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Nile’s seen a lot in three hundred years. Some of it terrible, some mundane, and sandwiching it all together was some pretty good stuff.
The hoverboards promised in the eighties took a lot longer to come around but she'd argue they were better suited to zipping between biomes on Mars anyway. The sea levels did rise. They never did get their third World War. And when the Antarctic gained its first metropolis, Nile got her chance (and future bragging rights) to slide down the side of an icescraper with only her crampons.
Perched on the end of those three hundred years with the warmth of another sun on her cheeks, Nile finds there's still one question she just can't seem to shake.
"I don't get it. I don't."
"What don't you get?" asks Booker.
She minimises the initial star map of the uncharted sector they’ve finally reached after four earth-years of travel and drums her fingers on the blank tabletop. "You know. It."
He rubs at his forehead. “Ah.”
It wasn't hard to pick up on what she meant, even if it had come out of the blue. That was what it was all about.
While Nicky and Joe could read her like an open book, Booker had a different knack. The two centuries that separated them were bridged by a different kind of understanding.
After his hundred-year exile was over and their little band of immortals was officially a quintet, the two of them had made a pact in broad daylight while utterly sober to help each other out with the big questions immortality would no doubt throw at them.
And now with his fingers digging into his frownlines, Booker throws her a mock-wince. "Maybe... you're not meant to?"
"Really?"
Nile slouches back and lets the electrical current within mould the memory foam to the contours of her spine. She can wait all evening for an answer, so lets her very rhetorical question hang in the air between them.
When Booker smirks back, it reminds her of the same good-natured humour underlying Andy's patience in those early years.
She sticks her tongue out and lets the silence drag on.
In the quiet, Nile pinpoints what had been bugging her since she sat down in the mess hall. Instead of the cool night breeze on her face, there's a stillness in the air. A mismatch of a hang up that makes everything feel different all over again even though she’s had years to get used to being on the starship.
But it does nothing to detract from the overwhelming view of the red giant on the opposite side of the enclosed balcony. Joe and Nicky were already out there along with some of the crew, watching the solar flares stream out in great big arcs of fiery gold in the same way crowds huddle on fields to watch fireworks back on Earth.
She taps her boot against Booker’s and asks, “How can they be so calm about it? We’re in space?”
He stares and then shrugs, "Well, when you get to their age, you'll have...snapped by then too."
"Snapped?"
He takes a moment to settle himself in a mirroring slouch, and Nile’s reminded of an old family beach holiday where she had fought her brother for the sun lounger until they’d both ended up in the sand.
Booker waves his hand, catching her attention back.
She blinks.
“Yeah, you fight it," he carries on, "You think you come to terms with it, something happens and then you end up fighting it some more. Then you probably fool yourself for a bit, or a decade, or a century by thinking you've got it all straightened out when you don't-"
"Where is this going?"
"And after all that, you snap. Then it doesn't matter about knowing, or in their case..." Booker nods back at the open balcony doors, where away from the crowd, Nicky and Joe had started slow dancing in the russet glow. "It all does. And that's enough to go off on."
Nile follows his gaze, and her doubt leaks through. "And you?"
His nonchalant eye roll makes her kick out at his boot again, but he does reluctantly answer. "I'd like to think I've figured it out, but I know five hundred years is nothing compared to Andy. If I really wanted to get an answer, I would ask Quỳnh, but I don't like thinking about it much."
She snorts back loudly, and that gets him laughing too.
Because they both know Quỳnh would make the journey back in anything with an engine and an airtight seal if one of them reached out to her before their agreed meet up time.
"Alright," Nile conceeds and stretches out her arms. "I kind of get it. You don’t want to find out you’ve only fooled yourself for another couple of years."
The silence returns, but it's comfortable.
She goes back to drumming her fingers on the table and doesn’t stop until Booker pulls up the star map. He flips through the overlays to display some revolving rocks, and then waits patiently. It's not the prettiest sight they've got on the ship's archive. Most people prefered watching the auroras from the magentised poles of an ice planet, or if they wanted something a bit more thrilling, they'd load some of the old sports streams.
Nile chews at her lip while the rocks spin on loop. Her fingers inch forward, and she flips the holo-screen wider to highlight the right area.
It looks the same as everything they’d seen for the past four years, space, rocks, comets.
"I'm thinking of heading out towards the furthest asteroid belts,” she says eventually. “They're looking for volunteers on next year's flight out to Sector Three. It'd be a ten-year stint at most. I’d be back in time for the meet up."
Booker pokes a finger through the light projection where it ripples around his finger. "Further out, further on?"
"I guess, I have been thinking about Quỳnh more, and why she decided to go. About what else is out there. Doesn't it get to you?" she asks.
When Booker shakes his head, she can read him just as well.
Although he had remained open-minded about their journey as they reached their new home, his distaste for travelling through the incomprehensible vacuum all around them had grown as the years ticked on.
But she didn’t get the impression he wanted to stay in one place. Even if he had complained about the size of the crew cabins for the whole trip.
“Vega Two?”
“Solid ground. Sounds like a dream,” he says casually. “I wouldn’t mind sleeping under the same stars for a bit.”
Her voice is deadpan when she automatically corrects him. "New stars, Book. They’re all new."
The bubble of laughter trapped in her chest comes crashing out. Nile drops her head into her hands and laughs hard. It sets him off too, and they don’t stop until they’re both wheezing across the small table.
Nile only looks up when she hears a pattering out on the balcony. Turning, she sees Joe and Nicky waltzing slowly in small circles on the tiles, and the sight brings a strange balance back to her, even though she’s sitting down.
"I don't know how Andy did it,” she confesses quietly, “I can’t imagine what she’d say if she were here.”
"Yeah, she kept that mystery to herself. But you'll let me know if you figure it out somewhere in Sector Three, right?"
There’s a little chime of hope in his voice that makes her look back, catches him smiling again.
It was no different in space than on Earth. There was only the endless expanse, more years than Nile would ever properly remember, and their small family. She could count on them. They were the gravity she'd always have, even in zero-g.
An easy grin slips onto her lips.
“Sure thing, Book. Although, I’ve got five hundred credits saying that you’ll change your mind and tag along."