130: EVE

It’s not movie night.

It’s off-schedule, as Tal would be quick to point out if anyone were to call it movie night. Movie night was four days ago. But it’s our last night together, the last night before the drop, and everyone is hanging out together as much as possible. We kill the two chickens, and Captain Klees makes them into some kind of Texan stew, served by Tal and Asteria, who –

“Starless void,” Xanthe mutters, “I see Teri has a partner in crime.”

Asteria grins, white teeth showing between lips painted completely black. Tal’s lips have been similarly painted, obscuring the garish violet for once, and the pair are wearing some kind of strange form-fitting layered outfit, black trousers and top over a different, white top. The outfits look uncomfortably form-fitting, even layered; I wonder how long it took them to sew them. They each have shiny foil baubles pinned to the ends of their sleeves, a white napkin poking out of a pocket int heir top, and fabric ribbons about their necks, not so much a necklace as a bow tied around a present.

“They’re tuck-seedoes,” Asteria explains, doing a little twirl to show off the ridiculous outfit. “They’re classy.”

“You look ridiculous,” Xanthe says.

“You’re just jealous of our amazing sense of style.” Tal offers kes knuckles to Asteria, who bumps them with her own.

“So Asteria’s into pre-Neocambrian stuff too, huh?” I ask Xanthe as we get to eating. “That must’ve been a fun twenty years.”

“Ugh, you have no idea.”

“I think I have a little bit of an idea,” I say, as at the other table Tal starts excitedly explaining the plot of some pre-Neocambrian movieabout bees that was apparently perfectly preserved because the script kept getting stored in random documents for unknown reasons, except nobody knows what the title was because they all just refer to it by the broad descriptor ‘Bee Movie’ in the same way that the Nameless Nation’s name has been lost in favour of a vague descriptor of being states on a particular continent.

The meal is good. I linger on every bite, wondering what dinner will be like tomorrow. Wondering what food is like down in the colony. All they’ve told us is that their supplies are adequate and the added population of the landing party won’t cause difficulties. Across the table, Tinera and Captain Kae Jin discuss that very question in Lunari; I can follow most of the conversation (I did teach at a Lunari university for a year), but they’re discussing Lunari dishes I’ve never heard of, and I don’t want to jump in and slow the conversation down.

Some of the crew – Tinera, Xanthe, and Note – have put together a little band, and hold a small concert after dinner which quickly becomes a circle dance. I end up dancing with Denish for the first set, and it’s hard to believe that this is the last night we’ll see each other for quite some time.

“Don’t die,” I tell him, “and keep the ship in one piece while we’re gone.”

He raises a brow. “Don’t die. And get the colony ready for when we can meet up again.”

“You’ll be on this highly dangerous spaceship. I’ll be on a planet, in an established colony.”

“We have survived this spaceship five years. Colony is new, and they tell us very little. They say that it is safe and they have the capacity for you, but they have not given details. We don’t know what it is like down there.”

“Well, that’s why we need to go down and look. Whatever they’re missing, you can send down in the first supply drop. The initial plan was to do this without a colony down there at all; if anything, their existence makes things safer than they would’ve been otherwise.”

His hands are on my shoulders for the dance; he squeezes, briefly. “Be careful.”

“You’re worried about Tinera, aren’t you?”

“I am worried about all of you. My family around Earth have aged and died by now. You are my family. I will not lose my family again.”

I look down at our feet, making sure we’re getting the footwork right. “We’ll be fine. I’m sure we’ll be able to radio you shortly after landing.”

“I think that Captain Kae Jin will be relieved over the division. She has been polite, but I think she disapproves of my relationship with Tinera.”

I stifle a laugh. “Of course she disapproves! She’s Lunari, and you’re not married.”

“Tiny is also Lunari!”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the problem. If you guys have some kind of formal marriage then she’ll stop disapproving.”

“Tiny would not want that.”

“No, I suppose she wouldn’t.”

“She’s never mentioned marriage. Is that important on Luna? Is her behaviour not normal?”

“Tiny’s behaviour is normal. She’s just incredibly shameless about it. It might be a prison culture thing, I wouldn’t know; I never talked much with convicts on Luna. But generally, marriage is extremely important in their culture. Casual sex or even casual relationships are supposed to be discreet. If the captain does disapprove, it’s not disapproval of you; it’s disapproval of Tinera’s casual regard. There are bars for this kind of thing on Luna. Codes. Euphemisms. Tinera’s openness is kind of like walking around naked in Texas.”

“Huh.” Denish looks perplexed.

I shrug. “Like most cultural quirks, it makes sense in the context of their history.” But before I can turn into Tal with an impromptu sociology lecture, it’s time for a set change, and I find myself paired with Lina.

“You’ll be careful down there, won’t you?” she asks me without preamble. “We don’t know how closely attached these people are to earth’s initial terraformation plans. If their goal is to take our colonists as a convict labour force for their settlement – ”

“Then we tell them no,” I shrug. “It’s less than four hundred people down there. We’ll be fine. I’m more concerned with administrative forces in chronostasis up here wanting that, than down there. They thought we were dead, and they were all born on Hylara anyway; I very much doubt they have any particular care for Earth laws.” (That’s not completely true; it’s common for new settlements to revere their originators, and they may have a strong emotional attachment to a convict slave state structure for all I know. It might be one big prison industrial complex down there. But there’s no reason to cause panic until we have information.)

