Author's note: Written for jillyfae for Yuletide.
Tocohl settled back into her hammock with a look of contentment on her face.
Later, there would be problems to deal with and obstacles to face, but just for right now, life was good.
"You're happy," said Maggy from the on-board speakers, sounding almost as content as Tocohl felt. "I'm glad."
Tocohl smiled in the general direction of on the sensor banks. "I am indeed," she said. "How's it looking? How long till we reach Katawn?"
After some debate between them—and vastly to Maggy's preference—they had elected to wait on meeting Si for the offered "on the job training" as a Biworld Judge, and were first heading to Katawn with a cargo of lightning rods to see if they could find a buyer for them. "To make cheap memory," Maggy kept saying, and Tocohl would have to laughingly remind her that there were other uses for superconductor as well.
"Another eight hours and forty-two minutes," said Maggy. "Just enough time for you to sleep."
Tocohl made a noise of dismissive amusement. "I thought I was supposed to be the parent here," she said.
"Guardian," Maggy corrected. "And that doesn't change the fact that you need sleep."
Tocohl laughed. "Just wait until we meet Si," she said. "He always was hoping I'd have spawn of my own—I assure you, he will most definitely consider you his grandchild."
Maggy made a noise of surprise. "Really?" she said.
"Yes, really," said Tocohl. "…and where'd you get that noise?"
"Alfvaen," said Maggy. "I saved it."
Tocohl laughed and then yawned. "As much as I hate to admit it, now that you've made a point of it, I am tired."
"Then why don't you sleep?" said Maggy, shifting to Siveyn.
Tocohl laughed again through another yawn. "You like that construction, don't you?" she said.
"Yes," said Maggy happily. "It sounds like a question, but it's a suggestion."
Tocohl shook her head. "We really do need to get back to Hellspark at some point," she said. "I want to see you in the Children's Babel." Memories of her own childhood floated through the haze of oncoming sleep, and she smiled.
Maggy probably would have liked to respond, but if she did, Tocohl didn't hear her as she curled up in her hammock and went to sleep.
The world filled their screen, blue and grey with the colors of Katawn's biosphere.
Tocohl's fingers danced across the panels as she calculated a landing.
"I can do it myself," said Maggy, for all the worlds' motley of the cabin like a petulant three year old.
Tocohl grinned. "Humor me," she said. "You may be able to do it, but I have to keep at it, or my puny biological brain will forget how to do it." Her lips twisted ever so slightly without her conscious control.
"Is something wrong?" said Maggy, petulance forgotten in what sounded more like anxiety.
"I almost said 'puny Human brain'," admitted Tocohl.
Maggy thought about that for an aesthetically-chosen moment. "Your brain could be both without implying that mine isn't Human."
Tocohl shouted with laughter. From the way she had phrased it, it was true: she could easily have meant that her own 'Human brain' was what was puny, as opposed to Maggy's, which was not.
"Shall we say that's what I meant, then, and count it Veschke's Honor?"
"Let's," said Maggy, and then added another pause. "...do you think of me as Human?"
Before Tocohl could respond, there was a ping on the control board, and Maggy added "You might want to double-check your trajectory."
Tocohl's hands stilled on the keypad. "Never mind, you do it," she said, sitting back and thinking for a moment. Her thoughts turned to Om im for a moment, and as her thoughts unconsciously shifted into Bluesippan, her hands itched for a knife to sharpen.
Maggy pinged her acquiescence and took over the landing, but didn't say anything out loud.
"I do," said Tocohl finally, setting for crossing her arms instead. "I have for some time now. I just have a hard time talking about you as Human. Old habits die hard."
But that apparently wasn't good enough.
"Who do you really think I am?" Maggy insisted.
Tocohl thought about that for a moment. If she shifted to Jenji, she could easily tell Maggy about her surety level, but she couldn't call Maggy Human in that language until she passed some arbitrary mark that made her an adult. That was definitely a problem for another day.
Instead, she shifted to Yn. "She-who-dreams," she said. The Yn concept of Human was a more fluid, and perhaps a more poetic one, and one that fit well with Maggy. "But that might be a better conversation for later. Right now, we might want to focus on finding someone who can turn lightning rods into cheap memory."
It was a cheap shot, and she knew it, but it worked.
"Right," said Maggy, all business. "Cheap memory first."
Tocohl laughed again. "Cheap memory first," she repeated. "Existential questions later."
Their contact on that world was Katawn investor they're worked with before, but one who didn't have the technical resources to do what they needed—though he was certainly interested in funding the venture. He did, however, have someone in mind they could work with.
Tocohl followed the investor in polite silence, knowing that any attempt to make conversation would be met with a complete halt so that he could turn and face her to talk properly according to Katawn standards. Finally, they reached the office of a large building—probably a factory.
"Here," said the man—Lemure was his name—turning to face her after they entered the small office. "May I introduce you to my contact in the field of superconductor engineering, Kai Hoshidar."
The words were in GalLing', but the manner was impeccably Katawn.
The engineering consultant, on the other hand, was most certainly not Katawn. She shouted something back across her shoulder as she entered the smaller public area, and Tocohl wondered how she had managed to avoid stepping on enough collective cultural toes to carve out a niche on reserved Katawn, but that was swallowed up in a matter of more immediate curiosity.
(Maggy, what language was that?) Tocohl subvocalized. (I don't think I know that one!)
It had been time, not counting the Sprookjes, since she'd come across a language she didn't at least have greetings memorized for, far less one she didn't even recognize.
(Checking dictionaries,) said Maggy.
Kai Hoshidar let the door slam behind her and looked over her newcomers critically.
"This is the Hellspark you told me about?" she said to Lemure without facing him directly.
