12:24 19/04/2588 –(8734/807/60/59)

Alien, if there were one word to describe Yursu, it would be alien. It seemed evident as Gabriel was standing on an alien world, but Minagred had been downright quaint and familiar compared to Tusreshin.

The entire layout had been designed with a flying people in mind, with all access for the landbound being an afterthought. Shops had entrances not only to the side but, more often than not, above and below.

Instead of benches, people rested on racks, hanging from them like a horde of bats. Gabriel had a good sense of direction while travelling by foot, at the very least, but he already knew he would struggle in this place.

The vehicles and roads were at least familiar; flying cars were always a bad idea, no matter the species.

Gabriel had decided to make his visit a surprise, mainly because he was worried that announcing it in advance would open up the risk of Nish being busy and needing to rearrange. That would be all the excuse his cowardly self would have needed to call the whole thing off.

None of that mattered; he was here now, and by the end of the day, he would either start a new life or have his heart broken.

Gabriel opened his navigation software and waited for the device to connect to the local system. As he waited, Gabriel noticed he was getting more than a few looks; unlike Minagerad, a well-known tourist destination with dozens of species making up its native population, Yursu was the Tufanda homeworld.

Tourists on Yursu were a thing; there would always be someone willing to go anywhere, and Yursu was by no means an unpopular destination. It was just that most tourists went to see the Demort mountain ranges or the capital city, Ivorts, not Tureshin.

His time on Minagerad came into effect, and he began to ignore the curious eyes. Judging from the map, it would be quite the trip to Nish’s house. Walkable to be sure, but he was not keen to spend six hours traversing walkways, climbing ladders and ascending ramps.

Fortunately, there was a robust public transport system, and Gabriel located the nearest depo, just a ten-minute walk away.

Pulling his luggage behind him, he had brought enough for a couple of days, just long enough to get his answer.

As he wove through the crowd, he realised that most natives had their feet firmly planted on the ground, just like him. It seemed odd at first; if Gabriel could fly, he would undoubtedly make the most of it. Then he gave it a little more thought and understood that a Tufanda flying everywhere would be like a human running everywhere.

He paid a little more attention and realised that those few who were flying were either going for the equivalent of a jog or just changing levels before touching down again.

Gabriel saw a few aliens, but they were in the minority, and Gabriel took some comfort in the knowledge that they seemed just as inconvenienced by the city's design as he. The transport depot was on one of the lower levels, and he had to juggle his suitcases as he descended a ladder.

He had one small mercy in that Yursu's gravity was so small it made his task more manageable than it looked. Something that those watching him did not realise as they saw what looked like a preteen casually lift an unwieldy object half as big as they were.

“Just ignore them, just focus on getting to the depot,” Gabriel told himself.

***

Ketrok was an interesting language when written down; it looked somewhat like a Sanskrit-derived language. However, any resemblance was purely coincidental.

Nish had taught him a little, and he had brushed up on his trip here, though sadly, he had not tried as hard as he could.

If Gabriel was reading the bus routes correctly, he needed to get on number seventeen, which would take him just over a mile from Nish’s home, though there would probably be a few dozen ladders between here and there.

Gabriel just hoped that he could make himself understood; if the bus driver did not speak basic, he would be forced to point at the map. Tufanda had two larynges, which meant they could produce double vowels, saying the letters A and O simultaneously, meaning that without some serious cybernetic or biomechanical augmentation, no human could ever speak their languages.

A human could speak a disjointed version; Ketrok used words that only required one larynx but would never be fluent.

After a couple of minutes standing before the driver, Gabriel had managed to talk to them, or at the very least, he had been able to make himself understood. Gabriel had a sneaking suspicion that he had actually as for a “fire to Abondy.” The Ketrok word for fire was very close to ticket.

Regardless the bus driver had gotten the gist of it, and he was now headed for Abondy, the informal district Nish lived in.

As he looked outside the window, he saw many children carrying bags and wearing similar clothing. “School must be over for the day,” he thought. This probably meant that Nish would leave work soon; he hoped he had not arrived too early and would end up waiting on Nish’s doorstep.

“I should have phoned ahead, got everything sorted,” he mumbled to himself. “Should’ve, should’ve, should’ve, the word of my life,” he added.

