by Holly Schofield
Holly Schofield is the author of more than fifty short stories. Her works have appeared or will soon appear in Lightspeed, Clockwork Canada, Tesseracts, the Aurora-winning Second Contacts, Cast of Wonders, Escape Pod, Brave New Girls, Analog, and many other publications throughout the world. She travels through time at the rate of one second per second, oscillating between the alternate realities of city and country life. For more of her work, visit hollyschofield.wordpress.com.
Lissa angrily pushed the hand vacuum along the narrow shelf, sending her 3D-printed plastic animals tumbling onto the floor.
She'd woken up feeling great, looking forward to being one day closer to getting a pet. Before she'd opened her eyes, she'd hugged herself under her microfiber blanket, thinking about how it would be. Mom had promised that Kavi, the geneticist on the big spaceship that orbited overhead, would take a lab rat from the stasis chamber and unfreeze it for her as soon as they got back. Lissa could already imagine stroking its velvety ears and feeding it bits of soy-cheese.
The week until they were back up on the big spaceship would go quickly, too. Since her birthday two weeks ago, she was finally old enough to help her mom with the biological research on this not-very-explored planet. Today they were going to go on a long hike to the next valley to collect samples. It was going to be super fun.
But things had rapidly become un-fun. Lissa had thrown off her blanket and looked over at her mom in the other bunk, only a meter away in the tiny bedroom of their temporary habitat on Skag3's surface.
"Morning, Mom."
"Hmm." Mom was frowning and reading her tablet, exactly as she had been last night when Lissa had gone to sleep.
"Didn't you sleep?" Lissa asked, rubbing her eyes and sitting up. Lissa had dreamed about a baby pet rabbit snuggling up against her. She could still remember how it smelled of carrots and how soft its creamy white fur had been.
"A bit," Mom said, "and good morning. I'm afraid I have some bad news, though, kiddo. Kavi just messaged me that there are no more lab rats in the inventory. I'm sorry."
"Noooo!" That was so stinky! She was finally old enough and responsible enough for a pet and now there wasn't anything furry for millions of light years.
"I'll get you a rat or something after we get back to Earth. I promise," said Mom. "It's only six months away. And, for now, Kavi said she has a slushrock set aside for you."
Lissa pushed her face into her pillow, trying not to cry. Six months was forever. And slushrocks were tiny dull gray molluscs from Alpha Centauri used in Kavi's ethical research like the rats were. You could pat a slushrock's gritty little head with a fingertip and feed it stinky little food pellets. But that was about all.
Mom rubbed Lissa's shoulder. "But at least we have today's adventure. Come on, kiddo, let's get some breakfast." She zipped up her coverall and left the tiny bedroom.
Why did everything have to be so stinky? This hike to the valley better be fun. Lissa fished around on the floor for yesterday's coveralls. She was halfway dressed when Mom called out, "Oh, darn it, Lissa. Why didn't you..." Her voice trailed off.
"Mom?" Lissa hopped out into the narrow hallway, holding her second sock.
In the main room, Mom was stuffing sample cases into her large backpack. Her lips were tight. "You'll be staying here." She snapped shut the pack's electrostatic latches.
"Mom! How come?" Lissa hopped farther into the room. "You said I'm old enough and responsible enough now to come with you on all the trips."
"And what else did I say?" Mom shot a glance at the pile of bent wires, hand tools, and electronic components that Lissa had left on the worktable. Then she frowned at the mess of crumbs and empty food wrappers on the small fold-out shelf where they ate their meals. Then she frowned at Lissa.
"I will clean up! I will! The whole hab! After we get back from the valley." Keeping the habitat tidy was one of Lissa's duties this trip so Mom would have more time to carry out the research project. Lissa was supposed to have done her chores last night, but she'd been working on building a cage for the rat instead.
"Responsible people don't procrastinate. Responsible people just do what they're supposed to without being asked a hundred times." Mom slung the backpack over her shoulders.
Lissa said desperately, "You didn't tidy up the water filter! You're just as bad!" The dismantled filter equipment took up most of the floor. They depended on the filtering system for all the water they used—for drinking, cooking, washing—and Mom had been doing routine maintenance on it last night.
