The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Day 397, GC Standard 306 HATCH, FEATHER, HOUSE

Rosemary walked into the control room and looked out the window. Nothing but clear space, with one ringed planet, Theth, hanging fat in the middle. A scattering of moons floated nearby, just beyond the wreath of sandy rings. The Wayfarer was heading for the fifth moon on the left—Hashkath. Rosemary held up her hand and covered the Aandrisk homeworld with her thumb. Hard to believe that glistening green marble was larger than Mars. But then, space had a way of putting size into uncomfortable perspective. She looked to the pilot. “Is something wrong?”

Sissix’s hands darted quick over her navigation panel. “No, why?”

“Because you’re flying manually. When you do that this far out of orbit, that usually means something’s wrong.” Rocks. Gas clouds. Junk. Other ships. More rocks. There was no end to rocks in space.

“I’m flying home,” said Sissix. “That’s something I’ve got to do myself.”

Rosemary took a seat beside her. “Why?”

“When Aandrisks first took to space, we used these awful solar-sail pods. Really skittish, could only fit one person. Not for the claustrophobic.”

“Ours were the same. Not the sails, but still. Tiny.” She shuddered.

“You guys lucked out, though. There’s nothing floating around your planet except the stuff you put up there yourselves. Your flyers could just orbit ’round and ’round forever. Smooth sailing. But our moon’s got moons of its own, and it’s orbiting a ringed planet. That takes some very tricky maneuvering, especially when you’re talking about a little metal can with flimsy sails. And this was before artigrav made it our way, so you’re just floating there, hoping you touch ground again. Being able to say that you went all the way out here and got yourself safely back home—that made you a hero. It meant you were strong and skilled, that you’d worked hard to make sure your family didn’t lose you.”

“Ah,” said Rosemary. “So this is a matter of pride.”

“I suppose,” said Sissix. She paused. “Yeah. In a good way.”

The vox snapped on. “Sissix,” said Kizzy. She sounded timid. “You know I love you, right?”

Sissix sighed. “What did you do?”

“How much will you hate me if Jenks and I don’t come to your family’s for dinner tonight?”

“Deeply and unendingly,” said Sissix in a tone that suggested otherwise. “Why?”

“Well… oh, now I feel bad…”

There was a rustle on the vox. Jenks’ voice took over. “Sissix, we just found out that the Bathtub Strategy is on tour and they’re playing at that big concert field in Reskit tonight.”

“The Aksisk?” Sissix sounded impressed. “Guys, I will hate you if you don’t go.”

“You sure?” Kizzy said. “Because it’s not a big deal, really—”

“Kizzy,” Sissix said. “Go.”

“You’re the best.” The vox switched off.

“You can go with them if you want,” Sissix said. “The Aksisk is an amazing venue.”

“Charthump’s not really my thing,” said Rosemary. “Besides, dinner with your family sounds nice. I’m excited to see where you’re from.”

“Well, it’s a lot less exciting than the Aksisk, but it’ll be friendly, at least.” Her hands flurried with commands. The ship veered to the left. “You’ve never been to an Aandrisk home before, have you?”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “And, ah, if you don’t mind, I could use a refresher course.”

Sissix laughed. “Humans are so cute.” She met Rosemary’s eyes and smirked. “Don’t worry, it takes all of you forever to get this. Okay, so.” She took one hand off the controls and counted down on her claws. “Hatch family, feather family, house family. Tell me what you know.”

Rosemary leaned back. “You’re born into a hatch family.”

“Right.”

“Then you grow up and leave for a feather family.”

“Stopping you there. It’s not like you leave as soon as you get your feathers. You leave when you’ve found a good feather family, or when you find other adults worth making a feather family with.”

“A feather family is friends and lovers, right?”

“Right. People you emotionally depend on.”

“But feather families change often, right?”

“Not often, necessarily. Often by your standards, I guess. People change feather families whenever they need to, and people need different things at different times in their lives. It’s almost unheard of for an Aandrisk to stay with the same people their entire life. Two or three people, maybe, sometimes, but not a whole group. Groups change regularly.”

“So, feather families are usually people all around the same age?”

“Oh, not at all. Young Aandrisks tend to stick together at first, but once they gain a little confidence and experience, they branch out. We don’t worry about age differences as much as most other species do. If you’ve got feathers, it’s fine. And it can be a great experience for youngsters to group with an older crowd. I was the youngest by far in my second feather family, and—” Sissix chuckled, her eyes far away. “Yeah, I learned a lot of things.”

“Do you—” Rosemary felt herself blush. “Does everybody in a feather family, um, y’know—”

“Couple? To some extent, but it’s different than what you think. At least once, almost definitely. But not everybody within a feather family has romantic feelings toward everyone else. It’s a whole web of different feelings. So, yes, there’s a lot coupling going on—especially on holidays, a holiday without a tet is unheard of.” Rosemary had learned the word. Its literal translation was “frolic,” but its colloquial use implied something far more risque. “But many members are platonic toward one another. They’ll touch each other much more than Humans do, but it’s still not coupling. Or, well, then again, sometimes it can be. We tend to think about coupling the same way that—hmm, how to put this—okay, like how you think about good food. It’s something you always look forward to, and it’s something everybody needs and enjoys. At the low end of the scale, it’s comforting. At the high end, it’s transcendent. And like eating a meal, it’s something you can do in public, with friends, or with strangers. But even so, it’s best when you share it with someone you care about romantically.”

“I can see that,” Rosemary said. She nodded. “So, then, house family. House family raises children. But not their own children, right?”

“Right. We can breed as soon as we’ve got a full head of feathers, but we don’t start thinking about raising children until we’ve gotten old. That’s when we make house families. It’s usually made up of elder members of a feather family, who all decide to settle down together. Sometimes they might contact favorites from previous feather families, see if they want to join. And don’t misunderstand, house families change members from time to time, too. They may be old, but they’re still Aandrisks.” She laughed.

“So, younger Aandrisks give their eggs to a house family.”

“Right.”

“Do they find a house family that has someone they’re related to?”

“It’s nice if you can, but usually you just choose whoever’s most convenient. When a woman has a fertile clutch—we call it a kaas—she goes to the local registry and finds a good house family with room for more.”

