Middles.
2164 - Mindoir
Andie's face was a picture of frustrated concentration as she stared at the stylus to her datapad.
"You're lying," her older brother Erik declared, also staring at the stylus.
"Am not!" she said in a shrill voice, glaring at him. "It moved!"
"Well, you bumped the table then," he said with a shrug. "Or the wind blew it over."
Andie shook her head, her tangled hair falling across her face. "There're no windows open, and I know I didn't bump the table."
Erik turned to the door, his attention already elsewhere. "Colby said his dad told him a hanar merchant was coming today. Selling some unique fertilizer or something. I'm going to go check it out."
Andie wrinkled her nose, but stood up to follow, not wanting to be left out on a possible adventure. "What's a hanar?"
Erik shrugged. "Colby said they're like giant jellyfish."
Andie scoffed as she hopped down the steps of their home. "That's stupid. Jellyfish need water. There's no water around here, 'cept the Sacagawea River and Mr. Zhang at school said that jellyfish only live in oceans."
Their mother, apparently overhearing, stuck her head out the door as they exited. "Don't stare at the new alien, kids. Remember—"
Andie sighed. "They're people too, I know."
Joanna smiled and tousled her daughter's hair. "Don't stay out too long. I'm going to finish up my soil samples here and once I'm out of the lab, we can scrounge up some grub." A baby's wail erupted from further inside the room. Joanna sighed. "If Gabby lets me, at any rate."
Andie and Erik both hurried their steps away from the house, expecting to be called back at any minute to help with their baby sister.
Erik's longer strides soon outstripped her. Andie bit back a whining call for him to slow down. He was acting weird lately. He didn't want to play with her as much anymore—kept to his room when they weren't out in the fields, and making stupid faces at the older girls at school. She'd asked him what was wrong once because his face was turning so red, and he'd gotten really angry. I guess I shouldn't have said it so loud, she admitted to herself.
Still, it wasn't as fun anymore. With Erik being so snooty and their mother being occupied with baby Gabby—who, it seemed, never stopped crying—Andie felt a little detached. Rather like the stylus she had pushed without actually touching it.
The two siblings walked for a good fifteen minutes before the edges of the small settlement of New Independence appeared actually reachable. On the sloping, treeless plains of Mindoir everything was almost always visible but much further away than you thought.
New Independence was too small for a spaceport. Shuttles had to come in from Toscani—the largest city on Mindoir. Which, as Aunt Essie had remarked when she had visited on her last shore leave, made it slightly larger in population than the entire crew of Alliance cruiser SSV Sydney. Dad had chuckled, though Andie hadn't understood why exactly and no one had bothered to explain it to her.
"Hey, there's a shuttle on the landing pad!" Erik exclaimed, waving his arm in the general direction of the town.
Andie squinted and could just make out the gently curving hull of what was undeniably a shuttle from a larger vessel. It didn't look squarish and boxy like other shuttles she'd seen, so she hurried her steps to catch up with Erik as they descended into the main part of town.
"Let's go check out the shuttle," Erik said.
"But the hanar thing will probably be at the market if he's selling anything," she protested.
Erik shrugged. "Go, then, if you want. I'm going to look at the ship."
Andie hesitated, torn. She wanted to see this giant jellyfish, but she liked ships too… and she got to spend so little time with Erik lately. Scrab grass scratched at her shins as she hurried to catch up with him.
As it turned out, both of their wishes were granted. The hanar shuttle had only just set down apparently. Little jets of air still hissed from the landing gear as they watched from behind the safety fence that barred casual passersby from wandering onto the landing pad.
Large, calloused hands tapped both their heads. "Should've known I'd find you two here," said an amused voice.
"Daddy!" Andie was too big now to be swept up in his arms and tossed like a sack of grain, but he tugged on her braid with a wink.
"Dad," Erik said with a somber nod. Andie rolled her eyes.
"Are you going to buy from the hanar, dad?" Erik asked in an oddly low voice that squeaked a bit at the end.
Matt Shepard nodded, ignoring Andie's suppressed giggles at Erik's attempt to be "grown up." "They say the fertilizer is a near enough miracle worker. Don't know if it'll be right for wheat—which does very well here anyway—but I'm not one to miss out on the fun. Your mother will probably want to get a sample of it for the lab anyway."
