Spark and tether, p.3
Spark and Tether, page 3
“Jin said you’d be out here,” Umair said, smiling wide at the dancers Sacheri had just bid farewell. “Drinks on the table.”
“Thank you for finding me,” he said.
“Jin did, I’m only the messenger,” Umair answered. One of the dancers fluttered a hand at him.
Umair’s words lit a tiny flame in his chest, which spread as he emerged from the crowd to find Jin staring with open admiration; he gave them the same slow wink they’d given him the day before. He was too far away and the floor far too loud for him to hear their laugh as they gestured toward the drinking vessel at Sacheri’s seat. It was tall and thin, filled with layers of bright colors, all inebriants of one sort or another—the kind of drink that made you stupid drunk very fast. Sacheri slid into his seat and raised the glass in a toast to the tiny glass of expensive-looking opaque liquor in Jin’s hand.
“To new teams,” the table echoed.
Sacheri got a few seconds of delicious buzz before his synplants neutralized the inebriant and left him as sober as ever. He savored the seconds as Umair laughed at him.
“Synchronists have all kinds of safety checks,” Umair explained to the younger tech beside Sacheri, who looked concerned at the size of Sacheri’s glass. “He can eat and drink whatever he wants and the synplants will render it harmless.”
“Whoa,” Zain said.
Jin shook their head and smirked into their own glass.
Sacheri grinned at them, watching their lips purse and part as they drank. The buzz he felt was not all the drink, or the synplants; every move Jin made drew his eyes back to them. “It’s fun for those 2.3 seconds, though,” he said, watching their expression flicker with amusement. “Should we order or wait for Adda and Kirsha?”
“Order,” Jin said. “Adda’s tied up in the materials requisition.”
“Kirsha’s doing a wrap up for her last run,” Zain said. “She sends her regards and will see us all in the morning.”
“Adda sent an order ahead,” Umair said.
His synplants observed the table: Umair ordered through his implant, Jin and Zain through the table’s surface interface—and Zain held back until they saw how the others ordered, but Sacheri couldn’t read if that was some Orinian respect for seniority or the instinctive caution of a new COR recruit.
“Are you able to turn off those safeties?” Zain asked.
Sacheri smiled reassuringly at Jin and Umair, who flinched at the forwardness of the question. He had answered it—and many worse—enough times that the edges had worn off. It happened, sooner or later, on every run. If he was fortunate, at least—if he wasn’t, someone else spoke for him, and he spent the run held distant from the rest of the humans. “Some of them, sometimes. Can’t imagine why I would want to, though. They’re there for a reason.”
“Is it like an extra standard implant?”
“Hm,” he said. “In some ways.” It was not, really; standard implants were a quick subcutaneous injection on some worlds; on others, they were tattooed in place. Synplants were grown along the entirety of the nervous system, using a mycorrhizal base injection; it took a few years, a long recovery, and intense training and support in safety and ethics.
“Like how?”
“You know how your standard implant tells you how to address people when you meet them? Or changes your room’s atmosphere, or adjusts sensory input to your needs?”
Zain nodded.
“It’s like that, but with the station’s internal processes and a planet’s ecosystems and the travel comms between transports.” It was not a thorough or even entirely accurate explanation, but it usually was enough.
“So more like a fai than an implant?”
“No, synplants are not independent sentient entities. We humans can’t hold that kind of electricity, for one. And fai have no interest in merging with biological systems, as far as I know.” Always amused him, to be compared to the friendly ai–the beings who made themselves known, when they wished, as the voices in the walls, the shape on a screen, a drone passing by.
“I’ve never met a synchronist before,” Zain said. It was something between an explanation and an apology.
“I hear that a lot,” Sacheri said. It usually came before the awkward questions. He relaxed a little; now that they’d established he wasn’t that scary, the team could move on to other subjects and mostly ignore him. Sacheri liked Zain, impertinent questions and all. They were inexperienced, maybe, but willing to learn. He’d answer what he could.
“Not a lot of them around,” Jin said. “You’re open level, yes?”
Sacheri looked into his glass as he took a sip. Jin had steered the conversation away from synchronists to save everyone’s potential discomfort, maybe, but it felt like a signal. He wasn’t sure how to parse it.
Zain nodded. “Completed first level training last standard year. This is my fifth run.”
“Picking up points?” Umair guessed.
Zain nodded again. “Halfway there.”
“That’s a good bit better than average,” Umair said.
Jin raised a brow at Umair, who said, “COR is sending a lot of new recruits up and out these days. Most of them aren’t coming back after the first few trials.”
Recruits spent a few standard years in training, followed by an open levels’ apprenticeship meant to sort the reliable and resilient from ill-suited, starry-eyed aspirants. Not every dirtsider could be happy in space; better to find out early. Zain making it halfway through open levels was a good sign.
Zain looked nervous again.
“Any of you worked with Adda before?” Jin asked.
“Kirsha did, on one of her first runs,” Zain said. “Said it was as posted.”
