Toxic

by Lydia Kang

  “Thank you! Oh, thank you, Portia! And please—”

  “Don’t tell Doran? I won’t. But don’t ask me to do anything like this again.”

  I nod, and she leaves. I watch the readouts for the next several hours, until it’s time to follow Fenn’s nanobots as they delve deeper into Cyclo’s matrix. The information they’re collecting is massive, so many readouts that a single glance of it on Fenn’s visor makes me dizzy. We don’t even eat until we’re done, and by that time, everyone on the crew is exhausted.

  Back at the bridge, everyone’s ready for a meal and sleep, but Doran insists on a data review. I’m buzzing with excitement over my cell culture rebellion, but of course stay quiet, as do Fenn and Portia. Nutrient bars and drinks are handed out, but no one eats much. Portia takes a bite and forces it down, and Gammand sniffs it and eats three at once, but he doesn’t look like he’s enjoying the process.

  “Okay,” Doran says, showing up in our holofeeds. “This is what we know so far—not that we need to know, but we can use the info to maximize our mission days here on the Calathus—”

  Which, after a sidelong glance from Fenn, I deduce must be code-speak for our very survival.

  “Possibly up to a week.”

  One week. The crew perks up a little. A week of extra life is nothing to sneeze at, as my mother would say, except that the idiom never made sense to me, and I never asked. Anyway.

  “An extra week! That’s great,” Fenn says.

  “No, I mean, a week total.”

  Wait. What?

  “What did you say?” Gammand says, standing. “We have a week? We had three weeks when we landed. Then two. It’s only been… We should still have eleven days left! Now only seven?” He turns to Portia. “I thought that hormone experiment extended us by a day!”

  “It did,” Portia says. She doesn’t look shocked at all by what Doran just said. She stands to her full height and uses a portable holo projector to display a complicated graph in the center of the room.

  “Everything I’m gathering involves the symbiotic relationship between humans and Cyclo, as well as the plethora of microorganisms within and on the surface of the matrix. Her microorganism biome is nonpathogenic by nature, and—”

  “English,” Fenn says. “Speak English, Portia. Please.”

  “I am. Get a translator or a dictionary or an education, I don’t care.” She turns to me instead and keeps going. I can see Fenn rolling his eyes next to me. “As I was saying, the bacteria that live naturally within Cyclo don’t hurt her or us. But Cyclo has changed so much in only the last forty-eight hours. Many of these natural, healthy bacteria have died, and in their absence, other dangerous strains have become aggressive.”

  “So you’re saying she’s becoming a petri dish of infectious soup,” Fenn says.

  Portia bares her black gums at him. I tap quietly on Fenn’s back.

  ... - --- .--. .. -

  Stop it.

  He presses his lips together and settles down. Good.

  “Can they affect us?” I ask. “These bacteria?”

  “Possibly. You should try not to break skin when possible. We don’t need new routes of infection, as we have limited first aid supplies.”

  “What about how Cyclo is dealing with us on board?” Gammand asks.

  “So far, so good. Since no one is hibernating or sleeping within her matrix anymore, we’re losing some data there—but Fenn’s stay inside her matrix showed that hibernation was relatively safe at one point on the graph. Otherwise, she’s accepted us like her previous crew.”

  “Are there any updates on what happened to Miki?” I ask.

  “No,” Doran says. He looks pointedly at me from Fenn’s holo. “We still don’t understand who did it, or why. I had Fenn run a DNA diagnostic, and at least in the areas where he’s searched so far, there are no traces of Miki’s DNA on the ship.”

  “You did?” I whisper to him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Doran’s orders,” he whispers back.

  “Oh.”

  “What about another passenger on the ship? Someone hidden, who might have killed her?” Fenn asks Doran.

  “There’s so much leftover DNA scattered throughout the ship from the previous passengers that we can’t verify another living life form.”

