Record of a Spaceborn Few

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

Item name: The Modern Exodus – Entry #4

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.]

At the heart of every district is a four-story cylindrical complex, stretching through the layered decks like a dowel stuck into a disc. The complex is made of metal, like everything else, and has no windows. The exterior is covered in muted murals of varying age, the details often obscured by the climbing vines growing from planters that encircle the base of the building. There are two entry-points at the neighbourhood level – an unobtrusive door used by the people who work there, and a larger archway used by those going through the most difficult days of their lives.

The complex is, in function, a corpse composting facility. Exodans do not call it that. They call it, simply, the Centre.

I admit I felt trepidation as I passed through the archway. This is an area of Exodan custom I was unschooled in, and I was unsure what I would find. I braced myself for the sight of rotting flesh, the air of decay. I found neither. The Centre does not feel like a place of death. The lights are kind. There are planters everywhere, but they are tame and controlled, just as the entire process within this place is. The air surprised me the most: a slight hint of agreeable humidity, coupled with an utterly pleasant warmth (in truth, it was the most comfortable environment I’ve been in since arriving in the Fleet). There’s a strange feel to it, yes, but it is inoffensive, reminiscent of a forest after a rain. I wondered if Humans – with their notoriously poor olfactory sense – could detect it at all.

The professionals who tend this place are known as caretakers, and one named Maxwell met me near the entrance. I knew his clothing was ceremonial, but you would never know it, dear guest, if you had not been told in advance. He wore no ornamentation, nothing that communicated pomp or importance. Just loose-fitting garments made of undyed fabric, cinched around his forearms and ankles to prevent dragging in the dirt. The outfit was a reminder that my visit that day was on a strict schedule. Maxwell was to conduct a burial – a ‘laying-in’, they call it – and though I was welcome to see the preparation, I would not be permitted to attend the ceremony itself. It was a ‘family matter’, he said, and studying the events from the sidelines would not be well received. Exodans tend to express strong emotions quite freely – brashly, even – but I have observed a general (though not universal) dislike of doing so around strangers. I struggle with this idea, but I respect it all the same.

‘So,’ my host said, gesturing to the chamber before us. ‘This is the main event.’

The space we occupied was as tall as the exterior suggested. Stretching up before us was an enormous cylinder, unchanged since the days of the Earthen builders. A ramp spiralled around the cylinder, all the way to the top, wide enough for several Humans to walk side-by-side. At the base were several well-sealed hatches, from which the final product could be retrieved. Another caretaker was engaged in this very activity, filling metal canisters with what could easily be mistaken for nothing more extraordinary than dark soil. I was immediately filled with questions, but Maxwell had other ideas. ‘We’ll come back to this,’ he said. ‘We can’t go out of order.’ He paused, studying me. ‘Are you comfortable seeing bodies?’

I answered honestly. ‘I don’t know. I have never seen one.’

He blinked – a response that indicates surprise. ‘Never? Not one of your own kind?’

I gestured in the negative before I realised he wouldn’t understand. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not in a medical profession, and am lucky enough to have never witnessed serious violence. I have lost connections, and have grieved them with others in a ceremonial sense. But we do not grieve with a corpse present. We do not see the body that remains as the person we have lost.’

Maxwell looked fascinated, as one could rightly expect from one of his profession. ‘What do you do with them, then?’

‘They’re cleanly disposed of. Some still practise the old way of leaving them just beyond the shoreline, where the waves cannot reach them. Mostly, though, corpses are dissolved and flushed away.’

‘Just . . . with wastewater?’

‘Yes.’

Maxwell visibly wrestled with that. ‘Right. That sounds . . . efficient.’ He gestured for me to follow him. ‘Well, if you do feel uncomfortable, just let me know, and we’ll leave.’

I followed him through a staff door and down a corridor until we reached his preparation room. The difference between this place and the main chamber could not have been starker. My tentacles reflexively curled with chill, and the air was irritatingly dry.

It is difficult for me to distill all I felt as we entered the room. If I were to describe the moment with pure objectivity, I stood at a table looking at a dead alien. She was old, her body withered. I related to nothing of her anatomy, laid bare and unshrouded. I realised my declaration to Maxwell that I had never seen a dead body was untrue. I have seen dead animals. I have eaten them. I have walked past them in food markets. I have fished expired laceworms out of my beloved swimming tank at home. In some ways, observing the Human corpse on the table was no different than that. Please understand, dear guest, I do not mean that I believe Humans are equivalent to lesser species. What I mean is that what lay before me was a species other than myself, and so any connection to my own mortality, my own eventual fate, was at first safely distant.

But then I began to think of the dead animals I have seen and disposed of and consumed, the ended lives I did not grieve for because I did not understand them fully. I did not see myself in them, and therefore it did not matter. I looked to this former Human – this former sapient, with a family and loves and fears. Those things I could understand, even though the body was something I could not. Nothing in the room was moving, nothing was happening, and yet within me, I felt profound change. I grieved for the alien, this person I had never known. I grieved for my pet laceworms. I grieved for myself. Yet it was a quiet grief, an everyday grief, a heaviness and a lightness all at once. I was overwhelmed, yet there was no way to express that beyond silence.

I do not feel I am explaining this experience well, dear guest, but perhaps that is appropriate. Perhaps none of us can truly explain death. Perhaps none of us should.

Tessa

Tessa stood in the doorway to her workroom, lunch box in one hand, the other hanging at her side. She’d had a bad feeling since the moment she’d discovered that the staff door opened for her despite the lock being offline. In the workroom, poor Sahil lay with his head on the desk, snoring and drooling without a care in the world. She looked out to the endless shelves. Everything appeared just as it had when she’d left the day before. She knew it wasn’t. Somewhere, something was missing. Probably a lot of things were missing.

She did not need this today. She really, really did not.

She crouched down beside her colleague. ‘Sahil?’ she said, giving his shoulder a shake. ‘Sahil? Dammit.’ She gave him a once-over, just to make sure nothing was bloodied or broken, then turned to the vox. ‘Help,’ she called.

The connection was instant. ‘Patrol dispatch,’ a voice said. ‘Is this an emergency?’

Tessa was pretty sure she knew the speaker. ‘Lili?’ she said. ‘It’s Tessa, down in Bay Eight.’

‘Ah, jeez.’ Definitely Lili. ‘Again?’

Tessa wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sigh, so she did both. ‘Again.’

‘Anybody hurt?’

‘No, but looks like they hit my coworker’s bots.’ It was a mean but easy exploit, if you could get your hands on a med scanner. Trigger the imubots’ suppression protocol, like a doctor would before a minor surgery, and say goodnight. ‘I think he’s just asleep, but—’

‘Yeah, I gotcha. You’ve got two patrollers and a medic headed your way. Ten minutes, tops.’

‘Thanks, Lili.’

‘You got it. If you come by Jojo’s tonight, I’ll get you a drink.’

Tessa laughed dryly. ‘I just might take you up on that.’ The vox switched off. Tessa sat on the desk. She set her lunch down and studied Sahil, her hands folded between her legs. His sinuses roared. She thought about wiping up the drool, but no. She did enough of that kind of thing at home.

She glanced up at the clockprint on the wall. Ten minutes, tops, dispatch had said. So, rounding up to ten, that meant it was in her best interest to wait five minutes before calling Eloy, who would take twelve to get from home to work. Technically, she was supposed to call the supervisor the second something like this happened, but Tessa found the idea of delaying the inevitable headache until she had patrollers there much more palatable. Eloy was easier to deal with if another person of authority was there to balance him out.

One minute passed. Tessa opened her lunch box and removed the cake she’d packed for the afternoon. It was only eighth hour. It was warranted.

Four minutes passed. The cake had been pretty good. A little stale, but then, it was two days old. She brushed the remaining crumbs off her knee. Sahil snored.

Five minutes passed. She took a breath. ‘225-662,’ she said to the vox.

A second went by. Two. Three. ‘Yeah,’ Eloy’s marginally awake voice said. Great. Just great. This was the start of his day.

‘Eloy, it’s Tessa,’ she said. ‘We’ve had a break-in.’

‘Ah, fuck,’ he snapped. She could practically hear him rubbing his hands over his face. ‘Fucking again?’

Sahil shifted in his sleep, his lips folding unflatteringly against the desk. ‘Fucking again,’ Tessa said.

Isabel

When dealing with other sapients, issues of compatibility were difficult to anticipate. Isabel’s go-to example of this was the first meeting between Exodans and Aeluons. The Exodans, overjoyed by what felt like a rescue, exhilarated by the confirmation that their species was not alone, predictably assembled in their festive best, and decorated the shuttledock in streamers, banners, bunting. There were recordings of the scene in the Archives – an overwhelming array of every colour the dyeworks could cook up, hung and layered like confetti frozen in time. To Exodan eyes, the display was ebullient, effusive, a celebration like no other (not to mention an extravagant use of cloth). To the chromatically communicative Aeluons, it was the equivalent of opening a nondescript door and finding a thousand screaming people on the other side. The Aeluons, well familiar with the more colourful habits of other species, dealt with it as gracefully as they could, but as soon as some Klip/Ensk translation wrinkles had been ironed out, a gentle request was made to please, please put the flags away.

Such misalignments were unpredictable, and blameless. Nothing that could’ve been foreseen. Nothing that could’ve been prevented. Isabel told herself that as she stood helplessly at the transport pod platform as . . . something nearby kept shutting down Ghuh’loloan’s cart. She’d been fine on the elevator, fine as they crossed the platform. As soon as she approached the transport pod, though, the cart stopped in its tracks, as if someone had thrown a switch. Isabel had tugged her backward, and the cart had come back to life. But as soon as Ghuh’loloan drove herself across some invisible line, the wheels froze and the engine audibly slumped. None of her colleague’s increasingly agitated flicking of switches had any effect.

‘Weird,’ the transport attendant said in schoolroom Klip. He scratched his head. ‘It’s got to be . . . I don’t know.’ He switched over to Ensk and gave Isabel an apologetic shrug. ‘Some kinda signal interference from the pod. I’m sorry, M, I don’t know where to start.’

Isabel glanced around as she mentally scrambled for a solution. A small crowd had gathered, because of course they had. They kept their distance – out of respect and wariness in equal measure, no doubt – but their interest was unapologetic, and anything but subtle. How often did you get to go home and tell the dinner table about the alien you saw stuck on the transport deck? Isabel was aware that they were watching herself as well, the obvious responsible party, the one who would come up with something clever.

She did not.

‘I do not hold you at fault,’ Ghuh’loloan said to the attendant. ‘Nor you, dear host. These things happen!’ Her tone was bright, but her tentacles still flicked switches in fading hope. She pulled in her tendrils, and her eyestalks shut for a moment. ‘M Transport Attendant,’ she said, perking back up. She had yet to get a proper hold on honorifics, and the overdone result was often charming. ‘Do you think you are capable of carrying my cart? It weighs approximately sixteen kems.’

The transport attendant – clearly tickled at being called ‘M’ by an alien visitor – nodded. ‘Yes, I can lift. But, um . . .’ He paused, searching for words. ‘I’m not sure I can carry it and you same. Together?’

‘Together,’ Isabel said.

He nodded again. ‘It and you together.’

‘Oh, you won’t need to worry about that,’ Ghuh’loloan said. ‘Isabel, would you—?’ She gestured at her cart, and Isabel caught on. She grabbed the edge of the cart and dragged Ghuh’loloan a short ways backward. Right on cue, the cart hummed to life again. Ghuh’loloan pressed a few controls, and a compact ramp extended slowly from the side.

