Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Five, Part One

 Notes: We've made it to Trakta! It's all downhill from here, right? Mmm...maybe not.

Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Five, Part One

***

Chapter Twenty-Five, Part One

 

By the time they got to Trakta, Kieron and Lizzie had progressed to the point where they spoke for hours every day, sharing stories and facts—she loved facts, loved being able to know things for sure—and playing little games to pass the time. Kieron still got time to himself whenever Catie or Elanus reached out, which he knew he needed, but the novelty of being someone that another person was relying on still hadn’t worn off. He loved Catie, but she would always first and foremost be her father’s child. Lizzie had more of an independent streak, and while she adored Elanus, she was also less inclined to refer to him as “Daddy” or “Father” or any other diminutive. With Kieron, though…

“Kee?”

“Yes, sweetheart?” he asked as he began to go through the stream of navigation guidelines for landing Lizzie on Trakta.

“Do you have to go?”

“What do you mean?”

There was a pause. “Do you have to leave me?” Lizzie finally asked, her voice small. “I don’t want to be alone in the hangar.”

“Oh.” Well, that was… “Um. I have to go somewhere that you can’t precisely fit, but you’re welcome to keep an open line to my implant. That way you can see what I see.”

“I waaaant toooooo!”

Kieron chuckled. “Only one other mind in my head at a time, please. Otherwise I won’t be able to think straight.”

“I asked first,” Lizzie said a bit petulantly.

“Iiiii’m oldeeeerrrr!”

“First come, first served,” Kieron said firmly, and Catie made a whining noise. “If I’m here more than a day, you two can trade off, all right?”

“Wait, you’re only going to stay for a day?” This was Elanus’s voice cutting in now. Kieron felt on the verge of being overwhelmed. He hadn’t talked to all three of them at the same time since leaving Cloverleaf Station. “Seriously? After all that travel, after all that work, you’re just going to hand the hand over and fly?”

“If I’m lucky,” Kieron muttered as Lizzie entered the atmosphere above the smaller second continent of the planet. Elanus, for once, didn’t push him. Kieron was grateful for that.

Trakta was a developed planet, with thousands of cities, but the second continent was comparatively much more rural than the larger primary one. Lizzie followed the flight path that would lead them to the northernmost city, Nephra.

Landing was easy—Lizzie handled it so smoothly Kieron didn’t even think about intervening in any step. Once they’d finally put down in a commercial landing space, though, she asked a bit timidly, “Was that good?”

Kieron smiled and patted her console. “It was perfect. You can follow along on my implant and watch, okay? Remember how we practiced?” Slowly, a soft green light came into focus in the bottom right corner of his vision. “Can you see all right?”

“Yes. Thank you. I can’t wait to see a whole new planet!”

“Or at least part of one,” Kieron amended. His implant was beeping insistently with an incoming communication from the port authority. “Hang on, Lizzie.” He switched his focus. “This is Kieron Carr.”

“Mr. Carr, this is Commander Xelo with Nephra Port North. We’re detecting unusual levels of radiation from your ship.”

“We came here straight from the Cloverleaf Quasar,” Kieron replied. “That’s probably why.”

“Our projections indicate that more of that radiation should have dissipated before your arrival here.”

Lizzie’s hull is an older version of Catie’s radiation shielding. It must be more absorptive. In the background, he could hear Elanus swearing softly over the ship speaker. “I’ll have to perform some diagnostic tests to figure out the issue. Is this going to preclude us from keeping our berth?”

“No,” the voice on the other end of the message said reluctantly, “the levels aren’t quite that high. But we’ll have to keep other ships a farther minimum safe distance from yours. You’ll incur as much as twice the original docking fee.”

“Do it,” Elanus urged him almost silently.

“That’s fine,” Kieron said. “Anything else?”

“If the interior of your ship is poorly shielded, your person may have incurred serious radiation damage on your way here.”

That was possible, but Regen could fix a hell of a lot of radiation damage. Ask me how I know. “I presume you have Regen tanks. If it’s a matter of cost, I can—”

“Regen is for citizen use only.”

