A Tiny Moment of Respite

"Pity the stranger who knows not our ways. Pity the man who spends all his days trapped on the outside, the outside always. Pity the stranger who comes to this place."

-from "The Unwelcome Aboard", a spacer song

No one on the planet shot at them, even as Sylva and Iri's shuttle skittered its way up out of the atmosphere and into the welcoming vacuum of space. Yan opened the bay doors and Iri docked the shuttle with as much grace as she ever had (not much).

Yan ran, and later floated, down to the bays to find them as soon as every bridge control was taken care of and she had jumped the ship away. By time she got to the bay, Iri and Sylva were both out of the shuttle, and had hauled out the ansible box to inspect it for damage. They looked up when Yan came in. "Are you both alright?"

"I'm fine," Iri said. "I hate flying under nervous conditions though."

"Yeah, I'm okay," Sylva said.

"Who was it? Down on the planet, I mean," Yan asked. "Did you see any identification?"

"Their suit was super generic," Iri said. "Not Fleet, obviously, but it could have been pirate or Guild."

"No chance of it being someone from our friends, the Dark Hands, right?"

"Friends is a funny word," Iri said. "But no. They were using Imperial Sign, which I doubt that any of that crew have bothered to learn."

Yan rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah, they barely manage Old Imperial," she said. "So. Pirates or Guild..."

"The difference, when you have people hanging out on a derelict planet, is probably purely academic," Iri said. She shimmied out of her bulky space suit, which she had been apparently wearing since they left the planet's surface.

"I know," Yan said. "I'm just wondering what the consequence of this will be."

"We jumped away, right?" Iri asked.

"Of course."

"Seems unlikely that they'll track us," Iri said. "We keep moving, and hopefully by time whatever resupply ship they have shows up, we're long gone and untraceable."

Sylva was holding her helmet in her hand and turning it over and over. "Do you think I killed that person?" she asked.

"Nah," Iri said. "Look." She took Sylva's helmet, and rapped on the front glass of the faceshield. "There's several layers. Even if you broke the first two, there's another underneath. And I didn't see that much glass."

"Why didn't they get up, then?" Sylva asked. Her voice sounded far away, even though she was standing right there.

"You probably gave them a concussion or something. I wouldn't doubt that their face took a beating from hitting the front of the glass. But I don't think you let their air out, at the very least," Iri said.

"Okay." Sylva didn't sound entirely convinced.

"Let's go get you a stiff drink," Iri said. "Get yourself out of that suit."

Yan spent a bit of time comforting Sylva and discussing things with Iri, and then sent Sylva to bed to sleep off the panic and alcohol that Iri had given her. Yan wasn't exactly tired yet, though, and had to jump the ship in a few hours, so she sought out Kino.

Kino was in the greenhouse, one of her usual haunts, and Yan could feel the slick and almost imperceptible use of Kino's power, the one that was a constant indicator of her presence now, as she used her metal fingers to work some tool or other.

"Hey Kino," Yan said, coming over to where Kino was clearing grime out of a water filter. "You heard about what happened down on the Malstaire planet, right?"

"I pay attention," Kino said.

"I know you do. Got any thoughts?"

Kino shrugged. "No one chased us. We just have to find another planet."

"I don't really want word to get out that we have an ansible."

"Should Sylva have killed that person?"

Yan shook her head firmly. "I'm glad at least one of us doesn't have blood on our hands."

"She made up with you, right?"

"I apologized for being an asshole to her," Yan said. She did feel bad still about the way she had pushed Sylva away.

Kino looked up at her with an inscrutable expression. "Okay."

"What?" Yan asked.

"It's none of my business," Kino said.

"Fine."

Yan reached over to the hose line that was hanging on the wall and turned it on, spraying it on the filter that Kino was holding up. When the water ran clear instead of brown into the sink, Kino turned away and replaced the filter in the hydroponics station.