Understanding her colleague’s intent, Isabel looked at the floor. Smooth, dry metal plating, just like everywhere else. Clean, but hard to say what had been on it, or what it had been cleaned with. A bit of solvent residue, a bootprint with traces of fertiliser, or an unseen patch of spilled salt were all enough to make a Harmagian itch for the rest of the day. Isabel frowned with concern. ‘I’m sure one of us can carry you.’

‘No,’ Ghuh’loloan said. ‘You can’t.’ She angled her eyestalks toward Isabel’s bare forearms. Right, Isabel thought. Soap. Skin oil. Lotion. And you couldn’t forget the clothes, either, undoubtedly still dusted with detergent. Stars, but Humans made a mess of getting clean.

Isabel looked to the crowd. ‘Does anyone have any water with them?’ she called out in Ensk. ‘A canteen, or . . . ?’

The faces in the crowd looked surprised to be addressed, as if they’d just discovered they were playing a sim instead of watching a vid. But they responded to the question, opening satchels and digging through backpacks. Bottles, bags, and canteens were raised up.

‘I’m sorry to ask this,’ Isabel said. ‘But we need to rinse off a path for her.’

Ghuh’loloan wagged her facial tendrils. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m asking them to clean off the floor for you.’

‘Oh, dear host, I’ll be all right, really—’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Isabel said, and turned again to the crowd. ‘Any volunteers? Clean water only, please, no tea or anything flavoured.’

Isabel hadn’t expected differently, but was pleased to see everybody with water come forward to help. She knew a good deal of the motivation was self-serving – not only did they see an alien in a pinch on the platform, but they got to help. Still, the unquestioning willingness to pitch in made her proud. The onlookers emptied their drinks, tossing the water in forward-moving splashes. One small girl upended her equally small cup straight down in front of her. It did little for the task at hand – most ended up on the girl’s shoes – but she got the point. Every bit counted.

After a minute or two, a glistening path stretched from the Harmagian cart to the Exodan pod. ‘Thank you, friends,’ Isabel said. ‘And thank your families for us, too.’ That water had come from many, after all.

‘Yes, yes,’ Ghuh’loloan said, having caught a familiar word. Her dactyli unfurled like waking leaves. Had she continued in Klip, she likely would have delivered a truly Harmagian declaration of gratitude, but instead, she exercised one of the few Ensk phrases she knew: ‘Thank oo mutsch.’

The crowd was delighted.

Ghuh’loloan’s eyestalks shifted to the ramp. ‘Now, if you will forgive me further, this will take some time.’

And with that, Ghuh’loloan began to crawl.

There were a few muffled sounds from the crowd – a smothered gasp, a nervous laugh. Isabel looked sharply to them, giving everyone the same look her grandkids got if reaching for something forbidden. But in truth, she was one with the crowd, choking back her own instinctive yelp. She’d never seen a Harmagian leave xyr cart. She knew, logically, that vehicle and rider were two separate entities, but the visual confirmation was cognitively dissonant. She had imagined, given the Harmagian lack of legs, that Ghuh’loloan would simply slide, like the recordings she’d seen of slugs, or perhaps snakes. But instead, Ghuh’loloan’s smooth belly began to . . . stars, what was the word for it? Grab. Pull. It was as if Ghuh’loloan’s stomach was covered with a thick swath of fabric – several bedsheets, maybe – and behind the bedsheets there were hands, and the hands pushed against the sheets, curling, grasping, dragging the rest of the body forward. Dough, Isabel thought. Putty. There was no symmetry to it, no pattern easily discernible to a bipedal mind. And the result was slow, as Ghuh’loloan had intimated. Isabel imagined trying to walk alongside her like this. She’d have to take two short steps, then wait two beats, then two steps, then two beats, on and on. This was why Harmagians had spent so much of their evolutionary history enjoying the quickness of the sea before adapting for the riches of the land. It was why they’d invented carts. It was why their tech was so incredible. It was why they’d become so good at defending themselves – and at taking from others.

Ghuh’loloan heaved herself forward, a lumbering mass inching across the wet patch of already clean floor that had been rinsed with pure water for the sake of fussy, fragile skin. Isabel watched, and marvelled.

The former conquerors of the galaxy.

Eyas

‘Need a hand?’

Eyas stopped spreading compost and turned her head. A man was there – younger than her, but not a kid, either. She looked him in the eye, thrown by his question. ‘Sorry, what?’

‘Do you need a hand?’ he asked again in an accent she couldn’t place. It was rough and bright and thick as pudding. He gestured to her cart. ‘Looks like you have a lot to get through. I can’t say I’ve ever really gardened, but I’m sure I could chuck dirt around.’

Eyas slowly brushed off her gloves and stood up. ‘I’m—’ She tried to straighten out her baffled brain. ‘You know this is compost, right?’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

They stared at each other. ‘You know what compost is, right?’

‘Sure.’ His face suggested he was starting to doubt that.

‘Are you a trader, or—?’

The man laughed. ‘No. The accent gave me away, huh?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. That, and other things. She knelt back down to the compost she’d been distributing, waiting for him to leave.

He did not. ‘Do you sell it?’

‘Do I what?’

‘Do you sell this stuff? Or is it just something you make at home?’

Eyas lidded her canister, walked to the edge of the planter, and looked seriously at the man. ‘These are Human remains,’ she said in a low voice. ‘We compost our dead.’

The man was mortified. ‘Oh. Wow, I’m . . . jeez, I’m sorry.’ He looked at the cart full of canisters. ‘These are all . . . people? Like, individual people, or . . . oh man, are they all mixed together?’

‘If you have questions, I’m sure someone at the Centre would be happy to give you a tour.’

‘The Centre. That’s where you . . .’ He gestured vaguely to the canisters.

‘Yes.’

‘And that’s . . . your job.’

‘Yes.’ She threw a pointed glance back at the plants. ‘Which I am not doing.’

The man held up his palms. ‘Right. Sorry. Really sorry.’ He turned to leave.

Eyas turned back to the plant and began to crouch down. For reasons unknown, she turned back. ‘Where are you from?’

The man stopped. ‘Mushtullo.’

‘And you’re not a trader.’

‘No.’

She squinted. ‘Do you have family here?’

‘Heh, everybody asks that. No, I’m just trying something new.’

Oh, stars, he was one of those. She’d heard others complaining about said same, but never encountered it herself. Young grounders had made a thing of showing up on the Fleet’s doorstep hoping to find kin or connection or some other such fluff, succeeding at little except treating everyone’s home like a zoo before learning there wasn’t any romance in it and heading back to cushier lives where every problem could be answered with creds.

Except here was this one, standing there with his hands in his pockets and an irritatingly eager smile. She should have let him walk away, but . . . he’d asked to help. He’d offered to help.

‘Do you have work?’ she asked.

‘Not yet,’ the man said. ‘I went to the job office and everything, but they said the only openings they had were for sanitation. And not to be picky, but—’

‘But you were picky.’

The man gave a guilty shrug. ‘I’m just hoping something else will open up. I’m good with code, I’m good with customers, I could—’

Eyas removed her gloves, folded them over her belt, and sat at the edge of the planter, bare hands folded between her legs. ‘Do you understand why they tried to give you a sanitation job?’

‘They said—’

‘I know what they said. There were other openings, I promise you.’ Lots of them, she knew. ‘That’s not the point. Do you understand why they tried to give you that job?’

The last traces of his easy grin evaporated. ‘Oh.’

Eyas sighed and ran her hand through her hair. He thought this was a matter of bigotry. ‘No, you still don’t get it. They tried to give you a sanitation job because everybody has to do sanitation. Everybody. Me, merchants, teachers, doctors, council members, the admiral – every healthy Exodan fourteen and over gets their ID put in a computer, and that computer randomly pulls names for temporary, mandatory, no-getting-out-of-it work crews to sort recycling and wash greasy throw-cloths and unclog the sewage lines. All the awful jobs nobody wants to do. That way, nothing is out of sight or out of mind. Nothing is left to lesser people, because there’s no such thing. So you, coming in here at – how old are you?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘Right. You’ve got ten years of potential sanitation shifts to make up for. You’re here eating the food we grow, sleeping inside a home somebody worked hard to maintain, drinking water that is carefully, carefully managed. The people at the job office knew that. They wanted to see if you were actually willing to live like us. If you were more than just a tourist. They wanted to know if you were serious.’

The man straightened up. ‘I’m serious.’

‘Well, then, go muck out a sewer like the rest of us have to. Do that, and they might let you put some code to use.’ Eyas was sure they would. There was need for that kind of skillset, no question. It just needed to be in the hands of someone with the right principles.

‘Okay,’ the man said. ‘Yeah, okay. Thank you. Thanks very much.’ The smile returned. ‘I’m Sawyer, by the way.’

She gave him a polite nod. ‘I’m Eyas.’

‘Eyas. That suits you.’

‘No.’ She got to her feet and put her gloves back on. ‘It really doesn’t.’

Kip

‘Trust me,’ Ras said. ‘This is totally safe.’

Kip wasn’t so sure. His friend was smiling his usual smile, but he had a bunch of weird shit spread out on the floor between them – a patch scanner, some complicated cables, an info chip labelled ‘BIRTHDAY.’ All of it looked hand-hacked, and none of it was anything Ras had ever given any indication he knew how to use. ‘Where’d you get this stuff?’ Kip asked.

‘Mail drone. I had some creds saved up.’

‘Yeah, but from where?’

‘You remember that job I worked for M Aho—’

‘Not the creds. This . . . hackjob stuff.’

Ras lowered his voice, even though they were safe in his room. His mom had ears like you would not believe. ‘Have you heard of this feed called Picnic?’

‘No.’

‘It’s like . . . serious black market modder shit. Implants, code, ships even. You name it. Whatever you want, somebody there has it, or knows where to get it. And it’s totally off the map. You can’t find Picnic in public searches.’

Kip wasn’t super comfortable with the sound of that, but he didn’t want to look like a wuss. ‘So how’d you find it?’

‘Toby told me about it. It’s where his sister gets all the gear she needs to make smash.’

‘Wait, Una? She makes smash?’

‘Do you not know that? I thought everybody knew that. How do you think she bought her own skiff? Anyway, the supplier I got this from, xe told me—’

‘Who?’

‘What?’

‘Who’s the supplier?’

‘Just . . . you know, it’s anonymous, everybody’s got codenames and—’

Kip leaned forward. ‘Who?’

Ras cleared his throat. ‘Xe’s called fluffyfluffycake.’

‘Fluffyfluffycake.’

‘Xe really knows xyr shit, man, I’m telling you—’

‘You bought a hack kit from somebody called fluffyfluffycake.’

Ras rolled his eyes and pulled back his wristwrap, exposing the implant beneath. ‘Look, I already did me.’ He picked up the patch scanner – definitely hand-hacked, there were two different colours of casing fused together – and swiped it over his wrist. He turned the scanner screen toward Kip so he could read the ID data it had just pulled. ‘See?’

Kip read, blinked, raised his eyebrows. ‘Huh.’

‘Yeah, huh.’

‘And it’s . . . okay?’ Kip remembered the standard before, when the Newet had gone under quarantine because somebody came back from some neutral market with a bot virus – Marabunta, they called it. Hijacked your imubots and gave you seizures, then hopped to anybody you brushed your patch against, whether it was a hug or a handshake or a crowded transport car or whatever. Kip remembered seeing pictures of the victims on the news feeds – folks tied down in hospital beds, mouths strapped shut so they wouldn’t break their own teeth. Everybody’d been really freaked out. At school, they’d gotten a big long boring talk about how you should never, ever get unlicensed bots and you should never, ever go to an unlicensed clinic. He could hear that lecture playing dimly in the back of his head, but the reality of his friend sitting in front of him was much louder. ‘You feel okay?’ Kip asked.

