Chapter Five
HANA
Oh, my body.
It hurts all over. I’ve never felt pain like this before. My muscles feel battered, and my joints are like twisted, stiff paper. This is what wakes me up, the pain, not the gentle unfolding of consciousness that I usually experience, sleeping within Cyclo’s matrix. Instead of oxygen being buffed into my skin with blood-warm gel around me, my body is in the open air. The angled contours of my body rest on a hard, cold, surface, and my eyelids seem glued shut. I am ravenous, thirsty, and my bladder is uncomfortably full.
I’m breathing. I’m alive. But everything feels awful. Worst of all, I am wretchedly rootless without Cyclo surrounding me. I have never, ever woken up like this, so separated from my Cyclo.
There are murmurs nearby. I keep my eyes closed, pretending to sleep.
“It should be wearing off by now. It’s been almost thirty-six hours,” a voice says. A young male voice. It’s smooth and warm, and reminds me of the boy who tackled me, which makes my lip twitch. “Did you see that? I think she moved.”
Warm fingertips encase my wrist. It’s a strong hand, larger than mine. Against my will, my heart rate increases.
“How much sedative did he give her?” This voice is from a girl, but she sounds angry.
“Gammand said it was enough to drop a hundred-and-fifty-kilo male.” The hand releases me gently. Inwardly, I frown.
“That’s a three-fold overdose. Maybe she won’t wake up. Good. Less work for us to do.”
“Shut up, Miki.”
Then, silence.
I try to stay still, but I’m fully awake now, and I’m itching to stretch my sore legs and shoulders. How very odd, that when I need to stay still, all my body wishes to do is the opposite. I crack open one eye, and the bright light triggers a tickle in my nose.
I sneeze violently, bolt upright, and a scorching sensation tears down my aching back. I nearly pee without wanting to. “Ooww.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
The boy who tackled me, and the blue girl, wider and larger than three of me, stand several feet away. Both have their arms crossed. The boy wears a reluctant, tiny smile, but the girl only scowls at me.
“Where is my mother?” I ask.
“Your mother? Who’s your mother?” the boy asks. “Why didn’t you evacuate with the Calathus crew?”
The girl moves in front of the boy and blinks purposefully. A hologram of data shows up in front of her face, like a visor-shell of glowing green information. It scrolls too fast for me to read, and it’s backward for me, at that. There’s some sort of red bar graph on the edge that’s got only a sliver of green at the bottom. “What’s your name? Your universal ID?” Her voice is deep and biting. “The Morpho recognition program does not have you registered in its database. Your DNA is unregistered, too.”
So while I slept, they scanned my face and took tissues samples without my permission. Should I say that I don’t exist because I’m not supposed to? I open my mouth and shut it again, unsure.
“We don’t know who your mother is. I thought I heard you say her name. Doctor something?” the boy asks.
I shouldn’t have asked. Won’t it get her in trouble? Won’t it get me in trouble? But I’m already in trouble, and there are other problems. And these problems are staring at me right now.
“Why are you here?” I ask instead.
This time, they are the ones staying silent. “Doran,” the blue girl says. The reverse face of an elderly man—blue like the girl—shows up on her holo visor. “The girl is awake. I’m going to my post to start my phase two. We’ve already attached the last fifty scanners on the ship. Fenn will finish up the examination.” She shuts off her holo visor and heads for the door.
The boy, Fenn, looks angry. “What examination, Miki? I’m no doctor. I have my work to do, too, you know. Why do I always get stuck—”
“The protocol’s in your files, Fenn.” She winks at him. “You studied it a month ago. Just get it done.” She heads to the door. “Remember, we’ve known you for nine months. And it only took one month before we all figured out your bullshit.” She grins. “Have fun babysitting.”
Miki leaves before Fenn can say anything further.
“I am not a baby,” I tell him. He ignores me, so I add, “I am sixteen years, ten months, and five days old.” I think for a second. “Perhaps six days.”
