Page 141 of As You Wake, Break the Shell

No, she is elsewhere in the station. She is staying with me here before you and I go on our run.

Why?

Because she and I need each other. We are human, and humans need touch and talk almost as much as we need water. When we break, we need these things even more. She is here because she needed time away, and she is here because I am quiet when she is close. We needed to cling together. We needed to breathe above the rain.

Will you bring her here? To me? As before? May I speak to her through you?

Yes, and more so. You know when you and I circle Fortune in our training flights? To practice our skills?

Yes.

I would like to take her with us for a short flight like that, tomorrow. I got permission. A favor. Two hours, then straight back here.

This is allowed?

Technically no, but you and I have a spotless record, and people let you do whatever you want when you’ve just touched death. We’re treating it like a student flight.

As you and I did, when we were learning to be a team. With the instructors.

Yes, exactly. Would you like to do that with Signy?

I would like very much to do that with Signy. Will I feel her?

Not like when you join with me. She will ride in the saddle, but I will be the bridge.

Cora, I would like this. Has Signy done this before?

No. She hasn’t been to space much. The last time she saw you was the first time she’s seen the stars since she was a child. I would like to show her many of them, if you agree to this.

Cora, I would like this very much. Yes, I would like this. I would like this. Excitement. Impatience. Yes, Cora, yes, hurry. Let us show Signy ourselves in a team. Let us show her what it means to fly.

Liftoff

Chapter _

The proceedings underway in Colibri’s pen were a “light launch,” Signy had been told. This flight would only take two hours, and so the heavy prep required for a quarry run wasn’t necessary. Signy understood this, but the pen still looked plenty busy to her. She hung back, out of the way, watching a pair of flight techs flip switches and hook up equipment. The thing she found most unsettling about the process was that the central component being installed wasn’t machinery. It was Cora.

Signy hadn’t managed a clear look inside the saddle yet, but she could see Cora in there, chatting and laughing with the techs as she was connected like a living battery into what was euphemistically called a chair but was more of a human-shaped dock, snugly curved and densely padded. The helmet they fitted her with was heavier than the one she’d used during Signy’s first visit, and the loose cables that hadn’t been secured yet drifted like aquatic fronds. Cora had explained every step of this to Signy many times, and yet, the uncanniness of the actual practice made Signy shiver. She found it necessary to focus on the fact that Cora was smiling.