Symbiosis

by Nicky Drayden

  “How long was I like that?” I asked.

  “Well, it took me a while to get my strength back. Maybe a couple days.”

  Days?

  “I’m ready to get home now,” Baradonna says. “You?”

  I feel dizzy with this information. Or maybe it’s just a really bad hangover from having Sisterkin plugged into my very being. The violation runs deep. I feel it lurking in my core. But my family, they must be worried about me. And Doka . . . he’s supposed to be leaving for the conference. “We need to tell Doka about this,” I sputter out. My mouth is dry and tacky. It tastes of dead things. “He’s going to meet with the other ships. He needs to know about the graveyard before he leaves.”

  Baradonna nods and starts rowing, raspy voice singing, “As the river bends, so does my will, we sail the mighty ducts, till the waters doth still. Deep down she goes, and when the waters turn black, kiss your family goodbye, cause there’s no turning back!”

  Doka

  Of Trust Falls and Suspicious Behavior

  I’m strapped tightly into my seat, ready to be launched out of this shuttle bay and into the black of space with Kallum’s taste lingering in my mouth. He’d made it clear that it was important that we kept up appearances, to the outside world as well as within our family. So in these last couple days we’d fucked a lot, like a couple remiss about spending some time apart. He’d laughed heartily at my jokes at the dinner table, his hand constantly on my thigh. He was so good at his act that sometimes I’d forget it was an act, but if I got too comfortable, Kallum was always quick to correct me with a sharp cut of his eyes when no one else was paying attention. This performance was for their sake, not mine.

  The pilots perform the final checks, and as the doors close, I hear Seske’s voice. I guess she’s come to see me off after all. My heart quickens, becomes like a hammer in my chest, pounding hard in my ears. She’d run away again. I was worried, but the rest of the family seemed unbothered. Perhaps they’d finally grown tired of her impulsive escapades. But her absence had felt different to me this time. It was days instead of hours, and the culprits she usually ran off with were all accounted for. Seske is safe now, and that’s all that matters.

  She’s shouting. I can’t make out her frantic words over the hum of the engines, though. Something about the star. Something important.

  I struggle against my restraints, craning my neck to see if I can see her through the cockpit window, but she’s hidden from view by the bulk of the seat in front of me. A few moments later, the ship starts rumbling as it exits through bay doors that had once been intrusive metal things but are now a retractable curtain of flesh.

  Then all the world drops away, and we’re surrounded by the void and the vibrant colors of a cottony nebula. In the middle of it sits the blinking star the Zenzee herd now travels toward. We follow the herd. We always have, but now is time to reassess our ways. After several days of rigorous meetings with the Environmental Research Initiative, we concluded that venturing out on our own could be feasible, but only if we had the support of the other Earth clans. There is safety in numbers, in redundancy—just ask the Klang. If we continued to work together and became more open instead of keeping our secrets close to our chests, we could not only be independent of the herd, but we could thrive, taking full advantage of this system of mutualism. We could fully embrace symbiosis and live as one with our Zenzee.

  There is enough fear built up around what the anomalous star holds that many Senators are willing to at least hear the opinions of the other clan leaders. They feel the pressure. With our herd thinning and now acting erratically, we must be open to all options. I’ve got several tactics to address the concerns of dissenting leaders as well. I’m polished. Well-spoken. Politically versed. And while it is difficult to hold myself up to the standards of our Senate, I will not be the only man present in the leadership summit.

  The Renmoor ship is not far off, just beyond the range of weapon’s fire. We have come here to build relationships, but trust is still much too fragile to risk that sort of vulnerability. I can make out the Zenzee of the other clans in the distance. From what I’ve been told, nearly half of the leaders lean toward separating from the herd, though I haven’t been told a lot. Despite our treaties, the wall of secrecy has not been breached. Communication between the clans has to be cautious and calculated. This summit will hopefully change that.