***

“Made it,” Gabriel said as he slammed his suitcase onto level Nacagrgua, a little harder than strictly necessary. It did not matter; the aggravation was over, no more climbing. “Just two more streets, and I’m there,” Gabriel taking a few moments to catch his breath. He was going to be sore in the morning.

“Gabriel?” an unmistakable high-pitched voice asked.

Gabriel turned, panting slightly, to see Pista standing amongst a group of Tufanda children supervised by three adults; none of them was Nish. Gabriel assumed they were the parents of Pista’s friends.

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He waved to her and said, “hey, Pista.”

Pista screamed, “Gabriel!” and broke from her friends and ran straight into his arms.

“Ough, go easy on me; I’ve just lugged my suitcase up ten ladders,” Gabriel said, holding Pista close with a smile on his face as she tried to tickle Gabriel’s face with her antennae. He had to admire the girl's persistence. Even though she knew he could not feel it through the suit, she did not stop trying.

Pista pulled away and asked him, “why didn’t you use the lift?”

Gabriel closed his eyes, smacked his lips and lied, “I needed the exercise.” Looking at the group Pista was with and then back to her, Gabriel asked, “where’s your mom? Doesn’t she pick you up from school?”

“No, mummy works late, and we go to the park and play until she picks me up,” Pista explained. Pista wriggled free of Gabriel's grip, grabbed his hand and said, “come meet my friends!”

Gabriel was dragged to the small group, or he would have been if Pista had been strong enough. “This is Cabtra, this is Obodo, this is Molunca, and this is Baccarte,” Pista said, listing them off. Not that it mattered. They all looked the same to Gabriel, not that he was particularly proud of that fact.

Though now that he had a larger sample size, he realised that Pista and, to a lesser extent, Nish had dark bands around their eyes. It was subtle but there, and judging from the Tufanda arranged before him, it was not a common trait. That was good; it meant the chance of him mistaking Pista for another child had just dropped.

“I told you he was real,” Pista said, holding onto Gabriel's hand, swinging it back and forth.

“Hello,” Gabriel said, waving his hand. He had no idea what they were feeling; his time away from Nish and Pista had left him rusty, and their static, unchanging faces did not help. “wait, what do you mean you told them I was real?” he added, confused.

“None of them believed me when I told them about all the stuff you did,” Pista explained.

One of the children responded in Ketrok far too quickly to understand anything other than the word “I.”

Pista then got into an argument with her friends, squabbling so loudly that Gabriel had no clue what was being said.

Gabriel placed his hand on Pista’s head and said, in basic Ketrok, “You know I don’t speak well, speak basic, please.”

Pista looked at Gabriel, her wings raising slightly and her chest puffing out, “I know, but they don’t speak basic good at all.”

Gabriel smiled at Pista’s unintended joke. “Why are you so good at it, then?” Gabriel asked, bringing his face to Pista.

“That’s because I’m smart, I did the extra hard test twenty days ago, and I did better than anyone else in my school,” Pista explained, beaming with pride.

Now that Gabriel thought about it, Pista had spoken in nothing but basic during her time at Minagerad, and it had improved dramatically between when they first met and when she left. Maybe Nish had gotten that educational content she had wanted for her daughter after all.

“Come on, we can play in the park and wait for mummy,” Pista added, pulling on Gabriel’s arm. “And we can play to the moon,” she said with a trill.

***

To the moon was a game she had Pista had come up with during their stint in the zero-g tube on Minagerad. All Gabriel did was grab Pista by the waist and throw her as high as he could. While the premise was simple and nothing out of the ordinary by their standards, everyone else at the park watched in awe as the alien, no bigger than a child, threw Pista over three metres in the air.

Pista would then flutter back into Gabriel's arms, and the process would repeat.

Sadly even though Yursu’s gravity was lower than Minagerad, any gravity was infinitely more than none, and Gabriel found himself tiring quickly. “I am out of shape,” Gabriel said after the tenth throw, and he needed to sit down.

“I wanna go again,” Pista said, climbing onto his shoulders and shaking his head back and forth. “And they want to have a go,” she added, gesturing to her friends.

Gabriel looked at the parents and asked, “is that ok with you?”

