The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

by Becky Chambers

  “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 wa
sn’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?”