Page 73 of As You Wake, Break the Shell

“I have food,” Signy said. “And water, too. There’s a bathroom, but no real shower, I’m afraid. Just the wash station.” A rudimentary nozzle-and-drain setup in the airlock, made for dousing yourself if rain crept beneath your clothes.

Cora waved her palm reassuringly. “That’ll be fine,” she said. “I need to message—ah, shit.” She glanced at her phone, then held it up to Signy with a bleak chuckle. “Everything except the hazard line’s already out.”

“Wonderful,” Signy sighed.

“When that’s back up,” Cora said, placing the currently useless device in her pocket once more, “I’ll need to let Twig and my supervisor know where I am.”

“Is this going to upend your flight schedule?” Signy asked.

“Probably not,” Cora said. “I’m not due to go up for another week. And besides, if it’s still bad then, they’ll scrub flights to the stables until it—” She stopped, looking like someone had poured cold water down the back of her shirt.

“What?” Signy asked.

“I—” Cora looked away, visibly anxious and trying to not be. “I have some ginger on me, but, um . . .”

Cora trailed off. Signy considered this with a single, serious nod. “Well, good news. In two days, I’ll have some real medicine ready for you.” A thought struck her, and it excited her immediately. “And silver lining is, I’ll get to be here when you try it.” Oh, that was incredible, actually. What a wonderful opportunity. Signy never got to sit with any of her customers when they took their meds, and with a new compound like this, she could be there if something went wrong. She could gauge the efficacy, she could jot down side effects, she could get real data on how to tweak the next batch specifically for this person—

Cora did not look like she found this to be a wonderful opportunity. She looked nauseated. “I don’t want you to see me if it hits,” she said, very quietly.

Signy reached out across the counter and took Cora’s hand. “I’m not a doctor,” she said. “But my mother was. I have seen . . . a lot.” She spoke the inadequate words with weight. “If your symptoms make an appearance while you’re here, it won’t bother me.”

Cora shifted her weight. “It would bother me.”

Another silence. Another pause.

“If this does get weird,” Signy said—she meant sheltering together, not Cora’s condition—“I have spare bedrolls. The shop is big enough that we can each find a corner of it and leave each other alone.”

“Would you rather we just do that?” Cora asked, with heartrending earnestness. “Seriously, this is your space, we don’t have to—”

They looked each other in the eye.

Signy caressed Cora’s palm with her fingertips. “Would you still like to take that break?” she asked.

The worry on Cora’s face vanished, and all that remained was her smile. “Yes,” she said.

Interstitial

Common name: Better Guar

Species name: Cyamopsis cypsela

Adaptation path: Cyamopsis tetragonoloba -> Cyamopsis astralis -> Cyamopsis cypsela

Given the incredible versatility of guar gum—a substance with too many industrial, culinary, and cosmetic uses to count—one would expect the engineers of the Cyamopsis astralis template to have been more rigorous in its design. In the Primer, this template is described as having a germination rate of 75%. In practice, our farmers on Lodestone have found that Cyamopsis astralis has an abysmal germination rate as low as 55%. Genetic analysis of this template found numerous errors that are more suited to the work of an entry-level student than a professional development team, thus ruling out any adverse planting conditions or inexperienced agricultural techniques that might have caused this issue.

These errors have been corrected in Cyamopsis cypsela.

Cyamopsis cypsela is a fertile strain. Seeds printed from this template or harvested from mature plants should germinate within five days. At current printing, this template’s rate of successful germination is 97%.

Chapter 30 Cora, Fortune

The bed in Signy’s crash room was a one-person deal. There had maybe been a time in Cora’s life when she would’ve thrown herself onto it and made do, but her back had started to have opinions about things. From the way Signy paused once they entered the room, it was clear she felt the same. So, after a bit of a chuckle, they took the bed apart. They unfastened the stacked pair of mattress pads, dragged everything except the frame into the front room of the shop, and there, among the houseplants and the vegetable starters, they made a nest, and they took a break.

After that, they were in no hurry to finish the shelves.

Signy ran two fingertips over the implant behind Cora’s left ear. “Does it bother you if I touch them?”

Cora shook her head. “Not at all. I’m used to people poking at ’em. And the rest of me.”