"Have you inspected any ships in orbit yet?"
I blinked at the sudden question from Ivy. I yawned and lifted my head up from the sandy patch I was laying in. The heat radiating down from the lamp above me felt so nice, and I had been having the best time 'sunbathing'...
"Hm?" I mumbled the sleepy question back to Ivy.
"Good morning, sleepyhead. Sleeping in late today?" Ivy's teasing tone danced with laughter.
"Muh." It had actually been a long day. We had finished our schedule and gotten ready to go home when another ship reported a potential crawler sighting. We hurried over to where that ship was docked, waited while everybody was unloaded, checked the entire ship and found nothing, and then checked it again when the ship's crew begged us to.
Minna's father had watched me search that ship with a look of disapproval I had found very frustrating.
Just to show him, I had ended up following all the odd scents I could pick up. And there were more than a few of them. It had been well into the evening when I had managed to track a subtle scent to an extremely fuzzy spider-like creature that turned out to be a pet of one of the passengers. Apparently it had broken out of the pet carrier it had been shipped in and decided to hide in some of the dark crevices that could be found in the cafeteria, and one of the ship's crew had mistaken a brief glimpse of it for a crawler.
We spent another twenty minutes or so chasing the thing through the ship before Minna finally managed to catch it with that weird netted pole she carried, then we had delivered it to the crew. It had been a phenomenal waste of time. And the weird creature had eyed me the entire time Minna was carrying it away. With all twelve of its creepy little eyes. I couldn't tell if it was hoping I would help it or trying to figure out how to eat me.
Still, it had been good to see how happy the Kymari kid was to be reunited with his lost pet. Even if he did have some really creepy tastes in animals.
I sent Ivy an image of my sandy surroundings and the pleasant warmth of the heat lamp. "Long day."
"Aw." A memory of somebody bumping Ivy's side and draping a wing over her came through the mindlink.
I smiled at Ivy's mental 'hug'. "Thanks. What was the question again?"
"Have you gone into orbit? We've all had to search a few cargo ships that weren't able to deal with a planet's gravity, but visits from those ships are still rare, and Trenil wasn't sure if you've left the surface before. Have you had to go into space to inspect any ships?"
"No. All of them have landed at the spaceport. Why?"
"Trenil and the others are trying to figure out how much help we can get together. There's a really big cargo ship that's supposed to be on the way."
I tried to think. "I thought you were able to handle all the cargo ships that came through?"
"This one is supposed to be big. Trenil tried to explain it to me, but none of us really understand the Kymari system of measurements; as best as we can tell it's about twice the size of the big ocean freighters that used to sail between countries."
I blinked. Okay, that was... huge. "Wow..." Something that big could hold a lot of stuff, which... kind of made sense, now that I thought about it. The Blood Memories said the Kymari had a very large territory, with lots of settled worlds. And other aliens had large territories with just as many planets. It would make sense that they would build ships that could carry a lot of the products created on one world and deliver them to another world, just like it had made sense for countries on Earth to build them. A large grouping of people would want a lot of things.
But...
"Why is something like that coming here? Haven't the smaller ships been enough for Earth?" I knew that Ivy had been an economics student in school, and she still had an interest in it as a dragonet. She liked talking about it. It was actually fun to listen to her get excited over it, even if I didn't get most of what she talked about. But I had picked up a few things from our conversations.
"Yeah. There's not really a need for it to come here, and it sounds like they're pretty angry about wasting a trip to a planet where they can't buy or sell anything. It's going to cost them a fortune in missed appointments, not to mention the cost of feeding and paying everybody to be on the ship while it's not doing any shipping, and it'll result in shortages for the worlds they would be going to..."
"I imagine it can't be cheap to power something that large, either. Air conditioning, heating, life support, even just the lights." It was important to stop Ivy from getting too lost on a tangent dealing with economics or else I would never get any answers, but I hated just cutting her off or seeming disinterested. And I did understand just how expensive electricity could be, so I hoped she wouldn't think I was bored as I nudged her back to my question. "Why are they going through all that to come here?"
Ivy didn't seem to notice my nudging the topic back, or if she did she didn't seem to mind. "The Kymari are making them do it. It's an alien ship so the Kymari are kind of wary of it in the first place, and the planets that it's been visiting have all had problems with sicora showing up after it arrives. The Kymari aren't happy and told them to come here to get swept of any sicora that might be on the ship, or else they won't be allowed into Kymari space any longer. I guess losing access to Kymari markets would cost them more than one wasted trip, so they agreed and are on their way."
