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1. A Rusted Tower and a Discordant Sound
"...Do you hear that, Shutia. That irregular resonance — like something scraping against metal."
The frontier communications relay station, Orange Rock. True to its name, the outpost had been carved out of a rust-red asteroid rich in iron oxide, and it produced a constant low mechanical groan that belonged to old things that had been running too long.
Ledea Mace reviewed the fine-frequency sound log the Silver Anchor's external microphone had captured, and her silver brows drew together.
"Yeah, I hear it, sis. Like a high-pitched scrape. ...Don't worry. Whatever's making that unpleasant sound in sis's ears, I'll track it down and silence it immediately."
Shutia was monitoring from beside the pilot's seat, close enough that her cheek was nearly touching Ledea's shoulder.
Today's job: investigating an anomalous sound from Orange Rock's landmark giant radio tower. The management bureau had filed the request directly, citing interference noise in the surrounding communications.
"...The source is near the twelfth parabola array. Shutia, prepare for EVA. This is a good chance to test the precision mode on the new multi-function cutting laser. ...Carefully. Don't damage anything."
"Copy! I'll show sis something worth seeing. ...Oh, but while I'm outside I won't be able to smell sis, so let me take thirty seconds right now to stock up—"
"...Denied. Go."
Ledea returned Shutia's face to its original position with a flat expression. But the edge of her ear, barely perceptibly, had moved — the small tell of someone who was already curious about what the investigation would find.
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2. A "Cute" Visitor in the Iron Gap
Vacuum. The radio tower rose from Orange Rock like a massive needle driven into the dark.
Shutia worked her tow anchor with practiced efficiency, fixing herself to the tower's frame as she moved toward the sound's origin.
"Sis, at the target point. ...Oh — this isn't mechanical failure. Something is stuck in the gap between the slats."
*"...A living creature?"*
Curiosity had found its way into Ledea's voice.
"Looks like it. ...Hold on, I'm bringing the light in closer."
Shutia narrowed the work light's beam.
What it found was not what either of them had expected.
Wedged into the gap between two corroded communications panels was a round, fluffy creature — something like a ball of soft material that had developed opinions about where it wanted to be. A subspecies of *Spacia Pom*, the primitive organisms that fed on cosmic dust. Roughly thirty centimeters. Covered entirely in long pale-orange fur. Round eyes blinking. Short legs kicking against nothing in the enclosed space.
*"Kyuu... kyuu..."*
The helmet's vibration sensor picked up its sound.
*"—oh."*
On the other side of the comm, Ledea drew a breath.
*"Shutia, ...this creature... It's so fluffy. It's very — it's very cute."*
"...Sis? That much? I mean, sure, it's technically more appealing than the average rock, but — sis, your voice just went up about an octave. That's higher than when you're complimenting me."
Something that was definitely not calm had entered Shutia's voice.
*"Never mind that — get it out! Use the cutting laser on that panel — carefully, not a millimeter of margin on the creature's side, cut it open with precision—!"*
"Okay, okay! If sis says so, I'll get it out!"
Shutia's inner state was not peaceful. But Ledea's expectations were clear, and her hands knew what to do. The pale-blue beam found the iron panel and cut — the creature untouched, the gap widening to nothing, the whole operation completed without contact.
The freed ball of orange fur landed in Shutia's palm with a soft *poff*.
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3. A Perfect Argument, or: The Greatest Rival
"...Rescue complete. Heading to the airlock now, sis."
*"Hurry. I'm preparing an insulated sheet."*
The Silver Anchor's living area.
Wrapped in the insulated sheet, the orange ball of fur was eating the high-nutrition gel Ledea offered it from her fingertips, making small contented sounds with each bite.
"...Hehe. It's eating. Shutia, look — its mouth is moving. ...It's too cute."
Ledea was on her knees on the floor, at eye level with the creature, with an expression on her face that Shutia had not previously seen directed at anything other than herself.
The alarm going off in Shutia's chest was of a category she had no established protocol for.
