"Are you dud wid da bicroscope yet?"
Nina cringed at the nasal twang in Martin's voice – his nostrils were still stuffed with tissues and he sounded like he had a bad cold; the rings under his eyes had faded from dark purple to an angry red though his eyes were still puffy. Someone had fixed him up after they docked and he now wore a bulky plastic splint with big strips of surgical tape between his eyebrows and across his cheeks. Nina doubted he'd be able to even use the scope – how was he going to get close enough to the eyepiece? - and decided if he hurt himself, he deserved it. "Just a second," she flipped over her shoulder, readjusting the scope so she could capture an image of the Anabaena strain she was observing on the slide below.
"Wad are you doing?"
"I have to document the strain sample they brought me from the cleanup operation," Nina explained, trying to keep the acid out of her voice. "What do you need it for?" There was only one microscope on the Kalpana Chawla, and it lived in the tiny medbay that was mostly used to patch up scrapes and dislocated fingers.
"Dey gabe me a blood samble to look at, dey wand be to do a doxicology on a case of blood boisoning. Sombe idiot cut himbself and dey thing he's god a bug." Martin held up a baggie containing a slide with a brown smear and sighed, "I keeb warning dese peoble aboud andibiodig-resistant bagteria bud dey dever listen."
Nina turned back to the microscope and fixed the lens over the chains of green bacteria, like a string of jade or aventurine floating in the suspension of water molecules and other more-harmless single-celled bugs and plants that were present in every slide, stream, pond and puddle and had been since life began. She triggered the camera with a hand-held clicker and snapped several images before taking her slide off the stage and wiping it down for Martin's blood sample. "All yours." She pushed back from the worktable, her feet coming out of the stability straps on the floor, and floated away. At least he's behaving himself. Martin had been very quiet since they landed, staying well out of Nina's way when they didn't have to be in the same room, though he had turned a little red when the Federation liaison in charge of their enforced residency announced that Martin would be working with Nina and Fred Yang on various parts of the bacterium-identification project. So far Martin had made only basic conversation, relaying relevant information and announcing his arrival when he reported to work. He waited until Nina was well away from the microscope before settling in.
After listening to his irritatingly loud mouth-breathing for about four seconds Nina decided to take her images to another room to write up her identification findings before uploading them to the Fed servers. They had cut off her access to any Dreen networks – even her secure line to the university – and everything she wrote would be scrutinized before it was sent on to (hopefully) Ardus's team planetside. I can't even send him a note, I hope he's okay. After what he'd told her of his reaction to losing Athe's mother, Nina worried that the big guy might be paralyzed with grief. She took her borrowed tablet back to the tiny coffin-sized room she slept in and did what she could, using a stylus to draw arrows and circles around the parts of the bacteria that proved she was indeed looking at Anabaena.
Outside in the tube-shaped hall she heard the clunk and whisper of the station's resident's soft shoes on the walls and rungs they used to propel themselves around. Nina tried to pretend they were the sounds of the little flying animals that lived in the eaves of Ardus's building. She tried to imagine the scuffling was the muffled sound of rain on the wide glass seaward wall, and that the close walls were those of Ardus's sleeping niche. She pulled herself into a ball to put more space between her body and the walls, trying to believe that her trapped body heat was that of a Dreen. Everything on this human-made station was too small, the rooms and passages cramped and the light harsh and artificial. Nina longed for the warmth of Dreenai's sun on her face, the silky feel of sand between her toes, the air tasting of salt and smelling of sweet green seaweed-
"Nina, wake up!" Fred Yang's voice and banging hand barely two feet from her face startled her, and the stylus squeaked as Nina slashed a bright red line across the tablet's screen. "Shit," she swore, tapping the "undo" command and freezing the screen in the process. "Damn it – I'm not asleep!" Nina tucked the tablet into a pocket in the wall and slid open the door to the hall. "Fred? What's going on?"
"I thought you'd like to know, since you probably want to get back to your, um... Back to him as soon as possible, you may want to start getting ready."
"Ready? Ready for wha-" Nina's mind began to tick, replaying his words. Him? Surely he doesn't mean - "What?"
Fred – quiet, mild, unflappable Fred – was grinning. He spoke faster than Nina had ever heard him, words flying in a rapid clip as he looked up and down the tube for anyone who might be listening. "I'm not supposed to know, but my cousin just called me – there's a shuttle en route to the station right now with a stop at the Port this evening. They're sending us back to help with the recovery."
If the station hadn't already lacked gravity, Nina might have floated on the power of her joy alone – launching out of the minicabin she flung herself at Fred and bowled them both into the narrow passageway. She wanted to laugh, to cry, to scream and fling herself into space and fly back to Dreenai. "We're going back! Thank you Fred, thank you! Blessed Omi – how do I look?" She touched her hair and found it spinning out behind her head in a wave. "I need a shower – my clothes! I left all of my clothes in the apartment!"
