At a quarter to noon the hummingbird moved toward the open blossom of a tiger lily for a sip of nectar. Its green plumage shone like a jewel against the brilliant orange petals, as its little wings beat the thick air into merengue. More of its kind, as well as bees, butterflies, and all other manner of pollinators descended upon the expertly planted patch of exotic flowers adorning the right-hand side of the paved path leading to the tenth hole. Two carts approached the tee box but stopped short near the floral display. The driver of the lead cart reached past his partner to draw her attention to the scene unfolding just beside them.

  “Look at them go,” Greg pointed to the little birds at their work. “That right there, is why this one is my favorite.”

  “But there’s another one of your stupid ponds.” Kory folded her arms and stared straight ahead at the precarious water hazard between the tee box and green.

  “Well, that’s the thing with these short par-threes,” Greg said. “They take a certain… precision.”

  “What’s the hold up?” Nash called from the cart behind them, where Zol sat beside her in the passenger seat.

  “Aren’t the little birds cool?” Greg asked, again thrusting his dirty, gloved hand past Kory’s face to point at the lilies and their occupants.

  “It’d be cooler if we could tee off before those four old guys in the group behind us catch up.” Nash responded.

  “Yeah, do you want them just standing there tapping their watches, making faces at us like they did on number six?” Kory added.

  Greg conceded with a sigh. His friends didn’t seem to grasp the fact that it was his golf course, after all.

  About an hour later in the middle of the fairway on a long par-five, Kory selected a club, located her ball, and then lobbed it into the woods for the fifth time that day. “Why aren’t my irons ironing?” she complained.

  “My driver isn’t driving either,” Nash groaned in response as she sipped on a can of sparkling rosé through a straw.

  “It can’t always be the club’s fault, ladies.” Greg chastised as he leaned over the steering wheel of his cart.

  “Enough about this stupid game, tell us what your dad said,” Nash moaned.

  “You’re not going to go find your ball?” He asked Kory, who had rejoined him in the cart with a can of her own.

  “How many times have you bragged about selling used balls at a discount in your shop that the landscapers find?” she replied indignantly, opening the drink. “I’m doing you a favor.”

  “But I give them to you for free!” He argued. Now she remembered it was his course.

  “Shh! Don’t talk on the back swing, isn’t that what you always say?” She pointed at Zol, who’d ignored their squabble, selected an iron with care, and was now positioned to hit his ball. With a sharp crack, he sent it flying straight down the fairway, where it landed precisely on the green, just a few feet away from the hole.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “My God, man! You should go pro!” Greg exclaimed.

  “Now can you tell us what your dad said?” Nash hounded, unwilling to let Greg lose himself completely in diversion.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” he replied, driving off in the direction of the green. Nash shook her head as Zol rejoined her in the cart. She followed Greg and Kory, in pursuit of the answers she was promised from the beginning. There was more than met the eye in the mystery of the abandoned mine’s origin, and its origin was technically Earthling. But each answered question brought with it at least five more. This confusion during the research process prompted Greg to call his father, a patron of the industry, to search for whatever truth from the past the chaos of the present obscured.

  Nash pried for more information as the group entered her least favorite phase of play, the short game. It was a back and forth of chipping and putting that more closely resembled an awkward dance or turn-based combat as opposed to a civil game between friends. She tried to convince herself that she could like this part if she were playing alone, as Kory often argued about whose ball was really closer to the hole, which tended to drive a wedge between them. “So, did his company own it or not?” She entreated, as Greg removed the flag from its place in the hole.

  “It’s not ‘his’ company, technically, he’s just a stockholder.” Greg laid the pennant gently on the ground and went to retrieve his putter. “And from what he told me, no, AGP Energy Solutions did not own or operate that facility, but they did buy off part of the company that did after they went bankrupt sometime in the early eighties. Of course, that was before the Amexa and Gulf Prime merger in ’02 so I’m not sure who technically held it…. I think the old name of the actual plant was ‘Innovar’ or something like that.” He lined up his shot, and gingerly tapped at the ball. It stopped just short of the cup. Unwilling to compromise on an honest score, he dutifully picked it up and marked its place with a coin, as he motioned for Nash to make her putt. “You know, he was honestly surprised, and maybe a little impressed that I went there. He was sure nobody remembered it.”

  “Did he know some of my folks – from the Gild, I mean – tried to check it out a few decades after it closed?” Nash asked as she sank the ball into the cup from a distance of three feet away. She was proud of that one, owing her accuracy to the fact that Kory had mentally checked out and was back at the golf cart half-asleep eating pretzels.

  “I didn’t bring it up. I felt it wise not to… cross either of those streams per se.” He finished putting and replaced the flag. Nash reluctantly accepted his answer and followed him silently back to the carts, resolving not to mention it again for the time being. What he didn’t say illumined more than what he did, because at the end of the day, it mattered little how ingrained he was into the fabric of their world. Greg and Nash, for all their shared experiences, ambitions, and even friendship, were born into opposite sides of a centuries’ old economic rivalry. Polite though it seemed on the surface, there had to be a winner and a loser some of the time.

  The cultural and commercial influence of Earth throughout the settled worlds could not be understated. But it was more than this ever-present, overbearing reality that disconcerted the old guard of Celhesru who had enjoyed uncontested supremacy for so long. In truth, every inhabited planet they’d discovered after the advent of faster-than-light travel had been in a state of primitive development. Even the very best civilizations could be described as feudal at best. Only Humankind had begun the process of attempting to explore their own star system. As Iolites often liked to smugly remind them, it was on their first manned mission to Mars that initial contact was made. What they failed to mention in their heroic retellings was the fact that however terrified the Earthling crew must have been, their foreign interceptors were that much more rattled by a spacecraft they didn’t recognize. Just because it had been lonely at the top didn’t mean they were ready for company just yet.

  This timeless tension underpinned many of the serious conversations Greg and Nash tried and failed to have about the nature of the professions they’d inherited. Diversions and side projects notwithstanding, it was only a matter of time until this pressure reared its ugly head. But for now, whatever reckoning loomed on the distant horizon was still a long way off. And so, they could cooperate in the present moment as the work required, taking it day by day and minute by minute.

  In the calm of the afternoon, they faithfully played through the remainder of the back nine, before retiring to the clubhouse and its elegant pool. Mia had promised to meet them there. Greg loved her enough to forgive her for skipping his cherished pastime.