The Marionette
Zupp
“We need the money. The solar absorber isn’t gonna last another two months for us to get to Tollyan. And unless you want to be eating nothing but beans and freeze-dried strawberries for the duration of those two months, we need to resupply,” Columinus said.
Burrock perked up at the mention of the strawberries and turned to Utilitron-Pike. “Why in the name of the sun did you buy all of those freeze-dried strawberries?”
Utilitron-Pike closed their eyes and whirred. “I was directed to purchase quote: as much non-perishable fruit as twenty nuggets can afford end quote. SupplyCo was selling freeze-dried strawberries in bulk at a greatly reduced price.”
“I think we should still perform,” Burrock said. “We need to start saving a nugget per show to purchase this one a new Emergent Thinking processor.”
“I take offense to that,” said Utilitron-Pike.
“At least you don’t need a new Emotions Core.”
“And yet I am not so fragile as one composed of flesh and bone.”
“Both of you stop it,” Columinus said. “My feeling is that if the Gottian authorities have not outlawed either passage or public gatherings, the situation cannot be so bad that our landing here would be a death sentence.”
“But to even risk it-” Zupp began.
Columinus interrupted. “We either risk it here or we risk it with the solar absorber shorting in transit. If you want to talk about death sentences.”
“We’re being callous, and bull-headed. If we land on a planet with an outbreak, we risk bringing the disease with us everywhere we go. I think there’s a third option,” Zupp said. They drummed their fingers against the side of their coffee mug. The hot surface hurt their finger pads, which gave them a minor rush. If you have to hurt yourself, a friend had once told them, do it in a way that won’t cause lasting damage. On the side of the mug was an artist’s rendering of Tiptap, the ship’s cat. Zupp’s partner, a farmer on Hevelspire, had given it to them as a gift during Zupp’s last visit. “What if we cancel this show and the Tollyan show? We could go to D-2, convince someone to let us perform there, buy ourselves a new solar adaptor, and avoid the nastiness all together. We’d have weeks, and plenty of time to make the final string of shows. D-2 is just as close to Urglenth as Tollyan is.”
“Not a bad idea, actually,” Burrock said.
The fluorescent lights buzzed over the circular table, casting a cold glow over the coffee and the oatmeal and the table bowls of freeze-dried strawberries. Utilitron-Pike sipped at an empty mug and raised an empty fork to their facial vent.
Columinus
Columinus had a contact on D-2, and so it was decided with relatively little fuss (considering the earlier fuss) that heading to D-2 would, in fact, be their best option. At worst, Burrock pointed out, they’d be stranded on D-2, where they could easily find temporary work until they could afford a new solar adaptor. Zupp agreed, and walked around the table collecting dirty dishes. Lula Loppet stayed silent, as they had all morning, and Krikko had never left their room for breakfast in the first place, having gone to bed the previous evening complaining of constipation.
It was a truth well-known among planet-hoppers that astral constipation could be incapacitating.
Columinus left the table for the cockpit, stopping at Krikko’s cabin along the way. Columinus had always thought that cabin was a cruel word for the rooms aboard the Marionette. When they’d piloted for the Charisma Hogs they’d slept in a full room with a double bed and a porthole window and a desk and a closet. Here the cabins were themselves the size of closets, big enough for a twin bed and a footlocker and nothing else- barely enough floor space for calisthenics. Columinus had taken to rolling their clothes up into tight cylinders to make space in their footlocker. They rapped their knuckles on Krikko’s door. They heard rustling and a tap on the room’s control panel and the door accordioned open, pressing itself against the frame; Columinus had to turn sideways to get their fat body past it and into the room.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” Columinus asked. Krikko moaned. Columinus crouched down and set a warm mug on top of the footlocker. “I brought you some coffee. Two teaspoons of powdered milk how you like it. Might loosen you up a bit.”
“Thanks.”
In the cockpit, Columinus reoriented the Marionette towards D-2.
