The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

by Becky Chambers

  To: Gapei Tem Seri (path: 3541-332-61)

  Subject: URGENT UPDATE

  This is an urgent message from the Emergency Response Team aboard the GC Transit Authority Regional Management Orbiter (Gora System). As both standard ansible and Linking channels are currently unavailable, we will be communicating via the emergency beacon network for the time being. We ask that you leave your scribs locked to this channel until proper communications are restored.

  Our team has completed a full orbital survey of Gora’s satellite network and the debris cloud. Wreckage drones have been dispatched, and are hard at work removing the debris as quickly as possible.

  Due to the unprecedented nature of this situation, debris clean-up sufficient enough to resume normal ground-to-orbit traffic will take longer than originally estimated. Based on current data, we hope to restore safe spaceflight conditions within approximately two GC standard days. These estimates are based on the most recent survey data. Given the evolving nature of this situation, the actual time of resolution is subject to change.

  We understand and sympathise with the impact these delays are having on both business and personal affairs. We appreciate your continued understanding as we work to resolve this situation as quickly as safety parameters allow.

  We are aware of isolated attempts to launch spacecraft despite the current traffic shutdown. Do not attempt launch of any vessel, crewed or uncrewed, at this time. The current risk to both sapient life and ship integrity is extreme. Though we share your frustration at the situation, please follow the current traffic regulations for your own safety and the safety of those travelling with you.

  The GCTA and the Goran Orbital Cooperative are working together to bring Gora’s solar power network back online. The Goran Orbital Cooperative will compensate you for all fuel resources used for back-up power supplies until the solar network is restored.

  We understand that some debris from the collision has deorbited and landed planetside. We plan to work directly with affected individuals to assess the damage and necessary repairs once comms channels are restored.

  The safest place to be during this situation is within your ship or your habitat dome. Do not attempt exosuit walks in unshielded environments until the all-clear is given.

  Any satellite debris that has landed on Gora’s surface remains the property of the GC Transit Authority or the Goran Orbital Cooperative. GC salvage rights do not apply in this scenario.

  We are working to restore ground-to-orbit comms as soon as possible. We do not have an estimate for this repair work yet.

  Thank you for your patience. We are all in this together.

  SPEAKER

  Speaker focused on the horizon, and tried to keep her breathing slow.

  She wanted to pace. She wanted to break something. She wanted to say fuck it and hit the launch sequence and navigate the debris herself. But the first option hadn’t helped, the second was wasteful, and the third was the sort of thinking that got people killed. So she sat, she breathed, and she tried to calm down.

  Out the shuttle window, there was nothing but desert. Not the good kind of desert, like she’d seen on supply stops at Hashkath, full of wildflowers and the strange scurrying lives of animals in their natural niche. This was pure emptiness, a lifeless monument to all the different configurations rock could assume. The sheer amount of nothing frightened her. Gora was as undeveloped a place as she’d ever seen, and the bulkhead between her and the outdoors did less to reassure her than usual. The sight of other habitat domes out there – their signs illegible thanks to distance – was a comfort, of sorts. But the domes were so far apart from one another that it did not take much imagining to picture Gora without any sort of buildings at all.

  The thought of an untouched planet unnerved her, and the fact that it did made her angry.

  She looked down to the hammock beneath her. She wasn’t sure when she’d dug her fingers into the edge of the fabric, but it took conscious effort to make herself let go. As she glanced back up, she noticed motion outside.

  Roveg’s shuttle was parked beside hers, and she could see him in his own control room, looking … well, she wasn’t quite sure how he looked, beyond looking like himself. Quelin were such a conundrum. How were you supposed to understand a face that never changed? She continued to watch him, intrusive though she knew this to be. Roveg gestured at panels, spoke words unheard. The longer she watched, the more it became clear that something wasn’t right. An individual in distress was an easy thing to identify, movable face or no. Speaker ran her fingertips over the dents they’d created in the hammock fabric. She thought for a moment, then got out of her seat and climbed into the bubbled window.

  ‘Hey!’ she yelled. She doubted he could hear her, given they were each behind a pane designed to keep the vacuum of space away. But it felt odd to wave her arms without yelling something, so yell she did. ‘Roveg! Hey!’

