The cacophony returned.
‘I knew I’d regret it,’ Speaker said.
Roveg laughed and laughed. ‘I’m so glad I asked about this,’ he said.
‘Mom, can we order some?’ Tupo said.
‘Absolutely not,’ Ouloo said.
‘They don’t all eat this, do they?’ Speaker asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Pei said. ‘I know they don’t make it in the Fleet, and a lot of people there can’t eat it without getting sick.’
‘Understandably.’
‘No, it’s not that. Humans need a … oh, what is it … it’s something with their stomachs. An enzyme, I think. For digesting milk. Only some Humans produce it naturally. But here’s the thing: they’re all so fucking bonkers for cheese that they’ll ingest a dose of the enzymes beforehand so that they can eat it.’
‘That seems a bit extreme,’ Roveg said.
‘Have you eaten it?’ Tupo asked.
‘Not if my life depended on it,’ Pei said.
‘How is it that their milk makes them sick?’ Speaker said. ‘That’s got to pose a problem if they can’t feed their young.’
‘Oh, no, I – stars, I forgot the worst part.’ Pei rubbed her neck with her palm. ‘They don’t make cheese with their own milk. They take it from other animals.’
At that, chaos broke out.
‘I didn’t know that part,’ Roveg said, his forelegs shivering. ‘That’s … oh, that’s vile.’ And it truly was, but this fact did nothing to derail his glee.
Tupo had become scientific fervour incarnate. ‘How do they take it from them?’
‘Tupo, please,’ xyr mother said wearily.
The Akarak looked dumbfounded. ‘But … but why?’
‘I have no idea,’ Pei said. ‘No idea.’
‘I knew they ate other mammals, but … ugh,’ Roveg said.
‘They eat mammals?’ Tupo said, xyr voice heading toward a shriek.
Speaker cocked her head. ‘Is that worse?’ she asked. ‘Killing and eating them, rather than harvesting something from them while still alive?’
‘Do you not think so?’ Roveg asked.
‘We only eat plants,’ she said, ‘so all of this is outside my realm of expertise.’
‘What sorts of plants do you eat?’ Ouloo said, pouncing upon the opportunity for a change in topic.
‘Oh,’ Speaker said, blinking. She looked surprised to have someone interested in the subject. ‘Well … hmm.’ There was a long pause. ‘I don’t know the names for any of our foods in Klip.’ This bothered her, clearly. ‘I guess I’ve never talked about them with …’ She gestured at the group. ‘People like yourselves.’
‘Broad strokes?’ Roveg said. ‘Fruits, leaves, nuts …?’
‘All of the above,’ Speaker said. ‘Fruits especially, and flowers. We need a lot of sugar.’
‘See, that’s nice,’ Ouloo said. ‘That sounds like very nice food. Perhaps you could give me a list of your favourites before you go? I’m sure I can look up the translated names.’
‘Why?’ Speaker said.
‘Well, so I could carry some here! That way if you come back – or if you send any of your friends our way – I can make something more to your liking.’ The Laru blinked her large eyes hopefully.
Roveg popped a snapfruit tart into his mouth as he watched Speaker’s reaction to this. Something had caught the tiny sapient completely off guard.
It took Speaker a moment to understand what Ouloo was saying. She looked around at the others, each holding a plate or snacking from the table – or in Tupo’s case, straight from the bag. She saw herself as they did, hanging about the edge and not taking any of the offered food. But … surely. Surely they knew …?
The others looked at her expectantly.
No. Of course they didn’t. The core detail that had determined everything – everything – for her species in the past two centuries, and they didn’t even fucking know about it.
A tangle of frustration began to surface, one that grew more and more knotted with every standard – every tenday, it sometimes felt. To the others, she was sure this question was nothing, and in the grand scheme of things, that was true, just as a speck of dust was nothing. But a million specks of dust, gathered over time, became something big and ugly and impossible to ignore, something that could jam your ship’s filters and ruin your day. Stars, she was tired of needing to be the Linking file for her entire species wherever she went. She’d learned about them; why hadn’t anyone she met ever done the same for her?
