A Closed and Common Orbit

by Becky Chambers

  ‘Well, hey!’ he said, setting down both scrib and pipe. ‘It’s my friend from the party!’

  Sidra felt the kit smile. He remembered her. ‘Hello. I hope I’m not intruding.’

  Tak gestured around. ‘I’m alone, and it’s a shop. You’re supposed to intrude.’ The patches on his cheeks went green with amusement. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Well, I . . .’ Sidra wasn’t sure how to go about this. She’d never bought anything on her own before – not without Pepper’s instruction, at least. Perhaps this was a stupid idea. ‘I’m interested in getting a tattoo.’

  The green took on shades of blue. Tak was very pleased. ‘Your first, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fantastic. Please,’ he said, gesturing toward a heap of cushions surrounding a thin, cylindrical table. ‘Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Mek? Water?’

  ‘Mek would be nice, thank you.’ Sidra sat the kit down as Tak operated the brewer. The shop was a peaceful place, full of plants and curios. A small tank full of some sort of amorphous schooling sea creature – image logged, added to research list – hummed calmly against the wall. It stood alongside a strange piece of furniture: a smooth, featureless blob, bigger than she was. This was situated beside an Aeluon-style chair and a huge cabinet chequered with cube-like drawers. The chair appeared to be made of some sort of polymer, but she couldn’t identify the material. Image logged, added to research list.

  Much like the decor at the festival, the shop was strikingly devoid of colour. Most of the objects within were grey, white, tan. Even the plants were muted – tarnished silver leaves with just the barest hint of chlorophyll. There were a few items that broke the rule: an abstract painting in bright primaries, the labels on foodstuffs and other multispecies goods, and a quartet of Aandrisk feathers, sticking up out of a thin vase.

  ‘Is this typical Aeluon decor?’ Sidra asked. ‘It’s quite striking.’

  Tak went back to an amused green, tinged with a bit of curious brown. ‘Yeah, we tend to like our spaces simple. Too much colour gets tiring.’

  ‘Yet you’re a tattoo artist. On Port Coriol.’

  Tak laughed as he picked up two full cups of mek. ‘I didn’t say we don’t like colour. Colour is good. Colour is life. But it’s also noise. Words. Passion.’ He handed Sidra a cup and sat down. ‘My shop’s where I spend most of my day. I want it to be a place where I can chill out and think clearly.’

  ‘How do you deal with the markets? Aren’t they distracting?’

  ‘They’re absolutely distracting. That’s the point of a market, to distract you into buying stuff you don’t need.’ He sipped his drink, cheeks swirling as he savoured it. ‘But I was also born here. The market’s background static to me.’ He looked around the shop. ‘Still, though. A quiet place is good.’ He turned his attention back to Sidra with a friendly teal flush. ‘But you didn’t come here to talk interior decorating. You want ink.’ He slid his scrib onto the table and gestured. A small cloud of pixels shot up, awaiting direction. ‘What are you after?’

  Sidra took a sip of mek. She was stepping into a hot bath, but this body wasn’t hers. ‘I’m not quite sure.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Tak said, sitting back. He looked cautious. ‘Then why do you want one?’

  Sidra didn’t know what to say. The truth was all she could work with, but Tak’s change in body language worried her. She’d put him off, and she wasn’t sure why. ‘Because of what you said. At the party.’

  Tak laughed. ‘You’ll have to be more specific.’

  The kit smiled, just a little. ‘The re-enforced circle. Bringing your mind and body together.’ She paused. ‘I want that.’

  Tak’s cheeks quietly blossomed – pleased, touched, interested. His caution vanished. Sidra relaxed. ‘Okay then,’ Tak said. His long grey fingers danced near the projected pixels; they followed him like filings chasing after a magnet. ‘Let’s narrow it down. Are we going for an anchor or a compass? A memory to ground you, or a spark to guide you forward?’

  Sidra processed the question fully. She had some good memories, but she could access those at any time. ‘A spark.’

  ‘A spark. Good.’ Tak touched the underside of his chin, tapping it as he thought. ‘Tell me what kind of imagery appeals to you. Do you have a favourite animal? A place? Anything in particular that inspires you?’

