A big hand with too many fingers reached for her, splaying between her breasts. Was it holding her up…or down?
And which did she want it to be?
Her heart pounded under the hand, and she twisted restlessly.
“Mom? Mommy.”
The urgent little voice jolted her out of sleep, banishing the nightmare.
Or was it a fantasy?
Gone now, for sure. “Ollie? What’s wrong?” She pushed up onto her elbow, starting to rise from the nest-like cushions that was apparently an orc mattress, but he was already at her side, having let himself into her room from his own separate bedroom across the hallway of their apartment-style quarters.
“I had a dream.”
“Oh, owlet. C’mere.” She twitched back the covers, and he hopped in beside her. “Was it a bad dream?”
Snuggling into her shoulder, he nodded. But then he paused. “Or no. Maybe? I don’t know. I heard something. But I don’t know what it was, so maybe it wasn’t bad.”
She kissed the top of his head. “Too many dewdrops maybe?”
“You ate the last one,” he reminded her. “With Teq.”
“That’s true,” she murmured.
Maybe that explained the big alien hand in her dream.
Refusing to continue down that path, she mused, “Should we get a nightlight?”
“Just like home?”
“Just like.”
Once upon a time when our people would meet their life-mate, the i’lva would ignite within them, like a light that would always guide them home through the darkness.
How much of fear was simply not knowing?
Ollie fell asleep again almost immediately, his quick breaths gusting right in her face and his little body supernova hot despite the alleged climate control. After he rabbit-kicked her a few times, she decided no way was she getting back to sleep.
Carefully, she disentangled herself from his sprawled limbs—how had one little boy managed to take over the orc-sized cushions?—and eased out of the bed. At the door, she glanced back again, feeling the thread of her love stretching between them. Even when she silently closed the door (Ollie had been a little disappointed that it was only a sliding accordion door operated by hand, not something “cooler” considering they were on a spaceship) that thread remained, anchored in her heart. She guessed it would stretch across the universe if it had to.
The main open space of their new home was basically a living room and kitchen combo, both much smaller than she’d lived with before and also much bigger than she would’ve expected on what was essentially a submarine in space. But honestly, it was bigger than she’d been able to afford on her own after leaving Robert; one of the points his family had used to try to shame her into letting them take Oliver.
As if.
Instead of being squared off, the corners in the rooms were rounded, and the walls lightly textured. The finishes were more comfortable for the orcs’ echolocation, Teq had told them. And Ollie had asked if he could get the extra sense when his eyes and ears stopped growing and he was able to also get the minor surgery to correct his nearsightedness. She wondered if tusks would ease or exacerbate her TMJ issues.
She checked the “clock” by the front door. Almost “morning” of her first “day” in her new home, so certainly that justified breaking into her emergency coffee stash, one of the few items she’d brought from Earth for herself. Since day and night didn’t mean much when there was no fixed star, Teq had explained the orcs kept a three-period circadian cycle of work, rest, and something he called uroondu which the communication implant in her head refused to translate but sounded like a combination of siesta, recess, and tea time.
“Surviving in outer space isn’t always easy,” he’d said. “So Amma revived the ancient orc ritual of uroondu to relax and revive the crews between jobs.”
“Do you play games?” Ollie had asked.
The big crusher hesitated. “Some do. What games do you play?”
“I like ghost in the graveyard. I’ll teach you, if you teach me an orc game.”
Teq had glanced at her so quickly she almost missed it. “We have much to teach each other.”
Which wasn’t an answer, she’d noted. The IDA had specifically noted that the orcs welcomed single mothers, and that they “hoped for more offspring” eventually. But at the thought of Oliver playing ghost in the graveyard by himself—no one to search for, no one to find him—worry had spread in her again like an aching bruise. As an only child herself, she knew how hard it could be to always be alone. Had she been wrong to escape with Oliver when this might be worse?
And why had she told Teq about her sad past? She’d come here for a fresh start and a better future, and the reasons why didn’t matter.
She’d already checked out the small kitchen last night while Ollie brushed his teeth, so prepping a bit of breakfast was easy enough. During the welcome party, Mag told them most of the orcs chose to eat communal meals in the galley.
“It can get lonely out in space,” he’d said.
