Archimedes Lever
an excerpt

“Amber, wait. Hear me out. I don't understand a lot about you. You're not really close to anyone. I mean, Chen gets close to you, sometimes, but that's not even...it's only professionally.”
“Well, we are all professionals here,” Amber replied, trying not to feel sour that he'd said all those nice things he might not really have meant. She wanted to believe he meant them, but how could she trust that? Rocket's motivation had become astoundingly clear: he wanted to join the Extra-Atmospheric Club.
“How does someone get close to you, Amber? I feel like I don't have access to you.”
That could be taken more than one way. She decided against pursuing clarification, bit back a demand to hear if he perceived her as cold. His answer wouldn't matter. If he wanted to discover the thrills of gravity-free sex, he'd evade or deny, but she'd wondered about the question enough to have a good guess. “Rocket, I welcome potential friends, I really do.”
“But?”
She spread her hands out in front of her. What did he want from her? “But what? I wasn't putting a caveat on that.”
“I think you were. Something about their intensity, or purpose, or intelligence, or a combination of those factors.”
“Rocket that's absolutely—“ Wait. Maybe he had something there. No, he definitely had something there. “Possible.”
His eyebrows rose, the surprise evident on his face. He didn't know what to say next. After a few seconds of staring at each other, Rocket said, “I didn't, ya know, mean to suggest that, uh...that you're a snob or anything.”
“Snob, no. Elitist, yeah, I might be. Look, it's like this, Rocket, if you honestly want to know all about it. I'm extremely introverted. That's why in a culture where math and science are male-dominated, I'm the only woman up here—out here, whatever. I don't seek out company. I rarely feel lonely when I'm alone, more often feel isolated at large gatherings. So, I guess, yeah, when it comes to making friends, it's not something I actively do, but I'm open to it, I am. Just, the people who approach me as potential friends...they have to be worth the time.”
Rocket started to say something, caught himself, and as Amber watched, he clearly worked out some thoughts about how to proceed next. It seemed like a conflict of direction, that he was ready to say a couple of different things but he couldn't tell which way to go. “Okay, that's friends,” he said, having chosen his line of inquiry. “What about more than friends?”
“More than friends?” she echoed.
“C'mon, do I have to say it? Fine: you're not asexual, Amber. We all have a certain biological drive, right? What about romantic interests?”
“How can you get romantic with someone who's not already a friend?” The question hopped right out. For the first time in the conversation, she didn't have to check herself, didn't have to mull things over, and instead tossed out an easy response. Only after she'd asked it did it occur to her that what she took for granted wasn't nearly so basic to him. They'd come up against a surprise wall of incommensurable perceptions.