FSE

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"See Fran, you put the laundry in first, then you do the dishes while it's in the wash. It's more efficient that way!"

***

"So you also use them to knit."

Jackie had looked for the quantum translocator all over the Renegade ship, double-checking the locations Ghost and Orchid had searched just to be on the safe side. Nothing. Fran and the roach sat on the floor of the Trackers' ship as it towed the Renegade ship with them to the rock planet and Revival chambers with its tractor beam. Jackie was still plugged into the wall.

"Huh?" The roach looked up from her needlework to meet Fran's gaze when she broke the silence. The jackal pointed at Jackie's needles. "Oh, these!" She didn't need to look at her hands. "Yeah, that's what they're mostly for." She'd had to learn to make the best of whatever she had on hand. "Do you?"

"I can sew a little." She liked that their conversation was drifting to lighter topics. "Not knit, though." It helped her remember people, like needles, largely existed for lighter purposes. "It looks trickier." Jackie had a lot of practice.

"I can teach you if you want." The roach's eyes went back to her needlework, but kept Fran in her field of vision.

"Oh, thanks!" The jackal found knitting intimidating. Nevertheless, it seemed a generous offer. She didn't want to seem ungrateful. "I'll think about it."

Jackie wasn't sure where she'd find time to deliver on her offer if Fran accepted, but it was the right thing to do. If the jackal ended up stuck in the System as a result of the roach's translocator - a place Jackie spent most of her life trying to escape - she'd owe Fran all the help she could get.

"Have you been knitting for a long time?" The roach looked aside thoughtfully, trying to remember.

"Gosh, I don't know. Fifteen, twenty thousand years maybe? I'm not sure. I can look it up if you want." Jackie reached into her bag absent-mindedly, rummaging for her communicator. The jackal held up her palm with a nervous smile.

"That's alright." It had just seemed like the topic within easiest reach to her at the time. She didn't want to impose. How long did people live around here anyway? It made her head spin. "Thanks, though." It would've been rude to ask the roach about her age, she thought. Fran didn't know everyone in the System was the same age yet. "Where did you get those?"

Jackie didn't pull out her communicator after all, but she didn't bring her third hand back out of her bag, holding her yarn ball in her fourth hand.

"The needles?" The jackal nodded. "I used to work with Tilly on some forest planet farmland way back." So they also had a forest planet. "She'd put the pine in porcupine and the hedge in hedgehog, so to speak." One with plant-people, at that. "These grow on her back. She'd trade them for all kinds of stuff."

"Does she still work there?"

The roach clucked her tongue. "Not since they switched to no-till, she don't." Jackie put the yarn ball down in front of her to hold it between her feet as she sat.

"And the yarn?"

"From the alpaca who used to work at the communal web." Fran could only imagine what a whole communal web of interconnected technorganic knitters must've looked like.

"You worked there too?" The roach nodded. "Was was it like?"

"Not the worst, honestly."

"Do you miss it?" Jackie frowned. Fran hadn't meant to put her on the spot.

"Hold on." The roach held up a fingeras she pulled her communicator out of her bag after all. "Someone's talking to me." Jackie's upper hands started typing on her communicator while her lower hands knitted under them unwaveringly.

"Something important?" The jackal almost reached for her phone in her pocket herself, used to using it while others did so it wouldn't be awkward. So much for that now.

"Kiwi's got an engineering problem," the roach explained. "She's always had a hard time with this stuff." Fran deduced she was the fruit and the bird. "I can usually talk her through most of it now though."

"You seem like a helpful person."

"... Thanks!" The roach didn't hear that often. "I try," she shrugged.

"Do you need me to stop talking?" It occurred to Fran that all that at once may have been a bit much. "I don't mean to break your concentration." Jackie was struggling to keep up, but she was invested in learning from the jackal, so she wanted it to look effortless.

"I'm good, thanks." It seemed worth it. "You have to get good at multitasking to get by around here." Fran couldn't help staring at her communicator, not wanting to invade Jackie's privacy but wondering how it worked. "We'll have to get you one of these, won't we."

"Oh, sure!" The jackal wondered if people in the System got on your case for using your communicator too much, the way people did with phones on Earth. "When I can afford one," she added. How much could a communicator cost?

"We'll work something out," the roach assured her. "Anything else on you?" Fran wished something grew from her body that people would pay for.

"No, that was pretty much it," the jackal said sheepishly. "There's my wallet, but no money."

Jackie looked at her quizzically. "What's money?"

"Money's..." How did you explain money to someone who'd never heard of it? "Money's... nothing between friends, people say."

