Waking Station Nine
Noor pushed off the wall and floated down the long hallway. Wisp drifted just ahead of her, glowing like a small kept moon. The station was asleep. Every round window was dark. Every little lamp had dimmed itself to nothing, the way they did when the day was done. Noor had woken early, before the morning lights began. She wanted to be the one who turned them on. Wisp glowed a little brighter. "Wake up slow, little lights," Noor whispered. "Wake up slow."
The morning wheel lived beside the big round window. Noor took it in both hands and turned it hard. Light burst out all at once, white and wide and loud. She squeezed her eyes shut. Wisp went pale as milk. Noor turned the wheel back, and back, until the hallway was soft again. "Sorry," she said to the station. The floor hummed its low sleepy hum under her knees. Wisp floated close and warmed up slowly, like a coal. Noor thought for a while.
Small lights first, she decided. She pulled herself along to the green room, where the plants slept in their round pots. One tiny lamp hung above each leafy head. Noor woke them one at a time, the way you touch a shoulder. Glow. Glow. Glow. The leaves lifted. The air turned green and damp and smelled of soil. Wisp drifted between the pots, shining brighter each time another came on. "Wake up slow, little lights," Noor whispered. "Wake up slow."
Next came the floor lights in the long ring hallway. Noor pressed the first one with her toe. It blinked, then stayed. She pressed the second. She pressed the third. Behind her the lights came on in a row, like footprints made of honey. Wisp swooped the whole curve of the hallway and came back glowing. Noor laughed without making much noise. She did not want to wake the station all at once. She wanted to wake it kindly, bit by bit.
In the kitchen she found the lamp above the table and turned it just halfway. The light lay down on the cups and stayed there. The kettle began to tick as it heated. A spoon had come loose in the night and was turning slow circles near the ceiling. Noor reached up and caught it and hooked it back on its rail. Wisp hovered over the kettle, pink around the edges, like steam that had learned to smile. The room smelled of warm metal.
Past the kitchen was the sleeping door, and behind it her grown-ups were still breathing their deep slow breaths. Noor did not touch that light at all. She let it stay dark. She pulled herself by very quietly, holding her socks in one hand so the rail would not clink. Wisp dimmed down low beside her, almost nothing, almost a candle under a cup. On the other side of the door, Noor let out her breath and grinned.
The last place was the window ring, where the glass went all the way round. Earth turned below them, dark and quiet, with cloud piled up like blankets. Far off, at the curved edge, there was a thin gold line. Noor hooked her feet under the rail and watched it. The line grew. It spread along the sea, and the sea woke up shining, and the clouds went peach and pearl. Wisp pressed close to the glass and glowed the same colour.
Now, Noor thought. She floated to the morning wheel and turned it a little. One notch. She counted, breathing, and turned it again. The hallway lights lifted like something stretching. The green room brightened. The kitchen glowed. All around her the station came up warm and gold, slow as the sunrise outside the glass, until every lamp was awake and humming. "Wake up slow, little lights," Noor whispered. "Wake up slow." Then she yawned a very big yawn.
Her arms felt heavy, which was strange, because nothing was heavy here. She let go of the rail and drifted. Wisp slid underneath her, soft as a pillow of breath, and carried her down the bright hallway past the plants and the cups and the sleeping door. Noor laid her cheek against that small warm cloud. The lights she had woken watched her go by. Below the windows, the whole blue world turned toward morning, and Noor, on Wisp, turned toward sleep.
