Record of a Spaceborn Few

Feed source: Reskit Institute of Interstellar Migration (Public News Feed)

Item name: The Modern Exodus – Entry #20

Author: Ghuh’loloan Mok Chutp

Encryption: 0

Translation path: [Hanto:Kliptorigan]

Transcription: 0

Node identifier: 2310-483-38, Isabel Itoh

[System message: The feed you have selected has been translated from written Hanto. As you may be aware, written Hanto includes gestural notations that do not have analogous symbols in any other GC language. Therefore, your scrib’s on-board translation software has not translated the following material directly. The content here is a modified translation, intended to be accessible to the average Kliptorigan reader.]

When their planet could no longer sustain them, the waning Humans dismantled their cities. Down came the shimmering towers of glass and metal, beam by beam, bolt by bolt. Some of it was repurposed, but most was melted in noxious foundries hastily constructed on barren farmland. The Humans who did this knew they would not live to see the end result. Their years were almost universally cut short by famine and disease, but even if they had been as healthy as their ancestors, the work was too great for one lifetime alone. The scavengers made way for the builders, who poured and welded for the sake of children they would likely not live to see grown. Their completed efforts were launched into low orbit, and assembled there into thirty-two ships, each a city unto itself.

‘A city made of cities,’ my host told me during our first day. ‘We took our ruins with us.’

I keep thinking of this now that I have returned to my own adoptive city of Reskit. I look out at this sprawling architectural triumph, and I cannot imagine a Hashkath where this does not exist. I cannot imagine how this land looked when Aandrisks first arrived. I cannot imagine how it will look after they – and I – are gone.

Strange as it is to be back, I have slid effortlessly back into my usual patterns. I missed the length of a Hashkath day, the warmth of a brighter sun. I appreciate the open sky as I never have before, and will never again complain of days that are too windy. I spent an entire afternoon swimming at the Ram Tumma’ton Aquatic Park, and at one point, I could not help but sing for joy.

And yet, though I have travelled far from Risheth, I have brought the Fleet with me. There is no place I can go, no activity I can engage in without thinking of them. I can’t see a garden without thinking of how theirs differ, nor can I watch a sunset without thinking of the mimicked rhythms of their abandoned sun.

‘Night-time’ in the Fleet is a curious thing. This is a people who have never lived on a planet – for some, never even visited a planet – yet they still follow an artificial semblance of a rotational day. I have experienced this environmental arrangement within long-haul ships built by a variety of species, but these have all been among crews with at least passing familiarity with life on the ground. Consider that the only generation of Exodans that would have truly needed an Earth-like environment would have been the first. It was they who needed night-time, who needed gravity, whose moods would’ve benefited from being surrounded by plant life rather than cold metal alone. And yes, the original intent of the Fleet was to seek out a terrestrial home, and they believed their progeny would adapt to that better if they were already accustomed to planetary norms. In that context, Exodan adherence to Earthen patterns is quite logical.

But imagine the alternative. Imagine if the Earthen builders had known their descendants would choose to remain in space, that this transitory life satisfied them even when empty ground lay within reach. What would the Human species look like today were that the case? Evolution is often thought of as a glacial process, but we know from countless examples that this is not always true. Rapid environmental change can prompt rapid physical change. What if the first Exodans had left their ornamental gardens behind? What if their lights did not dim? What if they had built homes designed for zero-g instead of gargantuan centrifuges filled with unsecured objects?

The first generation would have been miserable, no doubt. Health problems, both mental and physical, would have been rampant, especially when coupled with the unfathomable stress of leaving their planet for the unknown. But what of the second generation? What of the third, the fourth, the tenth? It is possible – likely, even – that my Exodan friends would look quite different today. Currently, there are small physical differences in modern Humans based on region. Centuries-old Solan populations based around the sun-starved Outer Planets are distinctively pale. Exodans, Martians, and independent colonists can sometimes tell each other apart (I have yet to grasp that nuance). So, imagine an Exodan people who had gone without gravity, without scheduled darkness. I find it likely that we would already see hereditary changes in bone mass, digestive process, eye structure. We would be present for the first days of a new species. Instead, we have space-dwelling Humans who get irritable if malfunctioning environmental lights prolong day or night beyond its time. They love their gardens, even if they have not seen wild plants. Chaos breaks out if local grav systems fail.

I must stress, dear guest, that I do not view the idea of a separate Exodan species as a missed opportunity – merely an intriguing road untravelled. I myself am bound by the pulse of bygone generations. I mist myself constantly, because my skin still requires an approximation of the steady sea breeze my people have not lived in since primitive times. I cannot digest the absurdly broad variety of foodstuffs that my sapient counterparts can, even though Harmagians have lived alongside such delicacies for centuries. For all my species’ vast travels, our skin has not hardened, and our guts have not diversified. We, too, took the ways of our planet with us. And so, too, go the Exodans, a spaceborn people who balk at abandoning an environment inspired by a planet that, to most, may as well be myth.

Humans will never leave the forest, just as Harmagians will never leave the shore.

Eyas, Half a Standard Later

Every fourth day, she reviewed her lesson plans and practised her explanations, and every fifth day, she went to the spare classroom she’d reserved at the technical school, where no one but the other instructors – the other people she’d asked to do this – were waiting. Fifth day had become the most depressing day out of ten. Her usual work included.

