I'd only just had time to shower and get my thick hair dry, before the first people arrived. It was Dio returning with his elder sister, and some of her household relatives.
Dionyz Murohe was my foster-father Arind's long-time partner. This was his home too, most of the year when he wasn't travelling. He had olive skin, expressive hands that were mostly shoved into his pockets, and large, dark eyes that constantly watched everything. He and I stood in silence after our friendly greeting, as was our custom, watching the others exchange hellos. We’d realized years ago that we needed to ration our small talk.
Anyway, it was his sister I was eager to see.
I often amuse myself, trying to figure out how I would describe Zholya Murohe to anyone who doesn’t know her. And here I am, trying to do just that. She’s got the silver-streaked black hair of her brother, and the penetrating brown eyes. But instead of Dio’s perpetual seeking, Zholya seems like she’s always just found whatever she was looking for. She expects to. She’s like a ship that knows precisely where it’s headed, and will let you come aboard, as long as you’re going the exact same way.
She carried herself with straight-backed elegance, fifty or so years of wisdom mingling with a dramatic directness. Arind kissed Dio hello, and Zholya nodded patiently at our gestures of respect, before we all piled on and hugged her.
"Hello Arind," she said. "Jasha, Jessyn. The place looks beautiful."
"Thanks for honouring us tonight," Ari said. She smiled and accepted the small cup of evening-coffee he offered.
The Murohes were an ancient, well-established family, most of whom wound up in some branch of government or another. Dio, a poet, was the only current exception. They lived on an enormous compound in the northwest, in almost the exact opposite corner of the main continent from my parents’ estate. Zholya had finally been elected Arche ten years ago, after a career moving slowly through the ranks. Since then, our yearly open house had become almost an informal version of one of her forums. Everyone in the region expected to see her there.
We all sat in the receiving lounge and talked for a while, as those with something still left to do finished it up on the public floor of the house.
She first asked after Arind and his work in the regional archives. He was a social historian, and he contracted to do research when organisations needed someone to handle delicate old documents. Jasha mentioned that the biology team he'd finished apprenticing with were about to submit their records, covering the trip to the antipodal island they'd taken this past year. Arind said he'd read it when they came in.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" Dio asked Jasha. "Whatever that was?"
Jas nodded, seeming amused at some memory. "We did. That place was bleak, but I'm glad I went. It was interesting to play explorer for a few months." He grinned at me. "Like Marseline."
"Speaking of your sister," Dio said to me. "I heard word out on Sahr. Her mission's complete, and they'll be heading back to this quadrant in a few months' time."
My heart lifted instantly at the mention of Mars. She hadn't been at my university ceremony, of course, though they'd sent her a recording of it. Half the times she'd crossed this quadrant, there had been no personal leave to visit Daltia. I hoped every time, though.
I started hoping again.
Dionyz then told us all about the recent poetry reading tour he'd been on this spring, both around the system and to various places on Daltia. I refilled my coffee cup. To be honest, I hadn't missed him around the house. It's true that Arind was more alert and vibrant when Dio was home. But the restful energy evaporated when he returned. At least for me.
Then Zholya turned to me with a smile. "And how about you, Jessyn? It's been almost as long since I've seen you."
"I've been busy enough," I told her. "A lot less than capstone year, but everything I had to put off..." I grinned. "Well, it's all still here. I've been doing a lot of tests out of the southern port."
"The flight testing," she said respectfully.
I nodded. "They have way more than they can handle."
"There are quite a few things that are safer to do," said Dio. "Especially with your degree." He emphasised the last word, as if to underscore that test pilots didn't need one.
I frowned. Pach and Eli and all the others I worked with at the southern port, they knew as much about ships as many students I'd met at university.
"It is ideal for now," I began.
(Jess,) Jasha said.
(I know.) So much of my life would be easier if I could balance my personality with Dio's. But if I were the type of person who got along with Dio, I’d be an entirely different person. I spared a quick hope that this new idea of recording my day might give me some insight later. Out loud, I merely let out a quiet breath, and waited for the conversation to move on. Thankfully it did.
"There will be even more work soon," remarked Zholya. "Téo Peres told me the other day that they're overrun with license applications on Roxi. I told him to send some this way. There's room," she joked. Timotéo Peres was Roxi's Arche, what they called a Governor.
"Will they make trouble?" Arind asked her.
"The Trium?" She gave the most imperceptible shrug, somehow more insulting than anything that could be said. "Until they see benefits. They need this too."
It was true. Despite the fact that we were far from Luna, the Trium's centre of government, there had been a resurgence of interest in the colony on Daltia. Especially since it had come through the Adjustment much better than the former administration had predicted it would. We weren't easy to get to, though. And many people had begun to chafe under the limiting rules the Trium set on a colony.
It took more than our current two million citizens to make a stable world. But there was nothing that could be done about that.
Yet.
The door chime sounded, signalling the first of the local guests. "No more of this talk," Arind murmured, as he and Dionyz rose to greet them.
The open house itself went off with no issues. We spent time mingling in the reception lounges on the main floor, where there were light refreshments and platters of local fruit. Then, in the early evening, once the sea breeze had picked up, we led the guests around the public areas of the house, and then out to the productive areas of the Silvas' estate.
At each small farm or cultivation camp, one of the younger assistants gave us a brief presentation about the season, and any discoveries or improvements that the group had implemented. Many of the guests were here to socialise, but some were taking notes or making recordings. At their next open house, we'd see how they added to it.
At the fishery, Marisa and a younger teenager took turns presenting. They'd tried tying the bottoms of several seaweed lines together, to see if that would multiply the amount of leaves growing at the bottom of the oldest plants. It hadn't worked, but there had been a huge increase in the fish that had taken up residence in that part of the grass. So they had a new project to work on the following summer. Marisa looked delighted. Her parents had given her permission to return, and Konrad made sure everyone knew it would be her special project.