“What if she can’t find someone to take them?”

“Then she buries the clutch. Remember, most of the clutch will die anyway. Most won’t even make it to hatching. That’s not because they’re unhealthy. That’s just how it is. Stars, I can’t even imagine how many of us there’d be if every egg hatched. Too many.” She shuddered.

Rosemary thought about this. “I hope this doesn’t sound ignorant, but why don’t feather families raise their own hatchlings? Aren’t there enough people there to help out?”

“Yeah, but it’s not a matter of resources or support. It’s a matter of where you are in your life. In our early adulthood, it’s expected that we’ll want to travel or study, and it’s a given that we’ll switch families often as we age. Elders don’t shift around as much. They’re more stable. And most importantly, they’ve got life experience. They’re wise. They know things.” She smirked. “I’ll never understand how the rest of you expect brand new adults to be able to teach kids how to be people.”

“That’s… okay, that’s a fair point.” Rosemary closed her eyes, trying to keep it all straight. “So, the house family becomes the hatch family for those eggs.”

“Right. And a house family is usually good for two generations of hatchlings. It’s common for first-generation adults to bring their own eggs back to the family that raised them. That’s what I did.”

Rosemary sat up. “Wait. You’ve got kids?” Sissix had never mentioned this, not once.

The Aandrisk woman laughed. “I had a fertile clutch.”

“When?”

“About three standards ago. I’m told two hatchlings lived. But that doesn’t make me a mother.” She winked. “I’m not old enough for that yet.”

Rosemary looked out the window. She chided herself for being so species-centric, but something about this knowledge made her view Sissix differently. She was surprised to realize the depth of her Human concept of motherhood, the idea that procreating fundamentally changed you. But then, she was of a mammalian species. If she ever chose to have children, it would mean spending the better part of a year watching her body stretch and contort, then another year, or more, of letting a fragile, helpless thing that didn’t understand its own limbs feed from her body. Aandrisk hatchlings developed within a detached object, and emerged ready to walk. But though she understood the biological distinctions, she still struggled to wrap her brain around the idea of breeding as something nonchalant, nothing more complicated than sticking eggs in a basket, handing them off, and getting on with your day. Did they use baskets? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t push away the image of a white wicker basket filled with speckled eggs, the handle tied up with pastel bows. “Do you talk to them, or…?”

Sissix gave her a somewhat exasperated smile. “No. Remember, they’re not people yet, not by our standards. And they’re not my family. I know that sounds cold to you, but trust me, they’re loved by the elders raising them. Though, that said, elders don’t get attached to hatchlings, not until they see who they turn into. That’s where the real joy is for house families. Seeing the hatchlings they raised come back as fully-feathered adults, with stories and ideas and personality.”

“Like you’re doing now.”

“Right.”

“Have you ever met your… biological parents?”

“My egg mother, once. Her name’s Saskist. Very funny woman, and I’m glad I got her feathers. I’ve never met my egg father, but I know he lives with his feather family on Ikekt. Or he did last time I checked. That was a while ago, though, he may have moved on by now.”

Rosemary thought of what Lovey said if you gave her one task too many: I’m sorry, but that’ll have to wait a moment. If I put anything more in my databanks, my processing streams will stall. And I hate that. “How do you keep track of all the changes to families?”

“There’s a central database that our government maintains. All feather families are registered there, and the archivists keep track of every change. You can look up anybody’s name and see who their egg parents were, who raised them, which families they’ve been in, who they’ve had clutches with, and where the hatchlings have gone to.”

“That’s got to be one complicated database. Why go to all that trouble?”

“Same reason our full names include all our family details.” She gave Rosemary a pointed look. “Because inbreeding is gross.”

The shuttle ramp unfolded, bright sun flooding in. Rosemary tugged her satchel over her shoulder as she followed Sissix and Ashby down. Her legs wobbled, protesting the switch from artigrav to the real thing. Hashkath had just a touch more bounce than she was used to. She looked up. Theth loomed overhead, its rings and swirling clouds appearing as ghostly afterimages against the hazy blue. Her view was unhindered, no shield pylons or shuttle traffic to get in her way. An open sky.

They had landed in Sethi, a small community in the Western desert region of Hashkath. Well, Sissix had called it a desert. It wasn’t like any desert Rosemary had ever seen. Mars was desert, barren and parched. Its gardens and green plazas were constructs, enclosed beneath habitat domes, fed with recycled water. But here, the ground was alive, flocked with scruffy grass and warped trees, stretching from their flat landing site all the way to the angular mountains along the horizon. And flowers, too, flowers everywhere. Not like the lush, leafy genetweaks from the greenhouses back home, or the elegant vines creeping through Dr. Chef’s garden. These were wildflowers, bursting triumphantly from the gray ground, growing tangled and low in bundles of orange, yellow, purple. The trees twisted up over them, covered in spines and clusters of berries. They grew thickest in a long strip up ahead, a ribbon of green that hinted at a hidden stream.

Beyond the ribbon lay the community, a lazy gathering of pod-like homesteads hugging the ground. It was spread out enough to give a family space to stretch and grow things, but close enough to keep your neighbors right at hand. Sethi was a quiet place. Out of the way. Modestly prosperous. Uncomplicated. No gaming hubs or pre-fab stores. There wasn’t even a real shuttle dock, just a wide, unattended area suitable for landing small spacecraft and supply drones. Looking around, Rosemary understood why a young adult would want to leave such a place, and why an elder would want to come back.

She touched her bare nose, basking in the novelty of being able to breathe without a mask or an artificial atmosphere. The last time she’d been without one or the other was Port Coriol, which felt like a lifetime ago. The air at the port had been thick with the smells of algae and business. The air on Hashkath was clean, dry, oxygen rich, laced with the scent of desert flowers warming in the sun. It was good air.

Sissix obviously agreed. She threw her arms wide and her head back as soon as her clawed feet touched the ground. “Home,” she said, sounding as if she had just surfaced from a long swim.

“Wow,” Ashby said. “I’d forgotten that it would be spring here.”

