After hydroponics, Pendt found herself drawn to the second arm of the station: the habitations.
The Brannick family lived in the “lowest” part of that branch, which is to say, closest to the colonnade and operations. Pendt was glad of this when she was summoned to the Net at all hours of the day, but she enjoyed exploring further. As the apartments got further from the colonnade, they got smaller, but there was no truly bad section to live in. It was merely assumed that those families with children would want to be closer to the schools and other amenities offered on the station proper.
Pendt loved the corridors the most. Families decorated their doors to differentiate their apartments from their neighbours’. Names and family sigils, along with flowers or legendary animals twined along the edges of each door, painted in bright colours. Some sections of the corridors were decorated completely to a single theme, and the themes changed depending on the days.
The corridors were divided by ladders and lifts for freight, and Pendt preferred to climb. It occurred to her on more than one occasion that the station’s sense of direction was outdated. It would make much more sense if down was on the wall. But she appreciated the impracticality of it even more. Like a plant in her greenhouse, Brannick Station had grown and adapted, and its inhabitants had done the same.
There were small bowls outside the doors of many of the apartments. Pendt had seen similar setups in shops on the colonnade, and one of the techs in operations always had a water bowl underneath their desk. The inhabitants of Brannick Station kept the bargain of cats, offering water to the creatures who roamed the station and hunted vermin. They must feed them too, Pendt realized, since the environmental controls took care of most of the station’s infestations. It was another sign that station life was different, and Pendt liked it. For the first time, being similar to a cat didn’t bother her. She had a bargain too.
And then there was Fisher.
Pendt didn’t spend all of her time thinking about him—that would be ridiculous—but when her thoughts drifted, more often than not, they landed on him. She had plenty to occupy her, between her plants and the Net and her changing physical form, but sometimes she had moments of quiet, and then she remembered him.
It wasn’t like the way she thought about other people. Her family stirred up feelings of resentment and anger, and a sort of sadness she didn’t enjoy. Thoughts of Ned made her worried and helpless. Thinking about the people she was meeting every day on Brannick Station made her feel welcome and at home, which she delighted in. But thinking about Fisher was something else.
First and foremost, there was the complication of being married to his brother. She and Ned had an understanding, of course, and Fisher was very well aware of it, but even leaving the legality of everything aside, Pendt knew that a wedding meant something to the Brannick boys that it didn’t mean to her. She wanted to respect that as much as possible, but sometimes the light fell on Fisher’s hair, or she caught the line of his shoulders and . . . well, she hardly knew what to call it.
Pendt knew that Fisher cared about her. Respected her. Valued her. All three of those things were new—except for value, but even that was different from the way Arkady had valued her—and Pendt was adjusting to them. She didn’t want to read anything into his treatment of her, just because he was being nice. Yet the pages of the books that Ned left behind guided her mind down new and exhilarating paths, and she worried that she was starting to develop an imagination in spite of her best efforts.
The easiest thing would have been to talk to Fisher, of course, but Pendt wasn’t quite there yet. She liked having her mind to herself. She liked the way her thoughts spilled over themselves, concocting increasingly unlikely scenario after increasingly unlikely scenario. She’d never had this sort of time to herself before, and she was hesitant to share it before she had finished wallowing in it.
So she didn’t. She spoke to Fisher all the time, of course. It was impossible not to. They lived together and worked together, and Pendt tried not to read between the lines of his everyday conversation. But he was good to her. And he didn’t have to be. And she didn’t know if that meant anything.
And it was driving her insane.
After a few days of thinking about it (and nearly ruining half an acre of sunflowers through inattention), Pendt arrived at the only conclusion she could. She was a spacer, new to staying in one place. She was still adjusting. Fisher knew that. They were getting used to each other, both at home and in terms of running the station. Fisher was learning how to live without the constant support of his family. Pendt was learning how to live without the constant fear of hers. They had a lot of things to get through, and even if Pendt had a rough idea of where she was hoping they would end up, she had to wait until Fisher was ready. She was the station, this time, and he was the long-haul ship. He’d arrive when he arrived, and she could guide him into port.
More than that, she understood that he might be slow to decide. His whole life had rerouted, and even though he was getting most of what he wanted, it was still an adjustment. And it was a permanent arrangement. They had to live with each other at least until Pendt gave birth, which she was in no hurry to do. If he was going to be cautious about how he treated her, she could respect that. There was nowhere else either of them wanted to go.
In the meantime, Pendt had a friend. Ned was her friend as well, of course, but he was gone. Dulcie was more of a mentor, and the other people Pendt had met on the station were too new for her to trust completely yet. Fisher was different. He had welcomed her and plotted with her and helped her steal herself from the Harland. That was friendship, and Pendt was happy for it, even if there were times at night when she rolled over and was sad to remember that she was alone. She did everything she could to make Fisher’s life as easy as he was making hers, from learning his favourite foods to practicing that stupid video game until she was kind of passable at it.
She’d served her family and her ship for her entire life, and it had never felt like this. This was reciprocation. This was joy. This was good work well done and effort appreciated. Pendt learned to receive as well as give and found that each of them was made better by the other. And at the centre of everything was Fisher. As her world got bigger and more complicated, he stayed unmovable and solid. And she wanted nothing more than to make sure they had each other forever.
It was the bargain of cats, and she was patient. All she had to do was wait for Fisher to put out the bowl.
19.
“WHAT’S IT LIKE, USING the Net?” Fisher asked.
Pendt considered her answer. She set her book down on the sofa and turned to face Fisher, who was sitting at the other end. She crossed her legs underneath her and leaned against the cushions along the back for support. Softness was still something she was getting used to, and the sofa cushions were particularly nice. Fisher set his datapad down and mirrored the way she sat.
“It’s different from using the æther on my own,” she said. “I don’t change anything or make anything grow. The magic is already there, locked in place. It’s strange because I have to go through the foetus, but once I do that, it’s like I have a key.”