The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Day 130, GC Standard 306 THE TUNNELERS

After tucking away her two pieces of luggage (which Sissix had approved of—“packing light saves fuel”), Rosemary followed her guide back down the stairs. Something caught her eye, something she hadn’t noticed on the way up. Each grated metal step was carefully covered with a thick strip of carpet.

“What’s this for?” Rosemary asked.

“Hmm? Oh, that’s for me. So my claws don’t catch in the grating.”

Rosemary cringed. “Ugh.”

“You have no idea. I snapped one clean off a few years back, before Kizzy put the runners down. Shrieked like a hatchling.” She stepped off onto the next deck, nodding toward doors. “Rec room’s over there. Exercise machines, gaming hub, comfy couches, all that stuff. The hub’s got a few good outdoor sims you can patch into. Everybody’s supposed to use it for at least a half-hour every day. In theory. It’s an easy thing to forget, but it is good for you. On a long haul, this”—she tapped the top of Rosemary’s head—“needs to be the most important thing you take care of.”

Rosemary paused as they walked down the corridor. “Is it just me, or is it getting darker in here?”

Sissix chuckled. “You really haven’t lived out in the open, have you?” she said, though not unkindly. “The lighting in the corridors and communal areas gets lighter and darker as the day goes on. What you’re seeing now is sunset, or an approximation of it. You can turn on the work lamps in individual rooms whenever you need more light, but having ambient lighting throughout the ship helps us keep a rhythm.”

“You follow standard days here, right?”

Sissix nodded. “Standard days, standard calendar. Are you still on Solar time?”

“Yeah.”

“Go easy your first tenday. Adopting a new body clock can really take it out of you. Honestly, though, as long as you get your work done and know what day it is, it doesn’t matter what sort of schedule you keep. None of us get up at the same time, and we all work weird hours. Especially Ohan. They’re nocturnal.”

Rosemary wasn’t sure who Ohan was or what Sissix had meant by the plural pronoun, but before she could ask, Sissix grinned toward the door ahead. “I’m going to let you go through first.”

There was a hand-painted sign affixed to the wall beside the door. “THE FISHBOWL,” it read. The bright letters were surrounded by smiling planets and cheerful flowers. New as Rosemary was to the ship, she had an inkling that the sign was Kizzy’s doing.

She opened the door, and gasped. Before her was a wide, domed room, constructed from interlocking sheets of plex. It was a window, a giant, bubble-like window, with the entire galaxy spilling out beyond. And on their side, everything—everything—was green. Large hydroponic planters were arranged in spiraling rows, bursting with broad leaves, perky sprouts, and dark, fat vegetables. Handwritten labels were affixed to skewers at regular intervals (the alphabet used was not one that Rosemary recognized). Some of the plants were flowering, and delicate trellises encouraged the climbers to grow tall. A branching path stretched out from the doorway, lined with re-purposed cargo crates and food tins filled with bushy tufts of grass. Bits of tech junk painted with bright shapes peeked out here and there, adding dabs of color. At the end of the path were three steps, which led into a sunken garden. A ramshackle fountain chattered quietly there, with a few benches and chairs nearby. Behind the benches, small decorative trees stretched up toward the sun lamps that hung overhead. But once Rosemary noticed the lamps, her attention was drawn back to the bubbled window, to the stars and planets and nebulae waiting just outside.

After a few seconds of gaping, Rosemary had the presence of mind to note the smaller details. The window frame looked worn, and of a completely different make than the rest of the room. The hydroponic planters were of all shapes and sizes, and were banged up enough to suggest that they’d been purchased second-hand. But the room was one of those strange, wonderful places that benefited from a lack of uniformity. The plants were healthy and well-tended, but somehow, the scuffs and dents and painted scraps were what made them truly come alive.

“This…” Rosemary blinked. “This is incredible.”

“And necessary, believe it or not,” said Sissix. “It may seem like an extravagance, but it’s got three useful purposes. One, living plants ease the strain on our air filters. Two, we can grow some of our own food, which saves us money on market trips, and is healthier than eating stuff kept in stasis all the time. Three, most important, it keeps us from going crazy after being cooped up in here for a few tendays. The sim room’s good for a moment of quiet, but this is where we all come to really slow down. A lot of long-haul ships have places like this. Ours is the best, though, if you’d like my entirely unbiased opinion.”

“It’s beautiful,” said Rosemary, tearing her eyes away from the window. She thought for a moment, remembering the opaque dome she’d seen from the deepod. “Why couldn’t I see this coming in?”

