“I would rather create a new memory with you,” Station admitted. “We could play a game, or you could tell me what a baroque artist is.”

  Kethel had cackled, and after Station generated some kettle wine to celebrate, they had talked about the immensely ancient Bach and the Nuruosmaniye Mosque for hours.

  The prior time Station had spoken to Kethel was a full two hundred years ago.

  “Happy waking, Station,” they sang from the recovery bed. “How far?”

  “Three days out, two at best.”

  “Oh good. We have time. Has anyone else been up since my last waking?”

  “I woke Witrk fifty years past for a Gokren-grade ship, which he passed.” Station suppressed a constriction in its lenses. “No others since.”

  “Fifty years? Oh Station, I’m sorry.” Kethel struggled out of the oxygenated gel, scraping it off their arms and shoulders. “That’s a long time to be alone. Do you want to do something?”

  Station’s vents spasmed, and within its humidity generator several graphene matrices began glittering with condensation. “I would like a story, if you don’t mind.”

  Kethel had told a story about a dancing mammal who had stolen the light from the sky, leaving the Emptiness behind. When they were done, the new ship had arrived.

  That ship wasn’t granted access either. They were named Brigit’s Light but couldn’t name a single Brigit who deserved the designation.

  “They weren’t even clever enough to make something up,” Kethel had giggled. “Ah well. Since I’m up, would you like another story?”

  Of course, Station had said yes.

  Station replays that memory—Kethel’s compassion toward Station and the stories they told—whenever it struggles alone in the vastness. When the darkness crushes against its hull like an immense twelve-tentacled hand, the joy of remembering Kethel is all that keeps Station’s nightmares from breaking through its centuries of unsleeping.

  The F-class ship slows its approach earlier than expected, as if waiting for permission to continue. In the recovery room, Kethel’s waking echoes the speed of the new ship. Station’s gyroscopes grind in frustration while it waits.

  “Staaation . . . ” Kethel finally sings from the recovery bed.

  “I am here, Kethel,” Station assures.

  “How long?”

  “Two days, a day and a half at best.”

  “That’s . . . I think that’s fine.” Kethel stretches in the recovery bed. The gel ripples. As Kethel’s subsequent silence grows long, Station finds its sensors zooming in on the ripples as though this is an anomaly.

  “How old am I?”

  Station pauses. Does the calculations. “You have existed in this universe twelve hundred and seventy-four years, plus ninety-six days. In contrast, your revived time amounts to forty-two years, plus one hundred twenty-three days.”

  Kethel stares at the ceiling. “And when was the last time I actually slept?”

  Sleep. Station could not find sleep data for any sentience in its animera. Station had not been structured to record sleep as an observational requirement.

  As it investigates, it notices that its Founder had not considered this a requirement either. Station contained no sleeping-specific accommodations anywhere within its residence area. Some anchor straps in the low-g room could allow outside ship crew to secure a sleeping sack or hammock, but no sacks are stored for Kethel or any other sentience in Station’s animera. The recovery bed, and the oxygenated gel within, is the only resting place Station can find.

  Station knows all living beings require sleep.

  sleep, no, we cannot sleep—

  STOP

  “Station?”

  Station has lost some milliseconds. It tries to tell Kethel what is happening to it, tries to find the words, and something in its programming keeps the words from forming. The memory of mushroom-gill eyes floats in its mind, unmoored, like a mockery of how Station floats in the Emptiness. It tries to describe this to Kethel, and again, the systems somehow fail.

  Station gives up.

  “You have not experienced true sleep for as long as you have been here.” Station detects that the new ship has stopped, hovering outside its analysis boundary. Its lenses relax. “Calculations indicate you are overdue and should coordinate some time before the new ship arrives. They have paused their approach, and so our timeline is extended.” Station starts an assembly protocol for human-appropriate sleep sacks.

  “Maybe . . . I . . . ” Kethel’s eyes flutter closed, and their breathing evens out.

  Station watches over Kethel, draining the gel enough to prevent it entering Kethel’s mouth or nose while they sleep. With the ship on standby, Station can allow Kethel this time.

