Page 42 of Star Champion

Jemm’s heart skittered. “Don’t say that. Those potions you buy do you no good. Tomorrow, you’ll see the Earth doctors, and they’ll know how to help. Nico will take you. Right, Nico?” Jemm pulled out the medicine vial Sir Klark had given her. Ma eyed it with suspicion. “I got this for ya in the meantime. Take it at bedtime. It’s a liquid. One squirt in your mouth. It won’t cure ya, but it will help ya breathe better, and you’ll cough less. The Earth-dwellers can do much more. There are medicines that have machines so tiny we can’t see them. They can repair bodies, cure disease…”

“Bah. Upper-class potions.”

“Butthey work.” Anything was better than what was available in the city market. Even the gold credit they had earned, that her dozer of a brother had probably spent leasing his club, was not enough to buy the services of a real doctor.

Jemm patted her mother’s delicate shoulder, towering over her as she had since she was fifteen years old. Ma was best described as an angelic beauty. Except for their pretty hair, Jemm took after her father in almost every other way. “Sit down, Ma.”

“Go on,” Nico said. “You need to hear what Jemm has to say.”

“Our life’s about to change—for the better,” Jemm said. Seventeen stories below, aVashnobleman drove away in a flycar, soon to whisk her away to a starship bound for other worlds that she could not begin to imagine. Button stayed close, wrapping her strong, thin arms around Jemm’s hips, as if to hold her here, in this world.

Taking a breath, Jemm crouched down to talk to her mother at eye level. “I got a new job—off-world.”

Her mother flinched.

“It means I’ll have to go away for a little while…to train. It will be immersive. I’ll be training all day, every day. So, I won’t be able to take ya with me just yet. It’s only for a few months. Nico will be here, looking after things. I’ll be back for you, Button, and Nico as soon as I can.”

“Why, Mum-mum?” Button’s piping voice trembled as she crept back to insert herself in Jemm’s arms. “Why do ya have to go away?”

Jemm folded herself around the child, her throat thickening.

“Bajha is why.” Anger sparked in Ma’s narrowed eyes as she spat out the word. She vibrated with fury as she glared at Jemm. “Aye, girl. I know. Don’t look so surprised. I know what you’ve been up to—you and Nico. It’s why ya cut your pretty hair. So ya can play with the fellas. I was willing to go along with it, I was. But now you’re wanting more. Just like your Da. He wasn’t paying attention like he should have been. He didn’t see what was coming; he was too busy planning and dreaming. And it killed him.”

“You don’t know that playing bajha was to blame. Accidents happen, Ma. People are always getting hurt in the mines.”

Nico walked away to look out a dirty window, his shoulders hunched, his hand automatically going to his pocket for a vape before he dropped his fist. Jemm sighed. The dead tiptoed amongst them tonight, turning what should have been a celebration of good news into something somber.

“No. Conrenn’s problem was he dreamed too big, that fool of a man, and it took him from me.” Ma’s eyes filled with bitter tears. “I ain’t gonna go through it again, Jemm. I can’t.”

“I don’t want you to go away, Mum-mum,” Button said in a sad little voice.

Jemm fought the tears pressing behind her eyes. But if she started bawling, it would be contagious. She wasn’t sure she could stand all of them sobbing on a night that should be a joyous one.

She kissed Button’s hair and kept her tone upbeat. “Ah, my sweet. It’s not for long. When I come home, I’m going to take you on a starship. Won’t that be exciting?” The child’s eyes opened wide as she nodded. “That’s why I’m going away, to get everything ready for that day. I won’t be driving tugs anymore. I’m going to play for a bajha team.” She spoke to her niece but her gaze lifted and locked with Ma’s. “It’s called Team Eireya. I’m going to be one of their star players. The owner is a realVash Nadah, a good, decent man. His starship is big enough to fit an entire arena. I played with some other team members there. Champions. Yonson Skeet was one. You don’t know him, but he’s galactic famous. And there was a dining room on board. Oh, if only you could have seen and tasted all the food. One day soon, you will.”

“AVash Nadah?” Ma raised an eyebrow.

“Aye. In fact, he drove me and Nico home in a flycar.”

Button leaped off her lap and dashed over to the windows, skipping from window to grimy window to see if she could spy it.

“I’ll leave ya enough credits to last ya a while. There’ll be more than enough for food and all. Best hide the money in the crock under the floorboards and only keep out what you need.”

“Blood money,” the woman grumbled, but Jemm knew she would not refuse it.

“I’ll be back before ya know it—don’t fear otherwise.”

“I don’t fear ya going, foolish girl! I fear ya coming home. Being in dangerhere. Not paying mind, and winding up like Da.”

Jemm blinked at her mother’s tormented gaze. “Even if this doesn’t work out, and I had to come back to Barésh, I wouldn’t return to the mines. I can’t. Once ya quit, they won’t hire ya back. I’m putting in my notice tomorrow. But I’d come home far richer than I am now. If we couldn’t leave right then, it wouldn’t be long after. I’ve thought all of it, Ma. You and Button and Nico are all I think about.”

Her mother’s anguished eyes lowered as she lifted the rag to her mouth to stifle another cough. Then she thrust out a stubborn chin. “Go off with yourVashthen.”

“He’s not my—”

“Don’t forget, we ain’t nothing to the upper class. Don’t turn ya back on them, and don’t believe everything ya hear.”

The Baréshti blessing. “Aye, I’ll be careful. Look, I know that you love me, Ma. I know it every time you cook for me, or mend my clothes, or wait up for me. I see your love in all the things you do, big and small.” She took her mother’s thin, clammy hands in her strong, dry ones and squeezed. “But, Ma, the problem ain’t never been about dreaming too big. It’s forgetting how to dream at all.”

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