Space Opera 100 - Chapter 2

Unusually for an alien, Airc'len fell into many of the human standards of classical beauty. Tall and willowy with brassy skin, humanoid eyes (Deklo often felt that humans were uncomfortable around her for her solid black sclera than anything else), and soft, white hair, the twins would have been one of the most-desired sentients on the station if not for the fact that Airc'len was two bodies and one person, a single consciousness. Interspecies relationships were one thing, but bisexual alien threesomes were quite outside the comfort zones of most of the station's inhabitants.

For a lack of proper pronouns, the senior staff had fallen to the habit of referring to their male half as Len and the female as Airc, which they were slightly irked by, but put up with it for the sake of friends.

Aside from this minor fact, most people would think that Airc'len had a pretty good life on Scala Station. They were Chief Engineer, close to the commander, and had plenty of friends. Not much missing, it seemed.

Deklo knew this was wrong.

As Customs Officer, one had access to certain privleges. Inventorying the contraband storage quickly became an activity Deklo and Airc'len indulged in together out of shared fascination for the hundreds of aliens who passed through the station on the way to the planet below (and to answer the enduring questions of why one would need the mummified paw of an Earth simian on a colony and the presence of other confiscated items).

Deklo had never taken Airc'len for a maudlin drunk, however.

"An' then--then--then he said we were just too different, an'--" Airc hic-coughed, then took another swig of Tarisian ale. "--said it would never work." She sniffled and collapsed on her brother's shoulder, neatly handing off the bottle to him. Len was in the same state, only kept upright due to the cabinet he was sitting against.

"Jackass," he contributed, and then fell silent again. Deklo took a sip of her own drink, almost wanting to get completely shattered to get out of the awkward conversation. She was responsible for this, though. She'd showed them the drinks and suggested it, as they both had tomorrow off. She had never expected to open the Pandora's Box of Airc'len's relationship woes.

Tarisian ale managed to capture the exact sensation of being brained with a rock in a glass. Even though she'd only been sipping compared to Airc'len's frantic gulps, Deklo had a fair buzz going, which was probably why she decided to voice the heavily alcohol-inspired idea that popped into her head.

"If you're too different from people, why don't you just--not tell them? That you're, you know. You."

If they were offended, Airc'len didn't look it. Instead, Len leaned forward (nearly overbalancing himself in the process). "But--but everyone here knows who I am. I've been to every conduit an' terminal on this station. Who would I tell?"

But Deklo was shaking her head, a gleam in her eye for the conspiracy that was still only theoretical in her mind. "Nope. The Teatro's got shoreleave here in a week. Commander Jones told me 'cuz I'm supposed to check the cargo they're carrying. Five hunnerd clean slates for you on that boat. One of them's got to click."

Len was nodding enthusiastically--too enthusiastically, perhaps, because his face abruptly grayed and he stumbled to his feet, making for the waste chute on the wall.

---

Waking up with one's face glued via drool to an anonymous sack from Persei 8 while nursing a hangover the size of a planet was not the most pleasant way to return to consciousness, especially when one had only the fuzziest memories of the previous night. Deklo elevated herself slowly, watching the room swing around before settling to roughly level. Airc'len was snoring, collapsed in a pile by the cabinet. Deklo considered trying to stand, then, at the advice of her roiling stomach, decided against it and simply stretched her foot out and poked Airc in the thigh.

"Wake up." No response.

She went from a poke to a kick. "Wake up." Airc made a grunting sound and waved her hand vaguely before turning away. Several more kicks finally elicited a groan, and she cracked her eyes open.

"What," she moaned, rolling on her side.

"We should get to sleep," offered Deklo, placing her hands against the wall and preparing to heave herself to her feet. "You can stay here, but I need a bed." Airc had evidently stopped listening after 'stay'; her head immediately dropped back to her brother's stomach and she soon joined his snores.

Deklo, with the gracious assistance of the wall, managed to leave the storage room and stagger to the quarters she shared with Phorill before doping herself stupid with anti-nausea meds and dropping herself on her bed.

Their liquor-saturated night was only a memory of aching heads by the time the Teatro pulled into the station. It was an Alliance exploration vessel, although it had been making milk runs for the last month or so, for the benefit of new crewmembers, fresh out of training. Currently, it was ferrying cargo to the planet the station orbited, Lorfeo.

The crew was taking advantage of the downtime while they filtered through customs to take a break on the station; months and months of the same faces got stifling.

