Xodiac
"That's the drunken Xaptor," she says dreamily, lying back in the wireweed fields above the base. I'm trying not to sneak a look as she stretches - oh all right, I'm trying not to look as if I'm sneaking a look - so I follow her hand as she points upward, towards a rather less than inspiring part of a less than inspiring sky.
Well, after seeing the stars close up, always moving and shifting as the ship moves through space, the all-too-still sky above Xenon is - let's be honest - boring.
But let's be honest just to ourselves, hey? She likes it, and I want her to like me, so I'll like it too. But I can't see a Xaptor in the stars, drunken or not. Maybe if I was drunk... or knew what a Xaptor was...
"Use your imagination, Vila." This, coming from the most stolid crewmate I've had, is rich. "The Xodiac was invented years ago - centuries - or maybe just a few decades. Who knows?"
I nod, and pass her the bottle of xanthous wine, yellow wine which tastes of honeyjuice and shines like a yellow star. And try not to stare as she tips her head back to drink.
She points to another group, lower in the sky and next to one of Xenon's faux-cheese moons. "There, that's the sign for the New Year. The Goddess Grothellexous's Nipples."
That makes me sit up. I look at the patch for a full three minutes, then start counting. "There's fourteen of them."
"Well, she was a Goddess," she said sweetly.
"I think I'll join the faith." Now that's not a good thing to say - I can see her eyes narrow and something blistering on her lips - then she laughs.
"Too late, it died out years ago. And that..." pointing to what looks like a fuzzy patch of - well, fuzziness, "is the Spitting Chixx."
"Spitting Chips?"
"Chixx."
"What's a Chixx?"
"Ask Tarrant - he nearly got bitten by one yesterday." She laughs - it's a soft, flat laugh like week-old shampayn. Not that I ever knocked back shampayn, old or not... any more than I'd knock back -
No, better not think that. Not that she can read minds, but I've seen her look at us - at me - as if she's read my mind. But even Cally couldn't do that.
I look back up at the sky, and think about the stars back home. Not that we saw them much - not from the Dome - but just occasionally, when I needed to hide, I'd sneak out into the woods to the north of the Dome.
The stars above Earth were brighter, and colder. Some of the older cons said there were patterns, pictures in the stars, but I could never see them. No fishes, no scales (whatever they were) and no bulls (whatever they looked like). But then some of the older cons would say anything... and steal your few credits while you listened. We learned fast not to look for things that couldn't be sold, or bartered... well, or drunk.
Blake, though, he could see pictures in stars. Blake could see meaning in a lot of things, meaning that no one else could. Meaning that probably wasn't there.
She takes another mouthful of xanthous; a single drop slips from the corner of her mouth and slides down to her chin, and I try to pretend I'm not watching as she scoops it up with one finger and licks it off. She points at another dim, fuzzy patch of tiny white points.
"Maytreex," she says - or something that sounds like that.
It certainly doesn't look like any Matrix I've ever known. Not that I've known many, or seen any, or even know what one looks like. People who went looking for the legendary matrixes in the tunnels under the Domes all the time - thought they were some sort of escape, teleport, dimensional doorway, a way to the land of plenty of old, stupid kid's stories. None of them never came back.
Anyway, if I squint, I can almost see.. I think... "It looks like a mutant skull and crossbones."
She looks at me strangely - hey, I watch old viscasts, don't I? - then shrugs and gives me the half-empty bottle. "Maytreex," she says, "is actually Hommick for the skull and the crossing bones."
"Oh." There's no answer to that. So I drink instead.
"You drink too much, Vila."
That's good, given that she's just drunk half the bottle.
She looks up at the stars again. Tiny and duller, softer than they looked from the flight deck.
"Makes you think, doesn't it, Vila?"
It does? I blink, and try to look thoughtful. Damn, she's right, I have drunk too much. I drink some more.
"The Xodiac is very old," she says finally. "was here long before humans came, will be here long after we're all dead."
Oh, great.
"Makes all our concerns and battles seem little. Petty. Unimportant."
"Not to me, they don't." I can see that she thinks I'm little, petty and unimportant too, and I can live with that. As long as she'll like me - as long as one of them likes me - and the wine holds out.
Maybe Soolin can read my mind, because she suddenly smiles, a softer, warmer smile than before, like the difference looking at between the stars from the Liberator and seeing them from this field on a planet a long way from home. I think she does like me, a little.
As we start back towards the base, though, I do have to sneak another look at the Goddess Grothellexous's Nipples... fourteen? Fifteen? Maybe seventeen?
I'll come back and count them properly sometime. Well, if she'll come too.
the end