The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Day 214, GC Standard 307 ALL SAID AND DONE

Ashby waved the job feeds aside as Rosemary entered his office, carrying a small, thin package. “Whatcha got?”

“Something from the mail drone,” she said. “I would’ve called you down, but I thought it was just stuff for Corbin.” Her eyes twinkled as she handed the package over. He knew why. It was thin, and so light as to be empty. That meant paper.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling at the package.

“Anything good?” she asked, nodding to the feeds above his desk.

“A few things,” he said. “I see a few proposal letters in your future.”

“Just say when.”

“Actually, I do have something you can work on in the meantime.” He picked up his scrib, gesturing as he spoke. “I’m sending you the locations of the closest market stops. Can you do a little research, see what our retrofit supply options are in those systems?”

“Sure. What kind of tech are you looking for?”

“Well,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “I think it’s time we got a new bore, don’t you?”

Rosemary’s face lit up. “I take it you’re looking at level 2 jobs?”

Ashby met her eyes and smirked.

She grinned. “I’ll get on it right away.”

He scoffed congenially. “I didn’t mean right now. Don’t you and Sissix have stuff to do? I heard you’ve got an outing planned.”

“Well, yeah, but I’ve got some archiving to finish first.“

“You’ve always got archiving to finish.”

She gave him a look. “You’ve got a lot of messy archives.”

He laughed. “All right, fair enough. But the research can wait. Finish your thing, then go have fun.” He shooed her toward the door. “Captain’s orders.”

“Thanks, Ashby,” she said, turning to leave with a spring in her step.

Once the door spun shut, Ashby picked up the package. He swiped his wrist over the locking seal, and carefully extracted the envelope. He checked his hands to make sure they were clean. He moved his mug of tea to the far side of the desk. Slowly, slowly, he tore open the top edge, as Jenks had taught him how to do. He pulled out a single page.

“Kizzy?” Jenks walked down the corridor toward Kizzy’s workspace, holding a small package behind his back. “You down here?” He rounded the corner and stopped in his tracks. Kizzy was perched in one of the easy chairs beside the mek brewer, her legs tucked up like a monkey. A crate of colored yarn was thrown open alongside, fuzzy colored bundles strewn all over the floor. Her tongue was between her teeth as she focused on the knitting needles twisting between her fingers. On the floor, amid the yarn, all twelve fixbots stood watching her. Jenks knew they were awaiting commands, but their attentiveness and their chubby bodies made him think of ducklings, huddled around their mother.

He blinked at the object taking shape below the needles. “Are… are you making them hats?”

“Yeah,” she said, and pointed absently. “Alfonzo’s already got his.”

Jenks looked to the bot wearing a blue beanie with a yellow pom-pom. “Alfonzo?”

She sighed. “I know they’re not sentient models, but I never could’ve kept this ship up before Pepper got here without them. I feel bad for keeping them in a box for so long. So I’m making it up to them.”

“With names. And hats.”

“Some of those air ducts get really cold, okay.”

Jenks looked at his friend—his crazy, brilliant, one-in-a-million friend. “Can you put the hat down for a sec?”

She finished a loop and set down the half-finished hat. “What’s up?”

He brought the package forward. “Brought you a present.”

“A present!” The knitting flew out of her hands. “But… but why? It’s not my birthday.” She paused, considering. “It’s not my birthday, right?”

“Just open it, dusthead.”

Kizzy grinned and tore through a patch of foil. She threw back her head and squealed. “Shrimp spice!” she cried, peeling back the rest of the foil. The One and Only! the jar inside proclaimed. Devastatingly Hot!

“I thought maybe you could experiment with it. Put it on algae puffs or red coasters or whatever.”

“I’m going to put it on everything.” She unscrewed the lid, stuck out her tongue, and shook a generous shower into her mouth. Her eyes scrunched shut as she sucked her teeth in painful glee.

He gave a little laugh. “I wanted to get you something fancier, but…” He trailed off. His money situation wasn’t exactly luxurious these days.