Sissix inhaled and exhaled with vigor, as if purging the Wayfarer’s recycled air from her lungs. She looked down at her body. “Oh, hell no.” She untied the drawstring of her pants, stepped out of them, and threw them back into the shuttle. Her vest followed suit. Naked, she began walking toward her childhood home, her scales glinting in the sun.

As they walked, Ashby reached into his own satchel and pulled out his translation hud. He fitted the thin metal band around his head. The eyescreen flickered to life.

“I thought you speak Reskitkish,” Rosemary said.

“I understand Reskitkish,” Ashby said. “But I’m far from fluent when I speak. And since I don’t get much practice, it helps to have a cheat sheet.”

“Your accent is better than most Humans I know,” Sissix said. “I know it’s a pain for you to speak on an inhale.”

“It’s not the speaking on an inhale that’s so bad. It’s alternating it with exhaling within the same sentence.” He snapped his satchel shut. “Seriously, who does that?”

Rosemary pulled her own hud out of her bag. “It is pretty mean,” she said. Her knowledge of Reskitkish was practically nonexistent, but the few phrases she had tried made her feel lightheaded. “I don’t know how you can speak it without hyperventilating.”

Sissix thumped her chest with a fist. “We’ve got better lungs,” she said.

“Yeah, well, we’ve got warm blood,” Ashby said. “I think that’s the better end of the deal.”

Sissix gave a short laugh. “You have no idea. I’d take your weak lungs and useless nose over morning torpor any day.”

Ashby looked at Rosemary. “I can’t tell if that was a compliment or not.” He turned back to Sissix. “Hey, is Ethra still here?”

“As far as I know.”

“Do not make any puns around him,” Ashby said to Rosemary. “He wiped the floor with me last time I was here. And he’s got an arsenal of Human jokes that will cause permanent damage.”

Sissix chuckled. “He’s no kinder to his own species. What was the one about—oh, what was it, something horrible involving tails—”

Ashby laughed. “So a Human, a Quelin, and a Harmagian walk into a tet—”

“No, stop,” Sissix said, gesturing ahead with her chin. They had reached the scrub-filled banks of the desert stream. Two Aandrisk children were playing in the water, shouting over one another. A message appeared on Rosemary’s hud: Cannot process conversation. Please move closer to speaker(s). She had no frame of reference for how old the children were, but given their small size and playfulness, Rosemary thought of them as Human kids in their first years of primary school. Well, maybe. One of them looked younger than the other. She had a hard time pinning down anything else about them. Aandrisk sex was easy to determine in adults, mainly due to size, but at this age, they were androgynous, especially since male Aandrisks lacked external genitalia. Categorization aside, there was something fragile about these two, a paper-like quality to their scales. No wonder she hadn’t seen any Aandrisk children offworld before. She didn’t even know them, and already she felt protective. She imagined their parents must feel that way ten times over. Hatch parents, she reminded herself. Hatch parents.

Ashby lowered his voice. “Since when do Aandrisks not mention tets around their kids?”

“We do,” Sissix said. “But you’re probably the first Humans they’ve ever seen, and I don’t want them to grow up thinking your species is stupid.” She walked toward the children, calling out a breathy greeting.

The kids’ featherless heads snapped up. The smaller one shouted something. The translation appeared on Rosemary’s hud. “Aliens! The aliens are here!” They scrambled up out of the stream, claws skittering in excitement.

Sissix crouched down to nuzzle both of their faces. Rosemary had seen her do the same to Ashby, but with him, the gesture was more affectionate, more natural. There was something formal about this. Kind and genuine, yes, but definitely removed.

The older child spoke. “You’re Sissix.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re my egg mother.”

Sissix smiled. She did not look surprised. “You must be Teshris.” Her eyes flicked to the other. “Are you Eskat, then?”

“No,” the child said, giggling.

“No, I see now. You’re too young.” She patted his bald head. “Not that that’s a bad thing.”

Ashby whispered in Rosemary’s ear. “Teshris is a girl,” he said. “Her buddy here’s a boy.”

“Thanks,” Rosemary replied, wondering how he could tell the difference. “Eskat is her sibling?”

“Egg brother, yeah. I didn’t know their names until now, though.”

Sissix said something to Teshris in hand speak. Ashby whispered again: “That motion’s specific to egg parents. She’s saying that she’s happy that Teshris is healthy and… well, that she exists, basically.” The Aandrisk girl responded, her gestures awkward and new. “She’s thanking Sissix for giving her life.” The two Aandrisks smiled and gave each other one more nuzzle. And that was that. No hugs, no long stares, no Sissix needing some time to process the daughter she’d never spoken to. In that moment, Rosemary understood. Teshris wasn’t Sissix’s daughter, not in the Human sense. They shared genes and respect, nothing more.

Sissix turned her head to Teshris’ companion. “What’s your name?”

“Vush,” he said.

“Whose eggs are you from?”

“Teker and Hasra.”

Sissix crowed with laughter. “I don’t know Hasra, but Teker was my hatch sister.”

Hatch sister, not egg sister. Rosemary felt like she needed to start drawing a chart.

Sissix grinned at the kids. “When we were growing up”—the hud added the direct translation becoming people as a parenthetical—“she always said she didn’t want to have a clutch, and that she’d be tough enough to go without coupling while she was fertile. That changed damn quick once her feathers started coming in. During her first heat, I found her rutting alone up against a rock. I thought she was going to choke, she was so—” The hud skipped over the last word and offered an explanation instead: [no analog available; a combination of arousal, frenzy, and inexperience, generally attributed to adolescence]. Sissix laughed again, and the kids joined in. Rosemary raised her eyebrows. How old were these kids? She glanced over at Ashby. He looked a little uncomfortable, too. At least she wasn’t alone in it.

Vush spoke up after he’d stopped giggling. “I want to touch the Humans, but Ithren said they don’t like that.”

“He’s right, not all Humans do. But I bet these two would be okay with it. You just have to ask permission first.” She pointed back toward her companions. “This is Rosemary, and this is Ashby. They are very good people.”

The kids looked at them, motionless. Rosemary remembered being four years old, seeing a Harmagian for the first time, unable to stop staring at the tendrils where his chin should have been. It was odd to find herself on the other end of the equation.