Amma had spread all four arms (and wasn’t that going to take some getting used to?) in a gesture that encompassed orcs and Earthers alike. “And that’s exactly why we’re all here now, isn’t it?”
With a grunt of dissatisfaction at her endlessly circling thoughts, Adeline grabbed the datpad they’d all been given at the start of their journey. She sent a message to June’s device inviting her for coffee, being careful to tag the delivery as non-urgent so as to not bother the other woman if she was still sleeping—or if she was sleeping with someone else.
That’s exactly why we’re all here now, isn’t it?
Maybe the only thought more disconcerting than being lonely was being in someone else’s arms.
Someone else’s four arms…
The datpad chimed softly. <coffeeeee be right there>
Adeline smiled. In some ways, June seemed too young and unworldly to be an alien mail order bride. How could she have already decided Earth wasn’t for her? She’d even admitted that the Greyhound from her town to the Big Sky IDA outpost had been her longest, most interesting trip ever. But then sometimes Adeline would catch a glimpse of something else in the other woman’s eyes, and she would remind herself no one could know what was in anyone else’s heart.
She’d made that mistake already and never again.
When the door pinged, she went to let June in. “Good mor…ning,” she finished with slightly less enthusiasm when she saw Kinsley too; she’d just never really clicked with the other woman. “Come on in. Coffee’s ready, and so is what I’m calling the orc version of a breakfast burrito?”
Echoing her greeting, the two women followed her to the living room.
“Where’s Ollie?” June asked.
“Still sleeping. In my bed.” Adeline shook her head. “He said he had a nightmare.”
“Poor kiddo,” Kinsley said. “Probably just on edge from all the excitement.”
Heading for the counter where she’d left the coffee, Adeline forced herself not to bristle as she pulled out a third mug. She knew Kinsley wasn’t questioning her parenting, just stating an obvious fact. On the IDA transport, they’d all discussed—sometimes overtly, sometimes less so—their hopes and trepidations. Kinsley hadn’t shared any fewer details about her old life than Adeline herself had.
Everyone was entitled to personal issues they might not want aired out, not even in space.
“You said you had a nightmare too, Kinsley,” June said with her usual ingenuous sympathy as Adeline distributed the coffee. “That’s why I found you wandering around on my way here.”
Kinsley grimaced and touched her head behind her ear. “Yeah. The translator Sil gave me is only temporary until he can get something better at the Luster. Last night—or whatever we’re calling the hours they turn down the slug lights and everything goes creepy quiet and dark—I was getting some weird…echoes, I guess. Like whispers.” Clearing her throat, she dropped her hand. “It’s nothing.”
June patted her shoulder before taking a deep slurp. “Oh so good,” she moaned. “What happens when we run out?”
“We drink foczest, which is apparently the cheap, legal stimulant of choice in civilized galaxies,” Kinsley said. When they looked at her, she shrugged. “Gotta always be looking ahead.”
Adeline took a sip of her coffee. “I guess that’s why we’re here.”
By the time she’d served up the burrito and the three of them concurred it wasn’t half bad, Ollie wandered out of the bedroom. At some point after she’d gotten up, he’d stripped out of his pajama top, and only the lightweight flannel bottoms drooped around his scrawny, little-boy butt.
Yeah, she already knew he was going to be asking for an orc kilt.
“Morning,” he grunted as he hugged her then spun on his bare heel and trudged back to the bathroom.
Kinsley chuckled. “I think I dated him once.”
“It’s hard when you can’t have coffee yet,” June said repressively.
Reluctantly amused herself, Adeline prepped a fourth breakfast. When Ollie returned—hands and face still a little damp from washing, she was proud and relieved to note—he looked perkier though still shirtless. “Teq wants to learn how to play ghost in the graveyard,” he announced to the other women. “We need more people. Do you want to play with us?”
“Ah, that wasn’t exactly what Teq said,” Adeline cautioned.
But June was already nodding. “I’ll play. But I warn you, I used to be really good at hiding and catching people when I was the ghost.”
Ollie beamed at her. “Cool. I’m really good at screaming.”
Kinsley shuddered. “I’d rather not do ghosts right now, thanks anyway.”
