The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Page 25
Speaker stared at the top of her cockpit, eyes narrow with thought. ‘I … have no idea how to describe what it feels like.’
‘It’s like …’ Ouloo frowned. ‘Hmm.’
‘Is it painful?’ Roveg asked.
‘No,’ Speaker said slowly. ‘It’s not.’
‘But you don’t like it?’ Roveg said.
‘I don’t like it,’ Pei said.
‘I mean,’ Ouloo said, ‘I don’t mind it.’
‘It’s not my favourite, but it’s not the worst,’ Speaker said.
Roveg looked around the group with his hard-shelled face. ‘Thank you, this has been incredibly illuminating,’ he said.
The sun dipped lower, and the globulbs in the garden brightened in response. ‘It’s kind of nice,’ Ouloo said, ‘seeing the sky without any ships.’
‘They’ll be back before you know it,’ Roveg said.
‘I know,’ Ouloo said. ‘And I’ll be glad to see them, but … it is nice.’
Pei tipped her head back and gazed upward. The wreckage drones had cleaned up their patch of sky, and the view above the Five-Hop was now free of debris. There was no junk, no traffic, no blinking satellites. Nothing but the transparent seams of the dome and what little air lay above. She tried to remember the last time she’d seen a sky that way, and came back empty.
Roveg set his bowl back down on the tray decisively. ‘Right,’ he said. He tucked in his thoracic legs, planted his abdominal legs firmly against the grass, and with one quick heave, flipped himself onto his back. ‘Ahhh. That’s better.’
Tupo burst out laughing.
‘What?’ Roveg said. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘You are,’ Tupo said, giggling heartily. ‘That looked hilarious.’
‘Tupo,’ Ouloo moaned.
‘What’s hilarious?’ Roveg said with good humour, craning his head back toward Tupo as far as his shell would allow. He was well aware that full-bodied dexterity was not his species’ strong suit. ‘Show me what’s so funny.’
‘You were like …’ The little Laru dramatically threw xyrself over, limbs flopping noodle-like into the grass.
‘You’re the one with crazy legs, not me,’ Roveg said. He shifted his eyes toward Ouloo. ‘But not you, of course,’ he added with conciliatory charm.
Ouloo made a teasing face at him. ‘I’m sure,’ she said. She rolled over with far more grace than her offspring, and the two snuggled together into one shaggy pile, facing up toward the sky.
Pei followed suit, breathing deeply as she hit the grass. It was peculiar, Roveg thought, hearing sound come from her mouth rather than the implant in her throat, even if the only thing audible was the sway of air. ‘That’s nice,’ Pei said through her talkbox. The words were layered atop the asynchronous sound of her breathing, making the distinction between organic noise and synthetic speech all the more striking. ‘City fields are nice and all, but they’re not quite this, are they?’
Roveg clicked his mouthparts in agreement. ‘When was the last time you lay down under a real sky?’
The Aeluon let out another heavy breath. ‘Sohep Frie, probably. When I was a girl.’ She rolled her head toward him, her cheeks a delicate blue. ‘A long time.’
‘I’ve an idea,’ he said, ‘but only if it’s not a bother. Ouloo, is it possible to turn off the garden lights?’
‘Oh, that’s no bother at all,’ she said. As though it were the most casual action in the world, she reached into her belly pouch and pulled out her scrib.
Roveg’s frills twitched involuntarily. ‘Do you … keep … belongings in there?’ he asked.
‘Why not?’ she said. ‘It’s been a long time since it was occupied, and I don’t plan on it being so again. Might as well use it for something.’
Roveg decided to not pursue that line of questioning any further. He recalled using her scrib in Pei’s shuttle the day before. He decided to not think further about that, either.
Ouloo made a couple of gestures at the scrib, and all the lights at the Five-Hop dimmed and deactivated. Roveg’s eyes adjusted quickly to the twilight. Stars, but it was lovely out.
Roveg shifted his gaze, and noticed Speaker sitting in her suit, which was likewise in a sitting position. She seemed unsure of what to do. ‘Can you lie down in that thing?’ Roveg asked.
‘I … yes?’ Speaker said. ‘There’s no mechanical reason I couldn’t. I’ve just never done it.’
‘You’ve never laid down and looked at the stars?’ he asked.