He ignores me and murmurs angrily with his back to me. I go to the tiny lavatory in the room to relieve myself, and I return to find him fiddling with an oblong, rounded box, touching the keypads on it here and there. It must be taking readings of my biometrics, because he keeps tapping away. Curiously, he wears a wristwatch. A completely unnecessary item to have when time is embedded into any ship or piece of equipment anywhere.
“Is it mechanical?” I ask.
“What?”
“Your watch.”
He looks up at me, surprised. He smiles quickly, before extinguishing it, as if afraid to show happiness. “Yes. It is.”
“Automatic? Or manual?”
He smiles again, this time without restraint. “It’s manual. I like having to wind it myself. It’s not quite right—off by about a second a day. Needs a thorough cleaning. You know what a watch is?”
“Yes. I’ve a habit of studying old Earth culture. I like…cooking.”
The boy beams. “Me, too. I mean, I wish I could cook. For real.”
“And I like knitting. And writing. On paper. Mother did, too.”
“I made paper once,” the boy says. His eyes are alight, as if he’s only just woken up for the day, though he’s been technically awake all this time. “So you’re an antiquist, like me. Why do you like it?”
“It’s interesting,” I say. “Well, and also…I am establishing myself as a person knowledgeable in a vast number of subjects.”
He laughs. “You sound like you’re applying for a job.”
“I do really love antiquist things, but it helps if they think I’m useful.”
“Who?”
“The crew of the ship. That is, when I was going to meet them.” I frown. All that preparation, for nothing.
“What are you saying? That if they don’t like you, they’d…get rid of you?”
I say nothing, but of course, that’s the fear.
“You don’t need to prove your worth to exist,” he says. And the words are a small supernova in my mind. What? How could that be? How could I possibly not need to prove my worth on this ship, when I was never allowed to exist to begin with? He can’t possibly be correct on this.
As if remembering something, he frowns. “Uh, I need to…it says you have some contusions. I need to examine them.”
I’m still wearing my robe, and only that. “Oh.”
He reaches for my arm and stops. “May I…is okay if I examine your skin?”
“Why not? You didn’t have a problem tackling me,” I comment.
He looks hurt. “I’m sorry. But you were running away, and we had no idea what…who…if you were a threat.”
“I thought that when people run away, it’s because they’re trying not to attack you,” I reason.
He meets my eye, but I don’t back down. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. I was only following orders.”
Something in his eye catches my attention. “You don’t like following orders, do you?”
“No,” he admits. It seems to pain him to give me the answer. “Do you?”
I think for a second. I haven’t needed to resist anything. I always knew that when I met Cyclo’s crew, I would be the most obedient crew member. Docility would make me likable, and that would make me worth keeping. I’ve had plenty of practice. All I’ve ever done is what Cyclo and Mother tell me. They’ve always had my best interests at heart.
Haven’t they? If so, why did I get left behind?
“See? Not so easy to answer, is it?” He reaches for my wrist. “May I?”
I hesitate. The skin of my right forearm has a purpling color on the tender inside that extends to my wrist. My fingers feel slightly swollen, too. He watches me with large eyes lined with dark lashes. The color of his irises is different from Mother’s and mine. Ours are brown with a rim of black encircling them. His is more a mix of amber and ebony, light in the centers. I decide that I would like to see his eyes better, so I extend my arm.
“All right.”
He shifts closer on the hard bench that I’ve been lying on. With both hands, he takes my arm and carefully turns it this way and that. He lifts the data recorder and punches a few more keys. Those tiny amber flecks in his eyes are nice. In Cyclo’s language, it means curiosity.
“You had some bleeding beneath the skin. It’s bruising, but far more than normal. It looks like your clotting is sluggish. Your vitamin K levels are low. Iron, selenium, zinc…all low.” When he releases my arm, I shift away from him and can’t help but wince.
“What’s the matter?”
“My back hurts,” I say without thinking.
“Where?”
I untie the front of my robe and turn away, lowering the fabric so my whole back is exposed. The boy inhales sharply. His fingertips gently touch my spine between my shoulder blades, then trace down to the small of my back. I shiver.
“Your back is a map of bruises. Looks like Pangaea.” He pauses. “Pangaea is—”
“I know what Pangaea is. The supercontinent on Earth during the Paleozoic era.”