She stepped off the transport pod, and, as she walked through the plaza, she did the necessary preparation of keeping her expectations low. Nobody will be there, she told herself. Maybe nobody ever would. Ten tendays, she’d told her assorted volunteers. If they tried this for ten tendays and nobody showed up, they’d call it quits. Well, this was the ninth tenday, and that meant she only had to sit around an empty classroom two more gruelling times before she could go back to her life and forget this whole idea. Just forget this whole thing ever—

Her interest piqued as she saw Sunny running out of the school and across the plaza toward her. He stopped a few feet in front of her, eager as a kid who’d flown his first shuttle. ‘There’s people,’ he said.

Eyas’ jaw dropped. ‘What? No. Really?’ She hurried along the way he’d come. ‘How many?’

‘Three.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Dead serious. I guess those pixel posters Amad keeps putting up at the docks worked.’

Eyas tried to get her wits about her as they entered the school and walked down the corridor. Three people! It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Finally, at last: a start.

‘Oh, no,’ she said. She came to a halt before they entered the classroom door.

‘What’s up?’

Eyas paused. ‘We’ve never had people before.’

Sunny laughed. ‘Are you scared?’

She cuffed him. ‘Of course not. I’m just . . .’ She took a breath. He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Okay. People.’

The door spun open, and sure enough, there they were: a young woman, a middle-aged man, and . . . She turned and gave Sunny a secret, surprised look. An Aeluon.

Sunny raised his eyebrows and gave a nod of yeah, I know.

The other instructors turned to look at her, each as excited as she was. Eyas took a breath, and walked up to the teacher’s station at the front of the room. The others sat in the chairs lined up alongside her, like they’d practised. ‘Hello, everybody,’ Eyas said to the attendees. ‘Thank you so much for coming to our workshop.’ She gestured at the assembled volunteers. ‘We’re the Exodan Cultural Education Collective.’ She gave a slight pause, half expecting at least one of the attendees to realise they were in the wrong place and leave. None did. She smiled. ‘Right. So.’ This was harder than she’d anticipated. At the Centre, there were Litanies and traditions, set ceremonies to follow. She’d planned this class out, sure, but that didn’t change the fact that she had made this whole thing up, and was making it up still.

She glanced over at Sunny. He winked. She steadied. ‘This is a whole-day workshop, but if you need to leave at any time, feel free. We’re hoping, at some point, to split this into individual classes – and more advanced classes as well – but we’re new, and we’re learning, too, so for now, you get all of us at once.’ She paused, the presence of an alien prompting the realisation of something she should’ve thought of ahead of time. ‘Does everyone here speak Ensk?’

The middle-aged man nodded. The Aeluon wiggled her hand. ‘Yes,’ the young woman said in some staggeringly thick fringer accent. ‘But not much well.’

Eyas shifted linguistic gears. ‘Klip remmet goigagan?’

Everyone nodded, including the Aeluon. She’d clearly spent time around Humans. Eyas turned to the row of instructors. ‘That okay with you guys?’ she asked in Ensk.

‘Mine’s not great,’ Jacira said. She was older, maybe fifty or so.

‘That’s okay,’ Eyas said. ‘Just do it in Ensk, and one of us will translate.’ She switched back to Klip. ‘This better? Okay, good. Our goal here today is to give you a good starting point for finding the resources and assistance you need to begin a life in the Fleet. We’re going to cover a huge range of topics and services, and there will be plenty that we won’t have time for. We’re not here to teach you everything, but our hope is that you’ll leave here knowing where to find the right answers. Let me introduce you to your instructors. Some of these professions won’t be things you’re familiar with. Others will be, and they’re here to highlight some of the differences between our way of doing things and the ways you might be more used to. I’ll start with myself, and we’ll go down the line. My name’s Eyas. I’m a caretaker for the dead. I conduct funeral rites and . . . well, I’ll explain the specifics of it later.’ She turned to the other volunteers. ‘Let’s focus on the living for now, yeah?’

‘Hi, I’m Ayodeji,’ the first said. ‘I’m a doctor at a neighbourhood clinic. I’ll be answering your questions about basic medical care.’

‘Hi, I’m Tohu. I’m a ferry pilot. I’m gonna explain how to get around, both inside a homesteader and in between.’

‘I’m Jacira. I’m a bug farmer, and I’ll be talking to you about food stores and water management.’

‘Hey there, I’m Sunny.’ He smiled with all the confidence in the world. ‘I’m a sex worker, and I’ll be explaining where to go if you want to get laid.’

The young woman stared. The man laughed. The Aeluon looked at him, confused as to what was funny.

The instructors continued – a mural artist, a mech tech, a trade-only merchant – until there were no more names to give. Eyas turned to the class. ‘Now, I’d like you three to introduce yourselves as well. Who are you, where are you from, and what brings you here?’

