It would also be a grueling, long fix.
“Haruhi, come sit over her by this tree. Isn’t it a pretty tree?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Now Aunt Morgan has to do some work in here. Can you promise me to be good and sit here and play your game?”
“Okay. I will.”
“Ship’s Computer, lock the doors to the hydroponics bay, except for authorized personnel.”
“Confirmed,” the computer responded. The Fate of Dawn’s computer had a strong masculine voice, a deep tenor.
“With the doors locked like this the other person currently in the room cannot leave, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Thank you, computer.”
Morgan got to work. All the tools she could possibly need were right here in the room, so leaving wasn’t going to be an issue. She tried to keep an eye on Haruhi as much as she could. Every minute or so at first, then every couple minutes. Gradually her work started demanding more attention, and the time between glances grew.
Morgan felt bad about it, but what else could she do? There wasn’t anything dangerous in the room besides the tools, and those were right at Morgan’s side. She supposed Haruhi could eat some dirt, but children had been doing that for centuries, usually with no ill effects. Besides, Haruhi was a bit old for that.
Morgan wasn’t quite done with the external work when she glanced over and saw that Haruhi was laying on the floor, asleep, her face lightly lit by the screen of her tablet.
Perfect. Now to get her back to her bed. It was too bad it was so far. . .
A thought hit Morgan. She had a bunk on this ship. She hadn’t used it yet, but it was there, and it was hers. It was also far closer. The room would be unfamiliar to Haruhi, but the bunk itself was pretty much the same.
Morgan finished anything that wouldn’t keep until she got back, then cleaned up as best she could.
Haruhi didn’t stir when Morgan picked her up. Her bunk wasn’t too far from hydroponics – truthfully nothing in the crew sections was terribly far from hydroponics, since it was part of the core of the crew sections.
Morgan got the girl situated on her bunk, closed the privacy screen, then secured the room so that Haruhi couldn’t go wandering about if she did wake up. The last thing she did was call her uplink from the room’s system so she could listen in, muting her own end so that her banging away wouldn’t disturb Haruhi.
Suppressing a yawn Morgan got back to work. There was still at least four hours work ahead of her. The station kept Zion time, with its longer day, but it was still doubtful she’d get much sleep herself that night.
***
Morgan was mostly finished, putting the finishing touches on a new valve in the crawlspaces behind the wall when a cry pierced her concentration. It was Haruhi, whimpering in the throes or a bad dream.
Cursing her bad luck – or perhaps just the laziness that had let Morgan think that putting the girl in an unfamiliar bed wouldn’t have consequences – Morgan started working faster. She couldn’t leave the valve half-done, but if Haruhi woke the rest of the way before she finished. . .
. . .so of course Haruhi woke up completely a few moments later, a pitiable little cry as she jerked herself awake, as best Morgan could tell from the audio.
“Momma?” Haruhi asked on reflex, adding after a moment, “Aunt Morgan?”
Quickly unmuting her uplink Morgan called out to her.
“Did you have a bad dream, Haruhi? Don’t worry, it’s over now.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m still working on the plants, sweetie. You’re in my room on the ship. It’s still pretty late. Do you want to try to go back to sleep?”
“It’s scary here.” Morgan could hear the bunk’s privacy screen being retracted. “It’s too dark.”
Morgan groaned inwardly. She’d forgotten to turn one of the small lights on. How good were the voice controls in the bunk?
“Sweetie, say, ‘Room, turn one desk light on.’”
Haruhi did, and Morgan could hear the room respond to her commands. Luckily the lights weren’t user restricted like the doors were.
“Is that better, Haru?”
“Yeah. Where are you? Can you come here?”
Morgan was still working on the valve as they talked, and she was nearly done, but it would be at least another ten minutes.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Would you like me to tell you a story while I finish?”
“Yeah.”
“What story would you like?”
“Princess Story?”
Morgan smiled. The old tale Haruhi had dubbed ‘Princess Story’ was one of her favorites. The little girl had it memorized far better than Morgan did.
“Of course sweetie. Let’s see. How does it start? Oh yes, once there was a brave little princess. . .”
***
Haruhi fell back asleep before Morgan had finished the story. Morgan’s repair job hit the requisite spanner in the works an hour or so later. It was nearly time for Haruhi to go off to school by the time Morgan finished.
Caked in sweat and dirt, oil and, yes, fertilizer, Morgan carried the sleeping Haruhi towards the docking port. She had wrapped the girl in the sheet off her bunk to keep her clean. It would come out in the wash. And if not, well, it wasn’t like a mechanic’s sheets didn’t invariably end up stained by such things eventually anyway.
The same dockmaster was still on duty at the airlock. She looked tired too; her shift had to be just about over as well.
“Finally finished?” she whispered as they passed, taking in the sleeping Haruhi.
“Finally. I’m still reading through the employee manual. Do they expect me to be back to work in an hour?” Morgan asked, not sure if she wanted the answer.
Before the dockmaster could answer, an unfortunately loud voice rang out from the other side of the docking tube.