‘Stars, I get us something awesome, and you turn into my mom. Yes, I feel fine. I did it yesterday before I asked you over. What, did you think I was gonna test it out on you first? C’mon, I’m not that much of an asshole.’

Kip’s pulse thudded in his ears. If Ras’d done it, and he was okay, and the hack hadn’t messed up his bots or anything, then . . . it was okay, right? He stared for a second, then pushed up his own wristwrap – blue and green triangle print, frayed around the edges. The one his dad had given him last Remembrance Day. ‘All right,’ he said.

Ras grinned. ‘Only takes a sec.’ He connected one end of the cable to Kip’s patch, then the other end to his scrib. He popped the info chip in an empty port and gestured at the screen. ‘You want to keep your actual birthday, yeah? Easier to remember.’

‘Yeah,’ Kip said. He shifted his weight as Ras worked. ‘What if somebody we know sees us?’

‘Well, if we’re not stupid about it, they won’t. We can go to one of the other districts and it’ll be fine.’ He waved his hand, and the scrib made a completed ding. ‘All right, let’s see what we got.’

‘That’s it?’ Kip asked.

‘That’s it,’ Ras said, picking up the scanner. ‘I told you, fluffy-cake knows xyr shit.’ He swiped the scanner over Kip’s wrist, gave a nod, then handed the scanner over.

Kip took it and looked down at the screen.

GC citizenship record:

ID #: 9836-745-112

GC designated name: Kristofer Madaki

Emergency contact: Serafina Madaki, Alton Madaki

Next of kin: Serafina Madaki, Alton Madaki

Local name (if applicable): Kristofer (Kip) Madaki

Locally required information:

Ship: Asteria, Exodus Fleet

Address: 224-324

Standard date of birth: 23/292

Age: 20

‘There we go!’ Ras said. ‘Damn, finally you look like you’re having fun.’

Kip couldn’t help but smile. He could get in so much trouble for this, and yet . . . yet he felt like he’d cut the line, like he’d been granted a reprieve from the agonising wait between birthdays. ‘Do I look twenty, though?’

Ras pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Totally.’ He cocked his head. ‘Maybe don’t shave.’

Kip didn’t have much to shave yet except his upper lip and a patch on his chin, but he didn’t feel like sharing that. ‘So, now what?’ he said. Now that the scary part was over with, the lack of plan felt kind of anticlimactic. ‘We could go get some kick, or . . . redreed? Do you wanna get some redreed?’ Kip had tried it once and didn’t like it, but he could get it now, and that was the important thing.

But Ras shook his head. ‘I have a way, way better idea.’

Sawyer

Compared to the brightness and bluster of the rest of the plaza, the job office was a rather humble spot. Still, it was welcoming in its own way. There were benches outside where people could skim through listings on their scribs, and calming plants in neat boxes, and pixel posters cheering the reader on. Need a change? We can help!, read one, the letters glowing above a loop of a relieved-looking man setting aside a vegetable-gathering basket and picking up a stack of fabric instead. Another poster featured a teenage girl standing in a semblance of a hex corridor, surveying doors printed with various symbols – a leaping fish, a magnified imubot, a musical instrument, a shuttle in flight. You never know where a job trial will take you, the pixels read.

Sawyer took a seat on the bench beside the girl with four lives ahead of her. He’d just left the office, and done what the compost woman had suggested. Going back in armed with advice had put a spring in his step. Coming back out . . . he wasn’t sure what he felt. He hadn’t talked to the same clerk as before, so he’d missed out on the satisfaction of returning to say aha, look, I have passed your test! Learning that there was an expected order of vocational initiation had felt significant to Sawyer. The clerk hadn’t conveyed the same, but why should he? What was significant about filling out the same formwork he probably filled out dozens of times a day? What had Sawyer expected? A knowing nod? An approving smile?

That’s exactly what he’d wanted, he knew, and he felt stupid about it. But then again, he’d been given no next step, no direction beyond ‘thank you, we’ll contact you when a shift becomes available.’ When would that be? Tomorrow? A tenday? More? In principle, Sawyer didn’t mind downtime, especially when he didn’t have to worry about food or a roof, but the idea of rattling around that big empty home until some nebulous point in the future arrived didn’t sit well.

He set his jaw. Getting down about everything he didn’t know yet wouldn’t do any good. Maybe he could try making inroads with his hex neighbours again. Maybe they’d be more than distantly polite if they knew he was going to clean up the same messes everybody else did. Maybe he’d go out there at dinnertime today instead of going to a cafe or hiding out insecurely in his room. He’d never really cooked before, but he could chop stuff, at least. He could help. He could—

‘Working up some courage?’ a friendly voice said.

Sawyer found the speaker: a stocky man with an infectious smile and a mech arm. Such implants were common among Humans back home, but Sawyer hadn’t seen many in the Fleet. ‘I’ve already been in,’ he said.

‘Needing some comfort, then, judging by your face.’ The man raised up a canteen, signalling the intent to share. ‘Want some in liquid form?’

Sawyer smiled and put up his hands. ‘I better not,’ he said. ‘I’m kind of a lightweight.’

‘Then you’ve got nothin’ to fear here,’ the man said. He waggled the canteen. ‘Just tea. Lil’ sugar boost, that’s all.’

Sawyer’s smile grew, and he nodded. ‘All right,’ he said, joining the man. ‘That’s very kind.’

‘I’ve been in your shoes,’ the man said. He filled the canteen lid and handed it over. ‘Not a comfy thing, having idle hands, huh?’

‘No,’ Sawyer said, nodding in thanks as he took a sip of tea. Stars, but this guy wasn’t kidding about the sugar. He could already feel it clinging fuzzily to his teeth.

The man stuck out his hand. ‘I’m Oates,’ he said.

Sawyer returned the handshake, a kick of happy adrenaline coursing through him. ‘Sawyer,’ he said.

‘And where are you from, Sawyer?’ He pointed toward Sawyer’s mouth. ‘We don’t grow Rs like those in the Fleet.’

Sawyer laughed. ‘Mushtullo.’

‘Long way from home.’ Oates pulled a redreed pipe and a tiny bag out of his jacket pocket. Sawyer knew what was coming next: ‘You got family here?’

‘Nah.’ He had the reply down pat by now. ‘Just trying something new.’

Oates nodded as he filled his pipe – redreed in the hand he’d been born with, bowl in the one he’d chosen. ‘Good for you.’ He hit his sparker and took one puff, two puffs, three. The smoke rose steady. ‘You been here long?’

‘Two tendays.’

‘How’s it treating you so far?’

‘Great,’ Sawyer said, a little too fast, a little too loud. ‘Yeah, it’s . . . it’s been great.’

Oates eyed him through the pipe smoke. ‘Bit different than home, huh?’

Sawyer took another sip of the sickeningly sweet tea. ‘Still finding my footing, I guess. But that’s normal, right?’

‘I’d say so,’ Oates said. He offered his pipe; Sawyer declined. ‘So what kind of work did they hook you up with?’

‘I put my name in for sanitation.’ Sawyer tried to look casual as he said it, but he was keen to see how that answer was received.

Oates did not disappoint. ‘Sanitation,’ he said with a favourable look. ‘A time-honoured gig.’ He took a long drag and let the smoke curl slowly from his nose. ‘That’s good of you. But tell me honestly, now that we’re tea buddies and all – that’s not really what you want to be doing, right?’

‘Well . . .’ Sawyer laughed. ‘Does anybody?’

Oates chuckled. ‘No. That’s why the good ol’ shit lottery exists in the first place. What kind of jobs did you do back on Mushtullo?’

‘Lots of stuff – uh, let’s see . . . I’ve worked at a cafe, a fuel depot, a stasie factory—’

‘So, you can lift stuff and follow directions and be nice to people. Good, good. What else?’

‘I can write code.’

‘No kidding.’ Oates looked interested. ‘What kind of code?’

‘I’m not a comp tech or anything. I didn’t go to school for it. But I can write Siksek and Tinker, and—’

‘Tinker, huh?’ Oates rolled his pipe between his metal fingers. ‘What level?’

‘Four.’

Oates studied Sawyer. ‘Listen, I know we’ve known each other for all of three minutes, but I can tell you’re a good dude. If you really want to start with the sewers, I won’t bother you further. But if you’re interested in something more . . . dynamic, I’m on a salvage crew, and we’re looking for some extra hands. Specifically, someone who knows Tinker. I’ve stopped a few others today, and you’re the first I’ve chatted with who’s got that skill.’

Sawyer had started to take another sip of tea, but the cup froze halfway there.

‘Now, lifting shit and following directions is the main part of the job,’ Oates went on. ‘But we use Tinker more often than not. You know how it is with busted tech – sometimes you can’t get a panel to work or a door to open, and it’s always faster when we’ve got people who can just get in there and force code the thing. That sound like something you could handle?’

‘Yeah, definitely,’ Sawyer said, loud and fast again. ‘I’ve never done it before, but—’

‘If you’re level four, it’ll be cake.’ Oates folded his lips together and nodded. ‘All right, well, if you’re interested, come meet me tonight at shuttledock twelve, after twenty-half. I’ll take you to meet my boss.’

Sawyer’s heart was in his throat. This was it. A friend. A crew. Holy shit, the compost woman had been right! Five minutes out of the job office, and just putting his name on that list had changed things. ‘I mean—’ Sawyer stammered, ‘that would be awesome. I can just go find the listing, if that’s easier, I don’t want to take up any more of your time—’

‘Not at all,’ Oates said. ‘Besides, my boss doesn’t use listings. Personal recommendations only. She’s a face-to-face kind of person.’ Smoke escaped from between his smiling teeth. ‘Great judge of character.’

Tessa

There had been a time, once, when Eloy hadn’t been a bad boss. Or maybe he always had been, but he just hadn’t yet been given the opportunity to let that quality shine. In any case, he’d been Tessa’s vote for Bay Eight supervisor last standard, when Faye stepped down and left for the independent colonies. Tessa missed Faye. She got shit done, but you could go have a drink with her at her hex in off-hours and forget that she was in charge. Tessa had never been buddies with Eloy, but he was a reliable worker, and absurdly organised. He had that no-nonsense edge you needed when you had to go speak for everybody else at cargo guild meetings. But as soon as he got his stripe, he turned into one of those people who equated being in charge with being outwardly stressed out. He hadn’t broken any rules or disrupted workflow enough to justify the workers voting him out yet, but it was coming. Tessa knew it was coming, and it was going to be ugly, but . . . well. That was the way stuff worked.

Eloy paced around the workroom, fingers tapping against his pockets. ‘And you guys have no idea who’s responsible for this yet,’ he said, tossing the words at the patroller without looking at her.

The patroller – Ruby Boothe, from the Santosos’ neighbourhood – was keeping it cool, but her patience was visibly running thin. ‘That’s why—’

‘Because this is the fourth,’ Eloy said. ‘The fourth theft since I took this job. The sixth in a standard. And you haven’t caught anyone. Not a one.’

‘That’s why we’re asking questions,’ Ruby said, her grip on her scrib tightening ever so slightly. ‘And why we’re out there inspecting the scene.’ She pointed with her stylus toward the storage racks, where her volunteer second was walking with the now-awake Sahil – no worse for wear – trying to figure out what had been taken.

