When she went out to the galley, the crew of the Rocinante were standing around a little table with a sad, yellow-white cake. It had two candles printed from medical resin in the shapes of a one and a six. The flames were almost spheres. It was pathetic.
“It’s pretty much the same yeast and fungus as everything else,” Naomi said. “But it’s got sugar and it looks nice.”
“It’s . . . You’re all very kind,” Teresa said. There was a knot in her throat that she didn’t understand. Maybe gratitude, maybe sorrow, maybe the chaotic wake of the powerful dream of her father. Amos and Jim started a little song, and Naomi and Alex joined in, clapping along. It felt cheap and small and unimaginative, but it was also an effort they had put out for her that they didn’t have to. When Alex told her to make a wish and blow out the candles, she just blew them out. She couldn’t think of anything to wish for.
Amos plucked the resin candles out and dropped them into the recycler while Naomi cut the cake and Jim handed out bulbs of tea and coffee.
“Not a traditional breakfast,” Naomi said, handing a corner piece to Teresa. “But we wanted to take a moment before the Freehold transit. Once we get in the shipyard, we’ll be busy.”
“Anything the ship needs, we better get now,” Jim agreed.
Her last birthday had been in a ballroom of the State Building. The most important people in the vast spread of humanity had been there, and Teresa had been one of them. Her father had already been wrecked by the catastrophe that had destroyed the Typhoon and Medina Station, and she had felt the weight of the empire on her shoulders. She’d known what to wish for then. A way out. And now here she was, her wish granted. It wasn’t at all what she’d imagined it would be.
She took a bite of the cake and it was . . . fine. Inoffensive. A little too dense, a little too dry, but fine. It wasn’t made by the best bakers in a thousand worlds vying to impress their god-emperor. It wasn’t preceded by a formal speech crafted to give the right political signals or followed by a presentation of ostentatious gifts that she didn’t care about and wouldn’t remember a week later. She couldn’t imagine an experience less like the ones she’d had before. Even if they’d ignored her birthday, it would have been more familiar. There had been any number of times she’d felt ignored while standing in the spotlight.
Muskrat put a wet nose against her arm and barked a soft, conversational bark. Teresa broke off a corner of her cake and passed it over. The dog chewed loudly and with enthusiasm.
“What’s up?” Jim said, and it took her a moment to realize he was talking to her.
“Nothing,” she said. “Why?”
“You sighed.”
“I did?”
Alex nodded. “You did.”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “I was thinking about how different this is from last year. That’s all.”
“Not exactly the best Sweet Sixteen ever,” Alex said with a grimace. “This should have been the big one.”
“What are you talking about?” Jim said. “Last year was the big one. Quincea?era. Sweet Sixteen isn’t a thing.”
“Maybe not where you come from,” Alex said. “Mars, it was sixteen.”
Naomi scowled in affable confusion at Jim. “You mean quinsé? How do you know about that?”
Amos smiled an empty, friendly smile that meant he didn’t know or care what the others were talking about but he was willing to let them go on about it for a while. Sometimes he reminded her of a huge, patient dog in a crowd of puppies.
“Fifteenth birthday. Quincea?era,” Jim said. “It’s the big rite-of-passage birthday for a lot of Earth. Father Caesar was all about mine. We had a tent and a live band, and I had to wear a tailored suit and learn a dance. A bunch of people I barely knew put money in my educational account. It was fun in a mildly humiliating way.”
“Huh,” Naomi said. “I thought quinsé began in the Belt.”
“Did you have a dance?”
“There was dancing. And drinking.”
“Drinking at fifteen?” Alex said.
“Fifteen was the age when your parents lost their customs credit exemption and went back to paying full taxes and fees. So that was the age we usually took our first jobs. At least before the Transport Union. Pa changed the credit age to seventeen. But the party stayed the same.”
“So you left your parents when you were fifteen?” Teresa said.