The students sat in silence for a moment, like all groups of strangers did. The man spoke first. ‘I’m Bruno,’ he said. ‘I’m a spacer. From Jupiter Station originally, but that was a long time ago. I haul cargo – foodstuff, mainly. The Fleet’s been one of my stops for six standards now, and I’m considering putting an end to all the back and forth. I like the people here, but I’m . . . I’m not quite sure yet.’ He gestured to the instructors. ‘I was hoping you could give me a better idea of what I’d be in for.’

Eyas smiled. ‘We’ll certainly try.’

‘I’m Lam,’ the Aeluon said. ‘I am sure you weren’t expecting me.’

The room chuckled. ‘Not exactly,’ Eyas said kindly.

‘I’m from Sohep Frie, and I’m a textile merchant,’ Lam said. ‘I’m not going to relocate here, but I would like to understand the Exodans I work with better. They make great effort to make me comfortable. I’d like to be able to do the same.’

Eyas hadn’t considered that other species might find value in a Exodan cultural crash course. Something to add to the workshop description, she supposed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Amad, the poster maker, already making a note on her scrib. ‘That’s wonderful,’ Eyas said. ‘We’re delighted to have you here.’ She looked to the woman. ‘And what about you?’

The young woman swallowed. Eyas could tell she was shy. ‘I’m Anna,’ the woman said. ‘I don’t really . . . I guess I’m . . . I dunno. I guess I’m trying something new.’

There wasn’t an encompassing word for what Eyas felt then. Tightness. Warmth. Pain. Clarity. She thought of the top of the cylinder, of one particular sunken crater she’d refilled with bamboo chips some tendays before now. She thought of the canisters that had rattled in her cart some tendays after then. She thought of dirt, dark and shapeless, and of sprouts, tender and new.

Why now? Sunny had asked of her profession, right before giving her the answer she’d always had: Because you love it, and because it’s our way, and that’s reason enough. There wasn’t maths or logic or any ironclad measure of efficiency to back it up. There didn’t need to be. If trying something new was valid, then keeping something old was, too. No, this wasn’t the same Fleet as that of their ancestors. Yes, things had changed, and would keep changing. Life meant death, always. But by the same token, death meant life. So long as people kept choosing this life, Eyas planned to be there – for as long as she could – guiding them through both sides of the equation.

Eyas looked Anna in the eye. She smiled, and said what she should’ve said the first time she’d heard a grounder speak those words. ‘Welcome. Whatever questions you have, we’re happy to help.’

Kip, One Standard Later

Ever since he’d arrived on Kaathet, Kip had encountered so many things he’d never seen before that the phrase ‘I’ve never seen anything like this’ had almost stopped feeling like something worth pointing out. Nothing was like what he knew, not the food, not the crowds, and definitely not the school, which was the complete opposite of school back home in that everything was fun and interesting (and that was a whole new problem, because it was all so good, he didn’t know what concentration to pick). To say ‘I’ve never seen anything like this’ was the same as saying ‘I got up today’.

That said: he’d never seen anything like the Osskerit Museum, one of the biggest repositories of Arkanic artefacts in the GC. The inside of the building was decorated to look like one of their long-gone grand temples – or, at least, somebody’s best guess as to how they looked. It was hard to say anything hard and fast about a sapient species that had gone extinct long before any of the ones around today had woken up. Still, if their buildings looked anything like the Osskerit, the Arkani had been damn impressive. Everything inside and out was harsh angles and reflective surfaces, a sharp, stabbing fractal of shimmering light. The visual effect felt violent, almost, and was nowhere Kip would want to live. He was wowed all the same.

‘Hey, come look at this!’ Tuumuu said. The Laru’s body was facing a display, but her limb-like neck was stretched back around her foreleg so she could face the others. Kip was still getting used to that. He was also still getting used to having whole conversations in Klip all day every day, which he was getting better at. He wore a translation hud to fill in the gaps.

The rest of the group came over to Tuumuu’s side, and Kip left the fossils he’d been looking at to drift their way. They were inseparable, the five of them, all first-year students, all interstellar transfers, all taking Introduction to Historical Galactic Civilisations. They were each from somewhere else, and even though the homegrown students at the Kaathet Rakas school were friendly (mostly), somehow it felt natural for the outsiders to stick together. Even if they were total weirdos.

Dron leaned toward the display, his cheeks swirling speckled blue. ‘Huh,’ he said.

Viola pointed at Dron’s face. ‘What’s that one mean?’

The Aeluon gave Viola a tired look. ‘Stars, you are not going to let this go, are you?’

‘How else am I supposed to know what’s up with you if you don’t explain your colours? See, now there’s some yellow in there. What’s yellow mean?’

‘Yellow means lots of things.’

‘What’s this yellow mean?’

‘Annoyed. It means I’m annoyed.’

Viola cuffed the innocent Laru. ‘Jeez, Tuumuu, stop bugging Dron. Can’t you see he’s yellow?’

‘Kip,’ Dron called. ‘Will you please get over here and make your cousin behave?’

‘And will you all please shut up?’ Kreshkeris said from a bench nearby. She was taking furious notes on her scrib, like always. ‘Some of us would like to actually do well on this assignment.’ She was a lifelong spacer, too, and always acted like she had to prove herself to the grounder Aandrisks they went to school with. Some things weren’t that different.

