“DAD!”

“DAAAD!”

The two girls crashed into Urle, and he laughed, stumbling back slightly to cushion their impacts. He didn’t need to, but it was better for them not to ram into unmoving metal and carbon plates.

“Girls, I missed you so much!” he said, sweeping his arms to encompass both of them.

“Daad, you’re squishing me!” Persis squeaked.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, letting his grip relax a little. It was actually rather hard to make himself do it.

He didn’t want to let go.

The girls began to regale him excitedly about all the things they had done while separated from him; studies and drawings and anecdotes, interesting and mundane, and he listened intently, taking in every aspect of his children.

They had grown, he could tell. It had only been a few weeks, but they were both a millimeter or two taller.

He hated that he’d missed any of that time.

But they were back now, at least.

“. . . so that’s why I drew a big slug instead of a puffer slug, but Professor Browning said that maybe I should do my report on something with a spine so I asked him if it could be something with a nodochord, and he said yes so that’s why I chose a salp. I think he wanted me to pick something more like a mammal and not something squishy but- Elliot!”

Hannah dashed over to her friend, who was hanging back near the large doorway to the docking hangar.

Urle was glad to see her excited to see her friend, and Persis wiggled free from his grip, too, to go join them.

He decided to hang back, though, watching his girls chatter to the boy who seemed to be just as pleased to see them, though trying to hide it to some degree.

As he saw the children talking, he felt much of the tension that had been torturing him for the last few days start to evaporate. The nightmares might not come tonight, he hoped. He’d born them as well as one could bear the memory of dying, but a respite was certainly welcome.

They were all home, he told himself. They were all safe.

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Pirra rubbed her forehead and then signalled for Kessissiin to enter.

The Dessei walked in like he was on the parade ground, turning sharply once in front of her desk and snapping smartly to attention.

“At ease, officer,” she told him.

Kessissiin relaxed marginally. “What may I do for you, Commander?” he asked.

He was so damn eager, she thought, irritated by it even though it wasn’t really a bad thing.

“I have taken time to thoroughly look into your past accomplishments,” she told him, holding her tablet in front of her, as if looking at his file.

She had at least attempted what she had said. Her contacts back in the Dessei Republic had looked into Kessissiin . . . but it was difficult. She was known there for being the daughter of the great Solon Maara, but she did not want to make her investigations too obvious to her mother.

They would trickle back to her mother no matter what, but Pirra didn’t want it to be easy. But such caution meant that she had learned little.

Except that Kessissiin was just as he seemed; a very fine soldier.

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His record was, honestly, almost too good. A greater soldier could hardly be conjured in the imagination of a propagandist, and he had the perfect features to make him worthy of a recruitment ad.

It all seemed too good, but she couldn’t separate out her suspicion from her real instinct here, and there was no reason not to accept him.

“I hope my previous accomplishments meet your standards, Commander,” Kessissiin said. She could tell his pride in them by his stance, his crest.

“They speak volumes,” she said neutrally. “But I have a question.”

Surprise made his crest bob, but he regained his composure quickly. “What is that, Commander?”

“You are a temporary transfer officer, Kessissiin. In five months you will be rotated back to the Dessei Republic Fleet.”

He was silent a moment.

“Yes, that is right, Commander, my transfer is temporary,” he said.

“So how do you view your assignment here? A path in your career? An interesting experience?”

“Neither of those, Commander,” Kessissiin said sharply. “May I speak frankly, Commander?”

She dipped her crest, giving him permission.

“If I may be so presumptuous, Commander, I believe I understand your reluctance in appointing me to your team.”

“You do?” she asked coolly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said immediately.

There was an earnestness in his voice and his crest that gave her pause. “Go on,” she said.

“I admit that I was . . . unaware of the actions behind the scene that prompted my appointment. When I was first introduced to Councilor Tallei, I only viewed it as a great honor. Yet upon seeing you meet him, it was clear that you have a distrust of your brother’s motives – and therefore mine.”

He snapped to attention. “But I promise you, Commander, I have no goal in mind but to do my duty. To my ship, to its crew . . . and to my team. I am a Response Officer, and we do not play politics. We save lives.”

Pirra felt her heart race at his words, stirred by the strength behind him.

Skies above, she believed he meant them.

She took a deep breath, rising to her feet.

“I am pleased to hear that, Lieutenant,” she told him, extending a hand. “Welcome to Response Team One.”

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Apollonia collapsed onto her bed, letting out a breath.

She was so tensed up that relaxing was painful; muscles in her shoulders, back, and legs flared sharply as she let herself sink into the mattress.

It was pleasantly cool; it always seemed to be the right temperature, even when she was under the blankets. Probably some kind of smart cloth or some shit like that.

She wanted to just fall asleep, the last few hours having drained her of all strength.

She was too tired to even reflect upon all that had just happened. It kept playing, but she wanted to ignore it.

She’d seen a criminal nearly kill two Response Officers, killed a man herself with her goddamn mind.

She had read people’s minds.

She’d always wondered why the Union called her kind ‘Cerebral Readers’, but there were so few of them that it was a poorly-understood phenomenon, and she hadn’t really wanted to read the reports that did exist. The idea seemed rather creepy.

Before all of that had even happened she had exercised her damn guts out, to boot.

Oh, and she’d read minds.

The sheer idea of it was staggering, and she had never had an experience like it before. She’d been trying to think if there had been a time she had felt something similar, but was coming up with a blank.

Maybe she was just too tired.

She didn’t feel sick or anything anymore, not unnaturally drained of life. Just tired.

Tomorrow she would just stay in and do nothing. Surely Kiseleva would understand that . . .

Her eyes closed and she began to drift towards sleep – but jolted awake.

Oh, yeah, she still had other things to do.

Responsible things like changing out of her sweaty clothes, putting her laundry in the cleaner . . . eating . . . taking a shower.

All of that seemed like too much.

“Computer, do I have any messages?” she asked.

Zeela Cann had told her she should check them, and it seemed the easiest sort of thing she could reasonably do.

Slowly pulling herself upright, she started to undress, kicking off her pants and debating if she wanted to just take the nearest outfit or go get the most comfortable.

“You have twenty-seven unread messages,” the computer said.

“Wait, how many?”

She hadn’t had any when she’d left this morning, and at most she was expecting one or two, from the ship’s newsletter or something.

“Who are my messages from?” she asked, dragging on the nearest suit.

“One from the ship newsletter. Two are maintenance updates. One is your daily caloric count – Dr. Y recommends you increase your healthy calorie intake, rather than your chocolate intake-“

“What about the rest?” she asked, interrupting.

“The remaining letters are from individual senders, via care of the Abmon Diplomatic Bureau.”

Her heart beat faster.

They were replies? To her letter?

She got up, sealing her suit and double-checking it as all good spacers should, and went to the computer terminal.

Yes, twenty-three responses there, from Golgutt. All Abmon . . .

The first was from He That Crushes The Pebbles, the next from The One Who Walks Swiftly, another from She Who Eats The Clouds.

She glanced at one, then the next.

They were all family or friends to He That Squats on Yellow Sand. Ones who knew him and ones who didn’t, all of them with the same theme.

Thanking her for her letter, for one last chance to know one last memory of Squats on Sand.

Apollonia put her hand over her mouth, for the first time today feeling the tears begin to come.

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FINIS