Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3)(9)

‘Fish farms with my dad,’ Tessa said. ‘I lasted three whole days.’

‘Did you not like killing them, or what?’

‘No, that part was fine. It was more that Pop and I were gonna kill each other.’ She took a sip of mek and did not think about Ashby. ‘Have you thought about trying the food farms?’

‘I did bugs,’ Kip said.

‘And?’

‘I didn’t like killing them.’

This surprised her not a bit. ‘But you eat ’em, yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, with the same goofy smile. ‘I’m just good letting somebody else . . . y’know. Do that.’

‘Fair enough,’ Tessa said. Inwardly, she found that mindset silly. If you were okay with eating something, you had to be okay with it being dead. But Kip was a nice kid, and she wasn’t about to make him feel bad for having a soft heart. ‘Any idea what you want to try next?’

‘I dunno. Not really.’

‘You’ve got plenty of time. And besides, there’s tons more for you to try. Always something to do in the Fleet, yeah?’

Kip’s mouth smiled, but his eyes didn’t. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I guess.’

Tessa took in the kid’s face. She knew that look – that restless, empty-handed look. She’d seen it on her baby brother’s face, just a standard or so before he packed his bags and tearfully promised them all he wouldn’t disappear. He’d made good on that. They got letters and sib calls regularly. He visited when he could. He sent them more credits than any of them knew how to thank him for. But there was a room in the Santoso home that was used for storage now. There were a lot of rooms like it in the Fleet. Empty rooms had been a luxury once, Pop often said. Nowadays . . . nowadays folks could spread out more, take longer showers, hear their voices echo a little louder in the public walkways. She looked at Kip, drinking his mek, probably bored out of his mind. She wondered if his room would end up empty, too.





Isabel

Isabel had worked in the Asteria’s Archives for forty-four years, but she never tired of days like this. These days were some of the best, and she’d prepared in kind. The assembly hall was most often used for lectures and workshops and so on, but today, it had been transformed. She and the other archivists had hauled out the decorations they’d long ago made for such occasions: hanging sunbursts made of scrap metal, bright streamers of recycled cloth. A long table stood waiting to the side, ready to receive home-cooked food and drink. Another table held new seedlings brought in from one of the nurseries, available for those present to bring home to their neighbourhood gardens. Floating globulbs hovered around the room’s upper edges, radiating yellows, greens, and blues. Life colours. Growth colours. At the front of the room, by the big screen that projected the view of the starry black beyond the bulkhead, there was a podium. It was covered with streamers and fully-grown plants and, at the top, held Isabel’s scrib. This was the most important piece of all.

The person being honoured there would not remember any of it, but the others present would, and they would relay the story one day. That, in a nutshell, was what Isabel’s profession was for. Making sure everybody was a link in a chain. Making sure they remembered.

Guests began to arrive, festively dressed, carrying containers dewy with steam and fragrant with spice, syrup, toasted dough. Isabel would not need dinner after this. One of the finer perks of her job.

A boy pleaded with a man to let him have just one of whatever they’d brought to the shared table. The man told the boy to be patient. The lack of patience in his own voice indicated that this was not the first time this conversation had been had that day. Isabel smiled. She’d been in both their shoes.

Two musicians set up near the podium. Isabel knew them both, and greeted them warmly. She remembered when they’d been kids begging at the table, too. The same was true for many of the people entering the room, except for the ones she’d shared a childhood with so long ago. There weren’t many faces here she didn’t know.

The room filled, and at last, two people entered, carrying a tiny third. This was Isabel’s cue. She walked to the podium, stepping with practised care in her formal robes. The hum of voices started to fade. She met eyes with one of the musicians and nodded. The musicians nodded to her, then to each other. One and two and . . . she saw them mouth. A sheet drum and a long flute leapt into merry action. The final voices disappeared, and the gathered bodies parted to allow the trio to make their way to Isabel.

The young couple stood before her, smiling, proud, perhaps a little shy. Their infant daughter wriggled in the woman’s arms, more interested in the glint of her mother’s necklace than anything else.

Isabel raised her head to the room as the song reached its end. Faces looked back at her, smiling, waiting. Everyone there knew exactly what would come next. She’d said the words hundreds of times. Thousands, maybe. Every archivist knew how to say them, and every Exodan knew their sound by heart. But still, they needed to be said.

Isabel’s body was old – a fact it constantly reminded her of – but her voice remained strong and clear. ‘We destroyed our world,’ she said, ‘and left it for the skies. Our numbers were few. Our species had scattered. We were the last to leave. We left the ground behind. We left the oceans. We left the air. We watched these things grow small. We watched them shrink into a point of light. As we watched, we understood. We understood what we were. We understood what we had lost. We understood what we would need to do to survive. We abandoned more than our ancestors’ world. We abandoned our short sight. We abandoned our bloody ways. We made ourselves anew.’ She spread her hands, encompassing the gathered. Mouths in the crowd silently mirrored her words. ‘We are the Exodus Fleet. We are those that wandered, that wander still. We are the homesteaders that shelter our families. We are the miners and foragers in the open. We are the ships that ferry between. We are the explorers who carry our names. We are the parents who lead the way. We are the children who continue on.’ She picked up her scrib and addressed the couple. ‘What is her name?’