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Jo, Age 29-30
Jo took a solar year leave of absence from the University. She went to Port Coriol with her family. Owl had lost ten years of their lives, and she needed to be there while Owl and their family adjusted. Sidra was kind enough to program an interface into their scribs, so Jo and Pepper could each have private time with Owl during the journey. Jo could tell that Owl was saddened that the girls hadn't been able to stay together after they reached the G.C. "But I don't blame you, Jo. You always wanted an education. And I think you chose right in being able to let Pepper go when you did."
"It was really hard," Jo said. "I know I could have convinced her to stay."
"You could have. But that would have been the wrong decision for her."
"I thought you were dead, Owl. I acted as if you were dead."
"You didn't know."
"Pepper never gave up on you."
Owl smiled. "She's always been the more stubborn of the two of you. You did what you need to do. You thrived. That's all I ever wanted for you. And that meant when you found me, you had the ability to keep Pepper from doing something dangerous to save me."
Living on a market stop was a whole new experience for Jo. Pepper was delighted to lead her sister "the Professor" through the Caves and show her off. Blue spent days with her in his shop, carrying on with his paintings and illustrations for the upcoming museum display, and Sidra took her to meet her friend Tak, who gave Jo another tattoo - this one of an owl burning like a phoenix..
They still hadn't worked out where to install Owl. For now she was still installed in the ship, but could speak to them by scrib so she wasn't alone. But after a few tendays, Sidra came up with a plan. A bar, that would have a selection of drinks for every sapient. A place where Owl could be installed and interact with visitors. A place where Sidra could call her own, when she wanted to be independent from Pepper and Blue. A place where Jo could stay when she came to visit Port Coriol.
A place where refugees would always be welcome and supported, whether they were trying to gain citizenship or wanted to live undocumented.
That part of Home's purpose hadn't been made public yet, but it would be spread through the underground and on Picnic, through social workers and counsellors and activists. They'd always find a way to help people who needed it, whether they filled in the correct boxes or not.
On Home's opening day, the bar was fairly busy when an Akarak in a mech suit came to the outside door while Jo was sitting outside chatting with Pepper.
"Oh, hello, can I help you?" Jo asked.
"There is methane here?" the Akarak asked.
Pepper jumped up. "Your suit has a small leak. Let's get you hooked up to the methane, and I'll put a patch on your leak, to hold you until you can get home."
"Many thanks."
Sidra wouldn't budge on giving methane for free to Akaraks, even when it resulted in more Akaraks coming to Home. "i don't charge anyone else for air," she pointed out to one Harmagian who complained.
"But they do not buy drinks."
"They cannot buy drinks," Sidra said. "Maybe one day I'll have enough creds to build an airlocked room and hire an Akarak bartender. And when that day comes, they will buy drinks from me."
Or more likely she would make some other arrangements for drinks, because Akaraks didn't work with money the same way most races did. But Jo applauded her stance.
That particular Harmagian left in a huff. But plenty of others stayed.
On Port Coriol, they held the funeral for Astra and Stella. It was their family - Jo, Pepper, Blue, Sidra, and Tak. Jo had taken enough of each girl to do a DNA scan, to hold in her records. There would almost certainly never be any way to identify these particular girls and when they ran, but if there was, she would want it to be possible.
They closed Home for the day and held a funeral for them there, with food and drink and music. And then Jo and Pepper alone took the girls the last distance to the crematorium. They went back the next day and received the ashes.
They'd decided to scatter the ashes in Pepper and Blue's back garden, under the stars. These two little girls had probably not understood what the stars were, but they'd at least seen them. Even if it had frightened them. They'd known there was a sky. They'd known there was more than the factory.
The Girls they Threw Away
The virtual exhibit opened two standard years after the the Museum had granted Jo and Pepper's petition.
Jo and Blue had worked with a sim designer to create the atmosphere of little girls all being raised to clean, sort, and repair scrap, watched over by Mothers. It wasn't game play, where you pretended to be one of the girls - they wouldn't disrepect the girls like that. It was just to see inside their world and follow them. Follow Jane 23 and Jane 64s day on the day there was a hole in the world. The night they ran through the scrapyard, chased by dogs. The night they arrived at the shuttle, with Owl's voice calling to them.
The tour let them walk through a virtual version of the shuttle, where they could see the mushrooms being grown, the waterhole, the lizard-bird poultry farm in the cargo hold. Jane would be fixing things while Jo preparing food. Owl was on the wall teaching them.
Then it let them find Astra and Stella, and then Laurian and the fuel. Then the launch.
It ended with the launch. There was a linkings file that visitors could download that was a summary of Jo's work, accessible to non-scholars.
Pepper hadn't wanted to have her name on the exhibit. It simply said, "This exhibit was put together with contributions by Jo Athena, (formerly Jane 64), Blue (formerly Laurian), and Owl, with contributions by many others. On the list that followed, was simply the name 'Jane.'
The way Pepper had put it was that she needed her current life to be separated from her former life. And Jane wasn't a name she was ashamed of. It was just the name of the person she was then.
People who didn't want to use the virtual version of the tour could see the paintings by Blue and the displays that had been made out of things left in the shuttle.
Pepper's workgloves and tools.
The work-cart and water barrels.
Jo's walker.
Jo's needle and thread.
A partial lizard-bird skeleton, that with Owl's help, the museum was able to make extruded parts to show a complete skeleton.
Their clothing, sewn by hand, and resewn and repaired until it was held together by repairs and dirt.
People came out of the exhibit in tears. They purchased copies of Blue's art, the proceeds of which went to supporting efforts to help escaped slaves from the Enhanced worlds. They discussed the situation of people on worlds they'd let themselves not think about. Because they were far away. Because the problem wasn't easy to solve.
But knowing a story, about two little girls, and one lonely boy could make it real to people in a way that none of Jo's research ever could. Theirs wasn't the only story, or the worst story from the Enhanced Worlds. But it was the first story that had been made available in a media friendly way. The first time their story spread from world to world, since the virtual tour could be sent on a chip to any school or museum that requested it.
The exhibit told their story, and perhaps it would make it easier for others to tell theirs.
The End