Ashby waved the job feeds aside as Rosemary entered his office, carrying a small, thin package. “Whatcha got?”
“Something from the mail drone,” she said. “I would’ve called you down, but I thought it was just stuff for Corbin.” Her eyes twinkled as she handed the package over. He knew why. It was thin, and so light as to be empty. That meant paper.
“Thanks,” he said, smiling at the package.
“Anything good?” she asked, nodding to the feeds above his desk.
“A few things,” he said. “I see a few proposal letters in your future.”
“Just say when.”
“Actually, I do have something you can work on in the meantime.” He picked up his scrib, gesturing as he spoke. “I’m sending you the locations of the closest market stops. Can you do a little research, see what our retrofit supply options are in those systems?”
“Sure. What kind of tech are you looking for?”
“Well,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “I think it’s time we got a new bore, don’t you?”
Rosemary’s face lit up. “I take it you’re looking at level 2 jobs?”
Ashby met her eyes and smirked.
She grinned. “I’ll get on it right away.”
He scoffed congenially. “I didn’t mean right now. Don’t you and Sissix have stuff to do? I heard you’ve got an outing planned.”
“Well, yeah, but I’ve got some archiving to finish first.“
“You’ve always got archiving to finish.”
She gave him a look. “You’ve got a lot of messy archives.”
He laughed. “All right, fair enough. But the research can wait. Finish your thing, then go have fun.” He shooed her toward the door. “Captain’s orders.”
“Thanks, Ashby,” she said, turning to leave with a spring in her step.
Once the door spun shut, Ashby picked up the package. He swiped his wrist over the locking seal, and carefully extracted the envelope. He checked his hands to make sure they were clean. He moved his mug of tea to the far side of the desk. Slowly, slowly, he tore open the top edge, as Jenks had taught him how to do. He pulled out a single page.
This run ends in three tendays. I have six tendays off between then and my next job. I’m spending that time with you on the Wayfarer. Don’t argue. Forward me your latest flight plan. I’ll meet you wherever is best. I won’t say anything to my crew one way or the other, but they might piece it together. If they do, I’ll deal with it. I don’t care anymore. Not after a few days spent contemplating what my world was going to be like without you in it. I’m tired of wondering which one of us will get killed out here first. We both deserve better than that.
Stay safe until I get there.
“Kizzy?” Jenks walked down the corridor toward Kizzy’s workspace, holding a small package behind his back. “You down here?” He rounded the corner and stopped in his tracks. Kizzy was perched in one of the easy chairs beside the mek brewer, her legs tucked up like a monkey. A crate of colored yarn was thrown open alongside, fuzzy colored bundles strewn all over the floor. Her tongue was between her teeth as she focused on the knitting needles twisting between her fingers. On the floor, amid the yarn, all twelve fixbots stood watching her. Jenks knew they were awaiting commands, but their attentiveness and their chubby bodies made him think of ducklings, huddled around their mother.
He blinked at the object taking shape below the needles. “Are… are you making them hats?”
“Yeah,” she said, and pointed absently. “Alfonzo’s already got his.”
Jenks looked to the bot wearing a blue beanie with a yellow pom-pom. “Alfonzo?”
She sighed. “I know they’re not sentient models, but I never could’ve kept this ship up before Pepper got here without them. I feel bad for keeping them in a box for so long. So I’m making it up to them.”
“With names. And hats.”
“Some of those air ducts get really cold, okay.”
Jenks looked at his friend—his crazy, brilliant, one-in-a-million friend. “Can you put the hat down for a sec?”
She finished a loop and set down the half-finished hat. “What’s up?”
He brought the package forward. “Brought you a present.”
“A present!” The knitting flew out of her hands. “But… but why? It’s not my birthday.” She paused, considering. “It’s not my birthday, right?”
“Just open it, dusthead.”
Kizzy grinned and tore through a patch of foil. She threw back her head and squealed. “Shrimp spice!” she cried, peeling back the rest of the foil. The One and Only! the jar inside proclaimed. Devastatingly Hot!
“I thought maybe you could experiment with it. Put it on algae puffs or red coasters or whatever.”
“I’m going to put it on everything.” She unscrewed the lid, stuck out her tongue, and shook a generous shower into her mouth. Her eyes scrunched shut as she sucked her teeth in painful glee.
He gave a little laugh. “I wanted to get you something fancier, but…” He trailed off. His money situation wasn’t exactly luxurious these days.
“What? No, this is awesome. And why am I getting a present anyway?”
“Because you deserve it, and because I haven’t said thank you like I should.”
“For what?”
Jenks put his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor, hoping to find the right words there. “For… for everything. For talking to me every night since. For not leaving me alone even when I yelled at you. For coming after me in the shuttle. For—” He took a breath, trying to pull the words out of his chest. “For working with me every second, trying to bring her back.”
“Oh, buddy,” she said, her voice falling quiet. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat and plowed on. “I’m a mess right now. I don’t need to tell you that. But I think I’d be worse than I am if it wasn’t for you.” He frowned, thinking of all she’d done for him. She’d completely set herself aside for his sake in the tendays since the punch, and he was paying her back with seasoning? Stupid. “I’m not doing a good job of this. There’s so much I want to say to you. You’ve done so much more than I would expect from a friend, and I need you to know I don’t take that for granted.”
Her eyes softened. “You’re not my friend, dummy.”
He blinked. She’d lost him. “What?”
Kizzy exhaled and looked at the spice jar. She rubbed her thumb over the label. “When I was five, I asked my dads if I could have a brother. Our colony wasn’t doing so great then. Not that it’s great now. But it was rough when I was little. The council was trying to avoid a crash, and they’d stopped handing out family expansion permissions to folks that already had kids. My dads explained that if weren’t careful about how many people we added to the colony, we might not have enough food. Totally reasonable, but five year olds don’t give a shit about stuff like that. If you’ve never been hungry before, not like starving hungry, the possibility of running out of food doesn’t compute. The only thing I understood was that I couldn’t have a brother, which seemed super crazy unfair. They got me a puppy, though. That was cool. I got older, the colony got stronger, and by that time, I wasn’t bugging them for a brother anymore, and I guess they didn’t really want to go through the whole diapers and teething thing again. I was a happy kid, and I couldn’t ask for better parents. But I was still jealous of the kids who had siblings. I grew up, and then you came along.” She looked up at him, and smiled. “And for the first time ever, I didn’t want a brother anymore, because I finally had one. And there’s nothing better than brothers. Friends are great, but they come and go. Lovers are fun, but kind of stupid, too. They say stupid things to each other and they ignore all their friends because they’re too busy staring, and they get jealous, and they have fights over dumb shit like who did the dishes last or why they can’t fold their fucking socks, and maybe the sex gets bad, or maybe they stop finding each other interesting, and then somebody bangs someone else, and everyone cries, and they see each other years later, and that person you once shared everything with is a total stranger you don’t even want to be around because it’s awkward. But brothers. Brothers never go away. That’s for life. And I know married folks are supposed to be for life, too, but they’re not always. Brothers you can’t get rid of. They get who you are, and what you like, and they don’t care who you sleep with or what mistakes you make, because brothers aren’t mixed up in that part of your life. They see you at your worst, and they don’t care. And even when you fight, it doesn’t matter so much, because they still have to say hi to you on your birthday, and by then, everybody’s forgotten about it, and you have cake together.” She nodded. “So as much as I love my present, and as nice as it is to get a thank you, I don’t need either of ‘em. Nothing’s too much to ask when it comes to brothers.” She shot him a look. “Stars and buckets, Jenks, if you start crying, I will too, and I will never be able to stop.”