Behind zir eyes Fift could only see the pale blue gowns. It was just like in zir dream! Ze’d lost zir gowns, and would have to go wearing bells like Father Frill! Ze shuddered. “I don’t want my gowns to be in the compost,” ze said, as reasonably as ze could manage.
“Oh, will you shut up about the gowns!” Squell said. “No one cares about your gowns!”
“That’s not true,” Miskisk boomed, shocked.
“It is true,” Smistria said, “and—”
Fift could feel a sob ballooning inside. Ze tried to hold it in, but it grew and grew and—
“Beloveds,” said Father Grobbard.
Fift opened zir eyes. Father Grobbard had come silently, singlebodied, up the corridor, to stand behind Squell. Ze was shorter than Miskisk and Smistria, the same height as Squell, but more solid: broad and flat like a stone. When Father Grobbard stood still, it looked like ze would never move again. Zir shift was plain and simple and white. Zir skin was a mottled creamy brown with the same fine golden fuzz of hair everywhere, even on top of zir head.
“Grobby!” Squell said. “We are trying to get zir ready, but it’s quite—”
“Well, it’s Grobbard’s show,” Smistria said. “It’s up to you and Pip today, Grobbard, isn’t it? So why don’t you get zir ready!?”
Grobbard held out zir hand. Fift swallowed, then slid down from Squell’s arms and went to take it.
“Grobbard,” Miskisk said, “are you sure Fift is ready for this? Is it really—”
“Yes,” Grobbard said. Then ze looked at Miskisk, zir face as calm as ever. Ze raised one eyebrow, just a little, then looked back at Fift’s other bodies. Ze held out zir other hand. Squell let go and Fift gathered zirself, holding one of Father Grobbard’s hands on one side, one on the other, and catching hold of the back of Grobbard’s shift. They went down to the bathing room.
“My gowns weren’t old,” Fift said, on the stairs. “They came out of the oven a week ago.”
“No, they weren’t old,” Grobbard said. “But they were blue. Blue is a Vail color, the color of the crashing, restless sea. You are a Staid, and today you will enter the First Gate of Logic. You couldn’t do that wearing blue gowns.”
“Oh,” Fift said.
Grobbard sat by the side of the bathing pool, zir hands in zir lap, zir legs in the water, while Fift scrubbed zirself soapy.
“Father Grobbard,” Fift said, “why are you a Father?”
“What do you mean?” Father Grobbard asked. “I am your Father, Fift. You are my child.”
“But why aren’t you a Mother? Mother Pip is a Mother, and ze’s—um, you’re both—”
Grobbard’s forehead wrinkled briefly, then it smoothed, and zir lips quirked in a tiny suggestion of a smile. “Aha, I see. Because you have only one Staid Father and the rest are Vails, you think that being a Father is a vailish thing to be? You think Fathers should be ‘ve’s and Mothers should be ‘ze’s?”
Fift stopped mid-scrub and frowned.
“What about your friends? Are all of your friends’ Mothers Staids? Are they all ‘ze’? Or are some of them ‘ve’?” Grobbard paused a moment; then, gently: “What about your friend Umlish Mnemu, of Mnathis cohort? Isn’t zir Mother a Vail?”
“Oh,” Fift said, and frowned again. “Well, what makes someone a Mother?”
“Your Mother carried you in zir womb, Fift. You grew inside zir belly, and you were born out of zir vagina, into the world. Some families don’t have children that way, so in some families all the parents are Fathers. But we are quite traditional. Indeed, we are all Kumruists, except for Father Thurm . . . and Kumruists believe that biological birth is sacred. So you have a Mother.”
Fift knew that, though it still seemed strange. Ze’d been inside Mother Pip for ten months. Singlebodied, because zir other two bodies hadn’t been fashioned yet. That was an eerie thought. Tiny, helpless, one-bodied, unbreathing, zir nut-sized heart drawing nutrients from Pip’s blood. “Why did Pip get to be my Mother?”
Now Grobbard was clearly smiling. “Have you ever tried to refuse your Mother Pip anything?”
