Jaydium by Deborah J. Ross

a way out of the tightest corners. Now he figured his luck hadn’t deserted him, it had presented him with a plum.
    He looked back at her and said, as reassuringly as he could, “Trust me, I’ll think of something. But later, after we’ve had a chance to look around. We can’t just turn around and go back, not with a whole new world waiting for us out there.” He added, seeing the stubborn set of her chin, “You can have my half of the haul, if that’s what’s bothering you.”
    The corners of Kithri’s mouth twitched in something that might have been a smile. It was more than Eril expected. She climbed into the pilot’s seat. “You owe me.”
    â€œI got you off Stayman, didn’t I?”
    She laughed, a little nervously. Activating shipbrain’s automatic radio frequency search, she began their descent from the ledge. Eril, thinking of his woodmen, added infrared and motion scans. Neither of them were much surprised when the first sweep turned up nothing more than small birds and insects.
    As they passed below the treeline, the first hardy conifers multiplied into a dense, exuberant mass, their needles almost blue-black. Down a little further, bright green deciduous species infiltrated the evergreens. Eril could almost smell the profusion of scents through ‘Wacker’s air seals. He marveled at how many shades of green there were, more than he’d ever imagined possible.
    The forest canopy no longer presented an unbroken appearance. Here and there the flinty, leafless trunks stood vigil over blackened patches, encircled by vigorous younger growth. Sometimes the forest thinned around patches of brush and grass.
    â€œEril, look! Three o’clock! See it?”
    Eril caught a glimpse of something blue and orange, shaped like a giant butterfly, darting from one leafy shelter to the next. Kithri swung the ‘jet to follow but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
    Later they saw reflections of water running like silver veins along the forest floor, and once the infrared scanners picked up the distant, smoldering remains of a fire. Suddenly a huge meadow, frosted with yellow, crimson, and lavender, opened out below them.
    â€œFlowers!” Kithri cried out. “Fields of flowers! Look at them!”
    She sent Brushwacker in a ragged dive. Eril’s teeth rattled as she dropped the scrubjet on the field. She scrambled out in a time that would have earned her an Academy record and bolted through the waving knee-high meadow. She fell to her knees and stretched her arms wide, gathering sweeps of flowers to her breast.
    The field sizzled with midday heat and the insistent whine of insects. Eril took a few steps and was quickly inundated by color and head-spinning scent. He stopped to snap off one long-stemmed lavender blossom and run his fingertips over the wedge-shaped petals. They were surprisingly rigid and gave off a faint vanilla scent. The pollen grains that clung to his hand were deep blue. Scattering whirring creatures, he waded through the tall stalks to where Kithri knelt.
    She lifted her face to him as she accepted the flower. Her cheeks were flushed and wet. “I thought I’d never see fields like this again,” she said in a husky voice. “It’s just like when I was a kid.”
    â€œOh. Where was that?”
    â€œAlbion,” she murmured, dropping her eyes.
    Eril had heard of Albion’s flower fields and how the planet was so beautiful that no one emigrated. He wondered why Kithri had. “I’m sorry.”
    She glanced up again, and this time he had to look away. There was something behind her eyes, some shadow that threatened to rise up and engulf him. He hurried back to the scrubjet and lounged against the opened door.
    Albion. By all the powers of space, no wonder she’s so wary of anything remotely military.
    Eril had seen Albion only once, from space, a cloud-laced blue-and-green pearl, but