Did you know that today is officially “Share a link about your favorite new continuing science fiction novel broken into a series of blog posts and podcasts Day”? Well, that’s probably because it isn’t. But it should be.
It’s Skimsday on the planet Rusk, a day when the two suns of the planet where Denny lives are both skating the horizon. But let’s call this Sharesday. As in “press that Twitter button, or that Facebook button, or post a url out there somewhere because I need the eyeballs.” Sharesday. Because it sounds better than Shamelessselfpromotionday.
This is the third episode of On Whetsday. Denny has danced at the spaceport and he’s shared a meal with friends. Now he’s off to the market—such as it is.
And while you’re clicking, be sure and click through to the On Whetsday podcast where actor Raymond Shinn is reading the book in weekly segments.
Okay, pull the ripcord, we’re going in ...
SKIMSDAY
6
On Skimsday, Denny went shopping. He stopped first for his nutter and cheez, which didn't take too long. One thing about there not being many humans was that the lines were always short. He got his food, ate most of it, and still had the whole day ahead.
The dull red sun was still just starting its long roll around the Skimsday sky when Denny knocked on the corrugated metal door of Poppa Jam's Porium. The Porium was at the center of a long block of small buildings with slide up front doors and narrow windows. Denny could just remember when all the buildings had been stores. Rasha's bakery, and Wallin's woodstuff, and Luxa's ... Denny couldn't remember what Luxa had sold.
It didn't matter anyway. The others were gone. Now all the stores were Poppa Jam's.
The tall door rolled up, and Jam looked out. For just a moment, he looked very old, and a bit confused, with his spotted bald head and his heavy gray brows, then he saw Denny and he rolled his yellowy eyes. "It's barely light," he said. "What are you doing here so early?"
"It's Skimsday," said Denny with a shrug. "This is about as light as it gets."
"Is it?" Poppa Jam leaned past Denny and looked up at the scarlet-tinged sky. "Then I guess I'm open." He turned his back on a Denny and shuffled off into the cluttered aisles of the store.
Denny followed him under the hanging door. The walls on either side had been knocked down, none too neatly, expanding Poppa Jam's space into the empty shops on either side. Once, the Porium had been filled mostly with things that come from the cithians or the skynx, things that the humans wanted to buy. There were still a few things like that here and there. Sets of glossy, colorful bowls that were made by the chugs. A curling horn that had come from some beast of from the skynx home planet. A pair of heavy plastic molting shells like the one Omi had worn at restaurant. Thick cithian cloth so stiff that any shirt made of it was guaranteed to rub a human raw. To Denny, all that stuff looked like plain old junk.
Most of Poppa Jam's Porium was the other way around. Now most of the dusty shelves and stacked corners were filled with things that used to be in the compartments and gather rooms of the humans, and most of the customers were cithians, or skynx, or chugs. Denny had even seen a pair of lesser dasiks carrying away an orangey couch. "So, you come to sell me something?" Poppa Jam said without bothering to turn around. "Finally going to give up one of those ugly lumps your father left behind?"
"I'm buying," said Denny. He stopped near the counter, where there were still a handful of klickik picture books and a bin of sweetpops. Denny had never been sure who made the sweetpops. Probably not the cithians. None of their food ever tasted right to Denny. Poppa Jam watched Denny flip through the books for a moment, then just shook his head and shuffled away. Denny saw someone else enter the Porium. He turned to see that it was Cousin Yulia. As usual, Yulia was wearing her big jacket, which seemed much too warm for Jukal, but but then Yulia had come from Halitt, where it was supposed to be a much warmer place, even on Dimsday. Maybe Jukal was always cold to her.
Denny held up the picture book to show Yulia, but she wasn't looking his way. She fingered a roll of the rough cithian cloth, and then walked on and disappeared among the shelves.
A moment later there was a thump from the corner of the big room and Cousin Haw came in. Haw worked for Poppa Jam, and Denny rarely saw him anywhere but the Porium. He seemed to have two jobs, carrying things and looking mean. He was pretty good at both of them. It helped that Haw was the biggest human in Jukal. In fact, Denny thought if you added all the other humans left in the quarter together, including Cousin Kettle, who was pretty big on his own, you just might have enough to make one Cousin Haw.
Cousin Haw was eating from a gray carton of nutter, digging out mouthfuls of the stuff with a flat plastic froon. He spotted Denny by the counter and angled his way. "You finally going to sell your dad's junk?" Haw said.
"No." Denny grabbed up a yellowish sweetpop and not one, but two of the picture books.
