by Audrey Faye
They would be elders one day.
I grinned. And I’d be one of the aunties.
I stood up again, happy with the familiar rituals of food and generational gathering and the occasional rescue of the newbies in our midst.
“You’re smiling like the cat that swallowed all the potato salad.”
I looked at my cousin Injiri, one of my favorite people on the planet, and laughed. “Is that even a thing?”
She borrowed my fork and used it to steal a piece of my fried fish. “What, cats? Sure. They’re those furry four-legged things that live in Jacklin’s pod and hunt Aunt Mina’s fish.”
I snorted—the cats were already in the Lightbody family dungeon this week for rolling in the oregano patch and leaving black and orange hairs everywhere. At least oregano grew back faster than fish. “Just keep them away from my potato salad.”
She swiped a forkful of that too. “Gladly.”
“Why is it you two always get to the food first?” Davie, another one of my cousins, materialized out of thin air, which is hard to do when you’re massively pregnant.
I shook my head as she aimed a fork at my food too. “Don’t you guys believe in plates of your own anymore?”
“I do, and I’m on my way to load up. I just came over to ask you a favor.” Davie put away food faster than anyone I knew, especially when she was growing new Lightbodies.
I gave in and handed her my plate. “How’s the belly bean?”
“Ready to come out.”
I assumed that was wishful thinking on her part. I wasn’t one of the aunties, but even I knew babies took their own sweet time. “Still planning a low-grav water birth?”
“Yes.” She nodded and started in on my fried fish. “It’s giving the paper pushers fits.”
That would be the administrative arm of the company I worked for, which had to approve all particularly weird requests on Stardust Prime. “They usually approve things, it just takes time.”
“Either they’ll approve it or they won’t.” Davie didn’t look particularly concerned. “This baby’s coming out one way or the other.”
Injiri grinned, eyes full of mischief. “We’ll just take the equipment we need and beg for forgiveness later.”
Great, my cousins were plotting minor treason over fried fish. “I’m not hearing this.” As a KarmaCorp employee, I tried not to know beforehand when my family was planning to break the rules. There was less paperwork that way—and less yelling in Yesenia’s office.
That woman forgave nothing, and she thought rules were holy.
Davie shrugged. “That’s two things they’ll have to dislike this month, then.”
I knew what the other one was. Gilly, Injiri’s littlest, was due for her dirtwalker ceremony, something KarmaCorp had officially frowned on since the organization had been founded and the first Lightbodies had gone to work in their gardens. The ceremony impacted the energy flows and made the StarReaders uncomfortable, or something like that. We’d never paid a lot of attention to the official gobbledygook. Dirtwalker ceremonies had been happening a lot longer than a certain upstart company had been working on the side of good in the universe. I had made more than one set of really important promises in my lifetime. And I would reaffirm my commitment to some of them at Gilly’s ceremony, along with every other Lightbody who could talk.
I lifted another piece of fried fish onto Injiri’s plate. “They’ll approve that one—they don’t usually raise much fuss about those.” Three hundred years of being ignored probably influenced that some.
Davie shrugged and gave the standard family answer. “We serve KarmaCorp, but we aren’t them.”
Quite a few of us actually were, but I knew facts rarely changed standard family arguments. Lightbodies were the keepers of promises much older than the honorable organization we’d chosen to serve, even if a goodly number of us became Fixers and Anthros and Peacekeepers. Lightbody genes had never produced a Traveler, but we’d contributed at least one of pretty much everything else to KarmaCorp’s ranks.
Mostly Growers, though—the consequences of having hands in the dirt all day. I borrowed Davie’s fork to eat some of my potato salad, knowing that the main ingredient had been living in the dirt not much more than an hour ago. I’d been the one to dig them up—or the one rescuing them from six-year-olds with shovels, anyhow. In the Lightbody clan, that was more or less the same thing. No child was ever kept out of the dirt.
I swallowed the potato salad and realized the silence had gone on too long. “What?”
