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

Yeah, kid, she flashed. I know the feeling.

SPEAKER

She needed to take care of herself, but she had to be quick about it. Everything aboard Capt— aboard Pei’s shuttle had stayed the same for hours, which was what made Speaker wary about leaving. She wasn’t superstitious in the slightest, but her stepping out seemed like exactly the time in which something might happen. The last thing she wanted was to be absent for that.

She climbed out of her cockpit, muscles stretching with relief. The suit was as comfortable as she could make it, but stars, it always felt good to get out of it.

The good feeling vanished as she noticed the ruined cake lying on the floor, its formerly fluffy frosting now collapsed. She hated the sight of it, but cleaning would have to wait. She locked a wrist-hook around the nearest pole and swung forward with clear intention. Bathroom. Food. Air. That was her mission here.

After completing the first item on her list, she made her way to the kitchen – if it could even be called that. It was a nook, really, containing storage hammocks and a stick-out shelf with a hot pot and a water tank. It wasn’t much to look at, but she liked it much better than whatever the hell was going on in that Aeluon ship. At least here she could see where the doors were.

She reached for one of the dehydrated meal packs she’d been living off of for the past four days – hook bean hash, which she’d discovered to be completely fine. Not as good as the hook bean hash her mother had made, by a long shot, but it was tasty and filling and reminiscent of home. She began to open the package, but hesitated. She’d have to cook it, obviously, which would take ten minutes, and then she’d have to wait for it to cool – and it wasn’t the sort of dish you could scarf down in three bites and be on your way. She considered instead grabbing an armload of protein bars, eating one right then, and taking the rest with her. But Speaker was ravenous. Aside from having been out of her ship for hours, she’d been putting the suit through tasks she’d never done before. Lifting things and using tools? Fine. But lifting people and using medical tools had never been on her to-do list, and it had taken no small amount of concentration to not be clumsy about it. She tore open the meal pack and emptied its shrivelled contents into the hot pot, along with some water. Yes, cooking would take time, but she needed to eat. She’d be of no help to anyone if she continued along with an unfuelled brain.

She hung by her wrists as the meal cooked, soothing her stiff body with the pull of gravity. She closed her eyes and thought of nothing.

Ten minutes later, the timer chimed. She began the careful process of transferring the scalding meal into a bowl, and was successfully not making a mess when the comms panel played an alert. There was an incoming call.

‘Stars,’ she muttered as a glob of sauce splattered on the floor. Of course. Of course this was when something went wrong. She should’ve just grabbed the protein bars and gone straight back. She gestured at a wall vox, accepting the call. ‘I’ll be right there,’ she said loudly, pouring the hash back into the pot. She could reheat it later. ‘Is everything—’

‘Speaker? Irek ie?’

Speaker froze, and it felt like Gora stopped spinning right along with her. It wasn’t Roveg or Ouloo calling.

It was Tracker.

Speaker was in the shuttle cockpit so fast she barely registered swinging her way there. But oh, oh, there she was – there was Tracker, on screen and breathing and beautiful. Speaker didn’t sit in the hammock. She climbed right up on the control panel, pressing her hands against the edges of the screen, feeling as though half her weight had been cut clean away. ‘Are you all right?’ she cried in Ihreet. She was too loud. She didn’t care.

‘I – yes, yes, of course, I’m—’ Tracker sputtered. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Speaker said hurriedly, ‘but are you well? Have you taken your medicine?’

‘My – what?’ Tracker said. She was shouting, incredulous. ‘Who cares about that?’

‘I – I care, you were having such a bad day when I left, and—’

‘Speaker, you’ve been stuck on a planet alone. Alone! For days! And you want to ask me about my fucking medicine?’

Both sisters stared, realising in real-time that neither had considered the possibility of the other worrying about them. Baffled and exhausted, they did the only thing that made sense:

They laughed.

‘So did you?’ Speaker said, holding her forehead in one hand. ‘Did you take your medicine?’

‘Yes, sweetheart. I did. I’m fine. I’d forgotten all about having a bad day. That feels like standards ago. Are you—’

‘I’m fine. Perfectly fine.’

‘Have you had enough to eat? I couldn’t remember when the last time was that we stocked the shuttle.’

‘Yes, I’m well fed, don’t worry.’

‘And it’s friendly there?’

‘Yes, very friendly. There’s been no trouble.’

‘Shit.’ Tracker rubbed the sides of her face with her palms, as if trying to rid herself of a headache. ‘I kept picturing you and some – I don’t know, some gang of alien bastards fucking with the shuttle, or hurting you, or – I know how stupid this sounds, but stars, I was scared.’

‘It’s not stupid,’ Speaker said. She placed her fingers over Tracker’s face, pretending she could hold her close the way she wanted to. ‘I pictured—’ She shut her eyes. ‘I don’t want to say.’

Tracker clicked her beak reassuringly, the way she did when Speaker awoke from a nightmare or had an upsetting day. ‘We’re okay.’

‘Yes,’ Speaker said. She pressed her hand against the screen, hard. ‘We’re okay.’ She paused, remembering the context of what she’d been doing in the shuttle in the first place. ‘But