Total pages in book: 175
Estimated words: 166095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 830(@200wpm)___ 664(@250wpm)___ 554(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 166095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 830(@200wpm)___ 664(@250wpm)___ 554(@300wpm)
I kinda don’t care if she does.
Rhonda hammers on the door again, and this time she makes a pitiful sound to go along with her banging. “Please, please let me out! I know the ship has landed! I heard it!”
She’s excellent at preying upon people’s feelings. I almost feel a twinge of remorse at hearing her voice. Almost. “Do you promise to be good?” I ask, like she’s five instead of forty-something. “Because if you’re bad we’re leaving you in there.”
“Of course! I will be the picture of good behavior!”
Well now she’s just overselling it. But we have to let her out at some point, and I don’t think Jamef or Bethiah will mind. So I tap the code into the panel, hitting squiggly alien character after squiggly alien character, and the door chimes and slides open.
Rhonda straightens her dress and gives us a wounded look, dropping her hand. “Finally.”
“You’re welcome.”
She tosses her tangled hair back from her face and eyes both me and Simone. “What took you so long? And where are the aliens?”
“Talking with the port authorities,” I tell her, not that we owe an explanation. She knows why she was kept in there. “They’re making sure that the welcome wagon gets rolled out for the two of you.”
Rhonda sniffs. “So you’re dumping us here like stray cats? Expecting us to find an alley to live in? Can you believe this, Simone?”
“It’s not like that,” Simone says gently. “We can’t stay here and it’s not safe for us anywhere else. Here we’ll be with a bunch of other humans and we’ll be able to be independent.”
“I don’t want to be independent,” Rhonda grits out, finger-combing a snarl out of her hair. “I want my Lord Nerit back —”
“Oh please. He tried to have you killed, Rhonda. Bumped off or sold away. You were a problem he wanted solved, remember? Lord Nerit doesn’t want you back, so give it up.” I’m tired of her rewriting history. “If you really, really don’t want to be here, we can arrange for someone to drop your ass at the nearest station. You want that?”
Rhonda pauses and then gives me a sulky look. “Not without my riches. Someone robbed me, you know. Stole all my clothes and valuables.”
“That’s the cost of doing business with corsairs,” I tell her cheerily.
She touches her cheek, a worried look on her face. “Did you keep my lotions at least? My skin is so dry and I’m going to look haggard in natural sunlight.”
I shrug.
Simone gives her an odd look. “They’re probably around here somewhere? In the lavatory in my room, probably, since I didn’t touch anything I didn’t recognize. Why are you more concerned about your skin than the fact that we’re about to set off for life on an alien planet?”
“Because if I don’t have beauty, I don’t have anything.” She pushes past us with an imperial wave of her hand. “Make way. I’m not going anywhere until I’ve done my skincare regimen. My pores have suffered long enough.”
Simone just rolls her eyes. “Glad to see we’ve got our priorities all straightened out.”
JAMEF
It’s a warm, sunny day on Risda III’s surface. The air smells fresh and has a hint of greenery on the wind, and compared to the hustle and bustle of a station, Port itself is practically silent. There’s the occasional air sled that moves overhead, and a few people walking down the main paved street, but now that we’ve left the port docks themselves, all is quiet.
It’s eerie to me, given that I’m station born and bred. But I can see how a human might like it. A bug buzzes near my horns and I wave it away, trying to concentrate on the expressions of the humans as we’re given a tour.
There’s a big, friendly mesakkah named Khex who looks too high-caste for a backwater job like this one, but he seems cheerful enough. He meets us at the port docks and from there, gives us a tour of the tiny “town” itself. Port is more of a single street than a town, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s small. Everyone here has their own farms, after all. Even Lord va’Rin who owns this planet has a pastoral estate surrounded by huge gardens.
“While living in Port won’t be the most exciting of locations,” Khex is saying as he leads us down the street, “you’ll find that it’s very safe. Initially things were a little tumultuous, but now that the custodians have arrived, we’ve worked with Lord va’Rin to ensure that no one is taking advantage of the humans.”
Rhonda runs her fingers over the cleavage of her tunic. “No one’s taking advantage at all? What a pity.” And she practically bats her lashes at him and steps closer, linking her arm with his. “I think you’re wrong, though. Port seems exciting enough to me.”