  Gammand stands to show us the data downloads he’s been packaging into different forms—but he loses me quickly with his talk of quantum data binders and respooling DNA drives. Fenn stands and illuminates the center of the room with a structural model of Cyclo. Vast swaths of her body are color-coded. Not the Cyclo language I know, but the crew’s own designations. About one quarter of her is bright red, but not all in the same places. He goes through the colors—which zones are safest for us, and which ones are too toxic. On the map, red is very bad.

  “How toxic are we talking?” Portia says.

  “Not compatible with organic life,” Fenn says. “The info I’ve picked up, from drones sent through about seventy percent of the ship, shows that the toxic levels in these red zones mean we’d die within seconds. Temperatures there have plummeted to below freezing, and some of the radiation leaks are bad. But the worst is southeast delta, gamma, and a few small sections of beta. Her ability to make and store light energy in her mantle was bad before. Yesterday it got a last surge of energy input, now it’s completely shot.”

  At this, I look out the window of the bridge and see Cyclo’s filmy, ethereal mantle spreading out into space. It’s a deep, dark blue, and I can barely see the edge of it as it thins out. I wish I could have seen it when it was brilliant orange and red, capturing light far into the UV spectrum from the nearby stars. Gammand coughs, and I remember to listen to him.

  “The Calathus’s energy stores are slowly depleting. She recycles waste very well, but she’s running out of recyclables. So her burst vacuoles in the core are sealed for now, and Cyclo added another layer of protection in the last twelve hours. But the chemicals there are incredibly toxic. Even the hardiest organisms known in the universe couldn’t survive this.”

  “Oh. You mean Quintifia sporolirus,” I say. “It can survive temperatures on both ends of the spectrum beyond any living thing, extremes of pressures and radiation levels, too.” Portia nods appreciatively at my words. There is a camaraderie, I’m finding, between people who understand small units of information that perhaps no one else finds interesting. I’ve felt this way about Fenn. But it also makes me want to spend a whole day with Portia talking about impossibly strong, small things. I am finding that I may be one of them.

  Gammand turns to all of us. “All of your holofeed units will have constantly updating info on where you can work safely. In the meantime, it’s time to sleep.”

  “Too hungry to sleep,” Portia says, groaning.

  “You have your food ration,” he says.

  “I’m so sick of our rations,” Portia says.

  “I can get something different,” I say. “In my room. I’ve a supply.”

  “Does it look like a lump of mud, in brick form?” Gammand asks.

  “Well, no…” I say.

  “Then I’m going with you.” He stands up and heads for the door. “I’d prefer not to live my last days eating bricks.”

  “It’s just reconstitutes and freeze-dried food, though. Nothing fresh,” I warn.

  “As if we’ve eaten anything fresh in the last year,” Portia says. “Come on. Let’s go to your little room. I’m so hungry I could trzlia grookna.”

  I don’t know what that means, but I think perhaps I shouldn’t be anywhere near her mouth when Portia is hungry.

  “I’m coming, too,” Fenn says. “Starving.”

  Gammand actually laughs. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him laugh out loud, and the sound is grand and bright. The corners of my mouth twitch, bewitching and asking me to smile. Portia
and Fenn grin at each other. I get the feeling that these glimpses of Gammand are rare and precious, and they all seem cheered up beyond their usual selves.

  I don’t have a right to smile, not while so many terrible things battle to keep me lead-heavy with sadness. Mother, Cyclo, Miki. The inescapable feeling that I am losing a game that I never agreed to play.

  But there is Fenn’s laugh, tempting me now, right now, to find even the smallest quark of joy.

  What am I waiting for?

  Will I be a terrible person for feeling joy again?

  Custom says I should be sad. Sad for a long time.

  But I am tired, so tired of falling in neat lines, and staying inside boundaries that have been defined by everyone but myself.

  I grin irreverently and laugh, too. It sounds like a bird chirping in my own ears. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  FENN

  I have never heard Hana laugh. And I’ve never seen it, either. It’s an Ipineq orchid bursting its fuchsia seeds in a firework of popping luminescence. It’s the first moonrise of the fall harvest.