“Neat trick, isn’t it?” said Sissix. “It’s made out of switch plex, so it’s only transparent when we want it to be. Gives us some privacy, and keeps things cool if we’re near a sun. It used to be part of some Harmagian’s yacht. Kizzy and Jenks have a whole network of scavenger buddies who give us a call whenever they find some scrap we might put to good use. The dome has been the jackpot so far.” She gestured for Rosemary to follow her. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the guy who grows all this stuff.”

They followed the right side of the path to an oval-shaped dining table, set for dinner. The chairs surrounding the table were mismatched, and about a third of them designed to fit non-Human posteriors. Soft lights hung from long wires over the table, capped with shades of different colors. It was far from the fanciest table Rosemary had ever seen—the napkins were faded, a few plates had dents, the condiments were all cheap brands—but it felt inviting nonetheless.

Near the table was a counter, with three stools on one side and a big kitchen on the other. The smell of baking bread and sizzling herbs flooded Rosemary’s nostrils, and her body reminded her of how long it had been since she last ate. Her entire torso felt hollow.

“Hey!” Sissix called over the counter. “Come meet our new crewmate!”

Rosemary hadn’t seen the curtain covering the doorway in the back until a member of the strangest species she’d ever seen threw it aside and lumbered forward. The sapient—he, Sissix had said—was at least twice Rosemary’s size. He was rotund and fleshy, with dappled gray skin. She would have pegged him as some sort of amphibian if it weren’t for the tufts of long whiskers that stood out from his balloon-like cheeks. The majority of his face was dominated by a broad, split upper lip, which Rosemary found endearing, though she couldn’t say why. She thought back to the picture programs of ancient Earth animals she’d poured over as a kid. If you crossed an otter with a gecko, then made it walk like a six-legged caterpillar, you’d be getting somewhere.

The sapient’s legs were especially difficult to categorize, because they could have just as easily been arms. He had six of them, whatever they were, all identical. When he came through the door, he’d been walking on one pair, and holding two tubs of food with the others. But once he set the tubs down, he folded his body down onto two pairs and walked to the counter.

“Well, well, well,” the sapient rumbled. There was a weird harmony to his voice, as if five people were talking at once. As she continued to process his appearance, Rosemary noticed that he was wearing Human style clothing. His upper torso—if you could call it that—was covered by a huge short-sleeved shirt printed with a logo of a green Human thumb zooming through space. The surrounding text was printed not in Klip, but in Ensk: Littlejohn’s Plant Emporium—Your One-Stop Shop for Transgalactic Hydroponics. Extra armholes had been cut into the sides to allow for his middle pair of limbs. His lower section was covered by an enormous pair of drawstring pants. Or not pants. More like a pouch with room for legs.

The sapient’s whole face curved upward in a surreal approximation of a smile. “I bet you’ve never seen one of me before,” he said.

Rosemary smiled, relieved that he’d broken the ice. “Can’t say that I have,” she said.

The sapient bustled about behind the counter as he spoke. “Interspecies sensitivity training always falls a bit short when you see something new, doesn’t it? The first time I saw one of you lanky brown things, I fell dead quiet.”

“And for his species,” Sissix said, “that’s really saying something.”

“That it is!” said the sapient. “Silence doesn’t suit us.” A sound exploded from his mouth—a warbling, rumbling coo.

Rosemary glanced at Sissix as discordant bursts continued to flow from the sapient’s strange mouth. “He’s laughing,” Sissix whispered.

The noise cut off, and the sapient tapped his chest. “I’m Dr. Chef.”

“I’m Rosemary,” she said. “You have an interesting name.”

“Well, it’s not my actual name, but I cook the food and I work in the med bay when the need arises. I am what I do.”

“What species are you?”

“I am a Grum, and I’m currently male.”

Rosemary had never heard of a Grum. Had to be a non-GC species. “Currently?” she asked.

“Biological sex is a transitional state of being for my species. We begin life as female, become male once our egg-laying years are over, then end our lives as something neither here nor there.” Dr. Chef reached over the counter and placed a cup of juice and a small plate of thick, grainy crackers in front of Rosemary. “Here you go. Sugar, salt, vitamins, calories. Dinner will be soon, but you look ready to faint.” He shook his head at Sissix. “I hate deepods.”

“Oh, stars, thank you.” Rosemary fell upon the crackers. In some distant part of her head, she knew that they were nothing special, but in that moment, they were the best thing that she had ever eaten. “May I ask your given name?” she said, once her mouth was less full.

