Four

[keaalu]

     Skydash was already awake when Blink finally grunted and rolled off her pile of cushions in the Institute window early the next morning. The big femme sat at the front edge of the Institute pavement, legs folded underneath her, face lifted to the rising sun. Dogged tendrils of mist still clung around her, hiding from the growing heat of the watercolour sun.

     “Is everything all right?” Blink traipsed across the pavement, toes dragging and trying vainly to scrub the sleep from her eyes. Her breath steamed in the early morning chill. “Was your rest disturbed?”

     “No, no; I rested fine. I’m missing our family.” A dilute flicker of a smile touched Skydash’s lips, but it rapidly disappeared. “I’ve never been away from them for so long, and it hurts. Even after so long travelling without them, it’s strange to wake and realise they’re millions of light years away. Can’t keep myself from wondering, what if I never see them again?”

     “Don’t think like that.” Blink claimed a hand in both of hers. “Of course you will. We both will. I promise.”

     Skydash found a slightly more genuine smile. “I’m not sure it’s healthy to go making promises neither of us know if it’s even in our power to keep, but thank you.”

     Blink squared her jaw and lifted her chin. “Well, you did this for me, so I’m going to do everything in my power to get us home, no matter the cost.”

     “Again, not precisely a healthy mindset, Bee.” She leaned down and kissed the top of her head, chastely. “You better be including ‘while staying safe and healthy’ in that, or I’m not letting you promise me anything.”

     Blink gave a funny little meaningless chirp of uneasy laughter.

     “I mean it, Short-aft. You break that promise by going sprinting off into danger, to protect my honour? And we’re done.”

     “I-I mean it, too-!”

     “Huh.”

     “Seriously.” Blink pulled the big hand up against her chest and kissed its fingers. “You coming here for me? After everything I put you through? I-…” The words caught in her throat. “I don’t know if I could have been so unselfishly forgiving. ”

     “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a wrench,” Skydash agreed, quietly, studying their linked fingers. Her own large blue digits dwarfed Blink’s soft pink ones. “Coming out here was a very hard decision to make. What do I choose? Miss out on a critical point of our little ones growing up, or abandon a friend to goodness only knows what end?”

     Blink struggled to swallow the protest. “I could have waited-”

     “Don’t.” Skydash lifted a scolding finger. “I don’t need any more self-doubt, and I couldn’t just leave you here. Besides, they’re getting bigger. More self-directed. They don’t need me to carry them all the time, any more. And I couldn’t think of better people to look after them.” She curled her lip, amused. “They’ll be too busy having their every whim indulged by adoring relatives to notice I’m gone, probably. It’s not like my dam needs an excuse to abduct adorable little ones. Your Ama would jump at the chance to look after them.”

     Blink sat down on the cold stone, crossing her legs. “I’m glad they’re doing so well.” She kept her voice measured, and it emerged strangely flat. “They’re both pretty stable?”

     “Yes. Not due an upgrade for a while. I figured I could trust RJ and the boys with them until we get back. It’s not like they’ll do much apart from their usual favourite things – Dipps will make a mess with her ‘garden’ and trail mud all through the tower, and Flash will heckle the guys into taking him flying.” Skydash hesitated before continuing. “I just hope Dipps is all right.” She slid a glance to the fessine sitting quietly by her knee, but Blink was keeping her gaze carefully fixed on the same distant horizon that Skydash had been watching. “It took a long time to convince her that school wasn’t what made you go away. Every time I went to Deixar to study, she insisted on coming with me, to protect me.”

     Blink remained quiet for a while. “And now, you’ve gone away.”

     “She wouldn’t let go of me until I’d promised to come back. I spoke to her-… a little while ago, last time I made planetfall for fuel. She knows I’m coming home. I think she’ll be all right.”

     “I’ll see if I can get a signal to go through later, for you. I mean, if I can raise your Ama, I should be able to get through to anyone, we can track them down easy enough and you can reassure them you’ve not forgotten them.”

     Skydash squeezed her shoulder, gratefully.

