Page 20 of Cozy Prisons
“I’m not arguing that,” Nataly said. “I guess it’s because Talins are so quick to spend their wealth, it doesn’t seem like we’dever need to grow the bulk of our own food. But now that you mention supply chain interruptions, it makes more sense.”
She and Riff kept talking about how much land they’d needed to clear as they all kept walking. By the time they got to the bottom of the incline, the ship’s ramp had descended from its belly and moving bots were unloading under the watchful eye of the crew.
She saw Iris and Damascus standing near the far side of the ramp, talking to Palathum. Utharium was walking three moving bots up the incline toward the village. As they came to a stop out of the way of the bots, she saw Daxus checking a data display on a large box covered in warnings to treat it gently.
She cast her eyes around looking for Hale, but she didn’t see any unfamiliar humans.
“I don’t see—” she started to say, but was interrupted by Sima’s squeal of delight.
“They found a tailor machine!” she cried and dragged Riff away. They rushed to where several bots piled high with packages were waiting to be led away. Nataly couldn’t hear them anymore, but she could tell by Sima’s body language that the woman was describing all the things she was going to have the machine make the moment they had it set up.
“I bet Sima’s going to try to have them install the machine in her domicile," Decard joked. Nataly forced out a chuckle, even as anxiety grew in her chest. She didn’t like that she only had Decard with her.
This is fine, she told herself.I’m fine. Everything is fine.
Nope,her body said.Nothing is fine!
She dug her fingernails into her palm until it hurt enough to help ground her. She let her breath out with a little whoosh. Decard didn’t notice; he was too busy guessing what was in some of the massive packages.
“Decard, were you the one who wanted the sonic bot?” Riff called out, pointing at a heavily laden mover bot slowly making its way up the hill toward the village.
“Yes!” Decard shouted and rushed off to follow the bot.
Suddenly Nataly was standing alone. The closest people to her were on the other side of the ramp.
Right, this was easy. All she needed to do was walk around the end of the ramp to get to them. When Palathum was done talking to Iris and Damascus, she could walk back to the village with her.
Yes, that would be easy.
Totally easy.
Walk around the ramp, she ordered her legs.
Nothing.
Her chest got tight, and it was harder to breathe. It was happening again. Anxiety gave way to panic, and the darkness started to eat away at the edges of her vision.
She tried digging her nails harder into the skin of her palm. The pain didn’t help. She needed something more.
Vertigo hit her hard, and she lurched forward. She grabbed hold of a ramp support strut. She shut her eyes tight and tried hard to pull in a breath. All she needed was for her lungs to cooperate, then she could figure out the next step.
A warm presence pressed against her back at the same time purring filled her ears and the familiar scent of sweet lemon hit her nose.
“Nataly?” Daxus’s voice was a soft murmur.
She opened her mouth but all that came out was a whimper. God, was she really this pathetic?
He kept purring as he talked. “It was a long walk to get here. Perhaps the journey wore you out?”
Was he giving her an excuse or did he really think that she was that out of shape?
“Is there something wrong with Nataly?” someone shouted. She opened her eyes to see Palathum, Iris, Damascus, and two unfamiliar Talins staring at her. She hated this!
“No.” The one word was spoken so weakly that Daxus was the only one who heard.
“I’ll take care of this,” Daxus whispered, then spoke loudly to the others. “Nataly is fatigued. I’m going to take her back to her domicile to rest.”
“Take her to Healer Falkilm first,” Palathum ordered.
