Pendt ate the last piece of cheese and put the greenhouse to rights. She went back out into the lounge and curled up on the comfortable sofa. It was, she decided, more than fair that she get to take a nap before lunch.
14.
ON THE MORNING OF her eighteenth birthday, Pendt Harland slept in. It was the first time in her life she had ever done it. Usually, she was woken up by a chime calling her to work, or she woke out of habit. But this morning, she slept until her body was ready to wake up. Even then, she didn’t get out of bed. She lay there, appreciating the fact that today she was a legal adult, and that she was going to steal herself from her family for good.
Eventually her stomach grumbled, something that made her laugh. It was no longer a desperate sound, something that spoke of emptiness and food withheld. Instead, it was an almost-pleasant rumble, a sound that remembered being full and would like to be again, thank you very much.
Pendt got up and pulled on her new clothes. Ned and Fisher had bought her five whole outfits and assorted sundries, something she found ridiculously excessive and they thought was the barest minimum. The idea of choosing what to wear was still strange to her, and she just grabbed whatever was closest, but she was starting to appreciate colour combinations and the feeling of certain fabrics against her skin. Today’s outfit was a purple tunic that fell to her knees over yellow leggings and comfortable brown shoes. There was a yellow scarf in the closet too, and after a moment, Pendt took it out and tried to arrange it around her neck. She wasn’t entirely pleased with the result, but she could look something up later.
She’d left her hair long after escaping from the Harland, and watched a few vids on what to do with it. She lacked practice to do the fancier plaiting, but she could handle a ponytail high on the crown of her head. She liked the way the ends of her hair brushed against her neck like that, the soft touch of something that was hers.
Dressed and ready to face the day, Pendt activated the door to her room, and stepped out into the lounge. It was empty, but she could hear both boys in the galley. If they’d got up at the normal time, they would be finished breakfast by now, but Ned had mentioned sleeping in too. They both had the day off from operations, barring an emergency that required Ned’s genes.
“Good morning!” Ned said as she came into the galley. “You look nice.”
Ned seemed determined to make this as weird as possible.
“Thank you,” Pendt said.
She understood that he was trying to make them both comfortable. In his world, people who did what they were about to do genuinely liked each other. From what Pendt had heard, Ned and Fisher’s parents had actually been in love. It might be enough for Pendt to have a thoroughly detailed contract, but Ned clearly expected himself to give her something else, and she tried to accept it as gracefully as possible. She did like both boys a great deal, even leaving aside the part where they helped rescue her and then came up with the plan to stay rescued. They were funny and nice, and different from each other in ways she was coming to appreciate. As for the rest, though, she wasn’t really emotionally equipped to deal with it yet. And they seemed to understand that she would need time.
“Happy birthday,” Fisher said.
“Thank you,” Pendt said with a bit more enthusiasm. In the space of a week, her birthday had gone from a day to be feared to a day to be excited about, and she was pretty thrilled about it.
She sat down at the table and poured herself a glass of fruit juice. The boys both drank stimulants in the morning, but they made Pendt jittery. Fruit juice was on her long list of current favourite luxuries. Today’s was a light pink.
“It’s guava,” Fisher said. “The crop ripened a few days ago. It’s always all ready at the same time, and eventually all you can do is juice or freeze it.”
“I like it,” Pendt said.
“You like everything,” Ned pointed out.
“I haven’t tried everything yet,” Pendt said. “We’ll probably run into something I don’t like eventually.”
“Yes,” Ned agreed philosophically, “and then you’ll tell us that that calorie ratio is just too efficient to pass up and make yourself eat it anyway.”
Pendt laughed. She was learning to be selfish, and Ned was always ready to call her on it. He looked at her with a smile on his face, and Pendt felt a bubble of warmth in her stomach. It was nice to be liked.
They chatted amicably over breakfast, mostly explaining how operations ran when neither Brannick was present. Ned carried an alarm, in case a message was received that the Net was required, but aside from that, it was more or less the same. The schedule was light today. Most of the ships expected had arrived late last night, and nothing was supposed to show up until later in the evening. Still, sometimes there were unscheduled trips, and Ned had to be ready.
“Hopefully the universe has a sense of decorum,” Ned said, “and we can at least get through the wedding without being interrupted.”
The wedding they had planned was made up of two parts. First, there was the public handfasting. This was the traditional way two people joined their lives together, with no legal hold on the other. It had to be a mutual agreement, and either could leave at any time. Some people had arrangements involving property and offspring, but that wasn’t a matter for public consumption. The second part, the marriage, would be done privately to ensure as few people as possible had access to the documents.
They finished their breakfast and Fisher took care of the dishes. He paused when he was done, and then went to the refrigeration unit.
“We made something for you,” he said.
When he turned to face her, he was holding a circle of woven plants in his hand. Pendt recognized the flowers from the greenhouse. They were a riot of colours, but somehow the arrangement was pleasing to the eye.
“It’s for your head,” Ned explained.
Pendt took out her ponytail and used her fingers to comb her hair neatly down her back. She took the flower circle from Fisher and put it on her head. It smelled amazing.
“Thank you,” she said. She had never felt this decorated. This intentionally impractical. With her hair down and the scent of the flowers wafting around her, she felt soft. And for the first time in her life, that didn’t feel dangerous. “It’s fantastic.”
“The flowers have grown a lot since you got here,” Fisher said. “We thought it was a nice way to show that you were already, you know, part of the family. Even without everything else.”
Pendt smiled.
“Are you ready?” Ned asked. “People have already started to gather on the colonnade.”
“I am,” Pendt said. “Let’s do this.”
He offered her his arm and she took it. Together, they walked out of the apartment with Fisher behind.