Interlude-Daily

(English)

Nora’s day had her wake up at six-thirty. But perhaps it was more accurate to say her days were scheduled to start six-and-a-half hours after she was scheduled to fall asleep.

The clock was a sinister enemy when you weren’t living on a planet with a proper day-night cycle. The lunar colonies on Archo engineered an elegant solution since all the colonies were covered by massive canopy structures. The colony canopy was modulated to darken or brighten on a cycle, but that was still according to Casti homeworld timespans.

Nakrumum spun several hours faster than Earth, and not everyone’s circadian rhythm was adjusting.

So Nora insisted on some regularity. While almost everyone else was still dozing, she stole into the Mission’s new basement and went through a vigorous exercise routine.

While she did her best to stave off the muscle and bone degeneration of lunar gravity, she let her mind wander through her priorities for the day.

Health was one of the three great specters looming over her daily thoughts. Germs were, almost unbelievably, not the biggest health concern. Which wasn’t to say they weren’t a big concern...but luckily the infections that abductees had come across had been treated before any real damage was done.

For the millionth time, Nora thanked God for Roxanne and Manuel. Before finding Ken’s group, Roxanne had made little progress trying to understand Adept medicine, but connecting Manuel had turned a cursory interest into a critical resource. The temporary Adept-made antibiotics were invaluable.

And with that crisis solved, the abductees’ other health problems began to reveal themselves. Gravity was a deceptively critical part of homeostasis. Not every abductee was showing bone atrophy, but everyone had found their muscles flagging.

Exercise like Nora’s took the edge off, but what helped far more was removing the problem entirely. Spending even some time under Earth gravity was crucial for everyone’s bodies to stay healthy. Luckily that too had a solution.

Nick and Jacob were probably the smartest abductees—if you didn’t count Michelle at least—and the two of them had been talking to Casti civilian and Vorak military engineers about what kind of technology could be shoved into the Mission’s grounds. And while they hadn’t managed to get any gravity infrastructure for the actual Mission’s grounds, they had managed to talk to two of their neighbors.

An agreement to reshape and expand those building’s artificial gravity to include just shy of half the grounds. It was subject to time limits; the gravity would only match Earth’s at night and an hour into the morning. Simply, as soon as anyone arrived to those buildings for work, the gravity went back to Casti standard fractions. But, while everyone slept they could at least do so under Earth gravity. Sleep was when your body repaired itself, did maintenance, and destressed. The best alien medical experts said that would surely benefit from humans’ native gravity.

But gravity also gave blood weight. Everyone’s blood pressure was lower in lunar grav. So Nora got to wonder if increasing everyone’s blood pressure while they slept was therapeutic after all.

Ultimately, no one could say. So they made the best choice they could and moved on to the next crisis. Again and again.

It was so frustrating to face decisions like that day after day. So unfair. So infuriating .

Every morning Nora pummeled those feelings into a punching bag.

The bag in question split where her knuckles of her glove dug into the surface. The bag’s gelatinous filling spilled across the floor only to vanish as she dematerialized the whole thing.

Correction—punching bags.

Nora went through at least two each morning, but this one felt like it was going to be a three or a four.

In her mind, exotic proteins and false organic molecules came together in one picture in…four dimensions? Perhaps it was five. She could scarcely put it into words, but all the pieces aligned in her mind, and so when she pulled on the picture, it came into reality as coherent molecules.

Nora picked up her new punching bag and hung it from the same hook as the first and set about turning it into hamburger with her fists. Something about the feeling of hitting something fleshy…it was cathartic. Nora found that making Adept-flesh came easy, but that was often disquieting. On a whim, she’d added a bone-analogue to her fleshy punching bag once. The snap when she hit it had been so satisfying but simultaneously disturbing. It was creepy to enjoy the feeling of a bone snapping, right? Filling the bag with sand just felt like hitting a wall, and that was the opposite feeling she wanted to start her day. So these leathery bags filled with fibrous gel were her compromise: fleshy enough to feel like she got to damage something, but not so life-like to resemble anything actually living.