  As the leaders arrive aboard the Renmoor ship, we are escorted to a great hall that would map approximately to our throne room. Their Hall of Representatives is something like our Senate, but much larger in membership, and they report to no one except the people. They dress in heavy leathers, which I find out are made from the tanned hides of gall worm larvae right before their final molting. The cut of their clothing is simple, though the natural hide patterns do make for interesting design, boasting mottled browns and greens. They also wear dozens of gauzy ribbons in their hair. From quick observations on how people interact with one another, I can tell the different colors have meaning, but what that meaning is remains lost to me, just as I’m sure our braids are lost on them.

  The men from the Serrata are here, too. I recognize one from the video conference we’d had so long ago—their leader, Commander Chubahl. They dress in bulky moss cloaks, the smelly stuff that grows prolifically near the ponds by the old boneworker blocks. We have a dozen people whose job it is to keep the moss trimmed back and from taking over the water supply. It is possible that somehow we’ve created nutrient-dense runoff that speeds its growth or have killed off one of its natural predators. I will be sure to ask the Serrata if they have any ideas on how to keep the moss under control.

  The Ulaud delegation is clad in intricately layered silks that resemble the petals of a flower, and with all four of them, an obvious gender doesn’t stand out. They’ve brought a sleek and statuesque wash hoglet with them as well—thoroughly groomed with better manners than half the people here.

  Then there are the Vaz who are cloaked in all black and seem to speak only in parables; the Illiam who have pieces of copper technology embedded in their skin that they constantly stroke—perhaps communicating silently with one another; and the Cantors who spontaneously ululate when the fancy strikes and switch from one topic to the next so quickly that I get a headache if I linger in a conversation too long. And there are another five delegations that I haven’t even met yet. I marvel at how different we all are, cut from the fabric of the same Mother Earth. Those differences are to be celebrated. They will give us the best chance of continuing to survive out here in this hostile environment.

  The first day of the summit starts off relatively stress free, even with the fate of our species on the line. We do team-building exercises, each delegation being responsible for leading one. Our hosts, the Renmoor, go first. Their leader, Pasma Lang, passes cards out to the delegation leaders, each containing a series of numbers. We receive a bowl of marbles as well, and an empty glass jar, and whenever one of the numbers on our card is called, we are to drop a marble into the jar. Halfway through the exercise, I have twice as many marbles in my jar as the next delegation and feel as though I’m close to winning whatever it is we’re playing.

  Finally, after the last number is read, we are asked to call out the number of marbles in the jar. “Eleven” shout the Serratta delegation. “Six,” say the Illiam. “Twenty-three,” I call out proudly. Thirteen. Nine. Twelve. Eight. Six. Four. Four.

  “Three” say the Renmoor, looking smug in their colorful hair ribbons. It is then that I realize this is a game where the smaller number wins.

  “Each marble represents—to the best of our records, which we assure you are quite thorough—the number of Zenzee your people have harvested over the past two-hundred and ten years. These marbles represent the lives we have taken. Please let them sit in front of you for the remainder of the day as a reminder of where we are coming from, and where we want to go.”

  The Ulaud delegate holds up an empty jar. “We are in favor
of breaking away from the herd and removing the temptation to continue down the path we’ve been on. It’s time that we venture out on our own . . .”

  I grit my teeth, feeling even more embarrassed with this too-full jar sitting in front of me, and I’m pained to know there would be many, many more marbles here if we started counting from the beginning. I feel as though maybe all these years, we haven’t even been trying. While all eyes are locked on the Ulaud delegate, I swipe a handful of marbles from my jar and stick them in my pocket. It doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it makes me feel worse. Wasn’t I the one always pressing others to remember?

  “It is not time to discuss that just yet,” Pasma Lang says, interrupting the Ulaud’s plea to separate. “We are still getting to know one another. Building trust takes time.”

  The Ulaud delegate looks offended by the prospect of trusting anyone else in this room and sets their jar back down on the table with an agitated huff.