“I was on the last run,” Jin said. “It was straightforward.”
Interesting. They’re not lying, but there’s more there. Sacheri kept his synplants’ reach restricted unless he had the consent of all involved—especially in social situations—but as soon as he signed on to the team, he was required to monitor the biorhythms and energies of the crew as part of the contract, even at dinner. He glanced at Umair, who was also eyeing Jin, and he guessed they’d known each other before, but he couldn’t read enough yet to know whether it was personal or an occupational relationship. He’d ask one of them in the future; it would be better in a less public space, and none of them had established private channels between their standard implants yet. He tried not to wonder if the rest of them had done so without him.
“I’ve never been through the Bolis gates,” Zain said. “Are they as rough as we’re told in training?”
Sacheri, who experienced gates differently as a synchronist—wide awake, for one thing—stayed silent.
Umair leaned over the table, looking directly into the tech’s eyes. “You sleep through it, like all the rest.”
Zain relaxed. Jin’s eyes flickered toward Sacheri. He pretended not to notice the thrill it gave him.
“Half of the scare stories they told us in training turn out to be nonsense, eh?” Umair said, nudging Jin with an elbow. Sacheri, now certain they’d known each other before, found himself wildly jealous. His synplants steadied his pulse in response.
“The other half are real enough,” Jin said dryly, watching Sacheri with a glint in their eye. “I will share, for those of you who are new to this, that there are no records of a dead moon run going badly when there was a synchronist on the team.”
Sacheri smiled at them in grateful surprise. Jin’s expression was neutral as they looked away, but he saw something encouraging in it. Wishful thinking, maybe.
Zain smiled; Sacheri saw they were a little uncomfortable but was saved from having to respond by a drone arriving with their food, and Adda right behind it.
“All set to leave in the morning,” she said, sliding into the seat farthest from Jin, next to Umair. “Good to see you all here. Sorry to be late to my own event.”
“Jin managed to keep us all entertained,” Umair said. “Welcome.”
“We’re all set with your machines,” she said to Zain. “Materials wanted the analysis to justify cargo weight on the return.”
“You explained?” Jin said. Again, Sacheri caught the slightest edge between them, but only because the synplants were drawn to it; it was the thinnest vibration of distrust, hanging between them in such careful balance he could not tell which end originated it.
“I did. They pushed back on the synchronist requisition.”
Sacheri waited to see which way her next words would go.
“Admin denied my last request for a synchronist,” she explained to the table, and then drank deeply from something that looked much like his own glass. “But this time, I had Ops’s golden child approve the request.”
Sacheri twitched an eyebrow at Jin, who ignored him.
The chatter moved on, and they ate, and Sacheri thought that if Adda’s intent had been to develop a bit of camaraderie before departure, she succeeded. It wasn’t necessary for a successful run, but it sure made them more enjoyable. Umair and Zain finished their meals first and headed to the dance floor, where Sacheri spotted them with the pair he’d danced with before.
“They’re going to call you in on the req,” Adda said to Jin. “I just got a ping.”
It sounded like a challenge. His synplants focused on the space between Jin and Adda, but Jin’s response showed no surprise or reservation.
“There it is,” they said, sliding out of the booth. “I’ll be back.”
Adda, on her third tall and bright cocktail, watched the team on the floor through an expression Sacheri couldn’t read. He didn’t run it through his synplants; the presence of the guards she used suggested she’d not welcome it, and he wanted the run to be easy.
“It’s not you that they’re challenging,” she said. “I know you get that sometimes. It’s me. This run is at the upper end of my allowances.”
“We do seem to be a bit overkill,” Sacheri said, “for one small dead world on the edge of the Rings.” He meant himself and Jin and Umair, who had enough rank between them to run ships on their own. Most team leads liked more space for their authority to breathe.
“They’ve been filling my teams with new recruits,” she said, swirling her glass absentmindedly. “This one’s going into the void, and I insisted on experienced crew. Reclamations has the resources for it.” She glanced up at him again, but it was fleeting. He read nothing from it. “No one should be on a dead world without a synchronist. Fortunately for us, Jin agreed.”
But it was hard to get that approved—Oversight took a cut of the resources every time a synchronist went out on a COR run, making them prohibitively expensive even before you figured in the morale issues with a crew who distrusted them. And there was that edge, again. He released the synplants a breath more, teasing at the undercurrent he couldn’t quite grasp. “And Umair balanced it with open level techs.”
Her face was so still he thought she might not have heard him, until her eyes, hard and clear, swung back to his. “Dead worlds can hold surprises,” she said. “And I like to keep my options open.”
He swirled his drink. “Always wise.” He suspected she spoke of specific experiences. He hoped she might say more—but it was unwise for a synchronist to ask personal questions, and he didn’t know well enough yet how it would be received.
She finished her drink and set the glass down with a solid thud. “I’m off. First thing, at the dock.”