Zupp
Zupp was on the hunt for Tiptap. They hadn’t seen the feline for a couple of days, though he must have been eating in the night because his bowl was always empty by morning. Zupp wasn’t particularly concerned that Tiptap was hurt or lost- he often vanished for a day or two before materializing at the dining table as if he’d been around all along- but they had learned that it was better for their anxiety if they got eyes on the cat, visual confirmation that their shipmate was well. They checked in the usual spots: the prop closet, behind the mint green copper pipes in the hallway that led to the airlock, under the dashboard in the cockpit (inspiring a brief but passionate conversation with Columinus about the merits and demerits of traditional Loupollian puppetry), and above the cabinets in the galley. Tiptap was nowhere to be found.
Once Zupp started to look, they could not focus on anything else. Sometimes they were frustrated by the way their brain operated, swinging back and forth from intense distractibility to total fixation, but on the long voyages through open space they relished the moments where they could sink their attention into one task. They went back to the prop closet and opened every box. They checked under all the furniture in the rec room. When they returned to the galley to open every cabinet, they came upon Burrock and Lula Loppet sitting on the linoleum countertop.
“-is all I’m saying, it’s part of what you’re here to learn-” Burrock was whispering at too high a volume before they noticed Zupp coming through the door. Lula Loppet’s jaw clenched and unclenched, and Zupp suspected that they were trying not to cry. Burrock looked back and forth between Zupp and Lula Loppet, biting their lip in concentration. “You really ought to talk to Zupp about this anyway. I mean, uh. I don’t even know how it would work, even if I thought it was a a good idea, which, and I totally get what you’re saying and why you’re upset, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. Personally.”
Zupp didn’t come any closer, which meant that they had to stand fifteen feet across the room with their hands in their pockets while they waited for somebody to speak. Lula Loppet looked down at their hands. Burrock fiddled with the spinning spice rack.
Zupp began to speak: “You don’t have to tell me anything. I’m just looking for the cat. But if you do want to tell me, I’ll do my best to listen without judge-”
“I want to leave the tour and go home,” Lula Loppet said. Their face flushed maroon and their eyes glistened as they looked across at Zupp.
“Oh. Do you- could you explain why?”
Lula Loppet nodded and grasped the shoulder straps of their denim overalls. It was hot on board the Marionette, and most of the crew had taken to wearing only undergarments beneath their overalls, so Zupp could see a fair portion of the vermillion tattoos that crisscrossed most of Lula Loppet’s body. “I wanted to learn the craft. That’s why I joined up. And I have, some, but so much of this is packing and unpacking and flying in the ship and freaking out about the derelicts and even when we do the show its like, always the same show. I’m not learning enough, and I’m homesick and scared and I want to be with my family. I don’t want to die in space. I don’t want to get on a spacecraft ever again,” Lula Loppet said all in one breath.
Zupp thought, absurdly, that if nothing else at least Lula Loppet must have learned something about breath control and the diaphragm from performing with the crew. “We’ve had apprentices leave before,” Zupp lied gently, blinking at Burrock. “We can pay you for the work you’ve already done. But we can’t afford to book you passage to Allperth from D-2, so you’d be on your own getting back. I know it’s a scary time. None of us were expecting the derelicts, and we’re all worried about them- that situation isn’t going to change if you leave us early. You’ll still have to find a passenger ship home, and then you’ll be with strangers. And Lula Loppet, we want you to stay. You’re an excellent performer, and we care about you.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say,” Burrock said. “The logistics, the long voyages, the heavy lifting, the monotony. That’s part of the art, y’know? How to find inspiration in the grueling bits. How to keep the same show fresh.”
No decision on the matter came that day, at least to Zupp’s knowledge, there being at least a week before the Marionette would reach D-2. Zupp and Burrock both promised to keep the conversation to themselves. Zupp gave up on finding Tiptap and then discovered him almost immediately, curled up at Krikko’s feet while they slept.
The next day, Zupp woke with the desire to boost morale among the crew. They rose early and went to the cockpit to find Columinus, who always rose before the others to check the ship’s systems. They told their plan to Columinus, who shrugged and grinned and said it sounded like fun.
Lula Loppet
Lula Loppet’s head rang when Zupp came to the table for breakfast carrying a box they’d filled with nail polish from the prop closet, extra towels from the bathroom supply, and a brown goop Zupp said was an exfoliating mask they’d made from galley ingredients.
“I thought we could all do with a spa day,” Zupp said.
Condescending asshole, Lula Loppet thought, and spent the day in their cabin.
