Ravana's Shadow (7) (Patreon)

That night came the next important step in the program: a senior staff sleepover hosted in one of the Institute’s parks.

That was supposed to mean a smaller crowd, since kids would assume Kit would make another big announcement if anything that important happened.

The strategy mostly worked. 

Most sleepovers in the Institute weren't that important. There were any number of reasons to spend time together past the work shift, the least of which was just how long some of those shifts could go. After spending days or even weeks without sleep, nothing felt quite as nice as spreading sleeping bags on the floor and watching a movie together.

Doubly so for Kit, since every possible movie and game and story was new to her.

There was a different spirit at the party this time—a nervous energy that overflowed through every corner of the room.

She had the whole park reserved for their party, a much smaller version of the calisthenics course that dominated one of the habitation domes. This one was only a few floors high, with forts in the shape of spacecraft and rovers and sensor towers. 

The grass all around it was no more real than the fake stuff in Remedial, but that was an advantage here. No one wanted to get their pajamas covered with mud. 

Kit picked her favorite outfit for such an important night, made of a soft green fabric that went almost all the way to her toes. She couldn't spin it the way the others could, not with that huge opening in the back for her tail. But nothing could ever make her give up being a squirrel now, not after all these months getting used to it. 

Technically speaking, Kit had never been anything else. She couldn't let things bother her just because her old big self would've thought they were a little childish.

No one at the sleepover ever worried about appearances, or acting more mature. Everyone came with their toys and sleeping bags and pillows, from the stern Abel to her overeager head of Engineering. Given the significance of this meeting, many also brought computers.

She moved from group to group, listening in whenever she could. Granted, not all of what she overheard made sense to her—Kit could extract no more meaning from talk of “nuclear lightbulbs” than she could about the specific composition of fuel injectors or what kind of nutrition gestation tanks that they would need to construct for such an extended mission.

Some of what they told her was surprisingly familiar. When Maddie sat on the edge of Kit's sleeping bag, resting onto her knees with the tablet in front of her, Kit prepared herself for another detailed lecture on subjects completely out of her grasp.

Instead, Maddie showed her a few blueprints from the Aether, things she'd memorized in exhausting detail and still remembered clearly. "I've been going over the supplies you had on the Aether. Found this in one of the storage crates."

Kit nodded. "That's the DSR, yeah. Was supposed to power my life for a few years while I got the fuel together for the return jump. Already asked Forerunner if you needed it, he told me no. Even if it wasn't, like... completely ruined. I was frozen too long."

"Oh yeah." Maddie squirmed in close to her, leaning up to whisper into her ear. "That thing is cooked worse than you in your pod." 

She let go, gathering several little pillows from the hard plastic platform around them, and settling them into Kit's lap. "We're gonna take all the bits and pieces, and process out anything that's still hot. Figure we should still have... half? If it's not enough, we can remove some of the shielding from the reactor downstairs and smack it with neutrons until it's glowing nice and warm again."

Abel crawled backwards up the slide, emerging not far from Kit. "I told her we should be focusing on getting our estimate for you, but she wouldn't listen."

"Listened and discarded," Maddie said, just a twinge of annoyance in her voice. "Plan's already made. All that matters is if we can have it done in time. We already know she's gonna say yes, right?"

Kit nodded. She'd been a little distracted getting all the stuffed toys to stand up, using her tail to nudge some of them upright. "Forerunner will be checking all that stuff, making sure all the timelines are realistic, poking at holes people didn't notice..."

"Obviously. That doesn't mean it's a plan we can actually execute. Are we sure we can't get their leader to go back under the ice and wait? Even if he dies, Forerunner could still wake him up."

Kit stretched her tail all the way out on the sleeping bag in front of her, rocked slowly back and forth. "I didn't get the impression he was... very excited about getting involved with us. He was already on the verge of saying no."

"But we have the approval," Abel pressed. He rested on his knees a few feet away, flicking over the tablet in one hand. "The station is ours now."