  Kethel wakes nine hours and seven minutes later.

  “Good morning, Station,” they sing, and Station’s lights brighten to greet them.

  “You seem rested.”

  “I am.” Kethel smiles as they climb from the recovery bed. “My brain feels lighter. I might be nice to someone today.”

  “I doubt that,” Station murmurs and is rewarded with a wolfish grin.

  Kethel cleans, then dresses in their standard blue jumpsuit as Station processes the new ship’s translation package. The ship does not resume approach, even after Station confirms receipt and integration of the package.

  Kethel settles in the small oval broadcast room designed for humans, with its ergonomic white chair and textured gray table. They squint at the silver and orange dot on the room’s two viewscreens. “What are they doing? Why aren’t they moving?”

  “I cannot say. They’ve remained outside analysis range since delivering the translation package, and the package does not include additional information.” Station senses its gyroscope grinding again and makes a note to review its bearings.

  “Are they within broadcast range?”

  “They are.”

  “All right, Station, please connect us. Let’s see what they’re up to.”

  Station turns on the audio. Kethel leans back in the chair as they speak.

  “Hailing approaching ship. Are you here to apply for passage?”

  Station waits. Kethel drums their fingers on the padded surface of the chair’s armrest.

  “Hellooo to those who reside at the end of the Emptiness! Not so empty, I’m glad to hear!” Kethel’s eyes widen at the melodious voice that flows through the room. Station momentarily wants to shut off the broadcast. The greeting is too similar to Kethel’s own. Too close to its favorite voice.

  Kethel listens as Station plays the interpretation, then nods.

  “Hello ship!” Kethel calls back. “Why do you stay so far away?”

  “My understanding is that someone had to be woken to receive us. We thought it would be polite to give you time to prepare.”

  Kethel raises their eyebrows. “Surprisingly kind, thank you. What do we call you?”

  “I am Grenya, feminine of my clave, leading the ship Tigers for Sale.”

  Kethel tilts their head at the name. “Thank you, Grenya. And do you?”

  “Apologies, I’m not sure I comprehend. Do we what?”

  “Have tigers for sale.”

  Grenya laughs, a breathy harmony to Kethel’s full-bodied cackle. “Yes, in a way, we do! Does that make a difference? Can we bribe our way through?”

  Kethel’s hands go to their face, a smile dancing around their lips, and Station’s energy generators wilt a little at the sight. It wishes it could cover its receptors. “You can’t bribe me, but I’d love to see tigers. I’ve never seen one before.”

  “Not even an image transfer from old Earth?”

  “Not even that.”

  Grenya clicks her tongue. “My understanding is that if we were granted passage, we would come over personally to receive the return beacon. If you want a demonstration, I can send my quarantine and inoculation panel and show you whenever you’d like.”

  Kethel glances at Station’s comm lens, and Station blinks green.

  “You are welcome to visit.” Kethel rises. “I’ll set the airlock once you relay your bio-needs.”

  “Just one thing.”

  Station wants it to be a terrible thing. Wishes for an awful thing. It does not want this pilot in the space it shares with Kethel. It does not want Kethel to like Grenya. To say yes.

  no, please, not again, I can’t—

  STOP

  “—ask who will I be meeting?” As Kethel pauses, waiting for the translation, Grenya continues. “You have my name, but I don’t have yours.”

  Kethel’s eyes crinkle. “I’m called Kethel, and you will also meet Station.”

  “What about the station?”

  “No, Station. That’s its name. We are partners here.”

  “Ah, good! My apologies, Station. I’ll be delighted to meet you as well.”

  Station almost forgets to shut off its broadcast as Kethel bounces out of the meeting room. Kethel has always treated Station kindly. Pilots have not.

  Station wonders why this pilot is so friendly.

  Grenya’s profile shows she is almost an exact match for Kethel’s biological scope. Station increases the humidification in its primary bulb to make a comfortable environment for them both. The little brown shuttle from Tigers is speedy and aligns with Station’s airlock before three hours have passed.

