I let my eyelashes flutter a little."I would like that very much," and I pretended I didn't notice that his cheeks silvered as I tucked myself inside, my pack between my feet and my swords across my lap.My fingers traced the seam of the swords' sheath again and again as the cargo was loaded and secured.Before long, the ship juddered as it unclamped from the docks and teetered out of the waystation and into space beyond.
True to his word, the abaya did come and sit next to me, though he put a space of two seats between us, and he listened happily as I told him about arriving on Yellow Fin a decade ago and starting my training.As he listened, he let his head tilt back and his eyelids close, as if he was content to just bathe in the sound of my voice.I'd have thought he was sleeping, except that whenever I paused, he cracked open an eye and asked a question to keep me talking.
It was a relatively short hop from Thenat-2 to Thenat-6, although the system was a good size.Not long enough that I'd run out of things to chatter about, but enough of a journey that the abaya paused me once to go and make tea for us, which I happily accepted.The mugs on this ship were hammered metal and made me miss the earthenware that Creche Thiel used, with a strange, sharp ache.But this was a transport ship, not a creche ship; maybe that was the difference, that a creche ship was meant to feel like home.
And it had, and then I'd left and I still wasn't sure whether I'd ever be going back.
"Hm, we will be arriving shortly," said the abaya, whose name I had long since given up remembering.I was usually good at catching names at the first introduction – it was pretty important in my line of work – but I'd been distracted thinking about abayan gender, and to be fair, there was sort of a lot going on in my life."It has been very nice listening to you."
I smiled, and it was genuine this time.I had figured I was going to at least have to shake my ass for passage on an abayan ship.I hadn'trealized someone might just want to listen to me talking about nothing at all."You've really saved the day," I said, earnest."You have no idea.What was yourcreche again?"
"Creche Bathel," he said.He glanced down at his wrist and tapped at the screen."Could you lend me your chip for a moment?I'll send your ID to Thenat-6 so we can be cleared to drop you off."When I fished it out, he slid it into his wristband and tapped some more before ejecting it and returning it to me.His eyes tightened a little as a string of abayan text floated above his wrist."That was fast.Guess they're keen to put you to work!"
I bet they were."I'm good at what I do," I said.My ears popped as the ship slipped through a different type of barrier, and then the rumbling got so loud that all I could do was shut my eyes and wait for the descent to finish.There was no talking in this kind of landing.
But land we did, and the abaya dipped his head as I got unbuckled, showing me to the little door built into the larger cargo bay exit.I pushed it open, said one last thank you, and then headed onto the landing field of Thenat-6.The field was in a massive open area, flat-topped mountains forming a ring around us.The sky was wide and almost violently blue, the mountains painted in mauve and peach.There were other ships perched in the landing field, carefully settled into painted areas.I heard the distant rumble of an engine kicking into gear as a disc-shaped ship lifted, dust hissing in the air around it before it shot toward the distant horizon.The air felt thin in my nose with an acrid tang of ship fuel and some underlying sharpness I couldn't pin down.
I spun once to take it all in.
There was nothinghere, except ships and mountains, dust and a hell of a lot of sky.And a small group of figures hurrying across the open space toward me.I took their measure quickly, like I would have at the den: the tall, hunched form of a korzoi using their front arms to support their massive bulk; a reptilian voltaari wearing a pale robe that whipped about them in the wind; two ketaari – one blue, the other gray – with their segmented facial plating that jutted back behind their heads and gave them an angular, aerodynamicappearance.Buzzing around the four figures were about half a dozen silver spheres – cameras.
I guessed it was starting now.My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag, slung over my shoulder, and I aimed for something in the vicinity ofnonchalant."Hey," I shouted under the roar of another set of engines kicking off."I'm Sashen."
The gray ketaari pushed to the front of the group; this close, I could see the charms dangling from her plating, enough to take a stab at her pronouns anyway."Yes, yes, we know," she said."Did you not review the planned entry point to the complex?"
A blast of hot wind whipped around us and I squinted against the dust that came on its tail."I took what I could get," I said."Wasn't easy getting here."
Next to her, the korzoi growled out something in their own language, which sounded like rocks grinding against each other.Their body was massive, curled forward onto huge arms and covered in plate-sized brown scales.Hilariously, they appeared to be wearing a loincloth that was the cutest pale blue.I didn't know why they bothered – they didn't have external genitals – so it had to be a fashion statement.