  She waved furiously, feeling awkward, but at last, Roveg noticed her. Everything about his body language noted surprise – the shift of light in his glossy eyes, the way his antennae and frills perked up. He scuttled over on his dozens of legs to face her. She could see his mouth moving, but the words were lost.

  ‘I can’t—’ I can’t hear you, she started to say, before realising that phrase was particularly pointless when it held true for the listener as well. If she knew his ship’s comms path, she could’ve called him, but she’d neglected to ask for that when she’d checked in on everyone the day before. What a stupid, basic thing to forget. She raised a hand with deliberateness and pointed in the direction of the airlock. He mirrored the gesture with the legs attached to his thorax. Understanding was reached. She saw him exit his control room as she did the same.

  Speaker clambered into her suit, let the cockpit hiss shut, and stepped out of the back hatch of her ship and into the airlock. The hatch clanked closed behind her, and there was another hiss as unseen machinery pumped out the filtered air that had drifted in from Speaker’s ship and replaced it with the differently filtered air Ouloo provided for her habitat dome. This was a normal procedure, for Speaker – seals within seals within seals. A constant reminder of the danger posed by an environment without barriers.

  Roveg was waiting for her in the Five-Hop’s entry tunnel, flexing his upper legs. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘I was wondering the same about you,’ she said. ‘I saw you through the window, and it seemed you were upset. Unless I misread?’

  Expressionless though he was, Roveg seemed taken aback by this, as though he hadn’t thought about the fact that windows worked both ways. ‘Oh,’ he said. There was a long pause, a touch beyond the boundary of comfort. ‘I assume you saw the alert?’

  ‘Yes,’ Speaker said.

  Roveg paused once more. ‘I’ve had to recalculate my course again, given the increased delay,’ he said. ‘A bit of a complicated thing, as I’m sure you’re familiar with, but the new adjustments I’ve made will still allow me to arrive in time for my appointment. Arriving the night before isn’t ideal, but here we are.’ Roveg’s tone grew lighter the longer he went on. It reminded Speaker of the way she’d forced her hands to let go of the hammock minutes before.

  ‘That sounds stressful,’ Speaker said. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘Not unless you’ve got a wreckage drone tucked away in that shuttle of yours,’ he said. His tone was joking now, forcibly so.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said. Strange as the sapient before her was, his anxiety was as palpable as the fact that he didn’t want it to show. Speaker understood everything about that state of being, and had no desire to pry (peeking in windows had been bad enough). His business was his business. She respected that. But proximity to someone else’s pain wasn’t something she could ignore, and if she was unable to provide tangible help, then the next best thing she had to offer was an echo. ‘I’ll be late for a rendezvous, too,’ she said. ‘It’s not the end of the world, but as you said, it complicates thi
ngs.’

  ‘You mentioned your sister last night,’ Roveg said. ‘Have you been able to contact her?’

  Now it was Speaker’s turn to feel exposed. Windows went both ways, of course, but he’d cut right to the heart of it. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Watcher, was it?’

  ‘Tracker.’

  ‘Ah, yes. My mistake. Are you worried about her?’

  Speaker took a deep breath. ‘I am,’ she said. The understatement of the standard. She tried to keep her words measured, but rooted in her heart as they were, they attempted to race away. ‘She wasn’t well when I left. She’s – she’s probably fine, she just has, um – she’s always had—’ Speaker steadied herself, slowed down. ‘She has a lung condition, and she was having a difficult day when I left our ship. I’m sure she’s—’ She paused to take another breath, and as she heard the air slip smoothly through her open throat, she thought of how Tracker’s breath had sounded the day before: tight and stuttering, far from effortless. Speaker shoved the thought away. She was embarrassed by letting her fear get the better of her, and frustrated to be in the position of talking about herself when her intent in coming out here had been to help someone else. With effort, she found her poise, found her words. ‘I just want to make sure she’s all right.’