  Kethel paces across the access tube outside the airlock door, occasionally standing on tiptoe to look through the triple-layered window. Station’s vents twitch every time Kethel huffs in impatience. As the shuttle docks and the air is tested for pathogens, Kethel picks at their fingers.

  “Please don’t create bloody hands before you meet,” Station reminds them. Kethel flutters their hands behind them as Grenya activates the airlock.

  Grenya is a lanky person, much taller than Kethel, with sinuous arms and legs. She wears a standard carbon-brown jumpsuit, too short for her amber limbs, and thin gray gloves decorated with flexible metal strips, civilian grade. Her wide shoulders seem to fill up all the space in the airlock, her size unsoftened by the cobalt blue hair cascading from scalp to elbows and the silver pilot’s earring in her left lobe.

  Station is tempted to claim Grenya is too big to enter, but other sentiences in its animera are immense; Kethel would know Station was lying. It slides open the airlock door, a minuscule hitch the only evidence of its emotional state.

  “Welcome, Grenya.” Kethel steps back from the airlock and waves. “Please don’t view my distance as a statement on you; I grew up during a no-touch era.”

  “Elbow clasp was back in fashion at my last planet, but I don’t mind distance.” Grenya unhooks her life support and hangs the tanks on a stud in the airlock wall, then grabs a small square black case. “I might move closer to you at some point. Please don’t take it as offensive.”

  “Not at all.”

  Grenya lifts the case. “Where should I set up?”

  “Follow me.”

  Kethel leads Grenya down the access tube, then along Station’s curved hallway to a large rectangular meeting room with white walls and blocky black chairs. Kethel opens the door for Grenya with a flourish. “Feel free to set up your tigers in any way you wish.”

  Station focuses its comm lens on the case, expecting sculptures or other small representations of the lost mammals of old Earth. Instead, the case holds a metallic half-sphere and a tripod. As Grenya sets it up on the meeting table so that the open side faces the wall, Station notices the diode strips glued within the half-sphere.

  “Is there a way to dim the lights?” Grenya asks.

  Kethel glances at Station’s comm. “Station, do you mind?”

  “Of course not, Kethel.”

  “Thank you, Station,” Grenya says, and Station doesn’t know what to do for half a millisecond before it recovers and reduces the lights to ten percent of maximum luminosity.

  Grenya moves a chair to a position in front of the sphere, facing the wall, and gestures to Kethel. “Mind sitting here?”

  Kethel raises an eyebrow, then thumps into the offered chair. “What should I look at?”

  “Nothing, yet.” Grenya adjusts the tripod, then pulls her sleeves above her elbows and taps the half-sphere. The diodes fire up, and on the wall a circle of white light appears.

  Station is pleased to note the lights’ energy use is so small.

  “You ready?”

  “Yes please,” Kethel replies.

  Grenya contorts her fingers together before she thrusts them in front of the half-sphere. The metal strips on Grenya’s gloves shift and pop from the fabric, and Kethel gasps in a way Station has never heard. Station recalibrates to interpret visual content in silhouette mode, and the striped shadow on the wall resolves to the head of a large cat, mouth open, blinking its eye.

  “Ooh! Is that what they looked like?”

  “Kinda? This is simpled down. It’s a beast to do whiskers.” Grenya flexes her fingers again, and the cat on the wall seems to lick its face. Station focuses on Grenya’s hands as she switches her fingers and the shadow turns into the full body of the cat, seated and facing away from them, tail lashing.

  Kethel smiles, mouth half open, as they watch the shadowy movements. “This is so creative! Where did you learn this?”

  “If I tell you, then who’s gonna want to buy one?”

  Grenya changes fingers again and creates a sound in her throat, part grumble and part yell, as the cat appears to lunge out of the wall, all mouth and teeth. Kethel startles, then bursts out laughing. Station notices Grenya is also grinning and nearly restores the lights without permission.

  Grenya releases the shadow.

  “Wanna see another?”

  Grenya runs through seven different animals before Kethel is satisfied.

