Gulch Rock
by Rainer Salt / RainerSalt
Tending his herd of mining-bots was Jeff's profession and passion, and it was the one thing he was good at. He loved the silence, the simplicity, and the beauty of this work. He enjoyed the solitary vigil in his shuttle and the hours spent observing his machines as they slowly but persistently chewed away at an asteroid.
But today, something was awry. Today, the herd was restless.
The semi-sentient, eight-legged bots were skittish, swiveling their delicate sensor arrays nervously this way and that, chattering status messages back and forth.
Jeff logged into the alpha bot, R2-D2, and checked its sensor readings. They told him of a whiff of metal ions strolling the hard vacuum, the kind of trace the bots were designed to pick up. Yet the composition of elements was untypical for an asteroid of this part of the belt.
He shrugged. Jeff wasn't a scientist. He was just a herder. A good herder, keeping his bots running smoothly and efficiently. He had learned this line of work from his father and had inherited the bots from the old man.
Thinking of his dad made him remember the last time he had seen him alive, deeply inhaling from his final smoke, the acrid, obnoxious smell of Ooorah's Specials hanging heavily in the air. "Them are the best, son," the old man had said, holding the fag between two gnarled fingers while coughing viciously. "Them makin' you awesome." His coughing had lasted for some more minutes; then he had died.
Which hadn't been awesome.
Since then, Jeff had herded the bots, dragging them after his shuttle from one asteroid to the next, wandering the belt, harvesting it for rare metals. Occasionally, he visited one of the outposts for selling the ingots the bots excreted. Apart from that, he kept to himself and to his herd.
A herd growing more and more restless now at the whiff of strange metal ions.
Jeff activated the long-range radar of his shuttle, probing the endless abyss around him, searching for the origin of the signal.
It took some moments for the scan to materialize into a coherent picture. Three dots—still thousands of klicks out, but approaching steadily.
The clump forming in Jeff's stomach—as heavy and black as a migrant iron meteorite.
A beep announced an incoming AV-signal. He acknowledged the communication. A flurry of pixels coalesced into a face.
The monitor showed only the man's head, and not even all of it. Only a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth were visible, the rest of the man was outside the camera's field of view.
The dark stare drilled straight into Jeff. The eyebrows above them were deeply black, two long and bristly brushes almost meeting at the center. The nose twitched briefly, its dark, porous skin unusually tanned for someone living in space.
The man said nothing.
The iron meteorite in Jeff's stomach gained weight quickly. "Hi there!" he said in an attempt to break the silence between them. "I'm Jeff Smart. What takes you to these parts? Anything up?"
The eyebrows crept upwards, ever so slightly, a motion imitated by the corners of the mouth. The rest of the face remained frozen.
"Jeff Smart?" the mouth said, its corners twitching. "Not really smart, herding all alone, is it?"
Jeff gulped, hating the direction this conversation was taking, and hating all the lame jokes people made about his name.
"Sorry, man," the mouth continued, talking about a regret that found no reflection elsewhere in the face. "Ye know, I need them bots. And I can't have no wobblin' jaws to tell the tale of me taking them."
The head tilted by a few degrees. "They call me Loco, by the way, but that won't matter to ye."
A slight motion of the man's head told of a movement of his body elsewhere. A clicking sound carried over the channel—a sound as if from a fat, important button being pressed.
Jeff's radar screen showed an object leaving Loco's ship and accelerating towards him. Seconds later, his shuttle shook with a violent explosion.
~~
The lifepod drifted slowly through space, rotating about its axis roughly once every three breaths Jeff took. Breaths consuming valuable oxygen.
For the second time this day, his thoughts reached out to his dad. That crazy old man had killed himself with his smokes, but he had been nuts about safety. Lifepods were no standard equipment on miners' shuttles, but his dad had bought one. And now it had saved Jeff's life. Well, not saved, maybe, but extended it by the 24 hours its oxygen lasted.
When Loco's missile had struck the shuttle, Jeff had caught hold of the tin box that held his most important valuables. Then he had made a dive for the pod. The pod had disengaged from its rupturing mothership just in time.
As if in a trance, he had watched how the bandits had closed in. Three small ships, two of them conventional, utilitarian designs, while one had been sleek and black. They had rounded up the bots and led them off into the oblivion of space. Apparently, the bandits had been unaware of their victim in his slowly rotating lifepod.
The pod was tiny, basically a cylinder with a padded interior granting him barely enough room to move his arms.