Utilitron-Pike
It came to pass that Zupp, Burrock, Columinus, and Utilitron-Pike sat around in the rec room grooming themselves. Utilitron-Pike stayed away from the face masks, instead breaking up a vial of nail polish, pouring it into a bowl, and dipping their entire fingertips into it.
Krikko
Krikko limped to the bathroom and eased their body down onto the toilet. The seat felt icy against their skin. They voided their bowels in a painful, hot stream. The green light on the bottom of the toilet blinked. Krikko flipped the switch on the bidet attachment and felt the soothing water cleanse them. They rose, physically weak but otherwise feeling the best they’d felt in days, and washed their hands. They crouched beside the toilet, ran the vacuum for a moment, and removed the composting bin. They carried the sloshing tray across the ship, passing Columinus (who gave them a thumbs-up), to the Garden.
The Garden light was bright enough to hurt Krikko’s eyes. They fumbled their hand along the wall until they found the row of pegs from which they took a pair of sunglasses. With the spectacles on, they could see Burrock crouching among the vegetables that took up most of the Garden’s floor space. The room had originally been designed as an observatory: from the outside it was a bubble-shaped glass dome on the bottom-front of the ship, a mirror image of the cockpit above. Columinus had managed to reroute a fraction of the solar adaptor’s energy to a fixture on the ceiling, which flooded the space with artificial sunlight.
“I have compost,” Krikko said.
Burrock turned. “You’re alive!”
“It’s gonna take more than a jammed-up colon to bring me down.”
Burrock snatched a handful of leafy greens from one of the plants and stuck it in their basket. “Why don’t you bring me that compost and go eat breakfast? I’ll spread it around.”
Columinus
D-2 hung in space before the Marionette. Most of the planet’s population lived in a single, massive metropolis on its one stable landmass. The amber glow of the city lights gave Columinus the impression of an oozing wound. The rest of the crew watched from the Garden; Columinus always appreciated the time alone to take in a planet and breathe before landing.
A traffic controller patched through to give the Marionette permission to land at Port Helium, the port which Columinus had requested for its proximity to the Hot Air Theatre, which Columinus’ contact had once co-operated. Hopefully still co-operated. The traffic controller also read an official statement from the D-2 Executive Council addressing the derelict crisis. They acknowledged that D-2 had not received any derelicts and that certain preventative measures were being taken: the Marionette would be searched and its crew subject to a full medical examination. Any ships which arrived in D-2 airspace that did not verbally confirm their business would be turned away rather than retrieved, and any non-confirming ships which did not evacuate D-2 airspace within six hours would be destroyed in space. The traffic controller then asked Columinus for verbal confirmation of their intent to land, which Columinus gave.
As the Marionette drew closer to Port Helium, Columinus could see just how dense the city was. In most places it apparently ran three layers deep- they could see the first layer of tall buildings connected by a web of walkways beneath which ran the second layer, a jumble of stacked-up apartments and balconies and shops beneath which, on what Columinus believed was the surface of the planet, was a third layer of city that they could not make out. They felt nostalgic for their birth planet- a wide, biodiverse world with rolling fields and pristine lakes that they had never appreciated as a child, thinking it boring. They landed the ship on the top level of the city, on a circular platform behind the Port Helium hangar, and pulled into a line of four ships.
Burrock
Taxiing had become a far more intensive process in the past months, as most planets were requiring that ships must be inspected and cleared before their crews could disembark. The Marionette sat on Port Helium’s taxi strip for six hours before it was inspected, by which time two more ships had lined up behind it.
Burrock joked several times that day that, by the time anybody came to inspect the ship for corpses, the whole crew would be dead of old age. The trio of workers who came aboard in envirosuits to search the vessel, scan eyeballs for green streaks, examine the food supply, and interrogate each individual crew member about their business had not appreciated these jokes. One, with a ginger mustache that floated in the foggy atmosphere of their oxygen helmet, told Burrock that they could be fined for “inciting hysteria” for joking about the derelicts. Burrock was fairly certain that this was a bluff, but they stopped making jokes all the same.
