“I’d be willing to forgive a lot…alot,” Bhavi said, widening her eyes meaningfully, “if my criminal husband looked likethat.”
Husband. These women had married the men there. Had gone to live in a penal colony.
And in turn, had gained what looked to be like the most beautiful sort of life I could imagine. They spent their days looking at that wide open sky instead of the grey, smog-ridden slate that hovered oppressively over New Toronto.
Shakily, I realized that I wouldn’t have to try to find a new job in a place like that.
If I had a migraine, I wouldn’t have to worry about missing a shift.
I could paint. Simply for the pleasure of it.
The idea boggled my mind. Left me feeling strangely bewildered. What would it even be like? To create art for art’s sake alone? Without hoping there might be some monetary reward at the end of it? To paint only for myself, and not for whoever might deign to one day pay me for it?
That was exactly the sort of life Daddy had always worked so hard to give me. A life that was unmarked by the slogging, constant churn of labour for someone else. He’d hoped that painting could bring me freedom.
Now, I saw it could be the other way around. Freedom could let me paint.
Freedom.
On a penal colony.
I took out my comms tablet and downloaded the data from the code on the calendar.
Whatever the deal with this weird, idyllic, cowboy-jail-planet was…
It had to be better than here.
4
SHILOH
It took less than a week of half-hearted job-searching to realize that I’d already mentally said goodbye to New Toronto. Daddy was gone. There was nothing holding me here. I might not have had a tuition payment ready for the Elora Station art program I’d once been accepted to.
But I had another shot at leaving.
And I planned to take it.
That information packet I’d downloaded from the calendar on Mary or Bhavi’s locker (I still wasn’t sure which one of them it belonged to) contained a whole host of information about Zabria Prinar One and the specifics of this intergalactic marriage program.
Mary had been right. Zabria Prinar One technically was a penal colony. But there was a lengthy report on Zabrian justice systems that followed that statement, and it very much seemed to me that someone was trying very hard to explain why, by human standards, the lonely, muscly cowboys from the calendar weren’t actually all that guilty of their crimes.
Which, apparently, were murder. All of them.
I should have been worried about that. Scared right out of my boots by it. It should have been enough to wake me out of this haze. To tell me I was being crazy. That New Toronto was shit, but it was the shit I knew. And maybe I’d never get to see that pretty sky in person. But I’d be safe from marrying an actual killer.
But, strangely, I found I didn’t care. Maybe grief had broken my brain. Turned off every element of self-preservation I’d once owned so that all that was left was the need to get out, to go, to change my life no matter what it took.
No matter if it meant marrying a murderer.
It was probably incredibly stupid of me. But I wasn’t afraid.
And the information packet outlined my rights. I wouldn’t be a convict, trapped on the planet. I could leave anytime, my flight out of there paid for in full by the Zabrian Empire. There would be a two-week trial period where I could see if things were working out or not. There were wardens who supervised everything, and other human women would be there – including an official liaison – to make sure I was safe.
There was more in there – some more background on Zabrian culture and even Zabrian male anatomy. There seemed to be a lot about their ears and eyes and some other stuff I didn’t look too closely at. I ignored most of it for now. The marrying-a-Zabrian part of it all seemed so distant to me. Something necessary, but ultimately secondary to my main concern.
Which was getting off this planet. Escaping the walls of a world that constantly felt like they were closing in on me.
Less than one week.
