A Handle Between Us

The seventh rattle pod had a voice like a struck wire. Mina shook it by her ear; the seeds inside ran a spiral, humming, then settled with a dry tick. Her nephew would bang it against every pot in his mother's kitchen. Her ship would take tomorrow's dawn tide, and she wanted something unmistakably from this world.

Eru's stall sat at the warm end of the market, under overlapping awnings that smelled of cut reeds and hot dust. Eru was Kes: a tall, branching body with two long arms and a shoulder bough that ended in a pair of small, restless hands. A living work sleeve lay along her forearm, cuffed below the elbow, its curled tip resting against her wrist. A hanging seed tray sagged from the crossbeam, its corner low enough to spill millet. Eru nudged it up with an elbow while Mina shook the pod. A bright line marked the edge of the awning's shade.

"Good voice," Mina said.

"For a dry pod." Eru's collar translator flattened her clicks into Trade. "It has no tenant. It will travel."

Mina set her universal folding screwdriver on the counter. She was vain about it: brass shaft, six bits in the handle, an awl under the cap, a folding grip that slid off for cleaning, locked out as a T, or lay flat like a spoon. She opened it one-handed. "I make things. So I'd rather pay maker's price than tourist price."

Eru picked it up. Her long fingers turned the shaft; the sleeve at her forearm folded the grip shut with a snap. She hooked the closed head under the sagging seed tray and lifted. The corner rose. Millet rushed the other way, hissing. The whole frame swung; Eru caught it with her shoulder.

Mina laughed. "That's not what it's for."

"It is now." Eru let the tray down gently. "Good weight. Wrong hook."

She unfastened the cuff and slid the sleeve free. It was a small, muscular creature, warm and dry, with a pale attachment ring at one end and a curled gripping tip at the other. It flexed against her palm.

"Put this on your shaft," Eru said. "It grips where I cannot."

Mina looked at the sleeve, then at the frame, then at Eru. A demonstration, then. A clever upsell. She slid the ring over the screwdriver's collar. The sleeve warmed, tightened, and its tip wrapped the shaft. The tool now wore a small, muscular hand.

"Good." Eru pulled a coil of wire from under the counter and began laying out clamps. "We'll start when the shade reaches the blue mat. With two of us, the frame will be true by evening."

Mina turned the tool; the sleeve turned with it. "I'll take the humming pod, too."

"After," Eru said, already measuring wire. "We'll settle after the bracket."

Mina reached for the pod. "I'll settle now. My ship takes the dawn tide, but the port shuttle goes at midday."

She lifted the rattle and stepped past the awning's shade line to see its color in proper light. The sleeve clamped. The screwdriver jerked in her fist; the tip curled hard, pinching the cuff. Warmth flooded her palm.

"Hey." She tried to peel it loose. "It's squeezing."

Eru came to the shade edge. "Not in the sun. It's not sun-hardy."

"It wasn't doing that before."

"It was resting." Eru held out her arm. "By evening it must come back to me. To feed and rest. It can work a few hours, not a day."

Mina looked at the sleeve, then at the pod in her other hand. "How long did you think I was staying?"

"One bracket. The afternoon." Eru's smaller hands went still. "You put it on."

"I thought it was part of the sale."

"For a bracket, that is the sale." Eru's mouth flattened. She looked past Mina at the low corner of the tray. "I had planned the afternoon."

Mina's neck heated. She dug out her purse and spilled coins onto the counter. "For the unfinished bracket. For the time."

Eru's small hand sorted the coins. She took three and pushed the rest back, then set a paper twist of spare clappers beside the rattle. "For the pod and these," she said. "Goods. Not hands." She tapped the frame. "That still wants two."

The sleeve loosened a fraction in the shade, then tightened when Mina shifted toward the bright street. She looked down at her screwdriver, at the folding grip she had shown off not ten minutes before.

She pinched the brass tab at its base and thumbed the catch. The grip slid off the dovetail, leaving a bare square shaft.

