—till the captain finally reached street-level and turned his ship onto a once-grand boulevard, now dusty and wind-blown. The noisy, shimmering pyramid of the Golden Palace fell behind us as we sped away from the still-lively – if not living – parts of Cal’mari, heading into long-abandoned precincts, beneath broken, eyeless towers left over from better days. Soon we raced toward the margins of the old metropolis, hurrying to make the safety of open desert before night fully fell.

11.

Our lovercraft flew low over white sands making soft smooching sounds, arousing sighs of electrified dust that climaxed with languid lightning discharges in our wake. A unique mode of travel that I might otherwise have found diverting. Alas though, the vessel was taking me ever-farther from where duty called – the city where my captain and crewmates had vanished.

Pondering the possibility of being stranded forever on a world where “civilization” had become a deathless-but-deadly cycle of predator and prey, I pulled out my canteen and took a swallow, then cursed. Back at the casino, I had meant to dump the water and fill it with local brew, intent on numbing my depression the old-fashioned way.

I walked to a railing and took a deep sigh.

“What’s the problem?” asked Commander-Artificer Nomlin.

“For starters? I wouldn’t recommend this water to a man dying of thirst.”

Nuts took my canteen and chugged. “Well, it’s wet, anyway,” she commented, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

A deep breath of desert air made me blink in puzzlement, followed by a snort of sudden realization.

“What now?” asked Commander-Artificer Nomlin.

“You don’t smell that?”

“Smell what?”

“When I was just starting out – before becoming a galaxy-famous warrior and hero – I served time in the mess halls, like any other recruit. My specialty was baking dessert for three hundred men and women.”

“So?”

“That’s what this smells like!”

She frowned. “Like three hundred men and women?”

“No. Sugar.”

“Okay honey, what does it smell like?” Nuts sidled closer.

“No. I mean it smells like sugar!”

“Well, of course it does,” said Fu Tichi, our handsome, sardonic captain, from his station above and behind us, at the boat’s tiller.

Brushing my tunic, I brought some dust to my mouth.

“It’s sweet!”

“I’m sweet,” said Nuts. “That’s sand. And you’ve been too long without a woman.”

I shook my head vigorously.

Cuspitui, tall and shaggy, opened her mouth and emitted a burbling yowl that my ear nanos swiftly translated:

“You mean that you haven’t been too long without a woman? You’re the first man I met who ever said that.”

“I’m talking about the sand, dammit!” I growled.

“Okay, so what about the sand, dammit?” Nuts asked.

“The desert sands are made of sugar!”