She doesn’t leave. Instead, she hops onto the overturned bucket I use as a workbench and swings her legs, crumbs falling into the grass. The flashlight’s beam dances erratically now,catching on the edges of tools, loose metal shavings, and the rusted hulk of the mower I’d dragged out earlier.
“You’re not an accountant,” she says with the solemn authority of a seasoned interrogator.
My spine stiffens. “I am.”
“Nope.”
“Yes.”
“Then where’s your laptop?”
I look down at the capacitor I’ve been wiring into the mower’s ignition array and back at her. “It broke.”
She narrows her eyes. “You didn’t even blink.”
“Humans don’t always blink.”
“Yes, we do.”
I sigh.
She leans forward, elbows on knees. “You didn’t know what barbecue sauce was.”
“I thought it was engine lubricant.”
“You poured it into a car.”
“It smelled like combustion fluid!”
“You’renotfrom here.”
I don’t respond.
She takes that as victory. “It’s okay, you know. I won’t tell anyone. I mean, I’ve already got a notebook and everything. Might as well go full secret agent.”
I finally meet her gaze. “You’re ten. You shouldn’t be doing espionage.”
“You’re a space accountant with no laptop. I think we’re both breaking rules.”
I turn my attention back to the mower. It’s old—probably older than I am, in Earth years—but with the right calibration, I can integrate a spare hover-relay capacitor into the ignition housing. It takes precision. Focus. Not exactly easy when there’s a child orbiting me like a particularly nosy moon.
“Do you miss your planet?” she asks suddenly.
I pause.
The relay sparks against the housing. I flinch—not from pain, but from memory. The red deserts of Vakut. The harsh metallic scent of the twin suns baking iron-rich sand. The roar of warships cutting the sky. The silence of fallen comrades. Home was never kind. But it was mine.
“Yes,” I say finally. “I miss the sky.”
She grows quiet. The air between us stretches.
Then she says, softly, “I miss my dad sometimes.”
I don’t know how to respond to that.
Instead, I finish the repair. The capacitor locks in with a soft click, the circuits hum. I stand, wipe grease on my jeans, and reach for the mower’s handle.
“Ready?” I ask.