"Not... exactly." She looked away from him, attention focused on her tail. She'd brought her brush and moved it through the thick fur mostly by reflex. It was something to keep her hands busy, even if it wasn't quite as nice to brush her own.

"He gave his approval for the mission. But he won't turn over the station until we're there in person."

"Oh," Abel said, tone suddenly dark. "So, he's forcing us to be there. Where we'll be vulnerable to whatever they want to do to us. Could be a trap, or a trick, or... just a way to waste our time and resources so they can steal our colony when we run out. Have you thought about any of that?"

"I..." She let go of the brush, leaving it stuck in her tail. Kit wrapped both arms around her chest instead. "I guess I didn't. Garrick sounded like he was... desperate. If anyone else was going to answer this distress-call, they would've already arrived, right? Why would he ruin his only chance for rescue? And his friends—we're their only chance of living too."

"Seems like a lot to gamble," Abel said. "We need the material, I know that. No one else is sending supplies. But if we fly up expecting them to act like they're citizens of Mara... they'll hurt us."

"They could." Sadie appeared from lower down, carrying her sleeping bag under one arm. The cat hadn't brought her usual spray-bottle, since she wasn't on duty. Just an oversized plush cat, which she probably intended to be a pillow. 

"Even if they aren't historical relics, an unmodified human can still be violent, impulsive, and dangerous. We can't trust them to act like other kids." She rested her back against the plush doll, looking thoughtful. "What if there are more of them hiding, and they try to hurt us?"

Maddie leaned forward, snatching the brush from Kit's tail. She tugged the red fur closer, running the brush through in slow, deliberate motions. Kit felt calm melt through her with each stroke. Her heart stopped racing; her hands stopped curling into fists. 

"They're baseliners," Maddie said. "Desperate, terrified baseliners. They aren't going to bite our tails. We're not even good to eat."

As she said it, Jay finally arrived, scampering between their resting places before settling into the sleeping bag on Kit's other side. They made sure they opened on opposite sides, in case either one got too cold. Kit always felt a little safer when the mouse was around. 

"We're rational, they might not be," Abel insisted. "I'm not saying the mission should be scrapped. I still think making a real proposal is a good first step. Whether we actually want to do the mission or not after that..." He shrugged, and both his bunny ears lifted up again. "That's the Director’s decision. But maybe the Director should be thinking about these things."

"Not a big deal," Maddie said again. "The dangerous part is in the rocket. If we get there, the rest is just the victory lap. Talking to them is just about saying the right stuff, and mining asteroids is all in Forerunner's database. All the hard parts will be over before anyone climbs into the rocket."

Her brushing grew more energetic as she spoke, though no less comfortable. A friend might not be quite as thorough as the rotating brushes in the Institute's baths, but this was still more soothing. Nothing could beat the physical closeness and sensitivity of living hands.

Those other kids with smaller tails didn't know what they were missing. 

Jay squeezed in next to Kit, tucking his tail carefully beneath him as he sat. He already had a tablet ready for taking notes.

“Leave that to me. I’m the barbarian from the ancient past, remember? I know what it’s like to come from a time when people still fought, and a spray bottle wasn’t a weapon.” 

“What else would I use?” the cat asked, tilting her head to one side. “I can’t threaten anyone with Remedial if they misbehave or take their snacks away. A bottle seems extra important when we’re out in space.”

Kit sighed. There was someone else she would have to see about that particular part of the mission. “We’ll talk about it later. Point is, I’m the Director, I’ll worry about making sure they’re fair with us. You all have the harder job—we have to get this thing off the ground.”

“There’s, umm… one thing.” Maddie let go of the brush, then snatched the computer from in front of Jay. Before the mouse could protest, she’d already navigated away from his notes to some other file, bringing up a pair of images. Both showed what was obviously meant to be their ship, at least the part that would fly to Ravana. But one was quite a bit larger and heavier than the other.

