A female giradey and her two mates twittered glumly amongst themselves while trying to keep three screeching chicks corralled. Eleri wasn’t overly familiar with all theflora and fauna on Cassiaq-IV, but the sticky blue substance coating all the giradey feathers was obvious enough. She could smell its pungent, tar-like smell from all the way on the other side of the clinic.
“I’ll be quick.” Eleri hurried to decontaminate herself from the fields and then changed into a clean pair of scrubs before rushing back out in to the clinic atrium. Aglao had two buckets filled to the brim with thick suds and was wearing heavy gloves over their tentacles.
“Come join me, Eleri. This will be tedious work but a good exercise in patience.” Aglao gestured to one of the buckets and Eleri snapped on the available gloves and made her way over to the family of giradey.
“The outer flight feathers are mostly resistant to the substance, so they should wipe clean, but the down feathers will need to be scrubbed.” Aglao gestured to the feathers on one of the chicks they had started to work on.
Eleri dipped a cloth into her bucket and turned to the parents. “We’ll start with the chicks. Do you three want to help each other scrub down? It will go faster that way.”