Kip walked up to Viola with his hands in his pockets. ‘Hey, cousin,’ he said. ‘Behave.’ He could hear his accent, his imprecise words. But it was cool. With this group, he knew it was cool.

Viola smirked at the joke. Their first day at school, Dron had asked if she and Kip were related, which was hilarious, because Viola came from Titan, and they looked nothing alike. At least, they didn’t think so. Everybody else did. ‘Bug-fucking spacer,’ Viola said in her weird, flowy Ensk.

‘Cow-licking Solan,’ Kip shot back.

‘That’s for Martians, you idiot. There aren’t any cows in the Outers.’

‘I dunno, I’m looking at one right now.’

They both grinned.

‘They’re talking shit about us again,’ Dron said in the others’ general direction.

‘You have no idea what we’re saying,’ Kip said.

An elaborate explosion of colour danced across the Aeluon’s face. ‘And neither do you.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Viola said.

‘You guys,’ Tuumuu said, the fur on her neck waving in the air as her big funny feet danced impatiently. ‘Look at this.’

They leaned in to see what had gotten their fuzzy history nerd so excited. On the pedestal before them rested an ancient lump of metal, smashed in on itself, worn down by time.

‘It’s a star-tracker,’ Tuumuu gushed. ‘It’s what they used to study the sky. Think about it! They were trying to find people out there, too. Only . . . only we showed up too late.’ Her head sagged. ‘Stars, that’s sad.’

They leaned in closer. ‘Doesn’t look like much,’ Dron said.

‘That’s ’cause it’s old, dummy.’

‘How’d it work?’ Viola asked.

Kip cocked his head. ‘Looks like there was a switch here.’ He reached out and picked up the star-tracker.

Everything went batshit at once. An alarm went off. Previously unseen lights started flashing. His friends yelled in unison.

‘Kip, what the fuck?!’

‘Dude, what are you—’

‘Put it back!’

A shout in Reskitkish came from behind. A line of translation shot across Kip’s hud: Put the object down.

He turned to see an Aandrisk security guard standing behind him. She was about two heads taller than he was, and had a stun gun at the ready.

Kip stammered. ‘I – what—’

The Aandrisk repeated herself in hissing Klip: ‘Set the item down.’

Kip looked down at the lump of metal he was still holding stupidly. He had no idea what he’d done wrong, but he did as told. ‘I – I wasn’t stealing—’

The guard glared at him, and everyone else. She looked straight at Kreshkeris as she walked away. ‘Mind your foreign friends,’ she said.

Kreshkeris got up from her bench and stormed over to Kip, her feathers on end. She was tall, too. ‘What were you thinking?’

Kip looked at his friends – Tuumuu an anxious puff from front to back, Dron red as a bruise, Viola laughing with her forehead in her palm. What was he thinking? He had a better question: what had he done? ‘I wasn’t stealing,’ he said again.

‘Kip, you – you know you can’t touch stuff at a museum, right?’ Dron said.

Kip blinked. ‘Why not?’

‘Oh, stars,’ Viola said, laughing harder.

Tuumuu stepped in. ‘These are priceless things,’ she explained. Her fur started to settle. ‘This star-finder might be the only one left. If you break it, that’s . . . that’s it. There are no more, and we can’t learn anything.’

‘If you break it, why not fix it?’ Kip frowned. ‘You can’t learn anything like – like this.’ He gestured to the trouble-making metal. ‘You can’t learn how it works if it’s broke.’

‘I – well – you should take an archeology class,’ the Laru said, her tone brightening. ‘Professor Eshisk is great. You’d learn all about restoration techniques, and preserving context, and—’

‘The point, Kip,’ Kreshkeris said, ‘is that you can’t touch. That’s the rules.’

‘Okay.’ Kip put his palms up. ‘Okay, that’s the rules. I’m sorry.’ He surrendered the argument, but he didn’t understand. He tried to imagine the same situation playing out back in the Fleet. This is a First Generation telescope, and you can’t attempt fixing it, you can’t recycle the metal and glass, and you definitely can’t touch it. We’re just going to put it here on the shelf, spending space and fuel on something nobody can use.

Tuumuu seemed to read his mind. She fell alongside him as the group continued through the hall, walking on four legs and keeping her neck down so as to match his height. ‘Don’t you have museums in the Exodus Fleet? You obviously don’t have buildings, but collections or . . . or museum ships maybe, or . . .’

‘No,’ Kip said. ‘We have the Archives, I guess.’

‘What’s that?’

‘They’re like a library. All on servers though, no paper or tablets or anything. Just recordings of . . . of . . .’ The Archives were such a basic thing to him, such an everyday given. He’d never had to sum them up before. ‘Of everything. Earth, the Fleet, families. Seriously everything. We don’t need to carry museum stuff around.’

‘But you – you don’t have any physical artefacts of your history. None at all.’ She looked bothered by that idea. Tuumuu lived and breathed for artefacts.