After a brief murmur amongst themselves, the children's chaperones gave their consent, though they made sure to tell Gabriel not to throw them as high as they had done Pista. It was not the height that had the parents concerned; the children could fly, after all. No, they were concerned that the throwing itself might hurt their children in some unforeseen way.

None doubted Gabriel's character; they knew he would do nothing to harm them, intentionally at least. Their unwillingness to talk to him was born of awe, not fear; they had all heard from Nish what he had done, and they had all seen the videos.

Then there was Pista, she had always been an emotional child, but they had never seen her so happy.

“Ok, that’s enough,” Gabriel said; after giving Pisat one last throw, “let's climb the frame instead,” he added, pointing to a large dome three times the size of Gabriel.

“Race you there,” Pista said, and she and the other kids squealed, and Gabriel ran after them, he could have beaten them there, even as the kids took to the air, but he knew enough to let them win.

As Gabriel approached, he leapt onto the frame, the reduced gravity allowing him to reach over a metre in height. As he grabbed onto the metal bar, it buckled under his weight, and he wrenched it free as he tumbled to the ground.

The fall left Gabriel with a slightly banged backside and a bruised ego, but Pista recalling what had happened the last time Gabriel had fallen, immediately rushed to his side and asked him if he was ok over and over again.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Gabriel explained as a crowd gathered around him.

Gabriel got to his feet and examined the metal pipe he had pulled from the structure. Gabriel flicked it gently with his finger and noticed a slight indentation matching his fingers. Grabbing both ends of the tube, he bent it, it was not easy, but he managed to do it.

“What is this made from, tin?” he asked incredulously, waving it about.

“Yeah,” one of the parents explained, amazed by what she had just seen.

***

“Gabriel?” a familiar voice asked from beyond the group.

The crowd dispersed, and Gabriel saw Nish holding a small paper bag. She just stared; seeing him was something she had not expected to see today.

“Hi Nish,” Gabriel said in subpar Ketrok.

“Mummy!” Pista shouted, leaving Gabriel behind, straight for her bag.

“Did you get it? Did you get it? Did you get it?” she asked, jumping up and down, using her wings to give her more height.

It took Nish a few moments to shake herself from her stupor before replying, “yeah, here you go.” Handing it over, Pista took out a lollipop and immediately started eating it.

Nish approached, leaving Pista to her treat; as she got closer, Gabriel noticed the raised antennae and wings. She was happy to see him.

“What a lovely surprise,” Nish said, leaving Gabriel without a doubt. She looked at the pipe in his hand and then at the damaged climbing frame and added, “still breaking things, I see.”

“Yes, someone could have warned me they made objects of such flimsy materials,” Gabriel said, placing the damaged pipe, which he just realised was public property, and he had destroyed deliberately by bending it, on the ground before discreetly kicking it away.

“Will you be here long?” she asked.

“I’m here for a couple of days, and I’m staying in a small hotel, but before I get settled, there’s something I need to discuss with you in private,” Gabriel explained.

***

Much like the apartment she had rented back on Minagerad, Nish's home was pleasant but completely unsuited for humans; most of the furniture hung from the walls. The only place Gabriel could sit was on a bean bag, and he very much doubted it could hold his weight.

So, he, Nish and Pista sat on the floor; Gabriel smiled; he felt like a little kid again. Minus the years of abuse, of course.

They sat in silence for some time, and Nish began to grow concerned. “You said you wanted to tell me something,” Nish prompted.

Gabriel took a deep breath; he had imagined a thousand ways he could tell her, weighing the pros and cons of each method. In the end, he decided it was best just to be himself.

“Nish, I love you, and I would like to begin a romantic relationship with you,” Gabriel said, as wooden as any human could.

Nish froze, her mind struggling to process what she had just heard. Not just because she had never expected to hear those words but also because she did not want to say no. Quite the opposite, she was happy.

“Is this what this feeling is?” she asked herself. It had come back the instant she had seen Gabriel again, as though her heart was going to leap from her chest.

Now it was Nish’s turn to be quiet, though Gabriel gave her all the time she required, even if it was agony to wait.

Nish took a breath and replied, “I suppose... I could give it a go.”