He extended his hand to activate the emergency beacon. It would shout out his distress for anyone to hear. Hopefully, the bandits would ignore it. They did not strike him as the kind of people to take heed of such signals.
Now he had to wait, and he had to hope.
His shuttle was gone. His bots were gone. The only thing he had was the lifepod that held him and the tin box floating between himself and the wall opposite.
He caught hold of the box and opened its lid carefully. Its contents were all that remained of his past, apart from the memories lingering in his brain.
At the top of the box, there was a photograph of his dad and mom, with him a little boy between them. That was when they still had been a family. Their mother had left them a few months later, for some other guy—a herder, too, but with way more bots than they had had.
"Whenever I get to likin' someone, they ain't around long," his dad had said after she had left.
Jeff let go of the photograph, letting it hang in the air beside him. He retrieved the next item from the box.
It was a book, a gift from his mother before she walked out on them. FRAY was written over its title page, in strangely jagged letters above the image of some weird monster about to devour a woman in funny clothing. He had imagined the woman to be his mother being punished for walking out on them. He released the book to let it float beside his parents' photograph.
The last thing in the tin box was the star. That one had been his father's. Dad had never explained what it was, but he had said that it was valuable, that it came all the way from Earth.
Jeff fingered the piece of dented, stained metal. It formed a star in a ring, and the ring carried the letters U.S. MARSHAL. He had never been able to make sense of it. Something on Mars, apparently, some Hal? He knew about Hal, the legendary first A.I. But what was Hal doing on Mars, and what was U.S.? He shrugged.
That was all he had, and all he was—a herdless herder with some antique junk, drifting through space in a lifepod and waiting to run out of oxygen.
And he waited.
When the oxygen alert finally started beeping, a film of tears blurred his view. He closed his eyes and opened them again to see teardrops drifting away from him, glittering in the light.
He watched them, then produced some more. The dance of the tiny droplets was intricate, like the stars of his own, private universe. He saw two of them mating. A vague sense of envy enfolded him, and he lost consciousness.
~~
"Hey, you!" The voice was a woman's, and Jeff's head hurt.
He opened his eyes to blinding, cold light from a lumi-ceiling above him. He was lying on something soft.
"Ye hear me?" The voice again. It sounded impatient and came from his right. He turned his head.
The woman had the wildest red hair he had ever seen—untamed, wiry curls hardly affected by the gravitation he felt.
"Hey," Jeff said softly, trying to avoid giving his headache something to feed on.
"Welcome, stranger." She grinned, displaying a set of off-white teeth. One of her incisors was missing. And something was off with her nose, too. It was strangely crooked around an old scar reaching all the way to her upper lip.
"I'm Rose," she said.
"I'm Jeff. Jeff Smart."
"Hello, Jeff," she answered. "Not sure about smart, though. More like lucky, I'd say. We've pulled you out of that pod of yours at the last minute. There wasn't more than a handful of ox molecules left in there."
"Thanks," he nodded. "Guess I owe you."
"Yes indeed," a male voice interrupted. A man stepped into his view, much older than the woman. His wild beard was a blend of copper and silver. For a moment he just stood there, studying Jeff, hands on his hips, crowding the small med station with his hulk and personality. "It has cost us a thumpin' lot of fuel and a thunderin' amount of time to rescue yer skin. Ye'll have to work off your debts."
Jeff gave the man his best smile. "Yessir," he said, "clear as asteroid water. I'm all yours."
"Argh, dad, give him some slack," the woman said. "He's barely recovered."
"We ain't no hospital," the man said, "and we're a pair of hands short since Arnie got monolayered between them two rocks."
Jeff didn't know what monolayered was, but Rose's nauseated face told him that it wasn't pleasant.
"Them call me Bob, by the way," the man added. "Captain Bob. And now ye tell us how ye ended up in a metal can floating through space like a piece of canned vat-meat."
Jeff told them. Told them about Loco, and how he and his gang shot Jeff's shuttle, robbed him of his herd, and left him for dead.
When Jeff had finished, Captain Bob nodded. "Okay. As a herder, ye're used to handlin' lumps of ole rocks. That's nearly the same as handlin' them lumps of ole ice, and that's fine because that's what we do. We're ice haulers. We're now headed for Gulch Rock for refueling. After, we'll be haulin' ice. And ye'll be haulin' it with us."
His greenish eyes bore into Jeff's like laser-assisted diamond drills.