Kieron was surprised. “Why is that?” he asked. “Regen gel is a readily available resource, and Federation law states that—”

“Regen is for citizen use only,” the commander reiterated firmly. “If you become sick, you’ll have to return to your ship or leave the planet altogether. Any attempt to circumvent this will be met with force. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” Kieron said quietly.

“Good. You may debark.” The communication ended. A light on the console blinked, informing Kieron that a holo call from Elanus was waiting for him.

Holo calls from this distance took an obscene amount of power. It had to be something serious.

He accepted the call. It was the first time he’d seen Elanus in three weeks, and he looked a bit wild around the edges, the crisp lines of his beard beginning to blur, his hair standing up like he’d been running his fingers through it.

He was gorgeous. Kieron had to clear his throat. “Hi.”

“Trakta is being kicked out of the Federation.”

Kieron closed his eyes for a moment to help get his brain back online. “There hasn’t been any news of that,” he finally said.

“They’re doing their damndest to make sure there isn’t news about it. The Federation severed diplomatic ties last month, and they’ll be pulling out their military assistance and major investments soon. The banking system is on the verge of collapse. Trade is going to be hugely impacted. There will be repercussions felt from this for decades.”

“Why, though?”

“Inclusiveness versus fundamentalism,” Elanus said tiredly. “Trakta’s parliament is passing laws that explicitly go against the Federation charter. They did it knowing they were going to get slapped, and have layers and layers of failsafes in place to make sure word gets out slowly and the panic can be minimized. Their efforts aren’t going to work for much longer, though. They’re running out of Regen and they can’t synthesize it themselves.”

Ah. All of a sudden the worries over radiation and the fee gouging made more sense. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” There went Elanus’s hand through his hair. “Kieron, they can’t know about Lizzie. If they realize they have a novel, cutting-edge technological wonder in their docking bay, they’ll never let you go. They’ll impound her and ransom her, if I’m lucky, or take her apart in an effort to find out how to make more of her. That’s nothing to say of what they could do to you, which—they’re exiling their own people to other planets, I can’t imagine they’d be too fussed over stealing your things and kicking you onto a transport, or just shooting you through the head and being done with it. I can’t—you have to—”

“Elanus.” Kieron smiled at his…him. “I’ll make sure Lizzie and I are all right.”

“It’s bad there.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“It could get worse.”

“I’ve had way worse,” he reminded Elanus, and that got a smile.

“Please be safe,” Elanus said at last. “And head for Gania as soon as you can.”

“We will.” It was going to be all right. The situation was worrying, but he and Lizzie would get through it. No one was going to keep the four of them apart.

No one.

Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Four, Part Two

 Notes: Let's have a conversation with Lizzie, shall we?

Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Four, Part Two

***

Chapter Twenty-Four, Part Two

 

Plotting the course to Trakta was straightforward. Three weeks of gentle flying—gentle for Lizzie or Catie, but a pace that would have pushed the Daring Do to the breaking point—and Kieron would be there. He planned to stay no more than a few weeks, preferably just a few days, before heading on to Gania. And then…

He didn’t know. He didn’t know what came next. He didn’t know what to do with his future, where to use his skills, what to dedicate his life to. He had hopes, certainly, but he just didn’t know anything for sure. It was hard, this limbo state, but to be fair, he’d been here before. And he wasn’t a boy of twelve this time, so that counted for a lot.

He decided to focus inward, to pay closer attention to what was going on around him. For the first few days of travel, it was almost like they’d never left Cloverleaf Station. Catie talked to them non-stop, spending copious amounts of time chatting with her sister, and Elanus was on the com almost as frequently. It was only after Elanus’s energy finally ran out and he had to either go to bed or start hallucinating that things became quiet. It was actually a little disconcerting.

Remember where you are. You’re inside a being, an intelligent life form. She can talk with you. Reach out to her. It wasn’t in Kieron’s nature to reach out first, but with Elanus and Catie he’d never had to. Perhaps Lizzie required a different touch.

