Tessa accepted both cookie and tea, but consumed nothing yet. She leaned back against the bench, a hand’s-width apart from George, not ready to be closer until she’d processed the full scope of things here. He smelled great, though. He always smelled great. ‘I don’t know if I meant any of it,’ she said. ‘I was just . . . y’know. Mad. I don’t know why you took it so seriously.’
‘The way I read it, Tessa Santoso is considering the mere possibility of leaving the Fleet. That seems pretty damn serious to me.’
Thick steam drifted from the cup, but she braved a sip anyway. ‘Is this your dad’s blend? He added something.’
‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘What is that? Cinnamon?’
‘Don’t—’ He frowned and took the cup, taking a timid sip of his own. ‘Huh. Yeah, I think that is cinnamon. Where’d he get cinnamon?’
‘See,’ she said. ‘That’s why I don’t mean what I said.’
‘I’m not following.’
‘Why I don’t mean what I said about leaving.’ Tessa looked at the tea and shook her head. ‘Your dad, your mom, my dad. Your brother—’
‘You’ve got a brother, too. He left, and it was fine.’
‘Yeah, and that’s why I can’t. One of us needs to be here.’
‘Why?’
She looked him in the eye, disbelieving. ‘Are you seriously saying I should?’
‘No,’ he said, taking a large bite of his cookie. ‘I’m just asking questions.’ He swallowed, sipped the tea, and handed the cup back. ‘I don’t believe for a minute that the sole reason you’re here is because Ashby left and you feel obligated. That’s never been the case.’
‘I’m not saying it is. I’m just . . . I’m just saying. With the exception of Ashby, our family is here. Aya and Ky’s family is here.’
‘So then explain the letters you wrote me. Explain why you’re entertaining this.’
‘I already told you.’
He waved his hand. ‘Tell me again. Tell me so I can hear how you sound when you say it. Come on, I’m missing out on cleaning drill bits for this.’
She snorted. ‘You’re having tea and cookies.’
‘I’ve got both tea and cookies back on my ship. And honestly, scrubbing off ore bits is easier than getting anything out of you sometimes.’
Tessa ignored the comment and drank the tea. The added cinnamon was growing on her. She sat, thinking. She wasn’t sure what to say.
A moment passed. George leaned forward and folded his hands together. Tessa knew that pose, the George Is Being Serious pose. ‘How much of this is about the job?’ he asked.
She relented. ‘I was thinking about it – about leaving – before that. The job was just . . . I don’t know, the last fucking straw, I guess.’
‘So, this isn’t solely because you don’t want to learn a new job.’
‘No. Well—’ She sighed impatiently. ‘There’s a part of me that’s scared about learning something new. Not because I don’t think I can do it, but because this has been my job for twenty years. I hadn’t ever pictured doing anything else. Not because it’s my favourite thing in the world, but because I’m good at it, and because it’s got things that are weirdly satisfying, and because I know – I knew what every day was going to look like. At least, as far as work went.’
‘You liked the stability.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And now you’re staring down a whole mess of instability and you’re like, eh, fuck it, let’s see how much of that I’m comfortable with.’
Tessa laughed. ‘I guess.’ Her face fell. ‘It’s the kids, mostly. I . . . I don’t know. This doesn’t feel like the same Fleet you and I grew up in.’
‘That’s been true with every generation.’
‘I know, but . . . this is different. In my gut, this is different. We’ve had six break-ins in my bay in the past standard. Six. And that’s just my bay. Then that whole business with that grounder – stars, nothing like that ever happened when we were kids.’
George flexed his eyebrows in acknowledgement. ‘Break-ins, sure—’
‘Not this many.’
‘True.’
‘And nobody died.’
‘Also true. But bad shit happens everywhere.’
‘That’s what I told Aya, and she turned it around on me.’ A weight pressed against Tessa’s chest. ‘She’s not doing any better. She’s getting worse, if anything. Those little bastards at school—’
‘Have they kept at it?’