  Roveg’s eyes shifted in their keratin sockets, scattering reflected sunlight. They reminded Speaker of the crystals Tracker grew. ‘You know, I can’t promise anything,’ Roveg said, ‘but I … hmm. Do you know what kind of comms receiver your ship has? Your ship in orbit, I mean, not your shuttle.’

  ‘Oh, uh, it’s a …’ She closed her eyes and tried to remember. This was her sister’s domain, not hers. ‘I’m not completely sure.’

  ‘Does it look like a dish, or does it stick out? Like a small tower?’

  ‘A tower, I think.’

  ‘Ah, good. Again, no promises, but I have an idea.’ The decorative frills around Roveg’s upper torso waved gently. Speaker had no basis for thinking this, but something about the gesture felt friendly. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let’s find Ouloo.’

  PEI

  Pei’s implant buzzed to the right as the door to the Five-Hop’s office slid open. She looked in the buzz’s direction and saw a robotic percussion instrument, playing a short tune to announce her arrival. Her brief recognition of the sound was drowned out a split second later by the sort of input her brain was far more receptive to: a veritable avalanche of colour. Pei was no stranger to environments that seemed to be shouting – she wouldn’t get far in a multispecies market otherwise – but given the tactfully neutral paint of the building’s exterior, she hadn’t expected the inside to be so loud.

  The Five-Hop One-Stop’s permit office and traveller’s shop was jammed to the gills with items for sale, each emblazoned with a label or logo designed to make people of other species sit up and take notice. Pei noticed, all right, but not in the way their designers had hoped. She gave an involuntary wince as every hue hit her eyes at once. She felt as though she were staring directly into the sun, and that the sun really wanted her to buy something.

  ‘Oh dear, I know, I’m so sorry,’ Ouloo said. Pei hadn’t yet registered the ground host sitting behind a desk at the far end of the room. ‘There’s a basket of monocs just to your left there.’

  Pei looked over and saw the basket in question, hanging from the wall and fixed with a computer-generated colour-sign that read Please take them if you need them! Return them before you go! Inside, as stated, there were several pairs of monochromatic spectacles, which, when worn over Aeluon eyes, rendered the world a tranquil grey. Despite her discomfort, Pei did not pick up a pair. Monocs were dorky as hell, the sort of thing you only wore if you were very young or very old or very fussy or never left your homeworld. The fledgling headache that had made its appearance would pass in a minute or two, she knew, and in this case, pride won out. ‘Thanks, but I’m okay,’ she said.

  ‘All right, well, they’re there if you change your mind.’ Ouloo sighed apologetically. ‘I can control how the buildings look, but not the labels on things.’

  ‘I completely understand,’ Pei said. ‘And honestly, the grey paint is more than I’d expect in a place that gets traffic from all over.’

  Ouloo beamed at this. ‘I got that paint special-ordered from an Aeluon manufacturer,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows your rods are extra sensitive and can pick up colours the rest of us can’t see, so I wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting something that was … you know, sloppy. I know that what’s grey to me and what’s purely grey to you are different things.’

  Pei smiled appreciative blue, because everyone didn’t know that, and Ouloo had clearly done her homework. That point was underlined as Pei perused the screaming shelves. There were baskets of all manner of fresh fruit, bags of spicy dried insects, jerky made from a broad swath of animals and plants alike, and a plex-doored stasie filled with single-serving tubs of roe and Hanto-labelled mysteries Pei could only guess at. A little something for everybody.

  No species was a monolith, but if Pei had been asked to describe the Laru in broad strokes, she’d simply point to what Ouloo had constructed at the Five-Hop. The Laru had been even less technologically capable than Humans – believe it or not – when the GC had made contact about a century back. Their furry species hadn’t gotten any farther than space telescopes and short suborbital flights before Aandrisk ambassadors sent along a friendly hello. Pei had read that it was always difficult to predict how a sapient species would react to contact, but in the Laru’s case, the overwhelming reaction to learning they were far from alone in the galaxy was one of joyous enthusiasm. The Laru wasted no time in throwing themselves wholeheartedly into a life among aliens, opening their planetary system to metal mining and gas harvesting and whatever else the GC wanted, leaving their homeworld in droves to absorb all the lessons they could from interstellar exchange. Pei had met many Laru in her time, and they were each their own people, but the one thing they had in common was that she’d never met any who’d been born on their homeworld. She wasn’t even sure what their homeworld was called, come to think of it. All the Laru she’d encountered were transplants from elsewhere. She’d met one from Port Coriol, one from Hagarem, one from Kaathet who could speak Reskitkish so perfectly she would’ve thought they were an Aandrisk if she’d closed her eyes and plugged her nose. Ouloo appeared to have come straight out of the same mould as her predecessors – a champion for multispecies life, someone who dove headlong into the melting pot and was loving every minute of it.

