Page 26 of Tempting Fate

And not with Fenn sitting here with us.

They gave their half smile, both eyebrows raised, and I shook my head.

Come on, find something to say.

“Names are important,” Airida said. “If I had to choose a name, I would give it much thought.” His headspines drooped. “My name means ‘bitter song.’ My mother gave it to me.”

“That bitch,” I said before I could stop myself.

He shrugged, a resigned gesture of someone who’d known nothing better. “I was not what she wanted. She did her best by me, despite my differences.”

Did her best?! “What? But she—”

Fenn grabbed my arm. “Leave it.”

Leave it? When she’d imprisoned her son his whole life, used him to blackmail her daughter, and been the all round shittiest mother in the galaxy?

But Airida’s attention was already elsewhere, his hands tracing the lines of mossy stone bricks. “How did these get here?”

“The original terraformers,” Fenn said. “They lived here for a bit, then moved on.”

Airida’s fingers danced over the moss. “Curious.”

A gentle patter of rain beat on the leaves above us, one of the light showers we got most days.

“The buildings that are still standing were built after the atmosphere established,” I murmured, working it out at last. “The old construction couldn’t withstand the new weather conditions, not with this type of soft stone, which is why they ended up like this.” The alien equivalent of tuff, I’d decided; if part of the terraforming process had generated acid rain, that alone would have done it, especially with no-one living here.

Airida’s eyes sparked with interest, but he groaned, shifting his legs where he sat. “I had better get back soon. I’d hoped to be out here longer, but even this is tiring.”

“I’m sure it will feel better soon.” Platitudes? Was that the best I could do? “Will you tell me of your garden back home sometime? Or will that make you sad?”

“Oh, I had a beautiful old linsfai tree, just like this one.” His expression lit up as he gestured to the boughs swaying above us and told me of his beloved garden, how he’d chosen the plants that would work well together, how he selected them for colour and fragrance, and to support the insects, birds and flower lizards that lived there.

“The only garden we had was the biodome—this big area off the central hub of the space station,” I said. “For a while, I helped out with planting and weeding. See that pink flower over there? It’s similar to an Old Earth primrose. And we had tall ornamental grasses like those.” Working with rocks and plants had been my favourite things, a connection to something other than the relentless metal and plastic of every asteroid belt space station.

“You did? Our homes were—” An alarm bleeped on his comm, and he glanced at it with a deep sigh. “I must go. My kalidi will rise soon and I cannot be stuck out here for it.”

“Kalidi?” If the others wouldn’t tell me what it was, maybe he would.

His ear ridges flushed magenta as he rose to stand, swaying. “Part of my recovery. Thank you for this afternoon. It has been most enjoyable. I would do it again, if it would please you?”

Worth a try. But another opportunity to nerd out about plants? “I’d love to.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Bad Decisions

Imani

FENN WAGGLED THEIR eyebrows. “You two got on well.”

“He’s nice enough.” I knew what they were getting at, but I refused to play along. The secret I kept played on my mind, making me second-guess my decision to stay quiet. “I can’t just not tell him there’s people after him and his sister.”

“Why worry him?”

True. But I hated feeling I was holding something back from him. A lie of omission was still a lie. “I’m going to head up to the village. You coming?”

They yawned, stretching out on the moss. “Nah, I’m gonna nap.”