Jenny stood in the communal food hall, helping to prepare the dandy weeds that she had picked. Alana, a cheerful fellow human who had wound up as part of the wrecking crews clean up detail through sheer luck, and the fact that she and her husband had been aboard a ship that the wreckers had taken, said, “I have heard of these, but I’ve never gotten to eat one.”

Jenny stared down into the simmering pot that held the roots. “I never asked you before. Did you live above or below?”

Alana said, “If I had lived above I would not have been on a ship bound for an outlying colony. We got pawned, my husband and I, by our in-laws. We were still young enough that they had full control of our persons.”

Jenny said, “What did they pawn you for?”

Alana said, “Food, of course.”

Both women stared at the array of food on the counters. There were a full dozen people working in the hall at that moment. The monstrous fish from the ocean, several of them weighing at least a hundred pounds each, needed to be deboned and smoked in order to save them for later.

Some of the fish needed to be cleaned and prepared for the meal that they would have later that night. Not every meal was taken in the communal food hall. Everyone made their own way for their first and second meals of the day, but the last meal, dinner, was always communal.

It would not always be that way because eventually there would be too many of them, but for now, and in order to foster a sense of community, that’s the way it was. Jenny found herself mourning the loss of those meals even though she had not yet departed for Old Earth.

Alana said, “What did you do?”

Jenny looked at the floor. “Nothing. My parents were executed by the Capo. My mother was a healer who grew food, and someone turned her in. My father tried to save her. He offered himself in her place, but they said no, and then when he tried to stand between her and the Capo, they took him too.

“I was alone but for my betrothed. He hid me for a very long time in case they wanted to kill me too. I thought they had forgotten all about me. I thought…” The pain and misery came back in, crushing her to small bits inside. “I thought that they had decided that I was not guilty of any crime.”

Alana’s hand rested on her shoulder. There was sympathy in her voice. “But you were wrong.”

Jenny nodded. “I was walking down the tunnel when they just rushed at me. They scanned my chip and then said that I… that I was to go on a bride ship. They never gave me the reason, but I guess it was because of that. I don’t know what else it could be.”

Alana stirred the pot with a long-handled spoon. “Well, I don’t know that I’d want to go back if I were you.”

Jenny managed to breathe. “I have to. I have to help Marik heal as many as possible. It matters to me that people do not die. It’s not just that though, I… I need to know if my betrothed is alive or dead.”

Alana said, “Oh, I see.”

Jenny nodded and busied herself scraping the scales off of the fish. Alana said, “I hope you find him well, Jenny.”

Tears stung Jenny’s eyes. She hoped she did as well, but the conflicting emotions that she felt weren’t just due to her fear that she would go back to find her home planet just as terrible as it had been when she left and her very real wanting to stay there on Revant Two.

She loved Ben. She did. But she was torn because that was something so intense about the things that she felt toward Marik.

Not that Marik returned those feelings. That was obvious. He thought she was a simpleton, probably. In fact, he had said as much that day she had accidentally fallen into the sea, and he had saved her life.

As she cleaned the fish, she found herself wondering if she’d be better off just refusing to go at all. That thought brought so much guilt that she could barely finish the task.

Those feelings of both guilt and wanting to stay, of confusion about her feelings toward Marik, continued. She woke the morning that they were to part with a heavy heart and a lot of misgivings.

Jessica had come to her the night before and given her a tunic and trousers, and Jenny had stared down at the things with real hatred. “I much prefer my dress.”

Jessica, ever practical and no-nonsense, had replied, “I’m sure you do, but it’s not something that you can wear down there. You know this. People will begin to start deciding their own dress soon enough, but for right now you need to wear the tunic and the trousers. For one thing, it’ll protect you from the dust and from being cut by flying shrapnel.”

Jessica had left before Jenny could ask what that meant, but she had a good idea anyway. It was a war down there. She was going into a war zone! She had heard the stories told by all of those on Talons crew, and she knew that the humans who had survived the invasion of the Gorlites were busy fighting each other for whatever scraps they could manage to get into their grasp.

She dressed hurriedly and stepped out of the building. She carried nothing with her because she owned nothing but the small sea shells that she collected and the small and delicate glass jar that Marik had brought to her a few days earlier. She had stared at the jar with real wonder, and he had said to her, “You could put flowers in it.”

He had left before she could ask him why he would give her such a precious and beautiful gift. She had considered, quite seriously, taking it with her but the fact that the glass was so precious and that had been given to her by someone who aroused emotions in her that were traitorous to Ben made her leave it on the shelf. As she stepped out of the hut, she found herself longing to stay there. To not get on that ship. Then her shoulders straightened, and her chin came up.

