The Network

by Cindy Zhang

  "Great!" Naomi doesn't let any relief show in her face or voice, but it's clear enough what she must be feeling. "Sabine and Eirlys, would you be all right with sharing 38's old room?"

  "Yeah," Sabine stammers. She exchanges a look with Eirlys, who nods. "Yes. Yeah."

  Where else would they go?

  *~*~*

  She doesn't have belongings to unpack, so Eirlys spends a lot of the next half-hour sitting on the bed and being quietly amused at the resentment and awkwardness radiating from next door. Sabine is on the other side of the room two arms' lengths away, sorting through the newly emptied closet. There are little deposits of soil and a few dried leaves in the corners of the room. A desk and chair sit by the door.

  There's an air of giddy stress in the room, and Eirlys barely thinks before she addresses Sabine. "What problem do those two have with each other, do you think?" She watches Sabine startle and turn to face her. "Don't pretend you didn't notice that they never directly speak to each other."

  "It is pretty obvious," Sabine admits. "I'm not great at speculating about strangers' relationships, but…"

  "But?" Eirlys tilts her head to one side, like Earth animals do when they're trying to be endearing. "You have a responsibility to teach me about human social interactions, you know."

  "It's not like this is a standard situation," Sabine protests. "But yeah. I think they might be exes? Like, they used to be in… a romantic relationship, and they broke up."

  "That's already obvious," Eirlys scoffs. "I meant which romance you think they broke out of."

  "Oh." Sabine stands there for a second, eyebrows up. "Culture conflict. We only have one romantic relationship."

  Eirlys remembers having learned that. "Must've forgotten. You don't have words to differentiate between the different kinds?"

  "No. I mean, it depends on how you guys differentiate, I guess." Sabine shrugs, and Eirlys loses interest in this line of conversation. Restless energy crawls up her arms and down her spine, and she hops off the bed.

  "Do you want to go explore?" Explore isn't the right word for it, but she isn't about to expose all her neuroses to Sabine by saying something like "establish the perimeter in case of hostile creatures or unexpected threats" instead. It's a thing she has, with new places. It's not a big deal.

  "Not really," Sabine answers, cutting the edges off her plans. "Do you think we should?" she adds when Eirlys hesitates to answer, ever eager to not upset anyone.

  In this case, it might be better to be honest. "It would make me feel better." Eirlys makes herself look Sabine in the eyes, playing again on human subconscious instinct with little remorse.

  Sabine caves immediately to the suggestion of Eirlys's emotional health, as expected. She almost feels bad for knowing. "Okay," she agrees. "We should probably know our way around in case something happens, anyway." She shuts the closet door, and turns to Eirlys.

  Eirlys wonders if Sabine focused this much on emergency scenarios before the attack happened. She wonders if it would be rude to ask. "All right. Let's go."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "Friendship

  Alliance: Consists of a group of 5-20 sets who don't hate each other or are at least somewhat disposed to be on the same "side"; also, a web of partners. (See below.)

  (Human comparison: friend group, (if romantic:) polyamorous constellation)

  Mentors: Although this is the closest that sets have to a parental relationship, this is in the friendship section because there is no relation to either set's birth. A mentor is often met before an alliance is formed, near the beginning of life, but theoretically it can also develop into a partner relationship. This is unlikely, however, because of consistent growth. Usually by the time a mentor-ee would have caught up, the mentor has split. (See Chapter VIII.)

  (Human comparison: teachers)

  Force: A lot of alliances who share the same broad goal.

  (Human comparison: research team, company, any group of individuals who work together to accomplish a shared motive)

  Family

  Associates: This is a broader term for anyone who was important to a set who has either been hunted down by their Match or split into two or more sets. They still feel a bond to who the subject was, while the current iteration(s) (a pair or the Match in question) is often disposed kindly toward them but does not intimately know them.

  (No adequate human comparison)

  Pair: This is the two or more halves/parts of a set who grew sufficiently over the course of their life to split. There is never a primary pair set, or a set who is most like the original/most developed.

  (Human comparison: siblings)"

  - Excerpts from The Unofficial Guide to Sets, Piper Patel, Chapter III. Relationships and Romance.

  Eirlys all but pulls Sabine out of the room, and Sabine can't help but note that Eirlys is being very careful not to touch her. She wouldn't have thought anything of it if this were any other set, but there's a lot of confusing precedent to draw on, and she doesn't know how she's supposed to interpret this. She can't tell if this is bad, if this is good, if things are going well or not.

  They run into Tel so quickly after they step out that Sabine would suspect she's still stalking them if it weren't for the fact that Tel's room is right next door. Sabine waves and smiles after an awkward beat that makes it clear Eirlys isn't going to put any effort into social pleasantries. "Hey," is all she can think to say.

  "Hey!" Tel waves back. "How are you two settling in?"

  "Good. We're just gonna go look around the ship." Sabine gestures at the hallway behind Tel. "If that's okay," she adds.

  "Of course it's okay. You're going to be done real quick, though. You've already seen half the ship." Tel points down their end of the hallway, where the kitchen and dining area branch off the hallway that they came in through. "It's a dead end down that way, and this hall turns at Naomi's room and stops in the cockpit. You're not allowed in the main hold or the engine room, so really, just looking down the hallway is all you need to do to see the rest of the ship."

  Eirlys slips past Tel to confirm this claim, and Sabine follows. Tel's right—the cockpit room's door is even open, so they can see inside. There's a few sticky-notes plastered along the walls of this hallway, but Sabine can't read what they say.

  "That's all there is to it," Tel says, coming up from behind them. "Hey, while you're out here, you want to hang in the lounge for a bit?"

  Sabine turns to see what Tel's looking at: three beanbags of varying levels of squashiness are crowded around a screen right outside Naomi's bedroom door. It's very clearly not a room, just an awkward bit of the hallway that barely widened out enough to set all this up.

  "Yeah, okay, it's not a lounge," Tel concedes in the face of Sabine's silence. "But I figure it's less depressing than sitting in your room and staring at the bare walls. We can't get anything on the screen when we're not in dock, but I think there's a couple of board games stocked under here?" She crouches down to pull open some drawers under the screen.

  Sabine was really hoping to go back to their room, actually, after settling Eirlys's nerves. She needs time to decompress. The problem is that she can't say no to anyone who seems to have even a little more authority than she does, and when she looks to Eirlys for help, the set doesn't say anything to the effect of "exploring's over and we can go back now". In fact, Eirlys seems a little bit intrigued at the mention of games.

  Tel pulls out her finds and piles them on the floor in front of the beanbags, listing them out as she goes. "We've got Risk, Scrabble, and Jenga… Oh, a couple classics. Chess and Go. No checkers, which is fine. Checkers sucks."

  "Have you played any of these before?" Sabine asks Eirlys, and when she gets a headshake no in response, she starts handing her the instructions from each box. "Why do you have all these board games just lying around?" she asks Tel.

  "Left over from one of our shipments, I think. Or Naomi brought them. I dunno, they were here before my time." Tel starts dumping all th
e little game pieces out, picking up the ones that fell into the bigger box.

  "So you were hired later?" Sabine finds that she's curious about this, now that she might have to live with these people for some time and they aren't actively trying to kill her. "Did you know 38 from before?"

  Tel laughs. "How do I put this? Naomi hired 38 the same morning that Ship and Ast found me trying to stow away to get away from Ayt. We both ended up getting job offers, and we both needed the money. Otherwise I would've split so fast."

  Sabine can't figure out how to ask for more of the story, so she drops the subject with relief when Eirlys interrupts.

  "I'm done reading these." She waves the manuals at Sabine. "Which one are we trying first?"

  "Ooh, wait," Ship cuts in, making everyone but Tel jump. The lights flare orange for a second. "Are we playing games? I love games."

  "You love gambling," Tel corrects.

  "I haven't technically placed any bets with actual currency," Ship argues. "Let me have my fun."

  "Ship's fun has destroyed friendships," Tel informs them. "So it's a good thing none of us are friends in this crew."

  Sabine can't tell where she's joking and where she's serious. She's getting a little tired of trying to decipher these people and their weird dynamics.

  38 opens the door to the room she shares with Tel and pauses when she sees the little gathering, clearly uncomfortable.

  Sabine can't handle the tension. "Hey, do you want to join us?" She feels Eirlys shooting her a look. "We're dusting off all these board games." Part of this is to uncover potential information about her shipmates; the other part is because she doesn't want to appear to be taking sides in 38 and Tel's obvious feud.

  38 hesitates, but then she steps forward and hangs off to the side by the wall. Sabine had a feeling they were alike that way, bad at turning down direct invitations.

  "Hey, twelve stickies that the newbie beats 38 at her first game." Ship doesn't sound perturbed by this turn of events.

  "Is that supposed to be me?" Eirlys asks Sabine. "Challenge fucking accepted."

  "Oh boy." Tel looks at Sabine. "What did I tell you about gambling. Some Scrabble to take my mind off my terrible coworkers?"

  "Sure," Sabine accepts happily.

  *~*~*

  "All right, what the actual fuck," Tel says, with feeling. "That's five games now. You won five games in… a little over an hour? How much Scrabble do you even play?"

  Sabine shrugs, trying not to smile. "I like board games." Tel's actually brilliant at this, so her bewilderment is understandable; she must be used to wiping the floor with her opponents. Sabine just proves to be a bit more of a challenge. The amount of points they've racked up each game is ridiculous.

  Beside them, 38 and Eirlys are engaged in a very, very intense game of Jenga. Sabine keeps glancing over and then looking away quickly, biting down on a laugh. 38 looks a whole lot less intimidating when she's aiming her scary-face at a jumble of wooden blocks.

  Ship's laughing at Tel. "You can't even do your whole interrogation routine," Ship's saying when Sabine tunes back in. "You're too busy losing! "

  "Hey!" Tel flips the ceiling off with her free hand. She's gathering the letters back into the bag for another round.

  "What? It doesn't matter if Sabine knows what you were going for. You're not gonna get anything out of her anyway, at the rate you're going," Ship teases. "She likes to distract her victims with games like this while she's trying to get info out of them," Ship continues, addressing Sabine.

  "Really?" Eirlys cuts in. "Does it work, usually?"

  "I'm the best in the business," Tel scoffs. "Of course it works."

  "That's enough of that," Ship says, losing interest. "Ten stickies that 38 can't win with just her left hand."

  "You trying to piss everyone off?" 38 frowns and tugs at her glove a little self-consciously.

  "I thought this was a get-to-know-you." Ship's tone is all false innocence, thick layer of amusement underneath. "I'm sorry, were these secrets?"

  "Is your left hand your non-dominant hand?" Sabine figures playing dumb is the best way to defuse the situation, if 38 really doesn't want to say, but she is genuinely curious.

  "No." 38 sighs. "I'm ambidextrous. Prosthetic," she explains. She pulls off the glove and tilts it to show off the glint of light on metal. It looks fairly advanced. "Not the best at fine motor control. Real good for beating people up, though." She glares at the ceiling.

  Sabine has to stifle another burst of inappropriate laughter, imagining that half of 38's frustration is that she can't successfully punch an entire spaceship.

  "Fine, I'll take that bet," Tel says finally. "Raising the stakes to a favour instead of stickies, though." Sabine doesn't miss that this means Tel's betting on 38, and from the quick look that 38 shoots Tel—that she ignores—she isn't the only one who noticed, either.

  38 manages to win, but barely. Tel gets a few minutes of gloating before they hear the sound of wheels and Ast appears around the corner.

  "I hear you're bullying Ship?"

  Sabine doesn't stop herself from laughing this time.

  *~*~*

  There's some shifting around to accommodate Ast, who lets themselves be cajoled into playing on behalf of Ship against 38. Tel watches them play, making comments that are varyingly helpful and disparaging. This leaves Sabine to start destroying Eirlys in Scrabble.

  It's actually a little difficult, because Eirlys's strategy is to keep playing dirty words to try to distract her. She also keeps challenging Sabine on the legitimacy of any word that isn't in common vernacular, even though Sabine knows that Eirlys can tell she's not bluffing.

  Sabine and Eirlys are caught in a fit of giggles when Naomi's door opens.

  "What's all the excitement?" she asks, a smile in her voice.

  "Oh!" Sabine tries to catch her breath. "I'm sorry, did we disturb you?"

  "No, of course not. I'm glad you're having fun." Naomi sounds sincere, for once.

  "Do you want to join us?" Sabine moves to make room.

  "I only know chess," Naomi apologizes.

  "That's fine!" Sabine pulls the chess set out of the pile.

  The Jenga group has moved on to card games by now, and after their first game of chess, Eirlys glances over at Ast and absently comments, "You and Ship work really well together." From the way she says it, it sounds like a standard set nicety.

  The plates that make up Ast's collar had been slowly relaxing over time, giving Sabine a glimpse of the delicate wires inside that make up their "neck"—at Eirlys's words, those plates snap back up with an audible clink. "Not as much as we used to." It's hard to catch emotional affect in Ast's voice, but the way they're looking at Eirlys now is certainly hostile.

  "Ast." Ship's voice is cold for the first time.

  Sabine catches a small echo of fuck from where her shoulder barely brushes Eirlys's. Ast turns and leaves down the hallway, and the lights revert back to the pale yellow they are when Ship's not actively in the room.

  Neither Tel nor 38 look particularly shocked or distressed, and Naomi only looks conflicted. She gets up, shooting an apologetic smile at Sabine. "I'm sorry to cut this short—I should go check on them. You have an excellent handle on strategy and adaptability."

  "Yeah, it's ridiculous," Tel adds before Sabine can figure out what to say. "Come over here and let us beat you at Jenga a couple times for a change."

  The rest of the evening manages to return to the lighthearted atmosphere they had before, despite the tension between Tel and 38, and Ship's obvious absence. After a few more rounds, Tel stretches and yawns.

  "We're having an early day tomorrow, so you two should head to bed." She waves them off. "Don't worry, I'll clean up."

  Sabine's too tired to argue, so she just nods and follows Eirlys back to their room.

  *~*~*

  "Sabine?" Eirlys asks, a few minutes after they get in the room.

  "Hm?"

  "Would you be all right with�
� We're in a set so Ship is all around, and Ship seemed upset earlier and it could be dangerous—" Eirlys cuts herself off and glances at Sabine. Sabine nods at her to go on. "There's only one bed, too, so if—"

  "Oh!" Sabine stops mid-yawn when she realizes what Eirlys is trying to ask. "Oh, yeah, that's cool. It's no problem, neither of us wants to sleep on the ground or go bother Naomi. I slept in the same bed with friends at sleepovers in high school all the time." Sabine hopes she's standing far enough away that Eirlys can't tell she's kind of lying. She did do this all the time before, but it's a little different in these circumstances?

  Eirlys looks so relieved that Sabine is immediately glad she agreed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Having been born on the trip over, most sets only have a secondary knowledge of this species and cannot elaborate very much on what it was like or what benefit the other creatures received from having sets pilot around dead members of their species. Human scientists can only speculate.

  Similarly, we know little about how organized society works on their planet and historical events like wars. There are few written records, which makes sense if much of the time most members of your species aren't in a body equipped for reading or writing.

  Religion, however, has thrived on the expedition's journey here and has apparently changed little. Major Network gods seem to have a trend of "grown, not born"—they are usually legendary heroes who have become incorporated into the polytheistic mythology. Religions aren't defined by groups so much as which stories you grew up hearing and believing in. Most unproven beliefs in Network society are based around the concept of reincarnation or keeping memories from past lives. Other beliefs centre around what the best course of action to deal with a Match is, and whether or not true Matches exist anymore."

  - Excerpts from The Unofficial Guide to Sets, Piper Patel, Chapter IV. History and Human Parallels.

  In the morning, Eirlys carefully disentangles herself from Sabine and changes into her uniform as quickly as she can. She creeps out into the hallway to think in peace.