"She'll be sober in a few hours -- Tomorrow morning it'll be like nothing happened." Nick had his hands splayed in what he'd hoped was a calming gesture as his crew stood in a half circle around the cockpit, Jacq cross-legged on the back of the pilot's seat. Her chin rested on her thumbs with her elbows on her knees, pupils enlarging and shrinking in rapid vibration, giving them fuzzy and uncertain edges. Nick had carried her out of the crew quarters and, with the crew's assistance, lowered her back into the cockpit where she'd immediately settled in for a good think.
"Your kid's already doing drugs, that has to be some kind of record." Jarett shook his head. "Can't say I'm surprised."
Nick took a deep breath. "She'll be fine, just need to keep an eye on her. Make sure she drinks water and doesn't wander off -- ink fosters curiosity, big time."
"More like idiocy," Leru muttered.
Nick ran a hand through his increasingly greasy hair, wiping his palms on his pants. "Let me put it this way: Jarett and Hep watch Jacq, keep her on the ship and in your sight. I'm going to see if we can get some food from the locals."
"Great, I've gone from pilot to babysitter." Jarett scratched the back of his neck. "Definitely not regretting any life choices."
"Would you rather go somewhere else, like far away?" Nick squared his jaw as he faced Jarett head on.
"Go," Leru met Nick's gaze as she raised her voice. "I'll keep an eye on things here."
Less than a hundred meters from the ship in the wall it now leaned against, was a cave with a fire pit dug out front. Four stones encircled the black divot in the rough, almost gravel-like sand. A covered wagon large enough to fit Nick's entire crew without touching the bench at the front stood by the opening. The whole thing sat on four thick, off-road tires, manufactured metal wheels on what looked like a hand-made wooden frame.
Four gene-spliced mounts wandered the rock-walled clearing: Their stance was wide and muscular beneath light brown fur, jaws nearly as broad as their shoulders. Big lips and flat teeth chewed at divots they carved in the ground with their front hooves.
As Nick watched, one pulled something from a freshly dug divot and tilted its head back. It crushed the morsel with its front teeth before letting it fall into its maw, flaring its large nostrils and chewing as it dug for another.
Derbish and Jenni made their way out of a crevice in the wall opposite the cave. Nick waved to them, the little valley nearly completely in shadow save the crevice they'd just left. "No luck finding that kid you were looking for?" He asked as they neared.
They approached in silence, but Derbish eventually huffed, "nah." They continued past him into the cave.
Nick's stomach grumbled as they disappeared into the shadows. "So you're just going to leave them out there? It's not even dark yet."
"It's dark enough," Derbish grumbled over his shoulder. "The kid was probably dead before we went looking, and I ain't going to die running after some damn stowaway." They entered into the cave's main chamber, muddy ground with roughly ten square meters of usable floor between slopes and crevices. The walls warbled in and out beneath shadows cast by a handful of straining, solar powered lights the likes of which Nick had found in Perseverance's emergency kit when he'd pawned it for food. A handmade cupboard stood in the vague proximity of the wall to Nick's left, with a synthwood dining table in the center of the room surrounded by mismatched chairs. Despite the cupboard being held together of separate pieces, the individual pieces bore the telltale repeating patterns of 3d-printed synthetic as well, though none of the pieces matched.
Derbish set about undoing his belt, laying it on the table along with his gun holster while Jenni disappeared down the rightmost of two tunnels. The grip of his weapon was simple wood attached to the metal structure, and looked to be carved out of the genuine article.
Nick squinted -- isn't the handle where the extra bullets were supposed to go?
Derbish turned from the table, cracking his neck and stretching his arms out to his sides. "So, you're aliens?" He smirked as he noticed Nick staring at his gun.
"Wh- yeah…?" Nick shrugged. "We sure as hell aren't locals. You guys aren't even on the map."
