And she had been. She couldn’t help but feel a bit smug about it. It was a good way to feel.
Ammar reached back, plucked a choice sunfruit from their haul, and took a huge bite. ‘Mmm. Stars, I love these.’
‘Hey,’ Tessa said, slapping his knee. ‘What is that, your fourth?’
‘If I pick ’em, I eat ’em,’ Ammar said. He took another bite, his lips already stained from the previous three. ‘Mmm mmm mmm.’ He looked down at Tessa’s arm. ‘Did you forget your jacket again?’
A bit of the smugness faded. ‘I’m fine,’ she said tersely.
Ammar laughed. ‘You are goosebumps from shoulder to wrist. Tess, you gotta remember that weather exists.’
Tessa stuck her tongue out at him as she flew around the construction site for the new water reclamation building. Days on Seed were hot, and it was easy to remember to dress cool when you woke up with blankets kicked to the floor. The bit she kept forgetting was that the sun going down meant the warmth went with it. A lifetime of disconnect between light and air temperature was a tough thing to shake.
The sky was a hazy pink by the time they got home, and Tessa was starting to shiver. She warmed up quick, though, as she and Ammar and the villagers who saw them approach worked to get the fruit into the storehouse before dark. The liftbots – which had lain unused and in disrepair before Tessa’s arrival – accepted their new inventory, emptying the heavy bushels into stasis crates, carrying their burdens silently. In contrast, the busy Humans unleashed a loud chorus of chatter. Tessa heard people talking about the size of the fruit, the colour, how it compared to the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that. They talked about who was going to make jam, and who was going to make kick, and how the suddet root should be coming up soon. Simple talk. Harvest talk. She’d never had interest in the farms back home – back on the Asteria, that is. This was different, somehow. Something about the dirt, maybe, or the added chaos of wild bugs and desert chickens (which weren’t actual chickens, of course – they weren’t much like Earthen birds at all – but you made do with the words you had). She wasn’t entirely sure what the reason was, but she liked being part of the farm crew here. To her unending surprise, she liked it.
A herd of kids ran over, the eldest and fastest at the front, the little ones trailing dutifully. They were followed by two elderly folks – the childminders. Their careful eyes were belied by their unfussed stroll and minimal interference. The kids waited the barest of seconds to get an approving nod from an adult, then swarmed upon the fruit. They took them into their hands, gnawed in starting points, then scraped out the sweet pulp with whatever stage of teeth they had. Tessa saw Ky, shadowing Alerio as usual. His idol was an impressive six and a half, and everything five-year-old Ky wanted to be. But though Alerio always generously put up with his devotee, he failed to notice that Ky couldn’t reach the top of the bushels.
Tessa made her way over and crouched down behind Ky. She put her hands over her son’s eyes. ‘Guess who,’ she said.
Ky ducked down out of her hands and spun around. ‘Mom, don’t do that,’ he giggled.
‘Oh, I’m very sorry.’ She raised her eyes to the out-of-reach sunfruit. ‘Do you want one?’
‘Yes!’
‘Yes, what?’
Ky bounced up and down. ‘Yes, please.’
She stood, picked him up around his midsection, and lifted him within reach. Stars, he was heavy. Ky made a move for a fruit that was about half the size of his head. ‘You’re never gonna finish that one, bud,’ Tessa said. ‘I think you should get one you can pick up with one hand.’
Ky grabbed a more moderately sized one with both hands. ‘I can finish this one.’
‘All right,’ Tessa said. Compromise had been found, in a way, and besides, her back couldn’t take much more of him deciding. She set Ky down, and he wasted no time in running back toward the pack. Tessa called after him. ‘What do you say?’
‘Thank you!’ Ky shouted in motion.
‘You’re welcome,’ she said, even though she was sure he’d stopped listening. She scanned her eyes over the kids, looking for a tall head of choppy black hair.
Where was Aya?
Ammar was leading the charge with harvest storage, and there were more than enough hands, so Tessa had no qualms about walking home in search of her errant kid. It was properly dark by then, and she hurried along with hands in her pockets and bare arms pressed to her sides. She passed the school, the fuel depot, the med clinic. She passed the gathering hall, still decked with bunting from Remembrance Day. She passed the sculpture of a homesteader standing in the middle of a growing wreath of desert plants, the plaque below inscribed with heat-etched words:
In honour of all who carried us this far.
She arrived, at last, at a mud-and-metal home, not particularly different from the others. This one, though, had a painted sign beside the door. Santoso, it read, underlined by four handprints – two big, two small. She relaxed as she saw a familiar red scoot-bike tossed unceremoniously onto the front porch. Aya was home. She’d be receiving yet another talking-to about putting her things away properly, but still – she was home.
The warm air inside made Tessa melt with relief, and a wonderful smell met her nose. George stuck his head out of the kitchen doorway. His beard and belly were streaked with flour, and he wore a pair of oven mitts. ‘You are about fifteen minutes away from a kickass desert chicken soup and what is, I believe, my best bread yet,’ he said. He looked her up and down. ‘Did you forget your jacket again?’
Tessa rolled her eyes. ‘What’s so special about this bread?’ she asked as she pulled off her boots.
‘Nuh uh,’ he said, ducking back into the kitchen. ‘A chef never reveals his secrets.’
Tessa shook her head with a smile. The previous winter – their first on Seed – when there’d been little to do but stay warm and go bonkers, George had discovered a previously unknown love for baking. He was honestly talking about quitting the construction crew to open up a shop. George. Her husband, George. Tessa privately thought he could do with a few more loaves that weren’t gooey on the inside before he made the leap, but she wasn’t about to squash his enthusiasm, and besides, she was happy to eat her way through as many experiments as it took.
Stars, but it was nice having him around.
‘Where’s Aya?’ she asked.
‘Talking to your dad,’ he said.
Tessa raised her eyebrows and made her way to the living room. There indeed was her daughter, covered in dirt from head to toe, having an animated discussion with Pop on the sib.
‘And then,’ Aya said, ‘Jasmin was like, I bet you can’t jump that ditch, and I said, yeah, I can, and I did. I crashed when I landed, though. Look, see.’ She raised up her elbows toward the screen. ‘I’ve already got crazy bruises.’
‘Yikes,’ Pop said. Light glinted off his ocular implant as he nodded approvingly. ‘Those are impressive.’
‘Yeah, tomorrow we’re gonna go off the dock into the lake. Tommy built a ramp, and it’s fine, the water’s real deep.’
Pop laughed from way deep in his chest. ‘You’ll have to show me when I come visit.’