  Sidra wasn’t sure she’d ever been inspired, and she wasn’t sure how to pick a favourite animal when they were all so interesting. ‘I like . . .’ Her pathways raced, trying to find a good answer in a polite amount of time. She sipped her mek again. She was stepping into a hot bath, but this body wasn’t hers. That was it – not mek, but the sensory analogues. That was her favourite thing. She considered the images she’d experienced, and tried to narrow it down further. ‘I like the ocean. When I—’ She stopped herself from saying when I eat hard candy, I see waves. ‘When I see the ocean, I feel calm. It makes me want to’ – to keep eating candy – ‘to keep going. To keep trying new things. To keep living.’ She processed what she’d just said. She’d said it aloud, so it had to be true.

  ‘I can work with that,’ Tak said happily. Sidra had been so focused on answering the question that she hadn’t processed him gesturing at the pixels, creating a rough ghost of a wave cresting into the air. ‘Now, how elaborate do we want to get? Do you want something realistic, or are you more into symbols?’

  Sidra pondered. ‘Symbols. Symbols are interesting.’

  ‘I like symbols, too.’ He continued to gesture, drawing in the air. The wave became fuller, more tangible. ‘Do you want just a wave, or other things with it? Fish? We could add some fish in there.’ He added outlines of brightly coloured fish wriggling through the spray.

  A memory appeared: Blue answering her questions on the Undersea during her first day at the Port. She liked that memory. Maybe a compass could be an anchor, too. ‘Yes, fish would be good.’ She shifted her gaze to the tank by the cabinet, where the strange creatures pulsed and swayed. ‘Ocean creatures in general, I think.’

  ‘Right, right, not just fish. I like it.’ Tentacles joined the ichthyoid outlines. Claws and fronds, too. ‘So, the question becomes: do you want a static tattoo, or dynamic?’

  ‘I don’t know. Which is better?’

  ‘That is entirely up to you.’

  Sidra thought back to the party. ‘It wouldn’t bother you, would it? The moving colours?’ She didn’t want the act of tattooing her to be an unpleasant experience for Tak. She wouldn’t be doing this at all if he hadn’t planted the idea in her head. She didn’t feel comfortable getting ink from just anyone. She wanted the care she’d seen him employ on his customer at Shimmerquick. She wanted to know that he understood why she was doing this at all. It was a tattoo from Tak, or nothing.

  ‘Wouldn’t bother me at all,’ Tak said, ‘though I appreciate the consideration. I’ve been doing dynamic ink for standards. I’m used to it.’

  ‘Well,’ Sidra said, slowly. ‘Then I’d like bots.’ If the point was to give her something that would help her move forward, then she needed something that actually moved. ‘But please use colours that aren’t irritating to Aeluons.’

  Tak’s cheeks turned green, through and through. ‘I’ll need some time to design this properly,’ he said, ‘but I can tell you right now this is going to be a great project.’

  JANE, AGE 10

  Jane had a lot of questions. She had so many questions, she couldn’t have counted them all because she’d have run out of numbers.

  They were up real late. Jane was tired all the way through. She could feel it was way after bedtime, but she didn’t care. Her thoughts were buzzing so fast, there was no way she could sleep. Owl had used so many new words: planets, stars, gravity, orbit, tunnels, the Galactic Come Ons, and a whole bunch of others she’d already forgot. And species! Jane understood what species meant now. She was a Human species. There were many people who were Human species, and lots more kinds of people than just girls
. Owl had showed her pictures. All the Humans in the pictures had hair, and Jane had asked if she was weird because she didn’t have any, but Owl said she didn’t need to worry about that. Humans were all different. They were different colours and sizes, and they wouldn’t think no hair was weird. They would just be glad to see her, Owl said.

  Jane asked Owl why she didn’t have hair. She asked why she’d never seen other Humans. She asked if the Mothers knew there was stuff outside the factory, and if they knew about ships and stars and the rest of it. Owl had gotten kind of funny and quiet and said that that was a really big thing to talk about and they should focus on planets for now.

