by Audrey Faye
I said nothing. My father had been nursing hothouse flowers since before I was born—he could make anything grow, including teenage girls who had picked personas that were a very hard act to live up to.
I smiled, remembering the first day I’d brought Kish to meet him. It had taken him all of ten minutes to convince her to take off her boots and stick her bare toes in the dirt. She’d run screaming two seconds later—but she’d done it barefoot.
He watched Tatiana for a long moment and then rolled back on his heels, neatly mounding dirt at the base of the new seedlings. “You’ll be wanting trowels, both of you.”
I looked around—they weren’t usually hard to find.
Dad pulled one out of his pocket and handed it to the still-frozen girl. “This one’s a good size for your hands. Just scoop a little dirt like this, right around the base of each plant. Helps them grow nice, sturdy roots.”
Tatiana squatted, but she made no move to get any closer to the dirt than that. She eyed the long row of new plantings. “Journeywoman Lightbody could accomplish that with only a small exertion of her Talent.”
My father laughed. “Call her Tee or we’ll have no idea who you’re talking about.”
The girl’s expression didn’t show anything, but she couldn’t hide the slightly embarrassed flush over her cheekbones. When she spoke again, her words were brittle. “Tee is quite capable of saving you the effort.”
“Of course she is.” Dad kept imperturbably mounding dirt.
Once again, I kept my mouth shut. If he wanted to teach the ice queen object lessons, far be it from me to step on his punch lines.
After at least a minute of awkward silence, Tatiana reached her trowel toward the nearest seedling. This time, she didn’t bother to hide her classic teenager scowl.
I managed to hide my grin—anything was better than the ice queen.
“These are fussy.” My dad reached over and pointed his finger at the seedling’s main stem. “Pile the dirt up to there, no more, or there will be root rot.”
She didn’t comment on doing things the old and hard way, but I could hear her thinking it.
Dad smiled—he heard teenager thoughts as well as anyone. “Make sure to breathe as you do it.”
Tatiana’s eyebrows flew up. “Why does that matter?”
My father mounded the earth around four more plants before he answered. “We share breath with the plants. We inhale what they exhale. It’s good for both of us to remember that.”
The Lightbody version of yoga.
Tatiana stared. And then she smiled, set down her trowel, and very gently used her fingers to push dirt into a beautiful, symmetrical pile at the base of one of the seedlings. All while taking very careful, tremulous breaths.
A girl, falling in love with her first green, growing thing.
I settled into my own meditation. Planting a seedling, bedding it down. Breathing. Honoring. Offering gratitude. Moving on to the next.
I wasn’t sure how much later my father laid his hand on my shoulder, but it was long enough that my knees were seriously grouchy and there were mounded seedlings as far as my eyes could see.
He nodded at me, just once, and then Dad reached for Tatiana’s hand and helped her to her feet. “Those pea sprouts you helped with earlier today are a new varietal that I created with Tyra’s help. The first ones will be ready for eating in a few days.”
She looked at him quietly, and then down at the long row of seedlings and their slightly lumpy mounds.
He smiled. “These are tomatoes. They’ll take a bit longer.” He glanced at me and then back at the thirteen-year-old watching him carefully. “If you come to Sunday dinner, I’ll be sure to save you some of the pea shoots.”
He turned away fast enough that he missed her blink of surprised pleasure. I sighed, because I hadn’t, and I knew what it meant. The Lightbodies had just adopted another orphan, another person to nourish from our roots.
One who was smart enough to be grateful.
One whose mother was the most powerful woman on the planet.
5
Bean looked up from her desk as I walked over the threshold into Yesenia’s domain. “Hey, Tee. She’ll be ready for you in a jiffy.”
I had no idea what a jiffy was, but I’d wait as long as it took. I was not looking forward to this meeting. Two days since Tatiana had shadowed me, and the silence was killing me.
The door to Yesenia’s office slid open, a mechanical mouth ready to swallow me whole.
I shook my head—letting my imagination run wild before I even landed in the hot seat was just plain foolish. I raised my eyebrows at Bean, who only shrugged, and then walked into the boss lady’s inner sanctum with as much dignity as I could manage. Given that I was a Lightbody, it was fairly considerable.
“Good morning, Journeywoman.” Yesenia gestured to one of her new visitor chairs, which were reputed to be significantly more uncomfortable than the last ones.
I perched on the edge of the one nearest the door and waited to find out just how much sludge I had landed in. Fomenting rebellion in the golden child was probably waist deep, at least.
She tapped an icon on her tablet. “I have the briefing materials for your new assignment.”
I blinked—that wasn’t why I thought I was here. “Ah, okay.”
Her eyes were frosty. “Did you think this was a social chat?”
Not exactly. I scrambled for something to say that wouldn’t sound totally inane. “Usually we receive our briefing materials before meeting with you.”
“This is quite urgent.” She was scanning the files and didn’t bother to look up. “I’m only getting a first look at some of this material myself. It appears they’ve been quite thorough, as usual.”
Otherwise known as a mountain of boring detail.
She looked up as if I’d been insane enough to speak out loud. “I trust you’ll find yourself well prepared once you review the materials.”
