‘This isn’t like you at all, Feiscina.’
It seemed that Mozel Zan, like many others in Terra Corp’s middle management, preferred to use wooden furniture imported from a world that was specially designed to provide timber. Though she would have liked to touch Moz’s desk, Fei kept her hands linked behind her back. No one had threatened to arrest or cuff her yet, but her shoulders, elbows and arms ached from the position.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
Moz watched her closely, his eyebrows merging into a thick, disapproving line. ‘You’re always so quiet, you don’t bother anyone — I never expected any problems from you.’
He was draped comfortably in a padded hoverchair covered with silksein and decorated with wooden panels that matched the desk. Of course, his chair was whisper silent, even when he changed position. Moz had been sitting there from the moment he’d been called into TerraCorp an hour ago and had made sure that the agents GLEA had dispatched to deal with the security breach had been sent away.
‘But I never really know what you’re doing down there,’ Moz went on, scratching behind one of his ears. ‘I just let it lie, because your output always meets our expectations. You really should tell me more about what you’re doing, you know, or suggest any ideas you might have for improving our systems. I’d be more inclined to promote you if you spoke up for yourself.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Fei repeated. She wasn’t going to mention the idea he’d stolen from her, the one about cutting TerraCorp’s servers and consoles off from the Web. Right now she was wishing she’d never mentioned it in the first place, because being forced to come in to look for the files had led to her current predicament.
‘Feiscina, just tell me what the problem is,’ Moz entreated. His hoverchair jumped up as he rose to his feet. ‘Is it because of your family history? You know it is considered an honour to be called by the Creator God to join GLEA.’
Fei sucked her lips into her mouth to stop herself from saying something that would get her fired.
‘TerraCorp was never separate from GLEA, you understand,’ Moz continued, moving closer to her, a hand outstretched. When his fingers came too close to her shoulder, Fei flinched and took a giant step away from him. Frowning, Moz pinned his arm back to his side. ‘We were created to fund them so that they can provide their services free of charge. People could not afford their protection otherwise. And if we happen to help GLEA set up a new outpost or temple, that’s not a bad thing. People need to be aware that the Creator God is looking after them.’
Fei kept her voice to a murmur. ‘I know how important GLEA is. I do.’
‘Then why this poking around?’ Moz asked. He looked almost fatherly with his hair so uniformly silver, but it was the fashion on Enoc and not an actual sign of his age.
‘Moz…’ Fei swallowed, trying to find the words. ‘This was my sanctuary. All that religion stuff — I didn’t have to think about it. Not here.’
Moz nodded slowly. ‘So you are having a crisis of faith and you’re worried it will affect your job performance now that you know we are part of GLEA.’
‘I just don’t want anything to do with them,’ Fei muttered.
‘Maybe all you need is some time to think about it,’ Moz said soothingly, backing her towards a hoverchair that matched his one behind the desk.
Fei reluctantly sank into the cushioned seat. Her jaw ached from holding in a bitter retort.
‘A holiday,’ Moz continued, still standing far too close for her liking. ‘It will allow you to get your thoughts in order. You see, your father’s calling may have been to join GLEA, but your calling is to work here, at TerraCorp.’
‘That sounds…’ Like bullshit. ‘…I don’t know, Moz. It might take me years to come to terms with things.’
But Moz was smiling and shaking his head, as though she was a child who had asked him a stupid question about how the galaxy worked. She wanted to punch him but instead dug her fingernails into the arms of her chair. The fragile material gave and tore beneath her grip.
‘This is what you need, Feiscina,’ he cajoled. ‘A holiday. A respite. A bit of time off. I know just the place.’
Fei gave a non-committal shrug. She had no real preferences for a holiday destination; her mother lived on Gerasnin, the GLEA homeworld, and she had no desire to go there.
Moz raised his hands in a triumphant flourish. ‘Bagaran!’
‘The planet we’re currently sourcing data and material from?’ Fei clarified.
The last few samples that had come through from Bagaran had been especially interesting because the topsoil on that planet was unusually deep. It was actually causing problems in her simulations since most plants in a typical rainforest had very shallow roots, owing to a lack of fertile depths. Millennia ago, some humans had made the mistake of assuming they could knock down rainforests and seed crops that needed much deeper topsoil. It had been a painful lesson, one of many that had destroyed Old Earth.
