On her right arm, she had tattooed three hearts. One heart for each life the scorpions had taken from her. One heart for her mother, slain when Leona had been only a child. A second heart for her husband, slain on their wedding day ten years ago. A third heart for that child who had grown inside her, the child she had lost.
An albino scorpion had devoured her husband; she had never buried Jacob's bones. Her child was buried at sea. Her mother had burned. She had no mementos, no places of mourning. Only these tattoos.
"I'm an Inheritor, a warrior for Earth," she whispered at her reflection. "But I'm also a widow. Childless. Motherless. And so scared."
She dressed, her fingers stiff. She stepped back into her bedchamber, approached her safe, and opened it. Inside, she kept her treasures. A model sailing ship in a bottle. A seashell on a chain, an actual seashell from Earth. And that single page from Moby Dick. Treasures of the sea. Finally a smile broke through Leona's tears.
"Someday I'll see them," she whispered. "The blue seas of Earth. I'll sail the forbidden seas, the sunlight on my back, the water all around me, the wind in my sails. Still you sing to me, Earth. Still you call me home."
She closed the safe, sealing the bottle and page inside. But she placed the seashell amulet around her neck. She and this seashell shared a common ancestor. Both had evolved in the waters of Earth. This cold shell against her skin was a connection to home. No human had seen Earth in millennia, but Leona wore a piece of that world against her chest, comforting and smooth. She lay on her bed, gazed out the porthole, and tried to imagine seeing the blue marble in the distance, its wind singing for her sails.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Another human.
Rowan trembled. She could barely breathe.
There was another human in Paradise Lost.
She huddled in the darkness. The duct rattled as she shook. She had not met another human since she was two years old. Sometimes she wondered whether any others even lived at all.
But he was here.
She had seen him.
It was real.
"You sure you didn't just see a hologram?" Fillister asked. The robotic dragonfly buzzed beside her, wings fluttering.
"I'm sure!" Rowan nodded. "I mean, yes. I saw a hologram of a human too. A woman. After all, I was peeping into the virtual reality brothel. But I also saw a real human, and—"
"Blimey, you were peeping into the VR brothel?" Fillister frowned—as much as a robot could frown, at least.
Rowan groaned and rolled her eyes. "Oh, shush. I wasn't peeping to look at . . . that." Her cheeks flushed. "You know patrons drop scryls there all the time. How do you think I buy your gear oil?"
Fillister shuddered. "Bloody hell." The dragonfly buzzed around her, grazing the walls of the duct. "Row, another human? Really? The bloody scorpions killed them all. We were both there. We saw it. Only we escaped."
Rowan grabbed him, nearly crushing the tiny robot. "Don't you say that!" She glared at Fillister. "Don't you ever say that. My sister lived. And other humans have been surviving too. The Heirs of Earth are out there, and—"
"The Heirs of Earth are a myth," said Fillister. "A group of human warriors knocking about space? With guns? With starships?" He laughed. "Look, squire, I love me some humans. A human built me. And you're human, and you're me best mate. You're family, you are. You know I'm in your corner. But Earth was destroyed so long ago. The Earthstone is all that's left. And if any other humans did survive, they must be in hiding. Not visiting bloody space stations."
Rowan bristled. "I'm in a space station!"
"That's only because that smuggler caught us and sold us to a pet shop. And we've been hiding in the ducts since. We're not knocking about the bars and brothels here. Well, at least not when they're open." He shuddered again. "I cannot believe you bought me oil with scryls collected off a brothel floor. That's bloody disgusting, it is."
"It's either that, or I grease your gears with snail slime."
"Brothel scryls will do."
Rowan took a few moments to collect herself. She breathed deeply until her trembling eased. Every instinct screamed to flee. She wanted to crawl toward the top of the space station, to curl up by the porthole that gazed upon the stars. Or she wanted to crawl to the bottom of Paradise Lost, where the ducts met great rumbling engines, and gears churned, their teeth larger than her. She wanted to move as far as possible from this new human.
"For years, I wanted to meet somebody else," Rowan said. "For years, I watched movies about humans, read books about humans, listened to human singers. I even wrote my own movie scripts about humans—well, humans and dinosaurs. But now a real human is here, and I'm terrified."
Fillister nodded. "Humans in movies and books can't see you. Can't talk to you. Can't disappoint you. For years, you thought humans are brilliant. You're worried this one won't be."
Rowan bit her lip, then remembered her crooked teeth and covered her mouth.
No. She would not run. She would perhaps never see a human again.
Maybe he can take me away, she thought. Maybe he has a starship. Maybe he'll take me to another world. Maybe I can finally feel grass beneath my feet, sunlight on my skin. Just like the movies. I can even film my own movies, become a director like my heroes.
Yes, for years Rowan had dreamed of leaving Paradise Lost, of meeting other humans, of making movies. But for fourteen years now, she had remained inside these steel ducts. The thought of flying away, of seeing real grass and mountains—not just on a tiny screen but huge before her—spun her head.
She ignored her fear.
She crawled through the ducts.
She returned to the brothel and peeked through the vent, hoping to see the human again. She cringed. The human was gone. A scaled, aquatic alien had rolled his aquarium into the brothel. He was busy fertilizing holographic eggs.
Rowan crawled above another brothel room, only to see an alien insect—it was larger than her—fluttering between two holographic flowers, groaning as he pollinated them.
She approached another brothel room, peeked inside, then shuddered. She scampered away before she could see too much. The giant snail from the toilet was there. Seeing his Seductive Slugs magazine in the washroom stall had been bad enough.
Fillister buzzed above her, following her along the duct. "Really, scryls from this floor! Disgusting."
"Well, the human isn't in the brothel anymore," Rowan said. "Let's keep looking."
Where could he have gone? Paradise Lost was a hive of sin. Hundreds of establishments, each selling some forbidden pleasure, crowded the space station. Was the human tossing scryls at android strippers, licking mushrooms in rooms of sparkling mirrors, buying antimatter grenades from the smugglers behind the pipes? Was he drooling or drugging? Was he gambling, groping, grogging? So many dens of forbidden pleasure, a thousand layers of hell in a world called Paradise Lost.
Rowan crawled over them all, peering through vents. Over a den called Uncle Acid, she saw a group of reptilians dropping furry aliens into vats, laughing as the creatures dissolved, then grogging them down. In the Silver Mines, little bearded humanoids lined up, wearing helmets and elbow pads; larger aliens paid to toss them at Velcro targets. In an adult movie theater, a group of sentient mushrooms clung to boulders, watching time-lapsed videos of expanding spores. In Electric Dreams, androids were giving lap dances. One of the gynoids broke mid-dance and showered sparks onto a furry patron. The alien caught flame and shrieked, and his companions roared with laughter.