The Hiru moved behind me, his gait slow, ponderous, and labored. Our galaxy loved tech in all its incarnations. A high tech assault suit or a bastard sword, it didn’t matter - once it was made, someone would almost immediately try to improve on it. The Hiru were the glaring exception to this rule. There was nothing sleek or efficient about them. They were clunky and slow, as if some mad genius had tried to build a robot with things he’d found at a junkyard, but died before he could improve his design past its first, barely functional prototype. Even his translator was so ancient, it failed to associate “morning” with “beginning of the light cycle.”
But there was so much sadness in his voice. The translator may have been antiquated, but the emotion was there. I had to do better than an empty blue room.
I closed my eyes for a moment and tried my best to feel the being standing next to me. If I were he, what would I need?
I would want beauty. I would want hope and tranquility, and above all, safety. But what did beauty mean to a Hiru?
“Tell me about your planet?” I asked.
“There are no words.”
Of course there weren’t, but this wasn’t my first day in the inn. “Tell me about the sky.”
The Hiru paused. “Colors,” he said. “Twisting and flowing into each other. Glowing rivers of colors against the dark blue sky.”
Mom was close with indigo. “Red, yellow?”
“Red, yes. Lavender. And lights.” The Hiru slowly raised his massive metal hand and moved it. “Tiny sparks of lights across the sky to the horizon.”
“Clouds?”
“Yes. Like a tall funnel, twisting.”
We reached the door. I pushed it open with my fingertips.
The round room stretched up, rising three stories high. At the very top, a maelstrom of clouds turned ever so slowly, a 3-D projection streaming from the ceiling. An aurora borealis suffused it with light, alternating among deep purple, red, pink, turquoise, and beautiful, glowing lavender. Tiny rivers of glowing dots swirled, floating gently through the illusory clouds. The chamber’s walls, deep indigo stone, offered two seats shaped to accommodate the Hiru’s body protruding from the far wall. In the center of the room, right under the sky, a pool of water waited, twenty feet wide, round, and deep enough to submerge the Hiru up to the chin of his helmet.
“Enjoy your stay.”
The Hiru didn’t answer. He was looking at the sky. Slowly, ponderously, he moved to the pool, the openings on his metal body hissing shut. He stood on the first step of the stairs, half a foot in the water. The glow of the aurora borealis played on the metal of his suit. The Hiru took another step, moving in deeper. The water lapped at his body, he turned, and collapsed into the water, floating, his face to the sky.
I stepped out and let the door shut behind me. I grinned in victory. Nailed it.
A quiet sob filtered through the room behind me. I froze. Another, sad and tortured, the sound of a being in mourning.
All my triumph evaporated.
He was all alone in the galaxy, one of the last thousand, all that was left of his species, and now he wept in my inn.
I tiptoed away, back to the front room. Maud had landed on the couch. Arland elected to stay where he was, in the doorway. Sean hadn’t moved from his spot by the wall.
“You know an Arbitrator?” Maud asked.
“As much as anyone can know George. He’s a complicated guy.” And he had just done me an enormous favor.
“Was he the same one I met?”
“Probably.” It had to be George. Only he would look at this situation and figure out a way to help me and the Hiru at the same time.
“Are you going to take the offer?” Sean asked.
“We would be fools not to,” Maud said. “We couldn’t afford to ask the Archivarius a question if we worked nonstop every day for the rest of our lives.”
She wasn’t wrong. George had given us a once-in-a-lifetime gift, but it came with serious strings attached.
“Our brother and I searched for our parents for years,” I said. “We found nothing. The Archivarius has an enormous wealth of knowledge. If anyone knows, it does.”
“I sense a but coming,” Maud said.
“We would be facing the Draziri. Sooner or later they will show up. We’re putting the inn at risk of exposure and the guests at risk of injury.”
Maud rubbed her face.
I thought of the Hiru in the room, weeping quietly at the memory of his planet’s sky. You would have to be completely heartless to say no. If the inn had no other guests… No, not even then. It would be irresponsible. Sometimes my job required me to be heartless. I knew the correct thing to do, so why was it making me feel sick to my stomach?
“Also, we don’t have the manpower,” I said.
“You have me,” Sean said.
“I appreciate it, but you are not part of the inn.”
Sean pulled his wallet out of his pants, took out a dollar, and handed it to me.
Okay. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Hire me.”
“I will be more than delighted to lend a hand,” Arland said.
“You are a guest,” Maud said.
“I’m on a sojourn,” he said. “Trying to improve my physical and mental state. A little exercise is good for the body. It is my understanding that an innkeeper must meet the needs of her guests. I require a battle.”
“Nobody asked me,” Caldenia said, gliding into the room from the kitchen. “Because I’m apparently, what is the saying, chopped kidneys.”
“Liver,” I said.