The Loneliness of Distant Beings

Chapter Eight

I'm on my way home after work one day, walking down North Main, when I find a hand on my arm and look up into pale eyes, and it is Ezra.

'I've been calling you,' he says. 'Didn't you get my messages?'

'No – I've been busy.'

'Busy?' He laughs and says, 'Seren, stop it, please . . . ' sliding his hand up on to my shoulder and then squeezing. 'It's me.'

Which just makes my skin crawl in the worst way, but by this point it seems like a few people passing are maybe looking at us while pretending not to be, so simply because I want to avoid a scene I walk on and let him follow me to the plaza where I stop and turn to him.

'What do you want?'

'Honey.' He laughs, looking around like he's checking no one heard me.

'Don't "honey" me.'

Which is when he gives up and gets to the point. 'Mum wants you and your family to come to dinner in our quarters tonight.'

'My family?' I don't even try to hide the look of horror I know I'm wearing. 'We can't, we're busy.' I turn to go, but there's his hand again, kind of hard this time. I turn and he's leaning down to me while looking around the plaza.

'Arrive at seven, OK?'

And even though I pull my arm away and leave without answering we both know I'll be there. It's just more trouble than it's worth to cause problems for Captain Kat or her evil spawn.

Fast forward to about eight minutes past seven that evening and we are sitting there like inanimate objects while Captain Kat finishes her call. Me, Dad, Pan and Cain (who is grinning like a dumbass), Grandpa, Ezra and Jonah. Literally sitting there utterly silent and barely breathing while we look at each other and listen to her voice slide out of the next room like a snake, all the right answers, all the right laughs, in all the right places.

'Listen, Van Hyden, seriously, I must go. Yes, it's a rather special evening.' She lowers her voice for the next bit, gets all cute while the rest of us cringe. 'I have my son's intended here with her family. It's a big moment for all of us, so let me call you in the morning.'

She appears then, arms open, beaming around at us. 'I am so sorry. So, so sorry. Urgent calls, you know how it is. Welcome, welcome to all. So happy to have you here.' And while she's saying all this she is walking around the table and kind of stroking everyone's shoulders before she stops at Cain.

'My goodness, is this Cain Keller from Engineering? For a moment I wondered what strange young man had wandered into my quarters without removing his hat first.'

And as he pulls it off and murmurs, 'Sorry,' Pan is looking daggers at him.

Captain Kat walks to her seat. 'Now, whatever has happened to catering?' she says, which is the exact moment that her door buzzer goes.

I've only ever eaten somewhere other than the cantina maybe twice in my life. Being Chief of Security, Grandpa has officer's quarters that he's allowed to entertain in but I think he basically gave up on it when my grandma died which is already more than ten years ago. In a way it's not like it's such a big deal, since you get the same food anyway and if anything it's colder by the time it gets to you, but it's still weird to be sitting here while these guys from Domestic come in pushing one of the Maintenance carts and start offloading pots of food on to the middle of the table. Meanwhile Captain Kat is pushing her pod into its dock on the wall so that this weird music starts and I look once at Ezra who scowls back and we are clearly all wondering who is going to be the first to speak.