‘Yes, yes, they’ve had recent setbacks because of vandals but it is a very pleasant place by all accounts,’ Moz said, nodding repeatedly.
Fei performed the appropriate grimace when he brought up the laboratory’s destruction. It had been recommended that GLEA not be called in because TerraCorp did not want to anger the Bagara worshippers in the area and the company still had important work to do on on the rainforest god’s primary world. A new lab was being constructed on a nearby planet and would be shipped over in the next month or so.
Moz bounced back into his hoverchair and began sliding his fingers over his desk, its keyboard lighting up beneath his touch. ‘Apparently the locals will be holding some sort of annual festival for their sub-level god soon.’
Fei sat up straight. ‘I’ve heard about that one. Bagara speaks directly to them during the festival.’
‘They claim he does, yes,’ Moz said. ‘It’s probably nothing but propaganda. Now. About that holiday…’
He narrowed his eyes at Fei, clearly expecting a response.
She sighed. ‘Alright. I’ll go. If that’s what you think I should do.’
Evidently it was, because Moz took her keypass and ran it through the reader on his desk, rendering her access to the building null and void for two months. The amount of time seemed excessive, but Fei said nothing and allowed Moz to escort her out into the violet night and onto the footpath that led to their apartment building.
‘What we do here is so much more important than people realise,’ Moz told Fei as he kept pace with her. ‘You’re doing the Creator God’s work, Feiscina. Just keep that in mind.’
‘I’ll try,’ she said, wishing she meant it.
• • •
The moment she set foot on the ground outside the village, Fei felt as though she had been plunged into thick, steamy soup. The air was warmer than she had expected and her hair immediately started to rebel in the humidity. She glanced down at herself, regretting her attire. While much of Bagaran was covered in rainforests, its spaceport was located on one of the planet’s grass-smeared continents and could experience considerable gusts of wind.
She had tried to cater for both climates by pairing lime denim pants with a short-sleeved shirt bearing the bronze logo of a lasball team on Enoc, not that she’d ever actually watched them play. The sandals, meant to keep her feet cool, became impractical as soon as she stepped off the ramp of the small vehicle that had carried her from the spaceport; a rock immediately dug into one of her toes, drawing blood.
There was a conspicuous gap in front of the symmetrical living quarters that belonged to the TerraCorp employees, marking where the laboratory should have been. The scientists wore miserable expressions as they sorted through carefully stacked piles of debris, tagging what items they could for recycling. The village, by comparison, looked far more accommodating with its chaotic sprawl of huts and the frenetic movement going on inside its palisade walls. Fei even caught the strains of distant music before it rose into a crescendo and petered out, replaced by applause.
Bagath was one of hundreds of villages on this world. They all had access to the Web, thanks to the relay station orbiting the planet, and they were connected to each other by ‘hoppers’, tiny planet-bound vehicles that bounced across the atmosphere. The bubble-shaped hopper that had deposited Fei had already vanished, heading back to the spaceport two hours away. TerraCorp had chosen to stage their research near Bagath because it was the smallest village on Bagaran and the area was less disturbed by people.
Fei found herself walking to the village, her bag slapping her back as her mother’s words from the night before her departure echoed in her ears. ‘Bagaran? Isn’t that a little wild for you, honey? They don’t even have cities. I just looked it up. It’s populated by heathens! Savages!’
‘No, Mum, “heathens” just means they worship a different god; they’re not actually savages,’ Fei had responded while standing in front of the mirror in her apartment, three or four different outfits clutched in her hands. The electronic irises in her eyes had been blood red at the time, though she had been considering switching them to safe, approachable blue. ‘And Bagath has a working shield. They say that if someone does attack us, we can retreat behind their walls. Isn’t that nice of them?’
‘Nice?’ The incredulity in her mother’s voice had raised its pitch into the stratosphere. ‘They have no respect for the Creator God! And they probably indulge in impure behaviour…’
‘Then I guess I get to indulge in impure behaviour for a couple of months,’ Fei had retorted.
Instead of being appalled, her mother had sounded relieved. ‘Oh good, you really do need to relax and have a bit of fun. Just make sure your pregnancy implant is working. And for God’s sake don’t catch anything.’
Fei waved at the few villagers she passed. Their casual clothes and boots would not have looked out of place in the universities of Enoc. These ‘heathens’ seemed ordinary enough.
