Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“You’ve got a younger back than I do,” he says. “You can help shift and strip engines.”
“That sounds good to me, sir.”
He wastes no time in putting me to work. This is a man who has more ideas than he has time to execute them. His inventory is vast, and held in containers that used to be used for shipping freight when the original colony was settled. They’re big, corrugated iron structures that sound hollow when you bang the walls, and have an eerie echo about them. I’ve never been unsettled before. In my previous existence as a free Psyon, nothing scared me because I knew what everything was. Now I can be surprised. It’s a fun little bonus.
As I work, I am aware of the fact that Mara is watching me. I can feel her gaze on the back of my neck like a physical force. I pretend not to know that her eyes are running all over me while I work. I wear a singlet that keeps things modest the way the colony likes, but gives me range of motion and something to sop up the sweat I perspire while working with my hands.
If Alara could see me now, I am sure she’d consider me well punished. I am filthy with grease, have blisters on my fingers and palms of my hands, and my stomach is growling with hunger. But I am also satisfied. The act of taking mechanical things apart and cleaning them before itemizing them, oiling them, and reassembling them is satisfying in a way I would not have previously understood if someone was trying to explain it to me.
“Mara! Make us up something to eat before the big blue boy faints,” her father calls.
I look at him sharply.
“Blue?”
“Your overalls are blue,” he says, so deadpan I don’t know if he’s really referring to the overalls, or if he’s making a comment about something he really shouldn’t be able to see.
Mara can see me for who I am, I think. At least, partially. Most humans won’t. I might be banished from the home realm, but I still have the ability to cloak myself in appropriate garb, including the aspects of my face, skin, and hair visible to those who look at me. I am still myself. Alara could not take the fundamentals of my being away. All she could do is banish me from a shared space.
For now.
Maybe forever.
Mara makes a mean mac and cheese dish with big chunks of streaky bacon and a side of sauerkraut. It’s a divine meal.
“I didn’t know you could cook so well,” I say to her.
“You don’t know me at all,” she smirks back.
I cock my head to the side. She can’t possibly remember me entirely. The fact that she has any inkling at all proves that humans do have access to what Alara calls the quantum memory. But I’m certain she does not remember everything. If she did, she’d be doing more blushing and less arch staring.
“Go and tend the counter,” her father says.
She trots off, obedient to him.
* * *
A couple of days later, my lumber is floated down the river and I go and get to work. I’ve been languishing in the position of yearning for my pet for what feels like too long now. I need to get myself busy and get this done for her.
So I get to work. I clear the land. I dig the holes for the piles. I even have bags of cement to stick them in place. Water from the river gives me much of what I need. Simple construction is a beautiful thing, and I would never have been able to experience it if it weren’t for this exile.
As I work, I find myself thinking less and less about the home realm, and more about my pet.
I know she will wait for me. I could tell the moment I laid eyes on her that she had touched nobody other than me. She’s still bearing my mark. I can smell it on her. I can see it in her eyes. No other male will be able to compare to me. No matter how hard they try, they will seem wrong to her. And her father is certainly not going to allow any casual suitors to approach directly.
I’ve got time.
Less time than I used to have, though. I used to have all of it. A vast expansive of existence that went forward and backward and I could step from one place to the other never feeling the sting of aging. I know that will not be the case anymore. I am subject to the same temporal rules as all mortal species.
I am aware now that every moment I do not have with her is a moment I will never get back. It is gone forever. The time we spend apart is a particular kind of brutality.