"Oh." I tried to visualize just how big the ship was again. It was going to take a lot of time to check something that large, especially with only a handful of us. They would need every extra dragonet they could get. "How can I help?"
"We were hoping you could handle the living quarters - you're used to working around people a lot more than we are - but we don't want to push you too much. They've decided Keegan is still too new at the job, so he and Tasha will be picking up the usual traffic while the rest of us focus on this. How long have you been working with Minna now?"
I hesitated. "Two months." The sour note of a lie was obvious in my own mindspeech.
Ivy just waited.
I sent a sigh across the mindlink. "Just a few days under three months."
"Oh." Ivy was quiet for a moment. "You'll be able to talk to Minna soon. That would make inspecting this ship a little easier; you could tell her if you smelled anything, and move through places that are clear a little quicker." Ivy spoke slowly, as if trying to feel out my reaction.
"Yeah..."
Ivy caught my hesitation. "...have you already talked to her?"
"No." My simple reply lacked any sour note so Ivy knew I was telling the truth.
"Oh." Ivy paused again, and she seemed confused when she continued. "On the other hand, learning that might distract her, and this will be a lot of work. Maybe... it would be better to wait a little longer, until we finish inspecting this ship?"
"I would be fine with that." More than fine, really.
"Okay. Do you think you'll have any problems working in orbit then? A bit more time each day to get up there, a bit longer after your shift to get back? A good chunk of time stuck in a shuttle with Minna and her guards?"
None of that sounded like a problem. Though I could see how being stuck in a shuttle with strangers might be problematic for a dragonet that wasn't used to it yet. "That's not a big deal; I'll be fine. Minna likes to get a shuttle and take me to distant parks sometimes, just to fly one, so some more time stuck in a shuttle isn't a problem."
"Okay. I'll let Trenil know. Alec is working up schedules and trying to plan how to inspect something this big. He'll give Minna a call and fill her in once he knows you're up for helping."
I glanced around the backyard and wondered just how different it would be to explore a ship in orbit. "Is there anything I should know about inspecting ships in orbit?"
"It can be a little disorienting at first, but not really. The biggest annoyance is having to avoid the low-gravity rooms; the Kymari won't let us in there. Apparently flying creatures don't do that well in that kind of environment, and they don't want to risk us getting hurt. So if you track a sicora or crawler into one of those areas you have to wait outside while the guards search everything; you can't guide them to wherever the sicora is at inside the room."
"Hrmph. Maybe Minna's dad can handle those parts; he's supposed to be trained for spaceship fighting."
"Ugh... is he still there?"
I tried to imitate the feel of the Blood Memories and replied dryly, "The Kymari are patient."
Ivy responded with a sad sigh. "I really wish he would give up and stop trying to mess with you. I get that he just wants to protect his daughter, but you'd think he would realize by now that he doesn't need to. Are you sure you don't want me to ask for help?" There was a heaviness in Ivy's tone that made it clear how worried she was for me.
Part of me shared that same worry... but it was a problem Minna had to handle. It was between her and her father; I wouldn't be doing her any favors by getting other people involved. All I could really do was support her and try and keep her spirits up - I could tell his constant attempts to get her to return home with him had been wearing on her. "I'm sure."
The mental equivalent of a reluctant nod came through the mindlink. "Okay." We had repeated this conversation several times since Minna's father had arrived, and I knew Ivy wasn't happy about it. Not that I was happy about it either. "Just... don't wait too long, okay? If you or Minna need help? If something changes or he tries anything drastic, tell us, and we'll put a stop to it."
Ivy always ended every variation of our conversation with something like that. I think she was worried Minna's father might try and kidnap her one day, or maybe get somebody to kidnap me. I highly doubted he would do anything like that - regardless of how he felt about me, he knew Minna was attached to me and would not respond well to anything like that - but I still appreciated that Ivy was willing to help. "I will. Thanks."
"I'll let Trenil know you feel comfortable helping. Somebody will call Minna and fill her in, probably later tonight."
"Okay." I shifted a little in the sand and spread my wings out more to get comfortable. "So... just how much is this ship's detour going to mess things up for the markets?"
I heard excitement in Ivy's voice as she returned to the topic I had interrupted her on. I smiled and listened to the green dragonet explain her understanding of various bits of the Kymari's economic system as the evening wore on.