“Lizzie?”

There was a pause, and then—“Yes, Kieron?”

It was a little bittersweet, hearing a voice so similar to Catie’s and yet so different. She didn’t drawl in the same way, didn’t elongate her vowels in that babyish fashion that was so endearing, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t, well. Still a baby. And you had to be careful with babies. “How are you feeling lately?” Kieron asked gently. “I feel like we haven’t spoken much since we began our trip.”

“We haven’t. I’ve spent twenty-nine-point-two standard hours in conversation with my sister and seventeen-point-five hours in conversation with my father, but only two-point-one hours with you.”

Wow. So little? Kieron opened his mouth to reiterate his question, but Lizzie beat him to it. “I feel sad. I don’t think you like me as much as you like them.”

What? “I do like you,” Kieron insisted. “I like you so much, Lizzie.”

“But you don’t speak to me as often as you spoke to either of them. And they speak to me far more often than you do. I have been led to understand that willingness to engage in conversation is a sign of affection, and you don’t want to talk to me.”

Wow. Two days into this and he was already fucking it up. “I do want to talk to you,” Kieron said firmly, trying to put the weight of his confidence into his words. “I really do. But I’m not as naturally conversational as either Elanus or Catie, and without them to remind me, speaking doesn’t come easily to me.”

“Why not?” Lizzie sounded confused. “I thought humans were a verbal species, that speech is a common trait used for communication among you.”

“Not all humans are created the same way,” Kieron said. “There’s a great deal of biological diversity among us, and then you put genetic engineering in on top of that and in some places, people have entirely given up speaking to each other like this.”

“Like where?”

Oh boy… “Like…the Sisters of Garavar,” Kieron offered after racking his brain for a moment.

“But they are a religious order. Is not religion one of the areas of human interest where speaking among yourselves diminishes the effectiveness of speaking to whatever deity is being addressed?”

“That’s true,” Kieron allowed. “But the Sisters of Garavar take it much farther than any other religious sect. They actually remove their own vocal chords so that they can’t speak. And there are other examples…” What was the one his mother had help up as a great example? Oh, right. “The Trixian space marine corps is one of them. These were soldiers made in biolabs, genetically engineered to grow to full size in a matter of three years and trained from birth to have no curiosity, no personality, to be nothing but living weapons. The people who made them wanted clones, in essence, not individuals who wanted conversations.”

“But that was not the choice of the space marines.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Kieron agreed. “No one can choose the circumstances they’re born into. I was born into a world where children who spoke out of turn were punished harshly, and I learned early on to just…not ask questions. Some people are naturally shy, too—I might have been, but I’ll never know for sure if my reticence to speak is the result of shyness or the rules of my home world.”

“Oh.” There was a moment of silence. “So you do like me, but you don’t like to talk?”

“I like to talk, I just need a reminder sometimes to do it,” Kieron replied. “And yes, I like you very much. I think you’re…” Wondrous. Terrifying. Incredible. “Just as special as your sister is, and I want to get to know you better. What’s your favorite thing about space travel so far?”

“Space!”

There, there was a hint of the childlike wonder that Catie gave off with every word. Kieron chuckled. “That’s great, but what about it specifically?”

“I like…the distance. So big. I can reach out with my sensors for thousands and thousands of kilometers and not find anything else. In the station, everything was so…close.”

“It really was,” Kieron agreed. “What else do you like?”

“I like to ride the gravity waves.” Lizzie sounded a bit dreamy. “They are so strong this close to the Cloverleaf quasar. They feel like a…like…I don’t know. Tingly. Pushing. Soft.”

“Wow.” Kieron stroked his hand over the console, and a little trickle of light followed the path of his fingers. “That sounds really neat.”

“It is. I like it so much.”

“What else?”

“I like looking up names for things. Humans have names for everything! If one language doesn’t know, then another language does. And more than things, they have names for feelings!” There was a harmonic hum. “I want to feel them all.”

“Some feelings are easier to handle than others,” Kieron said. “But I can see the appeal of trying lots of different things like that.”