Unreasonably piqued that the other woman wasn’t entranced with her son but also a little worried for her, Adeline frowned. “Are the whispers that bad? Maybe you should go back to Sil and have him remove the translator until we get to Luster Station.”
Kinsley shook her head. “I don’t want to be lost out here, not knowing what everyone is talking about.”
“Sometimes I don’t know what people are talking about either,” Ollie supplied helpfully. “So I just ask them.”
Kinsley gazed at him, then sidelonged a glance at Adeline. “Must be nice that people in your life are so nice.”
Again Adeline had to squelch her exasperation with the other woman. “I’ve always wanted Ollie to know that the world can be a kind place when we are kind.”
A faint smirk quirked Kinsley’s lips. Which Adeline noticed were slicked with a deep red lipstick first thing in the morning, so as much as the woman said she wanted to know what other people were saying, it seemed like she wanted those people paying more attention to her mouth. “Is that why you left Earth? Because it was such a kind world?”
June was watching them both with an air of anxiousness. “We all wanted something new? Didn’t we?”
After a heartbeat of silence, Kinsley nodded. “Something borrowed, something bold, something new, and something…” Abruptly, her sharp gaze wandered away from them. “Something…”
“Cold,” Ollie whispered. “So cold. So dark. I don’t want to sleep anymore. I want…”
He slumped to the floor in a heap of star-studded flannel.
***
“That must’ve been very scary for you,” Sil told Ollie as Adeline forced herself not to pace around the small but horrifyingly well-stocked infirmary. She’d already accidentally glanced around at the various drawers and—thanks to the translator implanted in her head—had read asphyxiation, severed limb, toxic dust inhalation, crush injury…
She forced herself to look away at that last one. Teq called himself a crusher. Had he ever been in this room with that drawer open, hurt and scared?
Ollie, looking very small on the orc-sized exam table, shook his head. “I wasn’t scared,” he objected. “It’s just that I went to sleep for a second even though I wasn’t sleepy.”
Adeline bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. Her baby had passed out, not from a tiredness or excitement or anything else; he’d fallen unconscious for some other reason.
Sil glanced at Kinsley who was perched on the very edge of one of the other five exam tables—six total! Which left Adeline fretting at just how dangerous space mining and salvage actually was. “I wasn’t sleepy either. In fact, I’d been up awhile and just drank some coffee. But I did get dizzy.” She shrugged, scooting ever closer to standing. “I feel fine now.”
Sil eyed her. “According to the IDA handbook, the gesture you make with your shoulders”—he imitated a shrug—“could mean many things, from uncertainty to dismissal to prevarication. Which one do you mean to convey?”
Kinsley gave him a hard look, then looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. “I don’t know what to tell you. I was thinking about that wedding saying, and then those other words just…”
When she trailed off, Adeline prompted. “What you were saying, and what Ollie said, about it being cold and dark and you not wanting to sleep anymore. What was that?”
Without looking at them, Kinsley touched the temporary translator behind her ear. “I told you I was hearing weird echoes.”
Adeline clenched her jaw again, wincing at the pain that reverberated up into her own skull. “I have a universal translator, and I didn’t hear anything.” She glanced at June. “You?”
June shook her head, brow furrowed in concern. “Nothing,” she said apologetically. “No echoes, no whispers, no nightmares.”
Kinsley squared off to Sil, all but bristling, and at the moment Adeline appreciated the other woman’s blunt prodding. “So where is the voice coming from?”
The orc lifted all four of his shoulders in an obvious attempt at conveying…something. “When we signed the IDA contract, the Big Sky outpost sent over an extensive medical template for Earthers, adults and children, as well as records for all of you individually. I have some experience with overseeing med services onboard as part of my duties, and according to what I can tell, just as the IDA promised, most of your biological systems are similar to ours. And the scanners say everything is fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Adeline objected between gritted teeth. “This didn’t happen before we got here.”
Sil tried another shrug which was smoother but no less infuriating. “Keep a datpad with you and activated,” he told Kinsley, and Ollie perked up at the thought of having extra screen time. “It can note any anomalies that it perceives, and you can update it with your own experiences as needed. Unless you would rather be fitted with an automated tracker?”
Kinsley shook her head hard. “I’ll tell you if it happens again.”
“And I won’t let Ollie out of my sight,” Adeline said.