‘Questions.’ Eloy shook his head. ‘You’d think with all the questions, you’d have some damn answers by now.’

‘Eloy, come on,’ Tessa said. She knew he wouldn’t like her taking the patroller’s side – and the terse look he threw her confirmed that – but this wasn’t helping. ‘How many people do you know who could do with some extra scrap to melt?’ She nodded at the patroller. ‘She’s got a hell of a list to narrow down.’

The patroller gave her a thankful glance. ‘Precisely,’ she said. ‘And there’s no telling if the culprits are the same as the previous times. Nothing we’ve found here so far can tell us if this is an organised group, or a copycat, or a first-timer. Someone hit your worker’s bots, and they made off with some scrap. That is not a lot to go on, but we’re doing our best here.’

‘Yeah, well, while you’re doing your best, we’re falling behind. I have to go to my supervisors and make excuses for why you can’t keep this from happening to us.’ Eloy gestured at Tessa. ‘She can’t do any of the shit she needed to do today because of this.’

Tessa rankled at Eloy using her as fuel for berating the patroller, but there was a kernel of truth in there she couldn’t argue with. The crime at hand had a stupid irony: someone had been impatient enough with cargo bay processing times that they’d resorted to theft, thus setting the processing schedule back further for everyone. That was the part that really pissed Tessa off, more than falling behind in her work, more than finding Sahil knocked out, more than having to spend what should’ve been a quiet morning listening to Eloy take things out on people who didn’t deserve it. The theft benefited the thief, and maybe the thief’s friends or family, but that was it. They’d taken things out of the hands of people who also needed them, who had grit their teeth and followed the rules and made do without.

Sahil and the volunteer patroller came back. Eloy looked over. ‘What’d they get?’ he asked.

Tessa squinted. ‘You feeling okay?’ she asked.

Sahil was still looking a bit rough from his bot hack – dark around the eyes, paler in the cheeks. But he nodded. ‘Just groggy,’ he said, giving her a faint smile. ‘Medic said it’d be like this for a few hours.’ He turned his attention to the boss. ‘So, teracite, mostly. Looks like they grabbed a few handfuls of sixtops, too, but not much. Just whatever they could put in their pockets as they left, I guess.’

‘How much teracite?’ Eloy said.

‘A good amount,’ Sahil said. ‘I’d say . . . about a hundred kems, give or take.’

‘Oh, fucking hell,’ Eloy snapped. Tessa said nothing, but she felt the same. A lot of good things could’ve been done with that. Medical equipment. School computers. Shuttle upgrades. But instead, somebody was either going to melt it down for home use – personal smelters were everywhere these days – or sell it for creds. She hoped the thieves would go for the former option. The idea of somebody using the stolen stuff to repair their hex was easier to stomach. The latter meant luxuries that were nice but not necessary, and that . . . that was worth an Eloy-style rant or two.

‘They’d need an autocart for a haul that size,’ Ruby said, tapping her chin with her stylus. She looked to her second. ‘What does that tell you?’

‘A merchant,’ the volunteer said. Tessa had missed his name, but he was older, and had the look of someone who had been excited to get his name pulled for this job. She didn’t blame him. Tagging along after full-time patrol to keep them honest beat the pants off sewer duty. ‘Either that, or someone who had access to bay-to-bay transport.’

‘Yup,’ Ruby said.

Eloy frowned. ‘That is not much to go on.’

‘No,’ the patroller said, gathering her gear bag. ‘But it’s something, and it’s more than we had when we walked in here.’ She picked up the empty tea mug resting on the desk beside her. ‘Where should I . . .’

‘Just leave it,’ Tessa said. ‘I’ll take care of it.’ She smiled – the kind of smile you gave someone when the circumstances sucked but you appreciated them being there. ‘Thanks for the help.’

The patrollers said their goodbyes and left. A silence sat uncomfortably in the workroom.

‘I’m sorry, Eloy,’ Sahil said. ‘If I’d—’

Eloy put up his hand. ‘Shit happens,’ he said.

Tessa frowned. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said, speaking the words someone else should have. ‘You sure you’re okay?’

‘I’m okay. Really.’

‘I’m gonna come check up on you at home later.’

‘Fine, fine,’ Sahil chuckled. ‘Eloy, do you need anything else from me?’

Eloy was somewhere else. He gave Sahil’s question a halfhearted headshake. He seemed to have barely registered it.

‘What’s up?’ Tessa asked.

Eloy let out a sigh that frayed around the edges. ‘I was going to bring this up at the next bay meeting, but you might as well know now. The board’s talking about AIs.’

Sahil looked confused. ‘AIs for what?’

‘For us,’ Eloy said. ‘AIs instead of us.’

‘Wait, what?’ Tessa said.

‘They think it’d do away with the Oxomoco backlog. Sort through everything we’ve been trying to, get it recycled faster, have it done in a fraction of the time, keep it from happening again.’

Tessa laughed. ‘We don’t have the infrastructure for that. Do you have any idea the . . . the heavy duty gear you need to run one of those?’ Her brother had one on his ship, and it was one of the most expensive things he had to maintain. Had to hire a separate tech to look after it and everything. AIs were long-haul stuff, big-creds stuff. There were AIs in the Fleet, sure, but they weren’t the thinking kind. Just public safety systems, the kind who could recognise fire or turn off gravity if you fell a long way. Not the kind that watched everything and were programmed to sound like people. Not the kind that could do a Human job.

Eloy stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged tersely. ‘Yeah, well, apparently labour oversight has been on their ass about our processing times, and the idea’s been floated that the cost of building a . . . I don’t know what the terminology is here – building the shit you’d need to run a bunch of AIs – is less of a pain in the ass than doing things like we do them now. So they say.’

‘That’s . . .’ Tessa shook her head. It was insulting, to say the least. ‘They’re not serious, are they?’

‘I don’t know,’ Eloy said. The words indicated nothing, but the look on his face said he’d be worrying about it.

‘They can’t be,’ Sahil said. ‘There are so many higher-priority projects floating around. They’d never tag the resources for it.’

Tessa stared off into the cargo bay. She remembered, when she’d been in her teens, how M Lok next door had left one morning to go test the oxygen mix and came home that afternoon having been told that, thanks to the new monitoring systems his supervisors were going to install, he wouldn’t need to do it anymore. The job office got him new training and a new profession, of course, but it was a hard switch for a man of forty-five, and all the harder because he didn’t like his new career in aeroponics the way he had his old one. He was still at it, to this day. She wondered if he still thought about taking air samples in life support.

‘Sahil, go home,’ Tessa said. ‘Get some rest.’

‘I had plenty of that already,’ Sahil said with a grim smile.

She laughed. ‘Some real rest.’ She looked to Eloy. ‘And if it’s all the same to you, boss’ – she looked out to the overflowing racks of things people needed, the dormant liftbots awaiting her command – ‘I need to get to work.’

Kip

Kip remembered how to speak, but it took him a minute or two to get there. ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly.

Ras placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Aw, come on,’ he said. ‘Don’t be nervous.’

In front of them stood a doorway like any other. A panel. A frame. Plants and globulbs arcing up around it. But the sign on the door . . . that made all the difference.

THE NOVA ROOM

Age 20 and over

Kip swallowed. His palms started to sweat. This was Ras’ grand plan, why he’d saved up those creds, why he’d found some random modder to help him hack his patch. Ras wanted to go to a tryst club. And being the good dude that he was, he’d brought his best friend along. Kip should’ve felt grateful. He should’ve felt excited – and he did, maybe? But it wasn’t excited like finding a plate of jam cakes in the kitchen or trading in your old clothes for some crisp new ones. This was the other kind of excited. Broken artigrav excited. Rattle in the shuttlecraft wall excited. The kind of excited that occurred when the chances were good that everything would be okay, but you were still going to hold your breath until said okayness was a done deal.

‘I don’t know,’ Kip said again. ‘I— I haven’t showered, I—’

‘They’ve got places you can clean up,’ Ras said.

‘How do you know?’

‘Omar told me. He goes to the one in our district, like, every day.’

Kip looked at his friend, all confidence and smile (and fresh shirt, too). His hair still had too much goo in it, but he at least looked like he belonged in a place like this. Ras’d had sex before – once with Britta, who he couldn’t even be in the same room with now, and lots with Zi before her family moved to Coriol and Ras moped around for, like, ever. Kip had . . . well, Alex had kissed him at that party that one time, and he’d . . . um . . .

He hadn’t.

Ras gave him a friendly slap on the chest. ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna have a good time.’ He strolled through the door, hands in his pockets, looking like he’d done this a million times.

Kip stood frozen. ‘Shit,’ he whispered, and hurried after.

The hallway beyond the door was nice – like, really nice. Little lights, big flowers, and something that smelled awesome. He’d seen places like this in vids and sims and stuff, but this was the real thing, and . . . and stars, he felt out of place. He could feel every stray hair on his chin, every zit on his face. He knew the clubs were a public service and all, but would anybody even want to have sex with him? He thought about the guy he’d seen staring back in the bathroom mirror that morning. That skinny torso. That beard that wasn’t. Nobody would have sex with that.

Ras was already at the front desk, chatting with the receptionist. ‘Two hours each for me and my buddy,’ he was saying. ‘Not together, I mean. We’re not together.’

The receptionist looked between them, squinted, then craned his head toward the patch scanner without taking his eyes away.

Moment of truth. Ras swiped his wrist.

The scanner chirped, and the pixels in front of the receptionist rearranged themselves. His eyes moved as he read, but his face didn’t change. ‘And you?’ the receptionist said, eyes flicking up toward Kip.

Kip felt like he might throw up. He could get in so much trouble, and he wasn’t even sure he wanted to go in, but – but Ras had done this for him, and spent all those creds, and if he just stood there and did nothing, then they’d definitely be in trouble. He swiped his wrist. The scanner chirped. The receptionist read, paused, and smiled.

‘Okay, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some good news for you. Since it’s your first time visiting us, we’ve got an extra special welcome package for you. If you’ll follow me, we’ll set you up with free drinks in the lounge, then send over some of our most requested hosts to take care of you this evening.’

‘Ha! All right!’ Ras said, grinning at Kip.

Kip managed a weak smile. Was this happening? Was this his life?

‘Don’t we need to fill out a survey or something, so you know who to send?’ Ras asked the receptionist. ‘I like ladies, and he—’ He turned to Kip. ‘Which way you wanna go tonight?’

‘We’ll take care of the preference questionnaire in the lounge,’ the receptionist assured him. He stood and gestured toward a door. ‘If you’ll come this way?’

Ras followed the receptionist. Kip followed Ras.

The lounge was, no doubt, the coolest place Kip had ever been to. He turned this way and that as he walked, taking it all in. The ceiling was painted like a sunset – or at least, what he was pretty sure a sunset looked like. There were crazy drinks stuffed with fruit and leaves and flowers, and floating globulbs shining through the dim. There were all kinds of people in there – people alone, people together, people waiting, people headed elsewhere. There were some old people, too, which he hadn’t imagined at all and thought was kind of weird, but all right, okay. At the bar, he saw a super fit dude in a too-tight shirt and perfect trousers murmuring to a lady wearing short-sleeved coveralls like they did down at the farms. The dude touched her hair. He pressed his palm against the small of her back. The woman laughed and ran her hand down the dude’s chest as he whispered, down his stomach, down to – holy shit. She squeezed, and Kip tripped, running into an unseen table, rattling the flowery drinks perched on top, startling the kissing couple on the other side. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Uh – sorry.’

