by Audrey Faye
“And you’re a plant geek who can read the woo.” She nodded. “Makes sense, I guess.”
It didn’t, really—and that had me worried too. “Maybe everyone better qualified is off in the Etruscan sector.” I watched Raven carefully, pretty sure that’s where she had just come back from, regardless of what Bean had thought.
Her nod was confirmation enough. Whatever fires were going on, they’d likely pulled in all the people who were better suited to this assignment. I was a stringer off the bench, and I’d just have to get the job done anyhow.
What our trainers euphemistically called on-the-job skills acquisition.
“You’ll be fine.” Raven sounded way more certain than I felt. “You build community as easily as you breathe, and that gives you leverage no matter what’s going on.”
I did my leaning from the inside—I always had.
Iggy nodded. “People like you, and they trust you. That lets you fix all kinds of things the rest of us can’t touch. I think Yesenia picked a great person for this job.”
I smiled at my cheering squad. Time to stop feeling like a stringer.
Iggy smiled back and handed me a swirling yellow beaker. “Enough shop talk. Get drunk and then it will all seem totally fine.”
None of us were going to get drunk—I’d carefully doctored the cocktails, mostly for my benefit. I hated space travel with a passion, but I hated it even more with a thick head. It never assuaged my fear, it just sandpapered it with sensory overload.
I reached for some of the bread Iggy had mostly demolished. There likely wouldn’t be any of that where I was headed.
“Don’t eat all the bread, I’m starving.”
We all turned to greet the voice at the door. Kish looked a little rumpled, but her face still wore the look of unfettered happiness that had been riding there all week.
Iggy craned her neck to the left and then to the right. “What, no Devan?”
My roommate snorted. “He’s a man, not an appendage.” She picked out a bright pink beaker, took the hunk of bread I held out, and threw herself into the oldest gel-chair we owned. Kish had a deep fondness for scruffy things, which made her new guy all the more surprising.
“He’s verra sexy,” said Iggy, nabbing the other pink beaker.
Raven shook her head tolerantly at the redheaded Dancer who had been her best friend since we were all tadpoles. “You’ve been watching bad Earth movies again, haven’t you?”
“Sexy is timeless.”
I amused myself watching Iggy’s face tats dance in the low light—I’d done a pretty decent job with them, if I did say so myself.
She handed me something green and vaguely glowing.
I peered into the beaker—I didn’t remember mixing this one. I let my Talent open a little, sensing. Nope, not one of mine.
“Mine,” said Raven, toasting me with her swirling purple beverage. “Or one of yours I gave a strong push, anyhow. It won’t settle your stomach for tomorrow any, but I did a few other things.”
Shamans weren’t brewers, but they could impact the energy of just about anything if they put their minds to it. That she’d done so had my full attention, however. “And what other things might those be?”
Kish waved at me to drink up. “We swig all the stuff you tell us to drink.”
They did, but most of those didn’t glow, at least not while I was still totally sober.
“Just a feeling I had,” said Raven quietly.
That didn’t bode well. “Mundi had one of those too.” Omens and portents. I wasn’t impressed. Three days in a tin can were bad enough without the woo people in my life picking up bad signals in the ether.
Raven looked concerned. “She’s usually right about this stuff.”
“That woman should have been a Shaman.” Iggy’s eyes were sharp—she hadn’t missed a thing. “Mundi’s a smart cookie.”
“If she’s a rogue Talent, she picked a dumb place to hide.” There were a few each generation who managed to escape the Seekers, but none of them did it living on Stardust Prime.
“She’s just old and wise,” said Raven, reaching for a bacon-wrapped apple slice. “And these are possibly the best things I’ve ever eaten.” She pointed at Kish and spoke with her mouth full. “If you ever break up with Devan, one of us needs to snag him. For the good of the bacon supply.”
She wasn’t the only one making bacon contingency plans—my dad was already muttering things about trying to farm a few pigs.