"Nice try, honey. I will, tonight. There wasn't time yesterday. As it was, I worked on reports until long after you were in bed and for an hour before you woke up." Mom massaged her neck and sighed. "I could have used your help collecting samples today, sweetie. This project is bigger than I'd anticipated. It's too bad you can't come with me." She sounded disappointed now, rather than angry. "But you can't. Not this time. And I'm rethinking whether the slushrock is a good idea or not. Maybe by next birthday, you'll show enough responsibility to have a pet."
After an extra big hug, Mom had left through the airlock and headed into the sparkling forest. Lissa had watched out the window until she was out of sight.
So now Lissa was stuck in the hab while Mom was exploring a new place, out of radio contact. Through the hab's window, white sunlight shone enticingly, practically begging her to come outside. "It's not fair!" she told an orange plastic snake before placing all her toys back on the shelf and patting the head of her favorite one: a furry, purple Irish wolfhound. Mom was scrupulously fair about most things, like splitting a dessert packet into exact halves, but other things, more important things, she just didn't understand.
The small galley where they prepared their meals needed cleaning next. Lissa sighed. Being grumpy was silly. She needed to change her mood. But how? Pretending everything was not so stinky sometimes worked. She forced herself to whistle a happy tune while she put food wrappers in the recycler. Next, she scrubbed at a spot of tomatoey food paste on the wall—how had that gotten there?—and sighed again. Whistling wasn't working. Maybe she should try singing, instead. "Far away from Earth, we'll make a new berth," she sang loudly, making up the words.
Six repetitions of her little song didn't help. She was still grouchy. In the main room, her empty backpack slouched against the wall next to the spare sample cases, the ones she should have been filling today. Singing even more loudly, she vacuumed in a wide circle around the water filter parts spread on the floor, careful to avoid sucking up a nut or a computer chip. Last night, Mom had explained each component in the water filter as she'd dismantled it, and Lissa had been fascinated. Someday Mom might consider Lissa skilled enough to tinker with it. But—Lissa stuck out her tongue—only if she proved herself "responsible."
Next, she tucked away the extra plastiwire and electronic bits left over from building the rat cage. She admired her construction job as she centred the cage itself on the now-tidy worktable. It was a large, almost-perfect cube, and she'd added some electrostatic latches for extra security. It would have made a fine, big home for a sleek-furred rat. Another sigh and she turned to survey the whole room.
There! The hab itself was finally clean. Just one more chore left: the airlock.
Mom's strict protocol was to first make sure the outer door was closed. Only after that were you supposed to open the inner door. Since Skag3's air was similar to Earth's, they didn't have to use the airlock as it was intended to be used: to avoid breathing any of a planet's air. But Skag3 wasn't entirely what Mom called "benign" either. There were still sharp things, poisonous things, and stuff they hadn't explored. But all that was true of places on Earth and other habitable planets, too. Lissa had learned to be careful the last three weeks, watching where she stepped and what was around her.
The lights on the airlock panel were all green, but Lissa dutifully looked through the window into the small room and made a visual check. Sure enough, Mom had closed the outer door when she'd left.
Lissa cranked open the handle and stepped inside. The floor was dirty with tracked-in mud and leaf litter. The side bench was strewn with gloves and coveralls. "Far away from Earth, I'm bored and, um...need some mirth," she sang as she straightened up the scattered equipment. Gloves went here, and helmets got hung up there. The last item, Mom's spare coveralls, went on the overhead shelf. Lissa folded them and managed to put them on the shelf standing on her tippy toes. They promptly fell off onto the dirty floor. She picked them up again, folding them even flatter. The coveralls were not as heavy as a spacesuit, of course, but still cumbersome. Mom said they made her feel clumsy, but Lissa kind of liked tromping around outside like a big-footed, marauding dinosaur. The nearby marshes and swamps were so pretty—full of emerald greens and caramel browns. In fact, since singing wasn't working to change her mood, a short jaunt outside was probably just what she needed to make herself happy.