“What? No, this is awesome. And why am I getting a present anyway?”

“Because you deserve it, and because I haven’t said thank you like I should.”

“For what?”

Jenks put his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor, hoping to find the right words there. “For… for everything. For talking to me every night since. For not leaving me alone even when I yelled at you. For coming after me in the shuttle. For—” He took a breath, trying to pull the words out of his chest. “For working with me every second, trying to bring her back.”

“Oh, buddy,” she said, her voice falling quiet. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat and plowed on. “I’m a mess right now. I don’t need to tell you that. But I think I’d be worse than I am if it wasn’t for you.” He frowned, thinking of all she’d done for him. She’d completely set herself aside for his sake in the tendays since the punch, and he was paying her back with seasoning? Stupid. “I’m not doing a good job of this. There’s so much I want to say to you. You’ve done so much more than I would expect from a friend, and I need you to know I don’t take that for granted.”

Her eyes softened. “You’re not my friend, dummy.”

He blinked. She’d lost him. “What?”

Kizzy exhaled and looked at the spice jar. She rubbed her thumb over the label. “When I was five, I asked my dads if I could have a brother. Our colony wasn’t doing so great then. Not that it’s great now. But it was rough when I was little. The council was trying to avoid a crash, and they’d stopped handing out family expansion permissions to folks that already had kids. My dads explained that if weren’t careful about how many people we added to the colony, we might not have enough food. Totally reasonable, but five year olds don’t give a shit about stuff like that. If you’ve never been hungry before, not like starving hungry, the possibility of running out of food doesn’t compute. The only thing I understood was that I couldn’t have a brother, which seemed super crazy unfair. They got me a puppy, though. That was cool. I got older, the colony got stronger, and by that time, I wasn’t bugging them for a brother anymore, and I guess they didn’t really want to go through the whole diapers and teething thing again. I was a happy kid, and I couldn’t ask for better parents. But I was still jealous of the kids who had siblings. I grew up, and then you came along.” She looked up at him, and smiled. “And for the first time ever, I didn’t want a brother anymore, because I finally had one. And there’s nothing better than brothers. Friends are great, but they come and go. Lovers are fun, but kind of stupid, too. They say stupid things to each other and they ignore all their friends because they’re too busy staring, and they get jealous, and they have fights over dumb shit like who did the dishes last or why they can’t fold their fucking socks, and maybe the sex gets bad, or maybe they stop finding each other interesting, and then somebody bangs someone else, and everyone cries, and they see each other years later, and that person you once shared everything with is a total stranger you don’t even want to be around because it’s awkward. But brothers. Brothers never go away. That’s for life. And I know married folks are supposed to be for life, too, but they’re not always. Brothers you can’t get rid of. They get who you are, and what you like, and they don’t care who you sleep with or what mistakes you make, because brothers aren’t mixed up in that part of your life. They see you at your worst, and they don’t care. And even when you fight, it doesn’t matter so much, because they still have to say hi to you on your birthday, and by then, everybody’s forgotten about it, and you have cake together.” She nodded. “So as much as I love my present, and as nice as it is to get a thank you, I don’t need either of ‘em. Nothing’s too much to ask when it comes to brothers.” She shot him a look. “Stars and buckets, Jenks, if you start crying, I will too, and I will never be able to stop.”

“Sorry,” he said, trying to push the water back in his eyes. “I just—”

“No, no, see, you don’t have to tell me what you’re feeling. I get it. I know.” She smiled wide, her own eyes wet but holding steady. “See? Brothers.”

Jenks was quiet a long time. He cleared his throat. “Do you want to smash and play Battle Wizards?”

“Stars, yes. But only if you promise that we’ll never get this emotional about each other ever again.”

“Deal.”

Ashby took a thoughtful bite of bread, still warm from the oven. “It’s good,” he said, and considered. “Yeah, really good. This one’s a keeper.” He swallowed and nodded. “What are the crunchy things?”