     “So.” Blink took a deep breath, stretched her shoulders, and exhaled a puff of cloud. “What do we need to do? Can I just sit and admire you until you’re ready?”

     Skydash chuckled. “Not quite. I told Star that you said the computers here had manufacturing capabilities. He designed my refit so I could carry you, but he couldn’t finish the flight-suit because we didn’t have your dimensions.” She produced a big data wafer from her subspace, and held it out. “We’ll need this to be made before we can go anywhere. If we can’t print it here, I’ll have to go back to tiao’I once we’ve got you measured up.”

     Blink accepted the wafer and pinched the activation pad in the corner – it was harder than she remembered it being – and the sheet lit up with a strange internal glow, revealing a complex diagram for a piece of clothing that looked like it was more machine than Skydash. And more uncomfortable. “This-… I have to wear this? Why do I need it, can’t I travel without it?”

     “Not very far, no. A quick orbital hop, maybe. Certainly not all the way to tiao’I.”

     “Why do we need to go there?” Blink glanced up, nose wrinkling in a frown. “This didn’t happen there.”

     “No, but if we want to get to the central systems where these creatures might be living, you’ll need to catch a sleeper-”

     “You-you don’t want to travel with me?”

     “When did I say that? I’m coming with you.”

     “I don’t understand. You said-… a hibernaculum?”

     Seeing Blink rapidly deflate, Skydash held out her hand to her; the fessine rested her chin on her fingers and looked woefully up at her.

     “I was never designed with carrying organic passengers in mind, remember? Flash and Dipps used to have to kinda have to cram themselves into my sensory compartment, and that was when they were both smaller than you are now. And that’s not taking into account how massive interstellar distances are. And then there’s the issue of air, and warmth. Even Day only carried passengers through atmosphere-”

     “So how am I getting off here?” Blink had to work hard to keep the petulant tone out of her voice. “Do I have to call for transport from the Hesgeri Consulate or something?”

     “I didn’t say I couldn’t carry you. I have a small passenger compartment, and I can carry you by myself for a few days – but only as far as the air will last. You’ll need to wear a specialised flight-suit, too.” Skydash offered a look that was strangely apologetic. “You’ll need to be in stasis, most of the way. I can hardly pull over on an asteroid to let you take care of certain bodily functions.”

     Disappointed but understanding, Blink nodded, silently. Even a small refit was a major undertaking, and Skydash was never going to pull off the ‘interstellar shuttle’ vogue without some intensive restyling. She directed her attention back down on the wafer, and the complicated outfit detailed on it.

     …although she tried to hide it, she couldn’t help the grimace. A heavy, one-piece, dark blue suit, complete with in-built gloves, boots and a hood, all lined with a warming mesh, it looked stiff and uncomfortable. Sensors to monitor her bodily functions studded the inside front and side panels. Long, slender tubes of some biomimetic material snaked up from the syringe pumps enclosed in big pockets on the legs, vanishing through the fabric of the sleeves and joining to the cannulas that would drip sedatives into her blood, keeping her securely asleep for the journey, as many bodily functions as possible turned off.

     “This isn’t a suit, it’s a self-contained stasis pod,” she joked, painfully.

     “I know. I’m sorry. It was the best we could do at short notice.” Skydash squeezed her shoulder, gently. “Uncle said you might need someone to help you put it on, too.”

     Having already seen the various life-support devices built into the outfit, Blink felt her face get hot again. She could easily imagine steam rising from her eartips. “N-no, I think I can manage,” she half-lied. She was just going to have to manage. “Well, except maybe the needles. I’m sure Sadie won’t mind helping with those…”

     After she’d had the situation explaining to her, the Interface accepted the suit schematics and decided that with a few minor tweaks, it was something the Institute had all the materials to build. The main issue was going to be time – it was a project that would keep the main manufacturing bay occupied for at least two days, and probably more.

     Well, that just left plenty of time to call home. Deciding she was tired of being that person, easily defeated and moping, Blink bent to do battle with the radio.

     As fate would have it, of all the communications terminals in the Institute, the one that worked least well was the massive screen in the atrium – and that was coincidentally the only one Skydash could actually get to. Interface explained that it was the old public terminal and had got a fair amount of abuse over the years. Blink settled in the chair in front of it, and began work at teasing a connection out of it.