Fift shook zir heads solemnly. “It doesn’t work. Ze’s always the Younger Sibling.” That meant the one who won the argument. But it also meant the littlest child, if there was more than one in a family. Fift wasn’t sure why it meant both those things.
Grobbard chuckled. “Yes. There was a little bit of debate, but I think we all knew Pip would prevail. Ze had a uterus and vagina enabled and made sure we all had penises for the impregnation. It was an exciting time.”
Fift pulled up the feed and looked up penises. They were for squirting sperm, which helped decide what the baby would be like. The egg could sort through all the sperm and pick the genes it wanted, but the parents had to publish something or other to get the genome approved, and after that it got too complicated. If someone got a penis they’d have one on each body, dangling between their legs. “Do you still have penises? One . . . on each body?”
“Yes, I kept mine,” Grobbard said. “They went well with the rest of me, and I don’t like too many changes.”
“Can I have penises?” ze said.
“I suppose, if you like,” Grobbard said. “But not today. Today you have something more important to do. And now I see that your Father has baked you new clothes. So rinse off, and let’s go upstairs.”
“Obviously I’m not talking about the details of the . . . process,” Father Smistria said, flinging vir arms wide.
“I should hope not,” Father Squell said. “Hold still, Fift!” Ve gripped Fift’s head firmly between one pair of hands and stooped over zir in another body to gently scrape away the last of zir hairs with the depilator. “It’s completely inappropriate to discuss it at all, Smistria. It’s a Staid matter, and that’s all there is—”
“I’m not discussing it,” Smistria said. Ve squirted oil onto vir palm and rubbed it into another of Fift’s scalps. “I certainly don’t want to know anything about what goes on in that room, for Kumru’s sake.”
“I should hope not!” Father Squell said.
Fift was in bright white shifts, like Father Grobbard always wore, and Mother Pip mostly did. All of zir was scrubbed and polished, one of zir heads was already shaved and oiled, and zir fingernails and toenails were trimmed. In the body that was already done, ze got up from the wiggly seating dome and wandered across the moss of the little atrium.
“Fift, don’t go anywhere, and don’t get dirty,” Father Squell said.
“But what does matter is the outcome,” Smistria said. “The outcome affects our entire cohort!”
Father Frill—lithe and dusky-skinned with a shock of stiff copper-colored hair sweeping up from vir broad forehead, wide gray eyes, a full mouth, and a sharp chin—swept into the room. “Kumru’s whiskers, Smi,” Frill said, “is that really what you’re wearing?”
“What’s wrong with it?” Father Smistria snapped, looking down at vemself. Ve’d changed out of vir combat suit into a tight sheath made of silvery blobs that flowed and split and swelled and shivered when ve moved.
As ze passed Fift’s waiting body, Father Frill bent down and ran a hand over zir bare oiled scalp (which felt nice, but also strange, like a layer had been stripped away and there was nothing between zir and the world). Frill wore cascades of gold, silver, and crimson bells that tinkled as ve moved. Vir martial shoulder sash hung with tiny, intricately worked ceremonial knives and grenades. “For one thing, Smi, it makes your potbelly look like a newly discovered high-albedo moon,” Frill said. “For another, it’s basically gray.”
“It’s silver!” Smistria shouted.
“Oh, please, you two,” Squell said, straightening up. Now all Fift’s heads were shaved. Squell closed the depilator. “Smistria, come on, just one more scalp to oil . . .”
“You take that back about the moon,” Smistria said, “or you’ll answer for it on the mats!”
“No doubt,” Frill said, “but not this morning, because we have som
ewhere to be. Seriously, Smi, are you thinking at all of what’s at stake here? I’ll do the oil, you go change. Into something colorful!”
Smistria stormed out and Fift followed vem in the two bodies that were ready. In zir third body, ze was still stuck in the atrium with Frill and Squell. Frill was massaging oil into zir scalp; vir hands were smaller and smoother than Smistria’s, and ve smelled like a sharp-toothed wild hunting animal from some forest far above them, up on the surface of the world.
“I’ll give vem a high-albedo moon,” Smistria muttered as they passed the supper garden. “Arevio! Do you know what time it is? Are you planning to attend this affair with your hands covered in dirt?”