“Hestra seeds,” said Dr. Chef, sharpening a knife as he spoke.

“What are hestra seeds?”

“I have no idea. I know they’re not poisonous. Not to any of us, at least. A Laru merchant back on Coriol gave me a bag for free, along with my other purchases. It was a slow market day, I think she was just glad I bought something.”

“Well, I like them. They’re… zingy.” Ashby reached to the other end of the kitchen counter and refilled his mug with tea.

Dr. Chef set down the sharpener and took a handful of fresh cut herbs from one of his harvest boxes. Ashby could smell them from across the counter. Sweet and astringent. “So,” Dr. Chef said. “Anyone knocking at our door?”

“Not yet,” Ashby said. And that was okay. He wasn’t in any rush, and the Hedra Ka incident wasn’t going to keep them out of business. If anything, their reputation had been bolstered by getting out of a collapsing tunnel unscathed. Of course, there was still the question of whether or not they’d need to find a new Navigator, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.

“I’m sure something good will come along. Honestly, I think we’d all be glad of a little downtime. Vacation is one thing, but it’s nice to settle back in slowly.” He rumbled. “Especially since there have been some changes around here.”

Ashby looked over at the vox on the wall. A new voice came through it now—Tycho, a gracious, accommodating AI with a Martian accent. Ashby sometimes thought Tycho sounded nervous, but given that the AI knew the circumstances under which he’d been installed, Ashby couldn’t blame him for wanting to please his new crew. And he and Jenks had been getting along so far. In Ashby’s eyes, that was the most important thing.

Dr. Chef peered at Ashby. “I’m giving you a physical tomorrow.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re squinting. I think we should check your eyes.”

“I’m not squinting.”

“You’re squinting.” Dr. Chef shook a pudgy finger at him. “You spend too much time with your nose in your scrib.”

Ashby rolled his eyes—which worked perfectly fine, thank you. “If it’ll make you feel better.”

“Scoff all you want, you’ll thank—” Dr. Chef set down his knife. Footsteps were approaching. More than four.

Ashby turned. Around the corner came Corbin, walking slowly, holding his arm at a steady angle. Bracing themselves against his arm was Ohan, walking on three legs as they held onto Corbin with the other. No, no, not they, Ashby reminded himself. He. This was no longer Ohan the Pair. This was Ohan the Solitary. After years of making sure he got the pronouns right, Ashby found it a hard habit to break.

He set his mug down and turned to face them. In some ways, not much had changed. Ohan rarely left his room, and the only person he spoke to at length was Dr. Chef, who needed him to answer questions about how he was feeling, or about the medication he’d been taking to aid his regrowing nerves. Otherwise, he sat by the window, as he’d always done. But there were changes. The wetness in his eyes had ebbed, and there was an alertness to him that Ashby had never seen before. His fur was growing out, the patterns cut through it fading away. Dr. Chef had told Ohan that he was strong enough now to shave, but the Sianat had made no efforts to do so. And he’d been spending time in the algae bay, here and there. That was new. Ashby didn’t know why Ohan would want to be around Corbin, after what had happened. Ashby himself had barely been able to be in the same room with him since. Maybe it was Ohan’s way of reminding Corbin of what he was responsible for. Honestly, who knew?

But here he was now, approaching the kitchen, touching Corbin. “Ashby,” Ohan said. “I need to speak with you.”

“Of course,” Ashby said. Across the counter, Dr. Chef was nearly silent.

Ohan let go of Corbin’s arm and stood on all fours. Ashby could see a tightness in Ohan’s face as he did so. Recovering though he was, standing still took effort.

“I should go to Arun now,” Ohan said. “I am Solitary, and that is where I should go. It is the way of things.” He looked down for a moment, deep in thought. The next words came with difficulty, as if he feared them. “But I do not want to.”

“Do you have to go?” Ashby said. “Will your people do anything to you if you don’t?”