“You won’t be able to say it.”

“Can I try?”

Again, the warbling laugh. “Okay, get ready.” Dr. Chef’s mouth opened, and a cacophony fell out, layers upon layers of baffling sounds. It lasted a full minute. His cheeks puffed three times once it ended. “That’s me,” he said. He pointed at his throat. “Branching windpipes, six sets of vocal cords. There’s not one word in my language that doesn’t have several sounds blended together.”

Rosemary felt a little stunned. “Learning Klip cannot have been easy for you.”

“Oh, it wasn’t,” said Dr. Chef. “And I won’t lie, it’s still tiring at times. Synchronizing my vocal cords takes a lot of effort.”

“Why not just use a talkbox?”

Dr. Chef shook his head, the skin on his cheeks shivering. “I don’t like implants that aren’t medically necessary. Besides, what’s the point of talking to different species if you don’t take the time to learn their words? Seems like cheating to simply think things and let a little box do the talking for you.”

Rosemary took another sip of juice. Her head was already feeling better. “Does your name mean something in your language?”

“It does. I am ‘A Grove of Trees Where Friends Meet To Watch The Moons Align During A Sunset in Mid’… I’d guess you’d say ‘autumn.’ Mind you, that’s just the first bit. It also includes my mother’s name and the town in which I was born, but I think I’ll leave it there, or else you’ll be listening to me translate all night.” He laughed again. “And you? I know most Humans don’t put much stock in names, but does yours have any meaning?”

“Er, well, I don’t think my parents meant anything by it, but rosemary is a kind of plant.”

Dr. Chef leaned forward, resting his weight against his upper arms. “A plant? What kind of plant?”

“Nothing special. Just an herb.”

“Just an herb!” said Dr. Chef, his whiskers trembling. “Just an herb, she says!”

“Uh oh,” said Sissix. “You said the magic word.”

“Rosemary, Rosemary,” said Dr. Chef, taking her hand. “Herbs are my very favorite thing. They combine both the medicinal and the gastronomical, which, as you may have guessed, are my two best subjects. I am an avid collector of herbs. I pick up new specimens wherever I go.” He paused, grumbling and whistling to himself. “I don’t think I’ve heard of your namesake herb. Is it for eating or healing?”

“Eating,” said Rosemary. “I think it goes in soups. Breads, too, I guess.”

“Soups! Oh, I like soups,” said Dr. Chef. His solid black eyes shifted to Sissix. “We’re making a stop at Port Coriol soon, right?”

“Yep,” said Sissix.

“Someone there will have it for sure. I’ll send a message to my old friend Drave, he’ll know where to look. He’s good at finding food-related things.” His mouth curved up as he looked back to Rosemary. “See? You’ve got a proper name after all. Now, you finish those crackers, I’m going to check on the bugs.” He bustled back into the kitchen, growling and sighing as he bent over the grill. Rosemary wondered if he might be humming.

Sissix leaned close to Rosemary and whispered, her voice shielded by Dr. Chef’s vocalizations and the general sounds of cooking. “Don’t ask about his homeworld.”

“Oh,” Rosemary said. “Okay.”

“Trust me on this. And don’t ask about his family, either. It’s… not good dinner talk. I’ll explain later.”

Dr. Chef proudly lifted a large arthropod from the grill with a pair of tongs. Its shell was blackened, and its legs curled under in even rows. It was about the size of Rosemary’s hand, wrist to fingertip. “I hope you like red coast bugs. Fresh, too, not from the stasie. I have a few breeding tanks in the back.”

Sissix gave Rosemary a friendly nudge. “We only get fresh ones for special occasions.”

“I’ve never had them, but they smell wonderful,” Rosemary said.

“Wait,” Sissix said. “You’ve never had red coast bugs? I’ve never met a Human who’s never had red coast bugs.”

