Her expression shifted. Not quite a smile. But close.
Turnip appeared in the doorway, watching us with those small, intelligent eyes, his bulk blocking most of the light. But he didn’t charge. Didn’t even growl.
Progress.
“The pump yesterday,” I said, watching her apply another coat of oil. “The harvester today. Things seem to be failing.”
She didn’t look up. “Things always fail. That’s what equipment does.”
“All at once?”
“When you’re the only one maintaining them?” She sat back, pushing sweat-dampened hair back from her face. “Yes. All at once. There’s always something breaking. Something wearing out. Something that needs parts I can’t get or skills I don’t have.” She gestured at the harvester. “This coupling should have been replaced two seasons ago. The pump seal, the same. I’ve been patching and jury-rigging for years.”
“Why not leave? Find somewhere easier?”
The look she gave me clearly indicated what she thought about my question.
“This is Torek’s legacy,” she said. “Everything he built. Everything he taught me. I’m not going to abandon it because it’s hard.”
I held up a hand. “I didn’t mean?—”
“I know what you meant.” She turned back to the coupling, spraying another coat. “Everyone who passes through asks the same thing. Why stay on a backwater moon? Why not sell theproperty and move somewhere with actual infrastructure?” Her jaw tightened. “They don’t understand. This isn’t just a farm. It’s not just a place to live.”
She didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t have to.
This was her home. The first real one she’d ever had, maybe. The place where someone had seen her, trained her, trusted her with everything he valued. Walking away would be like saying none of that mattered.
I understood that better than she knew.
She set down her tools. Wiped her hands on a rag. Looked at me.
“Why are you still here? Really.”
“I told you. The Conclave?—”
“No.” She cut me off. “Not that. Why areyouhere? You could have sent anyone. Could have hired a retrieval team. Could have done a dozen things that didn’t involve sitting in a field for days waiting for a woman who doesn’t trust you.”
I didn’t have a ready answer for that. The truth was complicated. Messy. Full of feelings I didn’t want to examine.
“Torek trained me,” I said finally. “Made me what I am. And then I left and never came back. Never thanked him. Never told him what his teaching meant.” I looked at the harvester, the barn, the fields beyond. “This is the closest I can get to making that right.”
She was quiet for a long moment.
“He knew,” she said. “That you’d turned out well.” A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “He was proud of you. Even if you never came back.”
Something twisted in my chest. An old wound I’d thought had scarred over, suddenly raw again.
“Thank you,” I said. “For telling me that.”
She nodded. Then she turned and walked out of the barn, leaving me standing among the grazers and the smell of oil and metal.
I followed her outside. The sun was lower now, the shadows lengthening across the fields. She stopped at the edge of the garden, her back to me.
“There’s food in the cold storage,” she said. “Behind the house. Take what you need.”
Then she walked away, toward the farmhouse, Turnip falling into step beside her.
I foundthe cold storage where she’d said. A small shed, half-buried in the hillside, the door heavy and well-insulated. Inside, shelves lined the walls, stocked with preserved vegetables, cured meats, sealed containers of things I didn’t recognize.
