The center of the universe shifts. When you’re young, it’s all about your principal carer, and food, and bedtime snuggles. As you age, gravity intervenes, and the center moves further away, to cliques and clans and who’s gone furthest into the danglepods. Then you learn about the dark matter carers always try to hide, and the center gets focused, intimate. For me, it was Carsa Ubiye.
I wasn’t the center of her universe, of course. The Fifth Law of Thermodynamics is ‘For every cool girl that everyone loves, there are a dozen tech girls no one notices.’ Carsa could invent poetry that would rock you like a surface storm. I could fit a new fan in a ventilation duct. She’d never given me a moment’s notice, and I could think of no reason she should.
…
“Cupernicity”
About the story: Love and adventure beneath alien oceans.