She located her tension. It resided in her shoulders, her hands, the joints of her jaw. Mindfully, deliberately, she let it go.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said to Ouloo with a smile in her voice. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you. This all looks delicious.’ In actual fact, she had no idea what any of the foodstuff around her was, but in a different reality, she would’ve loved to try some. ‘The thing is …’ She decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, even though she knew what the answer would be. ‘How much do you know about our suits?’
A silence fell over the group, and there was a weight to it that suggested more than just ignorance. Ah. So they did know something, or at least some of them did. Captain Tem and Roveg had an inkling, she guessed, from the way the Aeluon’s colours were mixing and the fact that a morsel in the Quelin’s grasping toes had paused on the way to his mouth.
Captain Tem was the one to answer, and she did so with a question. ‘Do you mean how they work, or why you use them?’
‘Both. Either.’
‘I know they were mining equipment, once,’ Captain Tem said. Her tone was careful but direct. ‘The Harmagians made your species use them, before the Accords.’
‘That’s right,’ Speaker said. A few minutes of conversation was nothing to form an opinion on, but she did respect the Aeluon’s frankness, even if she disliked her profession. ‘Do you know why we still use them, off our ships?’
‘I … no. I don’t. I assumed it was because you wanted to … to compensate for …’ Captain Tem stopped, reframed. ‘You’re a lot smaller than the rest of us.’
‘We are,’ Speaker said, ‘but it’s not a matter of being able to see eye to eye.’ She wasn’t about to fault an individual for simply not knowing something – she’d certainly been on the end of that equation many times. But stars, was that what they all thought? That her people just wanted to be bigger? ‘In part, it’s because we can’t move around public spaces the way the rest of you do.’ She raised her left wrist-hook. ‘We don’t walk around our homes. We climb. We swing.’ She pointed from where she stood to one of the tables. ‘Without my suit, I’d have to crawl on my belly to get from here to there. I could. But that’s not ideal.’
‘So you use it as a mobility device,’ Pei said. ‘Like a Harmagian cart.’
Speaker loathed that comparison, but she let it go in the same way as the knots in her shoulders. ‘In part. But I couldn’t crawl around here even if I wanted to.’
‘Because?’
‘Because I can’t breathe your air. I can’t leave my suit if I’m off my ship.’
There was no joy in being the object under the microscope in a social gathering. Roveg had been cast in that role a thousand times – the only Quelin at the party, answering the same questions again and again and again, summoning the patience to let people gawk at his shell, finding himself thrust into the undesired role of political analyst for every ludicrous decision his former government made in Parliament. He didn’t want to leave this young woman – was she young? He suddenly realised he had no idea – in that unenviable position, and was already trying to engineer a conversational way of getting her out of it … but dammit, he was curious, too. Fine. A few questions, then he’d devise a rescue. ‘You’re allergic to something commonplace, you mean?’
‘No,’ Speaker said. ‘We don’t breathe oxygen. It’s toxic to us, in the quantities you need. We mostly need methane, which, of course, is toxic to you.’
This statement took Roveg completely aback. ‘But I thought … forgive me, it’s been a long time since I took a biology class, and it was never my best subject, but I thought all sapient species breathe oxygen. I thought that was one of the Five Pillars.’
‘What are the Five Pillars?’ Speaker asked.
Tupo burst into energetic song. ‘Water for drinking, oxygen for breathing—’
‘Tupo—’ Ouloo said pleadingly.
The child continued singing the bouncing tune, despite xyr mother rubbing her face with her paw. ‘Sunlight to make life go! Protein for building, carbon for bonding, that’s how all sapients grow!’
‘It’s the basic ingredients all sapient species need,’ Pei explained.
‘I thought everybody knows that,’ Tupo said. ‘Don’t you know the song?’
