A memory, I thought.
I often slipped into the same place when I was ruminating on something.
But Kayal never struck me as a ruminator.
“Everything okay?” I said.
“Hm? Oh. Yes. Fine. Fine.”
Clearly, everything wasn’t “fine.”
Something had shaken him and he was dwelling on it hard.
“Are you worried about the ship?” I said. “I’m sure it’ll be all right with a little work.”
“I know. It’ll be fine. It’ll take a few days to patch it up but it’ll work.”
I racked my mind for what else he could be so concerned about but came up empty.
I approached the pallet he perched on and dusted it off with a hand.
My hand came away caked in the stuff.
I thought for a moment if I really wanted to mess up my clothes before realizing they were already messed up.
What difference did a little dust make now?
Kayal sat hunched over, rocking gently back and forth with his hand pressed to his front jacket pocket.
“Why do you keep doing that?” I said, the question out before I could restrain myself.
“Keep doing what?”
“Pressing your hand to your chest? Is it an old injury?”
He peered down at his hand and seemed surprised to find his hand as I had described.
He pulled it away and smiled distantly at me.
“Something like that.”
He was still in a world of his own.
“Do you think the M’rora is still out there?” I said, still trying to get to the heart of what put him on edge.
“Probably. If I were him, I’d be heading here right now.”
That sounded a little strange, I thought.
If the M’rora was out there and looking for us and intended on taking me away, he’d had plenty of time to arrive.
Why wasn’t he here already?
He wasn’t going to get a better chance to snatch me than with us grounded on this planet and with no way to properly defend ourselves.
So that meant Kayal was concerned about something else, something more sinister.
But what?
We sat in silence until Yoath came back armed with a tall stack of blankets and a pair of steaming bowls.
I could smell it the moment he entered the barn.
My stomach rumbled loudly.
Kayal got to his feet and took the items from Yoath.
“Let me get that for you,” he said.
“Thank you. I’m a little unsteady on my feet these days.”
“You probably work too hard.”
“True. But that’s hardly different.”
With nowhere clean to put the blankets, Kayal opened the ship’s hatch and placed them inside.
Yoath handed me the bowl.
It was hot and the ceramic did nothing to protect my hands from the heat.
I welcomed it… for about the first five seconds.
I rolled the sleeve of my hoodie down over my hands and used them as gloves.
I tucked into the food.
The soup was boiling so I tucked into the vegetables and sliced at them with the edge of my spoon and munched happily.
I didn’t know what the brightly colored vegetables were or from which creature the meat came from, and I didn’t care.
I was so hungry I could have eaten the ass out of a flying duck.
“I’m sorry it’s so dirty in here,” Yoath said. “We still haven’t fully recovered from the bitter winter three years ago. Time was, this barn was full to bursting with tools and other equipment. We had to get rid of a lot of it to make ends meet.”
“The cold snap of Three Dash Seven,” Kayal said.
Yoath’s head snapped up.
Kayal blinked in surprise at his revelation.
He looked away and I saw the tendons in his chin grow tight as he ground his teeth.
“That’s right,” Yoath said before squinting and pursing his lips. “Listen, this is going to sound a little strange, but I get the feeling we’ve met before. With the look of you, I can’t believe it’s anything to do with farming or trading in town. And other than meeting neighbors, I don’t see a whole lot of people around here.”
Kayal was turned toward Yoath and I had a good angle to appraise his expression from my position.
It was confused and curious, one I hadn’t seen him wear before.
His mask had slipped slightly, which it seemed to do often in the presence of this Qyah.
Unless I missed my guess, I would have said he did know this man from somewhere.
As fast as the look came over him, it was gone again.
“I… have one of those faces,” he said. “Many people have thought they’ve seen me before.”
Yoath nodded absentmindedly.
“That’s probably it,” he said, though he didn’t sound very convinced. “Well, I’ll let you get to it. You must be tired after what you’ve been through. There’s an outhouse behind the main barn if you need it. We’ll be up at the crack of dawn to begin the chores. You’re more than welcome to come over for breakfast. Just make sure to get there shortly after the crowfix crows. Pana can be finicky about having to cook food past then.”
Kayal looked after Yoath as he drew the old barn door shut behind himself and his footsteps shuffled off toward the farmhouse.
Kayal placed his hand on the door.
Light from the farmhouse produced long fingers that stretched through the gaps in the wooden slats.
That look came over him again, lost to mist on the far side of time.
Ever since I met him, he’d been strong and in control of himself and never came across as someone who needed much help or aid.
He took things in stride—even when I attempted to escape him, even when he was shot by a bolt of plasma.
He hadn’t lost hope and I knew he would have fought like the Tasmanian Devil himself if it meant he could survive.
But right then, peering through the broken slats at the retreating figure of the kind Qyah stranger, he had the appearance of a small boy.
I wondered what he was thinking about and what it would mean for us when I finally discovered what it was.
If something scared him, knocking him off his stride like this, it couldn’t bode well for us and our mission to reach safety.
Suddenly, the stew
