A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(69)

But she had to get home. She had to. She couldn’t stay here. She had to get home.





SIDRA


There was a lot going on at the Vortex that night – three dance pits! a Harmagian juggler! grasswine on tap! – but Sidra hadn’t missed the fact that something was bothering Tak. He was doing all the things organic sapients did in social places late at night. He’d been drinking and talking – and flirting, which had been fun to watch. But though there was nothing outwardly wrong, something was needling him, all the same.

‘What is it?’ Sidra asked, pushing her voice through the music and chatter.

Tak blinked. ‘What’s . . . what?’ His words were clear, but slower than usual. Alcohol didn’t make Aeluons slur, of course, but thinking through what words to run through the talkbox took as much effort as trying to speak through a tipsy mouth.

Sidra took a sip of her drink. Moonlight streaming behind a graceful white spider, weaving strand after strand of clear, strong silk. She savoured the image, but never took her gaze off her friend. ‘Something’s bothering you.’

Tak shrugged, but the yellow in his cheeks told a different story. ‘I’m . . . good.’

The kit raised an eyebrow.

The Aeluon sighed aloud. ‘Are you . . . having fun?’

‘Of course I am. Aren’t you?’

‘I am, but . . . I’m having . . . fun . . . without you. We came here . . . together.’

Sidra attempted to process, but came up short. ‘We are here together.’ She gestured at the table. ‘We are literally here together.’

Tak rubbed his silver scalp. ‘You do this . . . every time . . . we go out. You find a corner table and sit . . . with your back to the wall. You . . . order a lot of drinks . . . no . . . two of them . . . the same. You watch . . . everybody else . . . having fun. Sometimes, if you’re feeling fancy . . . you switch it up and find . . . a different corner table.’ He went brown with thought. ‘Do . . . other people . . . make you nervous? Is that it?’

‘I don’t understand the question.’ What was he getting at? ‘I’m having a really good time.’

‘But you’re just . . . observing. You never . . . participate.’

‘Tak,’ Sidra said, keeping her voice as low as she could. ‘You understand why that is. I don’t require participation in order to be enjoying myself. Company and interesting input. That’s all I need.’

He stared back at her with a gravity rarely achieved by the sober. ‘I . . . get that. But you are more . . . than what they programmed you . . . to be.’ Tak threw back the remainder of his drink in one go. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’re . . . getting you . . . some different . . . input.’ He took the kit’s hand and led her away from the table.

Other people did not make Sidra nervous, but this turn of events did. The comfort of the corner was gone, and the direction Tak was leading her in gave her pause. ‘I don’t know how to make the kit dance,’ she yelled. A dangerous bit of phrasing, she knew, but there was a degree of safety to be had in being surrounded by loud music and drunk people.

Tak looked over his shoulder and gave her a withering look. ‘With all . . . the hours of observation time you’ve . . . clocked, you should . . . have some idea . . . by now.’ He gestured at the dance pit. ‘Besides, does . . . anybody here look like . . . they know . . . what they’re doing?’

The kit swallowed as she watched the bodies shake and sway. ‘Yes.’

Tak scratched his jaw. ‘Well . . . okay, they do. But so . . . do I.’ He smiled at her. ‘If . . . you hate it, I’ll take you . . . right back . . . to your corner . . . and buy you any drink . . . you want.’

Sidra considered the kit’s limbs, its neck, the curve of its spine. She had the ability to manage life support systems, hold dozens of simultaneous conversations, even dock a ship if emergency demanded it. She could handle a dance pit. Yes, she could do this. She pulled up every memory file she had of people dancing at parties past. ‘You’re buying me a drink whether I hate this or not,’ she said.

Tak laughed, and led her into the throng.

Dance was curious in its near universality. Not all species had dance in their cultures, but most did, and those that did not quickly latched onto the idea once exposed to it. Even Aeluons, who would never hear music as others did, had traditional ways of moving together. Sidra had watched a lot of archival footage of dance, but fascinating as that was from a cultural perspective, she enjoyed the improvised madness of a multispecies gathering much more. In the pit, she’d observed, it didn’t matter what your limbs looked like, or how you liked to move. So long as there was a beat and warm bodies nearby, you could do whatever felt good.

Sidra knew dancing wouldn’t feel the same to her as it did to others. But maybe . . . maybe she could at least look good.

Tak let go of the kit’s hands and began to stomp his feet in an encouraging way. Sidra did a quick scan of her memories and found a file of a Human woman she’d seen sixteen days prior. It was as good a place to start as any.

Sidra analysed the file, and fed her findings into the kit’s kinetic systems. The kit responded, changing its posture into something Sidra hadn’t experienced before. The limbs were no longer pressed close to the torso, the back no longer straight. What had been tension and angles was now a harmony of curves, rocking, swaying, shifting.