But when she passed through the gate, she saw one that was more than ordinary.
Shoving copper hair out of his eyes, he grinned as he helped the other villagers raise brightly painted branches onto the eaves of the village’s huts. The freckles on his face were spread in just the right way to emphasise how handsome he was. And there was something oddly familiar about him, something that made her want to walk over and ask him if they’d met before.
‘Who let you in?’ a much closer man demanded.
Fei nearly swallowed her tongue in panic. The bulky villager beside her was brown-skinned and should have stood out as much as she did among this crowd of beige-toned, pale-eyed ‘heathens’, but he didn’t. This was probably due to the comfortable earth-caked clothes he was wearing, something many of the nearby Bagathians had in common.
Fei tried not to look down at her bright outfit again. ‘Hi. Um. I’m visiting.’
‘Are you here for the festival?’ he asked.
Fei managed a shrug. Her sea-green hair flopped over one shoulder. ‘Maybe? I’m…I’m a follower of the Creator God, actually, but I’m…’
Disgust filled his features. ‘You one of those Chipper-lovers then?’
Fei backed away against a hut, dropping her bag in the process. No words came to her rescue. When he continued to advance, her hands flew to her sides and found purchase on the vine that was growing on the wall behind her. It wouldn’t protect her from this man, but holding onto something made her feel braver. She clenched the thin, ropey plant, her nails cutting in and drawing ooze.
‘Inesh, leave her alone,’ the freckled man Fei had seen earlier said as he jogged over.
‘But she’s a Chipper-lover and I’ll bet she’s from TerraCorp,’ Inesh argued.
‘Doesn’t matter. You’re being very rude when you could be helping us prepare for the festival.’ The newcomer flashed a smile at Fei. ‘Are you from TerraCorp?’
‘Yes,’ Fei answered and rubbed her hands together, grimacing when she realised they were now smeared with the ruins of the vine. ‘Oh. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt it. Um. Do vines get hurt?’
‘Are you alright?’ was his next question.
Fei nodded mutely. With both Inesh and her anxiety now banished, she found herself completely entranced by her rescuer. He was even better looking close up. The loose cargo pants did little to hide his well-formed backside and the smattering of mud on his skin somehow suited him. Humming cheerfully, he reached for the leaking vine and snapped a piece clean off. He then coiled it into a circle and tied the ends together before taking her wrist and slipping it on like a bracelet. Fei held out her arm long after he had let go of it.
‘That way it’s not wasted,’ he said, chuckling at her open-mouthed expression. ‘The vine doesn’t mind, so I won’t.’
‘I thought you were all…’ Fei hesitated.
One coppery eyebrow shot up into his hairline.
‘…savages,’ she finished in a rush. Mortified, she clapped a hand over her mouth to keep anything else from escaping her. But he didn’t seem to be offended.
‘Well, I don’t own any shoes so I can understand how you got that impression.’ He poked his chest with his thumb. ‘I’m Kuja Rforine. Forget Inesh. He has trouble remembering that Bagara doesn’t care if the people in his domain devote themselves to other gods.’ Kuja’s lips firmed. ‘Bagara will even let them worship Oceania, the water god, though he’d rather they didn’t. He just wants them to be happy and well.’
‘What does Bagara offer that the Creator God doesn’t?’ Fei asked, looking over his shoulder at the villagers. They were now stringing up gossamer banners that shimmered as light played over them.
Kuja shrugged. ‘Depends on what you want from him. Would you like to come to the festival and find out?’
Fei bit her lip. What could it hurt? She was used to the Creator God ignoring her. A sub-level god doing the same thing wasn’t going to feel any worse, right? ‘Sure. I can do that. But I need to put my things down first and, um, let TerraCorp know I’m here.’
‘Relax, you’ve got a few days,’ Kuja said, his grin causing something hot to swell low in her abdomen. ‘But if you’re looking for something to do, I can show you around the area tomorrow, once you’ve settled in.’
Fei felt her lips tweak into a small smile. He had offered his time so quickly and without question. She supposed she should have been suspicious of his intentions, but there was something dark and serious in his emerald gaze and she found that she trusted him. And if he did have certain intentions towards her, well, Fei decided she had no problem with that.
‘Sounds good,’ she said and meant it.
She picked up her bag and left the village.