Record of a Spaceborn Few

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

Item name: The Modern Exodus – Entry #11

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.]

Where would you begin, dear guest, if you wanted to venture out into the galaxy? Would you talk to a friend? A trusted person who had made the journey before? Would you reach for a Linking book, or test the waters with a travel sim? Would you study language and culture? Update your bots? Purchase new gear? Find a ship to carry you?

Every one of these options are on offer at the emigrant resource centre, a relatively new fixture you can find in most homesteader districts. Some are set up at existing schools, others fill unused merchant space. All serve the same purpose: to prepare GC-bound Exodans for life beyond the Fleet.

Scroll through a workshop listing for any centre, and you will find an exhaustive array of topics. Here is a sampling of the current menu at the resource centre my dear host Isabel took me to visit yesterday:

Conversational Klip: What You Didn’t Learn In School

Interspecies Sensitivity Training 101

Weather, Oceans, and Natural Gravity: Overcoming Common Fears

A Guide to Human-Friendly Communities

Trade Licence Advice Forum (ask us anything!)

The Legal Do’s and Dont’s of Engine Upgrades

How to Choose the Right Exosuit

Introduction to the Independent Colonies

Those Aren’t Apples: Common Alien Foods You Need To Avoid

Imubot and Vaccination Clinic (check calendar for your desired region)

Ensk Six Ways: Making Sense of Humans from Elsewhere

Ground Environment Acclimation Training (sim-based)

Ground Environment Acclimation Training (non-virtual discussion)

Tunnel Hopping for Beginners

The list goes on.

I sat in on ‘A Guide to Human-Friendly Communities.’ Neutral market worlds were prominently mentioned, as were Sohep Frie and, I was pleased to note, my own adopted home of Hashkath. Harmagian territories, depressingly but unsurprisingly, were presented as hit-ormiss. Quelin space was vehemently discouraged, to no one’s surprise.

‘People’s biggest fear is getting kicked to the margins,’ said Nuru, the course instructor, who graciously took time to speak with me afterward. ‘Everybody’s got a great-aunt or uncle sitting around the hex, grumbling about how their parents were sidelined when they made market hops in the pre-membership days. Everybody hears horror stories about Human slums or whatever, and they come in here with exciting ambitions but a huge fear of ending up homeless or mistreated. Life outside the Fleet isn’t like that anymore, not if you’re smart about it. Times have changed. There are rough places in the galaxy, yeah, but that’s what my class is for. That’s what this whole centre is for. We want to give people the best start we possibly can.’

I asked Nuru why he spends his days training people for life elsewhere when he himself lives in the Fleet. ‘I lived on Fasho Mal for ten years,’ he said. ‘I loved it, every second. I loved the sky, the open space, the dirt, all of it. But I came home when my mom got sick last standard. Our hex was taking good care of her, but . . . how could I not? So, now I help people get ready for their lives on Fasho Mal, or wherever it is they’re headed. It’s the next best thing to being there myself. At least someone gets to go, right?’

Not everyone agrees with that sentiment. The majority of my time spent in the Fleet has been a delight, but I have, on rare occasion, encountered individuals less approving of my presence. I crossed paths with one of these on my way to the resource centre – not an elderly person, as you might have expected, but a man somewhere in his middle years.

‘We don’t need you,’ he shouted at me as Isabel and I approached the centre. It was clear from the way my skin puckered as he came close that he was intoxicated.

At first, I was not sure if he was addressing me. In hindsight, Isabel knew, as she began to walk more quickly, but in my ignorance, I stopped my cart to make sense of the situation. ‘Are you speaking to me?’ I asked.

The man did not answer my question, but continued on as if that point were obvious. ‘We’re Exodans. We belong here. You get that? You’re not like us. You don’t understand what we need.’

Isabel tried to get me to move away, but I assured her I was fine. ‘I want to hear what he has to say,’ I said. I gestured my willingness to listen to the man, even though he would not understand, even though I believe it only agitated him more. ‘I do not understand why you are angry at me.’

‘Whatever you’re here to teach, take it home,’ he said. ‘Take it home. We don’t need you.’

‘I’m not here to teach,’ I said. ‘I’m here to learn.’

The clarification confused the man, and I admit that I cannot relay what his reply was, for the remainder of it did not make much sense. The underlying intent was anger, though. That much I can say for certain.

‘You’re embarrassing yourself,’ Isabel said curtly. ‘Go sober up.’ My host is gracious and kind, dear guest, but even to my alien ears, she can be quite assertive when the situation calls for it. I thought it best to follow her into the resource centre at that point, as it was clear nothing else of value would be gained from the exchange. Isabel apologised for the encounter (which was hardly her fault or that of her people, but I understood her embarrassment all the same). I told her it was nothing. I have weathered far worse in academic review. But the exchange did colour my time at the resource centre, and I was thinking of it still as I spoke with Nuru later on. I asked him if this was a sentiment he encountered often.

