GoKawiilSo that was our plan. Little Jo, Eustace, the eiroscope, and me. To preserve it—for later generations, if they got that far, or just as a silent record of our existence—by sending it to the stars.
Like a rune stone. We were here.
We were sending a fork of the eiroscope with it. Because she could survive the journey. Experience it. And have plenty of time to think crystalline digital thoughts on the long sub-light crawl to wherever.
Jo couldn’t make herself turn her back on the door. She said the hairs on her neck told her somebody was going to come hunting guh-Gibson, so even though the eiroscope was a better perimeter guardian than any human and most watchdogs, nothing was gonna budge her from that chair. I wished there was something I could do to soothe her, but we all have to carry our hurt however we can.
Since it was supposed to be Jo’s turn to make dinner, that meant it was me in the kitchen dishing up four bowls of cubed squash and yellow-eye beans, a pitcher of goat milk, and a pitcher of the cool, alkaline well water when Eustace and guh-Gibson came in the back door from the courtyard.
Gibson had borrowed some of Eustace’s old clothes: worn drawstring trousers and a khaki shirt that was too big for her. She wore my other pair of hiking sandals over layers of gauze and looked a thousand percent better even though I could already tell the well-greased sunburn on the backs of her hands was going to peel. The hat that had saved her face from a similar fate was on her head again.
She sniffed deeply. “That smells amazing. Is it spicy?”
Roasted chilis floated in the stew, but they were sweet ones. “Only a little. Here, take this bowl and cup. We’ll go eat with Little Jo in the nave, since she won’t go off watch until she falls down.”