“[Hey Rocky,]” Michelle called. Was it time already?

“[I don’t want to look at the clock,]” Nora replied.

“[S-sorry,]” Michelle said. “[The cops are here. You’re needed.]”

“[…Can you stall them long enough for me to clean up, shower?]” Nora asked. “[I’m all sweaty.]”

“[You got it. Dustin t-told them you’d be an hour, so they m-might feel important when you show up ‘early’,]” Michelle said. “[But…]”

“[…But I needed to know now,]” Nora nodded. “[Thanks.]”

The basement gymnasium was on the right end of the Mission to catch native gravity in the early hours of the morning, so Nora’s whole morning occurred under a satisfyingly heavy weight. Feeling water slide over her skin at the right speed was the last relaxing thing she had before diving into the trenches.

Well, maybe not the last thing…

As soon as she was done with her shower, she shut off the water only to materialize another deluge. Her Adept-made water poured over her for a few seconds, washing away all the ordinary water molecules. So when she dematerialized all the water she just made, her skin was left dry.

Fake water was the best towel.

With another thought, she wrapped herself up in a fresh uniform before pulling on the one non-Adept article of clothing in her regular wardrobe. She’d missed the leather jacket she was abducted in. Waking up without it for months on Lakandt had been unexpectedly difficult.

In addition to all the other ways those months had been difficult.

Now wasn’t the time to feel sorry for herself. So, she tugged the jacket tighter on her shoulders and set out. On her way toward Dustin, she caught a still-waking-Georgia’s attention and diverted her toward Michelle. Those two needed to trade notes about the spaceport currently housing the Ares, Athena, and Artemis. Nick psionically beamed her a new risk summary the Organic Authority had shared. One of the new kids caught her attention to ask where the mess hall was.

Just walking toward her first task of the morning, she found herself juggling three different trains of thought. It became four when she wondered if any of Michelle’s psionic prostheses could enhance her divided attention.

Food for thought.

Dustin was leaning against the archway at the Mission’s gate, seemingly dozing on his feet.

Nora thought about flicking him awake, but one of his posse elbowed him when she saw Nora coming.

“[Oh good,]” he said. “[You’re here.]”

“[Talk fast,]” Nora said. “[I have budgeting scheduled today.]”

“[Oh yikes,]” Dustin said. “[Anyway. Cops are pissed. See for yourself.]”

Dustin jabbed his thumb at no fewer than six uniformed Casti posted outside their gate. They’d even brought a vehicle with them—a rare sight for moon colonies. If Nora didn’t know better she’d have thought they were poised for a siege.

“You’re in violation,” the Casti in charge said. “It’s not lawful for firearms to be carried in city grounds.”

“[For fuck’s sake…]” Nora sighed. “They’re allowed in residences for personal defense.”

“This is not a residence,” the officer scoffed.

“And yet more than a hundred of us claim this as our only domicile. Come on.”

“Even if we were to treat this [Mission] as a residence, only small caliber weapons are permitted. Rounds capable of penetrating targets and walls are a risk to public safety,” the Casti officer sneered. “Humans have been seen on the perimeter with rifles.”

“Past the perimeter?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Were they seen past the perimeter?” Nora asked. “Because if not, you’ll need to search our grounds to check to see if those rifles were, in fact, compliant small bore.”

One of the Casti whispered to each other. They looked hesitant.

“Innocent until proven guilty,” Nora said simply. “If you have a warrant, we’ll comply to the fullest.”

“Oh please,” the Casti said. “As if every single one of those weapons wasn’t Adept made.”

“You don’t say…” Nora said. “So if you don’t have a warrant, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t loiter at our gate. There’s a reason we have security, and I don’t like you distracting them.”

“As a matter of fact, we do have a warrant,” the officer said, handing Nora an elaborate printed page.