Ras glanced back. What the fuck are you doing? his face said.

Kip hurried after. Cool. He was already looking stupid.

‘Right here, if you would,’ the receptionist said. He held out a gracious palm toward a table next to a fountain with a trio of globulbs slowly dancing above it.

‘Thanks very much,’ Ras said brightly, as if he went to places like this all the time. He sat. Kip joined him. The receptionist left toward the bar. Ras turned toward Kip, triumph written across his face. ‘Worth. Every. Cred.’ He glanced out at the room, and his mouth went slack. ‘Holy hell,’ he said, gaping at a pair of women at the bar. ‘Stars, they’re hot.’ He elbowed Kip. ‘See anybody you like?’

Kip didn’t know how to answer that. He saw lots of people that yeah, he did like the look of, but the idea of having actual sex with any of them was making his foot tap and his mouth dry.

The receptionist came back with a drinks tray. ‘Oh, nice!’ Ras said, and Kip had to agree with the sentiment. The drinks were . . . what even were they?

‘Two tropical twelves,’ the receptionist said, placing a tall, thin glass in front of each of them. Kip inspected the contents – layered greens and yellows, ice spheres that were glowing, a rim of sparkling sugar around the top, a blue and flowery plume crowning the whole thing.

Ras raised his drink. ‘Cheers, buddy.’

They clinked glasses, and sipped. ‘Wow,’ Kip said. Whatever was in a tropical twelve was pretty damn incredible. Kick usually tasted terrible, but there wasn’t anything bitter or rough about this. Just sweet and cool. If it hadn’t come from a bar, Kip would’ve sworn it was just juice.

Ras slapped Kip’s arm. ‘Finally you look like you’re enjoying yourself.’ He took another sip. ‘Damn, that’s good. Seriously, that’s the best drink I’ve ever had.’

The receptionist beamed. ‘I’m so glad. Now, you might have a bit of a wait ahead of you. We’re a little busy tonight. But we’ll send over some snacks, and if you need another round or two, we’ll keep them coming. Just wave at the bartender.’ He turned and waved at the lady behind the bar, who did the same. She was laughing about something. A conversation they couldn’t hear, Kip figured.

‘Thanks very much,’ Ras said. ‘And no worries, we’ve both got free days tomorrow.’

That wasn’t even remotely true. Ras had another round of shuttle licence practice, and Kip had math class. Shit, Kip thought. Did he have practice problems he was supposed to do? If he did, he hadn’t done them. Shit.

But he looked at Ras, leaning back so chill in his chair. He looked at the receptionist, bowing his head to both of them like he was there for no other reason than to make their lives easy. He looked at the fancy drink, the fancy room. He looked at the polished people milling around, leaving in twos or occasional threes, holding hands or other things as they headed down mysterious hallways. Kip set his jaw. Okay. He could do this. He could be Kip Madaki, age 20, drinker of tropical twelves and expert at sex. He could have sex. He was going to have sex. Yeah. Yeah. He ran his hand through his hair, trying to knock it into something . . . good. ‘Do I look okay?’ he asked.

Ras gave him a thumbs-up and a nod. ‘You look real cool.’

‘You sure?’

‘One hundred percent.’

They drank their drinks, ate a bowl of spicy fried peas, got more drinks, and . . . they waited. They waited and waited and waited.

‘Should we go ask what’s up?’ Kip asked.

‘Relax,’ Ras said. ‘He said they were busy.’

More time passed. More drinks were consumed, and more snacks, too. The novelty of the place wore off, and Kip’s worries gave way to boredom. Even Ras looked unimpressed after a while. Two women approached their table. Kip and Ras straightened up. The women passed them by for the next table over, and the boys slumped back down, returning to their drinks. A man headed toward them. They straightened up. He went elsewhere. They slumped. The pattern repeated, again and again. Straighten, slump, sip a drink. Straighten, slump, sip a drink.

The lift at the far end of the room opened, and Kip saw the woman in the farm coveralls walk out. Her hair was different. She was alone. She was smiling.

‘How much longer, do you think?’ Kip asked.

Ras shrugged. Kip could tell he was trying to look casual about it.

Kip swirled his glass. The ice had melted into the last sips, and the cool layers had fallen into each other and gone kinda pale. It didn’t even really taste good anymore. ‘Do you feel drunk?’ he asked. He didn’t feel drunk at all.

Ras shrugged again. ‘I’ve got a high tolerance.’

‘Do you think they forgot about us?’

‘They’ve been bringing us drinks.’

‘Yeah, but like—’

Kip felt a hand drop hard on his shoulder. He saw the same happen to Ras. They turned, and— oh no. Oh no.

‘Fuck,’ Ras groaned.

‘So!’ boomed Ras’ dad, loud enough that half the lounge turned to look. ‘You boys lookin’ to get laid, huh?’

It wasn’t just Ras’ dad. It was his mom, and Kip’s mom, and the swift, cataclysmic end of Kip’s entire life.

Isabel

‘Buzz buzz,’ Tamsin said, sticking her head through the open doorframe.

Isabel looked up over the cacophony of pixel displays and data tables wallpapering the air above her desk. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘What are you doing here?’ Tamsin ambled in, cane in one hand, cloth bag in the other. ‘Did you forget about your other home?’

What time was it? Isabel tapped the control bar on the side of her hud, bringing a clock up. She blinked. How was it twenty-half? She shut her eyes and shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry, I—’ She gestured wordlessly at the desk.

‘I figured,’ Tamsin said. She plunked the bag on the table and herself in a chair. ‘That’s why I brought dinner.’

Isabel peeked into the bag. A couple small storage boxes and a fork lay waiting. ‘You sweetheart,’ she said.

‘Crispy fish, bean salad, and a slice of melon for after. It’s not the best.’ Tamsin leaned back and folded her arms over her belly. ‘It was the Thompsons’ night to cook. You know how Dek is about spices.’

‘You mean, he forgets them?’

Tamsin winked. ‘But, y’know. Food.’ She eyed the pixels. ‘I thought your minions were taking care of things while you’re busy with M Tentacles.’

‘Don’t call her that.’

‘Why? Is she here?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘You’re ignoring my question.’

Isabel sighed. ‘Everybody else has been taking care of things, but there’s a question of recategorising that’s come up.’

‘Oh, stars,’ Tamsin said knowingly. ‘Uh oh.’

If you were to ask someone of another profession what archivists spent the most time fretting about, the assumption might’ve been restoring old corrupted files, or maintaining backup systems. But no. No, there was nothing nearer and dearer to the average archivist’s heart than categorising, and it seemed like every standard an argument broke out over some file that belonged to too many categories, or too few, or some visitor who hadn’t found what they were looking for because the tags weren’t responsive or efficient or thorough enough, and nobody could get anything done until the matter of everything being in the right place was settled. Isabel opened her mouth, about to detail the issue – this one had to do with Earthen historical eras, which was always a thorny thing to delineate – but she took one look at Tamsin and changed her mind. Her wife’s face was one of look interested at all costs, and she appeared to be bracing herself for an onslaught of archival minutiae. ‘I’ll spare you the details,’ Isabel said.

Tamsin smiled. ‘Big project,’ she suggested.

‘Big project,’ Isabel confirmed.

‘The kind of thing you’re gonna get done in one night?’

The projected data tables stared imposingly down at Isabel. ‘No,’ she sighed, tucking an errant lock behind her ear. ‘No, I suppose not.’

Tamsin cocked her head. ‘I kinda miss you at home.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Isabel said. ‘She’ll only be here for a few more tendays, and then—’

‘No, no.’ Tamsin put up her hand. ‘What you’re doing with M— with Ghuh’loloan is good, and I know you’re excited about it. And I know this kind of thing’ – she pointed to the desk – ‘is your thing, and that it’s important. I care. It’s good. You’re doing cool stuff. But, also, I miss you.’

Isabel reached her foot beneath her desk and found one of Tamsin’s. ‘I miss you, too.’

Tamsin scrunched her lips so high, they nearly touched her nose. ‘Wanna go do the Sunside?’

The suggestion came from out of nowhere and was the last thing Isabel expected to hear that day. She couldn’t help but laugh.

‘Come on,’ Tamsin said with a grin. ‘I’m serious. We could make the night flight if we go right now.’

‘We haven’t done that in ages.’

‘And?’

‘And I’m still working.’

‘And?’

‘And you just brought me dinner.’

‘Psh,’ Tamsin said, narrowing her eyes. ‘Put it in the stasie, have it for lunch. I’ll get you a stuffer on the way.’ She patted the side of her jacket. ‘I got a whole pocket of trade, and all you’ve got is weak excuses.’ Her grin spread wider. Every line in her face took part.

Isabel was incredulous, but enchanted, too. The latter won out. ‘All right,’ she said, throwing up her hands. ‘All right, let’s go.’

‘Ha!’ Tamsin said, clapping her hands together and collecting her cane. ‘I thought you’d punk out on me.’ She extended her hand once she’d made it to her feet. Isabel took it without even thinking. The best kind of habit.

‘Deshi,’ Isabel called as they left her office. The junior archivist looked up from his desk. ‘Please let everyone know I’m leaving the pre-spaceflight project until tomorrow. I’m—’

‘She’s being kidnapped,’ Tamsin said, marching them toward the exit. ‘Better call patrol.’

Deshi laughed and nodded. ‘I dunno, M,’ he said. ‘I saw the one who did it, and she looked like bad news.’

Tamsin gave a deep, short chuckle. ‘Smart man,’ she said. She gave him a threatening squint worthy of any festival actor. ‘Nobody likes snitches.’

Isabel rolled her eyes. ‘Have a good night,’ she said.

They made their way to the shuttledock as the globulbs began to dim. They made a short stop at the closest marketplace, where Tamsin made good on her word and traded a round of striped ribbon for two big pocket stuffers – toasted golden on the outside, packed with spicy shreds of red coaster meat and sweet onions. Isabel’s stomach growled in anticipation as she raised it to her mouth. It was hardly a balanced meal, and had she seen any of her grandkids trying to argue the same for dinner, she’d have foisted a few vegetables on them first. But stars, it was good. The dough crunched at first bite, then bloomed into airy fluff, then gave way to the fiery centrepiece. Perfect.

She glanced over at Tamsin, who tore into her own stuffer as they walked. ‘Did you not have dinner?’ Isabel asked.

Tamsin swallowed. ‘’Course I did,’ she said. ‘But why should you be the only one to benefit from my good idea?’ She took a large bite, mmm-ing appreciatively.

They continued their walk, relaying the events of the day between bites of bun until they arrived at their destination. The shuttledock stretched out before them, less crowded than in earlier hours. Beyond the entryway, a team of sanitation volunteers swept the floor, gaining nods and thank yous and short bursts of applause from the few passersby.

‘Hi there.’ A dock attendant appeared – a young teen, probably new to the job. He was short and well-groomed, and his polite alertness made it apparent that he took his role seriously. ‘Can I help you find any particular vessel?’

‘Have we missed the Sunside?’ Tamsin asked.

The kid looked surprised, but recovered quickly. ‘Let me check, M.’ His eyes darted and blinked with practised purpose as he accessed information on his hud. ‘You’ve still got time. Leaves in ten minutes.’ He looked between the two old women before him, a slight anxiety creeping in. ‘Have you done the Sunside before?’

Tamsin tsked. ‘Kid, I was there for the first Sunside.’ She smiled wickedly. ‘And that was before they put in seatbelts.’

That last detail wasn’t a bit true, but Isabel didn’t dare call her out. The look on the kid’s face was too hilarious. She leaned in. ‘Is it still dock thirty-seven?’