  The Vaz’s exercise involves composing a heavily structured poem about our hopes for the future and then reading it in front of the room. Words refuse to come to me—though I am not sure if it is hope that I am lacking or poetic skill. In the end, I cheat and scribble down the fifteenth verse of the Wedding Ballad, switching up the number of syllables in the couplets to align with the assignment.

  I suffer through four more exercises before the Serrata’s, which is a drinking game that apparently involves a very sacred rum and honest confessions to each other that border on insults and verbal abuse. By the end of it, tempers have flared, and we decide to take a break from the presentations and stretch our legs. Some of the delegations had opted out of the rum and instead consumed spiced beetle milk, but many others are tipsy as we mingle. It seems like the perfect time to approach them to dig deeper into my hunches about the ratio of men to women in their clans. I already know about Serrata and their lack of women, plus, they appeared to have taken their game a little too seriously and are all passed out, so I approach one of the other men present.

  “I’m Doka,” I say, extending my hand to the head of the Tertian delegation, who’s surrounded by a group of fierce-looking guards. “Doka Kaleigh, from the Parados I.”

  “Pleased to meet you. I’m Admiral Wallund Erisson,” says the man. He extends his hand and gives me a hearty handshake before pulling me into a hug, as if we’ve known each other forever. “You’re the ones that suggested that we start strategically repopulating the heart murmur colonies? The treaty has been a godsend to us. Life aboard our Zenzee has improved tenfold.”

  A joyous warmth runs through me. “I’m glad our ERI reports have been useful for you.”

  “I am surprised now that the idea came from a clan that has slaughtered so many Zenzee. Did you see how many marbles we had? Thirteen. I was sure we’d have the most, but then there you go, just showing off how good you are at culling. The initial harvesting requires such precision and so much effort. I am truly impressed.”

  I wince at the compliment. Is it even a compliment? “Our past with the Zenzee is not something we are proud of, but our Environmental Research Initiative has been making strides.”

  “You are too modest. And you’ve taken in the Klang. Very noble of you. We would have offered, you know, but politics can be brutal. We were already dealing with the fallout from our last revolution. Eight coups in twice as many years. Bombings. Poisonings. Stabbings. My predecessor was pushed out of an airlock on our most holy holiday, and her predecessor was killed in his sleep by his wife of seven years.”

  My ears perk up. “So it’s not unusual for you to have male leaders?”

  “Heavens, no! Seems a little boorish to determine leadership abilities based on what people have in their pants, does it not?”

  I nod my head vigorously. I want to know more, but I’m anxious about asking the wrong question. I steady my nerves anyway, hoping I can arm myself with ideas to go up against the Senate. “So you would say that aboard your Zenzee, men and women are treated as equals?”

  Admiral Erisson pats me on the cheek with his rough, heavy hand. “How quaint. It’s no wonder your people are chewing through Zenzee with such haste. You don’t take time to think. To observe. Such limiting distinctions are wholly inadequate and have no bearing on the quality of a leader.”

  “I know this!” I say, practically shouting. I look around, hoping I haven’t caused too much of a commotion, but all the other delegates are either too drunk or too caught up in other conversations to care about me and my outburst. I think of the needless challenges I’ve faced as a man. I think of how things could have been easier for Kallum—before his bud and capping ceremony and after, if he’d had the support he’d needed to navigate a world that was so suddenly against him. Maybe he wouldn’t have felt like an asterisk this whole time. I don’t want anyone to feel like that, but we are so entrenched in our ways, I don’t even know where to start. “What can we do to be more like your people?”

  Admiral Erisson serves me a knowing smile, then nods. “First, you need to stop trying to sort people into buckets, or you’ll miss the beauty and strength of the variation amongst us. It is a much better strategy to indoctrinate all children and train them in the ways of combat. Natural leaders will rise through the ranks regardless of sex or gender. We have a series of tests . . . Sizing Battles, we call them, to weed out the weak and undeserving.”

