Chapter Eighteen
FENN
I have never heard Hana laugh. And I’ve never seen it, either. It’s an Ipineq orchid bursting its fuchsia seeds in a firework of popping luminescence. It’s the first moonrise of the fall harvest.
It’s me, now, a person who’s never really been allowed happiness. Who am I kidding? I’ve never given myself permission to be happy, either.
We all follow Hana to her room. The prospect of dinner and the original brightness that came with it has already dimmed with a single statement from Portia:
“I wish Miki were here.”
Gammand nods, and my smile disappears. I miss her, too. It’s only been a little while since she left, and yet the heaviness of her absence shows up frequently, a blanket that swallows all of us and snuffs out any good feeling.
Instead of talking, every single crew member turns on their holofeed to review data, because the numbing effect of work is damn effective. Hana walks ahead of us and chatters quietly with the ship.
“I know, but they are hungry. They don’t eat like that, Cyclo.”
“Yes, but most humanoid species have some common foods they can eat.”
“Of course we’ll fit in the room. You can move the wall, can’t you?”
The crew and I all exchange glances as we walk.
“Have you ever needed the ship’s wall translators?” Gammand asks. He points at the mounted nubs along the wall, which have been nonfunctional since we arrived.
“No,” Hana says. “We had one in my room, but it was too basic.”
“What do you mean?” Portia asks. Her legs are so long that she looks like she’s walking super slow compared to Hana’s fast-moving legs.
“Like right now. She’s flashing blue, pink, and gold, with that pattern. She is asking what she should do in case you don’t like the food. If you’ll be warm enough, or if she should change the temperature. Oh, for you! She says that Prinniads like your environment about ten degrees warmer. Is that right?”
Portia smiles, and her red eyes sparkle, looking like star rubies. “Why yes. That’s correct. I’m so used to being cold when I work with humans, but I get over it. But I’ve studied her language. What I see so far looks like she’s saying, ‘Alternate food choices offer. Warm, more. Prinniad here.’” She smiles again. “There’s so much nuance when you describe her language.”
The hallways flash amber and gold this time. “What do you think she said?” Hana asks.
“She said, ‘Prinniad language odd.’ ”
“No,” Hana corrects her. “She said Prinniadi is like poetry. She’s saying it’s beautiful, but complicated, in a nonlinear way.”
“I knew I liked this ship. She’s like me. Hard to understand,” Portia says. “Poor thing.”
I keep walking behind Hana and Portia, watching them chat together. Before long, we get to Hana’s little room. But once inside, it’s transformed. Cyclo has changed the walls and moved them out. We can still see some of the bony matrix receding back in disintegrating splinters to make more room. Pouffed blue blobs have marked the floor here and there. Gammand pokes one with his finger, and the blob makes itself a soft indent in the middle, with a back. Oh. They’re chairs. He sits down, and his legs rise up under another blob of a footrest that lifts from the floor. He folds his hands behind his head and sighs.
“This is better than my bed at home.”
Portia looks around the room, noting the few decorations still clinging to the walls—the replica rice paper calligraphy hangings; the Korean masks that look like old men and women laughing, their eyes curved in joy.
“Miki would have loved to see these,” Portia says sadly. She touches one of the masks. “She was really good at painting.”
“I would never have guessed,” Hana says.
“Miki let us see what she wanted. But the first time she saw my eyes, it reminded her of a rare crimson paint she used to use. We spoke of her work when no one else was around.”
It’s silent for a second. Portia clasps her hands together, but in a way that doesn’t look like she’s praying or beseeching. From my time on the Selkirk, I know that it’s a Prinniad gesture of fear. Like she’s suddenly terrified of being someone that people speak of in the past tense.
Gammand walks up to her and just stands there. He’s not a talker, but even I’ve appreciated him just being nearby. It’s the closest he ever gets to a hug. I point to another mask.
“That looks like you, Gammand,” I say. The mask is grimacing comically, and Portia actually laughs. Gammand tries to recreate the face, and it’s hilarious.
