Out of Orbit- The Complete Series Boxset

by Chele Cooke

  “It’s not serious,” Georgianna assured her. “We’re just…”

  “Joining!” Liliah interrupted with a laugh. “In the way your parents don’t approve of!”

  Georgianna tried to look indignant at the suggestion, but failed miserably.

  “Yes, alright!”

  Liliah looked like her head was going to explode from giddiness. Or maybe her smile would simply get too wide for her face and the top half of her head would fall off with a wet slap onto the warm ground.

  “We’re having fun, okay? It’s not… It’s not anything. He’s still seeing other girls.”

  The chances of Liliah’s head splitting into two promptly disappeared as her smile faltered and she looked at Georgianna in surprise and suspicion. Georgianna had known Liliah for a few years. The girl was about as traditional as they came. She had been with her partner Qiyan for almost five years and the only reason they hadn’t joined was because… well, Georgianna wasn’t sure of the reason, but she knew it was the plan, as Liliah had told her many times.

  “Why do you let him?” Liliah asked finally.

  Georgianna shrugged.

  “Because, well, he’s great and all, but… I dunno. I’m not ready to be all serious about it. I’d rather enjoy spending time with him when I can, than not see him at all because he chooses someone else.”

  “That is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard!” Liliah exclaimed. “If I was you, I’d tell him to choose and choose fast! He can’t be so selfish! Life’s too short, George, you know that better than anyone!”

  Georgianna stared as Liliah went back to her packets as if that was the end of the conversation, folding papers with rapid precision. She knew Liliah was traditional, but those were her own beliefs, not Georgianna’s, and certainly not Keiran’s. It actually hadn’t really occurred to Georgianna until now that Liliah would know Keiran. They were both Nerrin, and Georgianna wondered whether perhaps she should have asked Liliah about him earlier. No. There was no point in asking because there was nothing she needed to know. She didn’t need to know about Keiran’s past because they were just having fun.

  Having seen the effect that losing Nyah was having on Taye, and what losing Nequiel had done to her brother, Georgianna was more certain than ever that she wasn’t ready to settle into a relationship. The pain Taye was feeling seemed unbearable, his desolation at being able to do nothing sending him into a frenzy. Georgianna hadn’t stopped worrying about what Taye would do if something didn’t change soon, and right now it wasn’t something she wanted to open herself up to by trying to make things more serious with Keiran.

  “Anyway,” Georgianna breathed after a minute of awkward silence. “I was hoping to get some herbs from you. I used up my last batch.”

  Liliah’s accommodating smile slid onto her lips as if the conversation had never happened. She placed the newly folded packet in amongst the open papers and grasped the edges of the hide, holding it taut and lifting it carefully from her lap. She got to her feet.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  Georgianna held the half-folded packet in her lap, chewing on her bottom lip and staring blankly at the dry earth.

  “Same as last time, if you have it.”

  “Lijiam, Gwetua, and Goas, right?”

  Thinking about it for a moment, Georgianna finally nodded.

  “Yeah, I think that was it,” she agreed. “Though, if you have more of the Gwetua, I use it quite a lot.”

  Liliah nodded and pushed open the door into the house, already taking a step inside before Georgianna looked up.

  “Oh, if you have any unground, could you grab me some hyliha?”

  Liliah looked at her curiously. Hyliha wasn’t all that useful, not when you had better remedies.

  “Lacie is practising.”

  She nodded and disappeared into the house. Georgianna watched two children at the house across from them playing, drawing symbols in the earth with sticks. Folding the paper absently, trapping the powder within the folds, Georgianna smiled. She supposed it might be nice, being settled. Not until she was older, and not while things were so dangerous, but maybe someday.

  “I don’t have much Goas,” Liliah said, appearing at her side. “But Qiyan is out hunting today and he usually brings me back things, so can I bring some in a few days?”

  Dropping the packet she’d been folding down with the rest, Georgianna nodded gratefully as she opened her bag and tugged out a small leather purse. Pulling open the strings, she tipped out the coins and counted them out, swapping them with Liliah for the packets of herbs, one much larger than the rest, the hyliha.

