“But you can see, then, how you look at some things differently.”
“Get tired, just sittin’ ’round tryin’ to fix stuff.”
“When the right time comes—”
Toby’s mouth warped with exasperation. “Me an’ the guys, Besen, all of us—we wanna be in on what happens.”
“You will be. Just hold back some, yeasay?”
Toby sighed and the tightness drained slowly from his face. “Dad, it’s like there’s…there’s no time anymore when we’re just…”
“Just us?”
Toby nodded, swallowing hard.
“You better ’member, I’m Cap’n now a lot more often than I’m your father.”
Toby’s jaw stiffened. “Seems you come down special hard on me lately.”
Killeen paused, tried to see if this was so. “Might be.”
“I’m just tryin’, is all.”
“So’m I,” Killeen said quietly.
“I don’t want to miss out on anythin’ when we hit ground.”
“You won’t. We’ll need everybody.”
“So don’t leave me out, just ’cause I’m…you know.”
“My son? Well, you won’t stop being that, but sometimes maybe you’ll wish you weren’t.”
“Never.”
“Don’t think you’ll get special jobs, now.”
“I won’t.”
“Son? None this changes what we are, y’know.”
“I guess.” Toby’s face seemed strained and flattened in the enameled light. “Only…it’s not like the old times.”
“When we were runnin’ for our lives? I’d say this is sure as hell better.”
“Yeah, but…well…”
“Hard times only look all right when you’re lookin’ back from good times.”
Toby’s face relaxed a fraction.“I guess.”
“Between us, time makes no difference.”
“I guess.”
SEVEN
Toby went back to his kickball in the spiral axis. Killeen warned them to be careful and not get in the way of crew-work, but never considered ordering them to stop. As near as he could tell, humanity had come into being on the move, designed to chase small game that bounded around very much like a ball, and he wasn’t about to get in the way of so basic an impulse. It kept the crew in condition and smoothed out antagonisms, too.
But not all. As he passed a maintenance pocket he came upon a dozen Family huddled around a small fire of corn-husks and dried cobs. Killeen disliked the sooty stains this practice left on the ship’s walls, but he understood the reassurance of a communal fire. In dimmed light the crackling yellow tongues forked up like wild spirits, casting fluttering shadows among faces intent with their discussion.
He expected a lot of earnest talk now; the ship echoed with chatter and hot-eyed gossip. To his surprise, this knot of idlers included First Mate Jocelyn.
“Cap’n!” she hailed. She was a stringy, middle-aged woman with quick, canny eyes. She wore the coverall appropriate for shipwork, free of snags and covered with zippered pockets. The sewing and metal-shaping skills of the Family had come to the fore during the two years of voyaging from Snowglade, giving every Family member a sturdy wardrobe fashioned from organiweave and from the fiber of plants from the lifezone bubbles.
Killeen made a clipped half-salute, a gesture he had perfected. It carried greeting and acknowledgment, but also reminded that he was in his official Cap’n capacity, not functioning as simply another member of the Family. He was about to move on when Jocelyn said loudly, “We’re figurin’ on takin’ that station, yeasay?”
Killeen was stunned. “How—” he began, then stopped himself. He must not betray surprise that word of the station had gotten around so fast. Shiptalk was legendary. ”—you mean?” he finished.
He knew that the old formalisms of Family speech dictated that he should say “do you mean”—long hours spent with his Aspects had made the ancient, smoother speech patterns almost second nature to him, and he customarily used them to distance himself. But casual crewtalk might be the right approach now.
“Heard there’s a big mech place up ahead,” one of the men said slowly.
“Word gets ’round,” Killeen admitted, settling onto his haunches. This was the ageold posture the Family had adopted while on the move, always ready to jump and move in case of surprise. Here it was meaningless, of course, but it underlined their common past and equality. Everyone in the circle was also squatting, some clutching small bottles of flavored water. A midshipman offered Killeen one and he took a swig: rich aromatic apricot, the fruit now flowering in the lifezones.
“Yeasay,” Jocelyn said. “We’ll be having a gathering?”
“Don’t see why,” Killeen answered carefully.
