between Enrique and Padmus, leaving the bed without waking either of her partners. She scratched her bare thigh as she walked across the cabin, kicking their clothes aside like leaves on the ground and trying to remember where she heard that metaphor before. Probably from her mother.
She ignored the mirror, as was her habit. Had she looked, she would have been pleased to see no gray hair in her thick black hair, and the crow’s feet around her eyes hadn’t deepened overnight. The genetics of her features and bone structure were lost to the past, but from her studies, she learned she favored her East Indian and Australian ancestors from long ago.
Completing her business in the excavator, she searched for a T-shirt or something in the bathroom hamper to cover her nudity. There were always things for her to do and places to go. She settled on Padmus’s longest sweater after scooting off their orange cat who claimed their clothes as her personal domain, then Joro exited through the second door to keep from going back into the bedroom and disturbing the sleepers.
Joro breathed in Padmus’s musky odor from the sweater and wondered if she was right in deciding not to renew their contract. Like many relationships in the Back, their throuple was formalized on paper more than emotion. She and Padmus were longtime friends and classmates, and he eventually moved his things into her bedroom for the convenience of having another adult in the cabin to share chores. They hadn’t signed a formal contract until they invited Enrique to join them, and after much debate, they set the duration of their throuple contract at three years.
Joro’s children, Tomika and Paolo, voiced their doubts about Enrique joining their family because they were teenagers used to their comfort zones, but the five of them enjoyed the luxury of the larger cabin that came with the contract, and Padmus and Enrique didn’t force their authority or pretend to be parents. Everyone got along because they were too busy to do otherwise.
My mother, on the other hand, has plenty of opinions about my partnership. Her birthday is coming up, so I’ll be hearing from her soon.
Joro’s efforts at being quiet were wasted. The older of her two partners was boiling two transparent plastic envelopes in the kitchen, an apron his only piece of clothing.
“Morning,” Padmus said.
“Meh.” In the Back, “morning” and “night” were more traditional greetings than anything else.
He read her mood. “Push that button, and the empire of coffee is yours.”
She did as he bid. “Sorry about crashing last night. I tried to stay awake.”
He waved her off. “Enrique is still fighting that gunk from the lower decks. Neither of us need it.”
“Is he up on his shots?”
Padmus clicked his tongue, a bad habit that surfaced when someone asked a dumb rhetorical question.
“Never mind,” she said. “We all are.”
“It’ll pass in a day.”
She nodded as she contemplated the dripping coffee. Of the millions of substitutes the Burners created over the generations, coffee was the truest product of Old Earth. They almost lost all their crops in the first mutiny, when food riots raged through the Ring. Eventually the riots and mutiny were put down, and Engineers made the preservation of coffee a priority, herself included. For all intents and purposes, “Air, Coffee, Love” was the Burners’ mission statement.
“You were up late, and now you’re up early, Joro,” Padmus prompted. “Did you sleep for more than an hour?”
“Two hours. I did finally crash hard.”
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“You didn’t hear the ship-wide announcement?”
Joro understood the surprise in her elder partner’s voice. She usually knew more than him and knew it earlier, but she truly passed out from exhaustion last night after he and Enrique did their best to keep her awake. “Well?”
“Charles Devereaux is the new First Officer.”
“Get out. Not Kathy Bettencourt?”
“She’s Second Officer.”
“Huh.”
“What do you think?”
Not much. Joro met with Charles a few times in his role as the Captain’s liaison to the Engineers, and frankly, she was not impressed. He rarely appeared for their regular meetings during the two years she served as the Engineer, generally sending his petty officer, Bertie, in his place. In the few instances Charles appeared, his wrinkled blue jumpsuit smelled of grog and cheap perfume.
She wasn’t supposed to know about the secret speakeasy and gambling hall known as the Bilgewater Café located in the lowest section of the Back. She also wasn’t supposed to know Charles was a frequent customer, but little happened in the Back that escaped her notice.
She contemplated her answer to Padmus. He managed the largest hydroponics farm in the Back—though it could not compare to the massive farms in the Ring—but he was not a member of the senior Burner staff. The two of them were friends from high school who became lovers over the years, though he wasn’t the father of her children. In most ways, she thought she knew him better than he knew himself, but she still held back.
All these years, and there is still something about you I don’t trust, Padmus. You’re hiding secrets, deep ones that make you twitch while you sleep. That may be one reason why we are not renewing our contract. I don’t trust you as much as I should.
“Nothing to worry about. He’ll be fine.” She looked at the Clock. “Enrique will be late for rehearsal.”
“He’s fine. It’s near the end of the term, and he’s a good teacher. They’ll let him slide.” She knew Padmus would understand her sidestepping his question. He told her almost weekly that he respected her position as the Back’s most senior leader, and he knew she made a thousand decisions a day that affected everyone under her command. He understood his place. “Paolo wants to talk to you.”
“Uh-oh,” she said as she handed over a mug. “Give me a warning?”
“No, except you’re going to lose, so lose gracefully.”
“That bad?”
“Not for him, he thinks.”
“Ugh.” Joro could strip down and rebuild any of Salvation’s massive impellers blindfolded, but losing gracefully, and to her son, was outside her job description. “It’s not that tart in his poetry class.”
“I’m not going to tell you, but no. Their relationship ended last year.”
“Really?” She sipped her coffee as she watched him deftly cut the clear envelope containing their manna, avoiding the steam from the slit, and put the contents on their respective plates. “When and where?”
“Today. At school. After school.”
Joro thought about her schedule as their cat rubbed her bare legs for attention. “Yeah. That’ll work.” She pointed at the stove. “I’ll always burn myself doing that.”
“Which is why Enrique and I cook.”
She eyed him. “No hints about Paolo?”
“No.”
Time for drastic action.
Joro came around the counter and pulled the sweater up, fitting her smaller body against his nude back and using her hands to massage his shoulders. Padmus and Enrique were the same size, though Enrique was younger by ten years. She loved how she fit between them when they were asleep and when they weren’t asleep. “I can make you talk.”
He took her hands in his and kissed her knuckles. “Yes, but no. Eat your breakfast before it gets cold. I have time for a shower and shave before work.”
“Pooh.”
“And Paolo is not the only person who wants to talk.” He pointed at the tablet on the small table by the door. “It’s been making noise all morning.”
“Right.” She let him go and returned to her chair, picking up a fork as the cat hopped into her lap.
“Don’t forget about Paolo.”
Joro huffed. “I won’t. I’ll try.”
“He knows that. He gets it. We all do, Joro. One thing?”
“Hmm?”
“Please clean up and wear your good uniform. You are the Engineer. You are a public figure and role model. You’re going to your son’s school. His classmates will see you. Do it right, if only for Paolo.”
She understood the wisdom of his words, but it didn’t make her any less grouchy. “Fine!”
He kissed her on the top of her head as he passed. “If you’re really that lonely and don’t mind the gunk, go wake up Enrique. He misses you too.”
Joro chewed the manna slowly, worked her schedule through her mind, and decided she wasn’t that hungry, after all.
At least not for manna.