  It’s me, now, a person who’s never really been allowed happiness. Who am I kidding? I’ve never given myself permission to be happy, either.

  We all follow Hana to her room. The prospect of dinner and the original brightness that came with it has already dimmed with a single statement from Portia:

  “I wish Miki were here.”

  Gammand nods, and my smile disappears. I miss her, too. It’s only been a little while since she left, and yet the heaviness of her absence shows up frequently, a blanket that swallows all of us and snuffs out any good feeling.

  Instead of talking, every single crew member turns on their holofeed to review data, because the numbing effect of work is damn effective. Hana walks ahead of us and chatters quietly with the ship.

  “I know, but they are hungry. They don’t eat like that, Cyclo.”

  “Yes, but most humanoid species have some common foods they can eat.”

  “Of course we’ll fit in the room. You can move the wall, can’t you?”

  The crew and I all exchange glances as we walk.

  “Have you ever needed the ship’s wall translators?” Gammand asks. He points at the mounted nubs along the wall, which have been nonfunctional since we arrived.

  “No,” Hana says. “We had one in my room, but it was too basic.”

  “What do you mean?” Portia asks. Her legs are so long that she looks like she’s walking super slow compared to Hana’s fast-moving legs.

  “Like right now. She’s flashing blue, pink, and gold, with that pattern. She is asking what she should do in case you don’t like the food. If you’ll be warm enough, or if she should change the temperature. Oh, for you! She says that Prinniads like your environment about ten degrees warmer. Is that right?”

  Portia smiles, and her red eyes sparkle, looking like star rubies. “Why yes. That’s correct. I’m so used to being cold when I work with humans, but I get over it. But I’ve studied her language. What I see so far looks like she’s saying, ‘Alternate food choices offer. Warm, more. Prinniad here.’” She smiles again. “There’s so much nuance when you describe her language.”

  The hallways flash amber and gold this time. “What do you think she said?” Hana asks.

  “She said, ‘Prinniad language odd.’ ”

  “No,” Hana corrects her. “She said Prinniadi is like poetry. She’s saying it’s beautiful, but complicated, in a nonlinear way.”

  “I knew I liked this ship. She’s like me. Hard to understand,” Portia says. “Poor thing.”

  I keep walking behind Hana and Portia, watching them chat together. Before long, we get to Hana’s little room. But once inside, it’s transformed. Cyclo has changed the walls and moved them out. We can still see some of the bony matrix receding back in disintegrating splinters to make more room. Pouffed blue blobs have marked the floor here and there. Gammand pokes one with his finger, and the blob makes itself a soft indent in the middle, with a back. Oh. They’re chairs. He sits down, and his legs rise up under another blob of a footrest that lifts from the floor. He folds his hands behind his head and sighs.

  “This is better than my bed at home.”

  Portia looks around the room, noting the few decorations still clinging to the walls—the replica rice paper calligraphy hangings; the Korean masks that look like old men and women laughing, their eyes curved in joy.

  “Miki would have loved to see these,” Portia says sadly. She touches one of the masks. “She was really good at painting.”

  “I would never have guessed,” Hana says.

  “Miki let us see what she wanted. But the first time she saw my eyes, it reminded her of a rare crimson paint she used to use. We spoke of her work when no one else was around.”

  It’s silent for a second. Portia clasps her hands together, but in a way that doesn’t look like she’s praying or beseeching. From my time on the Selkirk, I know that it’s a Prinniad gesture of fear. Like she’s suddenly terrified of being someone that people speak of in the past tense.

  Gammand walks up to her and just stands there. He’s not a talker, but even I’ve appreciated him just being nearby. It’s the closest he ever gets to a hug. I point to another mask.

  “That looks like you, Gammand,” I say. The mask is grimacing comically, and Portia actually laughs. Gammand tries to recreate the face, and it’s hilarious.

  “Miki would have loved that one, too. She’d say it was prettier than you!” Portia says. While Gammand and Portia’s laughter quiets to more gentle chatter about Miki, Hana sidles up to me.