The attendant gave a smart nod. ‘Dock thirty-seven, yes, M.’ He pointed the way with a flat, business-like hand. Isabel could feel him watching them leave with the air of someone who’d had their sense of balance thrown slightly askew. She couldn’t help but smirk. Tamsin had always had a flair for ruffling strangers.

Dock thirty-seven was empty, save for the skiff waiting at the ready and a young woman leaning against the safety rail outside, playing a pixel game on her scrib. She was the pilot, as the multiple certification patches stitched onto her jacket indicated, and her uniformed appearance was every bit that of her profession, from her practical bamboo-fibre slacks to the resource-heavy boots that had probably belonged to another pair of feet first. But there were other details that would’ve been out of place on a pilot back when Isabel had been her age. The hypnotically shifting bot tattoos that danced up and down her forearms, for one. The thick Aandrisk-style swirls painted on her nails. The tiny glittering tech ports embedded near her temples, whose purpose Isabel could only guess at. She was an Exodan pilot, yes. But also . . . more.

The pilot glanced up as Isabel and Tamsin approached. ‘Hey, M Itoh and M Itoh!’ she said. ‘How’s it going?’

Isabel didn’t know the girl well, but she knew her name, that she was from neighbourhood five, and that she sometimes came into the Archives to look at records of old Earth architecture. Isabel had done the naming ceremony for her niece earlier that standard. ‘Hello, Kiku,’ she said warmly. ‘Are you our pilot this evening?’

Kiku looked delighted. ‘You two here for the Sunside?’

‘It appears that way,’ Isabel said, throwing a look in Tamsin’s direction.

Tamsin looked around the empty walkway. ‘Do we have it to ourselves?’ she asked, pleased with the possibility.

Kiku switched off her game, and the pixels scattered away. ‘Not many folks go for a night flight on a work night,’ she said, holstering her scrib and stepping toward the shuttle door. ‘Just kids on dates, mostly.’ She winked at them, and politely gestured toward the door. ‘Come on in.’

The shuttle had six pairs of passenger seats in a straight line, and a clear, domed roof that began at seat level and arched all the way around. Walking through the door, you could tell the roof was as thick and sturdy as any bulkhead, but sitting next to it, you’d never know it was there.

‘Anywhere you’d like,’ Kiku said.

‘What about that one?’ Tamsin pointed at the pilot seat, serious as could be.

Kiku played right along. ‘Can’t have that one,’ she said without cracking a smile.

‘You sure?’

‘Super sure.’

‘Tsk,’ Tamsin said, shaking her head. ‘Well, this was a bust.’ She started to head back toward the door, then chuckled, scrunched her nose at Kiku, and picked the second row behind the pilot’s seat. Far enough to not be crowding the pilot, but close enough to give her a hard time.

Kiku started her prep, and Isabel took the seat beside her wife. Tamsin leaned over, speaking in a low whisper. ‘Y’know, if she’s used to kids on dates, I bet she won’t mind if we make out.’

Isabel smothered a laugh and slapped Tamsin’s leg. ‘We’d traumatise the poor kid.’

‘What? No. We’re gorgeous.’ Her eyes narrowed in thought. ‘Didn’t we make out on the Sunside once?’

A very old memory dusted itself off: a pair of women, younger than their pilot was now, drunk on bartered kick and eyes full of nothing but the other, cosied up in the back row of a shuttle as if no one else was there. ‘That was the ferry, not the Sunside,’ Isabel said.

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Okay. You’re the archivist.’

Isabel leaned a little closer. ‘How would you make out on the Sunside anyway? You’d knock your teeth in.’

Her wife snorted. ‘But if you didn’t, you’d be a legend. I’m surprised that’s not a thing.’

‘What? Go to town as long as you can without needing medical attention?’

‘Yeah,’ Tamsin laughed heartily. ‘The Sunside challenge.’

The sounds of conspiratorial merriment made Kiku look back. ‘You two gonna be trouble?’

Tamsin sat up straight and folded her hands across her lap. ‘No way, M,’ she said, like a school kid caught with cheat codes. ‘No trouble here.’

‘Mmm-hmm,’ the pilot said, returning to her switches and buttons.

Isabel reached over and held Tamsin’s hand. ‘No trouble from me, anyway,’ she said.

‘Traitor,’ Tamsin said. She gave her fingers an affectionate squeeze.

Kiku slipped on a navigation hud. ‘Oh,’ Isabel said. She reached up to her face, remembering that she’d been wearing her own hud since work. She removed it, and gave Tamsin a facetious glare as she slipped the device into a pocket. ‘How long were you going to let me run around wearing this?’

Tamsin shrugged. ‘Until now, I guess.’

The engines outside whirred, their ion jets starting to glow. ‘All right,’ the pilot said. ‘Everybody ready?’ She paused. ‘I assume you two don’t need the safety lecture, yeah?’

Tamsin tugged on her fastened seat restraint in response. ‘Sit down, strap in, hang on.’

‘And let the pilot do her job,’ Isabel added.

Kiku pointed a finger back toward Isabel as she began to pull out from dock. ‘I like that bit,’ she said. ‘I’m adding that bit.’ She switched and pressed and made adjustments. ‘You two want grav or nah?’

Isabel raised her eyebrows. ‘You’re allowed to switch it off?’

Kiku gave a mischievous shrug. ‘Not officially.’

‘We’ll stick with grav,’ Tamsin said. ‘I like to feel like I’m actually upside down.’

‘You got it,’ Kiku said. She leaned into the vox. ‘Sunside One, requesting a spot in line.’

‘Granted, Sunside One,’ the traffic controller replied. ‘Have fun.’

The skiff pulled out and headed for the nearest airlock exit. A queue of private shuttles and long-haul transports each waited their turn. ‘It’ll be about half an hour until we reach the course,’ Kiku said, easing into the queue. ‘So just kick back and relax.’ She took a hand away from the controls and dug around in a storage box strapped to the side of her seat. ‘Either of you like salt toffee?’

Tamsin and Isabel spoke in tandem: ‘Yes.’ Kiku grinned, retrieved a tin, and gestured at her controls. A cleanerbot deployed itself from its dock in the corner of the craft, its tiny stabiliser jets firing friendly green. It hummed over to Kiku, who balanced the tin on its flat housing. ‘Second row,’ she commanded, and the bot complied, uncaring of the extra cargo.

‘Now that’s a creative use for a cleanerbot,’ Tamsin said, retrieving the tin from the idling machine.

‘Works, yeah?’ Kiku said.

‘Sure does.’ Tamsin looked at Isabel as she opened the tin. ‘I’m never getting up to fetch you something ever again.’

The queue moved forward without much wait, and the skiff entered the airlock. One gate slid shut behind them, another opened ahead. Metal made way for space and starlight. Tamsin held her hand a little tighter, and Isabel didn’t need to look at her to know she was smiling. She shared the feeling. The open was always beautiful.

And so they made their way to that old classic: the Sunside Joyride. A break-neck, full-throttle, sun-facing jaunt through whichever designated patch of rock the Fleet was orbiting closest to. A just-for-fun extravagance unveiled after GC citizenship expanded trade routes, and maintained by private donations after it became obvious that resources weren’t as freely flowing as hoped. The courses were safe, obviously. They were mapped out well in advance, and every rock was equipped with proximity alarms and backup proximity alarms and stabilisation thrusters that kept them from straying into the track. The pilots were exhaustively trained, and traffic control back home watched their every move on the tracking map. But none of that changed the way it felt to be strapped into a small craft, looping and leaping in three dimensions, the clear wall around you playing the convincing trick that there was nothing between you and open sky. Some people hated it. Some people tried it once and decided they preferred keeping their lunch down.

Some people were no fun.

‘What course are we hitting tonight?’ Isabel asked.

‘The Ten-Drop Twister,’ Kiku said.

Tamsin looked at Isabel. ‘I don’t remember that one.’

‘It’s new,’ Kiku said. ‘Replaced the Devil Dive.’

‘Aw, really? That one was great.’

The pilot nodded with sympathetic agreement. ‘Yeah, but they found tungsten in that one.’

‘Hard to argue that,’ said Tamsin.

‘Don’t worry,’ Kiku said. She put on a pair of pilot’s gloves, the kind you only wore for manual control. Isabel’s heart raced with anticipation. ‘The Ten-Drop’s a real kick in the pants. You won’t be disappointed.’

The skiff pulled up to an asteroid patch, filled with tell-tale lights and markers. A big circle of light buoys wreathed the entrance point, blinking in an assortment of colours. Kiku activated her hud. The engines burned loud and hot. ‘You two strapped in?’

Isabel tugged on her restraints, and her wife did the same. This had scared Tamsin the first time, Isabel remembered. She remembered a row of painful semi-circles embedded in her palm, where Tamsin had gripped tightly in fear. She remembered rubbing her then-girlfriend’s back as she threw up on the dock the second they left the skiff. And she remembered the next day, when she awoke to find Tamsin’s open eyes looking back from the pillow beside her, a who-cares grin in her voice as she asked Isabel if she wanted to go again.

Isabel had. From then on, if Tamsin was there, she’d be right alongside.

The engines roared, and the skiff ripped forward. ‘Ohhhhhh nooooo!’ Tamsin yelled, the last vowels blooming into a cackling yelp. Isabel yelled too, a screaming, living laugh as their skiff ducked and slid and jived.

‘Faster!’ Tamsin called.

‘Faster!’ Isabel echoed.

From behind, Isabel could see Kiku’s cheeks pull into a huge smile. ‘You got it,’ she said, and they went faster, louder, upside down and circling sharp. Giant rocks floated beyond the windowed walls, looming one moment, then behind them in a blink. Stars flew by in a confettied blur. Tamsin was laughing so hard she was crying, and it was impossible not to laugh along. Isabel could feel nothing but motion, joy, heartbeat. It was as good as it’d been the first time, as good as it had always been. She shut her eyes, and she cheered.

Eyas

A canyon rose up around her, arches crumbling and rocks stained red. The sky was so far away, a swath of intangible blue beyond the grass-tufted clifftops. Below, birds nested in whatever cracks and crevices they could find. They darted around the shady space with breathtaking speed, turning to catch beakfuls of the insects that filled the hot air.

Presumably hot air, that is. The theatre did not include sensory input beyond sound and sight. This wasn’t a sim. The theatre pre-dated that technology – or, to put it more accurately, pre-dated contact with species willing to share that technology. Every Exodan district had a theatre, and they still used the same antiquated tech, patched up a thousand times over, and the same recordings, taken by Eyas’ ancestors’ ancestors when it became clear that collapse was unavoidable. It was an old tradition, viewing the last scraps of a living Earth. There had been a time when going to the theatre was something you did every tenday – every week, then – or more. Every day, for some. You and your hexmates put on comfortable clothes, you brought some floor pillows, and you sat alongside other families on the floor beneath the projector dome, surrounded by all-encompassing images of a canyon, a beach, a forest. It was time made for reflection, for reminding. People laughed, sometimes, or wept, or sang quietly, or had whispered conversations. Anything beyond that was frowned upon. The theatre was a sacred place. A quiet place, even when any given day found it packed from end to end.

Eyas had never seen a theatre that crowded. The need to acquaint oneself with what a planet looked like had faded more with each generation after the real thing had been found. She’d never seen more than ten people in a theatre at once, and not all the theatres were in use anymore. They weren’t a vital system, and they didn’t get resource priority unless the surrounding district voted otherwise. Hers always had. Eyas sympathised with people who wanted their stores to go to more practical uses, but she was glad the majority of her neighbours shared her view that practicality became dreary if you didn’t balance it out properly.

