Melfina walked the streets of Nashua II, smiling gently. She enjoyed the noise of the traffic, the raucous shouts of men and women as they bought and sold and lived their lives. Humans had always raised such a racket, so she imagined. Like the marketplaces in those Arabian Nights films she and Jim and Aisha had watched, a marathon going into early morning, while Suzuka sat in the armchair polishing her bokken, and Gene sprawled on the couch pretending to be engrossed in a magazine rather than the kid's stuff colorfully animating the screen.

She liked to walk the city, add her quiet footsteps to the clamor. There was something to be said for the peace she found in the Outlaw Star; she had understood Gilliam's pleasure when they ran the diagnostic, just the two of them on board, perfectly in synch, all precise order. Returning to the womb, Gene had once called her descent into the pilot tube. Though when she told him that she came from no womb that she recalled, he had, oddly, blushed and said most people didn't remember it, and he neither.

It was peaceful, however, and she felt safer within that system than anywhere, but all the same, she preferred the chaos of their group, in the ship or on any world.

She had nearly reached their building--base of operations, Gene said; why not just call it home for now? Jim shot back--when a particularly forthright incarnation of that chaos appeared out of the crowd and bounced up in front of her. "Heya, Mel," Aisha mewed. "Whatcha doing?"

"Gilliam and I just completed a diagnostic on the Outlaw Star. I'm going home for the afternoon." She regarded the Ctarl-Ctarl, respectfully asked, "Do you not have work, Aisha?"

Aisha wrinkled her nose. "Well, ah, you know. Lunchtime, they said I could take a break--and never come back, but how was I s'posed to know he was an ambassador, he looked like a Srich-sich frog in a suit, and he only had one bag, it wouldn't have been all that hard for him to carry it eight meters to his room--" She stopped when she realized Melfina had pulled her lips tight, narrowed her feline eyes dangerously. "You laughing?"

"Umm, no, Aisha." Melfina quickly schooled her features into an expression of polite understanding. "Would you like to have lunch with me?"

"Sure!" Aisha spun and fell into step beside her, her braid swinging merrily. "What's to eat?"

"I was thinking of macaroni," Melfina said. "It was going to be just me." She calculated the amount of pasta in the cupboard compared to a healthy Ctarl-Ctarl appetite, decided to add meatballs to the sauce. And make a salad. And garlic bread. And dessert. "Gene and Jim had a job this morning, and Suzuka is away on her own business..."

They were at the building and she already had the key out, but before she could fit it to the lock Aisha put her hand over her own. She felt the needle-sharp tips of extended claws grazing her skin. "You said you'd be alone?" the Ctarl-Ctarl hissed. Her long ears twitched. "There's someone inside."

Melfina couldn't hear anything over the bustle of the street, but strangely she felt...something. Like the subsonic hum of power around a shield, tickling her spine. The hairs on the back of her neck rose in response to that imperceptible current. She put her hand on the door handle, pushed down, and the door swung in, though she hadn't used the key.

"Careful," Aisha breathed, crouching in a battle stance. In one pounce she was past Melfina and in the main room, her head swiveling from side to side in swift observation. "Nothing seems wrong..."

Melfina saw him first; she knew right where to look, though how she couldn't say. But she spotted the red hair over the top of the couch, and without heeding Aisha's caution she ran inside, calling out, "Gene!"

He was sitting on the floor, back against the couch, his lanky figure folded inward, legs drawn up and head down in his arms. He was as still as stone. Melfina dropped to her knees beside him, asked again, frightened, "Gene?"

He didn't move. Aisha sniffed the air, observed, "There's no blood-scent," as she prowled closer.

"Gene," Melfina said a third time. When she touched his arm his head came up, but at first his eyes seemed not to see her at all, staring past her as if she were transparent. Then he blinked and his focus found her. She shivered. That vague unease she had felt outside was centered here, almost palpable in its icy touch. His face was drawn and gaunt as a starved man's, and his eyes were black as space. There was something terrible in their depths. She clutched his sleeve, not knowing what to say to those eyes, and Gene said nothing, just stared as if he had forgotten what words were.

Then Aisha grabbed him by his collar, lifted him up and shook him, not gently, shouting, "What's wrong?"

His lips moved. "This."

Aisha dropped him as if he had burned her. He crumpled, still hunched inward, raised the remote in his hand and clicked power. The screen glowed to life, black space, with tiny shining pieces drifting before the stars. Debris, Melfina realized, and metal--from a manmade construct, a station or a ship. The news anchor narrated the current efforts of the police, "It has not yet been determined whether it was deliberate sabotage--"

Aisha flipped her braid over her shoulder impatiently. "Yeah, I know, I heard the sirens this morning."

"I didn't," Melfina said. "Gene, what..."

Gene had dropped the remote, and rocked back his head against the couch seat, so that his gaze was toward the ceiling, though again he seemed not to be seeing anything at all. The words came flat and strangled from his stretched throat. "He called from the ship, this morning. I overslept..."

"Who?" Aisha shrieked, but Melfina barely heard her. The anchor was speaking again. "--unknown what caused the explosion of the Arrowhead class vessel Golden Cleo--"

She heard nothing else, because she knew that designation, had heard it just yesterday evening--"It's all right, Mel, do the diagnostic. Gilliam'll lose his tiny electronic mind if you don't soon, and this sounds like something Jim and I can handle--what was his ship called, again?"

"He called from the ship?" Melfina said slowly.

"I went to the spaceport when I heard the news," Gene said to the ceiling, then threw up his arm to cover his face, as if even the mindless glare of the light were too accusing. "There's nothing, almost nothing. Biquidide in the engine, they think, there wouldn't be anything left of the bodies..."

Aisha was motionless, so still not a hair on her great ears twitched. "Who?" she demanded again, and there were teeth in the growl.

Gene said nothing, but Melfina heard an answer come, in a voice that sounded like her own, if it hadn't been so far away. "Jim was on that ship..."

/~/~/~/~/~/

to be continued...

So glad someone's reading - thank you! More of this will come (and the next chapters will be longer!)...anyone interested?