  “You . . . train your children to be fighters?”

  “Warriors. And more than that. Passionate about life and seizing opportunities. To always think ten steps ahead and never turn down a challenge. To be ready to fight at the drop of a hat and kill if necessary. You have children?”

  “One,” I say, afraid to admit it to this man. “Six months old.”

  “Ah, good age to start pre-tactical training. You should paint a red dot on the back of the left hand and a blue dot on the right hand to facilitate hand-eye coordination while they are crawling. It’s never too early to start shaping a warrior.”

  I smile, teeth clenched. “That’s nice,” I mumble, wondering how long it will be before someone tries to kill him in his sleep.

  So, theirs isn’t exactly the society I am hoping to emulate, but there are plenty of other people here. Somehow, though, I manage to offend three of the other delegates with my prying questions. Thankfully, Admiral Erisson steps in, urging me back to my seat so that he can begin his exercise, something he calls “trust falls.”

  He walks into the middle of the room, then makes a clicking sound, and Hattie, his assistant, comes running, taking up position behind him. She’s slightly built and painfully plain, with long, straight hair the yellow of powdered fungus.

  “It is an easy exercise,” Admiral Erisson says. “You don’t have to count marbles, recall your history, or drink until you retch. All you have to do is trust.” He crosses his arms over his chest, then leans back. Hattie stretches her arms out in waiting. Finally, Admiral Erisson tips, and Hattie catches him in her arms, as if they’ve practiced this a million times.

  “Now I recognize that it is easy for me to trust Hattie. She has been by my side as my aide for eleven years, and we were friends even before that. What will take true courage is turning to your neighbor, a person you only met hours ago, and trusting that they will not let your head crack against this hard floor!” Admiral Erisson lets loose a boisterous laugh. “Are we ready? Now everybody pair off.”

  I make eye contact with the Ulaud leader, but they look past me and pair up with the leader of the Renmoor. The leader on my other side has already paired up with Commander Chubahl from the Serratta.

  “Doka Kaleigh! Looks like you’re with me,” says Admiral Erisson. He waves me over to his spot at the front of the room. “Are you ready? Building trust between our people is vital. It is something I learned quickly. There are many factions among our clan, and our confidence in one another is brittle, but we are starting the process of healing.”

  “We are going through some similar things on the Parados I
,” I say. I suddenly feel ill-equipped to represent such a diverse range of experiences, but maybe Admiral Erisson is right, and I’ll be able to take what I learn here back to our people.

  “Here, then. Let me show you how this works.” Admiral Erisson spreads his arms wide, waving me toward him with his fingertips.

  I take a deep breath, then face away from him. I imagine Tesaryn Wen behind me. I wouldn’t trust her to serve me tea, much less saving me from falling. And yet here I am, entrusting a virtual stranger who I’m pretty sure runs a baby fighting ring. “Okay, here I go,” I say, putting my arms to my chest, closing my eyes, and hoping for the best. I lean back, feeling my center of gravity shift to an uncomfortable place in my gut. Next thing I know, I’m falling. Not half a second later, I’m safely cradled in Admiral Erisson’s very muscular arms. He props me back up, the rush of adrenaline still coursing through me. “That was pretty amazing,” I say to him. Then I hold my arms out. “Your turn.”

  He looks me up and down, then turns his attention back to the rest of the delegates. “It seems like everyone has already finished up and is getting back to their seats. Perhaps another time.”

  “Perhaps,” I say with a slight bend on my brow. So much for practicing what he preaches.

  My own team-building exercise doesn’t go over as well as I hoped. I’d had everyone close their eyes and imagine what Zenzee organ would best represent them and describe how it’d feel to function. My intent was to forge a mental bond with our Zenzee, but it quickly devolved into laughter after Commander Chubahl chose to represent the Zenzee’s sex organs and went into quite graphic detail about how they worked.

  After that, I am more than ready when we retire for the night.