3.48.

  “It’s all lined up,” Trewali’s hologram said as Enidi mashed the berries for their juice. “Your husband has a ride. They are not much older than him, so they should get along once the language barrier is broken. Fortunately you have been working on the Mokoari language codex. Should be easy for him to be understood wherever he goes.”

  “I’ve been what now?” Enidi asked.

  Trewali glared at her. “You have been working on the codex, haven’t you?”

  “Why would a language spoken by less than two thousand people need a codex?” She asked.

  Trewali gasped in shock and horror. “You … you …”

  “Dear spirits, Trewali, you are so gullible. Yes the codex is ready. He’ll be able to make his basic needs known at least,” Enidi said

  “Do not scare me like that!” Trewali exclaimed. He forced himself to calm down, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling. “I promised Vladislav that he would be able to talk with Towari. It is something of a deal-breaker if they couldn’t communicate. However, it would be best if Towari only spoke Mokoari on the journey. While dealing with the outsiders, at least. It will add to his allure.”

  “I’ll make sure to tell him that. When I tell him. I haven’t yet.”

  “You … are you teasing me again?”

  “Not this time. I spoke with some of the village elders about sending Towari on a journey. They agree that it’s a good idea. Apparently there’s a tradition in the Mokoari of a warrior going on a spirit quest, and they’re viewing it along those lines. They believe that it will help him come to terms with the fact that he’s a warrior married to a mightier warrior,” Enidi explained. “But, well, he’s been having a rough few weeks since the end of the battle, and I didn’t want to get his hopes up if his spirit quest wasn’t going work.”

  “Do you think there is any chance that he will refuse to go?” Trewali inquired.

  “Towari will do anything I ask him to do. I have him wrapped around my finger,” Enidi assured him. “Especially this, I think. Going to the heavens and coming back as a spirit quest will … I think it will elevate his status to make it so that it’s not embarrassing to be married to me anymore. Especially if the others see him leave and return.”

  Trewali nodded. “Yes. Hopefully your domestic life will improve once he’s returned.”

  “Yes, hopefully he’ll be able to see himself as a man again,” Enidi agreed. She plucked the PHDA out of the air and the connection ended. She placed it back in its pouch and began soaking strips of meat in the berry juice in preparation for drying them.

  She would speak with her husband tonight, and then they would spend a few days preparing for his journey. She was certain that the village would send him packed full of trade goods, all perfectly unaware of how valuable they would be in the outside universe.

  She glanced around at the village, eyes highlighting on their casual display of their cultural goods and artifacts.

  She alone among the Mokoari realized just how very, very rich they truly were. Many of the empires on the outside world would give them a planet in exchange for this sleepy little village. She shook her head.

  Earth was truly a wonder.

  ~~~~~~

  Emily changed nervously into the uniform of the Toormonda. Today was the day. She swallowed. She’d be leaving Earth behind for a while. Not forever, but a while. Her entire class was coming with her, as well as her home room teacher. Peter was being paid to chaperone as well. He was a professional bodyguard, after all, with a black belt and four years as a Ranger. Not that that really mattered when John was going to be there, since John literally had superpowers.

  Except, she thought, that John was perhaps the reason why Emily needed a chaperone.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  She swallowed again. She’d come to the conclusion that she definitely liked John. But he was so … dense? It wasn’t his fault, she knew. His training had messed him up and Olivia and his therapist were trying to fix him. But he really didn’t get it at all, did he?

  She’d told him what the second kiss meant, hadn’t she? How could she make it even more obvious? She could --

  She blushed.

  No, she couldn’t do that.

  She sighed. They were just kids, she knew. She wanted John to be her boyfriend, but she wasn’t ready to do much more than exchange chaste kisses and go to movies together with him, she thought. Hopefully he’d understand. Her mom said that boys only think about one thing. But John was different from most boys. He thought about …

  She had no idea what John thought about, she realized.

  She finished slipping in to the uniform that had been given to all of her class. It was standard and traditional, the same for boys and girls. A simple gray uniform that wouldn’t look out of place on old Star Trek videos. At least it was comfortable, she thought. She knew that rather than washing it, the ship would reclaim it and print them a new one every time they changed, which is why the students were told not to bother packing clothes.

  They could pack books and games and other things to pass the time while they weren’t engaged in the dedicated class time, so Emily had a small suitcase filled with such items. But she didn’t have to worry about outfits, which was nice. She’d have given it way too much thought if they were expected to bring a wardrobe with them, and would probably have gone way overboard, which would have been embarrassing in its own way.

  She picked up her suitcase and carried it downstairs, then outside into the driveway where Peter was waiting for her. He too was wearing the gray uniform of the Toormonda, since he was coming with as well. He smiled as he put his cigarette out on his shoe and opened the door for her.

  “Looks good on you,” he commented.

  “Thanks.”

  They drove in relative silence to pick up John. He was waiting on the stoop of Olivia’s house, also in the gray uniform. Unlike the two already in the car, he carried no luggage with him.

  “You’re not bringing anything to pass the time?” she asked when he got in the car.

  “The Toormonda will have everything I need,” he answered.

  “Okay, if you say so. But we’ve got to play Monopoly while we’re in space,” she said.

  “Sure,” he responded. “Can we have the radio?”

  He always asked for the radio, she’d noticed long ago.

  They drove out of the city into a field nearby, where a shuttle was waiting for them. The parents of their classmates were drifting in one by one, saying goodbye to their students, many of them far more emotional than if this was just a regular school trip.

  Because it was more than a regular school trip. They were going into space.

  Eventually everyone who was going arrived, the teachers doing their headcounts and checking their lists, the parents waving goodbye with tears in their eyes as they left. Emily had said goodbye to her parents the night before. They were very busy, and she usually only saw them in the evenings. Sometimes the lack of affection in her family bothered her, but mostly she was happy.

  They boarded the shuttle, and everyone strapped in. The shuttle took off silently, and Emily didn’t even feel the weight of inertia as she watched out the window and the spacecraft left the Earth behind. She watched through a window that wasn’t really a window as the sky turned black and the stars came out, and the world turned into a massive sphere that slowly grew smaller as the shuttle got farther and farther away from it.

  She turned to look at John, who was looking ahead with a bored expression on his face. “You could at least pretend to be excited. I’ve never seen Earth from orbit before,” she chided him.

  “I have,” John said. “Sorry. I am excited. But for a different reason.”

  “Oh? And what is that?”

  “Because I promised I’d do this once we got into space,” he said, and he abruptly kissed her on the cheek.

  She blushed, and for once, it was her turn to realize that she had no idea what to say.

  ?