"How's your project going?" Kino asked.

"I'm done with the first draft of the words, I think," Yan said. She looked around the greenhouse, leaned over one of the beds, and pulled a whithered brown leaf off of a squash vine. She twirled it around between her index finger and thumb. "I've never really been good at creative writing. Not my strong suit."

"You're fine," Kino said. "You're good at prayer."

"And look how much good that did me," Yan muttered.

"You're alive."

Yan frowned, the leaf fluttering and twisting with her increased agitation. "I guess."

"Sorry," Kino said. "I know that's a sore subject."

"I don't know. It's not, really." Yan was lying to herself, trying to speak even this mediocre rejection of her pain into existence. Kino was right, though, and anything that brought back to mind the subject of her long imprisonment was like a pain in her chest. Thinking about the role that Kino had played in that was even worse.

"You know the rhythms of prayer, anyway. From what I've read, your book is very convincing."

"It's an imitation of the style," Yan said. "It's not real."

"In contrast to what? Either you believe in the theology or you don't," Kino said. "If yours is unreal in contrast to the theology's real, then you believe."

"Don't try to twist what I'm saying," Yan muttered. "You know that's not what I meant."

Kino put a smile on her face, that stiff expression still ringing genuine. "I'm just joking," Kino said.

"Have you ever joked before?"

"I don't know," Kino said.

"Okay."

It was as though Kino couldn't let go of the thought. "But if the theology is just a tool for compliance, which it is a little, at the very least, yours is at least as valid as that."

"Is it going to work, though?" Yan asked.

"It will."

"How do you know?"

"We have to make it work," Kino said.

Yan looked at her, as she scrubbed her hands in the sink, going all the way up to her elbows. "What do you mean?" Yan asked.

"We'll have to use the power. Put a power structure on the book itself, just like..." She trailed off for a second. "Do you remember Sid's project?"

"I didn't know you had seen it," Yan said. "But yes."

"I took a walk through the project hall, before everyone took them away," Kino said. "I saw it then."

"Oh." Yan thought back to what Sandreas had told her, during her interview, that if she walked through the project hall, she might have found a perfect companion. She hadn't done it, out of worry that it would spoil things. She didn't want to dwell on that thought-- not the nagging pain that was memories of happier Academy days, not the unbearably uncomfortable interview she had with Sandreas, and not the memories that called to mind of her mother's death, and everything that came after.

"We do something just like that," Kino said. "It will work."

"You know how?"

"Yes." Kino didn't elaborate.

"Okay." Yan didn't really like the idea, and the reluctance was heavy in her voice. "Isn't it immoral, though?"

Kino's eyes were wide and empty. "Probably," she said. "But we do what we need to, don't we?"

"I guess we do." She twirled her leaf. "How are we going to disseminate this?" Yan asked. "If we're putting the power on it, which we probably should, it will need to be physical copies. How will we pass those around?"

"Guild, for start. Pirates, for another. We can probably get them onto planets. Hanathue, maybe."

"You were lying when you said you were okay with us not finding your sister, weren't you."

"Of course."

"How much do you think that Iri and Sylva will kill me if we do go to Hanathue?"

"You're stronger than they are," Kino said.

"You know that's not what I mean."

"They'll be angry. Iri might be secretly happy you're taking initiative. Sylva will be angry with me more than she is with you. They won't let you go to the planet."

"That's all pretty predictable." Yan brushed the leaf over her chin. "I think there's probably a way you could get onto the planet without being noticed. But I wouldn't want you to go alone."

"Sylva could come with me."

The thought made Yan bark out a surprised laugh. "What makes you think that that would work at all?"

"Better to have two power users," Kino said. "And I think she feels cooped up in here."

Yan frowned, then, unhappy at the thought that this whole trip was making Sylva unhappy. It was true that Sylva had been rather trapped on the ship, and only able to participate in the smallest outings. Still, it wasn't as though Kino and Sylva got along at all.

