Bennu Station, 203:6
I finally got to write up my own compliance letter and send it off to the core, but that turned out to be the least exciting part of my week.
On 200:6 one of the docking ships snagged a water recycling hose and there was an immediate ice storm to clean up. The crews were out in no time to retrieve the water, but the best part was the whole thing happened right in front of my office window. Looking at the stars through the ice field was like living in a dream, with every thought refracting before it had time to make sense.
When the skimmers were collecting the ice, they didn't exactly follow protocol. Rather than having the scoops store the ice internally for reintegration, the pilots balled the crystals up and flung them at each other. One missed and exploded across the window of my office. It sounded like we were under assault, but the light show was amazing. I haven't met the pilots yet, but they seem like the type of people I would like to hang around with after shift.
The letter that I sent off to the core was from a Pyosian, and Shah scared me half to death before I met with them. Shah was very clear that I should avoid eye contact, or I could end up with a complaint from the Pyosian, or if it were particularly egregious, bodily harm from the angry trader.
I get now that it was all a joke just trading on the stereotypes of the Pyosians that have permeated the core. I had never met one, and I think that's true for most of the core that hold the beliefs that are frankly ridiculous. But I didn't know that at the time that P822ian floated into my office with the compliance form.
I was too nervous to look up from my desk, but I peered so hard from my peripheral vision that my eyes started to water. I knew their general body shape was spherical, and of course there are no pictures of them, but I didn't realize the drawings were representative of the entire population. And strictly speaking I would never admit to having seen a drawing.
P822ian must have talked with Shah before they came to see (pun intended) me, because the first thing they said was, "Look at me." I absolutely did not look at them. They demanded that I look at them but I have never stared harder at anything than my desk in that moment. At that includes my first date with Naa back on Council Cluster.
My eyes didn't move until P822ian reached out with their field and forcibly moved my head until I was facing them, but I kept my eyes pressed tight enough that stars shone the same as if I had been gazing out my office window. I had never had a field used so gently on me as P822ian did; they opened my eyes, but it was soft, somehow gentler than if I had done it myself.
I think it was that gesture that kicked over the first domino of my preconceptions. With no face to speak of, just the swirling vapours of their center, I somehow knew that P822ian was kidding. I started to laugh. There was no eye not to look at. There was just P822ian. They laughed too, or at least what I categorized as the same. The swirling became staccato lines, as if a fast Fourier transformation had been applied to the previous swirls.
We laughed until they forced my eyes back to the form on the desk. It was in compliance so I signed it. I heard Shah laughing as P822ian floated out, and he came to watch P822ian's ship fly off from my office. He stayed until the flare from the engines was completely gone, and we didn't say a word the whole time.