Nora looked over the document and frowned. It wasn’t a search warrant though. It was a warrant to produce…testimony?

She and Michelle had done their best to learn the finer points of the local alien legal system, but they’d only been at it a few months. There was always more to learn. It seemed…that this alien court didn’t make the same distinction between serving a warrant to search for physical evidence and being served…well, Nora wasn’t sure what the actual equivalent was back home. But ‘you’ve been served’ was always about being called into a deposition for testimony.

She hadn’t known that.

The officers had done their homework too. No fewer than twelve people’s testimony were demanded, including Nora, Michelle, Jacob, Dustin, and—oh, that was surprising—Halax and Tox were named too.

Interesting that Ken wasn’t named. Was he too new for his name to be known?

“We don’t get to know what testimony we’re being asked to give?” Nora said. “We’re not allowed to prepare for the questions posed to us?”

“No, and the timeframe is nonnegotiable,” the officer gloated. “These individuals are mandated to give formal testimony today.”

Ugh, this was the last thing she needed. Twelve of the Mission’s most important people being dragged in for questioning by the cops…it was like the warrant was tailor made to upset as much of their normal operation as possible.

Actually, that might be a goal of the move, rather than a coincidence.

It didn’t escape Nora’s attention that there were only a few officers present. Just enough to look tough, but paltry when you considered what they’d walked towards.

A den of more than a hundred aliens, almost half of which were novice, untrained Adepts…and they sent just eight Casti cops?

Whoever ‘they’ was didn’t have much pull, or they were intentionally sending a weak force, not nearly up to the task given to them.

<[Fuck, they want us to resist,]> Nora said to Dustin.

he nodded, still not having moved from leaning on the gateway.

Nora said.

<[You just fucking know I’m going to have to find out,]> Nora thought bitterly, before returning her attention to the cops.

This was an unexpected legal encroachment, but even if they hadn’t seen this particular move coming, Michelle had found a few obscure laws too.

“Your warrant has been received, but it’s not lawful for law officers to conduct extra-colonial diplomacy.”

“Excuse you?” the officer asked.

“Legally speaking, the Mission is Terran ground. It’s an embassy,” Nora said. “Your warrant can’t compel its residents or personnel to testify without cause supported by…whoever conducts extra colonial diplomacy...the Asrin Colonial Council! If you’d like to request our cooperation, please direct all inquiries through formal diplomatic channels. Until then, this is sovereign territory.”

Nora signaled for Dustin to pull himself back behind the gate.

Nora said.

Dustin waved a finger his subordinates pulled back behind the walls.

“This is preposterous!” the Casti police officer said. “You’re obligated…”

“If you feel like violating foreign territory, feel free,” Nora said. “You can rest assured none of us will start anything. But if a single person crosses our walls…well, you said it yourself. Our security has been seen with Adept-made guns; who knows how dangerous those are?”

Dustin and his crew pulled the gate closed right in front of the officer. Nora stared right into the Casti’s eyes, glad this was resolving itself quickly.

“I don’t get it!” the Casti hissed. “You have dozens of Adepts, all in one place, and you think showing off weapons to everyone won’t get anyone hurt?”

“These weapons aren’t for showing off; they are for hurting people who decide to trespass on our property,” Nora said.

“It’s our job to protect citizens,” the cop said.

“Sure is,” Nora agreed as the gate shut. “And when every second counts, you’re just minutes away…”

The gate shut and she cast an accusing glare at Dustin.

“[Really, dude? Rifles? What, did you set up watchtowers?]”

“[It was Halax’s idea,]” he defended. “[That gang—]”

“[Yeah, I’ll talk to Halax about the gang. In the meantime, how many of our security are Adept?]”

“[Depends who’s on rotation,]” Dustin said.

“[Estimate.]”

“[Maybe five or six per shift? Overlapping makes it hard to say.]”