Should she? Lissa slowly lifted her helmet off the hook. Why not? She'd earned some fresh air after her morning spent cleaning. The airlock floor was still dirty, but she could clean that when she got back.
Without Mom's help, the helmet was hard to fasten. And guilt made it heavier, too. She tucked her coverall cuffs into the big, heavy boots. She really was supposed to get Mom's permission to go outside. But it wasn't dangerous here, not much anyway.
She stepped outside, responsibly closing the outer door behind her.
The sunlight was whiter than Earth's, giving everything sharp shadows and crisp colors. Mom had invented long, complicated plant and animal names that she was hoping would become official. Lissa had made up simpler names for them, like "sparkle tree." It was fun to squint through the helmet visor and picture the sparkle trees as if they were a glittering maple forest back in Canada.
Even the bugs and worms here were kind of pretty. Dull red questionworms littered the path with their curvy punctuation-mark shapes. She observed them like Mom would, pretending she was a grown-up scientist. She sniffed hard, trying to use all her senses: the worms probably had a smell to them, but she couldn't tell through the helmet filters. They probably felt rubbery, too, but she wouldn't find out. Taking off her gloves would be irresponsible.
She began to skip. Being outside had improved her mood. All she needed now was a golden retriever puppy bounding ahead of her through the puddles, its silky fur coat gleaming in the sun. Or a brown and white hamster in her pocket so she could stroke it as she walked. She jumped over puddles from last night's rain and sang, "I need a pet, need a pet, need a pet, don't get wet." She headed down the path to where she and Mom had collected samples last week. That way, she wouldn't get lost.
The next puddle was even bigger. Lissa took a big running jump but didn't make it. Splat! Big clods of muck flew everywhere, including the legs of her coverall. She brushed at the sticky clumps with her heavy glove. A kitten must be the best pet since it cleaned its own fur. And it would lie on your lap and purr all day long. She sang louder, "I need purring in my life, I don't need, um...any strife."
The path led into the dense forest. Since her trip there with Mom last week, sparkle trees were already extending new branches across the path. Lissa pushed them aside, sending a shower of translucent golden leaves pattering down on her helmet and shoulders.
Bright blue birds that she'd nicknamed "sidle birds" shifted sideways along tree branches and complained noisily among themselves as she passed. They wouldn't make very good pets because they didn't have any fur you could cuddle. After a while, the sidle birds scattered, and she was alone again. She stopped singing and walked faster. It was longer to the clearing than she had remembered.
The trail grew narrower. She ducked under a pink and glossy spider web. The spider, as big as her hand, sported broad pink and gray stripes on its round tummy. It waved a couple of legs at her as she scooted beneath it, and she bravely waved back. There was no danger of being bitten. Mom had explained that to her several times. The difference between silicon and carbon made Skag3 a fairly safe planet. Silicon-based lifeforms weren't interested in carbon-based lifeforms like her. "I'm made of carbon, and nothing's gonna harm me," she sang, even though that didn't quite rhyme.
Finally, she reached the clearing. A large sparkle tree had blown down in a storm, and Mom had smiled when she'd found it during one of their survey trips. Lissa hadn't been so happy—the tree had looked so sad and droopy—but the research project needed lots of kinds of samples if there was ever going to be a colony here. Lissa had helped Mom carry container after container filled with the sparkle leaves, the ones that had grown high up in the branches, back to the hab. When Lissa grew up, she might want to be an exobotanist like Mom.
Although—she paused and watched a sidle bird dance along the ground with some nesting material in its turquoise beak—being a spaceship designer like Dad would be cool, too. He was back on Earth, helping to build more ships for people to live in so they could travel to new homes.
After the tree had tipped over, its roots stuck up from the base of the trunk like pointy fingers and left a big hole in the ground. Lissa could remember how dark the hole had looked several days ago, beneath the leaves glittering in the noonday sun. Mom had said she thought the loam might be rich with all kinds of beetles and seeds and eggs and things that had been waiting for daylight to bring them to life.
