Grail - Elizabeth Bear [70]
Fortunately, Captain Amanda’s basic personality was healthy and resilient, her rightminding was solid, and the earlier evidence of her robust sense of humor proved no fluke. Danilaw had no idea how she put up with him, but as a Free Legate she had effective training in dealing with disparate personalities, and as a social scientist and an expert in C22 society, she was without a doubt more comfortable with the range of human variation than were most people.
Which worked out well for Danilaw, who knew he was quirky. Not everybody’s brain chemistry was as solid as Amanda’s. Danilaw’s underlying genetic issues meant his own emotional balance could stray from perfection, and his inherited neurochemistry meant that his rightminding fell in need of more-frequent-than-usual maintenance. Not enough to cause a social disadvantage, or free him from his Obligations—but enough to make him wish sometimes that it might.
But Captain Amanda knew about that now, and had seemed neither startled nor horrified by the revelation.
On the other hand, staring out the ports of the Quercus made him aware that sometimes the annoyance of civil service was worth it. This was not a view everyone got—or even most people. Space travel was expensive and resource-consuming—an extreme privilege accorded him in extreme times.
There were a few other things to be grateful for. Though the research vessel was cramped, her engines were state of the art. She used a quantum drive that took advantage of the same ancient technology that allowed gravity control—and FTL, though the Quercus was strictly an in-system, sublight vessel.
In any case, Danilaw hoped he didn’t prove too much of a disruption in Amanda’s routine. She spent the voyage much as he imagined she usually did—buried in research, checking telemetry, and in general doing all three of her jobs simultaneously and well. Meanwhile, Danilaw discovered he could run a city just as well by remote control as while living in it, or so he flattered himself. Admittedly, running Bad Landing was mostly a matter of checking to make sure it was properly running itself and giving it the odd tweak when it didn’t, but there was a level of expertise in knowing what those tweaks were.
In his off hours, Danilaw read up on C21 and C22 customs and cultures, and practiced his guitar, using a pair of induction clips rather than a speaker out of consideration for his passagemate.
At least, he did so until Captain Amanda looked up from her desk, which she had dragged into her sleeping cubby, and said, “You know, music won’t bother me unless it’s bad, and since you earned it out as a secondary, I can’t imagine it would be.”
He heard her clearly—a benefit of the clips was that they left his ear canals clear—and probably (he thought) failed to hide his surprise. “You can concentrate with all that going on?”
“Crèche raised,” she said. “I can concentrate through anything. Besides, you’re the best entertainment on this tub.” She stretched sturdy legs out of her bunk and stood, bending her spine and leaning back to balance under the lip of the cubby like a cave-climber. The desk she left parked in the bedclothes.
“Tub? Is that any way to talk about your vessel, Captain?”
She grinned and plunked down on the matting. It was soft, conducive as a surface for resting, stretching, or acrobatics—and unlikely to damage anything you dropped on it. Danilaw was growing quite attached to it as a floor covering. It was even easy to vacuum, and if they lost gravity abruptly,