Joston
I sit back and let Aeryen Redmor pilot the aircar. He’s pretty much got the hang of it already. He’s a very quick study.
“Okay if I go a little faster?” he says.
Who am I to deny him some speed? “Go for it,” I say.
I watch his hands on the controls, the wisps of hair on his wrists already grown out after only a few days of not being tended to. It’s too bad I won’t have the chance to spend more time with him. If I’d ever have a kid—well, that’s completely unlikely—I’d like to have this one. In some ways I feel like he is my kid.
“Aeryen,” I say as he stares hard at the dash array, then back out at the surround, just like I showed him. “Aeryen, can I tell you a story?”
“Sure, Joston,” Aeryen says. “Can I go a little faster?”
“Sure,” I say. “You see, back on my home world—”
“Choryn,” Aeryen says.
“Yes, Choryn. Well, Choryn wasn’t originally inhabited by Choryneans.”
“That’s silly,” Aeryen says. “Why else would they call them Choryneans?”
“But they weren’t the first ones there,” I say. “They renamed the place after themselves.”
“Smart,” Aeryen says, showing how smart he is. “Can I try a loop?”
“In a bit,” I say. We have to get past Ozker and Mirz’s place first. Can’t have Niya seeing Aeryen doing a loop.
“Who was there?” Aeryen says.
“Chengdry,” I say. “There are still Chengdry on Choryn, although they were ruined when the Choryneans arrived.”
“How?”
“The Choryneans fought battles with them, infected them with diseases the Chengdry had no defense against, and took over their lands and lives.”
“They should have had a revolution. Like here,” Aeryen says, stating the obvious.
“They should have, but they didn’t,” I say. “And after all the years of fighting were over, there were not many Chengdry left.”
“Can I do a loop now?” Aeryen says.
“You know how?” I say.
“I watched you in the raft,” Aeryen says.
“But this is different,” I say. “Not all aircraft are the same.”
“Show me,” Aeryen says, so I show him. “Do it again,” he says, so I do it again.
“Once more,” Aeryen says. “I don’t have it yet.”
“Hold on,” I say, and pull the aircar into a series of loops because, well, it’s fun, and we’re over the airfield now, where the flight controllers can get a good look. No sense disappointing them.
“More!” Aeryen says.
Other than myself, I’ve never met anyone else so delighted by the sheer wonder of flying.
So I stall out the engines, sputter toward the ground, and watch as Aeryen’s face turns ghostly white. His hands are clutching the bottom of his seat. He looks like he’s going to puke.
“I thought you wanted more,” I say.
“We’re going to crash!” Aeryen says as I bring the aircar out of its dive.
And just as quickly as he panicked, he recovers.
“More!” Aeryen says with even more enthusiasm than before.
I do a triple helix and a fancy spin whose name I don’t know.
“Show me!” Aeryen says.
“Next time,” I say. “Want to do the landing?” We’re just over Ozker’s airfield again.
“Yes!” Aeryen says. So, with a little inobvious assistance from me, Aeryen Redmor, daredevil pilot in training, lands the aircar.
Just like I always like to do, we sit in the cockpit for a while after we’re on the ground. It’s like still being in the air, sort of. Holding on to that feeling.
“I brought them,” Aeryen says.
“What’s that?” I say.
“Nik gave them to me,” Aeryen says as he hands me a box he takes out of his jacket pocket. “He said you asked for them.”
I open the box and laugh, and Aeryen, not knowing why I’m laughing, starts laughing too.
“Hold out your hand,” I say. I take one of the three objects out of the box.
“Wow,” Aeryen says. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”