Page 10 of Invasive Species
I eyethe pile of papers Arra-bellah holds out to me. I can barely see behind the copious amount of wood-based substrate, but what I do see is red-eyed and disheveled. Her red hair foams around her face, curling in the morning rain which is also spotting the new plans.
“Please confirm what these represent,” I say, dread tracking up my stomach. I know exactly what these are.
“New designs,” she says with a yawn, covering it with her other hand.
I take the stack of papers from her, leafing through the primitive wood-based substrate humans use to communicate ideas. There’s a cargo load of them: a lintel frame design, a corner detail, a mural idea for a whole wall. None of it is connected or labeled, just pages and pages of random elements all together, some even on the same page.
“More design changes, you mean.” I set my pad on the floor and tap ‘display.’ The current design for the barn hangs in the air between us, spinning slowly. “We agreed on this. These look very different.”
“We agreed on this, yes, as the superstructure.” She waves her fingers at the outer edges of my hologram, then points triumphantly to her papers. “These are the detailed designs.”
I snatch at my patience, which is rapidly rocketing away from me as if blasting into orbit. “You’re changing things again.”
Her tired eyes widen, the picture of innocence. “No, I’m just adding the details.”
Now my patience escapes. She’s lying, just like any other female, and my scales harden in defense.
She continues, "They’ll make the bed and breakfast really stand out. And you can do them on your fancy machine. It's not like you're doing it by hand."
"I'd need to reprogram the computer images—" I bite back the rest of my objection. It doesn't matter to a female how much work it means for a male. They just order it anyway, unthinking and uncaring.
“Is that hard?” she asks.
“It is when the changes are all mixed up like this.”
Her gaze slides away, down my chest and arms to my hands. Is she even paying attention?
"I'll help sort them out,” she says, before her mouth gapes open in a huge yawn, as if the conversation bores her. I might think she hasn’t gotten enough rest, but while the nights are short on this planet, she’s surely used to them.
"Never mind. Just…" My fingers coil. "If you could stop amending the agreed design?—"
"But I haven't. I'm just adding the details," she presses. A swipe of wind blows her hair into a wild storm, sending her scent straight at me. Cinnamon, warm and sharp, curling across my tongue like an irritant and a lure all at once. It’s distracting. She’s distracting.
And that gives me an idea. “Perhaps while we’re completing the barn, you have more important prioritieswhich need your attention. What are your research areas, or pursuits?”
Her pulse speeds up, jumping in her throat as she swallows hard. “Uh, I… I don’t…”
I gesture to the courtyard cradled by the farm buildings. “Which is your office?”
“Oh, I don’t have a studio yet. Ellen’s going to make me one, in the, uh, Road House area. Although I’d prefer to be near the farmhouse. Maybe in the garden? It’s really lovely in summer, has a great view of all the fields around it, not far from the lake where I like to go swimming. Maybe we can go swimming later? That would help.”
Even though I listened to every word, I have no idea how we got from her office to swimming. “We will take our exercise later today?—”
“Great. Count me in. I actually really love cold swimming, and while it’s a bit early in the year, I… I really need it.” She’s speaking almost too fast to follow, but then she slows down. “I find it helps, you know, wake me up a bit.”
“Is that a typical human thing?” I ask before I can stop myself.Drok na, I’m trying to redirect her away from making amendments to the barn design, not engage her in conversation.
She chuckles, catching hold of the stray curl obscuring her eyes and winding it around her small fingers. “Probably not. I have a wetsuit and stuff, I brought it just in case, I’ll dig it out later.” Her gaze wanders back to the papers in my hand. “Right, so, I thought you could just?—”
“I’ll handle it,” I say quickly. “You should be free to return to your typical day.”
A crooked smile crosses her face. “Nothing’s typical with me. Especially because Ellen’s not here—Oh, fuck.” She slaps her forehead. “The animals.”
And she turns around and runs headlong toward the chicken compound.
I take a deep, steadying breath. That was like navigating through the shifting sandstorms of Aliani Four. I watch her vault over the metal barred gate and flick open the lock on the chicken’s door, then stand there while they surround her. She pushes the door back and forth, frowning at the hinges as if they’re something she needs to memorize. She leaps back over, but this time over the low wire fence, and heads into what Ellen called the machine shed. Inside are huge hulking mechanical machines, all silent and covered with dust. She immediately comes back out with a small tin. Then she spots an escaped chicken, one of the bigger ones, and sets down her find to chase after it. Partway through she halts, turning in place, a lock of hair trapped between her teeth again. She sees something in the piles of cardboard substrate forming a wall of the lean-to we rest in, and darts over to it.
What is she doing? Her erratic movements don’t form an efficient path. But I’m not supposed to be silently judging her work; I should go back inside the barn before she spots me and returns.
