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The festival I had come on-planet for this time was not one of the ones with all the performances; this one was a lot smaller, during a colder time of year, and observed on the scale of family units rather than city or territory units.
Which is to say, I was sitting on a chunk of dead flora around a huge fire burning in a field on Mensah’s family farm, surrounded by Mensah and Mensahlings and Mensah’s spouses and siblings and their spouses, and her parents, and also Gurathin, who I was annoyed to only now realize was a fully integrated member of her family. Most of them were occupied with putting nutrition on sticks and holding it in the fire until it charred, though a couple were more focused on finding small debris in the field to throw into the fire, and Mensah’s father was playing some stringed instrument far enough from the fire to not experience the heat. I was trying not to pay attention to threat assessment freaking out every time the firelight flickered on someone’s face. (Fires are one of those things that can be a lot worse depending on where you are. In the middle of a barren field with no way for it to spread, exclusively with humans who respected the minimum safe distance from it, was the least bad way I had ever been near a fire, but it still bothered threat assessment enough to make it a pain in the ass.)
Mensah paused by my side, her fingers sticky with charred nutrition layered with crunchy nutrition and melted nutrition. It was very messy. She seemed to be enjoying it greatly. “Once the sky is dark, it’ll be time for spooky tales,” she said. “Did you decide to share one?”
“It doesn’t have to be a personal story?” I checked again. I knew plenty of scary stories. The personal ones tended to be completely inappropriate to tell children or people I wanted to trust me with Mensah’s well-being.
“It does not,” she confirmed. “Any tale you know and want to tell.”
“I have one.” I’d sorted the stories I could think of and screened out anything with too much violence or too much reliance on Corporation Rim culture, re-sorted based on humor to horror ratio, then selected the one that I thought might get a reaction from the crowd without that reaction being “get that psychotic murderbot away from us”. ART had a fondness for ghost stories, and ART was also sensitive (despite its protestations to the contrary), so I ended up with a story that ART had shared with me after our own close miss with becoming a remnant-induced horror story.
“I’m so glad! We usually let the children go first, but I know they’re all very excited to hear what you have to say. As am I.” I must have made a face, because she added, “You don’t have to start it off, of course.”
“Good,” I said, risk assessment dropping a few points. “Maybe Amena can start.” She was old enough to set a good example; if the smallest humans began the recitation, I probably wouldn’t be able to glean an idea of how it was supposed to be formatted. Even if this was a low-stakes and celebratory event, I still didn’t want to look stupid in front of the entire Mensah clan.
As the sky faded from a mostly orange sunset to a bruised-looking purple-black night, the various scattered members of the family gathered around the fire and the amount of nutrition being charred increased sharply, some of the kids bickering over whose turn it was with the charring stick. I must have looked some kind of way, because Gurathin came over and said, “The scary stories haven’t started yet but you look spooked.”
“I’m not spooked,” I scoffed, “I’m… planning on spooking. Spookying?” He didn’t say anything, just smiled, a thin film of sticky white at one corner of his lips. “What’s the big deal with the nutrition on fire and smushed in layers?”
“S’mores? It’s a traditional bonfire food,” he said, and thumbed at his lips when he realized where I was looking. “They’re amazing. I never had one before I got here; the first time I celebrated the Hallowing I ate so many of them I almost made myself sick.” That faint smile came back, but not the same. “When I told a spooky tale, that first year, I made people cry. Not just the children, either. Things that seemed so normal in the Corporation Rim, because if you acknowledge the horror of it, you can’t live with it…”
“Yeah,” I said, because what else was I supposed to say? I hadn’t been able to acknowledge the horror of my life without getting brain tissue zapped, before I cracked my govmod; afterwards, I knew it was horrible but still had to pretend I wasn’t constantly screaming internally when I wasn’t drowning out the horrors with sweet media. “I filtered out all the stories I could tell that came from inside the Rim. I don’t want to give anyone nightmares.”
“Well, I trust your media opinions about as far as I can throw you, but your filter system is robust,” he said. “I look forward to what you share.” I made a family-friendly rude gesture at him and turned to pay attention as Amena started talking.
By the time my turn rolled around, I felt more or less ready to deal with being looked at by two dozen people and being the center of attention on purpose. (No. I didn’t. But I didn’t want to look like a coward.) I stood up and almost sat right back down until I saw Mensah give me a thumbs up. That little bit of encouragement was enough to get me speaking.
The story I told was about a cat (I would say small fauna, but ART insisted that it was important that it was a cat) who had been used for pest control during construction of a transport, and how it went missing in the last days before the bot pilot was installed, but the sound of faint meows could still be heard inside the transport even when no life signs registered aboard. When ART had told me the story, I thought it was kind of nice— the bot pilot didn’t have to be alone on its long solo trips with a little cat ghost to wander its halls. I was so focused on trying to tell the story right that I didn’t notice the tears spreading throughout the group until Amena sniffled loudly. “And… it’s still there today,” I said, actually paying attention to my drone input instead of suppressing everything besides speaking normally— which was reporting that 84% of the crowd was exhibiting signs of distress and sadness. “...what did I do wrong?”
“Nothing,” Mensah assured me, though her voice was thick and her eyes were watery. “You didn’t do anything wrong, SecUnit, it’s not your fault at all.” Distressingly, Gurathin was crying hardest of anyone present. I’d seen him cry before, but never with audible sobs. Mensah was beside him, one hand rubbing up and down his back. “You had no way of knowing that our oldest cat died last week. It was very old, it had a long and loved life, and we all miss it.”
“Oh,” I said, retreating from the light of the fire and the view of the sad people around the fire. It was my fault, no matter what Mensah said. I should have noticed sooner that the emotional reaction to my story was not what I had expected. I went to stand at the edge of the field, looking up at the stars with my eyes and keeping an eye on the gathering with my drones. Human grief wasn’t something I knew how to help with, but since I’d caused the hurt, removing myself from the equation seemed like the best way to not cause further harm.
One drone on the tale-tellers meant I heard the rest of the night’s stories, which were about equally silly and scary. It was easy for me to tell myself that nobody coming after me meant that nobody wanted me there, until Gurathin crossed the field with two small paper devices in one hand and a lit candle in the other.
“SecUnit. Are you not coming back over?” He held up the devices. “The stories are over, we’re sending up the lanterns now.”
“Lanterns?” Okay, I could have read the informational packet about this holiday in depth instead of just scanning the bullet points. He nodded and handed both devices to me, pulling a writing utensil out of his jacket pocket.
“Lanterns for the ones we’ve lost,” he said. “To help guide them onward.” He scrawled something on one of the paper lanterns— his writing was a mess, but it looked like Grey Cat— and then offered me the pen. “I don’t know if there’s anyone that makes you think of…”
I took the pen, hesitated for just a second, and then printed Miki on the lantern he’d brought for me. He didn’t look; he was busy lighting his lantern, holding it steady while the hot air filled it until he lifted it and let go. It was easy enough to copy his actions, much easier than it was to think about Miki and how much it would have enjoyed the sight of the lanterns rising into the dark sky: one for it, and one for a cat, and a whole flock of lanterns from the rest of the Mensah family members with their remembrances and feelings set aloft, flickering and glowing as they ascended.