Tempted by Celestial Bodies

Chapter 6

chapter six

irosabsuul

I wasn’t surprised when the Heartland Refugee Service representatives arrived before dawn the next day. I’d never had reason to prompt their attendance before, but I couldn’t trust myself around her. What else could I do, except call for their assistance?

She’d looked…closed off. The way she had when she’d first opened her eyes, her distrust palpable, her resignation worn like battletech.

Still, she’d trusted me swiftly. All they needed to do was give her somewhere dry to sleep and a bit of food, and she’d realise the Reps were no more likely to hurt her than I was. We all thrived working together, and we were safest as part of a strong community.

“I can walk,” she told the rep who offered to assist her out the door to the hoversled.

Last night she’d smiled up at me as I’d carried her. She’d wrapped herself around me like I was her rock.

“You can visit any time you wish,” I told her, in case she thought she wasn’t welcome. “You know how to get to the sanctuary, or summon me, and I’ll come and get you.”

The look she sent me was swift and unreadable. The smile that curved her mouth wasn’t the same one I’d seen last night, full of joy. “Gratitude, Dreamdiver,” she told me, and the literal translation of my name made me ache strangely. “Don’t tangle up my net.”

My digits stuck to the underside of the bench. The Reps farewelled me. I listened to them helping her onto the hoversled, then the soft whir as it left.

I might not ever see her again. She might find her Calling and work in a rewarding, challenging field I never even knew about.

Or she might be back tomorrow. The thought nagged at me throughout the day. They’d be giving her more official medical care. She’d view the introduction holos, settle into her temporary apartment, tour the city, get to practice some of the new customs. She’d have the opportunity to contact anyone who might be concerned for her.

The thought drove me to the water and I swam deep. She’d told me there was no one, and I believed her.

She’d come back. I felt the familiar tug of the current against my fins and closed my eyes, breathing deeply and feeling the water cling to me.

Her lips had been so soft. So hungry.

The changing temperature prompted me to open my eyes, and I swam into the sanctuary, but the tasks I needed to do felt hollow and the net stared at me from where we’d left it. Her work was wonderful. She hadn’t done terribly with making the food, either.

The anxious Heartfin in the tank heavy with vegetation darted out of my sight with just a flash of purple, and the incomplete net mocked me.

Surely, she’d recognize the Call.

Back to me. Back to Sanctuary.

I rubbed my neck, knowing I couldn’t rush her, that she’d choose to answer or not and either way, I’d do well to continue my work.

It would’ve been easy to put it down to how unsettling her visit had been, or how worried I was about the incomplete preparations before the twomoon, but it was purely because I missed her that the days went slowly. I forced myself to work on the net and imagined her exploring the infohub, enjoying the Heartspring, and tasting food. I wondered if she’d find someone to take her on as an apprentice weaver, or if she’d go into tailoring, or spinning, or whether there were other professions I hadn’t even considered that might allow her to answer her Calling. I wondered what she’d look like after one rotation, and six, and twenty, whether I’d recognise her still and whether she’d realise before our lifespans ebbed.

I wished I knew her so I could guess.

I wished I hadn’t called the Reps.

In bed at night I fell asleep thinking about her returning right as the twomoons rose over the sea and the Heartfins swam. I imagined the way she’d smile and it would make all of her soften with joy, her hard-won wariness put aside. She’d stroke my neckslit and suck my tongue and I’d spread her out in the shallows, with the migration behind us, and match scientific with practical knowledge.

It was an excellent fantasy, and I clung to it as the days ticked down even knowing I’d probably see this migration out as I often did, finding joy by myself watching the ebb and flow of the bioresonant sensitive marine life.

I was in Sanctuary when the alert popped up on the holoalarm to the side of the cave, only a day and a half until the twomoon rise.

The image showed she was climbing out of the hoversled by my home, proper mobility aids clasped in her firm digits and wrapped around her forearms. She manoeuvred them as if they were new. I couldn’t make out the detail of her expression, but she lifted one hand in a strange motion, then touched her chest in farewell to whoever had driven the hoversled.

