[XOTM] Precious Cargo

Across AREZ, everyone agrees the starry nights of the Kubai desert are unmatched. With sparse habitation and a commitment to living close to the earth, the vault of the sky stretches from one horizon to the next free of light pollution. It's as if the heavens were close enough to reach out and pluck with your fingers.

 

"C'mon c'mon c'mon....just a little more...."

 

It's not that Aphra is numb to the sight of all this natural beauty, it's just that his bike's engine has been making some deeply uncomfortable sounds for the last twenty kilometers. Its normally smooth ride is lurching and grinding, not a simple problem like a dying solar battery or a little grit in the gears.

 

"Just over that next ridge," he repeated "Just over the ridge, then I can coast to the bottom."

 

Aphra knew he couldn't make it to the waystation before dawn--he'd had to slow down to avoid straining the bike--but at least, he hoped, he could get to safety before the worst of the heat of the day. Even sealed, Aphra didn't want to risk this particular, precious, cargo.

 

The sun's rays beat hotly against Aphra's back. Mirror-bright, something on the trail ahead flashed and reflected them into Aphra's eyes. He pulled down his goggles and squinted. There! Safe at last.

 

~

 

The waystation was a little round building built into the side of a cliff with highly reflective solar panels for its roof. It was nothing so decadent as air-conditioned inside, but it was dark and cool, with ventilation designed to channel desert winds into a more refreshing breeze.

 

Aphra leaned against the blue tile wall and opened his satchel. Two round little heads blinked four little yellow eyes, the pair of rare desert reptiles staring back at their temporary keeper. Nestled protectively inside their ORBs, they looked like small, fat, snakes with vestigial winglets on their backs and a thick, hornlike covering that enlarged the tip of the tail. Aphra thought the 'horn' on the end of their tail might have been for burrowing. One was yellow with teal stripes, while the other had pinkish or berry-colored markings.

 

ORBs were a career-saver for Aphra's courier jobs. While he might regret that he couldn't interact with the little yellow creatures, it meant they couldn't starve or get dehydrated, or suffer a nasty shock. Losing cargo to accidents was deeply embarassing. He hated letting someone down like that.

 

"So I'm not going to let anything happen to you little guys." Aphra told the ORBs, chuckling a little as one of them opened its mouth, tongue protruding in the tiniest of bleps. Should they be doing that, he wondered. "Can you see this?" He thwipped his own tongue out, briefly, in a returning blep.

 

The fat little snake in the ORB....did nothing. It rotated around in the sphere, facing away from him. Had he scared it? Suddenly feeling embarrassed, even with noone else around for miles in the desert, Aphra took his goggles off to begin carefully polishing and cleaning them.

 

~

 

"So uh.....the ORBs. Can creatures, um, see anything from inside those?" Aphra asked one of the lab technicians he was delivering the specimens too.

 

"Goodness, no! Their brain state is most like REM-phase sleeping; even if their eyes are open and they are moving around, they can't perceive anything, as far as we have been able to test. Why do you ask?"

 

Aphra fidgeted with the goggle straps. "...No reason. Just curious."