I return inside the ship and stop by the mess hall to eat. The dolse aren’t around to serve anything, but considering the food they served last time I’m probably better off making my own food when I can. When I am done eating I go down to the cargo hold. Ace and my mess are exactly as I left them.

  I work on Ace and let that occupy my time for a few hours. After a few hours pass I realize I’ve made no tangible progress from where I left off yesterday. If anything, I’ve probably gone backwards on my repairs. Maybe I bit off more than I can chew here. I need to step away, take a break for a while, and come back with a clear head. This is harder than I thought it would be. I put my hand on the defunct dolse. “Sorry Ace, but it looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer." I take off my gloves and toss them in the nearby toolbox. I need to get away from this mess and spend some time elsewhere for a while. Maybe I’ll go see if Ralan needs any help. I get the feeling he’ll just tell me he doesn’t need anything though.

  I leave the cargo hold and go up to the bridge. I find Ralan sitting in a big captain’s chair behind an elaborate command console. The bridge reeked of smoke almost as bad as the bar back in Faraway. Ralan looks like he is in a daze and is listening to what sounds like a radio broadcast. It is in a foreign language so I can’t understand what is being said. I call out to him, "Hey, Ralan, do you mind if I have a moment?"

  Ralan throws himself forward, quickly switches off the device which plays the broadcast, and jumps to his feet. "Sakti, is something wrong?"

  "No, not at all. I was just wondering if you need help with anything around the ship."

  Ralan crosses his arms. "This again? Didn’t I already tell you I don’t need you to do anything around the ship? Are you bored of playing with my dolse already? I thought for sure that would keep you busy the whole trip."

  "I’m not bored of it!” I snap back. “I just hit a bit of a roadblock and I’m taking a break, that’s all."

  "Well, if you must know, the ship is functioning quite well without any help from you.” Ralan relaxes his posture and circles back around to his chair. He flops back down and kicks his bare feet up on top of the console. In moments like these I remember he is half-monster. His feet are bare and clawed, almost like that of a blue-scaled reptile. “In fact, we’re making good progress. There isn’t anything to be done right now but wait."

  "I see.” I say. “That’s good."

  "Yup."

  There is a long silence between us.

  Ralan looks back over his chair and stares at me standing behind him. "What? Do you need something else?"

  "No, not really. I just don’t really have anything else to do at the moment."

  His whole face is sinking into disdain. "What? So, you want me to entertain you? I thought you had a bunch of books to read."

  I shrug. "Well, yeah, but I don’t feel like reading them right now." That and a lot of them are pretty boring if I’m being honest.

  Ralan shakes his head and faces his console once more. He fumbles around in his coat, probably for his flask. "Just like a kid to become so easily bored."

  "How is me being bored my fault? This is your ship."

  "Yeah, it’s my ship. Not an amusement park. Sorry it’s not exciting enough for you."

  "Ugh, you know what? Fine, sorry I bothered you."

  "Relax kid.” Ralan raises his flask and waves it in the air. “You want to hang out here on the bridge because you’ve got nothing to do? That’s fine by me. Like I said, right now there’s nothing to do but wait so you aren’t in my way or anything." He pauses and then adds. “Plus, it’s nice to have company that isn’t a dolse for a change."

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  It’s hard to tell if he's just being courteous and doesn’t want to tell me to go away. "Okay, then do you mind if I ask you something?"

  "Go ahead."

  "What made you accept my proposal to go into the maelstrom?" I ask.

  "It ain’t complicated kid. You can get anything for the right price. That’s just how the world works."

  "That can’t be all there is to it.” I say. “I offered plenty of people just as much as I paid you. There were some people I offered even more than I gave you. Perhaps you know something? Some secret about the maelstrom?"

  "You’re giving me too much credit.” Ralan answers. “It's nothing like that. I wouldn't say there's no reason. I just gotta feeling that I need to see what’s out there - in the maelstrom. You see a mountain and you want to climb it, y’know? It’s nothing complicated, the job just piqued my interest, that’s all."

  I don’t really believe that explanation, but I doubt pressing him on the matter will suddenly convince him to tell me otherwise. "Are you not scared by the maelstrom?"

  Ralan whirls his chair and faces me. "I wouldn’t say I’m not scared. Anyone who isn’t scared to go into a place that has been called cursed would be an idiot." Ralan had to stop and think for a bit before continuing. "I’ve gone into plenty of grim situations in my time during the war. Times when people said I wouldn’t come back alive. I needed to prove them wrong. Not just that, but I needed to feel the exhilaration that came when I returned home having proved them wrong."