“I’ve always lived planetside,” Rosemary said. “We don’t eat many bugs on Mars.” She felt guilty just saying it. Insects were cheap, rich in protein, and easy to cultivate in cramped rooms, which made them an ideal food for spacers. Bugs had been part of the Exodus Fleet’s diet for so long that even extrasolar colonies still used them as a main staple. Rosemary had, of course, at least heard of red coast bugs. The old story went that a short while after the Exodus Fleet had been granted refugee status within the Galactic Commons, a few Human representatives had been brought to some Aeluon colony to discuss their needs. One of the more entrepreneurial Humans had noticed clusters of large insects skittering over the red sand dunes near the coastline. The insects were a mild nuisance to the Aeluons, but the Humans saw food, and lots of it. Red coast bugs were swiftly adopted into the Exodans’ diet, and nowadays, you could find plenty of Aeluons and extrasolar Humans who had become wealthy from their trade. Rosemary’s admission that she’d never eaten red coast bugs meant that she was not only poorly traveled, but that she belonged to a separate chapter of Human history. She was a descendant of the wealthy meat-eaters who had first settled Mars, the cowards who had shipped livestock through space while nations starved back on Earth. Even though Exodans and Solans had long ago put their old grudges behind them (mostly), her privileged ancestry was something she had become ashamed of. It reminded her all too well of why she had left home.

Sissix eyed her with suspicion. “Have you eaten mammals? I mean the real thing, not vat-grown.”

“Sure. There are a few cattle ranches on Mars.”

Sissix recoiled, making sounds of amusement and disgust. “Oh, no, yuck.” She looked apologetic. “Sorry, Rosemary, that’s just so… blech.”

“Psh. They’re just big sandwiches on hooves,” said Jenks, walking in with a grin. “I’ve had planetside beef too, y’know. It’s awesome.”

“Oh, gross. You’re all gross,” Sissix said, laughing.

“I’ll stick with bugs, thanks,” said a male Human voice. Rosemary turned, and stood up. “Welcome aboard,” Captain Santoso said, shaking her hand. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

“You as well, Captain,” Rosemary said. “I’m very happy to be here.”

“Please, just call me Ashby,” he said with a smile. He glanced around, looking for someone. “Did Corbin give you the grand tour?”

“He started it off,” Sissix said, taking one of Rosemary’s crackers. “I took over so he could run some tests.”

“Well. That was… nice of you,” Ashby said. He stared at Sissix for a moment, asking a question that Rosemary couldn’t discern. He turned his attention back to her. “I’m afraid I won’t have much time to show you the ropes over the next couple days. We’re tunneling tomorrow, and there’s always some odds and ends to take care of afterward. But I’m sure you need some time to settle in anyway. Once we’ve put this job behind us, you and me can sit down and start going through my reports.”

“You have my sympathies,” Sissix said, patting Rosemary’s shoulder.

“They’re not that bad,” Ashby said. Dr. Chef cleared his throats pointedly. “Okay, they’re pretty bad.” Ashby shrugged and smiled. “But hey! That means you have a job!”

Rosemary laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m one of those weirdos who likes formwork.”

“Thank the stars for that,” Ashby said. “We’re a good crew, but formwork is not one of our strengths.”

“Sissix!” Kizzy cried, entering the room. “I need to talk to you about this super scandalous sexy vid I saw today.”

Ashby’s eyes fell shut. “Neither is tact.”

Sissix looked bemused. “Kizzy, I told you, I am done watching your vids. I swear, Humans are the only species who can make coupling tacky.”

“No, listen, it’s important.” Kizzy strolled behind the counter, inspecting Dr. Chef’s cooking. She had shed the grubby jumpsuit in exchange for a smart yellow jacket, a skirt that could only be described as a short petticoat, bright orange polka dot tights, a massive pair of boots trussed up in all manner of buckles and straps, and a scattering of cloth flowers woven through her hair. The ensemble would’ve been clownish on anyone else, but somehow, Kizzy made it work. “It was a multispecies vid, and I now have a bucketful of questions about Aandrisk anatomy.”

“You’ve seen me naked before,” Sissix said. “You’ve probably seen a lot of Aandrisks naked before.”

“Yes, but… Sissix, the flexibility on this guy, holy shit—” She stuck her hand toward a bowl of vegetables. Dr. Chef smacked her wrist with a spatula without even glancing her way.

Sissix sighed. “What’s the name of this vid?”

“Prison Planet 6: The Zero-G Spot.”

“Aaand, we’re done,” Ashby said. “Honestly, would one day of being polite have killed you?”

“Hey, I’m polite,” Jenks said. “I didn’t even mention Prison Planet 7.”

Ashby sighed and turned to Rosemary. “There’s probably still time for you to call the deepod back, if you’ve changed your mind.”

Rosemary shook her head. “I haven’t had dinner yet.”

Dr. Chef let out a hearty, squawking laugh. “At last, someone with the same priorities as me.”

Sissix leaned across the counter. “Kizzy, your shoes are amazing. I wish I could wear shoes.”

