Elizabeth Bear - Worldwired

“I've checked out ground side. Never in zero G. Or vacuum.”

“Well,” she said, scrubbing her flesh hand and her steel hand against the thighs of her fatigues, “I guess we'd better get down to a cargo bay and get you some practice, then.”

Fairy tales don't teach children that monsters exist. Children already know that monsters exist. Fairy tales teach children that monsters can be killed.

— G. K. Chesterton

11:00 PM

Saturday September 29, 2063

HMCSS Montreal

Earth orbit

Sometimes Geniveve Castaign liked to pretend she was invisible. She'd slip out of bed barefoot, midwatch and in the middle of the night. She'd tug her coveralls on over her pajamas, undog the hatchway, and ease her way into the corridor when she was supposed to be in bed asleep.

No one ever said anything, or did more than nod to her in passing. She shared her quarters only with Boris, Jenny's cat who had gotten to be the whole ship's cat by now, and she got special quarters in the civilian corridor because nobody on the ship's crew wanted a twelve-year-old roommate — even Patty, who was seventeen and who had a private room because she was a pilot.

She could wander all night, and as long as she dodged Elspeth and Jenny, nobody ever said anything. Nobody ever said anything, that is, as long as she stayed in the unrestricted-access parts of the ship, because they all felt bad about Leah. And because it wasn't as if Genie had to be up for school. And because the Montreal wasn't set up for kids, not yet, and wouldn't be until the first batch of colonists came on board.

And because they knew Richard and Alan were in her head, and Richard and Alan wouldn't let her get into any trouble.

In any case, it was 11 PM, and Genie had been trying to sleep since nine. She gave up, climbed out of her bunk, and went looking for Patty. Patty was up, of course. Patty was nearly a grown-up, and she was a pilot. And either she or Jenny always had to be awake and able to get to the bridge. Just in case. Although Patty's on-duty time was supposed to be spent studying.

Which meant she'd probably be in the ready room by the bridge, because Captain Wainwright had made sure there was a state-of-the-art interface in there, and that was also where Genie did her schoolwork, usually while her dad was on duty.

Genie wasn't supposed to be on the bridge unless she was invited. But the ready room also had a door to the corridor, and there was nothing to keep her from climbing in wheel, and nothing to keep her out of the ready room once she got there. Except—

“Where are you off to, young lady?”

Richard's voice always had a certain humorous tint to it when he called her that. She kept climbing up the access ladder, eschewing the lifts. I couldn't sleep, she answered. I'm going to go do some homework.

Which wasn't exactly a lie, and Richard would probably know if she lied, but he didn't always catch on to truths that weren't… complete. He was too polite to just read her mind, or at least he pretended to be.

Richard coughed inside her head, a polite cough into the palm of his knobby, elegant hand, the white of his cuff extending past the sleeve of his jacket, a steel-banded watch glittering against his skin. How come you wear a watch, Richard?

“It gives me something to fiddle with,” he answered, and demonstrated.

But you have a clock in your head.

“I find it helps me relate to meat-type people better if I keep myself reminded of what it's like to be meat. And you don't have a clock in your head, kiddo.” Affectionately, and said with the tone that would have gone with a hair-ruffle that Genie was much too old for, if Richard had been able to manage it.

No, she answered, following the gray-carpeted corridor toward the bridge. She no longer even noticed how strange it was that it rose in front of and behind her, disappearing in back of the ceiling. Scuff, scuff, scuff went her feet. She amused herself by scuffing in patterns when she walked; short-long, long-short. But I have you.

She felt the weight of his contemplation, the flow of ideas and the texture of his emotion, because he permitted her to feel them. A little bit wonder, a little bit pride, a little bit fear. “The ease with which you say that is going to worry people, Genie,” he said, quietly. “They won't understand it. They won't understand why having me in your head, why relying on me to know what time it is, doesn't worry you.”

Then they're pretty silly. You never bother me when I want to be left alone, and you're always there when I need you. Unlike Leah. Unlike Jenny, who had always come and gone with very little rhyme or reason. Unlike Papa, who had always been worried about Genie because she was sick, and now that she wasn't sick, wasn't worried anymore.

Genie's mouth twitched. She didn't miss the cystic fibrosis. Really, truly. Not at all.

Even if she did miss not being invisible sometimes.

“Still,” he said. “You might want to keep it to yourself. Until there are more people like you. People can be mean when they don't understand things.”

Richard, she answered dryly, as she reached her destination. I know that. Do you think you're talking to a child? He didn't answer. She grinned to herself and held her left hand up to the ready room door sensor so that it could read the control chip implanted under her skin. The door chirped softly and slid open. Genie went inside, and Richard “stayed behind.”

He'd be there if she wanted him. But for now, he did her the courtesy of letting her walk away.

Patty didn't look up when she stepped into the pilots' lounge-slash-ready room. As Genie had guessed, the older girl was bent over an interface plate, her fingers twisted through brunette hair, holding it out of her face like a heavy curtain. “Shouldn't you be in bed?”

“I'm always in bed,” Genie said. “I've spent more of my life in bed than anybody needs to. Whatcha working on?”

“Differentials,” Patty answered, and tucked her hair behind her ear. A few strands snagged on a silver earring shaped like a leaping dolphin; she disentangled them with a bitten fingernail, wincing. “You want something to drink?”

Genie shook her head and hunched down on a stool, tapping at another interface panel on the desktop without any haste, with one finger only. She leafed through her homework files and sighed. She was ten months ahead of the curriculum, and still bored. Leah would have offered to show her how the differentials worked; Leah always did most of her homework with Genie, and bragged to Papa that Genie was smart enough to handle it.

Leah had used to, anyway.

Patty looked up from her homework again, caught Genie's eye, and looked away quickly. Patty's mouth twisted; her expression said creepy kid, but Genie was too lonely to get up and leave, even if she knew Patty didn't want her there. Genie put her chin down on her fists and sighed, studying a too-easy problem in spatial geometry that floated in front of her nose. Sometimes she liked to pretend she was invisible.

Sometimes she just suspected she really was.

1:15 AM

Sunday September 30, 2063

HMCSS Montreal

Earth orbit

The smaller lounge wasn't as private as the pilots' ready room, but Patty didn't feel like being that close to the bridge right now. Besides, if she was in the ready room, she would just start doing homework, and she didn't feel like doing homework.