If I wasn’t, I surely wouldn’t say so in this office. “It will get my full attention.”
Her eyes drilled into mine. “See that it does.”
I was occasionally a bit cavalier with my briefing files, but not nearly as much so as most Fixers I could name. Something else was going on here.
“You’ll be headed to Xirtaxis Minor in the Ephemera system. It’s one of the newer experimental species biomes.”
I knew exactly what those were—many in my family aspired to off-planet work rotations in one of the specialized colonies that got to play with new plant varietals twenty-four hours a day. Heaven, for a certain breed of gardener scientist, and my family had plenty in our ranks.
In another lifetime, I easily could have been one of them. Just one of the many possibilities short-circuited the day my Talent had shown up. “What varietals do they focus on?” Something was niggling in my brain, but I couldn’t grab hold of it.
She raised a carefully controlled shoulder. “I assume such details will be in the briefing file.”
It wasn’t a detail—or rather, it was a very important one. Some of the experimental biomes played with food crops and terraforming plants and tended to be fairly conservative in their science. Some of them were way out there on the lunatic fringe, and their residents were generally brilliant, dedicated, and unstable.
However, I didn’t need to keep poking Yesenia for that information. Someone in my family would know, and they’d have a lot more than the dry facts that would be in my mission folder. “What is the nature of the urgent situation?”
“We’ve heard reports.” She pursed her lips in a way that made me nervous. “Of unusual bouts of depression and erratic behavior, often associated with strange dreams.”
Those weren’t all that unusual in small, closed habitats. “Residents struggling with isolation, perhaps?” I spoke carefully—that was an obvious answer, and it wasn’t my place to tell the boss lady how to do her job. She tended to take that the wrong way.
It didn’t appear she had
this time, however. “That was my first thought as well, but I’ve received subsequent reports from people I find trustworthy. One of them was a scientist acquaintance of mine who visited to conduct a small experiment and found himself quite tempted to rip off the heads of some of the research staff. He indicated that the feelings faded quite abruptly on his departure.”
That was interesting. “You suspect something in the biome is the cause?”
“Perhaps.” She inclined her head slightly. “He also reported that his aggressive tendencies seemed to peak when they were out in the field, rather than in the lab.”
That narrowed things down in some interesting ways—and explained why she wanted to send in a Grower. “The lab would have purified air sources.”
“That is one possible difference, yes.”
The other possibilities were a lot more woo. In a biome full of experimental species, there was a lot of room for strange things to go wrong—with both the plants and the people. And a lot of the possibilities were things I wouldn’t be able to address. “Is my mission to investigate only?” Fixers were often sent on reconnaissance trips, although they had a tendency to morph into something else mid-assignment.
Yesenia’s lips were pursing again. “That will be at your discretion, Journeywoman.”
I tried not to show my surprise. Those weren’t the usual kinds of instructions I got in this office.
“Identify the problem. Fix it if you are able.” She sounded skeptical that I would find myself possessed of such abilities.
I tried not to let that rankle. The boss lady could be hard, but she generally didn’t underestimate our skills. “I will do my best.”
She watched me across her desk a moment longer, and then sighed. “Your abilities aren’t in question. Quite frankly, this is a complex and possibly dangerous assignment, and not one I would normally send you into alone.”
I backtracked through the data. Ah, her scientist friend. “You’re concerned that I may become affected.”
“I have chosen you in part because of your particular affinity for plants and the science behind them.” She paused a moment. “And because your temperament is unusually stable for a Fixer.”
That wasn’t a wildly high bar—on the whole, we were a pretty volatile group. A goodly part of our training was on the finer points of controlling our tempers. “I appreciate your confidence in me.”
“I have little choice.” Her eyes flared with something that almost looked like concern. “The Etruscan sector is encountering substantial difficulties, and I don’t have Fixers to spare.”
I’d put my ear to the ground on that after I’d talked to Bean. Scuttlebutt said there were proverbial fires all over the sector. “I’m happy to go.” I wasn’t, exactly—but I did this work because it was needed, not because it was safe. There were risks to every assignment. This time, I just happened to know what they were up front.
“Be careful, Journeywoman.”
If Yesenia was trying to scare me, she was doing a commendable job. “I’ll put precautions in place.” There were ways to make my psyche far less suggestible to outside influences.
“Do so.” Her fingers rapped a quick staccato rhythm on the desk. “You will leave in the morning. Please have Bean assist you if you need to expedite any matters before your departure.”
Whoa. Fast departures weren’t all that unusual, but offers of help to get ready were. “I won’t require assistance.” Other than brewing a few special treats for my send-off party, but I was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear about those.
Yesenia fixed me with a steely glare. “I’ll expect your mission report with all due dispatch.”
I had the oddest feeling that she was attempting to inoculate me—if I was petrified enough of the boss lady, maybe nothing else would be able to worm its way in. Which meant two of the strongest women I knew were uncommonly worried about this assignment.
I swallowed hard and tried my best not to join them.
6
It wasn’t unusual to have Iggy and Raven stroll in my pod door. It was weird to be hanging out inside alone, though. Devan and Kish had made themselves scarce when I started baking.