“[Then consider a different way to discourage would-be trespassers,]” Nora said. “[We do not want to make an enemy out of the local government.]”

“[…What about showing off empty holsters?]” Dustin said. “[It’s like announcing ‘I don’t need to carry a gun, because I can just make one’…]”

“[Go for it,]” Nora waved, heading back toward her regularly scheduled duties.

There were a lot of complicated feelings about a bunch of armed teenagers. But since no one had been shot yet, by accident or otherwise, Nora could only assume that the gun safety Halax had insisted on repeating every week was doing its job.

The rest of her morning was consumed with the second of her three looming specters: money.

The collected abductees received a ton of help. Between their tentative agreements with the Red Sails and Asrin-Dane colony’s governor, the Mission scraped together funds to feed two-thirds of their number.

Before Ken’s group of abductees had arrived, that number had been closer to four-fifths, but his extra mouths came with a lot of extra manpower too.

Food wasn’t their only expense either. Maintaining the Mission took resources which needed to be delivered. Abductees needed clothes—the system of Adept clothing duties Nora had implemented began to break down as everyone began to have new responsibilities.

Food, medicine, machinery, information, it all cost something, and that was what Nora spent the majority of her day on. Budgeting and spreadsheets. The computer Nora had found for herself was a confounding thing running alien software. The monster was the size of a king bed stood on end and dominated half of her office.

Michelle’s latest development was a godsend in that regard, at least. Just a few extra psionic-sensitive modules attached to the right places in the computer, and Nora didn’t need to use the alien keyboard or—if one had existed—a mouse.

Instead she could navigate the machine with thought. Caleb might have called it technopathy. It wasn’t really. Just a psionic control interface.

But it did leave Nora free to check in on other people while she worked. Most of her attention was consumed by the psionic signals she traded with the computer, while she herself did stretches, got lunch, or helped with labor duties around the place.

Labor was the one resource she had in ample supply. Everyone had duties. Nora hadn’t even needed to assign all of them. Within a week of taking over the Mission, ten of the youngest abductees had come up with buckets and rags and taken themselves to cleaning everything in sight.

All the older abductees had thought it would be a one-off until the group still hadn’t stopped two weeks later.

Beds and frames were delivered? The middle schoolers took it upon themselves to change the sheets. They’d even organized shifts to wash sheets and clothes by hand until the Mission had acquired an industrial washer.

Once a twelve-year-old had embraced responsibilities, everyone else followed suit. Nothing motivated teenagers like someone younger than them outdoing them.

But even with everyone pitching in, they all needed food, and so the budget demanded supplemental income. A few abductees had found apprenticeship opportunities in the surrounding colony, but the money they brought in was negligible. The real boon there was experience.

No, the bulk of the Mission’s income came from lending their combined Adeptry to local manufacturers and providing psionic services to just the Asrin colonies at first, but soon to all of Archo.

It was their third straight month operating in the black, and it even looked like their budget surplus might grow in the near future. Nora knew better than to count on that though.

Every month was a battle with a dozen different priorities competing for their meager budget.

Ordering an industrial washing machine would cost a staggering twenty-six thousand cona? No way, no how. At first glance, it seemed like there was no way it could prove worthwhile. But as good as Nora proved at budgeting, Jacob was better. He’d correctly deduced that enough abductees’ time would be freed up by the purchase that the colony would ultimately save money.

The food budget was a thing of nightmares, and that was even after Eli had pared down the mess’s menu. A whole year of nutrient blocks was three-hundred sixty-four days too many, and the novelty had long worn off. Everyone was desperate for the food budget to stay fat.

Nora cursed under her breath every time she found herself reminded that there were financial advantages to feeding people with just the barest nutrients needed for subsistence.

Today’s budget problems included Halax’s recommendation they invest in a proper alarm system for the grounds. Nora grimaced. Psionics had covered that weakness nicely so far, and the Mission was not a small property. It would be expensive.

