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She wonders if it’s normal for father-daughter bonding time to include chess.
She was so young when her dad died that she doesn’t really know. All he left her in the end was a nickname and a healthy knowledge of her own mortality.
He chooses white, like he always does, moving a pawn two spaces down, and she wonders what he’s thinking, and, like always, she comes up short. Is it about those weird lines in the rock? The ones she’s not supposed to know about? Is it about the colony? It’s like no matter how hard she tries, there’s a block with him, but she guesses that’s normal.
She’s heard the others talk about their dads not understanding them, about sneaking out late at night to try some frut moonshine with friends or play a game of chicken with carnotaurs. This is like that, right? Except...in her case, her father happens to run the colony. It’s just a natural extension, right?
She moves a knight. Maybe he’s wondering who the Sixer Spy is, maybe he’s adding things up together. Maybe he already knows. She swallows the little lump in her throat as she thinks about her mom lying alone, of Mira’s voice cutting her to shreds, trying to keep her face blank. If he knows, she’d know, right?
On and on they play the game, throwing out gambits and false leads against a plain wooden board, chasing one another as weathered, sunburned hands match against hands that are young but calloused, the two of them letting the pieces that fall do the talking.
Finally, she forces a smile on her face. “Checkmate.”
He claps his hands together, the sound booming, and she hopes the smile’s real. “That’s my girl.”
For a second, she almost feels proud of herself.