Ashby crouched down and smiled. The kids looked a little stiff, but they stepped closer. It took Rosemary a moment to realize their tense muscles were not a result of fear, but of suppressing the instinct to touch. Ashby began to speak in Reskitkish. His consonants were halting, and his out-breaths were far more exaggerated than Sissix’s, but it was good enough for the hud to pick up. “My name is Ashby. I am glad to meet you. You can touch me.”

The kids ran forward. They nuzzled a quick hello, out of politeness, and got to the serious business of poking at Ashby. “It’s so soft!” Vush said, pressing his hands against Ashby’s coiled hair. “No quills!”

“Do you molt?” Teshris asked, examining Ashby’s forearm.

“No,” said Ashby. “But we…” He struggled, and switched over to Klip, addressing Sissix. “Can you explain dry skin?”

“Their skin comes off in tiny, tiny pieces, not all at once,” Sissix said to the kids. “They don’t even notice it.”

“Lucky,” Teshris said. “I hate molting.”

Vush, a little less restrained than his hatch sister now that permission had been given, walked right up to Rosemary and gave her a nuzzle. “Can I touch you, too?”

Rosemary smiled and nodded, before realizing the boy wouldn’t understand what a nod meant. “Tell him yes,” Rosemary said to Sissix. Sissix relayed the message.

Vush frowned. “Why can’t she tell me herself?”

“She doesn’t speak Reskitkish,” Sissix said. “But that hud she’s wearing lets her read every word you say.”

The Aandrisk boy stared at Rosemary, baffled. The notion that someone could not speak Reskitkish seemed inconceivable to him.

“Here, Rosemary,” Sissix said in Klip. “Do this.” She made a quick curve with her fingers. “That’s agreement.”

Rosemary looked at Vush and repeated the gesture. Vush gestured something back, and grabbed her breasts. “What are these?”

Rosemary yelped. Ashby burst out laughing. Sissix darted forward, pulling Vush’s hands back. “Vush, Human women don’t like it when people they don’t know touch them there.”

“Oh, stars,” Ashby said in Klip, holding his shaking sides.

Vush looked puzzled. “Why not?”

“Is he okay?” Teshris asked, pointing at Ashby. She had taken a few steps back.

“Yes,” Sissix said. “He’s just laughing.”

Vush’s eyes were wide and worried. “Did I do something bad?”

“Oh, no, tell him it’s okay,” Rosemary said. “It’s really not a big deal.” She was laughing herself by now.

Sissix patted the boy’s head. “You didn’t do anything bad, Vush. Humans just have more rules about people touching their bodies than we do. I think it would be best to avoid any part of her torso that’s covered.” She tugged gently at Rosemary’s shirt to illustrate the point.

Vush looked at the ground. “I’m sorry.”

Rosemary reached out to touch Vush’s forearm, as she’d seen Sissix do in moments of empathy. She took his hand and placed it on top of her head, inviting him to explore. Vush brightened, and Sissix gave her a fond, approving look.

“Her feathers are different than [unknown],” said Vush as he ran his claws through Rosemary’s hair. The hud did not recognize the last word, but Rosemary did: Ashby. Vush’s attempt at the sh in his name lingered for far longer than it was meant to, and he had stumbled on the b.

“They’re not feathers, stupid,” Teshris said. “That’s hair.” She looked between Rosemary and Ashby. “You’re a different kind of brown than she is.”

“That’s right,” Ashby said.

“Aandrisks are like that,” she informed him, as if he, too, were meeting a new species for the first time. “We have lots of different colors. I’m blue-green, Vush is green-blue, Sissix is green-green. I know all my scale colors. Skeyis says I’m the best at them.” She folded the top of his ear down toward the lobe, over and over again. Ashby bore it patiently. “Do you come from a moon?”

“No, I…” Again, he struggled, and looked to Sissix for help.

“He’s a spacer,” Sissix said. “Many Humans are born [literal translation: body-hatched] on homestead ships.”

“What about her?” Teshris asked.

“She grew up on a planet called Mars.” Sissix was starting to sound bored. Rosemary found their current companions adorable—though she wouldn’t have complained if Vush tugged her hair with a little less enthusiasm—but Sissix kept gazing over her shoulder toward the homesteads. She looked anxious to see her family, and these kids weren’t it. Not even the one that had her cheekbones.

A cry rose up as they walked up the path toward the homesteads. “Sissix!” an old voice called. Several others joined in: “Sissix! Sissix!” All at once, a flood of Aandrisks came pouring out of the open entryways. There were a dozen of them, maybe more. Rosemary hadn’t had time to count before they piled on top of Sissix, who had gone running to meet them. They tumbled down in a tangle of tails and feathered heads, hugging and squeezing and cuddling close. All their attention was focused on their long-absent daughter. They nuzzled her cheeks, tugged her feathers, pressed as close to her as they could. Rosemary was taken aback. Even though there was nothing overtly sexual in the way they were touching each other, Rosemary had trouble seeing a mass of writhing naked people any other way. It looked more like group foreplay than a family reunion.

Sissix, on the other hand, was happier than Rosemary had ever seen her. She melted into the embraces of her family. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back as one of the Aandrisks touched her feathers. Rosemary had seen that look before—not on Sissix, but on the old woman they’d encountered at Port Coriol. It was a look of profound gratitude, the sort that comes at the end of a long wait, at being able to exhale after holding your breath until your lungs burned.

Rosemary thought of Sissix on the Wayfarer, how she’d always seemed so affectionate, how cuddly and sweet she was. But now Rosemary saw it from the flip side. What counted as affection in her book was holding back for Sissix. The laughing, snuggling heap on the ground was her baseline. Rosemary imagined herself and her Human crewmates from that point of view. A bunch of stiff, prudish automatons. How could Sissix put up with that every day? She thought again of the moments in which Sissix touched them, the genuine fondness on her face when she nuzzled Ashby’s cheek or hugged Kizzy and Jenks in tandem. She thought of how much effort it would take Sissix to not tumble down with them as she was doing now with her hatch family, to push back her need for a more tangible form of connectedness.

“Ashby, Rosemary,” Sissix called from within the heap. “Come say hello.” She wriggled one of her hands free, and pointed a claw toward all the elderly heads (Sissix’s feathers were by far the brightest of the bunch). “This is Issash, Ethra, Rixsik, Ithren, Kirix, Shaas, Trikesh, Raasek, and—and a few I don’t know.” She laughed and switched to Reskitkish, addressing the old woman hugging her the closest. “You’ve added some faces since I was last here.”