Speaker was quiet. ‘I don’t,’ she said at last. ‘Because it doesn’t apply to me.’
Now it was everyone else’s turn to hush.
Roveg bent his thoracic legs decisively. The time for a rescue had come. ‘Well, if you can’t enjoy the food, perhaps we can share in some other entertainment,’ he said. He looked around the group. ‘Does everyone here enjoy vids? I have a portable projector on my ship, and I’d be happy to bring it out.’
‘Oh!’ Ouloo brightened, looking relieved. ‘Yes! What a good idea.’
Speaker seemed surprised by the conversational detour, but took it in stride. ‘I … yes,’ she said. ‘Why not.’
Roveg turned to the Aeluon. ‘Captain Tem, are you in?’
‘Sure,’ she said easily. She flashed a wry, laughing green. ‘It’s not like I’ve got any other place to be.’
Part 4
ATTEMPTED REPAIRS
DAY 237,
GC STANDARD 307
PEI
Sleep was not something Pei generally had much of a problem with. She’d always been the sort who could sleep anywhere, at any time, whether it resulted in short snippets or total oblivion. As she’d gotten older, her body had become less eager to lean against crates or to let her head tip back as she snoozed upright in a chair, but so long as she had a bed – or at least, a horizontal platform – she could count on remaining asleep once her consciousness switched off. This was not always the case for her crewmates, some of whom had a tough time keeping their minds quiet for the duration of a night after a difficult day, but whatever unpleasant memories Pei carried with her, sleeplessness was not the way in which they manifested. Once she was asleep, she was asleep.
Lately, though, her rhythm had changed. Naps were still easy as ever, but when it came to coasting through the night, she found herself waking in the middle just as she awoke now, wide-eyed and bright-brained. She sighed with frustration, staring at the smooth bulkhead above. It wasn’t the same view as that of the ceiling in her quarters aboard the Mav Bre, but an unfamiliar bed wasn’t the problem. She’d slept in the shuttle many a time, usually with multiple crew members for company. No, she’d been having this specific problem for tendays, and minor annoyance though it was, it was still … well, annoying.
She knew why she was awake. This was her body’s way of communicating that there was a problem left unsolved, and some stupid part of her thought it best to wake at random intervals until the matter was closed. This had happened to her before when there were open questions about flight paths, landing strategies, contracts that became complicated. It didn’t matter that there was no new information to process; her mind simply wanted to review the facts, over and over. It was a maddening habit, and especially so since the subject these days wasn’t her job, but Ashby – the person with whom she’d created a space in which she didn’t have to think about her problems.
She was in no mood to go over the whole thing again, and steadfastly refused to at this hour, but even so, she exhaled, and tossed the blankets aside. The bed moved with her, moulding itself into a chair-like shape as she sat up, then rounding into neutral standby as she left it behind. She gestured at the light panel, and a twilight glow accompanied her as she walked down the hallway to the kitchen. The kettle was half-full of water; she gestured at this as well, and the heating element began its work. She pressed her palm against the pantry wall and it melted gently in response, yawning itself into an opening through which she could peruse the contents stored within. She retrieved a box of instant mek powder, then opened another compartment in search of a mug and a mixing stick. Tools and single dry ingredient retrieved, she tapped the powder into the mug – she knew the exact amount needed, by muscle memory – and waited for the water to boil.
Pei pulled each arm in a light stretch, and as she did so, felt a lingering twinge in her right forearm. The fading shadow of some long-removed shrapnel that had embedded itself there during her last job. A few tendays prior, she’d been at the Rosk border, trying to land the same shuttle she stood in now at the drop site. Now that had been a sky on fire. Strike ships had protected her as she’d flown in, raining blinding bursts on the Rosk cruisers that were emptying their ammo bays in an effort to keep anyone from landing. It had not been the first time she’d been in such a situation, but it had gone sideways fast. In the end, the cost of her landing on a planet for ten minutes and unloading a few crates had been a laundry list of broken shit and two destroyed strikers. Repairs to her own ship had been a pain in the ass, but all things considered, it was fine. Her employers had sung her praises, her crew had gotten paid, and nobody who was her responsibility had died. It was, in the end, just another job.