He replied, with weariness, that it was. ‘I get told that I don’t deserve the food in my mouth and the walls around me,’ he said, ‘because I’m taking away instead of giving back. I’m taking away the people who grow the food and maintain the walls, is how they see it. Look – there’s no denying that more Exodans are leaving than coming back, but we’re hardly in danger of dying out. Farms are still working. Water’s still flowing. The Fleet is fine. The people I teach, they’d leave whether or not classes were available to them. But if they left without taking a class or two, they won’t know what’s what out there. That way lies trouble. All we’re doing is giving them the tools they need to stay safe. Exodans helping Exodans. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be about?’

I asked Isabel her opinion of the centre once we had left – as an elder, as someone who had watched friends leave and trends unfold across decades. My host was noncommittal.

‘Knowledge should always be free,’ she said. ‘What people do with it is up to them.’

Kip

Everything was tingly. Kip had thoughts beyond that one, amazing thoughts that people probably needed to hear. Toes were weird – like really weird, if you thought about it. Thinking was weird, too. He could think about what he was thinking about. Did that mean that there was a separate part of him? A thinking part and a . . . thinking thinking part? That was a super good idea, but first: cake. Man, he loved cake. He wished he had a cake. He imagined a cake so big he could put his face down into it and the frosting would rise up and up around him, like the waves of seafoam in the theatre vids, only thick, dense, enveloping him, taking the place of air, sliding in closer and closer and – and no, no, that was scary. He didn’t like cake. Cake needed to stay small and manageable and away from his nostrils.

Kip had those thoughts, and more besides, but as soon as they’d bubble up, they were drowned out, washed away by the thought – The Thought – that dominated all others.

Everything was really, really tingly.

‘Do you ever wonder,’ Ras said. He was tapping the tip of his nose with the tip of his finger, drumming, pulsing. Kip watched him do so for a short eternity. Tap. Tap. Tap. ‘Do you ever wonder about, like – okay, you’re sitting here.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And I’m sitting here.’

‘Yeah.’

‘We’re sharing this . . . this moment.’

‘Yeah.’

‘But are we really?’ Ras looked deeply concerned. ‘Because think about it. I’m seeing this, right?’ He gestured at the oxygen garden, tracing angled lines outward from his eyes. ‘But you – you’re seeing this.’ He touched the sides of Kip’s face and drew a different set of lines.

‘Whoa,’ Kip giggled. ‘Your hands are so weird.’

‘Dude, listen, this is – this is important. What you see is different from what I see. And nobody’s ever seen this before. Nobody’s ever seen the oxygen garden exactly like I’m seeing it, but it’s – it’s not like you’re seeing it. Kip, we’re – we’re not sharing anything. Nobody has ever shared anything.’

Kip looked at Ras for a long time – or maybe a short time? A time. He looked at him for a time. He blinked. He laughed, but quietly, because he remembered they were supposed to be quiet, and that part was very important. ‘I have no idea what you just said.’

Ras stared at Kip, and he started laughing, too. ‘You’re such an idiot.’

Kip shut his eyes and nodded, still laughing. He fell back into the grassy bed. He could feel every blade of grass, bending to hold him like a million caring hands. They were in the centre of the garden, the best place in the garden, the quietest, tallest, most hidden place, the place where you could actually lie down surrounded by bushes and little trees and leaves leaves leaves. Plants were good. Plants were so good. He loved plants, and he loved smash, and he loved Ras, and he loved life. He loved himself. Wow. He loved himself. Everything was . . . was so . . . tingly.

Ras grabbed Kip’s shirt. The move was intense and hurried, out of place among the grassy hands and quiet laughter. Kip didn’t like it. ‘Someone’s coming,’ Ras whispered.

Kip sat up, abandoning the grass. ‘Are you sure?’

They froze. Everything froze. Everything except the unmistakable sound of footsteps. Movement. Invasion.

‘Fuck,’ Ras whispered. ‘I think it’s patrol.’ He scrambled. ‘C’mon!’

They scurried behind a large bush, and everything was bad now, loud heartbeat and metal muscles and screaming edges. The footsteps got closer. With every step, Kip willed himself to be more still, more invisible. He would turn into stone, and they’d never find him. They couldn’t find him. Shit, they couldn’t find him. They couldn’t.

He wished the tingles would go away for a minute.

He could feel Ras beside him. They weren’t actually touching, but he could feel him, buzzing like a living thing. Ras was wrong. They were sharing this. It wasn’t a good thing to share, but it was better than being alone.

Someone was in the grass now, the sounds told him. Someone was standing in the grass, turning in a careful circle, looking around. Someone was sitting down, coughing, opening a bottle, drinking. Staying put. Kip was sure the someone would know he and Ras were there, that xe’d hear their breath, their blood. But the someone surprised him. The someone didn’t notice. The someone waited.

Then, all at once, there were two someones. The new one spoke. ‘Looks like you’ve been hitting that hard,’ she said.

‘I’m surprised you haven’t,’ the first someone said – a male someone.

The woman sat. ‘I know this shit’s been rough—’

‘Rough? Rough? Rough is when you haven’t been laid in a while, or when your engine breaks, or . . . I fucking killed that kid, Muriel.’

Kip and Ras looked at each other. The ground fell away. Everything was wrong.

‘Keep your voice down,’ the woman said calmly.

‘There’s nobody here.’

‘Still,’ she said. ‘Keep it down.’ She sighed. ‘How could you have guessed he’d do something that stupid? Stars, my niece knows not to open a sealed door in a vacuum, and she’s six.’