Now the leaves still sparkled with the morning rain, but the pit had a bright green patch in the deepest, shadiest part. Did Skag3 grass grow that quickly? And were those pink flowers under the fringed bit at the edge? Lissa stepped over a fallen branch, then grabbed one of the large, exposed roots to help keep her balance. She lowered one foot down into the hole. A humming sort of noise came through her helmet. It didn't sound like any bird she'd heard before. The grassy bit was still in the shadows. Could the grass be humming? That didn't make sense. She put her other foot down in the squishy muck and squatted for a closer look.
In the shade of the thick roots, the grass looked like a piece of lime-green carpet the size of her bed pillow.
Maybe it was a fungus or a moss? Cool! Mom wouldn't know it was here. Maybe Lissa should collect a sample. But then she would have to tell Mom that she'd come out here without permission.
How did it fit into the ecosystem? It would be cool to study it. She nudged the fringe of it with one of her big boots. The carpet-thing rippled, then surged forward a centimeter, scrabbling at the toe of her boot.
Lissa squeaked and stumbled backwards, up and out of the pit. The fallen branch caught her heel and she tripped back onto her butt. The thick coverall protected her bottom, but she lay there a minute anyway. She remembered what Mom always said: in an emergency, don't panic; stop and think before you act.
She craned her head toward her feet. The carpet had caught up and was almost at her boots. Mom's advice was so wrong. Time to get out of there! She scrambled to her feet. The carpet raised its fringe a little bit, as if it were sniffing at her or something. Lissa turned and ran.
Getting back to the hab took forever. Clods of mud flew off her boots as she splashed through puddles. She slammed the outer door of the airlock shut and tore off her boots, helmet, and gloves in record time. Then she dived into the hab, banging the inner door shut behind her.
That had been scary! She plopped down on the sofa and waited for her heart to stop pounding. "You're okay, you're okay, you're okay." It wasn't a song, but it helped a bit. She hugged herself, and that also helped. Except her hands had gotten muddy taking off her boots, and now her arms were all grubby, too. Yuck! This mud was different than the mud just outside the hab and on the trails. This mud smelled like mint and oranges and looked like stiff chocolate pudding. She managed to rub most of it off herself with a microfiber towel, but the sofa and floor had gotten muddy, too, and some had even spattered onto the dismantled water filter pieces.
What now? Maybe she should radio Mom and ask her to come back? No, Mom was in a valley behind a tall hill that blocked radio signals. And she wouldn’t be home until after sunset. Maybe she should hike to the valley so she could tell Mom about the nasty carpet thing in the grove? That made sense. Telling Mom was what a responsible person would do.
And a responsible person would clean up the mess they'd made. After ten minutes of vacuuming the sofa, the tiny vac canister was full. She carefully checked that the outer airlock door was shut and entered through the inner door. As she turned to close it, she noticed she'd left a trail of muddy footprints right across the main room and into the airlock. Her socks were that dirty.
More cleaning! It never ended! No fair! She jerked open the outer door. One flick of her wrist and the dirt sailed out of the canister onto the path. She closed the outer door, and something made a humming noise right at her feet. The carpet-thing! It was in the airlock with her!
She scooted into the hab and slammed the inner door shut. Peeking through the window, she watched for long minutes as it explored the airlock floor and then stopped next to one of her muck-covered boots. It must have followed her home and been lingering outside the door.
She was trapped. She couldn't leave to tell Mom. And, worse, when Mom reached home, she'd head right into the airlock, unaware that the carpet was going to attack her or eat her or do whatever it wanted to do.
She kept watching, pressed against the door. The carpet pulled itself up onto a boot heel and flipped up its fringe, exposing a tiny row of white things, teeth or something. That sound came from the carpet again, a vibrating tone like a bee or a hummingbird. In less than a minute, the carpet had shifted its attention to the boot's ankle, twisting itself sideways and settling down there. The heel of the boot was now clean and shiny, but there were thin, parallel gouges right across it.
She didn't want her boots eaten! Maybe if she had a stick, she could lift her boots out of the airlock without touching the carpet. She looked around the hab. The only stick-like object was her orange plastic snake. She grabbed it and cranked the inner door open partway. The other boot was closest. She stuck out her arm and leaned through the gap. The toy snake wasn't quite long enough to hook inside the boot. She leaned in a tiny bit more.
