“Will you show me where Father performed Belin’s procedure?” I ask, keeping my voice normal and unconcerned. The last thing I want is to provoke him if his mind is fragile.
He takes a bite of the lembulla and slurps loudly. The yellow juices run down his chin. Lox doesn’t bother wiping it away and it makes me cringe. I follow him down the deteriorating corridor to a large room as he devours his meal along the way. This room is in better shape than the others, which makes me thankful.
We spend the next couple of hours discussing the machines. I am able to connect their purposes with each piece of technology based on my father’s notes. Once familiarized with the room, we set to giving it a fresh scrub down, cleaning it from top to bottom. While we work, he asks questions about the facility and our faction. He’s especially curious as to how the females arrived in our possession.
“Theron and Sayer,” he says as he washes some tools in a basin. “I don’t remember them.”
“They are several revolutions younger than myself. Probably nothing but nipple sucking mortlings pissing their undersuits when you met them.”
“And they have a ship?” he inquires. “I didn’t realize those even existed anymore.”
I let out a sigh. Lox may be an odd one, looped up on a hybrid hallucinogenic fruit, but he’s still one of us. “Yes, the Mayvina is Theron’s mate.”
Lox snorts. “Does his mate ever leave the facility?”
“It is how we…” I trail off. Stole. Aria, Emery, the others. We stole them. “It is how we acquired the females.”
“Ahhh,” is all he says. “So this metal mate of his. Does she still fly?”
“A little old, but certainly gets out there some.”
Theron flies out when the weather is fair to other reaches of Mortuus when we need supplies. Recently we’ve been made aware of other beings traveling within our atmosphere. Theron and Sayer sometimes do less than honorable things like rob from these vessels. They are skilled and usually are gone with their loot before the beings passing by even realize what hit them. Many times, Theron has brought up to Breccan about catching a ride on one of these larger ships to a new, more habitable planet. But despite our dwindling numbers and lack of females, that world outside of ours is unknown. Unknown creatures, unknown pathogens, unknown air quality, unknown threats. We cannot risk our race over an impulsive whim.
“Can you hand me that carpal knife, Phalix?” Lox asks, nodding his nog to another table.
“Calix,” I correct, tilting my nog to the side to study him.
He blinks several times and a shudder ripples through him. Then, his unusual grin is back on his face. “Calix. I apologize.”
While he finishes up, I pull my zenotablet from my pocket and reach for my glasses that have been perched on top of my nog. I place them on the end of my nose and use my stylus to skim through my notes.
“As soon as we perform the procedure, we’ll need to ready the terrainster and head back to the facility,” he tells me as he dries his old, bony hands.
“It has been smashed to bits, remember?” I told him this last night after Emery had gone to sleep. I told him everything. It is as though he has forgotten our entire conversation.
He blinks at me and then his eyes narrow as though he doesn’t believe me. “Nothing a little hard work can’t fix.”
“We are going to have to find a way to haul it into one of the bays on this side of the mountain. And we certainly cannot do anything until the geostorm clears.”
His features screw up into a scowl. “Are there more terrainsters?”
“Back at the facility, but—”
“Then we make communication. We tell your people to rescue us.”
Our people. I want to correct him, but refrain.
The geostorm is one of the worst I have ever seen. Even if we could communicate with Breccan and the rest, it would be a suicide mission to send them into the heart of this catastrophic storm.
But explaining this to a mort who has been trapped here for countless revolutions, and is half crazed on a lembulla diet, would be wasted breath.
And right now, every breath counts.
Her breaths.
My mate.
So, I give him hope. It is all I can offer.
“We will work to make contact after the procedure. Emery will need rest and we can do this while she heals,” I tell him, my tone placating.
The flickering in his eyes discontinues and he flashes me another grin. Easy and calm. I try not to flinch each time I see that mouth that is only half-filled with teeth. “Let’s get to it, son.”
“Lox?”
He approaches and stands too closely. “Yes?”
I mull over how I want to ask this question. It is one that has plagued me for many revolutions. Why did my father leave? Belin was healed. He brought him back. But then…then, he left me. Again. That time, he never came back. Not long after he left, one of the other elders who later caught The Rades and died was the one to discover his body. Nothing but a half-eaten carcass. I was not privy to the details as of how he died. Whether it was a sabrevipe or the elements or illness, I’ll never know.