“Obviously, my mates and I will help,” the female giradey trilled in musical Universal. Eleri handed her the bucket in front of her and turned to Aglao. “Where can I get more of the cleaning solution.”
Aglao gestured to the pharmacy console with a free limb. “The pharmacy console should have my previous order programmed in already, you can get more of the cleaning solution there.”
Eleri nodded, surprised that Aglao trusted her to use the pharmacy console herself after only working at the clinic for a few short weeks, but she hurried over to reorder a new bucket of the solution. The pharmacy console hummed to life under her biosig, and Eleri realized that she must have been able to access it this whole time. A strange rush of warmth ran up her back and along her shoulders.
Nurses back on Gaia were frisked before they entered the wards and again before they left. The protocols were strict, especially after everyone in the world began trying to smuggle iridescence to sell on the black market, but there had always been a sting in the lack of trust. It was nice to be able to do her job without being treated like a criminal.
“Be careful with their feathers. The flight feathers are still developing in the chicks.” Aglao demonstrated a technique to secure the feathers with minimal discomfort. Eleri tried her best to follow the example, but Aglao’s limbs were much steadier than her own hands. The chicks squirmed as Eleri worked throughone soft feather at a time, but by the time Eleri had managed to rid their soft feathers of all the goo, the three of them were singing softly.
After they finished with the cleaning and were able to send the family home with strict instructions to avoid any future byglor encounters during their mating season, Eleri found herself cleaning the mess with Aglao in companionable silence.
As Eleri knelt to scrub a particularly resistant puddle of goo and solvent off the floor that had been too much for the cleaning bot to handle, Aglao came to stand beside her. “You are talented at this work. It is a pity your home world did not provide you more opportunities to learn.”
“It wasn’t my home world’s fault so much as other things in my life.” Eleri wrung her cleaning cloth into the bucket of suds. “I’m grateful for the chance to learn now.”
“Then these factors are no longer at play?”
“No. They are far beyond the stars.” After swabbing away the last of the goo, she removed her gloves and deposited them in the waste atomizer.
“Good. You are a quick learner; I anticipate you will be able to sit for your IA examinations by the time we reach flooding season." Aglao lifted the bucket with one of their limbs. “This should be disposed of outside. The byglor emissions will block our plumbing if we try to pour it in our drains.”
“I’ll take it out.” Eleri accepted the heavy bucket and made her way to the exit. Heat poured down on her brow, clashing with the blast of cool behind her from the clinic’s open door. She set the bucket down on the entry steps and shielded her eyes from the radiance of the binary suns overhead as she searched for a good place to dispose of the goo water without making too much of a mess in the streets. A few paces past the schoolhouse she noticed a copse of thorny bushes. It was as good a place as any to dispose of the waste water. With a heave, she lifted the bucket again and made her trek down toward the schoolhouse.
As she passed by, several of the children pressed their faces up against the window panes. Eleri did her best to wave while still balancing the heavy bucket. Eleri could hear the reverberation of their teacher’s voice as no doubt he tried to call them back to attention, but they were all rapt with attention as she dumped the bucket into the bushes. She heard small voices and chortles of laughter from the window as the children watched her perform what she considered to be a mundane activity. When sheturned back, the window was cracked open, and more faces had piled in to watch her work.
Their teacher, a yellow-spotted urtazi female, glowered behind them as she tried to restore order. Eleri flushed. It hadn’t been her intention to cause so much of a stir, but the children were still invested in what she was doing outside the window. She had better hurry and get out of the way to not cause more disruption. Feeling like a minor celebrity as she walked back past the window, she gave a slight wave to the apparent delight of her audience and made her way back toward the clinic.
When she crossed down the path back to the clinic, however, she noticed Pyo waiting at the entrance. From a quick glance, he didn’t seem unwell. The bucket thudded against her hip as she hurried her pace back to the clinic entrance.
“Are you looking for me?” she asked.
“Eleri, there you are. I was just about to go inside to look for you. There’s a call for you at the holocenter.”
Surprised, she dropped the bucket on the steps. “The holocenter?”
“Well, it’s not much of a center. More like a booth, but it’s private enough for any interplanetary call you have coming in.”
At the mention of interplanetary correspondence, Eleri’s stomach began churning horribly. “I should go let Aglao know that I’ll be gone for a bit.”
“Sure thing. Don’t be too long though—the calls are expensive.”
“I’ll be quick.” Eleri heeded his words as she rushed back inside to ask Aglao if she could leave to take the call.
“Are you well, Eleri?” Aglao hummed their concern. “Your vital signs indicate abnormal levels of gastrointestinal activity and elevated heartrate.”
“I wasn’t expecting a call from off-planet.” She removed the monitor she’d been training with so Aglao could no longer see her distress reflected on the medical interface. “I’m fine, but I better take this call.” She knew who was calling already. Eleri hadn’t exactly left behind a whole group of friends who would be clamoring to pay interplanetary rates to place a call off-colony.
After leaving her tech behind at the clinic, she followed Pyo to the holocenter.
“It’s not far from here.” He swept out with one of his wings to usher her out of the clinic. He wasn’t exaggerating when he said it was a booth. He dropped her off in a dustyalleyway beside The Eon and she fumbled her way to a tiny door next to some waste disposal units. The holoscreen was coated in a thick layer of dust that she scrubbed away with her sleeve before tapping her finger a few times on the blinking call waiting button. Eleri held her breath as she waited for the connection to go through. A familiar and unwelcome image swam into the interface.
“Eleri, dear there you are.” Her mother’s face blinked onto the screen, as weathered and worried as ever beneath the curtain of beads she wore in a band over her hair. She’d joined some sort of new age cult promising a cure for her golden child’s affliction and had been a devoted follower ever since. “Are you well? How was the travel? Is your new husband kind to you?”
Eleri pinched the bridge of her nose, steeling herself to have the conversation she knew was soon to follow. “What’s wrong, mum? Interstellar calls aren’t cheap.”
“You’re right, you’re right. We mustn’t waste time on chatter. I assume you’re well enough. You look safe and healthy, so let’s thank the spirits for that.” She made a familiar gesture with her fingers, something to do with invoking air spirits if Eleri remembered correctly from the years of patiently enduring her mother’s lecturing about her cult’s practices.
“Yes, let’s.” Eleri drummed her fingers on her thighs. It wouldn’t matter what the specific point was. The central purpose was always the same. “What do you need today?”
