What is carried

CHAPTER 6 — What Is Carried

The second day on the ship, Marek discovered that the silence of space was not like the silence of the farm.
On the farm, silence had layers. The wind through the crops. The creak of old wood. The birds moving without waking. The silence of space had no layers. It was one thing, uniform and complete, and after hours of it Marek began to understand why Arlo kept the engine hum on even when it wasn't necessary.
The noise was a reminder that they were still there.
Sira had been at the navigation panel since they finished breakfast. She didn't work with the urgency of someone who needs to finish something. She worked with the steadiness of someone who has learned that things take the time they need, not the time you want.
Marek watched her from his seat.
She had been at it for hours. The notes she had brought from Cromatica — maps of Zekra, legends of the Kratar, data on the trinita soldiers — were arranged around her with a precision that Marek recognized as the same one she used to arrange everything. Each paper in its place. Each piece of information accessible.
"Don't you ever stop?" he said.
Sira didn't look up.
"Stop what?"
"To look out the window. To do nothing for a moment."
"Doing nothing doesn't advance anything."
"Doing nothing sometimes advances more than doing something poorly in a hurry."
Sira looked up. She looked at him with an expression that wasn't exactly irritation. It was something closer to the discomfort of someone who has just heard something they don't want to hear because they can't completely refute it.
"I'm fine," she said.
"I didn't say you weren't."
"You implied it."
"I observed," Marek said. "There's a difference."
Sira looked at him a moment longer. Then returned to her notes.
Arlo, at the controls, said nothing. But he turned down the volume of the monitoring panel slightly. The minimal gesture of someone who wants to listen without appearing to listen.
---
Two hours later, Arlo activated the autopilot and disappeared into the rear compartment under the pretext of checking the propulsion systems.
Marek and Sira were left alone on the bridge.
Sira was still at her notes, but the rhythm had changed. Less focused. More mechanical. The kind of work done when your mind is elsewhere.
"What's wrong?" Marek said.
"Nothing."
"Sira."
She dropped the pencil on the table. Leaned back in her seat. Looked at the ceiling of the ship for a moment.
"My father asked if I had considered all the risks," she said finally.
"And?"
"I said yes."
"Was it true?"
A pause.
"I considered the risks I could anticipate," Sira said. "The ones I can't anticipate are by definition beyond my consideration." She paused. "He knows that. That's why he asked."
Marek looked at her.
"And that worries you? What you can't anticipate?"
Sira took a moment to answer.
"It worries me to make a mistake I could have avoided," she said. "Inevitable mistakes I accept. The ones that come from not preparing enough..." she trailed off. "Those are the ones I wouldn't forgive myself for."
"Why?"
She glanced at him sideways.
"Because if I prepare and something goes wrong, it's bad luck," she said. "But if I don't prepare and something goes wrong, it's my fault." A pause. "And there are people counting on me not to fail through carelessness."
Marek processed that.
"Your father?"
"My father. My mother." A short pause. "Myself."
The space outside remained exactly the same. Still. Immense. Without an opinion on anything.
"My grandfather says fear is like a flame," Marek said.
Sira looked at him.
"If you control it, it lights your way," he continued. "If you don't, it burns you."
"And?"
"And I think it applies here."
Sira looked at him for a moment.
"The problem," she said, "is not fear of error in the abstract. The problem is that when I make a mistake, I don't think about the flame. I think about my father's face."
Marek didn't answer immediately.
That was different from what he had expected to hear. More honest. Harder to respond to with a cliché.
"And if you make a mistake here?" he said finally. "On this mission. What happens?"
"Someone gets hurt," Sira said. "Something that depends on my decision fails because I didn't see it right."
"And if you don't make a mistake?"
"That's no guarantee for next time."
"No," Marek admitted. "But it's information." He paused. "Every time you don't make a mistake, you learn how not to make a mistake. And every time you do, you learn the same thing in a different way."
Sira looked at him.
"Are you afraid?" she said.
"Yes," Marek replied without hesitation.
"Of what?"
Marek thought about the honest answer.
"Of not being enough," he said. "That when the moment comes when someone needs me to work... I won't work."
Sira looked at him.
"That's the same as me," she said.
"Yes," Marek said. "Different face."
The autopilot let out a soft beep. Arlo returned from the rear compartment with a satisfied expression that confirmed Marek's theory about the food.
He looked at them both.
"What did I miss?"
"Nothing," Sira said, picking up her pencil.
"A conversation about fear and mistakes," Marek said.
"Ah." Arlo sat in his seat. "Did you reach any conclusions?"
"No," Sira said.
"That we're the same with different faces," Marek said.
Arlo looked at them both.
"I already knew that," he said.
Sira looked at him.
"Since when?"
"Since the first time I saw you together," Arlo said with complete naturalness. "You two process the same things in different ways. It's quite obvious if you pay attention."
Sira and Marek looked at each other.
"And you?" Marek said. "What do you process?"
Arlo looked at the controls. A pause that lasted just long enough to be real.
"The same thing," he said. "But with equations on top."
He added nothing more. Returned to the control panel. And space remained exactly the same outside. Still. Immense. With three ten-year-olds moving slowly toward something none of them knew completely how it would end.
---
That night, while Sira and Arlo slept, Marek got up and went to the bathroom.
On his way back, he passed the ship's monitoring panel.
A red indicator was blinking.
Engine energy at thirty percent.
Marek looked toward the compartment where the other two were sleeping. Then looked at his hands. The yellow energy ignited slowly. Without anyone calling it. With the same naturalness as always.
He channeled it toward the panel carefully. Slowly. Without waking anything.
The indicator went from red to yellow. Then to green.
Marek extinguished the aura. Wiped the sweat from his forehead. Returned to his seat. Looked at space through the window for a moment before closing his eyes.
The indicator remained green.
And no one had seen anything.
Or so he thought.
From the rear compartment, in the darkness, Arlo's eyes were open. Looking at the ceiling. With an expression that wasn't surprise.
It was confirmation.
---
END OF CHAPTER 6