Star Side

Chapter 25

Stellar date (Earth Time): 02-04-2914

It made me feel bad afterward, but after seeing the live feed footage of the alien asleep in a leathery ball on the floor of the brig, I slept for a thirteen hours straight. Levi did to. We woke up at almost the same time. I knew because he came into the plant biome with a cup of coffee while I was still nursing mine.

"I thought you didn't do coffee." He took a seat by me, bleary-eyed, salt and pepper hair everywhere.

"I usually don't, but I went deep in the sleeps," I said.

"So you're one of those."

"I'm not a light or a deep sleeper."

"Not that."

I gave him one bleary eye.

I think he took an extra long drag on his coffee just to be obnoxious.

"The kind that doesn't realize how stressed they are until they're sick with it," he finally said.

"...Maybe."

The spot our coffee and us had found ourselves in was another personal favorite of mine outside of the observation dome. The plant bionics was the largest room on the entire space station, minus the loading dock. He had been built to give the closest impression of a park on earth, with large trees, grass, flowers, and even a pebbled stream. Even the ceiling had a display to look like the sky. And since no amount of space went wasted, it was also where we grew all our plant stuffs, carefully tended to by biobots. A pair of them worked nearby trimming a bush, square, wheeled, and pine green.

My spot in particular was beneath the largest tree, an old globe willow, whose roots formed something of an arm chair big enough for two, which meant it made me feel delicate. And, since very little made me feel that way, I guess I liked it. You'd think I would have learned to be comfortable in my own skin by now, but I guess issues wouldn't be issues if they were that easy to be rid of.

Levi squinted up at the artificial sun.

"Why did I come here?"

"Why did you," I asked back with a smile.

"Thought the sun would wake me up," he grumbled. "Morning brain cell thingymajigs or sumpthan." The last word echoed out from the depths of his mug.

For a while, we just sat there, enjoying the quiet and the slow rebooting of our systems.

"Where's Naomi?" I asked.

Levi shrugged.

"I'm worried about how much she's been holing up in her quarters."

"Let her do what she needs to," he said.

And since Levi had known her a hell a lot longer than me, and was her brother to boot, I let that slide. I'd think it natural to worry, though. Mental health was most tenuous in space, especially when there were only three of us on board. Not many options for social health.

"You check the bastard?" he asked back at length.

I picked up the interface tablet I'd nabbed from the computer on the way here. When he turned on the screen, the live feed of the brig flickered on. I glanced over to see the alien hadn't moved much from when I last check on him. He'd been testing his claws against a particular corner of a cell where I presumed a climate control vent was.

Levi hummed and handed it back.

"Know how to check the back log?"

I nodded. "Tested his claws on just about every inch of that place after waking up. He might be hungry. Hard to say, though. I know some reptiles back on Earth can go a week or so without needing to eat and he has scales, but he's really warm to the touch too so that's probably not the case. I mean, reptiles don't have to eat as much because they don't waste energy on keeping their blood warm, right?"

"Reptile, blood, screw that. I want to know why'd it fucking grow wings?" He put his now empty mug down and leaned forward to hang his hands off his upright knees.

I shrugged helplessly. "I do physics and math. Biology was Josh's thing."

"Plant biology was his thing. Not that he let that stop him." Levi blinked slowly. "Probably should take a page from his book, though. Educate ourselves. Not like we have anything else to do."

I brought up the tablet to access the computer's internal library. While extensive, any information larger than a megabyte from Earth took at least six months to get here, so an active internet wasn't possible. What we had now was what we got. Even the catalogue which we ordered things from was likely to be out of date by the time it reached Earth if we let it sit just a moment too long. I think that was part of their marketing ploy when sending their catalogues this far out in space.

"What should we start with?" I went down categories till I got to animal science. "Organic chemistry? Ah, no, theoretical anatomy, that sounds promising."

He stared at me. "I thought you said you didn't know any biology."

"Well, I know basic high school biology, of course."

"What the hell is basic?"

"Cells. Human systems." I frowned at his continuing scowl. "White blood cells eat the bad guys. You did graduate high school, right?"

"Almost sixties years ago, yeah, what's with you thinking I'm some kind of photo copier? First the manual, now this."

"Hey, I wasn't assuming anything, I thought this was basic knowledge for everyone and your sister's a medical worker! You do know what cells are, right?"

"Of course I know what damn cells are. Doesn't mean I can name all the parts."

"...So I guess we're starting in different places then, okay." And at his continuing dark look I added, "Look, it's probably better if we divvy up the work anyhow, you know, study different areas. We can probably cross out anything to do with plant biology, so how about, I don't know...what are you interested in?"

"None of it," he said darkly. "I hated school."

"Do you need another cup of coffee?"

"...Yeah. Give me that tablet. I'll find something I can do."

Which got us up and out of the plant biome and back into the artificial white and chrome space of the station. Seeing all the white again just reminded me how out of date this space station was. White and chrome was so old fashioned. When I'd left they'd diversified their color scheme and leaned more towards glass as an accent than chrome.

Levi had just gotten his second cup of coffee from the nearest canteen dispenser and leaned against the wall to take his first sip when he stopped.

"What the..."

I paused half-way through ordering myself a breakfast bar to lean over his shoulder.

He tapped the upper corner of the tablet with the tip of his pinky, since he was still holding his coffee, and the live camera feed of the brig expanded to fill the screen.

The demon had fallen to the floor and began to shake, wings tightening about itself in a tighter and tighter cocoon. Even as I watched, one of its horns broke through the membrane.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

"Oh crud, is it having some sort of seizure?" I asked.

"Beats me—oy, where the hell are you going? Do you even know what you're doing?"

I stopped several steps towards the brig, shivered, and then kept walking.

"I have to do something."

"No you don't. What would you even do? Shit, woman, at least wait for me to get my gun."

"He won't hurt me."

"You don't know that."

"But I do! Hurry and get your gun if you're so worried, I'm dropping by medical bay on the way to grab a kit anyhow."

I heard him cussing some more with something about his coffee thrown in there, but when I glanced over my shoulder he had gone.