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All so I could prevent Dyrel from coming to any further harm.
It was a dream I was happy to wake up from.
It was still dark when he woke me. He wouldn’t stop prodding me until I stumbled into the shower.
He made us a quick breakfast and had a smile on his face. It was the brightest, warmest expression I’d seen him wear. It suited him.
“So, where are we going?” I asked him.
He refused to answer me. I didn’t know why. Even if he told me, it wasn’t like I would know where it was.
“You can sleep in the back if you want,” he said.
Sleep? That sounded nice.
When I moved into the back, I found a small bed already made up on one of the long rows of chairs. The armrests had been folded up. A fluffy blanket lay on the bottom and a thick duvet rested on top. He’d even thought to bring a pair of pillows.
“When did you make this?” I said.
I hadn’t seen him disappear from view for more than a few minutes all morning.
“While you took a shower,” he said. “You still looked tired, so I made it for you.”
I was touched he was so thoughtful.
It made sleeping in it even more special.
I removed my boots and climbed inside. It was lovely and warm within a few minutes. The sickness in my stomach began to fade and the gentle hum of the engine produced gentle vibrations that helped lull me into a deep sleep.
Every so often, the shuttlecraft shuddered as we hit turbulence. I drifted right on back to sleep.
I faded in and out of consciousness, recalling the fragments of story I heard from my teachers over the previous week. It began with Me’ell, who never stopped talking. Mostly, he jabbered on about stuff of no interest to me. I doubted it would be of interest to anybody.
But then I overheard a few fragments of information he said that he only ever uttered when Dyrel had left the room.
“Poor guy,” he said, shaking his head. Later, while Dyrel made coffee, he muttered, “A true tragedy.” And, “I’ve never seen anyone so affected before.”
Desperate to get to the bottom of these cryptic messages, I waited for the next time Dyrel stepped from the room and confronted Me’ell.
“Every time Dyrel leaves the room, you say things about him,” I said.
Me’ell paused in trimming my hair. He glanced into the mirror.
“Do I?” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“Ahem,” he said, getting back to combing my hair but not really cutting it. “Nothing, really.”
But being an unapologetic gossip, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut for long. Soon, he was telling me about Dyrel and his father. His father, it turned out, was a very well-respected member of the Titan community. Both locally and internationally. He was a warm and giving man. When he passed away, Dyrel was very young. Suddenly, the spotlight turned on him. He was expected to grow up and take over his father’s company. And by the sound of it, it was a very large business.
Me’ell cut off when Dyrel returned to the room and jabbered on about other topics instead.
When Dyrel left to visit the restroom, he resumed the story as if no time had passed at all.
The G’kauah family were famous for their business acumen. They stimulated countless jobs in the city, and this was during a time when there was great economic turmoil. His company took on more and more workers until they couldn’t afford anymore. They never ran at a profit. Any money they made, they poured back into creating even more jobs. More ships, more employees. When they upgraded their computer systems, they always found new jobs for their old staff.
Some years, the business almost went belly up. The board was pulling their hair out but Dyrel’s father refused to pursue profits rather than the benefit of the people. He encouraged thousands of other companies to do the same thing, telling them the economy would, eventually, pick up.
