Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3)

by Becky Chambers

The words I don’t need you made a part of her shrivel in on itself, but then, wasn’t that the point of being a parent? To help them need you less and less?

It was only a few steps from Tessa’s table at the side of the living room to the hole in the centre of the floor, but running was the only speed Aya knew.

She was not a reporter. She did not have to embellish a moment with extraneous words. She simply had to preserve the one unfolding.

‘From the stars, came the ground,’ she said to the body. ‘From the ground, we stood. To the ground, we return.’

She didn’t see the point of filling ears that couldn’t hear. But this – this was the way they would heal.

‘Here, at the Centre of our lives, we carry our beloved dead. We honour their breath, which fills our lungs. We honour their blood, which fills our hearts. We honour their bodies, which fuel our own …’

If I fail in these endeavours, please accept my sincere apologies and know that such failings are mine alone and are not reflective of my place of employment, my schooling, or my lineage.

She is now, and always, a member of our Fleet. By our laws, she is assured shelter and passage here. If we have food, she will eat. If we have air, she will breathe. If we have fuel, she will fly. She is daughter to all grown, sister to all still growing. We will care for her, protect her, guide her. We welcome you, Robin, to the decks of the Asteria, and to the journey we take together.’

‘From the ground, we stand. From our ships, we live. By the stars, we hope.’

People got so hung up on what a thing had been, rather than what it was now.

Ghuh’loloan didn’t mind a bit of self-deprecation, but Isabel didn’t want to cross the line from cultural ribbing into insult.

Using her own alienness as a social buffer, she figured her Good Host status was assured by providing a non-poisonous meal on clean plates in friendly company.

Aya displayed the surprise all kids did when they saw an adult outside their expected context. Teachers lived in schools, doctors lived in clinics, parents could be found at work or home. Why are you here? Aya’s expression said. It wasn’t an accusation, just genuine enquiry.

It had been a long haul, and a long day. One adventure at a time.

So when she placed her own body in someone else’s hands, she wanted to know that her respect would be matched. You couldn’t make guarantees like that with a stranger at a bar. You couldn’t know from a bit of conversation and a drink or two whether they understood in their heart of hearts that bodies should always be left in a better way than when you found them.

Rarely in history had things turned out well for people who chose to lock themselves away.

‘You’ve got that crease.’ ‘Oh, stars, you and your magical crease. I don’t have a crease.’ ‘Yes, you do. You’re not the one who looks at you every day.’

Somewhere within, her teenage self was screaming in horror.

What I mean is that what lay before me was a species other than myself, and so any connection to my own mortality, my own eventual fate, was at first safely distant.

I do not feel I am explaining this experience well, dear guest, but perhaps that is appropriate. Perhaps none of us can truly explain death. Perhaps none of us should.

She had yet to get a proper hold on honorifics, and the overdone result was often charming.

Sawyer didn’t mind downtime, especially when he didn’t have to worry about food or a roof, but the idea of rattling around that big empty home until some nebulous point in the future arrived didn’t sit well.

Oates nodded as he filled his pipe – redreed in the hand he’d been born with, bowl in the one he’d chosen.

She smiled – the kind of smile you gave someone when the circumstances sucked but you appreciated them being there.

The kind of excited that occurred when the chances were good that everything would be okay, but you were still going to hold your breath until said okayness was a done deal.

practicality became dreary if you didn’t balance it out properly.

What was better – a constant safeness that never grew and never changed, or a life of reaching, building, striving, even though you knew you’d never be completely satisfied?

The memory came with a familiar sting, but it was a hurt he’d long ago learned to shelve.

Despite her friendly demeanor, Sawyer couldn’t help but feel that every word that left his mouth was being weighed, measured, and scored.

To an Exodan, the question of choosing a profession is not one of what do I need? but rather what am I good at? What good can I do?

On a galactic scale, a unified currency makes sense. The alternative would be madness.

Of all the things he’d anticipated in leaving Mushtullo, homesickness hadn’t been one of them. He didn’t feel it with a pang, but with an ache – a dull, keening ache, the kind of thing you could ignore at first but that grew less tolerable every day.

The fibre farms were peaceful, and sitting on a bench and discussing differences of biology sounded like a marvellous way to spend an afternoon

Sawyer processed the message, processed his surroundings, and processed the fact that he felt wholly like shit.

Oates, who had the room next to his, snored with a vigour and volume that could pull even the drunkest punk into a queasy, half-awake limbo for cumulative hours.

‘Snapfruit flavoured, my ass. More like … snapfruit’s ghost. Like a really sad ghost.’

‘This is a time when a swear word is entirely appropriate.’

Since there’s no hard-and-fast definition of soul anywhere, we’ll go with what I interpret that to be: the quality of being alive.

‘Despite growing up in an environment that is utterly artificial, we default to the rawest, purest state at the end.

‘Stars, I am sooooo glad I picked an easy job. I am not used to getting this existential.’

‘Knowledge should always be free,’ she said. ‘What people do with it is up to them.’

Toes were weird – like really weird, if you thought about it. Thinking was weird, too. He could think about what he was thinking about. Did that mean that there was a separate part of him? A thinking part and a … thinking thinking part?

A guilty, toxic idea surfaced, the same one that had awoken her hours before. Tessa shoved it away before it could make itself plain.

A person’s view of the stars was, ultimately, a matter of perspective. Of upbringing.

Still, if my profession has made me aware of anything, it is that cultural bruising is often worst when done accidentally.’ Her body quivered from front to end – her species’ equivalent of a shrug. ‘But now, at least, if insult occurs, you will know it was not by design.’

If there was one thing a scholar was good at, it was laying out a case.

‘The thing about gifts is, with correct, careful phrasing, they can always be turned down.

Ghosts were imaginary, but hauntings were real.

The constancy was a comfort, a reminder that whatever unpleasantness you’d just been through was only a moment, only a blink within a vast, slow splendour.

Sleep sounds quite like death to me, a strange temporary death, complete with an afterlife of surreal visions.