Mehanna had no clue who this man was, but he needed to go. It was bad enough that Lawaya had disappeared because of her. She couldn’t take a chance that she’d make him disappear too.
It hurt to know she had caused harm to Lawaya. The woman had found her in this cave and had decided to take her under her wing and train her. Why? She had no answer. She wasn’t Barou. She might have a little talent, but it caused more trouble than good. Lawaya didn’t see it as a problem. She felt every talent needed discipline and training. So what if their abilities weren’t the same? Training was training to her, and Lawaya had felt she could help her.
Boy, had she been wrong.
The problem was when she made a mistake like she had with Lawaya, there was no one to show her how to reverse it.
If only.
If Lawaya hadn’t asked her what would happen if she did try to create something out of thin air, maybe none of this would have happened. The wonderful lady had shown her how she could change her image to a full-length mirror and had challenged Mehanna to create a mirror like the one she’d turned into. When Mehanna had tried to create the mirror, she’d ended up trapping Lawaya inside it. Thank the gods the mirror hadn’t vanished, so when she went to the mirror she could see Lawaya, but she didn’t know how to bring her back. She also couldn’t talk to her. They couldn’t hear each other, and Lawaya had nothing to write on to allow them to communicate that way.
But this man couldn’t know that.
“What is your name, anyway?” He watched her.
“Mehanna.”
“And how did you and Lawaya end up here?”
“I’ve lived here all of my life.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Why was he watching her like that? “What’s with the questions, anyway?”
“Small talk?” He shrugged. “Did you want me to call you ‘hey you’ all the time?”
“You won’t be here long enough for that to be annoying.” She tried to sound dismissive. Maybe he’d leave if she was.
“So you want me to walk out of here now?” He pointed to the mouth of the cave. “While those men are camping out there?”
Mehanna bit her lip. She had forgotten about them. “Of course not.” She looked out to see if they had tents set up and a fire going already. “Hopefully, they won’t stay too long.”
“They look like they’re ready to stay for a cycle.” He looked around. “You stay here?”
“I have lived here all my life.”
“Really? Here in this cave? You have no food, no weapons, no furniture.”
Should she show him where she lived? She couldn’t leave him at the mouth of the cave. He looked far too smart to not figure out she lived in another section. She hesitated for a micron longer, then said, “Follow me.”
She checked a few times to be sure he followed as she weaved her way through several tunnels. When they arrived, Mehanna stopped and stepped to the side. “This is home.”
He whistled as he looked around. “This is nice.”
“Thank you, I think.” She brushed a stray hair out of her face.
“What sort of security do you have?”
That made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to tell you anything that you can use against me later. I have security. It works for me, and that is all that counts.”
“Okay, let me rephrase that. You’ve lived in this cave all your life. A cave that is in a section of space that doesn’t have access to the latest technology, yet you have a shield you shouldn’t.” He gestured to her wall of electronics. “And this looks far too advanced compared to anything else I’ve seen in this sector over the yepas.”
“So you’ve spent time in this sector?”
He hesitated for a moment. “Yes, when Varal was in charge. I had stolen one of his ships and abandoned his army. This sector was the only place I could hide in the beginning.”
“The beginning?”
“It’s a long, sad story that is better left untold.”
“As you pointed out earlier, those men are there for a while, so you can’t leave. Your story can’t be that long.”
“It really isn’t that interesting.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that.” She could tell he didn’t want to talk about his past, but she didn’t care. Mehanna sat in a chair and crossed her arms. She watched him as he hesitated and then stared at her as he decided what to do.
“My name is Grinnell. On Emori, I was the son of a farmer. My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but I found I had a knack with any equipment that moved. I repaired my father’s old farm equipment. I could keep it running when my dad needed it, and when he bought new ones, he gave me the old ones to do whatever I wanted. I took parts from each and created a speedster and a hovercraft, just to name a couple of things.
“Varal got wind and gave my father an offer he couldn’t refuse. If my father let him have me, he’d waive dad’s taxes. As much as my dad didn’t want to accept the man’s offer, he knew it would help my family. I did too.”
“You worked for that vile man?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had followed the newsfeeds on Varal. His reach was far and demanding.