The old woman—Issash, Rosemary thought, though she knew she’d never be able to keep them all straight—said, “We stole a couple of them from the Sariset family at a frolic last winter.” She leaned toward Sissix conspiratorially. “It’s because everybody knows I’m the best looking elder in the region.” The other Aandrisks laughed. One of them tugged her feathers. She grinned with mock arrogance.

Sissix laughed and nuzzled Issash’s cheek. “I’ve missed you so much,” she said.

One of the male elders wiggled his way free of the pile. His eyes were sharp, but his feathers drooped with age, and his scales were dull. Rosemary got the impression that he was very old. “I’d ask you to join us,” he said with a smile. “But I know that’s not your way.” He reached out his hand to shake Ashby’s. “Ashby, how are you? I am glad to see you again.”

Ashby cleared his throat and answered as best he could. “Glad to see you, Ishren. Thank you for the… for being… welcome.”

Ishren’s smile grew wider and he touched Ashby’s forearm. “Your Reskitkish is very good,” he said.

“Not very,” Ashby said. “I speak less than… than I know. Than I know to hear.” He spoke in Klip: “No, hang on…”

Ishren laughed. “You understand more than you can say. See? I can understand you just fine.” He patted Ashby’s arm, and turned to Rosemary. “Do you speak Reskitkish?” he asked as he shook her hand. Rosemary shook her head apologetically. He pointed at her hud. “But you understand?” She started to nod, but then remembered the curved gesture Sissix had shown her down by the creek, hand speak for yes. Ishren was delighted. “See, you are learning fast. And I am like Ashby. I understand Klip, but I am not confident in speaking it. So as long as you are wearing your hud, we can each speak what we’re comfortable with and understand the other just fine.” He put one of his hands on Rosemary’s shoulder, and did the same to Ashby. “I enjoy seeing Humans here. When I was a little younger than Sissix, I crewed aboard an Aeluon cargo carrier. Aeluon-run, that is. It was a multispecies crew, like yours. We even had a Laru woman, believe it or not. Damned clever species, the Laru, never saw anyone who could play tikkit like her. But—ah, what was I saying?”

“I don’t know,” Ashby said, giving the Reskitkish another try. “About Humans?”

“Ah, yes, yes. I’ll never forget the day when we learned Humans had been accepted into the GC as a member species. We were at the Muriat Marketplace—have you ever been there?”

“Sometimes,” Ashby said.

“Is there still a bar there called [Hanto: The Fully-Stocked Cupboard]?”

“Don’t know.”

“Oh, I hope it’s still there. Best sugarsnaps in the GC, no question. I’ve never found another bartender who can get them that tart. But anyway. Yes, Humans joining the GC. I was at an algae depot—no, no, it was a tech shop, yes, a tech shop. There was a Human man working there. His job was to clean used parts meant for resale. Mindless work, and hard, too. Not a good job for a species with soft hands. You could tell by his clothes that he didn’t get paid much. His boss was out, so he was helping me find—oh, whatever it was I needed. There was a news feed on a little projector at his work desk, and suddenly, there it was. Humans in the GC. The man went quiet. And then he did something I’d never seen before: he started crying. Now, I didn’t know that crying was something that Humans did, so I was a little afraid. Do you know how disturbing it is to see someone’s eyes start leaking? Ha! And poor man, he’s trying to explain crying to me while going through all of those emotions. I’ll never forget what he said to me. He said, ‘This means we matter. We’re worth something.’ And I said, ‘Of course you’re worth something. Everyone is worth something.’ And he said, ‘But now I know the galaxy thinks so, too.’” Ishren squeezed their shoulders and looked between them. “And now, you have ships of your own, and you go out into the open like we Aandrisks do. And to the Core! I must admit, I am jealous of your journey. What a lucky thing that is.” He smiled. “I hope I don’t sound patronizing, but thinking back on that man, seeing you here makes me think on how far your species has come. That makes me very happy. Oh! I just remembered! Are you hungry? I know that Humans have to eat more than we do, so Rixsik and I spent last night preparing plenty of extra food for the [noun, no analog available; a table where communal food is offered throughout the day].”

“That’s kind. Very kind,” Ashby said. “I wish—I hope it were not… difficult.”

“Not at all,” Ishren said. “We are all looking forward to see how much you can eat.” He grinned and pointed off to the side. “I think they are, too.”

Behind a stack of empty crates, a pack of hatchlings had gathered, watching the adults with intense curiosity. They were hanging back, as if waiting to be invited. Rosemary realized that might actually be the case. Perhaps they knew not to butt in when adults were socializing. That would make sense, among a species where children did not need help learning basic survival skills. In a Human gathering, adults wouldn’t think twice about dropping a conversation the moment a child needed something, even if it was simply attention. But here, the hatchlings seemed to know that adult activities took precedent, and that if they wanted to join in, they’d have to figure out the rules. So instead of tugging at sleeves and showing off, they observed the goings-on of adults from the sidelines, trying to puzzle it all out. They were learning how to be people.

Rosemary saw Teshris among them, her little arms wrapped around a hatchling of similar size and features. Eskat, presumably, Sissix’s other—Rosemary stopped herself before thinking the word child. Offspring? Progeny? All the words granted too much of a connotation of those hatchlings belonging to Sissix, which they clearly did not, or at least, not in a Human way. Perhaps it was enough to say that Teshris and Eskat shared an egg mother, who happened to be Sissix.

Her attention swayed back to the cuddle heap, which was beginning to disintegrate. Three of the elders—ones Sissix had not known the names of—were heading back to the house. A few stayed with Sissix, still touching, but their energy was waning. Issash, however, continued to hug Sissix as tightly as she had at the start. Two of Sissix’s other hatch parents, apparently overcome by all the affection, had left the group for a nearby bench. There could be no doubt that they had moved on to actual foreplay, and in one brief, unexpected moment, all of Rosemary’s idle curiosities about what a male Aandrisk kept inside the slit between his legs were answered.