The carpet reared up and sort of sniffed all around, rippling its fringe. The humming stopped. It glided toward her and into the door opening. She closed the door quickly, squishing it in the middle. It squeaked! Was she hurting it? She opened the door a crack, and tried to push it back into the airlock by poking it gently with the toy snake. It squeaked again and then oozed forward, right toward her toes.
She backed away, stepping over the water filter pieces, until she was up against the worktable. Tears welled up. Don't panic! Think!
First, she'd better rescue the water filter. It was the only one they had. Without it, they'd have to leave the planet and go back to the big ship, spoiling Mom's research project. Maybe she could put the pieces in the steel galley cupboards? The carpet didn't look like it could eat through metal. She carefully dragged bits toward her with the plastic snake. Then she edged along the window to the galley and put her armful on the empty top shelf and closed the cupboard door.
The carpet was still investigating the main room. Its fringe nudged against the sofa, then the worktable legs, then turned toward her. It did that sniffing thing again and surged at her. Lissa danced out of the way and sat up on the worktable, shifting the rat cage to one side. Hey! Maybe she could capture the carpet in the cage?
She put the cage on the floor and swung the door open with her toes. The carpet sniffed at it and rippled, then turned away, heading for the galley.
What could she use as bait? Think! It liked mud from the pit, that much was clear. Lissa stripped off one of her dirty socks and placed it in the cage.
The carpet paused. Then it flowed backwards, fringe rippling. It entered the cage and flowed right on top of the sock. Lissa slammed the cage door shut and triggered the latches. "Got you!"
Now to observe it the way Mom would. Under the fringe, dozens of little flat teeth lined up in neat rows. Lissa ran to get a multi-tool and turned on the magnifying lens. What she had thought were pink flowers were a row of tiny eyes along the upper edge. They all swivelled at once as if they were watching her. She leaned closer. The carpet hunched up and tried to back away, but it was almost as large as the cage. Her face must look huge. It must be so scared.
"Don't be afraid, you're behind a barricade," she sang gently. It rippled and seemed to settle down on her sock again, so she kept singing.
Its bright green furry topside looked soft and pretty, catching the sun streaming through the windows. It was actually kind of cute. She wished Mom were here so they could study it together and admire its cuteness.
But if Mom were here, she'd say cuteness was not a scientific observation.
In fact, if Mom were here, she'd probably say Lissa was being irresponsible somehow. Lissa looked around the room. Oops, the inner airlock door was still open. Better close that, and then, like a responsible scientist, begin to study the carpet.
She entered her observations into her tablet as she went along. After the carpet had cleaned off her sock with no harm done, there was no more dirt to give it. The hab was so clean that Lissa finally had to go back to the airlock to scoop up bits of mud.
After an hour, the sofa was strewn with bits of mud, forks and spoons, her plastic animals, and the rest of her toys. The room smelled like mint, oranges, and her own sweat.
She studied her results. The carpet liked mud of any sort, but sand swept up from the airlock floor and washed in the galley sink didn't interest it. And it definitely liked the mud from the pit the best.
When the carpet nibbled off the mud, its teeth left tiny grooves on some materials, like her plastic boots. Other materials, like the heavy wire of the cage door, were too hard for it to mark.
It hadn't eaten her sock or the microfiber towel. Nor the glass tube she pushed through the bars, even though glass had silicon in it. Maybe it couldn't digest quartz because that was in glass, too, Lissa remembered from her schoolwork. So their hab windows were safe, and so were their furniture, dishes, and clothing. Only some softer plastics were at risk of being ruined by the carpet's tiny teeth.
Lissa smiled down at the furry creature. It didn't actually seem any more harmful than most pets.
She was still taking notes when she heard the outer airlock door open. As soon as Mom came through the inner door, Lissa ran and hugged her. "Mom, guess what! I found—"
Mom held up a hand. "Why is the airlock so dirty, and what is in that cage? What happened?" Mom suddenly pulled her close and hugged her. Then she held her at arm's length and frowned. "Are you all right?"
