The portable stove hissed before Hook Raeder could reach the fuse for the fire alarm. He jumped, pushing off the wall of the old ship, and snagged the fuse just as the alarm started to scream. They weren’t supposed to cook in their assigned quarters. The ship was old and brittle, groaning with every puff of the solar winds. The old nanites in the ancient composite struggled to keep hull integrity, and they certainly couldn’t keep up with full gravity.
Hook sank slowly back to the floor, scowling at his oldest brother. “You should have waited until I pulled the fuse.” Their eight-by-six foot quarters, stained with decades of grime and the ghosts of other passengers, barely held the six Raeders. Every surface bore the imprint of backs, elbows, and time. The quarters were mostly bunks with a few trunks stuffed beneath them a small two by six foot open space used for eating, praying, working, ritual, and play.
“Careful the solar winds don’t freeze your face looking that way,” Stoker said. “You’ll scare the folks on Orcus and won’t make any friends.” He set a makeshift grill over the flame made from wire and bits of found metal. “I don’t want to be stuck with your sorry ass glued to mine all the time. I’m going to be somebody on Orcus.” He pulled out a canister and bag from the family trunk, then caught Hook’s gaze. “You’re not going to drag me down.” With a steady hand, he carefully measured out a cup of beads from the canister, which quickly melted.
“I don’t see why you’re so thrilled to leave Europa. We have cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents who love us. Not to mention great friends.” Hook tucked his long dark hair behind his ears. He was a daintier version of his older brother, but proved himself to be just as strong. They both had light brown skin and dark hair cascading down to their shoulders. Where they differed was, Stoker had a broader frame, and Hook had startling gray eyes. “I miss the cones of strawberry air.” He crossed his arms, glowering at the red cubes Stoker placed into the pot one by one.
Hook set out the five molds, readying them for the contents of the pot. The ship lurched, and the composite moaned as if about to take its last breath. Hook eyed the ship walls. His brother’s shaky hand clamped over his.
“We’re going to make it,” Stoker said with all the belief in the Sol. “Now hold the molds steady.” His fingers didn’t tremble as he gently poured out the liquid red resin.
“We didn’t have to worry about air or water rations on Europa. We didn’t have to worry about food or work.”
“Work was getting scarcer,” his brother answered. “Everyone on Europa sold omens of fortune for the Clan of Europa. Everyone sold trinkets blessed by the temples. No one on Orcus has had the good fortune to improve their luck with our wares. It’s a ripe market.”
Inside the trunk beside them, lay heaps of bracelets and pins made from woven red threads. Some pins contained beads representing the four Galilean moons of Jupiter. “Do you think Outlings believe the moons of Jupiter to be good fortune? I hardly think so.”
““Call them Orcus, Vanth, Pluto, and Charon. Same trinkets, new meaning.. Either way, it’s good fortune for our family. I’m tired of your poor attitude, Hook. Mom and Dad made this decision to give us a better life. Orcus is growing. Where there’s growth there’s opportunity.” He scrubbed out the pot with some sand and dumped the remnants in the trash chute. From the trunk, he pulled out a small hand drill and vise.
“I tire of making trinkets.” The molds turned blue, and Hook pried them apart, handing the smaller tubes to Stoker.
“Which is part of the reason we’re on this lousy ship. They need hands to build their city on Orcus. I’d rather build a city than these dang yo-yos.” Stoker placed the small cylinders in the vise and drilled a hole in each one precisely in the center.
“We agree on something.” Hook crawled over to a second trunk and unspooled red thread, cutting off five lengths that were 1.1 meters each. He didn’t need to measure anymore, the length was muscle memory. Still, he placed the stick on the floor for perfection. His mother said that is how they would stand out, by making their goods perfect. The extra fuss hadn’t helped much on Europa, but doing a job to the best of his ability was habit at this point. He took the cylindrical pieces from Stoker and threaded the red strings through the holes his brother had drilled.
While his brother sanded and polished the two sides of the yo-yos, Hook readied another small can of resin. He dipped both ends of the cylinder in it, then glued the two halves of the yo-yos together. Stoker squeezed one yo-yo in each hand and another between his knees until the glue set. Hook held the other two together. The door creaked, and he glanced over his shoulder at his father, mother, sister, and two other brothers stride in.
“Those are beautiful. “His mother nodded at the red and white swirled yo-yos setting in their hands. “We have news.” His family sat on the floor beside Hook and Stoker, forming a circle. “We’ll be landing at Orcus in twelve hours.” Her smile beamed, radiating into her large gray eyes, the same as Hook’s. Her dark hair was swept up into swirl with the ends curling. “And we have been assigned housing and work.” Her red silken pants and tunic had faded since leaving Europa, but her optimism couldn’t be dampened.
Her enthusiasm for life made Hook smile. He would do anything to please her, anything to settle those loving eyes on him and only him. “Wonderful.” He didn’t want to be the cause of her smile dimming. “I can’t wait to build something bigger than yo-yos and bracelets, something that will stand for generations.”
His mother took his hand. “We will be working construction, the entire family. Except for you Hook. Orcus doesn’t allow anyone under seventeen to work construction.”
Hook couldn’t mirror his mother’s happiness, his smile waning. He hadn’t anticipated being separated from his family most of the hours of the day and had expected to build the cities on Orcus, to do something that mattered. “What?” He knew his parents would stick him with making more trinkets in hopes the people on Orcus believed they could purchase better luck. Fate didn’t work that way. Only the deeper rituals could truly bend fate and omens.
