Blue patted down his pockets as the line crept forward. ‘Ah, damn. I forgot my – my—’
Pepper reached into her pocket and presented a packet of mints. Blue accepted it with a grin and a kiss. Sidra swung the kit’s eyes away, letting them have their moment. It seemed like a nice sort of thing to have.
They reached the door at last, and two young Aeluons greeted them – a boy and a girl, both clad in neutral grey. A painted stripe of the same colour hugged the lower edges of their iridescent cheek patches. The talkboxes in their throats and speech-processing implants in their foreheads were far less decorative than the ones worn by adults, but this made sense. These implants were temporary, and would be swapped out as the children grew.
‘Shimmer quick and shimmer often, friends!’ the boy said with practised pomp. Xyr silver skin was heavily dusted with glitter, and the pulsing blue in xyr cheeks indicated xe took pride in xyr role that evening. ‘How many are you?’
‘Three,’ Pepper said, holding out her wristpatch. Blue did the same, as did Sidra.
The boy scanned their wrists in turn, while the girl picked up a pot of light grey face paint and gestured the Humans forward. She had three other pots on hand, each coloured for a respective gender. Pepper bent down. The girl stuck xyr delicate thumb in the pot, then drew a thick, short line along each side of Pepper’s jaw – the rough equivalent of where her cheek patches would end, if she had any. Sidra noted the symbolism with keen interest as the same was repeated for Blue, then herself. She and her friends were being designated as the equivalent of neutral Aeluons for the evening, and with the exception of children, neutrals were welcome partners in romantic relationships. Mainstream Aeluon aversion to interspecies coupling was known far and wide, and given that the taboo stemmed from a concern regarding the ability to further the species, marking aliens as potential sexual partners at a fertility festival was a bold statement. Such a gesture would not have been made in, say, the Aeluon capital of Sohep Frie, or likely even the gatherings on Coriol’s light side. The Aeluons in attendance at the Aurora were clearly of a more radical stance than most of their peers. Sidra was beginning to understand why Pepper and Blue had chosen this party.
They walked down a coolly lit ramp, which curved and swayed as it wound its way underground. NO REDREED IN COMMON AREAS, a printed wall sign read. SAVE IT FOR THE SMOKING ROOMS.
‘How come?’ Sidra asked. She’d seen about a dozen different recreational substances being consumed in line, including some that required a pipe.
‘Makes Aeluons’ eyes itch,’ Pepper said. ‘Which I imagine would be absolute hell in a closed space like this.’
Down, down, down they walked, music growing louder, the line getting ever more excited. All at once, the wait was over. They arrived.
A deluge of information hit Sidra’s pathways, but in a way that exhilarated her. There was as much happening as there would be in a busy market square, but there were edges here. Walls. Her field of observation was instantly defined; her protocols did not reach endlessly outward. The same was true whenever she went down to the tech caves, but the activity there was often confined within shops and behind doors – places she saw only hints of as she walked by. The main hall of the Aurora, on the other hand, was a wide-open space filled with booths and tables and accessible displays. The caves were a series of closed cupboards; this was a buffet. Her field of vision was a nuisance, as always, but much of what overwhelmed her topside and bored her at home was absent here. This . . . this was a party.
‘Look at you.’ Pepper laughed.
Sidra realised the kit was smiling with an open mouth. She wrangled it into a less effusive expression. ‘It’s very exciting.’
‘Good!’ Blue said, squeezing the kit’s shoulder. ‘That’s great.’