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

process; her mind simply wanted to review the facts, over and over. It was a maddening habit, and especially so since the subject these days wasn’t her job, but Ashby – the person with whom she’d created a space in which she didn’t have to think about her problems.

She was in no mood to go over the whole thing again, and steadfastly refused to at this hour, but even so, she exhaled, and tossed the blankets aside. The bed moved with her, moulding itself into a chair-like shape as she sat up, then rounding into neutral standby as she left it behind. She gestured at the light panel, and a twilight glow accompanied her as she walked down the hallway to the kitchen. The kettle was half-full of water; she gestured at this as well, and the heating element began its work. She pressed her palm against the pantry wall and it melted gently in response, yawning itself into an opening through which she could peruse the contents stored within. She retrieved a box of instant mek powder, then opened another compartment in search of a mug and a mixing stick. Tools and single dry ingredient retrieved, she tapped the powder into the mug – she knew the exact amount needed, by muscle memory – and waited for the water to boil.

Pei pulled each arm in a light stretch, and as she did so, felt a lingering twinge in her right forearm. The fading shadow of some long-removed shrapnel that had embedded itself there during her last job. A few tendays prior, she’d been at the Rosk border, trying to land the same shuttle she stood in now at the drop site. Now that had been a sky on fire. Strike ships had protected her as she’d flown in, raining blinding bursts on the Rosk cruisers that were emptying their ammo bays in an effort to keep anyone from landing. It had not been the first time she’d been in such a situation, but it had gone sideways fast. In the end, the cost of her landing on a planet for ten minutes and unloading a few crates had been a laundry list of broken shit and two destroyed strikers. Repairs to her own ship had been a pain in the ass, but all things considered, it was fine. Her employers had sung her praises, her crew had gotten paid, and nobody who was her responsibility had died. It was, in the end, just another job.

The indicator light on the kettle flashed to let her know its own job was done. She began to fill her mug, and in doing so, distractedly spilled the water. The liquid splashed scalding on the counter, leaping from there to her bare torso before she could get out of the way. It was the most minuscule of misfortunes, but she reacted to it as though it were true insult, her cheeks bruising a shade of purple so dark it felt nearly black. This, too, was a new disruption to her rhythm, and not one she liked. Her temper was always waiting just a scale’s width away these days, simmering below the surface and ready to pop at the drop of a scrib or the loss of a signal or, as seen here, the spill of a drink. Anger was not typically an emotion that took up more space in her than joy or fear or any of the others. She always gave it as much room as it needed, and let it out freely. There was nothing healthy about bottling, and anger was useful when wielded wisely. But why it was so quick to appear these days, she didn’t know. She felt like an adolescent, raw and volatile with no apparent cause. She had tried, many times, to unpack the feeling. Emotions left unchecked could so easily metastasise, and she worked hard to never be that personally negligent. But she couldn’t figure this one out, any more than she could sleep a full night, any more than she could keep her mind from immediately leaping to the same weary topic when granted the briefest pause.

She filled her mug. She did not spill this time.

She blended powder and water with the stir stick, summoning an approximation of the drink she really wanted. The tree bark required for a proper cup of mek didn’t have the longest shelf life, so for practicality’s sake, she always purchased instant. But stars, she missed the real thing. She remembered the brewer her father Po had, with its intricate tubes and pipes, a beautiful, elaborate machine that served no purpose beyond concocting a soothing beverage. Most mek drinkers did not make the stuff fully from scratch, preferring the freeze-dried powder that was a good step up from instant but wouldn’t take hours of your day to prepare. Father Po, however, insisted that mek had to be done right or not at all. She had a memory of peeking around the kitchen wall with a creche sibling or two in tow, watching as Father Po performed the ornate ritual of shaving the bark he’d harvested from the garden that morning, grinding and regrinding the potent stuff by hand, adding spices and dried flowers and whatever else he fancied for that particular batch. It was an enormous amount of work for the ten or so cups it would produce, but Father Po insisted it was worth the effort. Not that Pei had ever been able to test that theory. Kids were too young for mek’s mild narcosis, and Pei had forgotten to ask Father Po to make her a batch before she went off to school. She still visited the creche, when rare occasion allowed for it, but she could never bring herself to make him go to all that trouble just for her.

She’d never tried traditional mek – made by her father’s hand or anyone else’s – but lately, whenever she made a cup of the instant stuff, she found herself