Page 16 of 20% Stud 80% Muffin
Hit the road didn’t quite translate, but he sounded civil, so I went with it. “Great work today, Archbuilder.” I could still be pleasant, even if he didn’t know how to engage in polite conversation. Not in a million annums would I call him by his name. That level of familiarity would not be wise.
After I secured the load and straddled my bike, I signaled the archbuilder to jump on the trailer. I turned the ignition and…nothing. The rump, rump, rump of my heart deafened me. No matter how often I depressed the lever, the familiar whoosh and hum never came.
“Blant.” I lashed my tail against the thick leather of my tall boots and bit my lip at the sharp sting. Why hadn’t I pulled my bike into the shade?
The newer model hoverbikes had integrated cooling systems. Unfortunately, after many suns under Tern’s hot rays, my standard model ignition was fried.
I knew better. As a blanting hovic, my job included fixing messes like this, not causing them. How many times in the past had I rescued Bonic when his starter mechanism had melted? Too many to count. I’d cherished the role reversal—me saving him for once. I stiffened my spine. I could handle this.
The archbuilder’s gruff voice interrupted my thoughts. “What’s with the delay?” His face had turned alarmingly pink. It looked as though it had swallowed the sun, and for a moment, I wanted to place my palms on his cheeks to soothe them.
“Melted starter.” With a glance over my shoulder, I jumped off the bike and headed to the closest scrap pile in search of the perfect trash to repair the starter.
The archbuilder reached for his wristport—to call JayJay, I presumed.
“Don’t bother. We’re out of range.” My voice wavered at our predicament. The situation was bad enough already, and now the archbuilder had to be dealt with too. The sinking sensation in my guts told me he wasn’t the ‘don’t worry, we’ll figure it out together’ type.
With every tormenting step, his footfalls echoed the way a giant ringa’s might—the often-mentioned, never-seen beast of Lorne. Although now that I thought about it, the ringa’s depiction in books uncannily matched my neighbor, if he were giant-sized. No wonder I had an aversion to Raz.
“Why the fuck are you over here playing in the dirt?” His voice rumbled, and the scent of summer fields and male overwhelmed me.
I scurried behind a thick sheet of metal to gain some distance. “I need to…”
“You’re a mechanic. Fix the damn bike.” His hands were on his hips as if to stop them from trembling.
“Listen.” I wanted to insert the word asshole, but if I’d learned anything from my parents, it was to always behave with the utmost decorum, so I held my head high and breathed deeply. I didn’t have to take his shit. “I need to fabricate a part, and I need to do it before the sun sets. It has to dry before installation.” My tail stood high above my shoulder. “Now, if you’ll sit over there and wait, I’ll get it done.” Uncurling each of my fingers by force of will, I pointed to some random place. Distance mattered, and he needed to move far away. Otherwise, I might drive my fist into his chin.
He stomped back to the trailer and leaned against it with a huff.
The sun dimmed to a beautiful velvety red, and the temperature dropped with the change. Even though I found the perfect mold in what appeared to be a previous sink drain, the clay disk I prepared resembled a youngling’s mud pie. As much as I willed it to be true, the spare wouldn’t be dry anytime soon. I carefully placed it on a flat piece of steel where it would collect the morning’s sun. Then, braced for the storm, I walked away from the archbuilder to break the bad news.
The archbuilder’s eyes followed my every movement. I cleared my throat unnecessarily to announce my arrival. Resolved, I forced my gaze to his face andworked my eyes up to his beard, but no matter how I tried, eye contact wouldn’t come. Would the rasp of his beard along my neck send me to my knees? I straightened my spine, stepped backward, and shook away those mutinous thoughts. “Archbuilder…”
“God damn it, will you call me Geo?” he growled.
The red velvet of the sky deepened further to a ripe purple. Sundown on Tern unfolded with more drama than on Lorne. The glowing orb resembled the pulse of blood through a heart, as if the sky wished to embrace it before it shut its eyes to the dark of night.
I swallowed hard. “We have to spend the night. The part I fabricated needs time in the sun to bake and dry.” My shoulders slumped.
“You can’t be serious. Do you even know what to expect spending the night out here?” With a voice like thunder, he would have scared away any lurking bush-tailed monties if we’d been back on my home planet.
“No, I don’t, but all your blanting shouting will only draw attention to us. Yelling at me will not change the fact that we are stuck here for the night. Are Earthlings always so whiny?” My tail flicked rapidly behind me.
Take that. I can stand up for myself, alpha asshole. I’m more than just an omega.
He tipped his chin to the sky and rolled his shoulders back—praying for divine intervention?—then walked back to the trailer, where he upended the bag JayJay had packed for him.
“Thank fuck.” The archbuilder stuffed everything back into the bag and scaled a concrete slab, then another, then another. To escape some unknown entity that might reach him in the night? He stopped when partially sheltered by a sheet of tin overhead and laid out a frame of bendy sticks.
Ridiculous human and his tree-top nest. Did he think he was a winged Nacer?
He glanced down at me every now and then. He opened his mouth to speak, or perhaps invite me to join him, but in the end, he wrapped some noisy fabric over his sticks and climbed into the dome without another word.
With nothing better to do, I set up for the night too. My body was tired, but my mind buzzed, so I busied myself with the spool of wire I’d purchased from D’irk at the market. I quickly transformed it into a line of snares circling my camp. I didn’t really expect any creatures to come in the night, and the traps wouldn’t be useful for anything too big, but the act helped settle my nerves.
I scratched out a dip in the center to bed down in, filled it with the tall graneth grass that had sprung up all around and settled in. My nose twitched. The spring-fresh odor lifted my glum spirits. Then, I pulled one of the soft graneth puffs from my backpack. A cold wind blew strands of hair across my face, urging me to put on the warm sweater in my pack. Much warmer, I bit into my meal but stopped after swallowing the first mouthwatering bite.
“Archbuilder,” I called out, “do you have any food?”