"Yessir." Jeff's voice sounded weak in his own ears. He had heard about ice hauling. These people were searching the belt for lumps of ice, harnessing them and dragging them to the major outposts. The lumps were huge, heavy and brittle, and they tended to break apart at the most inconvenient moments. There were numerous accidents, and only the lucky ones got away with scars. His eyes wandered to Rose's mauled face.
She gave him another grin, wider this time, and he saw that one of her canines was missing, too.
"Rose'll show ye 'round," Bob said and left.
They both watched the captain leave the room.
"Him's acting fiercer than he is, ye'll see," Rose said.
Her shock of hair vanished below his sickbed. He heard her rummaging for something, then she reappeared. Her hands were holding his tin box, proffering it to him.
"That's yers?"
He sat up carefully. When his head failed to explode, he took hold of the box. Opening the lid, he saw that everything was there—the photograph of his parents, the book from his mother, and his father's star. A sigh of relief escaped his lips.
"Found the stuff in that pod of yers. Thought ye might want it."
"Thanks," he said, giving her a grateful smile.
He was awarded by yet another gap-toothed grin.
"Strange wares ye've got," she said, eying the contents of the box inquisitively.
"Just stuff." He shrugged. "From my old folks, ye know."
He closed the lid. He did not feel like talking about the only things that linked him to his past.
Rose showed him around her dad's ship. It was basically a small gravity-mimicking centrifuge perched at the forward end of an oversized engine powerful enough to accelerate the huge chunks of ice they were hauling.
Besides Rose and Bob, the crew included Janet, the pilot. She was also Bob's wife and Rose's mother. She was missing both her legs, having lost them in an accident involving some weird combination of a spinning asteroid, a rope, and an ice pick. Jeff didn't quite get the story, but he did not feel like investigating.
They were bound to arrive at Gulch Rock within a few hours.
Gulch Rock was indeed a rock, an asteroid of roughly cylindrical shape rotating slowly about its axis. It had been hollowed out and equipped with the minimum technology to maintain the low-life within. Jeff had heard of it, but he had never been there. It wasn't one of the big stations in the belt, but it was reputed to be the home of some of the weirdest and darkest characters in this part of the system.
~~
They were all squeezed into the bridge of the vessel as they approached Gulch Rock. Its port was located close to the axis of rotation at one of its end faces. A motley variety of shuttles, rockets, haulers and other, more bizarre means of transportation were held there by clamps, grapples, belts, nets, rubber bands, or sticky goo.
They were assigned one of the better berths equipped for refueling, and Janet docked expertly.
"Okay," Captain Bob said. We'll be here for about three hours. I'll step over to do the yammerin' with the authorities. Ye'll stay on board. Ye don't want to enter Gulch, believe me."
Jeff nodded. He had no desire to see the innards of that place. Judging by the disrepair of the other berths displayed on the monitor before him, any stay here was best kept as short as possible.
That's when he saw it.
The black, sleek ship, cradled only two berths down the line from them. He'd recognize it anywhere.
It was Loco's.
"Hey," he said, pointing at it, his hand shaking. "That's Loco's ship... he stole my bots... I'm sure. I'll..."
"Stop!" Bob's voice interrupted his stammer like a hammer. He reached out to switch off the monitor, replacing the view of the black ship with a wall of even blacker pixels. "Don't. Whatever ye think of. Ye don't want to do it. Ye don't want to mess with Loco. That's. An. Order."
"But..."
"No but... Yer butt will stay on this ship. We'll refuel, and we'll be gone. Got that?"
Jeff's mind was awhirl with emotions—astonishment, fear, anger, confusion.
"Got that?" Bob repeated.
"Um... yes." Jeff nodded.
"Okay. Now ye all wait here."
~~
Jeff sat on the bunk in the cabin they had given him, with the tin box open on his lap. He held the star in his hands, turning it over and over.
A knock on the door made him look up. "Yeah?"
The door opened. Rose stood in its frame. "Howdy?" she said.
He shrugged.
She entered and sat on a chair opposite Jeff. Her eyes were the same green as her father's, but her gaze was soft as she studied his face. Her lips were pressed together.
Jeff was confused. He realized that he was happy to see her, but he had no idea why she sat there, looking at him with a strangely sad face.
She finally broke the silence. "It's 3-3-7-6-1."
"What?" That woman puzzled Jeff no end.
"The code to get out through the main lock and onto Gulch." She looked at the floor.
"Why are ye telling me?"
"Don't ye want to go there? To find Loco?"
