Sunny nodded. ‘M Tsai is a legend in the kitchen. Used to work in imports, so she’s got all kinds of spices and stuff. I’m honestly stoked she’s making biscuits.’ He sipped his own drink. ‘But again, not why you’re here.’ He looked at her with kind eyes. ‘It makes sense that you’re still upset about it.’
Eyas shook her head. He was getting the wrong idea. ‘I’m not here because I’m upset. If I needed a counsellor, I’d go see a counsellor.’
‘Talking to friends is okay, too, y’know.’
‘I didn’t mean – I know. And I appreciate it. But I don’t want to sit around and be sad. I want to do something about it.’
‘Okay.’ He leaned back thoughtfully. ‘What’d you have in mind?’
‘You know the emigrant resource centres, right? With their workshops and such. How to speak proper Klip, how to live alongside aliens. Everything you need to know before you move planetside. That’s what our ancestors were trying to prepare us for, right? That’s why the Fleet exists. Except that’s not the point of the Fleet anymore, not entirely. I’m not here to shepherd people along to new planets. I care for the ones who made their lives here. And you – you’re the same, only in present tense. We both want to make life good for the people who choose to stay. So . . . why don’t we have the opposite?’
‘The opposite of what?’
‘Classes. Workshops. Resources for grounders who want to live in the Fleet. We have nothing for them right now. We have homes standing empty, and jobs unfilled, and we’re . . . what? Hoping that the next generation will want to stick around more than the last? Look, if it was a matter of everybody wanting to leave here, fine. But that’s not the case. People aren’t just staying in the Fleet. They’re coming back. We have such disdain for outsiders who come and act like this is a museum, but what about the Sawyers? What about the people who don’t have a place out there, who think that our way of life has some appeal? We look at them and we say, oh, stupid city kids, stupid Martians, they don’t know how things are. They don’t understand how life works out here. So, let’s teach them. Let’s teach them, instead of brushing them off and laughing behind their backs. Let’s bring them in.’
Sunny took that in. ‘Huh,’ he said. He took a long sip of his tea, looked over his shoulder to verify that his nephew had indeed left the shears alone, then set his drink back down. ‘Huh. That is . . . not a terrible idea.’ He paused. ‘That’s a great idea, actually.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You could totally get council support for it, too. They’d be all over it, especially given your . . .’ He gestured. ‘What you do.’
‘My thinking exactly.’ Some of the Exodan resources for Exodan problems types might be harder to sway, but – come on. Who could argue with a caretaker who wanted some resource allotments in the name of preserving tradition?
He nodded. ‘And you want to teach?’
‘Not full-time, and not alone. Think about the resource centres. Most of those people put in an hour here, a day there. All sorts of different professions helping out. It has to be that way, if the centres want to give people a proper toolkit. So, we’d need to do the same. Get people with jobs you don’t find elsewhere in the galaxy to explain what it is we do and why.’
‘“We”.’
‘Yes. I want you to do it with me, if you’re interested.’
‘Wow, okay. Um . . . hmm. I’m not sure I’d be much of a teacher.’
‘Why not?’
‘I was an awful student. I’ve told you. The laziest.’
‘Academic prowess and base intelligence are two separate things.’
‘See? I could never make a sentence like that on the fly.’
‘So? That’s ideal, actually. That was a boring sentence, and the last thing we want to be is boring. You’re charismatic. You know how to talk to people. You’d be great at this.’
‘You’re serious.’
‘Completely.’
‘Okay.’ He crossed an arm over his stomach and scratched his chin with the other. ‘Well . . . can I think about it a bit?’
‘Of course. Take some time, see how it sits.’
‘In the meantime, can I give you something to think about?’
‘Always.’
Sunny stared up at the ceiling for a moment, as if the words he was looking for were up there. ‘Obviously, I don’t have plans on going anywhere soon, and I know we live on different ships, but whenever my time comes – how would you feel about . . . y’know. Taking care of me.’
Eyas set down her glass. ‘Yes, absolutely. You can put in a request for a specific caretaker at your deck’s Centre. We’re all part of the same guild, so they’d contact me.’
He laughed. ‘So you don’t need to think about that one.’
She paused. ‘Sorry, I treated that like a practical question, didn’t I?’
‘Yep.’
She laughed as well. ‘Sorry.’ Stars, here he’d asked her something profound and she’d responded like a formwork header.
He folded his hands on the table. ‘Treat it like an emotional question.’
She looked down at her drink. ‘I’d be honoured,’ she said. ‘That means a lot to me, that you want that.’
Sunny smiled. ‘And it would mean a lot to me to know that the person who will take care of me is a whole person. Not just a symbol.’ He stopped, and his smile grew. ‘You’ll be happy to know we can stop being corny now, because I have some great news.’
‘What’s that?’
He gave a dramatic sniff and pointed at the air. ‘Biscuits.’
Isabel
Of all the places Isabel might’ve guessed Ghuh’loloan would want to make a repeat visit to, her hex was at the bottom of the list. The First Generation murals, perhaps, or a musical performance, or the plaza oxygen garden. But no, this distinguished academic from an equally distinguished species wanted to spend one of her final days in the Fleet in hex 224-613’s common area. She was in their far more humble garden now, surrounded by shrieking kids. Shrieking, laughing, soaking-wet kids.
‘Again! Do it again!’ one of the relatively older kids cried in Klip. The others echoed him in tiny accents: ‘Again! Again!’
‘Again?’ Ghuh’loloan said, her tentacles dancing with amusement. ‘Are you quite sure?’
‘Yes!’
‘As you wish.’ She gestured to her cart, and the kids flailed with knowing anticipation as a panel opened. Out flew Ghuh’loloan’s mistbot, a floating globe filled with cool water, designed to refresh Harmagian skin whenever the need arose. Nothing about Ghuh’loloan’s face approximated Human expression, but nonetheless, Isabel could discern the unbridled glee her colleague felt as she directed the bot to deploy itself, for the fifth time now, over the kids’ heads. They screamed and giggled, running aimlessly in the steady drizzle.
‘Again! Again!’
‘I’m afraid that will have to do, dear children,’ Ghuh’loloan said, ‘or I will have none left.’
Isabel stepped in, venturing into the splash zone. ‘That’s enough now,’ she said in Ensk. ‘Let’s give Ghuh’loloan a break, hmm?’
There was some mild protesting, but the kids were too wound up now to hang around doing nothing. They dispersed in bits and pieces, running off to play with toys or raid the kitchen or shake their soggy hair at their parents.