“Yes. I hated it, but I wanted to keep my family safe. I made sure I worked hard enough to keep out of trouble and tried not to do so much that I came under scrutiny. Then I heard my family was killed by Varal’s men when he’d decided he needed my family’s farm and my father had refused. I couldn’t work for that man any longer. I took one of his fastest ships and ran. I came here for a while and just hid.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” She didn’t know what to say to him. She knew how evil Varal was and how many times he backstabbed someone to forward his plan. The pain Varal had caused Grinnell was very real, and a part of her wanted to wipe that pain away.
“My pain kept me alive. I found it was a good motivator. I started running contraband to planets. Planets that were out of Varal’s reach at first, but then I found out about the resistance, and I worked with them. I still ran the odd job. Anything that kept me moving.”
“That’s how you met Queen Astrid.”
He smiled. “You know who I am.”
“Yes.” She shouldn’t have shown her hand, but she had to know if he was the Grinnell she had heard about. She knew about Astrid and how she searched for her betrothed. How Grinnell and his partner Leabo had helped Astrid defeat Varal. “I followed the newsfeeds. They never showed an image of you, which caught my attention. There’s not a lot to do here so I did some searching and found one picture of you. You were in the background and not identified, but I knew it had to be you. It’s one of the reasons why I was surprised to see you here, looking for Lawaya. The man I had guessed to be Grinnell was standing in front of me. The newsfeeds said you were supposed to be out there exploring.”
“I was, but Orla called me back when Astrid became pregnant.”
“Why?” She couldn’t help her curiosity.
“Don’t know, he never really explained. The one good thing was I was handy when he asked me to come for Lawaya. Astrid needs her.”
“Astrid?” She looked at the ground again. “Oh, dear.”
“You going to explain what’s going on now?”
So he had figured out she was lying to him.
“I’m not lying when I say I don’t know where Lawaya is. She found me in this cave and decided to train me.” She paused for a moment. “I don’t know who my parents are. I’ve been on my own for as long as I can remember. I’ve been in this cave for as long as I can remember. I can’t remember how I got here or how I knew there was a small village nearby where I could get food and items I might need.”
“You had something to barter with?” He looked at the electronics again.
“Not in the beginning.” She felt her cheeks heat up. “I went through their trash. You’d be amazed what people will throw away. As time went on, I created little gadgets that I could use to barter with to get better items.”
“Are you telling me you created this security grid from spare parts you got from other people’s trash and items you bought?” He looked at her creation. Just as she was ready to defend herself, he continued. “This is amazing. I know experts who can’t pull this off.”
That surprised her. “Thank you.”
“I wonder what you could do with state-of-the-art equipment.” He gestured to her security grid. “May I?”
She nodded.
“So you knew when I landed.” He moved the camera around. “And you knew they were coming because they saw my ship land. That explains why you were so angry with me earlier, but I didn’t know. My computer didn’t show them as hostiles.”
“Anyone this far away from any city is always hostile.”
“I’m a little confused. If you traded with them, they have to know where you live.” Grinnell looked at her. “Why are you hiding?”
“I never told them where I lived and tried to make it look like I was from another village. I knew if they knew I was here by myself they’d think they could take what they wanted, and I’d have nothing to barter.” She placed her hands on her lap. “That’s why I created this security system.”
“Then I need to apologize. I never saw them as a threat. They were herding animals, so I took them as farmers. The computer agreed.”
“Yet they don’t have any animals now, do they?” She didn’t mean to whine at him, but she couldn’t keep it out of her voice.
“No.” He turned the camera on the men outside. They had a nice fire going and looked very comfortable. “But they do seem to have plenty of food.”
“I’ve seen them sit out there for duras.” She stood and moved closer to Grinnell so she could see the men better.
“What are they after?” He looked at her.
“No idea. They started showing up here a couple of lunas ago, but I always stayed hidden in here, and after a few duras they normally just go away. From snippets I’ve recorded of the last few visits, they wanted Lawaya for some sort of mission. They needed something from her. I just never figured out what.”
“Then they don’t know a lot about the Barou race.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’ve seen Astrid’s ability, and she could stand right in front of us and we wouldn’t know it.” He looked at her. “Where is Lawaya?”
“Um, I don’t know. Like I told you, I don’t know who my family is. I don’t know if I’m from this planet or some other one. All I know is that I have a knack with computer parts, and I can create things.” She held out her palm and rolled her wrist so that her hand did a circle. When she held her palm out again, there was a sweet fruit in her hand. “Now, before you ask me, I don’t know. I just have always known that I could do that. It helped at first because if I was ever hungry, I could create this fruit to eat.”