"You think that hitching a ride with pirates would be the best option?" Yan asked.

"Probably. Slightly less surveillance. Sylva's done that before, right?"

"Yeah. She knows her way around. But she had Iri with her then."

"Iri should stay with you," Kino said, and she sounded more confident about this than usual.

"Why?"

"She's the only stable one," Kino said. "You need her."

Yan laughed again. "Maybe. But Iri's the other shuttle pilot. It would be useful for her to go..."

"You're saying all this as though we are going to Hanathue," Kino said. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"It's not fair of me to keep you away from your sister."

"I haven't seen her in years," Kino said. "It shouldn't matter. It's equally unfair for me to ask you to put us all in danger."

"We're already in danger."

Kino scratched at her left wrist, where the bracelet that held her prosthetic fingers left an irritated welt. "You're the captain."

"If we're going to be putting our text on planets and pirate ships, we might as well start putting it on planets and pirate ships."

Kino stared at her. "Are you going to tell people this is our plan?"

Yan considered for a second. "When we're a few jumps closer to Hanathue. Then they can yell at us."

"They'll mostly yell at me."

"I'll take credit," Yan said.

Yan emerged from the workroom clutching her prize: her newly completed and bound book. It was about fifty pages, a slim thing, but it had a sturdy binding, ready to be passed from hand to hand. That was important. It had to last, because once the thing fell apart, the power on it would probably be broken. And, unfortunately, the text couldn't be transcribed and retain its power. She had worked hard at weaving the power structure into the pulp of the paper, the thin layer of ink, the binding, the cover, the spine.

She didn't consider herself particularly artistic, but she recalled with great clarity the image of Sid's statue, the one with the sword raised to strike, and she had taken some of the metal out of the workshop, and had formed it into a slightly raised image that looked very similar to his statue. It was a little private joke. She affixed it to the cover of her book.

With it in hand, she sought out Sylva, who was in one of the small common areas aboard the ship. Sylva looked up with a smile when Yan entered, pausing the movie she had been watching on the big screen.

"Sup," Sylva said.

"Check this out," Yan said, tossing the book over to Sylva. She caught it, flipping it over in her hands.

"Nice," she said, examining the front where the relief was. "You made this?"

"Based on someone else's design," Yan said. "I'm not that artistic, but I'm pretty good at copying."

"It has a bit of flair to it."

Yan was slightly disappointed, as she had hoped that Sylva would be immediately entranced by the image, drawn in with its swooping sight lines. Yan perched on the arm of the couch, and her legs dragged heavily on the floor as she swung them. She looked over Sylva's shoulder as she opened the book.

"You going to read your own words over my shoulder?" Sylva asked.

"I'm just trying to see your reaction."

"This is what you were working on with Kino, right?"

"Yeah. But you're the theological expert, heresy expert anyway, so I figured now that I'm mostly done, I could show it to you."

"You seem disappointed by my reaction already," Sylva said, noting Yan's slightly slumped shoulders, and the odd tone in her voice.

"Well, er," Yan said, "It's got... You know... Power in it."

"You trying to mind control me?" Sylva asked, giving Yan's leg a hard nudge. "I'm immune."

"You're definitely not immune."

"I am too," Sylva said. "I didn't get sucked in by the Mother."

"I don't think it's possible to be immune..." Yan muttered. "The power catches on here to the way that every body's brain processes text and images..."

"I'm like, scatterbrained," Sylva said. "I think that's why I'm so absolutely fantastic at using the power." She said this bitterly, and thumbed the pages of Yan's book so that they fluttered and rippled.

"Hey, if it's an advantage it's an advantage. I'll just have to test the power part on Iri?"

"Warn her first. She'll get mad at you if you don't."

"Yeah, I will," Yan said. "Sorry for not warning you."

Sylva shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I'll read through the text, though. Are you going to watch me do that?"

"Err..."