A small snort comes out of Squeeker's nose as he rests his head back on the cold station wall. He looks down at you and smirks a little before shrugging his shoulders.
"Hey, ain't no problem in askin' buddy. I'm my favourite subject. Can talk the scales off of a fish talkin' about myself." Taking the cigarette out of his jacket pocket, he puts one between his lips and lights it in a smooth, well-practiced gesture. He offers you one.
Squeeker purses his lips after the first drag and exhale, seemingly thinking on where to start. "So I'm from a little grey blue planet not too far from here named Boutes, around the star Zeuxippe. Boutes is just ocean, no landmasses above the high water." He lays his left hand out flat in front of him, cigarette between two fingers, a flat plain dominated by a burning stub. "Gravity's a little lower than Earth, you know. I'm actually short for a Boutesian." He waves down towards himself and searches your face with a cocky grin. He clicks his tongue. "Anyway, when those first Earth ships arrived a couple hundred years ago, they found only bacteria and some algae. Can you imagin'? An entire planet silent but for wind and waves. Not that it stayed silent for long."
Another drag of his cigarette. "Yeah, naturally for an ocean moon, fish becomes the major economy. Breeding fish, gutting fish, selling fish. Parents were fisher folk as were their folk before them. And they got their hands dirty. On their bones was the skin of the earth. Nini and Bibi could send you up a wall with a glance an' if you looked back you'd be turned to stone. Just because faster-than-light travel exists doesn't mean you'll never experience handling rope on Boutes, doesn't mean you can't smell the breeze to figure out the weather today. On Boutes that ain't something you learn, it's something that's there with you before you even figure out it exists. Like music."
"Often it can be hot as hell, all that moisture in the air. All the ozone. When summer comes around it's like electricity sparking." He snaps his fingers. "Sends prickles down your back with every rain call. That's how you know you're a true Boutesian. Even the concrete walls of your terrace would be sweatin'. End of the day, as you pass through your threshold, you'd have your breath all heavy from exhaustion. Your spirit'd'be sliding off you an' draggin' on the floor, only attached to you by the tips of your fingers. Spent many nights like that stargazing in the shadow of distillation towers an' just thinking about life."
"When those big storms come, we call 'em badayes, and they crash down on the cities, it's never good. No matter how many anchors you get on a platform, and I'm talkin' those that can go down kilometers and are dug kilometers further into that primeval grey slate, everythin' still rocks. Made that way or else it all breaks from the stress of a whole ocean churnin' an' screaming us for daring to born on those waves. You always feel like you're sinking in a badaye. Trust me, you never wanna feel like that on an ocean planet. And sometimes no matter how much effort you can make...these storms can make people get hurt an' worse."
Squeeker starts fidgeting a little, exhaling smoke through pursed lips. "The sad thing is though...I kinda miss them out here. I miss the ocean." His nostrils flare as he tries to swallow down his feelings. But just like a cloud briefly obscuring the sun, the thoughts pass and he returns to his usual demeanour. With a clicking of his tongue and a grin, he looks up and around the corridors.
Squeeker leans off the wall, and locks eyes with you. "Hey, I appreciate the question. I really do. But I think it's time for us to get back to work." He pats your upper arm. "No rest for the wicked, eh?"
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