She remembered to weigh that cost against any freed-up opportunity costs, but it still came out unfavorable.

Nora filed that under ‘probably not’.

Next was the requisition list Nick had submitted to her. Repairs and maintenance were a normal part of any organization’s overhead, but Nora had expected Adeptry to change that more than it really did.

Adept lightbulbs were pointless unless they were made by an Adept skilled enough to preimbue the creation long enough to last a few years. Adept tools were, paradoxically, less helpful the more specialized they got. When an Adept was skilled enough to make such a tool, it was usually those skills that were truly valuable. Tools that any Adept could make were the ones that were really helpful.

But so many small items and replacement parts were simply not suited to Adept-made substitutes. Pipes? Electrical switches? Wire?

Honestly, Nora didn’t need to know exactly what Nick needed to spend the money on, but he knew better than anyone what machines and systems the Mission depended on every day. His requisition was no small sum, but Nora’s job wasn’t about small sums then, was it?

Roxanne had a similar requisition for medical supplies—Nora stamped that one without hesitating. You didn’t skimp on emergency medicine.

Ken’s document was the one that made her hesitate the most. It wasn’t a formal requisition—a request, rather. But it had been filed with them in Nora’s computer. It was a request to reserve some of the budget for research in the not-to-distant future.

Nora’s heart was tugged in two directions. On the one hand, she felt the impulse to dismiss the possibility on its face. They were barely scraping by. They couldn’t set aside money right now for research that only ‘might’ pay off.

And yet…that’s exactly why research could be so valuable. If they didn’t carve some breathing room for themselves somehow, it would be that much harder to make any progress on any front. Research, however accidental, fueled progress.

It was a war of philosophies and perspectives: Trim everything down to its most efficient margin? Or boldly leap into unknown possibilities?

What ultimately won her over was the timing.

He wasn’t requesting any resources immediately. Ken was cognizant of exactly how narrow their margins were right now. But as the Mission stabilized more…they could pour more abductees’ time into psionic and Adept research.

Nora realized it wasn’t just about finding new possibilities, but sustaining the existing ones too. Their psionic maintenance was highly lucrative, but unless humans stayed on the field’s cutting edge, the abductees might find themselves out of business as soon as aliens learned how to compete.

Besides, hadn’t there been talks of the Organic Authority finding grant money for psionics research? Or had that been for communicating further with the Beacons?

Tracking down that particular message in her files was time consuming, because she—or her psionic keyboard—had mislabeled it.

But it reminded her the Org had grant money available for both projects…

Interesting…

There might be more room in this month’s budget than she first thought.

She went back and found the alarm system document, moving it to the ‘maybe’ pile.

That piece of good news saw her make a mistake surely every office worker had once or twice: looking at the clock. She’d only been at this two hours! It wasn’t even lunchtime yet…

Nora sighed and redoubled her mind’s efforts. It might be a long day, but they were all long days.

·····

The colony lights were flickering off, and the artificial sky dimmed. Nora was still in her office, eyes shut, mind psychically operating the computer. The machine was so large and generated so much heat, that she was sweatier now than she had been this morning.

And an interruption came, tearing her away from her work.

Bang.

Jacob practically kicked the door in, swaggering in with all the energy of someone on more sleep than Nora.

“[Time’s up, boss!]” he said.

“[No. I’ll be there soon. I have less than an hour of work left,]” Nora said.

“[Nope. You have ten seconds before I cut the power,]” he said.

“[No, seriously, this is important,]” Nora protested.

“[You’re bleeding,]” he said, pointing out her nose.

“[What? No, that’s dried.]”

Nora wiped at her face.

“[Not really a point in your favor,]” Caroline said, knocking on the wall outside Nora’s office. “[That means you were too wrapped up to notice when it happened.]”

“[S-seriously,]” Michelle said. “[You need a break, Nora.]”

“[And I will take one…when I am finished…in an hour,]” she replied.