“Crewman Black, are you early, or did that simple repair take you all night?” It was Chief Nakamura, and he didn’t look pleased. Of course he knew she was just finished, one glance at her coveralls would tell him that.
“Please, sir, keep it down. Haruhi is still asleep. I’d rather she stays that way until I get back to my quarters.”
The chief grunted, but he did keep it down.
“You’d better hurry if you’re going to be back for your shift.”
Morgan closed her eyes, willing down her exhaustion alongside her urge to yell.
“Sir,” Morgan began, her voice faltering. “Sir,” she said more forcefully, “If I come back in today, after working for, what, sixteen hours straight? I will be a danger to myself and others.”
The chief grunted. “Good. You pass.”
“I. . . what?”
“It is important that you recognized that you shouldn’t be working. You stood up to me.
“This. Was a test?” Morgan asked, barely remembering to keep her voice quiet.
“Yes. You could also think of it as a rite of passage, if you’d like.”
“It is a good thing my arms are full, or I might do something neither of us would like.”
“You’re tired. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that threat and you can go sleep it off.”
“Next time do your blasted tests when I’m not taking care of a young child.”
“I suggested you leave her with your neighbors.”
“The neighbors I don’t know? That I haven’t even had time to know? Do you have kids?”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
Morgan turned and left, abruptly, which was by far the better option, rude or no.
CHAPTER 15
Teaching is a wonderful way for not only the student to learn, but the teacher as well. By going over the core elements of the subject, the basics, the pupil is taught and the instructor reminded. Putting it into words helps us understand what we have learned, but may have forgotten.
- Professor Laura Anderson, University of Ein, planet Zion
> TEN ZION MONTHS LATER / NINE EARTH MONTHS
“COME ON HARUHI, you’re going to make us late.” There were times Morgan wondered if she said these words more than anything else, but right now, she was more concerned with the reality behind them. It was Sunday; their one day off from work and school, and Haruhi had misplaced her sock. It would have been easier if it had been both socks, since Morgan could then have convinced her to simply get another pair out, but no. It was one sock, and it was her favorite pair of socks, so they looked.
Morgan wished she could just get Haruhi to wear her shoes in their quarters, but the custom of leaving shoes at the door was reinforced by the general culture of the company and her own background, at least on Haruhi’s father’s side.
Besides, they’d probably just end up looking for socks and shoes in that case.
Even after ten months, Morgan still felt a little uneasy taking Haruhi to church. She was the only person there not already a member of the congregation, besides the children, of course.
The bishop hadn’t pushed beyond a few gentle inquiries and suggestions, and those had all been in the first few weeks. Morgan would show up, Haruhi in tow, sit quietly – well, as quietly as an active child would permit – and try to keep said child paying attention. Then Haruhi would go off with the children for Sunday School and Morgan would stay in the main chapel not really paying attention. Throw in encouraging Haruhi to pray at mealtimes and before bed and keeping some religious stories in the rotation at bedtime and that was the extent of Morgan’s involvement.
It wasn’t that she disbelieved what the bishop was saying, but she didn’t believe either. The whole concept of a deity was something she just couldn’t seem to wrap her head around.
“Did you check under your blankets?” Morgan was looking in most of the common places herself, but the uncommon places weren’t as uncommon as they should be. How that little girl managed to lose a sock on top of the rehydration machine Morgan would never know.
“I found it!” Haruhi shouted from the other room.
“Where was it?”
“In the sock drawer.”
Haruhi had been wearing it an hour before. Morgan had put them on her feet herself.
Never mind, they’d found it. Morgan ran down the ‘before you leave checklist’ in her head.
Tablet, with the books, songs, and such for Haruhi, uplink for Morgan? Yes.
Shoes and socks? Yes.
Dresses clean and presentable? Yes. No, wait. Morgan’s dress had a bit of oil on the hem, probably transferred from one of her coveralls.
Grumbling Morgan quickly threw on another dress. Luckily, her shoes were black so it still worked with the yellow floral pattern instead of the light grey she’d been wearing.
“Come on then, Haru. If we hurry, we can still get some of the padded seats.”
***
Morgan heard even less of what the speaker was saying than normal.
Each week different members of the congregation took a turn giving a lesson on some topic or other, with differing levels of success. Morgan knew very few of them, though that was mostly due to her own indifference.
Who was present changed week to week as well, of course. Most of the churches paid their ministers. They rented space among the non-crew spaces of the station alongside the shop owners and other people living on the station not directly working for Takiyama. The one Gertrude belonged to wasn’t one of them, instead filling their needs by drawing upon the members already on station for their services. Morgan wasn’t sure if that was how it was everywhere or if they just did it in isolated placed like the Station. Either way, given the rotating nature of the ship’s routes, who did what changed regularly.
