“Doyouwant to stay here?” Goldie asked, resting her chin on her knees.
“I mean, kind of?” Garnet grimaced. “This is so much better than our apartment! There’s no debt out here. We could start over! I mean,Icould start over… You were already almost there. It’s not fair for me to ask you to give all that up.”
She was rather disappointed in herself for not remembering how close Goldie was to finishing her degree and achieving her dreams. She’d always loved animals. Helping them as their doctor was everything she’d ever wanted in life, since they were kids. And here Garnet was talking about giving that up to become spaceship maids instead.
It was an upgrade for Garnet, but not for Goldie. And it wasn’t fair for her to ask Goldie to give all that up for her.
“We’re not mated to anyone though.”
“Huh?” Garnet focused back on her sister.
Goldie was frowning. “Aren’t humans only allowed off planet if they’re mated to someone? Isn’t that, like, the rule? Because humans aren’t members of the Coalition yet. We’re just a protectorate, so we’re supposed to stay on our planet.”
“I mean, yeah,” Garnet shook her head. “That’s not the only way though. They say if a human agreed to completely surrender their Earth citizenship and be only Coalition citizens, or like refugee status or something, they can leave Earth.”
“Yeah, but that’s only if they agree to not come back,” Goldie countered, making Garnet’s heart sink in dismay. She’d forgotten about that condition. “If we stayed out here, we’d never get to go back home. It’s to prevent us from bringing back advanced technology or something.”
“Right…”
“And we’d also need a sponsor.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. Humans that leave Earth need a sponsor. For those mating off Earth, their sponsor is their mate, right? But those who voluntarily surrender their citizenship, they have to have someone willing to sponsor their stay.”
“How do you know that?”
“People in class talked about it sometimes.” Goldie shrugged. “We’re in vet school because we’re into other species. Aliens are other species, just sentient ones. Now that I’m thinking about it, a lot of people talked about maybe applying to try to get a sponsor. It’s not easy though.”
“Why?”
“Well, first you have tofinda sponsor. There are those new chatrooms that opened, so humans can talk to aliens, right? But even getting invited there is difficult. And a sponsor has to be willing to take care of you completely while in space. Because we can’t be considered to be able to fully take care of ourselves. It won’t be easy for us to get a job or move places or do anything by ourselves in an unknown place. Like, there are good reasons, it’s just difficult to do. And, in our case, someone would have to be willing to sponsor both of us.”
Garnet shook her head quickly. “Goldie, I’d never ask you to stay.”
“I know.” Goldie smiled at her. “You’d never ask me to give up everything.”
“Exactly. So-”
“So, I’ll give it up voluntarily.”
“No way.” Garnet sat up straight, smacking her hands against her knees. “You were less than one semester from finishing vet school.”
“I can learn something else.”
“You werethisclose to starting to work!”
“No student debt out here to pay off.”
“Goldie.” Garnet frowned. “You’ve always wanted to be a vet. You can’t give it up when you’re practically there.”
Goldie smiled. “Didn’t you hear me? We talked in class about how awesome it would be if we could go out and study other alien species. There’s so much difference just between a human and a dog. How much difference is there between a human and… whatever Captain Tanin is! Whatever that huge guy with four arms is! This ship is full of a bunch of different species. Anyone in my school would have killed for a chance to be in space studying that.”
Garnet blinked, surprised. Goldie was laughing, a pretty flush in her cheeks. She certainly didn’t look upset that her semester was probably screwed. A few weeks wasn’t much time in regards to possibly being evicted, but it definitely was in regards to school work. Even if they went back, there was no guarantee she wouldn’t have to repeat all she’d missed anyway.
“But if we stay, we lose the chance of going back at all,” she reminded Goldie softly. “There won’t be a chance for you to make it up. It’s a big risk.”
“So?” Goldie smiled. “It was a big risk when we left our parents too. But you didn’t hesitate then. As I recall, you were pulling our suitcase with one hand and me with the other. We literally walked all the way to a motel that night. You didn’t worry about the risk then.”
