Welcome back to Earthrise! We are now on our regular schedule, free on Tuesdays, with Thursday and Saturday available if donations or subscriptions that week go over $15 per episode. You can catch up on existing episodes, donate, or set up a subscription here! And now, on to the story:
Her Instruments, Book 1
Episode 25
“Here we are, Captain… home!” Irine bounced on her heels. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Most planets are,” Reese said, but even she had to admit there was something enticing about the blazing brightness of Harat-Sharii. Its turquoise oceans set off its rust-red continents with their belts of shimmering gold desert and yellow-green forests. Even its clouds made her eyes water with their brilliance.
“Aww, come on,” Irine said. “You have to admit this one is special!”
“All right, fine, it’s special,” Reese said, then relented at the girl’s wounded look. “It is beautiful, Irine. It just… well, it’s so bright it’s like a punch in the eyes.”
Sascha laughed. “You have no idea, boss.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Reese said and leaned past him to hit the broadcast comm. “Hello, hello! This is the TMS Earthrise, Captain Theresa Eddings commanding. Our destination is the city of Zhedeem. Any landing or approach protocols?”
“Earthrise, this is Systems Outpost Three. Welcome to our wonderful system! Is this your first visit?”
“This is,” Reese said, “though I have two hires who call this place home.”
“Excellent. Please proceed to upper orbit and synchronize over Zhedeem. Once you’re in place you can call them for landing instructions.”
“Thanks, Systems Outpost.”
“You’re welcome, madam. Anyone ever tell you that you have a very enticing voice?”
“Only my pet Harat-Shar and no, I’m not looking for more.”
“Curses! Send them my regards, and my envy.”
“I’ll do that,” Reese said. “Earthrise away.” She shook her head. “Am I going to have to deal with that all the way in-system?”
“Not only will you have to, but it’ll get worse,” Sascha said.
“Freedom preserve me,” Reese said. “You handle the landing, then.”
“Consider it done.”
“I hope you’ve packed your suitcase,” Irine added.
“Suitcase!”
“Well, of course! You don’t think the train will let you sleep in the ship, do you?”
“I admit I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Reese said. She lifted a hand when Irine opened her mouth. “No, I won’t object. As long as we’re on a planet’s surface I might as well run maintenance on the air-scrubbers. It’s been a while since I bought us fresh air and we could use a recharge.”
“Fresh air from home to carry with us when we leave? That’s so romantic,” Irine said, bouncing again.
“It’s just common sense,” Reese said. “What’s our time-to-landing, Sascha?”
“Five hours, about.”
“Right. See you fluffies at the airlock.”
Five hours sounded like a comfortable span but by the time Reese had found the rest of the crew and advised them to prepare, chased down Allacazam, packed her own goods and finished another session of staring at her finances wondering where to find all the money she needed for the remaining repairs, the in-systems were firing against atmosphere. Reese gave up on the data tablet and instead smoothed down her vest and examined herself in the bathroom mirror. She didn’t look prepared to tangle with a city full of Harat-Shar. Then again, she never did, even on good days. Shaking her head she shouldered her duffel and headed to the airlock. The rest of the crew was already there, standing with their backs (or in Kis’eh’t's case, side) to the wall.
“Well, Sascha… will you do the honors?”
“My pleasure,” he said, and keyed the airlock open. He shoved his shoulder into the door and forced its reluctant hinges.
The air that rushed in smelled of incense, exotic spices, burgeoning plant-life waxy with green life over an arid heat. Reese blinked several times, overwhelmed by the charge of it. She’d grown up in domes of carefully maintained, recycled air and graduated to ships with even less assertive supplies. She’d touched down on her share of planets and found them all complex to smell, but nothing so far could compete with this.
“Come on!” Irine said, and dashed outside. Sascha followed at a more casual pace. One by one they filed from the lock and Reese walked down last, shutting the door behind her.
Zhedeem looked the way it smelled but not the way Reese had imagined it. She’d envisioned a bustling metropolis full of the high-rises and parks of a typical Alliance city. Instead, the Earthrise had settled beside a town so low some of the buildings weren’t even a single story high. Hissing fountains and extensive gardens dominated the edges of the town, and past them Reese could see very little save more palms, more trees and the occasional edge of another low building.