‘I should’ve said something, I was distracted, I—’

‘You should’ve, yes. But it was an accident. Accidents happen.’

‘Somebody ever accidentally die on you?’ There was a long pause. ‘Yeah. I thought not.’

‘Oates. It happened. It’s done. All we can do is clean up and move forward.’

Kip felt like the giant cake was back, only now it was the air itself, pressing in and smothering. ‘Is this real?’ he mouthed to Ras.

Ras said nothing, which said everything.

Beyond the bush, the bottle glugged. ‘You got everything ready?’

‘Yes,’ the woman said. ‘Food, fuel, every favour I had. We can be out of here this time tomorrow.’

‘Thank fuck. Every time I see a patrol, I nearly shit myself.’

‘Just keep your head down and your mouth shut, and it’ll be fine.’

The bottle glugged again. ‘Where’d Dory put him?’

‘Do you care?’

‘Yes.’

The woman was silent a little too long. ‘We didn’t have great options.’

‘Where?’

‘Cloth processing. Bottom of the pile.’

‘Cloth processing? Are you fucking high? They’ll find him in a—’

‘—in several days, which is all we need to get gone. Look, where could we have put him where they wouldn’t find him? We couldn’t space him or leave him there without those fuckers on the Neptune finding him – and you know they wouldn’t hesitate to use that against us one way or another. We couldn’t risk a second punch, especially a blind one. We couldn’t keep him on the ship, because there’s no chance import inspection would overlook a body, no matter how many creds we sent their way. The gardens aren’t deep enough, he’s too big for a hot box chute without us getting disgusting about it, the foundry’s always got people there, cargo bay’s too closely patrolled these days – and where do you get off, anyway? We clean up, and you complain about the details?’

‘I’m sorry. I just—’ The man’s voice broke. ‘I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t—’

‘I know. And that is why we’re doing this for you. Because you’re crew, and shit happens. If you’d meant to hurt that kid, we wouldn’t be busting our asses to make this right.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I—’

‘I know.’ There was a touching sound, a friendly pat. ‘Now are you going to share that kick, or what?’

Kip shut his eyes. He tried to ignore the voices. He tried to ignore everything. He wanted to go back to the grass and the weird toes, but that was gone now. Lost. Now everything was sharp and hot, and – and he didn’t want this. He didn’t want his brain to be like this anymore, but he was pretty sure he was stuck this way forever, and someone had died, and oh stars, what if he died? What if he was going crazy and then something went wrong in his brain and he died? He looked down at the dirt he was crouching in, the dirt smeared across his palms, the dirt staining his knees. There were dead people in that dirt. Lots and lots of dead people. They were dead, and he’d be dead, and he’d be dirt, too. He didn’t like smash anymore. He didn’t want to feel like this. He wanted to be okay. He wanted to live. He wanted to live so badly.

Tessa

She heard him, despite his best efforts. Stars, he really was giving it his best. She heard the rustle of his sheets as he tossed them aside, then a slow, deliberate crossing of the floor and ascent of the mattress. He wiggled under her sheet. She did not respond. He thought she was sleeping, and she wanted to see where that would lead. With what must’ve been agonising self-control, Ky lay alongside her, touching but only barely, silent except for his breathing. He held himself with a two-year-old version of stillness – a tortured rigidity that gave way to a stray twitch and wiggle every few seconds or so.

He was trying – trying very hard – to snuggle without waking her up.

Tessa scooped the kid up and covered his tangled scalp with kisses.

‘You ’wake!’ he squealed.

‘Yes, buddy,’ she said between one kiss and another. ‘I’ve been awake a while.’

‘Good morning!’

‘Good morning, Ky.’ She waved at the bedside lamp, and a soft glow spread through the room. Ky’s hair was a portrait of chaos, and deep pillow lines crossed one of his chubby cheeks. Tessa sat up with her boy in her arms and caught a glimpse of herself in the wall mirror. Her hair and face weren’t in much better shape than his, and she didn’t have the free pass of toddlerhood. But who cared, at this hour? Certainly not her son, who had inserted a finger a worrying ways into his ear canal.

‘Mama, no breakfast,’ Ky said. He raised his voice in a shout: ‘No breakfast!’

‘Shh,’ Tessa whispered, pulling his twisting hand away from his head. ‘We don’t want to wake everybody up. Okay? Can you be quiet? Can you whisper?’

‘Yes.’ Ky’s whisper could’ve been heard from the opposite side of the room, but it was an improvement.

‘Do you want to go see the stars?’

‘No.’

Everything was no these days. He’d put precisely zero effort behind this particular one, so Tessa paid it no mind. ‘I think you do. Let’s go see the stars.’

Ever-growing boy on her hip, Tessa walked into the living room. A few nightlights and the emergency arrow pierced the darkness, but otherwise, it was pitch dark. She could hear Pop snoring, and nothing from Aya’s room. Good. Tessa tiptoed forward, anticipating the couch, the table, the— ‘Motherf—’ Tessa hissed, and swallowed the rest in a muffled groan. She hadn’t anticipated the stray toy that had found its way into the bare sole of her foot.

