Record of a Spaceborn Few

by Becky Chambers

  ‘You’re right, pokpok,’ M Aksoy said. ‘M Itoh has a Harmagian guest arriving today. These, apparently, are one of their favourite things to eat.’

  Kip watched the pokpok wriggle around the tank, looking like spiky snot brought to life. He felt his nose pull into itself.

  Ras mirrored his expression. ‘Do they fry them or—’

  The grocer’s eyes crinkled at the edges. ‘You know, I don’t know if they cook them at all.’

  Kip groaned with disgust. Ras looked at him. ‘Give you twenty creds if you eat one.’

  ‘You don’t have twenty creds.’

  The grocer laughed. ‘One of these’d cost you well more than twenty creds, and they’re not for you anyway. But here.’ He reached into one of the crates on the cart, and pulled out two snack bags. ‘Free sample, all the way from the independent colonies.’

  Kip accepted the bag and looked at the label. The One and Only Fire Shrimp, it read in Klip. There was another line that ended in the word hot, but the word before it he didn’t know. He pointed it out to Ras. They both used Klip all the time, but Ras was super good at it – real Klip, classroom Klip, not just a few words stuck into Ensk like everybody did (everybody who wasn’t old, anyway). Ras was definitely going to university.

  ‘Soolat,’ Ras read. ‘That’s like, uh . . . horribly.’

  ‘Devastatingly,’ M Aksoy said. ‘That’s a better translation. Devastatingly hot. I don’t know if they’re any good, but if you like them, you know where to trade for more.’

  ‘Thanks, M,’ Ras said.

  ‘Yeah, thanks, M,’ said Kip.

  The grocer gave them a nod and started back on his way. ‘Hey, M,’ Ras called after him. ‘You said the Harmagian’s gonna be at the Archives?’

  ‘Far as I know,’ M Aksoy called back as he disappeared into the crowd.

  Ras looked at Kip. ‘Ever seen a Harmagian before?’

  Kip shook his head. ‘Just in sims.’

  ‘When you gotta be back at work?’

  Kip shrugged. M Santoso hadn’t given him a specific time that he needed to be back, and given their conversation that morning, he didn’t think she’d care too much if he was gone a while.

  ‘Well, then, let’s go.’ Ras headed for the elevator to the transport deck.

  Kip followed. Going all the way to the Archives just to look at an alien seemed like a stupid thing to do, but then, everything seemed like a stupid thing to do, and at least this stupid thing was a stupid thing that didn’t happen every stupid day. He sighed.

  Ras noticed. ‘Yeah, I know, man.’ He shook his head as they weaved through the crowd. ‘The Fleet sucks.’

  Eyas

  A bot could have carried Eyas’ load easily, but some things needed to be moved by hand. Not that it made any difference to the things being carried. Bots could’ve got them to the same place, and probably faster, too. That wasn’t the point. The point was that some weights needed to be felt, and that hands convey a respect bots never could.

  She pulled her wagon along, the canisters inside rattling slightly. The people she walked past recognised the sound, no question. Her cargo was unmistakable. Eyas sometimes wondered what it was like for merchants to carry boxes that passersby didn’t know the contents of. Perhaps it felt a bit like a birthday, like having a good secret wrapped away. Eyas’ canisters were no secret, but they were good all the same. They were undeniably good, even though some of the glances they received took a moment to sort themselves out.

  ‘Thank you, M,’ a woman said as she passed her. The woman was grey-haired, at least twice her age, and yet, still, ‘M.’ She had long grown used to that.

  Eyas was tired, and not in the best of moods. She’d awoken with a headache and had skipped breakfast, which she’d regretted after a mere hour at work. She smiled and nodded at the woman anyway. That was part of her job, too. To smile. To be the opposite of fear.

  She continued down the thruway, heading into the buzz of a neighbourhood market. The smells of crispy fish, warm starches, and fresh-cut veggies greeted her. Her stomach growled.

  The environment shifted slightly as she moved through it, as it always did. She passed through the familiar blanket of long glances, murmured thanks, the occasional exhale. Someone appeared in her periphery – an older man, coming right toward her. ‘M Parata,’ the man said. He opened his arms wide.

