Pendt was not privy to the captain’s decisions, of course, but her cousins and siblings made sure to discuss it loudly when she brought them their meals. They weren’t subtle enough to be vague about it, but they too lacked any real knowledge, so they speculated all manner of terrible fates for her as the ship closed in on its destination.
“We always dump passengers at Alterra,” Rheegar said with all the authority of someone who had heard it from an adult. “Maybe they’ll dump the galley cat too.”
“Mother is going to keep her,” Tanith said. She always sounded absolutely sure when she made this sort of declaration, though Pendt had not yet figured out why she was so certain. “We’ll leave passengers, of course, or at least off-load some of the bodies, but the cat will stay.”
There was grumbling at that. Her brothers and cousins usually mirrored the way the adults treated her. It had only been a few months since the fingernail incident, but most of them had switched from deliberate indifference to outright pretending she didn’t exist. The younger family members were slower to change. They were too accustomed to having a reliable punching bag. They might have squabbled about Pendt’s fate until the end of time, except that the Harland finally arrived at its destination, and they all found out.
Alterra was an asteroid. According to the stories passed around the complex, the mining colony was on its sixth or seventh asteroid out of the nearby belt. As each rock was exhausted of minerals or became unstable due to so much digging, it was shoved away, and a new asteroid was procured. Pendt did not really believe this. The asteroids were huge, and she’d never heard of that kind of magic. It would take a huge amount of fuel, and it would be very difficult to stop the asteroid once they got it moving.
Still, the complex was impressive. The Stavengers had built it, once upon a time—a giant spider of a construct, legs wrapped around stone—and the miners had done their best to keep it going. Even Pendt could look that up in the Harland’s database. There were diagrams of how the port operated and maps detailing where merchants and their ships could dock. She did her best to picture the complex in her mind, but Arkady didn’t encourage imaginative thinking, and so Pendt was mostly limited to memorizing the files in the brief moments of her day when she wasn’t busy.
There was very little technical information in the files. Pendt didn’t know what the complex was made of or how many people lived on it. She didn’t know how the ore was extracted or where the miners were quartered. Only information pertinent to trading goods was provided, and even then, there was no indication of who, exactly, the captain would be trading with. Pendt didn’t think to ask who owned the mine these days. In her mind, everything operated like the Harland, and people were born to wherever they were meant to work. And no one would have answered her anyway.
They came into one of the docking clamps slowly. It was the first time Pendt had ever done anything but move forward in space. She couldn’t feel the minute changes in direction, not really, as Arkady brought the ship into port, but she could hear the engines rev and thrum with a new rhythm as the captain did her manoeuvres. Pendt wished she was important enough to be on the bridge, near her aunt’s porthole. She wanted to see. At least her brothers were also stuck in the windowless engine room. They wouldn’t be able to hold that over her.
The most unnerving moment was when the engines cut. Pendt fought off a wave of panic. In space, dead engines meant dead everyone. She’d imagined what quiet might feel like, but she wasn’t ready for the absence of sound in her ears or the stillness of the deckplates under her feet. The airlock must have connected. The storage bay doors might even be open by now. Pendt could be breathing the first molecules of new-to-her oxygen in her life.
The clock in the galley chimed, pulling her thoughts away from such ridiculous fancies. It didn’t matter where they were. Pendt’s job hadn’t changed, and it was almost time for dinner. Arkady would be gone, at least. The captain and her first officer would go to the complex for negotiations. Everyone else would go about their day almost as usual. There might be a bit less to do in the engine room, but there was never any possibility that Arkady would allow a single extra Harland off the ship.
Dr. Morunt appeared in the galley door. Pendt wasn’t entirely sure how to behave. The doctor had started eating in the mess more frequently, but she mostly left Pendt alone, which made her the nicest person on board. Lodia had gone to see the doctor that morning, just before leaving the ship, and carried a thermo-sealed case with her when she left the medical bay. Pendt had seen her only briefly, but it was enough time for her to be curious about what her mother was up to. The case had made Pendt uncomfortable. She sensed two halves that could never be the same whole, similar to each other and yet different in key ways that she could not identify. Lodia had taken the case off the ship. Whatever was in it, Arkady must be willing to trade with Alterra.
“Your mother has new caloric requirements,” Morunt said with no preamble. “Please ensure her portions reflect the changes.”
She handed Pendt a datachip, which Pendt inserted into the galley computer. It was true. Lodia Harland’s ration had been increased. There was no reason given, of course, but Pendt would not have asked questions anyway. She memorized the number automatically, instantly aware of how much food it represented. The computer readout told her that the difference would best be made up from the protein rations, not the vege-matter, but Pendt already knew that.
It wasn’t the same as when she’d changed her eye colour or regrown the fingernail. That was a powerful surge, a sense of rightness and being that she couldn’t deny. This was more of a comfort. A hug, if she’d ever received one. A reminder of what she could do, someday, and a reassurance that she hadn’t lost the ability from not using it.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Pendt said. “I will make the necessary adjustments.”
Morunt looked at her with that close examination Pendt always found unnerving. It was like the doctor was waiting for her to figure something out, and Pendt wasn’t thinking fast enough. If it was important, like Lodia’s calories, Morunt would just tell her. Pendt was smart enough to realize that the doctor’s reticence meant the information was, at least, a little illicit, and that it was up to her to put the pieces together. She couldn’t expect Morunt to put herself out. So she did what she always did: She filed the information away, along with all her cousins’ slights and her brothers’ abuses, the hints she gleaned from the kitchen staff, and her own common sense, until she could figure it out.
“Do you want your meal now?” Pendt asked.
“Thank you.” Morunt held out her hand. Pendt handed over the protein packet and the doctor’s allotment of vege-matter, barely thinking as she measured it out. Morunt watched her as she scrupulously put the correct number of calories on the tray.
Pendt was about to ask a question, something inane like how long the doctor thought they would be at the station. She didn’t get many opportunities for polite conversation, and Morunt was the only one likely to talk to her without speculating about her death. Before she could, the doors to the mess opened, and her brothers came in, looking for their meals as well.