She looked between the aliens, shoulders sagging, her tone defeated. “You’re a nylarian.”
“The very last,” Dutch said proudly.
Torian couldn’t keep the accusation from her voice now. “Wherewereyou for the last hundred years?”
Dutch lifted his eyes to the dome overhead, mentally counting. “Zenthielutos, we’ve been dating, what…?”
“Fifty-six years,” Zen replied.
Torian swallowed a cough, wondering howthatworked.
None of her business, she supposed.
“Fifty-six years. Yes!” Dutch tapped one long, thin finger to his chin. It caused him to lose his precarious hold on two more plates, and they clattered to the ground. They weren’t wood, but somekind of crystal—ultra-strong, clearly, since they didn’t break. “Oh, blast!”
“Let’s put the dishware down for a minute. We’re wasting this human’s time, and her lifespan is already short.” Zen spoke gently, taking more things from Dutch’s arms. He cast a secret wink at Torian, like they were coconspirators.
She grimaced. “It’s not like I’m going to keel over—”
“No, no, he’s correct.” Dutch waved a hand, dumping everything else he’d stolen into Zen’s waiting arms. The draic began piling things on a nearby park bench, with clear organization for easier transport later. “Time is such a fickle thing. Okay. Fifty-six years. Fifteen before that trapped in the mining tunnel on Asteroid 9D23. The escape pod fiasco was… two. My inauguration as the god of Yarlo took quite some time…”
Zen added, “Don’t forget when you stole that artifact and sat in jail—”
“I hardlystoleit if I’m theartist!” Dutch interrupted. “Wrongful imprisonment.But then again, all imprisonment is the easy way out, isn’t it? Lazy—” He finished the sentence with another word Torian’s translator couldn’t manage.
Torian pointedly cleared her throat. “I’m going to make it easier on you. It was over a hundred years. I found it at an impound lot on Colony 13.”
“Colony 13!” Dutch exclaimed. “Whyare all the human space stations so similar?”
“You could have written it down,” Zen said, as if he was enjoying this. “Made a note. And, you know,nottold me in a panic that it was stolen, handed me a tracker, and begged us to find it. Because it sounds to me like this human acquired your ship fair and square, and I think you lost your rights to it after the first… ehh, fifteen years.”
Dutch picked up a small sculpture from the bench where Zen had stacked everything. It was a family unit—if Torian squinted, it almost looked human. The figures were tall, and a child huggedthree parents. “Be that as it may, I cannot relinquish my hold on that starship. It houses a very dear friend of mine.”
Before Torian could object, a familiar voice spoke over a nearby loudspeaker:
“Curious. My databases catalogue averydifferent definition of ‘friend.’”
IDENTITY: Mechanical Operations and Support Systems
→SUB-IDENTITY: Moss
TIME/DATE: 17:03/Januous 10, Year 90113 [System U2Ab Universal]
LOCATION: Vaesa [nylarian]
The absolute audacity.
My central system warmed to the caliber that heat rose throughout the entirety of theDestitute. The potted plants instantly began submitting reports—We’re hot, our leaves, they’re criiiisping—all of which I dropped into an archive buried so deep even my processing power could never find them again.
Hewas here. All of this time, over a century of waiting, and he strolled back into my existence off a draic starship that probably didn’t evenhaveproper life support.
It probably didn’t even have plants.
Well, draics were from a volcanic planet. Maybe it had bryum moss.
[… It better not have bryum moss.]
“Moss!” Dutch called, and even without visuals, my systems registered his delight. “Are you on Vaesa now?”