“Then you have magic.”
She shrugged. “One dura a woman came to my cave. She was running from those men and hid against the cave wall. When those men camped outside, like they’re doing now, she tried to come in but found my forcefield as you did. I knew she couldn’t hold that form forever, so I pulled the forcefield deeper into the cave so she could slip in the mouth of it and hide in the shadows.”
“Okay, so that explains how she and you became friends.”
“She found out about my little talent and took it upon herself to teach me. When I tried to explain that I wasn’t a Barou, she said a talent was a talent, and the best way to grow it was with discipline and training. That she was sure she could teach me.”
He nodded and waited for her to continue.
She paced for a moment or two before walking to a corner that had a cloth-draped mirror. “Lawaya wanted me to create something from nothing and kept pushing until I caved. She created the illusion of a mirror and wanted me to make the same thing.”
“It didn’t go well, did it?” He moved closer to the corner she had moved to.
“No. I mean I did create the mirror but…” She pulled the cover off to reveal her creation.
Grinnell stared at the woman in the mirror. “Oh, my gods, is that Lawaya?”
“I didn’t mean to do it.” She waited for him to get mad.
“And you can’t reverse what you did?”
She shook her head, too afraid any words would lead to tears.
He came up to the mirror. “What about breaking the mirror to release her?”
“And risk being wrong? I can’t do that to her.”
“What have you tried?”
“I tried reversing it, tried recreating it.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“How about approaching this scientifically?” Grinnell moved around the front of the mirror. He studied her creation.
“It wasn’t created by science.” How could he fix this when she had tried and couldn’t?
“True, but science might reveal how to reverse this. At least let me try.”
Grinnell felt better now that he had something to do. Mehanna had these eyes that made him feel things he never thought he’d feel again. He tried to convince himself that he was only feeling sorry for her. He couldn’t imagine how he would have handled it if he had been abandoned at such a young age.
He found Mehanna quite pretty. Her hair was jet black and her eyes a crystal blue. Her skin had a slight blue hue to it as well. She was a little bit shorter than he was and thin. But being attracted to her wasn’t why he was here. He needed to find a way to free Lawaya out of her prison so he could bring her to Astrid.
He knew the first thing he needed to do was measure the mirror and find out if there was any sort of frequency coming off of it. If there was, maybe he could use that to free her. The measurements were easy.
“Can I borrow some of your equipment to make what I need?” he asked Mehanna.
She nodded.
It took him a few horas to gather everything he needed. Once he had it done, he pressed his little contraption against the side of the mirror. He tapped the side of it and two small wires extended out and rested their tips against the surface of the mirror.
Grinnell watched the readings as they loaded to the band on his wrist.
“What is that?” Mehanna pointed to his wristband.
“A communicator mostly, but it also keeps me in touch with the ship’s computer, so it can analyze any data I upload and give me the results.”
“And what is it telling you?”
“That this mirror is real. Pure gold, even the reflective surface.” He tapped on the device attached to the mirror again. “Whatever your race is, they create pure items.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are a few races that can fabricate something the way you did, but it doesn’t normally last. The quality isn’t that good. Sometimes, with a lot of practice, they can perfect it to a point, but not like this. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He watched the readings a little longer. “Hmm, I wonder.”
“You wonder what?”
He ignored her as he tapped a few more times. “Lawaya, can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes.” She placed her hands on the sides of the mirror. “Please get me out of this.”
“Lawaya, I’m so sorry.” Mehanna was amazed he was able to allow them to talk to her so quickly. Maybe he could free Lawaya from the mirror.
“Child, this isn’t your fault. I should have taken the right precautions in case something like this happened, and I didn’t.”
“What do you see?”
“Here? Nothing. Not until you opened the portal. How much time has passed?”
Grinnell looked at Mehanna. He had wondered the same thing.
“Um, almost two lunas.” She was looking at the floor again.
“What?” Lawaya’s eyes widened. “Oh no, the council must be beside themselves.”
“If we hadn’t contacted the council, no one would have known,” commented Grinnell. “They had kept your absence to themselves.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Grinnell.” He gave her a proper bow. “I work for Queen Astrid.”