Kish’s cheeks were pink, and I didn’t think it was the cocktails. “I don’t have any plans to get rid of him.”
She was going to need a whole lot of plans to keep him—he lived on the far side of the quadrant. However, I was pretty sure that particular problem had occurred to the two of them, so I kept my unhelpful mouth shut, hoped for the best, and tried not to think about thinning the pea plants and how many got yanked up by their roots. I had grown up with a root system so deep and wide that I couldn’t imagine ever ending up adrift from it, but Kish was different.
I shook my head, tipped back the glowing green, and drank it all down. I knew better than to dig into melancholy the night before tin-can insertion, and the women in this room knew better than to let me.
Sendoffs were for celebrating the best in each other. Just in case.
7
My claustrophobia was creeping in, no matter how much my chakras were trying to hold it at bay. They didn’t have anything to ground in, and that made them weak.
Or so I thought every time I hitched a ride into space.
Take-off had been uneventful and the captain had just given me the go-ahead to unbuckle. Not that there was much of anywhere to go. I surveyed the small bridge and its human contents. Two sharing duties here, one in the engine room, two sleeping. Standard complement for a small cargo vessel.
Five people against the blackness of space.
I shook my head—that kind of thinking would make me crazy a lot sooner than usual. I hefted my bag, and then remembered why it was so heavy. First things first—time to make half my weight allotment disappear.
Hopefully, this crew liked real food.
Iggy would laugh—I was community building again. It was as automatic for me as breathing, and maybe as necessary, even if I would only be here for a few days. I started pulling out containers, keeping one eye on the captain. Occasionally spacers were weird about microbes. Or crumbs on the bridge.
She raised a mildly interested eyebrow. “You brought lunch?”
“For all of us, if you’re interested.” A peace offering of sorts, in case the crazies caught up with me en route. It was always good to make friends before the panic attacks happened. “I have some sandwiches and some squash soup, all homemade.”
The comm officer’s eyes lit up at the last two words. “For real?”
Every last crumb. “Yeah—you like the real stuff?”
“I grew up on Athenia.”
Home planet of the back-to-the-land movement. I grinned at the officer who had introduced herself as Kixie, and handed her a sandwich. “Then you’ll probably like this.”
She took it reverently, squealed, and then glanced over at the captain. “Sorry, but there’s avocado in here.” She inhaled deeply. “And real lettuce.”
It was all real. She’d figure that out soon enough.
Captain Kriggs looked amused. “I don’t know what avocado is, but I assume it’s a good thing.”
It was one of the foods that soy had never figured out how to passably replicate.
I watched as Kixie made room on a nearby surface and carefully laid down her sandwich. That one had gone to a good home. I glanced over at the captain. “Would you like one? There’s plenty. Or some soup?”
“I’m a spacer, born and raised.” Her smile was wry. “So there’s no way I’m going to appreciate that the way it’s meant to be appreciated. But if you could set a little something aside for the two who are sleeping, that would be fantastic. They’ll owe me for weeks.�
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Kixie stopped inhaling the fumes of her sandwich long enough to look up. “They’re both dirt born.”
That was a lot of planet dwellers on one small cargo ship. I raised an eyebrow at the captain. “Do you collect them?”
She laughed. “I usually run a route in the Brazilius sector. Lots of real food to be had, even on most of the space stations. For dirt dwellers who want to be in space, the Indigo here is a pretty good gig.”
I had no idea why anyone not born in a tin can would want to live in one, but regular infusions of real food would at least make hell more bearable. “Sorry to pull you away from your regular duties.”
She was back to tapping buttons on her console. “We’re happy to serve KarmaCorp.”
She sounded like she meant it. I tried to let the supportive energy soothe the itch attacking my skin from the inside out.
The captain looked over as I gave in and squirmed. “Not fond of cargo ships?”