‘No, but she’s playing by herself.’
George frowned. ‘That’s not like her.’
‘She’s scared of them, George. She’s scared of them, and she’s scared of our home. And I don’t know how to help her. I know we thought she’d grow out of it, and she’s had counselling, but . . .’ Tessa felt her eyes well up, and given the company, she didn’t feel the need to hide it. ‘She doesn’t feel safe here. Do you know how awful that must be, to be a kid and not feel safe at home?’
George slid closer to her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Almost as awful as being the parent who can’t make that kid feel safe, huh?’
‘Stars,’ Tessa said, taking a shaky breath. ‘I’m such a shit mom.’
‘Oh, come on. You are not.’
‘My mom – she always knew what to do. Whenever I got scared, all she had to do was be there and I knew I’d be okay.’
‘Your mom didn’t have to walk you through seeing a homesteader blown to shit.’ He sighed. ‘And you also had a dad who was around all the time.’
They both fell quiet.
George spoke, slow and kind. ‘Let’s say you did leave. Where would you go? Central space? Sol?’
Tessa gave him a sharp look. ‘George Santoso, if you seriously think I’d raise our children on Mars, we are getting a divorce.’
Her husband guffawed. ‘Well, hey, I didn’t want to presume.’
‘Sol,’ Tessa snorted. ‘I’m not freaking out that much.’ She took another sip of tea. ‘Honestly, I – and this is hypothetical—’
‘Sure.’
‘For the sake of argument.’
‘One hundred percent.’
Tessa chewed the inside of her lip. ‘The independent colonies. We know people who’ve gone there. I keep thinking about Seed.’
George made a thoughtful sound. ‘Where Ammar went.’
‘Yeah.’ Ammar and his husband Nick had lived one hex over until three standards prior, when they’d packed up and headed for ground. Tessa had been friends with him through school, and though they weren’t close, he was the type of person she imagined would be happy to hear about her moving nearby.
Hypothetically.
‘They could definitely put someone with bot-wrangling experience to work in a place like that,’ he said.
‘That they could,’ Tessa said noncommittally. ‘If not cargo, then map drones, or . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I have to learn a new job either way, right?’
‘True,’ George said. ‘I hear it’s kinda rough out there, though. Terraforming’s a long-game deal.’
‘Yeah,’ Tessa said, with a nod. ‘But . . . is it so different from here? It’s not as clean, sure. It’s not as established. They’re still figuring it out. But they have to ration their water and mind their food stores, and . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I think I’d fit much better in a place like that than a city, or . . . a market stop, or something.’
‘Stars, no, I couldn’t see you in a market stop.’
She looked askance at him. ‘But you could see me on Mars?’
‘I didn’t say – you’re not going to let this go, are you?’
‘Never.’ She leaned into him, releasing some of her weight, taking on some of his warmth. ‘But I love it here. I do. I love how we do things, and why we do them. I love Remembrance Day. I love the Bug Fry Festival. I love the gardens. So many people who left, they wanted more. I don’t want more. I’m good with what I have. I don’t need land or .
. . or open sky, or whatever. So many people have left for the wrong reasons.’
George pulled in his lips, folding mustache into beard as he thought. ‘Maybe that’s why you should go. Go for the right reasons. Go for the reason the first of us left Earth – to find a better place for your family. Honestly, Tess, you’re the best kind of person to join a colony, because you’d bring all those right reasons with you. You believe in our way of life here? Cool. Implement those ways planetside. Make sure people don’t forget. Make sure people remember that a closed system is a closed system even when you can’t see the edges.’
Tessa said nothing for a while. ‘I don’t want to leave you, either. Or take the kids away.’
‘What makes you think you would?’
She shut her eyes. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t – that is too much to ask.’
‘So . . . what, I’m not allowed to want to do this with you if I think it’s an okay idea?’
