The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

by Becky Chambers

Day 132 - 145, GC Standard 306

  THE JOB

  “I hate this game,” Sissix said, frowning over the checkered pixel board.

  Ashby took a bite of spice bread. “You’re the one who wanted to play.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m going to win one of these days, and then I can be done with it forever.” She rested her chin on her fists, sighed, and gestured toward her bishop. The game piece moved itself forward, leaving a faint trail of pixels in its wake. “The fact that you people have been playing this for centuries says a lot about your species.”

  “Oh? What’s it say?”

  “That Humans make everything needlessly difficult.”

  Ashby laughed. “I could just let you win.”

  Sissix’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare.” She glanced out the Fishbowl’s bubbled window, watching the joints of the new containment cage fasten themselves together. A few more hours, and they could be out of here. Not that they had another job lined up yet, but there wasn’t any reason to linger. They were due for a market stop, and Sissix was looking forward to having her feet on the ground for a while.

  “You know, Aya laughed at me for still playing pixel games. She said they’re not cool.”

  Sissix blinked. “Tell me she doesn’t have a brain jack.”

  “Oh, no, no, she just uses slappers.”

  “Okay, then. Whew.” Slap patches weren’t anything to worry about. They had a box of them in the rec room, little sticky sheets applied below the brain stem, a necessary accessory if you wanted to create a neural link between yourself and a sim, a vid, or the Linkings. Slappers had come around after Sissix had reached adulthood, so while she used them on occasion, she still preferred the more tangible comforts of a pixel board and a scrib. Brain jacks, on the other hand, made her skin crawl. She couldn’t imagine loving any hobby so much that it warranted putting a techport in her head.

  Ashby gestured at a pawn. “Besides, I can’t believe there’s a doctor out there who’d put a jack in an eight-year-old. Not to mention a parent who’d let it happen.”

  “Have you met any of Kizzy and Jenks’ friends?”

  “Fair point.”

  Sissix took a sip of mek. She didn’t usually start her mornings with the sleepy brew, but she had nothing to do until the cage was finished. She could justify being lazy. She tugged at the heat blanket wrapped around her shoulders, trying to coax away the lingering torpidity. “Little brains have enough going on without getting all wired up. So do big brains, for that matter.”

  “That’s what I told Aya.”

  “And what’d she say?”

  “She called me old.” He rubbed his stubbled chin as he studied the board. “I am officially the old, boring uncle.”

  Sissix laughed. “I highly doubt that. You let her fly our shuttle last time we visited the Fleet.”

  Ashby chuckled. “I thought my sister was going to kill me.”

  “Exactly. And that makes you cool. Your move, by the way.”

  Dr. Chef lumbered down into the garden, walking on two handfeet, carrying gardening supplies in the other four. “How’s the spice bread?” he asked Ashby.

  “The crust’s a little crisper than last time,” Ashby said. “I like it.”

  “Glad to hear it. I thought you could all do with some complex carbohydrates after last night.”

  Ashby smirked. “Hey, I left the carrier bar at a reasonable time, with my reputation intact. I am the very picture of restraint.”

  “Ha,” Sissix said.

  A guilty grin spread across Ashby’s face. “Okay, maybe I got a little happy.”

  A chorus of laughter erupted from Dr. Chef’s throat. “At least you were quiet about it. Unlike a particular trio of inebriated Humans I found raiding the med bay at sixth hour.”

  “Oh no,” said Sissix with a smile. “What did they do?”

  “Nothing scandalous. Kizzy and Jenks were in search of some SoberUps, and Rosemary had fallen over onto one of the examination tables. Dead asleep. I think she actually tried to match drinks with those two.”

  Sissix laughed. “Oh, I bet she did, and I’m sure they talked her into it. By the time I left, they were six rounds of kick deep, and had just ordered sugarsnaps. Poor thing, she’ll be miserable today. Did you get her to her room?”

  “Kizzy did. I think she put her in the freight elevator. Her feet and her brain were operating on completely different frequencies.”

  Ashby shook his head with amusement as he moved his rook. “Well, hopefully she understands that the techs just wanted to give her a welcome. And that she never has to go through it again.” He leaned back in his chair. “Also, checkmate.”

