‘When are you coming?’
‘Early next standard. Takes a long time to get there. Think you can find a scoot-bike for me?’
Aya giggled. ‘I dunno.’ She turned her head. ‘Mom’s here, do you want to talk to her?’
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Don’t have time.’
Tessa raised her voice. ‘Thanks, Pop.’
Pop leaned toward his screen confidentially. ‘Tell your mom I can’t talk because I’ve got a hot date.’
Aya craned her head back. ‘Grandpa says he can’t talk, he’s got a hot date.’
‘Oh, stars,’ Tessa said. She pinched the bridge of her nose, then walked into frame. ‘Lupe?’
‘Psh,’ Pop said. ‘Old news. I’m meeting Marjo at Top to Bottom.’
‘And I’m sorry I asked,’ Tessa said. She gave a sarcastic wave. ‘Have fun.’
‘Bye, Grandpa,’ Aya said.
Pop was still waving and smiling as the screen went dark.
Tessa put her hands on her hips. ‘So speaking of scoot-bikes . . .’
‘Oops.’ Aya gave her a charming smile.
Tessa was not swayed. She plucked at her daughter’s shirt. ‘Have you been strolling around this house in this nasty shirt?’ She moved her hand to Aya’s scalp. ‘Stars, your hair.’ Crusty bundles of dirt clung to her daughter’s locks.
Aya looked down as if seeing her clothing for the first time. ‘Oops,’ she said again.
Tessa brushed the transferred crud off her palm, wondering just how much of Seed was now coating the inside of her home. ‘Kiddo, you have got to remember that dirt exists.’
‘And you have to remember to bring a jacket.’
Tessa ignored the poorly smothered laugh from the kitchen. She narrowed her eyelids. ‘Shower. Clean clothes. Now.’ Aya made a face, but she obeyed, and received a gentle swat on the shoulder from Tessa as she went.
Tessa sighed and surveyed her wreck of a living room. Toys, tools, visible footprints. She bent over and started tidying up, knowing her efforts would be made futile by tomorrow. Her limbs were sore from the day spent in the field, and she knew that while the next day would be less strenuous, it’d be just as busy. They had to start covering the roots before the first fall frost hit, and the pollinators needed to be cleaned before they got packed away. Plus, there was laundry that needed doing, and globulbs that needed replacing, and a draughty wall that needing patching, and . . . stars, it never ended, did it?
‘Hey,’ George called. ‘You’re not cleaning, are you?’
‘I’m just tidying up.’
‘Tessa. It’s not hurting anybody, and I can do it in the morning. Sit down, have some kick, warm up.’
She opened her mouth to protest, but then . . . why not? The mess wasn’t hurting anybody, it wasn’t going anywhere, and there’d just be another one tomorrow. She picked up the bottle of Whitedune and an accompanying glass from the top of one of the shelves. She sat on the couch, pretending she didn’t see the puff of dust that rose up when she sat down. She poured herself a splash. She didn’t need more than that. Just five minutes of a warm throat and stillness. That would do nicely.
She thought, as she closed her eyes, about home. Seed was a good place, better than she’d expected. But it wasn’t home yet, and she worried, sometimes, about whether it ever would be. There were nights when she lay awake, missing the hex so much she could hardly breathe, or when she was so unaccustomed to the luxury of having George home all the time that she went and slept on the couch for the familiarity of sleeping alone. Sometimes she snapped at the kids when they didn’t deserve it. Sometimes she got sad over silly things – the oxygen garden, her old mek brewer, even the stupid cargo bay. It was hard, life on the ground. Yes, homesteaders had to worry about water and crops, too, but if one of those systems failed, if your ship fell apart, there were others you could go live on. It wasn’t like that out here. Leaving Seed meant leaving the system, travelling for tendays, figuring life out again. Part of her still couldn’t believe that she’d done this. Part of her was still unsure. Maybe part of her always would be.
