Starcrossed

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The next day I woke up late and lazed through my morning routine, the eleven o’clock deadline like a slowly tightening noose around my neck. Fifteen minutes till, Joanna gave me a soft reminder of the approaching meeting. Ten minutes till, she expressed to me that wearing yesterday’s leggings and a T-shirt with a dirt stain might not be an appropriate outfit for a meeting with the khindrae; nodding, I let her fabricate me another pair of Lululemons and a soft coral tee. At three minutes till, her usual apricot now limned with deep, worried blue, Joanna asked if it might be a good idea to get going.

“Right,” I said, slipping on my shoes. “Please give the khindrae my sincerest apologies. I have a terrible migraine coming on, and the light on the top deck would make it ten times worse.”

“But you’ve already accepted her invitation!” she said, twisting herself into nervous navy knots. “She’s up there waiting for you. It would be the height of rudeness to—”

But I was already striding out the door, headed for the hothouse. I let Midge stay behind; she didn’t need to be part of whatever might come next.

I’d decided to turn my attentions to beating back some of the wildness of the hothouse. There was a lot of work to do: uprooting the toxic tuahdes, skimming the algae sludge from the surface of the pool beside the gazebo, finding higher resting places for the vines that swung low over the path. Small touches to help the hothouse’s raw beauty shine.

I started a mental count of the minutes in my head and turned my attention to a shrub called a voh rabinnut, so Joanna told me. It had shed many of its conical, lavender-colored flowers in recent days; here was my opportunity to see if deadheading was an Earth-specific phenomenon, or if it had some effect on Tenctah’s flora, too. I snapped off the ends of each newly bare flower stem, then took some quick notes in my sketchbook; I’d compare this bush with another one across the way and see if I could get more flowers.

How long had it taken to deadhead the shrub—ten minutes or thereabouts? Hm. I glanced down the path in both directions, smiled, then pressed on.

Next on the agenda was an overgrown little grove that looked like it could do with some weeding. Hopefully the spiky little plants choking out the rest of the area were actually weeds and not some more precious species… I had a sudden vision of unwittingly ripping out million-dollar plants to make room for Tenctah’s version of a dandelion.

Oh well, who cared? It seemed like I was going to be the only person who ever came in here anyway. I shook off my doubts and grasped the base of the first stem.

“Good morning,” called a voice cheerily from behind me.

I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them and rose to my feet, ripping up the plant with a snapping of roots. They dangled below the stem like thin, red entrails.

It was Jexrah, of course, dressed today in another outfit that looked suited for b**m play: yet more straps, jade green this time. Each strap came adorned with bits of sculpted fabric that jutted out, pufferfish-like, to stab at the air.

“Morning,” I answered.

“You have a headache, I hear.”

“I do.” I mean, now I had one coming on.

We surveyed each other coolly, her with clear doubt, me with an expression that I hoped conveyed something like, Well, what are you going to do about it—ask for a doctor’s note? Stab me to death with your fabric knives?

“Water and proper sustenance should be of help,” she said. Proper sustenance—you couldn’t tell she was Del’s sister, could you? She waved a hand around us vaguely. “I can’t imagine it’s a help to be laboring in this heat.”

“Heat and humidity are common human remedies for headaches and migraines,” I lied, forcing a smile. “I really would love to eat with you… get to know each other… But—”

“Oh, of course,” she said, the very picture of grace. “That’s why I sent a server bot to fetch the food from upstairs. Share a meal with me, won’t you? Rest a bit. I’m eager to learn more about the person who’s been living alongside my dear brother this past while.”

Well, dammit. My first hope had been that she’d let me get away with my obviously bullshit excuse. My second hope had been that she’d venture down here and I’d be able to ward her off with a bit more bullshit.

But I was clearly outclassed. And, I realized with a sinking feeling as I trudged after the khindrae back to the gazebo, and I was having a difficult time recalling all the inane social rules about who was supposed to eat what when.

Smack-dab in the middle of the gazebo now sat a low table and two chairs; the server bots worked fast. The table was clustered with various delicacies, along with two sweating glasses of water.

Taking off my gardening gloves, I balled them up and tossed them to the side of the gazebo with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. Then, sitting down, I gritted my teeth and pasted a smile over them that I hoped looked pleasant. I was sure it did not.

“How considerate of you to bring all this down here.”

“My pleasure. Oh, here,” she said, swooping in with her fork to grab the first bite. Well, that satisfied that question. Of course she got to have first-bite honors: she was Jexrah, after all, and I just the lowly human, scarcely better than dirt. I made a quick decision not to do the whole share-food-around thing; if she called me out, I’d feign alien ignorance.

“Dig in,” she said, looking at me from across the table with a smug smile. I picked a little at this dish and that—it was your standard strange rumae fare. Thankfully there was a dish of my favorite pickled red almost-carrots near me, to which I turned most of my attention.

“You enjoy Ailoptian cuisine,” Jexrah observed.

“I enjoy these,” I said, jabbing at the almost-carrots with my fork.

“Axhlot. They are called axhlot. And how have you found the rest of your stay aboard? Agreeable, I hope?”

“It’s a very nice prison, yes.” Oh dear, that was probably the sort of thing I wasn’t supposed to say to the khindrae. Jexrah straightened up in her seat with a look that said oh-ho!

“So you’d prefer that you were back home, then,” she said, taking a small bite of something all while keeping her eyes on me.

“Yes…”

“I see,” she said, reaching across the table for a square of a lumpy, dried brown paste. I followed her lead and nibbled at a corner; it had a subtle, tea-like taste. Not bad, really. “I am gladdened to see, though,” she continued, “that despite your confinement here you have found ways to occupy yourself.” She waved a hand through the air at the space around us. “It’s good to have pastimes. They will be a comfort to you once the ship departs your planet at last.”

