Gabriel frowned at the data in his contacts. “Reroute power to the dark matter stabilizers by a factor of three and run the simulation again.”
The figures adjusted under his instructions and began their new calculations.
Gabriel was annoyed and that annoyed him. Annoyance was a distraction.
He’d come Earthside to do some on-planet product testing. Somehow his father had found out and finagled him into staying an extra night to hobnob with his political buddies. Probably through his mother. Despite their separation of thirty years, the two gossiped like teenagers. He’d ignored his father’s calls so the man had shown up at his hotel door.
Gabriel liked to think his father was just proud but it was hard not to feel like a prize horse being pranced around. Yes, Gabriel had been granted a prestigious Alliance contract. But his father had never cared about Gabriel’s work until it had meant rubbing shoulders with his new employer. And then Elliott had been all in.
Gabriel waved away the figures and calculations from his sight and sat back in his seat. He could no longer focus, the numbers blurring in his brain.
He looked out over the horizon and squinted at the radiance of the high morning. It always felt too much down here. He looked forward to the quiet of space, where the stars were bright enough to keep him company. He felt palpable relief when the shuttle doors closed and they began their ascent over the Atlantic.
A woman collapsed in the swiveling plush seat beside the window next to Gabriel. She unzipped her jacket over her heaving chest and let out a long sigh. Sweat shone on her brow.
Gabriel averted his gaze, but not before seeing enough to stamp his brain with a pleasant memory of her flushed skin straining against the cut of her top. When he allowed himself another glance, she’d closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of her seat.
Gravity kicked in as the shuttle’s thrusters punched into their full power. In the quiet and insulated cabin, Gabriel felt a slight but sustained tug on his limbs.
As if remembering where she was, the woman jumped to attention and leaned over the window, rapt. A long ponytail flowed down her back.
Gabriel followed her tender gaze to the Earth below. Briefly, he saw the ocean as she might – a brilliant blue carpet rolling gently over tufts of vibrant green foliage. Not as an oil-wrecked swamp wasted by humanity’s ecological exploits.
As they got farther up into the highest reaches of the atmosphere, the G-forces subsided until planet thinned into space. For a moment, they were weightless. Then the shuttle’s artificial gravity system kicked in and anchored them to their seats.
The woman scrambled to find her emergency seatbelt. Her face had drained of its color. She cradled her abdomen with shaking hands.
Gabriel pressed a button on the counter next to the window. The replicator printed out a sick bag in time to shove it onto her lap before her stomach evacuated its contents.
She sputtered and coughed as the last of the retches left her body.
“Oh, Gaia. Thank you.” She shook her head with a rueful smile as she sealed the bag. “I should’ve prepared for that. I never did so great in the simulations.”
Gabriel had never been good at empty platitudes, but he wanted to fill the space between them with something. “It takes a few trips to get used to it. So I hear.”
She threw the bag into the recycler. “I take it you’ve done this before?”
Gabriel looked out the window to the warm dark of space, covering everything like a velvet blanket. “I was born out here.”
She perked up at him this time. “Oh? So the first person I meet off-planet really is an alien. Guess I owe my sister five credits after all.”
He raised a brow and leaned back in his chair. “I haven’t heard that word in a while.”
She blinked at him. “What, ‘alien’?”
He considered how to approach this, as she didn’t appear to be speaking down to him. “That term has a… history of misuse. Out here it’s considered a slur.”
Her jaw dropped and she covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry! Thank you for telling me that.”
Gabriel felt the tension leave his body. “You’re welcome.”
She tilted her head thoughtfully. “What is the proper term, then? Extra-terrestrial?”
“Not unless you expect me to demand you take me to your leader.”
His humor had the intended effect. She grinned and seemed to relax as well. She gave him a slow look-over – a perusal, he might even say. She seemed to actually see him for the first time and from the way she lingered, liked what she saw.
“Extra-terrestrial centers the Earth.” Gabriel often slipped into the role of professor with ease – hazards of the job, he supposed. He tamped down the urge to respond with a mansplaining thesis. “If you’re an Earther, then I’m a Spacer.”
She nodded, then gave him a shy smile that made his heart do a little flip. Their conversation didn’t have to continue but she was choosing to lean in by keeping it going. “So what brings you earthside, my Spacer friend?”
“Business.” From the following silence, she probably expected him to say more. He didn’t love talking about his work with strangers as it invited… politically charged questions. Some people on the fringe violently disapproved of his field entirely.
Talking about his family was infinitely worse, though.
She tilted her head as if trying to place him. “What kind of business?”
“Alliance research,” he said.
Her face lit up. “That’s neat. I just got an Alliance contract actually.”
“Congratulations. Is that what brings you spaceside?”
“It is.” She looked back outside, where the earth was rapidly shrinking away. She gripped her abdomen and covered her mouth with her other hand. “Oh, no.”
Gabriel reached for the vacuum bag again but she held up her hand.
She straightened her spine and braced herself. “This isn’t the kind of first impression I usually like to make,” she said with a weak smile. “Excuse me for a sec.”
She stood but wavered on her feet. He stood and steadied her with a hand on her arm.
She drew in a breath. Her lashes clumped against her cheek and fluttered as she looked up into his face. A flush bloomed over her freckles.
He caught a whiff of her scent, so unlike anything he’d encountered before – as if she came from some faraway earthen field. She dug up memories of his few experiences of nature, conjuring images of streams rushing over dirt, leaves heavy with dew, a crisp snap of birch as if she’d brought autumn with her. He resisted the pull to step closer and take a deeper breath of her. Instead, he let her go too soon before she’d entirely steadied.
“Thank you,” she said. To her credit, she remained composed, although she no longer met his gaze. “The… um, bathroom?”
“Of course.” He stepped back to give her clearance then motioned to the sign.
She rounded the corridor and he collapsed into his seat, confounded and disturbed and riveted at the thought of her return.
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