He nodded. "Yeah. But yer father..."
"Forget my father. I know ye have to go... I saw it in your eyes, on the bridge. If ye don't go, ye'll never forgive yourself. Ye'll never be the man ye should be." Her eyes were still on the floor.
He put the tin box on his bunk and looked at the star, then placed it in a pocket of his jacket.
She got up and laid a hand on his arm. "Just be careful, will ye?"
He nodded, slowly.
Then she hugged him, embedding his nose into the wilderness of her hair. She smelled of machine oil and ozone.
Rose detached herself and fished something out of the depths of her clothing—a small, black pistol. She pressed it into his hands.
He saw a solitary tear running down her cheek.
Then she turned and left the cabin quickly, without a word, without looking back.
~~
Gulch Rock's interior was basically one huge, cylindrical space. Its sheer size frightened Jeff. He had never been in a room that big.
Houses and fields stuck to its cylindrical walls, held there by the station's perpetual rotation. A fat, bright lightrod extended along its axis, bathing the scene in harsh illumination. The heat it radiated was surprising.
The predominant color was a brownish yellow, with some green in between where precious water was available to grow plants.
Jeff stood in a sandy street framed by houses on both sides. Most of the buildings had a dilapidated, run-down look, and so did the few people he saw—most of them lurked in the shadows of the verandas along the houses.
The air carried the smells of food and poorly maintained recycling systems. Tinny music came from somewhere.
A small, squat man sat on a chair in the shadow of the house closest to Jeff. He held a bottle in his hand and grinned.
Jeff approached him. "Hello, mister. I'm looking for Loco."
The man's grin dissolved into a frown. "Naw, can't be." He spat on the ground. "Ye don't want to be looking for Loco, no way."
"I do need to see him. Please, sir." Jeff already hated this place.
"Well, I've warned ye. But ye wanted it that way." He shrugged. "Loco, he's either on Jupiter or in the Armpit."
Jeff stared at the man.
"Them's our saloons. Jupiter's four doors down the street on the right, Armpit's a couple more on your left."
Jupiter Saloon had a huge, striped orb on a gallows over its entrance. The house was the source of the tinny music Jeff had noted before.
As he approached, he heard laughter.
Suddenly, the music stopped, and everything went silent.
The swing door at the entrance was only chest-high. Jeff approached and peeked into the gloom. There was a bar running along the wall opposite, the longest bar he had ever seen. An army of bottles stood at attention behind it. People were sitting at various tables.
Everyone's eyes were on a man standing at one end of the bar.
That man was completely still, like a statue of stone, an image emphasized by his pale, totally bald head.
In a blur, the man pulled a gun and shot four times at the wall opposite.
The crowd erupted into a cheer.
As if in a dream, Jeff entered the saloon to study what the man had shot at. It was a large poster titled "Star Thief" depicting two women, a dark one standing upright and a blonde one bent over some black machine. Their eyes were holes where the four bullets had found them.
Jeff looked around the room. People were talking, drinking, or staring at nothing, the display of shooting skill apparently already forgotten.
He searched for a dark face, for straight eyebrows, for Loco, but he wasn't there.
They all ignored him, except one set of eyes. The bald man who had shot the poster now sat alone at a table against the wall, relaxed, apparently calm, the whitish skin of his head contrasting with the dark shirt he wore.
Jeff felt the man's eyes dissecting him, categorizing him. He stood exposed, naked and helpless.
The power in the man's gaze gave Jeff an idea. He approached his table.
The man looked at the chair opposite, and he gave a tiny nod.
Jeff sat.
One of the man's hands had fingers of metal. An image flashed in his mind, a childhood memory of Brass Arm Butch, the savior of the weak and unlucky. But this man looked different, and he didn't have a brass arm, just a hand of steel.
"Sir?" Jeff said.
The man micro-nodded again.
"I'm lookin' for help," Jeff began. "I need someone with yer... skills."
One pale, delicate eyebrow crept upwards, surprisingly far, as if on a quest for the hair long gone.
"Ye know Loco?" Jeff hated speaking the name.
The eyebrow returned to its original position.
When the man said nothing, Jeff went on. "He and his men, they robbed me. Took my mining bots. Left me for dead. Now I'm lookin' for some skilled gun to help me." He hesitated, feeling that he had made a mistake. What made him tell his plans to a complete stranger? For all he knew, this guy might be one of Loco's partners.
"I'm Chris," the man said.
"Jeff. Jeff Smart."
