Hull and Heart

Rian Voss finished a seam the way other people signed letters—slow, precise, with the stamp of a hand that had learned how to stop shouting and start listening to metal. Sparks guttered and fell like tiny, obedient stars as the arc breathed, and when the seam cooled Rian ran a palm along the hull and listened. The vessel hummed back, a low, satisfied murmur that sounded to Rian like approval. He pocketed the tack rivet still warm from the torch, wiped his forearms clean on an oilcloth that had more signatures than a municipal registry, and let the dockyard noises fold around him: the constant clank of cranes, the soft hiss of recycling vents, the distant, stubborn caw of a gull-analog from a market stall.

Nearby, Hap-9—Hap to most people—floated in a patched maintenance harness and recited air-poetry about hydraulic valves. The drone had an affected operatic voice module and a fondness for dramatic gestures that made the younger apprentices laugh and the older forepeople feign irritation. Today Hap was also transporting a crate of grav-goats, a novelty from a fringe agritech vendor that had taken to orbitkeeping farms and marketing them as “companions for the lonely spacer.” The goats hovered like woolly ornaments, their tiny hooves paddling at nothingness, and one kept butting against Hap’s speech array until the drone declaimed, "O goat, thou art a spectral cud of fortune!" and the crate emitted a faint bleating that could charitably be described as confused.

Sora Mbeki appeared through the steam as if she had been waiting in the mist all morning. She was the foreperson of the dry dock, a compact woman with a laugh like a wrench being reversed and the uncanny ability to know which ratchets would slip under which hands. She watched Rian with an expression that mixed calculation and fondness, then clucked. "You’re leaving your mark on that hull like you’re engraving a tombstone. Don’t forget to sign the apprenticeship board for Kacen’s rig before you bolt out." She tapped a datapad against her wrist, more habit than need; it flickered with job manifests and a headline about a conservatory commissioning a signature hull. "They told me they offered you a commission. Big, public, ceremony. You going to take it?"

Rian glanced at the dim holo still folded in his pocket—an offer that smelled like varnish and applause. He had imagined the podium, the inked scroll, the press-blocks. He had also imagined the empty bed back at the workshop and the silence that came when the tools were put away. He shrugged without much meaning. "Depends on the pay," he said, because habit shaped his mouth before honesty could get in.

Hap bobbed, scattering the grav-goats into a charmingly chaotic orbit that tangled one of them through a hanging banner advertising glittering fuse-weld patterns. "Ah! The eternal dilemma," Hap sang. "To fame with polish, or to grease with love?"

Sora snorted. "Save the poetry for the apprentices. Got a call earlier—distress ping, Skylark Caravan. It's garbled, but it mentioned gravity manifolds and hull anomalies. Lina’s name popped up."

The air went thinner somewhere behind Rian’s ribs. His hands tightened around the oilcloth, the rivet in his palm suddenly heavier than a promise.