Chapter Six

Ari peered around the settlement as they walked from the docks. The sky had an artificial blue-green tinge that only came from manufactured atmosphere, the air leaving a metallic aftertaste with every breath. Deserted dirt roads spread out in cardinal directions, flanked by squat buildings. The entire town appeared to have been constructed from debris.

One building sported a fraction of a woman’s painted face on a large wooden fragment of some advertisement, patched together with metal and wooden planks of every color and size. The next building was a variation on the same theme, the small overhang covering the front porch supported by mismatched copper pipes.

Aristotle had never seen anything like it.

Orin slowed as they approached a building trimmed by a raised porch equipped with rocking chairs. A fresh coat of whitewash minimized the uneven surface of the mixed planks forming the exterior walls.

A creaking wooden sign swung in the breeze, cheerfully painted with Sally’s Sundries at a charming slant.

Orin’s boots rattled the spindly metal banister as he tromped up the front steps, Ari following close behind.

The front door, cut from a chunk of perforated metal ship flooring, clanged shut behind them loudly, letting sunlight stream in a dotted pattern across the concrete floor.

A young woman puttered about behind the counter, wrapping a parcel with twine to be stacked with others off to the side. She appeared tired in the way Ari had noticed seemed to fall on all Verge women, but she was clean and pretty nonetheless. It was simply that the lines on her face didn’t match the age in her eyes. Her ill-fitting dress threatened to fall off one shoulder as she worked, the faded floral fabric cinched in at the waist with a man’s thick leather belt, which sported, of all things, a holstered pistol.

Ari made his best effort not to stare at it.

Orin sauntered up to the counter with his thumbs in his leather braces.

“Hey there, sugar! You surely are a sight for sore eyes!”

The woman lifted her head, the smile on her face revealing her youth.

“Why, if it isn’t Orin Stone himself! I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age!”

Orin tucked his chin to flirt up at her through his lashes, dimples on display. “And I been pining away for you all this time, Sally, honest truth.”

Sally blinked dazedly, no more immune to Orin’s relentless charm than the next poor soul, Ari noted wryly.

She leaned her chin on her hand, bony elbow planted on the counter between them, the tattered lace cuff of her dress splayed out over the surface.

“What brings you back to my humble establishment?”

Orin traced the fabric on the countertop, swirling his finger gently over the lace.

“Maybe I just wanted to see your pretty face again, Sal.”

Her eyes narrowed as she pulled her arm away, batting Orin’s hand off her cuff, lips curled in to suppress her smile.

“Been a long time, but you’re still shoveling the same shit, Stone. Why don’t you just go on and tell me what you need so I can get you out of my hair?”

Orin’s face lit up as he nodded slowly.

“Alright, alright, I gotcha. Sally Mudd is off the market. When’d you find a man to settle down with, Sal?”

The light wash of pink on her cheeks revealed a flash of the way she could have been, primped and pretty beneath a parasol back on Britannia. She patted her hair shyly, tucking mouse-brown strands back into the loose roll at the nape of her neck.

“’Bout two years back now.”

Orin leaned in, one hand resting on his holster, face drawn into a forbidding scowl. “Nice fella? He treat you right?”

She threw back her head with a tinkling laugh, slapping the solid arm Orin kept by his holster hard enough that Ari flinched.

“No call for all that bluster, he treats me just fine.”

Orin’s scowl melted into a wide grin. “Good to hear. Listen, darlin’, I got a new ship on my hands, pretty little explorer vessel, barely opened up, never even had a real pilot at the controls. I’m wanting to do her up right, all the bells and whistles you got. I’m talking premium fuel crystals, the works.”

Sally pursed her lips in a long, low whistle.

“The royal treatment, huh? Sounds like you’re in love already.”

Orin’s face stayed turned toward Sally, but Ari saw his gaze flick in Ari’s direction from the corner of his eye. His grin tilted up at one end as Ari blushed and turned hastily away.

“Something like that. We’re still getting to know each other; she’s a shy little thing.”

