Flew the Coop

[Sarah McFarlen]

"Sure. C'mon." The words were half-buried under a snort of amusement, half swallowed by a smile she couldn't quite ward off. It was amazing; how easy it was to talk. How welcome it was, to have someone to talk to. They proceeded through the slow-waking halls, dull blue yielding to amber, conversation an eager hopscotch of history and hopes.

He had faded from the military after the war sputtered to its inglorious conclusion. Had taken odd jobs wherever he could find them and, in between the new demands of a life decoupled from the service, had spent his share of Charon's riches on the sorts of things that needed new warning labels invented for their users and new branches of medicine invented for their recipients. She did not ask after the purposes to which they had been bent. It was a familiar well in their conversation, and avoiding it now was as comfortable a part of their acquaintance as his shadow at her shoulder. Part of their friendship had always been a mutual agreement to silence and she found that she slipped back into the tradition like an old coat. There were some scars at which one did not pick.

So they talked of happier things.

She had spent her share on several prolonged stints out of Curacao, secure in the golden embrace of a Spa and Cruise liner, watching the aurora dance over Iridescencia. Had kept her hand in, more out of interest than obligation, with the motley collection of pop-up shipwrights and repair shops that came and went on the Barrier with all the regularity of the seasons. Had tried; despite all natural talent working in defiance of it, to learn to draw and had enjoyed enough success to have a sketch of a flowerpot displayed in the corner of a marketplace cafe for six months before the cafe's creditors rolled in and a hypnotainment den rose in its place. Had made dozens of acquaintances but very few real friends. The churn of liner passengers and freelance pilots that moved in her circles did not produce opportunities for intimacy. She had liked it. Had enjoyed; initially, the chance to be no-one again.

"But, you know. It was hardly the Galley." Less gut-wrenching terror, for one. Less wonder, too. She'd found herself missing the latter more than she feared the former, ever since Gate administration found an empty account where they'd expected a lease payment. "Sold up the ship shares I still had to make things right for a while. Leslie was leasing her as a cargo-runner to some Freelancers out in the Taus and bought them back up. Think she was happy to have the ship all her own again. I offered her a place back here as well, but -"

But she was happily retired. Happily living off the proceeds of several neatly-managed freighters. Had been, for all her talk, thoroughly, ruthlessly practical in her stewardship of the haul of a lifetime, rather than splurging on indulgence and ignorance. She had been delighted to point this all out in a way that would have chafed coming from anyone else but, from her, had left Sarah feeling about two decades younger and a good deal shorter. "She politely declined. Said to give you her best though."

The corridors unwound, elevators and cheerfully mislabeled wings.

"Here's us." Her quarters - She still thought of them as her quarters - Were something extravagant, something ethereal. All the luxury that untraceable currency and a willingness to spend it could provide. Manhattan-signature art-deco made haphazard by the mover's crates clustered in the corners, scarred by the outlines on the walls where screens had hung, rectangles of discolouration on the crisp white frozen like the shadows of an atomic blast. The skylight stretched across the entirety of the roof; the spiralling haze of the Barrier close in a way that had, the first night she had spent here, set vacuum sirens rasping in the back of her skull. There was still a fridge; still a too-large couch that she'd folded out for the first time in years as soon as James had said yes. She'd dressed it with sheets that had still been fresh in the plastic. She introduced him to both.

"It's a little sparse, but -" She let it hang. I hope you like it, still. "-It's just for a few days, until we get things cleared up on the ship."

She surprised herself, at how easily the we slipped from her lips. Sarah retreated to the kitchen bench with the styrofoam case, left James space to tend the contents of his bag with at least the pretence of privacy. She retrieved a pair of bowls, the ceramic all but weightless in the apartment's dialled-down gravity and upended still-steaming boxes into them. The presentation did not, at least, worsen whatever meagre virtues the noodles had possessed.

She ferried both bowls and chopsticks, perched herself on the edge of the fold-out; legs folded under her. "Sorry. Table got taken before I got back and got the account sorted."

It had hardly seemed worth the effort to arrange a replacement. She'd been taking most of her meals on Windward, ever since she'd settled with the wreckers to haul the ship back to life. Had hardly subscribed to station-standard hours since, much less station-standard dining.

"Wanted to get your take on it, actually." She said, finally. There were a hundred other, more important questions burning at her; but there were uncomfortable warnings flashing up whenever she turned her attention on them. She'd dared far enough, hadn't she? Luck had treated her too kindly to push too far. "Where we go, next. Border Worlds was the notion, but - Who, what - I'm still puzzling out."

---

"This is really sort of a personal project of mine."

- James Arland, on single-handedly engaging an enemy regiment.

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