Symbiosis

by Nicky Drayden

  We’ve outfitted ourselves with nets and knives and enough food rations to last us a week, just in case we get lost in the maze of ducts. Bakti made us a fresh batch of sweet potato hash and gave us pearl pendants from the oyster farm on Adhosh to bring good luck.

  I twirl the pearl beads whenever I get scared, marveling at their green glow, so much brighter than any of the pearls I’ve ever seen. It’s been quiet so far, so they must be working. As we venture farther into the ducts, the ley lights become more and more sparse. I row and Doka navigates, guiding us into darker and narrower ducts. He sings an old sailing song about river bends and black water to ward off the fear. The song ends with kissing your family goodbye, so it really doesn’t actually help much. The fog thickens, and in some patches, renders our visibility to near zero.

  Small talk might help to keep our terror at bay, so I shout out the first thing that comes to mind. “How do you think the Klang came up with the name ‘Adhosh’?” I ask Doka.

  He thinks about it for a while, then shrugs. “Maybe it has some sort of cultural meaning. Or maybe they liked the way it sounded.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Well, what do you think we should call our Zenzee?”

  “I don’t know. She kind of seems like a Gladys to me. Or a Marian.”

  “Or a Sue,” I say with a laugh. Maybe I laugh a little too loudly because a stiff breeze zips past us, and seconds later, the ley light mounted at the bow of our boat fades to a dull glow.

  “No worries. I can shake it back up,” I say, pulling my oars into the boat, though the current has picked up enough that it carries us on its own.

  Doka nods. “I’ll steady the boat. Be careful.”

  “Sure thing.” I go to my knees, put one hand on the side of the boat for balance, and reach out for the lamp with the other. I can barely make out my own hand in front of me. I unhook the lamp, give it a good vigorous shake until the whole duct is aglow with its amber-golden light. Then I go to hang it again. “See, no prob—” I look out and see the drop ahead of us. “Daidi’s bells!”

  “What?” Doka asks.

  “There’s a dip coming. Hold on.”

  He clutches the pendant Bakti had given him in one hand and holds the side of the boat with the other. But the river twists us, turns us, and tips us over, and we both go face first into the murky waters.

  “The boat!” Doka cries when he surfaces. “Our stuff!”

  I swim after our overturned boat and together, we work to flip it back over. He helps me in, then starts tossing me the knife and the fishing pole and the map. “We lost the food and my pearls,” he says to me as he pulls himself up. “And I don’t think the smell is ever going to come out of our clothes.”

  I look down. It was bad before, but having the smell this close to my skin is so much worse. “I . . . Ugg. Turn around.”

  Doka complies, and I strip down to my panties and wring out most of the water over the edge. “Pass me my canteen,” I say. Doka must not be peeking because it takes several attempts for him to find my hand. I take a swallow for myself, then rinse my dress the best I can without wasting too much water. I take another smell. Better. Barely.

  I turn and see Doka, his back toward me, wringing out his shirt as well. The skin on his back is so smooth, and I catch myself staring at how his muscles flex beneath. What is this I’m feeling?

  “Okay, you can turn around now,” I say.

  He does, then his breath catches. “You . . . you’re not dressed.”

  “It’s just skin,” I say, surprised by my confidence. Maybe boldness would be a better word. It’s just skin, it’s just skin, I chant to myself in the awkward silence that’s growing between us.

  “Ummm . . . ,” Doka mutters.

  “And it’s not like we’ve never seen each other naked. Plus, we’re married.”

  “We’re married,” he says. “But not married like that.”

  Well, not anymore, thanks to me pushing him for the annulment. But I still remember flipping back his veil after he was pronounced mine, and the taste of his lips when we’d kissed in front of thousands of onlookers. I hadn’t been in the right mind to enjoy it at the time, but it hadn’t been completely unpleasant.

  “Well, you can face the other way for the rest of the trip if you want to. I’m not rowing anywhere in a wet, stinky gown.” I pick up my oars and start rowing again. “Which way do we go next?”

  Doka stares at the map way too hard. My heart nearly stops beating. “What?”