One of the bishop’s assistants was an officer on Steve, or at least Morgan thought so. She had only seen him the once, in passing, during the brief time she’d been part of the Steve’s crew, and since the ship had left around the same time Gertrude’s had she hadn’t seen him until Steve came back six months later. Besides him Morgan had seen a couple of the regulars around the Fate of Dawn or by her quarters in the Daystar Fading’s area, but the rest were from the other ships, or their families, and Morgan didn’t really bother going to their social events, except to drop Haruhi off for the ones the children did.
At least today’s topic wasn’t as esoteric as many of them ended up being. Talking about their deity dying and coming back to life was much harder to follow than the simple stuff like being kind to one another – today’s topic – or other lessons on good things to do or bad things not to do. The ones based on history were even worse. Morgan barely knew anything of her own home planet’s history, and while she’d learned a bit about Zion over the years her knowledge of Earth was almost nonexistent. After ten months of infrequently hearing about it all she could say for sure was that the ancestors of this particular group seemed to attract enemies.
Morgan normally was content to sit quietly through the service. It was a chance to relax, after all, and she didn’t have to wrangle Haruhi the whole time. Today though she was anxious, because it was a big day for the pair of them, although Haruhi didn’t know it yet.
Today the Daystar Fading was returning.
Ten months without her mom had been hard on both of them. After the third month Haruhi had stopped asking when momma was coming home and Morgan had stopped mentioning the time left, or Gertrude at all really. Haruhi was clearly still missing her. She wasn’t sad, exactly, but noticeably less exuberant, and prone to falling quiet at times.
They got video messages somewhat regularly, of course, whenever a courier vessel that had passed Gertrude’s ship came through Parlon. Even when the messages arrived out of order Haruhi didn’t care, watching them over and over. Three times the messages were duplicates arriving weeks apart, which happened when more than one ship had copies of the messages. Those times were hard on Haruhi, because they wouldn’t know it was one they’d already seen until they were actually watching it.
Getting messages back to Gertrude was spottier, but messages took up so little space that the carry fees on the couriers were negligible. A shotgun approach of copying each message to a dozen different couriers was usually necessary.
Which made Morgan think. As hard as it was for them to get the few duplicate messages, how would it be for the person on the freighter? Some messages would likely never arrive, and probably none of them in order, with many more duplicates.
Gertrude only mentioned receiving messages a few times, though she was always happier in those messages. She was careful not to mention how long until she was returning, Morgan noticed, though she might have been omitting it only because of the time delay.
In any case, it was finally over. They should be – Morgan checked her uplink surreptitiously – yes, the Daystar Fading had reached the outer doors of the station just as they were sitting down in the chapel. After the services ended, they would be able to leisurely stroll over to the ship’s dock and meet the crew disembarking after finishing locking everything down.
In just a few days, Haruhi would be turning seven Earth years old, and she’d grown five centimeters while Gertrude had been gone. Morgan idly wondered how Gertrude had changed over the months. It had been years since Gertrude had had a fulltime job, either a real fulltime job like this one, or even the 40-hour workweek kind.
Morgan supposed she’d changed as well, though it was gradual enough that she couldn’t be sure what had changed. At least work had settled down into a manageable routine, both because they’d stopped hassling her quite so much and because she’d found her footing.
The woman seated a few chairs down from Morgan got her attention with a quick wave of a hand down by her knees, so as not to disturb others. She had some papers on a clipboard, announcements and the like, along with the sheet to track attendance. Why they were actual paper rather than electronic. . . well, Morgan had long ago assumed was due to traditions and stubbornness. They certainly didn’t seem to mind that the language of
their books was antiquated long before Man had left Earth. The odd construction and words like ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ were still hard for Morgan to parse.
They also seemed to like to have little flyers with quotes and inspirational messages, sometimes artwork, reminders to put physically on the wall or some such. Today it was a stylized quote, presumably tied into the lesson Morgan wasn’t really paying attention to. The artistry of the quote was actually quite well done, with some flourishes that made it stand out, if also slightly harder to read.
“And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”
Morgan glanced at the other papers, passing them up to the man in the row in front of her, and then sat back, trying to work out what that even meant. Did that also mean anything bad anyone did to each other was the same as doing it to their deity? What about something like the fight Morgan had gotten into with the muggers who had attacked Gertrude back on Zion? Was that good because she was helping this hypothetical deity, or bad because she was attacking him?
It was all very confusing.
Morgan gave up trying to work her way through the implications, as Haruhi was tugging on the skirt of her dress.
“What is it, Haru?” she whispered.
“I need to go potty,” was the whispered reply.
“Okay. Do you need me to come with?”
Haruhi shook her head, hopping off her chair and scooting past as Morgan turned to the side to give her room.
Haruhi returned a few minutes later, and Morgan fixed her with a steady gaze.
“Hands?”
“I forgot.”
Haruhi hurried back out of the room, her shoes clacking in the fake wood of the floor. She made it back, hands still damp, just as the last song was starting. After finishing with a prayer, the group started getting up and heading to the next part of the services. Morgan held out her hand for Haruhi, and the pair followed the crowd out of the chapel and into the second largest room assigned to the church, where the children were taught lessons at their level.
The Long Black (The Black Chronicles Book 1) Page 22