"Here," Mina said. She held the handle up against the sagging frame, fitting its square tongue to the notch under the tray. "What if this does the holding?"

"Hold it steady," Eru said. One upper hand pressed Mina's wrist flat against the frame; a lower hand hooked the weighted tray and let it swing. "Not like a hammer. Like a shelf."

Mina kept the square tongue seated in the notch. The living sleeve still cuffed the bare shaft below the dovetail, warm through the metal. Eru hung two seed sacks from the crossbar, then a third. The handle did not shift. The stall's sand clock bled a thin line into its lower bulb. At five minutes, Mina slid the tongue free and turned the grip over. No burr, no bend.

"Reversible," she said.

Eru ran a thumb along the notch. "The angle is wrong. Kes wrists come at a bracket from above. Yours comes from below." She loosened the clamp with two fingers and dropped the jaw one hole. "Push from the heel of your hand. Don't pull."

Mina set her palm and lifted. The tray rose smooth as a shutter. "One bracket," she said. "Before the port shuttle."

Eru looked at the clock, then at the empty socket under the frame. "One small one."

They cut the stock from a green alloy rod. Eru scored the fold line, and Mina sheared it, sending a bright curl onto the floor. Eru's lower hand caught the curl before it landed.

"You cut like a woman chasing a wasp," Eru said.

"I cut like a woman with a shuttle in forty minutes."

"Then stop chasing wasps."

Eru coaxed the living sleeve off the shaft. It clung, then let go with a wet click, and she wrapped it around the bracket's loose pin. The sleeve tightened until the pin stood square. "For this job," she said, glancing at Mina.

"For this job," Mina agreed.

The first pin went crooked. Mina tried to twist the shaft; the bracket kicked against the bench. Eru put a hand over hers. "Heel first. Walk the handle up. Let the metal do the holding."

Mina tried again. Her wrist stayed straight, her palm did the work, and the pin slid home with a click. Eru shortened the upper arm by a thumb joint and moved the lower pin inward. "Your reach is shorter. The bracket should be, too."

Mina fitted it. Her knuckles cleared the seed bin. "Oh," she said. "That's better."

"Most things are."

When Mina lifted the bracket past the awning to inspect the joint, the sleeve cinched hard around its pin and dragged the metal half an inch. She yelped. Eru pulled her back into the shade, one hand steadying the frame.

"It feeds in the warm dark," Eru said. "Too much bright, and it holds on."

Mina rubbed the red line the shaft had left on her palm. "Like a cat with a grudge."

"Like a sleeve with a schedule."

They finished the bracket with the shade line still a handbreadth from the bench. Eru worked the sleeve off the pin; it contracted to a pale knot, then flattened along the inside of her wrist. She pulled her cuff over it and drank the last of her tea.

Mina slotted her folding grip into the frame's second socket instead of her tool roll. The tray hung level. Eru tapped the handle.

"Good hardware," she said. "If you come back, we could make its mate. If not, the tray still hangs."

Mina picked up the dry pod she'd chosen at the start, the one with the humming seeds. Eru tucked the paid-for spare clappers into its case and shook the pod beside her ear.

"Dry as a roof. It'll keep in a hold."

At the departure bench, Mina packed with her duffel on her knees, the rattle case open beside her. The case's brass buckle had a stiff roller, and her hand went to the folding grip.

The dovetail on her screwdriver was bare. The tool felt light at the heel without it.

She leaned back. The grip was on Eru's stall, holding up a seed tray. Of course it was. Mina looked at the awkward shaft in her hand, then at the buckle.

She fitted the bare square tongue into the buckle's socket and turned. The shaft had no purchase; it slipped, the case flipped, and the pod rattled across the bench. She caught it against her knee, laughing.

"Fine," she told the case. "We'll do it your way."

She reset the buckle and braced the bare shaft against the heel of her palm—push, don't pull—the way Eru had shown her. The roller turned. The case clicked shut. She shook it once; the pod answered with a dry, cheerful clatter.

Mina tucked the bare shaft into her breast pocket, lifted the rattling case, and stood.