“I know, right?!” Kizzy exclaimed, lifting her right foot as if she had never seen it before. “Behold, my wonderboots! All the kick-ass of an Aeluon assault squad, combined with total ergonomic perfection! It’s podiatric madness! What are they? Are they big tough stompers? Are they comfy kick-arounds? No one knows! There are feats of science happening right over my socks as we speak!” She turned to Dr. Chef, who was pulling a pan of rolls out of the oven. She plucked one up and tossed it between her fingers. “Stars, these smell good. Come to my face, love bun!”

Ashby turned to Rosemary. “You’re good at languages, right?”

Rosemary dragged her attention away from the mech tech, who was doing a little dance of pain after searing her tongue on the hot bun. “I do all right,” she said. Truthfully, she was very good with languages, but that wasn’t the sort of thing one said to new colleagues over dinner.

“Well, if you’re going to live on this ship, you’re going to have to learn to speak Kizzy.”

“It’s one of those you sort of pick up as you go along,” said Sissix, who had begun shuttling heaping bowls of food to the table. Rosemary picked up a bowl filled with some mashed purple root vegetable and followed suit. As she set the bowl down beside the place settings, she was struck with an odd realization: this was the first time she’d ever set a table.

“Oh, oh, by the way,” Kizzy said, hopping over to Ashby. “Air filter’s fixed, but I was so scared I was gonna be late for dinner, and I had to change too, so I just bundled up all the wires into the wall good enough so they wouldn’t catch fire or anything, and I promise I’ll finish it up right after we eat, I promise promise—”

“If you want, Kiz, I can take care of cleaning up the cables on my own,” Jenks said. “I know you’ve got a hell of a to-do list before tomorrow.”

“This is why you’re the best,” Kizzy said. She met Rosemary’s eyes and pointed at Jenks. “Isn’t he the best?”

“Okay,” Dr. Chef said, lifting a platter stacked with steaming bugs. “Grub’s up.”

Sissix, Kizzy, and Jenks all sat down on the same side of the table. As if on cue, Corbin entered the room. He sat on the opposite side. He said nothing. Neither did anyone else. Ashby, at least, gave him a polite nod.

The captain sat at the head of the table; Dr. Chef took the chair opposite him. Ashby gestured for Rosemary to take the empty seat to his right. He smiled at everyone and raised his glass of water. “To our new crew member,” he said. “And to a problem-free day of work tomorrow.”

They all clinked glasses. “I should’ve got something fancier to drink,” Dr. Chef muttered.

“We all need water, Doc,” Ashby said. “And besides, you’ve rather outdone yourself.” He nodded at the heaping bowls of food. Rosemary clapped a hand over her stomach to muffle the growling.

Filling one’s plate was a free-for-all affair. Bowls and trays were traded back and forth without following any clear pattern. By the time the serving bowls had all been set back down, Rosemary’s plate was stacked with salad, a heap of mashed purple stuff (tuskem roots, Dr. Chef had called them), two grainy rolls, and one of the red coast bugs. Melted butter flecked with shredded herbs oozed out from the gaps in the bug’s spindly joints. Rosemary noticed that there was a tiny hatch cut into the shell, where Dr. Chef had administered seasonings before grilling them. The bug was nightmarish to look at, but it smelled incredible, and Rosemary was hungry enough to try anything. There was just one problem. She didn’t know how to eat it.

Sissix must’ve seen her hesitancy, for the Aandrisk woman caught her eyes across the table. Sissix slowly, deliberately raised her knife and fork with her four-fingered hands, and began removing the shell in a practiced manner, popping off the legs first, then working open the underbelly at the seams. Rosemary mirrored her actions, trying not to appear too obvious in her lack of expertise. She appreciated Sissix’s subtlety, but she could not ignore the irony of an Aandrisk teaching her how to eat a Human dish.

If Rosemary had committed any transgressions in the act of dismantling the bug, none of the other crew members mentioned it. They were too busy shoveling down food, heaping praise on Dr. Chef for his cooking, and laughing at jokes that Rosemary couldn’t follow. Her embarrassment at being unfamiliar with the food disappeared the moment she placed the first bite of bug in her mouth—tender, savory, comforting. A bit like crab, only denser. The rolls were hearty and hot, the mash salty sweet, the salad (picked from the garden that day, she was told) crisp and refreshing. All her fears about spacer food were eradicated. She could get used to bugs and hydroponic vegetables. Easily.

Once her hunger had been quelled enough for her to eat at a less desperate pace, Rosemary noticed the empty chair and unused place setting that separated her from Corbin. “Who sits here?” she asked.