  “What?” Sissix cried, leaning forward. “No, that’s…wait…shit.” Her shoulders sagged. “But I had a strategy and everything.”

  “Sorry to mess it up.”

  She studied the board, trying to figure out where she’d gone wrong. Nearby, Dr. Chef was tending to one of his planters, breathing out a low, droning whisper, as always. His version of silence. Sissix watched his pudgy fingers weave bracing knots of twine around the wandering shoots. Sissix never failed to be surprised by how agile Dr. Chef’s movements were. The man looked like a pudding with legs, yet his handfeet let him move as nimbly as a dancer.

  “How’s your ginger?” Sissix said.

  “Fat and happy,” he said, tying back the tall stalks. Dr. Chef puffed his cheeks with pride. The ginger had been Jenks’ idea, and few things made Dr. Chef happier than meeting the crew’s culinary requests. “Although, I have to admit, I like eating the flowers much more than the root. Far too potent for my taste. Nice and crunchy, though.”

  Ashby turned his head. “You know ginger’s an accent, right? Like a spice?”

  “What? No. Really?”

  “Did you try to eat it whole?”

  “Oh, dear. Yes.” Dr. Chef rumbled a laugh. “I thought it was some sort of spicy potato.”

  “I have never understood potatoes,” Sissix said. “The whole point of a potato is to cover it with salt so you don’t notice how bland it is. Why not just get a salt lick and skip the potato?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Ashby said, standing up. “Potatoes are a grounder thing.”

  “You done playing?” asked Sissix.

  “Yeah, it’s a little after tenth hour. The news feeds will be updated.” His tone was easy, but there was a serious look in his eye as he said it.

  “Okay,” she said. She knew what feeds he’d be checking, and it made her want to hug him. Not a quick, stiff Human hug — a long hug, the kind you give to friends when you know something’s bothering them. But she’d learned long ago that those kind of embraces just didn’t happen platonically among Humans. It was one of the many social instincts she’d learned to temper.

  Dr. Chef tied one more knot, grumbled with satisfaction, and took Ashby’s empty seat. In his top handfeet, he held a mug printed with an Ensk expression: “KISS THE COOK.” A past birthday gift from Kizzy, who always ignored the fact that none of the non-Human crew members traditionally celebrated birthdays.

  Sissix lifted the pitcher of mek sitting beside the pixel board. “More?”

  Dr. Chef considered. “Just a half cup,” he said, extending the mug. “I suppose we’re all entitled to a lazy day once in a while.”

  “That we are.” Sissix filled Dr. Chef’s mug halfway, then filled her own to the brim. She could feel the muscles in her cheeks and throat relax as the warm, bittersweet brew washed over them. The feeling bloomed throughout her shoulders, her neck, her arms, washing away all the remaining scraps of tension that the previous cup had softened. Stars, she loved mek.

  Dr. Chef cradled his mug in his handfeet. He nodded toward the pixel board. “A very typical Human game.”

  “How so?”

  “All Human games are based around conquest.”

  “Not true,” she said. “They’ve got lots of cooperative games. What about Battle Wizards?” Scarcely a tenday went by in which Kizzy an
d Jenks didn’t plug into that game — with slappers, even those two weren’t dumb enough to jack — exploring magical worlds and sharing merry adventures inside their heads.

  Dr. Chef waved a free handfoot dismissively. “I don’t mean brain games. I mean stuff like this,” he said, gesturing to the pixel board. “The classics. Things Humans have been playing since before they even knew there were other planets out there. All conquest, all competition. Come to think of it, even Battle Wizards is like that. The players work together, but they’re still working to defeat a common enemy — the game itself.”

  Sissix mulled this over. The idea of Humans as conquerers had always been a laughable one. Not just because they had meager resources or because the Diaspora could never get anything done, but because the Humans she knew personally were so unassuming. Ashby was one of the kindest individuals she’d ever met, of any species. Jenks didn’t have any ambitions beyond living comfortably alongside people he liked. Kizzy had managed to drop a sandwich into an air duct last tenday, so they hardly needed to worry about her launching a coup. Corbin was a hateful pain in the ass, but harmless, and a coward, too. And yet, Human history — pre-Exodus, at least — was rife with cruelty and endless war. Sissix had never been able to make sense of that.