“Come,” Ishren said, leading Rosemary and Ashby toward the homestead. “Let’s take care of you two. And you know, you don’t have to wear clothes here, unless you want to. I know it’s your way, but we want you to be comfortable.”

“Thank you,” Rosemary said in Klip. She did her best to avert her gaze from the Aandrisk elders on the bench, who were now coupling with gusto. “I think I’ll keep them on for now.”

The way the day progressed, Rosemary felt sorry for the techs, crowded into some concert pit with greasy food and overpriced kick. Her own afternoon was spent lying on floor cushions, drinking grass wine and eating strange, delicious nibbles from the communal table (the elders had little frame of reference for how much Humans needed to eat, and had provided enough food for ten of them). She listened as Sissix’s family caught their hatch daughter up on the daily dramas of friends and relatives. Everything about the gathering was intriguing, from the unfamiliar food, to the obsessive level of detail given to local gossip, to the unending physical affection lavished upon Sissix. In many ways, Rosemary felt like the hatchlings, peeking through the windows and slipping in to fill bowls with snacks. She, too, was content to watch and learn.

But by evening, Rosemary had grown a little restless. She had eaten herself sluggish, thanks to Ishren’s urgings, and the effect of the wine had shifted from “pleasantly relaxed” to “mild headache.” Her legs were stiff from lying around, and her brain felt like goo after several hours of listening to conversations in an unfamiliar language. Shortly after the sun went down, she excused herself and went outside for some air.

Theth dominated the desert sky, hanging close enough for her to imagine that she could reach out and brush its rings with her fingertips. Without the haze of city lights, shimmering colors shone down unhindered —the glow of neighboring moons, the murky purple gauze of the galactic cloud, and all in between, nothing but stars, stars, stars. She lived up there, in that vast expanse of color. Every day, she saw planets and comets and stellar nurseries right up close, plain as weather. Yet, there was something about being planetside that made it feel different. Perhaps stars were supposed to be viewed from the ground.

She glanced inside at Sissix, surrounded by a throng of feathered heads. She looked back to the sky, guiltily entertaining the idea of everyone but Sissix disappearing for a while. She imagined Sissix coming outside, handing her another glass of wine, putting her arm around her shoulder, teaching her the names of constellations. It was a silly, selfish thought, she knew, but she indulged it all the same.

A short while later, Ashby stepped out of the doorway, carrying a heat blanket. “Thought you might be cold.”

“I am a bit, thanks.” She took the blanket and pulled it around her shoulders. A soft warmth spread like sunlight through her clothes. “Oh. Mmm.”

“Pretty great, right?”

“Why do I not have one of these?”

Ashby laughed. “I bought one a few years back, right after I made that same face you’re making. I’m sure we can get one before we leave.”

“Yes, please.”

“The elders couldn’t believe you’d need a blanket.”

“Why—ah. Because I’m warm blooded. Right.” She laughed.

“Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely. I just needed a little fresh air.”

“Yeah, I know, these things can be a bit much after a while. But you have had a good time?”

“I’ve had a great time. I’m really glad I came.”

“Good. Tell Sissix that, too, it’ll make her happy.”

Rosemary smiled, but thought again of the several hours she’d spent watching Sissix being petted and pampered by a loving family. How cold and rigid life on the Wayfarer was in comparison. Sissix deserved better than that.

Ashby cocked his head at her. “What is it?”

“I don’t know if I can put it into words. It’s just…” She thought. “How does she do it?”

“Do what?”

“Get by without a feather family.”

“Sissix has a feather family.”

Rosemary blinked. A long-distance relationship with a feather family? Given the closeness she’d just witnessed, she couldn’t see how that would work. “She’s never said anything about them.”

Ashby smirked. “When you have a minute in private, pull up her ID file. As ship’s clerk, you should have access to it.”

Late that night, curled up in her guest room, Rosemary did just that.

Rosemary chewed her lip as she studied the words on her Scrib. Seshkethet was obvious. Saskist was Sissix’s mother, and Eshresh sounded like a name, which meant he was probably her father. Veshkriset, however, was unfamiliar.

She pulled up the official Aandrisk family database. Somewhere out there, there was a team of archivists whose sole purpose was to follow Aandrisk family drama and track the changes accordingly. She felt exhausted just thinking about it.

The letters on the screen shifted as her Scrib translated the text into Klip. Please choose a family name, it read. “Veshkriset,” she said, hoping the database could understand her poor accent. A listing popped up. Rosemary’s brow furrowed. The Veshkriset feather family had only one member. Sissix.

She leaned back into the nest of blankets. Sissix was in a feather family by herself? That didn’t make any sense. Sissix was the walking definition of gregariousness, and Aandrisks didn’t view loners kindly. Declaring yourself the sole member of a feather family would be an act of defiance, a signal that you didn’t want anything to do with other Aandrisks. Rosemary remembered how Sissix had reacted to the old woman back on Port Coriol, how she had dropped everything to give a stranger a few moments of company. Being alone and untouched… there’s no punishment worse than that. No, it didn’t fit at all.

She looked out the window. A thought flickered by. The database was Aandrisk made, and from what Sissix had said, its most practical purpose was to prevent inbreeding. If that was the case, would other species appear on the list?

“Scrib, translate,” she said.

“Specify language path,” the scrib said.

“Reskitkish to Klip.”

“Reskitkish to Kliptorigan confirmed. Please speak the word or phrase you want to translate. If you cannot pronounce it—”

“Veshkriset.”

A brief pause. “No definitive match found. Would you like a linguistic analysis to help determine possible matches?”

“Yes.”

“The suffix -et implies a proper noun. This suffix is commonly used to denote an Aandrisk family group. Do you wish to search the Aandrisk family data—”

“No,” Rosemary said. She thought. “Remove the suffix from the search phrase, and search again.”

Another pause. “Veshkrisk. Noun. A person on a journey. Traveler. Wanderer.”

Wayfarer.

