by Jill Smith
“Don’t,” Roach says, the first command he’s ever given. He squirms out from under B and faces the door, not wanting to run but aware if he stays, B might hurt him. B doesn’t touch him again. Roach hears his own breathing, ragged, layered over B’s quick, sleek panting.
“God, what am I doing?” B whispers, not to Roach but to the ceiling. He sinks back on the bed. Roach wants to turn and look at him but stays where he is.
“Sorry.” Roach wonders what B is sorry for. Grena was sorry when she stepped on a quilopea plant. Tin Star was sorry when he blew Thunder Sam’s cover at the Seagrass Saloon. Being sorry wasn’t enough then. Thunder Sam was angry and left Tin Star for the outlaws to find. “I keep thinking you’re—”
Roach tries to stop shaking. It might make B feel better.
“I’m not human,” Roach says. He knows this, no matter what he pretends. No matter how many Cosmic Granola Bars he eats.
“No.”
Roach rolls and faces him. “I want to be.”
B doesn’t answer. Roach reaches out and tentatively places a hand on B’s rising chest. B still doesn’t speak. The collected energy that propelled him moments ago has disbanded and found places in his body to retreat, into nerves and vessels and fingertips.
“We can try again,” Roach says. “I know how to do it, B. Have sex-for-fun.”
B sighs.
“We don’t have to worry about offspring.”
B looks like he might smile, but then he shakes his head. “It’s time for you to go.”
Roach thinks about what will happen once he’s off the ship. His clan will not approach him, will not speak to him. He cannot say he’s sorry, because Silvers don’t understand the meaning of the word. They won’t be angry. They will simply forget him. He will have no one to sleep next to at night. He will be alone.
B may move too fast, grip too hard, and remind him, in certain moments, of Joele and pain. But B is not Alone. “I don’t want to.”
B gets up, holds out his hand. Roach reluctantly takes it. B leads him to the door.
“I’m still losing blood,” Roach tells him. Three cuts in his skin are still leaking through the bandages.
“You’re well enough to run wild on my ship, you’re well enough to go back where you came from. Your family’s probably wondering where you are.”
“They won’t take me back.”
“You’re not staying here.” B opens the door cautiously. “Come on.” He pulls Roach into the hall. “Quick.”
They go around the circular part of the ship to a very small hallway with a big heavy-looking red door that says EMERGENCY ONLY.
Grena said once that an emergency is “Something that is dangerous right now.”
He is an emergency to B.
Beside the door is a box with numbers. Roach notes what numbers B presses. He hears a beep and words appear on the box: ALARM DEACT. B types more numbers, then comes a click, and he pushes the door open. “Get as far from the ship as you can. I’ll keep an eye out for the others.”
Things are happening too fast again. In another second, Roach will step outside and the door will close and he might never see B again. He remembers what B said last night—that if creatures on Earth want something, they fight for it. He gets on his toes and kisses B.
B leans back against the wall. Roach falls against him, and B places his hand uncertainly on the back of Roach’s head. Then he sends his fingers through Roach’s hair, gripping, but not hurting. This kiss is smoother than their last one, not an attack. A truce. When it ends, Roach pulls away slowly. He says something in his own language, something B won’t understand, smiles, and leaves through the EMERGENCY ONLY door.
He goes back to Alone.
Chapter Seven
And now what?
B punches the wall. He’s finally lost his mind. Or it’s been stolen from him by this place that’s not really a place; it’s a negative place, a void that sucks life rather than sustains it. No wonder Silvers can’t feel anger or hatred, bitterness or envy. If they could, they’d never feel anything else.