  “The ink faded. But I think I can still make it out.” He comes closer, placing the map between us and pointing at it with his finger. “I think we’re here.” He slides his finger closer to me. “And we’re trying to get here.” His finger doesn’t stop at the X that marks the spot, just passes right off the edge of the page and onto my skin, until he’s got one hand pressed softly against my side. Neither of us moves. Neither of us breathes.

  “You’re much softer than puppet gel. And warmer. And I bet if I touched your nipple, it wouldn’t ball up and roll off.”

  I laugh. Mostly from painful awkwardness, but a little of the happy kind, too. “I was a jerk. Sorry.”

  “You were a kid. I was too. Besides, I let go of that a long time ago.” He looks up at me bashfully. “More or less.”

  His hand moves up, cups my right breast. I tense ever so slightly.

  “What?” he asks. “Do you want me to stop?”

  I shake my head quickly. “No. I’m just . . .” How in the world do I explain that up until two weeks ago, I had pads stuffed in my shirt because every time I heard Kenzah crying, I’d spontaneously produce some sort of purple sap from my nipples that was nearly impossible to remove from clothing once it dried. You don’t, Seske. You just don’t. “. . . nervous, I guess. If we get caught—”

  “Who’s going to catch us out here? There’s no one except me and—”

  Something collides with the boat, and we lurch. Doka topples, nearly falls overboard again, but I grab his hand, pull him back in. There’s knocking against the hull. It doesn’t sound random.

  “Shhhh. Something’s down there,” Doka whispers, grabbing the net behind him.

  “Something?” I ask, “Or someone? Because your face is saying ‘someone.’”

  “I don’t know. But I’ve heard something like this before.” He waits until the next collision, and not half a second later, he throws the net over, moving quickly, then he tightens the drawstring. The bucking and thrashing against the boat intensifies.

  “Does this seem like a bad idea?” I ask him, panic in my voice as we haul the net back in. “Because this seems like a bad idea to me.”

  He nods, but keeps pulling. With a final coordinated heave, we get the net aboard. Inside, squirming and kicking, is a throttle fish, but it’s huge—nearly the same size as me. Its hands pull at the netting with three-inch claws, sleek black fins on its back looking sharp as knives.

  The net won’t hold forever.

  I quickly dress, hoping to put at least a thin layer of fabric between me and those claws. The netting starts to tear. This was definitely a bad idea.

  “Help me throw it back in,” Doka says, grabbing it by the tail. I can’t wait to get it out of here, either.

  “I’m on it,” I say, but when I do, the fish stops struggling and looks right up at me. The throttle fish back in the bogs at home are almost cute—chubby cheeks, bright eyes, the works—but this one’s face hold sheer malice. Mouth open, it bears silver, needle-sharp teeth. But there is the same humanlike eeriness with this one, even tucked this deep in the bile ducts, completely removed from civilization. The beast’s scowl slowly works itself into a smile, and I let go of my end of the net, recognizing the face that has so long haunted my dreams.

  “Sisterkin,” I whisper.

  “What?” Doka asks, scrambling over to my side so quickly, he nearly topples the boat over again. He stares at the hissing monstrosity. “It can’t be—”

  The throttle fish claws throug
h the net and slices at Doka, barbed fins leaving a gash across his chest. He spends half a moment in shock, then throws up his arms to protect himself. I jump onto the net and hold the fish down, but it’s all muscle, and before I know it, it’s got its clawed hands clenched around my neck. I struggle to breathe. Darkness comes for the corners of my vision, then all I can see is the face staring back at me with so much hatred.

  Then there’s a whack, the sound of bone hitting flesh, and slowly, my vision returns. I sit up and see Doka standing there, holding the fishing rod in both hands, visibly shaking. He looks down at the fish, incapacitated. Maybe dead.

  “Seske, sorry, I—”

  “You did the right thing,” I tell him. “Don’t second guess yourself.” I rub at my neck, feeling welts swell up beneath my fingertips.

  “It looks so much like her,” Doka says.

  Too much like her.

