Page 58 of Cloverleaf Station

His hands twitched. His heart ached and ached. His eyes watered fiercely. “Soon,” he promised. “Soon.”

“Good.” Elenus forced his face into a smile. “Go. Quick.”

Kieron closed Lizzie’s door, strapped into her pilot’s seat, and went.

***

Plotting the course to Trakta was straightforward. Three weeks of gentle flying—gentle for Lizzie or Catie, but a pace that would have pushed the Daring Do to the breaking point—and Kieron would be there. He planned to stay no more than a few weeks, preferably just a few days, before heading on to Gania. And then …

He didn’t know. He didn’t know what came next. He didn’t know what to do with his future, where to use his skills, what to dedicate his life to. He had hopes, certainly, but he just didn’t know anything for sure. It was hard, this limbo state, but to be fair, he’d been here before. And he wasn’t a boy of twelve this time, so that counted for a lot.

He decided to focus harder, to pay closer attention to what was going on around him. For the first few days of travel, it was almost like they’d never left Cloverleaf Station. Catie talked to them nonstop, spending copious amounts of time chatting with her sister, and Elenus was on the comm almost as frequently. It was only after Elenus’s energy finally ran out, and he had to either go to bed or start hallucinating, that things became quiet. It was actually a little disconcerting.

Remember where you are. You’re inside a being, an intelligent life-form. She can talk with you. Reach out to her. It wasn’t in Kieron’s nature to reach out first, but with Elenus and Catie he’d never had to. Perhaps Lizzie required a different touch.

“Lizzie?”

There was a pause, and then— “Yes, Kieron?”

It was a little bittersweet, hearing a voice so similar to Catie’s and yet so different. She didn’t drawl in the same way, didn’t elongate her vowels in that babyish fashion that was so endearing, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t, well. Still a baby. And you had to be careful with babies. “How are you doing?” Kieron asked gently. “I feel like we haven’t spoken much since we began our trip.”

“We haven’t. I’ve spent twenty-nine point two standard hours in conversation with my sister and seventeen point five hours in conversation with my father, but only two point one hours with you.”

Wow. So little? Kieron opened his mouth to reiterate his question, but Lizzie beat him to it. “I feel sad. I don’t think you like me as much as you like them.”

What? “I do like you,” Kieron insisted. “I like you so much, Lizzie.”

“But you don’t speak to me as often as you spoke to either of them. And they speak to me far more often than you do. I have been led to understand that willingness to engage in conversation is a sign of affection, and you don’t want to talk to me.”

Wow. Two days into this, and he was already fucking it up. “I do want to talk to you,” Kieron said firmly, trying to put the weight of his confidence into his words. “I really do. But I’m not as naturally conversational as either Elenus or Catie, and without them to remind me, speaking doesn’t come easily to me.”

“Why not?” Lizzie sounded confused. “I thought humans were a verbal species, that speech is a common trait used for communication among you.”

“Not all humans are created with the same inclinations,” Kieron said. “There’s a great deal of biological diversity among us, and then you put genetic engineering in on top of that, and in some places, people have entirely given up speaking to each other like this.”

“Like where?”

Oh boy … “Like … the Sisters of Garavar,” Kieron offered after racking his brain for a moment.

“But they are a religious order. Is not religion one of the areas of human interest where speaking among yourselves diminishes the effectiveness of speaking to whatever deity is being addressed?”

“That’s true,” Kieron allowed. “But the Sisters of Garavar take it much further than any other religious sect. They actually remove their own vocal cords so that they can’t speak. And there are other examples …” What was the one his mother had held up as a great example? Oh, right. “The Trixian Space Marine Corps is one of them. These were soldiers made in biolabs, genetically engineered to grow to full-size in a matter of three years and trained from birth to have no curiosity, no personality, to be nothing but living weapons. The people who made them wanted clones, in essence, not individuals who wanted conversations.”

“But that was not the choice of the space marines.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Kieron agreed. “No one can choose the circumstances they’re born into. I was born into a world where children who spoke out of turn were punished harshly, and I learned early on to just … not ask questions. Some people are naturally shy too—I might have been, but I’ll never know for sure if my reticence to speak is the result of shyness or the rules of my home world.”

“Oh.” There was a moment of silence. “So you do like me, but you don’t like to talk?”

“I like to talk, I just need a reminder sometimes to do it,” Kieron replied. “And yes, I like you very much. I think you’re …” Wondrous. Terrifying. Incredible. “Just as special as your sister is, and I want to get to know you better. What’s your favorite thing about space travel so far?”

“Space!”

There, there was a hint of the childlike wonder that Catie gave off with every word. Kieron chuckled. “That’s great, but what about it specifically?”

“I like … the distance. So big. I can reach out with my sensors for thousands and thousands of kilometers and not find anything else. In the station, everything was so … close.”

“It really was,” Kieron agreed. “What else do you like?”