  “Whenever is fine,” she agreed.

  Settling down into her position against the wall, Liliah lifted the hide and draped it across her legs again, careful not to spill any of the loose powder. Georgianna stashed the packets into a pocket in her bag so that they wouldn’t pierce and spill herbs through her supplies.

  “I’ll catch up with you later,” she said. “Got to see if anyone needs anything before I head back into the city.”

  “Stay safe, George,” Liliah said.

  Georgianna nodded. Liliah waved Georgianna off before returning to her packets of herb powders, leaving Georgianna to wander through the camps, checking to see if anyone needed any treatment as she made her way back into the city.

  The overnight shift in Medics’ Way had been quiet, which Georgianna had been grateful for. After spending the day out in the camps, and the evening serving drinks at Crisco, Georgianna had been exhausted. Being a medic had been her dream since she was a child, but after the arrival of the Adveni, it had not been enough to live on. While the Veniche often dealt in trade, the Adveni system revolved around money, and not many Veniche had enough money to afford medical treatment when they most needed it.

  She had taken the bar job during the freeze a few years before. After a large number of Veniche had moved south to escape the worst of the blizzards, there had not been enough people for Georgianna to make her way in trade. Greunn, the owner of the bar, had been sceptical at first, but settled on giving her a shot, believing that her pretty face (for a Veniche, anyway) would help sell his drinks. She hadn’t been sure how she felt about being looked on in that way by Adveni, but had decided that as long as they kept their hands to themselves, she could deal with their eyes and lewd comments well enough.

  Georgianna took over from Keinah in the early morning hours. Keinah was huge, her stomach swollen with the coming birth of her second child. She didn’t take many shifts on the Way anymore because the child could arrive any day, but she’d explained that Jaid had been getting increasingly frantic as, after three days’ missing, they had still been unable to locate her husband, Si. While Georgianna had wanted to ask more, it was clear that Keinah was desperate for some sleep, so she’d let her go.

  Jaid showed up mid-morning, looking like she had not slept a wink in days. Georgianna asked her about Si, but with no news on her missing husband, the older woman didn’t seem up to talking about it. While packing her things into her bag, Georgianna offered to stay, though Jaid would hear none of it. There were a couple of Belsa out looking for Si, and Jaid wanted to ensure that she was in a place where people knew how to find her if he showed up.

  Unfortunately, Georgianna partly knew how Jaid felt. While she’d never had a husband go missing, the days before they discovered her mother’s fate had been much the same. There was nothing to do but to keep looking and hoping. Her father had been unwilling to accept that anything had happened to his beloved wife, and so it had been Georgianna, eighteen years old at the time, who went to the Adveni registration buildings after the fifth day.

  She’d been killed in a fight in the Oprust district, among Veniche fighting to keep their trade lands. She’d not been involved. Georgianna knew her mother didn’t have a fighting bone in her body, but she’d been killed none the less, caught by an Adveni Agrah’s stray bullet. Her body had been disposed of before Georgianna made the trip
to the registration buildings, so nothing was left but the possessions she’d had on her. There were a few dresses, finished for trade, a bag filled with cloth for new designs, and her joining ring, slipped from her cold finger. Georgianna still had that ring, buried in the trunk at their family home, but she didn’t dare put it on for fear of losing it.

  However, a mother lost almost a decade before would hold no comfort for Jaid, so Georgianna slipped away, heading out of the Way and south through the tunnels to the Carae. From the things her brother had told her about Nequiel’s last days, to Jaid’s current desolation over her lost husband, Georgianna knew that she had to tell Taye her decision sooner rather than later.

  Taye had managed to secure himself a spot deep in the Carae tunnels, furthest away from the main lines. There weren’t many of the old tunnel cars down this way since most of the tunnels were far too narrow to have held them. Instead, members of the Carae used whatever they could salvage and scavenge to create their homes, much like Keiran had done for his shack in Belsa territory.