Sissix propped her chin up on her fist, watching Hashkath get smaller and smaller through the window in her quarters. Somewhere down there, her hatch family was laughing, coupling, fighting, cooking, cleaning, feeding the hatchlings. Her skin was still shining from Kirix’s homemade scale scrub. The palm-sized snapfruit tarts Issash had sent back with her were still just a little bit warm in the center. She didn’t want to leave. She loved the Wayfarer, and she loved the people aboard it (mostly), but she always forgot how hard it was being away from other Aandrisks until she had spent time back home. It was more than just missing the smell of the desert grass or being able to fall back into Reskitkish. It was that people there understood. As dear as her crewmates were, constantly having to explain cultural differences, to bite back a friendly remark that might offend alien ears, to hold her hands still when she wanted to touch someone—it all grew tiring. And while visiting home was a welcome salve for her homesickness, the thing she always, always forgot was that for a short while after leaving Hashkath again, being away was even harder. It was as if she’d stuck a knife into herself when she’d first left home—nowhere vital, just her thigh, or perhaps a forearm. The longer she stayed away, the more the wound healed, until she often forgot it was there. Returning always pulled the scab right off.

Still, perhaps it was better that way. If she stopped caring about her hatch family, being away wouldn’t hurt, but cutting those ties was unimaginable. Besides, without leaving, she never would’ve met all the friends she’d made elsewhere. Perhaps the ache of homesickness was a fair price to pay for having so many good people in her life.

Someone knocked on the door. “Come in,” she called. There, another thing to go on the list of alien annoyances: The assumption of locked doors. It had been so nice to be without that feeling for a day.

Rosemary walked in, carrying a bottle of wine and two cups. Something about her scent was different. She had taken a shower recently, but there was something else there, something subtle that Sissix couldn’t quite pinpoint. She’d noticed it before, though in a less prominent way. It reminded her, inexplicably, of being in a bar. Maybe it was just the wine. Unraveling smells within the sealed walls of the ship was always more difficult after becoming acclimated to planetside air. It was the difference between locating objects spread out across a table, and digging for them within a crowded box.

“I hope I’m not disturbing,” Rosemary said.

Privacy. That was going on the list, too. “No, no, I would love some company. And a drink, since I think that’s what you’re offering.” She glanced down at herself, then at her pants crumpled on the floor. Self-consciousness. Modesty. Screw it. Rosemary had just seen her and her whole hatch family naked. She’d even been a good sport about a hatchling grabbing her breasts. She doubted that Rosemary was bothered anymore by having a clear view of someone’s genitals.

Rosemary poured the wine. They sat on the floor, falling into an easy chat about nothing of importance. It wasn’t until they were each working on their second cup that Rosemary said: “May I ask you a personal question?”

Sissix laughed. “I will never understand why you people ask that.”

Rosemary ran her finger around the rim of her cup, looking a little embarrassed. Sissix thought perhaps she should have refrained from the comment about the personal question question, but honestly. Humans wasted so much time by being redundant.

The Human woman cleared her throat. “I found out that we’re—the crew, that is—is your feather family.”

Had she not told Rosemary that? Maybe not. It wasn’t the sort of thing that came up often. “Ashby told you?”

“No, he implied. I figured out the rest myself.” She took a sip of wine. “I know there are a lot of complicated rules for feather families, and I don’t pretend to know any of them, but I was wondering how you… how you categorize crew members that you didn’t choose for yourself. I mean, the people who are only here because it’s their job.”

“You mean Corbin? Yeah, that’s complicated. But in feather families, getting stuck with a member you don’t like happens all the time. You just recognize that somebody else in your family needs them and you stay out of their way. It’s like Ashby and Corbin. Ashby needs Corbin. Doesn’t matter to me that he needs him in a business sense, rather than a family sense. Ashby is my family, without a shadow of a doubt. Therefore, Corbin falls within my feather family.” She grinned over the edge of her cup. “Though I certainly wouldn’t object if he found a new family elsewhere.”

Rosemary nodded. “Makes sense. Though I wasn’t asking about Corbin.”

“Oh?”

Rosemary was quiet. Sissix had watched Human faces for long enough to know that Rosemary was either searching for the right words, or for the courage to say them. Sissix was silently grateful for how much time was saved by hand speak. At last, Rosemary spoke. “I was asking about me.”

The irritation Sissix had been nursing toward Rosemary’s entire species weakened. She smiled and took Rosemary’s hand. “If it were my call, I’d take you in again. You should know by now that I like having you in my family.”

Rosemary squeezed her fingers. She smiled, but there was something else there, too—fear, perhaps? What could she possibly be afraid of? Rosemary withdrew her hand and topped up their cups, giving the last few drops to Sissix. “After seeing you with your family, your hatch family, I mean—well, I wondered if maybe it isn’t enough for you here. We must make life awfully hard.”

“Being away from Aandrisks can be hard. And I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t feeling kicked in the guts right now. But I’m here by choice. I love this ship. I love our crew. I have a good life. I wouldn’t change it.”

Rosemary’s eyes swung up, looking through her dark lashes. There was a different look in them now, something strong, grounded. “But no one touches you.”

Sissix almost choked on her wine as she realized what was going on. All this time with Humans, and still there were things that didn’t occur to her until after the fact. The details rushed at her at once. The look in Rosemary’s eyes. The wine. The shy pauses that shifted into a low-voiced directness. Her clothes—oh, stars, Rosemary had changed her clothes since they’d got back to the ship. Humans read meanings into different kinds of clothes, but it was a complicated business, and Sissix had never got the hang of it. Rosemary was wearing a pair of soft, flowing pants and a pale yellow top held up by a criss-cross of strings—casual, Sissix thought, but festive, the sort of thing one of Kizzy’s friends might wear to a party on a hot summer night. The top of the shirt dipped down below Rosemary’s usual collar line, showing the upper curves of her breasts. And her hair. She’d done… something to it. Sissix couldn’t say what, exactly, but effort had been made there. And with having had time for her nose to parse Rosemary’s intricacies, she knew now that the change in her scent had nothing do with wine, or soap, or clean clothes. It wasn’t anything from an external source. It was hormones.

Sissix had seen Human vids. She’d seen how Kizzy fussed over herself before going out to dock bars. She’d seen Ashby staring at himself in reflective surfaces before he met Pei, absently nudging at his hair or trimming the scruff on his face. Rosemary had come to her quarters in pretty clothes, with wine and kind words and hair that had had something done to it. This was a Human’s elaborate way of asking something that an Aandrisk could ask with nothing more than a slight flick of her fingers.