The Marionette was parked in a hangar pod accessible only by the crew and Port Helium staff, allowing the crew to continue sleeping in and operating out of the ship during their time on D-2. It was late when the processing was finally finished, and they’d wait until morning to hunt down Columinus’ contact, but Burrock and Krikko and Zupp decided to take a walk around the area. The top level was fairly quiet, and the neighborhood was lined with trees and dotted with fountains and parks. Families and business people and couples and thruples strolled the pathways, some walking leashwolves or house goats. Burrock could hear the faraway din of activity on the lower levels.
“Excuse me,” Zupp said to an elderly person squatting to scoop up a pile of goat scat, “could you point us towards the closest drinking establishment?”
“No public drinking on the top level. About a block that way you’ll find the nearest elevator down to the middle. Pony Time is an excellent bar just on the right after the optical checkpoint,” they said.
The trio thanked the person and patted the goat and headed back to the Marionette. They’d had enough of checkpoints for one day.
Lula Loppet
The Hot Air Theatre housed a simple black proscenium from which twenty rows of ten seats each sloped upwards to the control booth. The stage lights gave the space the warm, intoxicating atmosphere which made the worst venues feel like elevators and the best venues feel like home. This place felt like home to Lula Loppet, despite their misgivings. They wondered if Zupp had told Columinus or if Columinus had a hunch that they were planning to slip away with their cut after they finished performing on D-2, and if bringing them along today was Columinus’ attempt to convince them to stay.
“Consider this a lesson in networking,” Columinus had said on the elevator down to the middle. They’d waited in line for an hour to get through the checkpoint.
Columinus’ contact at the Hot Air Theatre was a short, light-skinned person in an enormous fur coat and thick (and Lula Loppet suspected, fake) spectacles. They’d been thrilled to hear that the Marionettes wanted to perform, and the space had a dark night coming up in two weeks. The Marionettes would receive half of all ticket sales. Columinus tried to negotiate a flat rate, to no avail. They told Lula Loppet that such negotiation was typical, and half of ticket sales would be enough to cover a new solar adaptor and enough food to get them to their next show as long as turnout was decent.
There was one dressing room with two toilets, two working showers, a large space for prop storage, and room for twelve performer stations. It wasn’t the nicest theatre they’d performed in, but it might have been the third nicest. It certainly beat the theatre on Phullmeck that had spiders the size of Lula Loppet’s palms. They’d stuck their hand into the Hatmaker, the other playing with the strings attached to the puppet’s shoulders, only to discover one crawling up their arm a moment later. They’d beat the arachnid to death on the floor with a mop. It took several strikes before the spider stopped trying to get up and scurry away. They were proud that they had not screamed. As Columinus mapped the new space aloud they felt an undercurrent of sadness- over here was where they’d make their first entrance with the Hatmaker (for the last time), from this wing Zupp would control the dancing birds (which Lula Loppet would never get to see again), Krikko could fill their entrance from the control booth to the stage with their monologue about how confusing it was when planets didn’t use the Standard Galactic Calendar (at which Lula Loppet would never have to stifle their giggles again).
After the tour, Columinus and Lula Loppet puttered around on the middle level for the rest of the afternoon, exploring nooks and crannies and popping into the little food markets that seemed to live around every corner to taste fresh vegetables and street foods like fried squirrel and cheese-dough. Lula Loppet couldn’t believe that the city could be this dense for all of its hundreds of miles, and they hadn’t even been to the ground level. They would be glad to return to Allperth, where there was space and time to breathe. They’d been cramped and sore for months.
Burrock
There was not much to do in the two weeks before the performance, so they ended up having a lot of sex with Krikko and Columinus, usually at the same time. Their favorite act as a group was a sort of masturbation circle, where they’d touch themselves all tangled up in one of the tiny cabins, kissing and caressing and writhing against each other. When one of them drew close to orgasm, the other two would sandwich in to bite and kiss and lick their neck and ears and face. It was a good way to pass the time, Burrock thought, and they’d leave the cabin feeling refreshed. They didn’t exclude the others for any particular reason: Utilitron-Pike had no interest (being a robot), nor did Zupp (being asexual), and there had been an early conversation with Lula Loppet about power dynamics, all agreeing together that it would be better for the younger apprentice not to be involved. Sometimes Lula Loppet would bring a local into their cabin, but they hadn’t done so on D-2 as far as Burrock was aware. The walls in the Marionette were thin- it had taken Burrock years to get over their anxiety about being overheard, but they rarely thought about it anymore.
