“Just one, please,” I said.
“Pod class?” the worker said.
Pod?
“What’s pod class?” I said.
The worker looked me over.
“If you need to ask, then you will definitely travel by pod,” she said. “It’s a little box they put you in so you sleep the whole way. It’s the only way poor people get to travel any further than their solar system. Pods take up less space and require less energy and food. Hence the lower price.”
Pod.
I could still remember the last pod I’d been in. Well, to say I could remember it wasn’t exactly right. I didn’t remember being put inside it. I only remembered waking up from it. That was bad enough.
I didn’t like the idea of getting into another one. Who knows where I might end up. At least if I was awake during the journey, I could fight or run or hide. When you were asleep in a pod, all you could do was hope they didn’t accidentally jettison you off into space.
“How much for a different class?” I said.
“A lot,” the worker said. “And between you and me, it’s not really worth the price. All you ever get to see is a bunch of walls and endless darkness. You might as well be standing in an empty room with the lights switched off.”
“I’d like to know anyway,” I said.
“Second class is five thousand credits,” the worker said.
I had no idea how much that was.
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the little bag of coins. I added the other random items I’d swiped too. There was a nice necklace among the crap. I pushed it all forward.
The worker peered at my meager collection.
“Well, honey, I don’t think you need to worry about any class better than pod,” she said. “You haven’t even got enough for that.”
“I don’t?” I said.
“Nowhere near.”
“What about this necklace? And this… bracelet thing? It has to be worth something?”
The worker sighed and pawed through the items.
“We’re not supposed to accept pawned items as payment,” she said, casting furtive glances at the other windows. “We can get into a lot of trouble.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “Please. I need to get out of here.”
I sensed she was a good person, even if she was a different species. I could tell her the truth… or at least a version of it…
I leaned forward.
She joined me.
“I just ran away from home,” I said. “My boyfriend… He… He hits me. He always did it in places so no one can see the bruises.”
I lifted my shirt so she could see the purple and blue marks there.
“Oh, baby,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“He was going to… do something else to me,” I said. “Something he never did before. I finally had enough and hit him. If he catches me, I know he’ll do worse to me next time.”
The worker pressed a holographic button.
“I’m going to call the police,” she said. “Get somebody to crack down on his ass.”
“No!” I said, jumping up and reaching across the counter. “Please. I just want to get away from him. I never want to see him again. I want to begin somewhere else, somewhere new.”
The worker hesitated a moment, then ended her call.
“All right,” she said. “But only because my sister was in a similar situation once. Heaven knows I never understood why she didn’t want to beat his ass black and blue for what he did to her.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She reached into her bag and came out with her purse. She upended it and spilled the credits across the counter.
“I don’t have a lot,” she said, “but what I do have is yours.”
“Is it enough to get me to Earth?” I said.
“No.”
My hopes deflated.
“But with a little jiggery-pokery with my terminal, I can get you halfway,” she said.
It was the best offer I was going to get. I would have to figure out how to get the rest of the way later.
“You just wait a second, child,” the worker said. “Let me work my magic and get you as far from here as I can.”
She cracked her knuckles and leaned over her terminal.
For the first time since I arrived on this terrible planet, I felt like I had a friend.
She booked me on a flight to a planet called Arcturon Prime, a Titan colony slap bang between Rang (the planet I was now on) and Earth. A pod class ticket to Earth cost two thousand credits. If it was in the middle, it meant it would cost about a thousand credits for me to travel the rest of the way.
I figured there was no reason why I couldn’t save up the money I needed. It wasn’t like I was work-shy.
After booking my flight, the worker ran an eye over my clothes, shook her head, and tutted.
“Ain’t no way nobody is going to give you a job dressed like that,” she said. “Come on. We have some time to kill.”
She took me to lost and found. Together we sorted through the items until we found things that fit me. We piled it all in a case decorated with the skin of a creature that had at least a dozen eyes when it was living. She said the creature was a “S’mauggai.”
“Nothing’s less ugly than a S’mauggai!” she said as if quoting a commercial.
I thought my pod would be located in the ship’s bowels but I was pleasantly surprised. It was buried among thousands of other pods. Everyone else appeared to know what they were doing, so I just followed them.
They stripped down to their underwear and climbed inside their pods. I felt a bit uncomfortable with so many strangers around. I folded my clothes and put them in a small box beside my pod and locked it. I wore the key around my wrist and climbed in the pod.
The lid drew over and thumped into place. My breathing was loud and filled my ears.
That was when I was most nervous. I was terrified Asshole might show up