Tessa pulled back. ‘I couldn’t ask you to do that.’
George scoffed. ‘I go where my family goes. End of discussion.’
‘You have a job here. You have a life—’
‘I have a skillset I can apply anywhere, and my life is ongoing until the universe says otherwise. I go where you and our kids go. And if you think you can give them a better life on the ground than you can here, then I believe you. You’re with them every day. You spend more time with them than I do. There’s no question in my mind that you know what’s best for them.’ He stroked his beard. ‘And maybe . . . maybe it would be a good thing for me that way, too. Maybe if we found somewhere I could work planetside instead of hopping rocks all the time, maybe I could be a better dad. A better husband, too.’
‘You’re good at both of those.’
‘If you say so. But I’m not an always around kind of guy, am I? I don’t have any regrets about how we’ve been doing things, but it would be nice to . . . I don’t know, not be surprised when Aya’s grown a hand-length since I saw her last.’
‘That’ll surprise you even if you see her every day.’
‘You know what I mean. I’m not saying this is what I want, definitively. I’m saying that if this is what you want . . . I might not be opposed, either.’
‘You can’t put this all on me.’
‘I’m not. I’m asking you if you really – I mean, really, really, really – want to do this. And if you do, then we need to sit down and talk about it.’
Tessa took inventory of their situation. ‘We’re already sitting down and talking.’
George gave her a knowing glance.
Tessa thought about the letters she’d sent, full of cagey phrasing and danced-around ideas. She thought about the nights she’d lain awake, the long hours spent looking down at the stars. She thought about the whisper she’d been trying to ignore, the one that got a little louder every time she read the news, every time she patched up her home, every time she watched her kids. And here was George, calling the whisper out in plain speech, telling her what she already knew.
‘Shit,’ she said. She put her face in her palms. ‘Oh, stars.’
Kip
System log: device unlocked
Node identifier established: 8846-567-11, Kristofer Madaki
* * *
Ras (18:62): tek tem dude
Ras (18:62): I know you’re not talking to me or whatever, but I wanted you to know exam scores are out
* * *
Feed source: The Human Diaspora Centre for Higher Education Student Portal
Encryption: 0
Translation: 0
Transcription: 0
Password: accepted
Thank you for using the Human Diaspora Centre for Higher Education student portal!
Your most recent exam was: HDCHE entrance qualification exam
Your score was: 803 (out of possible 1000)
Congratulations! You have qualified for admission into any Tier 2 member institution of the HDCHE.
Your options are as follows:
Red Rock University (Spirit’s Rest, Mars)
College of the Rings (Silver Sea City, Titan)
The Jovian School for Future Technicians (Jupiter Station, Jupiter)
The following schools require at least an 875 to attend. Should you wish to attend one of these schools, you will need to retake the entrance qualification exam.
Alexandria University (Florence, Mars)
The Solan Institute of Reconstructive Biology (Hamilton Junction, Luna)
If you accept admission to any of the schools listed here, you will still need to complete placement tests for any given academic track. Some academic degree programmes require an additional qualification test.
If you are interested in attending a school outside of Human territory, there are many GC educational institutions with reciprocal admission agreements with the HDCHE. Admission conditions vary greatly, so please contact an HDCHE adviser for information specific to your desired school.
Based on your listed location, your nearest source for HDCHE informational meetings is:
Asteria Emigrant Resource Centre, Deck 2, Plaza 16
We highly encourage you to attend an informational meeting. All questions are welcome.
Happy studies!
* * *
Ras (18:80): how’d you do?
