Fresh as a newly washed linen sheet, Saturn’s moon displayed its white unsullied surface to her. Enceladus, Myrtle was entranced. Her heart beat faster and she turned to her son Django to see his reaction. The nine year old was asleep. Myrtle was tempted to brush the hair from his forehead but stopped herself. She returned to the shuttle’s window. They were both exhausted from their move from Mars, the goodbyes and the boxes, and the week-long hyper light speed cruise to the shuttle. Barely a civil word had passed between mother and son in weeks.
Myrtle turned back to the comfort of the window. The glow of the ice skin of Saturn’s second moon greeted her. Myrtle had researched Enceladus before she even interviewed for the position of Chief of Security on Alpha Colony. She knew it was named for a Greek mythological giant but it was rather small. And she didn’t stop researching once she was offered the position. Coming from a family of academics, researching was mother’s milk. She knew there were only two colonies on this moon, Lightbearer Mine and Alpha.. The mining colony ships ores off world and collected ice for Alpha’s water supply. Alpha was mainly farming and residential and it was growing. The mines had been half human and half Android. Since the war, more people were streaming towards Enceladus.
Myrtle TwoAxes was a detective not military or corporate security. Despite all her research Myrtle couldn’t know the tensions between Androids and humans or how much organized crime had already infected the new colonies but she knew born or built people are the same all over. Despite all her research she wasn’t sure why exactly the founding government of Enceladus needed a cop.
The shuttle traversed the moon’s frozen crystal ring. For a moment Myrtle was adrift in an ocean of ice. Myrtle was drawn to this place., notjust to get away from the troubles on Mars and not just to give her son a fresh start but she felt as if she needed to be here. Her dad would have a word for it in Cherokee and accompanying story lesson, Her mother would say baby girl change your life, not your address. The colonies’ iridescent domes glimmered on the curve of the moon. Django turned in his sleep and burrowed into her side. She wrapped an arm around him.
“It’s kinda beautiful, isn’t it Ma,” Django said.
Absentmindedly Myrtle raked her fingers through his hair. “Yes it is.”
twisted short short fiction & poetry
circularstaircase 