  Eyas didn’t remember the man when she went in for the hug, but an image surfaced as she was squeezed tight. A face at a ceremony two – no, three – tendays prior. ‘M Tucker,’ she said. ‘Please, call me Eyas.’ She pulled back, leaving a friendly hand on the man’s arm. ‘How are you?’ It was a difficult question, she knew, but simply saying I care was awkward.

  ‘Oh, well,’ M Tucker said. His face struggled. ‘You know.’

  ‘I do,’ Eyas said. She did.

  M Tucker looked at the cart. He swallowed hard. ‘Is that Ari?’

  Eyas raced through some math. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not for at least four tendays yet. If you’d like to come by then, I can prepare a canister for you myself.’

  The man’s eyes watered. He squeezed Eyas’ upper arm. ‘Do you like bean cakes?’ he asked, gesturing back at his stall. ‘I’ve got both sweet and savoury, fresh out of the oven.’

  Eyas wasn’t huge on bean cakes, but she had never, ever turned down a gift under these circumstances, and her stomach was willing to accept anything at this point. ‘I’d love a sweet one.’

  M Tucker smiled and scurried back to his workspace. He lifted a fat bean cake off a teetering stack and wrapped one end of it in a thin piece of throw-cloth. ‘You have a good day now, M Eyas,’ he said, handing over the bundle.

  Eyas thanked him and continued on. She received more handouts before she reached her destination – a pack of vegetable seeds, which she had no use for but would keep for trade, and a mug of strong tea, which she desperately needed. She paused in her walk, sat on a bench, and consumed her gifted meal. The bean cake was fine, as far as bean cakes went, and the tea soothed a tightness she hadn’t known was there. She found a nearby recycling station and put the mug and the throw-cloth in their respective bins, from which they would be collected, washed, and reused. She resumed her walk, dragging her own recycling along behind her.

  Her destination was the oxygen garden, the central hub of any neighbourhood, a curved green assemblage of places to play and places to sit and plenty of room to think. She parked her wagon in its usual spot, put on her apron and gloves, and selected a canister. She stepped over a plex barrier into one of the planters, treading carefully around all that grew there. The grasses couldn’t be easily avoided, but she did her best to not trample the flowering shrubs and broad leaves. She crouched down near a bush and unlocked the canister lid. The heady smell of compost greeted her, a smell she spent so much time alongside it was a wonder she noticed it anymore. She spread the stuff around the roots with her gloved hands, laying down handful after handful of rich black nutrients. She wouldn’t have minded getting compost on her bare skin but, much like pulling the wagon, it was a matter of respect. Compost was too precious to be wasted by washing it from her hands. She was meticulous about brushing off her gloves before folding them back up, about doing the same with her apron, about shaking every last crumb out of the canister. Each bit had to make its way to where it had been promised it would go.

  Eyas emptied every canister in turn, tending the recipient plants carefully. She made sure not to walk where she’d worked, and took care not to touch her face. She stuck a small green flag in each planter as she finished, letting others know the area had recently been fertilised. There was nothing about the compost that could harm a person, but it wasn’t the sort of thing most would be comfortable accidentally sticking their hand in. It didn’t matter that compost was just compost – nitrogen, carbon, various minerals. People got so hung up on what a thing had been, rather than what it was now. That was why publicly distributed compost was reserved for oxygen gardens and fibre farms
, the only public places in the Fleet that used soil. You could use compost tea in aeroponics, sure, but the food farms got different fertiliser blends, ones that came from plant scraps, bug husks, fish meal. Some families did indeed use their personal compost canisters on food gardens at home; others recoiled from that practice. Eyas understood both sides. Clear divisions between right and wrong were rare in her work.

  As she neared the end of her batch, she felt the shapeless tingle of someone’s gaze. Eyas turned to see a little boy – maybe five or so – watching her with intense focus. A young man was with him – a father or uncle, who could say – crouched down to the child’s height, explaining something quietly. Eyas didn’t have to guess what the topic was.

  ‘Hello,’ Eyas said with a friendly wave.