“[You said it was less than an hour,]” Caroline accused.

“[I still have—]” Nora began, ready to keep writing missives to the local Org director, a Deep Coils Sten, the colony governor, and a crime lord back on Lakandt.

Halax slipped into the room and started counting down.

Nora scrambled to save her documents before Halax could make good on Jacob’s threat.

As soon as he hit ‘zero’ Halax blasted the room with psionic noise, shattering the constructs embedded in the computer’s specialized psionic hardware.

“Are you kidding?” Nora shrieked. “Those are important!”

“Please…” Halax drawled in Starspeak. “[Michelle and I already made replacements. But you won’t get them until you take the evening off.]”

“[Doctor’s orders,]” Jacob said, waving a written note from Roxanne. “[You’re doing something fun this evening. Dustin was thinking basketball.]”

Nora went still at that. She hadn’t played any ball since…well, since her pickup game with Caleb.

“[…Okay,]” she sighed. “[But—]”

“[But nothing,]” Caroline huffed. “[You need to do this kind of thing every once in a while.]”

“[I know, I know. But if I’m not going over the shipping notes—]”

“[Ken’s on th-that,]” Michelle said.

“[…And tomorrow morning’s budget revisions,]” Nora said.

“[Lacey and Eli said they’d cover for you with the governor,]” Caroline said. “[You can reschedule the budget meeting with them.]”

“[What about the weekly briefing with the] Red Sails?” Nora asked.

“[I already did that,]” Dustin said.

“[So you got Tox to do it for you,]” Nora accused.

“[Don’t be ridiculous,]” Dustin snorted. “[…It was Halax.]”

“[Bah!]” Nora huffed. “[Traitors, the lot of you!]”

“[That does sound like us,]” Halax bobbed his head.

Nora let herself be dragged to the Mission’s courtyard where Dustin had materialized a basketball hoop on one of the exterior walls.

“[Five humans and one Vorak,]” Jacob said. “[I’m down for three on three if you think Halax can jump.]”

“[Two on two,]” Caroline suggested. “[One team gets a break.]”

No one argued, and a look went through Caroline’s eyes. Nora could practically see words catch in her throat. She wanted to be on a team with Nora, but she wanted to give Nora space too. It practically melted Nora’s heart seeing the series of thoughts play out in just a millisecond.

Michelle had no such compunction.

“[D-dibs on Nora,]” she called.

“[Dustin!]” Caroline cried.

“[What? Aw, shit, I’ve got the furfish?]” Jacob complained.

“[Victory will be ours,]” the otter chuckled.

And, surprisingly, it almost was. Dustin and Caroline might have been the most athletic of the six of them, but Michelle’s mind simply operated too many steps ahead, especially when combined with Nora’s experience in the game.

The two of them had a grand time throwing ball after ball through the hoop. It wasn’t until Halax resorted to cheating with Adeptry did the two of them finally have to leave the court.

Under the nighttime gravity, the games left Nora so exhausted she considered forgoing her morning workout for the first time in months.

She had so much on her plate, but it was the last moments of each night that reassured her. Every day, for the whole day, she felt overwhelmed and lost. But when she allowed herself to calm down, and begin planning her next day…

So far, there’d been just enough. Each day replenishing her exactly as much as she needed.

She had the weight of the world on her shoulders…but… dammit, she felt like she could carry it.

·····

Four weeks after leaving Caleb with Admiral Hakho’s people on Mihan, Nai lay awake onboard the Jack.

There’d been no word yet.

No one could be sure what they were looking out for either, but none of them doubted contact was coming. But more than just Caleb’s skills, she trusted him. In a way, she might have trusted him even more than Tasser.

She’d always gotten along with her best friend, but the things she and Caleb had learned of each other…they’d been hard earned, and that mattered in ways she couldn’t easily put into words.

So she went through her duties without agonizing, simply trusting that he would reestablish contact at the first chance he could.

They all just had to wait for it.