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Even though she hasn’t lived there for years, they always call it Raffi’s trailer. Really though it’s everyone’s trailer—their wayside desert home. Soji doesn’t visit Earth often, but when she does, she makes a point of stopping by. Sometimes it’s lit up and overflowing. Other times it’s quiet, dark, and she has to spend her first few hours waking up the lonely rooms. Housebots keep the plants watered and the sand and dust at bay, but everyone who passes through tries to leave the place homier than they found it. By the third year, it’s tradition to leave a meal in the stasis drawer for whoever comes behind them.
When Soji lets herself into the trailer this time the entryway is dark, but she can tell from the freshness of the air that it hasn’t been empty for long. She turns on the lights and moves slowly through the rooms inspecting their additions—a quilt from Deanna, a tapestry from Zani, an orchid from Tuvok, some paintings from one of Seven’s friends. In the kitchen, she finds a pizza and a note.
Heard from Dad you were stopping by after me. I’m trying a new recipe. Be nice. -Kestra
Soji smiles and looks it over—cheese and meat and herbs and fruit. There’s a bottle of Nepenthan honey on the counter with instructions to drizzle some on top of the pizza once it’s cooked. She warms up the brick oven that Riker built out back (Ridiculous, Raffi muttered when she heard of the addition, though she stopped by less than three months later to give it a try) and curls up in a chair beside it. She pulls out her comms. You still coming?
Almost there.
Better hurry. Kestra left a pizza.
Don’t eat it all! She promised I could try.
Soji pulls the arms of her sweater over her hands and curls deeper in the chair, tilts her chin to the vast night sky. It’s autumn here, the air crisp, the clouds like cobwebs, a brightness to the stars that leaves her misty-eyed. She’s just beginning to doze off when a shuttle touches down. Elnor rounds the corner a few seconds later and asks, “You didn’t eat it, did you?”
“Every bite.” She winks, and they’ve done this enough times that Elnor gets the joke.
Later, after they’ve devoured the pizza and let the fire burn to ashes, they move to the porch, which Worf has equipped with an outsized hammock (“a warrior’s bed,” he explained to Elnor—who was here when he installed it—because the physics “encourage tipping rather than tangling when getting out”).
“How’s Zani?” she asks, snuggling up to his shoulder beneath Deanna’s quilt.
“She’s gotten very into records.”
“Records?”
“Raffi gave her Rios’s old collection.”
“How’s that going over with the rest of the order?”
“They host dance parties.”
Somehow, Soji can’t quite picture that. Maybe she’ll have to see for herself. Elnor asks about her work on Coppelius, which is going very well (Agnes has even made a few pit stops recently), and then Kestra calls to ask about the pizza, and after that they decide to see if Raffi’s up. By the time they end the call, Soji’s eyes are drooping.
“I missed you,” she says as Elnor wraps himself around her. “We should do this more often.”
“Yes please,” he sighs, and soon they’re both asleep.