She was nice to talk with, wasn’t she? “I suppose,” I said tightly, reaching for my water. Then a sudden paranoia hit me; could she have dosed the water with some sort of alien truth serum? I had no idea the lengths she’d go to get information; after all, we were here alone, away from any supervision by Joanna. I brushed a fingertip against the glass, drawing an F and then a U in the beaded condensation.

“So what brings you to the Huivnarrut?” I asked, deciding to flip the tables and pose a few questions of my own.

“H—?” Blink and you’d miss it: something about the question had smashed through her practiced smarminess for a fraction of a second. Perhaps my terrible pronunciation of the ship’s new name. “You might say I’m just checking in. Oh, my brother has informed you about the circumstances preceding his temporary presence on Earth, hasn’t he?”

“No, he hasn’t,” I admitted.

She looked decidedly pleased. “Oh. Well, no matter. Here, you must try this—one of my favorites.” She pointed at a dish heaped full of what looked like gray soft-serve ice cream, unnervingly solid for this heat. I waited until she went for the first bite before sampling any of the gray stuff myself. Sweet, with a slight lemony flavor—aside from a faint, oily aftertaste, it was pretty good.

“Mm.”

Jexrah gave a proud nod. “Ailoptian cuisine is second to none. Would you tell me how you came to be on the ship? It must have been quite a shock.”

A chill fell over me, despite the heat. What did she already know? One wrong word could put my dad in danger; after all, he wasn’t supposed to have left the ship.

“I was out walking in the woods. I was being careless, and there was a snowstorm… I got lost and happened upon the Huivnarrut.” Her eyes narrowed a hair again; she definitely hadn’t known about the name change. “And so… here I am,” I said, spreading my arms. Best to keep my story simple and as close to the facts as possible.

“Yes,” Jexrah said slowly, as my nerves crawled. “Here you are.” She reached for her water. Took a sip and set the glass back down. Then she looked me dead in the eye.

“Everyone has their faults,” she said. “Myself, I’ve always been excessively curious. Growing up I was an annoyance to my family and peers—always asking questions, digging into places where I wasn’t wanted. There were a few times in my more naive years when I unearthed information to cause a scandal. Love affairs… a quiet assassination by poison… that sort of thing. I’ve since learned to keep my secrets close.

“Last night I found myself unable to fall asleep for some time. Snap travel has that tendency… or perhaps it was the novelty of the unfamiliar suite. Anyway, I’ll admit that in my insomniac state I gave into my vice: I did a bit of digging.

“You, Corinne Kaminski, are seemingly a nobody. Though you live in what seems by all accounts to be the most powerful country on your planet, your so-called state of ‘Montana’ appears largely to keep to itself, not figuring in much to the national narrative. Your father works an ordinary job, as did you. Records indicate that your social standing is average. You are, by all indications, of the common people—an upstanding member of society, no doubt, but someone who hasn’t made much of a mark on the world. Well, you’re still young for your species; you have time yet.

“And, as you related, it was an inexplicable accident that led to you coming aboard the… Huivnarrut. I believe that fact wholeheartedly; you’re simply too ordinary for it to have happened any other way.

“And yet the circumstances surrounding you once you boarded the ship are bizarre. Per my personal steward’s analysis, there’s about a seventy-percent chance that the security footage of your first day on board has been doctored, as well as that of the following day—oh yes, I took a peek at that, despite my brother’s steward’s protestations. The weight of my rank simply made the request undeniable. Do you know, my steward actually suggested that someone had put in some considerable work ensuring your arrival time on the security footage corresponded with your entry time on the Intelligent Alien Species Registry!

“Strange, too, that there was no DNA sample taken during the first hour of your arrival, as is best practice. That sample was submitted to the registry the day following your recorded arrival time.” She gave me a grim little smile. “Odd, isn’t it?”

“Very odd,” I said numbly.

“And,” she continued, “there have been other such security footage irregularities in the days following. These irregularities persist even up to the minutes before my boarding. If you recall, yesterday you came here to the hothouse and spent more than an hour inside. Doing what, I’m uncertain—I’m sure you haven’t realized this, but this space affords those within a great deal of privacy. A severe security oversight—I’ve made sure to voice my concerns about that with my brother.

“After your time gardening… or whatever you were doing… you returned to your suite, changed your outfit, and then met my brother in his sim room. Everything proceeds normally for some time, then—again, this is just what has been suggested per my steward’s analysis—the security footage once more exhibits slight indications of being doctored!” She sat back in her seat, red eyes gleaming. “Isn’t that incredible?”

“I’ve been told the ship has been undergoing some repairs,” I said, tongue dry. “Maybe the security footage has been affected.”

She reached across the table and speared a piece of axhlot with her claw, the point punching through it with a loud crunch. I’m sorry to say I flinched. “Of course—that’s precisely what his steward told me. All this amounts to nothing, I’m sure.

“But I will say I have a feeling about you, Corinne Kaminski. And here, away from the eyes and ears of my brother’s loyal ship steward, I’ll be forthright: I think you’re up to something. I don’t know what, or how, or why… but when the vra-khinahar is involved, these vague hunches do count for something.” She took a bite of the axhlot and made an approving sound. “These are quite good. And how refreshing to sit here in privacy and speak candidly with you! Your refusal to dine with me upstairs turned out well in the end, didn’t it?”

I was too aghast to respond, and there was no doubt that she knew it.

“Well,” she said, after a second’s silence, “this has been pleasant. Let’s leave the matter here. Maybe you and I can have another chat sometime soon.” Then she got up from her chair and left me alone with just my host of worries for company.