Deep Sky Anchor

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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“Loi, do you want to go back?” Anno asked, hating the words as she said them.  They were the right words to say.  It was the right thing to do, giving her daughter a way out of a situation she didn’t want to be in.  But Anno knew Loi would take the out, and then her own trip would be over.

“Yes, please.”  Loi’s voice never sounded that small and hopeful.  Loi wasn’t about hoping for things she wanted; she was all about demanding them, because she knew her worth and her rights and what the universe owed her… even if she was sometimes wrong, because small children have a way of thinking the universe owes them the fulfilment of every single desire that whimsically crosses their tumultuous young minds.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 15”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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The next morning, Anno awoke to a lot of messages hemming and hawing over whether her various siblings were interested in joining her family for the day’s activity:  it was space-walk time.  Anno wasn’t surprised by the switch from her siblings aggressively courting her attendance at their activities to their lukewarm response to the activity she’d countered with.  They all had lives of their own, and they all lived on Crossroads Station.  Doing a spacewalk around it wasn’t exactly a high priority on a random Tuesday, with only a few hours notice, when they could do it any day.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 14”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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As they’d planned, Anno and Drathur kept their first full day on Crossroads Station lowkey.  They wandered through the various districts, letting the kits drag them into any shop that had fun toys or treats on display.  They spent hours at one of the playgrounds, watching the kits play on the various climbing structures and bounce around inside the anti-grav bubbles.  Anno even let herself get talked into playing in a game of tag, chasing the kits as they all somersaulted through the air, scattering and squealing whenever she got close enough to touch them.  It was a good day.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 13”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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The brief moment stretched into the late afternoon, and the kids would clearly have been happy to stay well into the evening.  But Anno didn’t want to get trapped in her childhood home.  She wanted space.  Somewhere that was hers and Drathur’s and their kids’ and no one else’s.  Suddenly, in comparison to the chaos of her extended family — which used to be her nuclear family — her new nuclear family didn’t seem chaotic at all.  The previous week crammed into a tiny pair of rooms with her husband and three kits seemed downright peaceful, and she wanted to get back to that sense of serenity.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 12”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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Kya grabbed Anno’s paw and dragged her out of the entryway, past several of the bedroom doors and down the hall to the large open area that was a kitchen on one side and living room on the other.  That part of the quarters hadn’t belonged to Clori when Anno was very little, when the only other children in the family had been Iko, T’reska, and their brother Lut.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 11”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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The Xeno-Native Enclave was a small section of Crossroads Station — equivalent to a couple city blocks long, taking up most of the wide common corridor that ran down the center of the middle ring, and including all the quarters and other private rooms that could be accessed along one side of that stretch.  The common corridor couldn’t be entirely blocked off for accessibility and safety reasons, so there was a still a narrow path along the other side of the corridor that was kept separate from the enclave, blocked off by a wall of varying height, built from a deep honey-brown-colored substance that seemed vaguely organic, possibly woody, that no one had ever quite identified.  Instead of woodgrain though, it had a vaguely hexagon-like pattern imprinted in it.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 10”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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The walk across Crossroads Station from the docking section to the Xeno-Native Enclave takes about ten minutes if you’re moving quickly and of an average-sized species.  Anno knew that from years of being a teenager who’d go hang out at the docks after school before begrudgingly returning home to her crowded family quarters.  Back then, she’d been a lot younger, not pulling a suitcase, and not shepherding a litter of gawking, easily distracted five-year-olds.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 9”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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Anno stepped through the open airlock of the freighter ship and laid her hind paws on the floor of Crossroads Station for the first time in eight years.  The light was brighter than it had been on the ship; the gravity subtly stronger; and the air smelled… familiar.  Spices from all the different styles of cuisine and the subtle musk of so many different species mixed with the gentle perfume of the various fruit trees and bushes in the arboretum, coming together into a smell she knew would fade as her nose grew reaccustomed to it.  In her memories, the air on Crossroads Station was almost antiseptically blank of smells, constantly filtered through algae packs that scrubbed and cleaned the infinitely recycled air.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 8”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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The space freighter’s recreation room was packed with passengers as the ship approached the solar system containing Crossroads Station.  Anno had managed to claim one of the tables and three chairs for her family.  She had Darso on her lap; Mei was on Drathur’s lap; and Loi was treating their third chair like a climbing structure, getting on Anno’s last nerve.  Anno just hoped the rambunctious kit’s antics weren’t bothering any of the other passengers packed around the broad viewing windows.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 7”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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Every night on the space freighter, it was a struggle to get the kits to go to bed.  Well, no, it was a struggle to get them to quiet down and go to sleep.  Not only did the idea of dividing the day up into separate portions of ‘day’ and ‘night’ feel very artificial to the suddenly savvy little children, but the thin walls meant they could hear other passengers moving through the hallways and talking in neighboring rooms, all very much awake.

Mei argued that without a sun anywhere near the ship, clearly she didn’t need sleep anymore.  Obviously, the sun setting was the cause of the Heffen need to sleep, and without a sun to set, she would never need to sleep again.  Loi and Darso weren’t sure that sounded right, but they liked the idea of never sleeping again.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 6”