  “Stop, stop, I can’t laugh anymore,” they say, head down on the table. “Station, lights up please.”

  Station brings the lights to fifty percent luminosity as Grenya rubs her thumb knuckles. The metal strips settle back into the fabric, and she returns the half-sphere to its case.

  “Please, sit,” Kethel says, wiping their eyes.

  Grenya obliges.

  “I have a few more questions in the survey before I can grant you access.”

  “More?” Grenya’s lip twists. “When did it start?”

  “Let me ask the questions, and then I’ll tell you.”

  “Okay.” Grenya loops her long fingers around one knee. “Go ahead.”

  “Why Tigers for Sale? I understand the tigers now, but not the sale.”

  “It’s a reminder.” Grenya relaxes. “First, that the shadows are a skill. I’m crash-boom at this, but someone out there is better than me. Or could be.”

  “And second?”

  “Don’t let my skills die with me. The universe—any universe—is better if it’s got a new way to delight someone.”

  Kethel’s smile is all curves, and Station wishes it could look away. “That’s lovely. And why do you want to bring Tigers for Sale, specifically, to the next universe?”

  Grenya untangles her fingers and runs them through her blue hair as she leans back and thinks. “Oh, it was a hard decision. I love my ship, and I don’t wanna go anywhere without her. But it’s dangerous on the other side. Some irk could hurt her or my crew. Or maybe we’ll trip over an anomaly we can’t fight. If I’m gonna succeed, I need a partner, not a vessel. I know Tifs like the back of my hand, and with my talent that’s saying something.” Grenya twirls her fingers in the air, and Kethel giggles.

  Station senses a lurch in its waste recycling tank.

  “What will you do with Tigers for Sale—Tifs—if you can’t come back to this universe?”

  Grenya stares. “I don’t get the question.”

  “If you all had to stay there, somewhere. Or something went wrong with Tifs. What would you do?”

  “I’d keep flying her, however broke down she is.”

  “What if you can’t? Say the worst happens, and Tifs can never fly again.”

  “Ow. Hm. Well . . . ” Grenya picks at her fingers, and Kethel blinks before looking up at Station’s comm lens with a wildness in their face. Station’s carbon collector bulges briefly as Grenya continues. “Well, if there was a planet where I could land her safe, I’d stay with her, and she’d stay with me, damn the rest. But if something happens to me, then someone on the crew’s gotta step up, right? It’s the deal. Someone’ll care for her, good as me.” Grenya shrugs again. “No one’s gonna sell my Tifs for tech. She deserves a good retirement.”

  no no no

  Station watches helplessly as Kethel stands, a smile wide as a million stars, and says the words.

  “Grenya, you and Tigers for Sale are granted passage to the next universe. Station, please deliver a return beacon to the airlock.”

  no, please no

  Grenya’s eyes widen. “Really? That’s it?”

  “It seems simple, right?”

  “So I just had to . . . love my ship?”

  Kethel waves Grenya out of the meeting room and leads her back up the hall. “It’s more than that. Love can mean so many things. Some people will love a flower or an animal but won’t do much for it when it’s dead.”

  “What was it, then?”

  Kethel pauses and leans on a strut in the hallway. “The survey’s purpose is to find out how far you’d go to keep your ship. Everyone will say they’ll protect their ship, and they even believe it. But most people will abandon ship or switch to another, given the right circumstance. We can’t let Founder technology get into the wrong hands, right?”

  “I catch that.” Grenya nods. “There’s not many of them left, and they saved us from the myco-disaster. They saved all the Joined Cultures. Least we can do.”

  “So we’re only allowed to pass pilots who have an intense relationship with their vessels. Who treat them like family. That’s why the first question focuses on the ship’s name. Naming your ship in a way that’s meaningful to you is the first indicator that you’ll do your best.”

  “Why in the heavens would a bent choose a random name for their ship,” Grenya mutters.

  Kethel continues down the hallway, shaking their head. “It’s a good question. I’m not sure why. Or if the ship’s name isn’t random, it’s something that sounds fantastical.”

 

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