Father Arevio, doublebodied, started guiltily up from vir plants. “Well, in fact, Smistria Ishteni, I was thinking of going singlebodied . . . I’m already dressed upstairs, and . . .”
“Oh no. Oh no. If I am going doublebodied to this . . . this void-blessed sit-about,” Smistria growled, “then by Kumru’s sainted balls you are doing the same.” Father Smistria only had two bodies, like Father Nupolo—all Fift’s other parents had three or four—and Smistria hated going anywhere in both of them.
Fift lingered by Smistria’s side in one body and went ahead down the hall in another. Back on the wiggly seating dome, ze dug zir toes in the moss, and Frill said, “Almost done, Fift. Don’t fidget.”
Father Arevio sighed, brushing off vir hands. “All right. I’ll change. I must admit, I am not terribly fond of these affairs.”
Smistria snorted. “Who is? We have to sit outside in the gallery, cooped up, gawking at each other’s outfits and taking offense—I swear, more mat challenges are issued at First Gates of Logic than any other time!—while they pass spoons and . . . well, whatever it is that they do in there . . .”
“It’s easy, Father Smistria,” Fift said. “All you have to do is . . .”
“Fift Brulio Iraxis!” Arevio said, coming forward.
“You stop right there, Fift!” Father Smistria said. “Do not say one word to us about the . . . about that.”
Fift swallowed. Ze must have looked scared because Father Arevio said gently, “it’s all right, Fift Brulio.”
“But it’s nothing bad,” Fift said.
“Of course it’s not bad,” Father Arevio said.
“Obviously!” Father Smistria said. “But you don’t talk about it with us.”
“Don’t let your Father Smistria worry you, Fiftling,” Father Frill said, in the little atrium, rubbing Fift’s head. “There’s nothing at all wrong with the Long Conversation.” Ve said the words with emphasis, like ve was showing that ve wasn’t embarrassed to say it out loud. “It’s very important. It’s at the heart of everything. And you’re going to be just fine. It’s just that Staid things are Staid things and Vail things are Vail things. You wouldn’t want to watch us fight on the mats, would you?”
“No.” Fift didn’t like the idea of zir parents angry and hitting. The mats sounded scary and strange. On the other hand . . . what if ze could sneak in and watch, with no one knowing? Just to see. Ze probably would. Still, ‘no’ was definitely the right answer.
“Well there you are,” Frill said. “It’s the same sort of thing.”
Arevio and Smistria went upstairs. Fift stood in the supper garden watching a golden cloud of spice-gnats hover around the vines and smelling their warm, cozy, tingly smell.
All it was going to be, this time, was sitting still and waiting to be passed a spoon, and saying “the spoon is in my hand,” and passing it on at the right moment, and telling the names of the twelve cycles, the twenty modes, and the eight corpuses. The Long Conversation. You couldn’t use agents to help with anything, but that was okay, because Pip and Grobbard never let zir practice with agents anyway.
In the body down the hall, ze poked zir head into the main anteroom.
Mother Pip was there, singlebodied, in a white shift like Fift’s, zir skin a deep forest green. Ze had stubby fingers that were usually relaxed, but right now they were tugging on zir thumb: tug, tug, tug. Ze had powerful, searching eyes that looked deep into you, white and gold and black. They were blazing. Fift wasn’t sure, but ze thought maybe Mother Pip was furious.
Fathers Miskisk and Nupolo and Frill and Squell were there, too. Nupolo was glaring. Squell was holding vir hands over vir mouth. Frill was throwing up vir hands in exasperation.
Father Miskisk was shouting. And pointing at Mother Pip. “It’s always Pip! Ze’s the Mother, ze guards our ratings, ze decides where we’ll live and when little Fift has to—has to—”
“Will you calm down, Misky?” Frill said. “Pip’s not going to be Mother twice over—even ze knows that would be too much! It will be Nupolo or Arevio, or Thurm if ve’d agree to it, or—well—” Ve tugged at one of the knives on vir sash as if waiting for someone to say “or Frill,” but no one did.
“If I may—” Pip began.