‘Shh!’ Ky breathed loudly. ‘Quiet!’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Tessa said. Smartass, she thought.

She reached the ring of tiny floor lights that marked the edge of the shaft down to the family cupola. She’d thought, once, that the reason homes had cupolas in common spaces was because the architects had tried to parcel out window resources as economically as they could. That was true, but only the half of it. Apparently, the shared portal was an intentional design. Her ancestors had worried that if people could lock themselves away and look outside in solitude, they’d lose a few screws. They’d get scared, lose hope. It was a mixed bag, the view of the open. Breathtaking beauty and existential dread all mixed together. Far easier to focus on the former and avoid the latter, the thinking went, if you sat at the window with friends ready to hold your hand or listen or just share company with. That, Tessa thought dryly, or you’d go buggy as a group. Either way, you weren’t alone.

Her eyes adjusted to the negligible light. She opened the railing gate, sat on the bench with kid firmly in grasp, and pushed the down button. Home slid away, and for a second or two, the only sounds were the pulley turning and her son sucking his fingers. Then: a rushing, strangled roar behind thick walls. ‘Ky, can you tell me what that sound is?’

‘Don’ know.’

‘Yes, you do. What goes through the deck under ours?’

Even in the dim, Tessa could see her son’s blank stare.

‘Water,’ she said. ‘Remember? All the water we use goes through big pipes in the floor.’ She’d save filtration tanks and settlement ponds for another year.

‘Can have cookie?’

Tessa looked forward to the day when linear conversations became a thing. ‘Not for breakfast.’

‘What ’bout . . . what ’bout cookie to lunch?’

‘Maybe if you’re good this morning, Grandpa will give you a cookie at lunch.’

Ky looked around as the background noise changed. ‘Where water?’

So he was paying attention. ‘It’s up above us now. We’re about to stop.’

‘Oh boy, get ready!’ he said.

‘Get ready,’ Tessa said with a laugh. ‘Aaaaand – stop!’

The bench settled into place. At their feet was a shallow window sticking into the empty space outside. It was different than the one her family’d had when she was a kid. They’d had one of the old ones then, polygonal in shape, made of thick glass as old as the Fleet itself, the view cut in segments by thick metal frames. Ashby had bought them one of the nice new plex ones after his first tunnelling gig – no angles, no inner frame. He was always doing stuff like that. She’d once worried that he was treating them at the expense of getting things for himself, but once he’d bought his own ship, she didn’t feel as bad about it. She was just glad he kept them in mind.

She thought about how much she liked the things he sent them – the plex window, the sim hub, a box of spices from some alien port. A guilty, toxic idea surfaced, the same one that had awoken her hours before. Tessa shoved it away before it could make itself plain. She focused on her son.

She slid off the hanging bench onto the cupola seating area. It wasn’t much, just a shelf around the edges. The view wasn’t much either – at least, not compared to the big, broad starscapes you got at the plazas. But this was her own corner of sky, and she liked that. She’d always liked that.

Ky wriggled against her grasp. She let him go. He toddled out onto the plex, brown feet against black sky. He sat, all at once, unceremoniously. ‘Stars!’ he said, looking down through the gap between his bent knees.

‘Yep,’ Tessa said.

He pointed a chubby finger. ‘Is five stars.’ With his other hand, he held up two fingers and a thumb.

‘It’s a bit more than five, baby.’

The stars darkened as a hefty transport shuttle sailed past, docking lights blinking, hull crusty with tacked-on tech and repurposed siding. Ky shrieked with glee. ‘Oh man!’ He looked to her, his eyes and mouth perfect circles. ‘Mama, did you see?’

‘Yeah!’

‘Wow! Did you – did you see?’

‘Yeah, I saw.’

‘Dat’s my ship.’

‘Wow, that’s your ship? Cool.’

‘’s my ship. ’s all fixed.’

Aya had lost dessert privileges for a tenday over the origin of all fixed, but even though the illicit sim babysitting sessions had ended, the vocabulary addition remained. Tessa sighed, hoping her eldest hadn’t irrevocably mixed up the younger’s brain.

She let him play on the window, automatically responding with stock affirmations as he babbled on and on (he was on about . . . pillows? She’d lost the plot, and so had he, it seemed). Her mind was on the sky at her feet, which was to say she wasn’t thinking about much at all. Something about that view always set her right, even though she’d seen it a million times. She thought back to the first time she’d been planetside, on a family trip to Hashkath. Ashby hadn’t been much older than Ky. Mom was still with them. Their first night, Pop called Tessa out to the courtyard by their bunkhouse. ‘Look at that, kiddo,’ he’d said. She’d tilted her head up to match his. As an adult, she remembered how different the stars looked in that moment, how muted, how fuzzy. Her father had wanted to share something special with her, she knew in hindsight, but her immediate impression then was one of fear. There was no plex, no frame between her and that sky. She felt that any second, someone would switch the gravity off, and she’d float up and up, out forever. She’d stayed outside for all of two seconds before running back in and clinging fast to her bewildered mother, sobbing that she wanted to go home.

