Katla Station flourished. It mostly stayed out of the rebellion, though it did provide raw materials if the rebels were buying. Those who ruled there considered themselves free enough already and weren’t in a huge hurry to help other people if it didn’t directly benefit them. The people mostly followed suit because it was safe. Those few who did feel the call to fight left and were rarely heard from again.
The Morunt family had no rebellious tendencies. The father was heavily involved in business and was not the sort of person to care who he traded with so long as the money was good. He haunted docks for new opportunities, and that is why he was ready when the Harland came into port.
The Harland didn’t come to Katla very often. Passage through the Well at Brannick Station was outside their operating budget, but they had a delivery to make, and so the captain had decided it would be worth the expenditures. None left the ship but him, and the cargo. The first was normal for a spacer family, but the cargo manifest was a little too perfectly accounted for, and the Morunt patriarch sensed an opportunity.
Sylvie often wondered, in the years that followed, what would have been different if she hadn’t stayed home that day. The Harland ran on a tight schedule, and if her father hadn’t been able to find her, they wouldn’t have stuck around to wait. But she was home with her middle brother, waiting to hear about a job he had applied for. She was too young to work officially yet. She had to wait until her birthday so that she could sign a contract.
Her father didn’t give her time to pack. There was no room for nonessentials in space, he told her. The Harlands would give her anything she needed. It all happened so fast that she didn’t realize what was going on until he’d dragged her all the way to the docking port, her brother rushing behind them, yelling questions that went unanswered.
The captain of the Harland looked her over and nodded. Her father let go of her arm, and Sylvie tried to run. She didn’t know where she was going to go, but some instinct told her to try. They caught her immediately, of course, and the captain dragged her screaming through the airlock.
Sylvie learned very quickly that no one cared if you screamed in space.
She was taken to the infirmary and given a daily allotment of calories. She tended to the Family. There were two girls who were a few years younger than she was, but in Harland years, they were almost adults themselves and ready to take their places on the ship, but they ignored her. She thought she had been lonely on Katla, when it was just her brothers and the older students, but now she had nothing, and no one person in the universe cared about her.
The Harland returned to Brannick Station and began another circuit of the mining complexes. Back on Katla, each Morunt brother left. In getting rid of his daughter, the father had also lost his sons. He turned lonely and bitter, blaming her for everything that he had done. The boys scattered to different stations, knowing that they would probably never see their sister again.
Sylvie got older. There was no chance of her leaving the ship. The places they stopped were all dangerous, and by the time she returned to Brannick Station, two decades had passed. The Harland had a new captain, and several children had been born. Sylvie had seen them all from conception to their first breaths, but there was nothing else to their relationships. She kept them healthy and they let her eat.
Two years into her second circuit with the Harland, a new child was born. Sylvie knew immediately that the child had magic like hers, that someday she would use the æther to manipulate bodies. She’d also learned enough about the people she served to know that they would not be welcoming of such a child, worse than her father had been for her. They would actively shunt her aside until they could use her, and she would grow knowing what kindness was only by its absence.
It wasn’t Sylvie’s job to tell what kind of magic her patients had, so she didn’t. She watched the girl get older, watched as she was forced to betray herself at five years old and was then pushed aside. She couldn’t do anything to help, and so Sylvie mostly ignored her.
But then she remembered that her brothers had loved her. That her teachers had encouraged her. That even the most senior students had congratulated her if she got a higher mark than they did. No one deserved misery. Sylvie couldn’t do anything big, but she might be able to help the girl in small ways. There was no reason to revisit the cruelty done to her onto someone else, just because she could.
So she watched, and she waited. She helped regrow a fingernail and taught the girl to control her power. She pretended not to notice when the girl slipped past the limits of the medical texts on board and started reading legal treatises and stellar cartographies. And when the time came, she gave the girl enough warning to hoard calories and escape.
Sylvie Morunt had come to the Harland with nothing, and she’d never leave it. But they’d never get her soul.
20.
NED BRANNICK’S FUNERAL WAS uncomfortably similar to his wedding, and all the more so because the two events took place so close together. Dulcie Channing officiated, and Pendt and Fisher stood at the front of the assembled crowd. The colonnade was crammed full, with people on the balconies to watch and screens in all the places where work couldn’t stop, even for this. The main difference was that everyone was sombre and quiet this time. And, of course, that Ned himself wasn’t there.
The colonnade had been decorated with black banners to commemorate his loss, and only a skeleton staff was working in operations so that as many station residents as possible could attend the service in person. They wore their normal clothes, but tied black ribbons around their arms, or wove them into their hair. There were flowers everywhere, by Pendt’s request. Ned had given her flowers when he showed her to the greenhouse that first time, and it was how she wanted to remember him. The funeral was a bit more colourful than it might have been otherwise, but no one took offense. They all knew what flowers were to Pendt. With no body to look at, the event was a bit shorter than it might have been, but Pendt still felt every moment of it weighing down on her shoulders.