*(This is a crisis. A completely new type. I can handle humans — there are angles of approach, arguments to be made. But this — this 'appeals directly to the instincts' level of cute is outside the rules. Sis's eyes have been locked on that fur-ball for thirty-five minutes and haven't come back once.)*
"Sis. ...If you like it that much, I could dye my hair orange and make little squeaking sounds every day? I'd be more useful to sis than that thing, and the holding experience would be significantly superior—"
"What are you talking about. ...You are you. This creature is this creature."
Ledea dismissed the appeal without looking away and ran one fingertip along the Pom's back with the care of someone handling something fragile.
"...Shutia. Should we give it a name? And... um... would it be possible, do you think, to... keep it here. On the Silver Anchor."
— There it was.
The proposal that threatened Shutia's last line of defense.
"No! Absolutely not, sis!"
"Why not. It's quiet and it won't take up much space. ...I've always wanted to try having something like this."
Ledea's eyes, when she looked up, were expectant. And slightly luminous.
Shutia felt that land. She steadied herself. And then — somewhere in the architecture of her absolute devotion to Ledea — the correct argument assembled itself.
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4. A Ruthless Case, Built on Kindness
Shutia took a breath. Her expression shifted — something softer, something that held genuine feeling alongside everything else.
She sat down next to Ledea.
"Sis. ...I understand exactly how you feel about wanting to take care of it. You're kind. That's just who you are. ...But think about it for a moment."
"...About what?"
"We're odd-job workers, sis. Every day it's another station, another asteroid, always moving. The work involves dangerous combat. The ship gets thrown around. ...What happens to this creature during all of that?"
"That's... it could stay in a secure enclosure—"
"Sis. That's not right."
Shutia took Ledea's hand, gently.
"While we're out chasing debris and dealing with raiders — this creature would be alone. In a small ship. Waiting for sis to come back, anxious, not understanding why sis had to go.
This creature is a wild organism from space. It belongs out here, in the open area around Orange Rock, free, surrounded by other Poms and the dust it feeds on. That's the life it's built for."
Ledea's fingertip went still.
"...Waiting alone."
"Yes. The more sis focuses on the work, the lonelier it gets. It calls out for sis and sis can't leave the controls... Is that really 'happiness' for it? Keeping something confined because you want it — isn't that just what humans do for their own sake?"
Ledea looked at the Pom, sitting in her lap, eating its gel without any awareness of the conversation being held above it.
"...You may be right, Shutia."
A pause.
"...We should guide it to the wildlife preserve near here. It will have companions there, and food. It won't be alone."
"That's exactly right, sis! That's the best thing for it!"
*(Yes. Won.)*
Shutia kept her face completely neutral.
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5. An Orange Goodbye, or: The Monopoly That Holds
Several hours later. The Silver Anchor sat at the entrance to a small bio-dome near Orange Rock.
The orange ball of fur toddled away from Ledea's hands, moving toward the dome's artificial forest on its short legs. At the threshold it turned once, made a short bright sound — *"kyuu!"* — and disappeared into the green.
"...It's gone."
The hatch closed. Ledea said it quietly, with a small amount of something in her voice.
"It'll be okay, sis. That one is going to become the happiest Pom in the galaxy in there. ...And besides."
Shutia wrapped her arms around Ledea from behind.
Ledea, this time, did not say *you're in the way* or *I can't move properly.* She leaned back into the hold.
"Sis already has me — the most devoted, most attentive, absolutely-won't-make-you-sit-alone partner available. If you get lonely, you can pat me whenever you want. You can even give me a name if you like. Come on, sis — pat me—"
Shutia pushed her own head firmly into Ledea's hands.
"...You're impossible," Ledea said, with a sigh.
And then she ran her fingers through Shutia's long, blonde hair — slowly, gently — for considerably longer than she had patted the Pom.
"...Shutia. I don't think of you as something I'm keeping."
"Hehe. I know. Sis is the one being *loved* by me."
The Silver Anchor's single vacancy for something cute remained, as it had always been, under the complete and exclusive occupation of one very unreasonable younger sister.
Ledea remembered, faintly, the weight that had been in her lap. She let Shutia's love — excessive, unrelenting, warm past the point of comfort — settle around her, and drank her tea.