Rivers of Orion

arrival of the crew, and the door at Ellylle’s back hissed open. Noise filled the cabin. Its chaotic vibrations shook every part of her. It took her a moment to find their voices.
“…I put in new gravity beds—zero risk, you get me?” said Reggie. Hastily, he pulled a comb through his white-streaked hair and slipped it into his back pocket. “You can’t claim hazard pay if there’s no hazard!”
“I’m just sayin’,” grumbled Lomomu. He was sudasau, an interstellar race with prominent boar-like features. Well-trimmed tusks glimmered with intricate silver patterns as they jutted up from his lower jaw, over a thick, bushy beard. A ring of gold traced the pupils of his green-brown eyes.
“Just sayin’ how happy you’ll be with your cut.” Reggie crossed his arms. “Get me?”
“I get you,” muttered Lomomu. His long, dark-gray fur coat nudged forward as he shoved his hands into its pockets.
“Glad we could come to an accord,” said Reggie. He relaxed his posture and absently straightened his attire—a faded uniform from his time in the United Planets Merchant Marine.
Zella whistled, waving him over. “Cap’n, ye need tae see this.” A black ponytail hung between her shoulders, swooping against the back of her denim jacket as she jabbed the glass console.
Reggie cast his sea-green gaze her way. “What am I looking at?”
“The Caretakers are real!”
Gracefully. he hopped over the rail and loped to the console. “Well, I’ll be…”
“Rich!” Light glinted in Zella’s pearl-gray eyes. She clutched his sleeve with both hands as she hopped up and down. “We’ll be rich!”
Reggie’s eyes lit up as he grinned, and he hooted with arms raised.
“You’re wrong,” said Sacas, his voice translated by a vocoder hanging from his neck. “This is a scientific expedition. Any technology recovered from the salvage site—virtually or physically—already belongs to the Forest of Worlds.”
The captain whirled around on him. “Clearly, but Old Siberian, well she’ll be attached to your discovery, along with all her crew—and that’s us! We’ll be swimming in work orders soon as word of this gets out!”
Wood creaked as Sacas mustered a smile, though his blooms darkened as they moved. His vocoder warned, “There will be no word of this getting out to anyone, per the terms of our contract. Be content with your fee, Captain Yao.”
Reggie glared at Ellylle. “You promised—”
“I promised nothing,” she interrupted, her voice musically distinct through her vocoder. “I said a possibility existed, and nothing more.”
Reggie turned his attention to Zella. “The contract. Please.”
“Aye,” said Zella, and her fingers danced over the console. A moment later, it sprang to life onscreen.
“Tell me there’s no NDA,” said Reggie.
A few swipes later, she found a certain clause deep within the sea of legalese. “Non-Disclosure Agreement,” it read, now in bold red letters. “Legally Binding” appeared in flashing gold letters. She winced. “Sairy. Ah guess we missed it.”
Reggie struck the rail, startling his crew. “Unbelievable,” he hissed. “How!?”
“I wonder,” the sudasau jeered.
“Shut your gob, Lomomu. I’m not in the mood.”
Ellylle approached the console, returning the display to the scanner report. With a few taps of her twig-like fingers, it projected a three-dimensional model of the visual data. Nearly motionless, a vast jumble of titanic crystals huddled against one another, endless grinding collisions as gravity and momentum warred against hungering entropy. Deep within, infrequent serpents of lightning illuminated monstrous shadows.
Sacas bowed forward, his blooms dark yellow as he switched off his vocoder. [Eternal Vanam, I mean no offense, but the fleshlings have already seen too much!]
“They’ve seen shadows. You’re worried about shadows?” she asked. “Even if this vessel’s scanners could penetrate hundreds of meters of eldritch steel, the computers could never interpret what they were reading.” Her ivy gathered into a scowl. “Turn your vocoder back on.”
“As you command, Eternal Vanam,” he sneered. “You have my deepest apologies.”
Ellylle looked at Reggie. “Is the shuttle ready?”
He glared, working his jaw a moment before responding. “You want Big Huey or Davey Jones?”
“Not the ROV,” said Ellylle. “Whichever one is not that.”
“Big Huey, then,” said Reggie. “Just you?”
“I intend to remain here aboard Old Siberian.” Gracefully, she gestured toward the other trees. “They will be conducting the survey with our equipment.” She returned to her perch.
“Fine.” He strode to the lift and gestured Lomomu over. Looking to the trees, he tapped the down button and said, “This way.”
They gathered at the door.
“Are you nervous?” asked Sheyesh.
“He’s angry,” answered Lomomu.
“I wasn’t asking him.”
Lomomu regarded her inquisitively. “Am I nervous?” He didn’t wait for her response. “I’m not nervous. Excited, maybe.”
“You’re lying,” whispered Sheyesh.
“You’ll have to go down two at a time,” interrupted Reggie. “Too heavy, otherwise.”
One of the trees answered, “We know. We remember coming up two at a time when we boarded.”
“Well, that was three months ago, and I thought…” He scoffed. “You never heard of a friendly reminder?”
“We forget nothing.”
Reggie considered his response. “You know what? Forget it. See you when you get back.”
The lift doors opened, and they descended two at a time to the shuttle hangar.
◆◆◆
A string of shop lights hung from the overhead, casting stark light over stacks of cargo, a heavy-duty rolling cart, scattered tools, and two spaceworthy vessels. The small one rested alongside a lengthy, coiled tether. The huge one offered ample room for all seven trees. Designed for bulk transport, she stood two stories tall, accented by faded blue and yellow paint, covered in streaks and stains. With a cabover cockpit and folding wings, her forward-sloped intakes housed a pair of thrusters that ran the length of the vessel and framed the aft loading ramp. On either side of the ground-level deck, weathered airlocks offered passage. Across the shuttle’s exterior airlock, in bright big letters, Big Huey crowded out a cartoon duck wearing boxing gloves as he bit down on a pipe.
Sheyesh scanned the stacks of cargo and located a certain crate. Easily bearing its weight, she carried it with her as she embarked. Lomomu followed, after the last of the trees had boarded.
“What are you doing?” asked Sacas.
Lomomu looked confused. “You need someone to pilot