"Well that's kind of the point," Derbish drawled, raising an eyebrow. "Most of us are wanted criminals, we have the largest bounty in the Dust..?" He tried to give Nick a better view of his face, leaning into the nearest light as he tilted his head this way and that. "Figured that was why you got dropped on us."
Nick caught himself before he burst out laughing. "I guess some people were just made for criminality."
Derbish nodded slowly. "Mama always said 'do good in school, or you'll end up a -dirt-fucking- criminal like your father.' No matter how many times I told her the stuff they were teaching us didn't make sense, she'd say that, so I went through the whole thing." He shook his head and spit on the cave floor, mixing it into the dirt with his heel. "The way -capitalism- pits -proletariat- against each other kind of makes us all criminals. Makes us all-"
Nick's translator stuttered as Derbish said the final, single-syllable word, finally supplying "political enemies" a second after Derbish had finished speaking. Nick blinked a few times before realizing his mouth had fallen open. "Um, yeah. Couldn't have said it better myself."
"Great," Jenni said, returning from the tunnel. "More philosophers." She disappeared into the other tunnel.
"So you figured out how to fly, but you still eat each other?" Derbish squinted an eye. "Sky life sounds confusing."
Nick frowned. "You really don't know… Other than what's on this planet, everything past the atmosphere is just… what, wiring and beams? Stage lights?"
"Never thought much about it, to be honest." Derbish leveled his gaze. "We have enough problems to deal with here on the ground."
Nick put up his hands. "I'm not saying it's necessarily your fault, but…" He pursed his lips. "Are you… all like this, or…?"
"We aren't just a few stupid outliers, no." Jenni returned from the second tunnel, hat and bandana removed. Her face was round, its features difficult to make out in the dimness of the cave. Waves of thick, ember-red hair fell over her shoulders, individual strands snaking in and out of the whole like flame on the surface of a star. "But it seems the powers that be may have been keeping us in the dark."
"Speak for yourself." Derbish glanced at her, lowering one eyebrow.
"I'm speaking for the whole planet," Jenni's voice never rose, but Nick felt a wave of intrigue wash through his weariness as she spoke. She faced Derbish. "What did -Capital-'s history books say about the founding of civilization in the Dust?"
Derbish squinted into the distance. "Something like… we were all nomadic tribes, until groups of us started to band together and settle down. People bred, the groups got larger and formed societies until finally the smartest and prettiest society formed the Capital, but-" He raised a finger. "I also learned a little thing called Occam's razor, which I believe goes something like, 'just because it's probably bullshit, it don't mean aliens exist.'" He shrugged. "There was probably some kind of war. Our ancestors lost, and the Capital told whatever story they wanted to the survivors."
Jenni nodded slowly. "That's what I'd assumed as well, but it doesn't explain our new visitors.
Nick yawned, "So I take it you don't know of any other captains we might be able to hitch a ride with." He rubbed his eyes.
"Never met a captain in my life. Might've shot a couple though." Derbish rubbed his chin, "which hat do captains wear..."
Nick sighed, "At least we aren't going to have to worry about getting Perseverance repaired. We probably couldn't find parts for her anyway, even if we had units to spend."
Derbish's head rocked back. "they don't make parts for it?"
"Not anymore, she's as old as space flight. By all logic, the parts she has shouldn't even be working anymore."
"So…" Derbish's eyes narrowed as he chewed his cheek. "How long have people been, you know… out there?"
"Long enough that nobody remembers what it was like before everybody was -- and technically, we're all 'out there.' All the time. 'Out there' is everywhere." Nick rubbed his eyes for a long moment. "There wouldn't happen to be anything to eat around here, would there?"
Derbish grinned, fanning out his mustache. "There's food aplenty." He stepped over to the cupboard and removed a wooden box roughly as wide as his shoulders, placing it on the table. Nick could see several similar boxes lining the rest of the shelves. Chitteres and clicks emanated from the box on the table amidst a cacophony of slithers and scrapes. "I hope you like crunchy."