Page 24 of Fighting Gravity
He hesitated, pretending to concentrate on piloting, but I knew his mind was trying to work out an answer to what I’d just said. It baffled him. Hell, it baffled me, too.
“You said you need me,” I said. “Very romantic, but judging by what you said to me back there, you already know more than I do about the valerians and humans.”
“You were trading with the valerians when we destroyed that freighter. There’s more to it,” Norm said.
“Look, the most I’ve ever interacted with valerians was through Innifer when she touched one. And as far as I know, she’s the first human to ever touch a valerian. So if that doesn’t tell you how much wedon’tinteract, I don’t know what does.”
“She touched one?” Norm said.
“Yeah. They shook hands or something weird.”
Norm paused for a moment before he said something to his men in his own tongue. They all looked alert and began a discussion that I wasn’t in on. It was starting to make me nervous. I whipped my head around, glancing at every single one of them as they exchanged words, trying to figure out the nature of their conversation.
“What the hell are you guys talking about?” I asked.
“He rubbed the back of his hand down her palm,” Norm said.
It wasn’t a question and for some reason, that concerned me. I didn’t want to confirm or deny it.
“It was unclear. I was working,” I said. “I didn’t have time to watch my friend give some valerian googly eyes.”
The gek all spoke amongst each other again and as they did, Norm pulled my Buddy from a pouch on his belt and tossed it back to Sour Face.
“Hey,” I said, reaching for it only to get my hand smacked away. “That’s mine!”
“Sit still,” Norm demanded.
“What’s she doing with that?”
He ignored the question and started talking to Sour Face and the other gek until all of them were busily fiddling with equipment. I noticed my Buddy turn on and worried they’d somehow hack into something sensitive. But why did they get excited after I mentioned Innifer? It seemed insignificant. And for all I knew, she and her friend Sam were dead. After I got snatched off the shuttle, the damn thing disappeared into space and I was certain neither of them knew how to pilot after they told me they’d made it onto the Nexus with false credentials. If they didn’t blow up, then they froze to death in a drifting shuttle with no power.
“I’m guessing you still don’t want to explain what you all are talking about,” I huffed.
“Seems you really don’t know anything,” Norm sighed.
“Finally catching on?”
“Finally catching on,” he said under his breath.
The shuttle fell silent and since I’d been overthinking why the gek would be interested in a human brushing skin with a valerian, I’d exhausted myself. I fell to sleep in my chair, which wasn’t so bad considering I was so much smaller than the gek and I was able to curl up sideways. When I woke it was to the uncomfortable jostling of a ship entering some kind of atmosphere. In this case, an artificial one at a spaceport.
Analienspaceport.
When I looked out I saw lights. Thousands and thousands of lights set into smooth, black stone. It was a damn asteroid.
And humans thought they had it all figured out. We were a long way from making spaceports in asteroids.
As we neared the big rock, I could see tunnels, docks, and structures protruding from the stone in all directions. I had no clue what any of it meant or how it all worked, but I was getting used to that.
My heart started racing when I realized there weren’t going to be any humans on that rock. I’d be the only one and I had no protection. Norm’s crew had already expressed their dislike for me and I wasn’t really making any strong footholds on Norm’s good side. He could very well sell me, especially now that he just made some mysterious epiphany.
I was suddenly realizing how much danger I wasactuallyin. Jokes aside, I was feeling royally screwed and every second I was getting further and further from any hope of contacting the Nexus and getting home.
10: Quinn
Once Norm docked the ship, I continued trying to take in my surroundings. Not that a single thing made any sense to me. I sat up straight in my seat, looking out toward the docking bay. It was nothing like the Nexus. There were exposed tubes and metal walkways secured into stone. The walls were black rock and thick, metal columns were standing straight while others were slanted in every direction in what looked like a desperate attempt to keep the asteroid walls from caving in.
Just as I stood out of my seat, someone tossed a big, heavy piece of fabric at me. I unrolled it to find that it was a thick, gray cloak. Looking up, Norm was watching me, adjusting his belt as he loaded it with weaponry. Or what I assumed was weaponry, but most of it just looked like hand-sized gadgets or batons. I couldn’t imagine they were that dangerous, but for all I knew, they were bombs.