Words spilled out of Lissa, about how she had broken the rules and gone outside, about how the carpet had followed her home, about how she'd bravely captured it. "I acted responsibly, Mom. Well, mostly. And my latches work!"
She danced in place while Mom checked the integrity of the electrostatic latches using her own multi-tool. "Well done, Lissa. Nice and tight. You were wrong to leave the hab—and we'll talk about that later—but I'm so glad you kept your head and didn't panic."
"I've been watching it all afternoon. It only wants the organics and stuff in the dirt. Sometimes its teeth scrape on things a bit, that's all."
"You can't be sure—"
"See?" Lissa made a small ball from the remaining clump of sweet-smelling mud and put it on her fingertip. She held it through the bars. The carpet rippled closer and smelled her finger. It reared up and Mom gasped. Lissa didn't flinch, and the carpet lifted its fringe and delicately picked off the clump of mud with its teeth. It settled down happily to eat it, humming, and Lissa proudly held up her unharmed finger. "It won't eat clean stuff, just dirty stuff. And it wants the local dirt, not human dirt. It's safe as long as we're clean!"
Mom was still frowning but not so hard. ""It's true, we don't have enough silicon in our bodies to be of interest to any of the lifeforms here."
"I named it Cuddles. It's so cool! I think it likes me!" Lissa bounced up and down.
"It does seem very cool, indeed." Mom peered through the bars.
The carpet rippled, all its eyes swivelled to look at Mom, and it began to hum.
Mom gave a hint of smile, the first in days.
Lissa bit her lip. Now was the time to ask. The carpet could be a good companion and a loyal pet. Already she could picture the fluffy thing on her lap, stroking it while it hummed. But was that fair to a wild creature? Wouldn't Cuddles miss its natural environment? Even though it was now chewing contentedly on the mud ball, it might hate being cooped up in a cage on a spaceship.
The trouble was, they just didn't know enough.
"Well, Lissa, what do you want to do with it?" Mom sat back on her heels and raised her eyebrows.
Lissa screwed up her face. "The responsible thing to do is...put it back in the tree pit." She held her breath. Maybe Mom would disagree and would want Lissa to keep it.
Mom slowly nodded. "Excellent, kiddo. You're showing real maturity by saying that. We've barely begun to study Skag3's ecology. These carpet animals could be quite common, and the loss of one might not change the dynamics of the forest's micro-ecosystem. Or it could be relatively rare and important. We'll tag it and release it and study it for the remaining time we're here and then make a decision about capturing it for further study. You've shown yourself to be careful enough that you can help with all that." Mom ruffled Lissa's hair. "Oh, and I've reconsidered. I was a bit harsh this morning. You can have a pet after all."
"A slushrock?" At least it was something. Maybe she could train it to ooze through a maze or something, after the carpet study was done. She hugged Mom in thanks.
Mom smiled down at her. "Better. I left in such a bad mood this morning that I forgot to tell you how nicely I thought your cage had turned out. In fact, I was so impressed that I sent Kavi a photo of it during my lunch break today. And she was so impressed that she did another search for a pet for you in the stasis chamber. She found something that was mislabeled and in the wrong compartment. She's waking it up from stasis now, and you'll have it when we get back next month."
"A rat?" Lissa started bouncing again. She hadn't thought that Mom had even noticed the cage at all this morning.
Mom laughed and Lissa realized how much she'd missed the sound. "A kitten, kiddo."
"A kitten! A soft, furry kitten!" Lissa did a little dance, nearly upending the worktable. "Maybe Kavi can send me a photo of it waking up! Can I message her right now?"
Mom leaned past her and picked up the hand vac. "Sure." Her eyes twinkled. "Just as soon as you finish cleaning. The airlock is a mess."
For once, Lissa didn't mind the cleaning chore. A kitten! She grabbed the vac and headed for the airlock and sang, "I'm getting more responsible, we've got a carpet to study, and I'm getting a fluffy kitten," even though that didn't rhyme at all.