The indicator light on the kettle flashed to let her know its own job was done. She began to fill her mug, and in doing so, distractedly spilled the water. The liquid splashed scalding on the counter, leaping from there to her bare torso before she could get out of the way. It was the most minuscule of misfortunes, but she reacted to it as though it were true insult, her cheeks bruising a shade of purple so dark it felt nearly black. This, too, was a new disruption to her rhythm, and not one she liked. Her temper was always waiting just a scale’s width away these days, simmering below the surface and ready to pop at the drop of a scrib or the loss of a signal or, as seen here, the spill of a drink. Anger was not typically an emotion that took up more space in her than joy or fear or any of the others. She always gave it as much room as it needed, and let it out freely. There was nothing healthy about bottling, and anger was useful when wielded wisely. But why it was so quick to appear these days, she didn’t know. She felt like an adolescent, raw and volatile with no apparent cause. She had tried, many times, to unpack the feeling. Emotions left unchecked could so easily metastasise, and she worked hard to never be that personally negligent. But she couldn’t figure this one out, any more than she could sleep a full night, any more than she could keep her mind from immediately leaping to the same weary topic when granted the briefest pause.
She filled her mug. She did not spill this time.
She blended powder and water with the stir stick, summoning an approximation of the drink she really wanted. The tree bark required for a proper cup of mek didn’t have the longest shelf life, so for practicality’s sake, she always purchased instant. But stars, she missed the real thing. She remembered the brewer her father Po had, with its intricate tubes and pipes, a beautiful, elaborate machine that served no purpose beyond concocting a soothing beverage. Most mek drinkers did not make the stuff fully from scratch, preferring the freeze-dried powder that was a good step up from instant but wouldn’t take hours of your day to prepare. Father Po, however, insisted that mek had to be done right or not at all. She had a memory of peeking around the kitchen wall with a creche sibling or two in tow, watching as Father Po performed the ornate ritual of shaving the bark he’d harvested from the garden that morning, grinding and regrinding the potent stuff by hand, adding spices and dried flowers and whatever else he fancied for that particular batch. It was an enormous amount of work for the ten or so cups it would produce, but Father Po insisted it was worth the effort. Not that Pei had ever been able to test that
theory. Kids were too young for mek’s mild narcosis, and Pei had forgotten to ask Father Po to make her a batch before she went off to school. She still visited the creche, when rare occasion allowed for it, but she could never bring herself to make him go to all that trouble just for her.
She’d never tried traditional mek – made by her father’s hand or anyone else’s – but lately, whenever she made a cup of the instant stuff, she found herself longing for that intricate delicacy, the one she’d never tasted. She longed, too, for the creche’s vegetable garden, even though she had no patience for gardening and no interest in cooking. She longed for the days when a bug or a joke or the movement of her own face was enough to keep her attention rapt all afternoon. She did not long for childhood, as such. On the contrary, Pei was extremely happy to have left that clumsy messiness behind forever. What she longed for, rather, was the simple space to think and explore nothing more complicated than can I kick my shoe over the tree? and how do hands work? and if I flash my face at this flower for long enough, can I make it change colour? Sillinesses such as these had been vital once, a key component in learning the basic rules of the universe within and around her. She no longer needed to discover those rules, but it would be nice, she thought, to have the time to become that intimate with them again.
Pei raised her mug with both hands and opened her mouth to drink. A light panel on the wall flashed before she could do so, signalling a message received. It only did this for channels she’d tagged as important, so she did not think twice about setting her untouched drink down and heading for the control room.
She did, however, wish she was still asleep.
Received message
Encryption: 0
From: GC Transit Authority – Gora System (path: 487-45411-479-4)
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Page 8