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

which will result in you losing your reservation in the queue,’ Friend said.

‘But I made that reservation tendays ago,’ Roveg said. ‘I made it before I left home.’

‘I do not understand,’ Friend said.

Roveg took a breath, pulling air through his abdomen with deliberate slowness. In moments like these, he could understand the appeal of a thinking, conscious AI (but, of course, therein lay the danger; convenience was morality’s most cunning foe). ‘Please explain your calculation regarding the delay at Bushto,’ he said.

‘Leaving Gora on 238/307 will result in an arrival at Bushto on 242/307. Our current reservation for the Bushto tunnel hub queue is for 240/307. The local branch of the Harmagian Travel Office has a cancellation policy of one standard day. A 242/307 arrival will result in a cancellation of our reservation, thus—’

‘We’ll lose our spot and will need to get back in the queue. Yes, I see.’ Roveg sighed. Damn the Harmagians and their pointless bureaucracy. ‘If we increase our speed, could we arrive at Bushto by 240/307?’

Friend calculated. ‘Yes,’ the AI said. ‘An increase of travel velocity to seventy-five SUs per day would result in a 240/307 arrival.’

Cutting it close, but doable. ‘And how would that affect our fuel consumption?’

Friend calculated further. ‘Fuel consumption would increase by two hundred and fifty-eight kulks.’

At last, Roveg felt himself relax. He happened to be parked right outside a fuel depot with only two other customers present. Money wasn’t a problem, and even if it had been, an extra barrel or two of algae was a trifling price to pay for arriving on time. He’d buy all the fuel Ouloo had, if that’s what it took. He’d sell his art, his gear, everything that wasn’t an engine or an oxygen filter. He’d sell his ship after the fact, so long as he got there on time.

‘Reset our course with the current calculations for arrival date and travel velocity factored in,’ Roveg said. His voice held steady this time. He left the control room as Friend worked, and went to the kitchen to brew a full pot of mek. He didn’t usually drink the soporific stuff in such quantities, but on a day like today, it was justified.

SPEAKER

The shuttle was too small.

This hadn’t been the case in the past. Speaker had used the shuttle for its intended purpose many times – quick hops between ground and orbit, or ship to station, or ship to ship, typically ferrying supplies one way or the other, sometimes with her sister in the seat beside her. She had never found it cramped then, and the shuttle was equipped with the basics needed for unexpected circumstances such as the one she found herself in now. There was water, a pair of sleeping hammocks, plenty of dehydrated food, a decent-enough toilet, breathable air – everything you needed for a quick bail-out if need be. But right then, Speaker needed something else, something the shuttle couldn’t provide, and that lack was driving her out of her head.

She needed to move.

Speaker swung from pole to pole, her wrist-hooks hitting the metal loud and angry. She went from one side of the too-small shuttle to the other, back and forth, back and forth, always with one eye on the comms screen. A progress wheel had been spinning there for ten excruciating minutes, and any second now, it would—

The screen went white, indicating an update was on the way. Speaker shimmied down, scrambling to the console. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Come on, come on, come—’

The hull of the shuttle was thick, but a terrifying noise bled through it all the same: a crunch of impact, a hail of dirt. Speaker did not see what had happened, nor did she need to. She wasted no time in sliding down the nearest pole and bolting into the space on the floor beneath the console. She bent her head and covered the back of her neck with her arms. Something had crashed outside, and though there were no decompression alarms, no further sounds of danger, she braced all the same. She’d done this in safety drills, but never before with real cause. Her pulse pounded and her hands shook, but she locked her fingers together and shut her beak tight, waiting for whatever came next.

Nothing came next. The shuttle and the world beyond were as quiet as they’d been minutes before. This should have been a relief, but Speaker didn’t trust it. How could anyone find comfort in silence that could end without warning?

Timidly, she crawled out of the nook in which she’d sheltered, and climbed up to the nearest window to see what had caused the sound. She did not have to look hard. A crumpled mass of metal had slammed down a short distance away – far enough that she did not feel the need to inspect the outer hull, but close enough to see the unsettled dust still hanging in the thin air around it.

Speaker’s stomach churned as she thought of the incalculable variables that had led to the careening junk landing over there and not right here. She tried to still her shaking hands, tried to hush the racing horror of oh stars, what if? She closed her eyes and took a breath, then made her way back to the comms console, attempting to focus on just one heart-rending worry at a time.

Error, the comms screen read. Comms signal cannot be established with requested recipient. Atmospheric disturbance suspected. ‘No fucking kidding,’ Speaker said under her breath.

Nothing about the lack of signal was a surprise. It hadn’t been a surprise the three times before, either. The shuttle didn’t have an ansible; it had a short-range comms dish, and that required a clear, uninterrupted channel between transmitter and receiver. Given that the latter was impeded by the exponentially multiplying debris of the former, there was no way she was going to get a call out.

She tried again anyway, selecting yet another signal-searching algorithm before resuming her elevated pacing.

‘You’re okay,’ she whispered