  “I’ve never cooked for more than two people,” Hana whispers to me.

  “I’ll help,” I say, smiling. “After all, I’ve done this once. I can pretend to be an expert.”

  “What is this?” Portia towers over the tiny stove in the room. It looks like a toy next to her.

  “It’s for cooking,” Hana says. “My mother had it brought in during a shipment around twenty years ago.”

  “So it works with…fire?” Portia says, examining the knobs and the back.

  “It has resistive heating coils.”

  “How utterly primitive. Can I try?” she asks.

  Interesting. I’ve never seen Portia this animated about anything. She’s always business, business, business. Not a shred of extra energy spent on emotion of any kind.

  “You can boil the water. I’ll need help reconstituting the dehydrates. It’s not cooking, but if you don’t do it right, some of the vegetable banchan will come out very mushy.”

  Gammand ambles over. “There’s no water containment unit here. I can go back and get some.”

  “Oh, Cyclo can give us ultrafiltrate right here.”

  “Can she?” His eyebrows go up. Hana takes him to the wall where she sets down a large, empty bowl. Water condenses on the surface of the wall and drips right into the bowl, filling it quickly. “Let me test that to make sure it’s safe,” he says, moving a handheld monitor over the mini waterfall. “Huh. Interesting. It’s not just water. It has trace amounts of calcium, magnesium, and potassium.”

  “Cyclo makes it so it replicates spring water from Korea, from the nineteenth century,” Hana tells him. She’s already put the water on to boil, and Portia is doling out dehydrates to add. Gammand has found a collection of different-sized bowls and mismatched spoons, and is setting them on the low ebony table that Cyclo has expanded upon with blue material. It’s so weird to see him actually participating.

  “We’re sitting on the floor?” he asks.

  “It’s the custom,” Hana says, before she freezes. Something about her own words seems to bother her, and she shakes it off before turning back to the stove. The next hour is a flurry of boiling water, steam, mixing, seasoning, and trickles of laughter. Gammand reluctantly sh
ares a flask of spirits that’s passed around. Hana tastes it but makes a face so comical that I want to kiss it. I take a swig, but it’s not my thing, these old-fashioned ways of mental alteration. I don’t get thrills from mind-altering substances. Thievery is way better. The thrill of success is quite heady. It occurs to me that I haven’t stolen anything recently.

  Right then, Hana peeks over her shoulder to glance at me. She looks down, looks to the side. Then she sees if I’m still watching. It makes my heart run faster than the wristwatch I’m wearing, ticking gently away.

  Maybe there is something I can steal, after all.

  “Are we ready yet? I’m starving,” Gammand gestures to the air as if trying to sweep all the food and people closer to him. I wonder how much he’s been drinking. He’s usually a man of very measured gestures, if any at all.

  Portia and I bring the steaming bowls to the table. There are plates of small vegetables seasoned with sesame seeds, red pepper paste, and garlic, marinated dried fish, and an orangey pickled radish dish of kimchi. It’s amazing what you can do when everything starts out as tiny cubes of ultra-compressed freeze-dried foods. Hana showed us how to reconstitute them using texturizers and forms, which help keep the tiny vegetable dishes from looking like piles of mush. It’s not authentic, I guess, but then again—if we’re engaging in a cultural tradition far removed from its origins, isn’t it still valid for its own sake? I don’t know the answer. I want to ask Hana, but Hana is like the food—created in time and space far from her ancient beginnings. And yet here she is, this precious thing begging to be accepted. She doesn’t need anyone’s permission to be what she is. She’s Hana.

  We all sit around the table and dig in. For a while, there is nothing but the sounds of chewing, slurping, and a few yelps of “I burned my tongue” after spoonfuls of soup. Hana is eating heartily, so different from when we first met and she seemed so frail and pale. There’s a bloom in her cheeks, and they aren’t nearly as carved out anymore. She hasn’t been as tired when we’ve been working and walking the miles upon miles around the ship.