When Ned was alive, out there in the black void being heroic, people had accepted Fisher’s rule and Pendt’s assurances. Without the promise of his return, they might need her to give birth as soon as possible, to ensure the baby was safe. Without the promise of his return, Fisher might not be enough for them, and that would hurt him more than anything. Pendt couldn’t stand the thought of Fisher being hurt any more than he already was, not if she could help it. She vowed to do everything she could.
Dulcie was winding down, and turning to offer Fisher his turn to speak, but Fisher had frozen where he stood. It was easy for Pendt to imagine what he felt at the loss of his brother. Pendt just took what she felt for it and multiplied it by several fingernails. Unwilling to let the moment pass without a speech from someone in Ned’s family, Pendt took a few steps forward. No one shouted her down, so she went all the way up to the podium Dulcie stood at and turned to face the crowd.
There were so many of them. She’d spoken at her wedding, repeating Dulcie’s phrases, but her back had been to the crowd, then. Now she faced them all, and she could see their worries and their fears. She’d never spoken to this many people at once, not even close, but she had to. She took a deep breath. This was for Ned. This was for Fisher. She could do it for Fisher.
“Ned Brannick was one of a kind,” she said. “Which is something of an accomplishment for a twin, from what I gather.”
Fisher smiled at that, and a polite chuckle rolled through those who were assembled. They loved the boys, she realized, they didn’t just serve the Brannicks because they had to. They were loyal, the result of generations of mutual goodwill.
“I didn’t know him very long,” Pendt continued. “But I know that he was the sort of man who tried to save one person while remembering to do his duty to everyone who relied on him. I know that, because that’s why I am here.”
Brannick Station knew the rules. They knew
what was required to keep the station running. They knew Pendt was pregnant, and that she was sustaining the pregnancy. None of them seemed to hold it against her, now that she was standing in front of them. She was doing the job she had been brought on board to do, but it was time to tell them how much she was committed to serving the station.
“Many of you were at my handfasting a few weeks ago,” she said, an unexpected catch in her voice. “You know that I promised Ned to help him and to make sure his line continued. You know that I’ve been trying my best to learn how to run Brannick Station.”
They were nodding, now, and murmuring to one another. Yes, they had seen her working in hydroponics. Yes, they knew what she was trying to do in operations so that Fisher could have a break sometimes.
“We didn’t plan to tell you, but the day that Ned and I were handfasted, we had a second ceremony. A marriage.”
Gasps of surprise rushed through the crowd, echoing Ned’s protests from that day so few weeks ago. Marriage was beyond serious. It meant Pendt was theirs. It meant Fisher could order her to do whatever he liked, even if she knew he never would. It meant that, for Pendt, there was nothing beyond Brannick Station anymore.
“I’m telling you now, because I want you to know how committed I am to you,” Pendt said. Her voice rang out above the colonnade. “I was born a Harland, and raised a Harland, but I became a Brannick. I did it a little bit for me, I won’t deceive you. I wanted a home that I could never be taken away from. But I knew that I was also agreeing to a covenant with you, Ned’s people, not just with him.”
They pressed forward, hands reaching out to touch her. Dulcie put a hand on her shoulder to keep her steady. Fisher looked a bit alarmed but covered it well. He came to stand beside her.
“We know that it is a time to mourn,” Pendt said. “We know that Brannick Station has mourned more than its fair share in recent years. We know that you need time to grieve and time to understand how the changes will affect you.
“But we want you to be sure.” She looked down, and then back at the crowd. “I want you to be sure: I will do my best for you, always. This is my home, and I can’t begin to explain to you how important that is to me. I am yours for as long as you need me, Brannick Station.”
Fisher took her hand as the crowd threatened to overwhelm them. No one was angry, they just wanted to be close to her. She thought they would try to touch her belly, where the next Brannick hibernated, but they didn’t. They pressed their hands against her shoulders or the top of her head and called her precious and good. Many of them were crying, and Pendt was powerless to stop her own tears. A sure sign she was a Brannick, she thought. No more taking it on the chin. Brannicks fought back.
It took nearly an hour to extricate themselves from the crowd. Fisher never relinquished her hand the entire time. It was the most he had touched her since the night they learned of Ned’s death. Fate was especially cruel to tie those two moments together, Pendt thought. She didn’t know if Fisher was ever going to let her replace that memory with something else. She didn’t know if she wanted to. It was so strange, to think about kissing one Brannick boy while news of the other’s death streaked its way across the stars to where they sat.
That sort of thinking could drive a person spare, Pendt realized. She knew guilt ate at Fisher, and he wasn’t ready to pull himself out of it. Pendt was more rational than he was, at least when it came to this. She refused to let herself be drawn into the pointless sea of what-ifs. It wasn’t very much fun. She wanted, more than anything, to lose herself to feeling. But Fisher needed her. Brannick Station needed her. And she had promised.
Pendt led Fisher back up to their apartment and settled him on the sofa in the lounge. She knew he’d been drinking stimulants since the news came, trying to stay awake to make arrangements and do his normal job in operations, so she brewed him a tea instead. It had no stimulating effects, as far as she could tell, but it tasted nice and it was warm to hold, and maybe that would help.