That experience still lingered on the few subsequent vacations she’d taken in adulthood, even though she knew nobody could turn off a planet’s gravity, even though she knew her walls were less reliable than grounders’ atmospheres. She knew that at home, she wasn’t really looking down. She was up, sideways, all around. She was looking in the direction the artigrav nets told her to look, the same direction the old centrifuges made her ancestors look (and their view, of course, had always been spinning). But she could know that and still feel in her gut that stars lived below her feet. That was normal. That was where they belonged.

She thought, though, of visitors she’d had from somewhere else. The last time Ashby had been there with his crew – Ky had been tiny then, she reflected, remembering him kicking his untrained legs in her brother’s arms – those two odd techs and the Aandrisk had parked themselves in the cupola for hours, sitting on the floor like Ky was now, freaked out and fascinated, never tiring of the novelty. A person’s view of the stars was, ultimately, a matter of perspective. Of upbringing.

Tessa wondered how Aya would do with a planetside sky. She never came down to the family cupola – or any cupola, for that matter. These days, wherever she was in a room, she strategically placed herself as far from walls as she could manage. Would she mind being close to a wall if her feet were always held fast to the ground? Would she look out windows if she could trust them to not suck her through?

As for Ky, he was small. The sky was just another constant to him, like cookies and pajamas and family. He wouldn’t care one way or the other for a few years yet. He’d absorb whatever environment you stuck him in. All fixed.

The guilty idea began to surface again, and Tessa knew it was time to get about her day. ‘Come on, baby,’ she said, gathering Ky, wiping his spit off the plex where he’d been licking it. ‘I gotta get to work.’

They returned to the bench and headed upward. He looked up, watching the cable carry them. Tessa looked down just in time to see the stars darken again. ‘Hey, Ky, look! There’s a skiff!’

Ky nearly threw himself out of her arms, doubling over at the waist, pointing his head toward the cupola. But he was too late. The ship had already passed.

‘Aw, bummer,’ Tessa said. ‘It’s gone now.’

Her son looked at her, stricken, betrayed. His eyes widened. His lip trembled. The entirety of his face collapsed into itself, and he wailed with bitter injury.

Dammit. Well. Time for everybody else to wake up anyway.

Isabel

Isabel hurried through the door as soon as she saw Ghuh’loloan through her office window, patiently waiting in front of her desk. ‘Good morning,’ Isabel said. She tapped her hud to bring up the time. ‘I’m sorry, were we supposed to meet early?’ She didn’t recall that they’d arranged that, but then, she had so much on her plate that things were starting to fall off the edges.

‘No, no,’ Ghuh’loloan said. She stretched her dactyli reassuringly. ‘I simply had much on my mind and wished to speak with you.’ She pointed a tentacle at Isabel’s desk, where two mugs of mek stood waiting. ‘I managed to brave that contraption of yours, but I’m afraid I was too cowardly to try for a brew as hot as you make.’

‘That’s not cowardly.’ Not at all, Isabel thought, considering the Ensk-labelled temperature dial and smooth knobs built for human hands. ‘That was very kind.’ She rather disliked starting her day with mek, but she wasn’t about to turn down a drink made by someone who’d risked a nasty burn. She sat, and sipped. Stars, but Ghuh had made it strong. ‘So, what brought you here?’ She put her scrib on the table, ready for whatever questions about musical traditions or food storage or toilet technology her colleague had today.

But the Harmagian surprised her. Ghuh’loloan did not have her own scrib out, and she did not launch forth with a ravenous barrage of queries. Instead, she did something Isabel had never seen: she hesitated. ‘Dear friend, I’m not sure how to begin,’ Ghuh’loloan said. Isabel took immediate note of the change in address. Not dear host. Dear friend. ‘The topic I wish to discuss is positive, but I worry it may cause difficulty, or worse, insult.’

Isabel set down her mug. She knew Ghuh’loloan understood smiling, and so she smiled. ‘Dear friend,’ she said, hoping her echo of the phrase came across as sincere. ‘I very much doubt you’d insult me, especially since you’ve told me at the outset that it’s not your intent. You trust me to be honest with you, right?’

Ghuh’loloan’s tentacles relaxed. ‘Indeed. Still, if my profession has made me aware of anything, it is that cultural bruising is often worst when done accidentally.’ Her body quivered from front to end – her species’ equivalent of a shrug. ‘But now, at least, if insult occurs, you will know it was not by design.’

Isabel sipped her lukewarm mek and nodded, patiently awaiting the end of the Harmagian song and dance.

There was a great sucking sound as Ghuh’loloan filled her airsack. ‘You know my writings of my time here have gained a sizable audience.’

‘Yes.’ Isabel didn’t know how she could’ve responded otherwise. Ghuh’loloan had been downright euphoric over the messages she’d received from her readers. Modern life in the Fleet, it seemed, had struck a chord in the niche world of ethnography, and her colleague was happily spending her sleepless nights responding to as many questions as she could until Isabel woke up.

Ghuh’loloan forged ahead. Her friendly concern was absent now, having given way to matter-of-fact explanation. If there was one thing a scholar was good at, it was laying out a case. ‘There has been a particularly strong reaction to my mentions of the Fleet’s technical capabilities and resulting challenges. I’m sure you can imagine the sort I mean.’

Isabel gave a tight smile. ‘They think we’re a little backward, hmm?’