She opened her eyes. Something was off. With a sigh, she realised – she hadn’t heard any sounds of showering. She hadn’t even heard the water turn on yet. She got up, walked to the bathroom, pushed the door open, and – the scolding died on her lips. Aya was in there all right, still clothed, still filthy. But she had the window propped open, and she was halfway out of it, twisting her torso to look up at the sky. Her dirty hair swayed in the evening breeze. Her face was turned toward the biggest moon, shining bright and beautiful overhead. She hadn’t noticed her mother come in, and was talking to herself. Whatever the words were, Tessa could not hear. Some story, perhaps. Some idea she didn’t want to forget. But while her words were lost, the expression on her face was unmistakable. She was curious. She was unafraid.
Tessa stepped back out, taking care to lean the door shut silently. She made her way to the kitchen. George was facing away from her, transferring his precious bread from oven to cooling rack. She walked up behind him, wrapped her arms around his middle, and rested her cheek between his shoulder blades.
‘Hey, you,’ he said.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘I think I fucked up this bread,’ he sighed.
She laughed and shut her eyes, soaking up the warmth of him. The bread, fucked up or not, smelled great. So did he. He always did. ‘That’s okay,’ she said. She held him tight. ‘You’ll make another one.’
Isabel, Three Standards Later
The assembly hall was decorated as it always was – cloth flags, metal stars, shining ribbons. There were differences, of course. Some of the other archivists had been fed up with the worn flags they’d dragged out standard after standard and took it upon themselves to make a batch of new ones (Isabel had to admit, they were much better). The seedlings on the favour table weren’t sky vine anymore, but four-toes, which had come back into fashion (she’d found their fussy flowers so old hat when she’d been in her youth). But details didn’t matter. It was still a Naming Day, and she never tired of those. They were the best kinds of days.
She felt someone looking at her, and she glanced over from her out-of-the-way corner to Tamsin, who’d tagged along for this one. The Mitchell family from hex 625 was the one getting an extra name record that day, and their cooking was legendary throughout the neighbourhood. Tamsin had taken a chair off to the side of the room, and very much looked the part of an innocent old woman who needed to rest her legs. Isabel knew her too well for that. Her wife had chosen a strategic spot that would put her right at the front of the buffet line once the formalities were over. Tamsin locked eyes with her, and gave a purposeful tilt of her head toward a man setting down a giant bowl of noodles mixed with crispy fish, a rainbow of vegetables, and all sorts of tasty bits Isabel couldn’t make out at a distance. Tamsin held her hands close to her stomach and gave Isabel two secretive thumbs up.
Isabel smothered a laugh and looked elsewhere. She had to be respectable today. Tamsin didn’t always make that easy, but then, that was part of the fun.
The young family arrived, hanging back in the hallway. Isabel made eye contact with the musicians, and they began to play. The crowd parted. The couple approached, baby in tow. They stopped at the podium, as they knew to do. But Isabel did not move. Instead, she looked to another, and nodded.
Isabel watched her new apprentice as he took his place. He’d filled out well in the years that he’d been away. He’d grown into himself. He had a full beard, and his voice had settled steady and low. He’d completed an academic track in Post-Unification History, which he’d passed by the skin of his teeth. He spoke spaceport Reskitkish, and his arm sported a swirling bot tattoo he’d picked up from some market stop, like you do. He’d gained a soft spot for snapfruit tarts. He liked letting ocean waves run over his toes. But he drank his mek hot and his kick ice cold, and found no meal as comforting as a hopper topped with twice-round pickle. He peppered his Klip with Ensk, his Ensk with Klip, and thought Martian accents were the funniest thing there was. He knew that the sky was best viewed below his feet. And he’d told her, when she’d demanded to know why he was back, that seeing so many singular things had made him realise he came from somewhere singular, too, and even if it was ass-backwards and busted – his words – it was theirs, and there was nothing else like it. The Fleet was priceless. The only one. If it was gone, there wouldn’t just be nothing for other Humans to learn from. There’d be nothing for him to learn from.