Holly stared at him. “Sam. That’s a really thoughtful touch.”
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “It’s a bench. Had an extra one in one of the storage rooms.”
No matter how much he brushed off her praise, she knew Sam wanted to save this station. Wanted to fiercely. And she wondered why. How did he end up here, and why was he so determined to stay? With his skills, he’d be snapped up by a bigger station and paid five times what he made here. Yet, here he stayed. Holly hoped one day to hear his story. But for now, she let it go. “What about reviews? Any new ones come in?”
Sam pulled up the station’s review feed on the terminal screen and turned it toward her. “Three this week. All from guests who stayed overnight.”
Holly leaned in and read. The first was a five out of ten, noting clean rooms and a pleasant atmosphere but limited dining options. The second was a six, praising the air quality and the “charming village-style architecture.” The third was a seven. Aseven. The guest had written that the homemade baked goods in the lounge were “unexpectedly delightful,” their shielding plate damage was repaired quickly, and that the station had “a warmth that larger outposts lack.”
“A seven,” Holly said. “Sam. We’ve never gotten a seven.”
“I know.” His lips twitched. “You should let Harry know.”
“He’ll be over the moon—literally— by the ‘unexpectedly delightful.’” She pressed her hand to her chest, then looked up suddenly. “You don’t thinkhewrote that one, do you?”
“Nah.” Sam scratched the back of his head with a smirk. “It would have mentioned mushrooms, if it was him. And anyway, I’m pretty sure I remember this visitor, with the shield damage. They were complimentary.”
Holly clapped her hands together. “Then that one’s going on the wall.”
“Don’t get carried away.”
She laughed. “I’m getting exactly the right amount of carried away. Just look at this.” She switched to the hotel booking screen and flourished a hand. “The hotel is fully booked for the night of the festival. Did you know that?”
Sam’s brows rose. That was, for Sam, the equivalent of a gasp. “Full?”
“Every room. First time in anyone’s memory, according to Alyce. Harry’s channel is doing its job. He’s been posting clips of the outpost every day. The gardens, the forest, the square. His shop, of course. I saw one where he talked for eleven minutes about the aphrodisiac properties of a mold that glows in the dark.”
“Eleven minutes.”
“I didn’t watch all eleven minutes,” she admitted. “But lots of people did, Sam. Thousands of people.” Holly shook her head, still mildly baffled by the reach ofFrolicking with Fungi. “He also posted a clip of the view through the dome at sunset. It got more engagement than anything else he’s ever put up.”
Sam was quiet, processing this. “Peoplewantto come here,” he said, not quite a question.
“Some of them do. A few, anyway. But a few is more than we had.” Holly looked out the terminal window at the landing pads and the shimmer of the force field and the dark sky beyond it, speckled with distant stars. “It’s a start.”
Sam followed her gaze. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then he said, “I bet your great-grandfather would have liked this.”
Holly’s throat tightened. She nodded once and they stood there for a moment, two people looking out at the same sky, before Sam turned back to the crates and got to work.
Thirty-Four
The week that followed was the busiest of Holly’s time at Moone’s Landing.
She baked. She baked until the lounge smelled permanently of sweetener powder and the warm, yeasty scent of fresh bread. Muffins, scones, flatbreads. A batch of small pies with garden vegetables that Mish brought to her in baskets each morning. She made things from Rasker’s recipe files and things she invented herself, and the results were not always successful, but they were always edible, and she was becoming a good baker. Her cooking, on the other hand, needed work. The one soup she’d attempted had been an inedible failure. But, baby steps.
Mish finalized the garden tour route and planted quick-blooming flowers along the path for color. Alyce inventoried every functional piece of equipment in the outpost and created a contingency list for anything that might fail during the event, because Alyce planned for disasters the way other people planned their meals. Harry designed and transmitted his festival advertisement on every relevant frequency and stream he could access, and also, Holly suspected, some irrelevant ones. Orba and Sula said nothing about the festival, but their shop windowdisplay changed three times in one week, each iteration more spectacular than the last.
Sam got the fourthzigrunning. One of them complained, as promised. All were ugly as sin, but hopefully visitors would be too busy looking around at the sights to examine the pieced-together metal hunk they rode around on.
Rasker set up his NuProd unit in the lounge and spent an afternoon programming specie-specific menus. He also built a shelving unit for the tea station out of scrap composite and metal brackets from Sam’s workshop. When Holly asked him where he’d learned carpentry, he said, “Nakri,” and nothing else, but the shelving was sturdy and well made. It fit the lounge like it had always been there.
He had become part of her days now. Somewhere along the line, she’d stopped trying to decide whether he belonged and simply let him in. Mornings, he was in the lounge when she arrived to start the oven. He drank Harry’s tea and read his transmissions and sometimes helped her measure ingredients, and they talked about small things or nothing at all. Afternoons, he walked Bean with her, the three of them looping the square and the forest path while Bean investigated every bush and root with the single-minded dedication of a dog who believed the entire station existed for his olfactory entertainment. Evenings, Rasker retreated to his room, and Holly retreated to hers, and the hallway between room seventeen and her living unit was both too short and too long.
They had kissed twice more during those weeks. Once in the lounge, in the early morning, when she’d turned from the counter and he was right there and neither of them had made a conscious decision about it. Once on the forest path, when Bean had chased a scent into a thicket and they’d been standing close in the dappled light and he’d tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and leaned in. Both times brief. Both timeswithout conversation afterward. Both times followed by a return to whatever they had been doing, as if the kiss were simply part of the routine now, like tea and walks. The “relationship” conversation that would have to happen, keptnothappening. And how could it, with so many unknown variables?
Thirty-Five
The night before the festival, Holly stood in the square at two in the morning and watched the rain fall. She was awake. Wildly, vibrantly awake. Nerves had woken her up and hope kept her that way.
