Chapter 3:
Jenny stood in the communal food hall, helping to prepare the dandy weeds that she had picked. Alana, a cheerful fellow human who had wound up as part of the wrecking crews clean up detail through sheer luck, and the fact that she and her husband had been aboard a ship that the wreckers had taken, said, “I have heard of these, but I’ve never gotten to eat one.”
Jenny stared down into the simmering pot that held the roots. “I never asked you before. Did you live above or below?”
Alana said, “If I had lived above I would not have been on a ship bound for an outlying colony. We got pawned, my husband and I, by our in-laws. We were still young enough that they had full control of our persons.”
Jenny said, “What did they pawn you for?”
Alana said, “Food, of course.”
Both women stared at the array of food on the counters. There were a full dozen people working in the hall at that moment. The monstrous fish from the ocean, several of them weighing at least a hundred pounds each, needed to be deboned and smoked in order to save them for later.
Some of the fish needed to be cleaned and prepared for the meal that they would have later that night. Not every meal was taken in the communal food hall. Everyone made their own way for their first and second meals of the day, but the last meal, dinner, was always communal.
It would not always be that way because eventually there would be too many of them, but for now, and in order to foster a sense of community, that’s the way it was. Jenny found herself mourning the loss of those meals even though she had not yet departed for Old Earth.
Alana said, “What did you do?”
Jenny looked at the floor. “Nothing. My parents were executed by the Capo. My mother was a healer who grew food, and someone turned her in. My father tried to save her. He offered himself in her place, but they said no, and then when he tried to stand between her and the Capo, they took him too.
“I was alone but for my betrothed. He hid me for a very long time in case they wanted to kill me too. I thought they had forgotten all about me. I thought…” The pain and misery came back in, crushing her to small bits inside. “I thought that they had decided that I was not guilty of any crime.”
Alana’s hand rested on her shoulder. There was sympathy in her voice. “But you were wrong.”
Jenny nodded. “I was walking down the tunnel when they just rushed at me. They scanned my chip and then said that I… that I was to go on a bride ship. They never gave me the reason, but I guess it was because of that. I don’t know what else it could be.”
Alana stirred the pot with a long-handled spoon. “Well, I don’t know that I’d want to go back if I were you.”
Jenny managed to breathe. “I have to. I have to help Marik heal as many as possible. It matters to me that people do not die. It’s not just that though, I… I need to know if my betrothed is alive or dead.”
Alana said, “Oh, I see.”
Jenny nodded and busied herself scraping the scales off of the fish. Alana said, “I hope you find him well, Jenny.”
Tears stung Jenny’s eyes. She hoped she did as well, but the conflicting emotions that she felt weren’t just due to her fear that she would go back to find her home planet just as terrible as it had been when she left and her very real wanting to stay there on Revant Two.
She loved Ben. She did. But she was torn because that was something so intense about the things that she felt toward Marik.
Not that Marik returned those feelings. That was obvious. He thought she was a simpleton, probably. In fact, he had said as much that day she had accidentally fallen into the sea, and he had saved her life.
As she cleaned the fish, she found herself wondering if she’d be better off just refusing to go at all. That thought brought so much guilt that she could barely finish the task.
Those feelings of both guilt and wanting to stay, of confusion about her feelings toward Marik, continued. She woke the morning that they were to part with a heavy heart and a lot of misgivings.
Jessica had come to her the night before and given her a tunic and trousers, and Jenny had stared down at the things with real hatred. “I much prefer my dress.”
Jessica, ever practical and no-nonsense, had replied, “I’m sure you do, but it’s not something that you can wear down there. You know this. People will begin to start deciding their own dress soon enough, but for right now you need to wear the tunic and the trousers. For one thing, it’ll protect you from the dust and from being cut by flying shrapnel.”
Jessica had left before Jenny could ask what that meant, but she had a good idea anyway. It was a war down there. She was going into a war zone! She had heard the stories told by all of those on Talons crew, and she knew that the humans who had survived the invasion of the Borlites were busy fighting each other for whatever scraps they could manage to get into their grasp.
She dressed hurriedly and stepped out of the building. She carried nothing with her because she owned nothing but the small sea shells that she collected and the small and delicate glass jar that Marik had brought to her a few days earlier. She had stared at the jar with real wonder, and he had said to her, “You could put flowers in it.”
He had left before she could ask him why he would give her such a precious and beautiful gift. She had considered, quite seriously, taking it with her but the fact that the glass was so precious and that had been given to her by someone who aroused emotions in her that were traitorous to Ben made her leave it on the shelf. As she stepped out of the hut, she found herself longing to stay there. To not get on that ship. Then her shoulders straightened, and her chin came up.
Those were her people down there. She was terrified, of course, but she would do all she could to help because to do nothing would be inhumane and wrong.
Marik spotted her as she walked towards the place where the ships landed, a special dock that had been built over the water. He said to her, “Are you ready for this?”
