The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Becky Chambers (books to read to get smarter .txt) 📖

consistency, more fluffy than creamy, and the taste did not fall into an easy category. Sweet and earthy, with a bitter tang that both surprised and encouraged. ‘I don’t think it’s my favourite, but it’s really good.’

Tupo looked pleased. Xe swallowed, and said, ‘That’s so weird.’

‘What’s weird?’

‘That you can talk while you eat.’

‘It’s weird to me that you can’t talk while you eat,’ Pei said, smiling blue. ‘Eating’s the only thing we use our mouths for.’

‘Not drinking?’

‘Well, drinking, too.’

‘And breathing?’

‘Okay, yeah, we can breathe through them. But I mostly do that through my nose, like you.’

Tupo looked at her for a moment. ‘Can I look close at your nose?’

Pei blinked. ‘Um … yeah, sure, I guess.’

The Laru stretched xyr neck all the way out, getting far closer to Pei’s face than was anywhere in the realm of comfort or good manners. Xe studied her face with keen interest. ‘It’s so small,’ Tupo said.

‘And yours is really big, to me,’ Pei said, as she experienced the best view she’d ever had of a Laru’s broad, fleshy nostrils.

Curiosity apparently sated, Tupo retracted xyr neck and went back to xyr pudding. ‘What kind of captain are you?’

‘Cargo,’ Pei said.

‘I thought you were maybe a soldier.’ Tupo sounded disappointed at her answer. Xe took another long lick of pudding. Xyr bowl was already about halfway empty. ‘My mom said she locked up a bunch of your guns.’

‘If two is a bunch, then yes,’ Pei said.

‘But you’re not a soldier.’

‘No. I get soldiers the supplies they need. That’s what most of my work entails.’

‘Do you go where they’re fighting?’

‘Yes,’ said Pei, matter of fact.

‘Is it scary?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you ever been shot?’

Pei cocked her head at Tupo’s bluntness. Xe seemed harmless, but this wasn’t a turn she’d expected. ‘Yes,’ she said, her tone unchanged.

‘Did it hurt?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Probably.’

Pei laughed. ‘Probably.’ She looked at Tupo with affable admonishment. ‘Yes, it hurts.’

‘How bad does it hurt?’

While Pei did not need to be quiet while eating, she took a long moment to weigh that question. ‘Are you sure your mom would want me to be talking to you about this?’

Tupo licked some pudding from the corners of xyr mouth. ‘I dunno.’

‘Mmm-hmm. Maybe we should find something else to talk about.’

Tupo looked a smidge sulky about that prospect, but shifted gears. ‘If you’re a captain, where’s your crew?’

‘On shore leave. We just finished a … a big job—’ she was definitely not discussing the details of that, even though she could see them plain as day every time she shut her outer eyelids ‘—so now we get a break. Everybody’s off in different directions for a while, then we’ll get back together and head on to the next.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To visit a friend.’

‘Where’s your friend live?’

‘On a ship. He’s a spacer.’

‘Aren’t you a spacer?’

‘Yes.’

‘So …’ Tupo looked unimpressed. ‘For your vacation, you’re going to a different ship.’

‘I mean, vacation’s about the company, right?’

Tupo was not convinced. ‘What kind of ship?’

Stars, but the kid didn’t stop once you got some sugar in xyr. ‘Mixed. My friend is Human.’

Tupo let out a fizzing chuckle. ‘Humans look so funny.’

‘What?’ Pei said. ‘Why?’

‘I dunno, they’re just funny. They have furry heads and nothing else.’

‘They have fur all over,’ Pei said. ‘It just grows really, really thin in most places.’

‘Yeah,’ Tupo said. ‘Like babies.’

Pei laughed at that, her face flushing green. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in friendly disagreement. She took a thoughtful bite of her pudding, letting it spread across her tongue, savouring the sugar as it melted slowly. A few private notes of fond blue bloomed here and there. ‘I think some of them look nice.’

A different shade of blue appeared down the path leading back to the Five-Hop’s main buildings, and Pei noted it with interest. Ouloo was giving the grand tour to a Quelin, whose ship had presumably been the one that landed before the pudding arrived. His bold cobalt exoskeleton glinted in the sunlight, but there were no other colours visible on his shell, none of the embedded jewellery his kind commonly wore. Pei could see the dull scarring where the gems had been forcibly pried loose, the harsh lines carved through formerly intricate etchings detailing his class and lineage. An exile, barred from home. The only individuals you really saw outside of their territory. She pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth with quiet pity. The Quelin Protectorate were a real bunch of bastards.

‘You get all sorts here, huh?’ she said to Tupo as she watched Ouloo excitedly showing the Quelin around. He seemed particularly interested in one of the flowering hedges, and bowed the vertical half of his body low to inspect it closer.

‘We’ve had Quelin before,’ Tupo said, looking forlornly at xyr empty bowl. ‘Not a lot, but sometimes. Never had an Akarak, though. My mom won’t let me go talk to her alone.’ This fact made Tupo look even glummer than the lack of dessert did.

Her, Pei noted. She had no idea how Akaraks defined gender, so she had to follow the child’s lead. ‘Did your mom say why you can’t?’ she asked carefully. She really wanted to know what the Akarak’s deal was.

‘No,’ Tupo said. ‘Just that I can’t.’ Xe reached over to the cart and took another bowl of pudding. ‘Is it true they’re all pirates?’

Pei paused, because of course they weren’t, but that was the exact same knee-jerk thought she’d had when she’d caught her first glimpse of the mech suit. ‘No,’ she said. An Akarak was just an Akarak. Yellow could just be yellow. Reflexes could make you stupid.

This answer yet again disappointed Tupo, but xe looked unsurprised. ‘She didn’t have any guns, so she’s probably not a pirate.’

‘Your mom’s pretty serious about locking up weapons, huh?’ Pei said.

‘Yeah,’ Tupo said, swallowing xyr mouthful of dessert with the same vigour as all previous ones. ‘She doesn’t like guns at all.’

‘My friend’s the same way.’

‘Your Human friend?’

‘Yeah,’ Pei said. ‘He’ll probably make me leave mine on my shuttle.’ Which was