Wayfarers 02 - A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

Author:Becky Chambers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

JANE, ALMOST 12

The shuttle hatch slid open. Jane entered, dragging her heavy haul on squeaking wheels. ‘I got some good stuff today.’ She knocked the dust off her shoes (made with thick rubber from a tyre liner, topped with cushion foam and a lot of wrap-around fabric from an old exosuit) and took off her jacket (more scavenged fabric, but from a real ugly chair). She left both by the door. ‘Check it out.’ She heard Owl’s cameras whir towards her as she started pulling stuff off of the wagon. ‘Switch couplers, fabric—’

‘What’s “fabric” in Klip?’ Owl asked.

‘Delet.’

‘That’s right. And what’s that thing behind the fabric?’

Jane glanced at the dead dog, hanging over the back of the wagon. ‘Bashorel.’

‘Can you make a sentence in Klip with that word?’ Owl asked.

Jane thought. ‘Laeken pa bashorel toh.’

‘Almost. Lae-ket kal bashorel toh.’

‘Laeket pa bashorel toh. Why?’

‘Because you haven’t eaten the dog yet. You’re going to eat the dog.’

Dog had joined mushrooms on the list of food things a long while back. Owl’s idea. Taking them apart was gross, but it wasn’t any grosser than scrubbing old tacky fuel gunk out of an engine or something. Gross was gross, whether it was animal or machine.

Jane rolled her eyes at the Klip correction. ‘That’s a dumb rule.’

Owl laughed. ‘Languages are full of dumb rules. Klip’s one of the easiest ones. Most sapients would say it’s much easier than Sko-Ensk.’

‘Can you say something in Standard Ensk?’ Jane had asked this before, of course, but hearing Owl speak different languages was real fun.

‘A ku spok anat, nor hoo datte spak Ensk.’

Jane laughed. ‘That’s so weird.’ She began to unpack her finds, putting them into boxes with things like them. Owl had suggested that she label the boxes in Klip. Boli. Wires. Goiganund. Circuits. Timdrak. Plating. Her letters weren’t as neat as the ones Owl showed her on screen, but she was getting better. Alain and Manjiri were helping. They had a practice mode where she could work on things she was supposed to be learning in school. It was nice, learning stuff with other kids, even though they were pretend, even though they said the same sorts of sentences over and over after a while. Owl said it was important for Jane to remember how to talk to other people. She said it was maybe the most important thing, after getting the ship fixed.

Jane put the fabric in the delet box. ‘Do any other species speak Sko-Ensk?’

‘I think that’d be very rare. Maybe some people at schools or museums. Spacers living out near the border might speak it. I’m not really sure.’

Jane tossed a bolt onto a pile and watched it tumble down. ‘Will they think I’m weird if I don’t speak Klip right?’

‘No, sweetheart. But you will have an easier time if you know more words when we get out of here. You’ll be able to tell people what you want and what you don’t, and you can answer questions. You’ll make more friends if you can talk to people.

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