Moki and Ukatonen weren’t supposed to go out without Eerin or Analin, so they spent most of the day watching the Tri-V or listening to Analin and Eerin talk about them. It was fun at first, seeing themselves on the Tri-V, but they only showed the same few pictures and words. He and Ukatonen only got to climb trees when no one was around, and it was always the same few trees.
“When are we going to meet your family, siti?” Moki asked.
“I don’t know, Moki. My request for leave hasn’t been approved yet. The Survey wants us to go to one of their research stations where they can study you. The press wants to interview us, and I just want to go home.”
“Then we should go home,” Ukatonen said.
“If only it were that simple,” Juna replied. “I can’t go until the Survey tells me I can.”
“Everyone else from the ship has gone on leave,” Ukatonen said. “Why are we still here?”
Juna shrugged. “They don’t know what to do with us, I think. There are lots of different departments who want to study us.”
Mold’s ears folded tight against his head. “Please excuse my lack of patience, siti, but I’m tired of watching people talk to you about us.”
“No, bai, you’ve been very patient. I’ve just been thoughtless. Tomorrow we’re going to cancel all our appointments and go explore the space station. The world isn’t going to fall apart if we take the day off.”
Juna watched Moki and Ukatonen swinging through the branches, their skins alive with blue and green flickers of alien laughter, and her worries lifted for a moment. She had needed this break as badly as the Tendu. She felt tired and bloated. The stress of the last few days was getting to her. She longed to be up there with Moki and Ukato-nen, but she couldn’t muster the energy to join them. But just watching the Tendu playing was enough to lift her spirits.
“Hello, Dr. Saari.”
Juna looked up. It was the union president, Mark Manning.
“Analin told me I might find you here,” he said. “May I join you?”
“Of course,” Juna said, and he sat down beside her on the bench.
“I wanted to thank Moki again for all he’s done. I feel like a new person. It’s like a miracle.”
Juna smiled proudly. “For them, such things are normal. For us …” She shrugged. “Even now, they still amaze me.”
Manning nodded. They sat for a while without saying anything, watching Ukatonen and Moki leap like gibbons from branch to branch, their skins a riot of blue happiness and pink excitement.
“I was a little surprised to hear that you were still on the station,” Manning said at last. “I had expected you to be with your family.”
“I would be, but my leave hasn’t come through yet. I think the Survey’s too busy fighting over what to do with me.” Juna ran her fingers through her hair. “It’s been five-and-a-half years since I last saw my family. I want to go home.” She looked at the pebbled concrete floor, fighting back a surge of emotion.
“Analin tells me they sent you out all by yourself for that press conference. Even the Survey isn’t usually that bad. Someone’s being petty in the home office,” Manning said. “They should have assigned someone to take care of you.”
“I’d rather have Analin than some Survey PR flack. Analin likes the Tendu, and they like her. She lets me decide what I want to say. And she works for me, so there’s no conflict of interest.” Juna was silent for a while, watching Moki and Ukatonen swing back and forth between the same two trees. It suddenly reminded her of caged tigers in the zoo. “I just want to see my family,” she said.
“Let me see what I can do for you,” Manning offered. “I think I can shake your leave loose. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this kind of harassment.”
Manning was as good as his word. Two days later, Juna’s leave was approved. Amazingly enough, there were no problems with taking the Tendu along. Clearly they were still protected by the volume of publicity surrounding their imprisonment in quarantine. Juna and the Tendu boarded the very next shuttle for Berry Station. Analin would follow in a couple of weeks.
The shuttle trip to Berry Station took several hours, most of it in zero-gee. There had been a few seconds of zero-gee on the Hotna Darabi Maru, but they had been securely strapped in then. Fortunately the shuttle was empty, and the Tendu were able to zoom around the cabin, ricocheting from viewport to viewport, their skins awash with flickering colors. Juna joined them for a while, until a sudden wave of queasiness sent her to her seat. She must be more exhausted than she realized; she hadn’t been spacesick since she was a small child. She settled back into her seat and let sleep carry her away.
She was awakened by the announcement directing passengers to strap in for arrival. Moki and Ukatonen came back to their seats. As the familiar bulk of her home station loomed into view on the forward viewscreen, Juna felt a sudden pang of anxiety. Her family had been nice enough on the comm, but how would they react to the aliens face to face? Especially now, with the harvest in full swing. And then there was Toivo. Her father had told her that Toivo had come to help with the harvest, but he refused to talk to Juna on the comm.
“He’s changed,” Aunt Netta had said, worry written on her face. “He’s pulled into himself. He reminds me of how your father acted after he brought you back from the camp.”
Juna remembered that time. Her father had found them in the refugee camp in Germany. Juna had seen him talking to a relief worker, and pushed her way through the crowd. He picked her up and held her. Juna hung on as though she would never let go.
“You’re so thin!” he had exclaimed. “Where’s your mother?”
Juna had lifted her head from his chest and just looked at her father, unable to find the words to tell him that her mother was dead. Finally she and Toivo had led him to the graveyard, to the mass grave where she had been buried.
A light had gone out of him when he realized what Juna was trying to tell him. He sat on the muddy earth and wept like a child. Juna had watched, terrified by the depth of his grief.
“I’m sorry, Isukki” she had said, resting her hand on his head. It was all her fault. She should have saved her mother, taken better care of her, not let her die. Her aunt Netta, the only other member of her father’s family to make it safely out of war-torn Finland, came to live with them on Berry Station. Her father spent months wandering around like a ghost. The whole family had seemed like walking shadows. Juna closed her eyes in pain at the thought of Toivo acting like that.
The jarring of the ship against the lock of the space station shook her out of her reverie. With a heavy, solid clang, the docking mechanisms engaged. They were home.
Moki touched her arm. “Are you all right?”
Juna smiled weakly and patted Moki’s hand. “Yes, it’s just nerves.” She unfastened the safety strap, and pushed herself toward the door. They would be in free fall until they reached the elevators mat would take them down to the inspection station.
A figure in a wheelchair was waiting for them when they emerged from the agricultural inspection station. It took Juna a second to recognize who it was.
“Toivo! How did you get up here?” she cried. She dropped her things and bounded over to hug him, moving lightly in the half gravity of this level of the station. She stopped a few steps away, uncertain how to hug someone in a wheelchair.
“Hello, older sister,” he said in Amharic as he reached up from his chair to enfold her in an embrace. “Kiroko was working security downstairs. She let me come up to meet you.”