Chapter 15

30 YAL

Sitting on the stern shore of Lake Numi I felt the alert from Ship enter my mind like a rock shearing from the face of an incomprehensibly tall cliff, falling through infinite divisions of femtoseconds before plunging into the shallow waters of my brain. Glancing at Mother, I saw her eyes film over in response to the same message.

You have this, she subvocalized, her voice low and calm in my ear.

Longshot was beginning to turn.

In the depths of interstellar space the vessel’s forward sensors had identified the burned-out nucleus of a long-dead rogue comet, a pitted ball of dust-encrusted ice thrown out of its home system aeons ago. Ship projected that the interstellar corpse would pass harmlessly off the port bow by two hundred thousand kilometers, but the AI, using an abundance of caution, had decided to double that distance.

With practiced mental effort I shifted my focus outside our home. In the compound sensors of the single surviving remote drone stationed off our stern I could see ghostly blue-white traces of gamma radiation growing in the deep pit of the massive main engine as the antimatter reactor began to increase its thrust. Circling Longshot’s midsection, two faint rings of fire flickered in the same spectrum as vernier thrusters brought us about.

At our current velocity even dust particles could damage the ship. A constant hail of ionized hydrogen molecules was deflected by a magnetic bubble at our bow, forming a shimmering shockwave of blue-violet light; anything that penetrated further would, in theory, be absorbed by the asteroid’s rock. The inner habitat would survive most collisions, but the few surviving hull sensors were precious; the majority having been lost during launch and never replaced, leaving entire sections blind. It was vital to preserve what we had.

“Dad?” At the periphery of my awareness, Hotene was beginning to stare with mounting impatience.

“One moment, daughter.” Sinking back into the helm’s dataflow, I saw jets of fire flare and die as Ship killed the vessel’s yaw. Steadied on its new course, Longshot would exceed its safety margin from the comet by several hundred kilometers. Undisturbed, my sister and children remained completely oblivious to any change. The habitat hadn’t felt the slightest ripple.

As Ship confirmed the course correction I sucked in a breath, catching Mother’s tiny nod of approval as my eyes refocussed. While I had complete command over the helm, imposing my direct will on Longshot’s passage could only produce disaster: Ship anticipated, planned and reacted several billion times faster than I ever could. It was only in the event of a breach that I would need to react, a responsibility that forced eternal vigilance.

Shaking my head, I refocussed on Hotene. “Sorry, Hotene. It’s beautiful.”

The timing had been terrible. The gift Hotene had made for our 26^th birthday was extraordinary, entirely deserving of my complete and undivided attention. The triangular silk shawl my second daughter still held presented in her palms was a deep yellow, its color so pure and intense it appeared to almost vibrate above her hands. Woven from the webs of golden orb spiders living high in the rocks of the bow plateau, it would have taken Hotene months just to collect the raw material.

Seeing me return to awareness, Zuri lifted the shawl from Hotene with reverential care, sliding it over her head and knotting it under her chin with a beaming smile.

“It’s gorgeous, darling. Thank you so much.”

The color set off my sister’s skin perfectly. I could feel Zuri’s effusive joy sharpening the carefully veiled hurt and disappointment visible in my daughter’s eyes. Zuri’s phenotype was much better adapted to the summerlands: practically, I was more likely to use the mantua than her. Hotene should have been hearing compliments from me. But before I could say anything, her sister had pushed forward.

“My gift is more ... ephemeral.” Ananya’s smile came with a hint of a blush as she lowered her eyes. “It’s something I worked out. A parametric function.”

“What is it, sweetheart?”

Raising her head and holding her slim shoulders back as if she was about to sing, Ananya intoned:

x = 16 sin³ t

y = 13 cos t - 5 cos(2 t) - 2 cos (3 t) - cos (4 t)

As she looked at us with obvious pride Zuri and I gazed at each other helplessly. “We’ll ... we’ll have to plot it in a takamakura,”, my sister finally confessed. “Neither of us have your aptitude for math.”

Ananya’s bright smile never faltered. “I thought you might. That’s what makes it a surprise.”

“Thank you, darling.” Leaning forward, I kissed her gently. “I look forward to seeing it.” Leaning to one side, I looked at her sister. “And thank you, Hotene.”

The rapidly falling dusk almost obscured my daughter’s curt nod. I held back a sigh. Even when circumstances should have been ideal, every effort I made to reach out to Hotene lately felt clumsy and ineffectual. No matter the approach, every interaction with her inevitably led to an uncomfortable silence lying somewhere between embarrassment and hostility.

The emergence of steaming bowls of honeyed figs covered with melted ricotta cheese curtailed any further dark thoughts I might have had. Lifted from the heating elements of our small radioisotope thermoelectric generator – the RTG, as Mother called it – her birthday gift of a special evening meal was quickly passed around our small circle, hungry mouths taking in dripping fruit to groans of pleasure. The habitat’s wasps and bees had treated Mother as one of their own when she’d gathered the fruit and honey earlier that day, but the goats grazing the lakeshore had not been nearly as docile or cooperative as the insects. Zuri and I had struggled to contain our laughter watching her chasing the animals across the grassy bank, cursing in words we’d never heard before as she struggled to milk them.

As we ate, I felt absurdly grateful that this year’s presents were physically insubstantial. Our material possessions had grown exponentially over the past decade, forcing us to designate a factotum as a full-time bearer. In the sunline-bleached memories of my childhood Zuri and I had merely rolled to our feet each morning, picked up our blankets, and started to walk. Now organizing the children, striking tents, and packing our belongings took an hour out of our day.

“I have to return to work,” Mother said quietly.

It was late and very dark. The children had climbed back up the rise to fall asleep underneath the fig tree, Kirra’s small brown body cuddled between her two elder sisters, leaving the three of us sitting at the edge of the lake. The moonline above our heads, shifting into its dimmest phase, was wrapped in a comma of cloud. Drinking the last of the wine from the city, the three of us were surrounded by a chorus of peeping cries from a thousand frogs the color of emeralds no larger than my thumbnail.