Kip started to say no, but realised that wasn’t true. He thought about his hex, where he’d watched Mom melt down old busted tools, where he’d watched Dad refit an exosuit that was still good and sealed after three generations. He wondered how Tuumuu would react to that. If she freaked out over him just picking up an old thing, she’d lose her mind at a neighbourhood smelter. ‘We . . . use stuff,’ Kip said. ‘If we can use it, we use it, and if we can’t, we make something else.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I guess everything is an artefact, kind of. Like . . . I dunno, a plate. A plate wasn’t always a plate, see. It could’ve been a bulkhead once, or . . . or flooring, or something. Or maybe it was a plate all along, and my great-great-great-great-great-grandparents ate off of it. I’m still going to use it.’

Tuumuu got that cute fold in her face that happened when she was putting ideas together. ‘And that plate would’ve been something else down on Earth first. A machine, or a house, maybe.’

‘A house?’

‘Well, because of the metal foundries, right? Where they took apart the cities.’

‘I guess so,’ Kip said. The Laru beside him had a better grasp on Earthen history than he did, and he was kind of embarrassed about it. He’d been meaning to get a Linking book.

‘Wow,’ Tuumuu said. ‘Wow. So you can touch everything. You’re touching your artefacts all the time.’ She let out one of her weird alien chuckles. ‘So that star-tracker, you would’ve just . . .’

Kip shrugged. ‘Made a plate.’

‘Made a plate,’ she repeated, disbelieving. She pushed her face a little closer to his. ‘Can I come visit some time? Can I stay with your family?’

Laru, Kip had learned, didn’t find it rude to ask for exactly what they wanted, be it a favour or part of your lunch or, apparently, a cross-galaxy trip to stay with your parents. ‘Yeah, sure,’ he said, and as he said it, he realised that he really, weirdly, did want Tuumuu to visit. He thought about the Fleet through her eyes, and it wasn’t the same Fleet he knew at all. He thought about the murals he walked past every day without a second thought, the theatres he went to because it was something to do, the farms that were just farms until you saw farms on the ground. He imagined how Tuumuu would see those things, what they’d mean to someone who never shut up about artefacts. He imagined saying, ‘Go ahead, touch anything you want.’ He imagined her fur fluffing and her big feet bouncing and her face folding and folding until she exploded from excitement. He thought, for a second, about taking her to the Archives so she could meet M Itoh, who would totally be able to tell Tuumuu anything she wanted . . . but that imagining wasn’t as good. He wanted to be the one to tell her. He wanted to know stuff, like Tuumuu knew stuff. He wanted to hang out in his district with her and have the neighbours come stare. He wanted to teach her things. He wanted his alien friend to think the Fleet was cool.

And maybe . . . maybe it was.

‘Hey, hurry up!’ Dron called back to them. The rest of the group was rounding a corner. ‘I’m not coming back if you get lost.’

Kip followed along. He moved through the museum, passing intangible history and thinking of home.

Tessa, Two Standards Later

The sun spike was a weird plant. Not quite a succulent and not quite a tree, it rose from the desert sand on its spindly trunk, an improbable support for the pod-like leaves and bright orange fruit that puffed out from its upper arms. The sun spikes weren’t native to Seed; they were an introduced species, just as the Humans who tended them were.

Tessa watched the sun spikes go by in neat rows as she flew the low-hovering skiff down the orchard road and back toward the village. ‘What’d I tell you?’ she said to her passenger. She threw a glance over her shoulder to the bed of the skiff, full to the brim with bushels of fat fruit.

Ammar raised his calloused palms. ‘You win,’ he said. ‘I’ll never question your pollinator maps again.’

Tessa nodded, satisfied. Drawing up a new rotation for the pollinator bots hadn’t been hard. Geometry and logic, that was all. Move this shape here, fill that gap there, and hey presto, you’ve got more efficient field coverage. That part had been a cinch. The hard part was convincing the settlers who’d been there far longer than her – people who didn’t trip over their own feet when looking up at the sky, who didn’t freak out over bugs that weren’t food, who no longer stared at the unending horizon until they felt dizzy – that her suggestion had a good chance of boosting the next harvest. That part had been hard, too – waiting. Seasons on their world moved fast, but still, she couldn’t just grab a few spare aeroponics parts and put her plan into action. She’d drawn up the map in winter, waited until spring to actually do anything, and crossed her fingers until late summer in the hopes that she’d be right.

And she had been. She couldn’t help but feel a bit smug about it. It was a good way to feel.

Ammar reached back, plucked a choice sunfruit from their haul, and took a huge bite. ‘Mmm. Stars, I love these.’

‘Hey,’ Tessa said, slapping his knee. ‘What is that, your fourth?’

‘If I pick ’em, I eat ’em,’ Ammar said. He took another bite, his lips already stained from the previous three. ‘Mmm mmm mmm.’ He looked down at Tessa’s arm. ‘Did you forget your jacket again?’

A bit of the smugness faded. ‘I’m fine,’ she said tersely.

Ammar laughed. ‘You are goosebumps from shoulder to wrist. Tess, you gotta remember that weather exists.’

Tessa stuck her tongue out at him as she flew around the construction site for the new water reclamation building. Days on Seed were hot, and it was easy to remember to dress cool when you woke up with blankets kicked to the floor. The bit she kept forgetting was that the sun going down meant the warmth went with it. A lifetime of disconnect between light and air temperature was a tough thing to shake.

