Chapter 2
Sparks
It cut like those oyster mushrooms Helix found on logs near the river and liked to fry up for dinner. Was it dangerous? Was it edible? Was there someone out there who knew?
Tegan had pried the fuse box free, breath held, checking for chunks of the weird film in other parts of the generator. It seemed the closer the components were to the heat of the engine, the less of the mat she found. She had no idea what they would have done if it had been elsewhere.
The fuse box was separated by thick metal, the coolest part of the machine, and the mat seemed to prefer it. Unfortunately, it was probably the worst place for it to grow. As far as she could tell, they were damn lucky this stuff hadn’t started a fire.
Tegan steadied herself in a corner of the shed, pulling fuses and scraping their ports. Most of the tunnels were nearly a foot long, and the process was taking time. Her pocket knife was dulling, and it was getting more difficult to get into the smallest parts of the housings.
Lee, and, eventually, Helix, had made it to the shed and set up in their own corners of the small space. They cleaned the grooved cylinders of the fuses and handed them back to Tegan to be reinstalled. There were only two that they wouldn’t have to clean: the fuse that had blown, and saved the jenny, and their only spare, which had not attracted the grey organic.
Everyone tried to concentrate on their work, but Tegan noticed how often they stopped to look at the backup lights on the dome. If the emergency systems light began to flash, this nasty job would be cut short, and they would have to abandon everything. They’d have about ten minutes to get loaded into the transport shuttle docked behind the house.
Working in low gravity wasn’t so bad, but working in the stuffy, low-light shed was miserable. Lee and Helix refused to open the door, let alone take anything outside. Floating debris or a glob of swamp water would just make things worse. The room was hot, crowded, and chaotic.
After hours of low grav, Tegan was nauseous, dehydrated, and lightheaded. When it finally came time to slide the last fuse back into place, the three mat farmers were at each other’s throats.
Lee was, very understandably, the first to break. The farm was hers and the only thing she had. It was also the only thing still connecting her with her father. She spoke first, “I hope we did the right thing here, Tegan. We could have spent the time collecting valuables and jumping ship. If we made the wrong choice, I’ll have nothing.”
Though she said we, the sentiment felt directed at Tegan, and she resented it. With how hard they struggled every month, they seemed to be at a net zero with the farm anyway. Tegan had only tried to fix the generator because she knew how much the mat planet meant to Lee. Tegan had nothing already.
Helix rolled his shoulders and grunted, “Probably should be warming the transport shuttle up. There’s no way we got all of it. I won’t still be here when the oxygen blows off this place.”
Tegan replied, annoyed, “We didn’t need to get all of it, Helix, just enough for the current to pass without shorting and blowing another fuse. I could’ve wired around the box, but running back for conduit and building a bypass would’ve wasted more time than we had.”
She wasn’t sure that was actually the case, and she wasn’t just sweating because of the hot shed. But the decision had been made, and there was no going back now. So, she slammed their last fuse back into its housing and punched the power on the control panel.
Sparks flew, and the three backed away from the jenny. Tegan could see the whites of Lee’s blue eyes through the thick air of the dark shed, and she worried that her partner really was about to lose everything. A dark, buried part of her found some relief in that, and she hated herself for it.
Seconds passed like hours, but after only a few of them, the hum of the generator sounded. All of the fuses held, and each of the mat farmers let out a breath.
The lights on the dome began to power back up, even as the inconsistent voltage indicator flashed red on the jenny. There was still enough of the substance in the fuse box to cause issues, but not enough for the generator to fail, for now.
As the dome restored its systems, Tegan, Helix, and Lee floated lazily to the plastiel floor of the jenny shed. Their emergency air propulsion jets couldn’t compete with the restored gravity, so they waited to click them off until they were sure their weight was fully seated in their boots.
Tegan would have a full-time job on her hands properly cleaning the rest of the machine, but for now, she couldn’t wait to get out of the jenny shed. She pushed open the door and let her eyes adjust to the green-tinted light of the evening.
She was greeted by Carl, pulling Lee’s violet marsh irises up by their bulbs and chewing. Without gravity hindering him, he had clearly shrugged his harness and headed straight for the flowers. She jerked the stems that she could get out of his mouth. Every time he got into them, he got sick.
“Damnit, move, Carl,” Helix said as he muscled past Tegan. Lee placed a hand on her arm as she followed closely behind, sighing at the hole in her garden.
As the three cleared the ox, the rest of the mat farm came into view. It looked like the planet had been dumped on its head and just turned right side up again.
Anything that wasn’t strapped down was moved or gone. Even things that had been strapped down, including Carl, had shifted. There looked to be a week’s worth of work just to get the place back in order.
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There wouldn’t be time for that now. They had the night until the Osh’tal traders arrived in their barge, ready to collect whatever organic mat that Lee had to sell. Right now, she wouldn’t make enough on what she had to get them through the following month.
Normally, losing a day wouldn’t set them back so far, but it wasn’t the first day they had lost that week, or that month. The machine plow had been down a week, and the mat grinder worked on and off. The compressor was about the only thing that worked reliably, but if you didn’t have any dirt, moss, or other organics to feed it, it might as well be an expensive decoration.
As the realization came to the others’ faces, Tegan sighed. She grabbed Carl by his steel fiber halter and started down the path to the bog fields.
There was no reason to turn off her jumpsuit light. She’d be using it all night.
