Page 59 of Etched in Stone
“Seriously. That'll come in handy. I still have some Rose to go after. I hear there's a guy named Pablo that needs an eye kept on him.”
“Two eyes, wide open, preferably,” Ray told him.
“I'm sneaky. I've figured out how to keep them on their toes from a maximum distance. I guess I don’t need this anymore,” he said, handing Ray his sigil. Ray accepted it, nodding.
Ray surveyed the mountainside. “I can probably get you down a few thousand feet, but you'll be on your own from there.”
“Nah, no need. It's only the going up that’s the problem. I've got going down covered, if I don't freeze my ass off first.”
Erlend threw off his coat to reveal a broad chest that was backed with a pair of small, lightweight wings that mostly folded back into his shoulder blades. Ray realized that he didn't have the muscles needed to flap the wings, he could only glide. Not very elegant, but it would get him down in a hurry.
“Good luck. Live long and prosper and all that shit, and thanks.” Erlend gave a wave before extending his wings and gliding down the mountain with his coat in his arms.
Ray stood, planning to fly himself when the sigil in his hand flashed a wild light. It was coming.
There was no time left to fly to Jesse. He took one last gaze at the planet that had been his home for nearly a millennium and sighed. There were things he would miss. Duras was a long ago memory.
How much had his planet changed in the past thousand years? Would he be an artifact, like his technology was likely to be? What had spurred a rescue at this point in time? Why hadn't they come earlier?
He felt the warm tingling he’d been expecting and closed his eyes to fight back the nausea. A few seconds later, Jesse was standing nearby, puking her guts out on the polished deck of he transport pad.
“What. The. Fuck.” she said between retches.
Two Khargals stood at attention in full dress uniform in front of them.
“Frelinray, Engineer, first class?” one of them asked Ray.
Ray straightened up. “Aye.” The Khargal warriors looked over at Jesse, slightly less impressed.
“Your mate has a weak stomach.”
“You try having your atoms scrambled for the first time,” Jesse retorted. “Felon Ray?”
“Frelinray, it’s my name.”
“So is Ray your last name?” Ray shook his head and sighed. “Jesse, this is a conversation for another time and place.”
The Khargal on the left let out a huff of disapproval. The one on the right elbowed his compatriot.
“We are not to judge. He is a war hero.” He gave a nod. “We are to escort you to your quarters before meeting the captain.”
Ray nodded and the pair turned crisply and walked out into the hallway. He took Jesse’s hand and they followed. Ray saw very little to indicate technological innovation from the past thousand years.
In fact, he recognized most of the components as things he knew how to work with and could easily maintain as an engineer. His fear of being obsolete was apparently over thought.
The light curved walls and system of honeycombed pillars were so different than what he’d gotten used to on Earth, but they were familiar in his now distant memory. He didn’t have to constantly be aware of bumping his head on a doorway or clutching his wings close to his body. There were no silly backs on chairs to cramp his wing tips either.
Jesse had been quiet since his little warning, but her eyes were darting everywhere like a kid trying to catch every detail of a carnival ride.
Their escort stopped short in front of a cabin. It was the quarters of an officer or an official. Ray expected a superior to greet them and explain but instead, the guard indicated it was their cabin. Such quarters were not the generally small and tight shared space of a mated crewman, but Ray was not going to complain.
“The captain will be with you shortly.” The door closed and Ray turned to Jesse. She looked at him expectantly.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” They both let out a huff of amusement.
“Is this what you were expecting?” Jesse said, scanning the room. For a ship this size, it was a large room, with a table and chairs, a cleansing room and a lounging couch.