Davie shook her head and laughed. “Thinking about a man or your stomach?”
Both of those were worthy causes. “Neither. What’d I miss?”
Injiri smiled. “Andy and me, we were wondering if you would do the honors and present Gilly’s feet to the dirt.”
I swallowed hard. That was a high honor, and one usually offered to the elders. “Wait, we’re not that old, are we?”
They both laughed. “Old enough,” said Davie dryly.
I waited—something deeper was on the move here, and I knew better than to rush it.
“It was Mundi’s suggestion.” Injiri’s face betrayed nothing but detached interest. “And Gilly really likes you, so Andy and I think it’s a good one.”
Mundi made the aunties look like innocent primary schoolers. She was old, wise, and sneaky as all get out. “What’s she up to?”
“You think I asked?” Injiri shrugged and made a wry face.
She might not have, but clearly I needed to. Something was up. I took my leave of the potato-salad stealers and circled the yard of my family compound, looking for the little old lady who was apparently stirring up dirt.
And promptly got tackled at the knees by two small-but-mighty human tanks. I managed to stop without dumping my new plate of food on either of them. Gilly grinned up from my right leg. Her older brother, Blue, had wrapped himself around my left.
Littles who knew how to get the attention they wanted.
I crouched down, letting them both snack from my plate.
“I getta dirrrr lerk up!” Gilly seemed very excited, but the cherry tomatoes in her cheeks were making her about as intelligible as your average squirrel.
“She’s excited to walk the dirt,” said Blue, around his own mouthful of food.
Gilly’s eyes lit as she looked first at her adored big brother, and then at me.
It touched something deep inside me that this felt so important to her. It was our most venerated Lightbody tradition—as soon as a child could walk, they would be presented to the earth, to the dirt. To toddle in wobbly steps, or in my case, to promptly sit down and eat handfuls of the stuff. Twenty-four years and I still hadn’t lived that one down.
But funny or solemn, the purpose of the ceremony never changed. Our solemn promise to raise the newest Lightbody in deep connection with the soil and to teach her to honor the green, growing things as our equals in the universe. My clan’s highest commitment, and one we would each renew as we said the sacred words.
I touched a shiny cheek. “You’re growing into such a big girl.” One who apparently had a thing for cherry tomatoes. I made a note to remind my dad to plant another row in the spring—a lot of the current crop of littles really liked them.
I reached a hand to Blue’s cheek too. “You were the last one to walk the dirt, so you’ll have to show Gilly how to do it.” There weren’t any wrong ways, but it was another of those Lightbody life lessons. Each one, teach one.
Blue’s grin was bright enough to be seen on distant stars. He loved being special, even if it was mostly by association—and he adored his baby sister.
I smiled and repeated the words that had come down from generations past remembering. “For a thousand years, ten thousand, we have walked in the dirt, rooted in the soil, honored the things that grow beside us.”
They nodded at me like I was a cute, but incomprehensible adult, and helped themselves to more of my food.
I climbed to my feet. �
��Gotta go, cuties. I need to go find Mundi.”
Blue eyed my plate. “You didn’t save her very much food.”
I laughed—getting a plate of food across the compound intact required more skill than I’d ever possessed. Hopefully someone else had brought the clan matriarch something to eat.
Taking my time, I wandered slowly through the people dotting the landscape like colorful flowers, absorbing the sounds, the feel, the smells—the rich sensory experience of home. By next Sunday, I’d probably be on a tin can headed off to somewhere that didn’t run to any of this.
Mundi wasn’t hard to find. I joined the chatting family members acting as her unofficial satellites. She had two littles on her lap, listening to some story or another. I smiled at the rapt attention on their faces—she was probably telling one of her whoppers. There was nothing Mundi loved better than making the impossible sound like absolute truth.
Occasionally, it even was.
When she finished, they scampered off, likely in search of food or playmates. She held up her hand, conversation going quiet as she looked straight at me. “I need to speak with Tyra for a moment.” Mundi waved her hand in an imperious gesture, and everyone promptly made scarce.