The sky was a hazy pink by the time they got home, and Tessa was starting to shiver. She warmed up quick, though, as she and Ammar and the villagers who saw them approach worked to get the fruit into the storehouse before dark. The liftbots – which had lain unused and in disrepair before Tessa’s arrival – accepted their new inventory, emptying the heavy bushels into stasis crates, carrying their burdens silently. In contrast, the busy Humans unleashed a loud chorus of chatter. Tessa heard people talking about the size of the fruit, the colour, how it compared to the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that. They talked about who was going to make jam, and who was going to make kick, and how the suddet root should be coming up soon. Simple talk. Harvest talk. She’d never had interest in the farms back home – back on the Asteria, that is. This was different, somehow. Something about the dirt, maybe, or the added chaos of wild bugs and desert chickens (which weren’t actual chickens, of course – they weren’t much like Earthen birds at all – but you made do with the words you had). She wasn’t entirely sure what the reason was, but she liked being part of the farm crew here. To her unending surprise, she liked it.

A herd of kids ran over, the eldest and fastest at the front, the little ones trailing dutifully. They were followed by two elderly folks – the childminders. Their careful eyes were belied by their unfussed stroll and minimal interference. The kids waited the barest of seconds to get an approving nod from an adult, then swarmed upon the fruit. They took them into their hands, gnawed in starting points, then scraped out the sweet pulp with whatever stage of teeth they had. Tessa saw Ky, shadowing Alerio as usual. His idol was an impressive six and a half, and everything five-year-old Ky wanted to be. But though Alerio always generously put up with his devotee, he failed to notice that Ky couldn’t reach the top of the bushels.

Tessa made her way over and crouched down behind Ky. She put her hands over her son’s eyes. ‘Guess who,’ she said.

Ky ducked down out of her hands and spun around. ‘Mom, don’t do that,’ he giggled.

‘Oh, I’m very sorry.’ She raised her eyes to the out-of-reach sunfruit. ‘Do you want one?’

‘Yes!’

‘Yes, what?’

Ky bounced up and down. ‘Yes, please.’

She stood, picked him up around his midsection, and lifted him within reach. Stars, he was heavy. Ky made a move for a fruit that was about half the size of his head. ‘You’re never gonna finish that one, bud,’ Tessa said. ‘I think you should get one you can pick up with one hand.’

Ky grabbed a more moderately sized one with both hands. ‘I can finish this one.’

‘All right,’ Tessa said. Compromise had been found, in a way, and besides, her back couldn’t take much more of him deciding. She set Ky down, and he wasted no time in running back toward the pack. Tessa called after him. ‘What do you say?’

‘Thank you!’ Ky shouted in motion.

‘You’re welcome,’ she said, even though she was sure he’d stopped listening. She scanned her eyes over the kids, looking for a tall head of choppy black hair.

Where was Aya?

Ammar was leading the charge with harvest storage, and there were more than enough hands, so Tessa had no qualms about walking home in search of her errant kid. It was properly dark by then, and she hurried along with hands in her pockets and bare arms pressed to her sides. She passed the school, the fuel depot, the med clinic. She passed the gathering hall, still decked with bunting from Remembrance Day. She passed the sculpture of a homesteader standing in the middle of a growing wreath of desert plants, the plaque below inscribed with heat-etched words:

In honour of all who carried us this far.

She arrived, at last, at a mud-and-metal home, not particularly different from the others. This one, though, had a painted sign beside the door. Santoso, it read, underlined by four handprints – two big, two small. She relaxed as she saw a familiar red scoot-bike tossed unceremoniously onto the front porch. Aya was home. She’d be receiving yet another talking-to about putting her things away properly, but still – she was home.

The warm air inside made Tessa melt with relief, and a wonderful smell met her nose. George stuck his head out of the kitchen doorway. His beard and belly were streaked with flour, and he wore a pair of oven mitts. ‘You are about fifteen minutes away from a kickass desert chicken soup and what is, I believe, my best bread yet,’ he said. He looked her up and down. ‘Did you forget your jacket again?’

Tessa rolled her eyes. ‘What’s so special about this bread?’ she asked as she pulled off her boots.

‘Nuh uh,’ he said, ducking back into the kitchen. ‘A chef never reveals his secrets.’

Tessa shook her head with a smile. The previous winter – their first on Seed – when there’d been little to do but stay warm and go bonkers, George had discovered a previously unknown love for baking. He was honestly talking about quitting the construction crew to open up a shop. George. Her husband, George. Tessa privately thought he could do with a few more loaves that weren’t gooey on the inside before he made the leap, but she wasn’t about to squash his enthusiasm, and besides, she was happy to eat her way through as many experiments as it took.

Stars, but it was nice having him around.

‘Where’s Aya?’ she asked.

‘Talking to your dad,’ he said.

Tessa raised her eyebrows and made her way to the living room. There indeed was her daughter, covered in dirt from head to toe, having an animated discussion with Pop on the sib.

‘And then,’ Aya said, ‘Jasmin was like, I bet you can’t jump that ditch, and I said, yeah, I can, and I did. I crashed when I landed, though. Look, see.’ She raised up her elbows toward the screen. ‘I’ve already got crazy bruises.’

‘Yikes,’ Pop said. Light glinted off his ocular implant as he nodded approvingly. ‘Those are impressive.’