  “We’ll take it to the scientists,” I say. “Maybe they’ll have some idea of what it is.” Doka agrees, but right now, I’m pretty sure we’re both more worried about what else is out there than how this fish came to be. I’ve got a sinking feeling that there’s something more sinister lurking nearby. Something that can’t be disabled by a bone-carved fishing pole. I look up sadly at Doka. “I’m afraid Baradonna is going to have to wait a little longer. But we’ll find her. I promise.”

  Doka

  Of Familiar Faces and Peculiar Embraces

  Seske and I slam the throttle fish down onto the floor of the research lab with enough ruckus to catch everyone’s attention, but no one looks our way. They’re all glued to a holoprojection of a pulsating star. Or something like a star. It glows magenta, and just beyond the depth of the light it emits, I can make out something moving along the surface, like bloat flies circling a lamp. It’s mesmerizing, I’ll give them that, but we’ve got more pressing problems right now. I clear my throat, loudly and obnoxiously. Finally, one of the researchers notices, then scrambles over to the mess we’ve made on her pristine floor.

  “What is this?” she says, bending down to examine our catch. She backs up when she sees the size of the fangs.

  “We were hoping you could tell us,” I say. “We found it in the bile ducts.”

  “What were you doing in the bile ducts?” another researcher asks. They’re all swarming around us now, hands itching to poke and prod at the specimen. Its jaw hangs slack, and its eyes have gone milky. My blow had been deadly. I’d be remorseful if the terror of seeing it clenching Seske’s throat wasn’t still prickling at my nerves.

  Seske nudges me aside. “Um, that’s restricted information. What’s important is that we figure out why this fish looks so much like my sister.”

  All eyes suddenly go wide at the use of that word—sister, almost a vulgarity. And mentioning this particular sister made things a thousand time worse. Each and every researcher finds random things to stare at. No one dares to meet Seske’s gaze.

  “It’s fine,” Seske says, shoulders slumping forward. “I know she was banished, and that we’re supposed to forget she ever existed, but clearly, that’s no longer an option.”

  “It appears to be some sort of throttle fish,” the head researcher says, tentatively lifting up one of the gills. “A different species perhaps? One that grows larger than our domesticated ones.”

  “Or one that’s simply fed on the flesh of a human for a long period of time,” says another researcher.

  I flinch, remembering the story Charrelle had told me, about the throttle fish that Madam Wade had tried to force upon her. They’d tried to explain it as a kindness, that sparing a child’s life without the blessing of our ancestors was a noble act. One of caring. Wouldn’t it be better that they lived out their days carefree, swimming in ponds? That they were bound to live entwined within the flesh of an alien fish didn’t even cross their minds as to be a cruelty.

  The head researcher nods. “These parasites are masters of incorporating genetic material into their own. Mouth latching on to feed, and over time, taking on the characteristics of their host. There could be dozens more out there, just like this one.”

  “Dozens?” Seske asks.

  I try not to imagine Sisterkin somewhere out there, being fed upon by more of these fish. It was no wonder banishment was considered a worse punishment than getting expelled into space. That death was quick. Nearly instant. Sure, you had to watch your blood vaporize and you’d bloat up like an overcooked crag egg, but then your lungs collapsed, and it was all over. Quick and dead, less than a minute. This . . . months, maybe years of losing yourself slowly to parasitic creatures.

  It was horrifying.

  “Maybe hundreds of them, if she lasts long enough.” The researcher gives us a pitying smile, but instead of probing further, they all turn their attention back to the pulsating star. As if none of this even matters to them. A lump swells up in my throat.

  “Baradonna,” I say softly. I try to keep my mind focused on the here and now, but I can’t stop thinking about how we’ve failed her. She’s out there somewhere, suffering. I can’t even imagine the depths of the nightmare she’s living through.

  Seske wraps her arms around me, and I melt into her.

  “She’s strong,” Seske whispers into my ear. “If there’s anyone who can survive this, it’s her. Come on, let’s get you home. I’m sure Kenzah misses you.”

  Maybe Seske can tell I’m about to spiral into a really bad place. Maybe a change of scenery will help. I sure don’t want to spend another moment here. She takes one last look at the dead face of her sister, then we leave.