Rosemary continued to speak. “Sissix, I don’t have any feathers I can give you. I wish I did. You made me feel welcome when I first set foot on this ship. And since then, the kindness you’ve shown—not just to me, but to everyone—has meant more than I can say. You go out of your way to make everybody aboard this ship comfortable, to show us affection in the way that we expect it. I don’t pretend to know Aandrisks as well as you know Humans, but there are some things I understand. I understand that we’re your family, and that for you, not being able to touch us means there’s a vital piece missing. I think that feeling hurts you, and I think you’ve buried it deep. I saw the look on your face when your family held you. You may love the Wayfarer, but life here is incomplete.” She pressed her lips together. They came back wet. “I don’t know how you see me, but—but I want you to know that if you should want something more… I’d like to give it to you.”

Sissix cupped her palm, flipped it, and spread her claws, even though she knew Rosemary would not understand the gesture. Tresha. It was the thankful, humble, vulnerable feeling that came after someone saw a truth in you, something they had discovered just by watching, something that you did not admit often to yourself. If Rosemary had been an Aandrisk, Sissix would’ve knocked the cups aside and started coupling right then and there, but she remained cautious. Apparently the part of her that understood Humans was still at the helm.

“Rosemary,” Sissix said, taking her hand. She was so warm. Other species always were, she could feel it just standing by them, but it was all the more present now. She had sometimes wondered what it would be like to have that warmth pressing against—no, no, she was not thinking about that. Not yet. She had to be smart. She had to be careful. After all, Humans reacted differently to coupling than she did. Didn’t their brains get overloaded with chemicals afterward, way more than normal people? Aandrisks bonded through coupling, too, but Humans—Humans could get crazy over it. How else could you explain a sapient species that had overpopulated itself to the point of environmental collapse? This was a people that had coupled themselves stupid.

“I’m… I’m grateful,” Sissix said at last. What a horrible, hollow way to describe how she was feeling. Tresha. That was the right explanation, but there was no word for it in Klip. Useless language. Rosemary’s face fell slightly, as if she had been expecting Sissix to knock aside the cups. Dammit, why hadn’t this been covered in interspecies sensitivity courses? “Are you…” Think, Sissix, think. “Are you saying me this because you feel sorry for me, or is it… something you want?” Ugh. Klip was always too practical or too emotional. Never a middle ground. Useless, useless language.

Rosemary took a sip of wine and contemplated her cup. “Well, I am attracted to you. You’re a wonderful person, and a very good friend. I’m not sure when I started feeling more than that for you. Which isn’t a problem, by the way, if your answer is no. I do like being your friend, and I’ll be happy if that’s all we are.” She took another sip. “But, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have said anything about it if I hadn’t seen your hatch family. My own feelings aside, you need something like that, and not just when you happen upon other Aandrisks.” Her eyes swung back up again, dark and honest. “If not from me, then from someone. You deserve it.”

Just say yes, a little voice inside Sissix begged. Say yes, Sissix, she’s right—“Rosemary… I want to say yes. I do.” She thought back to the shy new clerk who had come aboard less than a standard ago. Who was this woman with the serious eyes, the woman who spoke her mind so bravely? What had she discovered out here in the open? Sissix took a breath. “But I don’t want to hurt you. Coupling’s different for us, I think. I’m flattered that you want to give me something I need, but I don’t know if I can give you what you need.”

Rosemary gave a little smirk, the same kind Jenks gave Kizzy when she’d said something absurd. “Sissix, I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m not in love with you. I like you. I like who you are and how you are, and I like the way your feathers fall across the curve of your head. I understand that you don’t limit yourself to one person. I understand that our notions of family are different, and that they probably won’t fit together down the road. But I’d like to be part of your notion for a while, all the same.”

Curiosity. Now there was a concept Sissix understood. “I think I’d like that, too,” Sissix said. The warning voice within her was dying, but it wasn’t about to go out without a fight. “But there are things you need to understand.”

“All right,” Rosemary said. There was a brightness in her eyes, a hopefulness. Sissix found herself melting. This could be a very lovely thing.

“Family members, as I’m sure you noticed, aren’t just about sex. We cuddle and touch and hold each other all the time. If coupling is too much to ask, if it were to—” What was the proper way to say overload your crazy mammal brain? “—to make you feel uncomfortable, or to make you want more from me than I can give you, I would also be okay with just being close. Like you saw with my family. Even that would be enough.” It’d be a big improvement from the current status quo, for sure.

Rosemary nodded. “I’ll keep that option in mind. But I don’t think there will be a problem.”

“And we don’t have to act that way around the others, if that would make you more comfortable. We don’t even have to tell them.” Sissix didn’t care about the others finding out, but if Rosemary could make cultural concessions out of kindness, she could return the favor.

Rosemary considered this, and nodded. “I think that might be better, at least to start,” she said.

Sissix paused. The next thing, she knew, was not an idea most Humans took to with ease. “If we were planetside, and I met other Aandrisks—”

“I wouldn’t mind you going to a tet,” Rosemary said. “Just don’t expect me to come along.”

“It wouldn’t be because they were more important than you,” Sissix said quickly. “Or because I liked being with Aandrisks better—”

“Sissix,” Rosemary said. She squeezed Sissix’s hand, and did something that no one had ever done before. She raised Sissix’s fingers to her mouth and pressed her lips against the knuckles, just once, letting them linger for a moment. Sissix had been given kisses before, from Kizzy and Jenks and Ashby—fast, dry brushes against her cheek. This was different. It was slower, softer. It was an odd feeling, a soft feeling. She liked it. Rosemary pulled her lips back and smiled. “I get it.”

Stars, she really did.

“There’s one more thing,” Sissix said. She noticed that her voice had sunk lower. Something else was piloting her brain now, the part of her who was no stranger to tets and couplings, the part of her who was shouting with joy that finally, at last, someone in her family understood. She met Rosemary’s eyes and gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’ve never coupled with a Human.”

Rosemary grinned. “That’s good,” she said. She leaned in, running a smooth fingertip along the length of one of Sissix’s feathers. “I’d hate for you to have an unfair advantage.”