"I like your skirt," I shouted, tipping my head to the korzoi, who blinked their four eyes at me, not simultaneously, and then they growled something else.
The gray ketaari heaved a long, heavy, beleaguered sigh."No, Idon't think this footage will do either, Grizlak.Come with us, Sashen Solar: we will take you around to the promenade and we can try your entry again."They paraded me across the landing field while wind tore around us, and then shoved me into a hopper that would have been small even without a korzoi crammed into one corner.The korzoi kept grumbling, and the gray ketaari chattered back about camera angles and zooms and filters, while I tried to squeeze myself into as small a space as possible.
All in all, it wasn't exactly the welcome I'd expected.The hopper rattled through a canyon, the voltaari piloting it so fast and hardthrough a series of turns that I thought I might, for a moment, spew pink juice and abayan tea everywhere – but my body was pretty determined to hold on to any nourishment it got these days.During a brief lull in the technical conversation, I cleared my throat and caught the gray ketaari's yellow stare."Are you, uh –" I whirled my pointer finger in a loop, "Running the whole show?"
She barked out a hoarse laugh."No, no.But I'll be your point of contact – your handler – while you're a participant in the Tournament.You're a day early.Thank the spirits I over-prepare."
I smiled my stupid, pretty smile.I'd had a few ketaari clients before; I knew she wouldn't give me her name – those were private – but they usually ran with aliases that were public if you could ask for them in a polite way.Thankfully, I had a handful of rote phrases memorized, although I suspected the variations I had on deck were all at least slightly flirtatious.Oh well, hazard of the job."And if I were to think fondly of you later, how would you wish me to do so?"
Her second set of eyelids blinked, yellow eyes disappearing behind a milky and translucent membrane.Surprised.
Next to me, his spiky elbow jammed against my hip, the other ketaari said, "That's right: he worked in the marn den.That was prettily said."
Clearly, they hadn't expected me to haveanymanners.The gray ketaari softened, just a little, eyelids sliding back in place with a wet clicking sound.The dangling jewellery glinting at the back of her skull gave a tinny rattle as the hopper shot around the edge of a rocky outcropping and then plunged downward into a valley that looked, from a spectacularly fast glimpse through the window, like it had trees at least."You may address me as Silver Sea," she said primly.And then she picked up the rapid-fire chatter with the korzoi again, and I just squeezed my eyes closed, grimaced, and waited for this awful ride to be over.
We eventually pulled to the front entryway where I hadapparentlybeen expected.I guess I'd missed that sub-file of the contract, or it had all been sent out later when I'd already been disconnected fromthe datasphere.The hopper sat down, and Silver Sea bustled out to the promenade.
I squinted at the shape looming up before me.The promenade began with a shuttle pad, where we were now standing, and ran in a broad length to massive entry gates set into orange stone.Beyond the shimmering metal gates rose a massive complex, a series of huge buildings that gleamed in the sun overhead: square shapes topped with fizzing energy domes sprawled across the grounds, more than I had imagined, but they were dwarfed by the curving bulk of the arena sitting heavily to one side.The whole complex had to be as big as the waystation I'd just come from.It was definitely as big as an entire sub-segment of Seraphim Station.It sat raised up on massive pillars in the heart of a valley that was still swathed in shadows.Below us were deep green canopies of foliage.I peered and could see flashes of colour as some type of animal flew through the tree tops in swooping clusters.God, I'd love to see them up close.I'd never seen an animal in thewild.
"Yeah," I said, "this is a bit nicer."
"Stand there," Silver Sea said, and she gestured at me.A moment later, the other ketaari swooped in, hauling a small lidded box out of a satchel he carried.He handed it off to the korzoi, who had proffered one of their smaller arms as a stand-in shelf, and then opened it to reveal an array of brushes and shimmering jars of powders.
"Thoughts on the outfit?"asked the ketaari as he grabbed a brush that wasdefinitelynot meant for human hair.He stepped toward me, wielding it like a weapon.
"That's just going to make me frizzy," I said, fending him off."My hair isn't like brin fur.Do you have a iless feather comb?"
"Passable," Silver Sea intoned as the other ketaari switched implements and set to work on my hair and face, muttering under his breath in his own language.It was probably for the best I didn't understand taar: it didn't seem like the flattering kind of mumbling.