Columinus
The morning of the performance, over breakfast, Columinus finished their traditional speech: “And always remember: we are not merely artists. We…are entertainers!”
Krikko
The worst happened (“as it always does,” Krikko whispered to Lula Loppet as they hastily crammed the puppets back into their boxes) an hour before curtain. A derelict had landed at a D-2 port; according to Columinus’ contact, the ship had landed, begun to taxi, and stopped moving forward an hour in. The pilot had been discovered still warm with their head on the control board, blood trickling from the corners of their mouth. The rest of the crew was long dead. Utilitron-Pike arrived at the theatre to help cart the props back to the Marionette and pulled Krikko aside into one of the dressing room showers.
A tinny voice rang out through the streets: “Attention. The city is on lockdown. All citizens return to your residences and await further instruction. We repeat, the city is on lockdown…”
Krikko slipped out the back door of the theatre. They walked briskly toward the city elevators, taking care not to run; they knew that the second they started running they would not be able to stop. They could feel the heavy, blocky object weighing down the right leg pocket of their overalls. As they’d hoped, the optical checkpoint was suspended- its staff was waving people through and ordering them to make their way home immediately. Krikko crowded into the elevator and felt the machine lurch downward. The middle level rose up past the glass doors, and below them opened up the bustling buzz of the bottom.
The differences between the upper level and the middle level seemed trivial compared to the differences between the middle and the lower. The middle level did not have the well maintained shrubbery and elaborate designs of the upper, but Krikko could see from the descending elevator that the lower level was host to some degree of squalor. They wondered how it was determined on D-2 who lived on what level: whether it was an issue of religious belief or skin tone or political affiliation or some complicated mess of factors; it reminded Krikko of their birth planet, which they’d left as a teenager as more and more of their ethnic group’s foraging lands were sacrificed to make room for a high-speed railway.
The elevator reached the bottom with a soft thud. The door creaked open, and the smell of sulfur filled Krikko’s nostrils. They took a strip of paper from their pocket: directions from the elevator to a junk shop run by a person named Croak. They headed down the main street, which was lined with brutalist government buildings and factories billowing smoke out their chimneys. They noted that the floor of the middle level served as the ceiling of the bottom- artificial sunlight poured out from various attached fixtures, similar to the one in the Marionette’s Garden. Because the light came in from multiple sources, there were shadows going in every direction. Krikko’s path tessellated frequently between dim shade and cold, bright light, and they found the sensation jarring. They peeled off a side street, passing a warehouse-style marketplace with a line out the door and ending up in a neighborhood of corrugated iron shacks. The announcements continued to blare overhead, urging folks to get to their homes; people rushed about the bottom level carting supplies in wheelbarrows. Krikko felt anxious and irritated.
After several more turns down side streets, Krikko arrived at their destination. It was similar to the rest of the houses in the neighborhood, except that there was a zigzagging antenna atop the sheet metal roof and a little terra-cotta statue of a short bearded person wearing a pointy red hat next to the front door. Krikko checked the slip again. They knocked on the front door twice, paused, knocked three more times, paused, and knocked once more.
“Go away. We’re on lockdown,” came a thin voice from behind the door.
“I have something you want,” Krikko said.
The door swung open. The person standing before Krikko was a patchwork of transhumanist experimentation: which parts, exactly, were organic and which were mechanical was not entirely clear to Krikko, and most of the person’s body was concealed by a heavy cloak, but Krikko could see that the machinery powering them caused their body to vibrate slightly at all times. Little trails of steam puffed out from the bottom of the cloak. Their face and head appeared to be largely human flesh with the exception of their eyes, which held metal sheets that focused and unfocused on Krikko like an aperture.
“Do not presume to tell me what I want,” Croak said.
Krikko handed them the cube from their pocket, which Croak took with a gloved hand. They examined the cube, turning it over and holding it up to their eyes and making clicking noises in the whirring machinery of their chest.
“How many years?” Croak asked.
“Five,” Krikko said.
“Do you know why they don’t make this model on D-2?”
