Escaping Exodus

by Nicky Drayden

  “I think we could heal the ship if we really, really tried. We can’t go out like this. We can’t let this be all there is of our story. We’ve sacrificed too much to give up now.”

  The way she’s looking at me, I can’t tell if she’s talking about me and her, or the entirety of our people. Maybe it’s the same story.

  “Matris,” the tactician says to us. “We’ve found something . . .”

  “What? Is it the planet?”

  “No, the planet is fine. Everything you were promised.” Her voice should be more relieved, but there’s only tension behind her words.

  “But . . . ?” I ask.

  “It’s the primary star that’s the problem. Scans came through fine on the beast . . . but here, it looks like it’s got a thousand years of life left. Two thousand, max.”

  There is a long silence.

  A thousand years. I look at the planet. A thousand years is more than we could hope for out here, but to the beast . . . a thousand years is a blip. A joke. A lie. An act of betrayal. The view of the planet fades and is replaced by that of just over a hundred tentacled creatures, swimming through the blackest of ponds.

  Finally, one of the tacticians dares to speak. “We’ve brought the beast herd up on sensors. They haven’t gotten far,” she says timidly. “They’re all strong and fast. Any of them would make a suitable target. Should we ready the harpoons?”

  I bite down so hard my jaws ache. They are not beasts. Calling them that will not make the slaughter any more palatable. The life-form we dwell upon, it’s sentient. It’s intelligent. It’s manipulative.

  It’s trying to kill us.

  “We are at war,” I declare. “A war we started. And I will put an end to it. In the meantime, move all critical systems to the Parados I. All communication will happen in person. Wheytt!”

  “Yes, Matris?”

  “Let’s draw up a set of demands and concessions . . .”

  “For what, Matris?”

  “For the beast.”

  “In there?” I ask Wheytt.

  “In there,” he says, then turns his back.

  The womb, it’s destroyed, but Wheytt thinks I can communicate with the beast the way the Queens do on the Serrata, by giving themselves to this orifice. Commander Chubahl had taken him to see them in a room near the beast’s liver, kept in a weird state between dream and wakefulness. The Queens were able to pacify the ship, to feel where it was hurting, to guide healing. Only women could do it. They’d tried men, but the results had been disastrous.

  The orifice puckers at me. I swear it’s watching me.

  If this is what I must do to bring an end to a war we caused, I have to do it. But how do we come to terms with the atrocities we’ve committed? How do we make amends? What do we do if our promises are not enough? What if the beast never tires of taking our blood?

  I peel away my clothes and slip my head into the orifice. Tentacles slither over me, tasting me like long, thin tongues. But nothing happens. I press forward, until I’m in to my hips, knees. Flesh ripples against me, but not the rough pull of suction Wheytt had warned me about. I’m not being tethered. It’s not working.

  I back out, slimy and wet and disappointed. Wheytt’s still cowering in a corner. “For the sake of all mothers, Wheytt, it’s just skin. Turn around.”

  He does, but his eyes come nowhere near me.

  “If you’re going to be my chief auditor, you’re going to have to learn how to look at me and stop making things so awkward.”

  His eyes finally meet mine. “Sorry. I’ll do better. But in all fairness, you were the one who kissed me first.”

  I flush, remembering that time so long ago, halfway wishing that we’d just gone through with our fraudulent engagement. An ache hangs in my gut just thinking about those times, when I thought I was a woman but had no idea of what that really meant.

  “I don’t know why it’s not working,” he says, stepping closer, and the mouth starts sucking and slobbering after him.

  “Careful,” I say to him. But no sooner than those words are spoken, a tendril juts out of the orifice, thick like a tongue and long as an arm. It grabs Wheytt and he’s pulled inside, lips of the orifice devouring him up to his ankles. The undulations are immediate and mesmerizing, and soon, all the other orifices are sucking and grappling to the beat. I go to pull him out, but tendrils from the next orifice wrap around my fingers and tug me away. Some slip up into my nostrils, and I’m instantly put at ease, lulled into a calming gratification I can’t turn away from, even as I try to fight it. The rim of the orifice widens enough to accommodate my head, my shoulders, and then all the outside world disappears completely.