  Taye had built a place for himself and Nyah at the end of a narrow tunnel, using the walls of the tunnel and attaching heavy sacking across the front. Georgianna let out a whistle as she neared the entrance to Taye’s home, covering her eyes in mock worry as she pulled the canvas to the side, making a show of groping along the wall. Taye groaned out a laugh, and Georgianna could hear him moving on a mattress. Peeking through her fingers, she let out a sigh of relief to see that he was, thankfully, fully dressed.

  “Nothing you haven’t seen before, Gianna,” Taye said, shifting the lamp from its precarious stance on the mattress and onto the floor.

  “We were nine!” Georgianna exclaimed, shaking her head.

  Stepping further in and letting the canvas fall back into place behind her, Georgianna stood in the centre of the makeshift room, ignoring Taye’s laughter as she clutched her bag in front of her, her fingers absently tracing the medic symbol stitched into the front.

  Taye looked up at her, his smile faltering. He let out a sigh and looked away from her.

  “You won’t do it, will you?” he asked.

  “I will.”

  It took a moment for the words to sink in, and Georgianna wondered if Taye had been preparing himself for the worst since he’d asked her about it. He stared at her, but once he grasped her answer properly, he leapt up, gathering Georgianna in a tight hug that lifted her off her feet.

  “Alright, alright,” Georgianna complained, batting her hands against his shoulders.

  Taye set her back down. He had one of the biggest smiles Georgianna had seen on her friend in a long time.

  “Really?”

  Georgianna nodded. She couldn’t deny him this, not when she knew how much it would mean.

  “I can’t promise when it will be, Taye. I go as often as I can, but with the Way, and Crisco, it’s mainly when they send me an alert.”

  Taye waved his hand. It was clear he wasn’t worried about when the packet would be delivered, just that it would be.

  “It is small, right?” Georgianna asked.

  “Yes, I promise, you’ll have no problems, I’m sure of it,” Taye said, grasping her shoulders.

  As he released her and turned away, a small shudder of happiness ran visibly through him. Kneeling on the edge of the mattress, he leaned over and dug his hand in behind it, finally tugging out a cloth bag, seemingly from inside the stuffing. Opening the bag in his lap, he searched through it, pulling out a paper packet.

  He was right: it was small, no bigger than one of the packets of herbs Liliah had given her. Should she want to, she could keep it in her bag with the herb packets. From the look of it, there would be no difference to the Adveni. It would only be if they chose to open each packet to check the contents that she would have a problem.

  Taye held it up, letting Georgianna take it and tuck it away while he pulled some coins out and closed up the cloth bag, stuffing it back into the hiding space.

  Pushing himself to his feet, he picked up the oil lamp and snuffed it out, plunging them into darkness.

  “Come on,” he said cheerfully, tugging back the canvas. “I’m going to buy you lunch.”

  Nothing had been able to put Taye out of his good mood, not even when a customer had cornered him at the Trade Inn and accused him of cutting his smoking leaves with something else. Taye remained resolutely calm, explaining that he would exchange the foinah leaves for another batch if the man wanted. Georgianna had traded with Taye on many occasions, but it wasn’t often that she saw other deals. Taye was very careful about this, which was probably why he’d stayed under the Adveni radar for so long. His father hadn’t been happy about Taye’s decision to join the Carae. Taye had two younger brothers who he didn’t want being dragged into it, but despite his father’s refusal to see him, Georgianna knew that Taye passed money to them through his uncle whenever he could.

  Having slipped back into the tunnels as the sun set, the two parted ways, Taye returning to the Carae to collect supplies, Georgianna to Medic’s Way. It wasn’t her turn for a shift, but with Jaid so worried about Si, she decided that if she could take a shift, she would. Jaid was grateful, and immediately set off to continue her search for her husband.

  Things in the Way were quiet. Jacob, the escaped drysta, had been given a book by Lacie, and while he barely spoke when Lacie wasn’t around, he was surprisingly comforting company on a long shift.