‘To some, yes. Please do not take it personally. Cultural arrogance is depressingly universal, particularly among my people.’ Ghuh’loloan paused, waiting.

It took Isabel a moment to catch on. ‘I don’t take it personally,’ she said. ‘Not to worry.’

The Harmagian was satisfied. She continued. ‘Those responses, I pay no attention to. But there are others . . .’ The hesitance returned. ‘Others who wish to help. Not because you are incapable of helping yourselves,’ she added quickly, ‘but out of a real desire to provide resources that would be of benefit.’

Isabel leaned back in her chair. ‘We’re still a charity case,’ she said. She felt that twinge of ego once more.

‘Again, to some. But I wouldn’t look at it as an act of pity. For many, it’s out of a genuine wish for you to gain equal footing.’ She wrapped a tentacle around her own neglected mug of mek. ‘The reason I have decided to share this with you is that I have had a few letters that offer some intriguing possibilities.’

‘Such as?’

Ghuh’loloan conducted the retract-face-open-mouth-pourliquid manoeuvre, then cradled the mug against her porous bulk. ‘Such as oshet-Tasthiset esk-Vassix as-Ishehsh Tirikistik isket-Haaskiset.’

Isabel blinked. Full Aandrisk names were nothing if not a mouthful. ‘Who’s . . . that?’

‘Have you heard of Ellush Haaskiset?’

‘No.’

‘It’s a comp tech developer, based in Reskit. Their entire managing council is comprised of a single feather family, and they represent a staggering amount of wealth. Tirikistik is one of the more public faces in their circle. She’s also an amateur enthusiast of alien cultural study, and I’ve seen her in attendance at various symposiums at the Institute. It was quite exciting to receive a letter from her directly.’

Ghuh’loloan paused again, and Isabel took the cue to compliment her on a prestigious happening. ‘That does sound exciting,’ Isabel said. ‘It speaks well of your work.’

Her colleague twisted her dactyli with pride. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Tirikistik has read all my writings on the Fleet to date, and she is understanding of the problem creds have created. She said she initially considered opening a trade line here, but my piece on your economic imbalance made her reconsider.’

Isabel gave a slight frown. Was Ghuh’loloan’s work inadvertently discouraging outside trade? Were alien merchants reading her essays and becoming concerned that their business was doing more harm than good? The creds-or-barter issue required some serious ironing out, yes, but . . . but they did need that stuff. She wondered, with a sudden heaviness in her midsection, if this cultural exchange would hurt them in the end.

Ghuh’loloan continued her thread. ‘Instead, she’s interested in making a donation.’

‘What kind of donation?’

‘Well, she mentioned ambi storage facilities—’

‘That wouldn’t be of much use here.’

‘That’s what I said. I suggested that rather than her deciding what would be of help from an outside perspective, I could perhaps open a line of communication to the Fleet itself to see what would be of most use.’

‘I can tell you exactly what the labour guilds’ consensus would be,’ she replied. ‘Exodan problems require Exodan solutions. They’ll say we’ve already relied too much on alien charity.’

‘Charity from the GC parliament, and from Aeluons collectively. But this is a representative of a civilian business offering what amounts to a personal gift. A potentially enormous gift, but a gift nonetheless.’ Ghuh’loloan took another disquieting gulp from her mug. ‘The thing about gifts is, with correct, careful phrasing, they can always be turned down. Plus, you have me as an . . . an ambassador of sorts. I can easily deflect her if this offer would be poorly received. But I felt obligated to, if nothing else, pass the message along.’

Isabel tapped her fingertips together as she thought. A personal gift. Yes, that might open some doors. ‘I could set up a meeting with the resource oversight council,’ she said. There was no harm in a conversation, right? Like Ghuh’loloan said, they could always say no. But you couldn’t know what you were declining until the option was at least on the table.

‘Splendid,’ Ghuh’loloan said. ‘I’ll hold off on my reply to Tirikistik, then.’ She raised her mug in a mimicry of a Human cheer.

Isabel returned the gesture with a smile. As she drank, she thought of the artigrav nets beneath her feet, the solar harvesters orbiting outside, the limited-cognition AIs installed in public corridors for safety’s sake. All gifted in decades past by species who couldn’t imagine life without such things. Now, it was her own species who couldn’t imagine life without them. She wondered what else could – and would – be replaced. What essentials would disappear.

Kip

Kip (10:13): are you awake

Ras (10:16): yes

Kip (10:16): can we meet up

Kip (10:16): I need to talk

Ras (10:20): I can’t, I have chores

Kip (10:20): I really need to talk

Ras (10:21): there’s nothing to talk about

Kip (10:21): uh yes there is

Ras (10:21): no

Kip (10:21): Ras come on

Kip (10:22): this is serious

Ras (10:23): I have to study

Ras (10:23): like actually study

Kip (10:23): okay fine I can come over

Kip (10:23): we could study together

Kip (10:25): and I could help with chores

Kip (10:30): Ras?

Kip (10:42): come on man

Kip (10:48): stop ignoring me

Kip (10:54): stop

Kip (10:54): ignoring

Kip (10:54): me

Kip (10:75): Ras please I just want to talk

Bastard.