“Mom,” Ollie objected. “Kinsley and me are fine. Also, I can’t ever be the ghost if you always know where I am.”
She swept him off the exam table, hugging him close. “You are more than fine, you’re the best,” she told him. “And I’ll always want to know where you are.”
“Mom,” he protested again, even as he snuggled into her.
Sil met her worried gaze. “Even a good change can be disruptive,” he murmured. “I’ll keep looking for an answer, but give yourselves some time. That’s what our date to the Luster is meant to be: a chance for us to have fun and get to know each other.”
Kinsley let out a snort that probably should have earned her a remedy from the respiratory distress drawer.
“So can I play with the datpad now or…” Ollie peered up at Adeline with imploring eyes.
With a defeated sigh, she handed over the device.
“We can get you another one,” Sil told her. “So you don’t have to share.”
“Sharing is important,” Ollie said, even as he clutched the datpad to his chest.
Adeline shook her head. “We’ll be fine with this,” she told the orc. “We don’t need to be glued to a screen 24/7 or however long time is out here, not when we have the whole universe ahead of us.”
He nodded back. When Kinsley quickly hopped off the exam table to follow them, Sil cleared his throat—and coming from an orc it was a rather intimidating sound. “Kinsley, do you mind staying for another moment? I want to run one more test on your temporary translator, see if we can get rid of those echoes.”
Kinsley slanted a glance at Adeline and then back at the orc. “Sure,” she drawled slowly, although she sounded anything but sure.
June’s attention bounced between them as well before she followed Adeline and Ollie out of the infirmary. Although she didn’t go far. “Maybe I’ll wait for Kinsley,” she said in a fretful voice. “She seems lonely and sad sometimes.”
Ollie nodded. “Probably because she hears those whispers too, and it says it’s sad and lonely.”
It was everything Adeline could do not to clench him tighter. “Let’s not dwell on whispers, okay? If they talk to you again, we can…” They could what? Was sticking her head in the sand—or out the airlock or whatever—going to fix the problem this time? It hadn’t before. “Let me know if Kinsley or Sil has anything else to say,” Adeline said to June. “Ollie and I are going back to our apartment so he can play on the datpad for a while.”
They went their separate ways, and even in what she knew was the relatively small confines of the ship with many souls aboard, Adeline too felt as lonely as she ever had.
Ollie was more than happy to play on the little computer while she set about exploring the rest of their apartment. It had more storage than it had looked like at first, and various supplies already laid in, which she appreciated. As clever as the universal translators were—when they weren’t generating ghosts out of the ether—she suspected some of the context just didn’t translate, and she was eyeing the labels on the food packaging uncertainly when the door chimed.
“Who is it?” she said just loud enough for the door to hear.
“Crusher Teq requests entry,” the door informed her.
For a moment, she wanted to refuse. Their kiss had been…surprising, and this morning had already had enough uncomfortable surprises that she wasn’t sure she wanted to add anymore. But she couldn’t exactly claim to not be at home; like, where else would she be?
Stifling a sigh—and squelching the little kick of her pulse—she called, “Let him in.”
The door folded aside to reveal the big orc. Even though the ship was sized for his people, his wide shoulders filled the frame. As if he sensed her ambiguity—or maybe felt some of it himself, despite his claim to not have feelings?—he stayed where he was, sort of lounging, his upper shoulder braced against jam and all four arms crossed over his chest.
“I heard you had some trouble,” he rumbled.
Yes, that kiss had bothered her far long than it should have, disrupting her dreams… Heat swept through her. “You mean Ollie.”
When he straightened abruptly, his tensed antennae brushed the top of the door frame. “Is there other trouble?”
“No, no,” she hastened to reassure him, then hesitated. “Other than these food labels. Dare I ask, what are”—she squinted at the package, just in case that would make the universal translator burp up some other explanation—“Nebular Niblettes?”
“They make a lot of nutritionally balanced meals optimized for various carbon-based species like ours, color coded so you can get the right mix.” Pushing away from the door, he sauntered toward her. Passing Oliver in the living room, he greeted the boy who grunted vaguely in reply, more entranced with the alien tech in his hands than with the alien Teq right in front of him.