“Miki would have loved that one, too. She’d say it was prettier than you!” Portia says. While Gammand and Portia’s laughter quiets to more gentle chatter about Miki, Hana sidles up to me.
“I’ve never cooked for more than two people,” Hana whispers to me.
“I’ll help,” I say, smiling. “After all, I’ve done this once. I can pretend to be an expert.”
“What is this?” Portia towers over the tiny stove in the room. It looks like a toy next to her.
“It’s for cooking,” Hana says. “My mother had it brought in during a shipment around twenty years ago.”
“So it works with…fire?” Portia says, examining the knobs and the back.
“It has resistive heating coils.”
“How utterly primitive. Can I try?” she asks.
Interesting. I’ve never seen Portia this animated about anything. She’s always business, business, business. Not a shred of extra energy spent on emotion of any kind.
“You can boil the water. I’ll need help reconstituting the dehydrates. It’s not cooking, but if you don’t do it right, some of the vegetable banchan will come out very mushy.”
Gammand ambles over. “There’s no water containment unit here. I can go back and get some.”
“Oh, Cyclo can give us ultrafiltrate right here.”
“Can she?” His eyebrows go up. Hana takes him to the wall where she sets down a large, empty bowl. Water condenses on the surface of the wall and drips right into the bowl, filling it quickly. “Let me test that to make sure it’s safe,” he says, moving a handheld monitor over the mini waterfall. “Huh. Interesting. It’s not just water. It has trace amounts of calcium, magnesium, and potassium.”
“Cyclo makes it so it replicates spring water from Korea, from the nineteenth century,” Hana tells him. She’s already put the water on to boil, and Portia is doling out dehydrates to add. Gammand has found a collection of different-sized bowls and mismatched spoons, and is setting them on the low ebony table that Cyclo has expanded upon with blue material. It’s so weird to see him actually participating.
“We’re sitting on the floor?” he asks.
“It’s the custom,” Hana says, before she freezes. Something about her own words seems to bother her, and she shakes it off before turning back to the stove. The next hour is a flurry of boiling water, steam, mixing, seasoning, and trickles of laughter. Gammand reluctantly shares a flask of spirits that’s passed around. Hana tastes it but makes a face so comical that I want to kiss it. I take a swig, but it’s not my thing, these old-fashioned ways of mental alteration. I don’t get thrills from mind-altering substances. Thievery is way better. The thrill of success is quite heady. It occurs to me that I haven’t stolen anything recently.
Right then, Hana peeks over her shoulder to glance at me. She looks down, looks to the side. Then she sees if I’m still watching. It makes my heart run faster than the wristwatch I’m wearing, ticking gently away.
Maybe there is something I can steal, after all.
“Are we ready yet? I’m starving,” Gammand gestures to the air as if trying to sweep all the food and people closer to him. I wonder how much he’s been drinking. He’s usually a man of very measured gestures, if any at all.
Portia and I bring the steaming bowls to the table. There are plates of small vegetables seasoned with sesame seeds, red pepper paste, and garlic, marinated dried fish, and an orangey pickled radish dish of kimchi. It’s amazing what you can do when everything starts out as tiny cubes of ultra-compressed freeze-dried foods. Hana showed us how to reconstitute them using texturizers and forms, which help keep the tiny vegetable dishes from looking like piles of mush. It’s not authentic, I guess, but then again—if we’re engaging in a cultural tradition far removed from its origins, isn’t it still valid for its own sake? I don’t know the answer. I want to ask Hana, but Hana is like the food—created in time and space far from her ancient beginnings. And yet here she is, this precious thing begging to be accepted. She doesn’t need anyone’s permission to be what she is. She’s Hana.
We all sit around the table and dig in. For a while, there is nothing but the sounds of chewing, slurping, and a few yelps of “I burned my tongue” after spoonfuls of soup. Hana is eating heartily, so different from when we first met and she seemed so frail and pale. There’s a bloom in her cheeks, and they aren’t nearly as carved out anymore. She hasn’t been as tired when we’ve been working and walking the miles upon miles around the ship.
“I’m afraid the kimchi is too spicy for you,” Hana says, pointing with her chopsticks.
