“I do not know that it will help, but yes, I will take the afternoon off.” Carbon gave him a dry look as she returned from the Tsla’o-made dispenser that had been welded into the corner of the mess, a drink tube of tea in her hand. “But only this afternoon. There is still much to be done with the engines.”
“Fine, fine. We will go to work on them tomorrow.” He folded his arms on the table, his own half-finished beverage floating exactly where he’d left it over the stack of tablets he’d commandeered to plot the waveride that would get them out of system. He’d finish that tonight. The slingshot around the local star was the hard part, and he was sure it was almost dialed in. The rest of the ride was a straight shot and all he had to do was draw a line for that.
Carbon had made tea, and sitting across from Alex at the table in the mess she sipped it and studied him. “You look like you have questions. Am I interpreting your expression correctly?”
“You’re right again.” Alex took a pull from his tube of coffee flavored caffeine and sugar, long since cold. “I feel like they’d be invasive, though.”
“I will tell you if they are too invasive.” She shrugged.
Had she always shrugged? Did Tsla’o shrug, or had she picked it up from him? He shuffled those questions to the bottom of the pile. “All right, so according to the primer - and I understand it might not be accurate - you guys have to grieve your dead, right? It says it’s basically a requirement.”
“It is... Not as simple?” She paused, sipping on her tea as she compiled her thoughts. “That may have been slipped in when one of the Imperials died. I believe three have expired since our races met, and there would be a required state holiday for that. A full shutdown for the day would be expected. On an individual level, it is probably wise to do so, but not some sort of requirement.”
“And you said you hadn’t done that.”
Carbon took a minute this time, staring into the dark amber liquid in her drink tube. “Correct. I would like to. I suspect I do not have the time necessary to do so.”
His eyebrows went up. “How much time do you need?”
She rotated the bottle in her hand, a single claw flexed out of the dark fur of her fingertip scoring a line in the thin plastic. “I have lost many, and I have suppressed those feelings for years now. Even just speaking about it makes me feel my grip on them is tenuous. I do not know how long releasing that hold will affect me.”
He held up a finger, putting it all together. “Ah, and now would not be the best time to find out it puts you off your game for a week or two. Or longer.”
“Precisely.” She went back to her tea, staring through the wall as she took a drink. “I would appreciate it if we set that topic aside for now. Anything else on your mind?”
“Say no more.” He had other questions, lightweight stuff that he should have lead with, not skipping directly to the darkest thing he could probably ask. Change of plan. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about? Anything you want to ask me? I feel like I’ve just been prying and I don’t know if that’s putting us on weird footing for you.”
“You have, and it does. It is very Human of you.” She laughed, a wry smile on her muzzle as she leaned back from the table, foot hooked into the bar under the bench to keep from floating away. “Tell me about yourself. I question everything I’ve been told about you now, and I would very much prefer not to do that.”
“Fair. All right, so I was born and raised in the Berkley Arcology, Deck 5. My parents still live there, but my brother did move to San Francisco South after he got married.” Alex petered off as he noticed her staring at him, utterly confused. “Yeah?”
The gears spun behind electric blue eyes, as she picked out what thing she wanted clarification on first. “Arcology?”
“It’s a portmanteau of architecture and ecology. A big building to reduce ecological impact?” Certainly the Tsla’o had those. He knew they had space stations. “Fun fact, my brother actually works with a company that designs them.”
“Ah, a ladan. Portmanteau - which one of your languages is that?”
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“French, originally.”
“Interesting. By the way, your file said you were an only child. Please, continue.”
“Everyone is going to be so glad to know that Pete has been removed from history.” Alex rolled his eyes, “Went to school in the Deck 5 district, got my provisional atmospherics license when I was 14-”
“Is that young?” She asked, leaning in and resting her elbows on the table.
“Yeah, pretty young for that. Most people don’t even get an atmospheric license, just use the trains or aircabs. Mom said that I picked spaceships as my favorite thing when I was about five, and never grew out of it - you have to get an atmospheric license before you can get a sub-light license, and you need that to get an interstellar license. At least in Sol. I understand some of the outlying colonies have less rigorous demands.”
“I hope they do not. The destruction a ship at superluminal speeds could cause would be horrific.” She bristled at the intimation that Humans would let someone untrained just use a waverider drive when and wherever they felt like, the large triangular ears she kept folded down against her head lifting slightly.
“Easy. All colonies are on the Superlight beacon network, so jumps would be handed off to an automated astrogation system overseen by traffic control. Most commercial ships are not equipped for rides like a military ship or the Kshlav’o is.” He paused, finishing off the dregs of his drink, surprised to find that the dispenser printed that bitter silt that he always found in the bottom of a cup of espresso. “Ships with ‘free’ drives are very tightly controlled.”
“That is very similar to the system we use.”
Alex tossed the empty into the recycler, “it’s a good idea, nobody wants a surprise at that speed. Anyway, went to college on Mars, joined the Civilian Pilot Program after I graduated, got bounced from the Civilian Pilot Program because my screens weren’t perfect, bummed around Europe for a month, went back to college, then got called up for this gig.” He held a hand out towards her, “and you were here for the rest of it.”
“Why did they ‘bounce’ you the first time? You said an aptitude score was too low? Your skills as a pilot have been nothing short of extraordinary.” She seemed legitimately confused by this. “Even as a shipmate, you have conducted yourself with tact that I did not expect.”
Alex leaned back and let out a long sigh through his teeth. Carbon could have asked about anything else in his personal history and he’d have preferred to talk about it in as grave a detail as she would like, instead of this one incident. But. She had just poured her heart out to him, and this felt insignificant compared to her problems. “One of my screens was a single percentage point out of their preferred range and that prevented me from progressing to the next stage of training.”
“What were they testing you for?” She asked, quite earnestly.
“They found that I am just slightly - again, by their own words, a single percentage point - too likely to take risks.” He had learned very quickly after being rejected by the program to not just blurt out that he had failed a psychological evaluation. Nobody kept listening after that. “Not that it stopped them from bringing me back.”
Carbon sat silent for a moment and continued twisting the beverage tube in her hand, restarting the line she had already scored in the surface. “I appreciate the risks you have taken.”
He gave a nervous little laugh and rubbed the back of his head. “Hey, you’re welcome.”
“Except the one that almost got you killed, I did not care for that one.” She looked up at him with a soft laugh and a smile that even made it to her eyes.
“Yeah well, I’m hard to get rid of apparently.”
“Alex, would you-” she stopped and her eyes fell to his hands resting on the little table. “No, nevermind.”
“What is it?”
She pushed herself up onto her elbows and rubbed her fingertips together nervously before taking a deep breath, apparently steeling herself for rejection. “Would you be my partner - would you link with me?”
She had mentioned this in passing when he was still stuck on the mediboard. Something to do with the emotional well being, which they both could use right now. “After all you’ve done for me? Yeah, of course.”
Carbon started to speak, stopped and snapped her mouth closed. Her head cocked to the side, “really?”
“Yes. I just told you I got fired because I’m too likely to take a risk, this shouldn’t be a surprise.” He held up a finger, “hang on. Is there something you’re not telling me about this I should be concerned about?”
“No, I had just thought...” She looked at the table, introspective for a moment. “I did not think clearly.”
“That happens to everybody.” Alex waved a hand dismissively, pleasantly surprised at this turn of events. Part of it may have been his natural urge to learn about others, but there was some other happy feeling hiding in there he couldn’t identify yet. “Nothing to worry about.”
She smiled, reached across the table and clasped his hands in hers delicately. The skin of her palms and fingers hot against his. “I feel like all I have done lately is thank you, Alex.”