“Mesozoic,” he corrects me.
I look over my bare shoulder to stare him down. “Cyclo, please tell us the correct era in which Pangaea existed on Earth.”
To my left, the blue matrix mounds up and involutes to form a mouth. “Pangaea spanned both the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic era. You are both right and wrong.”
“It talks?” Fenn asks. His body goes tight, as if ready to run. “I didn’t know it spoke. They said it just flashed colors. They said—”
“They probably say a lot of things about Cyclo,” I say, a bit defensively. His hand is still on the small of my back. “Are you done?”
“Oh. Yes.” The hand disappears, leaving an imprint of warmth that disappears quickly. Disappointingly fast. “You probably need some vitamin infusions to correct your deficiencies.”
Deficiencies. I don’t want to talk about them because they are too vast to list. But I know what he means. “I don’t need vitamins. Cyclo gives me everything I need.” I pull my robe back on and cinch it tightly around my waist. I stand to face him, but I’m so wobbly. My vision flashes white, then black, before returning to normal.
“Whoa.” He stands to steady me, very close. “Well, apparently that’s not true. You’re anemic. That’s why you’re dizzy. Look, we know that the ship was responsible for keeping its passengers fed and healthy all the time, but the ship is probably running out of nutrients, which means you are, too, if that’s how you get fed.”
Running out of nutrients? Cyclo never told me such a thing. Lately, I’d been spending my spare time learning about Cyclo’s birth—not the current status of her health. If I had, maybe I’d have known that the crew were going to leave. How thoughtless of me. This is the kind of thing that would prove I’m not worthy of being a member. The thought hurts me somewhere near my stomach, a real ache, and I put my hands there.
What if my hidden requirements ended up cannibalizing everyone else’s? Maybe I’ve been taking more than my fair share, and there was a good reason I should never have been born.
I feel terrible.
The door behind us opens. A tall Prinniad walks in, clad in a black uniform similar to the others. Her eyes are red as rubies; her legs end somewhere around my chest. Her skull shows a golden tattoo. Every humanoid I see in person is an utter surprise. I want to run my hands over her face to feel the texture of her skin, to follow the outlines of the gold tattoo. I hold my breath, waiting to hear what her voice sounds like.
She looks at the boy, smiles a little black-gummed, toothless smile, and stares at me sternly.
“Our remote group leader wants a word.” Her voice is…not what I was expecting. She seems rather irritated to be in the room with me.
A visor hologram also shows up in front of her face, projected from an implant in her forehead that I now realize the boy has, too. She grasps the hologram with her fingertips, spins it around, and expands it so that I can look at the image. I’ve seen holograms before, but none that wanted to speak with me.
It’s a hologram of an elderly gentleman, sitting who knows where—possibly systems away—behind a desk. A ReCOR logo is behind his head. I know ReCOR—they are the company that made Cyclo, and for them, I am so very grateful. He must be here to help Cyclo, then.
He has a white beard, white hair, with crinkly blue eyes surrounded by lots of wrinkles.
“Hello! So you’re finally awake.” His tone is gentle, and the timbre is deep and resonant. I like it. It makes me think of photos of the Grand Canyon. “My name is Aldred Doran. I’m in charge of the Selkirk crew from my station of BT-78i, and I suppose I’m in charge of you, too, now.” He smiles, and I immediately warm to him even though he is so far away. The blue of his eyes is just like Cyclo’s happy blue. “I have some questions to ask. Please, sit.” He motions to the bench, but until yesterday I have never been in a room with more than one other human, and I don’t like the odds, even if he is not really here.
I lean back against the wall, touching it lightly and letting my fingertips sink into the gel. Cyclo responds, oozing forward a large bubble of matrix, and I sink into it as it supports my back and arms. A high-backed chair forms to lift me up. Flicking my eyes left and right, I see that Cyclo has made me a replica of the historic British monarchy’s coronation throne, down to the lion’s feet. She has done this for me in the past, and she knows how much I find it amusing, to be on a faux throne. Surrounded by her, I feel safer. I curl my legs under me, and my knees stick out like two bread buns.