  There were other species, too. They had hard names that Jane knew she’d need to practise. Owl said she would help. Owl said she would do as much as she could to get Jane ready before she met other species. She’d teach her how to live in a ship, how to act around others, how to say the same words other species did. Their words were called Klip, and Jane’s words were called Sko-Ensk, which were kind of like another set of words called Ensk, and some Humans knew that one, but usually not the one Jane spoke. Words were weird.

  Everything was complicated, but real interesting, too. Jane had so many questions she was starting to forget her questions. She sat on the good soft thing in the living room – the couch, Owl said. Jane unwrapped a ration bar and dunked it in a cup of water. ‘How come,’ she said, after swallowing the chewed food, ‘how come if there are so many stars on the other side of the sky, I can’t see them?’

  ‘Our planet is facing a star during the hours that you’re awake,’ Owl said. She put a picture up on her screen – one little ball facing a big bright ball. ‘See? When we’re facing the star, it’s so bright that it blocks out the light from all the others. But when we face away from it’ – the picture changed – ‘you can see the stars we’ve been missing during the day. You probably saw them when you first got here, but . . . you had a lot going on that night.’

  Jane thought back. She remembered the specks in the sky, but she hadn’t known what they were, and she’d been scared about all the other things. She watched the little ball on screen turn in and out of light. ‘Are we facing away from the star now?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why it’s night-time.’

  ‘Can I see the other stars now?’

  ‘Oh! Yes, yes, of course! I hadn’t considered. Stupid of me. Go up to the control room. I can activate the viewscreen.’

  Jane ran to the front of the shuttle. Owl joined her on a panel between the control buttons. The viewscreen flickered on, but it snapped and buzzed all over. Worn-out wiring, probably.

  ‘Sorry, Jane,’ Owl said. ‘I think that’s as good as it’s going to get.’

  Jane squinted at the viewscreen, trying to see beyond the buzzing bits. It was real dark outside, darker than the dorm ever got. She could kind of make out the big piles of scrap. She tried to focus above the scrap, where the sky was. The screen kept flickering, turning on and off in patches all over. But in the bits that stayed on, she could see more light. Little dots in the sky. Lots of them.

  ‘Owl?’ Jane said. ‘Are there any dogs outside?’

  ‘There are always dogs outside,’ Owl said. ‘I can’t see any right by us, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.’

  Jane thought for a second, then ran back down the hall, toward the living room.

  ‘Jane?’ Owl said, chasing her from one wall screen to the next. ‘Jane, are you okay?’

  Jane put on her shoes and strapped her weapon to her back.

  ‘Jane,’ Owl said. Her voice was real serious.

  Jane faced the closest screen. She stood up tall and held the weapon tight. ‘Can I go see?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but there is no lighting out there. You could trip on something. You could hurt yourself. It’s not safe.’

  Jane tried a new word. ‘Please?’

  Owl closed her eyes and sighed. ‘If you see any dogs—’

  ‘I have my weapon,’ Jane said.

  ‘If you see any dogs, you come right back inside. You can’t see very well in the dark. They probably can.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And don’t go away from the ship.’ Owl thought about something, then sighed again. ‘There’s a maintenance ladder near the outer hatch. If the roof doesn’t have too much junk on it, you can probably climb up to the top. I don’t recommend going further than that. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Owl opened the airlock, then the hatch. Jane stepped outside. It was so dark, and cold, too. Jane swallowed and looked around, trying to see things that were close. She couldn’t see anything moving. She couldn’t hear anything moving, either. She thought for a second about going back inside, but she didn’t. She found the ladder and climbed it.

  She looked up.

  Jane couldn’t move. The cold was making her shaky, but that was the only thing about her that moved, except for her heart, beating real loud in her ears. The sky was . . . it was . . . it was so full. And now that she knew what the specks were, it made her head spin and her mouth dry.

  There were dozens of stars. Dozens of dozens, way too many to count, just like her questions. There were big stars and little stars and some that were kind of red or blue. There wasn’t any part of sky that didn’t have stars, but most of them were in one big big big strip that was fluffy and soft and so so bright. Owl had showed her a picture of a galaxy, but this was different. This was real. This was real.

