Nebula’s Edge

The moment Kayla saw the nebula through the ship’s window, she knew her life would change forever. Today was Kayla’s last day on the transport ship Opal Star. The last day of taking classes virtually with a pre-recorded teacher. The last day of being a two-person family. After five years apart, and six months of space travel, today was the day she and her mom would finally be reunited. Hope had been bubbling in her for months, and she had butterflies in her stomach that had nothing to do with the cramped ship’s fickle gravity. She’d cleaned out of her cabin, leaving her tiny trunk in the capable hands of the ship’s porters. They weren’t allowed to travel with much. The only thing she kept with her was her terrarium and her three beloved cyber-bugs.

She stood on the Opal Star’s observation deck with about thirty other passengers. Only a handful were getting off at Unity station. The rest just wanted to see the nebula. At the center of the giant space cloud, there was a bright, blinking pulsar. The pulsar blinked once per second, making the cloud flicker. Most of its beauty wasn’t visible to the human eye.

For Kayla, the most spectacular part of the view was Unity station—her new home. Unity was the sixth Earth outpost outside the solar system, and the first and only one co-habited by humans and aliens. The aliens were called Mansurans, and Kayla couldn’t wait to meet one. But even more than that, she couldn’t wait to see her mom.

“You think she’ll recognize me?” Kayla asked, unable to stop bouncing. The hard edges of her terrarium dug into her arms.

“I don’t know. You only talk once a week,” her dad teased. He’d raised her on a steady diet of sarcasm and puns.

“By video. I think I’ve changed a little since I was ten,” Kayla said.

“When she sees a disoriented human carrying a cyber-moth, she’ll know it’s you,” her dad said.

The Opal Star turned, and they couldn’t see the whole space station through the observation window anymore. Kayla’s sense of up and down wobbled as the ship wedged into one of the docking ports. The whole process was weirdly silent. Some of the spectators wandered off once they lost sight of the nebula’s light.

“Have fun with your mom. I’m going to make sure my apple tree doesn’t get shredded on its way to the arboretum,” her dad said, kissing the top of her head. She’d come here as a Loft Academy intern, and he’d come as a horticulturist. Unity didn’t have space for people who didn’t work. “You two come find me when you’ve finished your tour.”

“Yeah,” Kayla squealed, bouncing again. She was excited to have the first hour with her mom alone. Her parents had exactly two modes of communication: overly mushy and agitated bickering. Kayla sometimes wondered if her mom didn’t stay out here on the nebula’s edge just to keep away from her dad.

“Don’t get us kicked off the station,” her dad said before heading off to find his precious cargo.

Kayla was mildly offended by the seriousness of his tone. She wasn’t a troublemaker, but she had gotten kicked out of her school on Centauri-2 for punching a kid in the face. The kid bullied Kayla and squashed one of her cyber-beetles. But since Kayla had been the only one to face consequences, she’d become more reserved about fighting. Or making friends. Here, she had a fresh start. So long as no one looked too closely at her school records.

After another half hour, the view had darkened to just the metal shielding around the docking bay. An announcement came over the ship’s speakers, and people shuffled to disembark. There were only ten people getting off the ship. The Loft Agency rotated the crew on Unity, but Kayla’s mom hadn’t left in years. Kayla figured her mom pulled a lot of strings to get her an intern slot with Loft Academy. She didn’t blame her mom for wanting to stay out here. The chance to live on the edge of a nebula with aliens? Very awesome.

The terrarium was starting to feel heavy in her arms. She’d shielded the glass, so her critters wouldn’t get stressed by the ever-changing view, but she could see them through the top. The branches had been glued into position, and a thin layer of leaves covered the bottom. She’d add dirt once they were settled, but dirt was heavy. Her two katydids, Dino and Saur, were hiding under the leaves. Her prized moth, Lucy, clung to a wide branch, her antenna twittering in response to the new noises of the station. Lucy had brown wings with red-hued spots, and her wingspan was wider than Kayla’s palm.

“We’ll settle soon, critters,” Kayla promised them. “You’ll get to meet my mom. She’ll be so proud of you. She’ll be proud of me when she meets you. She’ll know bringing me here wasn’t a mistake.”

Kayla hoped her mom said something to that effect because Kayla was having serious doubts. She’d kept up fine with her virtual teacher, but real teachers had expectations, and real classmates? Kayla was better with her bugs.

Stepping into the disembarkation room, Kayla immediately felt the gravity get lighter, and it made her dizzy. A uniformed Loft Agency officer gathered a pair of uniformed passengers to orient them. There were three tearful family reunions happening. And then there were porters grabbing and moving the luggage and smaller cargo. Kayla didn’t see her mom.

