Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3)

by Becky Chambers

If someone had told her the standard before – when she’d finally shed her apprentice stripes – where accepting this profession would lead her, would she have agreed to it? Would she have continued forward, knowing how this day would unfold? Probably. Yes. But some warning would’ve been nice.

Sawyer had thought perhaps some part of him would recognise this place, that he’d feel himself reversing the steps his great-great-grandparents had taken. He’d read accounts of other grounders visiting the Fleet. They’d written about how connected they felt to their ancestors, how they felt immediate kinship with the people there. Sawyer hadn’t felt that yet, and part of him was a touch disappointed.

He was the cutest thing in the universe, and she would’ve given anything for him to be someone else’s kid right then.

It was fair, she supposed, this cycle of aggravation. Payback for the days when you threw your own jammies in the toilet.

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?

‘We’re not mad, Kip,’ Dad said. ‘I’m mad,’ Mom said. She stirred a steaming mug of tea. ‘Okay, your mom’s mad.

Kip would’ve given anything in that moment – anything – for an oxygen leak, a stray satellite, a wormhole punched in the wrong place. Anything that would swallow him up and bring a merciful end to this conversation.

Mom sighed. ‘He’s so impossible right now.’ ‘Yes, well,’ Grandma Ko said. ‘You were a dipshit at that age, too.’

Pop glared as he realised he’d been ganged up on. ‘If he’s sent you creds, you should spend them on the kids.’ ‘The kids aren’t our only family, Pop.’

‘Yes,’ Tessa said. ‘This is a time when a swear word is entirely appropriate.’ Aya took a breath. ‘I fucking hate them,’ she said. ‘I’m gonna kick all their asses.’ Tessa smothered the laugh pressing against her lips. She gave a serious nod. ‘That was two swear words.’ ‘Well, I’m really mad.’

Eyas sipped her drink. ‘You found something that incorporates everything else you tried. You perform, you make people feel better.’ She took another sip and smiled. ‘And maybe sometimes you help people with their monsters.’

People know, when I walk through my district, who I am, what I do. Doesn’t matter if I’ve got my wagon or am wearing my robes. They know. And so I always have to be Eyas the symbol, the good symbol, because I never know who’s looking at me, who needs to see that thing I saw in a caretaker when I was six.

Ghosts were imaginary, but hauntings were real.

‘All toddlers are annoying, baby. It’s the way of the universe.’

‘I’m glad someone’s crying for him.’ She paused. ‘I did, too.’

‘He’s still Exodan,’ she said. ‘Just more distantly.’

It was, in the end, a proper funeral.

Tessa pulled back. ‘I couldn’t ask you to do that.’ George scoffed. ‘I go where my family goes. End of discussion.’

She got up from her chair, sat down on the floor, and rested her head against her father’s leg like she used to when she was small, like she used to when he was huge and handsome and knew everything there was to know.

She was curious. She was unafraid.