“Ah,” said Dr. Chef. “A tricky question. No one, technically, but it’s meant for Ohan.”

Rosemary registered the name. “Right, Sissix said xe’s nocturnal,” she said, choosing a neutral pronoun. It was the only polite thing to do when no gender signifiers had been given.

Ashby smiled and shook his head. “They. Ohan’s a Sianat Pair. Male, but we still say ‘they.’ ”

Rosemary thought back to the airlock. Lovey hadn’t been talking about a navigator, but a Navigator. Her mind raced with excitement. Sianats were the stuff of urban legends back home—a reclusive race who could conceptualize multidimensional space as easily as a Human could do algebra. Their mental aptitude was not innate, however. Sianat culture was structured around a neurovirus they called the Whisperer. The effects of the Whisperer were largely unknown to the rest of the GC (Sianats barred other species from researching it), but what was known was that it altered the brain functions of the host. As far as Rosemary knew, all Sianats were infected with the virus during childhood, at which point they ceased thinking of themselves as individuals, but rather as plural entities—a Pair. They were then encouraged to go out into the galaxy in order to share the Whisperer’s gifts with species that could never know them first hand (the virus had yet to jump to other species). Sianat Pairs’ ability to think in ways other species couldn’t made them invaluable members of research projects, science labs… and tunneling ships. In all the hullabaloo of getting herself out to the Wayfarer, the likelihood of meeting a Sianat Pair hadn’t occurred to her.

“Do they not eat dinner with us?” she asked, trying to hide just how badly she wanted to meet this—person? People? The plural thing was going to take some practice.

Ashby shook his head. “Pairs are paranoid about their health. They’re wary of anything that might inadvertently affect the Whisperer. Ohan never leaves the ship, and they don’t eat the same food that we do.”

“Though it’s perfectly sanitary, I assure you,” Dr. Chef said.

“That’s why I had to get flashed when I docked,” Rosemary said. “Lovey said I had a few contaminants one of the crew couldn’t handle.”

“Ah, yes,” Dr. Chef said. “We’ll need to update your imubots’ databases. We can take care of that tomorrow.”

“It’s not just a health thing,” Sissix said. “Pairs don’t socialize well, even with other Pairs. Ohan doesn’t leave their room much. They’re… you’ll see when you meet them. They’re on their own little plane.”

“You would be too, if you could map out tunnels in your head,” Jenks said.

“But Dr. Chef always sets a place for them anyway,” Kizzy said, tucking a bite of food into her cheek. “Because he’s a sweetie.”

“I want them to know that they’re always welcome,” Dr. Chef said. “Even if they can’t eat with us.”

“Aww,” said Kizzy and Jenks in unison.

“Technically, I don’t eat dinner either,” Sissix explained. Rosemary had already noticed that while Sissix had taken some of everything, her portions were tiny. “I just eat little bits of stuff throughout the day. One of the benefits of not being able to keep myself warm is not needing as much food.” She smiled. “But I like sitting down with everybody in the evening. It’s one of my favorite Human customs.”

“I heartily agree,” said Dr. Chef, taking another red coast bug. “Especially since I only eat once a day.” He balanced the bug atop a tall stack of empty shells. Rosemary counted six.

“So what do Sianat Pairs eat?” Rosemary asked.

A violent ripple passed through Dr. Chef’s cheeks. Even with his unfamiliar anatomy, Rosemary got the feeling that it was an expression of disgust. “This horrible nutrient paste. That’s all, just tubes and tubes of it, shipped from the Sianat homeworld.”

“Hey, you never know,” Jenks said. “It could be pretty good.”

“Nope,” Kizzy said. “Definitely not. I snuck a tube of it once, for research.”

“Kizzy,” Ashby said.

Kizzy ignored him. “Imagine something with the consistency of dry, cold nut butter, but with no flavor at all. No salt or anything. I tried putting it on toast, but it was just a waste of good toast.”

Ashby sighed. “And this from the woman who throws a fit if anybody even so much as glances at a bag of her fire shrimp.”

“Hey,” Kizzy said, pointing her fork at him. “Fire shrimp are a rare delicacy, okay.”

“They’re a cheap snack,” Sissix said.

“A cheap snack you can only get from my colony, which makes them a rare delicacy. There are crates of Ohan’s paste tubes in the cargo bay. I knew they wouldn’t even notice if I sampled one. Supply and demand.”

“That’s not what supply and demand means,” Jenks said.