“Ah, I’ve heard she is very powerful.”
“I’ve only known two Barou, so I’m not a good judge of that. I do know the two I know saved our lives a few times while we were battling Varal.” He looked at Mehanna for a moment then turned his attention to the woman trapped in the mirror. “You are the reason I am here. I know this isn’t the right time, but time is of the essence. You know Queen Astrid is pregnant, and there is something odd going on with her pregnancy. Grenta thinks it might have something to do with Astrid’s Barou power and said you would know what to do.”
“Me? Why?”
“The child seems to be draining her powers. I’ve been told that you would know how to help her.”
“Then you were sent to release me.”
“No one knows you’re trapped in there, and the only one who can release you doesn’t know how.” He pointedly looked at the woman standing near him.
Mehanna continued looking at the floor of the cave.
Grinnell looked out the mouth of the cave. The men were still camped right out front. He needed those men to leave but wasn’t sure how to get them to move. His ship didn’t have transport capabilities, which meant he’d be trapped until they did.
“We have a small problem.”
“Besides Lawaya being caught in the mirror?” Mehanna tapped her chin as she thought. “No wait, that is a huge problem, so you can’t be talking about that.”
Her sarcasm made him crack a smile. “You know I can’t leave until they do.”
“I warned you about that.”
“Okay.” He frowned. “Um, I don’t want to be crass, but how much food do you have? Enough to feed us both for a while?”
She flipped her wrist and offered him the fruit she could create.
“What about facilities?”
She tilted her head at that.
“Where do you go to relieve yourself?”
“Oh.” A beautiful, soft blush filled her cheeks. “There is a small alcove for that.”
“And where shall I sleep? I’m going to need a place.”
“Come with me.” She stood up and gestured for him to follow her. She walked down a short corridor and pointed to a small indention into the cave wall. “There is a spring that runs through this cave and that alcove exposes part of it. It should work for you. It works for me.”
She walked a little further. “This is where I sleep.”
He looked around at the spacious cave. A soft moss grew on little ledges throughout it where they could sleep. He noticed two areas were already in use. One must be hers, while the other belonged to Lawaya. It didn’t take him long to find a spot for himself.
Grinnell tapped his wristband. “Did you learn anything new?” he asked the ship computer.
“They know you’re here,” it said.
“Did they detect you?”
“No, but once you stepped on the soil here, they knew there was an alien. I’m still researching how. They don’t have the technology to detect you.”
“Is that why they’re sitting outside this cave?” He turned away from Mehanna. “Waiting to see what I do?”
“From the dialogue I’ve been picking up, they are after one of the two women with you.”
“Lawaya, at least that’s what my hostess believes.” He glanced over at her for a moment. “Keep monitoring them and let me know if you pick up anything. If they plan on attacking, I need to prepare. As soon as they leave, we need to get out of here.”
“I can’t leave,” said Mehanna.
“You can’t stay here. They will keep coming back until they get what they want.”
“And where am I to go?” She crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one hip.
“Anywhere you want.” He wanted to smile. Her anger was real, but she had no clue how cute she looked trying to show it. “First, though, we need to find someone to reverse your spell.”
“I’ve been trying!” She stomped her foot and clinched her hands at her sides.
He knew he’d hit a nerve. Maybe he should change tactics. “Don’t you want to know where you come from? Who your parents are?”
“Why?” She crossed her arms again and glared at him. “They left me here all alone.”
“That’s not exactly true,” said the computer.
“What do you mean?” they asked in unison.
“I’m picking up another DNA sequence like Mehanna’s in that small town nearby.”
“Someone from her race?” asked Grinnell.
“Someone from her family.” The computer was quiet for a moment. “It is a sister. A twin, based on her age.”
This woman had a sister on the same planet? What kind of game was she playing then?
“No.” Mehanna shook her head as she backed away from him. “I have no family here. I’ve been by myself for as long as I can remember.”
“Then it might not be Lawaya they are after.” He tapped on his wrist pad for a secur. The computer showed her heart rate had increased, but her blood pressure, temperature, eye dilation, they all showed she wasn’t lying. She sure was acting like she didn’t know about the sister. Could that be true? “What have you learned about the town?” he asked the computer. “Is she a prisoner or a member of their society?”
“She is isolated, but not a prisoner. I’ll monitor to see why she is separated from the rest of the people.”
