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.It was something familiar to me.That coming together was how the Yertina Feray had survived all those years when it was just a skeleton of what it was now.“Did you notice that there are more and more coming here?” Reza asked one day as we walked through town.“They think it’s safe here,” I said.“You make it safe,” he said.“You’ve gotten everyone to trust each other after running.”“But they don’t know what they are doing,” I said.“Their fields are failing.”“I could teach them,” Reza said.He had a way with the plants.He’d been there first after all.He’d been prudent in what he cultivated and in what he did.He took care of his soil.He was scientific about it.Between Reza’s casual lessons on how to care for the land and the alin and the favor trading that I was doing, Quint was beginning to find its pace.He taught all of the claimants, not just the Humans and the new arrivals, how to look at the soil.How to care for the leaves.How to water.How to observe the insects that came.He tried to figure out which ones were good and which ones were bad.In his field, life thrived, and the other aliens took that knowledge back to their fields.We were all starting to work together in secret.Reza would have nightly gatherings in the field with representatives of all kinds of aliens that lived on the planet.Some were working for him on the sly, and others had their own tracts of land, but they were also learning.Learning the tricks that he had learned.He didn’t keep his knowledge to himself.He showed them his method for collecting pollen beads while managing the integrity and bloom of the plant.He showed them the shed where he pressed oil from the alin.Every time I walked to his field and saw the many aliens milling about, my heart soared.I imagined that this is what it would have been like on Beta Granade.Whenever a Human woman smiled, I imagined my mother smiling.Whenever an alien helped to raise a barn, I imagined that I was getting closer to the life that I had dreamed of living while traveling on the Prairie Rose.“They might outgrow you,” I said of the aliens.Reza laughed.“Nah,” he said.“And if they did, what would it matter? Really, it’s better for us all if we cultivate and succeed.”He had a fire in him.While he had given up on his idea of saving Earth from the Imperium, he got pleasure in uniting Quint.It was as though his dream had been rechanneled.And every day he grew a bit brighter with his cause.We looked up at the night sky, and I could see the station as it passed us by, like a moving star, and I wondered about Tournour and if I would ever see him again.Despite all of this happiness, he was the thing that was missing.And there was still the matter of Brother Blue.But one thing that I was learning on Quint was that a seed takes a long time to grow.39We were bundled up against the dust and the morning frigid air.Days on Quint were only twenty hours, so morning always came sooner than a person wanted.We were moving into the fall on this world, and the angle of the light made it seem as though midday never came.The alin started to drop their petals.And along with that, something was wrong with Bitty.She seemed to be drooping like the flowers.“What is it?” I asked.She had always been moody when we were growing up.Always crying and scared.But this was deeper than a childhood fit.“I find myself restless,” Bitty said.“Me too,” I said.It was hard to cultivate patience.I’d been on the planet four months, and while the alin was stored in a shed and the way to ruin it with a mold had been started, it took a long time.“No,” she said.“I mean to travel.It’s all I’ve ever really done.”“You want to wander again?” I asked.I did not want to wander.I wanted to find home.“Not in the way that I did before,” she said.“We weren’t the only ship.We weren’t the only ones to get trapped.There are others out there.”It was true.As much as I loved having Bitty here, I knew she was right.But these past months I felt that buzz of creating a community and a home, and I wanted Bitty close to me and to always be a part of it.“It’s not safe now,” I said.“You can’t go.”But it would never be safe.“Myfanwy offered me a job up on the Yertina Feray,” Bitty said.“What? No!” I said smacking her arm.“You can’t leave me.”I didn’t want to be abandoned again.“I’d be back every week.And it’s only from here to there, but I’d be traveling,” she said.“I’ll think of something,” I said.But I thought of how Bitty looked envious when others thrived.Wandering was in her blood.She was always the one who hiked the claim when Myfanwy came, leaving for hours at a time.She did not like to do the chores that kept her close to the camp.“You really want to go,” I said.“Yes,” Bitty said.“I can leave the next time Myfanwy comes.”“I don’t like you leaving,” I said, holding her hand.“I wish you would stay.”“I’ll be happier on the Yertina Feray,” she said.She was a grown person who was free to make her own choices, not the little girl who used to follow me around.We hugged tight.It was hard to let go.We walked arm and arm back to the camp.In my room, I pulled an object from under my bedroll.It was a cuff that I had made for Tournour out of a lock of my hair, the remnants of the clothes I’d worn on my travels since I’d left the Yertina Feray, scraps of leather and rope.There was no indication that it was from me, but I knew he would know where it came from.He would have a part of me with him.“Will you give this to Tournour if you can?”“Gladly,” Bitty said, giving me a sly look.“I am so curious about your Loor.”“He’s not my Loor,” I said.“That’s not what I heard,” she said.“That’s not what Reza says when you’re not around.”“It’s impossible to be with an alien,” I said.“I’m with Reza.Reza’s Human.”“Of course,” Bitty said.“Reza’s Human.”“Humans are meant to be with Humans,” I said.“Impossible loves have a place in the universe,” she said.“He’s there, and I’m here,” I said.She let it drop by changing the subject.“Thank you,” she said.“I’ll be your eyes up there.”It would be good to have a spy on the Yertina Feray; someone that I could trust.Caleb was supposed to be up there cozying up to Brother Blue.Get him scared.Get him soft.Get him trusting.But was he doing it? Sometimes I felt he was simply enjoying himself and all the creature comforts that the Yertina Feray offered while I was down on Quint, working the fields.I couldn’t help it.A part of me was resentful.It wasn’t his fault [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]