Her primary reasoning for loving the theatre was selfish, and she knew it. She could’ve cited tradition and culture – and no one would’ve questioned her, given that her work embodied said same – but no, Eyas was glad to have a functional theatre nearby because it was one of the few places she could just think. Her work might’ve seemed quiet to some, but there were always families involved, and supervisory meetings like everyone else had. And even on the days when her only company was someone dead, she was focused on the task at hand. As for home – home was a place of rest, sure, but more chiefly distraction. Chores to do, friends to chat with, conversations leaking through closed doors. There weren’t many places in the Fleet you could be alone. While she very much enjoyed being around the living, sometimes her own thoughts were noise enough. The theatre wasn’t private. It was as public as could be. But it was a different kind of public, the kind of place where you could be alone around others.

She lay down on the floor, resting her head against the cushion she’d brought from home. The ghost of a wind rustled the scrappy canyon plantlife, and she imagined she could feel it coasting over her skin. She had no strong yearnings for wind and sky, but they were fun to think of anyway. Imagine: the intense vulnerability of an unshielded space. The wild chaos of atmosphere. Such thoughts were soothing and thrilling in equal measure.

Eyas folded her hands over her stomach, letting them rise and fall with each breath. She let her mind drift. She thought about the laundry she needed to do at home. She thought about her mother, and knew she should summon the fortitude to visit her one day soon. She thought about Sunny, and a hidden place inside her kicked with remembrance. She thought about dinner, and her empty stomach growled. She thought about work the next day, and she felt . . . she felt . . . she wasn’t sure.

She shifted her weight, the floor now less comfortable than it had been a few breaths before. There it was again – that tiredness, that nameless tiredness. It wasn’t lack of sleep, or overwork, or because anything was wrong. Nothing was wrong. She was healthy. She had a good home with good friends, and a full belly when she remembered to feed it. She had the profession she’d wanted since she was a little girl, and it was a valuable thing, a meaningful thing, a thing she believed in with all her heart. She’d worked hard for that. She had the life she’d always wanted, the life she’d set out to build.

Maybe . . . maybe that was the problem. So many years of training and study, always striving, always chasing the ideal at the end of the road. She’d reached that end by now. She had everything she’d set out to do. So now . . . what? What came next? Maintaining things as-is? Do well, be consistent, keep things up for however long she had?

She pressed her back into the metal floor, and felt the faint, faint purr of mechanical systems working below. She thought of the Asteria, orbiting endlessly with its siblings around an alien sun, around and around and around. Holding steady. Searching no more. How long would it stay like that? Until the last ship finally failed? Until the last Exodan left for rocky ground? Until the sun went nova? Was there any future for the Fleet that did not involve keeping to the same pattern, the same track, day after day after day until something went wrong? Was there any day for her that would not involve the same schedule, the same faces, the same tasks? What was better – a constant safeness that never grew and never changed, or a life of reaching, building, striving, even though you knew you’d never be completely satisfied?

A bang broke the stillness, startling everyone present. The canyon gave a seizing shake, froze, and went dark. The audience collectively held their breath. Someone turned on a handlight and ran around the theatre’s edge.

‘Sorry, folks,’ the theatre attendant called out, to a chorus of disappointment (but also, relief). ‘Looks like we’ve bust a projector. I’ll get the techs up here right now.’

Eyas got to her feet and picked up her pillow, knowing maintenance had a thousand more important things to fix right now. Besides, her stomach was growling louder. She’d never solve anything hungry.

Kip

This was, hands down, the worst night of Kip’s life.

He sat in the living room, opposite his parents at the low table. Grandma Ko was doing whatever in the background. Messing with plants. He didn’t care.

‘We’re not mad, Kip,’ Dad said.

‘I’m mad,’ Mom said. She stirred a steaming mug of tea.

‘Okay, your mom’s mad. I think it’d be a good idea—’

‘No, wait, he needs to understand why he’s in trouble.’ She set down her spoon. ‘It’s not because you went to a club. It’s really important that you understand that.’

‘That’s right.’ Dad did that dorky pointing thing with his index finger that he always did when he thought he was saying something smart. ‘We’re not mad because you wanted to have sex.’

Kip would’ve given anything in that moment – anything – for an oxygen leak, a stray satellite, a wormhole punched in the wrong place. Anything that would swallow him up and bring a merciful end to this conversation.

But instead, Mom kept talking. ‘That part’s okay. That’s normal.’

‘Absolutely,’ Dad said. ‘I remember what it was like to have all those hormones going around, all those urges – I couldn’t stay out of the clubs when I turned twenty.’

‘Me neither,’ Mom said. ‘Twice a day, sometimes.’

Kip buried his face in his hands. ‘Can we . . . maybe . . . not?’

Grandma Ko looked over from her plants and laughed. ‘It’s not like you and your friends invented sex, kiddo,’ she said. She pointed back and forth between his parents with her gardening clippers. ‘You wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

A rogue comet. A Rosk battlecruiser. A face-eating alien plague. Anything.

‘The reason you’re in trouble,’ Dad said, ‘is because you lied and you broke the rules.’

‘He broke the law, Alton,’ Mom said. ‘Not just Fleet law. GC law.’ She looked at Kip with that look that meant the next tenday or so was really going to suck. He could already picture the lengthy list of chores that was going to appear on his scrib after this. ‘The only reason you’re talking with us and not a patroller right now is because that host at the club cut you and Ras a break. Tampering with your patch is not a joke, Kip.’

‘I know,’ Kip mumbled. The faster he agreed with them, the faster this might be over.

‘That hack you boys used could’ve uploaded anything. It could’ve carried a virus that messed with your bots. You know that’s what happened to those people on the Newet, right?’

‘I know, Mom.’

‘One person went to an unlicensed mod vendor, and the next thing you know—’

‘My patch is fine,’ Kip said. ‘You made me scan it, like, five times.’

‘That’s not the point,’ Mom said. ‘The point is, you did something illegal and dangerous. You got lucky.’

‘Not in the way he was hoping,’ Grandma Ko laughed.

‘Grandma,’ Mom said. ‘Please.’

Grandma Ko put up her hands in surrender and kept working.

‘Tika lu, okay?’ Kip said.

The look on Mom’s face somehow got even frostier. ‘In Ensk.’

Oh, stars, was she really going to get on his ass about that? Fine. Fine, whatever it took to get him out of there. ‘I’m sorry. All right? I don’t know how many times you want me to say I’m sorry.’

‘We know you’re sorry,’ Dad said, ‘and we also know you want to get out of here. But you need to know the score, son.’

‘I get it,’ Kip sighed. ‘I do, okay? I get it.’

Mom tapped her fingers against her mug. ‘When do you start your next job trial?’

Ah, shit, Kip thought. He mumbled a response under his breath.

‘What was that?’

‘I haven’t signed up for one yet.’

The look on Mom’s face got worse. Kip could see three more to-dos being added to his list. ‘You were supposed to sign up for another before your last one ended,’ she said.

‘I forgot.’

‘Kip, we talked about this,’ Dad said.

‘Okay, so, first thing tomorrow, you’re signing up for a job trial,’ Mom said. ‘And until it starts, you come straight home after school so you can help your hex. No sims, no cafes, no hanging out wherever it is you hang out. There are a lot of projects in the neighbourhood that need some extra hands right now.’

Kip reeled. ‘But I probably won’t start another trial for a tenday.’

‘Yep,’ Mom said.

No way. No way. ‘That’s not fair!’

‘You’re home instead of in detention. You don’t get to complain about fair right now.’

Dad put his hands flat on the table. ‘All we’re asking is for you to clear your head and get focused,’ he said, his voice irritatingly mellow. He often did this thing where he wanted to sound all reasonable and cool even though he was just agreeing with Mom. It drove Kip nuts.

He tried to negotiate. ‘Ras and I are going to the waterball game on second day. We have plans.’

Mom’s mouth tightened. ‘We think a break from Ras might be a good idea, too.’

That did it. Kip exploded. ‘This wasn’t his fault!’ he said. It was totally Ras’ fault, but that wasn’t the point. ‘Stars, you guys are always hating on him.’

‘I don’t hate Ras,’ Mom said. ‘I’m just not sure he’s—’ She looked up at the ceiling, thinking. ‘It’d be wise for you both to take some time to think about the kinds of choices you’ve been making.’

‘This is bullshit,’ Kip muttered.

‘Hey,’ Dad said.

‘No, it is,’ Kip said, getting louder. ‘It is bullshit. Look, I’m sorry I messed up tonight, but the only – the only reason I went along – the only reason we went there is because there’s nothing to do. It sucks here. What am I supposed to do? Go to school, do chores, learn how to do a job that’s basically more chores?’

‘Kip—’

‘And now you don’t even want me to have friends.’

‘Oh, come on, Kip.’ Mom rolled her eyes.

‘Of course we want you to have friends,’ Dad said. ‘We just want you to have friends that bring out the best in you.’

‘You guys don’t understand,’ Kip said. ‘You don’t understand at all.’ He pushed away from the table and walked off.

‘Hey, we’re not done,’ Mom said.

‘I’m done,’ Kip said. He went into his room and punched the door switch behind him.

‘Kip,’ Dad called through the metal wall.

Kip ignored him. Stars, fuck this place. Fuck these stupid rules and stupid jobs and fuck being sixteen. He was getting out. The day – no, the second, the very second the clock hit his twentieth birthday, he was hopping on a transport, and he’d be gone, university or not. He’d find a job somewhere. He didn’t care where or what. Anything was better than this. Anything was better than Mom’s lists and Dad’s stupid voice. Anything was better than here.

Behind his door, he could hear them still talking. Kip knew listening in would only make him madder, but he put his ear up anyway.

‘Maybe I should go talk to him,’ Dad said. ‘Y’know, just me and him.’

‘He doesn’t want to talk to either of us,’ Mom said. ‘Or were you not here for this conversation?’

‘But—’

‘Let him be,’ Grandma Ko said.

Mom sighed. ‘He’s so impossible right now.’

‘Yes, well,’ Grandma Ko said. ‘You were a dipshit at that age, too.’

Kip snorted. ‘Love you too, Grandma,’ he grumbled. He flopped down onto his bed and buried his face in his pillow, wishing he could erase the entire day. Dammit, Ras, he thought, but he wasn’t mad at him. Well . . . kind of. But not, like, a forever kind of mad. He knew Ras hadn’t meant for it to go wrong.

He rolled over onto his side and groaned. Seriously. Zero hour on day 23, standard 310. Once that hit, he was out.

Sawyer

‘Nervous?’ Oates asked as they headed down the walkway.

Sawyer gave a sheepish smile. ‘It’s a job interview. Have you ever not been nervous at one?’

Oates chuckled and clapped Sawyer’s shoulder with his mech hand. ‘Don’t worry. The boss is gonna love you. I mean, unless she hates you.’ He winked. ‘She’ll tell it to you straight if she does.’

They continued along. Ships of varied size coasted slowly by. The shuttledock was a complicated stack of layers and levels, all built over a century prior, once Exodans found themselves with other places to go. Sawyer felt as if he were standing in the middle of the sea, watching creatures migrate past – little lively ones, modest middling beasts, and ponderous behemoths everything else made way for. He remembered his mom taking him to the planetside docks on Mushtullo, making up stories about where each ship had gone and was going. The memory came with a familiar sting, but it was a hurt he’d long ago learned to shelve.