"Shh!" Fred waved a hand in front of his face, "We're not supposed to know! My cousin told me she could get in big trouble for telling me, I don't know what would happen if the Feds find out I told you. Play it cool, okay?"
"Okay, okay!" Biting her lips to keep from giggling, Nina gathered her loose hair into a knot and absently straightened her borrowed jumpsuit. She could hear the soft thumping of someone pulling themselves along the narrow tube and backed into her bunk. She mouthed a sincere "thank you" as Fred began to propel himself away, and received a hasty thumbs-up in return. As soon as her cabinet's door shut Nina buried her face in the foam mattress and let out a happy shriek. I'm going back! Tonight! I'm going to see Ardus tonight! It was a struggle to keep her head down and her face clear when the third-shift meal was served, but Nina wolfed down her portions of foamy artificially-flavored garlic bread and some kind of pasta in a sauce that might have been tomato-flavored but really just tasted like gritty ketchup. Afterwards, with her stomach starting to protest in zero-gravity, it was much easier to listen with a straight face to the Federation liaison tell them that their shuttle was coming to pick them up.
Only Martin looked pale at the prospect of returning to the world of eight-foot Dreen.
Four hours, a change of clothes back into her shorts and tunic, and one sick-bag later Nina stood (a bit heavily now that Dreenai's gravity pulled at her) waiting impatiently at the gate and struggling to see into the mass of moving, flashing Dreen who milled and walked around the open space. Dozens of them in protective gear scrubbed and scraped at various parts of the Port's structure, spraying disinfectant that smelled like lurefruit and sea brine. The melon-like smell flooded her with memories and Nina searched desperately for a particular pattern of colored spots, fixing each passing Dreen's neck, hands and forearms in her vision until she was certain they didn't have the Collar of Aku. She barely heard the Dreen Port agent ask her if she had anything to declare. "What? Oh, sorry, no." She held her hands out, "all I have are my clothes."
"Port records say you've been here before, do you know where you're going?"
Nina peered past the Dreen. "Uh, yes. I'm either going to the university or the apartments next door. Sorry, I left in such a hurry I don't have my papers-"
"Name?"
"Doctor Nina Ma'atanoa-"
The Dreen's head shot up. "Excuse me? You're her?" He pointed at a screen on the wall across the way, where Nina watched herself explain how algae, not human malice, had made the Dreen sick. His outburst attracted the attention of other Port officials, and a flutter of paperwork and badges descended upon her. Nina shook enormous hands one after the other, accepting thanks and praise for helping solve the puzzle of what many had thought was a deliberate act. There was a brief pause as she presented her hand for a rapid print scan to verify her identity – fortunately someone had thought to request that particular record from the Federation – and Nina was the first human to return to Dreenai.
Passing through the gate she found herself alone and untethered, surrounded by long legs and huge clawed feet. She dodged and wove, but everyone seemed to be going everywhere at once – Nina would move left, and immediately have to backtrack because the next huge Dreen would be bearing down on her like a glittering tidal wave.
"Excuse me!" she cried, "Sorry! I just-" Nina spun to miss a swinging arm carrying a long case – some kind of instrument – and narrowly avoided having her leg crushed by a huge clawed foot. "Shit!"
Colors and flashes began to blur, the noise and movement swirling around her overriding her sense of direction. For several steps Nina let herself be carried by the current of the crowd, but soon the flow of foot-traffic became a sparkling, stamping confusion and she could no longer tell if she was headed towards the wide doors to the outside or back to the gate. Even as she called "Watch out!" her voice was lost in the low roar of speech, arriving and departing shuttles, squeaking luggage and rustling fabric. All around her the faces of the Dreen remained upturned, looking over her as though she was merely one of the small flying creatures that roosted in the arching roof overhead. Amid the din, though, Nina thought she could hear her name. There was only one voice like that – a low, gentle rumbling like waves in a storm – and Nina spun on her heels. "Ardus? Ardus! I'm here!"
Between waves of enormous bodies Nina spotted the illuminated sign pointing towards the gallery erected after the first Port incident, larger-than-life hand-prints and messages in human and Dreen, and dashed between two adults carrying small children. Again she called out "Ardus!" and skidded to a stop before she plowed into a potted plant the size of a small wading pool. Once more she heard her name and took off towards the gallery.
