Page 74 of As You Wake, Break the Shell

Signy took her hand away. “I don’t want to make you feel like some kind of specimen—”

Cora brushed Signy’s forearm with the backs of her fingers, reassuringly. “I will tell you if something feels bad. Promise.”

Signy turned her attention to Cora’s stomach. “What’s this one for?”

“That,” Cora explained, “is my nutrient dock.”

“Ah,” Signy said, suggesting she knew the concept, at least. She glanced at Cora, her eyes asking, Are you sure this is okay?

Cora nodded, smiling. She liked the feeling of Signy learning her.

Signy touched the dock, the intake ports, the light frame of scar tissue. “And you hook this up to . . . ?”

“A nutrient pack. It’s like this, um . . . this sort of brick-shaped thing they fill up with protein and vitamins and whatever. The techs stick it onto me while I’m getting in the saddle, and it slowly doles stuff out while I’m up there.”

“What about water?”

“That, I just drink. There’s this big fat straw that sticks out next to my headrest. I just have to lean over toward it.”

Signy studied her. “Is that satisfying? Drinking that way? Eating without actually eating?”

Cora hadn’t really thought about it in terms of satisfaction. “I guess not,” she said. “But I don’t care, when I’m up there. I’m in my body, but I’m also not, y’know?”

Signy’s fingers traced their way from the dock down to one of Cora’s tattoos—the spirals on her upper thigh. “Do these bring you into your body?”

The comment surprised Cora—not because it was out of nowhere, but because it was exactly right. “Yeah,” she said, tingling with the buzz of shared understanding. “Yeah, that’s part of why we get them. Something to ground you when you’re planetside. Get you in touch with your own skin, literally.”

“What’s the other part?” Signy asked.

Cora shrugged. “Showing off, I guess.” She sat up as Signy laughed. “These”—she pointed at the dozens of moon phases on her right upper arm—“are how many Big Quarry runs I’ve done. These”—she pointed at phases on her left—“are Little Quarry. This one”—a sun with beams resembling the quills of a rorqual’s sail, on her right wrist—“I got when I got my license. This one”—six stars stacked above it—“marks six years in the corps. I’ll get a pair of crescent moons flanking a big star after ten. And, um, let’s see . . . a lot of these are just for me. The soda bottle, I got with Twig—she’s got a matching one. This one”—a poker hand of three aces, spade, diamond, and club—“I got when I made it to thirty. I’ve left space for forty, so, we’ll see.” She shrugged again. “I just like them. I like the way they look, and I like how they feel. You don’t have ink, right?” She hadn’t seen any on Signy, but then, she’d been a little busy.

Signy shook her head. “I never felt a need.”

Cora nodded. That was fair enough. You either wanted ink or you didn’t, simple as that. She lay there for a minute or so more, soaking in a lazy daze of letting herself be explored.

“Are you cold?” Signy asked after a bit.

“A little,” Cora admitted. She hadn’t cared until it was pointed out.

Signy ditched her survey of Cora’s skin and tugged the kicked-away blanket over them both. Cora nestled close, drunk on the luxury of skin touching skin. Now she was the one tracing her fingers, brushing them around Signy’s breasts. It had been way too long. “Can I ask you something personal?”

Signy squinted at her. “We were just inside each other, so, yes, I think that’s fair.”

Cora laughed, breathy and short. “Okay,” she said. “Why don’t you live here, at the shop? Why do you go back and forth every day, when you have a bunk right here? I mean, your apartment is comfier and all, but—”

“Mm.” Signy looked at the ceiling as though her answer might be up there. “Hmm.”

“Do you still think I’m a cop?” Cora teased.

Another laugh. “No. I . . .” She searched Cora’s face, then looked back to the ceiling. “If I lived here, I would never go outside. I would have no reason to. Everything I want is right here. I could grow plenty of food, get everything else delivered. Anybody I wanted to see, I’d simply invite over. I could just . . . live my work.” She pulled her lips into her mouth. “And that would get dangerous.”

Cora tucked her palm under her own cheek. “How so?”

“Because I have to understand people,” Signy said. “I have to understand the world people are coming to me from. I have to understand the world I’m affecting with my work. I have to be aware of the risks to myself and my customers. I have to remind myself that the work is people, not plants. If I ever start to think that the work is plants and plants alone, I’ll have lost the plot. I have to be part of the . . . the ecosystem of our society, such as it is. I hate it, but it’s necessary.” She rolled her head to meet Cora’s eyes. “I have to have a reason to be in the world every day, and the reason I have given myself is: I have to go to work.”

“Is that why you don’t have plants in your apartment?” That observation had hit Cora like a sack of rocks the second she’d walked into Signy’s place. This woman who owned a plant shop didn’t have a kitchen planter. She didn’t have houseplants in the window. All the things she sold to other people to make their homes nice and their bodies healthy—she didn’t have any of it where she actually lived.

Signy gave a small smile, a slow nod. The buzz of shared understanding. “No, that’s for a different reason.”