     A very small person answered the call; Serendipity, who immediately squeaked gleefully and attracted her brother’s attention. The little ones jostled for the best view for a few vigorous seconds, but finally settled, virtually on top of each other. “Onnie!”

     “Hello Flash, Dipps.” Blink put her hand up and pressed the palm to the screen. “How are you both? I hope you’re behaving yourselves.”

     More jostling as they both tried to put their own hands on the screen, mimicking what Auntie Bee had done. They spoke over each other, as usual, somehow finishing each other’s sentences. “We’re always good. Idgi says so! We miss you! Are you coming home soon?”

     “I most definitely am. And, I won’t be small and squishy any more. Me and Ama are going to find the creatures that did it, and get them to change me back. I can tell you all about my adventure when I come home.”

     “It doesn’t sound like a fun adventure,” Flashstep argued, quietly. “Aunnie Lara was teaching us about soft creatures, and most aren’t very well built. They don’t do very well in the cold and they break easily.”

     “And they stop working forever if they don’t get any fuel!” Serendipity added; she had her chin on the terminal and a woeful look in her optics. “Ama said she’d make sure that didn’t happen to you.”

     Blink’s lips curved in an involuntary smile. “Fuel is a lot easier for us to find, don’t you worry, I won’t be running out any time soon.”

     “Can we talk to Ama? Is she there, did she arrive from space now? Is she coming home soon too? We miss her!”

     “She is, and she really wants to talk to you.” Blink somehow managed to keep the expression in place; they’d barely started a conversation, and they already wanted to talk to someone else. “I’ll go get her for you…”

     “Heyy, bits.” Skydash settled carefully in front of the little communications terminal, almost forced to bend double just to get her face into the viewer. “Goodness, I missed you both. It’s so good to see you!”

     They both shrieked gleefully and clambered all over their home terminal, as though trying to climb through the screen to get to her. “Ama! We missed you! When are you coming home? Why are you so big…?”

     Disappointed but managing to swallow it, Blink left them to their conversations, instead going to sit out on the pavement in the day’s strengthening sunshine. Of course they’d want to talk to ‘Ama’, not the crazy, bad-tempered auntie that had vanished from their lives when they were barely old enough to remember her.

     Don’t let the green-eyed monster rear its ugly head this early in the game, Bee. Compared to having her home and immediately available? They’ve barely spoken to her in… must be close to a year. No wonder they’re so excited.

     “Hey.”

     She glanced up to see Rae approaching, a remote terminal under one arm and a plate in his other hand, and hastily swiped her face dry with a sleeve. “Rae. What’s the matter?”

     “Nothin’. I brought you breakfast, and figured I’d give you some company.” He held out the plate, revealing a pastry of some kind, and sat next to her, cross-legged. “Since Sunbeam-”

     “Skydash.”

     “-is on the phone and Interface is busy with that hideous thing you’ve gotta wear.”

     Blink found a genuine smile for him. “You saw it, then.”

     “Yeah. Skeida. I’d almost put money on one of them taking it as a challenge to make it as uncomfortable as possible for you. You’re gonna be a walking pincushion.”

     “Oh, don’t even joke about it.” She retreated into the quiet sanctity of her breakfast, but found she wasn’t really very hungry. She nibbled fussily at the edges of the pastry. “And you know what her name is, so please stop calling her the wrong thing.”

     “Since you asked nicely, all right.” Rae elbowed her gently. “S’everything all right, Blink?”

     “I think I’m just scared.” Blink studied her unfinished breakfast, turning it end over end. “It felt… manageable, when it was all a long way away. Now she’s finally here and we’re making plans to leave, and-… I’m not sure I can do it, Rae. What if I mess it up again? We’ll end up even further back than we are now.”

     “Why should you?” He stretched an arm across her shoulders, and let her sag sideways into him. “Come on. You’ve beat everything else this world has thrown at you, and if she’s even half as good as you’ve described her? The two of you can do anything, if you put your minds to it.”


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