“Sure it does.”

“‘Supply and demand’ does not mean ‘please wantonly steal shit because there’s more than enough to go around.’ ”

“You mean like this?” She darted a hand forward and stole a bun off his plate. She crammed the whole thing in her mouth, forcing it in with her fingers, and began grabbing more from the bread basket.

Ashby turned toward Rosemary, ignoring the war of the baked goods. “So. Rosemary. Let’s hear about you. Any family back on Mars?”

Rosemary took a calm sip of water. The question made her heart hammer a bit, but it would all be okay. She’d practiced this. “Yeah. My dad works in off-world imports, my mom owns an art gallery.” It was a true statement, just missing a few key details. “I have an older sister, too, but she lives on Hagarem.” True. “She works for the GC. Resource allocation bureau. Nothing fancy, just pushing formwork.” True. “We’re not very close, though.” Definitely true.

“Where’d you grow up?”

“Florence.” True.

Jenks pulled his attention away from wrestling with Kizzy over buns. He whistled. “That’s some prime real estate,” he said. “You must come from money.”

“Not really.” Lie. “It’s just close to my dad’s business.” True. Sort of.

“I was in Florence once,” Kizzy said. “When I was twelve. My dads saved and saved and saved so we could go there for the Remembrance Day thing. Stars, I’ll never forget when everybody let those floating lanterns go out in that big open place.” Rosemary knew where she meant. New World Square, the capital’s central gathering space. A wide stone plaza watched over by a statue of the city’s eponym, Marcella Florence, the first Human to set foot on Mars. “All those little lights, going up and up like tiny ships. I thought it was the prettiest thing I’d ever saw.”

“I was there for that,” Rosemary said.

“No way!”

She laughed. “I don’t think anybody missed the All Stories Festival.” In fact, her father had been a major sponsor of the event, but she felt it best to leave that out. Remembrance Day was a Human holiday commemorating the day that the last homesteader set off from Earth—the day the last Humans left their inhospitable homeworld. The holiday had originated as an Exodan custom, but Remembrance Day had quickly gained popularity in both the Solar Republic and the extrasolar colonies. The All Stories Festival had marked the bicentennial Remembrance Day, and the surrounding event had been organized as a joint effort between Solan and Exodan officials. Practically the entire Diaspora had turned up, down to every last handler and bureaucrat. The Festival was meant as a gesture of friendship and unity among a fractured species, an acknowledgment that despite their difficult pasts, they could work together toward a bright galactic future. Not that anything had really come of it. The Diaspora was still ineffectual in the GC Parliament. Harmagians had money. Aeluons had firepower. Aandrisks had diplomacy. Humans had arguments. No festival, no matter how lavish, was going to change that. But it had been a fine party, at least.

Kizzy grinned at Rosemary. “Maybe we saw each other’s lanterns. Oh! Did you get one of those ice creams there? The real milk ones, in one of those waffley bowl things, all covered with berry sauce and little chocolate bits?”

“Ugh, that sounds sweet,” Dr. Chef said.

“If memory serves, I had two of those,” said Rosemary. She smiled, hoping that it masked the tangle of homesickness filling her chest. She had worked so hard to get away, jumped through so many hoops, spent so many sleepless nights being afraid of getting caught, and yet… yet there were bugs on her plate, and artigrav nets beneath her feet, and a table full of strangers that could never know what she’d left behind. She was out in the open now, far from everything and anything that was familiar.

“Speaking of sweet things,” Dr. Chef said, setting his fork down with finality. “Who wants dessert?”

Even though her stomach was now full to bursting, Rosemary found it easy to make room for three of what Dr. Chef called “spring cakes”—delicate, chewy, reminiscent of almonds, dusted with some zingy spice she couldn’t identify. Not quite Remembrance Day ice cream with berry sauce, but then, nothing ever would be.

After he’d helped clear the table, Ashby settled into one of the benches tucked away in the garden. He pulled out his scrib, and took a bite out of the last spring cake. Captain’s prerogative.

He gestured at his scrib, directing it toward one of the Transport Board’s job feeds. “Establishing connection,” the screen read. “Verifying access.” As the progress icon pulsed in thought, he glanced back to the kitchen. Dr. Chef was behind the counter, showing Rosemary how to stack dirty dishes in the cleanser. She looked attentive, but a little lost. Ashby smiled to himself. First days were always hard.

Sissix approached, a mug of tea in hand. “So?” she asked quietly, making a small gesture with her head back toward the kitchen.

