Viking by Daniel Hardman

personal number.
Besides, 1291 had never known a skyfriend to skip across wavelengths in such a random,
choppy fashion, even in the throes of a terminal bursting. And in decoded form, the
data she was hearing was unpunctuated nonsense.
    Baffled, she pulsed her tutu rhythmically, aligned to a magnetic band, and morphed
to take maximum advantage of the offshore breeze that blew toward the foothills where
the signal originated.
    When she drew close enough for radar imaging, all she saw was a little earthbound,
too ugly to qualify as a morning snack. She hung uncertainly, a blush of deep purple
washing across the green scaliness of her underbelly and tentacles.
    The signal was there, stronger than ever. But earthbounds couldn’t speak. The very
suggestion was ridiculous.
    She broadcast a tentative salutation.
    No response.
    The earthbound lurched across the ground. Was it just her imagination, or was the
signal shifting with it? Maybe its auditory range was constrained above the standard
bands, nearer to where its own queer babblings seemed to concentrate... Again she
broadcast a greeting, this time higher and at maximum power.
    The chatter ceased and the earthbound seemed to twitch and then freeze. 1291 turned
pink with astonishment. Had it heard her? What sort of creature was this? Pod mythology
mentioned speaking earthbounds, but only in the same accounts with animate clouds and
mountains—she had never credited it as anything other than fanciful storytelling.
    As 1291 pondered, her receptors suddenly picked up the sounds of calves frolicking
in the distance. Curiosity gave way to pleasure at the prospect of a quick return to
food and socializing with the rest of the pod. She swelled to sky away from the bizarre
chatter, and soon her radar imaged the first of the errant calves rounding a hilltop to
join her in the boundless blue.
    She signaled a stern but tolerant reprimand and sailed toward them with maternal
efficiency. She’d come back to this mystery later.

11
    Julie brushed sandwich crumbs from the countertop and set her dishes in the sink,
the tang of aged cheddar and rye still strong on her tongue.
    Mechanically she rinsed the milkiness from her glass, ran water, and then sank her
hands into the hot suds. Through the window, she glimpsed flashes of the denim-clad
twins frolicking in the loft of the barn. A draft of April air floated in, cool enough
to make her shiver. Her hands squeaked faintly against the glassware.
    Last night’s storm was still brooding overhead, darkening the new growth that tipped
tree branches and framed the muddy flower beds around the farmhouse. Puddles glinted a
dull, opaque bronze from the rutted driveway where a tractor rested in stolid defiance
of the weather.
    Her father had been up before sunrise to milk the cows. She’d heard him pull on his
heavy boots and jacket and thump out as she struggled with her own insomnia. Now she
caught snatches of halfhearted cussing as he fumbled with tools on the far side of the
John Deere. He’d had the hood up since breakfast.
    Unbidden, her eyes wandered from the windowsill, flickered over the scarred cutting
boards and the ceramic cookie jar that said “Love at Home”, and came to rest on Rafa’s
letter.
    It lay unopened atop the divorce papers she’d been procrastinating all morning.
    She looked away.
    When the last cup was neatly stacked in the cupboards, Julie pulled up a stool,
pushed the letter aside, and sorted through the waiting pile of forms with wrinkled
fingers.
    They said the same thing they had an hour earlier.
    Unhappily she fetched a pen and began to sign, careful to keep her eyes from the
hand-labeled envelope with the California postmark.
    Julie S. Orosco.
    She wrote it without thinking, then smiled bitterly at the surname that came as
second nature. She’d debated about going back to Sterlyn. Predictably, her mother was
all for it. But Julie felt ambivalent; apart from the desire to have