Sally nodded like that made any kind of sense.

“I’ll get her fixed up proper, don’t you worry, hon. Anything else?”

Orin nodded, tipping his head back in Ari’s direction.

“Red needs new duds. Got anything in his size?”

Ari stiffened as they both studied him, Sally’s eyes traveling over him in the same way Orin’s often did. He surreptitiously considered Orin’s eyes, dark in the shadow of his browbone as his teeth pulled at the corner of his bottom lip, making Ari fidget.

Well, not precisely in the same way.

Sally nodded decisively, gesturing Ari closer with a broad motion of her arm.

“I bet I do. Come on, sugar. Let’s get you fixed up too.”

Ari followed her back through a faded yellow curtain behind the counter as Orin made a shooing motion with his fingers.

Sally bustled around the small stockroom, pulling down boxes here and there and laying them out on a rickety table in the center of the room.

She squinted at Ari’s shoulders before putting one box back and pulling another, dropping it on the table with a wink.

“Alright, here’s all I got. Give it a try, and come out when you’re decent.”

She breezed out through the curtain before Ari could reply, left alone with the muffled sound of her continued conversation with Orin and the boom of his answering laugh.

Ari turned reluctantly to the boxes, opening one with trepidation.

He was relieved to find the shirt clean and pressed. It was unbleached ecru linen with odd striations of darker and lighter fibers, collarless in the style favored by Orin. Ari mused that perhaps this style was au courant on the Verge.

He checked around before stripping down to his undergarments, then slipped the shirt over his head. It was a decent fit, if a tad more billowy than he would have favored. The other boxes contained close-fitting brown canvas trousers, a double-breasted waistcoat of the same fabric, and brown leather boots that laced to the knee with copper eyelets.

Ari still felt exposed without a collar or cravat and walked out from behind the curtain with one hand hovering over the hollow of his throat.

Sally and Orin both turned to watch him, something unpleasant swooping in his belly at the way she rested her hand on Orin’s arm like it belonged there.

Ari cleared his throat. “I believe these garments will prove sufficient.”

Sally’s peel of surprised laughter struggled out from behind the fingers she clamped over her mouth as soon as Ari opened his.

Orin nudged her shoulder, echoing amusement sketched across his face.

That swooping feeling in Ari’s gut began to thicken and solidify until he felt like he had swallowed rocks. He stared down at the toe of his boots, hand fluttering between covering his throat and his mouth.

Sally stepped closer, laughter fading away. “I’m sorry, it’s just, we don’t get many folks round here that talk like you. Sound like some kinda fairytale prince, don’t you, hon?”

Ari had no response to that, stiffening as she approached.

She studied him up and down with one hand on her hip, then twirled the index finger of her other hand in the air over her head.

“Give us a spin; let me take a gander at you.”

Ari turned slowly, face burning with a flush creeping over the back of his neck as he sensed their scrutiny on his back.

He tilted his head over his shoulder at Sally surveying the lines of the waistcoat across his back. Orin’s gaze had fallen lower, darting away and drifting to the ceiling when Ari caught him, hands stuffed in his trouser pockets.

Sally bustled past Ari, slipped behind the curtain, and emerged almost immediately with something the color of rust dangling from her fingers.

She approached Ari like an old friend, reaching up to loop it over the back of his head and then tying a simple knot at the base of his throat with a decisive nod.

“There you go, sugar. An ascot oughta make you a little more comfortable.”

Ari reached up to finger the knot, shoulders relaxing even though it exposed far more of his throat than would have been appropriate back home. He finally felt dressed, at least.

He turned to Orin, who was still chewing on his lip, eyes roaming Ari from the mussed top of his head to the thick heel of his boots.

Ari startled as Sally’s thin fingers began to work on the buttons of his waistcoat, sending him stumbling backward in shock.

“I. I don’t. What do you think you are doing?”

She lifted her hands, stepping away with a soft laugh. “Just need your vest to make some alterations, show off that trim little waist of yours the way it deserves.”