Speaker did not appear to understand the point. ‘I live in space,’ she said. ‘I see stars all the time.’
‘We all live in space,’ Pei said, ‘but it’s … it’s different, from the ground.’
‘Come,’ Roveg said. ‘You must give it a try. And if your suit gets stuck, we’ll get you back up.’
Speaker was right about the suit’s mechanical capabilities, but it was strange to be lying down that way. She didn’t spend much time lying on her back to begin with, and doing so in her cockpit was downright odd. But once she’d adjusted to the weirdness – and figured out how to angle the cup of suckingly sweet pudding so that it wouldn’t spill everywhere – she took in the view with thoughtful silence. She did see stars all the time. The windows of her ship were full of stars far more often than not.
But Pei was right. This was different.
‘They’re so … soft,’ Speaker said with surprise. ‘They’re not as sharp. Is that because of the dome?’
‘No,’ Roveg said. ‘It’s the atmosphere. It mutes them. And see how they—’
‘They move,’ Speaker said. She laughed. ‘I’ve read books in Klip that made mention of the stars twinkling, but I thought … I thought they were just being poetic. Like they were comparing them to jewellery, or glass. I didn’t think …’
‘That they did that?’ Roveg asked.
‘Right,’ Speaker said.
‘Why do they twinkle?’ Tupo asked.
‘Air currents,’ Pei said. ‘You know how when you make tea and you look in the mug when it’s really hot, you can see the liquid swirling around itself?’
‘I don’t like tea,’ Tupo said.
‘You like soup,’ Ouloo said.
‘Yeah,’ Tupo said.
‘And have you seen that swirl?’ Ouloo asked.
‘Yeah,’ Tupo said.
‘Air does the same thing,’ Pei said. ‘And it makes the light shining through it wiggle.’
‘Which one’s Uoa?’ Tupo asked. The Laru species’ home system.
Ouloo let out the sigh of a parent who’d been asked a good question for which she had no answer. ‘I have no idea,’ she said.
‘Well, let’s find out.’ Roveg wriggled a few legs behind himself awkwardly, trying to get at the satchel tied around his abdomen, currently smooshed between his back and the ground. ‘Tupo, can you reach the big pocket on the side of my bag? I’m trying to get my scrib.’ He knew Ouloo’s scrib was more handy, but … no. Never again. Thankfully, Tupo obliged, and placed Roveg’s own scrib into his waiting toes. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said. He made a few gestures, then held the device up to the sky. The scrib chirped in response, and displayed a map of the stars behind it. ‘Let’s see,’ Roveg said, scanning. ‘All right, well, we’re not at Uoa yet, but do you see that orangish one?’
‘Where?’ Tupo asked.
‘Yeah, where?’ Pei asked.
‘Here, follow my leg.’ Roveg extended a single thoracic leg and traced it from horizon to heavens. ‘Come up from here, go left for a while, and then …’
‘Oh, I think I see it,’ Pei said.
‘I don’t!’ Tupo said.
‘Tupo, be patient,’ Ouloo said. ‘Look where Roveg’s pointing.’
‘Oh!’ Tupo said. ‘Yeah, I see it!’
‘Do you actually see it?’ xyr mother asked. ‘Or are you guessing?’
The child scoffed. ‘I said I could see it.’
‘That’s the Aandrisk home system,’ said Roveg.
‘Huh,’ Pei said. Her talkbox carried the word with a laugh, and Roveg shared the sentiment. He’d stood on Hashkath many a time, watching the sun cast haunting shadows across the red rock valleys. That memory came packaged with feelings of warmth and dazzling brightness – nothing he would associate with the pale speck so insignificant alongside the scatter of countless others exactly like it.
‘Cool,’ Tupo said, and then, a bare second later: ‘What about Uoa?’
Roveg did a quick search for it in the star map. ‘Ah,’ he said regretfully. ‘Won’t be up tonight. Seems that’s a winter star on Gora.’
‘What’s a winter star?’
‘Means you won’t be able to see it until the winter.’
Speaker chimed in, after a moment. ‘Can you find Iteiree?’ she asked.
Roveg didn’t recognise the name of the star – and given the tone in Speaker’s voice, was a little ashamed that he didn’t. He searched; the scrib obliged. ‘Let me see, let me see.’ He scanned, pointed, traced. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Do you see that row of four large ones that – ah, how to explain – they curve just a bit, like the edge of a bowl.’