  "You’re just doing this for the money and the thrills?"

  Ralan gives me a half-grin. "What’s wrong with that? Whether it’s going into battle or sailing into a cursed place nobody has ever returned from, I seem to have pretty good luck when it comes to those sorts of things. I don’t see how this is any different from things I’ve already done really."

  "When we first met I thought you said you didn’t need luck because you have skill."

  "Did I say that? Well, a little bit of luck never hurts either."

  "Well, regardless of your reasons, I’m glad that you turned out to be a good person."

  Ralan winces. "What do you mean by that?"

  I probably should have kept that to myself, but I carry on with that train of thought anyway. "Well, my roommate got on my case for being too trusting. They said if they were in your position, they would've taken my money and ran. It made me a bit paranoid."

  "Hmph. It’s not like I would have gotten very far if I did.” Ralan looks down at his clawed hands and flips them around, as if he had never seen his own monster features before. “You think the Ministry of Defense would let me, a non-human, get away with stealing that kind of money from a human? They’d track me down and blow me out of the water."

  "I suppose you’re right..." I say. "What brought you to this planet anyway? The government here is openly hostile toward non-humans. Wouldn’t you rather be somewhere else?"

  "Where else is there to be? I’ve been to plenty of other planets kid but they’re all pretty much the same when everything is said and done. It’s not like everybody holds hands and sings songs on non-human planets or even completely homogenous planets. There’s still hate and animosity to be found, sometimes even worse than what is found here. Often for reasons even more petty. You’d be surprised at how familiar it all is once you’ve been around a bit. Everything is different yet the same." Ralan takes a long drink from his flask. "At any rate, there’s no reason I ended up here in particular. This planet just happened to be the last one my work took me before I decided to retire. Perhaps it being small and not very populated appealed to me. Doesn't hurt that it is a planet out on the far edge of the galaxy either. Far away from... troubles."

  "Do you have any family or friends here? Did any of the people from your hometown come along with you?"

  Ralan shakes his head. "No, at least, not anymore. A few of my old friends from my hometown followed me for a while, as part of my crew, but they went their own way long before I arrived here. After what friends I did have went their own way, I just scouted new sailors among aquatic beast hafon looking for work. We never got particularly close though. It was a purely business relationship."

  "What happened to your crew anyway?” I ask. “You had one on this planet at some point, right?"

  "Beats me. After our last job we disbanded and that was that. I imagine most went to look for other work off-world. This planet isn’t well suited for people whose business is on the waters. Nor my kind, people born of the sea."

  I place my hand on my hip. "Don’t you ever get lonely? No friends? No family? No crew? Just two dolse, your ship, and your broadcasts?"

  Ralan shrugs and picks up the device that played the broadcast. "Not really, no. You get used to it after a while."

  "Sorry but I don’t believe you. That sounds like an extremely depressing way to live out your older years. If you had some friends to give your life some normalcy maybe you wouldn't be compelled to randomly take up strange jobs just for a bit of excitement."

  "I'm too old to be changing my life up."

  I scowl and scoff. "What are you talking about? You're never too old to meet new people. Also, you say you’re old, but you can’t be that old."

  Ralan slams down the rest of his flask and tosses it onto the console as if it were a used napkin. "Kid, I’m over one thousand years old. One thousand two hundred, maybe three hundred, something. Sure, I’ve got a couple hundred years more in me but there’s not much more out of life I can get. I’m pretty content with my situation if you must know."

  "You say that and yet you took on my request.” I say. “Someone content in their retirement doesn’t just suddenly gain a sense of adventure."

  Ralan freezes and then rubs the back of his neck. "I guess you’ve got me there." A few consecutive beeps sounded off from the console in front of Ralan.

  "What was that?" I ask.

  "Let me see." Ralan whirls around and mashes his claws against the console’s keypad. "It looks like we’ve got some monsters headed our way. Just a small flock of sky beasts, nothing serious." I see a devilish grin appear on Ralan’s profile, revealing his layers of shark teeth. It is probably only the second time I've seen him with such a big smile. "Y’know, I haven’t seen what you can do yet when it comes to fighting monsters. Come on, let’s go to the deck and deal with them ourselves. It’ll be some good practice for tomorrow night when we get to the maelstrom." Ralan presses a few buttons on the command console and leaves the bridge ahead of me.

  He ran away before we could even finish our conversation. Seems like a convenient excuse for him to escape the conversation when he could just let the automated defenses deal with the monsters. Well, whatever. I guess I should go help him. If I really want to know the real reason he accepted my offer, for which I’m sure he has one, I’ll just press him on it later.