Page 6 of 20% Stud 80% Muffin
With every arm crank, my stomach had roiled, and I’d longed for a breath of fresh air now that I stood on solid ground once more. Nausea had been my worst enemy, shuttling through space, and I’d remained locked in my small cabin, heaving, for most of the journey.
Yurst cranked my arm up and down again. “Thank you, Archbuilder Geo. So many thanks for accepting this very important role.”
Saliva pooled in my mouth as I swallowed down bile, but I plastered on a smile and nodded at the man who stood a head shorter than me, wearing an outfit befitting a leprechaun, minus the top hat. I exhaled when he dropped my hand at last. The hangar we were walking through was a blur as I focused on the daylight I’d spotted ahead.
An overhead bay door stood open halfway, and we ducked underneath it. Immediately, a gust of wind coated me in a layer of fine pink soil, and I choked, coughing to clear my throat.Damn it, itislike Tatooine.
“My, my,” Mayor Yurst said, patting my back. “It does take a bit of getting used to, but before you know it, you’ll feel like you’ve been here forever. I’ll just give you a bit of a tour and leave you at the sono to settle.”
The list of new colonizers who required homes unfurled in front of me, across my desk, like a never-ending story. My head throbbed. The Tern equivalent of Tylenol would barely take the edge off my growing headache. It was as if quicksand was slowly sucking me under.
‘Install fountain around statue’ was at the top of the list, underlined and triple asterisked. Under the list of all the colonizers’ names—most unpronounceable to me—it said ‘school, library, recri-plaza and jail.’ The more I thoughtabout designing a jail that could contain winged, behemoth-sized and knee-sized aliens, the more my head ached. At least it was last on the list. Mayor Yurst would have put it at the top of the list if he were concerned, right?
What I really wanted from the mayor was a few words of wisdom on where construction should begin. Who was next on the list? Instead, his obsequious thanks for coming to Tern curdled my stomach, and I remained clueless about whose house to build first. The homeowner with the biggest teeth?
The previous archbuilder, a white-winged Nacer, had lived in an aviary on a cliff top before his demise. As a human with two legs, claiming it as my own was impossible. Instead, I had to share a sono, much like a dormitory, with my work crew of Rock Dwellers. Giant, gray-skinned and bald, their snores were so loud they rattled the floor my bed stood on.
Fortunately, I’d worked out a system with my foreman, JayJay, in my first week here. He was quickly becoming my go-to Rock Dweller for all things alien. He constantly chirped at me about how my mouth hung open whenever a new alien species approached. Or when I stared slack-jawed at the hollow squawk of the tiny flying woodskie, no bigger than a hummingbird. He especially loved when the lunal weed that grew under the moon’s light trapped me in its snare. But JayJay was a building machine, and his math skills were off the charts by Earth standards.
JayJay and I filed outside to the warehouse to complete the weekly inventory—JayJay in his head and me on my wristport. My mouth watered when I swallowed honey-scented air. I forced my wide eyes back to normal, hoping he wouldn’t notice as a species with a lizard tail trailing along the ground walked by.
“I can count your teeth,” JayJay joked as he jostled my shoulder, nearly knocking me on my ass.
“Yeah, yeah. You got me, funny guy.” I casually nodded toward the alien species new to me. “What planet is he from?”
Every day I witnessed something new. Yesterday, it had rained so hard it turned the unpaved streets into pink mud, not unlike the river of strawberries on the Candyland board game from my childhood.
JayJay’s brow ridges popped. Though his long, bony protrusion didn’t have any hair, it seemed to function just the same as eyebrows as he scanned the alien in question. “That is Raz S’Lant. He is from the recently war-ravaged planet, Hotner. Lucky for you, his dwelling is already built.”
When would I stop acting like the new kid on the block?
I recited Ginger’s words in my head. “Do not criticize yourself in any capacity for the first three months, and even then, do so with kindness. Promise me, Geo. You’ve been your own worst enemy for too long.”
“Bish, I know that look, boss man. Cheer up.” JayJay dragged me back to the task at hand. His slow speech sent a wave of calm through me.
I pressed the translator embedded behind my ear when “bish” didn’t register. It had been injected on the shuttle to Tern. The instant ability to communicate in intergalactically recognized languages was mind-boggling. Every time I said a word that went untranslated, JayJay listed all the synonyms to fill the gaps in our translators.
We walked back through the arched entrance of my office. The list that kept me awake at night remained spread across my desk like a tablecloth that could span three more tables, and I tipped my head to the side. “Bish?”
“You know, boss man, like, c’mon, or forget about it, or no big deal.”
He was right I did need to loosen up a little. Though I’d never been as laid back as JayJay, his affirming head nods and constant laughter told me I was doing okay so far. One person liking me was enough of a start. I’d goggled at his giant size for far too long in the first week, but he hadn’t appeared to mind. The other inhabitants only had a few months on me, anyways. Tern leveled the playing field. Everyone started new here, and from the way a young Nacer had tripped over his wing tips a couple days back, many had never seen a human before.
JayJay’s three fingers spread over my desktop where he leaned. “Time idles when you live in the past.”
I still grew weepy-eyed over leaving Pika and Charz behind. The only thing that had stopped the downward spiral of depression caused by moving to another planet was Ginger moving into my house. A win-win for all.
My dogs weren’t the only thing I’d left behind. Cameron had sweet-talked me into letting him stay, but when I’d broached the subject of him taking good care of the house, his lips had curled into a snarl.“You want me to take care of your grandma’s house and your dogs for a goddamn year?”
Our house. Our dogs.
“Geo, I always knew you were delusional, but if you think I’ll wait a year for your fat ass and small dick, think again. Think again.”
The memory of Cameron’s caustic reply still burned the ragged edges of my heart.
So instead, Ginger had moved into my home with my dogs. I exhaled and pushed my hands into my overall pockets. Everything I loved on Earth would be cared for in one tidy package. Now, I needed to move on—a nearly impossible concept when my brain drifted to Cameron’s last words every second thought.
“Call me when you get back. Maybe we can meet for a coffee or something.”