Looking down at the hologram and the Prinniad and the boy, I ask timidly, “What questions did you wish to ask me?”
The Prinniad and Fenn exchange uncomfortable glances with each other.
“Let’s start with your name, for one,” Doran asks.
I guess there is no hiding anymore. If I am going to find out what happened with Mother, I will need help.
“‘All compromise is based on give and take.’ Mahatma Ghandi,” I quote in not much more than a whisper. They exchange glances again. I should probably just tell them, then. “My name is Hana…” I pause here, as Cyclo flashes a silver-tinged pink iridescence around me. “…Um.”
“What was that?” the boy asks, pointing at the fading pink on the wall. “What does that mean?”
“That is my middle name.” Cyclo flashes it again. It is what she calls me when she is not phonating. A color she has made for me, and me alone. It is moonbeams and orchids at dawn, is how my mother described it. I had to look up all these pictures to understand what she said, but together, they were supposedly more extraordinary than the separate images. Finally, she found an object that described the color. Something born of an amorphous mollusk on Earth, whose innards look like mucous and shell, like ages-old rock. An oyster, it’s called. And the item within, a pearl. It’s the color that isn’t one color. Mother gave me a silver necklace to wear with a very old pearl pendant that belonged to her great-grandmother.
I touch it now, to remind me who I am, and to soothe myself. The iridescent nacre wears off bit by bit from all my fiddling, and when I sleep, Cyclo places another layer of nacre on to keep it lustrous.
“I see. Hana…” The hologram pauses for the flash. “Hana Um. And your mother?” Doran asks.
“Dr. Yoonsil Um. But she went by Yoona, for short. She has a blue lotus tattoo on her arm,” I say, showing my own forearm and swirling my fingertip to show where it was, the blue tissue of Cyclo’s own matrix embedded in Mother’s skin. It was beautiful. It would glow faintly all the time, a gleaming symbol of how together they parented me from the day I was one cell big.
“Why do you have no universal ID? Why is your DNA not registered?”
I go quiet. If I tell the truth, Mother will get in trouble. And I will be in trouble. But I’m already in trouble. The rules about me living my secret are too difficult to break. Instead, I point to the boy.
“What’s his full name?” Cyclo flashes a tiny sliver of sparkling white to tell me I’m being rude by pointing. I put my finger down.
Doran looks at the boy, who takes his hands out of his pockets, where they’ve been stuffed since this inquisition began.
“Fennec.”
“That is a fox,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows, and the corner of his mouth twitches up in a quirky grin. I believe that means I am correct. After a long silence, the boy—Fenn—repeats the question. “Why isn’t your DNA registered?”
I look away.
“Doesn’t anyone know you’re here?”
“No,” I say, eyes still trained on the wall.
“Did you hide here on purpose?”
“No,” I say again.
“I see. Curious.” Doran rubs his grizzled chin. “She’s unregistered. Probably born in secret on the ship. I’ve heard of such things. There’s a steep penalty, which explains why she was hidden. And now she’s been left behind so that the secret can stay a secret.”
No. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. “She didn’t leave me behind,” I tell him. “It’s just a mistake. I think. I need you to contact her and let her know of my status.” Cyclo flashes a faint iridescent white behind their heads again. Oh. I’m being impolite. “Please,” I add.
“I understand you want to find her. But you also must understand, we have our own directives and must complete them. This is no search and rescue mission.”
“Directive? What directive?”
“To document the demise of the Calathus, of course.”
My skin prickles with goose bumps. “Demise,” I repeat, tonelessly.
“Yes. You do know that this ship is dying? That the being you call Cyclo has, in fact, reached its terminal status?”
I look at Fenn, who nods. His shoulders slump as if this information causes him pain, though he is not surprised.
“No. That can’t be. No,” I say, but the memory of the brown dot and its acid on my fingertip flits through my mind. I grip the handrests of Cyclo’s chair, but she doesn’t throb back any warmth. Oh God. She knows. This is no surprise to her, either, but since I never asked… I have done nothing but immerse myself in Cyclo’s past, not present, lately. “No one told me.” My voice grows smaller. “Oh God. Mother never told me.”