Leaving on off-planet TDY

Saying goodbye to the family

Working on world building and character development for a WIP. Kolibri and his family at home.

The “jackie-loom” is based on jacquard looms that use punch cards to manually “program” the design of a loom.

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Sampler on a table loon with 4 harnesses; Heritage Looms - Sophia Tsourinaki

The warp shed opened and shut as Magda worked the treadles of the standard loom with her feet, passing the shuttle through with her hands.

Twelve year old Dana fed the hemp into the funnel of the auto-spinner in the corner that was transforming it into thread with a low mechanical hum. Then she returned to kneel next to the low platform on the floor where she was working on her pattern sheet for the jackie-loom. She was designing the cloth for her dress for the dance coming up next month.

Kolibri stood at the arched doorway to the family indoor workroom, waiting for his wife to catch his eye. Magda saw him and paused the loom. She stood when he came over, and he gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Here’s the bag,” he said, handing her the satchel – made of leather, not woven cloth. “Jeston is on call.”

Another arched door opened up in the wall on the garden-side of the room, and their oldest son, Tam, came in with six-year-old John on his back. The nine-year-old saw the transfer of the control satchel to his mother.

Kolibri acknowledged the boys with a nod. “Schedule?” he said, more of an order than a question.

Tam pinched the fingers and thumb of his right hand together and then snapped them open. A sheet of paper appeared, and he handed it to his dad. Kolibri, of course, already knew what was on it, but looked over it seriously. Then he threw it down on the floor and kicked it back at his son. It scooted and inch or two in the boy’s direction and then disappeared.

He gave the curt nod of approval, and Soggen grinned. “Will you be back in time for my game?”

Kolibri patted him on the shoulder. “It’s just a week run, but you know those get extended sometimes.” Then all five of them together repeated “No promises in the Force,” the litany that was part of every departure for off-world travel, whether a simple one week TDY or a multi-month remote deploy.

John pinched open his own schedule sheet. He knew his youngest son had been working on this, but he didn’t know he’d actually made it. The boy still had trouble with the letters, but he had a numbered list of pictures showing various chores and activities that he planned to work on while his father was away from home.

Meanwhile, Dana had walked up. She pinched her own plan open at him without a word. As usual, it was several pages long. The data-well had actually connected the pages in a pamphlet when they materialized.

Kolibri had already read that too, but as usual, Dana had made changes. And she had added a 6 line poem at the end. He read it out loud, and then said “Nice,” but the word was unnecessary. Reading it out loud had already put a shine in her eyes and a smile on her face.

She gave him a sedate, big-girl hug, now that she was so grown up. She had recently traded her jeans and shirts for culottes and blouses. But she still went in for the detailed patterns that she’d have her mother weave when she was younger, and now had been doing herself for some time. The culottes had unicorns leaping and flying all over the blue denim, and the white blouse had blue sheep along the neckline and ruffled hem. At least she was starting to tone down the number of different colors.

Pint was passed out on the sofa. That wasn’t her real name, but Soggen had called her “pint-sized” when she’d been born, and the nickname had stuck. The three-year-old had only two settings: full steam ahead, and off. Kolibri kissed the top of her head.

Then Magda shooed the three older kids away. This was the last part of the ritual. But instead of pinching something out of the data-well, she actually grabbed a mobile data-well interface, a gold, from the pocket of her blue denim thigh length culottes, She kissed it and handed it to him and he kissed it too, then put it in his pocket. Then there was one more good-bye ritual. When they separated, he stepped through the travel door and vanished.

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