Divinity 36: Tinkered Starsong

DIVINITY 36 TINKERED STARSONG BOOK 1 GAIL CARRIGER CONTENTS Wait, what am I reading? Prologue 1. Divine Intervention 2. O Great Barista 3. Softskin Grace 4. All Aliens Great & Small 5. All Things Berril & Beautiful 6. Training Wheels 7. Holy Missit, God of Blankets 8. Battle Noodle of the Refugee 9. Repudiated by Cantor 10. Tyve Be the Glory 11. Go, Sing It on the Dais 12. Practice Makes Pretty 13. Godly Visitation 14. Godly Fraternization 15. Godly Supplication 16. All Loves Fixating Afterword Sample Crudrat Author’s Note More Gail Carriger About the Writerbeast DIVINITY 36 Gail Carriger Wait, what am I reading? New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger brings you a gloriously warm and unique scifi about the power of art, celebrity, and found family. Gail has a fun, silly newsletter full of gossip, sneak peeks, and giveaways. Join the Chirrup In the beginning, the Dyesi created the domes and the divinity… 1 DIVINE INTERVENTION Phex never wanted to be a god. But not everyone chooses divinity. Some have divinity foisted upon them by aliens in cafes. It was a very ordinary evening in every way. There was a revival scheduled for the next night, but that was the next night, so the cafe was calm. It was half-full with the usual teenage malcontents pacified by caffeine or sugar or song. They were talking and flirting, and Phex had little to do but see to their whims and keep the place clean. The dome overhead showed its customary display of gods performing reruns in an endless loop of colorful charm. It was a pattern so ingrained into Phex’s daily life that he knew where he was in his shift just from which godsong was playing. Tillam was singing “Day Gone” with Missit belting out the chorus in his smooth, syrupy voice (which meant Phex had forgotten to take his break) when the alien came into his cafe. Not that it was really his cafe, more just his domain. At school, Phex was the tall, glum refugee that no one liked. At the cafe, he was still all those things except that he perked a mean coffee and bubbled the perfect tea, and no teen would ever risk offending a barista in any corner of the galaxy. Especially not under a dome. So, it was Phex’s cafe and he ruled over it with silent glares. In school, he was a lump in the corner, not trying to fit in, just trying to get through. After school, he had something they wanted, even if it was only a cup of some overpriced, overhyped slurp. He had his regulars. The lingering elderly crowd who were still there when he first came on shift, and then, as it got later, the teens stopped doing whatever it was that normal teenagers did after school (who weren’t mandated workers like him) and started to arrive. The adults ceded the territory with tolerant smiles and careful movements, and the young people took over – louder, sprawling, and high-strung. It was like when one of the slower godsongs on the dome gave way to a faster, more lively performance. Phex knew all their drinks, just like he knew all their names, but he asked for both every single time because they never asked for his. Tillam was sifting the dome, Missit belting out high cantor in that insanely beautiful voice, a regular refrain that marked the start of Phex’s last hour on shift. Phex was singing along, not high cantor but low, inventing a harmony none of the real gods bothered with. He did that sometimes with the older songs because he heard them so often, he wanted something different even if he had to come up with it himself. The Dyesi that entered Phex’s cafe was not a regular and did not immediately approach the counter. Phex only saw it when it made itself known, moving forward as if birthed by the dome. Phex was usually more observant than that, but this was a Dyesi. The creature shimmered into existence, iridescent and shining as if stepping out of Tillam’s performance and into reality. The dome was Dyesi tech. Phex supposed the Dyesi might be afforded some natural camouflage as a result. The cafe hushed in the presence of greatness. Even adolescents knew to be cowed when a Dyesi walked among them. Especially adolescents. This one was average-sized, bigger than every human there, but narrow about it – not thin, just lean and bendy. Like all its kind, it had smooth hairless skin on the blue end of the spectrum, all the colors of the cafe and the cupola reflecting and shimmering over it, like the surface of highly polished metal. Phex moved quickly over to the retail port to take the alien’s order. He worked hard to control his reaction. Almost every Sapien found the Dyesi wildly attractive with their glowing skin, willowy elegance, and huge eyes. Someone more poetic than Phex had once called them the nymphs of the stars. This one had purple eyes. Purple. “What will it be?” Phex asked, colonist-level polite, Galactic Common. “Beautiful greetings,” it said, in Dyesi, staring at him. Phex understood because everyone understood at least a little Dyesi. It was the language of divine entertainment, after all. It continued to stare, cataloguing Phex’s features – blue hair, black eyes, high cheeks, arched brows, and precision lips. A blueprint for human symmetry, an amalgam of crossbreeding for genetic superiority. Phex knew what his face was: the combination of many faces made into a simplistic ideal average, forgettable in its perfection. “Would you like to place an order?” Phex switched to full Galactic Formal, diplomat’s tongue, careful with his pronouns. “You’re quite lovely,” the Dyesi said after a long pause, voice flat and sharp when speaking Galactic. What could Phex say to that? Thank you – I’m the product of a long tradition of gene manipulation that failed me in every way but pretty. Something more self-effacing?