Kip had hoped Ras would change his tune after they’d both slept and sobered up – both of which had been a profound fucking relief. Or at least, it had been a relief, until Kip had awoken enough to realise that everything that had happened really happened, and that the conversation they’d overheard wasn’t a dream or a trip or anything so convenient.

Somebody had hid a body. It wasn’t exciting, like it was in vids. This was terrifying. This was real.

As soon as the garden had cleared out, Ras had made it clear that he got how fucked up this was, but that they weren’t going to say anything. They didn’t know who those people were, and if they told someone, those same people might come after them. They might end up down in cloth recycling, too. Ras had left no room for argument. End of discussion. They didn’t hear anything.

Except they had. They had heard it, and there was no forgetting it. There was no wishing it away, no matter how hard Kip tried.

He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. He was starving, and his mouth was so dry his tongue felt sticky. But he hadn’t left his room, even though he’d been awake for hours. The thought of facing family was too much. He couldn’t put on an easy face. There was no pretending with something like this.

He was really hungry, though. Like, really hungry. He had a weird headache, too, and he felt tired to his bones. He was never doing smash again, he decided. Not fucking worth it.

Maybe somebody’s already found him, he thought. Yeah. Yeah, that was comforting. If those people had stuck the – stars – the body down in cloth recycling . . . well, there were lots of people who worked there, right? Somebody would have to find him. Even the people who’d put him down there knew that. Yeah, somebody else would find him – had found him already, probably. Somebody had found him, and the patrols would take care of it, and Kip didn’t have to worry about it. Nobody would know that he knew.

He wondered if someone was looking for whoever it was. His hex had to have noticed that he hadn’t come home. The dead guy had been a bad dude, if he was working for those folks. But . . . he’d been someone, right? He’d been someone. They’d called him ‘kid’. Someone else had to be looking.

Kip dug around the clothes lying by his bed and found his scrib. He did a skim through the news feeds. Bot upgrades, council meetings, Aeluons at war, Toremi at war, boring Human politics, boring alien politics – nothing about a body down in cloth recycling.

Shit.

He rubbed his face. Maybe they just hadn’t found it yet. They’d find it today, though, definitely. Kip thought back to the time he’d won the shit lottery and spent two tendays in the recycling centre. He’d been on food compost, not cloth, but he’d walked through there, and seen all the folks washing and folding and stitching, all the folks walking by the . . . the . . . the giant piles of cloth. The piles you’d never get through in one day.

Kip thought about what it would be like to pick up an armload of everyday laundry and discover something horrible shoved underneath. A dead face lying silent. Cold eyes staring still. He wondered how it would be – how it would look – if the body lay there for a few days. His empty stomach knotted. He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to, but now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop.

Someone else would find the body, yeah. Someone else would find it, and xe wouldn’t expect it, and it’d be the worst day of xyr life.

And those people he’d heard the night before . . . they were gonna get away. Throw a person away like it was nothing and hop to some planet where no one would ever find them. That wasn’t okay. That wasn’t right.

That wasn’t right.

Kip thought about what Ras had said – how those people in the garden might come after them. He thought a lot about that. That thought made his stomach hurt, too. But he also thought about the opposite: what if they went after someone else? What if they did this again? Could he sit with that? How would his stomach feel if he read the feeds one day and . . . and . . . ‘Fuck it,’ he muttered. He sat up and searched for some trousers. His head tightened, the last remnants of smash sleep still making him feel crunchy around the edges. His heart hammered, too, but that wasn’t because of the smash. That, he’d done on his own.

He stood at his bedroom door for a while before waving it open. Mom and Dad were in the living room, reading their scribs, drinking tea. The scene was so normal, so boring. So comforting. His heart beat harder, and even though there was nothing in his stomach, he wanted to throw up.

‘You came home late,’ Mom said. Her voice was annoyed, and her face was, too, right until she looked at Kip. The lines around her eyes let go. ‘Kip, what’s wrong?’

Kip had barely realised that he’d started crying. Stars, he was such a fuck-up. His parents were dumb, but they cared, in their own dumb way, and they’d always cared, and then he went and did shit like this. He stood there stupidly, hands in his pockets, trying to pull the tears back. He failed. Fine. He failed at everything else anyway.

He cleared his throat and frowned at the floor. ‘I need to tell you guys something.’

Eyas

Eyas sat in her chair and stared at Sawyer’s corpse, lying ready on her worktable. This was a typical sight, an everyday tableau, and the tasks ahead were normal as could be. But nothing about this body was normal. Nothing about this was okay.

She sat for half an hour before she finally got to her feet. She walked to her cabinet, opened the top drawer, and took out a belongings bag. The bag was made of throw-cloth, clean and well-stitched. A neutral way to contain objects that were anything but. She turned to the body, hesitant like she’d never been. Knowing him in life wasn’t what troubled her. She’d prepared corpses of people she’d known, and known far, far better than a one-time acquaintance such as this. Hexmates’ family members. Her favourite childhood school teacher. Her grandfather, which had been bitterly difficult. No, her reticence came from elsewhere. This wasn’t a heartbreak. This was a desecration.