Then it was back to the house, where Arind and Dio called out all the neighbours who'd spent their spring working on our property. Dio passed out gifts, and Arind, who was the hugging type, embraced everyone as if they were emigrating to the far side of the system, not just returning to their nearby homes.
"I knew that would happen," I whispered to Jasha, as everyone applauded the announcement of Bianca and Renzo's pledge. One year for them, then maybe they'd make an even longer covenant.
Jasha grinned back at me. He wasn't very romantic. But it was hard not to smile at the couple's joy.
I'd wondered if it would happen to me, once. With Rai. If things could have been different. A pledge between us would have gained us a lot of support. For the first time, though, I questioned what I had truly wanted, beneath all the pressure of that time. Looking now at Renzo's face, I realized -- my own hadn't looked like that.
I felt a mixture of hurt and relief.
Dinner was just as good as I'd expected. The many dishes the neighbours brought, as well as the variety of salads and baked goods our kitchen had been programmed to create, complemented the hot mero fish the chef brought out for the main course. The guests went in turns to tell the party about what each of them had cooked for the meal -- all collected from their land, or seasoned by it. Something about knowing the provenance of every bite made it taste better. The most modern dispenser that credit could get you was nothing compared to this.
Afterwards, people settled into small groups in the lounge, or on the lamp-lit patio out front. Zholya and Arind sat near where we had relaxed earlier this afternoon, and I pulled up a lounging chair to be closer. Jasha sat down at the white piano. At the first few notes, heads turned toward him, and I saw a few in the crowd smiling fondly. Were they thinking of his mother?
It had been her music at the first few parties I'd spent at the Silvas'. Colline Silva had still been teaching ten-year-old Jasha how to play. But she had been a visitor even then. She'd never taken to Daltia, and her performances sent her all over colonised space. I knew some of the current guests remembered. Maybe some of them even tried to compare.
But he wasn't his mother.
He was Jas.
He'd never been like anyone but himself. Quiet, ruthlessly patient, aware of inevitabilities. I drank my pale wine and listened to the song. His notes were headlong and steady, tumbling gracefully over themselves in exactly the direction he meant for them to go. The music hovered forward over the last keystroke for a moment, trembling in the air of the parlor, before fading away into silence.
There was a deep breath, and then the applause.
He played a few more songs, lighter ones, and the guests once again started talking quietly together.
The discussion around me was mostly political, which didn't surprise me, considering who was at the centre of the group. Zholya kept it positive and encouraging, and I was reminded that this was as much a performance for her as Jasha's song had been for him.
After a bit, Jas pulled up a chair and came to sit beside me. He accepted a glass from a nearby guest.
"Thank you," I said. "I don't know how you do that in front of everybody."
"I forget they're there," he confided. "Once it starts." Jas thought for a moment, sipping his drink. "It was a help when you listened this morning."
"Happy to."
"There is something else I could use your input with."
"What?" I asked.
Jasha glanced over to where his father and Dio relaxed on a nearby couch, talking with some local administrators seated beside Zholya. He bit his lip and appeared to reconsider. "Maybe tonight's not the time to ask."
I shrugged in acceptance.
Arind was arguing enthusiastically about some land boundary documents he'd found in the local archive. "The pre-Adjustment maps make so much more sense. I was surprised how many of our current problems they'd clear up. Things were blown around, sure, but the basic land structure is still there."
"But why wait until next year to share it? I'm sure everyone would have wanted to hear today," said one of the women from our region's admin office.
"By then we might be able to do something about it."
Dio cleared his throat, and grinned knowingly at Arind. I could only imagine the type of teasing caution Ari was getting. He glanced at Zholya, who was only smiling down into her cup.
I felt mellow, either from the wine or from a good day. For the first time I could remember, the endless pushes and pulls of pressure from the adults around me didn't feel like something to warily resist. It almost seemed like I could balance them, if I could just find my own sort of fulcrum.
Dio started telling his small audience about how many people he'd met on his tour that seemed hungry to invest in Daltia's economy. I didn't care about business matters, so I started to tune it out, and considered getting up for one more wine refill.
Before I could do that, Dio put down his glass. "That reminds me of something." He waited until he was sure we were all paying attention before continuing. "I met a man recently at one of my readings. He's bringing his whole family here, wants to settle on Daltia now and restart a factory up on Roxi. Now that things are opening up a little bit." He glanced at his sister. "DeBlays is the man's name. He's hiring."
"What do they want to produce?" a government officer asked idly.
Dio's eyes met mine. "Starships."
I was quiet.
"He wants six or seven apprentices. Several for design. I told him I knew just the guy." Dio's mouth curled into a half-mocking, half-encouraging grin. "How about it, Jessyn? Would you like me to arrange a meeting?"
This was not the first connection Dio had offered. As with most job suggestions from family friends, they were usually far enough from my skills that I could politely turn them down. Some might think it was apathy or stubbornness, but that wasn't true. I was acutely aware of what the Silvas and their network had given me already. I wanted to get somewhere on my own.
But he had me with this one, and he knew it. To contribute, even marginally, to a ship's design -- that wasn't a typical first work contract.
"You mentioned that he wants to open a shipyard on Roxi," I said.
"His headquarters will be in Damor," Dio replied smoothly.
I nodded. He knew why I'd asked.
Gathering what information I could, so that I could work out a plan -- that was the goal right now, I reminded myself. This did seem to fit right into that.
"I'd be glad to meet with him. Thank you for offering," I made myself add.
Everyone in my family surreptitiously looked at me, perhaps wondering who this stranger in the lounge chair was.
Sometimes I wondered, myself.