“We should use the templates we’ve spent all these years designing to our advantage. Why build a ship for full templates when we can make it for 30%? Half the height, less than half the air and food and water. We’ll be close enough to Mara to rely on Forerunner for the launch—and once we’re out, it’s really just some basic maneuvers. You see the difference it makes—one rocket for normal colonists, one for remedial-sized people.”

“So, we’d barely even remember the mission?” Sadie asked. “That doesn’t seem as fun.”

“Or as smart,” Abel said. “She’s right about the efficiency, and the extra weight. Smaller, lighter launch vehicle too. But all that assumes nothing goes wrong. No emergencies, no mistakes, no components fail unexpectedly. We aren’t experienced explorers here—this is the first manned rocket the Institute has ever launched. Unless you think we could get it down small enough to use the satellite spinlaunch.”

“We could assemble in orbit,” Maddie said absently. “But no. We’d have to go up as lifeless cognitive centers and have Forerunner fabricate us on the way if we wanted to spinlaunch.”

“Completely unacceptable,” Forerunner said, before she could finish. “Approximately five percent of magnetically accelerated satellite launches result in failure. Such a failure would guarantee total loss of whatever colonists were aboard. I will not allow you to risk your lives in that manner.”

A brief, uncomfortable silence settled over the group. Rarely if ever did Forerunner interfere in their scientific research, no matter how important it was. 

Kit gestured up at the speakers. “So that’s off the table. Not that I would’ve been excited about ripping my brain out of my chest for the launch and hoping I woke up again…”

She took the tablet, leaning down to squint at the screen. “Even if we got Forerunner to cheat the cognitive filters, we would still have the coordination and motor skills of 30%.”

“Not to mention, we wouldn’t be saving much,” Sadie whispered. “That’s what Emma would tell you. Most of our energy goes in there.” She tapped two fingers against her chest, right through the nightgown. “Even if you could break a template and still think normally, you wouldn’t save that much energy in the long run. Just the mass for making the rooms bigger.”

Maddie folded both arms, expression turning sour. “I can save us 20% of the crew compartment’s mass. We lose some of those savings for the fabricator and extra biostock we need to get big enough to work on the other end, but…”

Kit tapped the other design. “It’s not a bad idea, Maddie. But for our first mission… I think the Institute is in so much trouble if we fail that we might as well just spend whatever this costs.” She nodded to Abel. “We give this our all. Every hour of research, every test we can possibly run, all the training to operate it.”

She stood up on her sleeping bag, straightening her tail behind her. The lacy green nightgown might not be formal exactly, but that didn’t matter. They were all in pajamas anyway. 

“I know you can all do this. Tomorrow, I make the announcement to the Institute. I want everyone with even remotely relevant skills to be on this project. I know that isn’t the usual way we do things. But when we succeed, we can make Mara the way we believed it was—a thriving colony, where we can be dedicated to whatever kind of science inspires us.”

Of course, Kit hadn’t even spent a year living under Wren’s lie, let alone the hundreds of lifetimes her citizens had. And if they succeeded, would the colony even need her anymore? Her understanding of the subjects these kids studied was further removed than she was from the first Homo sapiens who ever sparked a campfire.

But she knew how her citizens felt, and that was enough.

“Nobody’s gonna like that,” Sadie said. “What happens to the kids who don’t wanna help?”

She shrugged. “Just make sure anything about the rocket always has priority. Lab time, computer time, fabrication time, everything. And… maybe Forerunner can make us some pins? Something to show you’re helping. Everyone doing anything for the mission gets to wear one, and no one else does.”

“Seems fair,” Sadie said. “No way to know if it makes a difference until we try.”

“It will,” Kit said, nodding confidently. “But that’s where I need you all. Make sure your departments know this is the way we’re going. Show them we’re unified. Saving the Aether was one phase in Institute history—this will be the next.”