  This time, I’m in space, the emptiness lapping coolly over my skin—not frigid and biting, like we’d experienced before, but nice, like a dip in the springs. With an eye on each side of my head, I can see the entire sky at once, tendrils whipping in and out of my vision, mouth bared open, skimming traces of gases wading through the void, my ass end shooting out the same, propelling me faster, faster, toward a beast.

  But it doesn’t seem like a beast, it . . . she seems like a friend. I slip up next to her, our tentacles briefly knotting together in a complex greeting, and then we’re staring eye to eye. I see immediately it is Wheytt behind that lens. How I know this, I am not sure, but there is a draw within me. And suddenly we’re dancing, a dance I feel in my bones, bones that are older than the entire existence of humanity. It is a dance, and a song, and a story, all three together, telling of the rich history of these so-called beasts. And when we are done, I know that it is only one small section of one dance, one song, one story of millions. It’d take my entire lifetime to tell half a dozen of them.

  I suddenly feel the weight of each culled beast in my gut, of the baby beast that had died before my eyes. I’m crying, tears evaporating off my lenses, but I know they’re tears, and I now know that these majestic creatures do cry. How many tears have we caused?

  I try to turn my thoughts to the beast, toward negotiations, toward reparations, toward making things right the best I can, but I’m seized again by the thought of the creature that is Wheytt. More and more of our tentacles tangle, until a breath couldn’t pass between us. We pirouette together, synchronized.

  The pleasure shared between us is of such an intensity that all the stars dim. Our two mouths undulate together, widening, widening, as if we were in a competition to swallow each other whole. More tendrils erupt like a thousand tongues, each finding its mate. They twirl, entangling, until there is one left, unmated. One of mine. It lengthens, flows deeper and deeper into his mouth. Wheytt shudders so hard, but the other tendrils, they hold tight. Such tender, tender flesh must not be exposed to the vacuum of space. Then the tip of my tendril touches something hard and round. An ovispore—the word slips into my head, like I’ve always known what it is. And like I’ve always known how precious it is. The tendril wraps it up, over and over, until the ovispore is safe in a cocoon. I reel it back, and it disappears inside me. The deed, it is done, and yet Wheytt and I, we remain entangled, watching the sky spin, watching stars go nova. The feeling of lust eases into one of familiarity, of a bond that stretches back eons, but it also rings of something hollow, of hurt.

  Like this is not a vision, but a memory.

  Sometime in our history, we’d taken the beast’s mate. Then we’d taken its unborn child. I shake so hard, the connection fades. I suddenly become all too aware of the tendrils linked into me, all of me, no place left uncompromised. I vomit up the ones in my throat, barely able to pull the ones from my nostrils. The ones in my tear ducts suck up my tears, so many of them that tears will never reach my cheeks. I buck and writhe until they let me go, and I spill out onto the floor.

  After I catch my breath, I run to Wheytt’s orifice, now quiet and unassuming. I pry the mouth of it open and reach in. I can’t feel anything. I’m shoulder-deep, reaching farther. The flesh stands still. Nothing grabs at me, tempts me in.

  �
�No,” I scream. “Wheytt!”

  I call for help, but I know in the pit of my stomach that he is gone. That he’s become our penance for taking the lives of her loved ones. But I don’t stop digging. I can’t.

  I won’t.

  Seske

  Of Full Plates and Empty Wombs

  At the interment ceremony, gossip spreads faster than prayers to the ancestors. The turnout is good at least, but the classes repel from one another like oil and water. In one corner, boneworkers gorge themselves on delicacies and ale, while the entirety of Wheytt’s former accountancy crew are here, sobbing like they hadn’t nearly harassed his dream out of him. And the Contour class looks down upon them all, sipping on their fancy teas, judging everyone’s every move.