A small smile formed on Chris' lips. "How much does the job pay?" His voice was soft, yet its authority embraced Jeff in the iron grip of a bot's grabber.
"I have..." Jeff hesitated again. Hesitantly, he reached into his jacket, withdrew the star and laid it on the table between them. "It's old," he said. "I think it comes all the way from Earth. 'Twas my dad's. Must be worth somethin'."
Chris picked the star up and studied it, turning it slowly in his fingers. "Yeah. From Earth." Chris' lips formed a thin line. "Can't take it, though." He put the star back on the table. "That's all you've got?"
Jeff nodded.
"Then I can't help ye. Ye're on your own." The man shrugged, turning his gaze towards the door.
He was dismissed, Jeff realized. He took the star, nodded at Chris and turned to leave.
"Wait!"
Chris' quiet voice stopped Jeff. He turned around.
"Ye've gotta wear it."
Jeff was confused.
"The star. Use that pin it has. Wear it on yer jacket."
The words were more than a statement. They were an order, irresistible. Jeff's hands shook as he pinned the star to the lapel of his jacket.
He looked at Chris once more, but the man's eyes were on the poster of the eyeless girls.
In contrast to Jupiter, the Armpit Saloon was quiet from the outside. Large, red uppercase letters adorned the wall on both sides of its dark entrance—ARM and PIT they said.
Jeff entered. The smell of beer, sweat and Ooorah's welcomed him. The room was in a deep gloom, the conversation of the few guests subdued.
Most of the men were sitting alone, nursing their drinks. A few groups played cards.
In one of these groups, Jeff recognized Loco. The tanned face and the long brushes of the man's eyebrows were unmistakable. He sat with two blond, pale guys looking strangely similar to each other—twins or clones, probably.
Jeff took a breath. He approached the table while retrieving Rose's small pistol from his pocket.
His knees shook as he stopped a few steps from the group.
They did not look up, their gazes still glued to the cards they held. But they had stopped moving.
"Loco," Jeff said, the word coming out in a pitch way too high.
Loco looked up and fixed Jeff with his predator's stare. Slowly, he deposited his deck of cards, face down, on the table. "I know ye." He smiled. "Ye're that herder. Smart, Jeff Smart."
"And ye've stolen my bots." The shaking of his knees modulated Jeff's voice.
Loco raised his hands, palms outwards. "Now wait. Why would I do such a thing? I'm as honest and law-abiding as these two Jameses here." He gestured towards his friends.
The blond twins chuckled at this.
In a red-hot rage, Jeff raised his pistol.
"Sure about this?" Loco asked. "Ye know, dyin' ain't much of a livin', boy."
Jeff looked at the pistol he held in his shaking hands and vaguely wondered if it had a safety catch he should release.
"Wait." The voice came from behind him. It was soft, but it held the room. Turning, he saw Chris, the bald man from Jupiter.
"That's none of yer business, Chris," Loco said while he and the clones were slowly rising from their chairs.
"Jeff's my friend," Chris said.
Jeff looked at Chris' face, astonished, but Chris' stare was on Loco.
What followed was a blur of motion and noise.
As if on command, the clones reached for their guns, Chris drew his own and shot them while moving to his right, away from Jeff, as Loco fired the weapon he suddenly held in his hand.
The silence following this exchange was deafening.
Loco and Chris stood, their eyes locked, guns lowered. Chris was swaying. A bloom of red was spreading over his left side. Then he fell.
Jeff let go of his pistol and lunged for Loco. His hands made contact with the man's neck, and Loco fell backward, his head hitting the wall behind him with an ugly sound. They both fell. Jeff was on top of Loco and drew back his fist to smash it into his enemy's face. But the man lay still. Eyes open, fixed on the ceiling. His head was at a strange angle to his body.
Jeff rose slowly, taking in the scene around him. Cigarette smoke hung in the air and glowed like a sickly nebula in the light entering through the windows. Men stared with frozen expressions. Bodies littered the floor.
A groan made time resume its ticking.
Chris moved, trying to get to his feet.
Jeff went over and helped him up, leaning him against the dark plastic of the bar. "Ye're okay?" he asked.
Chris held his hand over the wound in his shoulder. "Still alive." He nodded.
"Thanks," Jeff said, "for helping."
Chris nodded again.
"Why..." Jeff was searching for a way to ask the question that baffled him. "Why did ye help me? After I couldn't pay ye, I mean."
Chris' gaze went to the dead men.