“Yeah. We haven’t had any problems with it. The user was sometimes stubborn, but never physically combative. And otherwise well-developed.”
“This is in exchange for a Q-system solar adaptor, yes?”
“Yep.”
“One moment.” Croak shut the door and disappeared into the house with the cube. For a moment Krikko wondered if they’d been robbed, but Croak returned several minutes later with a long piece of metal dotted with an array of switches and dials.
“Lightly used. In excellent condition,” Croak said. “Last you ten years give or take, if you’re using it to power a small spacecraft. Deal?”
Krikko took the adaptor and inspected it. They didn’t know exactly what to look for, but it looked just like the one aboard the Marionette, with less wear and tear. They smiled. “Deal.”
Columinus
There was a lot of confusion happening in D-2 airspace in the wake of the derelict leak (apparently the government wanted to keep it under wraps until they could implement a genuine plan of action, but a reporter tossed a wrench into that plan); instructions on whether or not the Marionette would be allowed to leave before travel was completely locked down changed every hour, and by the time Krikko returned with a mysterious backup solar adaptor, the crew had already decided to leave one way or the other if they could manage it. Krikko seemed to have anticipated this, and agreed.
Lula Loppet was the only really agitated member of the crew. Whatever else, they clearly had no desire to stay behind on D-2, so they stuck around.
When the Port Helium employees were focused on more pressing matters than babysitting the Marionette, Columinus stepped into the cockpit and prepared the ship for departure. They wouldn’t make it to the take-off pads with all of the commotion on the tarmac, but as long as the ship was outside the hangar bay, Columinus could get it into the air. The biggest risk was that anti-air would take them out in the atmosphere. The crew assented to absorbing that particular risk, since radar showed there were plenty of other ships in the atmosphere, and nobody had heard the telltale whistling of anti-air rocketry. Columinus wiped the sweat from their brow. They watched as Zupp slipped down the gangplank, snuck across the hangar pod floor, and flicked the switch for the bay door. The door opened with mechanical thunder.
As soon as Zupp stepped back on board, Columinus pulled up the gangplank and rolled the ship forward. Sunlight gradually filled the hangar pod as the wall opened upwards, and Columinus could see employees out on the tarmac begin to run towards them. They cranked the controls forward, brought the Marionette outside, and initiated a launch procedure. The workers would likely have had time to reach the ship before it took off, but the ascension array would have baked them alive if they’d gotten any closer; Columinus saw them gawking as the ship rose into the air, and then the Marionette rushed away from the ground too quickly to make anything out at all.
In twenty minutes they were in unincorporated space, without so much as a message to desist.
“I’d imagine they’re a lot more concerned about incoming traffic,” Columinus said over dinner.
Burrock
Krikko would not say how they managed to end up with a solar adaptor in such good condition. Burrock asked several times, and Krikko would only say they’d made a trade.
Zupp
The final leg of performances were to be on three adjacent planets: Urglenth, Hevelspire, and Jeck. They’d managed to skip right over the issue of recasting Lula Loppet, who privately told Zupp and Burrock that they’d stick around after all, considering they didn’t have much choice. Lula Loppet didn’t seem particularly happy about it; Zupp was relieved, since the only real alternative would have been to cast Utilitron-Pike in the role. They’d tried putting Utilitron-Pike into shows in the past, and the robot had absolutely zero stage presence.
Zupp had a new concern. According to the weekly newspaper that they received via light telegram, many planets were adopting extreme preventative measures to control the derelict problem, including turning away any and all vessels traveling from planets with a confirmed derelict. Krikko had solved the solar adaptor concern, but the Garden could not provide the crew with an indefinite amount of food. They’d have to be able to land somewhere in the next couple of months, or they’d go hungry. And Zupp wanted to perform The Marionettes Present: Puppet Trouble Interstellar at least a couple more times. They hadn’t had a chance to bid the show farewell. They also desperately wanted to see their partner on Hevelspire.
Utilitron-Pike
Burrock ordered an inventory check just prior to the Marionette’s arrival at Urglenth. After the ship was turned away, Utilitron-Pike asked if Burrock had expected to be denied entry. Burrock said yes.
