Braving Stars by Amy Carpenter

Author:Amy Carpenter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amy Carpenter

Our two-person ship settled right over a massive tower covered in gold and silver intricacies. Paintings of chinchis decorated the flat roof, so enormous we could see them from up here: an illustration of a fuzzy girl dancing with a male, her tail twining around his waist in blissful ecstasy. A mother swaddled her children in bright clothes, kissing their thirteen furry toes. A daughter leaned over the monument for her deceased mom, tears running from her lips. The art would intrigue me if I wasn’t twisting my hair so much it might fall out.

How bad would this be? Hos’s jaw hardened as he pulled up a video feed on the screen next to him. A close-up of the tower roof.

“Sit here and take notes,” he said.

“That’s it?” I asked him. The sharp pang in my chest eased.”I only have to take notes? Are you sure?”

His face darkened. “Trust me. It’s not as easy as you might think.”

Not dealing with a horrendous politician or some other test that would trip me up? Taking notes? It seemed too easy.

For a few hours, nothing happened.

Antanti’s two suns set, causing pinks and reds to waltz across the sky on one of the feed screens. All I’d seen on the roof were a few bugs crawling around and a flying chinchi couple zooming past with worried looks in their eyes as they glanced at the tower.

And then, the video picked up a resounding drumbeat coming from the lower floors of the building. It grew louder and louder, shifting through the miles of the structure until it reached the top of the enormous building. The cacophony deafened my ears as the wooden door to the roof swept open. Hundreds of chinchis flooded the roof, banging metal drums. They ran in circles. The beat quickened, and their white-painted fur glistened against the dark sky. Their tails waved to the beat as they spun around one chinchi child who dressed entirely in crimson. She tugged her paws toward her chest as they danced around her, turning and singing and howling at the moon. The music slowed, and they halted as the drumming stopped. They sprinted back toward the doors of the roof, faster than she could follow, and slammed it closed before she reached them.

She banged against the door, pleading for them to open it. But no one came.

Why abandon this child up on a roof? Shivers ran through me, but she seemed alright. She curled into herself and settled onto one of the brilliant paintings, one depicting another chinchi child grinning at the sunrise. She lay her head against the ground as the sky continued to darken and wrapped her arms around a pocket-sized wooden globe, a plaything used by children just old enough to begin school.

The tower started to rise into the air, some kind of floating technology, and her eyes flew open. She rocked back and forth, whimpering as it lifted higher. Her arms trembled, and she rushed back to the door.

“What are they doing?” My head whipped to Hos.

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