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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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”

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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After a day and a half of hiding in their tiny double room while Drathur brought her snacks, Anno allowed herself to be lured out to the recreation area by her overly enthusiastic five-year-olds.  To hear them chatter about it, you’d have thought it was a whole amusement park.  There’s simply something very special about novel toys and games when you’re that young.

Anno wasn’t surprised to find the holo-board games antiquated and kind of shabby.  She recognized some of the games from her own school days.  They weren’t so much classics as cheaply produced commodities that seemed to congregate in the backs of classrooms or lobbies and waiting rooms.  Anywhere that adults are hoping to keep kids quiet and out of the way for a while.  There was even one game Anno had used to play with Am-lei and Jeko a fair amount.  Perhaps she’d give it a whirl with her kids sometime during the coming days.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 5”

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 was mostly a cargo ship, but it also had one long hallway of rooms for passengers with common areas on either end.  One of the common areas was a galley, open at all times with all the food paid for as part of their tickets onboard, and the other common area had a few rickety old holo-board games, a very small exercise area, and a wide window for watching the stars.  Anno’s family explored every inch of the common areas, immediately after dropping their luggage off in their own rooms.  Once she’d seen all there was to see aboard the space freighter, Anno went back to her own room to sit on the bed that would be hers for the next week, leaving the kits to play, under Drathur’s watchful eye in the exercise area.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 4”

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 few days were a bizarre blur of shopping, packing, planning, and answering questions from kits who really didn’t understand what it would mean to leave their planet and fly across the vastness of space to an entirely different solar system.

Mei wanted to know if they’d be put in a cryo-sleep and wake up in an entirely different century, because one of her favorite holo-vids featured a fictional, cartoony family of humans from the distant past who had slept away the years in that way and woken up to the modern world, all wide-eyed and amazed by everything they saw.  Anno suspected Mei loved the vid so much because the cartoon characters’ amazement and wonder were relatable to a five-year-old for whom the whole universe was still new and remarkable.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 3”

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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Drathur researched the price of space freighter tickets to Crossroads Station, the price of lodging in quarters on the station, and all the other incidentals one would need to research for such a trip.  He was better at that kind of research than Anno, and besides, she couldn’t seem to concentrate with thoughts of her childhood friends and the possibility of seeing her family again whisking through her head like a tornado.  Instead, she put her work aside and played with the three kits for the rest of the afternoon, talking to them about what Crossroads Station was like when she was growing up and gently feeling out if they’d even be manageable on such a trip.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 2”