Maybe she saw his nod, maybe she didn't, but either way, she looked directly at Tocohl.
"They say a lot about Hellsparks," she said, and then said something in what was probably the same language as before.
Tocohl grinned. "I'm afraid you've managed to stump me," she said. "I've never heard your language before."
Kai snorted. "Figures," she said in GalLing'.
Maggy pinged for attention. (Language identified as Hayashi,) she said without waiting for Tocohl's response. (Rough translation: "Don't slack off while I'm busy" and "Does Hell's tongue say all?")
Tocohl grinned even wider and subvocalized her translation request to Maggy. Proxemics and kinesics she could approximate on her own. For proxemics, all she had to do was hold her toes and let the other person choose the distance, and as for kinesics, they seemed all angles—the woman's body was turned subtly away from either of them, one shoulder slightly forward, even when her head faced one of them directly.
Tocohl wasted another moment wondering how in any planet's hell this woman had ended up on Katawn before turning her own body to approximate the woman's pose and repeating the translation Maggy fed her.
"I am, however, a very quick study."
The look of utter incredulity was more than worth the effort. The woman shook her head and spouted off a spate of words that Tocohl inventoried mentally for sounds, rhythm, and inflection.
(That does not match any grammatical construction I can find,) said Maggy, (but it does contain several mythological and theological references and multiple instances of profanity. I'm guessing that means she's surprised?)
(Most likely,) said Tocohl, not breaking her grin.
(She also says something about witchcraft,) said Maggy, more worriedly. (Should we have brought the arachne?)
Tocohl eyed the woman, who, while surprised, didn't seem inclined to break out the pitchforks. (Check cultural files if you like,) she said, (but I'm going to tentatively take that as a compliment. Now, can you tell me if a bow would be an appropriate response?)
A bow turned out not to be the right gesture, but based on Maggy's files, Tocohl spread her arms wide, fingers open, in a gesture of appreciative thanks.
("How did you do that?") Maggy translated in her ear.
Tocohl subvocalized her response to Maggy and then repeated it out loud.
"I should not take credit for someone else's success." She tapped the implant on her ear between sentences, since she was only parroting—like a Sprookje, she thought with a grin—and had no idea which word was which. "My partner is translating for me."
The woman gave her a long look, and when she spoke again, her words were in GalLing'.
"I'm guessing that means you have an implant," she said. "Though if you mean you have voices in your head, well, at least they're pulling their weight and not slacking off like a waster."
"Yes, an implant," said Tocohl. "The voices are in my ear, not my head, I assure you."
The woman snorted and shook her head. "Either way," she said. "As long as you get the job done, I couldn't care less."
"Perhaps we should get down to business, then," said the Katawn. "I believe you had something that might interest Lady Hoshidar?"
It was phrased as a question in GalLing', which wasn't strictly meant to have a rhetorical mode the way Katawn politeness dictated, but it served its purpose.
Tocohl nodded and slipped the bag off her shoulder, automatically adjusting it so it wouldn't snag her moss cloak—before remembering, with a slight pang, that she no longer wore it.
(I never even got to see it bloom,) she subvocalized regretfully.
Maggy had gotten light-years better at dealing with apropos-of-nothing comments, because she just responded without trouble. (It would have died, though.)
Tocohl pushed aside thoughts of wondering what had become of the tattered remnants of her cloak in the feathered hands of the Sprookjes and opened her bag.
"One set of superconductors, straight from the farm," she said.
Kai, apparently having fewer personal space restrictions than many worlds' norms, pulled on the closer side of Tocohl's bag to peer inside.
"They look like twigs."
Tocohl grinned. "They are. That's the beauty of it. But if you can work with non-uniform pieces, you'll find that there are whole forests full of superconductors waiting, and the native Humans more than willing to trade for them."
Kai's lips twitched for the first time that conversation. "With you, of course, as the intermediary."
Tocohl spread her arms the way she had before. "Naturally."
Kai harrumphed her approval.
"Let me see those, and I'll see what magic I can work."
In the end, they elected to leave the lightning rod twigs at Hoshidar industries as samples, eliciting a trader's promise to have prototypes ready when they returned.
(So,) Tocohl subvocalized. She was walking alone, so it would be no rudeness to speak out loud, but talking aloud apparently to oneself was taboo on enough worlds that the habit prevailed. (What shall we do with ourselves in the mean time?) she said, using the Hellspark tight-we that had become so natural when describing their actions together.
(You want my opinion?) said Maggy. The question had been ambiguously rhetorical in Hellspark.
Tocohl grinned. (I want your choice,) she said. (So tell me, maggy-maggy,) she said deferentially, switching to Yn-female, (where are we going next?)
Maggy made a thoughtful noise that Tocohl recognized as having been lifted from Judge Daragh's diplomatic manner, and remained silent for a while, presumably in thought—though perhaps extended to fit the time it would have taken Tocohl to consider a question like that. Either way, it was long enough for Tocohl to reach the ship, where the gangplank lowered to meet her in silent welcome and then rose again behind her.
"I want to go see your father," said Maggy, switching smoothly to the ship's speakers.
Tocohl grinned again as she set her now-empty bag down. "No objections on my end," she said. "Let's do this."
"Course laid in," said Maggy, who had clearly had more than enough time to make her choice.
Tocohl thought for a moment about running the calculations herself. But no, she decided, there would be plenty of future occasions to keep her hand in play. For now, she wanted to see what Maggy would do on her own.
Instead, she smiled again and settled herself comfortably into the captain's hammock. Curling her feet under her and looking towards the main screen, she raised her hand in a Sheveschkemen sailor's salute.
"Lead, I sail with your sparks."