‘Yeah, tomorrow we’re gonna go off the dock into the lake. Tommy built a ramp, and it’s fine, the water’s real deep.’

Pop laughed from way deep in his chest. ‘You’ll have to show me when I come visit.’

‘When are you coming?’

‘Early next standard. Takes a long time to get there. Think you can find a scoot-bike for me?’

Aya giggled. ‘I dunno.’ She turned her head. ‘Mom’s here, do you want to talk to her?’

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Don’t have time.’

Tessa raised her voice. ‘Thanks, Pop.’

Pop leaned toward his screen confidentially. ‘Tell your mom I can’t talk because I’ve got a hot date.’

Aya craned her head back. ‘Grandpa says he can’t talk, he’s got a hot date.’

‘Oh, stars,’ Tessa said. She pinched the bridge of her nose, then walked into frame. ‘Lupe?’

‘Psh,’ Pop said. ‘Old news. I’m meeting Marjo at Top to Bottom.’

‘And I’m sorry I asked,’ Tessa said. She gave a sarcastic wave. ‘Have fun.’

‘Bye, Grandpa,’ Aya said.

Pop was still waving and smiling as the screen went dark.

Tessa put her hands on her hips. ‘So speaking of scoot-bikes . . .’

‘Oops.’ Aya gave her a charming smile.

Tessa was not swayed. She plucked at her daughter’s shirt. ‘Have you been strolling around this house in this nasty shirt?’ She moved her hand to Aya’s scalp. ‘Stars, your hair.’ Crusty bundles of dirt clung to her daughter’s locks.

Aya looked down as if seeing her clothing for the first time. ‘Oops,’ she said again.

Tessa brushed the transferred crud off her palm, wondering just how much of Seed was now coating the inside of her home. ‘Kiddo, you have got to remember that dirt exists.’

‘And you have to remember to bring a jacket.’

Tessa ignored the poorly smothered laugh from the kitchen. She narrowed her eyelids. ‘Shower. Clean clothes. Now.’ Aya made a face, but she obeyed, and received a gentle swat on the shoulder from Tessa as she went.

Tessa sighed and surveyed her wreck of a living room. Toys, tools, visible footprints. She bent over and started tidying up, knowing her efforts would be made futile by tomorrow. Her limbs were sore from the day spent in the field, and she knew that while the next day would be less strenuous, it’d be just as busy. They had to start covering the roots before the first fall frost hit, and the pollinators needed to be cleaned before they got packed away. Plus, there was laundry that needed doing, and globulbs that needed replacing, and a draughty wall that needing patching, and . . . stars, it never ended, did it?

‘Hey,’ George called. ‘You’re not cleaning, are you?’

‘I’m just tidying up.’

‘Tessa. It’s not hurting anybody, and I can do it in the morning. Sit down, have some kick, warm up.’

She opened her mouth to protest, but then . . . why not? The mess wasn’t hurting anybody, it wasn’t going anywhere, and there’d just be another one tomorrow. She picked up the bottle of Whitedune and an accompanying glass from the top of one of the shelves. She sat on the couch, pretending she didn’t see the puff of dust that rose up when she sat down. She poured herself a splash. She didn’t need more than that. Just five minutes of a warm throat and stillness. That would do nicely.

She thought, as she closed her eyes, about home. Seed was a good place, better than she’d expected. But it wasn’t home yet, and she worried, sometimes, about whether it ever would be. There were nights when she lay awake, missing the hex so much she could hardly breathe, or when she was so unaccustomed to the luxury of having George home all the time that she went and slept on the couch for the familiarity of sleeping alone. Sometimes she snapped at the kids when they didn’t deserve it. Sometimes she got sad over silly things – the oxygen garden, her old mek brewer, even the stupid cargo bay. It was hard, life on the ground. Yes, homesteaders had to worry about water and crops, too, but if one of those systems failed, if your ship fell apart, there were others you could go live on. It wasn’t like that out here. Leaving Seed meant leaving the system, travelling for tendays, figuring life out again. Part of her still couldn’t believe that she’d done this. Part of her was still unsure. Maybe part of her always would be.

She opened her eyes. Something was off. With a sigh, she realised – she hadn’t heard any sounds of showering. She hadn’t even heard the water turn on yet. She got up, walked to the bathroom, pushed the door open, and – the scolding died on her lips. Aya was in there all right, still clothed, still filthy. But she had the window propped open, and she was halfway out of it, twisting her torso to look up at the sky. Her dirty hair swayed in the evening breeze. Her face was turned toward the biggest moon, shining bright and beautiful overhead. She hadn’t noticed her mother come in, and was talking to herself. Whatever the words were, Tessa could not hear. Some story, perhaps. Some idea she didn’t want to forget. But while her words were lost, the expression on her face was unmistakable. She was curious. She was unafraid.

Tessa stepped back out, taking care to lean the door shut silently. She made her way to the kitchen. George was facing away from her, transferring his precious bread from oven to cooling rack. She walked up behind him, wrapped her arms around his middle, and rested her cheek between his shoulder blades.

‘Hey, you,’ he said.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘I think I fucked up this bread,’ he sighed.

