The Things We Repair
Copyright© 2026 by Flubu
Chapter 18: The People at the Other End
By morning, the storm had exhausted itself. It did not end cleanly. There was no final gust, no sudden opening in the clouds. The wind simply weakened until the snow falling through the trees no longer travelled sideways.
The clearing around Takuhai had changed shape overnight. Drifts curved against the ship’s hull, burying the lower panels and one landing strut. Spruce branches bent beneath fresh weight. The path to the farmhouse had disappeared completely.
Inside the workshop, the transit wake still glowed across the central display. Daniel had spent most of the remaining night on the couch, though he had slept only in fragments. Each time he opened his eyes, Neris was still in the pilot’s chair, the blanket gathered around her shoulders and her face illuminated by the incomplete route.
At some point, she had fallen asleep. She would deny it later. Her head had lowered until her muzzle nearly touched her chest. One paw remained against the console. Her tail lay motionless across the deck; its tip curved toward Daniel’s boots as though even asleep it had kept track of where he was.
ER dimmed the model when Daniel sat up.
“Good morning.”
Daniel rubbed his eyes. “Is it?”
“Local sunrise occurred twenty-three minutes ago.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“I am aware.”
Daniel looked toward Neris. “How long?”
“Forty-seven minutes.”
“She’s been asleep forty-seven minutes?”
“Yes.”
“Before that?”
“Intermittently unconscious for six shorter periods.”
Daniel studied her. “You could’ve just said she barely slept.”
“I could have been less accurate.”
The resonator housing remained open behind the pilot’s chair. Its overheated coupler had cooled, but a dark discolouration ran along one edge of the optical casing. Daniel stood quietly and crossed the workshop. He placed a hand near the damaged assembly without touching it.
“Can it be fixed?”
“Yes.”
“Today?”
“No.”
Neris opened her eyes. Daniel looked at ER’s nearest speaker. “You woke her.”
“I did not alter the audio level.”
“You were discussing my ship,” Neris said.
Her voice was rough with fatigue. Daniel turned. The blanket slipped from one shoulder. She caught it before it fell, then sat straighter as though posture alone could erase the night.
“You slept,” he said.
ER’s definition of rest was less forgiving than Neris’s. She had closed her eyes for forty-seven minutes, which he considered relevant enough to report and she considered nobody’s business. The remaining coffee was old enough that even Daniel refused it. She pushed herself out of the chair too quickly and had to catch the console when her balance shifted. Daniel hurried to her side.
“I am fine.”
“You nearly fell.”
“I stood before circulation had fully adjusted.”
“You nearly fell in more technical language.”
Her instinct was to move directly to the resonator coupler. ER stopped that plan. External temperature had stabilized, but the internal stress pattern had not, and the coupler needed another six hours untouched before inspection could be useful rather than merely satisfying.
“I can inspect it without applying power.”
“No.”
Neris became still. Daniel looked toward the speaker. ER rarely used the word so plainly.
“It is my ship,” Neris said.
“It is also my body.” The answer did not rise in volume. It did not need to. Neris looked at the darkened edge of the coupler.
The maintenance manipulators remained folded in their recesses. ER could physically prevent her from reaching the component if he chose, but the possibility felt wrong enough that none of them mentioned it. Daniel leaned against the console.
“You’re terrible at resting, and he’s terrible at admitting when Takuhai needs a break.”
Neris turned toward him. “This is between ER and me.”
“It stopped being just between you two when you started running yourself and the ship into the ground in my backyard.”
Her ears shifted back. “That does not confer authority over Takuhai.”
“No,” Daniel said. “But caring whether either of you damages yourselves does.”
Neris went still; her eyes narrowed slightly. Daniel let the words stand. ER said, “I support Daniel’s position.”
Neris looked toward the ceiling. “You have become an alliance.”
“We prefer household,” Daniel said.
ER’s speaker remained silent for a fraction too long. Neris’s tail shifted against the deck.
“The mast,” she said.
Daniel folded his arms. “What about it?”
“The receiver housing must be inspected. The optical data stored locally may contain timing information lost from the live transmission.”
“That sounds like work we can do without reopening your chest.”
“The resonator is not my chest,” ER said.
Daniel looked at the speaker. “Closest comparison I had.”
“My central processing architecture is located elsewhere.”
Neris pulled the blanket from her shoulders and folded it. “The weather has improved.”
Daniel glanced toward the external feed. Visibility across the yard had returned. Snow still fell lightly, but the farmhouse and main barn were clear.
“We eat first.”
Neris looked at him. “That is becoming your answer to everything.”
“It keeps working.”
ER said, “Historical evidence supports him.”
Neris placed the folded blanket on the couch with unnecessary precision. “Food. Then the mast.”
Daniel nodded. “Acceptable.”
