“Home?” Lina said. She was not heard over the music that was still pounding, but Arabel understood and reached to take Lina’s hand. Together they wandered out of the converted storage area into the tunnels that would take them to the main commerce area of the colony. Lina’s ears were ringing.
“I’m glad I don’t have to work tomorrow.” Lina paused to think. “Today. Whatever.”
“Huh?” said Arabel.
“I said…Oh, never mind.”
As they traveled farther on, and up into the more well-traveled areas of the colony, they were far enough away from the music, and able to speak and be heard. But by that time, Lina was content just holding Arabel’s hand as they walked along.
“Hello, Lina, dear,” came an older woman’s voice from behind.
Lina detected a faint scent of love on the air, transmitted along with the greeting. She whirled around, and almost lost her balance, if not for Arabel’s grip on her hand to keep her grounded. “Mentor?” Lina said, regarding the older, slightly hunched, diploid woman.
“Are you just getting home, Lina?” Lina’s mentor asked.
“Um, no…Actually, we’re just having our morning constitutional. Mentor, this is Arabel. Arabel, my childhood mentor.”
“Charmed.” The diploid woman began to scent randomly, first joy, then calm, then a brief release of alarm, followed by more joy and calm.
Lina feared that the random scenting was the first sign of dementia. Lina didn’t see her mentor that often now that she was grown up, but she hated to see the evidence of her senility making itself more prominent. “Mentor, are you alright?”
“Yes, dear. Just out getting my morning exercise. How else can one expect to live to be my age, eh? Certainly not by staying out all night partying. Morning stroll indeed, dressed as you are.”
Lina detected a bit of the alpha pheromone with that last statement. “Perhaps I should come by sometime,” she said. “Just to see how you’re getting on.”
“You think I’m getting old and senile, don’t you?”
Lina dropped her gaze, as her cheeks flushed.
“Actually, I was thinking I haven’t taken the old cloud skimmer out in a while. Perhaps you and your friend would like to go sailing this afternoon.”
Lina’s face twisted into a grimace momentarily, while Arabel smirked, but there was no mistaking the scent of joy and hope filling the air as the old mentor awaited an answer.
“Oh, I’d love to,” Arabel said, “but I’m afraid I’ve already committed myself. I volunteered to serve meals in the old drones’ home. But I know you and Lina will have a wonderful time catching up.”
Lina moved closer to Arabel and casually dug her elbow into her still smirking lover’s side.
“Meet me at the docks at midday, Lina,” the older woman said. “I’m sorry you can’t make it Arabel, darling. I’m sure the drones appreciate you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” Arabel bit her lip and looked away.
Once her mentor was out of sight, Lina grabbed Arabel by the earlobe and dragged her over to the side of the tunnel pathway. “Thanks a lot.”
“What?” begged Arabel.
“You know what,” Lina said. “She’s obviously suffering from the early stages of something. Scenting all the time like that. In public. It’s embarrassing.”
“She’s your mentor, Lina. She raised you.”
“I suppose.” Lina hung her head as Arabel tugged her back onto the main path. “And since when do you volunteer at the old drones’ home?”
Arabel smirked. “I don’t.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
Lina rested her head on Arabel’s shoulder as they walked along. “Yeah, I do.”
The ground under Lina’s feet shook violently, and the sound of another rumbling explosion began reverberating through the tunnels of the colony. A pair of diploid soldiers came sprinting toward them and Lina and Arabel pressed themselves up against the tunnel wall just in time to let them pass.
“Let’s go,” Lina urged. “I don’t want to get caught up in whatever is going down here.”
Arabel nodded and the two picked up their pace.
* * * *
Feeling safe once again within the confines of Arabel’s apartment, Lina peeled off her skimpy rave costume and stretched out on Arabel’s couch. She patted the space in front of her. “Come on,” she said.
Arabel was in the kitchen, pawing around on the counter top, pulling pots of herbs and leaves this way and that.
“Baby, we can eat later. I’m tired.”
“I’m not hungry,” hissed Arabel. “Something’s missing, can’t you smell it?”
Lina flared her nostrils for a moment, and then shrugged.
“Somebody’s been here,” Arabel said, still digging around on the kitchen counter. “The tree flower’s gone.”
“Maybe we should stay at my place,” Lina suggested, peeling herself off the couch.
Chapter 3: Cloud Sailing
In the East, there lived an old queen who had long recognized the folly of men and the dangers of the path on which they walked. The old queen, in her wisdom, had bid her people to set aside some of the bounty which was given them by the Great Tree. She directed her most skilled crafts-workers to use it so that swift ships of silver sail could be built that would ride upon the clouds. Inside each ship was to be laid a sleeping young queen, and in her hands was to be placed a seedling from the Great Tree—gifts for her to start life anew in her own land.
—Selected passages from The Book of the Origin by Bella Aurelius Nobilis, Modern Language Translation
* * * *
“I heard you almost got blown up at work the other day,” Lina’s mentor said, as she tugged at the bow of the long, narrow cloud skimmer, coaxing it out of its storage locker and into the sun, to warm on the flat stone beside the pier.
“Why does everyone think I almost got blown up?” Lina hustled around to the stern end, pushing with all her might. Her mentor