  A few days ago, the factory had been everything. There were no planets. There were no stars. The big blue day sky had been confusing enough, but this . . . There were people out in the stars. So many people! All those little bits of light, they all had planets – so big that you couldn’t even tell that you were standing on a ball – and all those planets had people, and species! Species in different colours and kinds. Jane couldn’t even picture that many people. It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

  She sat down. She didn’t know if she felt good or if she felt sick. The Mothers had to know this was here. They didn’t leave the factory, she figured, but they had to know. Why didn’t the girls know? Why hadn’t they been told? Why couldn’t they go outside? They could still sort scrap even if they knew about the sky! Jane felt something bad, something she didn’t have a word for. She felt all hot and wrong. She wanted to break something on purpose.

  But then she looked up again, up at the big soft galaxy, and after a bit, she felt okay. She felt good. Somehow, outside, looking at the stars, everything was a little better. It didn’t make sense in her head, but it did down in her stomach. She looked at the stars, and she knew all her questions would get answered, all the things would get fixed. All this weird stuff was okay.

  Jane wished that 64 had gone outside, too. She wished that 64 had met Owl, and that they’d learned about the sky together. Jane felt hot and wrong again, and even the stars couldn’t fix that.

  She lay down on her back, looking and looking. She thought about species and ships. She thought about people.

  They’d be happy to see her, Owl had said.

  The cold air was starting to make her shake real hard, and it kind of hurt, too, so she climbed down the ladder and went back inside.

  ‘Owl?’ she said, facing a screen. ‘I think . . . I think fixing the ship would be a real good task.’

  Owl looked so, so pleased. ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jane said. She nodded hard. ‘Yes. Let’s go to space.’

  SIDRA

  Sidra’s internal clock reset itself, and the kit smiled wide. ‘I’m getting my tattoo today,’ she said. Her petbot looked up as she spoke, snuggling happily in the kit’s lap.

  Pepper looked over from her corner of the couch. ‘Did it just hit midnight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pepper laughed. ‘Your appointment isn’t for, what, ten hours?’

  ‘Ten and a half.’

  Pepper laughed again, then returned her gaze to the breathing mask she was tinkering
with. ‘And you’re still not going to tell me what design you and your artist cooked up?’

  ‘No,’ Sidra said, stroking the petbot’s head. Pepper had been pestering her for hints ever since she’d heard about Sidra’s first trip to Steady Hand. ‘Not unless you ask me directly.’

  Pepper shook her head and put up her palm. ‘I can respect a surprise. I’m just excited to see it.’ She held a bolt between her teeth and continued speaking around it. ‘Are you nervous?’

  Sidra considered. ‘Yes, but not in a bad way. More . . . anticipatory.’ She shifted memory files around as she spoke. The Linking jack plugged into the base of the kit’s skull was supplying her with one of Tak’s favourite adventure novels, which he’d mentioned during their last meeting. ‘Have you ever heard of A Song for Seven?’ she asked. ‘It’s an Aeluon book.’

  Pepper shook her head as she fussed with the mask. Sidra was unsurprised. There wasn’t much Pepper had read beyond tech manuals and food drone menus. ‘Is that what you’re processing now?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sidra saw no reason to supply the additional explanation that she was adding it to her local memory. Her memory banks were still filling faster than she was comfortable with, but she saw little point in reopening the argument, at least right now.

  ‘Are you enjoying it?’ Pepper asked.

  ‘Very much,’ Sidra said. ‘The phrasing can be challenging, but it’s a good translation, and the complexity makes for some wonderfully layered nuance.’ She was aware, as she said it, that she was repeating what Tak had said about it, word for word. Well, why not? He’d sounded smart when he’d said it; why couldn’t she?

  Pepper raised her hairless brow with a smirk. ‘That’s a fancy way of saying “dense”.’

  Sidra knew Pepper was kidding, but something in her bristled nonetheless. The words Pepper was scoffing at didn’t belong to Sidra, and she didn’t like Pepper’s implication that their original speaker was being pretentious. Tak was educated, and it was one of the things Sidra enjoyed most about speaking with him. Pepper was intelligent, no question, but . . .