Page 61 of As You Wake, Break the Shell

“She thinks that’s sad,” Cora said. “She finds it—oh, sweetie—she finds the idea of an organism that exists without feelings to be very sad. She says that sounds so empty. She is imagining being that empty, and she is grateful she is not like that. She is grateful for being full.” Cora sniffed. “I’m glad for you, too, girl, but jeez—” Her tears gathered into quivering spheres at the corners of her eye sockets, unsure of where to go without gravity.

Signy reached out hesitantly. “Can I . . . help with that?”

“Uh . . .” Cora scrunched her eyes shut. “Yeah. If that’s okay. I can’t see.”

Signy pressed the cuff of one of her sleeves to Cora’s face. She was relieved to find this had a comparable effect to the one it would’ve had down on Fortune; the water clung to the fabric and pulled away cleanly. She repeated the action on the other side, and when she finished, Cora opened her eyes, looking into Signy’s. She looked so strange, with pupils that dilated, but Signy was unbothered. She looked right back.

Unmistakably, Cora blushed.

“Tell you what,” Signy said, tugging her damp sleeve into place and nudging herself a couple of feet away. “I don’t know that I’ll come here again, but the next time that you, Cora, come to the shop, I will give you a small plant to keep in this room. Something that can survive up here. And maybe—maybe it’s okay that Colibri and the plant won’t be able to talk like we all are doing now. But you can touch the plant. She can feel the plant through you. And when you’re not here, they can both absorb the same light and turn it into sugar. Maybe even they’ll absorb light that bounced off of each other. And maybe that way, they can share something of themselves, just a tiny bit.”

There were guardrails of a sort outside, metal barriers that kept Colibri from being able to touch the window directly. Colibri drifted up to them, as close as she could. She didn’t have a head. She didn’t have eyes. Yet all the same, Signy understood, somewhere deep in her bones, that Colibri was observing her. This was no threat. This, at last, was the hello.

And with that, Signy was no longer afraid.

Cora smiled. “Colibri says you are of her love.”

“What does that mean?” Signy asked.

“It means . . . um . . . you’re her friend. You are friends now. She likes you, and she likes that I like—mm. Hang on.” Cora shook her head. “Hmm, uh, yeah . . . I dunno. Sorry. I dunno what I was saying.”

Signy swallowed a smile and pretended she didn’t know, either.

Interstitial

There were no tables in the cafeteria, because tables were useless in space. Installed in their stead were long, clear, floor-to-ceiling poles, roughly thick enough for the average person to wrap their hands around. Each pole was outfitted with looping tethers you could stick an arm or an ankle through to keep yourself loosely hitched to your chosen spot. These were accompanied by an assortment of clips, hooks, and straps, all of which could be used to secure your food or utensils if you wanted your hands free for something else. Signy had never considered how much the presence of tables mattered in an eating establishment. An open floor in an empty room would give the impression that you were at a party, free to mingle as you liked. A table designated territory. You could approach a table and ask to join whoever was there, but the given expectation was that people seated around a table were in conversation with each other and not with you. Here in the stables, people were using the poles to satisfy the same unspoken shorthand, gathering with friends or colleagues in floating huddles and leaving the other imaginary bubbles alone.

It was a clever solution, as was the sock-sized tube of chicory Signy cupped between her hands (could you say “cupped,” about a tube?). It wasn’t the best brew she’d ever had, but it was better than she’d anticipated, and the novelty was highly enjoyable. She liked the space chicory, and she liked the semblance of tables. She liked this place. She could see the appeal.

She especially liked the window. The window was faced away from Fortune, and outside there were nothing but stars. Signy found it difficult to do anything other than stare at them. She had trouble accepting they were real and not an added piece of decor.

Cora did not look at the window, as she sipped—or rather, sucked—from her respective tube. A lingering sadness had settled upon her after she’d said goodbye to Colibri and removed the helmet. Nothing overbearing, nothing crushing, just a faint tinge. A formerly bright skylight that had gained a coat of ash.

“What does it feel like?” Signy asked. “Being with her?”

Cora squeezed chicory into her mouth and thought. She swallowed, then said, “It’s overwhelming, but in a good way. It’s like you . . . you get rid of all the bullshit you didn’t even know you had. There aren’t words, there aren’t lies, there’s no . . . um . . . oh, what’s it called . . . when you’re trying to be something you’re not, because you want to look good?”

“A facade?” Signy suggested. “Pretense?”

“Pretense, yeah. You get rid of all of it, and all that’s left is you. When I’m with her, I’m”—Cora ran her tongue over her teeth and looked at the ceiling, searching—“I’m like this very pure version of myself. The me that exists under the other stuff I’ve learned. Like, I was a baby once, right, and I had to learn how to talk, how to follow instructions, how to have good manners, whatever. But the part of me that existed before I learned all that stuff is still in there, and even though I’m an adult, and I know lots more, and my feelings are more complex, I can still be pared down to that . . . that essence. Not a baby, but something . . . core.” She was animated now, her passion wrestling with the frustration of not being able to articulate something important. “It’s just like pretense. I mean the word ‘pretense,’ not the concept of it. I can’t always find the right words on my own. But I feel them, right? We all feel everything that is possible to feel, even if we haven’t been taught how to name it. But with her, I don’t need to find the words. I feel like . . . oh, this is going to sound stupid—”

“I doubt that,” Signy said, her chicory forgotten.

Cora pursed her lips, then spoke with the same bold honesty she had at the shop—the same quality she supposedly thought only existed in an altered state. “When I’m with her, I’m a poem,” she said. “We make a poem together. If I tried to write it down, it wouldn’t sound like how I actually talk, but it’s who I actually am.” She winced a little, self-consciously. “Is this making sense?”

“Yes,” Signy said. “That sounds very difficult to step away from.”

“It is.” Cora nodded. “Coming down is my least favorite part of this job. It’s like, uh . . . like my emotions have a head cold. Like I’m trying to breathe through my nose, but everything’s blocked up, y’know? But that’s normal. It goes away after a while. I’ll be feeling a-okay in an hour, ish.”

“Is that how long it always takes,” Signy asked, “or does it correlate to how long you’re with her?”

Cora smiled. “You ask good questions,” she said. “Do you ask everybody good questions?”

Signy took a sip from her tube. “If I find them interesting, yes.”

The grin Cora flashed was dangerously disarming. “So I’m interesting?” she said.

Signy arched her eyebrows, inviting a challenge. “I’m finding out.”