The Vela: The Complete Season 1. Yoon Ha Lee

said, gesturing around. “Why is she here?”

      “We went over this already.”

      “It was rhetorical! This is . . . this is ridiculous. How can you stand being here with her?”

      Asala looked at the thick hull shielding them from the vacuum outside. “Where else would I go?”

      “But—” Niko closed their eyes and shook their head. “What she’s doing to your people. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand being around her. How can you?”

       “It’s my job,” Asala said.

      Niko stared at her. So neutral, so poised. When their father had come to them with this job and told them who they’d be accompanying, Niko had been elated. They’d expected danger, yes, and discomfort, sure, but not . . . not this. “What is wrong with you?” they blurted out. “Those people on her Marauder—”

      “Keep it down.”

      “You shoved them back in the hold. You looked—you looked annoyed by them.”

      Asala squinted. “Has this been bothering you since then?”

      “Yes! They’re your people. They’re dying. You made the same trip they—”

      “Do not.” Asala’s voice was as sharp as the crack of a bullet. “Do not tell me what I did.”

      Niko wet their lips. “Why don’t you care about them?”

      Asala took the last of her bread and cleaned the sauce from her plate until it shined. “Are you armed, Niko?”

      Niko was taken aback. “What?”

      “Are you armed?”

      “No, of course not. Why would I be armed?”

      Asala began to clean up her spot. “You just shared a meal with two people who are.” The general’s pistol had been impossible to miss, but Niko hadn’t noticed a weapon on Asala, and they couldn’t see one now. Asala gathered her dishes and left the table. “In the future, that’s the kind of situation in which it pays not to piss anyone off.”

      • • •

       Would you say your name and position here for the camera?

      

       My name is Apirka Amin, and I’m the ship’s captain.

      

       Captain Amin, what are some of the biggest challenges you and your crew are dealing with right now?

      

       Well, for starters, this is a ship designed for eight hundred people, not two thousand. The Khayyami government didn’t expect so many when they sent us out here.

      

       You’ve done your best with the space you have.

      

       That was all the Blue Hats. They came in and put up the privacy dividers in the cargo holds, and gave us the sleeping mats and whatnot. And the lavs.

      

       Yes, the pop-up lavatories. We’re all well acquainted with them.

      

       They’re god-awful.

      

       I’d have to agree.

      

       The ship has a sewage system, but again—

      

       It’s built for eight hundred.

      

       Right.

      

       The Blue Hat volunteers provided the rations and basic hygiene items, too, right?

      

       Yeah. They were pretty organized. I wish it had stayed that way.

      

       What’s gone wrong?

      

       The kinds of things you’d expect from people crammed into too little space and no way to shut a door on someone you don’t like. There have been thefts. Fights. The volunteer patrols are on it, but . . . it’s hard. And people are getting sick. Can’t sneeze in the cargo holds without hitting all your neighbors.

      

       But the ship’s systems are stable?

      

       . . . Sure.

      

       That was a long pause you took there.

      

       They’re stable. Nothing for the passengers to worry about. We’re safe.

      

       I understand.

      • • •

      The Altair had been in transit for almost a week, and given that nobody had killed anyone else yet, Asala was starting to think the trip might go quietly. The general continued to run her daily security checks, and if that made her feel better, fine. Niko alternated between trying to sweep their outburst at dinner under the rug with a profound amount of sucking up, and hiding from the general in their room, where they were busy doing whatever a person did with computers. As for Asala, she was attempting, as best she could with the company, to spend her interplanetary flight the way she always spent interplanetary flights: sitting in her quarters and reading. She was failing at it, despite the comfortable lounge chair, despite the simulated candles she’d switched on, despite the little plate of pickled fruit and the refreshment tin she had at hand. She tried new books, old books, fresh ideas and familiar friends. Nothing stuck. She couldn’t concentrate, and when she found she’d read the same stanza three times over without properly processing it, she tossed her handheld aside and rubbed her face with her palms. She knew why she couldn’t read, and she was spitting mad over it.

      Damn Ekrem, and damn his kid. Damn that photo they’d shoved in her face.

      Asala knew why none of her books would stick. She was thinking about one particular set of books, one she desperately wanted and would never see again. The Wonders of Eramen, all six volumes. It was a used set, and had likely been bought cheap, but there was no collection in the galaxy more precious to Asala. She remembered the worn covers, the feel of the mock paper. Most of all, she remembered the inscription inside the first volume: To my little sister, on her birthday, with love from Dayo. The words sister and her were written in slightly different ink on neatly cut rectangles of glued paper, which Dayo had covered the original misnomers with a year or so after the gift had been given, after an important conversation had been had. Dayo hadn’t told Asala she’d altered the inscription. She’d just done it, leaving it for Asala to find on her own. Dayo had been like that, always performing quiet kindnesses without expectation of praise.

      And yet Asala had abandoned her, and the books, and everyone else besides. It didn’t matter that she’d been a child, that larger hands and stronger wills had placed her on that ship. There’d been a time when she felt like they’d thrown her away, but no. No, she’d abandoned them. In both body and mind, she had.

      She stood up and began to pace. Damn Ekrem,