Aetherbound

by E. K. Johnston

  Pendt ate the last piece of cheese and put the greenhouse to rights. She went back out into the lounge and curled up on the comfortable sofa. It was, she decided, more than fair that she get to take a nap before lunch.

  14.

  ON THE MORNING OF her eighteenth birthday, Pendt Harland slept in. It was the first time in her life she had ever done it. Usually, she was woken up by a chime calling her to work, or she woke out of habit. But this morning, she slept until her body was ready to wake up. Even then, she didn’t get out of bed. She lay there, appreciating the fact that today she was a legal adult, and that she was going to steal herself from her family for good.

  Eventually her stomach grumbled, something that made her laugh. It was no longer a desperate sound, something that spoke of emptiness and food withheld. Instead, it was an almost-pleasant rumble, a sound that remembered being full and would like to be again, thank you very much.

  Pendt got up and pulled on her new clothes. Ned and Fisher had bought her five whole outfits and assorted sundries, something she found ridiculously excessive and they thought was the barest minimum. The idea of choosing what to wear was still strange to her, and she just grabbed whatever was closest, but she was starting to appreciate colour combinations and the feeling of certain fabrics against her skin. Today’s outfit was a purple tunic that fell to her knees over yellow leggings and comfortable brown shoes. There was a yellow scarf in the closet too, and after a moment, Pendt took it out and tried to arrange it around her neck. She wasn’t entirely pleased with the result, but she could look something up later.

  She’d left her hair long after escaping from the Harland, and watched a few vids on what to do with it. She lacked practice to do the fancier plaiting, but she could handle a ponytail high on the crown of her head. She liked the way the ends of her hair brushed against her neck like that, the soft touch of something that was hers.

  Dressed and ready to face the day, Pendt activated the door to her room, and stepped out into the lounge. It was empty, but she could hear both boys in the galley. If they’d got up at the normal time, they would be finished breakfast by now, but Ned had mentioned sleeping in too. They both had the day off from operations, barring an emergency that required Ned’s genes.

  “Good morning!” Ned said as she came into the galley. “You look nice.”

  Ned seemed determined to make this as weird as possible.

  “Thank you,” Pendt said.

  She understood that he was trying to make them both comfortable. In his world, people who did what they were about to do genuinely liked each other. From what Pendt had heard, Ned and Fisher’s parents had actually been in love. It might be enough for Pendt to have a thoroughly detailed contract, but Ned clearly expected himself to give her something else, and she tried to accept it as gracefully as possible. She did like both boys a great deal, even leaving aside the part where they helped rescue her and then came up with the plan to stay rescued. They were funny and nice, and different from each other in ways she was coming to appreciate. As for the rest, though, she wasn’t really emotionally equipped to deal with it yet. And they seemed to understand that she would need time.

  “Happy birthday,” Fisher said.

  “Thank you,” Pendt said with a bit more enthusiasm. In the space of a week, her birthday had gone from a day to be feared to a day to be excited about, and she was pretty thrilled about it.

  She sat down at the table and poured herself a glass of fruit juice. The boys both drank stimulants in the morning, but they made Pendt jittery. Fruit juice was on her long list of current favourite luxuries. Today’s was a light pink.

  “It’s guava,” Fisher said. “The crop ripened a few days ago. It’s always all ready at the same time, and eventually all you can do is juice or freeze it.”

  “I like it,” Pendt said.

  “You like everything,” Ned pointed out.

  “I haven’t tried everything yet,” Pendt said. “We’ll probably run into something I don’t like eventually.”

  “Yes,” Ned agreed philosophically, “and then you’ll tell us that that calorie ratio is just too efficient to pass up and make yourself eat it anyway.”

  Pendt laughed. She was learning to be selfish, and Ned was always ready to call her on it. He looked at her with a smile on his face, and Pendt felt a bubble of warmth in her stomach. It was nice to be liked.

  They chatted amicably over breakfast, mostly explaining how operations ran when neither Brannick was present. Ned carried an alarm, in case a message was received that the Net was required, but aside from that, it was more or less the same. The schedule was light today. Most of the ships expected had arrived late last night, and nothing was supposed to show up until later in the evening. Still, sometimes there were unscheduled trips, and Ned had to be ready.

  “Hopefully the universe has a sense of decorum,” Ned said, “and we can at least get through the wedding without being interrupted.”

  The wedding they had planned was made up of two parts. First, there was the public handfasting. This was the traditional way two people joined their lives together, with no legal hold on the other. It had to be a mutual agreement, and either could leave at any time. Some people had arrangements involving property and offspring, but that wasn’t a matter for public consumption. The second part, the marriage, would be done privately to ensure as few people as possible had access to the documents.

  They finished their breakfast and Fisher took care of the dishes. He paused when he was done, and then went to the refrigeration unit.

  “We made something for you,” he said.

  When he turned to face her, he was holding a circle of woven plants in his hand. Pendt recognized the flowers from the greenhouse. They were a riot of colours, but somehow the arrangement was pleasing to the eye.