Ras (18:81): I got a 908
Ras (18:81): going to mars, baby
Ras (18:81): big cred time
Ras (18:94): dude will you please talk to me
Ras (19:03): whatever
Ras (19:12): I don’t get why you’re being such an asshole
* * *
Node identifier disconnected
System log: device deactivated
Isabel
Isabel rarely went to the theatre in the dark hours, so she couldn’t say what the usual crowd was during that time. There were a few people in the audience who were easy to predict. Old folks like her, scattered around the mostly empty hall. A young father, dozed off on the floor, his tiny child asleep on his chest, the exhausted conclusion to what had likely been a long night of walking the mostly vacant public corridors with a crying infant. But there was one member of the audience she did not expect. She sat down next to him, as she would with an old friend.
‘Hello, Kip,’ she whispered. ‘Mind if I join you?’
Kip was taken aback. Wherever he’d been, he hadn’t expected her to rouse him. ‘Uh . . . yeah, sure, M.’
Isabel folded her arms across her lap and took in the view. The projected environment was a rich tapestry of thick reeds, waving sheets of grass, protective trees, scummy water, and the calls of chittering birds with pointed opinions. ‘Wetlands,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been to a wetlands recording in a while. I tend to favour deserts. This is a nice change.’
Kip was quiet – not a contemplative quiet, but the unsure kind of quiet that kids his age sometimes fell into when addressed by an adult. Maybe he was just shy. Maybe he wanted to be left alone.
Isabel kept talking anyway. ‘Why aren’t you asleep, Kip?’
Kip shifted. ‘Why aren’t you?’
She chuckled. ‘Fair. My wife has a bad pair of legs. They wake her up a lot, and that woke me up enough times tonight that there wasn’t any going back from it.’
‘That sucks,’ Kip said.
‘That it does.’
He was quiet, again. The recorded trees rustled. The water lapped. ‘I haven’t slept great since . . . y’know,’ Kip said.
‘Understandable. Have you talked to someone about it?’
Another long pause. ‘My parents won’t stop talking to me about it. And I get they’re just trying to help, but like . . . sometimes I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Yes,’ Isabel said, with a nod. ‘I get that.’
Kip shuffled, as restless as the reeds. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, no, I asked. I appreciate you being honest.’ She watched as a great grey and white bird – some kind of predator – glided pas
t on motionless wings. ‘So why here? Why not the sim hub, or the Linkings, or . . . ?’
‘I dunno. It’s . . . it’s quiet. I like that.’ He shifted again. ‘I like pretending I’m somewhere else.’ Isabel would’ve changed the subject at that, had he not continued: ‘That’s what the theatre’s for, right?’
Isabel turned her head toward Kip, his face silhouetted against the bright muddy green. ‘Is it?’ she asked.
‘Well, and so we know what it’s like to live on planets. So the ancestors wouldn’t freak out if they made it to the ground. They’d know what the sky looked like and . . . and yeah.’
Isabel looked back to the blue sky – that edgeless blue, streaked with clouds and birds whose names few knew off-hand. ‘Do you have somewhere to be anytime soon?’
‘Uh . . . no?’
‘Come on,’ she said, giving his arm a definitive pat. ‘I want to show you something.’ She stood. He hesitated. ‘There’s a bean cake in it for you.’
Kip got up.
The Archives were on the same side of the plaza as the theatre, so getting there took little time. Isabel swiped her patch over the locked entrance. Doors opened and lights bloomed awake. She looked around. None of her colleagues were there. Good. They would’ve gotten a scolding about still being up if they had been. No Ghuh’loloan, either, who was likely packing her things and preparing her goodbyes. Isabel and the boy were alone.
‘You spend much time in the Archives?’ Isabel asked as they took the lift down to the lowest level of her place of work.
Kip shrugged. ‘Namings and stuff. Sometimes for school.’
‘But never just to look, hmm?’
‘Uh, not really. When I was little, I guess.’
That wasn’t a surprise to Isabel. Why paw through boring old memories when you could go out and make your own?
The lift came to a halt, and Isabel led the way into the centre of the data room. Seemingly endless towers of globular nodes spiralled out around them, each pulsing with the soft blue light that meant all was well. Isabel smiled proudly. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’
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