Kizzy and Pei returned to the Wayfarer some two hours later. There had been forty six mines behind the wall, all now in pieces. They’d spaced the kedrium, much to Kizzy’s chagrin, and Pei’d run two more scans of the ship, just to be safe. Kizzy’s hands were aching, and her back was stiff, and her head was pounding from squinting in the dark. She was glad to be back home.
Everybody had jumped all over her when she came through the airlock. Sissix nuzzled her head so hard that her hairdo came loose, and Rosemary got all misty-eyed, and Jenks gave her the best hug ever. Lovey was rambling about how worried she’d been, and even Ohan came down, limping on his weak legs, to give her a respectful bow.
She felt like a hero.
Dr. Chef made an enormous dinner for everybody—red coast bugs and fried spineroots and spicy crunchy salt peas. The Aeluons had been a little weirded out by the bugs at first—red coasters were pests to them, after all—but they warmed up to it, maybe out of novelty more than anything. Everybody was swapping stories and chowing down, and after a while, you could almost kind of forget that in a parallel universe, they all might be dead by then.
There reached a point where both Sissix and Oxlen were looking at the time on their scribs with that frowny we-need-to-get-going look that all pilots got. Everybody said their goodbyes. Kizzy’s heart went to pieces when she saw Pei and Ashby give each other a friendly farewell handshake. Let them make out, dammit! It just wasn’t fair. Oxlen caught her eye and gave her a secret, knowing nod. Huh. Maybe all Aeluons weren’t such prudes, after all.
As the Aeluon ship sailed off, Kizzy excused herself. She took a long shower, giving herself twenty-two minutes instead of the fifteen she demanded of everybody else. She figured she’d earned an extra seven minutes, and the filters could take it. Afterward, she went back to her room. Dr. Chef had left a mug of tea and a couple spring cakes waiting for her. She smiled, put on some comfies, and crawled into bed with her snacks. She wrote a letter to her dads, just to say she loved them. She ate her cakes. She drank her tea. She watched the stars go by. Without meaning to, she slept.
Received message
Encryption: 0
Translation: 0
From: Nib (path: 6273-384-89)
To: Rosemary Harper (path: 9874-457-28)
Subject: Re: Question about Toremi reference files
Hello Rosemary! Good to hear from you. We all enjoyed you staying with us, unplanned as it was.
And it’s no trouble at all! I’m always happy to answer archive questions (and recruit new volunteers…?). I know, the Toremi files are seriously lacking in details. I’m not part of that project, but I have a few friends who are, and they’re pulling their hair out. Everything Toremi related has been receiving an absurd amount of traffic lately, but the problem is, there’s just not enough verifiable data yet for us to approve much for public access.
However, if you promise to keep this to yourself, I did manage to dig up a few tidbits for you. Bear in mind, none of this has been verified to our standards yet, but it’s the best the Toremi team has got right now. Here’s what we know:
1. The Toremi are obsessed with patterns. Not geometric patterns. They believe that the whole universe follows some sort of elaborate path—or series of paths, maybe. Nobody’s quite sure which, far as I can tell. Their whole thing is that they’re trying to figure out the pattern and match their lives to it. Apparently, that’s why they’ve been circling the core since who-knows-when. The galaxy spins, so they should, too. That’s where the clans come in. Everybody’s got a different idea on how the patterns work, and they get pretty violent over it. And clans can change really fast when new ideas come in. They sound like a very compulsive sort of people. The only thing the clans obviously agree on is the whole circling-the-core-thing. Or they did, at least. Which brings us to…
2. You may have heard this by now, but I’m still so excited by it: generally speaking, the Toremi are a dual-sexed, sexually reproductive race. But a small number of them have started to go parthenogenetic. I know! But as fascinating as that is, it’s been a mess for the Toremi. Remember that whole pattern thing? Yeah, every clan has a different idea on what this new evolutionary path means. Some of them revere the “New Mothers,” and have elevated them to positions of power. Some do the opposite, subjugating or enslaving them. And some kill them. The Toremi Ka, our new allies, fall into the former group (thankfully).
3. The reason the Toremi have started scrambling for territory all of a sudden is because the emergence of the parthenogenetic females is the biggest change to their pattern in a very long time. They call it a yegse, a change which rules all. When a yegse takes place, the Toremi drop what they’re doing and take time to figure it out. For them, that means turning off their engines and grabbing some ground. This hasn’t happened in centuries. Maybe millennia.
4. Hedra Ka—or Hedra, which I’ll get to in a minute—is a very young planet in a relatively new star system. The reason the Toremi want it so bad is because it, too, is shifting around and changing. They think, as far as I can tell, that the universe wants them to go there. Not that it can be terraformed or even settled. It’s a hellhole, from what I’ve read. As for the name, “Hedra” is the name of the planet. “Ka” just marks which clan it belongs to.
That’s all we’ve got for now, but feel free to ask any other questions you’ve got. I’ll keep you posted if I find out anything else. I know the Toremi team will keep squeezing GC delegates for more info. Stingy bastards.
Fly safe,
Day 397, GC Standard 306
HATCH, FEATHER, HOUSE
Rosemary walked into the control room and looked out the window. Nothing but clear space, with one ringed planet, Theth, hanging fat in the middle. A scattering of moons floated nearby, just beyond the wreath of sandy rings. The Wayfarer was heading for the fifth moon on the left—Hashkath. Rosemary held up her hand and covered the Aandrisk homeworld with her thumb. Hard to believe that glistening green marble was larger than Mars. But then, space had a way of putting size into uncomfortable perspective. She looked to the pilot. “Is something wrong?”
Sissix’s hands darted quick over her navigation panel. “No, why?”
“Because you’re flying manually. When you do that this far out of orbit, that usually means something’s wrong.” Rocks. Gas clouds. Junk. Other ships. More rocks. There was no end to rocks in space.
“I’m flying home,” said Sissix. “That’s something I’ve got to do myself.”
Rosemary took a seat beside her. “Why?”
“When Aandrisks first took to space, we used these awful solar-sail pods. Really skittish, could only fit one person. Not for the claustrophobic.”
“Ours were the same. Not the sails, but still. Tiny.” She shuddered.
“You guys lucked out, though. There’s nothing floating around your planet except the stuff you put up there yourselves. Your flyers could just orbit ’round and ’round forever. Smooth sailing. But our moon’s got moons of its own, and it’s orbiting a ringed planet. That takes some very tricky maneuvering, especially when you’re talking about a little metal can with flimsy sails. And this was before artigrav made it our way, so you’re just floating there, hoping you touch ground again. Being able to say that you went all the way out here and got yourself safely back home—that made you a hero. It meant you were strong and skilled, that you’d worked hard to make sure your family didn’t lose you.”