Becky Chambers: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

“Just open it, dusthead.”

Kizzy grinned and tore through a patch of foil. She threw back her head and squealed. “Shrimp spice!” she cried, peeling back the rest of the foil. The One and Only! the jar inside proclaimed. Devastatingly Hot!

“I thought maybe you could experiment with it. Put it on algae puffs or red coasters or whatever.”

“I’m going to put it on everything .” She unscrewed the lid, stuck out her tongue, and shook a generous shower into her mouth. Her eyes scrunched shut as she sucked her teeth in painful glee.

He gave a little laugh. “I wanted to get you something fancier, but…” He trailed off. His money situation wasn’t exactly luxurious these days.

“What? No, this is awesome. And why am I getting a present anyway?”

“Because you deserve it, and because I haven’t said thank you like I should.”

“For what?”

Jenks put his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor, hoping to find the right words there. “For… for everything. For talking to me every night since. For not leaving me alone even when I yelled at you. For coming after me in the shuttle. For—” He took a breath, trying to pull the words out of his chest. “For working with me every second, trying to bring her back.”

“Oh, buddy,” she said, her voice falling quiet. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat and plowed on. “I’m a mess right now. I don’t need to tell you that. But I think I’d be worse than I am if it wasn’t for you.” He frowned, thinking of all she’d done for him. She’d completely set herself aside for his sake in the tendays since the punch, and he was paying her back with seasoning ? Stupid. “I’m not doing a good job of this. There’s so much I want to say to you. You’ve done so much more than I would expect from a friend, and I need you to know I don’t take that for granted.”

Her eyes softened. “You’re not my friend, dummy.”

He blinked. She’d lost him. “What?”

Kizzy exhaled and looked at the spice jar. She rubbed her thumb over the label. “When I was five, I asked my dads if I could have a brother. Our colony wasn’t doing so great then. Not that it’s great now. But it was rough when I was little. The council was trying to avoid a crash, and they’d stopped handing out family expansion permissions to folks that already had kids. My dads explained that if weren’t careful about how many people we added to the colony, we might not have enough food. Totally reasonable, but five year olds don’t give a shit about stuff like that. If you’ve never been hungry before, not like starving hungry, the possibility of running out of food doesn’t compute. The only thing I understood was that I couldn’t have a brother, which seemed super crazy unfair. They got me a puppy, though. That was cool. I got older, the colony got stronger, and by that time, I wasn’t bugging them for a brother anymore, and I guess they didn’t really want to go through the whole diapers and teething thing again. I was a happy kid, and I couldn’t ask for better parents. But I was still jealous of the kids who had siblings. I grew up, and then you came along.” She looked up at him, and smiled. “And for the first time ever, I didn’t want a brother anymore, because I finally had one. And there’s nothing better than brothers. Friends are great, but they come and go. Lovers are fun, but kind of stupid, too. They say stupid things to each other and they ignore all their friends because they’re too busy staring, and they get jealous, and they have fights over dumb shit like who did the dishes last or why they can’t fold their fucking socks, and maybe the sex gets bad, or maybe they stop finding each other interesting, and then somebody bangs someone else, and everyone cries, and they see each other years later, and that person you once shared everything with is a total stranger you don’t even want to be around because it’s awkward. But brothers . Brothers never go away. That’s for life. And I know married folks are supposed to be for life, too, but they’re not always. Brothers you can’t get rid of. They get who you are, and what you like, and they don’t care who you sleep with or what mistakes you make, because brothers aren’t mixed up in that part of your life. They see you at your worst, and they don’t care. And even when you fight, it doesn’t matter so much, because they still have to say hi to you on your birthday, and by then, everybody’s forgotten about it, and you have cake together.” She nodded. “So as much as I love my present, and as nice as it is to get a thank you, I don’t need either of ‘em. Nothing’s too much to ask when it comes to brothers.” She shot him a look. “Stars and buckets, Jenks, if you start crying, I will too, and I will never be able to stop.”

“Sorry,” he said, trying to push the water back in his eyes. “I just—”

“No, no, see, you don’t have to tell me what you’re feeling. I get it. I know.” She smiled wide, her own eyes wet but holding steady. “See? Brothers.”

Jenks was quiet a long time. He cleared his throat. “Do you want to smash and play Battle Wizards?”

“Stars, yes. But only if you promise that we’ll never get this emotional about each other ever again.”

“Deal.”

Ashby took a thoughtful bite of bread, still warm from the oven. “It’s good,” he said, and considered. “Yeah, really good. This one’s a keeper.” He swallowed and nodded. “What are the crunchy things?”

“Hestra seeds,” said Dr. Chef, sharpening a knife as he spoke.

“What are hestra seeds?”

“I have no idea. I know they’re not poisonous. Not to any of us, at least. A Laru merchant back on Coriol gave me a bag for free, along with my other purchases. It was a slow market day, I think she was just glad I bought something.”

“Well, I like them. They’re… zingy.” Ashby reached to the other end of the kitchen counter and refilled his mug with tea.

Dr. Chef set down the sharpener and took a handful of fresh cut herbs from one of his harvest boxes. Ashby could smell them from across the counter. Sweet and astringent. “So,” Dr. Chef said. “Anyone knocking at our door?”

“Not yet,” Ashby said. And that was okay. He wasn’t in any rush, and the Hedra Ka incident wasn’t going to keep them out of business. If anything, their reputation had been bolstered by getting out of a collapsing tunnel unscathed. Of course, there was still the question of whether or not they’d need to find a new Navigator, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.

“I’m sure something good will come along. Honestly, I think we’d all be glad of a little downtime. Vacation is one thing, but it’s nice to settle back in slowly.” He rumbled. “Especially since there have been some changes around here.”

Ashby looked over at the vox on the wall. A new voice came through it now—Tycho, a gracious, accommodating AI with a Martian accent. Ashby sometimes thought Tycho sounded nervous, but given that the AI knew the circumstances under which he’d been installed, Ashby couldn’t blame him for wanting to please his new crew. And he and Jenks had been getting along so far. In Ashby’s eyes, that was the most important thing.

Dr. Chef peered at Ashby. “I’m giving you a physical tomorrow.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re squinting. I think we should check your eyes.”

“I’m not squinting.”

“You’re squinting.” Dr. Chef shook a pudgy finger at him. “You spend too much time with your nose in your scrib.”

Ashby rolled his eyes—which worked perfectly fine, thank you. “If it’ll make you feel better.”