She’d had the alien Teq in her hands…
Had she really kissed an alien on the first date? She accidentally licked her lower lip, tender where she’d bitten it earlier. They hadn’t even had a date, for heaven’s sake. Not even a one-night stand, more like a one-particular-moment-in-the-infinity-of-space happen-to-be-standing-next-to-you-so-let’s-kiss half swoon.
Ridiculous.
She realized she’d been quiet way too long, gazing up at him where he’d stopped barely an arm’s length from her.
Of course, his arms were long so he wasn’t that close. Why was her heart beating so hard? His antennae were vibrating, just a little, she wouldn’t have noticed if she wasn’t looking at him so closely—whyyy was she looking at him so closely?—and oh god, did that mean he could hear her heart pounding?
She gulped, realizing that even more time had passed in her dithering silence.
“Would you like to have some with us?”
Oh no, what had just come out of her mouth? Worse than a first-date dinner or one-night-stand breakfast, so much worse than a single get-to-know-you drink; she’d just basically asked him to stay for lunch. Only husbands and daddies stayed for lunch!
Teq was just watching her, those antennae quivering. “Wouldn’t that be more trouble?”
Was he…teasing her? She took a slow breath. She was freaking out for no reason. The IDA had set them up but with very clear boundaries. People had stomped her boundaries for so long, she’d just forgotten she could have them.
“Ollie is going to be hungry as soon as I tell him to put down the datpad, so if you stay, you can hear about what happened this morning.” She tried for a smile. “Although you may be finagled into a video game or something.”
For a moment, she thought the big orc might make a run for the door. The way he shifted his weight would’ve made her laugh if she wasn’t so nervous herself.
“Adeline,” he said. “I should not have…spoken of the i’lva when I know I am not…not able to give you what you’ve come for.” When she didn’t reply right away, he added in a rougher tone, “I cannot kiss you again.”
How. Utterly. Embarrassing. She kept her smile in place, like her face had gone as stiff as orc scales. “It’s just lunch. We’ll use our mouths for…nibbling.” Oh great, now she was thinking about eating out, how that wide mouth would fit around her long-ignored lady parts, those tusks forcing her thighs wider… “And chatting,” she added hastily, her face absolutely burning. He must think she was losing it. She cleared her throat. “Maybe I just need some more time to come to grips”—long, strong fingers holding her aloft while they kissed—“with the realities of dating and”—don’t say mating again or you will probably jump him—“whatnot, so if you aren’t looking for more, maybe that’s a good place for me right now”—in your bed maybe? Oh shuuuut up, anxiety brain.
After a moment where she wished she might spontaneously combust and not in a sexy way, Teq took the food pack from her slack hand.
“You are wise to take your time to go slow and make good choices,” he said. “It is the same when working with space rock. Choose well, guard closely, and reap the treasure.” He waggled his antennae. “Let me make lunch. These food packs are edible and nutritious, but with some tricks they are also delicious.”
Which was how she found herself sitting, maybe for the first time, on the opposite side of her kitchen counter from where lunch was being made.
She glanced over her shoulder to check on Oliver. “So I assume Sil told you what happened this morning.” When Teq inclined his head in assent, she went on. “It was so strange. Both Ollie and Kinsley said they heard the same whispers.” She lowered her voice, not that she thought Ollie would be distracted from his game. “I thought it was just a nightmare from too many dewdrops and too much excitement.” She looked up at the alien male, wondering if he could understand. “I don’t care about treasure. All I want to do is what’s right for Ollie. And maybe I’m afraid…”
He waited for her to go on. When she didn’t, he put down the array of packages he’d been pulling from storage drawers to turn to her. He unfurled one long-fingered hand toward her, and after the briefest hesitation, she put her hand in his.
“Deep space mining can be hazardous and lonely,” he murmured in that low voice. “We thought that is all our life would be, but now Mag and Amma have brought you Earthers. And this is something new and different and, yes, maybe something to fear.”
She gazed at him. “You? Fear us? But you’re so”—she waved her free hand vaguely—“um, big and strong.”
He squeezed her fingers and released her, turning back to the food packs. “Most of the asteroids we mine are bigger and stronger yet,” he mused. “So is loneliness.”
He combined the packs together, laying the empty packaging in front of her to show her which was which. “Shall we eat?”