Life was good.
Kiru wished she’d been sent to the prison planet years ago.
She kept thinking it couldn’t last. Nothing like this could. Soon, she’d have to pay the price.
Unless she already had. Perhaps the years of misery and deprivation on her home planet had been her admission ticket to the penal paradise of Clink. She now had the best of both worlds. Not Earth and Arazon, but Grawl and Aqa.
Most of her days were spent with Grawl, who protected and watched over her. He couldn’t speak, but words were not necessary.
Most of her nights were spent with Aqa. Again, words were not necessary.
One looked alien, but was full of humanity—for her, at least. The other wasn’t from Earth, although his most important part—for her, at least—was human enough.
Perhaps, eventually, as she grew older, there might be time for painting and music and poetry. Even, when she was very old, philosophy.
She was right: It couldn’t last.
Because then the spaceship arrived.