The first book was tattered at one corner, and when Denny looked inside it was clear that all the images had degraded to bits of digital noise. In some of them, he could just make out the shadows of a moving ... skynx? Klickik? But really, the silent, messy pages were ruined.
The cover of the second book came alive at his touch. The material of the cover looked like the same water-stained brown paper as the first, but this time the big green form of a planet or moon rolled smoothly into view as soon as Denny's finger settled onto the page. The rest of the green form trailed slowly around the edge of the book, covered with spirals of cloud and scattered circles of blue marking craters filled with water. As Denny continued to watch, the darting shape of a sleek, silvery spaceship came into view. The world grew even larger as the spaceship homed in. There was a momentary stutter and the image turned pale—few of the old things in the Porium worked perfectly—but then it picked up again, and the ship spiraled down to disappear against the deep green side of the little world.
When Denny peeked inside, he was surprised to see that several of the other pages were also working. This was a good one. An amazing one, really. He had never seen a book in Jam's store where more than a few of the images still moved. He could even hear the tiny squeak of voices coming up from the pages as he flipped to the heart of the book. He ran his thumb along the side and the voices grew louder. This book worked. Maybe all the way through.
"I'll take this," he said, waving the floppy pages of the book in the air and speaking loudly so Poppa Jam would hear.
Ham only snorted at his choice and spooned in more of his nutter. Poppa Jam took a while returning from whatever he was doing in the back. When he saw the book in Denny's hand, his shaggy brows went up. "That's a good one. You got credits?"
Denny dipped into his pocket, producing a pair of green chips.
Jam shook his head. "Take a lot more than that," he said.
"Well ..." Denny felt carefully in his pocket and found the edge of a fat red chip. He added it to the stack on the counter.
Poppa Jam only shook his head again. "Still not enough." He tugged the book from Denny's fingers and thumbed through its pages. "Book like this, perfect condition ..."
"It's no t..."
"Near perfect condition," said Poppa Jam. He closed the book and put it on the counter. "Book like this is worth at least three red."
"Three red!"
"At least."
Denny dug deep. With everything, he had barely two red, and if he gave all of that to Poppa Jam, there would be nothing else for the rest of the week. He'd have to go back to dance at the spaceport before next Restaurant if he wanted to pay for his food.
Before Denny could make another offer, a tall figure appeared at the shop door. It was a dasik—a greater dasik—with the long spines on its back and even longer teeth lapping the sides of its mouth. Poppa Jam at once forgot about Denny and hustled over to great his new customer. He said something to the tall creature that Denny couldn't hear, and in response the dasik pressed the button that said "Show me." Poppa Jam lead the dasik back into the shelves.
The book was still sitting on the counter, and Danny decided this might be a good time to simply read it. Poppa Jam got pretty upset sometimes if he thought Denny was getting too much out of a book without paying for it, but with the dasik here, Jam wasn't likely to notice. Besides, Denny didn't have three reds.
He opened the book to the first page. The silver spaceship was just landing on the surface of the green, vine-tangled planet. Denny had expected the ship to be crewed by klickiks, but instead a trio of tiny figures in white slid down the ramp, moving quickly on their little legs. Something, something big and dark, moved in the vines. One of the figures raised an instrument in the curl of its tail and the book gave a tiny squeak. Denny reached up to slide his hand over the page in the way that would make the book louder.
Cousin Haw's big hand came down on Denny's with enough force to make him jerk in pain. "No reading in the store," said Haw.
Denny tried to pull his hand free, but Haw pressed down, grinding his fingers into the counter. "You're going to hurt the book," Denny said through clenched teeth.
For a moment, Haw actually smiled, but after a bit he raised his heavy hand. "Wouldn't want to hurt ... the book," he said.
Poppa Jam emerged from the back of the store, a deep scowl on his face, and Denny saw Cousin Yulia peek out for a moment around the end of a sagging shelf before she returned to her own shopping.
"What's going on up here," Jam said in a fierce whisper. "Can't you see we have a customer?"
Denny flexed his aching fingers. "I still want the book."
"Do you have three red? Because if you don't ..."
A sudden thought struck Denny. He thrust his aching hand into his pocket and came out with the glossy little cube that the chug had dropped into his tray. "I have this."
"What is it?" Poppa Jam stepped closer, leaning down to take a closer look. Immediately, his eyes went wide. He turned his head, looking back over his shoulder at where the greater dasik was still rummaging through the store. "Put it away," Jam said, his voice dropping back to a whisper. "Put it away now."
Denny look at him in surprise. "Why?"
"Please assist," said the voice of the dasik's talk button from the back of the store.