I squatted at her knees and smiled. “Am I in big trouble or little trouble?” I’d asked her that for the first time when I was barely two years old, caught picking garlic chives to use for dolly hair.
Mundi smiled. “I’m not certain. I had one of my premonitions.”
I raised a skeptical eyebrow. Her premonitions were the stuff of legend—and widely regarded as convenient excuses for bending people to her iron will.
“A real one.” Her lips twitched. “Still sassy, I see.”
Contrary to how that sounded, I’d had lunch with her two days ago. “Always.”
She offered me a delicate stalk of stuffed celery from her laden plate. “Here, eat while you ask me why I’ve called on you to be Gilly’s presenter.”
Mundi had never been one for beating around the bush, which was good, because I’d forgotten why I’d been seeking her out. I took the celery and sniffed. Someone had been raiding the oregano patch besides Jacklin’s cats. “I assume you have a reason. Mind telling me what it is?”
She studied me for long enough that I started wondering what sins I might need to confess. “I think your soul will need it.”
Well. I set down the celery—her words had just very effectively killed my appetite.
She nodded slowly, eyes serious. “I worry about your next assignment.”
I was getting that, loud and clear. “In what way?” Premonitions of the real variety tended to be pretty murky.
“The meaning is not certain.” She paused a moment. “But I believe that when you get back, you will have need to be reminded of your roots.”
That was downright ominous. “I’m hardly going to forget them.” They were taught to every Lightbody from the cradle—one assignment wasn’t going to change that.
Mundi’s weathered hand reached out to touch my cheek. “See that you don’t.”
3
“Ah, Tyra. Do you have a moment?”
I slid to a prompt halt. Everyone had a moment for that voice, even if they were late for an important date involving face tats, chocolate, and bootleg cider. I resisted the urge to wipe dirt off my cheeks and turned to face Yesenia Mayes, KarmaCorp Director and the closest thing to a deity in my world. “Of course.”
Her eyes scanned my face. “You’ve been in the gardens.”
That was obvious enough that a toddler could have figured it out. “We’re rotating crops at the moment. It’s all-hands-on-deck time.” And an unplanned detour on my way to the storage closet where I’d stashed the cider bottles, which was why I was running late.
“It’s important work.”
It was—and this was a very strange conversation. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Perhaps.” Yesenia inclined her head slightly. “I realize you’re on leave, but I hoped I might ask you to undertake a small task for me.”
Nobody sane would say no to that, even if she really wanted to. “Lightbodies are always ready to serve.”
“Yes.” Something shuttered in the boss lady’s eyes. “Your family is a credit to KarmaCorp and to Stardust Prime.”
Those shouldn’t sound like curse words. I felt like a clover stem hanging out under an elephant’s foot—trampling was coming. It was just a question of how to pancake so that I’d be able to get up again.
“I’d like you to work with my daughter,” said Yesenia abruptly.
I blinked. I’d never heard the boss lady even acknowledge that she had a child—a fact which had caused quiet rumblings at Lightbody dinner tables on more than one occasion.
“I believe you know Tatiana.”
I pulled my shit together—the ice shards in that voice meant serious business. “Of course.” Everyone on Stardust Prime knew of the golden child. A lot fewer felt sorry for her, but I was related to most of them. “What did you have in mind?”
“The third-year trainees have a shadowing day coming up. I know you’re not supposed to be in the rotation, but I’d like her to spend it with you.” Yesenia looked down at my hands.
I assumed they were as covered in dirt as the rest of me, but that wasn’t something I’d ever been ashamed of and I didn’t intend to start now. I was, however, very curious. There was generally only one reason for a trainee to hang out in the gardens. “Has she developed a Grower Talent?” If so, it had been kept well under wraps.
“No.” One short, very certain answer. “But she may yet do so.”