The whole side of the Opal Star was pressed against a seal, making it a part of the tight, metal room. A giant fan spun noisily, keeping the air moving, whipping Kayla’s long hair into her face. She moved to the edge of the room, trying to get a better view of the rapidly dispersing crowd. Maybe her mom was running late.

A Mansuran entered and Kayla’s eyes locked on them. All the travelers and porters had been human, so the alien stood out. They were burly, built like a gorilla, with a pointed face like a lizard. Their skin was green and scaly, mostly covered by a tight, silver uniform. And they came right to her.

“Kayla Powell?” they asked, touching their throat when they spoke. Their voice whirred, like they were talking through a fan.

“Yes?” Kayla asked, her heart fluttering. She was talking to an alien!

“I am Security Chief Duale Nafan. They/their pronouns,” they said. “Commander Powell has directed me to escort you to your quarters.”

Kayla’s initial excitement about meeting an alien was quashed by the message. Her mom wasn’t coming. Worse, she couldn’t even be bothered to call. Kayla shifted the tank in her arms, searching for her voice.

“Do you require assistance with your box?” Nafan asked. They were terse and a little gruff.

“No. I got it,” Kayla said.

“We must leave the area to allow for the cargo transfer,” they said impatiently.

“Okay. I’m coming,” Kayla groused, striding toward the door she’d seen the other families disappear through. They entered a circular lobby with elevator doors on three sides. It wasn’t all that impressive to look at. They stepped into a large lift that could fit her dad’s whole apple tree, and the lift moved with dizzying speed that knocked Kayla off balance. She kept stealing glances at Nafan, trying to temper her disappointment about her mom with the fact that she’d met an alien.

“You will spend the majority of your time on Tier 2,” Nafan told her, their tone rigid, as if they expected her to make trouble. They exited the lift into a lobby similar to the one they’d left, but then the view changed. A wide and tall atrium opened around her, the glass ceilings giving a filtered view of the nebula. The quiet murmur of overlapping conversation filled her ears—quiet because Mansurans didn’t speak at her frequency. Not naturally. Only the human voices reached her ears.

“The level is split into a human side and a Mansuran side. You will not enter the Mansuran side. The environment is not suited for your ears,” Nafan explained. Kayla was only half-listening as they pointed to signs on the wall. “You will attend your Academy classes in the schoolroom. Both the schoolroom and the library are available for you to study.”

They pointed, but it was too much to take in, and Kayla felt hopelessly lost.

“The medical bay is over there,” Nafan said. They seemed to point to the exact same spot they’d identified as the schoolroom. “You are permitted at the cafeteria any time. Humans seem to require great variety in their menu. I find it rather excessive.”

The cafeteria was on the opposite side of the atrium from the medical bay. It smelled of oil and spices. Nafan led her through the atrium to a silver door.

“The silver doors are for Lateral movers,” they explained. “There are stops approximately every quarter mile along the tier.”

The door opened, and Nafan checked their tablet before touching three yellow circles as their destination. The Lateral moved just as quickly as the vertical lift, and they got out again less than a minute later. There was no time for Kayla to relax, but there was also nothing to see here. Just doors. The two of them walked the equivalent of three city blocks before arriving at door 2027.

“It will be keyed to your handprint,” Nafan said.

They offered to take her terrarium again, but Kayla didn’t want to be parted from her pets for even a second. She shifted the tank to one knee and braced it against the wall, then pressed her hand to the keypad. The door slid open, and she stepped inside.

The room was small and empty, and Kayla felt small and empty standing in it.

“Do you require anything else?” Nafan asked.

“No. What was your name again?” she asked.

“Chief Duale Nafan,” they replied. “They/their pronouns.”

“Thank you for walking me, Chief Nafan,” Kayla said.

“I am the protector of the humans on Tier 2, Kayla Powell. You may call on me as you need,” they said.

The door closed, and Kayla tried not to cry. There wasn’t enough counter space for her terrarium, so she set it on the floor, and then sat next to it. The room had a tiny table with two chairs, not three. The couch was also for two. Her parents had the bedroom, and Kayla had a tiny alcove barely big enough for a bed. She’d been told having any privacy at all was a luxury, but she didn’t care about the tiny room. She wanted a third chair at the table.

Wiping the tears from her face, she pulled out her Personal Network Utility Tool (PNUT) and debated telling her dad that her mom was a no-show. She didn’t want to disturb him while he was working. A little butterfly icon called to her. With the touch of a button, she brought her cybernetically-enhanced moth to the top of the tank. Kayla wasn’t going to sit here and mope. Her mom brought her out here to see aliens and that was what she intended to do.

“Come on Lucy. Let’s fly.”