Lula Loppet
Being turned away from Urglenth was certainly a blow, but it was when the Marionette was refused entry into Hevelspire that morale went into a tailspin. Zupp had practically begged the traffic controller to let the Marionette land, and had been shut up in their cabin ever since. Burrock kept writing up ration plans and passing them out to everyone for “feedback”. Utilitron-Pike was distant. Columinus and Krikko were fucking constantly. Lula Loppet could no longer sleep: they spent many of their nights on the journey to Jeck with the puppets in the rec room, devising performances while Utilitron-Pike took notes.
It was in the rec room working with the puppets, the Hatmaker in the armchair and the other puppets face-down on the floor like groveling servants, that Lula Loppet had a realization.
“Pike, how are you doing?” They asked.
“All systems functional,” Utilitron-Pike said.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
“How are you feeling?”
“I have nothing to report,” Utilitron-Pike said.
Lula packed up the puppets, wished Utilitron-Pike a good night, returned the boxes to the prop room, and spent the rest of the night masturbating in their cabin. In the morning, after breakfast, they followed Burrock to the Garden.
Burrock
Burrock’s voice rose. “You’re right. I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all.”
Krikko’s back stiffened. “What would we have done otherwise, Burrock? If I’d asked, you would all have said no, and then we’d be stranded in unincorporated space with no backup adaptor-”
“If you hadn’t stolen a valuable piece of equipment without consulting the rest of your crew, we might have stayed on D-2 instead of floating around in space doing fuck-all until we run out of food.”
“Don’t. You had all decided to leave by the time I got back,” Krikko said.
“You’re right. Sorry. I’m angry, Krikko. We bought that Emotions Core for a reason,” Burrock said.
“It was their idea,” Krikko said. “Utilitron-Pike asked me to do it. They had already removed it, Burrock. They said they didn’t need their emotions in order to operate at full capacity. They said that for them emotions were purely aesthetic.”
Burrock fell silent, imagining that conversation, imagining Utilitron-Pike painstakingly removing the Emotions Core on their own without damaging any other machinery. They sunk to their knees, rested their head on Krikko’s cot, and let Krikko scratch them on the back of their skull. “How did they feel when they asked you?”
The hum of the Marionette filled Krikko’s silence.
Columinus
“Any planet that would let us land is not a planet we want to be on right now,” they said.
Zupp
The Marionette was turned away at Jeck.
The first remote supply stations began popping up a few weeks after the Great Closure, right around the same time that the solar adaptor broke down and Zupp swapped in the new one. The stations were launched into unincorporated space and supplied by host planets on stipends from the newly formed Planetary Unity Group. According to PUG’s guidelines, the stations were run entirely by robots, only one crew could dock at a time, and the stations underwent hour-long mandatory sanitation procedures in between every pickup.
One and a half galactic years after the Great Closure, PUG still had not lifted their restrictions on planetary borders; the derelict plague was still raging on several planets, and the Marionette and its crew continued to drift through space, waiting to be let back in.
Zupp had taken to cooking dinners for the crew; they were just placing the dishes on the table (with Utilitron-Pike’s help) when Columinus and Burrock and Krikko emerged from the cabin they were now sharing, where they’d taken out the bed frame and crammed all three of their mattresses together on the floor. The crew sat down together (minus Lula Loppet, who’d eaten an hour before) and ate, debating exactly how they wanted to repaint the interior of the Marionette with the cans they’d gotten on their last supply run. Columinus wanted to paint the bathroom red, which Krikko was vehemently opposed to. They landed on a compromise: one wall would be red, and the others tan. The rec room would be painted slate gray and, at Utilitron-Pike’s request, the dining room and galley would be light blue. Tiptap hopped into Zupp’s lap, purring, and Zupp fed the cat a morsel of fish.
“Shall we? I’m rather excited,” Burrock said.
The crew rose, leaving for once all the dishes on the table. Zupp kept ahold of Tiptap, pressing him to their chest. They walked in single file to the Garden. Inside, the greenery filled the space like a miniature forest and the overhead light was dimmed and Lula Loppet sat before a red curtain cascading dramatically from the ceiling, the Hatmaker propped up on their lap, their right hand grasping the strings above the puppet’s head, the rec room chairs arranged in a semicircle before them.
© Marge J. Buckley, 2020