The series of buildings they were standing next to were the tallest Reese could see: several half-story buildings and two with very small first stories. The gardens and fountains were a fortress of cool color against the burnished red sands upon which they stood. Even their shadows seemed hot. The house looked welcoming but also unreachable from the edge of the airlock. The sky was so very, very tall and the sand so very empty.
“Where’s the city?” Reese asked finally. Irascibility had always helped bar panic from the forefront of her mind, and if she looked too long at the vista her agoraphobia would send her straight back into the ship. “I thought this place was supposed to have several thousand people living in it.”
“It does,” Sascha said. “They’re mostly underground.” He hiked his bag higher on his shoulder and started down the hill toward the nearest buildings. Irine skipped after him, followed by Bryer and Kis’eh’t.
“I guess we can’t show up and not at least say ‘hi’ to everyone,” Reese said, watching their figures dwindle.
“I doubt the inhabitants of the household have noticed us yet,” Hirianthial said. He stood a comfortable distance away, holding Allacazam in his arms and looking supremely unruffled in his long-sleeved blouse, breeches and boots despite a heat that was already inspiring sweat on Reese. “The twins would be disappointed, though.”
“Yeah,” Reese said. “I guess they would be.” Still, she couldn’t bring herself to move. She waited for Hirianthial to say something about it, but surprisingly he remained silent. Nor did he fidget as she struggled with her fear that the sky would fall on her—or worse, never end.
It seemed to take forever to decide to make the first step. She wondered if the moment lasted as long for Hirianthial as it seemed to for her. Maybe living forever gave a person a different perspective on what a “long time” was. With a sigh, Reese trudged after the rest of the crew. By the time she reached the base of the hill her ankles and shins ached from walking over the unsteady sand and her body was so slick with sweat she no longer feared unsolicited hugs from Irine and Sascha’s family… no doubt she stank so fragrantly of hot human now that no one in her right mind would come near until she bathed.
Hirianthial, curse his eyes, looked remarkably fresh. On closer, surreptitious examination he was sweating, but it simply made him look glossy and vibrant rather than exhausted and untidy. She wondered where she could buy that trick.
The delineation between desert and garden was as sharp as the first brick beneath the gate that stood half-open. Reese passed into this wonderland of green and imagined that it felt cooler.
“Wonderful,” Hirianthial said behind her. “You can smell the water.”
“Is that what that is?” she asked, surprised, and sniffed. “I thought I was imagining it.”
“No,” he said. “The very plants sing of it.”
She glanced at him, decided to say nothing and moved on. The paths showed signs of meticulous care, pruned and swept, bordered by shining plants with new but not yet open blooms. The deeper into it Reese walked, the more she felt the change in the air, how it softened, became almost a caress. The best part was definitely how the plants shielded her from the panoramic view.
A trickling fountain proved to be the first in a set, each one growing larger and larger as they came closer to the house. The first was only big enough for a desultory plaque. The final depicted a woman with an infant at her breast, a tumbled urn at her feet dispensing the water into the basin.
“Reese!” Irine stood at the arch into the first of the buildings, built below the gardens and accessible from a set of five steps. “Come on, get out of the heat!”
“Do I look like I’m lingering?” Reese said. She joined the Harat-Shar, hoping for an enclosed space and air conditioning but the hall she entered was lined with windows set over the ground level. The fans on the ceilings whispered a soft whuff-whuff as they sent their breezes across the floor mosaics, but the place felt very exposed.
“Is the whole town like this?” Reese asked.
“Most of it,” Irine said. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Father’s first wife.”
“Your mother?” Reese asked, following Irine with Hirianthial at her heels like a second shadow. A white shadow. She wished he wouldn’t do whatever it was he did that made her feel stalked, but also felt ridiculous telling someone who wouldn’t come within six feet of her that he was walking too close.
“Yes,” Irine said, then added, “One of them. If you mean my birth-mother, no. But she nursed me, as did a few of Father’s other wives.”
Reese touched her forehead. “Just be gentle with the culture shocks, okay?”
“I’ll try,” Irine said, laughing. “Look, here she is! Mazer, here is Reese, my captain!”
I want Hirianthial’s trick too. >.>
Also, bring on the culture shocks!
