Chorus in the Storm

Leona Patel hung from the spine of the Vesper Spindle with her mag-boots biting into a frost-flecked strut, arc-light splashing blue against her visor. Below her, the gas giant Echion rolled like a painted eye, bands of honey and cobalt twisting into storms that flashed with silent flares. The weld puddle settled, hissed, and cooled beneath her glove. A faint vibration traveled through the metal and into her bones, the living hum of a habitat that slept and woke in cycles she could feel but not see. Her maintenance bot, a knee-high cube called Kettle, shuffled along the truss with a jitter of gyros, bumping a coil of cable with a chime of apology. 'Don’t sulk,' she said. 'You were the one who forgot the spanner.' A burst of static brushed her ear. Foreman Tarek’s voice came through, dry as old bread. 'Arc crew, status.' Leona blinked the HUD alive. 'Section Gamma-Five sealed. Sending heat map.' 'Copy. And Leona? Come down before the squalls kick up. They’re spitting micrometeor ice again.' She glanced past her boot. A string of glitter drifted along the habitat’s shadowed rim, like spilled sugar. 'I see it. Two minutes.' She smoothed the bead, killed the torch, and let the planet fill her visor. Even in silence, it felt loud. She watched a pale oval open in a belt and close, like a pupil narrowing. People said Echion sang. Old-timers claimed you could feel the song if you pressed your forehead to the observation glass. Corporate called it hearsay. She unclipped, floated for a second before the boots tugged, and felt the hum again. Not from lines or pumps. A deeper thing. Kettle whirred and beeped a little melody that made her smile. In the reflex of that smile came a name she didn’t say aloud. Rafi. The planet swallowed her reflection whole, and she pushed off. The airlock swallowed her, too. Inside, the corridor smelled like hot metal and orange rind, a peel stuffed in a vent by some kid. Her suit blew warm air across her neck, and she rolled her shoulders as gravity eased into her joints. The Spindle was long and lean, a stack of chambers threaded along a central axis, with loops like bracelets where people lived, grew greens, cooked noodles, argued, kissed in doorways. The patchwork floor trembled with bodies moving at a distance. She passed a viewport and pressed her glove to the glass. Nothing pressed back, but the hum in the strut had made her think of a throat clearing in the next room. Wishful thinking, said the part of her that counted bolts and budgets. The other part refused to answer.