  Adalla and I stand, dressed in layers and layers of bereavement gowns, fingers twined. Her face has been stoic, not a tear, even when Laisze’s body was pressed into the spirit wall. Not even when several Contour class men fainted at the sight. Wheytt’s family didn’t show, so I stood in their stead. He was a friend. A true friend, maybe something more, whom I wish I’d treated better. If I were to list out every bratty thing I’d said or done to him, I wouldn’t be any better than the accountancy guards who’d harassed him. But I stand for him now. And Doka is here, the dutiful husband, at my side in my time of need. Finally, when the crowd settles and condolences are mostly doled out, I send him off to fetch us another round of battered wood lice and gravied biscuits.

  “How are you doing?” I ask Adalla when he’s gone, her eyes still forward upon the wall.

  “Okay,” she says. “Sure is sure. You?”

  “The wall still makes me nervous. But I’m glad you’re by my side.” I squeeze her hand. “If you knew this was how it was going to end when you first met Laisze, would you still have become friends?”

  “Absolutely,” she says without hesitation. She must have noticed that I started at her sureness, because she backpedals. “I do believe that, sure is sure is sure. And I know because I’ve already given it a lot of thought, and if I felt otherwise, none of us would be standing here right now. It’s worth it, Seske. The price is high, and the price, it will change you. But the winner of life isn’t the one who gets through with the least number of scars.”

  I wince at her words and the many scars I’d put upon her back. “How do we win, then? At life?”

  She looks directly at me for the first time today. “We as in . . .”

  “We as in us, as a people. The people of Parados I. Humanity.”

  Adalla nods, relaxes some. “We humans have a lot of scars. And some scars just don’t heal no matter what you do. But most will, given enough time.”

  “Time is not something we have a lot of.” They’ll let me mourn for a few days, but then they’ll need their Matris to lead. Only problem is, I have no idea of where to lead them. We can’t cull another ship. We can’t go off to a planet with a star that’ll scorch everything we build. We can’t keep going down the path of ignorance, hoping things will get better as the beast continues to take from us what we’ve taken from her.

  My stomach grumbles. I set my eyes, trying to find where Doka is with our food, and then I see him coming with plates piled with a dozen delicacies, and behind him strut his heart-mothers. I groan. Adalla tries to let go of my hand to avoid confrontation, but I hold it tight. His amas notice but pay us no mind. They are too excited to care. Excited amas are never a good thing.

  Ama Roszet pinches my cheeks, like I am a mere child and not the ruler of our people. In the whole of our history, there has never been a frown to hang so heavily upon someone’s face as the one on mine. “Please do not touch me,” I say. On instinct, I turn to Wheytt to give him our silent signal that I’m uncomfortable, but it is another accountancy guard who stands watch over me now. I sigh. Shake off the thought.

  “Matris, you are so radiant,” Ama Roszet coos, unoffended by my demand. “Oh, how you honor the fallen with your glow. And soon it will be time to celebrate new life, no?”

  “No,” I say, suddenly remembering the promise of a grandchild I’d made to get them off my back long enough to sneak off with Wheytt to meet with the Serrata. “No new life coming any time soon, I’m afraid.”

  Ama Linpur nods at me knowingly, then nudges me in the side for good measure. “Still too soon to speak of it? Won’t be long now, not with the way Doka says you’re piling down food.” And then her hands are on my stomach, fingers rounded out to either side, with her thumbs right upon my navel. Fury grips me so hard. “Don’t worry,” she whispers. “We’ve already started compiling will-mother candidates and have a dozen heart and head families ready to join. Your entire family unit will all be arranged quietly before the little one arrives, so she’ll get the best guidance from all of her parents.”

  I grit my teeth and ball my fists, ready to give her a harsh and fast lesson on disrespecting me, but fortunately, my guard finally notices my frustration and moves Ama Linpur out of striking range before I can connect.

  I growl and grab the plate from Doka, stress eating biscuit after biscuit, then dipping the wood lice in the leftover gravy and sucking them down by twos. Doka reaches for one of those perfectly golden battered balls, and I fix him in place with a ferocious stare.