At the end of the hall Dreenai's sun set over the sea, painting the gallery red and orange. Beyond the doors, tufts of feathery tallgrass fluttered like golden pennants. The hand-prints blurred, Nina's eyes clouding with tears as her progress was stilted by carts of luggage and forests of legs as Dreen stopped to chat and ask for directions to this or that gate. "Ardus!" Nina choked, wanting so badly to run yet thwarted by the packed Port, swiping at her face with her hand. Her foot caught on the edge of someone's boxed luggage and time slowed to a crawl as Nina, disoriented, fell and sprawled flat on her face. She laid gasping for a moment, then spit sand and grit as she pushed up on her hands with tears falling freely onto the floor. She got one foot under her when a massive hand, its grey-blue fingers tipped with shining black claws and its palm leathery yet soft, wrapped around her arm just below the shoulder. Incredibly strong, the hand lifted Nina to her feet as though she were made of paper.
A voice like boulders grating together rattled her lungs, "This is becoming a habit."
Nina fairly slapped the tears from her cheeks as she looked up – and into impossibly blue eyes. Kneeling before her, one hand on her shoulder and the other ready to catch her if she fell again, and sparkling with glowing, flickering pores against the backdrop of his blue-black skin like a map of the cosmos, Ardus glittered with relief, joy, anxiety – a rainbow of color that ebbed and flowed across his face, neck, arms and chest. Nina threw herself at him with a wordless cry, sobbing openly as she buried her face in his Collar of Aku and grabbed fistfuls of his soft, warm, fingerlike barbels. Ardus's huge driftwood-hard arms folded around her, engulfing Nina's body. "Nina," he rumbled, "Nina, my starfish, I thought I had lost you."
Nina sobbed as she laughed. "Ih-it would take muh-more than the Feh-heds to get rid of m-me!"
"I am sure of it," Ardus turned her head and kissed her face several times. "I was prepared to take on the gods if it brought you back to me." He held her face between his palms, rubbing his thumbs over her wet cheeks. "I wanted to weep, but I could not."
Nina wiped her face with her tunic. "I know, it's okay," She hugged him, "but I'm here now. How's Boda?"
Ardus smiled his bizarrely beautiful smile, the narrow-eyed one that crooked one side of his mouth more than the other and made him look dangerously sexy. "Boda will recover, as will the rest thanks to you. Athe is overjoyed, of course, as are Nia and Meem. You have saved lives little starfish, dozens of them and perhaps more if other Dreen come forward with symptoms. But it is no longer a concern, now that we have a solution. Are you all right? You fell again," he said with a glint in his blue-on-black eyes. "You know there are other ways of getting my attention."
"Yeah, well, work with what you know, right?"
Ardus laughed, the bridge of his flat nose wrinkling. "Oh Nina, my starfish, what am I going to do with you?"
Nina grinned, biting her lip. "I'm sure you can think of a few things," she said, her smile widening. "You're a smart guy, shouldn't be too much of a challenge."
"I could go for a challenge," said the huge dark Dreen, and Nina felt his enormous hands curling tight around her hips. "Though a little thing like you might be tricky."
"You're good with little things like me though," Nina shrugged. "You just have to be delicate."
"I have no intention of that," Ardus stood, lifting Nina with him and settling her on his hip. "Shall we go home, starfish? I have been patient waiting for your return, but I find merely having you back is enough to make me lose my grip on delicacy."
Nina wrapped her legs around his hips, clinging to the Dreen like a cliff-climber. She swept her hair back with a drawing gesture across her throat, as though pulling aside a necklace. "Take me home, big guy – a little thing like me can be tricky, but you know how I like it."
With a grin, Ardus nodded. "Rough?"
"Rough!"
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Thank you so much for reading! STARFISH was a project two years in the making, keeping me both busy and sane over the initial COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and the following year while the world adjusted to our new reality.
I want to thank several people who helped me with this story, my sister W and my partner R especially. W was the first to read the early drafts and begged me to share STARFISH with the world, and R sat with me and read every chapter - mostly to tell me when my sentences were getting too long and when I used "and" too much. Thank you to the readers who have made it to the end, who have shared their thoughts and hilarious reactions and pointed out errors and quirks. To the teachers and professors who pulled me aside and asked if I'd ever thought about writing a book - sorry, but that's what I was doing in class instead of taking notes. Thank you to my mother, whom I did not realize had told her coworkers "My daughter wrote a sexy book!" and thus started a whole thing. Finally, a very special thank you to my father who passed suddenly before I could finish the first draft. He taught me how to write - not just how to make letters, but how to form sentences and how to use "show, don't tell" to an extreme degree.
I will be taking a short break for the next few weeks before I start posting the next story - I am starting a new job and will need all the brain cells I can get for training. In the meantime, please feel free to ask questions, re-read, make comments, critique, suggest contests and review shops and generally support my work by helping me get the word out about STARFISH. I can be found on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rmhashauthor and Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/rmhashauthor/, and continue to watch this space for special announcements, previews and other small bits regarding my next project!
If you are artistically inclined, please do share your artwork on Tumblr or IG and tag me! I would love to see anything and everything you make, and hopefully help boost other artists and writers as many have done for me. Fan art is still art and artists support other artists regardless of medium.