***
The big Osh’tal mat trader’s jowls moved as he barked, the small implant on his throat translating for him. The reptilian features that the rest of his face was comprised of remained still, and the juxtaposition of the two was always unsettling for Tegan. She didn’t like turlocks, even those under the Osh’tal flag.
Lee couldn’t afford to haggle today and had been short with the male about how much she would accept for the twenty organic mat bricks they had to offer. It had been a long night of struggling with the machine plow, grinding and compressing mats, but even Helix had stuck it out.
Tegan very much wanted to ask the traders if they knew anything about the substance gunking up their jenny, but unfortunately, the Osh’tal already knew the farmers were over a barrel, and knowing about the generator would just make it worse.
Lee’s desperation and the turlock’s upper hand had created an impasse between them. The two were arguing loudly in the dead silence of the domed mat planet.
Lee was fuming. “You lower your offers every month. How are we supposed to survive with these prices?”
The vertical lids of the turlock shut over his eyes, and he croaked a reply, “I do not see another barge on this mat planet line. Do you have better offers coming in?”
“You know that I don’t, and that wasn’t my point. Doesn’t it benefit you for us to continue farming? If you refuse to come off more credits, I will have to sell this planet, and that will cut your supply. Isn’t it in your best interest to keep our heads above water?”
The trader looked around. The mat farm was in disarray, tools and equipment strewn everywhere. The three farmers looked spent. Even Carl was flat on his side in the shade of the willow.
He squinted his eyes, probably in judgment, but did not comment on the chaos, “Well, I suppose it would be a shame for you to lose… “ he waved a clawed hand, gesturing towards the fields, “all of this… I will give you the credits I gave you last month, but these prices won’t hold. As time passes, it is cheaper and easier to create mat planets. Your competition is rising, and I am not worried about my supply.”
Lee looked like she had been punched in the gut, but as Tegan saw it, they were lucky the Osh’tal were willing to work with them at all. Without another word, Lee shook the turlock’s hand and turned on her heel. Helix started helping the other Osh’tal load mat blocks onto their transport skiff, but Tegan turned to follow Lee.
Tegan lowered her voice. “Lee, we need another fuse. We were already playing a dangerous game with only one spare; now we have none. The generator is limping along.”
Lee whipped around, her sharp features fierce in the green haze of the morning. “You don’t think I fucking know that? Would you rather have enough fuel to get us through the month or a spare fuse?” She kicked her boot against the ground, knocking off mud and continued, “I’ll give you a fucking hint. The generator is guaranteed not to run without one of those things–”
Tegan cut her off, “Do you think I’m fucking stupid? I know we need fuel. I’m telling you to come off something in the house. Trade something.”
The white house under the willow had barely changed since Lee’s father had passed. Tegan hadn’t ever suggested selling any of it, even if it felt awkward living among another person’s effects. She kept her things, and what felt like herself, in a corner of their bedroom.
Lee’s pale skin grew a shade paler, and Tegan could see the fire behind her eyes flare. Lee replied, “You pay nothing to live here, Tegan. Maybe if I charged you rent, I wouldn’t be in this position.”
Tegan was shocked, and couldn’t keep it from her voice, “I work for you all day, every day.”
“Day labor stays in the barn. They eat bio paste, bathe in the river. You know that would be the way of it on any other mat planet, and people would beg for the work. They would beg just to be away from the choke and trash of a cityship.”
Which was where Tegan would be. The point was made without Lee saying more. “Am I day labor to you?”
Lee sighed and finally looked up at her. “That’s not what I’m saying. The decisions on how this place runs… on where the money comes from and what we spend it on… are mine.”
So, she would let them blow off into space before she would change anything here. Tegan let the information land, and her chest tightened. Should she bother to reply?
Before she had decided, a priority message came through on her jumpsuit's control pad.
DOCKING REQUEST
VESSEL: Orbital Momentum Bike
MAKE: Kestrel
MODEL: HopRig M1
PILOT: Lumi Velta
LICENSE: GR-8X5D2-3741-LVG (Expired)
Tegan looked up toward the green bubble of the dome. “What the fuck is a hopper doing here?”
Sure enough, a sleek black vessel skimmed around the curve of the microplanet's atmosphere, its pilot in a minimal vac-suit. As she got closer, Tegan could see that her debris jacket had the patches and embroidery typical of a hopper, and the black OMB was painted in intricate patterns.
The gravbike cut a sharp corner, its rear sliding smoothly along the lip of the dome. As its momentum stalled, the helmeted pilot clicked on the magnetic pull, dragging herself through the dome. As soon as the natural gravity caught, she switched her mag systems to push, allowing the vessel to lower gracefully onto the empty portion of the docking pad between the barge skiff and Lee’s emergency transport shuttle.
Lumi Velta powered down her gravbike and kicked its stand forward. She unclasped the air port from her helmet, simultaneously clicking the collar open. While she swung a leg over the propulsion jets on the tail of the vessel, she released the helmet from the back, fluidly hooking it to its clip on the bike.
Bone white locks fell around a tan face, and Tegan caught her breath. It appeared many of the humanoid contingent of the Osh’tal traders did as well. Whether from fear, curiosity, or attraction, Tegan knew this woman was used to the attention.
Hoppers never brought anything but bad luck, but as she met Lumi Velta’s dark eyes, Tegan couldn’t bring herself to care.