  “Seske! Come on,” Adalla says, wiping a smudge of gravy from my chin. “Let’s take a little break away from here . . .” Adalla tugs my elbow, and I don’t resist. I need to get away from these people.

  We run, so fast, so hard, over to the gall fields. It’s quiet here, the quiet I need, but Adalla keeps leading me, deeper, deeper. A mountain of old husks stands before us, and she pushes me up into one of them. She follows me in, then turns on a dusty ley light that washes the whole place in a warm red glow.

  It’s a nice, peaceful spot where we won’t be interrupted. We both struggle to get comfortable in the swath of our raiment. We’re a mess, the both of us, flipping and flopping in our skirts, and then we’re both giggling, nervous painful laughs that do their best to lighten the mood. But then I’m crying into her shoulder, stuffing pastries into my face, unsure if I’ll be able to hold myself together, much less an entire people.

  She pulls me in closer, arms wrapped around me, but she startles as her hand touches my side.

  “Seske . . . what you said about children back there, you’re sure you’re not pregnant?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Why do you ask?”

  “I . . . just felt something. Inside you. Move.”

  “It’s just gas. I’ve got awful gas. I’ve eaten so much this morning.” I shove another pastry into my mouth, not bothering to catch the crumbs. Both of her hands are on my stomach now, though. She brings mine down as well, and together we stare. There definitely seems to be more of me down there. In a fury, I’m unhitching and unwrapping all my skirts until I’m just in my silk slip. There’s a pooch. A definite pooch. And Adalla is right. It’s not just gas.

  “It’s Doka’s,” she whispers, as if the softer she says it, the less chance she has of it being true.

  I shake my head. “No . . . we’ve left our marriage in an open state, despite his pleadings.”

  “Wheytt’s . . .” she mumbles even softer.

  “No, we’ve never . . .” I catch myself. We have been intimate. We were beasts in some kind of shared memory, but it was us. What if? No. It’s not possible. And yet . . .

  What if taking Wheytt from me was only part of the penance? Was the beast giving me this child, just to snatch it away and hurt me again?

  “Oh, Adalla, what am I going to do?” My heart won’t stop racing. I’m not ready to be a mother. I’m not ready to be the leader of this ship either. And yet, here I am.

  “I’m here for you,” she says, bringing our foreheads together. “Whatever you need, I’ll help you with.”

  “The last thing my line needs is another scandal.”

  “Don’t worry about them. Worry about you. What do you need?”

  “Space,” I say flatly. Ada
lla backs up. “Not from you. I just need a little more time to figure out who I am. I need to process. I’ve had so much thrown upon my shoulders. I can’t balance all of this. No one could. Not all at once. I know I can do this. I just need people to give me room to be myself, to accept me for who I am.”

  “You can have all the space you need here,” Adalla says. “And you know I’ll always accept you for who you are. I’d never want to change you.”

  So we sit together, the soft nest of both our dresses beneath us. She tells me about Parton, tells me about the fight with her mother, tells me about Laisze. I catch her up with my escapades, bare my scars, hoping it will offer an explanation for the woman I’ve become. Our bodies have found comfortable places against each other, and we just . . . fit. All the world that exists is confined by the walls of this gall, and that’s okay with me.

  The ley light flickers out, but no one moves to shake it back up, and we’re just two bodies caught together in the dark.

  “Seske?”

  “Yes, Adalla?”

  “I’m thinking about kissing you.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.” I can do this. No matter what scars the future may hold, I want this moment. This one moment. I put everything out of my mind and concentrate on the sound of her voice, on the smell of her skin.

  “But I’m worried I shouldn’t,” Adalla whispers.

  “I’m not trying to replace Laisze,” I say. “I know how special she was to you. I know I can’t compare.”

  Adalla laughs, but it’s clipped off by a painful silence. “She always thought the same about you. Like I’m some sort of prize.”

  “You’re some sort of something wonderful.”

  “Maybe I was, once. What I am now is just hopeful. Mostly hoping that I can kiss you without something weird happening. I’m hoping I can. I’m worried that I can’t.”

  “Well, if you kissed me and something weird did happen, would you regret the kiss?”