“I can’t have a relative on this planet.” Mehanna didn’t look at him while she spoke. It was like she was talking to herself. “No one has ever come to look for me. Those people didn’t even show up until Lawaya came into my life.”
“And you started doing magic?” he asked.
“I’ve been doing magic the whole time. Remember the fruit?”
“That was something simple. You started practicing your art when Lawaya made you. Maybe something you did caught their attention.”
“I don’t know how. We were always in this cave.” She gestured around.
“You do go and trade from time to time. Maybe they noticed you then but didn’t know where you were until Lawaya came.”
“Do you have a picture of this woman?” she asked, changing the subject.
An image popped up from the wristband that Grinnell wore.
Mehanna stared at the image like she saw a ghost. “My stars, she looks just like me.”
“She has to be your twin. Computer, you did say they were the same age, right?”
“Yes. From my initial scans, I would say she is a twin but cannot verify that until I get a sample of her DNA.”
“Okay, so I know the first thing we need to do once those men move,” said Grinnell.
“And what is that?” Mehanna continued to look at the image of her sister.
“Get you and your sister to meet each other.”
Grinnell asked to explore her cave, and she was happy to get him away from her for a micron. She needed to think. A sister? Her twin? How?
She had gone from being alone and invisible to having strangers showing up uninvited. What was she going to do?
Grinnell wanted her to leave the comfort of the life she built and go searching for people who didn’t care enough to keep her. Not what she wanted. He also wanted her to go meet a sister she hadn’t known she had.
There was something about the man, though. He had eyes that seemed to see into her soul. They were a beautiful slate color. He was much taller than the men on this planet. They were short and stocky, but Grinnell would tower over them. She had to look up to make eye contact with him. His body made her heart flutter. His shoulders were broad, but his waist was lean.
Mehanna sighed. Where was he, anyway? The cave wasn’t that big, and he was intelligent enough to work his way through the place pretty quickly unless he’d found something that sparked his interest. That got her moving. He had better not be messing with her security system. It took her a long time to get everything to work, and one wrong move would shut the whole thing down and leave them defenseless.
She headed toward her grid, but a sound to her right made her stop. Someone was in her bathing area. What she found made her jaw drop. Grinnell stood under the small waterfall, naked and leaving nothing to her imagination. He looked like a god standing there with the water sluicing over his body.
He took good care of himself. The muscles of his back flexed as he rinsed his hair. He had found her soaps as well.
She moved away from the opening and pressed her back against the cave wall as she tried to slow her racing heart. Although she had never been with a man, she knew what happened. She had learned from newsfeeds and watching the local population. Mehanna wondered what it would be like to be with Grinnell. Then, just as quickly as the thought entered her mind, she squashed it.
What she wanted was him gone so she could work on freeing Lawaya. She’d created the mess and wanted to be the one to fix it.
Grinnell felt better after bathing. It always helped him find focus and help calm him. He had a goal, and he would achieve it. He had never failed Orla before, and some slip of a woman and her wayward abilities wasn’t going to make this the first time he did. He knew several races that had the mage ability, but the slight blue tint of Mehanna’s skin narrowed down the races to one he had heard of but very few people had ever seen them. Rumors said they hailed from a section of space not too far from where they were currently, but they weren’t known for wanting to be found, so it wasn’t going to be easy to find them. That rumor could be something they started so people wouldn’t be able to find them.
He wondered about the sister. Both girls were left on this planet for a reason. Had their family put them both in the cave and one wandered off, or had they been with the townspeople and Mehanna the one that wandered off? Or had they placed each girl in their locations for reason? The big question was why. Why leave your twin daughters with people who didn’t understand their abilities?
He tapped his wristband. “What have you learned about Mehanna’s twin?”
“She is coddled and pampered by these people. She has magic as well, and they are afraid of her power. They do whatever she wants in return for her not using that power.”
“Then she knows how to control it.” Maybe she could free Lawaya.
“Not from what I’ve heard. They don’t want her to use her powers because they are afraid of what might happen. She has had several problems in the past when her powers got out of control.”
“Is she aware of her sister?”
“Yes. The communiques show she is the one who got these men to come out here. There must have been a magical pulse she picked up when her sister started using her magic with Lawaya.”
“Then Mehanna’s twin thinks she knows how to control her power and is hoping her sister will help her learn to control it.”
