The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers (best novels in english .txt) 📕

are required to stay grounded until further notice. No launches or landings are permitted at this time.

We are continuing to work with the Goran Satellite Cooperative to fully assess the situation. What we know as of now is as follows:

Earlier today, a hardware failure disrupted a routine satellite course adjustment procedure. This created a cascade collision, which at this time has damaged or otherwise negatively affected an estimated seventy-eight percent of the Goran satellite fleet. This percentage is expected to grow over time, as there is still damaged hardware in descent. As you have likely already noticed, this has disrupted communications channels planetwide.

The circumstances surrounding this hardware failure have yet to be thoroughly investigated, but initial data suggests this incident was both accidental and mechanical in nature. We are aware of rumours regarding an untracked asteroid or orbital weapons fire. These rumours are completely false.

As always, your safety is our top priority, both on- and off-world. It remains our goal to have launch and landing capabilities restored within approximately one GC standard day, and are working to find solutions as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your patience. We are all in this together.

ROVEG

All-clear or no, Roveg was in no hurry to leave his shuttle, not when things could drop out of the sky at any moment. He’d brewed more mek and put on some music, and was quite comfortable among his own walls and decor. The urge he’d had upon landing to get out and see something new had faded. Comfortable and familiar were what his nerves needed now, and though he trusted that everything was indeed under control, he saw no need to rush back outside.

The wall vox switched on. ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Friend said. ‘There is a visitor at the hatch who wishes to speak with you.’

‘Who is it?’ Roveg asked. He assumed it was Ouloo, checking in.

Friend paused as it asked a question at the other end of the ship. ‘Her name is Speaker,’ the AI said.

Roveg lowered his cup of mek. He hadn’t spoken to the Akarak, but he had overheard Ouloo using her name. Curious. He thought for a moment. ‘Allow her to come aboard,’ he said. He’d never talked to an Akarak before, and felt it was best to experience such moments face to face. He drained his cup, got to his feet, and headed for the airlock.

The noise of the Akarak’s mech suit walking through the hatch was louder than the machinations of the hatch itself. Stars, but the suit was unwieldy – and ugly, too. He wondered, as he looked at her, how she moved when she wasn’t inside of the thing. In truth, he had difficulty picturing an Akarak without a suit, for he’d never seen one that way. The whole business was disconcerting, what with not being able to smell her. Roveg took in more of the world through smell than through sight, and the Akarak being tucked away behind metal and plex made her feel ghostly, artificial, more like a bot than a person.

The Akarak, however, quickly made him rewrite that impression. Within her cockpit, she bowed her torso forward. Her body could not have been more different than his, but the gesture was understood all the same. Roveg bowed as well, as was his custom. It was a pleasant surprise, to be doing this with someone like her.

‘Thank you for inviting me in,’ Speaker said. ‘I hope I’m not intruding. I would’ve been happy to talk outside.’

Again, Roveg experienced a note of surprise. He’d heard that Akaraks were maddeningly difficult to converse with. You could count on a language barrier the size of a small moon, he’d been told. But Speaker’s Klip was flawless, delivered with the affable, neutral vowels you’d hear humming around the respectable cities of Central space. She sounded like someone from a diplomat’s office, or a recording studio. The thing that marked her as someone who didn’t use Klip as her primary language wasn’t a particular accent, but rather the absence of any sort of accent whatsoever.

Roveg was intrigued.

‘It’s no intrusion at all,’ he said. ‘You’re Speaker, yes?’

‘Yes. And you’re—’

‘Roveg,’ he said with another little bow. A thought occurred to him, and he straightened up quickly. ‘Are you all right? That thing that came down didn’t hit your ship, did it?’ He hadn’t planned on having a shuttle guest, and he didn’t particularly want one, but if need be, he had the space.

‘No, I’m fine,’ Speaker said. ‘You?’

‘No, not a scratch. Safe and snug, I’m happy to say. So what is it that I might do for you?’

Within her cockpit, Speaker picked up a device – an Akarak-sized scrib, Roveg belatedly realised. He’d never seen one so small, but then, the device didn’t look mass-manufactured. This was a hand-hacked object, as evidenced by the thick glue around the edges, the mismatched screws at the seams. Speaker gestured at the screen, and as she did so, Roveg experienced a peculiar dissonance. He knew that the individual within the cockpit and the mech suit itself were not one entity, but it was strange all the same to see an Aandrisk-sized bipedal figure – a body type he was well accustomed to encountering – standing lifeless, hands at its sides, while the tiny person within its metal head busied herself with other things.

‘Well, that’s actually what I came to find out,’ Speaker said. She looked up, but on her way to meet his gaze, her eye was caught by the projection mat covering the ceiling above. The active rendering displayed the sort of sky you’d see on a typical spring day in the equatorial regions of Sohep Frie – seafoam green with lazy wisps of cloud. Speaker pulled a lever, tilting the suit’s torso back so she could view it from a better angle. ‘That’s … beautiful,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ Roveg said. He glanced up with her, admiring the everyday sight with pride. ‘I’m rather pleased with it.’ She cocked her head at him,