Airc'len made their move at lunch.

---

"Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?"

When she looked up from her tray, ensign Camille Goldman was sure that the striking alien had to be talking to someone else. She didn't find herself particularly pretty (she found her eyes were too wide-set and her lips too thin), particularly important (guess how much power a wet-behind-the-ears ensign in astrosciences has. Come on, guess), or particularly interesting (racquetball and Earth wallpaper designs did not make for good conversation), but she was immediately determined not to let him know any of that.

"Um, no. No, sit right down," she offered quickly, pulling out a chair for him. He sat, flashing a gentle smile as her put his tray down.

"You came in on the Teatro? I know I haven't seen you here before," he began, twirling a fork in his long fingers. She watched, hypnotized.

"Ah, yes. I'm in sciences--on shoreleave." Stupid, she cursed herself. Between her presence and blue shirt, he knew all of that already. "My name's Camille." There, something new.

"My friends call me Len. I'm chief engineer." He smiled winningly. "Do you come here every day?"

Things were a whirlwind after that--the next day was lunch together again, followed by a tour of the station and a walk in the arboretum, lunch, dinner, and a night in just learning about each other in his quarters. Oddly, Airc'len did not appear to be walking on cloud nine by day three; instead they both looked steadily more bedraggled.

"What's wrong with you? You look as if you've been dragged through a Dakrean tide lately," Deklo asked one morning after the weekly staff meeting. Allowing her male half to continue to their engineering shift, Airc leaned against the wall, pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, and groaned.

"Are you kidding? I've spent maybe four hours of the last three days whole. I've been sleeping in the maintenance shafts on my breaks. I have to check who I look like before I talk to the woman I'm attracted to. This split is driving me mad."

Deklo frowned, the tingle of guilt settling at her spine. "She has to have seen--this you at some point, though. You're chief engineer."

"Fed her some story about a twin sister."

"And no questions about the contents of you underwear drawer?"

"Why would she be in there?"

"Ah--something that doesn't cross cultures, evidently. But there's really nothing you can do? You couldn't tell her the truth, or just break up?"

"I couldn't. I doubt love enters into this, but I really care for her. She's sweet, she's full of energy, she's bright--" Airc sighed. "Back home, when one was, ah, courting, the most important thing was to establish a rapport with your partner. The perfect union is when you can practically read each other's thoughts and trust them like a part of yourself. I don't know if that's what I have with her, but--she's so sweet. I couldn't tell her, she'd never be able to handle it. What do you know about Terran romances?" she shot suddenly, crossing her arms.

"Not much, really. Doctor Adams sent me some of the classics, but they're very boring. Over a millennia old, and far from accurate these days. There's no reason she wouldn't--"

But Airc was shaking her head.

"I've had relationships--with regular me--with Terrans before. And with other species. It never turns out well. Half the time they're attracted to only part of me, the other half they keep thinking I'm two people. This one woman was set on giving me a split personality." She shuddered. "No, she couldn't handle it."

"But if you think it can't work, where are you planning on taking this relationship? Are you going to leave her when she ships off?"

"Of course not! I'll keep up letters, transmissions, then eventually say a long distance relationship's not for me. Simple."

Deklo's frown deepened. "So--you're using her."

"No, that's not it at all. I really do care for her, I just--please, let me have this." Her arms dropped to her sides, and for a moment Deklo glimpsed a dark loneliness behind her orange eyes. Deklo finally nodded, with an unshakable feeling that this was all her fault.

"Let's get to work."

---

But the plans of engineers and customs officials often go awry, and everything was decided for them two days later, marked by a shriek that resounded through the corridor of deck 8.

"You're sleeping with your sister?!"

Airc stumbled out into the hall, wearing only her underclothes beneath the sheet clutched around her shoulders. She and her brother wore identical expressions of terror, and in their agitation, they began moving in unison.

"Cam, no, it's not like that, you don't--" their chorus was cut off by a slap to Len's face.

"You're disgusting! I can't believe you!" she cried, turning on her heel and swiftly striding toward the lift, leaving Airc'len alone outside their door.

--

"It's not--she wasn't good for you," managed Deklo helplessly through her tipsy haze, rubbing Len's back as he cried. "She jumped right to crazy space incest, you don't need somebody who flies off the handle like that--another drink?" She drew another glass of Tarisian ale from the keg on the table and offered it to him.

"Bitch," mumbled Airc into her own cup.

They had drinks together weekly after that.