“That may be the case,” Lina says. “But if you’re wrong, don’t forget that we hold all the cards. They’re going to be in need of supplies that we have. We can trade for whatever concessions we want.”

“Trade? Trade the supplies and colonists we brought in exchange for safety and legal protections?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Lina, they might be starving down there.”

“They claimed they weren’t. They said they can feed you.”

“They could die without this stuff, for all we know. They might lack medicine, they must lack canvas – ”

“All the more reason they’ll listen to you. We dragged this wreck of a ship between the stars, Aspen. We owe safety to the chronostatic colonists, and our crewmates deserve whatever status and protections you can buy them. If they have any kind of heirarchical society down there, any system of personal wealth, nobody on these crews deserves to be on the bottom of it.”

“This sounds like something you should be discussing with the captain.”

“I already have. But negotiation is going to be a group effort down there. See what they need… and keep in mind what we need.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this mercenary.”

Lina shrugs, and I’m reminded that this is a woman who allowed cancer-ridden patients to die so that she could illegally sell their organs. “There’s nothing to trade for, up here. But that’s no longer the case. When you’re down there, you’re bargaining for our futures, for the rest of our lives. Don’t ever forget that.”

Another set change pairs me with Earl. “Are you excited that we’re finally here?” I ask.

Earl grimaces. “If only we could move faster. You will learn what we need and start organising drops as quickly as possible, won’t you, Aspen?”

“Of course; the sooner we’re all off this ship, the safer we are. But why the sudden rush?”

“Captain Kae Jin’s health is not getting worse, but it is not improving, either. Earl doesn’t know how much longer she has. And she gave her life to this, Aspen; she deserves to see it succeed. She deserves to see as much progress in getting her charges safely to their new home as possible.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you.”

Eventually, things wind down and I head for bed. I hope I can actually sleep; I definitely don’t want to be exhausted tomorrow. From the ground under my sleeper nest, I can see several minor points of disrepair that need maintenance. They’d start to cause problems after another week or two of use. I ignore them.

I find myself just wandering aimlessly around the ring, surveying all these plants that I planted, that I tended. They might be left to fend for themselves, now, or maybe the remaining crew will tend them; they could still be up here for quite some time organising colonist and supply drops. Either way, I’ll never see them again. I’ll say goodbye to this garden, and at some undefined point in the future, it’ll die without me.

I wonder if my node tree on Arborea Atlantica is still alive.

I’m staring blankly at the apple tree when I hear bare feet approaching.

“Is that one your heltama?” Note asks. “Be sure to take the rootstock if you’re taking a cutting down.”

I shake my head. “I, um. I didn’t designate a ghost node.”

“You have been here five years with no heltama?”

“It’s not that big a deal! Nobody makes a ghost node during their coming of age exile; I don’t need one now. I don’t need a node tree.”

“There are many things we don’t need. But I am sure that the crew would make space on your descent pod to bring a cutting with you.”

“Earth is sixty five lightyears away and we’re never going back. It would be unreasonable to ask the crew to accommodate such things.”

Note is still behind me, but I can hear their quizzical head-tilt, as the gather-rings in their headscarf rattle. I hear the click of light aluminium against the heavy gold on their ears– gold rings for vows, memberships, debts. Gold rings for family and clan designation and blood vows and life-bonding trade deals. Note has eight gold rings, I remember – that’s an absurd number. No Khemin I’ve ever met has eight gold rings.

“The Greaves cluster have their own tree, if they still exist, and don’t need me dragging affiliation with them across space,” I snap.

Note must be tilting their head the other way, because I hear that infuriating click of rings against useless rings again. “Who said anything about the Greaves cluster?”

I turn to glare at them. “You’ll never see the people you cast those gold rings for again. Aren’t they heavy?”

“I don’t see how that could possibly matter.”

“Note, we left more than a century ago! Everyone – ”

“Is dead, yes.” They speak in a gentle tone usually reserved for children. “They cannot carry the relationships, so I must be sure to carry them. Somebody has to. A gold bond is not so fragile that it can be destroyed with the death of just one participant.”

“Well, I’m not going to reshuffle everything at this late stage just so I can bring a tree with me.”

“Your choice, little cousin. But when you want one, let me know. We can send one down with a supply drop.”

“I really don’t think I’ll – ” but I stop talking, because the Waveskimmer is doing something unexpected. They reach up and pull one gold ring out of their ear, and press it into my palm.

Note speaks in slow, careful Arborean. “On behalf of the remaining crew, cousin, I lay this task on you and on the rest of the away team. Make a home for us and our passengers. Find us somewhere to live, in safety, and call us there when it is time.”

My mouth is dry. I know the response, although of course I’ve never had the need to say it, not to a Khemin. This isn’t how Khemin trade with outsiders, even Arboreans.

“I accept the debt,” I say, and Note nods, very seriously, and steps back, leaving me clutching the ring. I glance down at it. “Which debt did it carry?”

“My promise to my clan to bring our line, in myself, into safe new lands.” Note smiles faintly. “What rolls out on the waves, rolls back in somewhere, see?”

I look down at the ring – or more accurately, I look down at my own trembling hand.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I guess it does.”