She laughed and shut her eyes, soaking up the warmth of him. The bread, fucked up or not, smelled great. So did he. He always did. ‘That’s okay,’ she said. She held him tight. ‘You’ll make another one.’

Isabel, Three Standards Later

The assembly hall was decorated as it always was – cloth flags, metal stars, shining ribbons. There were differences, of course. Some of the other archivists had been fed up with the worn flags they’d dragged out standard after standard and took it upon themselves to make a batch of new ones (Isabel had to admit, they were much better). The seedlings on the favour table weren’t sky vine anymore, but four-toes, which had come back into fashion (she’d found their fussy flowers so old hat when she’d been in her youth). But details didn’t matter. It was still a Naming Day, and she never tired of those. They were the best kinds of days.

She felt someone looking at her, and she glanced over from her out-of-the-way corner to Tamsin, who’d tagged along for this one. The Mitchell family from hex 625 was the one getting an extra name record that day, and their cooking was legendary throughout the neighbourhood. Tamsin had taken a chair off to the side of the room, and very much looked the part of an innocent old woman who needed to rest her legs. Isabel knew her too well for that. Her wife had chosen a strategic spot that would put her right at the front of the buffet line once the formalities were over. Tamsin locked eyes with her, and gave a purposeful tilt of her head toward a man setting down a giant bowl of noodles mixed with crispy fish, a rainbow of vegetables, and all sorts of tasty bits Isabel couldn’t make out at a distance. Tamsin held her hands close to her stomach and gave Isabel two secretive thumbs up.

Isabel smothered a laugh and looked elsewhere. She had to be respectable today. Tamsin didn’t always make that easy, but then, that was part of the fun.

The young family arrived, hanging back in the hallway. Isabel made eye contact with the musicians, and they began to play. The crowd parted. The couple approached, baby in tow. They stopped at the podium, as they knew to do. But Isabel did not move. Instead, she looked to another, and nodded.

Isabel watched her new apprentice as he took his place. He’d filled out well in the years that he’d been away. He’d grown into himself. He had a full beard, and his voice had settled steady and low. He’d completed an academic track in Post-Unification History, which he’d passed by the skin of his teeth. He spoke spaceport Reskitkish, and his arm sported a swirling bot tattoo he’d picked up from some market stop, like you do. He’d gained a soft spot for snapfruit tarts. He liked letting ocean waves run over his toes. But he drank his mek hot and his kick ice cold, and found no meal as comforting as a hopper topped with twice-round pickle. He peppered his Klip with Ensk, his Ensk with Klip, and thought Martian accents were the funniest thing there was. He knew that the sky was best viewed below his feet. And he’d told her, when she’d demanded to know why he was back, that seeing so many singular things had made him realise he came from somewhere singular, too, and even if it was ass-backwards and busted – his words – it was theirs, and there was nothing else like it. The Fleet was priceless. The only one. If it was gone, there wouldn’t just be nothing for other Humans to learn from. There’d be nothing for him to learn from.

She’d put in an order for his robes right then, the same robes he wore handsomely now – bright yellow with a white apprentice’s stripe on the shoulders. He was nervous, she could tell, more than his face gave away. Of course he was. She’d been nervous her first time, too.

She looked out at the crowd waiting for him to begin. They smiled warmly at him. They understood. They had his back. He was one of theirs.

Kip cleared his throat and gave a brave smile. ‘We destroyed our world,’ he said, ‘and left it for the skies. Our numbers were few. Our species had scattered. We were the last to leave. We left the ground behind. We left the oceans. We left the air. We watched these things grow small. We watched them shrink into a point of light. As we watched, we understood. We understood what we were. We understood what we had lost. We understood what we would need to do to survive. We abandoned more than our ancestors’ world. We abandoned our short sight. We abandoned our bloody ways. We made ourselves anew.’ He spread his hands, encompassing the gathered. ‘We are the Exodus Fleet. We are those that wandered, that wander still. We are the homesteaders that shelter our families. We are the miners and foragers in the open. We are the ships that ferry between. We are the explorers who carry our names. We are the parents who lead the way. We are the children who continue on.’ He picked up his scrib from the podium. ‘What is his name?’

‘Amias,’ the man said.

‘And what name does your home carry?’

‘Mitchell,’ said the woman.

‘Amias Mitchell,’ Kip spoke to the scrib. A blue square appeared on screen. He took the baby’s foot and attempted to press it to the square. The baby kicked mightily, and for a moment, Kip looked intimidated by the person a fraction of his size. A quiet laugh rippled through the crowd. Kip laughed, too, and with the help of the child’s father, got the foot in order. The scrib chirped. Record had been made.

‘Amias Mitchell,’ Kip said. ‘Born aboard the Asteria. Forty Solar days of age as of GC standard day 211/310. He is now, and always, a member of our Fleet. By our laws, he is assured shelter and passage here. If we have food, he will eat. If we have air, he will breathe. If we have fuel, he will fly. He is son to all grown, brother to all still growing. We will care for him, protect him, guide him. We welcome you, Amias, to the decks of the Asteria, and to the journey we take together.’ He spoke the final words now, and the room joined him. ‘From the ground, we stand. From our ships, we live. By the stars, we hope.’