A Silver is not human. Even one that quotes paperback westerns and speaks fluent English and claims to know how to have sex for fun is still a pitiable creature, living without color or imagination, fueled by only the most basic emotions—some cross between infant, dog, and machine. It’s wrong to—it’s sick to—
He’s looking for something else to punch, something more yielding than the wall, when Gumm comes up the stairs. B considers punching Gumm, but Gumm would find this confusing. He and the others would want an explanation. They’d see that their captain has lost his mind, and who knows? Maybe there’ll be a vote of confidence, and B will be kicked off the ship, forced to stay here forever with the Silvers. He’ll gradually lose whatever’s still human in him, whatever the Silver Planet hasn’t already stolen. Then it won’t matter if he fucks Silvers, because he’ll be one. Empty, the color of a wound, pollinating flowers to stay busy the way people knit or put ships in bottles.
The new team will arrive, and they’ll find one Silver among the others whose heart doesn’t move, whose dick is always hanging out. They’ll drag him aboard their ship, which will be swankier than the Byzantine for sure, into their sterling laboratory, cut him open and find that he still has the lightless, trapped heart of a human.
“Cap’n, you okay?” Gumm asks.
“Never better.”
“Joele wants to know if you puked in the cabinets.”
“What?”
“Someone threw up in the cabinets under the sink in the kitchen. Everyone thought it was me. But I swear it wasn’t.”
“Who gives a shit?”
“Joele said I should ask you. I think she was kind of joking. I mean, it’s not a big deal. Just a weird place to puke.” Gumm shoves his hands in his pockets. Reading social cues has never been Gumm’s strong suit. Joele makes fun of him, treats him like an errand boy. Gumm doesn’t quite fit in, but he looks out for everybody, and B feels some mix of pity and affection for him. “Also, there’s a message for you from Hatch.”
The message is that they’re going home early. Three weeks from now, instead of a month. B should begin preparing the Byzantine for takeoff.
B is stunned. He has wanted to go home for so long. And now he can.
Except…
What?
“Best fucking news of my life,” Joele says when B gets downstairs.
“It’ll be nice to get back,” Gumm agrees, as though they’ve simply taken a daytrip to unfamiliar city.
“What about the Silver?” Grena asks. B’s insides seize, because he thinks she means Roach. But she’s talking about the Silver from Project HN, still strapped to the table in the lab.
“Won’t last another day,” Joele says. “Vir, if you want to have a look at that heart while it’s still beating, hop to it.”
Vir doesn’t respond. She stares at the wall as if she sees something peaceful and comforting in the faux wood panels. B feels calmer just watching her. He feels like he follows her out to sea for a moment before wading back into the reality of Joele and a dying Silver and the fact that just a few days ago he was okay with the idea of performing a vivisection on a creature capable of admiring the aesthetics of soap.
“No,” B says, surprising himself.
Joele’s eyes narrow. “Problem, boss?”
“Vir, you said you weren’t sure about the dosage for the anesthetic.”
Vir nods slowly.
He’s not sure where to go from here. “Let’s—let’s discuss that before you attempt the vivisection.”
“You won’t need anesthetic,” Joele says. “It doesn’t move anymore, no matter what I do to it.”
“Vir and I will discuss it.”
This will buy him some time to decide what to do. He envisions himself freeing the Silver when Joele’s not looking, an activist springing animals from research facilities by night. He wonders why he doesn’t just give the order now to let it go.
Because they promised NRCSE a study of a living Silver heart.
“Is someone developing a soft spot for our Silver friends?” Joele taunts.
“Enough.”
“Cranky, cranky. Are you not getting enough sleep? What do you do then, all those hours you spend in your room with the door shut?”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m serious, too. Where the fuck have you been?”
B forces himself to be calm. “If you have a problem, let’s talk privately.”
“Let’s talk right here. I went diving in the lakes, I wrote reports, I hacked up Silvers. I’ve done my job. Why haven’t you? Why the fuck haven’t you been our captain?”
B looks around. He could be in one of those reality shows where a contestant is eliminated at the end of each episode, and the camera pans the huddle of contenders anticipating the announcement. Gumm looks worried, Vir distant. Joele’s mouth is set in a hard, angry line. Grena looks resigned, as though she already knows she won’t be back next week.