  The man waved back. ‘Hi,’ he said. He turned to the boy. ‘Can you say hi?’

  The boy presumably could, but did not.

  Eyas smiled. ‘Would you like to come see?’ The boy shifted his weight from foot to foot, then nodded. Eyas waved him over. She spread some compost on her gloved palm. ‘Did M here tell you what this is?’

  The boy rubbed his lips together before speaking. ‘People.’

  ‘Mmm, not anymore. It’s called compost. It used to be people, yes, but it’s changed into something else. See, what I’m doing here is putting this onto the plants, so they grow strong and healthy.’ She demonstrated. ‘The people that turned into compost now get to be part of these plants. The plants give us clean air to breathe and beautiful things to look at, which keeps us healthy. Eventually, these plants will die, and they’ll get composted, too. Then that compost gets used to grow food, and the food becomes part of us again. So, even when we lose people we love, they don’t leave us.’ She pressed her palm flat against her chest. ‘We’re made out of our ancestors. They’re what keep us alive.’

  ‘That’s pretty neat, huh?’ the man said, crouching down beside the boy.

  The boy looked undecided. ‘Can I see in the tube?’ he asked.

  Eyas made sure there wasn’t any compost on the outside of the cylinder before handing it over. ‘Careful not to spill,’ she said.

  The boy took the cylinder with two hands and a studious frown. ‘It looks like dirt,’ he said.

  ‘It basically is dirt,’ Eyas said. ‘It’s dirt with superpowers.’

  The boy rotated the cylinder, watching the compost tumble inside. ‘How many people are in this?’ he asked.

  The man raised an eyebrow. Eyas threw him a reassuring glance. It was not the weirdest thing she’d ever been asked, by far. ‘That’s a good question, but I don’t know,’ Eyas said. ‘Once the compost reaches this stage, the . . . the stuff that makes it gets jumbled together.’

  The boy absorbed that. He handed the canister back.

  Eyas reached into her hip pouch and pulled out a flag. ‘Would you like to put this in the dirt? It lets people know I’ve been working here.’

  The boy took the flag, still not smiling. Eyas understood. It was a lot to think about. ‘Where can I put it?’

  ‘Anywhere you like,’ Eyas said, gesturing to the dirt around them.

  The boy considered, and chose a spot near a bush. He stuck the flag down. ‘Does it hurt?’ he asked.

  ‘Does what hurt?’

  The boy tugged at the edge of his shirt. ‘When you get turned into dirt.’

  ‘Oh, no, buddy,’ the man said. He put a reassuring hand on the boy’s back and kissed the top of his head. ‘No, it doesn’t hurt at all.’

  Isabel

  Aliens did not make Isabel uncomfortable. In her youth – a period of her life she was sure her grandkids didn’t truly believe had taken place – she’d spent three standards hopping tunnels, crashing in spaceport hostels, gobbling up every strange sky and unknown city until homesickness finally won the day. She’d bunked with a Laru for one leg of a trip, become the drinking buddy of a quartet of Aandrisks on another. That was a long time ago, to be sure, but she’d had contact with aliens since – merchants, mostly, when she ordered something special for import. But in recent years, she’d found herself in the odd, delightful position of being a person of interest to certain individuals from the Reskit Institute of Interstellar Migration. The Exodus Fleet had drifted back into academic fashion, and, as the head archivist of the Asteria, Isabel did not have to ask why they’d sought her out. Every homesteader had its Archives and archivists, but Isabel was the current oldest of her profession, and even among aliens, that counted for something.

  She was biased, of course, having worked in the Archives for most of her adult life, but the files she kept watch over were nothing short of magic. The first Exodans had crammed old-timey server racks full to bursting with records of Earth and personal stories, and every generation since had added to their work. What is it you’re looking for? she asked anyone who made the trip to the spiralling chamber of data nodes (the server racks had been retired well before her time). Art? Literature? Family history? Earthen history? Earthen life? Whatever topic you needed, if Humans deemed it worth remembering, the Archives kept it safe.

