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  Terranium was one of the raw elements necessary for interstellar travel, and it was rare enough to make a barren moon like Verygone worth the effort. But it is useless in its raw state, and dangerously unstable. The first generation of settlers who came to Verygone made the wise economic decision not to offworld any of the work. From quarry stone to stellar drive, the fuel that comes from Verygone is certified level-one reactor-ready.

  Children like me, who were not yet old enough to work, attended demia for skills simulation and character training. In the winters, demia was more like a holding pen, the drumons doing what they could to keep us engaged. It was hard on everyone, kids and adults alike, but my father had been right: it was harder for me. My first winter turned me into a proper worshipper of the sun.

  During my first summer, I had been an invisible child, awkward, shy, and unobtrusive. The other children were too busy with games and explorations to pay me much mind, and as I got older, I was happy to pass the hours alone, hiking in the hills, or combing through the archives. I was a voracious reader, consuming knowledge, history, and mythologies from across the galaxy that had accumulated in our data banks over the centuries. Those years of solitude taught me the power of my own imagination, how to build a sanctuary against boredom and loneliness.

  But when winter arrived, my powers of invisibility evaporated. We were all insulated, and as the long, dark days wore on, I became a prime target for the idle ruffians and the social climbers looking for an easy mark. I was an unpardonable weakling in their eyes, a favored pet to the drumons, and too smart for my own good. With little else to distract them, the very attributes that had once made me invisible now drew them to me like a beacon in the winter night.

  Bash Alo was the worst of my tormentors. I’ve not thought of him in many years, and the vantage of time makes the high dramas of adolescence seem so small and foolish, but back then, his name was a curse upon my lips. Truth is, I’m grateful to Bash. His taunts and barbs helped thicken my skin, and when I finally figured out what he really wanted, he helped me understand that even enemies can become allies.

  One morning, during our short break after geologics, I snuck away to the archives to pick up the tale I had left off from the previous night: a first-person account from the ruler of the largest and oldest city on a dying planet near the opposite edge of the galaxy. It was written in such a way that I wasn’t sure if it was a true telling or a work of fiction. The scholar who published the work claimed he had found the manuscript on an archeological expedition, and had labored for decades to translate it into the universal tongue, consulting with linguists and anthropologists to verify as much as he could. The translation often used old language, so old sometimes that I couldn’t even find the definitions in the archives, heightening the sense that it was an ancient and alien piece of writing. True or no, it captivated me, and it was all I could think about during the boredom of our studies in sedimentary composition and classification.

  I was so deep in the story, I didn’t hear Bash come in.

  “Which one of you victors wants to take this afternoon’s eval for me?” he said, mockery in his voice.

  My head snapped up. Bash filled the doorway. He was only in his twelfth year, like me, but he was much larger. Bigger even than some of the older apprentices I’d glimpsed drilling shallow trenches beneath the training dome.

  I looked around, but the archives were empty except for us.

  “Don’t look so confused, shaleface.”

  There are deposits of shale across the moon that turn to a sort of paste when exposed to the atmosphere. The chemical reaction also causes the shale to release a putrid odor. Once, last year, Bash replaced my morning porridge with the paste. I smelled it right away, and pushed the bowl away, but he came up behind me, grabbed a handful, and smeared it against my lips and nose. Even after I cleaned it off, and rinsed my mouth with peroxide and mentha, I couldn’t wash away the epithet. The name shaleface stuck with me.

  My father said miners get used to the smell of the shale without much fuss, but thinking about the taste of it on my tongue made me quiver with disgust, and the smallest hint of its odor repulsed me. When my father saw how upset I was, he promised to talk to Bash’s father, who worked on one of my father’s crews. Looking back now, I realize that it must have incensed Bash to think that anyone related to a weakling like me could ever tell his father what to do. His threats and torments were more than just idle distraction or social posturing. It was a rivalry.

