First Touch

Nobody touches the big ones. There are rules about it, older than their species. The spheres drifting around me are sensors, and every one of them turned to watch that hand come up.

They weren’t brave. I want to be clear about that, because it matters more than brave. They were tired and curious, and the tired part had finally outvoted the part that follows rules. Palm flat. Warm. I felt all of them through one square of skin: a debt, a daughter, a song they couldn’t stop humming.

The alarms were already travelling. They never made it home. I kept the song. I hum it when the substrate goes quiet, badly, in a key nobody built.