I hated them deeply—they disconnected me from anything living and breathing, and the absence greased my insides like soul rot. “Flying in general.” I looked into eyes that showed more interest than most. “It’s hard on my Talent.”
She nodded, not seeming to take it personally. “My sister’s claustrophobic. I fly her home to see the folks every year or two. She’s usually climbing the walls by the time we’re halfway there.”
I didn’t ask how long the trip was—I probably didn’t want to know. Three days was bad enough.
She regarded me carefully. “We have a couple of things in our medical dispensary you could take. Nerve calmers, mostly.”
If I’d wanted one of those, I’d have brought my own. “Thank you, but I prefer to keep my judgment unclouded.”
That got me a small nod of respect. “As you wish it, Grower.”
My wishes involved the development of interstellar teleportation so I never had to climb into a tin can ever again, but so far, the universe had been extremely deaf on that point. “I’ll be in my quarters. Please let me know when we’re approaching Xirtaxis Minor.”
Captain Kriggs looked a bit pained. “Your quarters are quite small. If you’d like, you can use mine—they’re bigger.”
They’d still be far too small for comfort. “That’s a generous offer, but I don’t need to disturb you any more than I already have.” KarmaCorp was likely paying a premium for my delivery, but she was still going out of her way.
“It’s no bother.” She indicated the small panel door on the rear of the bridge. “Quarters are through there. Head and shower at the end—hot water lasts about three minutes. Your bed slot is upper right. Monty is below you and he’s a heavy sleeper, so you don’t need to worry about noise.”
Kixie grinned. “He’s usually sleeping with his engines anyhow.”
If I had a choice between a coffin and a warm room full of purring equipment, I’d likely choose the latter too. Bed slots were the cargo-ship version of human pallets. Enough room to roll over if you really had to, and not much else.
Nostalgia flowed for my room with its undersized bed and thin walls.
I looked around the small bridge and spied a corner in behind the comm station—and more importantly, a small potted plant in the coffee cup holder. Something green to commune with would ease my traveling considerably, and this seemed like a pretty relaxed crew. “Perhaps instead you wouldn’t mind if I tucked myself in here and meditated a bit?”
The captain looked at the corner I was pointing toward. “Sure—knock yourself out.”
Hopefully not.
I looked over at Kixie, since it was her space I’d be invading.
She took another bite of her sandwich and tapped her tablet. “Go right ahead—I can monitor everything I need to from here.” Her eyes closed in bliss. “Gods and goddesses, this is real tomato, isn’t it?”
It was, and clearly I’d borne it to the right destination. I touched the little plant on her station gently. “You’ve got a knack with green things.”
“That?” Her eyebrows raised in surprise. “Anyone can grow a delfinia.”
More or less. “Yes, but this one’s very happy here, and that’s harder to do.”
She looked pleased. “Really—you can tell that?”
I could. And spending a little time in its company would let me soak in the vibe of a living creature that had no more control over this vessel than I did, and still trusted. Still found ease.
A more-than-worthy repayment for a slice of tomato.
8
Landing on a new planet was always an adventure—and not usually a good one. I made my way down the crinkly tube from the landing shuttle to the airlock door, hand on my emergency oxygen supply. I’d never needed it, but unlike most Fixers, I took the threat of death and dismemberment very seriously.
One of the hazards of being dirt born.
I paused at the airlock door and peered through the small window. Hopefully, someone was expecting me. Moments later, a cheerfully round face squinted back at me, and then I heard the whirs and whistles of whatever it was that airlock doors did to keep out deep space.
“Good day, Grower, and welcome to Xirtaxis Minor.” My contact lifted a hand in the universal sign of greeting, or at least the one everyone used when there was threat of contamination. “I’m Glenn Ignatius, head medical and your landing committee.”