Speaker looked; he could hear the frown in her silence. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Yes, yes, I see it.’
‘Go up from the left-most one about forty-five degrees. Do you see that yellow—’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s it,’ he said.
Even Tupo did not break the weighty silence that ensued. ‘It doesn’t stand out much, does it?’ Speaker said, her voice soft but steady.
‘None of them do,’ Roveg said, ‘unless you’re looking for one in particular.’
‘Do your people have constellations?’ Ouloo asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Speaker said. ‘I’m familiar with the concept, but I don’t know if we did.’
‘Do you have them?’ Roveg asked, looking in Ouloo’s direction.
‘I don’t know, either,’ Ouloo said. ‘I don’t know much of anything about my species’ homeworld.’
‘We have them,’ Roveg said. ‘I used to know some of them. I’m not sure I’d be any good at it now.’ He looked to Pei. ‘You?’
‘They’re not a thing for us,’ Pei said. ‘We only paid attention to the stars that have an obvious colour. Ancient astronomers on Sohep Frie didn’t think the others were important.’
Roveg laughed. ‘Because they weren’t talking to you?’
‘Exactly. The coloured stars, though – oh, you could lose tendays reading about Aeluon astrology. Some people still pay attention to it. Blue stars are good luck, yellow stars are bad luck, and so on. It’s incredibly stupid.’
‘I have never heard an Aeluon call superstition stupid before,’ Roveg chuckled.
‘Yeah, well, this Aeluon’s not scared of yellow stars,’ Pei said. ‘Or prime numbers. Or years where it doesn’t snow.’
‘Why don’t we have constellations on Gora?’ Tupo asked.
‘Because we don’t need them,’ Ouloo answered. ‘Constellations are so people without tech can find their way around the sky.’
‘Yeah, but we couldn’t use tech for days,’ Tupo said. ‘Not really. We should have some for emergencies.’
‘You should make some,’ Roveg said. ‘Draw them out and put them in your museum.’
‘Oh,’ Tupo said. ‘I forgot.’ The child rolled over, got to xyr feet, and walked off somewhere out of Roveg’s line of sight. ‘I have presents for you.’
Pei saw Tupo fetch something from a table. Xe returned on two legs, holding three bundles wrapped in scrap fabric with xyr forepaws. ‘I wanted to give you all something. You each get a piece from my museum collection.’
Xe handed the first of the bundles to Pei; she unwrapped it without missing a beat. Inside the fabric was an opalescent stone. It was unpolished, but even in the nearly disappeared light, a bit of sparkle winked back at her.
‘You get this one ’cause it looks like you,’ Tupo said. ‘It’s pretty but it’s also tough.’
Pei laughed delighted green at this. ‘I love it,’ she said. ‘Thanks, kid.’
‘Can you help me unwrap this?’ Speaker said, cupping her bundle in the suit’s palms. ‘String is tricky for the suit.’
Tupo picked the bundle back up, unwrapped it with xyr paws, and held up a bright red crystal, nearly the length of Speaker’s forearm, embedded in a chunk of grey rock. ‘Okay, so maybe this isn’t a good present, because it’s more for your sister, I think. You said she likes crystals, and I know you really want to see her, so I’m giving you a present to give to her, since we didn’t get to meet her. If that makes sense.’ Xe placed the crystal back in the suit’s hands.
‘Tupo, that’s perfect,’ Speaker said. ‘That’s a very Akarak sort of way to give someone a present.’
‘Yeah?’ Tupo said happily.
‘Yeah.’ She clicked her beak with fondness. ‘And tell you what – next time I come back, I’ll drag Tracker along with me. I think she’d like your museum.’
Ouloo beamed. ‘We’d love to have you back,’ she said.
Roveg could tell what was in the bundle as soon as the child gave it to him, and he was oh-so glad Tupo could not read him. He understood exactly why Tupo was giving him this, and he understood that Tupo did not understand how Roveg felt about it, and stars, did he feel complicated.
He unwrapped the bundle and extracted the poem stone.
