And the king had an heir and the heir had a quest and the little kingdom thrived.
Sometimes, it’s a matter of asking the right question.
17.
A WEEK AFTER NED left, Fisher asked Pendt if she wanted to move out of the apartment. The question caught her completely off guard. She thought that things had been going well.
“I suppose I could,” she said. “If there’s a space for me to go. I don’t need a lot. Am I allowed to take the possessions I’ve acquired with me?”
Fisher gaped at her.
“No, Pendt, that isn’t the way I meant it,” he said. “I would never send you off now that I’ve got what I need. That’s terrible. And those things are yours. And even if they weren’t, Ned left you an account. And—”
“I understand,” Pendt said before he could get too hysterical. “I also understand that you might not like living with a relative stranger. I can go if you truly want to be alone.”
This really wasn’t going the way Fisher meant it to. He was trying to be nice. It was hard to be nice to Pendt. Not because she was difficult or surly, but because she was so bad at putting herself first.
“Look,” he said. “Let me start over. Without taking my feelings into account, and without considering the well-being of the station: Do you want to live in your own apartment?”
It took Pendt a while to answer. She chewed thoughtfully on a piece of purple melon. He could almost see her weighing all the options and then trying not to weigh all the options.
“Do you want to live alone?” she finally answered with a question. “My only experience living by myself involved a closet with very poor air circulation. I knew that I’d have nicer accommodations here, but honestly, you are a good person to live with.”
“I’ve never lived by myself,” Fisher said. “This was my family’s home, and then it was where Ned and I stayed. I hadn’t thought about what being here by myself might be like.”
There were already two areas of the apartment Fisher didn’t go into. Pendt had never seen the suite his parents lived in, nor had she been through the doors of the office where his parents worked when they weren’t in operations. Fisher did his work on the large table in the dining area, since the two of them ate in the galley. Now that she thought about it, Pendt didn’t think Fisher had been into Ned’s room since he left. If she moved out, he’d just haunt the lounge.
“Be selfish,” she reminded him.
“I don’t want to live by myself.” He smiled at her.
“Neither do I,” Pendt said.
“All right,” Fisher said.
So they continued. Fisher slowly coaxed Pendt into leaving a few of her belongings strewn around the lounge, and Pendt implemented a cleaning schedule that Fisher was forced to admit did make the apartment a nicer place to stay.
Work piled up for both of them. Though Pendt spent most of her time in hydroponics, she had to be available at any moment to go to operations and turn on the Net or the Well. Every time, there was a whisper of fear that she wouldn’t be able to do it, but every time, she did. Brannick Station lived. The air circulated and the gravity worked and the lights pushed back the dark of space.
Fisher’s duties were increased now that Ned was gone, which he had expected, and people came to him for all sorts of advice, which he had not. He knew that Ned had often been approached by station inhabitants—he’d stood to the side often enough while it happened—but he wasn’t prepared for the sheer number of people he now spoke with every day. It was exhausting.
Pendt noticed. He had dark circles around his eyes, and he started drinking two cups of stimulant in the morning instead of just one.
“I think you should teach me how to run the station,” Pendt said one evening. She was sitting at the table in the dining area with a strawberry plant, trying to see if she could get it to flower on command without ruining its internal workings. Fisher sat at the other end of the table with several datapads and a star chart spread out around him.
“What?” Fisher said. “I’m sorry, I was doing a calculation.”
“I think you should teach me how to run the station,” Pendt repeated. “Or at least how to help you. My work in hydroponics is mostly experimental, and I enjoy it, but I could spend half the time there and get just as much done. You need me.”
“Are you sure?” Fisher asked. “You’re already on call for operations at any moment.”
“You’re on call for the entire station,” Pendt pointed out. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’ve decided you’re the Brannick now, and you are. Ned always had you to help him out, and your parents had each other.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Fisher said. “But you’re right. And it would be nice to have some help. But it doesn’t have to be you. You’re happy.”
“I am,” Pendt said. “But I live here, and someday I’ll have this baby, and I want to know what we’re all getting into.”
Fisher considered it. It would be straightforward enough to get himself an assistant. Dulcie could help him find one, he was sure. But Pendt was already here, and he already liked her, and she was offering. It made a lot of sense.
“All right,” he said. “Honestly, I think the station residents will be happy to see more of you. It’s nice to know that there’s a gene-mage overseeing your food, but they’re used to seeing the Brannicks pretty frequently. They’ll probably mob you once they realize you’re accessible.”
“I don’t mind,” Pendt said. “It’ll take some getting used to. It’s hard to explain. I’ve always had a job, Fisher. Since I was five years old, I was expected to earn every breath I took, and that was all it got me: oxygen and just enough calories to grow. It’s nice to be—”
“Appreciated?” Fisher said.
“See, I didn’t even know the word for that,” Pendt said. She did of course, but she didn’t mind when Fisher interrupted her. It was how she knew they understood each other.
“I’ll teach you how to spell it,” Fisher said, and Pendt laughed with him.
The next day, they entered operations together. Pendt drew a few speculative looks; everyone knew the schedule was clear until the afternoon, but no one said anything. She and Fisher went into the office that Fisher and Ned used to work out of, and she began to learn. By lunchtime, she was thoroughly overwhelmed and equally determined. By the end of the dayshift, she had more or less memorized the procedures for unloading ore ships, which wasn’t a bad start.
Pendt became a regular feature in operations. The other operators soon started bringing questions to her if Fisher was busy. She couldn’t always answer them, but her honesty and her willingness to learn made her very approachable, and everyone was charmed.