skimming the floor. When he let her go, Zer landed in reality with a thud, the magic gone. How did he do that?
He played their work, one section at a time, watching her. “What do you hear?”
Zer noticed nothing until he played their recordings at the same time. No significant difference sounded in what each transcribed from the celestial musicscape. They’d responded in the same, sensual way.
“All three hundred pilots produced a similar composition. We heard and shared a universal sound. Thank the trees for not flying apart.”
They prepared me for something, she thought, waiting for more.
“Records will be superimposed and adjusted for minor differences,” he said.
“That’s it?”
“We’re free to compose personal responses. You can do so in the work hall, if you prefer?” His gaze lingered.
“You know I’d rather stay.” Besides, she wanted to observe Leon’s skill at rendering a weathering landscape into symphonies. Like all purebloods, he was a maestro.
His fingers flew across the keys; his eyes were shining.
Zer lost herself in his music and rose to dance the liquid tempo. She swayed in one spot when he got stuck and played the same bars repeatedly. Hands and hips gesturing, she suggested variations, and he translated her movements into duets and light-hearted riffs.
“Greater than parts,” Leon said, smiling, “relatively rare.”
“You knew something like this—”
“Guessed.” Leon, eyes beckoning, began circling her with the slow opening steps and words of the petal dance. “Heart of my heart.”
“Heart of my heart,” she responded, gliding just out of reach. He sang to her, and the low timbre shivered her spine, her very bones trilling a subatomic symphony. Slowly, she moved closer till their skin barely touched, their bodies singing to each other. Her heart and womb opened, petal like, feeling the way as she and Leon began changing dimensions together. They danced as spirits of the fifth or seventh dimension, without separation, without the nameless sea of molecular matter between them. They found timelessness, together. She felt grown up.
The planetary storm raged another day. The co-pilot informed them they were headed for Jupiter, set the coordinates, took their records, and left them alone.
The starship orbited the yellowish gas giant whirling within its rings. Zer edged her keying slate closer to Leon, breathing down his neck and swaying while primordial energy within Jupiter’s body and cyclonic wind were erupting from one spot. Leon swept Zer around the room. She could have stayed forever.
At times she wished they were more than caring friends but glad they were close enough to explore another sort of love that was intimate yet not.
She huddled among pillows when the ship entered the asteroid belt where it dodged or blasted flying rocks. A huge wall screen displayed the explosions, but Zer was hearing the volcano that had wiped out her birth home and many groves. Leon had saved her.
Except, she wouldn’t have been alive to rescue if Exotica hadn’t protected her. They’d died saving her. Zer was tending them in the breeding grove when the fires came. While trees on far ridges combusted into fireballs, her trees herded her to the dock where Leon found her. And made her leave the trees behind.
He picked her up kicking and pushed her into an aircraft. As they lifted, she saw embers catch in the leafy crowns of Exotica and burst into orange torches. Her last sight of home.
Leon took her to his mother in Zenobia who brought her home to her mind and emotions. Zer adopted Zenobian ways. She never cried till that day Leon presented her with a dozen Exotica saplings. She learned everything she could about their biology and language, for she honored them.
Every chance, she’d gathered with other Lilio survivors. They loved and understood the trees as she did, making music and dancing while the trees shook their crowns in rhythmic snaps like ancient Egyptians playing castanets. Zer hoped Earthlings would appreciate the adventure and humor that Exotica brought to their lives.
Leon, much as he loved her, couldn’t fully understand her grief. Yet he’d brought her saplings, and the renewed symbiosis with Exotica restored her sense of wonder. They healed her, pulling the deepest sorrows from her mind.
She’d dedicated her life’s purpose to Exotica. Now Exotica would divide her loyalty.
Leon turned from the control panel, gazing at her. The membrane dropped over his eyes.
When the starship snagged an eighty-kilometer-wide asteroid, Zer left him to mine iridium for the elders’ musical instruments. A previous crew had tunneled into the megarock beneath the parked starship. With about sixty others, Zer scouted for the brittle sound-signature of iridium metal, sweeping the area with a spec-meter. The cavern magnified every sizzle, moan, whistle, and click of radiation. The constant whip-cracks made it difficult to distinguish iridium snaps or to think.
Zer and three others turned down a quieter side tunnel, their ion gun beams set for the desired atomic composition, and found several rich surface deposits. Once used to the asteroid’s rolling motion and lower gravity, they float-hovered along using their magnetic hand scrapers.
Zer raked small, loose metal chunks into small pouches attached to her spacesuit; she was glad to work with simple, solid matter and enjoy guiltless thoughts about Exotica. She would return the seed to Zenobia, if Earthlings proved unreceptive. “I vow,” she whispered.
The echoing “vow” started her companions and her singing. She didn’t notice when the others quit until Brea interrupted her.
“Hey mate, an asteroid split and calved. We’re leaving. Say your good-byes.”
“You were spying?”
Brea was settled against a ledge. He laughed. “You're touchy for a Zenobian.” His grey-flecked green eyes bored into hers, hunting.
She shivered. Though Zer didn’t know him well, she avoided Brea. He rarely agreed with anyone, baited people, and always wanted to gamble. Not unusual for someone from Homa, a continent of merchants, spacefarers, and gamblers. But Brea’s every glance seemed a dare. She felt like prey. She busied herself, disconnecting two full pouches of ore from her suit.
“What’re you going to do with that loot?” Brea eyed the pouches.
Zer had enough ore for a couple of chimes and half a dozen of the popular glass balls that were vitrified or studded with iridium.
“I can show you how to make glass balls and lollipop radiation sucks,” he said.
“Are you always vulgar?” Zer asked.
“Can’t take a joke? Come on.” He took the pouches and started for the ship.
When they reached the work hall, he headed for the door leading to the middle of the pyrid.
“Where are you going?” Zer asked.
“You’re Leon’s apprentice, aren’t you?”
“No,”
