A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(7)
A safety announcement was rattled off in several languages – Klip, Hanto, Reskitkish. Aeluon light panels affixed to the walls lit up and shimmered in tandem with the audio. Sidra watched the colour language dance and blend. It was an enticing thing to focus on.
The doors spun shut, melting into the opaque walls. There was a hum, then a buzz, then a massive rush of air. Sidra could tell they were moving, even though the environment within the car was calm and comfortable. The old man seated nearby began to snore.
She swung the kit’s head around, trying to cover all her blind spots. ‘Are there no windows?’
‘There will be,’ Blue said. ‘Just w-wait a few minutes.’
A twinge of excitement cut through the heavier thoughts. This was kind of fun. ‘How does this thing work?’ she asked. There were no tracks or cables that she’d seen, no obvious engines. ‘What kind of propulsion does this use?’
‘I have no idea,’ Pepper said, putting her feet up on the back of the seat in front of her. ‘I mean, I’ve tried to understand it. I’ve looked it up. I just do not get it.’
‘And for her—’ Blue began.
Pepper waved him off. ‘Oh, don’t.’
Blue ignored her. ‘For her, it, ah, it really is saying something.’
‘Nobody gets how the Undersea works,’ Pepper said. ‘Unless you’re a Pair. And nobody gets them, either.’
Her companion raised an eyebrow. ‘That was vaguely speciest.’
Pepper’s lips gave a mischievous twitch. ‘It’s the Human car.’ She leaned over, snuggling against Blue’s chest. His arm fell around her shoulders reflexively. Pepper hadn’t slept on the ten-hour trip back to Coriol. Nothing had been said about it, but Sidra suspected Pepper had stayed awake to keep an eye on her. Sidra was grateful, but felt guilty.
Six minutes passed, and the car changed. The lights inside dimmed. The walls went gauzy, almost clear. Soft external lights switched on, illuminating the slice of sea surrounding the car. Sidra leaned the kit forward to get a better look.
‘Here, we can swap,’ Blue said, removing himself from Pepper and trading places with Sidra. He put his other arm back around Pepper, whose eyelids were drooping. She fought it with a stubborn scowl.
Sidra pressed the kit close as she could to the transparent wall. The waters outside rushed past in a blur, creating what felt like a time-lapsed vid of the environment the car travelled through. The view was dim, thanks to the thick algae mats that capped the seas of Coriol, but even so, Sidra could see life out there. Tentacled things. Soft things. Toothed things. Things that drifted and bobbed and swayed.
She began to make a note, then realised she could just ask. ‘Are there indigenous land species here as well?’
‘Little stuff,’ Pepper said, speaking with her eyes closed. ‘Bugs and crabs, that kind of thing. Coriol wasn’t too far along evolution-wise when everybody else rolled in. It was settled before the, um . . . oh, f*cking what’s-it-called, the let’s-leave-planets-with-life-alone law—’
‘The Biodiversity Preservation Agreement,’ Sidra said.
Pepper’s eyes snapped open. ‘You’re not, ah—’ She tapped the back of her head, right at the base of her skull. Sidra understood: Are you connected to the Linkings?
‘No,’ Sidra said, though she wished she was. ‘I don’t have a wireless receiver.’ She wondered how difficult it would be to install one. She had read that for organic sapients, the risks of wireless headjack hijacking were significant, which was scary, but . . . but surely, if she had the capability to detect a hijacking attempt directed toward a long-haul spacecraft, she could do it from inside one small body. Unsurprisingly, however, the public Linkings had come up empty on how to make hardware modifications to an illegal AI housing.
Pepper squinted. ‘If you’re not in the Linkings, how do you know that tidbit?’
‘Just something I ran across while—’ Sidra paused, remembering that they were not alone, and that the kit’s voice did not transmit sound as directionally as, say, a wall-mounted vox. ‘— while I was doing research earlier.’ It was true, and it had to be. Already, the honesty protocol was proving to be a challenge, and her inability to disable it herself made her uneasy. Housed within a ship, she might have been ambivalent about it. But out here, where she was hyper-aware of everything she was and wasn’t, truth left her vulnerable.
She processed her discomfort as she turned her gaze back to Pepper and Blue, who were arranged easily against each other. Again, she compared them to their fellow passengers. No two Humans that Sidra could see looked anything alike. They varied in skin tone, in shape, in size. But though those they shared the car with were, presumably, from everywhere, Pepper and Blue were from a very particular someplace else. Sidra had determined what set Blue apart from the rest of his species: symmetry. His face was arranged in a way that genes simply could not achieve when left untampered with, and his body suggested bones and muscles structured with equal attention to design. The same was present in Pepper as well, despite all her body had weathered. Yes, her hands were heavily scarred, and much of her skin had a sun-damaged roughness, but once you stopped focusing on the wear and the lack of hair, you could see the same polish. Whoever made Blue had made Pepper, too.
This conclusion wasn’t a revelation. Pepper had explained things on the shuttle – explained the scar tissue on her palms, explained how she’d found Blue, explained why Enhanced Humanity colonies were estranged from the GC. Sidra wasn’t sure how many questions on the topic were too many (a distinction she was still learning in all things), but Pepper had been up front. She didn’t seem to mind being asked, even though some answers came harder than others. If you’re going to stay with us, she’d said, you should know whose house you’re in.