The Bead That Wandered
The rain had just stopped on the blue half of Earth. Iris pressed her nose to the round window and watched the clouds pull apart. Underneath them the sea went silver, then gold. Wisp floated at her shoulder and glowed a little brighter. The station was quiet. It was the kind of quiet that comes when the lights go low and the air turns cool. Iris tucked her hands inside her sleeves. Far below her, the storm drifted off the edge of the world.
She pushed away from the window and floated down the long corridor. Wisp drifted just ahead, the way Wisp always did. The floor was cool. The walls were cool. Then Iris saw something small turning slowly in the air near the ceiling. It was round and glassy and yellow. She reached up and caught it in both hands. It was warm. It was the warmest thing on the whole station. She held it against her cheek and felt it there.
Wisp came close and glowed brighter, which was how Wisp answered things. Iris knew what the little bead was. It belonged to the string of lamps in the greenhouse, the ones that kept the seedlings warm at night. One must have come loose and gone wandering down the halls. "You are a long way from your leaves," Iris said. The bead sat in her palms like a small sleepy sun. Her cold fingers went pink again, one by one.
Wisp drifted down and settled over her hands. The glow turned gold at the edges. Iris could feel Wisp wanting the bead, the same way she wanted it. "Your turn to be warm, then mine," she said. She opened her hands and let the bead float free. Wisp hovered above it and shone. Then Iris cupped it again, and her fingers went warm, and Wisp went pale and quiet in the air above her head.
They took turns all the way down the corridor. But turns were a strange sort of sharing. Whoever was waiting got cold. Iris watched Wisp go dim and thought about that for a while. She thought about the greenhouse, and the dark little gap in the lamp string. She thought about the seedlings in their trays, waiting in the cool too. "I know," she said. "Come on." Wisp brightened and went ahead, the way Wisp always did.
The corridor to the greenhouse grew warmer, step by floating step. Iris passed the sleeping tools and the round water tanks. She held the bead between two fingers so it could not wander off again. The door slid open and the smell of leaves came out to meet her, green and damp. Rows of small plants stood in their trays with their heads down. Above them hung the lamp string, with one dark space in the middle. Wisp drifted straight to it.
Iris stretched up on her toes, which is easy when you are floating. She pressed the bead into the empty place. It clicked. The whole string woke up, one small light after another, all the way along. Warm air moved over the trays. The leaves lifted their heads. Iris stayed where she was, right in the middle of all that warmth, and her shoulders went soft, and her sleeves stopped being somewhere to hide her hands.
Wisp opened wide and slow above the plants. The lamp light shone right through, and Wisp's edges turned gold, brighter than one little bead could ever have made them. Iris sat down among the trays with her arms around her knees. The air was warm on her face and on the backs of her hands. "Your turn to be warm, then mine," she said, and smiled, because now it was both at once.
Iris gave the seedlings a drink before bed. A little water escaped the can and floated up past her nose. It wobbled, and wobbled smaller, and settled into one round ball, turning slowly, holding a whole greenhouse of light inside it. "Your turn to be warm, then mine," Iris whispered, and watched the drop until her eyes closed. Wisp dimmed to the colour of a nightlight and hovered near. Below the round window, Earth turned, and the rain settled into the sea.
