Farweh … maba. Other maba went and never came back.
Shh, chota kin, NuTay stroked a tear away from Satlyt’s cheek. You didn’t know Farweh, though they are your other maba. I gave them all the tears you can want to honour them. No more.
But you liked Farweh, maba. You grew up with them.
NuTay smiled, almost laughing at the child’s sweetness. They held Satlyt before their little face crumpled, letting them cry just a little bit for Farweh, gone to NuTay forever, dead or alive behind the black window of existence.
Many years later, NuTay’s kin Satlyt proved themself the kin of Farweh, too, in an echo of old time. They came droning across the plains from the dromes, headlights cutting across the dust while NuTay sipped chai with the other shanty wallahs in the middle of the hawkers’ cluster. The starship was gone, out on some other world, so business was slow that evening.
Satlyt thundered onto the dust road in the centre of the shantytown, screeching to a halt, their djeens clearly fired up and steaming from the mouth in the chilly air.
Your kin is huffing, one of the old hawkers grinned with their gums. Best go see to them.
So NuTay took Satlyt indoors to the shack, and asked what was wrong.
Listen, NuTay. Maba. I’ve seen you, year after year, looking at the wayfarers’ pictures of Earth. You pretend when I’m around, but I can see that you want to go there. Go after Farweh.
Go after Farweh? What are you on about, we don’t even know whether they went to Earth, or if they’re alive, or rotting in some jail on some remote world in the galaxy.
Not for real go after, I mean go, after. Story-type, nah?
Feri tail?
Exact. I know next time the starship comes, it will go to Earth. Know this for fact. I have good tips from the temp staff at the dromes.
What did you barter for this?
Some black market subsidiary exotech from last starship crew, changing hands down at the dromes. Bartered some that came to my hands, bartered some shine, some tactile, what’s it matter?
Tactile, keh!
Please, maba. I use protection. You think wayfarers fuck dunysha without protection? They don’t want our djeens whispering to theirs, they just want our bodies exotic.
What have you done, chota kin?
Don’t worry, maba. I wouldn’t barter tactile if I wasn’t okay with it. But listen. I did good barter, better than just info. Spacesuit, full function. High compressed oxy capacity. Full-on nine hours. Starship blinks in and out of black bubble, max twenty hours depending on size. The one in our port— medium size, probably ten hours. Plus, camo-field, to blend into the side of the ship. We’ll make it. Like Farweh did.
How do you know so much? Where do you get all this tech?
Same way you did, maba. Over years. There are people in the dromes, Satlyt said in excitement. They know things. I talk. I give tactile. I learn. I learn there are worlds, like you did. This? You know this isn’t a world. Ghost planet. Fuel station. Port. You know this, we all know this. Farweh had the right idea.
NuTay shook their head. This was it. It was happening again. From the fire of the djeens raging hot in Satlyt’s high cheekbones they knew, there was no saying no. Like they’d lost Farweh to time and existence, they would lose Satlyt too. NuTay knew there was no holding Satlyt by the arm to try and stop them, like before—they were too weak for that now.
Even if NuTay had been strong enough, they would never do that again.
It was as if Farweh had disappeared into that black bubble, and caused a ripple of time to lap across the port in a slow wave that had just arrived. An echo in time. The same request, from kin.
What do you say, maba? asked Satlyt, eyes wide like when they were little.
We might die, chota kin.
Then we do. Better than staying here to see your eyes go dead.
Even filtered breathing, the helmet and the suit was hot, so unlike the biting cold air of the planet. NuTay felt like they might shit the suit, but what could one do. There was a diaper inside with bio-absorbent disinfectant padding, or so the wayfarer had said.
They had scaled the starship at night, using a service drone operated by the green-eyed wayfarer who had made the deal with Satlyt, though they had other allies, clearly. Looking at those green Earth-born eyes, and listening to their strange accent but even stranger affection for Satlyt, NuTay realized there might be more here than mere barter greed. This wayfarer felt bad for them, wanted to help, which made NuTay feel a bit sick as they clambered into the spacesuit. But the wayfarer also felt something else for Satlyt, who seemed unmoved by this affection, their jaw set tight and face braced to meet the future that was hurtling towards them.
“There’ll be zero-g in the sphere once the starship phases into it. Theoretically, if the spacesuits work, you should be fine, there’s nothing but vacuum inside the membrane—the edges of the sphere. If your mag-tethers snap, you’ll float out towards those edges, which you absolutely do not want. Being inside the bubble is safe in a suit, but if you float out to the edge and touch it, there’s no telling what will happen to you. We don’t know. You might see the entirety of the universe in one go before dying, but you will die, or no longer be alive in the way we know. Understand? Do not jerk around with the tethers—hold on to each other. Hold on to each other like the kin