Her nose itched beneath her heavy breathing mask. She rarely wore a mask at work, not even when the person had been old or the death had been gruesome. But then, she’d never worked with a corpse in this state. It wasn’t dangerous, of course – it had gone through a decontamination flash on arrival like all the rest. However, it was in the early stages of unchecked decay, and neither Eyas nor any of her colleagues encountered that regularly. This corpse hadn’t been brought to the Centre on the day of death, accompanied by a grieving family and sombre medical staff. This corpse had been brought in by a patrol team, still retching and moaning over what they’d found hidden away.

Are you sure you want to take this one? her supervisor had asked. They’d been assembled that morning, every caretaker and apprentice, sitting in shock as it was explained what had been left for them.

I’m sure, Eyas said. She’d volunteered, and no one had argued. Everyone knew it was right. She was the one who’d gasped when the patroller displayed a picture of the corpse’s face. She was the one who’d known the deceased’s name.

Someone had thrown Sawyer away. Like garbage. Like a thing unwanted, used up. The thought filled Eyas with silent rage. The feeling smouldered in her chest as she removed a soiled shirt, a pair of thick socks, a trinket ring of alien make. It rattled her hands as she washed the body and saw flecks of trash floating down the drain. It wrenched her jaw as she reset visibly bent bones. She hoped whatever happened had been quick. Stars, she hoped it had been quick.

Sawyer was just one death, but the indignity, the aberrance, the slackness brought on by improper storage made her think of the tendays following the Oxomoco. She remembered cleaning body after body after body, laid out not in the seclusion of her workroom, but in the chill of a repurposed food storage bay. She remembered the day spent aboard the Oxomoco itself, when it had been her turn to take a shift cleaning out the abandoned Centres. She remembered learning what bodies looked like when they’d only composted halfway, remembered the smell that lingered on her exosuit in the airlock, remembered spending a standard afterward hand-grinding bones that hadn’t disintegrated properly after exposure to air.

That time had been worse than this. An exponential amount worse. And yet, tame as Sawyer’s corpse was in comparison, she knew the details of this day were going to bolt themselves to a similar spot in her mind. She didn’t know this man, really, but he’d . . . he’d trusted her. Blindly trusted her, just like he’d blindly trusted the people who had led him to this table. If she’d been more patient with him, if she’d answered his letter and become his friend, if she’d given him a few more than five minutes of her time, would he – no, no, no. She knew better than to get dragged along by ifs in situations like these, and she shut that line of questioning down. The guilt lingered, even so. Ghosts were imaginary, but hauntings were real.

She turned over the corpse’s right arm, studying the hole where his wristpatch had been. The removal had been rushed and clumsy, and there wasn’t much she could do about the damage. She wrapped it with a cloth bandage, for decency’s sake. She’d read about patch thieves who prowled the grittier sides of spaceports, but – even though she had no experience with such things herself – her gut said this wasn’t that. She’d never heard of that flavour of crime in the Fleet, and she doubted, under the circumstances, that someone had jumped on that particular bandwagon now. No, someone didn’t want anybody to know who this corpse had been. But she knew. She’d given patrol a name, a place of origin, and a scrib path. We can work with that, the patroller had said, visibly grateful. That was a shred of comfort, at least. That was something.

She lifted the corpse’s arm and inserted a length of thin, fluid-filled tubing connected to a bot reclaimer. She hit the switch and heard a mechanical hum as the reclaimer activated Sawyer’s imubots, directing them to parade up the tube and into the soon-to-be-sealed receptacle. Eyas would then send them along to the hospital, where they’d be sterilised and reset and injected into someone else. Nothing went to waste in the Fleet.

She looked at the thrown-away corpse, the skin bruised and blue. Nothing was supposed to go to waste.

The reclaimer finished its task. Sawyer’s body was ready for storage. Eyas wheeled it into the stasis chamber and shut the door. The corpse was gone, but she could still feel it in the room with her, a mess that would never be clean. She looked at the bag she’d put the clothes and trinkets in. There was a delivery label printed on the front of it, waiting for a name and family address. She found a heat pen, and wrote the only piece of information she had. She hoped the patrollers would fill in the rest.

She removed her mask, washed herself as hastily as good hygiene would allow, and left the room in a hurry, taking the belongings bag with her. She passed colleagues in the hall, but didn’t meet their eyes.

‘Eyas?’ someone called. ‘You okay?’

Eyas said nothing. She continued to the main chamber and took the elevator down to the cupola. She kept everything placid, everything inside, just in case there were any families down there, seeking the same quiet she was.

The elevator came to rest. Thankfully, thankfully, Eyas found herself alone.

She sat on one of the benches surrounding the domed window in the floor. Stars spilled out beneath her feet. The Centre wasn’t sunside, but it was right on the cusp. Bright fingers of light teased past the thick windowsill, upstaging the delicate glitter beyond. The constellations changed as the Asteria continued its unending orbit, but the view from this spot always felt the same. The constancy was a comfort, a reminder that whatever unpleasantness you’d just been through was only a moment, only a blink within a vast, slow splendour.

Or it was a comfort, most days. All Eyas could feel now was the smouldering, the shaking, the wrenching. Assured of her solitude, she did something she hadn’t done in a long time, not where bodies were concerned. She held the belongings bag in her lap, and she wept.