the answer aither. Mibbe sheu’ll plan

tae loup fae ship tae ship an quyt

this notion o haem, lowse hersel

intae flittan, find anither

staetion, twatree ither planets,

a galaxy. Thinkan this

stills her skin fer a peedie while.

Sheu mynds on than that even a comet

is rived by the weyght o whit hid passes,

an whan hid’s fired ootower the starns,

the starns is tirled by thir awn wheel,

an that wheel tirled in anither wheel,

til ivry escaep is anither orbit,

an ivry orbit anither still,

an ivry still aye makkan the promiese

that wi a tirl thoo’ll win tae free.

Stormduststrife

The gas giant is stillfixedsecretsilent when they launch, or seems stillfixedsecretsilent: its swellwaves of gas more glass than whirlrushdancespinning wind. But from this distance, wind is stillpeaceful and fire is cold.

So after only one day of rest, Inga and Olaf and all three of their crew, still exhaustedbroken from the greatbig dance, sail the fogfrost in search of Light.

Øyvind chose the church and not the launch hangar, preferring prayer to seeing them off, an old habitcustompractice he thought he’d lost that teargnawknotted him

today: some devil of fear demanding his holy time and holy words. He asks the gods to rememberknowreflectwill them. He never asks for very much.

As Inga sails and Øyvind prays, tethered to the station’s seatimetide, a play of Lights begins turntwistwhirlspinning in the gas giant’s squeezepressbruised and swollenrisen heart.

~

Higgie’s deep in code when they sail, and deeper still when the screens behind start showing the early signs of a deathly stormstrifestrainspeeddust. She calls the hangars.

They will send alarm to every boat to come back in. She prays. She’s done what she can do. And then her own alarm begins to yellscreech

and every screen at once blazes in error-light, and before she can see what’s what a greatbig roarbellow breaks from the floor of the plant. She runs to see.

The fieldstrandfolds of power around the machines are bulging and writhing like a sack of rats, refractors and connectors overflowing with light, each one.

When she drops her hand, the Lights have made a spinning triple helix in the centre of the plant. She can’t hear alarms now. She only watches.

~

Darling is in the hangar when they launch, seeing how it’s done. She’s thinking about telling Astrid about the boat. Will it hold her, or will it causeforce her to go?

Darling knows which future she wants, but either way is a future. And then Higgie’s warning of the stormstrifestrainspeeddust comes. Every Lighter knows the word:

this one couldn’t be worse. She rememberknowreflectwills some old emergency on Mars, some market crash, and whathowwherewhy her fathers looked that night: total scattersmashdisorder,

stridepacelurching and talknagbarking into their screens until they thought they’d taken control. But here people are neat of foot and only speak with quiet voices: