SHIP’S BROTHER
Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard is a software engineer who was born in the United States, but grew up in France, where she still lives. Only a few years into her career, her short fiction has appeared in Interzone, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkseworld, Realms of Fantasy, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Writers of the Future, Coyote Wild, Electric Velocipede, The Immersion Book of SF, Fictitious Force, Shimmer, and elsewhere, and she won the British SF Association Award for her story “The Shipmaker.” Her novels include Servant of the Underworld, Harbinger of the Storm, and Master of the House of Darts, all recently reissued in a novel omnibus, Obsidian and Blood. Her most recent book is a chapbook novella, On a Red Station, Drifting.
The engrossing story that follows takes us to the far future of an alternate world where a high-tech conflict is going on between spacefaring Mayan and Chinese empires, and women give birth to children who are prenatally altered in the womb to become the control systems of living spaceships. This one deals with the ultimate sibling rivalry, as a brother traumatized by witnessing the birth of his “sister,” who then becomes the starship The Fisherman’s Song, develops a lifetime enmity for her, and eventually enters into an adversarial relationship with her and her kind that has dramatic consequences for the rest of the family. . . .
YOU NEVER LIKED your sister.
I know you tried your best; that you would stay awake at night thinking on filial piety and family duty; praying to your ancestors and the bodhisattva Quan Am to find strength; but that it would always come back to that core of dark thoughts within you, that fundamental fright you carried with you like a yin shadow in your heart.
I know, of course, where it started. I took you to the mind-ship — because I had no choice, because Khi Phach was away on some merchant trip to the Twenty-Third Planet — because you were a quiet and well-behaved son, and the birth-master would have attendants to take care of you. You had just turned eight— had stayed up all night for Tet, and shaken your head at the red envelopes, telling me you were no longer a child and didn’t need money for toys and sweets.
When we disembarked from the shuttle, I had to pause — it was almost time for your sister to be born, and I felt my entire body had grown still — my lungs afire, my muscles seized up, and your sister in my womb stopping her incessant thrashing for a brief, agonizing moment. And I felt, as I always did during a contraction, my thoughts slipping away, down the birth canal to follow your sister; felt myself die, little by little, my self extinguishing itself like a flame.
Like all Minds, she was hungry for the touch of a human soul; entwined around my thoughts, and in her eagerness to be born, she was pushing outwards, dragging me with her — I remembered pictures and holos of postbirth bearers, their faces slack, their eyes empty, their thought-nets as pale as the waning moon, and for a moment — before my lips curled around the mantras of the birth-masters — I felt a sliver of ice in my heart, a hollow of fear within my belly — the thought that it could be me, that it would be me, that I wasn’t strong enough . . .
And then it passed; and I stood, breathing hard, in the center of the mind-ship they had laid out for my daughter.
“Mommy?” you asked.
“I’m fine, child,” I said, slowly — breathing in the miracle of air, struggling to string together words that made sense. “I’m fine.”
We walked together to the heartroom, where the birth-master would be waiting for us. Within me, your sister was tossing and turning — throbbing incessantly, a beating heart, a pulsing machine, the weight of metal and optics within my womb. I ran my hands on the metal walls of the curving corridors, feeling oily warmth under my fingers — and your sister pulsed and throbbed and spoke within me, as if she were already eager to fly within the deep spaces.
You were by my side, watching everything with growing awe — silenced, for once, by the myriad red lanterns hung on rafters; by the holos in the corridors depicting scenes from The Tale of Kieu and The Two Sisters in Exile; by the characters gleaming on doors and walls — you ran everywhere, touched everything, laughing; and my heart seemed full of the sound of your voice.
The contractions were closer together, and the pain in my back never seemed to go away; from time to time, it would rack my entire body, and I bit my tongue not to cry out. The mantras were in my mind now; part of the incessant litany I kept whispering, over and over, to keep myself whole, to hold to the center of my being.
I had never prayed so hard in my entire life.
In the heartroom, the birth-master was waiting for us, with a cup of freshly brewed tea. I breathed in the flowery smell, watched the leaves dance within the shivering water — trying to remember what it felt to be light on my feet, to be free of pain and fatigue and nausea. “She’s coming,” I said, at last. I might have said something else, in other circumstances; made a comment from the Classic of Tea, quoted some poet like Nguyen Trai or Xuan Dieu; but my mind seemed to have deserted me.
“She is,” the birth-master said, gravely. “It’s almost over now, older aunt. You have to be strong.”
I was; I tried; but it all slid like tears on polished jade. I was strong, but so was the Mind in my belly. And I could see other things in the room, too — the charms against death, and the bundle at the back of the room, which would hold the injector — they’d asked me what to do, should the birth go wrong, should I lose my mind, and I had told them I would rather die. It had seemed easy, at the time; but now that I stood facing a very real possibility it seemed very different.
I hadn’t heard you for a while. When I looked up, you were still; watching the center of the room, utterly silent, utterly unmoving. “Mommy . . .”
It looked like a throne; if thrones could have protrusions and metal parts; and a geometry that seemed to continually reshape itself — like the spikes of a durian fruit, I’d thought earlier on, when they hadn’t yet implanted your sister in my womb, but now it didn’t feel quite so funny or innocuous. Now it was real.
“This is where the Mind comes to rest,” the birth-master said. He laid a hand in the midst of the thing, into a hollow that seemed no bigger than a child’s body. “As you see, all the proper connections are already in place.” A mass of cables and fibers and sockets, and other things I couldn’t recognize — all tangled together like a nest of snakes. “Your mommy will have to be very brave.”
Another contraction racked through me, a wave that went from my womb to my back, stilling the world around us. I no longer felt huge or heavy; but merely detached, watching myself with growing anger and fear. This, now; this was real. Your sister would be born and plugged into the ship, and make it come alive; and I would have done my duty to the Emperor and to my ancestors. Else . . .
I vaguely heard the birth-master speak of courage again, and how I was the strongest woman he knew; and then the pain was back, and I doubled over, crying out.
“Mommy!”
“I’m — fine —” I whispered, trying to hold my belly — trying to keep myself still, to gather my thoughts together — she was strong and determined, your sister, hungry for life, hungry for her mother’s touch.
“You’re not fine,” you said, and your voice suddenly sounded like that of an adult — grave and composed, and tinged with so much fear it brought me back to the world, for a brief moment.
I saw on the floor a puddle of blood that shone with the sheen of machine oil — how odd, I thought, before realizing that I was the one bleeding, the one dying piece by piece; and I was on the floor though I didn’t remember kneeling, and the pain was flaring in my womb and in my back — and someone was screaming — I thought it was the birth-master, but it was me, it had always been me . . .
“Mommy,” you said, from somewhere far away. “Mommy!” Your hands were wet with blood; and the birth-master’s attendants were dragging you away, thank the ancestors. There were strong hands on me, whispering that I should hold, ride the crest of the pain, wait
before I pushed, lest I lose myself altogether, scatter my own thoughts as your sister made her way out of my womb. My tongue was heavy with the repeated mantras, my lips bloodied where I had bit them; and I struggled to hold myself together, when all I longed for was to open up like a lotus flower; to scatter my thoughts like seeds upon the wind.
But through the haze of pain I saw you — saw, in the moment before the door closed upon you, the expression on your face; and I knew then that you’d never forget this, no matter how it all ended.
Of course, you never forgot, or forgave. Your sister was born safely; though I remained weak ever after, moving slowly through my own home, with bones that felt made of glass; and my thoughts always seemed to move sluggishly, as if part of me had really followed her out of the birth canal. But it all paled when they finally let me stand in the ship; when I felt it come to life under my feet; when I saw colors shift on the wall, and metal take on the sheen of oil; when the paintings slowly faded away, to be replaced by the lines of poetry I’d read to your sister in the womb — and when I heard a voice deeper than the emptiness of space whisper to me, “Mother.”
The mind-ship was called The Fisherman’s Song; and that became your sister’s name; but in my heart she was always Mi Nuong, after the princess in the fairytale, the one who fell in love with her unseen fisherman.
But to you, she was the enemy.
You put away the Classics and the poets, and stole my books and holos about pregnancies and Minds — reading late at night, and asking me a thousand questions that I didn’t always have the answer to. I thought you sought to understand your sister; but of course I was wrong.
I remember a day seven years after the birth — Khi Phach was away again to discuss shipments with some large suppliers, and you’d convinced me to have a banquet. You’d come to me in my office and told me that I shouldn’t be so preoccupied with my husband and children. I almost laughed; but you looked so much in earnest, so concerned about me, that my whole body suddenly felt light, infused with warmth. “Of course, child,” I said; and saw you smile, an expression that illuminated your entire being.
It was a huge banquet: in addition to our relatives, I’d invited my scholar classmates, and some of your friends so you wouldn’t get bored. I’d expected you to wander off during the preparations, to find your friends or some assignment you absolutely had to study; but you didn’t. You stood in the kitchen, fetching bits and pieces, and helping me make salad rolls and shrimp toasts — and mixed dipping sauces with such concentration, as if they were all that mattered in the world.
Your sister was there too — not physically present, but she’d linked herself to the house’s com systems, and her translucent avatar stood in the kitchen: a smaller model of The Fisherman’s Song that floated around the room, giving us instructions about the various recipes, and laughing when we tore rice papers or dashed across the room for a missing ingredient. For once, you seemed not to mind her presence; and everything in the household seemed . . . harmonious and ideal, the dream put forth by the Classics.
At the banquet, I was surprised to find you sitting at my table — it wasn’t so much the breach of etiquette, I had never been over-concerned with such strictures, as something else. “Shouldn’t you be with your friends?” I asked.
You glanced, carelessly, to the end of the room, where the younger people sat: candidates to the mandarin exams, like you; and a group of paleskinned outsiders, who looked a bit dazed, doing their best to follow the conversations by their side. “I can be with them later,” you said, making a dismissive gesture with your hands. “There’s plenty of time.”
“There’s also plenty of time to be with me,” I pointed out.
You pulled your chair, and sat down with a grimace. “Time passes,” you said at last. “Mother . . .”
I laughed. “I’m not that frail.” Though I felt weak that particular night, my bones and womb aching, as if in memory of giving birth to your sister; but I didn’t tell you that.
“Of course you’re not.” You looked awkward, staring at your bowl as if you didn’t know what to say anymore. Of course, you were fifteen — no adult yet, and ancestors know even Khi Phach had never mastered the art of small conversation.
I glanced at Mi Nuong. Your sister didn’t eat; and so she spent the banquet at the back of the room, at a table with the avatars of other ships — knowing her, she’d be steering the conversation at the table to literature, and then disengage and listen to everyone’s ideas. It seemed as though everything was going well; and I turned back to the people around my table.
After a while, I found myself deep in talk with Scholar Soi, one of my oldest friends from the Academy; and paying less attention to you, though you intervened from time to time in the discussion, bringing up a reference or a quotation you thought apt — you’d learnt your lessons well.
Soi beamed at you. “Wonderful boy. Ready to sit for your mandarin exams, I’d say.”
You looked pale, then, as if you’d swallowed something that had got stuck in your throat. “I’m not sure, elder aunt.”
“Modesty becomes you. Of course you’re ready. The fear will go away once you’re sitting in your exam cell, facing the dissertation subject.” She smiled fondly at that. You still looked ill; and I resolved to speak to you afterwards, to tell you that you had nothing to fear.
“In fact,” Soi said, “we should have something right here, right now. A poetry competition, to give everyone a chance to shine. What do you think, child?”
I’d expected you to say no; but you actually looked interested. If there was one thing you shared with your sister and with me, it was your love of words. “I’d be honored, elder aunt.”
“Younger sister?” Soi asked me, but I shook my head.
I don’t know how Soi did it, but she soon got most of the guests gathered around a table laden with wine cups — making florid gestures with her arms as she explained the rules. The outsiders, who didn’t speak the language very well, had all declined, except for one; but it was still a sizeable audience. You stood at the forefront of it, eagerly hanging on to Soi’s every word.
As Soi handed out turns for composing poetry, I found Mi Nuong hovering by my side. “I thought you’d be with them,” I said.
“What about you, Mother?”
I sighed. “He’s fifteen, and proud of his learning. He doesn’t need to compete with his forty-year-old mother.”
“Or with his sister.” Mi Nuong’s voice was uncannily serene; but of course, navigating the deep spaces, the odd dimensions that folded space back upon itself, she saw things we didn’t.
“No,” I said at last. I wasn’t blind; and had seen the way you avoided her.
“It doesn’t matter, Mother,” Mi Nuong said, still in the same serene tones. “He’ll come around.”
“You sound like you can see the future.”
“Of course not.” She sounded amused. “It would be nice, though.” She fell silent, then; and I knew what she was thinking: that she didn’t need to see the future to know that she’d outlive us all. Minds lived for centuries.
“Don’t—” I started, but she cut me.
“Don’t worry about me. It’s not that bad. I have so many more things to worry about, it doesn’t really loom large.” She sighed — I knew she was lying to reassure me, but I didn’t press the point. “Look at him. He’s still such a child.”
And she wasn’t, not anymore — Minds didn’t age or mature at the same rate as humans. Perhaps it was her physiology, perhaps it was the mere act of crossing deep spaces so often, but she sounded disturbingly adult; even older than I sometimes. “You can’t hold him to your standards.”
She laughed — girlish, carefree. “Of course not. He’s human.”
“But still your brother?” I asked.
“Don’t be silly, Mother. Of course he’s my brother. He’s such an idiot sometimes, but then so am I. It’s what ties us together.” Her voice was brimming with fond amusement; and her a
vatar nudged slightly closer to me, to get a better view of the contest. Everyone was laughing now, as a very tipsy scholar attempted to compose a poem about autumn and wine, and mangled words. The lone outsider stood by your side, and didn’t laugh: his eyes were dark and intent, and he had a hand on your shoulder as he spoke to you — it looked as if he was trying to reassure you, which I couldn’t fault him for.
“He worries for nothing,” Mi Nuong said. “He’ll win with ease.”
And, indeed, when your turn came, you got up, gently setting aside the outsider’s hand — and made up a poem about crab-flowers, making puns and references to other poems effortlessly, as if it was all part of some inner flow you could dip into. People stood, silent, as if struck with awe; and then Soi bowed to you, as younger to elder, and everyone else started to crowd around you in order to give you congratulations.
“See? I told you. He’ll fly through his examinations, get a mandarin posting wherever he wants,” Mi Nuong said.
“Of course he will,” I said. I’d never doubted it; never questioned that you had my talent for literature, and Khi Phach’s cunning and practical intelligence.
I looked at you — at the way you stood with your arms splayed out, basking in the praise of scholars; at your face still flushed with the declaiming of poetry — and you looked back at me, and saw me sitting with your sister by my side; and your face darkened in that moment, became as brittle as thin ice.
I felt a shiver go down my spine — as if some dark spirit had touched me and cast a shadow over all the paths of my future.
But the shadow never seemed to materialize: you passed your mandarin exams with ease — and awaited a posting from the government, though you closeted yourself with your friends and wouldn’t confide any of your plans to us.
The summer after your exams, we went to see Mi Nuong — you and me and Khi Phach, who had just returned from his latest expedition. We took a lift to the orbital that held the spaceport — watching the fractured continents of the Eighteenth planet recede to a string of pearls in the middle of the ocean.
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