  Dr. Chef pushed the chess pieces around the board. “Grum games are rather similar, thematically. I think our species are rather alike, in some ways. Humans would’ve died out, too, if the Aeluons hadn’t chanced upon the Fleet. Luck’s what saved them. Luck, and discovering humility. That’s really all that makes Humans different from Grum. Well, aside from the obvious.” He chuckled, gesturing to his body.

  Sissix laid her hand across Dr. Chef’s closest foreleg. There would be no more Grum in a century or so, and there was nothing to be done about it. She knew that Dr. Chef had long ago made peace with his species’ impending extinction. Even as he referred to it now, there was no sadness in his voice, no bitterness. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t feel it on his behalf.

  Dr. Chef patted her hand, more for her sake than his. He glanced over his shoulder toward Ashby, who was leaning against the kitchen counter, reading feeds on his scrib. Dr. Chef spoke in a low whisper, quieting all the voices that came from his mouth. “Am I wrong, or has Ashby been checking the news a lot these days?”

  Sissix nodded, knowing what he was asking. “The Rosk have been hitting the colonies at Kaelo hard.”

  “And that’s where…?”

  “She was headed last, yeah. Not that the feeds give many details.”

  Understanding passed between them. They both knew that Ashby wasn’t worried about a war that would never come to his doorstep. His concern revolved around one of the Aeluons stuck on the fringes of that war. Her name was Pei, and she and Ashby had been coupling as often as they could for years now. She was a civilian cargo runner, hired to haul medical supplies, ammo, tech, food, whatever the Aeluon forces needed. Given the nature of her work, she couldn’t always send text or jump on the ansible when she was heading into contested territory, for fear of giving away troop locations or becoming an easy target. Ashby often went tendays without hearing from her, and during such times, it was likely to find him checking news feeds. When he did hear from her, and had a rough idea of her location, the checking became all the more targeted. It didn’t help Ashby’s well-being at all, not that Sissix could see, but Humans always got a little dumb when sexual partners were involved.

  Close as Sissix was to Ashby, she’d never met Pei, or even seen her. The woman was an enigma. But Ashby’s lack of forthcoming had nothing to do with Sissix, and everything to do with Aeluon prudishness. An Aeluon — especially one working alongside respectable soldiers — could get in a hell of a lot of trouble for pairing up with someone from another species. Everybody aboard the Wayfarer knew about Pei, of course, but they understood why Ashby needed to keep it quiet. Everyone had stopped asking questions about her — at least, while Ashby was in the room — and even Kizzy was smart enough to keep her mouth shut about it when they were around other people.

  “It’s not good for him to check the news all the time,” Dr. Chef said. “It’s not as if they’d print her name if anything happened.”

  “You tell him that,” Sissix said.

  “I can’t,” Dr. Chef sighed. “I did the same thing when my daughters were off at war. That’s why I don’t like that he’s doing it. I know how all that wondering can eat away at a person.” He shook out his cheeks, as if brushing himself off. “This conversation has become entirely too heavy. Would you like to play a game with me? Or have you had enough for one morning?”

  “I’m down for another. You want to play chess?”

  “Stars, no. Let’s play something Aandrisk. One of your lovely ‘let’s team up and solve a puzzle’ games.”

  “Tikkit?”

  “Oh, I like tikkit. I haven’t played it in years, though, not since I lived in Port Coriol.”

  “Well, I’m not very good at it, so we’ll be a balanced team.” She voiced the change in game to the board. The pixels reassembled themselves accordingly. “So, what about Aandrisk games?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What do Aandrisk games tell you about us?”

  “That you’re clever, fond of sharing, and just as dysfunctional as everybody else.”

  Sissix laughed. “I can’t argue that.”

  They began the game, and the conversation segued into tikkit strategy. Sissix was just starting to think that they might actually win when Ashby broke his silence. “Whoa,” he said to himself. Then again, more publicly, as he hurried back toward them. “Whoa.”