‘I really liked it when you read to me,’ Tupo said. ‘Your language is really cool.’ Xe threw a furtive glance toward xyr mother and lowered xyr voice. ‘And also, I thought about what you said about museums stealing stuff, and um, I don’t want to be that kind of museum.’
‘Thank you very much,’ Roveg said, bowing gracefully. ‘I humbly accept the repatriation of this fine artefact. I’ll give it a place of honour in my gallery at home.’ He was being intentionally flowery, but it was also the truth. The cheap knick-knack in his hands now carried with it a sentiment of the present he would cherish, and a reminder of the past he would always loathe. Only the finest art could accomplish both those things at once.
Epilogue
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING YOUR LOCAL PLANETARY CO-OP
Day 240, GC Standard 307
PEI
She didn’t have the colours to express how good it felt to be in space again.
It shouldn’t have mattered, in some ways. Her shuttle was the same shuttle. Her chair was the same chair. But there were stars out her window now – not merely above, but all around. Gora grew ever smaller below her, a massive curve shrinking into a modest sphere. The debris field was still patchily present, and seeing it up close was disquieting, but the automated wreckage drones were on the job, scooting this way and that in methodical stripes, passively pulling in junk with their magnetic collection arms. It was surprisingly satisfying to watch.
Orbital traffic was as crowded as expected, but the zippy TA guideships were doing a heroic job of corralling the comers and goers into transit lanes. Beyond the lanes were five clear-cut areas in which all traffic stopped: the safety corridors around the tunnel entrances, through which only one ship could travel at a time. At the end of the corridors, the wormholes awaited, each held stable by the polyhedral containment cage constructed around it, a net of metal and blinking lights encasing a blacker-than-black sphere that wasn’t so much object as absence.
Pei steered her ship into the lane for tunnel number four, and directed her ship to follow the autopilot buoys. She imagined a similar scene would await her on the other side, and that she’d travel to Ethiris’ surface in a manner every bit as controlled. She was already looking forward to the point a few tendays ahead in which she was back out in open space, able to fly in whatever direction she liked and as fast as local law allowed. But that kind of freedom was still a ways off. First, she had to get this egg fathered.
No. That wasn’t first. First, she had to write to Ashby and tell him she wasn’t coming.
She felt childish about the fact th
at she hadn’t written to him the moment comms had been restored. She’d told herself there hadn’t been a need to inform him that she’d been delayed. That much would have been obvious when she hadn’t sent him a travel update from Gora five days prior, and knowing Ashby, he would’ve checked the news or done some digging and ascertained what the situation was. But the longer she went without writing him, the more she knew her hesitancy had nothing to do with flight updates, and everything to do with not landing upon the right words to disappoint him with.
With no option but to wait in the queue, she decided it was well past time to suck it up and be an adult about this. She turned to her comms panel, flashed the command for a new message, switched the input format to Klip, and began to write.
I’m so sorry to do this, but I won’t be able to
She deleted that, and started over.
I’m so sorry to have to do this. There was a massive delay at Gora, and while I was there, I started shimmering. I found a creche a tenday or so from here, but that means I can’t
She deleted that as well, her cheeks spotting yellow.
You know how they say that making plans is the best way to be sure they won’t happen? Well,
Delete, delete, delete.
I don’t want to be writing this, and I’m having the worst time of knowing what to say. I don’t know why this is so hard. I started shimmering on Gora, and I found a creche, but I
Pei exhaled sharply, her cheeks frustrated yellow and wistful orange. She pressed her fingertips hard against the keymap, erasing all of the inadequate words once more.
She tried again.
I don’t want
She locked her fingers behind her neck. The shuttle crawled forward, following the autopilot buoys.
She closed the message field, and instead activated the comms camera. With no call in progress, the only thing the screen displayed was herself.
She took a breath, closed her eyes, and dug deep, letting her colours swirl however they pleased.
She thought about the Rin creche, with their cheerful info chip that said all the right things. She imagined taking part in something ancient and beautiful, something every single ancestor before her had succeeded in doing. She thought about how awe-inspiring it would feel to continue that chain and repay all the gifts they’d so selflessly given her. She replayed the conversations she’d had with friends who’d come back from their shimmer and raved about how wonderful it had been. Such a badly needed break, they said. Such a special experience. Good sex and plenty of rest and the lingering sense of a primal purpose fulfilled.