B looks at Joele. “I’m sorry if that’s the way you feel. I’ve had a lot on my mind, and I didn’t mean to be inaccessible, or to neglect my duties.” For a second, Joele seems satisfied. Maybe she isn’t trying to start trouble. Maybe she really is as confused and alone here as he is. Then her mouth curves, a private smirk, and B feels a rush of anger. “However, I am going to write you up for speaking to me that way.”
“Excuse me?”
“I asked you to come to me privately if you had a problem. I won’t be spoken to the way you just spoke to me.”
“You’re telling on me? What is this, fifth grade?”
“I’m going to report on your conduct.”
Joele stares at him for a moment. B imagines a gory halo of fury and loathing around her head, decorating and intensifying her but not quite a part of her. Inside, she is hollow, lost, doesn’t know what to feel. He has hurt her. And it is stupid, because NRCSE won’t give a shit.
She leaves without another word.
Chapter Eight
An old Silver named Lons is the only one who’s ever come back from the ship. He lives by one of the smaller lakes, forgotten by his clan. Roach visited him once, just after Lons returned. The Silver was thin, starving. A single plant grew by the lake’s edge, but Lons didn’t eat from it. Roach watched as Lons pinched the pollen grains and put them up his nose, made himself sneeze, and laughed. He did this over and over while Roach questioned him about the ship, about the humans. He never spoke.
Grena once explained to Roach’s clan that humans can’t learn some things about Silvers just by talking to them or observing them. On the ship, the humans can do tests that help them understand how Silvers’ bodies and minds work. She never tried to persuade anyone from Roach’s clan to come aboard the Byzantine, but Roach heard stories from others who witnessed humans carrying sleeping or wounded Silvers onto the ship. Those Silvers never came back.
When Grena stopped visiting Roach’s clan, Roach felt the loss of her sharp inside him, and sometimes while the rest of his clan slept he lay awake and whispered his favorite parts of Tin Star and Thunder Sam to the sky.
Grena told them four other humans were with her on the Silver Planet. Roach had caught glimpses of them when they first arrived. Even with their bodies covered, they looked different from one another. Different sizes, different shapes.
In Tin Star, characters have different colored hair and eyes and skin. They are fat or thin, short or tall. Silvers vary slightly in height, but not in color, and not very much in shape. Roach was surprised to learn about breasts, because female Silvers do not have these. Grena let him touch one of hers once, briefly. It was soft and heavy. Humans’ hair can grow very long and be many different colors, and they have hair on their bodies. Silvers have no hair on their bodies, unlike Thunder Sam, whose chest is covered in a coarse thatch women much admire.
Roach knew it must be the other humans, not Grena, who were damaging Silvers, because Grena was always kind. But the rest of Roach’s clan made no such distinction. Some clans decided if they were captured by humans, they would shut off. Shutting off takes a while because Silvers can hold their breath for such a long time. Roach’s clan decided not to shut off if captured, but to avoid capture in the first place. Clan members formed the No Human Contact rule. No Silver was to speak with or touch a human, or approach the ship. Even if Grena came back, they would not speak to her. They would simply pretend humans didn’t exist.
Roach couldn’t forget about Grena or the ship. When he learned about Lons’s capture and eventual return, he went to find him. Lons had a mark on his body, a dark trail that went from under his arm to his hip. His skin was dry from being out of water so long. Roach wondered why he didn’t just go into the lake, but Lons didn’t really seem to see what was around him. All he did was put pollen up his nose and laugh.
Roach returned to his clan. A few days later, he went for a walk and found himself within sight of the Byzantine. He approached, careful not to get too close. He went to where he could see it clearly, shiny-dark against the flat black of the sky. He saw a light go on in one of the windows. He wondered what the humans did, since they didn’t have a planet to tend. Without thinking, he moved closer. He had never seen an object as large as the ship. For the first time in memory, numbers failed him. He didn’t know how many Silvers might fit inside. His whole clan, at least. He walked until the ship loomed over him. He traveled around it, seeing more windows on the opposite side and lights in two of them. He was about to leave when he heard a whistle.