“Ned never questioned who I was, you know,” Fisher said when Pendt handed him the cup and sat down with her own. “He said he’d watched me grow, and he knew better than anyone. Which is ridiculous, and was even more ridiculous when we were five, but it still helped me a lot when things were challenging.”
“Ned had a way with people,” Pendt said. “I don’t exactly trust easily, and his opening line was terrible.”
“Right? I thought we’d lost you for sure,” Fisher agreed. He took a sip of the tea, which Pendt counted as a win. She knew exactly how many calories he’d eaten in the past few days, and it wasn’t enough. The tea didn’t have much to offer, but perhaps it would remind him to put things in his mouth.
“I think we could have resented each other, you know?” Fisher said. “I wanted what he had, and he wanted what I could do, and neither of us was content with what life gave us to start with. But instead he made us a team, and we did everything together.”
Fisher’s voice caught in his throat, and Pendt braced herself. Fisher hadn’t shown much emotion to her since they’d got the news, and she didn’t mind. Fisher needed to grieve in his own way. But if he was going to fall now, she was going to do her best to catch him.
“I knew he’d leave,” Fisher said. “I always knew he’d leave as soon as he could. And I thought about being alone, but I didn’t think about being alone forever. I thought he’d come back. We were always a team. But no one comes back. Brannicks go into space and the Hegemony takes them, one way or another.”
There was an edge to his voice she’d never heard before. He was angry, beyond furious, and she couldn’t help him.
“Will you go to avenge them?” she asked delicately. “No one would blame you if you wanted to join the rebellion now.”
“I can’t leave you here alone,” Fisher said.
“Yes,” Pendt said. “You can.”
It hung there for a moment between them.
“I won’t leave you alone,” Fisher said, his promise low and harsh. “The Hegemony has taken my whole family, and I want to hurt them, but we will do it from here, you and I. We will find a way.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Pendt said. “We still need a true Brannick.”
“After today, they’ll all think you’re the truest Brannick in a generation,” Fisher said.
He set his cup down, and Pendt noticed that his hands were shaking. She set her own cup down and reached out to take his hand in hers. He looked at her, wild grief in his eyes as the tears started to fall.
“I miss him so much.” Fisher’s voice was hoarse with tears. “I’ve never been without him and I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll find a way,” Pendt promised. “I don’t know how, but we’ll find a way.”
Fisher hiccoughed as the tears started to fall freely. He pitched forward and landed with his head in her lap. She stroked his hair as he cried himself out, running her fingertips across his scalp as his breathing evened and he fell asleep. It could not have been very comfortable, but she wouldn’t have moved him for all the ore in the Harland’s hold.
“We’ll find a way,” Pendt said, as much to herself as anyone else.
Brannick Station hummed around her. Home and safe, very sad, but hers. And she would risk everything to keep it that way.
21.
THE FIRST THING PENDT did was make sure everything was still legal. Not wanting to bother Fisher, she arranged to borrow Dulcie’s office for an afternoon. The foreman immediately understood her purpose and granted her access to the files she was going to need. Then Dulcie went to the quartermaster to see about getting Pendt her own workspace—between hydroponics and the apartment, Pendt had never really needed one, but she was forced to admit that Dulcie had a point—and Pendt got to work.
Marriage was such an antiquated concept that she wasn’t sure how or if death factored into it. She felt awful, reducing Ned to a line
on the page of questions she had to answer, but she had no choice. For the safety of everyone on Brannick Station, she had to belong to it.
The documentation was fairly clear cut, all things considered. Dulcie had done countless weddings on the station, but this was her first marriage ever, and she’d made sure to access all the information the historical database would give her, apparently. Pendt had read the contract the day she signed it, but going over it now, she appreciated it thoroughness. She had married Ned, but it was Fisher, as head of the family, who controlled her future. Ned’s death didn’t change that. She was a Brannick until she died.
Pendt called up the secondary contract, the one Ned had signed to ease his conscience over the whole affair. He’d written it himself, guaranteeing Pendt full rights to her body, her assets, and as much autonomy as the station could allow her. She cried a little bit as she read it. Ned had been so sweet. The two contracts didn’t contradict each other, which was what Pendt had been worried about. Her aunt was very good at finding loopholes, and if one existed in the second contract, Pendt had to know in order to prepare herself. But all seemed well enough.
The door hissed, and Dulcie came back into her office.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked.
Pendt ceded her chair to her.
“Yes,” she said. “I think we are all safe with the original arrangement.”
“That ship of yours,” Dulcie said. “There’s something not quite right about it.”
“You think?” Pendt said.
“I mean, everything is always accounted for perfectly,” Dulcie clarified. “In two decades, you’d think there’d be some kind of oversight with the manifest.”
“You haven’t spent much time with my aunt,” Pendt pointed out. “Captain Arkady knows everything about the Harland. It’s almost uncanny.”
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