  “Everything okay?” Sissix said. All spacers knew that a lot of bad things could happen to a ship in a short amount of time, especially when sitting in the mouth of a brand new tunnel. Seeing a crewmate in a hurry always made her adrenaline kick.

  “We’re fine,” he said. He lay his scrib down beside the pixel board and gestured over the screen. The vid feed playing on the screen leapt into the air and hovered above the scrib. It was a Human news program — Fleet-based, from the sound of the reporter’s accent. Sissix and Dr. Chef leaned forward to listen.

  “ — yet to confirm how long membership talks have been in place, but sources indicate that a small team of GC ambassadors have been secretly in communication with the Toremi Ka for at least two standard years.”

  “The Toremi?” Dr. Chef said, his whiskers rustling in surprise. Sissix could not mimic his physical response, but she shared the feeling. The Toremi were not a species that was mentioned often in the news. They were not a species that was mentioned often at all. Sissix knew little of them, other than that they controlled a tight ring of territory surrounding the galactic core, and that they had been industriously killing each other for decades.

  Ashby shook his head, a gesture of both confirmation and disbelief. “One of their clans has just been granted GC membership.”

  Sissix set down her mug. “What?” Her brain reeled. “Wait, what?” If that was true, the Commons Parliament had gone insane. The Toremi clans, from what few accounts of them there were, came across as both vicious and incomprehensible. Never a good mix. The clans had been discovered by the Harmagians nearly five hundred standards prior, when a probe found Toremi ships skip driving (which was dangerous as hell) ‘round and ‘round the galactic core, like fish following a current. No one knew why, and the Toremi themselves showed no interest in talking to their galactic neighbors. They kept up their nomadic loop until about forty standards back, when they stopped in their tracks and started slaughtering each other over claims to stationary territories. And again, no one knew why. No one could get close enough to ask. The Toremi blocked all access to the core. Ships that got close were pushed back. Ships that slipped through came back in pieces, or not at all. But aside from butchering trespassers, the Toremi had kept to themselves, of no concern to anyone except the scientists and entrepreneurs frustrated by a walled-off core.

  Ashby put his fi
nger to his lips, and pointed to the scrib. “ — official statement from the GC ambassadorial committee explains that the Toremi Ka are the only Toremi clan currently taking part in this membership agreement,” the reporter explained. “Other clans have remained neutral in this agreement, and reportedly have displayed no hostility toward the GC. The GC has vouched for the Toremi Ka, stating — quote — ‘we stand by the good intentions of our new allies, who are committed to enjoying the benefits of a more unified galaxy.’ As part of the new membership agreement, the GC will not aid the Toremi Ka in offensive attacks against other Toremi clans. However, use of military force will be authorized to defend territories shared by the Toremi Ka and the GC.”

  Dr. Chef scoffed. “In other words, the Toremi Ka get big GC battleships sitting on their borders, and the GC gets easy access to all the ambi sitting on the other side of their border.” He shook his head. “No good can come from a species at war with itself. Never has, never will.” His eyes grew small, and he hrummed deeply. Sissix knew his thoughts had gone to his own people, his own war. She reached out and squeezed his top-most shoulder. His eyes grew large again, focusing on her. He came back. He puffed his cheeks and laid one of his handfeet atop her claws.

  “Wait,” Ashby said. “Huh.”

  “What?” Sissix said.

  He blinked. “This is what Yoshi was talking about.” He looked at Sissix. She understood.

  “We could do this,” she said, and nodded. “Yeah, we could handle this.”

  “Handle what?” Dr. Chef said.

  “If they’re going to be mining and pulling ambi, they need a way to get their hauls back home.”

  “And they’re going to need single-ship hops in place before they can start thinking about convoy tunnels,” Ashby said. He straightened up, deep in thought. “This is exactly the kind of work that could get us ahead. A job like this, they’re not going to paying small.”

  “Work,” repeated Dr. Chef. “You want to work out there? With those people?”

  “Every tunneler’s going to jump on this once they hear the news,” Sissix said.