  Her life spent in service to the past was why she now found herself doing a rather-out-of-the-ordinary task, something other than helping students or doing node maintenance or conducting record ceremonies. Today, she was meeting with an alien, and as transgalactic as her correspondence was, it had been a long time since she’d shared a room with one.

  Ghuh’loloan had come straight from the shuttledocks to the Archives, and given what Isabel knew of her, she doubted she’d checked into her guest quarters yet. The Harmagian was the most enthusiastic of Isabel’s Reskit Institute pen pals, and they’d been friendly colleagues for years. But this was their first time meeting in person, and, as was to be expected, Isabel found herself reconciling the person she knew from letters with the person now sitting before her. The dog-sized, speckled-yellow, wet-skinned person, lying legless on a motorised cart, with no feet and no bones and no real shape at all until you got to the wreath of grasping tentacles and smaller tendrils centred around a toothless maw, crowned with a pair of retracting eyestalks that made Isabel stare despite her best efforts.

  Stars, it really had been a long time.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at the dock,’ Isabel said. ‘Today’s ceremony took a long time to clear out.’ They were in her office now, at her meeting table, away from the towering technology and busy staff. Well, ostensibly busy. Isabel had seen more than a few of her peers undertaking tasks of dubious value that steered them conveniently past her office windows. Everyone wanted a glimpse of the visitor.

  Ghuh’loloan flexed her facial dactyli. Isabel knew Harmagian facial gestures were important communicative cues, but they were lost on her. She could follow only her colleague’s words, which dripped with a deliciously-burred accent. ‘Nonsense,’ Ghuh’loloan said. ‘You have work, and I am the one disrupting it! I feel nothing but joy in sharing your company, for however much time you can spare.’

  Harmagians, Isabel knew, had a tendency to lay it on thick. ‘I’m looking forward to working together as well. Was your journey all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes, entirely adequate. I’ve had better, but then, I’ve had plenty worse.’ Ghuh’loloan laughed with a wavering coo. Her eyestalks studied something. ‘Do you have trouble understanding me?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘But then—’ Ghuh’loloan pointed a tentacle toward Isabel’s face.

  It took Isabel a moment to understand. ‘Oh,’ she chuckled, removing her hud. A faint border disappeared from her field of vision, an edge she barely noticed until it was gone. ‘Sorry, I’m so used to having it on I often forget to take it off. I’ve even worn it to sleep, once or twice.’

  ‘Ah,’ Ghuh’loloan said. ‘For filing, then, not translating?’

  ‘For everything, really,’ Isabel said, looking at the clear lens set in a well-worn frame. ‘It’s much faster than my scrib, and it keeps my hands free.’

  ‘
I wouldn’t know,’ Ghuh’loloan said in a good-humoured tone. She pointed at her delicate, swaying eyes, incapable of wearing Isabel’s favoured gadget. ‘But it sounds very useful.’

  Isabel smiled. ‘Well, I envy that a bit,’ she said, nodding at Ghuh’loloan’s cart. ‘My knees aren’t what they used to be.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about knees, either.’

  They both laughed. ‘Would you like something to drink?’ Isabel asked.

  ‘Mek, if you have it.’

  Isabel knew that she did, as the other archivists hadn’t rioted. ‘You take it cold, I assume?’ She’d learned to do a Harmagian-style flash cold brew in the tenday before her colleague arrived.

  But Isabel’s new skill was to be untested. ‘I do,’ Ghuh’loloan said, ‘but if I wanted cold mek, I would’ve stayed home. Please, make it for me as you’d make it for yourself.’ She paused. ‘Although, perhaps not too hot.’

  Isabel nodded with understanding as she opened the tin of mek powder. Introducing scalding hot liquid to mollusk-like skin would not end well. She glanced over and laughed, seeing that Ghuh’loloan had opened a storage compartment on her cart and removed both scrib and stylus. ‘Are we getting started?’

  Ghuh’loloan curled the tentacles around her mouth. ‘I had questions before I arrived, but after seeing these wonderful ships of yours with my own eyes – oh, I hardly know where to start! Everything. I want to know everything. Let’s begin with the ships. I saw so many things on my way here that I wish to understand better.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell me what you already know about them, so I don’t walk the same corridors twice.’