Page 180 of Light Leech

Her words tempted me again to complain, but she was right. Ralia must be aching after holding us up for so long. I could only do so much. Without Ralia, we would have been caught, imprisoned, and likely executed by now. I was still frustrated with her, but I recognized that nothing could make me hate her.

Naoma: Sorry, Pet. I’ve got to go help Kuni work on his light manipulation.

Petya: What?

Naoma: Yeah, haha. I know that our abilities are different, but the kid’s been learning how to channel his personal light into lanterns, tools in the kitchen, and so forth. He still shocks us on occasion, but it’s amazing to see what he is capable of.

Petya: Pulse. I can’t wait to see.

Naoma: You’ll be back soon enough.

Petya: Take care, Nay.

Naoma: You too, Pet.

I wondered if I should say something more, some final concession of a deeper admiration, but some sentiments are better said face to face. She sent me an image of her and Kuni, cheek to cheek, each holding out two fingers and smiling.

I smiled. I had succumbed to too many concerns and thoughts of inevitable failure but this was enough to remind me that I still had a purpose. Of course I always knew the world was my purpose, but something so vast was hard to comprehend as a single goal. I would always do what I needed for the betterment of humanity, but I needed the occasional reminder that there were people who loved me. For the girl I loved and for the boy who needed a bright future, I could do anything.

I sent Ralia a message.

Petya: Forgive me. I’ve got a lot going on and I shouldn’t have doubted you. Love you, Ral.

Of course my concerns regarding Sha perpetuated, but scorning and questioning her would do nothing. I would have to rely on my and Zhu’s perception if a disaster did not occur beforehand.

She responded immediately.

Ralia: Love you, Pet. Get some rest.

I had forgotten how to relax without fixes. I scrolled through the entertainment options on the flight panel and chose an animated mindshow about a sorcerer academy and a kid who ate a demon’s finger. I figured if I was to learn what coping with a nefarious being living within my friend, a fictional teenager was as good a place as any theory out there.

Chapter twenty-eight

The Other Journeyman

Tripping on the moon was less of a scare than on Earth. I was clumsy walking out of the shuttle and towards the resort hub and my heightened dexterity did little to help. I took a few seconds before standing up as I examined the moon’s surface through my spacesuit’s visor. I rubbed the dust between the thick fingers of my gloves and wondered if anything I touched had been taken from the moon that once orbited the Earth. Maybe this was that same moon, only turned into a vehicle. Maybe the real moon was back watching over the remains of the old Earth like a god over the corpse of a fallen child.

Ralia helped me up, giggling through the voice channel as she held my hand and jumped along the path.

Barricades lined each side of the path with tall glass walls extending from them. To the right, there was nothing but an empty field of dusty rock that continued out into the abyss. To the left, I saw two large buildings with a sleek design and multiple spires and a skybridge connecting them in the middle. A second building was to the left of those two, but the bulbous design like stacked bubbles was an obvious sign that this was a separate resort. The third rose just beyond the diamond-shaped hub straight again. I couldn’t see the third resort’s base, but its pyramidal leak rose high enough to give me an idea of how that building might appear.

I let go of Ralia as we reached the doors to the resort hub and entered the airlock with another couple. Most of the passengers were still trying to make their way to the hub. Some fell as I had while others were trying too hard to walk as if they were still on Earth.

The doors closed and the hiss of depressurization shut out all other sound. The next door opened and we proceeded down a corridor, then entered another room that seemed like another airlock, after which the weight of my suit increased.

“You may now open your visors,“ a voice spoke in my helmet’s speakers. I wasn’t the first to trust it, but once Ralia did so and survived, so I figured I could.

The next door opened to what looked like a hotel lobby with workers dressed in fine apparel and other guests floating around on panels that transported them–still in their spacesuits–and their luggage.

A woman with an ascot and pantsuit welcomed us and waved us forward to stand on one of those floating panels. We stepped forward, placing our bags next to us and feeling out what felt like Earth’s gravity. I lifted my legs, sensing the heaviness of my spacesuit. I had expected to receive an artificial Earth atmosphere to breathe in while inside but didn’t know if they would follow through with a simulation of Earth’s gravity. I figured it took more than the press of a button to create but didn’t attempt to understand. The false-moon might be some kind of a centrifuge for all I knew and that wouldn’t make the situation any clearer. I didn’t need to understand the moon’s makeup, only the purpose dwelling beneath the resort facade.

A screen showed our faces as it scanned and identified our reservations. Our platform took us to the right, while most of the guests went straight or to the left.

I looked at Ralia, raised my eyebrows, and breathed out.

“Don’t fall,” she said.

“It doesn’t help bouncing back between two kinds of gravity.”