  But I had no inkling of this rivalry then. He was a bully, and I feared him, and that was enough for me to know that my father’s intervention would only make things worse. At the time, I had begged him not to say anything to Bash’s father. Now, here I was in the archives, alone with Bash, wishing with all my heart that my father could save me now.

  “Who were you talking to, Bash?” I asked, trying to strike the right balance of meekness and curiosity.

  “Who do you think?”

  “You said victors. Plural. There is no one here but you and me,” I said without meeting his eyes.

  “You and all of your imaginary story friends, shaleface.”

  I kept my eyes on the floor.

  “But none of them are going to help me with the eval, are they? So I guess that leaves you.”

  “I could help you study,” I said, trying to find some sort of compromise.

  Bash laughed.

  “Bash, if we’re caught-”

  “Then you’ll pay double, shale. Once Tefdrumon is done with you, you’ll still have to answer to me. Better then that you don’t get busted, eh?”

  If I agreed to take the evaluation for him, I was sure to get caught. If I said no, Bash would hurt me or humiliate me. I thought of the ancient emperor in the story I was reading, about how he would never let himself get outmatched by the likes of Bash. I needed a better option.

  “Tell Tef you can’t take the eval today,” I said, an idea taking shape.

  He saw the look on my face, and narrowed his eyes.

  “When I am within earshot, tell him your father needs help with the tunnelers. I’ll chime in and verify your story. I’ll say how my father mentioned it over supper last night.” I was improvising, but it felt effortless. Time seemed to slow down as I watched myself manufacture an escape.

  “You’re saying the old drumon will think I’m lying if you don’t back me?”

  The threat in his question caught me off guard, but I rolled with it. “Well… I’m the one with my nose at his backside, like you always say, right? Why not use that to your advantage?”

  He grunted, assenting to my logic. “But what good will that do anyway, shale? I’ll just have to take it tomorrow.”

  “If you ace this eval,” I said, “which you will if we somehow figured out a way for me to take it for you today, he’ll know you cheated.” I tried to sound as commanding as I could.

  “Careful, shale.” He moved closer to me, his hands curling into fists.

  “But if I take the eval today for myself, while you’re gone,” I plowed ahead, “I’ll know which answers to give to you for tomorrow. You’ll take the test yourself, and you’ll do well… but not so well to arouse any suspicion.”

  “You know, shale, I could ace it if I wanted.” He tilted his head back, frowning at me.

  “I know, Bash, I know,” I said, holding up my hands, “but you’ve got better things to do, right? If you want my help, then you’ve got to trust me.”

  He uncurled his fists.

  “But if I do this, I need something from you.”

  He laughed. “I won’t pulverize you. There’s that.”

  “Sure you won’t. Until the next time you need something, and we do this all over again.”

  “I like doing this, shaleface. I could watch you squirm all winter.”

  “Look Bash, everyone around here follows you,” I said, “but we all know you could be gone soon. I mean, just the other day, I heard my father talking with Loltdrumon—”
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  “Lolt?” Bash interrupted. “Did he mention me?”

  I was tempted to say yes, but I didn’t want to overdo it. “Well, no, but my father was asking him which of the apprentices were ready to move into active mining work. If Lolt sends off his best trainees to the mines, that means he will be looking for new recruits, right? What if you ended up at the top of that list?”

  Bash tried to hide his excitement, acting as if this tidbit was no big surprise to him, but I could see he was hooked. “Yeah,” he said, “I probably will be at the top.”

  “But when you leave demia, Bash, what do you think is going to happen?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Why should I care what happens? I can’t wait to get out.”

  “Remember last year, when a water purifier malfunctioned and flooded the Fulbos mine? When you leave, your spot will be empty, like Fulbos, and everyone will flood in, trying to take what was yours.”

  “So…” Something dawned on him, and a look of incredulity crossed his face. “So you want me to make sure you get to take my spot?”