"That doesn't look like a giant jellyfish," Andie said with some disappointment as a slender bi-pedal figure walked down the landing ramp, carrying a packing crate. When it reached the bottom, depositing the crate on the ground, Andie's protests died in her throat. What was that? What she'd thought a human was most definitely not: red skin—no, scales—the color of Christmas ribbons covered the stranger's head and face. Dark stripes, almost black, ran from the alien's forehead to back over his bald skull and disappeared beneath his shirt. The eyes were almost like the bulbous eyes of a salarian she'd once seen on a school trip to Toscani—black and very large.
"I do believe that's a drell, kids," Matt said, squinting. "Never seen one before myself but Essie has. Real rare."
The red drell seemed tireless. Crate after crate appeared in his arms to be deposited with the growing stack on the ground. After watching him make several trips with no one else getting off the ship to help, Matt jumped the fence. Since he made no motion for the kids to stay put, Andie followed—ignoring the hiss of protest from Erik. He was just mad she'd thought of it first.
Their father was introducing himself as Andie walked up.
"Glad to welcome you to New Independence," Matt was saying, holding out his hand. The drell stared at it curiously and did not take it, though Andie couldn't see any unfriendliness in his gaze. Perhaps they didn't shake hands where he came from.
"I am Meroe Cantos," the drell said, bowing.
"And I'm Andie Shepard," she announced, causing both adults to stare at her. The drell's gaze was particularly unnerving as it seemed he had two sets of eyelids. She tried to remember what her teachers said about staring at aliens, but it was so very hard not to look when he wasn't anything like the other aliens she had seen—and besides, he was staring at her too.
Matt looked down at her with fond exasperation.
"Andie, go back behind the fence. You too, son," he added, seeing Erik slink up behind Andie with a mixture of defiance and embarrassment.
"But I want to help!" Andie protested.
The drell's curiously seamed mouth parted in a smile. "I thank you both for your offer, but there is only one large crate left and then I will rent a pallet to take them all into town."
"If you're a drell, then where's the hanar?" Andie asked.
"Andie. Home. Now." Matt narrowed his eyes at her; then glanced back up at the drell. "Sorry about her. A little too curious for her own good."
Andie bit her lip. When her father used that tone…
But the crimson drell laughed, his voice oddly resonant in the still, summer air. "She may stay if she likes. Her questions are only natural. I am used to being the first of my kind to many other species." He turned to Andie, who shifted on her feet, waiting to see if her father would still send her home. "I am indeed a drell. My master is a hanar. Unfortunately, my master is not very comfortable on Mindoir—the air is too dry, you see. He would get very ill if he came here for long, so he has asked me to come in his stead."
"Oh." Andie considered this. "You're very nice to do that for him."
"I am a servant of the Compact," the drell replied in a serious voice. "It is my honor to serve where I can."
Andie didn't know what that meant, but she nodded as if she did.
The red drell turned back up the ramp, looking over his shoulder at them. "Stand back, please. I don't wish to accidentally hurt someone."
Matt herded the kids away from the shuttle, but Andie squirmed so that she could see what the drell was doing. Surely he didn't mean to lift that last crate by himself? It was so big! She was sure that not even her daddy—who was stronger than a krogan, in her mind—could have lifted it.
The drell stood, feet braced, and waved his arms. At once a purplish-blue haze erupted over his body, even over his clothes, wreathing his outline in a flickering haze.
Andie drew in a startled breath to ask her father what he was doing, but then the drell moved again and she felt it, like a gentle tug behind her navel. Lightning blue coils surrounded the crate, and Andie watched, open-mouthed with astonishment, as the crate floated into the air. The drell somehow maneuvered himself and the crate out of the tiny shuttle, setting it down with a whump and a cloud of dust.
Matt whistled low and admiring. "Biotic. Wow. Don't think this colony even has one. There was one on Essie's last posting when she visited, but I don't think he ever came planetside."
Andie took a step forward, then another, and then another until she was standing next to the red drell and feeling very small.
"Sir?" She reached out to touch his sleeve. He looked down at her, his inner eyelids flicking across his eyes. Andie repressed a shudder. "Can you teach me to do that?"