Star Side

Chapter 5

Joshua swelled. Unlike Levi, his mustache was full man hair and it added some fine definition to his indignation.

"And as a botanist, I should know whether or not this is a leaf." He waved the brown-yellow bit. "Why'd I even invite you? Just go away."

"He's only speaking his mind, no need to take it personally," said Naomi.

"Jo did plenty of that without being mean," he said to his wife with a pout.

I rubbed my eyes. A full-grown bear of a man pouting should have been funny, but Joshua did it too much for it to have effect. Not to mention it was late and I didn't much care for any airs of contention being directed at me just because I didn't get as excited as him. This wasn't the first time either. Over the past three months, Joshua had moved to the bottom of my friends list. Still liked him well enough, but if he couldn't get me hyped about a stinky planet in three months and much repetition, I wish he'd just give up and, I don't know, maybe talk about the weather. Got some great gas nebulas out there. You see that orange meteorite the other day? Deep in that iron oxide, man, feel it.

...Who was I kidding? I was the boring one here.

"That is super cool, I will admit that, way to go Josh," I said, doing my very best not to sound patronizing. "Can I take a closer look after some sleep?"

"Well," he said. "I was actually hoping you lot would help me get to the surface to take a better look at the burial site."

The room fell quiet.

Now even Naomi looked at him with unamused eyes.

"There's four of us," she said.

"Only one of us has to go down."

"It takes at the very least five to launch and retrieve a pod down to the surface," said Levi, who would know since he had to become a walking user's manual to get here.

"Well, to make it absolutely safe, but with some finagling—"

"No finagling," said Naomi sharply. "Joshua Friedman, you are not a rocket scientist or an engineer, stop damn trying to be one."

"But I've been reading the academy books—"

"Reading and training are different!"

"I'm out." Levi landed his chair legs with a 'clunk' and got up.

"Toots." I followed in behind him.

"The AI can fill in for the monitoring parts—" continued Joshua.

"They're robots! Not people!"

"Robots with supercomputer brains!"

"Not brains, components! Numbers! They can't improvise in a life or death situation or—"

Lab 2's door shut tight with a hiss behind me, cutting off the noise.

I trotted up to Levi's side as he gave a loud sigh. His bare feet smacked against the corrugated flooring with each tap of my boot.

"People weren't meant to live this long," he groaned.

"I think you mean live this long together, though even the best of soul mates fight."

He blinked at me a bit owlishly. "Soul mates? What are you, ten?"

"Lovers sounded too temporary."

"So you believe in that true love forever shit? That's cute."

I frowned, a little insulted at that. "I said no such thing. You're the one talking like a serial killer."

"If only," he groused, though the crooked line of his mouth told me he took no offense to my comment. I didn't know the details of his manslaughter case, though Naomi had warned me not to ask about it.

We walked in silence until we reached where the hall forked to the living quarters and the observatory. I'd long moved all my bedding and stuff to the observatory and only ever visited my room to shower.

Levi stopped and tapped his toes against the floor. His long nails clacked like plastic against the metal.

"You are young, though," he said. "Too young to be here."

It was the closest he'd ever come to asking me about why I'd thrown my life to this hole in space.

I looked at the back of his head as I considered, wondering if he didn't look me in the eye as he said that for my comfort or his own.

Then, I shrugged.

"Age isn't everything."

With that, I bid him goodnight and scuttled back up to my fish bowl.