Sally peered over Ari’s shoulder at Orin. “Why don’t you head on to the docks? I’ll send my man down to get you fixed up while I help out your sweetie here.”

“I beg your pardon?” Ari sputtered. “I am not his—”

Orin walked over and opened the door, throwing his words over his shoulder. “Sounds good, Sal. Red’ll pick up the bill.”

The door clanging shut behind him seemed to ring across the space as Ari was left staring at Sally, who drew near with a serene smile, holding out her hand expectantly.

“Vest, please.”

Ari went to work on the copper-rimmed buttons and passed the waistcoat over without meeting Sally’s eye.

She took it behind the counter, then bent to rummage through something that sounded like a metal box full of other, smaller metal boxes, raising her voice to carry over the sound.

“Y’all haven’t been together for long, then?”

Ari approached the counter, arms crossed over his chest, feeling altogether far too exposed.

“I’m afraid you appear to be laboring under a misapprehension, Miss Mudd.”

Sally’s head popped up, strands of hair escaping from her roll at an alarming rate, waistcoat draped over a small metal box in her arms.

She plopped the box on the counter. After turning the waistcoat wrong-side out, she pulled a needle from the box and considered her limited thread selection. She tilted her head before plucking a card wrapped in a length of brown thread with a satisfied nod.

Sally peeked up at Ari after threading the needle, eyes dancing. “I could just listen at you all day, you sound that pretty.”

She lay the needle on top of the waistcoat, turned to lift an ancient pad from the counter, and held it over her head in both hands before bringing it down on the counter with a bang. Then, she repeated the procedure twice more before the screen blinked to life, and proceeded to tap her fingers rapidly across.

She tossed it to the side when she was done, returning to her needle and focusing on a seam.

“There now, Jeb’ll have your ship fixed up in no time at all. I believe you were about to tell me all about how you started up with Orin Stone, weren’t you, hon?”

Ari tore his attention away from the battered pad, projections still blinking in and out across the cracked screen.

He regarded the top of Sally’s head, clearing his throat.

“Mr. Stone and I have recently entered into a partnership in an exploratory venture.”

Sally’s grin started in her eyes as they flicked up at Ari, spreading across her cheeks before lifting the corners of her mouth. “That what they’re calling it up in the Core, nowadays?”

Ari bristled, straightening his shirt cuffs with small, sharp movements. “It is purely a business venture, I assure you.”

To call the expression on Sally’s face skeptical would have been to call the expanse of the deep dark “big.”

She snorted daintily, fingers flying across the seam of the waistcoat. “I’m sorry; I know it’s none of mine, but you’re just his type, is all.” She graced him with a restrained smirk. “And don’t try and tell me he ain’t yours. I gave you that ascot to mop up the drool.”

Ari wished he had a better response to that than an inarticulate squawk.

She picked up the waistcoat to nip the end of the thread off with her teeth, then carefully removed the remaining thread from the needle and wrapped it back around the card before dropping both into the box.

Holding the waistcoat out over the counter, she flapped it in Ari’s direction. “There now, oughta fit like a dream.”

Ari took it from her and shrugged into and buttoned it as quickly as he could without meeting her eyes, wholly unaccustomed to dressing in front of others.

By the time he finished, she was pushing back through the curtain, Ari’s clothing bundled in her arms.

Dropping the lot onto the counter, she whistled at Ari just as Orin had whistled at his ship. “What’d I say? Just like a dream.”

Ari blushed under her open observation.

She shook her head as she folded Ari’s shirt, then bundled it in brown paper and tied the package with rough twine.

“Orin was right, you are a shy little thing, aren’t you?”

Ari’s mouth hung open disconcertedly.

“I’m not. He didn’t. That was in reference to the ship, Miss Mudd.”

Sally peered up at him through sparse brown lashes as she boxed up his spats.

“Sure it was, hon. Now, how’d you like to pay—Ident or Chip?”