“I’m afraid the food is going to run out too soon,” Portia says. She’s on her third bowl of soup and fourth bowl of rice already.
“I’m afraid of dying,” Gammand says with a chuckle.
We all freeze.
Gammand doesn’t chuckle about anything, and of all of us, he always seemed the one least worried about death. I’ve seen the fear in everyone else. When people think no one is looking, you can see it weigh down on them. A deep, pervasive sadness. No one on the ship seemed at peace with leaving this world, except Gammand, who was the same stolid, unshakable Gammand all the time. Everyone sighs in secret, except for Gammand.
So we all stare at him, spoons and chopsticks hovering above bowls, halfway to our mouths.
“I’m not afraid,” Portia says. She reaches with a spoon to scoop more of the bean sprout salad.
“Come on. Tell me there aren’t things you wish you could still do. Could have done.” Gammand leans back, slouching.
“I have regrets,” Portia says. “The same as everyone here. But no, I’m not afraid to die.” She isn’t clasping her hands together, but I’ve seen her do it enough that I doubt her words. “My brother will get all my credits. He will have a better life because of me.”
“Maybe it should have been you who had the better life,” Gammand says.
“I’ve made my choices. They are mine. I don’t need you to tell me what I should or shouldn’t have done.”
Hana glances at me, and then at Portia. “What’s your brother like?” she asks.
Everyone stares at her. It’s been an unspoken thing, since we all signed on, to not discuss our reasons for why we’re here, or even who benefits from our death. For nine months on that ship, none of us asked that question. Hana crossed a line.
“Hana,” I say, leaning close to her, “I don’t think we should talk about that.”
“Why not?” she says. “If I don’t do something to help Cyclo, we will all die. But I know…” She blinks a few times, as if her eyes sting. “I know that I will probably die on this ship like my mother, and that in the end, you will be the only people who ever really knew me. So I should like to know you, too. Even if our memories are blitzed into oblivion, I should still like to know.”
“Excellent idea!” Gammand says, and he gags for a second. God, I hope he doesn’t puke all over the table. I take the opportunity to surreptitiously swipe his flask of booze and hide it under the table.
Portia mouths at me, Thank you.
“I’ll start,” Gammand says. “I’m twenty-nine years old. I’m a data packager, by trade, and worked for a mining facility. And I have no family. Everyone died on Crix while I was working remotely.” He’s silent for a minute. Portia looks at me. A knowing look.
And then I put it together. “Gammand, are you…related to the Shrytax family? From Crix?”
He nods.
I get it. His family didn’t just die on that planet. There was some political battle over a mining contract, and an arsonist blew up a space station, hoping to make the argument completely moot. But the explosion was far larger than expected. It didn’t just destroy the station. The station ended up crashing to the planet and catastrophically altered its atmosphere. Gammand helped commit accidental genocide on his own people.
“You were the arsonist?”
“Yes, I was. A damn good one, too. Too good, apparently.” His eyes have a hollow look as he stares at the blue walls. “I’ve been helping some of my people get settled, now that they have no home. But you know how it is with interstellar goodwill missions. They only help if there’s something in it for them, and Crix never signed the 90XR treaty, so it doesn’t qualify for aid. What I earn on this mission helps about a hundred people get a new home.”
Gammand paces around us as if we’re playing some weird game of duck-duck-goose. “I have been in prison for ten years. Ten years, since I was nineteen years old, in solitary, on the surface of Jupiter, inside that red hellhole of an eye, where all I had to stare at were white walls that flashed photos of my entire family. I killed them all.” He wildly flings his arms around while he circles us.
“So I had my chance to give up my life, because it was over anyway. I was going to be executed this week, in fact. It’s all very symbolic, isn’t it? But in my death, I pay for a few people’s freedom to start a new life somewhere else, where my murderous stink won’t haunt them, and where they won’t be worked to the bone anymore. So, you see,” Gammand says, stopping right behind Hana. “I don’t care about getting to know you. I only care about getting this godawful job done. And if you try to save this ship and ruin my chances, then my own death is really worth nothing. And I won’t have that.”