She was back. On my beach. In my domain.

The tags I’d been checking teetered in my digits, my suckers forgetting to hold them, as the holoalarm switched off. The quiet reverberation of the sea suddenly felt agonisingly crushing without her. Tags forgotten, I turned and made my way to the water’s entrance.

I’d never been a speed swimmer, better built for endurance than moving swiftly. But today…

I’d felt the Call. I hadn’t known it, but I’d felt it anyway, the kick of my pulse, the agitation, the urge to do, the peace once the path was begun. It had been so many years since I’d felt that gnawing uncertainty I hadn’t even recognised it.

The beach felt like such a long way away, but when I broke the surface of the sea she was there. She’d shed the dark, heavy clothes she’d landed in for the pale, form-fitting, robust garb preferred by soft-skinned beings. Her brown hair was piled atop her head and clasped in an unusual fashion. There was colour in her cheeks, and happiness in her eyes.

“I perceive you have a net to restoration,” she said.

I slowed, though my heart kept racing toward her. She’d heard part of the Call. That was enough, for now. “I do.” Some bags sat by my home and I forced myself to settle. “I’ll find you somewhere for your things.”

She glanced back where I indicated. “Oh, that’s to haul down to the science room with us. It’s for the nets. Some is entire, if you want to start hanging it where you’ve gaps.”

My mouth went dry. I’d been set to have it more or less complete by the twomoon rise, but it wouldn’t have been done as effectively as I would’ve liked.

“I cannot swim well as yet,” she said, and waved a hand at where a standardised dark purple wrap encased her leg in a thin layer of what was essentially Volett. It made folks feel good, to think medicine had advanced so far. I missed the big leaves against the dramatic curve of her legs, but now I could see the ripples in her thighs, like the marks the tide left on the sand. My suckers latched onto my own thighs for lack of anything else to hold.

“Irosabsuul?” And her lips moved in perfect time with the sounds that fell from her lips.

My name—my real name—on her tongue made my fins flare and the water tangled around my feet like I was an overexcited fingerling. She’d learned my name. She’d disconnected the translator, and learned how to make the sounds in my language. She’d gone to all that effort to learn my name. “Yes?” I managed, somehow.

“I enquired if you can take me and the equipment submerged at the same period, or if I should delay.”

The sun tossed its reflection back at me and the waves tugged at our feet, trying to draw us in.

She’d learned how to say my name.

“I can take you and the bags,” I said, hoarsely. I could’ve taken the entire city, in that moment. “I’m happy you came back.”

Maybe the translator did something strange to my words, or maybe she felt as lightheaded as I did, because she laughed. The sound was like the rushing of Heartfins through the great Volett underwater forests and my heart sat brightly within me.

Questions poured through my mind, and they made no sense. I knew what she’d seen and experienced. I knew she’d come back to answer the Call. What I didn’t know was how she felt about it, how it had looked from behind her eyes. She collapsed the mobility aids and hooked their clasps to the standard issue belt she wore around her hips. I hurried to get the bags.

“How drives the preparation?” she asked me.

“Well.” Joy shimmered in me as she continued to look at me expectantly. “Most of the injured Heartfins are ready to be released come migration,” I said, because she was genuinely interested. “The weather has been perfect. I was low on tags for the new fish this twomoon, but the drop came earlier today.”

“Why do we label them?” she asked, as I secured both bags over one shoulder and reached for her. “You identify where they travel, don’t you? You trail their bioresonance?”

My suckers were flexing before she was even within reach and I drew a slow breath. She was here for the nets. We. The word leapt out at me. She slipped into my hold as if she’d never left. “I’m tagging family groups to ensure a healthy diversity. We don’t trace individuals’ paths. That wouldn’t be efficient.”

She softened, letting me take her weight and breathing air deeply into her surface-loving lungs, the picture of comfort in my hold.