It was the smallest of bothers, even then, and anyway, it shouldn’t have mattered. All three of her fathers were hers in equal measure, and that would’ve been true even if she’d shared a set of chromosomes with one of them. Any child raised by a father was his child, and all the children understood this. But sometimes, as a girl, Pei had taken note of the similarities that were expressly not spoken of – the way her brother Kam laughed like Father Le, the fact that Dux and Tre had the exact same eyes, the way her siblings Hib and Malen looked practically identical despite being four years apart. Pei looked like no one at the creche, and though this did not make her feel any less loved, it did, on occasion, make her feel slightly unanchored. She wanted to feel that through-line, unremarked upon as it was. Once she’d learned about shimmer and how it all worked, she’d made the firm decision that whenever her time came she’d go to a creche and have her egg fathered properly. It was better, sometimes, to have an unremarkable story.

But now, here she was, stuck on a nothing planet in the middle of nowhere, with no idea how far away the nearest creche was, facing down the strong possibility that she was going to have to— a realisation hit her, and she covered her face with her hand. Fucking hell, she was travelling alone. Her ship wasn’t nearby. If this had happened two tendays ago, she would’ve asked her pilot Oxlen to help her take care of it, and he would’ve said yes, and they’d have a good laugh at each other afterward, because that’s what friends did. But Oxlen wasn’t here, or any of the rest of her crew. If there weren’t any creches nearby, she’d have to find … someone.

Just … someone.

The idea made uncomfortable yellow seep slowly across her cheeks, but if that’s how it was, that’s how it was. Gora was a crowded planet, and she’d seen plenty of Aeluon ships in orbit. Maybe Ouloo would know someone. Pei relaxed a touch at this idea. All right, it didn’t have to be a complete stranger, just a stranger that the relative stranger she was docked with now could vouch for as being decent.

She wrapped her forearms across her face.

She didn’t want to talk to Ouloo about this. Oxlen wasn’t there, but if he had been, she wouldn’t have wanted to talk to him either. She didn’t want her friends or her fathers or the mother she’d never met.

In that moment, the only person she wanted to talk to was Ashby.

Day 238, GC Standard 307

THESE DISRUPTIONS WERE UNANTICIPATED

Node identifier: 4443-115-69, Roveg

Feed source: Galactic Commons Reference Files – Local Access/Offline Version (Public/Klip)

Node path: 239-23-235-7

Node access password: Tup0IsGr3at

Archival search: Akarak history and culture

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Akari (planet)

The Harmagian Colonial Era

Harmagian colonisation of Akari

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Galactic Commons Membership Hearings (Akarak, GC standard 261) Ihreet

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Modern Akarak diaspora and recorded subcultures

Selected file: Galactic Commons Parliamentary Session, public record 3223-3488-5, recorded 55/261 (highlighted text – Akarak representative)

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Translation path: 0

Transcription: [vid:text]

Effective immediately, the Akarak Gathering is formally closing our negotiation channels with the GC Parliament, and withdrawing our pending application for GC membership. If this news comes as a surprise, allow us to remind you of our history with your government.

Following the signing of the Hashkath Accords, the Sapient Sovereignty Act went into effect, in which all homeworlds colonized by Harmagian invaders were returned to their original inhabitants. Akari, of course, had no relevant natural resources nor sustainable ecosystems left at this point, making it impossible for us to survive there. We requested a supply line from the GC, in which the resources necessary to rebuild and continue life on Akari would be delivered to us as needed. This request was refused on the basis that the Colonial Wars had put severe strain on existing resource stockpiles, and there was no surplus to be spared. Your needs were greater than ours, in effect. Instead, we were granted refugee status in what you had designated as your space. Eventually, our repeated demands for citizenship were heard, and we were promised a new system to settle in.

We have waited nearly two centuries for this.

Our environmental needs were too challenging, you told us at first. We have searched and searched, but have not yet found a suitable world.

Then build us a world, we said. Terraform a planet for us, as you have done for yourselves.

We have a new law, you said. The Biodiversity Preservation Agreement. It is now illegal to terraform planets that have so much as a microbe on them, as we don’t want to disrupt future evolutionary pathways.

Surely, we said, our extant species is more important than a hypothetical biosphere that may or may not arise a billion years from now.

It is the law, you said.

There must be a solution, we said. Our children are hungry. The Harmagian ships we scavenged are old and breaking. You give us rations and tech, but we need a world. We need a home. We need to be able to provide for ourselves. Give us habitat domes. Orbiters. Something.