Where the Heart Is
by
Mary E. Lowd
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Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 by Mary E. Lowd
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Any human in the room would have seen an oversized koala bear, a bushy red-wolf, a long-tailed, green lizard, and a large blue fish wearing a diving helmet, floating bizarrely above his barstool. But there were no humans in the room. It was the All Alien Cafe on the interstellar meeting point known as Crossroads Station.
"Do you ever miss your home worlds?" the red-wolf asked the others. He was a Heffen, and his species were refugees from a planet whose yellow dwarf star had expanded into a red giant. "I miss the wide open savannahs," he said, ears pointed forward and his long, canid nose pointed down.
The other three exchanged worried looks. They could tell when their friend was feeling melancholy. Over the years, the four of them had learned to read each other quite well, despite their very different physiologies. The koala, in particular, was tuned into the every nuance of the Heffen's mood, and the expression in her sparkling eyes became especially concerned.
"Are you kidding?" the fish said, followed by a burp of heavy gases from the shimmery blue gills along his sleek body. His swim-bladder lightened thusly, the Lintar bobbed inches upward in the air. "My home world is the only place I can't fly." He swirled his long, silky fins gracefully.
Lintars evolved on a planet with a much thinner atmosphere than filled the metal bulk of Crossroads Station. As a tradeoff, they had to wear breathing helmets with air filters and other complex breathing apparatuses on Crossroads Station -- and in other nitrogen rich atmospheres -- but they could fly.
The Srellik flicked her forked tongue in a dismissive hiss. Her scaly, green hide sparkled in the bar's low light. "Dirtballs are for pre-tech savages," she said.
The Heffen continued staring bleakly into the drink clutched tightly between his paws. His friends' levity wasn't helping.
"Isn't this why we don't talk about home worlds?" the Woaoo said, with a quaver in her voice. Her face was flat with a large, oval nose, and her gray fur was short, except where it lengthened into two silver clouds around her ears. "It's depressing," she said. "You'll only upset yourself."
Every time the Heffen started talking like this, the Woaoo found her mind plagued by a sequence of paintings she'd had the misfortune to imagine. They flitted through her mind, depicting the Heffen -- his handsome face grown gaunt and his ruddy fur thinning -- as he descended deeper and deeper into depression, drugs, and eventually suicide. She would never paint such images for fear that they would prove prophetic. Yet, the vision haunted her. She couldn't stand the idea of her life without him.
She placed a comforting paw on the Heffen's broad shoulder, hoping to reassure herself as much as him, but he pulled abruptly away.
"Denial," he said. "That's what it is. Aren't you sick of it?"
The Srellik and Lintar exchanged a glance that communicated their amused disdain for over-emotional warmbloods, but neither said anything.