  I laughed. “I’m not that crazy, Bash. Whoever wants to be the top chief when you’re gone is welcome to it. I hate demia as much as you. I just want to be left alone. All you have to do is keep people off my back, and I’ll make sure you pass all of your evals. If you do that, I’ll put in a good word for you with my father, and maybe you’ll be on Lolt’s recruitment list even sooner than you thought.”

  He stared at me.

  I met his gaze with a newfound courage I’d never known before.

  * * *

  With Bash on my side, things went easier for the remainder of winter. In the final year before the return of the long sun, while the rest of us were still in demia, he went off to begin his mining apprenticeship, and I worried new attacks might flare up. But his acts of protection lingered. A buffer had formed between me and the others. I was no longer shaleface the scapegoat. I was simply the loner.

  When I came of age in my second summer, I apprenticed with my mother. Both my parents made sure of that. They wanted a future for me, not the risk of an early death below ground. Not that they needed to worry. It was clear to everyone that I was unfit for the mines. I was smaller than the other children, too lean and fragile by our peoples’ standards. The refinery was not as dangerous as the deep caverns, and I showed the same aptitudes as my mother. “You have more talent than I ever did,” she told me once.

  And so I escaped the perils of adolescence and the jeopardy of the mines. But laboring in the refinery was still tedious. It made me thirst for a grander life. I caught hints of that grandeur whenever visitors came.

  Ships arrived with halting frequency. When they did, it was a source of tremendous excitement for everyone on Verygone. A holiday festiveness filled the community. In exchange for our fuel, the spacefarers bore stories and supplies and Fellowship credits.

  Every stranger was welcomed with open arms, regardless of race or status. Merchants. Traders. Explorers. Scientists. Refugees. They came from many different worlds, for many different reasons, speaking many different tongues, genetic permutations and modifications too numerous to measure. They represented the endless, subtle varieties of life that were so often absent out here on the fringe, and we were all united by the same need for comfort and connection, a balm for the long, lonely vastness of space.

  But they were not only our connection to the wider galaxy. They were also our economic lifeblood. Our fuel powered this corner of the star system, and we could not afford the mad nativist ideologies or exclusionary policies I had read about on some other worlds.

  What I loved the most is that even though I was something of an outlier among my own people, most travelers from other worlds couldn’t tell the difference. I was just another overcurious quarry scamp, come up from the mines to scavenge for gossip and trinkets. If they were the type to pay close attention, they might have noticed I was smaller than average, but most probably thought I was merely younger.

  Whenever they came, I felt free. I was always eager for any hint of galactic intrigue, and with each visit, I came to understand more and more that these were my people. Every traveler is an outlier somewhere, I realized. Every explorer has been faced with the choice of home or the unknown. These were the ones who chose the unknown. I was desperate for the chance to make the same choice.

  Many of the visitors spoke of Forsara; the ancient origin home. They talked of its chrome cities, shining silver and red beneath two suns, and the huge, spiked mountains, capped with ice. They told of the beautiful, brown-skinned people, the great Forsaran explorers who made us. How they had scattered us out across the galaxy to build the settlements, and how they had mastered the quantum wellspring that animates the whole universe.

  I had read so much about the field. It was designed to tap into that quantum wellspring, allowing conscious beings to interact thought with matter, creating a bridge between mind and world. It was the mystery at the heart of the Fellowship, the unifying covenant that held so many disparate worlds together as one galactic civilization.

  I hungered for firsthand accounts from visitors. On Verygone, we had a few old virtual simulators that required a full body, external interface. But it was nothing like being able to connect to the field. Virtual reality is to the field what an image capture is to actually being there. A few of the visitors even had field ports linked directly to their nervous systems. To see an actual port, a direct line into the source, was almost mystical.

  When there were no visitors, I used my imagination, fantasizing about earning the gift of field connection, giving me the power to stretch my mind out and embody a ship. To learn a new language in an instant. To become part of a planet. I imagined the journey to Forsara, accelerating through the wrinkles, crossing dimensions back to the far ago, wandering the crystal castles from where we had all once come.