“Yes. There is nothing to support her theory, but she believes if they are reunited, they will be able to help each other.”
“Does the sister know how they got here?”
“Unknown.”
“She hasn’t said anything about their parents?” asked Grinnell.
“No. She hasn’t spoken.”
“At all?”
“Nothing since I started monitoring. She’s been using tablets and hand gestures to talk.”
“Interesting.” Grinnell wanted to know why the sister wasn’t talking. “And our guests?”
“Still out there. They have received communiques but nothing that has called them back to their home. Most of the missives were asking for updates.”
“Which they don’t have.” He needed to talk to Mehanna. “I wonder how long they normally stay out there.”
“According to the data on Mehanna’s system, they are normally out there for a cycle or more.”
“What makes them give up?”
“The weather. This area is well known for its torrential downpours and strong winds. It’s not safe to be out when this type of weather hits.”
“Just how bad is it?”
“The rain falls so hard that flash floods are common,” said the ship’s computer. “That’s why most of these towns are built on hills. The rain falls so hard, it can crush anyone caught out when the rain starts.”
“They don’t have the technology to keep people safe?”
“That is where most of their advanced technology is. Their homes might not look like much, but they are built of the strongest material created.”
“How did they survive if this happens a lot?” asked Grinnell.
“Like most storms, it doesn’t cover more than a few clicks. It might attack two or three villages close together, but one a half a duras travel would be spared. They learned quickly, signaling all towns and villages when a storm was spotted. They realized it was safer on higher ground, which trees weren’t destroyed by the storms, what sort of material withstood heavy downpours. It didn’t take them long to adapt.”
“They still look like nomads.”
“That is part of their heritage. They have always traveled the planet. First to escape from the storms, then as technology took over they traveled to learn, trade, build their empires.”
“Do you see a storm on the horizon?”
“No. but the conditions are perfect for one to develop.”
Duro fell and still no storm. Grinnell wasn’t sure if spending the duro in the cave with Mehanna was a good idea. He found her attractive. A little too attractive to sleep in the same room and not have a rough duro.
“I can keep watch toduro.” He needed something to distract himself.
“There is no need.” Mehanna gathered some items together. “They can’t get past my security grid.”
That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He needed a distraction. What else could he do?
“I need to bathe,” Mehanna stated.
“Is that a warning to stay away from the bathing chamber?”
“Um, yes.” She blinked at his comment. “I know you used it earlier and want to be sure you won’t walk in on me.”
Now that had his imagination going in the wrong direction. “No. I’ll go rest, since I don’t need to watch our visitors.” He knew she didn’t like him encroaching on her space, but he couldn’t help it right now. There was only one way out of the cave, and those men were blocking it.
He gave her a slight nod and headed to the sleeping area. He picked a ledge that looked nice and soft and didn’t show any use. Now what? Grinnell knew he couldn’t disrobe. That might cause more trouble than he wanted. Stretching out, he laced his fingers behind his head and closed his eyes.
She came into the area quietly. He could smell the soft scent of the soaps she used as she entered. Grinnell kept his eyes closed as she approached her sleeping spot. He felt her hesitate, then he heard her voice.
“Are you going to be comfortable in your uniform?”
He opened his eyes at that. Sitting up, he felt his heartbeat pick up when he saw what she had on to sleep in. “I find this outfit very comfortable.”
“Yes, but you’ve been wearing that the whole time you’ve been here. I can replicate something for you to wear while you sleep.”
“You don’t need to.” What he wanted her to do was jump into her bed and cover up. The top she wore covered her body but hugged her so well it left nothing to the imagination. The bottoms were like small shorts, again skintight and making him want to see her without anything on.
“That outfit won’t do well on the moss that covers these rocks. I’ll be right back.” She took off before he could stop her. In a micron or two, she was back with a bundle for him. “Um, I made a pillow and a blanket for you as well. The moss can wreak havoc with your hair and the air can get quite cool as it gets later.”
“Many thanks.” Grinnell took the small bundle from her.
“Okay, well, I’ll see you in the dura.” She turned and climbed into her bed.
Grinnell slipped into the outfit she made for him and folded his suit up and sat it on a nearby sill. He then climbed back up on his ledge and made himself comfortable. Sleep wouldn’t be easy, but at least he had a pillow and blanket now.