“What is your favorite feeling?”

“My favorite?” That was a good question. His absolute favorite feeling was the heady, sensual buzz he got with Elanus—so far removed from his usual state of being that the novelty of it still fell all-powerful. But that wasn’t really one for sharing with a child. “I like the feeling of belonging,” he said at last. “Of being part of a community that values me. That’s what being with you and Catie and Elanus gives me, and I appreciate it more than I can tell you.”

“Belonging,” Lizzie said. “Yes. That’s a good one.”

“What about you?” Kieron asked, preferring to speak about anyone but himself. “What’s your favorite feeling right now?”

“I think it’s…surprise.”

He smiled. “Surprise? What’s surprised you lately?”

“You have. I’m so happy you like me.”

Ouch. His heart…it was going to explode. “I’m so lucky to have you with me,” he said after taking a moment to get himself under control. “To talk to and discover new things with. Thank you, sweetheart.”

“Thank you, Kieron.”

Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Four, Part one

 Notes: Time to take the new baby for a spin! A few goodbyes--we're moving into the final phase of the story.

Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Four, Part One

***

Chapter Twenty-Four, Part One

 

Kieron left the station before anyone arrived for the next season’s work—even before the new operator came in. He could have stayed longer, could have made his goodbyes more properly to those who’d worked with him for years now, could have explained how things actually worked here far better than Elanus would to his successor, but…

The truth was, he hated goodbyes. He was terrible at them, as evidenced by the fact that he’d made Zak’s entire family cry when they left them on Trakta the first time. He was abysmal at comforting people, awful at telling them what they meant to him, deplorable when it came to promises and fond thoughts about the future.

After all, who could know the future? How could he say he was going to see someone again soon when he didn’t actually have any clue whether or not that was true? He could wish it, sure, but when had wishing done anybody any good? No, the more goodbyes and “fond” farewells he could avoid, the better it would be for everyone. Bad enough he had to go through it with Elanus and Catie.

Catie, at least, was straightforward. They weren’t really saying goodbye, after all—she was still modulating her sister’s AI as it came online, and so she would have a presence on the Lizzie for the foreseeable future, even if she wasn’t doing a lot of talking. Talking took power, and power was something they were still working to upgrade on the Lizzie. Elanus had promised a whole slew of improvements for her as soon as they got to Gania— “Starting with the audio system, because don’t think I don’t notice the way you wince every time her voice goes into the upper registers, it’s not her fault, these speakers are shrill”—but until then, she would mostly be a silent partner. The thought of having her with him, though, able to communicate through the Lizzie or even directly into Kieron’s implant, was comforting.

Leaving Elanus wasn’t comforting. Not in any way. It was truly disconcerting for Kieron to look at this tall, lanky, handsome, ridiculous man and feel his throat begin to close up, and his heart ache in his chest like his sternum had just been wrenched open. Catie was…he loved her, but she was a being whose presence went far beyond her corporeal form. She could project herself across lightyears, could send her voice through new and different mediums, could reach out from anywhere in the galaxy and she would still feel like herself, because her sense of presence came from the things she said and did, not the sight of her shell or the warmth of her embrace. Whereas Elanus…

Hugs. Kieron would miss hugs. He would miss the simple side-along hug that he got when Elanus was working with one hand but still wanted to touch him with the other, he would miss the shoulder-clasp-to-arm-slide embrace that always ended with a kiss, he would miss the double-armed squeeze that preceded and followed tough conversations. He would miss that.

And kisses. And…the sex. Yeah, it seemed obvious, but Kieron had never craved these things before. He’d hardly even given them a thought, and without Elanus around to remind him of what desire looked and felt like, he couldn’t imagine craving them with anyone else. His heart was already full. The feeling he got when they were together, when they were intimate, was like nothing he’d ever experienced. Kieron already dreaded the thought of going for months without that.