Oates led him to a dock designated for mid-size ships – merchant vessels and small cargo, mostly. They walked past thick bulkheads, slim atmospheric fins, hand-hacked tech upgrades, every design as different as the last. Sawyer eyed the names with enjoyment. Out of the Open. Take-A-Chance. Good Friend. Quick and Easy. The Better Side of Valour.

‘Here we are.’ Oates gestured Sawyer ahead. ‘Home sweet home.’

Sawyer looked up at a nondescript freighter – dull grey plating, big engine, somewhat rough around the edges. It wasn’t as flashy or added-to as some. It didn’t stand out. But to Sawyer, that was a good thing. Flashy tech would’ve been intimidating, and too much of a penchant for modding would’ve worried him. This ship appeared solid, functional, and looked-after. All you wanted in a spacecraft, really.

He spotted the ship’s registry info, printed by the open entry hatch.

THE SILVER LINING

Registration No. 33-1246

Asteria, Exodus Fleet

‘Do you live on this ship?’ Sawyer asked.

‘Pretty much,’ Oates said. He walked through the hatch; Sawyer followed. ‘I see my folks when we’re docked, but it’s easier to keep all your stuff in one place, y’know? Nyx, though – that’s our pilot – she splits her time between this home and a home-home. Her ex’s hex. They hate each other, but they’ve got a kid, so. Y’know. You don’t have kids, right?’

‘Uh, no,’ Sawyer said. He ducked, avoiding a low string of festival flags stretched across a doorway. The internal structure of the Silver Lining was as standard as the outside suggested, but it was crammed to the gills with crates, boxes, and barrels, sealed and stamped with the same multilingual export permits you’d find on any goods that had to cross a territory or two. On top of that, this ship was unmistakably a home, with all the weird decor and knick-knacks that implied. There were pixel posters of musical acts he’d never heard of, globulb strands wrapped around doorways, failing herbs planted in old snack tins and struggling up toward a grow lamp. It wasn’t a mess, exactly, but it was a lot. ‘What do you guys trade in?’

‘Oh, a little of this, a little of that. We’re not picky. If it’ll fetch good creds, we’ll haul it.’ He rounded a corner, and ran smack into the tallest, burliest woman Sawyer had ever seen.

Whoa, Sawyer thought. Was this the boss? Was this who he’d have to impress?

‘Whoops!’ Oates said with a laugh. ‘Sorry about that, Dory.’

Dory squinted wordlessly at him with her one organic eye. The plex lens in the other audibly clicked into focus. Her head was only about a hand’s length away from the ceiling, and her broad arms looked as though they resented what short amount of sleeve they’d had to push themselves through. Sawyer waited for her to smile, to offer her own cheerful apology, to do something resembling friendly Human behaviour. But no, instead, she moved her eye – and only her eye – to Sawyer. The squint evolved into a full frown.

‘This is Sawyer,’ Oates said. ‘He’s here about our empty spot. Sawyer, this is Dory. She’s terrifying.’

Dory let out . . . not so much a laugh, but a short chuff. And that was it. She pushed past them and continued on her way.

‘A real bundle of sunshine,’ Oates said. ‘Come on, let’s find some better company.’ He went a short way further, and they entered a kitchen. Three people were present there, two in conversation across a table. A clean-shaven man leaned against a storage cabinet, eating a large jam cake. He, too, was broad and muscled, but something about his stature – or maybe the sticky pastry he held – made him look far more approachable than his one-eyed crewmate. He nodded congenially at Oates, then continued to watch as the other two spoke.

‘You said nine hundred last time,’ one said in a testy tone. She was around Sawyer’s age – twenty, tops, he guessed.

The other was at least twice that, and cool as rain in her reply. ‘Last time, you brought me better merchandise. Nine hundred is what you get for quality. Not for this.’ She gestured dismissively at an opened box on the table between them.

Sawyer no longer wondered who was in charge here.

‘That’s not fair,’ the girl said. ‘We made a deal.’

‘Yes, and you’re the one who isn’t delivering, Una, not me. You can either take three hundred a pop now, or come back with something better. Or find another buyer, if you really feel you’re being treated unfairly.’ Her eyes flicked over to Sawyer and Oates. ‘My next meeting is here, so I’ll let you settle this with Len.’ She gestured to the cake-eating man. ‘He’ll let me know your decision.’

The man – Len, apparently – folded the last of his pastry into his mouth, brushed the crumbs from his hands with a neat one-two, and stepped forward to escort the young woman elsewhere. The woman sulked, but she grabbed her box of . . . whatever it was, and followed.

The boss put her hands on her hips and sighed at Sawyer with the sort of knowing smile he might expect if they’d already met. ‘Business,’ she said. She waved him over. ‘You must be Sawyer.’

Sawyer approached the table. ‘And you must be the boss.’

She laughed – a rich, honest sound. ‘Muriel,’ she said. She looked to Oates. ‘I like this one already.’ She made a short tipping gesture toward her mouth as a means of request. Oates went about fetching some mugs. ‘I have to say, it’s a trip hearing that accent on this side of the galaxy. Central space, Oates said?’

‘That’s right.’ Sawyer took a seat. ‘Mushtullo.’

‘I haven’t been myself, but I have a friend who’s done business there. A bit rough, is what I heard.’

The words came across as a question. ‘A bit,’ Sawyer answered.

Muriel leaned back in her chair. ‘So. You’re here after Livia’s job.’

Sawyer was confused. ‘Sorry, I don’t—’

Oates leaned over from the counter, where he was pouring water from a kettle. ‘I don’t think I mentioned Livia.’

‘Ah,’ Muriel said. ‘Livia was – let me back up. How much has Oates already told you about this job?’

‘I know it’s a salvage job,’ Sawyer said. ‘Recovering scrap, that kind of thing.’

Muriel gave a thoughtful nod. Despite her friendly demeanor, Sawyer couldn’t help but feel that every word that left his mouth was being weighed, measured, and scored. ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘And the trick with wrecked ships is, sometimes both they and their cargo pose challenges that require a bit of code.’ She turned her palm to Sawyer, silently adding: and that’s why you’re here.

Oates handed both her and Sawyer a mug overflowing with spicy steam. ‘Thanks,’ Sawyer said, setting it down before his fingers scalded. ‘What kind of challenges?’

‘Let’s say . . .’ Muriel considered. ‘Let’s say we’re talking about a cargo ship. Medical supplies, going from here to there. Now, any merchant worth xyr salt is gonna have xyr crates locked up, and xe’s not going to hand over the key code until creds are exchanged. But our poor merchant met the mean side of an asteroid patch, and now xe and xyr crew are dead, and nobody knows the cargo key.’

‘Ah.’ Sawyer got it. ‘You need somebody who can open doors so the rest of you can do your job.’

‘Bingo. Because otherwise, nobody can get those goods to where they were going.’

‘I see.’ This sounded like kind of a cool job, now that Sawyer thought about it. Opening doors, salvaging goods, making sure nothing went to waste. Nothing went to waste in the Fleet.

‘So Livia.’ Muriel’s eyes rolled. ‘She did stupid during our last planet stop.’ She waved her hand. ‘Not worth getting into. Kick and poor decisions. Anyway, her dumb ass is now in an Aandrisk jail, and I’m stuck here without a comp tech.’ She sighed at Oates.

‘I hear Aandrisk jails are nice,’ Oates said over the rim of his mug. ‘Y’know, far as jails go.’

‘She doesn’t deserve it,’ Muriel said dryly.

A flicker of concern shot through Sawyer. ‘Just to be totally up front,’ he said, ‘I’m not a comp tech. I’m not certified or anything, and I don’t have a ton of experience. I just know mid-level Tinker.’

‘So Oates told me,’ Muriel said. ‘Though I appreciate your honesty. Certifications don’t concern me. What I care about is skill, and a willingness to learn. You have a scrib on you?’

Sawyer reached for his holster. ‘Yeah.’

Muriel reached elsewhere, and came back with a lockbox. ‘Think you could get this open?’ She slid the box across the table.

Sawyer picked up the box and wet his lips. ‘I’ve never done locks before.’

‘What have you done?’

‘Input pads, gesture relays, that kind of thing.’

Muriel looked less than impressed, but she shrugged and tossed over a tethering cable. ‘Hook it up, take a look. And take your time thinking about it.’ She blew over the top of her tea. ‘I’m in no rush.’

You can do this, Sawyer thought. He connected scrib to cable and cable to lock jack. He gestured at his scrib, and a flurry of code appeared. All right, he thought. He spoke this language. He understood these puzzles. If, then. He scrolled through, minutes ticking by. Every second that passed pressed down on his neck. He could feel Muriel watching him as she sipped her cooling tea. He wondered if this was part of the test, too, if he was taking too long, if the bit of sweat forming on his brow was giving her second thoughts. But all he could do was his best. He’d been honest with her. He had to expect the same. She said take time to think about it, so he did. It was, in a way, not too different than his trips to the commerce square back home, demonstrating his skills for judgey Harmagians, impressing by doing rather than writing the right words. Only, this was so much better. This wasn’t a judgey Harmagian watching him work. This was a cool lady and a nice guy who were as Human as he was and didn’t hold it against him. These were people who wanted him to succeed. His nerve steadied as he realised that, and, at last, words and strings began to reveal themselves to him.

Sawyer pieced the logic together. He tweaked here, added there.

The box stayed shut.

He glanced up. Muriel was nearly through her mug of tea. Shit.

He grit his teeth, and he wrote, and he read, and he wrote some more, and—

There was a sound – a dull click. It wasn’t much of a sound, but to Sawyer, it was sweet victory. He pulled the lid open and swung its empty inside around to Muriel.

The boss nodded with a quiet smile. ‘Found him outside the job office?’ she said to Oates.

Oates gave a happy shrug. ‘It’s a talent, what can I say.’

‘I don’t pay you enough.’

‘I know.’

Muriel studied Sawyer. ‘I’d want you to do that faster. But now that you’ve done it once, you have a better idea of what to do next time, right?’

‘Right. I can practise before the job, no problem. I mean . . . if I got the job.’

Muriel smirked. ‘Let’s talk about the job. We’re heading to the Oxomoco.’

‘Wow,’ Sawyer said. ‘Okay. Wow.’

Muriel leaned forward and rested her chin on her laced fingers. ‘What does that mean to you?’

‘Well . . . jeez, everybody heard about that. What happened to it, I mean. That was a huge thing. And horrible. Really horrible.’ He processed this new info. ‘Must be a ton of scrap that needs sorting, huh?’

The captain considered him in silence. Something satisfied her, and she sat back up. ‘It’s a trial run, you understand. Right now, all you and I have is one gig we’re going to work together. If either of us is unhappy with how it goes, we walk away, no hard feelings, and no further obligations. But if it goes well . . .’ She made a let’s see motion with an opened palm. ‘I do have an empty set of quarters open to the right person.’

Sawyer wasn’t sure when he’d last felt so determined. He was the right person for this, he knew it. He was going to rock this job. He was going to give it one hundred percent. One hundred and ten.

A part of him, though, was hesitant. This wasn’t what he’d imagined. He’d imagined a hex, an address in the Fleet. But then again . . . A warm thought cut through the caution. This was the Fleet, too. He’d read the Litany they recited at ceremonies. We are the homesteaders, yes, but also: We are the ships that ferry between. Well, here he was, on a ship, ready to do some spacer recycling. That sounded pretty Exodan to him.

Muriel reached her hand across the table. ‘We got a deal?’

Sawyer took her hand and shook it firmly. ‘We got a deal.’