Page 81 of Blightfall

“You’ve got a stick up your butt about something,” Nedd said. “I just figured Alanik was probably part of it.”

“Alanik is a branch up a lot of people’s butts,” Gilaf said.

Both Nedd and I turned around to look at him. Something told me that phrase didn’t mean the same thing in UrDail as it did in English.

“I’m just worried about the mission,” I said to Nedd. “That’s all.”

“Okay,” Nedd said. I waited for the next wisecrack, but it didn’t come.

Now I was thinking about it, though. Holding hands with Alanik had felt…good. Natural. Right. But now that we were out of danger…I wasn’t sure if it changed anything. All the problems were still there. Maybe I shouldn’t have started anything, if I wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with the consequences.

I sighed. My last relationship had been so easy. It required no risk, no real effort on my part. In the end, maybe that was the problem. Maybe it hadn’t ended because I’d changed, so much as because I hadn’t tried.

“Hypothetically,” I said, “what do you think the ethics are of dating outside your species?”

“Dude,” Nedd said, “she’s into you. You should go for it. Don’t you think, Gilaf?”

“I know better than to get involved in my sister’s love life,” Gilaf said. “She is the only person in the galaxy who scares me.”

“Really?” I said. “The only person?”

“Yes,” Gilaf said. “Only her.”

I wasn’t afraid of Alanik, exactly. More afraid of messing things up with her. Besides—“I wasn’t asking about Alanik! I said, hypothetically—” Stars, I sounded like Nedd did when he said he wasn’t into Sadie.

Nedd sighed. “Sure. Whatever. I think hypothetically if you ask her out, she’s going to be into that.”

“That’s not what ‘hypothetically’ means!” I said. “I was asking in general if you think it’s ethical—”

“I think you’d be good together ethically too,” Nedd said. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

Stars. I could. My parents didn’t want me to date outside their social circle, let alone an alien. And it wouldn’t be only my parents either. There were plenty of people on our planet who would have the same opinions my mother did, or worse.

“You’re not helping,” I told Nedd.

“Hey, you asked for my opinion.”

“And that was obviously my first mistake.”

“You might want to think of a better pickup line, though,” Nedd said. “The ethics thing is awkward, even for you.”

“I don’t know,” Gilaf said. “That seems like the sort of bonkers thing Alanik would be into.”

“Noted,” I said, and I turned and stared ahead at the river, ignoring Nedd’s chuckling behind me.

Twenty-Four

Arturo

When we reached the bend in the river where we’d originally spotted the barge, we pulled our canoes over to the bank and stashed them in the trees. We’d hidden the ships well enough that we had to tromp through the forest following one of the recovery beacons on our acclivity rings before we found them.

“Is there any way to know if scions are nearby?” I asked Dayan. “We encountered one near here before, but a barge crew hauled it off to fight in the arena.”

“They are territorial,” Dayan said. “If you met one here, you aren’t likely to run into another. At least not right away.”

That was good. “Everyone eat some rations, if you haven’t already,” I said. It had been a long day. Under normal circumstances I would have recommended we sleep before flying again, but if we convinced Ivy to let us leave, we could be sleeping in our own beds in a few hours. It felt worth the risk of pushing through.

Everyone scattered, some to eat, some to change into fresh flightsuits, others to relieve themselves in the woods. Gilaf offered Dayan some rations from his ship. Dayan settled down on a log on the far side of our starfighters, staring at them.