She gave him a warning look. He smiled. Snow had drifted on the back porch until it piled halfway up the door. Daniel shoveled enough away to open it and let Neris pass. The farm was quiet beneath the new snow without being silent. Cattle moved within their shelters, the generator kept its steady rhythm, and meltwater ticked under the eaves as barn heat loosened the first thin layer of ice.
Neris stood at the edge of the porch and looked toward the western ridge. The mast was visible again. A dark line against a pale sky. Its amber indicator still blinked.
“You see it?” Daniel asked.
“Yes.”
“Then it survived.”
“The receiver may not have.”
“Breakfast.”
She followed him inside. Daniel made eggs, toast and coffee. Neris added Xianglume seasoning to her eggs and watched him closely when he reached for the container. He took only a small amount.
“Your restraint has improved,” she said.
“I’m capable of learning.”
“ER’s records suggest otherwise.”
“I’m choosing not to feel betrayed.”
ER spoke through the kitchen tablet. “The comment was statistically justified.”
Daniel sat across from Neris. “What did you learn overnight?”
ER placed a simplified model beside the weather report. The third echo confirmed that Takuhai’s recorded phase structure was consistent with Takuhai’s original transit wake, but the beacon interval remained unresolved. ER could not yet say whether the wake contained a region where local reference markers could be identified.
Daniel asked the harder practical question: if they had passed near their native dimensional layer during the anomaly, could Takuhai have stayed there? Neris answered with certainty. No. The drive had not controlled the transit; unstable phase boundaries had carried the ship, and neither pilot nor vessel had been able to choose the emergence.
“But you saw beacons.”
“I believe I did.”
“From your people.”
Neris’s gaze lowered to the coffee. Courier navigation arrays produced distinctive alignment patterns, and Neris had trained with them for years. ER reminded her that visual memory formed during trauma was not always reliable. “I know what I saw.”
ER did not contradict her. He only separated memory from confirmed data, which was precisely the distinction Neris least wanted and most needed.
Daniel ate a piece of toast. “You’ll verify it.”
Neris looked at him. He had said it without qualification: not maybe, not if enough of the data survived. He simply assumed that eventually she would know. Daniel did not know whether the confidence was justified. He only knew she had spent the night staring at a road that ended in fog. Sometimes the next useful thing was believing there was more road.
After breakfast, Daniel checked the cattle while Neris gathered equipment. The storm had left the farm bruised but standing. Snow pressed against the windbreaks. The south shelter roof remained square after they cleared it. The north waterer continued operating. The repaired gate hinge held when Mabel struck it experimentally. Clang. Daniel stopped. Mabel looked at him.
“Morning.”
Clang.
“You know that’s not getting food faster.”
Mabel chewed.
From the communicator, ER said, “She may be testing structural consistency.”
“She’s making noise.”
“The categories are not mutually exclusive.”
Neris arrived carrying the tool case and climbing harness. She looked at Mabel. The cow struck the gate. Clang. “The frequency is lower in cold weather,” Neris observed.
Daniel stared at her. “Not you too.”
They took the tractor as far as the western field allowed. The storm had hardened the older snow beneath a fresh powder layer, making travel easier than the day before. Daniel kept the bucket low and followed the buried field track. At the ridge, the mast stood beneath a thick glassy coating of ice.
The improvised wiper hung motionless. Its drill motor had burned out. One clamp had loosened, allowing the rubber blade to slip below the optical window. The failed assembly rested against the mast housing like a machine that had died while reaching for something.
Neris climbed the lower section only after Daniel checked the anchors. She wore the harness without argument. That alone told him how tired she remained. At the receiver housing, she connected the diagnostic reader.
The local archive had survived with complete oscillator data through the loss of optical synchronization, including the timing drift they needed. The failed wiper had done better than any of them had expected from a repurposed drill motor, running for eleven hours before continuous load overheated it and warped the lower shield.
A spare window actuator could replace the motor, but repeating the same mistake would only fail again. The duty cycle mattered as much as the component. Together they redesigned the mechanism around the actual need: warm the optical window only enough to loosen ice, wipe once, stop, and repeat only when temperature required it. A separate switch and the existing weather-station thermostat could reduce both power draw and mechanical wear. The improvised system became less like a permanently running wiper and more like a deliberate winter tool.
“Possible.”
Daniel descended.
“First try?”
“That is unlikely.”
“Optimist.”
They removed the failed motor and carried it back to the workshop. The replacement actuator fit the existing bracket without modification. Daniel stared at it. Neris looked suspicious.
“The mounting points align.”
“They do.”
“The shaft diameter is compatible.”
“Also true.”
“This is improbable.”
Daniel tightened the bolts. “Sometimes things fit.”
“Your repair history does not support that conclusion.”
They wired the actuator through a separate thermal switch scavenged from an unused stock-tank heater. When Daniel connected the battery, the arm moved once across the optical window and returned to its resting position. The mechanism stopped. Neris tested the current draw. “Within tolerance.”
