Maysie's Galaxy ONC 2023

A Troubling Age

This conversation marked the start of years when interactions were awkward for Maysie and Alder. But then, what pre-teen ever had an easy time?

"I came out this far when you were still little and saw the land mass. I thought about bringing us both down there, but I found the air on the neck was thinner than the top of that old house." Alder found it difficult to admit to being weak to this child, but it was a needed conversation. "I didn't want to risk this crawl down to its back without you being able to carry yourself—maybe even carry me. I've got too much lung scarring, and I'm old and tired—much older than your parents were."

This one was hard because Maysie had never seen this man as fragile. "How old are you, Alder?"

"I will be 70 next year. Much of the work we've done to make a home out of the scraps is work better suited to a young adult, but here we are with a not-half-grown girl and an old man, left alone without family. And we are too far apart in age to fix anything."

The first part, the idea that the only person who cared that she was alive was fragile scared her. The second took several years of figuring out how the body worked and what he meant.

By the time she was 12, everything became clear, as he had to explain to her what her maturing was doing: the early stages of preparing for another generation of humans, and that there was no one she was readying herself for because they were alone and the only "he" she knew was a man she should call Father.

At that point, she quit calling him Alder, as she understood the role he held in her life, although he never once asked her to. This was the dad that fate gave her when her parents were stripped away—and a pretty decent one who stuck faithfully to that position, allowing her to work through difficult concepts without pressure.

Yet still they didn't travel down the neck in search of people.

At 13, she had her own fear. What if the men down there were just like the one shooting the great bird, provoking their death?

That was the age that trusting who they were set in for Maysie, and she asked him difficult questions in security.

"Dad, what should I do about men down there? Who should I choose to make a family with?"

"I can't be sure I will be there when it is time to make a decision. If men are insane, that choice may be taken from you—that is the risk of searching for new people. If I'm alive to see it, I'll hurt anyone who harms you, just like the bird. If they act like a rat, then they don't deserve to live. At least the rats do it in ignorance."

There was a world of difference between the men Alder talked of and Alder himself, Maysie could see that much. "But what if they aren't that bad?"

"Well, you try to tolerate what you can when there are few people to choose from, but if you have choices, you choose the best one for you. That goes beyond merely loving someone, or choosing someone who everyone else says is best. But you will be balancing children against a good choice, as I'm not sure what kind of medical aid they will have down there. If they have kept up with modern medicine, you can wait until you're half my age to make a decision, easily. Or you may look at everyone and decide that a little one is not for you. It is very early to make a plan for what we don't know is out there."

They were having this discussion while they were rigging up a mill to grind corn. They chose a stone that didn't have a lot of waste material that would get in with the flour, ruining their teeth, but primitive grinding wasn't a good solution for dental hygiene. It wasn't to be helped. The swaying of the great feather (an abnormally long facial plume) helped to move the stones together, in a half arc.

Mostly simple machines made for plenty of time to think about the future. All the stores they made, what were they good for? What did boys look like?

This was when Maysie started looking for pictures in the old houses. She found some of boys her age and was fascinated by how they looked—allowed to run around with fewer clothes than either Father Alder or she chose.

Another half-year passed in these explorations as the bird turned from the inner asteroid belt to go out to Pluto's position. The weather stayed its ever-mildly-bitter, not cold enough to prevent searches, even though the sun wasn't large enough for finding pictures. Their batteries still recharged old flashlights which allowed her to look in peace for the broken pieces of other's lives.

The heartbreaking moment wasn't the past of strangers. It was finding pictures of her own family. She recognized her mom and dad immediately but didn't realize the little girl was herself until she thought about it for quite some time. She never realized that this particular house was her home—it was shattered to nearly unrecognizable. It wasn't until she found the marks on her door frame that she could see how small she was when she lost them.

After she gave up on the house, the last pictures were of the three of them together, with her mom having a seriously rounded belly. They had been on the brink of becoming a family of 4 when the disaster struck, and she never knew.

Alder found her minutes later—she was crying loud enough to echo across the bird's skull. One glance at the picture was enough to understand why his child hurt so much.

It was the last time he carried her back to their little home, as he was getting too old—and she took big.