I gave Raven a hard hug—she’d been back from assignment for less than a day and this was the first time I’d seen her. She looked a little haggard, but otherwise fine. Which was good, because she was heading out again in two days, along with Iggy. This had turned into a sendoff for three.
Kish was the only one staying—apparently, she had been curtly informed that she was entirely the wrong kind of Fixer for the politically charged and delicate situation in the Etruscan sector. I was pretty sure she and Devan weren’t complaining.
Iggy sniffed the air and feigned a swoon. “Is that bacon?”
I grinned—it had become the most addictive and highly traded substance on Stardust Prime. Last I’d heard, the local market and deli had just ordered an entire cargo hold full. “Only the best for our sendoffs.”
“And bread.” Raven rubbed a hand on her belly. “I missed lunch. Chanting practice with the second years.”
I winced. “That’s the class who can’t find a beat to save their lives, isn’t it?”
She nodded wryly. “Not a single Shaman in the group.”
Dancers and Singers usually had a decent sense of rhythm too—it was the Growers who were the musically challenged problem, and that particular trainee cohort was rife with them. We tended to find our beat on a horizontal surface with a partner, but eleven-year-olds didn’t know that yet. “Sorry. Extra bread rations for you.”
She smiled, and then stilled.
I knew what that meant—she’d sniffed something in the ether.
Iggy glanced her roommate’s direction and then handed me a small chunk of bread smothered in raspberry jelly. We both knew better than to rush a Shaman on the prowl.
Raven’s eyes were doing that fogged, questing thing she did when she was reading woo energies none of the rest of us could see. I sighed and kept myself as open as possible—there was no point trying to keep secrets from a Fixer, even if you weren’t sure what she was looking for.
When Raven’s eyes landed back in reality, her face wrinkled in confusion. “Your next assignment is linked to Kish’s last one somehow.”
That made very little sense. “I’m going to an exotic species biome on the other side of the quadrant from Bromelain III.”
Iggy grinned. “Maybe you’re coming back with a sexy guy.”
I already had a nice-sized handful of them here. “I don’t have to go off-planet to find one of those.”
Raven was shaking her head. “It’s not that kind of vibe.”
I sighed. “Of course not. Kish gets all the fun gigs.”
They both laughed. Kish mostly got the missions where she was highly likely to get punched in the nose. We weren’t a jealous bunch anyhow, but she got sent into communities on the brink of explosion. Nobody arm-wrestled her for those assignments.
Raven waited a moment before she spoke again, frowning. “I think the connection is through Yesenia.”
That was creepy. “She was a little weird today.”
“She’s always weird.” Iggy rolled her eyes and pulled off another hunk of fresh-baked bread.
Truth, but the boss lady didn’t usually let me see what went on under her hood. “I think she’s worried about this assignment and she doesn’t want to tell me why.” I thought about my time in her office again. “But she wanted me to know she was worried.” She was far too controlled for that to have been a lapse.
Iggy dug her nose out of the bread basket. “She just wants to keep us on our toes.”
That was a more comfortable place for Dancers than for the rest of us. I glanced over at Raven, who tended to take subtle energies more seriously.
She looked thoughtful. “She was kind of like that with Kish on her last gig too.”
I knew that, and it wasn’t comforting.
Raven helped herself to some of the loaf Igg
y wasn’t sharing. “What do you know about this biome you’re headed to?”
I shrugged, even though I’d spent half my afternoon trying to answer that question. “As far as anyone in my family knows, Xirtaxis Minor is one of the middle-of-the-road experimental species biomes. They’re not farmers, but they’re not the lunatic fringe either.”
Iggy nibbled daintily on a small bite that was more jam than bread. “Your peeps would know.”
What they knew was that Xirtaxis Minor specialized in symbiosis—developing species that relied on each other for sustainability. Which was something scientists had been working on for decades, and one that shouldn’t be affecting any of the humans involved.
I had more details—but I still didn’t have any insight.
“Exotic species, hmm?” Raven’s eyebrows wiggled suggestively.
I laughed—that particular suggestion only happened in old vids. Much to the disgruntlement of the early space explorers, humanoid life forms had remained a figment of science fiction. Whales and dolphins had lots of friends in the galaxy—humans, not so much. “Plant sex is totally fun.”
They both rolled their eyes and settled in lounge chairs close to the beaker selection I’d arranged for our pleasure. Iggy picked one in a shade of blue that matched the seaweed-frond things on her tunic. “Does this mean you’re headed off to be a scientist?”
A decent assumption, but after limping my way through the briefing materials, I was pretty sure the lab wasn’t where I was going to be spending my time. “No. There are concerns about some abnormal behaviors cropping up in the residents.” Which meant I’d also just read through a crash course in abnormal psychology and psychic potentials. There were a lot of ways human beings could become really unstable, and I didn’t really want to get up close and personal with most of them.
Raven raised an eyebrow. “That’s an unusual assignment for a Grower.”
It was. Usually, they’d have sent a Singer or a Shaman, or some of the Psych people. “Most of the biome crew complement is completely unaffected, so they’re suspecting some kind of genetic susceptibility either to local conditions or to one of the experimental species.”