"Ye know, Jeff Smart," he said. "What ye set out to do here, that wasn't smart. No. But it was brave, and it sure made ye earn that star you're wearing. And ye, going to face your enemy alone, made me realize a thing, something that had slipped my mind, something 'bout bravery. Bravery deserves respect. And help."
"Why didn't ye take the star?" Jeff was still trying to fathom the man's motives. "As a payment, I mean."
"I'd never be able to really earn it." Chris took a breath through clenched teeth. "I don't have what it takes. Way too dark inside... if ye know what I mean" He did a lopsided shrug. "And now, I go find the doc. Hope he's not as drunk as usual, or my arm will be steel all the way to my shoulder when he's done."
"Wait, I'll help ye."
"Naw, boy." Chris shook his head. "I can do that alone. Yer go back to wherever ye belong."
With that, Chris left the saloon, never looking back.
Jeff stared after him. Wherever ye belong, Chris had said. Jeff wondered where that was.
In a daze, he walked down the street, back towards Gulch Rock's port. That was when he saw a supernova shock of red hair approaching, and a crooked smile in a scarred face.
And he suddenly knew where he belonged.
Last Frontier Saloon: Intermezzo
by Jinn Tiole / jinnis
"Great story, dad!" a young voice chirps in.
Salty turns around faster than the legendary Brass-arm Buck, his supersonic laser lasso curled up in his right hand, buzzing menacingly. But he doesn't get to use it. The girl jumps onto his lap voluntarily.
My friend's daughter is eleven, and I met her a few times. With her blond hair in a ponytail, wide blue eyes and freckles scattered across her nose she is certainly not the prototype of my saloon's customer. Salty thinks along the same lines. "Lyddie! What are you up to? You're not supposed to walk the lower decks alone!"
"Ow, dad, I'm almost twelve and grown up. Besides, I'm not alone, I'm with you."
"Obviously, but how did you find me? Don't tell me you crossed central plaza at this hour?"
"No, mum asked James gamma 3e8 to accompany me. He passed here on his way to maintenance."
Anyone knows that no mother would voluntarily leave her daughter in the sole care of a maintenance clone. Child raising is very low on their list of priorities. This must be an emergency.
Salty turns his daughter's face so he can look into her eyes. "Lyddie, what happened? Where's mum?"
"She had to go see the dentist with Simon, he cried nonstop for hours. Mum didn't want to leave me at home alone. That creepy repairdroid is still working on the plumbing. And I hate it at the dentist's. She said I should accompany you home, later."
"You—" He stops mid-sentence and shakes his head. Jen offers Lyddie a glass of Coca-Cola, an all time kids' favourite. It's a rare treat on Outer Rim, and Jen probably has won the girl's eternal admiration. Salty thanks her with a nod and turns back to the table, pulling up a chair for his daughter. "Okay, as you're here anyway, you may join our round of happy storytelling. But I'd like you to remember, guys, to keep your stories PG13. Don't care to be woken by a kid with nightmares."
"What's PG13, dad?"
Salty smiles and whispers in her ear. She laughs. Then he turns back to the others. "Questions about my story?"
"No, I just wanted to say Jeff had guts, but also lots of luck. Doubt he'd have survived without his impromptu friend Chris. Good story, Salty."
"Thanks, Will, although it wasn't meant to be a bedtime story." He stares at his daughter with a deep frown. But the girl enjoys her surroundings and our attention far too much to let her parent's misgivings dissuade her.
"Pity, dad, I like your stories more than mum's fairy tales. They never have real shooting."
Lin's face lights up with a broad smile. "That's a girl to my liking. Would you care for shooting lessons, one of these days?"
My sis sure got it in her to be a teacher. Lyddie's wide smile suggests she shares my opinion, but her father closes his eyes and sighs.
"Lin, I'm not sure this is what we had in mind when her mum and I agreed to give the kids a solid education."
Dave, a father himself, nudges Salty with a grin and winks at Lyddie.
"Shooting skills often come in handy, you of all people should know. Besides, I heard stories about you and that lasso—"
Salty interrupts before he can elaborate. "Dave, I think it's actually your turn. Jinn tells me you found out what happened to the star next."
"Well, next is an optimistic way of putting it. Your Jeff passed the badge on to a long line of miner descendants. In time, they left the solar system with the first wave of settlers moving outwards along the spiral arm of the galaxy. The known trail of the star ends several generations later. But it popped up again, in an unexpected corner of the star disc. This is my story."