Ohan blinked three times. “No. We are… expected to do things. And we do them. We do not question.” He looked confused. “I don’t know why. These things made sense, before. And they made sense to the Solitary you met. But not to me. Perhaps it is because they have never been around other species without the Whisperer. They never saw other ways to be.”

Ashby spoke with care. “Ohan, what do you want to do?”

“I want,” Ohan said, rolling his tongue as though he were tasting the words. “I want to stay.” His forelegs trembled, but he set his jaw. “Yes. Yes.” The trembling stopped. “And I want to have dinner. With my crew.”

A burst of coos and whistles erupted from Dr. Chef’s mouth, making them all jump. Ashby knew the sound. It was the Grum equivalent of crying. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Dr. Chef said, pressing his cheeks with his handfeet. “I just…” His Klip dissolved into a cooing drone. He rumbled and huffed, trying to get a hold of himself. “Ohan, as your doctor, I have to remind you that as your body has only had to digest nutrient paste for some time, adopting other foods will take some adjustment.” His cheeks puffed wide. “But as your—as your friend, there is no way I’d rather spend my afternoon than cooking a meal for you. With you, even, if you’d like.”

Ohan did something Ashby had never seen before. The edges of his mouth spread wide and flat, stretching out beyond the edges of his eyes, which crinkled shut. A smile. “Yes. I want that.”

Dr. Chef bustled into action, pulling Ohan’s never-before-used chair into the kitchen. He helped Ohan into his seat and wasted no time in beginning a crash course in vegetables.

Ashby glanced toward Corbin, who was observing the scene with a quiet expression. He nodded to himself, confirming something unspoken, and turned to leave.

“Corbin,” Ashby said. Corbin looked at him. Ashby sighed. He still wasn’t happy, but what was done was done. After all they’d been through—yes, if Ohan could move forward, so could he. He gestured toward the empty stool beside him. “I’m sure the algae can wait.”

Corbin paused. “Thanks,” he said. He took a seat. He looked out of place, like the new kid at school, unsure of how to proceed.

Ashby nodded toward the rack of mugs. “You want some tea?”

Corbin took a mug and filled it, as if glad for some direction. He picked up a slice of spice bread. “So. Ah.” He took a sip from his mug. “How is Pei?”

Ashby raised his eyebrows, startled by the personal inquiry. “She’s doing just fine.”

“I overheard that she’ll be coming here for a time.”

“That’s right.”

Corbin nodded. “That’s good.” He took a longer sip and focused his attention on his spice bread.

Ashby eyed the algaeist for a moment, and looked back to the kitchen. He saw Ohan take a tentative nibble from the end of a spineroot. The Sianat gasped with surprise. Dr. Chef clapped him on the back and laughed, his voices harmonizing with approval.

Ashby smiled. He drank his tea and watched his crew. It was enough.

Rosemary took the the domed helmet from Kizzy and placed it over her own head, sliding the locking edges at its base into the grooves on her suit. A hiss of dry air brushed against her face as the life support system started up. On the opposite side of the airlock, Sissix, similarly dressed, shook her head.

“I still can’t believe you’ve never done this before,” Sissix said. Her voice came through the tiny vox fixed within Rosemary’s helmet.

“I never got around to it.”

Sissix smirked. “There are a lot of things you’ve never got around to.”

“Yeah, well, I’m working on it.”

“Okay,” Kizzy said, connecting something to the back of the suit. “Lemme see your status panel.” Rosemary lifted her left arm, displaying three green lights. “All seals locked. Cool. Wait, those are all green, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, good. Sorry, I’m a little high.” She looked back at Sissix, who was rolling her eyes. “What? It’s my day off.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Sissix said.

“You know, you’re welcome to come along,” Rosemary said.

“Thanks, but given the circumstances, I think I’d just fall asleep.” Kizzy paused, considering. “Why have I never taken a nap outside? Seriously, think how super mellow that would be.”

“Yeah,” said Sissix. “Right up until you sleep through the oxygen alarm.”

“Okay, yeah, maybe not.”

