Page 79 of The Brightness Between Us

“That as soon as we classify someone, we establish the ways in which they’re separate from us. It’s the mostfundamental othering that we do.”

“Ah,” I say. “That sounds very... like you are trying to show off in a seminar.”

“It’s true,” he says hotly.

“I once grew a dahlia in the earth behind the cosmology academy. In the wintertime, I dug up the tuber to plant in the spring so it could become a flower again the next summer.Thatwas true.”

“Both can be true,” he says.

I shrug. “Fine. But you don’t have to sound so pretentious about your true thing.”

“If you won’t let me be pretentious, you’ll find I have little left to say. Why don’t you tell me something about yourself, Kodiak, instead of just sniping at me?”

“I did say something. About the dahlia tuber. Perhaps you weren’t listening.”

“Something else.”

“Why?”

“I want to hear something about you,” he says. There are emotions I can’t identify in his voice.

I come up with nothing. “There’s nothing special about me.”

He hangs his head. Disappointed? It makes me angry, but I hide that response. I didn’t mean to make fun of his labels bullshit. I should offer something fruity about myself, maybe, to make him feel better? “I know how to knit,” Ifinally say. I cough.

He stares at me, suspicious. Firelight plays on the lines of his throat. “Really?”

“Yes,” I say. “I’m not good. I can make a shawl or a scarf but not a shirt or a sweater.”

He laughs. It feels like a reward. “How did Kodiak Celius come to be a knitter?”

Now I have to tell him. I pretend to swallow something, even though my mouth is dry. “Most of the cadets in the cosmology academy traveled together during breaks. I didn’t join them. I stayed behind to use the training facilities on my own. I didn’t want to be cut early, so I had to make sure my fitness was as high as possible.”

I stop to make sure Ambrose is interested in this boring story. I don’t understand how it’s possible, but he is.Go on, his eyes say.

I swallow dryly again, embarrassed. “I ate dinner alone in the mess, which was... fine. But then came the long evenings. When I was older, I would do a second workout. But when I was ten or eleven, I would get sad and lonely after dark. I hid it by sitting in this—I don’t know how to describe it, but the top floor of the academy archives formed a sort of alcove, and I could sit there like a, like a gargoyle and look out and feel like I was falyut. That’s a word that doesn’t exist in Fédération. ‘Whole by being alone,’ is how you could translate it.”

“Hmm,” Ambrose says. “I had much different use for the high places in the Cusk Academy, but that’s a story for another time. But funny that I had a similar instinct as you, to climb.”

“So. One nurse, Anita, she found me on the parapets, that is the word, parapets, and she invited me down. I said no, but small child Kodiak must have looked sad up there, so she sat with me and brought her knitting. She did it in front of me for a while, and then taught me the basics and eventually gave me a set of my own needles and yarn.”

Ambrose nudges Sheep. “See, we could make a sweater out of you!” She glares back. He rambles on. “I wish I’d known; I’d have brought needles and yarn on board for that Kodiak. All I thought to bring was my violin.”

“A violin? A real wooden violin?” I sigh, despite myself. “That Kodiak will appreciate it very much.”

“Oh good,” Ambrose says. “Let’s hope clone me has been better about practicing the Prokofiev than I have. Though I suppose he’ll be just as good, won’t he?”

“Only without the calluses on the left finger pads and right thumb,” I say. If I were near enough, I might have dared to reach over and touch our fingertips.

He looks down at his own hands. “You noticed those? Good eyes.”

Yes, my eyes are good. Or maybe I simply pay close attention to Ambrose. “On the topic of Devon Mujaba...” I say.My voice trails off when Ambrose looks at me, sorrow back in his eyes. I feel contempt at his weakness. Sorrow is something to hide if it can’t be walled off entirely. But I know that is also maybe weakness on my part, to need to banish sadness instead of letting it live out its life span.

A sad smile curls onto Ambrose’s face. “Poor Devon Mujaba.” Then that smile changes. There’s something gossipy in it now.

“Did you and he...?” I prompt.

“Did we have sex?”

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