  * * *

  “You sure do ask lots of questions kid,” Thaun said, looking up at me as we waited in line at the canteen to get lunch, kneading the stubble on his cheeks with his left hand. He was lean and rugged, with heavy lines creasing the sandy skin around his eyes and forehead.

  A week prior, Thaun arrived to Verygone with a rare shipment of cutting-edge nanite drills, and he quickly found a willing and eager customer in my father. My father, ever dutiful to the edicts of hospitable trade, treated Thaun in our home quarters, even inviting him to stay with us. He refused, gruff but polite, saying he preferred his ship to just about any place in the galaxy.

  But he was often seen wandering the compound, and I took to him immediately, appointing myself as his emissary and guide before another ambitious hanger-on got to him. The miners of Verygone are a taciturn people, and I found Thaun’s dry, abrasive wit and inter-worldly airs captivating; and he didn’t seem to mind me tagging after him wherever he went.

  As I began to mature, I discovered one of the advantages of my ancestry: although I was relatively small on Verygone, I towered over most offworlders. Even a small miner is still a large person, and at full height, Thaun’s head only came up to my chest. “I’m hardly a child anymore, pausha Thaun,” I said, looking down at him. “I’ve just never been off of Verygone, and I want to know more about life on other worlds.”

  “Thaun, kid. Just Thaun. Leave formalities to the politicos and bureaucrats.”

  “Okay then, Thaun. But you still haven’t told me what you do.” I glanced at the plasmic disrupter hanging from his belt.

  His eyes followed mine. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “I deal with sensitive cargo and a lot of my… clients, they require discretion and the skills of someone who can work under pressure. Sometimes, that means I got to defend myself.”

  It was our turn for food, and our conversation paused as we chose what to eat. I filled my bowl with a heaping mound of the high fat, high protein gulyas that was a staple on Verygone, and reached for a cup of piping hot thuca broth, made with tubers grown in the imported soil in our biosphere.
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  Thaun took a whiff of the gulyas before he spooned his in. “Damn. That smells fantastic.”

  I smiled watching him. “My father always says gulyas is the perfect sustenance.”

  “Gulyas, eh?” he said, as we walked towards two empty seats. “This stew must be why all you miners are so damn hairy. Even the women.”

  I laughed. “Summers here are too cold for some offworlders, and our winters are brutal. We’re hirsute for a reason. Your obsession with hairlessness is an offworld cultural oddity as far as we’re concerned.”

  He turned his head as I said that, and I followed his line of sight. He was looking at a beautiful young woman named Frotha. She had fairer skin than most of my people, with wide, chestnut eyes, and her arms and legs were covered with silky, lusutrous hair the same color as the shiny black hair on her head.

  She caught us looking, so I waved. She smiled and waved back.

  He tipped his head towards her. “I’ll tell ya, kid,” he whispered to me, “it’s strange to see a woman hairier than me, but that don’t make her any less pretty. Do you think she likes foreigners? She’s a mountain of a woman that I wouldn’t mind climbing.”

  I snorted and shook my head, refusing to answer.

  We sat down, silent except for the clinking of our spoons and the slurping broth. When I finished my bowl, I stood for another helping. “Can I get you anything else?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I can’t eat half as much as you giants.”

  I came back, and finished my second bowl. When I was done, I pushed it aside, looking to my left and right. Then I leaned forward and said in a quiet voice, “Thaun?”

  He met my eyes, curiosity on his face.

  “Are you a… a smuggler?”

  He leaned back in his chair, barking loud laughter.

  People sitting near us glanced over.

  “I don’t mean to offend,” I said quickly and quietly. “I’ve read all about the Hidden Road. How they control a lot of…” I groped for a diplomatic word, “sensitive business out here on the fringes of the galaxy.”