  Georgianna had been dozing when Keinah showed up. Apparently her baby had been kicking so ferociously that sleep was not an option. Georgianna had squeaked in excitement when Keinah let her feel the spot where tiny feet pressed through the skin, and had finally agreed to leave Keinah on the Way.

  The shack was quiet and dark when Georgianna got there, pulling the tarpaulin aside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but seeing that Keiran was alone, she stepped further in, sitting on the edge of the bed and leaning over him.

  Placing a gentle kiss against his bare shoulder, Georgianna smiled as Keiran rolled onto his back, cracking one eye open to look up at her.

  “Hey,” he murmured, reaching up and rubbing the heel of his hand into his eyes.

  “Hi,” Georgianna whispered. “Mind if I stay with you?”

  Keiran smiled sleepily and shook his head, groping out until he found the edge of the blanket, flinging it back. Georgianna undressed quickly, clambering over him and settling down on the mattress.

  “Good day?” he asked.

  “Kind of. I saw Taye.”

  Tugging the blanket over her, Georgianna wriggled her body into Keiran’s warm skin. He slid his arm underneath her body, tugging her in against him.

  “Did you make a decision?”

  Georgianna nodded against his shoulder, her fingers skating absently across his stomach.

  “I’m going to take the delivery to Nyah.”

  A burst of low laughter rumbled through him, tensing Keiran’s stomach beneath her fingers before he rolled towards her, wrapping his other arm around her waist.

  “Of course you are,” he answered. “I’m just surprised it took you this long.”

  Georgianna frowned at his mockery, but it was nice that he’d known which decision she would make. Yes, he teased her for being so predictable, but half the time, she didn’t think he was actually listening to her, seeming more interested in getting her clothes off. To know that he did sometimes pay attention and care about what she was saying felt reassuring.

  She would have said something about it, but before she had even opened her mouth, he let out deep snore. Too late.

  A hand thumped on the side of the metal shack, rousing Georgianna from sleep. With a moan of protest, she stretched her body out, toes just peeking from underneath the blankets draped across her legs, flung away from her body in the stuffy heat. Even through her shifting dreams, she didn’t feel like she’d been asleep long.

  Sleep claimed her once again as she relaxed back into the mattress, nuzzling her ch
eek against Keiran’s neck and the warmth of his skin. She was just slipping back off when two more blows sounded.

  “Hey, come on, get up. Keiran, I know you’re in there!”

  Georgianna answered the man outside with an unintelligible grumble and a smack of her hand against Keiran’s stomach. It was his shack.

  Opening one eye as Keiran let out a pained breath at her attack and swore quietly, Georgianna glanced through the shadows, trying to gauge the time. It was impossible. This far away from the main encampment, they didn’t always have the lights lit, plunging them into a perpetual gloom.

  “What is it?” Keiran grumbled, not even lifting his head from the pillow.

  There was a static rustle of the tarpaulin being pulled back and Wrench stepped in. It wasn’t unusual at this time of year for blankets and sheets to be abandoned in the middle of the night, kicked and flung away from the skin as sleeping inhabitants tried desperately to find a little relief from the overbearing heat. As Georgianna’s gaze met Wrench’s, she shifted to shield the most intimate parts of her body from view while she reached out, groping around her hips for a handful of blanket, tugging it further up her body.

  Wrench glanced down to the blanket before he had the decency to turn his head and stare at the wall. His manners, however, did not stretch far enough to conceal the grin that told Georgianna exactly how much he had seen. A blush burned through her cheeks though she couldn’t hide an embarrassed smile as she buried her face into Keiran’s neck.

  “Good night?” Wrench asked.

  “Wrench, stop standing there like a horny virgin,” Keiran grumbled.

  Unlike Georgianna, he made no effort to cover himself up. Wrench and Keiran had known each other for long enough to have seen it all before.

  “What do you want?”

  Wrench glanced towards them before averting his gaze again, nodding his head sideways in Georgianna’s direction.

  “Came to get you, Med,” Wrench said.