Daniel waited. “That’s it?”
“The assembly functions.”
“First try.”
Neris examined every connection again. “The conditions were unusually favourable.”
“You could just say I fixed it.”
“We fixed it.”
Daniel smiled. “Even better.”
The optical window remained the harder problem. The old design allowed wind-driven snow to pack beneath the lower lip. A stronger wiper would only compress it. Neris suggested extending the housing. Daniel built a narrow hood from aluminium flashing. The first hood channelled snow directly onto the sensor. He removed it.
The second vibrated in the wind strongly enough to disrupt the optical alignment. Neris reinforced it with two small braces. The vibration changed frequency but did not disappear. They abandoned the hood. Daniel stood beside the mast, looking at the bare optical window.
“What if we stop trying to keep snow off it?”
Neris looked at him. “The receiver cannot operate through ice.”
“What if the surface is too warm for ice to stick?”
“A continuous heater would alter the oscillator temperature.”
“Not if it’s on the outside.”
She studied the housing. Daniel continued. “Thin heating wire around the lens. Separate circuit. Just enough warmth to melt contact points.”
“The electromagnetic output may interfere with detection.”
“We can shield it.”
“Shielding may retain excessive heat.”
“Then we test it somewhere that isn’t twelve metres up.”
They built the new approach on the workbench. Daniel wound a low-voltage heating filament around a spare glass plate. Neris connected shielding and a temperature sensor. ER measured electrical noise through the control module. The first test produced no detectable interference. Neris increased power. The filament warmed the glass evenly. A handful of snow melted within seconds and drained away.
Daniel looked at her. “First try again?”
“The test conditions are not equivalent to field operation.”
“Of course.”
At the mast, the heated optical plate cleared itself without the wiper. The actuator remained installed as a backup, set to cycle only if the receiver detected blocked pulses. It was not a repaired version of the previous system. It was a different solution. Daniel watched the amber light stabilize.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Significantly.”
“I’ll take it.”
They recovered the final data and sealed the housing. Neris tried to climb down. Her tail caught against the edge of the harness. She twisted. The movement pulled at several frozen clumps in the lower fur. Neris hissed and stopped. Daniel looked up. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That sounded like something.”
“Ice has accumulated in my fur.”
“Can you get down?”
“Yes.”
She descended more slowly. At the ground, she unclipped the safety line and immediately reached behind herself, attempting to find the frozen sections. Her tail curved away from her paws. She turned. It turned with her. Daniel watched for several seconds. “Need help?”
“No.”
Neris caught one ice clump between her claws and pulled. Her ears flattened. Daniel stepped closer.
“Don’t do that.”
“It must be removed.”
“You’re pulling the fur.”
“I am aware.”
“Then stop.”
She looked at him. Daniel took off his outer gloves and held up his hands. “May I?”
The wind moved lightly across the ridge. Neris looked at his fingers. Her gaze lifted to his face. Her tail lowered gradually between them. “Yes.”
Daniel crouched. The ice had formed in several dense clusters where wet snow had melted against the warmer inner fur and frozen again during the tractor ride. Pulling them loose would take hair with them. He cupped the first cluster between his gloved palms and held it there. Neris watched over her shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“Warming it.”
“That will take time.”
“Then it takes time.”
“I can tolerate the discomfort.”
“I know.”
Her ears shifted. Daniel felt the ice soften. He broke away the outer layer, then worked the remaining crystals loose with his fingertips. The fur beneath sprang back, damp but undamaged. Neris’s tail moved once, toward him rather than away. He took the next cluster. This one was deeper. He removed his inner glove from one hand and used the warmth of his bare fingers carefully, avoiding the cold metal edges of her harness. Neris inhaled.
Daniel stopped. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
He waited. Her voice lowered. “The sensation is unfamiliar.”
“Bad unfamiliar?”
“No.”
He continued. The natural spice of her fur was stronger beneath the snow and cold. The faint citrus-and-chocolate fragrance of the grooming oil had nearly disappeared outdoors, but he caught it when he worked closer to the dense inner layer. Neris’s tail relaxed across his knees. Daniel looked up.
“You said grooming means something for mephits.”
Her ears angled back. “Yes.”
“You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to.”
“I should.”
He paused with one hand resting lightly in the fur. Neris looked toward the field rather than at him. “Routine grooming is often communal: parents with children, siblings with one another, and close companions.”
“And outside families?”
“Touching another mephit’s tail without permission is intrusive.”
“I figured that out.”
“Helping to groom it is more...”
She searched for the human word. “Personal.”
Daniel waited. “For partners?” he asked.
“Sometimes.”
His hand became very still. Neris looked back at him. “You may stop.”
“Do you want me to?” The wind stirred the long white fur along the upper curve of her tail. “No.”
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