  “It’s for your head,” Ned explained.

  Pendt took out her ponytail and used her fingers to comb her hair neatly down her back. She took the flower circle from Fisher and put it on her head. It smelled amazing.

  “Thank you,” she said. She had never felt this decorated. This intentionally impractical. With her hair down and the scent of the flowers wafting around her, she felt soft. And for the first time in her life, that didn’t feel dangerous. “It’s fantastic.”

  “The flowers have grown a lot since you got here,” Fisher said. “We thought it was a nice way to show that you were already, you know, part of the family. Even without everything else.”

  Pendt smiled.

  “Are you ready?” Ned asked. “People have already started to gather on the colonnade.”

  “I am,” Pendt said. “Let’s do this.”

  He offered her his arm and she took it. Together, they walked out of the apartment with Fisher behind.

  * * *

  • • •

  The handfasting ceremony was short. Pendt hadn’t met the person who did it, but they had a moment to chat before everything started.

  “I’m a friend of Catrin Brannick, name of Dulcie Channing,” the woman said. “I helped teach Fisher and Ned operations when they were little, and then after, well, after Ned and Catrin were gone. I guess I am sort of the foreman.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Pendt said. “I’m learning that family here means something different than it meant where I come from, and I’m glad that the boys had you when their parents were taken.”

  The crowd had grown quite large by then, and so Ned decided it was best to get things started.

  Ned and Pendt held hands while Dulcie wrapped a long white ribbon around them. She spoke of commitment and cooperation, of work and play, of good times and poor ones. At the end of her speech, she asked both of them if they were ready.

  “I am,” Ned said.

  “I am,” Pendt repeated.

  “Then before these witnesses, I declare you partners,” Dulcie said. “May you b
ring one another peace.”

  Peace. Freedom. Fruit juice. Pendt couldn’t help smiling up at Ned, and he smiled back at her. The onlookers cheered. They didn’t know all the details, but they knew that the Brannick was working to secure their future, and they were pleased about it. Pendt looked at Fisher, who nodded at her. He wasn’t the type to show emotions freely, but she knew that he was glad, and that he welcomed her.

  The crowd dispersed as people came forward to shout congratulations at them, and finally, only a few stragglers were left. Ned thanked them and then pointedly led Pendt and Fisher into Dulcie’s office, where they would take care of the marriage documents. Fisher quickly filled Dulcie in on what was going on, and the woman didn’t seem entirely surprised.

  “You messaged me saying your brother needed a wedding to a girl off a merchant ship,” Dulcie pointed out. “I was aware that things might be a little bit . . . sensitive.”

  “You’re okay with it?” Pendt asked.

  “No,” Dulcie said. “I am not okay with any of this. You’re all too young. My friend is being held hostage. I know very well what Ned will do the moment there’s a viable heir on the station. None of that is okay. But it’s what we have to work with, and you’re being smart enough to sort everything out as you go, so I can’t really complain about it.”

  “I was kind of hoping you’d be happy for me,” Ned said quietly.

  “I am, darling boy,” Dulcie said. She ruffled his hair. “I’m happy for you and I’m very proud of the way you’re going about this. But that doesn’t make it any less complicated.

  “Now,” she said, pulling up her screen, “let’s finish sorting all of this out.”

  Dulcie had no additional suggestions for either of the contracts and commended them for thinking to include the second one. Everything was signed and sealed away in short order. The second contract was encrypted and stored in a separate file that only the four of them could access.

  “So,” Dulcie said wickedly when everything was sorted, “any big plans for the afternoon?”

  “There are a couple of ships due.” Ned’s ears were pink. “But we’re ready.”

  “I’m sure you are,” Dulcie said.

  She laughed as Ned all but dragged them out of her office. They went back the bar where they had met. It was quiet, since it was the dayshift, but the three of them sat at a table in the back and introduced Pendt to cake, since it was both her birthday and her wedding day.

  Ned excused himself after a few hours to go take care of operations, and Fisher and Pendt diligently finished all the slices that were left on the table before they went back up to the apartment.

  “I am glad too, you know,” Fisher said as Pendt took a seat in the lounge to wait for Ned. “What Dulcie said is right. It’s not okay. But it’s something, and it’s ours, and that makes me happy.”

  “I understand completely,” Pendt said. “This week has been amazing. I’ve never had so much time for myself—except when I was in the brig—and I don’t feel isolated or weird. I’ve never really been happy, I don’t think, and I’m not sure I’m happy now, but I am getting a good thing and I am giving a good thing, and that works for me.”

  They waited in comfortable silence until the door opened and Ned came in. He wasn’t blushing anymore, and neither Fisher nor Pendt teased him. Instead, Fisher shook his hand and left, heading to operations for the darkshift. Pendt stood up. The scarf around her neck seemed very tight. Ned reached out and took the crown of flowers off her head. He set it on the table and held out his hand to her. It only shook a little bit.

  Pendt took his hand, because it was hers to take, and squeezed gently. He smiled at her and drew her into his room.

