A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(49)

Jane didn’t understand why Owl being not like her would make her feelings not important, but the mushrooms were starting to get crispy around the edges, so she paid attention to that instead. It was easier than finding words.

There was a sound – a tapping kind of sound. Jane turned her ear toward the ceiling. ‘Owl, what is that?’ She turned off the stove. The mushrooms hissed quieter; the tapping got louder. Like a bunch of little bolts falling onto the hull.

‘It’s nothing bad. Go up to the control room and I’ll show you.’

Jane hurried out of the kitchen and did as told. Owl turned the viewscreen on and . . . and . . . Jane did not understand. It was morning, but the sky was kind of dark. And there was . . . there was . . .

‘Owl,’ Jane said slowly. ‘Why is there water falling out of the sky?’

‘That’s called rain,’ Owl said. ‘Don’t worry, it’s supposed to happen.’

The tapping got louder, louder. Everything outside was wet. She saw a few lizard-birds (that was what Owl called the flying animals; she didn’t know the right word for them). They flew down low, ducking into a scrap pile, shaking off their wings and tails to get the sky water off them.

Nothing outside the factory made any sense. Not any sense.

‘Jane, it’d be a good idea for you to push the water wagon outside,’ Owl said. ‘With the drums open. They’ll catch the rain that way.’

‘Is it good water?’ Jane wasn’t sure about this rain thing. This was maybe the weirdest thing yet, and she’d seen a lot of weird things already.

‘It’s better than the water you brought back, for sure. It’s probably not drinkable as it is, but it’ll be easier to clean.’

‘But the tanks are already full.’ Pushing the water wagon outside meant going outside. Into the rain.

‘They won’t always be. This way, when you need to top them up, you don’t have to go all the way back to the waterhole. You’ll have a bit right here already.’

Jane took a deep breath. ‘Okay.’ The rain was weird and she didn’t want to go into it, but her hurting legs and tired back made her think Owl’s idea was better than one more trip to the waterhole. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘What am I supposed to do now?’

‘I don’t understand the question. What do you mean?’

‘I mean today. I was going to finish cleaning the scrap off the hull. That was my task. Can I do that in the rain?’ The water was coming down very fast now, falling in great big lines.

‘Yes, but I suggest staying inside today. The rain here can be quite heavy, and wet clothes aren’t fun. Plus, wet scrap is slippery. I don’t want you to fall.’

‘But . . .’ Jane started feeling wrong. ‘I don’t have another task.’ She needed a task. Without a task, her thoughts went places she didn’t want them to go. She didn’t want another bad behaviour day. She wanted to be okay today. She wanted to be okay, and if she didn’t have a task, then—

‘I have an idea,’ Owl said. ‘And actually, I think it would be a good idea even if it wasn’t raining. Jane, you need a day off.’

Jane blinked. ‘A day off of what?’

‘Of work. All Human beings need to take a break from work sometimes. You need to let your body rest, and your mind, too.’

No. No no no. She needed a task. ‘I don’t want to do nothing,’ she said, remembering that first morning in bed, when she’d tried to just lie there, and the couple days after that, when she couldn’t get out of bed at all and it was a real real bad time.

‘That’s not what I’m suggesting,’ Owl said. ‘I’ve been going through my old files, and I found something I think might be fun. It’s not a real task, but it will let you rest without doing nothing.’

Jane scrunched up her mouth. That sounded okay.

‘I’ll get it ready. I suggest eating your mushrooms before they get cold, then putting the wagon outside.’ Owl’s face did a happy wiggle inside the screen. ‘Oh, I hope you like it.’





SIDRA


Sidra settled into the piece of furniture beside Tak’s tool cabinet. It was an eelim, a sort of responsive chair that moulded itself around the body of the person using it. Sidra was fascinated as she watched the white material shift around the kit. She fought the urge to stand the kit up just so she could sit down and watch the eelim move again. But Tak was preparing his tools, and that was fascinating, too. He had a fresh pipe of tallflower, a full cup of mek, a gloved pair of hands. He loaded cartridges of colour bots into the industrial-looking needle pen, which looked a bit frightening, even in the hands of one so friendly.

‘It doesn’t use magnets, does it?’ Sidra asked, eying the hefty machine as calmly as she could.

It was an odd thing to ask, she knew, but Tak seemed to take it as nothing more than quirk. ‘Nope, just pumps and gravity. Why, you have implants you’re worried about?’

‘No,’ Sidra said, glad the question hadn’t been more specific.

‘Well, even if you did, no magnets here. But it is going to hurt. You know that, right?’

Sidra chose her words carefully. ‘I know that tattoos hurt, yes.’ That much was true. She left out the part about not being able to feel pain. She’d practised wincing the night before. Blue had said she’d got it down.