Lan Grace had been a bit out of sorts lately.
By now she had been on Waste Star almost three months. In that short time she had gone from the fair, soft roundness she'd had at the start to a body that was slight and almost fragile, and skin that had darkened several shades. Her figure had trimmed down in ways that might have pleased her under different skies—but her skin… best not to talk about it.
The cosmic radiation on Waste Star was simply too intense.
Three months ago her complexion had still held the glow of seventeen—fresh, clear, the kind of youth that looks like it knows the secret of dew. Three months later, the mirror showed bronze that kept deepening, a sun‑beaten hue like a field hand's, the change so stark it made her want to pull the blanket over the glass. Seventeen—a girl in her prime, at her most bright and pretty—yet she had turned so dark it was almost unbearable to look straight at it.
Like any girl, she cared about her looks. Once her basic hunger had been met and she no longer had to think about the next meal, other cares rose into that freed space. Being able to eat well was a blessing; being forced to look at a face she didn't recognize was not. Even though she had been making all manner of good things to eat every day to satisfy her appetite—buns that steamed sweetly, soups that settled the stomach, crisp edges and tender centers—whenever she thought about how she now looked, her mood dropped into a dull, airless place.
She sighed, long and quiet, and when she lifted her gaze she saw Mi Milo—always flitting into and out of her sight line, like a stubborn sparrow—and felt, to her own surprise, a small twinge of jealousy.
The same three months on Waste Star, under the same washed‑out sky, and yet Mi Milo's skin remained fair and dewy, his complexion so good it made hers look worse by comparison. At first, when he had fallen in with her, he had grown thin from lack of food, collarbones sharp through a too‑big shirt. Now, after a month of eating and drinking well under her roof, he had put the softness back on: not fat, but health, a little weight on the cheeks that made his smile look like something he hadn't borrowed. Washed and neatly dressed, the grime scrubbed from his face, his air of noble scion could not be hidden no matter what.
How did he look like a convicted exile surviving on trash on a Waste Star? He looked exactly like a little prince traveling incognito from some far country.
Mi Milo did not notice the direction of Lan Grace's thoughts. He tagged along behind her every day, cheerful in a blundering sort of way, always ready with a grin, always ready to be useful. As long as there was something tasty at the end of it, whatever she told him to do, he did. Sometimes, when she had nothing on hand for him, he took the initiative—running into the wild grass beyond the boundary to catch insects, then bringing them back so Lan Grace could cook and sell them.
In short, Mi Milo could not sit still.
Seeing him so willing and proactive, Lan Grace let him be. Although she no longer lacked natural food to eat herself, natural food was still too valuable; the ordinary soldiers at the detachment simply could not afford it. By contrast, the insects Mi Milo caught had become the soldiers' favorite, most popular delicacy—crisp fried, skewered and spiced, or simmered in a savory broth—and for a while, demand far outstripped supply.
Perhaps Lan Grace's bad mood had shown too clearly, because after a week of her being out of sorts, Mi Milo finally noticed something was off with his "mistress."
"Lan Grace, what's wrong?"
He had just "glug glug" downed the red bean and red date congee she'd cooked—a thick, comforting bowl that went down like a warm blanket—and then peered at her over the rim. He had noticed that, even with a bowl of soft, sweet congee right before her, Lan Grace had no appetite at all. The congee had gone thick as it cooled, skin forming at the top; she had not taken a single mouthful.
That was very unusual. Even when they had been short on supplies, Lan Grace had always loved to eat and had a fine appetite. It made no sense for her to sit before good food and be unable to swallow a bite.
"I want to leave Waste Star," Lan Grace said, the words sighing out of her.
She no longer lacked for food or drink here, but the environment was simply too appalling. The change in her looks under the environmental impact was the most direct illustration. And cosmic radiation and air pollution harmed not just her skin—they were there in the back of her throat and the bottom of her lungs, the slow scrape against systems that couldn't be felt day to day but would make themselves known in time. Over the long term, who knew when some sudden illness would strike her down.
Here, aside from the natives who seemed to "tolerate" Waste Star's environment, even the robust soldiers stationed on Waste Star rotated every two years—once they had done two years here, they were transferred to another planet. That was regulation. As for the natives, though they seemed to withstand the environment, in truth it still harmed their bodies, subtly and constantly, wearing them down the way sand wears down stone.
In the interstellar era, with advanced technology, the average human lifespan had reached three hundred years. But on Waste Star, after the natives reached fifty, their bodies' functions declined rapidly. In the end, fewer than one in a hundred lived past sixty. That arithmetic was brutal and simple. All these circumstances only intensified Lan Grace's desire to leave.
Mi Milo was not surprised to hear her say it. "You really can't stay here too long," he said. "I heard a few of the exiles who came in our batch died in the last two days."
If not for Lan Grace, Mi Milo felt he himself would probably have died long ago—of hunger, or a misstep, or bad luck disguised as weather. So when he learned of the deaths among the exiles, he felt an immense, practical gratitude that Lan Grace had chosen him and kept him at her side.
"Sigh~" Lan Grace went on sighing. What Mi Milo spoke of, she had foreseen long ago. Exiled criminals dying on Waste Star—only a matter of time. If not for sufficient food to nourish their bodies, she and Mi Milo would likely have collapsed already.
Seeing her face full of sorrow, Mi Milo's eyes widened with a realization: could it be that she didn't know the exiled criminals actually had a chance to leave Waste Star?
"Lan Grace, actually—"
"Lan Grace, I'm here to pick up today's food for my uncle."
Before he could finish, he was interrupted by Kane's sudden appearance.
Kane was not particularly willing to come. He felt he had gone from being a proper member of a patrol to a runner—a batman—delivering meals back and forth. Every day he shuttled between Lan Grace and his uncle, delivering two meals a day, rain or shine. There were even a few times when highly corrosive acid rain fell over Sector Nine's sky; he had donned an anti–acid rain suit and still delivered the food on time.
For more than a month, his uncle seemed to have gone mad—he had to eat the delicacies Lan Grace made every day. Kane had roughly calculated that, in this single month of eating, his uncle had probably blown through almost all the pay he had saved over a decade.
Sigh~
Kane sighed too. His uncle was no longer young, and still a bachelor. He had finally saved up a sum; when the two months of his stationing were up and he left Waste Star, he would have almost enough money to take a wife. But now, his uncle had actually spent the marriage money—on food.
He truly did not know whether, in his uncle's heart, delicacies were more important—or a wife. He grumbled inwardly, but he did not meddle. It was his uncle's decision; even if he spoke, it would be useless.
Seeing Kane arrive, Lan Grace pointed weakly at the congee before her. "Take this."
She had been preoccupied, her mood bottled up too long; she truly had no interest in making something elaborate, so she had cooked some congee to make do. Kane said nothing and took the food at once. He was only the runner—whatever Lan Grace made, he would deliver to his uncle.
A dozen minutes later, in the Sector Nine captain's office, Captain Kate looked at the bowl of congee his nephew had brought and felt terribly aggrieved. He did not know why, but the quality of his meals had clearly declined over the past few days. He remembered that just last month he had eaten Three‑Cup Chicken and crispy sweet‑and‑sour pork so delicious his tongue had almost been bitten off—together with a bowl of refreshing, grease‑cutting mung bean congee. But now… sigh~~