  15.

  IT WAS A WEEK before Pendt was absolutely sure. Ned was diligent, Fisher was mostly absent, and neither of them asked her any questions. The first few times, Pendt was much more distracted than she had expected, but eventually she was able to focus. After that, it was fairly straightforward to sink into her own body and sort through the genetic patterns until she found two halves that would give the whole they were after.

  “I’m not comfortable designing a person,” Pendt told Ned one night between attempts. They were both naked and he touched her gently, as though to remind himself that she was real. “Not entirely, anyway. There’s a difference between plants and people, like we talked about, and I don’t like the idea of sifting through a person for what I want.”

  “I think I understand,” Ned said. “No one would have designed Fisher, and he’s perfect.”

  “My family wouldn’t have designed me either,” Pendt said. “And if any of my older siblings or cousins had star-sense, none of the rest of us would exist.”

  So she didn’t design the genes. She picked her own egg at random, releasing it into her uterus to wait. She made sure it connected to the right sperm, but her only requirement was that there be a Y chromosome. It was intention, she supposed, but not deliberate design. It was the most and the least that she could do. When she was sure implantation had been successful, she waited until Fisher was home for breakfast before telling them both at the same time.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said with no preamble, and then slathered strawberry jam onto her toast. Jam made bread even better than bread already was.

  Ned froze with his own toast halfway to his mouth. Fisher waited a beat for him to say something first, and then pressed forward.

  “That’s good news,” Fisher said. “Is everything in order?”

  Bless Fisher for keeping everything professional. Ned ate his toast.

  “Yes,” Pendt said. “I would like to talk to the doctors here and get another opinion or two, and then we should work out a way to test if I can manage the station controls.”

  “That part’s pretty straightforward,” Fisher said.

  “We aren’t doing it that way,” Ned protested, finding his voice at last.

  “What way?” Pendt asked.

  “When our mother was pregnant and our doctors confirmed I was male, they put her in a pod and sent her to Katla,” Ned said. “She kissed our father on the colonnade, and then walked into the docking bay all by herself. He took the lift up to operations and sent her through. The whole station stopped work, waiting for Katla to send her back. Either the Net would activate and catch me, or we would all be lost to space.”

  Pendt swallowed.

  “Everyone was very relieved, obviously,” Fisher said. He blinked several times to clear his eyes. “They love my mother, and they were glad of an heir.”

  “I would prefer a less dangerous method,” she said. “But I understand if that is necessary.”

  “We’ll take you to see Dr. Morunt,” Fisher said.

  Pendt started visibly. “Doctor who?” she demanded.

  “Dr. Morunt,” Ned said, confused. “He’s the best one on the station. He’s the one who took care of our mother when she was pregnant with us.”

  “The Harland doctor was named Morunt,” Pendt said. “She was almost good to me.”

  “We can take you to one of the others, if you like,” Fisher said.

  Pendt considered it. Even if this new Morunt was related to the Harland’s, he had no way of communicating with her. He couldn’t betray them, even accidentally. And it would be nice to see a familiar face, even if it was only familiar by proxy.

  “No, it’s fine,” Pendt said. “Just let me get ready.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Brannick Station’s Dr. Morunt was a heavyset man, well into his fifties. There was an infinitely higher number of body types on Brannick compared with the Harland, but Pendt still stared when she saw someone who looked different. She felt like an infant when she did it: Even working solely off genetic diversity, Brannick would have more phenotypes than the Harland, but she couldn’t quite stop herself yet. She wasn’t used to so ma
ny variations on living well.

  He had the same open face as the Harland Morunt, but his was not weathered the way hers was, pale from years in space and gaunt from exact nutrition. He examined Pendt quickly and professionally, confirming that she was pregnant and that the foetus had a Y chromosome. He gave her advice on how to deal with her body as it changed and recommended a slight increase to her daily fitness regimen.

  “Is it still a slight increase if I’ve never had a daily fitness regimen?” she asked.

  He guffawed, which made her jump.

  “Well, I suppose not,” he said. “But walking around the station would be good for you, in any case. You’re putting on weight very well, especially in your muscles, and I want to be sure your body learns to use them as they develop.”

  “Thank you,” said Pendt. “I like how round I am starting to look.”

  “You are still distressingly scrawny,” the doctor informed her bluntly. “If I hadn’t heard through station scuttlebutt that you’d come off a merchant ship, I would be questioning your guardians about their mistreatment of you. As it is, I’m glad you’re here now.”

  His vehemence was almost intimidating, but the fact that it was on her behalf made her comfortable. She asked the question that had been poking at her since Fisher told her his name.

  “Dr. Morunt, I apologize if this is too personal, but do you have a sister?” she asked.

  Dr. Morunt froze in the middle of putting away his stethoscope. His eyes grew sad and he had a faraway look on his face.

  “I did,” he said. “She’s been gone a long time.”

  Pendt never pressed for information, and she didn’t press now. It was clearly a painful subject, and she was holding enough painful secrets of her own to empathize completely.