Chapter Thirty-Seven
HANA
The outer membrane spreads thinly, and I am pushed out into the freezing, airless emptiness of space. This is what I had to do, so that Cyclo would let Fenn and Mother live. Sometimes, you have to give things away to get what you really want.
I can’t breathe. Already, the moisture over my eyeballs boils off, and my eyes begin to freeze. Without the pressurization on Sannu or Cyclo, my body feels like it’s being pulled in multiple directions, expanding, though my skin won’t let it. I can’t move well, but the force of leaving Sannu has launched me gently toward Cyclo. I feel the saliva in my mouth evaporate away.
I start counting down, knowing I only have perhaps ten or fifteen more seconds before I lose consciousness.
Through the blurriness of my vision, I can vaguely see Cyclo’s hold on Sannu break away. Sannu drifts further and accelerates in reverse, putting a comfortable distance between it and Cyclo. I would sigh with relief if I could. Instead, the peninsula of blue tissue reaches for me and breaks off completely from Cyclo. The blob of Cyclo is soft and gel-like, and it freezes with a pattern of beautiful crystals. As it moves and undulates toward me, the crystals shatter and reform, an exquisite dance of dying cells and temperature mechanics.
This last piece of Cyclo must be the only part of her that has survived. The rest of the ship is a ball of fire, combustion, radiation, and poisonous gas. Soon, it will burn itself out and be nothing but a mass of darkness that will find the pull of a willing planetary body or star, and either enter an orbit or crash into oblivion.
The blue sphere of Cyclo’s last functioning tissue comes closer to me. I’ll die if I stay in space for another minute. Already, the oxygen and nitrogen and carbon dioxide dissolved in my blood are finding each other, clinging to each other, becoming gas again. The pain of it is excruciating, as bubbles form in my joints, my brain, my blood vessels. I’d scream but there is no air to push through my vocal cords. I reach out one hand to the blue sphere, and it touches me. In seconds, it envelops me, and I’m in the cradle of Cyclo’s matrix again, nothing but a girl in a womb of blue.
I knew, somehow, she would embrace me again.
Cyclo pressurizes my body, slowly, gently. I am starting to feel better already, but for what? Without the rest of her enormous body, she cannot survive in space much longer, which means I cannot, either.
So this is how we’ll die? I ask Cyclo.
Yes, Hana.
I’m going to miss you.
As will I. You have been my everything, Hana. My best, my only, my daughter.
I can still be yours, you know. Mothers have to let go of their children sometimes.
I don’t understand.
That is love. Letting go even though it hurts.
Cyclo is silent.
I have something I need to let go of.
In my cocoon of blue, my eyesight slowly returns as Cyclo warms and rehydrates my corneas. I can see Sannu, with Mother and Fenn, in the far distance now. They are going quite fast. In a second, I won’t be able to see them anymore. They are gone without me. Sannu did his job well. But then I feel something. Something hard and round coming to rest in the palm of my right hand.
I look down and see a blue globe in my hand. It is like a glass marble.
You started this, Hana. These are my stem cells, my embryo clones. You made these.
Oh. The stem cells that spilled onto the floor. I assumed they’d die without nourishment, but I forgot that Cyclo was as good a womb for me as those gestational chambers.
You saved them? I ask.
Yes.
The blue of the tiny ball is bright, bright as Cyclo has ever been. In comparison, the gel around me is darkening to a deeper blue. Cyclo is dying, even as we speak. It’s hardening, too, making it a task to even smile at this beautiful thing we’ve made.
You will stay with me, won’t you?
Yes. I won’t let you die alone. That’s why you kept me, isn’t it? Because you were afraid.
Afraid. Yes, that is what this is. Fear.
I’ll take this. Maybe you’ll live again in them someday.
But then I realize that I’ve been wrong in so many ways, as Cyclo has, as Mother has. It is not through our genes that we live on forever. You can’t hope that passed-on DNA will somehow give honor to the very essence of who you once were. That’s too much of a burden on children, isn’t it? To have your existence be the one and only legacy, an heirloom of identity.
But I promise to tell your story, Cyclo. It’s not through progeny and double helixes and cherished boxes of antiques that we find ourselves. It’s through making our own stories. And your story, Cyclo, will be told forever.
Forever is a long time.