A human female, larger than Grena, approached from the lake. Her body was encased in a sleek, gleaming suit, and she didn’t wear one of the puffy shells humans used for heat. Her hair was long and black and hung in a dripping braid over her shoulder. She moved quickly.
“Hello,” Roach said.
She looked surprised when he spoke. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m taking a walk.”
She wrapped both hands around her braid and squeezed. Water fell onto a patch of bright ground and disappeared. “You must be one of Grena’s.”
“Is Grena here?”
The large female glanced at the ship. “What do you want with her?”
“I want to talk to her. Please,” he added.
“What’s wrong with talking to me?”
“It isn’t wrong.”
“Of course it isn’t. You and I could have a nice conversation. You speak good English.”
“Thank you.” Something was happening with Roach’s heart. It was brighter than usual, and slid back and forth across his chest quickly before diving behind his ribs. He was breaking the No Human Contact rule. He thought about the stories of dead Silvers. Silvers losing blood. Silvers going into the ship and never coming out.
“Grena’s proud of the ones she taught,” the female said. “She says you’re really smart. Are you smart?”
“I think so.”
“Says you’re good with numbers—counting. You can count anything.”
“Yes.”
“How many hairs in my eyebrows?”
Roach moved closer and looked at her face. For a second, he was distracted by her eyes, which were large and dark. They shivered as they followed his movements. He focused on her eyebrows. He counted the hairs, first in the left eyebrow, then in the right. “One thousand eight hundred and eighty-four,” he said.
“I’ll have to take your word for it. Next question: What’s this called?” She raised one foot and slapped her black, sturdy footwear.
“Shoe,” said Roach.
“Close,” said the female. “A boot. A kind of shoe. You are smart.”
Roach was pleased she thought so.
“Third question: Are you afraid of me?”
Roach shook his head. He didn’t think he was, even though his heart wouldn’t come out from behind his ribs. This female wasn’t so different from Grena. She wanted to ask questions. She was pleased that he spoke goo
d English. “No.”
The female shook her head, too and made a noise with her tongue. “Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought.” She moved quickly, caught Roach’s wrist, squeezed. Her face was close to Roach’s. “Humans are monsters. You know what I mean by that?”
“No.”
She let go of his wrist and struck him across the face.
He had never hurt before.
He moved his hand to touch the pain, but couldn’t quite find it. It splintered from its source and fragments fell against other nerves until his whole face throbbed.
“That’s what I mean.”
He didn’t want to be near her anymore and turned to run. She hit him on the other side of the face. He fell.
She held up her foot. “What’s this?” she asked.
“Boot,” Roach replied automatically, because he knew now.
“That’s right,” she said. The boot crashed into his heart’s hiding place, behind his ribs.
*
When he woke, the female was gone and the ship rose above him, seeming almost friendly, watchful, two of its windows alight, like eyes. He didn’t want to stay here. The female might find him again, but it hurt too much to move. If he could get to the pile of nearby rocks, it would be harder for humans to see him.
He used his arms to pull himself toward the rocks, sharp bits of the ground digging into his palms and stomach. He glanced behind him and saw he was leaving a trail of red on the bright ground. His skin was open and cold leapt right in. He reached the rocks and put his head against one of the stones. His head was the only part of him that felt warm. The rest of him shook.
He tried to inspect his damaged places, but seeing made the pain worse. He closed his eyes. Now his clan would know that he’d had contact with humans.
There is no Silver word for “alone.” Just words for “one” and “one at a time,” because Silvers are never alone. A Silver might be the only one in a particular area, but others are always nearby. Silvers’ names are numbers indicating birth order. When a Silver dies, the numbers shift down, and each subsequent Silver’s name changes. This shift happens also now when a Silver is forgotten.