“Wait!” The sound of handfeet and grumbling echoed down the hallway, preceding Dr. Chef’s arrival. He hurried over to Rosemary and placed two yellow tablets in her hand. “You forgot.”

“Oh, stars, right,” Rosemary said, pulling her helmet back off. She popped the tablets in her mouth, crunched down, and made a face. “They taste like plex.”

Kizzy giggled. “How would you know what plex tastes like?”

Rosemary shrugged. “I was a kid once. Didn’t you ever lick plex?”

The giggle swelled into a laugh. “No! Ew! No!”

“Well, whatever they taste like,” Dr. Chef said, “they’ll help keep you from getting sick in your helmet, which is the important part. And if for some reason you should get sick, don’t panic, just remember to—”

“Don’t freak her out, Doc,” Kizzy said, patting his upper arm.

“She gets spacesick!”

“She’ll be fine.”

“All right, all right, I just want her to enjoy this.” Dr. Chef rumbled and chuffed as Rosemary put her helmet back on. “You know,” he said. “That suit looks good on you.”

“Yeah?” Rosemary said, looking down at the tough red fabric.

“Yeah,” Kizzy said. “It fits you real good.”

Sissix touched Rosemary’s shoulder. “You ready?”

Rosemary stared at the airlock door, nervous, eager. “I think so.”

Sissix nodded. “Tycho, we’re ready to go.”

The vox on the wall switched on. “Okay. I’ll be keeping an eye on you both. I’ll signal if you get too far out.”

“Thanks.” She led Rosemary into the airlock and smiled back at the others. “See you guys later.”

“Have fun!” Kizzy said, waving.

“Be back for dinner,” Dr. Chef said.

The inner door slid shut. Rosemary looked at Sissix. Her heart was hammering. “Well, here we go.”

Sissix took her by the hand as the airlock began to depressurize. The hatch slid back. They walked forward, their boots sticking to the artigrav floor. They stood with their toes at the edge. The open hatch waited.

“Oh,” said Rosemary, staring ahead.

“A little different without windows and bulkheads, huh?” Sissix grinned. “Here, do this.” She extended her hand out past the hull.

Rosemary did the same. As her hand passed beyond the edge of the artigrav field, she could feel its weight change—disappear. She’d been in zero-G playrooms as a kid, but this was different. This was the real thing, the universe’s default state. She laughed.

“Ready?” Sissix said. “One. Two. Three.”

They stepped out, and fell up. Or down. Or sideways. It didn’t matter. Those words meant nothing anymore. There were no boundaries, no playroom walls. Her body was freed of the burden she hadn’t known she was carrying—solid bones, dense muscle, an unwieldy head. They were out in the open, for real this time, as spacers should be. And all around them, black, black, black, full of jeweled stars and colored clouds. It was a sight she knew well, a sight she lived alongside, but in that moment, she was seeing it for the first time. Everything had changed.

“Oh, stars,” Rosemary said, and suddenly understood the expression better than she ever had.

“Come on,” Sissix said. The thrusters on her boots fired. They flew further out.

Rosemary looked back to the Wayfarer. Through the windows, she could see the familiar rooms and corridors, but it was all so different from out here, like watching a vid, or looking into a dollhouse. The ship looked so small, so fragile.

“Rosemary.”

She turned her head.

Sissix raised their clasped hands and smiled. “Let go.”

She let Sissix’s curved fingers slip from her grasp. They drifted apart, still holding the other in their eyes. Rosemary turned away from her ship, away from her companion, turned out to face the void. There was a nebula there, an explosion of dust and light, the fiery corpse of an ancient giant. Within the gaseous folds slept clusters of unborn stars, shining softly. She took inventory of her body. She felt her breath, her blood, the ties binding it all together. Every piece, down to the last atom, had been made out here, flung through the open in a moment of violence, until they had swirled round and round, churning and coalescing, becoming heavy, weighing each other down. But not anymore. The pieces were floating free now. They had returned home.

She was exactly where she was supposed to be.