Poppa Jam stepped around, putting himself between Denny and the dasik, then made another quick look over his shoulder. "You're not supposed to have that."
"Why not?"
“Because–"
"Please assist," said the talk button again, this time from somewhere closer.
Poppa Jam looked as if someone was squashing his fingers. "Take it out of here," he said quickly. "Take it to old Loma. She can tell you about it. Just take it out of here." Then Poppa Jam turned away and shuffled toward the back of the store just about as fast as Denny had ever seen him move.
Denny turned the cube between his fingers, watching the colors play over the flat sides. He wondered what there could be about something so small that made Poppa Jam so upset.
A heavy hand came down on Denny's shoulder. "You heard him. Get moving."
"I'm going." Denny cast one more look toward the book that was still spread open on the counter. The little figures in white suits were fighting with something big and scary. It looked like a very interesting story.
But Denny also had something interesting to do. He shoved the cube safely back into his pocket and left the Porium. From somewhere back in the store, he heard the dasik's talk button say "Yes, I will take all of it."
7
Cousin Kettle grabbed Denny coming out of the Porium, and made him come back to the compartment building to help with moving furniture down from the level where Kettle and Auntie Flash made their home. Like many of the compartments, Kettle's place was tiny and cramped. He and his mother might have taken over the whole floor. Except for Cousin Yulia, who lived in another little compartment right below them, there was not another human within a dozen levels. But like so many of the humans remaining in Jukal Plex, Kettle and Flash had not spread out when their neighbors were consigned to some other place. Some people had tried it. Poppa Gow had turned a whole floor into his compartment. But spreading out only seemed to make most folks feel even more alone than they did in their little places. Some people even said the old, empty apartments were haunted. Denny didn't believe that, but he also didn't like to go into the places where families had come and gone. It was sad.
Kettle drummed his fingers across the top of an old closetbox as they waited for the lift down to the gather room. "You should go through your own stuff," he said to Denny. "Time to clear everything out and get ready to leave."
Denny only shrugged. "Why?"
"Because Poppa Jam will pay for it." The whistle sounded and Kettle tipped the box over so that he and Denny could wrestle it onto the platform. "Because it'll be a whole lot easier to carry a handful of credits instead of a bunch of junk when the authority comes to consign us all."
"Someone is always saying we're going to leave soon." Denny sat down his end of the box as the lift began to move down. "If I cleaned out things every time, I'd have been sitting on the floor for the last cycle."
"It's a lot different when one of them says it instead of one of us," replied Kettle. "You know the old saying about consignment—you can't take it with you." Which was true enough. Most of the time, people got no warning when consignment really came. You got consigned with clothes on their back and nothing else.
By the time Denny was through helping Kettle, the scarlet sky of Skimsday had settled into a deep purple. There were some light clouds crossing the sky that were lit more by reflections from the plex than they were by the pair of faint stars. Sometimes, If you looked very carefully right about the time that Skimsday turned into Dimsday, out of the corner of your eye, you could even catch a glimpse of stars.
Denny rode the lift back to his own home, eight levels up from the gather room, and slipped into the compartment. No one else had been there in a long time, almost two years, and Kettle would have been surprised if he could actually see inside. The truth was, Denny had already sold off nearly every stick of furniture, every lamp, every nicknack, doodad, and geegaw his family had picked up while living in Jukal Plex. He'd sold them to pay for Restaurant on those days when dancing hadn't gotten any chips and he was too embarrassed to go to Talla empty-handed. He'd sold them when Auntie Flash got sick, and everyone had chipped in to help. He’d sold them for when he outgrew his shoes and Poppa Jam charged way too much for new ones. He’d even sold things to pay for picture books and sweetpops, both because he liked them, and because it was important that nobody understood just how little he had left.
He'd sold almost everything. The beds. The chairs. Even most of the clothes and plates. He'd sold everything but the things his father made.
Denny's father hadn't just known how to beat metal into a stove. He'd known how to twist it, stretch it, cut it, shape it until it formed things that were more than just useful. He'd known how to make things that people didn't have a name for, but which all people—humans and chugs and klickiks and even cithians—had a need.
In the center of the floor in Denny's compartment, there was a small figure made of metal. It wasn't the most detailed of the things his father had made, and it was far from the largest, but Denny gave it a big space in the room. It looked like a man, or maybe a boy. It looked sort of like he was dancing. It looked sort of like he was shaking his fists at the sky.
Denny laid down next to the statue and fell asleep on the hard floor.
Footnote — I particularly love this week's sketch from Amy Jones (Ashes of Roses). She’s creating the definitive view of Denny’s world.