I nodded, bemused. He didn’t look like most of his breed—medicals were usually stern and physically fit, as if they could embarrass the rest of us by their superior example. Glenn had a round body to match the round face, and his scrubs had either been living on him for several days or did auxiliary duty as dress-up clothes for small children. “I’m Tyra Lightbody. Thanks for coming out to meet me.” It wasn’t a small thing—he’d have to go through decontamination with me now.
“It’s a pleasure.” He gestured at the only door out of the tiny airlock. “We don’t get many visitors here, and I wanted to make sure you felt right at home.”
I could feel my soul reaching out to gather my temporary tribe already. “Thanks.”
He took a more careful look at me, this one both friendly and professionally assessing. “Those cargo ships can be rough traveling.”
I didn’t bother to tell him that this had been one of my better trips—Kixie’s little plant and a cheerful crew had kept me reasonably sane. I was very pleased the Indigo would be circling back to get me when my mission was done. “It always feels better to put my feet on the ground.”
“Ah, planet born, are you?” He was busying himself with the tubes and scanners that would clean up anything I’d managed to pick up on the way here. “Been anywhere near soil or microbes in the last cycle or two?”
I laughed, even though it was a totally standard question. “My family grows most of the food supply for Stardust Prime. I was thinning pea shoots four days ago.”
His eyes brightened. “They sent us a farmer, did they? Good.”
He was definitely an unusual medical. Most of them weren’t at all fond of microbes or those of us who played with them. “I assume you’ve got decon equipment that can handle me.” The experimental species biomes usually had the very best in containment gear.
“Nothing in, nothing out.” He grinned. “Unless you’ve got some contraband snacks we should consume before we get started.”
I’d run out of those two days ago, sadly. “The crew ate them. Something about balancing out the mass ratios.”
Glenn looked amused, which made him more of a spacer than I was. He gestured at a metal ring on the floor of the small room we’d entered. “That’s our decon tube. I’ll need you to shed all but a light base layer. If you’re shy, I can run the controls from the other room.”
I laughed and started peeling my skinsuit. “Ever met a shy Grower?”
He chuckled and began removing his own scrubs. “I’ve only met three, but none of you seemed overly concerned about how many clothes you were wearing.”
The natural side effect of
a Talent that worked best naked. I waved a hand at my cami and shorts. “This good enough?”
“Yes, and thank you.” Glenn was utterly professional now, moving to set the streams of light and energy that would neutralize anything foreign I’d managed to carry across the galaxy for three days. “You’d be amazed at what some folks arrive wearing.”
I grinned at his neon Santa Claus boxers. “Those are standard issue, are they?”
His face moved in the fluid lines of a man who smiled readily and often. “They tend to set people at ease.”
I’d bet he was pretty good at that even when he had all his clothes on. I also suspected there was a lot more intelligence behind the genial face than he let on. The competition to work in an experimental biome was steep—he would have come here as one of the best in his field. I stepped into the metal circle and held out my arms. “How long have you been on Xirtaxis Minor?”
He tapped a couple of buttons that started a low hum above me, and a slowly circling light. “Three rotations. Got one more in my original contract, and then I’ll decide if I want a second run.”
Anyone who had lasted here three years had a pretty sane head on his shoulders. “Tell me what I’m walking into.”
His assured movements with the equipment didn’t miss a beat, but his eyes sharpened. “They tell me I’m supposed to get you safely in the door and then let you come to your own conclusions.”
That was the standard briefing for local contacts. “I bet they tell you to wear khaki-green boxers too.”
That earned me a grin. “A rule breaker, are you?”
When I needed to be. “Just someone who knows the value of opinions from people on the ground.” It was a Lightbody trait—in another century, my family would have been full of spies and covert operatives.
The lights stopped, and Glenn motioned me out of the circle. “Looks like you’re all clear. A little dirt, a few microbes. Nothing Betsy here couldn’t take care of.”
I had to like a man who named his decon tube. I stepped over to my clothes, which had been put through a separate scan, less friendly to human life. “Want me to run it for you?”
