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I am trying to come to terms with something I would have thought impossible. I should be overjoyed, but I am not. I should be excited, but again, I am not. I am miserable, and there can only be one reason for it: I fell in love with Isu.
“So we put you fresh… people into these little apartments right here in the center of the city. You can see everything that’s going on, make friends, maybe more…” She winks suggestively.
I just want to be somewhere quiet. I need to think. Too much has happened in a single waking period, and I cannot take it.
I have a small box furnished basically. That is all I need. Shazza finally leaves me alone and I sink onto the bed, curl up, cover my face with my hands, and cry.
Chapter Seven
Aspel
My dreams are full of one figure, Isu. I see him crouching down next to his broken burrow, throwing rocks as fast as he can, his muscular body gleaming with hot sweat while above him the winged wyrm swims in the sky.
I try to run toward him, but my legs are so impossibly slow. I try to call out, but he can’t hear me. I manage to cover only a matter of yards before the sky wyrm swoops down and devours him whole.
I wake screaming and alone. Tears have dried on my face, making my skin feel strange. I must have been crying in my sleep for a very long time. It feels as though I could cry forever.
I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and wish that I had been made into parts. If I were parts, I wouldn’t know the pain of this separation. I wouldn’t be missing Isu so much it feels as though I am being ripped apart from the inside.
It could be a few minutes I remain in that state. It could be a matter of hours. I have no idea. Time is nothing but a burden to me now. I have no interest in the world outside, or the future that will inevitably inflict itself upon me.
Bam Bam Bam
A heavy knock at the door announces Shazza’s presence.
“So, I noticed you hadn’t come out tadday,” she says. “I gotcha some breakfast.”
She thrusts a sugar-covered pastry at me. I know it is sugar-covered pastry, because she tells me as much.
“Eat it. It tastes good.”
I don’t want to eat it, but I take a little nibble and I discover that she’s right. It tastes more than good. It tastes awesome. Before I know it, I’ve eaten the whole thing and I am starting to feel better, even though I didn’t think it would be possible to ever feel better again.
“It’s weird coming here, eh,” she says. “Lots of people don’t like it at first. They’re used to the farm. Things are simpler there.”
I’m surprised to hear her say that. I was convinced I must be the only person on this asteroid who felt out of place.
“I… I’m sure it’s nice, once you get used to it,” I say, trying to be hopeful. That’s the polite thing to be.
“It’s real nice. This is the pardy that never ends!”
I look into her eyes and I see a certain strain there. I wonder if she’s not trying too hard, and then I wonder if I’m in any position to think I could possibly understand her. She’s happy here, fully human, part of this rebel world. As I watch, she cracks one of her beersies and drinks it down in a single go, gulping the contents of the container down as if her life depended on it.
“You want one?” She reaches into her pack and pulls out two more.
Again I shake my head.
“I love ‘em,” she says. “Can’t geddenough of them.”
“How did this place happen?” I change the subject. “I mean, where did all the people come from?”
“Escaped from Earth before it became the farm,” she says. “People here are descendants of the richest people on the planet. The ones who had the money to get on the three shuttles that departed just as the Vargons were coming in. And of some lucky escapees. Like yaself.”
“And Cozza, the man who came for me, he goes around rescuing people?”
“Yeh. We reckon we should try to save as many as possible. Can’t save ‘em all, but every now and then we save one, and that’s pretty great too.”
I guess it is pretty great. I think it is great, I just don’t feel it. I know that these are very brave, very bold people without whom I’d probably be dead by now. Isu handed me over to them. He wanted me to leave with them. He wants me to be happy here. Maybe I should try.
“We’re the rebels, aren’t we? Well, started off as criminals, but turns out, criminals survive betta than anyone else. Especially in space.” Shazza is talking away a mile a minute.