  ‘Did you make those?’ Pei asked, nodding at Ouloo’s desk. A heap of office supplies had been shoved aside to make way for an enormous stack of iced buns, which Ouloo was in the process of transferring one by one into a drone delivery box.

  ‘Yes,’ Ouloo said, sounding quite unhappy for someone wielding that much sugar. ‘I made them for my neighbours who own the tet house across the way. I can’t call anyone, but Tupo has a telescope, and I used that to look around and see what was going on out there, and it looks like some of the debris hit their dome. There’s pieces of it all over.’

  Pei straightened up. ‘Are they okay? Can you tell?’

  ‘Well, their shuttle was there, so nobody left, and I could see some people moving around, so I guess they must have some kind of shielding, or maybe it didn’t hit hard enough to break the seal, or – I don’t know. I don’t know, and it’s making me crazy. But I’m going to send them these, along with a note to send the drone back with a note of their own if they need help, because that’s the only thing I can do.’ The filaments of fur around Ouloo’s ears stretched vertically in agitation. She picked up one of the buns and took an enormous bite, for what looked like therapeutic purposes. ‘I just can’t believe this is happening,’ she said as she chewed. ‘We’ve never had anything like this here. Not ever. I’m shocked the Transit Authority let something like this happen.’

  ‘Things just happen,’ Pei said kindly. ‘All the rest of
us can do is react. And do our best.’

  ‘Well, I suppose, but … stars, what a disaster.’ Ouloo took another bite; icing stuck to the fur around her mouth. She looked at Pei, and swallowed. ‘Captain Tem, if there is anything I can do for you to make this easier, please, please let me know. Any hour of the day. No matter what it is.’

  ‘I will,’ Pei said, trying to infuse the words with as much a sense of it’s not your fault, please stop worrying as she could. She understood that this was likely one of the worst things that had ever happened to Ouloo and that her fretting was proportionate to that, but for Pei, a few unexpected days of shuttle camping and catching up on vids and books was far from a hardship. It was annoying, not distressing. It truly was okay. They weren’t the ones stuck under a dome that had shit falling on it. Not yet, anyway.

  Pei stopped in front of a rack of snack packs. One in particular caught her eye: an Ensk label bellowing in red font (to her, the words appeared afraid). She understood only a smattering of Ensk – which was pathetic, given how long she’d been with Ashby – but this label she knew, thanks to an unthinkable pair of days she’d had earlier that standard. (Had that rendezvous happened this standard? Stars, but it felt like a lifetime already.)

  She picked up the bag. The Original Fire Shrimp! the label read. Devastatingly Hot!

  Pei picked up a second pack and headed for Ouloo’s desk.

  ‘Ah, Human snacks, of course,’ Ouloo said. She took a pack in her forepaw and studied it with suspicion. ‘There’s no cheese in these, right?’

  Pei laughed. ‘No, I don’t think so. And they’re not for me, they’re for a friend.’

  ‘The one you’re visiting?’

  ‘Well – no, they’re not for him. But they are for someone on his crew, so I … yes, I guess I’m visiting her as well.’ Intellectually, Pei was well aware that Ashby did not live alone, but she’d been so focused on spending time with him that she hadn’t given much thought to how it would be to spend time with the rest of his crew as well. This was new territory in their relationship, for certain. ‘Sorry, where’s the …’ She looked around for the patch scanner, and found it semi-hidden beside a stack of scrib repair kits. She pushed up her wristwrap, swiped her implanted chip over the scanner, and paid for the shrimp bits.