Dangerous territory. The kid was a Dancer, and a good one, and very few Fixers manifested more than one Talent. I was, however, looking into the hard brown eyes of one of them. “You think she may be a Traveler.” One of the mythical Fixers who had all the Talents and could push them through time and space.
Yesenia’s eyes gave nothing away. “I think it would be useful for her to spend some time with her hands in the dirt, and you’re the strongest Grower Talent we have.” Her lips hinted at something that was almost a smile. “I also assumed you might appreciate an assignment that kept you clear of your pod for a while.”
My brain neurons snarled. Was the boss lady making a joke?
She made a quick, pissed-off-royalty motion with her hand. “Please let Lucinda know by the end of the day—she will be handling the matches for shadowing.”
I knew better than to take hours to consider a decision which only had one possible outcome. And it wouldn’t be a hardship—I loved shadowing days. It was no secret that I wanted to teach trainees one day, and the general consensus was that I had the unflappable calm needed to do it well. I was pretty sure Yesenia wasn’t asking me to work with her daughter because of my sunny personality, but I’d have done it just to make Bean’s life easier.
And I’d definitely do it to keep myself out of the director’s doghouse. The last Fixer who’d ended up there had recently been assigned to a reconnaissance mission in the Katmandu system. She’d be back in about a decade. “I’ll be happy to work with Tatiana.”
Yesenia nodded sharply, as if she’d expected no less—and then walked off as if we’d never met.
I shivered and let myself into Iggy’s pod before anything else bizarre came rolling down the hallway. I had things to do, especially if tomorrow had just been reassigned into the work column.
I had the first bottle of cider halfway out of my bag when Iggy banged through the pod door herself and slid it shut behind her. She posed against its sky-blue flatness and raised an eyebrow. “What the heck is Yesenia doing skulking in the hallways?”
I resisted the urge to shove the cider under a pillow. Barely. “She’s still out there?”
“A couple of walkways over, but she’s got terrified people taking detours all over the place.”
Scuttlebutt traveled fast, especially if it kept people out of a surprise face-to-face with the scariest woma
n in the habitat. “I assume you weren’t one of the detours.” Imogene Glass might look like a whimsical, lightweight fairy, but she changed her course for no one.
“Nope.” Iggy grinned and pulled out a shiny package of Venetian dark chocolate. “So the rumor that she can smell contraband at fifty paces has been dispelled.”
“More than once today.” I leaned back in my gel-chair and offered her a bottle of my favorite contraband. “I had this in my bag when she walked past me.” I wasn’t ready to talk about Yesenia’s strange request yet—I needed to let it process a little first, and put my ear to the underground currents. I wasn’t a Fixer who moved quickly.
Iggy took a long swig from her bottle and then reached for her bag. “We should do the tats before we get totally plastered.”
That never happened—not with a Grower in the room, anyhow. “The cider’s got something in it to take care of that.”
“You’re no fun.”
I laughed. “I’ve been working on this particular additive. It doesn’t mess with the high overmuch, at least not in moderation. Just the aftereffects.”
Iggy picked up her bottle again, studying it with interest. “You’ll be rich beyond all imagining.”
Probably not—most of the universe wasn’t all that fond of moderation. “Just a little gift for my friends.”
Her mobile face told me exactly what she thought of that idea. “You’re the best Grower in the quadrant, and you refuse to make any money doing things that hordes of people would be willing to throw credits at you for.”
A whole bunch of things in that sentence were disputable, so I picked the easiest. “I make money—I get my KarmaCorp salary every rotation, same as you.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
I did. We’d had this argument plenty of times before.
“Other Growers do it, and even Yesenia doesn’t blink. I’d do it in a heartbeat if I could.”
I wasn’t as convinced of that as she was, but neither of us would likely ever know. Most Talents didn’t monetize all that easily—not without crossing ethical lines really fast, anyhow. Growers were different, especially those of us who were good in the science lab. There were plenty of useful, ethically permissible lotions and potions. “You know why I don’t.”