Snippet Saturday is the brainchild of author Lauren Dane, wherein a group of authors selects thematic excerpts from their work and shares them on Saturday mornings. This Saturday we're doing "first physical touch", presumably of the hero and heroine (or some combination of protagonists).
This excerpt is actually the first couple pages from "Heat", my novella in Secrets 22 from Red Sage (http://tinyurl.com/mg6e3x), written as Ellie Marvel. I have done some edits to the language out of respect for the fact the Meankitty blog is not specified adults only (curse words).
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Tarkin and I had dinner at Larry’s again. Unbelievers and newcomers might consider it a hole in the wall since it was in the lower district, but it was actually one of the best places to eat in Diggette Colony, if you had the credits to afford it, which we both did, within reason. I wasn’t expecting the meal to be any different from the hundreds of times I’d eaten here with my stoic Gitternian friend over the years.
We’d order our food, chat with each other and our friend Heen, a waitress here, and go our separate ways. Pretty much every time. Okay, it was more like, me babble at Tarkin, and Tarkin interject a few wry comments when pressed.
I treasured those comments. I worked hard to get them.
However, tonight when we reached our table, Tarkin handed me a delicate pink blossom, I assumed from the public organics bubble, and pulled out my chair like some courtier of old Terra.
“You feeling okay, bud?” I asked. How could you tell what a Gitter felt, anyway? Their appearance was similar to Terrans, but they always had this expression on their faces as if cracking a smile, or a frown, would cause some galactic incident. Not that many Gitters left their home system to explore the galaxy, but Tarkin was an exception.
“I am in perfect health,” he said in that funny, clipped accent of his. Tark scooted my chair as I lowered my butt to it, smooth as you please. Then he seated himself on the other side of the two-humanoid table, straightening the plastene food mat so it lined up perfectly with the edges.
I managed to keep further comments about his health, or his perfection, to myself. Maybe the flower was something new he’d managed to grow in his garden plot, and this was his subtle way of bragging. It could happen. It wasn’t like he was an android.
Tarkin glanced up from his food mat and raised his eyebrows slightly. “How are you today, Sarai? Was your workday more satisfying than yesterday?”
“Tempored six tubes of kitium ore. Perfect, I think, but you never know lately.” I twiddled with the flower. What was I supposed to do with it? Put it in my hair? Nobody else in Larry’s had a flower. There sure weren’t any flowers in vases, like fancy restaurants on Terra. Just plain, sturdy tables of various sizes, moldable chairs, booths along the wall, and a bank of screens showing vids, newscasts and trivia contests. In the back were the kongii and other gaming tables. In lieu of a bar, Larry had installed a row of high-tech servo-chutes maintained by robos and living waitstaff. Food and beverages came out, dirty dishes went in, simple as you please, and much more hygienic. Not to mention safer.
Of course, nobody else at Larry’s dined with a Gitter, either. For, what, the ninth time in a row? People were going to talk. There was little else to do in this colony when you weren’t working—talk, drink, gamble, and (you know what) pretty much covered the bases.
Or garden. Tark liked to garden. He had his own plot in the organics bubble.
“I am sure you did a more than adequate job.” He inclined his head to me as the squat roboserver wheeled out our drinks. Same drinks as the past eight nights. “Your psi is well-honed. Hermana Mining is one of the top kitium producers in this quadrant because of you.”
Tark thumbed the server’s paypad, and I reached across the table and grabbed him. “Hold on. Tonight I’m paying.”
He stiffened. His gaze dropped to my hand, carefully scrubbed after my stint in the ore lab, curled around his wrist. My skin was pale against his kaf-colored arm.
When he raised his dark eyes to mine, I could have sworn something hot, maybe a little angry, flashed in their depths. “It is my pleasure,” he insisted.
I dropped his arm like a blistering tube of ore. “Maybe I want that, uh, pleasure.”
Besides, as a temporer I had tons more credits. Tark was, well, a peddler. He located things people wanted and fixed things people broke. He had a way with old tech, and there was way too much of it on outbound colonies like this one.
Tarkin’s answering frown was the tiniest twitch between his eyebrows. The overhead glims played across his features in warm blue shades. “It would please you to buy our meal?”
“We’re friends, Tark. You don’t have to buy my food.” I placed the flower carefully on the milky grey table, then imprinted my finger on the roboserver paypad.
***
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