  I cradle my son in my arms, Kallum’s chin resting on my shoulder, as proud a father as there ever was. We’ve made a handsome little child with impressively strong lungs. I wonder which of Charrelle’s favor lures had drawn that blessing. I flinch as his wailing raises an octave, tearing at my eardrums. Maybe it doesn’t matter much if the ancestors don’t sit with him, because I’m sure they’ll hear his screams either way.

  Seske watches us from the far corner of our sitting room, a smile on her face that might be more of a grimace. She’s so close to the window that her shoulder is draped by the thick curtains meant to keep out the cold. Their embroidered leaf pattern nearly matches her dress as well. It’s as if she’s trying to blend in with her surroundings.

  “Come closer,” I tell Seske, patting the open spot on the sofa next to me. “Kenzah needs his will-mother.”

  Seske looks doubtful. I think something about the child scares her. It took her three weeks to even hold him.

  “Please,” I say. “You’re the reason he’s here. I want you to know this happiness.” Having my family surrounding me is a balm that helps smooth over all my other worries. And despite the tension that’s always stretched between us, Seske is a part of that. That tension is thicker now, since the incident on the boat. I’m not even sure a knife could cut through it.

  Seske sighs, then scoots next to me. I hand the baby to her, orchestrating a careful maneuver that keeps his bobbling head supported. Her braids graze my shoulder, and our cheeks nearly touch, but Seske pulls back just in time. Kenzah fusses some, but Seske sticks a knuckle in his mouth, and he settles, sucking contently.

  “He’s so beautiful,” she says, then sniffs the top of his head, full of black curls. Her eyes go soft, and her body slackens ever so slightly. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed before, but my mind has been constantly reminding me to be on alert, even in intimate moments such as this one. It’s like the confident and carefree Seske I knew from before is back for a fleeting moment.

  “I think he’s got Seske’s smile,” Kallum says, both his arms wrapped around me now.

  Seske looks up, confusion on her face, but then Kallum winks at her. I know it’s hard at first, getting used to the idea that he is all of ours, and that Line is thicker than blood.

  “Perhaps,” she says with a grin. “And if he’s as smart and headstrong as his head-fathers, and as passionate and free-spirited as his head-
mother . . . maybe we could find a way to extend our Line to him. Maybe he could be next in line to be the matriarch.”

  “Seske,” I say, remembering the fear Baradonna had in her eyes after the wedding. I want none of that for my son. “We’re all hoping for the kind of change that would make that even a remote possibility, but we need to be realistic. Right now, the best way to keep Kenzah safe is for us to keep attention off him. We need to be a normal family.”

  “What about our family resembles anything close to normalcy?” she asks, and the walled-off Seske is suddenly back. “Kallum all but stole his Line. I’m married to a beastworker and a person from another Zenzee. I think we passed ‘normal’ a long time ago. And we’re stronger for it. Besides, we’ve got years to wear them down. And don’t you think it’s ridiculous that we should give up the protection an heir brings to our family, just because Kenzah was born a boy and not a—” Seske’s eyes widen. Her arms go slack. Kallum rushes over and scoops the baby from her just in time. She looks as though she’s about to pass out.

  “What? What’s wrong, Seske?” I ask her. I help her down to a lying position on the floor.

  “Kenzah is a boy,” she whispers.

  “Yes, yes. We know that.”

  “Baby boys are rare. Especially among high ranking families.”

  “I know that, too.”

  She waves me off in annoyance. “Except the Klang have an abnormally high rate of males born . . . almost half of all births. What if they’re not the odd ones? What if we are abnormal for having so few boys?” She stares up at the matte black ceiling, speckled with a dusting of star jewels that mimic the constellations of our Line. Her eyes twitch back and forth, tracing from one star to the next in the pattern she’d known since childhood and the one the rest of our family had gotten to know through marriage into it. Finally, she breaks away and locks her eyes directly into mine. “What if it’s deliberate?”

  Kallum’s brows pinch, concern on his face. “That’s not how biology works, Seske. Fewer males have been born for centuries. You’re trying to say that there’s been some grand conspiracy all this time to keep the numbers artificially low?”