Those were her people down there. She was terrified, of course, but she would do all she could to help because to do nothing would be inhumane and wrong.

Marik spotted her as she walked towards the place where the ships landed, a special dock that had been built over the water. He said to her, “Are you ready for this?”

She studied him covertly. “I don’t know. I’m very scared but… but I have to go.”

She did. She had to find Ben if nothing else.

She continued, “I really thought about saying no to this but then I remembered something.”

He was walking very close to her, and his body brushed against hers. Another of those sharp little thrills that she had felt the day their fingers had touched while collecting the plants went racing across her skin, and she deliberately took a small step away from him. He didn’t seem to notice. He said, “What did you remember?”

She said, “I remember thinking, when I lived there, how unfair it was that so many people had so much and I had so little. I remembered thinking that if I ever somehow managed to get out of that I would help those who got left behind. I did get out, maybe not the way that I imagined, but I did. And I have to help them now.”

She looked over at him as she spoke the last few words. He stopped walking, and a look of sheer admiration came upon his handsome face. He said, “You are far less frail than people believe. Maybe even more than you believe.”

A short laugh came from her mouth. “I don’t think I’m frail. I just think I’m scared.”

Marik said, as they started walking again, “I’m a little frightened too.”

Her mouth fell open, and her eyes went wide. “You are?”

He chuckled. “Of course I am. I’ve seen way too much bloodshed and war in my lifetime. All I want now is to live in peace. I want nothing more than to tend to the everyday aches and pains and scrapes and accidents, even the everyday deaths that stalk us all. I don’t want to attend to the gruesome injuries that come from war and from weapons. I’m afraid that it will break my heart. I’m afraid that I will lose courage.”

Her hand came up unbidden and went to his arm. The thick ridges of muscle there nearly made her heart stop. Her mouth went dry, and she quickly dropped her hand away from him. “Thank you for saying that. Oddly enough, it makes me feel better.”

His laugh was warm and rich. That laughter called to her and made her feel like laughing too. Before she could stop herself, she was! She sputtered out, “Well, I mean, think of it. If someone as big and terrifying as you can be afraid, then certainly there’s no shame in my admitting that I am afraid as well!”

His body leaned into hers. That heat came flushing down her skin, making her face grow red and hectic. He asked, “You think I am big and terrifying?”

She cast him a sidelong glance. “Well yes.”

Marik said, “But I am the smallest of all my brothers! And I am probably the nicest too!”

She burst into more laughter, surprising herself. “I can admit that. All of your brothers terrify me.”

He said, “When I was little, they used to scare me too.”

They were approaching the ship now, but it was still just the two of them. For some reason, that small talk, that small admission of his, had made him seem far less stern and forbidding. She found herself not only enjoying the conversation, but able to continue her part of it. “Why?”

Marik said, “Because I was not like them. Talon already knew that he wanted to be a ship captain. Renall was so smart and prepared to take on the responsibility of rule after our father left this world, and Jeval, for all his smiles and easy banter, is lethal. Even more lethal than, Talon to be honest.”

“Is he? I had no idea. I always thought Talon was that… That…” She did not know how to put it without offending him, so she clamped her lips shut.

Marik gave her an amused glance. “The bloodthirsty one? Oh, he is, no doubt about it. But only where the Federation and the Gorlites are concerned. His liking for blood stems from a need for revenge. I don’t blame him for that.”

The heat of his body was so close to hers that she could feel it and the warmth comforted her even further. She just didn’t dare lean into it. “But you don’t share his need for revenge.”

Marik said, “No. Not anymore. I did, but I’m a healer, and while I don’t mind killing those parasitic worms, the Gorlites, because they are a menace and they suck the life out of everything that they find, I have a harder time justifying killing anyone and anything else. Even those who are with the Federation.”

She was curious now. “Jeval?”

Marik flinched a little. His jaw went tight. “He has gifts beyond any I have ever seen. He has powers that only come around every hundred generations or so and yet he chooses to squander them. And his thirst for blood is born not just out of a need for revenge but from a liking of war. I think…” He fell silent.

So did she. A few paces ahead were Talon’s crew, and they were readying the ship for takeoff. Jenny's stomach turned, and her chest tightened. She did want to go back. She wanted to find Ben and have her happily ever after with him. It was possible to have that now.

After all, the old systems had fallen away and now they could be together and not have to worry that one or the other of them would starve to death or have to be pawned, that they would have to pawn one or more of whatever children they might have just in order to eat and feed the others.

Oh, but how she would miss this planet!