The commons on the afternoon of the sixth day was large enough to be indecent.
Ivo had thought people made its warmth. Now he discovered how much they had made its size. Without bodies, stools, complaints, unfinished conversations, he could see straight across to the net's far attachment and remember every ugly beginning anybody had survived there.
Mara checked their access at the passage mouth. “We have this zone. No going down to the homes.”
“I know.”
“I know you know.”
She was carrying two empty bags. He had brought cutters and an old strip of tape to mark useful lengths. Neither had brought a way to keep the room.
They began at the edge where the net took the least tension. He had taught people to use that edge first: catch here, rest here, trust the room before trusting another person. He cut a fastening and felt the mesh soften against his hand.
Mara caught it farther in. “Here?”
“Yes. Don't let it—”
“I've got it.”
He had told her that in hundreds of rooms. Some required it; some didn't. Today he liked hearing it.
They worked their way around, clipping a loose part, cutting, rolling. In the changing tension a knot pulled against Mara's wrist. Ivo stepped inward, turned beside her, and let the two of them take the force together. They didn't speak until it had gone slack.
“Still very bossy,” she said.
“The net?”
“Yes.”
He smiled. “I should have mentioned that before you married me.”
“You did. Frequently.”
A piece of yellow thread was caught in a junction. For a moment he thought it had come from his shirt. Then he saw the thicker strand: Alma used it to bind the net's worn edges. He freed it and put it with the cut fastenings.
They rolled the first useful length. He checked it once more with the tape.
“This can go to the families,” he said. “For fastening things.”
Mara held the bag while he packed it.
The small length he had chosen for Kestrel went into the second bag. Not enough for the old turns. Enough to catch a body, give a hand somewhere to rest, make a beginning they didn't know yet. He had to stop picturing the big room when he looked at it.
At the hub Alma took the cut material as if she had ordered it. She measured the short length across her arms and put a cutter to it without asking Ivo whether he wanted to save the shape.
He flinched.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
She waited.
“I thought it might stay—” He looked at her cutter. “It won't. Go on.”
She went on. He helped hold the edge.
Nessa came for the soft strap she'd requested. She wanted it to secure the kitchen pack she was taking to her cousin, not to hang on a wall.
“It's strong,” he said.
“I've fallen into it enough.”
He gave her an extra length. She put it back.
“One kitchen,” she said. “No town.”
“All right.”
She kissed him, hard, on the cheek, and left with exactly what she'd asked for.
He and Mara finished the rolling near the transfer. The net on the hub side was weightless, getting away from them whenever they paid attention to anything else. They held opposite edges and let their old skill choose where their arms went. Her movement arrived before he expected it, his body answering before his thought. Even here, without the room that had taught them, something between them remained useful.
“Tell me about the apartment,” he said.
She looked at him over the roll.
“I accepted it this morning.”
He nodded. His chest tightened as though the acceptance had happened to him. It hadn't.
“Good,” he said, then more honestly, “Tell me.”
“The front room's big. There's a table I like. I refused the sofa.”
“What was wrong with it?”
“Everything.”
“I'm sorry I missed it.”
“You'd have defended it out of kindness.”
“To the sofa?”
“To whoever was trying to get rid of it.”
He laughed. She laughed too, then drew the roll closer to stop it drifting between them.
“And the work?”
“Confirmed. Mostly local.”
“So you get home.”
“So I get home.”
He looked at her hands. “I used to make that sound like a thing you owed me.”
She didn't immediately answer. The net tightened, and they shifted together.
“I knew you were lonely,” she said.
“I was. Then I wasn't all the time. But I kept using it when you called.”
He had expected gratitude, perhaps forgiveness. What he got was her face changing with an old hurt finally put somewhere outside her.
“You made leaving sound like I didn't love you,” she said.
“I know.”
“You didn't always say it.”
“I know. I'm sorry.”
He waited without asking her to forgive him.
Mara tucked the last loose corner into the roll.
“I brought your place as if I could do the hard part for you,” she said. “Make it easy enough and you'd see what I wanted you to see. I didn't ask whether you'd like the life. I just kept explaining that it was possible.”
“So did I.”
She kept hold of the roll.
“I'm sorry,” she said.
He reached across the roll and caught her fingers. Her nails were short and not quite clean. He had missed the little roughness of her hands on his skin.
“What will you do first?” he asked.
“At home?”
“Yes.”
“Open the window. If the weather's decent.”
“If it isn't?”
“Open it a little.”
He smiled.
“And you?” she asked.
“Breakfast. Apparently.”
“Suri will complain.”
“Probably. I'll try not to burn the onions.”
She shook her head. “Don't change too much.”
He looked past her toward Kestrel's open hatch. Alma had made a new loop with the piece of net. Dev was helping her test its shape. Suri watched them and offered a correction neither particularly appreciated.
“Enough,” he said.
Mara squeezed his fingers and let them go so they could finish the roll.
They left it secured in the hub for tomorrow's transfer. The work had a next step. Their hands didn't need to keep finding an excuse yet.
Before she went back to Traverse, he said, “I'm glad you came.”
She looked tired. She looked like herself.
“So am I.”