The roach turned this over in her head once or twice. "Is it everything between enemies, then?"

Fran almost smiled. "There's something to that."

"Maybe you could trade the wallet for something," Jackie suggested, "whatever it is."

"I don't think anyone will want it around here," the jackal explained.

"I'll take it," the roach offered.

"Really?" Fran looked at her disbelievingly.

"Sure, why not," Jackie shrugged.

"You might not like it."

"Let's have a look at it." The jackal pulled her wallet out of her pocket to show it to the roach. "Neat fabric. Never seen anything like it." Jackie used her communicator one-handed as the jackal handed her the wallet. "I don't have another communicator right now, but I'll get you one first chance I get." The roach looked at the wallet from various angles. "I'd never seen anything like that phone of yours any more than Ghost did either, I can tell you that." The jackal wondered what the mantis would think of her phone, in hindsight.

"Have you known Ghost for a long time, Jackie?"

Jackie shrugged. "Long enough. We... worked together for a bit a while back, you could say." What a loaded statement.

"Were you partners? Before Orchid, I mean?"

"Not as such." The roach put her needles and yarn down to reach into her bag.

"Oh, you're done," Fran assumed.

"Not yet." Jackie pulled a piece of wood and her carving knife out of her bag.

"Switching gears for now?"

The roach started whittling away at the wood, also like she'd been doing it all her life. "Kiwi thinks I should do the wood first."

"It's for her?"

"The scarf was for Ghost, this is for Orchid."

"You're doing Orchid's first."

Jackie grinned. "Ghost likes me. She won't mind if the scarf's late."

"She likes scarves?"

"You saw her use that shroud against the puffin?" The jackal nodded. "I made that too. When wear and tear rips it, she'll have this. Good for the ice planet, too."

"Not bad! What are you making Orchid?"

"Wood darts, yarn net, wood-yarn bolas." The roach wasn't sure how to interpret the jackal's surprise. "Trackers like non-metallic weapons, Renegades can't use magnetic junk against them."

"I take it they're not birthday gifts?"

Jackie blinked. "I don't know what that means."

"They're payment, right?"

"That and the power, yeah." Her antennae crackled, as if to punctuate her statement.

"Do you need to charge them soon?"

"They run on a perpetual motion device." Fran hadn't thought that was possible. A small pile of sawdust was forming at the roach's feet.

"Where did you learn to carve wood like that?"

"Sticks taught me. Don't remind me," Jackie stuck her tongue out.

"But Orchid wants yours," the jackal observed.

The roach grinned. "Orchid doesn't want to owe Sticks anything." Fran would have to get to know a lot of people to make barter work. "They used to be partners."

"Sorry I said we were partners without asking," the jackal said meekly. "I panicked."

"You don't know what partners are, do you?" Jackie put down her communicator to look at her.

"I'm not sure," Fran chuckled nervously.

"I figured you might not," the roach waved aside. "Partners have each other's back. Let's say there's things you can do I can't and things I can do you can't. If you repay some of my debts and I repay some of yours, we make each other's lives easier. If we share resources, we can deal with more different situations. I can't be in two places at once. We can."

"It's a serious commitment, isn't it?"

Jackie nodded. "Time and resources are scarce around here. Sharing them is a... personal, intimate thing for us. It's taking a risk, so it's a show of a great deal of trust. You succeed and fail as one."

"I understand."

"You didn't know what it meant when you said that. I'm not expecting it from you."

The jackal blinked. "What could I do for you that you can't?"

"I want to learn everything there is to know about your world."

"What for?"

"I want to move there."

Something clicked. "That's why you wanted to go back to the rock planet so bad."

The roach nodded solemnly. "Unfortunately, if I can't find the quantum translocator I used to open the portal you came through, neither of us will be able to reach your world. So..."

Fran gulped. "What would... partners do in a situation like that?"

"I'd be the one to show you around my world," Jackie explained.

"Hey gang," Ghost startled them walking in inadvertently, "we're here."

***

"[-cuse not to do your chores and homework," the martial arts teacher chortled. "Do them first, then train. We're not teaching you so you-]"

*FLICK!*

"[-nowned for her persistence," Attenborough went on, "much like the dung beetle. Of course, the purpose of the carrot is not to feed the mule, but to-]"

*FLICK!*

"[-are saying that, if they're expecting any kind of retirement, Millennials now need to start saving up for it as early as-]"

"Come help with cooking, Fran!"

"I'm doing my homework."

"No you're not."

*FLICK!*