Page 30 of Tanin's Treasure
If it was still there and it hadn’t been so long yet that their apartment manager just evicted them and sold or tossed all their stuff already. She didn’t know. It probably hadn’t been that long. Alred talked her through everything and, realistically, they couldn’t have been gone from Earth for longer than a couple weeks. At least, he explained that would be about how long it would take, minimally, to get from Earth all the way to where they found them, up to now. There was leeway in there since it was all guesswork, and his estimate was based on a direct path between where he guessed Earth was – he didn’t have exact coordinates, so he just made a guess – to the moment they were picked up by the Humility.
But maybe itwastoo late. In which case, did it really matter where they started over?
“He seems nice,” Garnet agreed, hanging her clothes up in the shower and walking back into their room in a towel.
It wasn’t really to dry her off. The shower didn’t use water. It misted her down with some kind of cleaning fluid that evaporated really well. Her skin was a bit dry because of it, but nothing that a little lotion couldn’t fix.
Clothes, lotion, hairbrush… Really, they didn’t need much.
“What about the guy I kicked my shoe at?” Goldie asked, grimacing sheepishly.
Garnet laughed. “That was a great kick.”
“Stop it. I feel bad!”
Garnet only laughed harder. “Honestly, I haven’t seen him. Alred says his name is Vytln? I think that’s how he pronounced it. He says that he’s usually either in his room or workroom, so I won’t likely be seeing much of him.”
“I want to apologize to him. He even brought my shoe back.” Goldie looked down at the side of her bed where both her slippers were sitting, waiting to be used.
Garnet sat down on the other bed. They hadn’t slept together since that first night. This place really did seem safe, and they were still right next to each other.
“So, Alred is the computer, right?” Goldie asked. “And Tanin is the captain.”
“Right. Sway is the navigator, the twins – Sorbet and Tebros – they’re like the muscle? I think? Trove is there too. I’m not sure what he does except flirt outrageously whenever he sees me. He’s figured out how to wink and now he does it all the time. He says he’s looked up humans so he could communicate better with us.”
Goldie giggled, bringing her legs up and wrapping her arms around them. “They seem like pretty okay guys. We owe them a lot.”
“Yeah. Cleaning their ship kind of feels like it’s not enough.” Garnet shrugged. “But I can’t really do anything else for them.”
“Well, we’ll be out of their hair soon enough.”
“Yeah. Right…”
Goldie cocked her head. “What is it?”
“What’s what?” Garnet frowned.
“You got that tone in your voice.”
“Tone? I don’t have a tone. I was agreeing with you.”
“Yeah, but you were doing it in that tone.” Goldie popped her brow. “You think I don’t know your tones? Come on. Out with it. What are you thinking?”
“It’s stupid.”
“So were a lot of your ideas,” Goldie laughed. “We still had a great time doing them. So? What is it?”
“Well,” Garnet hedged, “I was just thinking… Do wehaveto go back to Earth?”
“Of course, we do. Earth is our home,” Goldie said immediately, frowning.
“Yeah, but, really, what’s there for us? We don’t talk to mom and dad anymore. My job was going nowhere. We were in debt to our eyeballs.”
“I was almost done with school,” Goldie countered. “Once I had my degree, things were going to get better!”
“Right. Your degree,” Garnet frowned. How could she have forgotten that?
Garnet had done a lot of odd jobs, picked up a lot of hours, to try to save money to get them through while Goldie went to vet school. Her sister was not even a full semester away from being done, and their life was going to get so much better. Goldie would be getting a great salary, they’d be able to pay off their loans and credit cards, and Garnet wouldn’t have to work so hard. She might even be able to focus on getting a job she actually liked, not just whatever weekend, under the table labor that came to her.
