5 BTC

“Hey, bot’uhn. I was starting to think you wouldn’t wake up.”

“I’m moving, hsin’bo,” grumbled seven-year-old Calline from the refresher doorway. Her big brother flashed her his thousand-watt grin and trotted back to the boys’ bedroom. Calline trudged out to the kitchen where her big sister Caevarl, neat in her maid’s uniform, was busy preparing lunch.

Caevarl smiled. She smiled any time there wasn’t a disaster actively in progress. “Morning, sleepyhead. You get enough rest?”

“Yeah. Doing great!” Calline yawned. She had stayed up reading under the blankets, which Caevarl almost certainly knew, but they knew better than to make a big deal of it with Pippa or Mimma around. “Ready and raring to go.” She’d picked up that Basic phrase from a holovid she had watched just a few days ago.

Mimma was still sleeping; Pippa was scanning the morning’s headlines on a console popup from the counter. He nodded silent greeting and went on reading. Big brother reemerged from his room carrying a heavy canvas messenger bag covered in stickers of exotic things and places. He put a hand in to raise one freshly patched-up corner for Calline’s examination. “One good-as-new-bag, on the condition that you don’t let wild animals chew on it this time.”

“There weren’t any wild animals, hsin’bo.”

“No, but that’s what you say to make it look good.” He winked and turned away.

Pippa was just collapsing the holoscreen back into the counter. He stood and fixed hsin’bo with a heavy stare. “You’ll make it to work on time this afternoon?” he said in Cheunh.

The adolescent looked straight across to address his father’s chin. “Yes, Father.” Also in Cheunh. It might have been a neutral check-in once, but it hadn’t been for a long time. Lately at least Calline knew it had something to do with one of the women at her brother’s after-school job. The details were too weird to think about.

But Pippa had turned away and her hsin’bo recovered his smile. “Thank you for lunch,” he told Caevarl, palming one of the neatly wrapped packages from the counter and tucking it into his already well-stuffed bag. Then suddenly he went up on his toes and hugged her, whispering something in her ear.

Whatever it was, she pulled away glowing. “Well, thank you,” she said.

He beamed back at her. Then he turned to Calline. “Ready to go?”

“Ready when you are, slowpoke.” She stuck out her tongue.

The road to school was narrow but peaceful. She chattered as she usually did while they walked, telling him about the Basic novel she’d been reading; he followed along, throwing in the occasional encouraging remark. Mostly he liked to listen, which worked out nicely for her.

He stopped at an intersection. “Oh. It occurs to me I forgot to pick up the magnet dust I’ll need at work tonight. I’ll run down to Jaco’s and get that now. You go on ahead.”

“Don’t be late,” she said.

“Hey, I already promised once.” And with that he hugged her, tighter than he ever did, and in her ear he whispered “Love you. Don’t ever forget how great you are.”

“Hey,” she said, bouncing back from the contact, a little confused, a little flattered. “Thanks.”

He grinned. “Rock that astrography test today.”

“Planning on it.”

She didn’t see him at school, which wasn’t too surprising; his year studied one building over. She didn’t see him on the way home, which was expected; he had work down at the factory. She didn’t see him over supper, which was all right, but she also didn’t see him when he was due home after his shift.

Caevarl noticed, too. Mimma and Pippa were still out when she emerged from the girls’ room some time after supper, looking worried. “Have you seen–”

“No,” said Calline from her armchair, “has he called?”

“No. Is he in his room?”

“Just Cerruel and Cruosol there.”

Caevarl went anyway to check. Calline closed behind her shoulder as they stepped in, picking their way over Cruosol’s block fortress, and stepped up on the frame to peer at the highest bunk.

It had five little stacks on it, neatly arranged. At a glance it seemed to be everything hsin’bo could call his own. The pile at the end was small, just a couple of action figures and a glassed-in holodisplay of a Chiss ice cat tamer. The next one was mostly just folded clothes and a couple of other toys, better suited to Cerruel than Cruosol. The one after that had a couple of datacards that Calline recognized as favorite holovids, along with his datapad, the one he should have carried to school, the one three times better than the household runner-up that Calline used. The one after that was a little sewing kit and a colorful scarf. At the end was an assortment of household things, nothing a child would want, though their parents might get some use out of it.

“He should have taken this to school,” Calline said, still staring at the datapad. Her mouth seemed to move very slowly.

“Callie,” Caevarl said, biting her lip. “Step away.”

Calline remembered something. “What did he say to you this morning?”

“He said ‘love you.’” Caevarl wasn’t smiling.

Calline met her sister’s eyes. The meaning piling up with those neat stacks on the bed was something she couldn’t look at straight on, not until she did something first. “We have to find him.”

Wynston drafted two dozen goodbye notes and ended up deleting all of them, opting instead for total disappearance. Unfortunately for the Hannacs, Wynston is faster than Caevarl, a better planner than Calline, more cunning than their parents, and most importantly, determined to disappear. They don’t find him. That hug was all the goodbye the sisters got.

Calline grows up to be a lot less talkative than this.

Oh, and Wynston is very nearly eleven here. Chiss mature early.

Cheunh:
Bot’uhn: “little lump”
Hsin’bo: an affectionate shortening of “big brother”
I use this translator for baseline vocabulary but stir in my own syntax as it pleases me (I claim a lot of leeway in diminutives).

I realized while writing this that Chiss naming can get practically Russian, especially if you introduce nicknames – most of Wynston’s family has a more than single syllable core name, lending itself to shortening. Thus we get Hannac’alline’luor, Calline, Callie, bot’uhn, and that's just one of the seven family members.