Aetherbound - E.K. Johnston Page 0,62

matter-of-factly that he blinked. Then he saw the quirk of her lips and realized she was making fun of him. He laughed and pulled her body flush against his. Fisher never wanted to leave Brannick Station, but he had finally found something he wanted to explore.

23.

THREE DAYS LATER, FISHER was working in operations when a notification came in. They would need to clear the lower pylons, it said. A generation ship was coming, and that was the only place that it would fit. Fisher held his breath while he read over the specifications. There was no doubt in his mind. It was the Harland.

He looked around the room. Dulcie would have gotten the notification, and Pendt as well, but she was spending this shift in hydroponics. It was entirely likely she wouldn’t hear the notification chime, if she was busy enough, Fisher thought. He immediately dismissed the lie: Pendt always listened for chimes in case she was needed to open the Well or the Net. The foreman looked up at him, a question written on her face.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, and hoped he would be able to.

The Harland hadn’t been gone long enough to make it anywhere and back, which meant they must have rendezvoused with one of the faster sublight ships Pendt had brought through the Net. That, or they had been waiting for a message from someone, but from everything he knew of Arkady Harland, she wasn’t the type to waste resources, waiting in space. Fisher reread the notes from their departure last time: Yes, someone had mentioned that they were headed to a meeting. No further details were given, but none could really be expected.

The manifest Fisher was given was short. The Harland wasn’t off-loading anything, but they did have a few scheduled pickups. None of them flagged Fisher’s attention when he looked them up in the station’s records. He had no idea why they were making this trip.

A supplementary document appeared on the file. It was a notice from First Officer Lodia Harland, stating that the last time the Harland had been at Brannick, there was a miscommunication, and one of the ship’s hands, her daughter, had been left behind. There was no mention of Pendt by name, just a physical description and a promise that Lodia would reimburse any costs her daughter had incurred while she had stayed on the station. It seemed uncharacteristically generous, to say the least.

No sooner had Fisher finished reading than the door to operations slid open, and Pendt came flying in. Her hair was bound up around her head, tufts sticking out of the scarf she’d wrapped around it to keep sweat and soil from mixing in her hair. There were green smudges on her cheeks and dirt under her fingernails. She’d never looked more alive.

“Did you see this?” she said, brandishing the datapad. Everyone was staring now.

“Yes,” Fisher said as calmly as possible. “Do you want to go somewhere and discuss it?”

Pendt seemed to realize there were witnesses. She immediately reined herself in. It would have been painful to watch if it had been her disappearing into a shell, but instead it was as though the professional, adult version of herself stepped forward to deal with the situation.

“Of course,” she said. “As long as I am not interrupting?”

The people in operations knew more about Pendt’s personal history than the given station worker, and they were almost as protective of her as Fisher was. Furthermore, they took their cues from Dulcie, and the foreman was clearly upset about something. No one would question the interruption.

“We’re good,” Dulcie said. “I was about to kick Fisher out to get some dinner anyway. He skipped lunch.”

“You promised not to tell!” Fisher protested at exactly the same time Pendt said, “You promised you wouldn’t do that anymore!”

The operations crew laughed. It was almost normal.

“Come on, then,” Fisher said, and led her into the office off the side. It’s where Ned had liked working best, because he could be alone there. Fisher preferred to work in the main room.

“There’s no way my mother is going to pay you back for everything I’ve eaten since I got here,” Pendt said before the door had sealed. “Let alone the clothes.”

“Are you joking?” Fisher asked. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“I’m dead serious,” Pendt said. “I don’t know what Lodia wants, but I guarantee you that she’s not going to pay you for it.”

“Pendt,” he said, “I meant that isn’t my priority. It never