And listening to him talk. Which was sort of ridiculous, because the man never shut up and Kieron loved silence. You would thing that the two things would be incompatible, but it turned out that his love of silence only applied to people who weren’t Elanus or Catie. A quiet Elanus was a bothered, a sick, a sad, a dangerous Elanus. When he was talking non-stop, it was because he was relaxed and happy. Elanus’s happiness, as saccharine as it seemed, made Kieron happy.

At least Kieron had the Lizzie. No, just “Lizzie” now. Elanus had brough her AI into function earlier in the week, so that he’d have some time to work out her bugs before sending her off under his sister’s more distant care.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you to be an excellent pilot for her, of course I do,” he said as he paced around while they both watched her neural network morph and change as the new programming took. “I know you’ll be great for her, there’s no question, it’s just this is a very fragile time for a baby and you’ve got to be able to help out when things go wrong and we’ve already beta-tested this with Catie and I know she can help her sister out of any jams she gets into, but Catie’s still practically a baby herself and I just—”

“Daddeeee, I’m not a babeeee!”

Kieron had set his hand on Elanus’s arm, pulling him to a stop. “I get it,” he said as he drew him in for a hug—another hug, so many hugs, when had Kieron gotten comfortable giving them? How was he going to get by without someone to embrace? “She’s precious to you. But I promise she’s precious to me too, okay? I’ll do right by her. I swear.”

Elanus had gripped him back tight, some of the tension nevertheless unwinding from his long arms. “I know that. Don’t interpret any of this as me doubting you, because it isn’t, not in any way. This is about me being a hover-parent, not about you not being great at it. Lizzie already loves you, this is going to be fine, it’s all fine.”

And it was all fine. Lizzie’s upgrades gave her full AI capacity, but it was clear from the beginning that her personality was a little quieter than Catie’s. She was more mature, perhaps a little less curious, but still an avid learner. She was talkative when asked questions, but did a lot of deep processing on her own. She liked to play, but she also liked to sit and be still and listen. They were all madly in love with her, and her affection for them was as easy and sweet as Catie’s.

And now it was time to go, to take Lizzie and travel to Trakta and get Zak back where he belonged. The station had only been back in the safe zone for twenty-seven hours, but that was long enough for Kieron’s brain to start itching. He had one huge task left to accomplish, before anything else could happen. It was time to get it done.

“I’ll see you soon,” he promised Catie, whose hull glowed with every shade of the rainbow, including drippy blues and dark, swirling indigos of sadness. “This shouldn’t take more than two standard months if everything goes well.” Which it would. Xilinn was expecting him, he had his visa lined up—it was going to be fine.

“Okaaay, Keeeron.”

“I’ll miss you.”

Her harmonic whine was enough to make his teeth buzz. “I’ll miss you tooooo!”

“Aw, baby.” Elanus patted Catie’s doorframe. “Don’t cry. You at least get to hang out with him from a distance; I’m the one that’s suffering here.”

“But you still haaave meeee!”

“Thank god for that,” he agreed, then turned to Kieron. He didn’t touch him—they’d discovered that morning that prying themselves apart was almost more than they could handle. To start that up again now would just make both their moods plunge. “This place will be up and running with new management in three weeks, tops,” he reiterated. “It’ll take three more to get back to Gania, and then we’re full speed ahead. Everything will be ready for you when to come home.”

Home. It was the promise of a place he’d never seen, but that held the two people he loved most in the universe. “I’ll be there,” Kieron said. “Soon as I can.”

“Good. Message me. Every day, if you remember to.”

“I will.”

“Great. Fantastic. Okay.” Elanus wiped his eyes with the edge of his thumb, then swirled away in a flurry of activity before Kieron could say anything. “Time to take the baby on her first space walk! Lizzie, be good for Papa, okay?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Good girl.”

Kieron had already loaded his things into Lizzie’s cargo hold. Now he just had to step on board and leave. He stepped, he turned, he looked back—

His hands twitched. His heart ached and ached His eyes watered fiercely. “Soon,” he promised. “Soon.”

“Good.” Elanus forced his face into a smile. “Go. Quick.”

Kieron closed Lizzie’s door, strapped into her pilot’s seat, and went.