“Rest well.” Sacheri looked back at the dancers and found Jin had been watching him from the bar on the other side of the floor; once Adda was out of sight, they returned to the table with a fresh drink in hand. Sacheri liked their eyes on him, and didn’t want to interrupt it, and thought it had maybe become a game to see which of them would speak first. And so they ended up staring at each other from across the table for a good long moment before Sacheri broke it with a fresh grin. He’d never been that good at games.
“I don’t think I’m your first synchronist, am I?”
Jin’s answer was a quiet chuckle, clear and rich and magnetic as the rest of them, but they held his gaze without a trace of self-consciousness. Their eyes were flecked with amber and citrine, a starburst in the warm brown.
Uh-oh, Sacheri thought. Everything about them was charming, even if he would never understand their obvious dedication to rule-following. Again, like a kid with his first crush. He wasn’t sure if he should be preening or posturing or pleading for another wink, another whisper, any vague hint of interest.
“I don’t flirt on runs,” Jin said finally, in a tone like a caress—so soft and intimate that it raised the hairs on Sacheri’s arms and neck. They looked away from him. “It stays entirely professional until the job is complete and in the archives.”
There it was. Sacheri nodded, more pained than he wished to admit.
Jin glanced out at the dance floor before turning back to him. “I just wanted to be clear about that. And that you shouldn’t be discouraged.”
The disappointed pang in his chest flipped immediately to fizzing. He could not read them, he realized; he got it wrong, every time, even unguarded as they were, and that was somehow as magnetic as all the rest. He held Jin’s eyes and gave them a sly smile. “I appreciate that,” he said.
Umair reappeared at the end of the table between them. “Your friends from earlier are requesting another dance,” he said to Sacheri.
“Umair will drag you out there if you try to refuse,” Jin said, lifting their liquor to take a slow sip.
“And what are you going to do?” Sacheri asked, with a grin that held just enough dare to be serious.
Jin’s answering smile was slow and deliberate. “I’ll watch.”
Sacheri laughed as Umair beckoned for him to come out to the floor.
“See you in the morning, then,” they said.
A dozen suggestive responses rose in Sacheri’s throat, but he swallowed them all. “See you in the morning.”
He sent one more ping to Paradis: Found a good team. Made some friends. One more run before I take a rest.
Chapter 4
Travel time to the dead moon was short but full of gates, so everyone but Sacheri was unconscious for the trip. The distillation of energies was irresistible to his synplants, requiring him to stay awake through the passages. It was one of their few real flaws, but it offered time to fully replenish their energy stores and he could sample residual experiences left in the passages, which was much like an entertainment immersion, only amplified exponentially. Sometimes, he left an impression of his own, an imprint in the liminality—an old habit from his apprenticeship, when he’d been so certain he would find answers in the gates that had not been in his studies. His mentors had called them intimations. Love letters, he considered them, sent out to the void for whomever might be able to receive them.
He lay palms up, body relaxed, consciousness falling back as the synplants extended themselves through the edges of his nerves, tracing patterns and webs outward through the ship’s mechanisms and into the void. The passage of time and distance was marked by shuddering decelerations as the transport drifted from one gate to the next; motion was a static sound in his skull, background to the kaleidoscope of colors and song as he absorbed the influx of vibrations and residual impressions of those who had come before.
His synplants maintained attachments to every member of the crew, but where the others were vital signs and a vague shadow he could focus on when needed, Jin was a quiet current, constantly beckoning from his peripheral vision.
Their acknowledgement of the attraction between them—and, if he was honest, their immediate limitation of it—drew him in. He turned the conversation over in his memory, again and again, intending to dull the effect, but it only increased. He gave up, turning away from the cool pale glow they left in his sensory fields, promising he would revisit the idea only after they returned to Orinus Station. Once the records were certified, they said. He could wait.
Once the transport passed through the last gate, Sacheri withdrew the synplants into their resting state. He moved to the control room at the center of the ship to watch the moon approach on the pilot display. The moon was unremarkable, one of a dozen rocks of various sizes orbiting a smaller gas planet in a system bordering Bolisian space.
Only Adda awoke before landing.
“COR really would try to terra any rock they could reach, in those days,” she said, folding herself into the seat beside him.
He grunted in agreement. “Good sleep?”
“Good enough.” She gestured at the display. “This one was supposed to supply the system? Serve as a home base for expansion? What a mess.”
He agreed, but not aloud. “No signal from the station.” The project hadn’t progressed beyond a single drop on the ground. Cleanup would be quick. “Any information about the fai that’s supposed to be here?”
“It predates fai citizenship, so no records in personnel. Maybe ops had them on an equipment list, at some point. Not that they’d give me access.” She looked haunted as she stared into the display. “I hate these runs,” she said. “It may be a false record, may be the wrong moon, may be cover for a deactivation. We’ll never know.”
Sacheri didn’t answer.
The displays cycled through views before settling onto the short path between the ship’s ramp and the station entry and a weather scan. Their suits would acclimate automatically, but the equipment they were removing needed protection if conditions shifted.