“You’ll be working on the docks.” She gave his fingers a squeeze. “It’s the perfect opportunity for you to peddle our wares. People traveling or arriving to build a new life need good fortune. Everything will help us afford a better lifestyle here on Orcus. We still have to buy air rations, but the government says with the completion of the air turbines, we won’t have to purchase them much longer. Things are looking up for us.”
“Sure, Mom.” He said it with all the belief he could muster and left their assigned lodgings on the ship. The narrow corridor held onto the same grime as their quarters, and decades of film coated the transparent hull in the galley. The window was crowded with settlers eager for these first looks at Orcus. It took twenty minutes for Hook to wheedle his way to the front and his hopes sank further.
There was no inviting green or blue to Orcus and Vanth. The dome arced over once tiny section of the planetoid. Under the dome, were twelve towers, a paved park, and the docks. The sunlight from Z’ha’Dum, the nearest mini sun, glinted off the ices coating both worlds. Rumors said that Europa had once been a world of ice, once in times from lore, once before humankind learned to dream. Hook wondered what the people his age on Orcus were like, wondered what dreams they had, and what they did for fun.
He shuffled back to his quarters and climbed into his bunk. Solitude and quiet were what he needed to come to terms with the new life he would begin in a few hours. He told his family he wanted to be well rested for his first step onto Orcus, and they soon followed his example, the lights in their quarters dimming.
An alarm throughout the ship woke them. Lights winked blue and an annoying chirp bludgeoned the silence. The shipwide comm system clicked on and the captain welcomed them to Orcus. “Debarking will occur in thirty minute increments. Please await your color to be called before heading to the hatch. Thank you for flying Orcus Spacelines,” the captain cooed in a cheerful lilt. Hook had only seen her once when they boarded.
Their color was yellow and they were the third group to depart. Orcus was less impressive on the ground than it had been from the air. Enclosed avenues connected the docks and the towers and they were only wide enough to allow two people going one way and two people going the other way. On the docks, the Harbor Master directed them to a city official who guided them to their residential tower. The new settlers were moved into the older towers while the established residents moved to newly built towers.
The residents wore tunics and shorts in defiance of the ice outside the covered avenues, the fabrics in styles not seen in the Inner Sol for a century. Yet their clothes were neat and new and made him glance down at his shabby worn pants and button-down shirt. He and his family stood out like fresh air on any colony.
A weak shade of blue stretched overhead to the horizon, a shade so devoid of color, Hook felt the sting of tears. The apartment, on the third floor of an eight-story rectangular tower, was larger than the quarters on the ship, thank the fates. There was a living area, a galley, a washroom, and four other rooms. One became a bedroom for him and three brothers, another a room for his sister, the third for his parents, and the fourth was reserved as a workroom.
The items they had made en route from Europa and the materials to make them were placed in bins. The bins were organized on shelves. Two metal slabs became the work tables with the burner, pots, and tools waiting in ready. One wall held the small looms for braiding the bracelets and pins made from red thread.
His father slapped Hook on the back. “While on the docks, listen for a good supplier of red thread.”
“Sure, Dad.”
Within the hour, they were unpacked and his father, mother, sister, and three brothers left for their first construction shift, and Hook returned to the docks for his first shift. He was assigned to the trade docks and directed to the dock manager, Ipsa Echols. Despite the hardness and worn quality to her features, she was a stunning woman with straight, dark hair and amber eyes.
“Welcome to Orcus, Hook Raeder,” she said and handed him a broom. “Like everyone else, you’ll start with sweeping. Do a decent job at it and you’ll soon move up to cargo.” She smiled warmly and touched the back of his wrist. “Was it terrible on Europa?”
He realized the life gleaming in her eyes was pride and didn’t have the heart to tell her how inferior Orcus was to the Inner Sol. Debating on how to answer, his gaze caught on a beautiful young woman, the spitting image of the dock manager in front of him. Her amber gaze met his briefly and his stomach fluttered. As great as Europa had been, no one there had ever made his stomach flutter. “I look forward to settling in here.” He took the broom and swept like the solar winds until he caught up with the young woman ferrying cargo across the docks.
“I have something for you,” he said, reaching inside his shirt.
“Eww, no.” The girl wrinkled her nose and backed away.
Smile fading, Hook stared into her eyes, seeking to know everything about her all at once and realized he came off as creepy. Lowering his gaze, he chuckled. He would do whatever it took to remain in this girl’s orbit. “Nothing like what you’re thinking. Promise.” He pulled out a small canvas bag, and from the bag took out a bracelet woven from red threads. “It’s for good fortune. For you.”
“I don’t know about luck and fate and stuff,” the girl said.
“Let me teach you. I-I’m Hook Raeder, and I know everything there is to know about fate.”
“Really?” She laughed. “Nikili Echols.” She turned the bracelet over a few times then held out her wrist. “You don’t look old enough to know everything. Tie it on for me, Hook Raeder.”
His heart caught when she turned her smile on him. “Fate brought me to Orcus so I could find you.”
“That’s really hokey, but for some reason I kind of like it coming from you.” Nikili winked, laughter settling into the corners of her eyes and around her little, button nose. “Life on the docks is hardly glamorous.”
Every move she made had Hook wanting nothing other than to be around her. He doubted he could ever get enough of her. “We’ll make it glamorous.” He meant it, and hoped she saw the sincerity in his face.
“Maybe you’re not so bad for an Innling,” she said and pushed her trolley of cargo away. After a few steps, she stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. “Maybe fortune will have me running into you at the end of shift.”
Rubbing the red threads sewn into the cuff of his shirt, Hook watched her go and, despite his earlier misgivings about Orcus, knew he had found the only place in the Sol he belonged.