Ashby nodded and made room for her on the bench. “So far, so good,” he said under his breath. “She seems friendly enough.”

“I have a good feeling about her,” Sissix said, sitting down.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, she’s a bit… oh, stars, there isn’t a good word for it in Klip. Issik. You know that one?”

Ashby shook his head. He could muddle through Reskitkish, if spoken slowly, but his vocabulary wasn’t extensive.

“Literally means ‘egg soft.’ Like a hatchling’s skin, when it first comes out of the shell.”

“Ah, okay. So… inexperienced?”

She rocked her head in thought. “Yes, but not quite. It implies that you’ll toughen up in time.”

He nodded, glancing at her thick scales. “I’m sure she will.”

“Well, that’s the thing about being issik. If your skin doesn’t harden…” She let her tongue fall out of her mouth and made a choking sound. She laughed.

Ashby gave her a wry look. “You are talking about babies here.”

She sighed. “Mammals,” she said, with fond exasperation. She rested her head on his shoulder and put her hand on his knee. Coming from a Human, the gesture would’ve been intimate, but he was used to it with Sissix. This was her version of casual. “Still trying to find us a follow-up?” she asked, nodding toward the scrib. The feed had connected, displaying a neat table of contract offers.

“Just seeing what’s out there.”

“You won’t get far with this feed.”

“Why?”

“Because these are upper level gigs.” There was amusement in her voice. “You’re tired.”

“No,” he said. “I’m just… looking.” He would’ve left the explanation there, but he could feel her looking at him, waiting for more. He exhaled. “Just one of these pays more than our last three jobs combined.”

“Big ships get big money,” she said. “That’s always been the way of things.”

“You don’t need a big ship. Just a well-equipped ship.” He looked around the garden. Recycled crates, a scavenged window, hand-me-down planters. “With the right upgrades, we could start applying for these jobs.”

Sissix started to chuckle, but stopped when she saw his face. “Are you being serious?”

“I don’t know,” Ashby said. “I wonder if I’ve gotten so comfortable in this kind of work that I never stopped to consider doing more. And we could, in theory. We’re capable enough. We’re good enough.”

“We are,” Sissix said slowly. “But we’re not talking new circuitboards here. We’d need a new bore, and that’d cost you a standard’s worth of profits right there. I’d want a new nav panel, because the one we’ve got is sticky enough as it is sometimes. We’d need a bigger ambi stock, more stabilizers, more buoys—I’m sorry. I don’t mean to stomp all over your daydream here.” She gave his knee a friendly scratch with her claws. “Okay, let’s say you saved up enough, and we got all kitted out, and we could start taking high level jobs. What would you do with that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean why do you want that, other than whatever Yoshi said that got under your skin.”

He raised his eyebrows and smirked. “How did you know?”

She laughed. “Just a guess.”

Ashby scratched his beard and thought. What did he want it for? After he’d first left home, all those years ago, he’d sometimes wondered if he’d go back to the Fleet to raise kids, or if he’d settle down on a colony somewhere. But he was a spacer through and through, and he had the itch for drifting. As the years went on, the thought of making a family had dwindled. The point of a family, he’d always thought, was to enjoy the experience of bringing something new into the universe, passing on your knowledge, and seeing part of yourself live on. He had come to realize that his life in the sky filled that need. He had a crew that relied on him, and a ship that continued to grow, and tunnels that would last for generations. To him, that was enough.

But was it enough as it was now? He was content, sure, but he could do more. He could build grander things meant for greater numbers of people. He could give his crew a bigger cut, which he’d long wanted to do, and they certainly deserved. He didn’t share Yoshi’s hubris, but he couldn’t deny that the idea of a Human captain doing work traditionally left to the founding species gave him a spark of pride. He could—

“Oh, not to change the subject, but I meant to tell you,” he said. “I got a vid pack from Tessa today. Ky started walking.”

“Aw, that’s great,” Sissix said. “Tell her I say congratulations.” She paused. “Okay, I have to be honest, I always forget learning to walk takes so long for you guys. Whenever I pictured your nephew, I pictured him running around.”

Ashby laughed. “He will be soon enough.” He would be, chasing after his big sister, banging knees, breaking bones, burning an ever increasing amount of calories. Tessa always protested whenever Ashby sent her credits, but she never outright said no, either. Neither did his father, who was having trouble with his eyesight despite repeated surgeries. What he needed was an optical implant, just as Tessa needed healthier food for her kids than a Fleet job in a cargo bay could provide.

He could do more.