“Why are we talking about this?” Nupolo said. “On Fift’s big day? There’s no rush here. Ze’s not even five—”
Squell looked up, then, and saw Fift in the doorway. In the little atrium, where Frill had finished oiling zir last scalp and was rubbing vir hands with a towel, Squell said, “Come away from there, Fift. Come back in here, please.”
“This is the age when it matters!” Miskisk roared, tears streaming down vir face. “And what makes you think it will ever change? None of you will ever dare struggle with Pip over the maternity, and none of you have the strength to watch Fift be supplanted!”
Pip’s mouth tightened into a line.
“Fift,” Squell said, in the little atrium.
“Oh, for Kumru’s sake, Squell,” Frill said, in the little atrium, “just get zir out of there. Do I have to do it?”
Fift came out of the supper garden and into the hallway. Ze hesitated. Father Squell wanted zir to come back to the atrium, but ze looked down the hall at zirself, standing at the door to the main anteroom . . .
Miskisk was crying. Zir Vail Fathers cried all the time, but this was different. Vir limbs had loosened with sorrow and hopelessness; ve looked as if ve were going to collapse.
A chill raced down from Fift’s necks and settled in zir stomachs. Ze headed down the hall towards zir body watching Father Miskisk.
“It’s true!” Miskisk cried. “You’re too cowardly and too comfortable! You’d rather ze end up sisterless than endure the discomfort of zir supplanting!”
Sisterless was a bad word; Fift knew that much.
Fift caught up with zirself and came doublebodied into the anteroom. “Father Miskisk,” ze said, “do you want to zoom? We could zoom.”
Miskisk wailed, and Father Squell hurried across the room, picked up one of Fift’s bodies, and held out vir hand to the other. “No more zooming, cubblehedge. Come with me.”
Fift didn’t budge.
Squell picked up Fift in the little atrium, too, and said, “A little help, please, Frill?”
In the little atrium, Frill sighed. In the main anteroom, ve sighed again, crossed the floor, and scooped up Fift’s third body.
Father Smistria, dressed in an explosion of bladelike crimson and orange feathers, pushed past vem, going in.
“Smi, tell them!” Miskisk sobbed. “You agree with me! It’s too early for this—Pip can’t just—Fift deserves a little more time at home, to run and play and wear more colors than white, before—”
Smistria crossed vir arms. “Do I agree that Pip is bossy?” ve said. “And that everyone here is all too eager to postpone any argument, especially in the matter of Sibling Number Two? Certainly I do! But do I think you should be allowed to keep Fift here as a baby—dressed up in bangles and ‘zooming about’—to satisfy your selfish wish for a vailchild . . . ?”
Fift’s Fathers bustled zir up the stairs, doubly cuddled up against Squell’s soft soap-smelling skin and squashed into Frill’s bells, which tinkled around zir.
“Why is Father Miskisk upset?” Fift asked.
�
��Don’t worry about that, Fiftling,” Frill said. “You focus on what you need to do today.”
“Today of all days!” Squell said. “I can’t believe vem!”
“Am I going to be an Older Sibling?” Older Siblings were poor and pushed aside. Younger Siblings nestled in. But having a Younger Sibling also meant not being alone, having someone to protect and support, someone to share a childhood with. Fift had only ever been an Only Child. But there was something wrong, somehow, with being an Only Child.
Frill and Squell looked at each other over the tops of Fift’s heads and Fift could feel their bodies tighten.
“That’s enough of that topic, cubblehedge,” Squell said. “There are far too many thoughts jumping around in those heads of yours. We’re all just going to focus on what you have to do today, all right?”
{Why is it bad to be an Only Child?} Fift asked zir agents.
{That is not the polite term.} sent Fift’s social nuance agent. {You should say “an individual with an abundant-concentration-of-familial-resources childhood.”}
{What about sisterless?} Fift sent. Ze knew that word was bad, and ze shouldn’t say it, or even send it. But ze also knew it described zir. You’d rather ze end up sisterless . . .
{That is not a word we say.} sent the social nuance agent primly.
{Sister is an archaic word for sibling.} added the context advisory agent.
Fift closed all zir eyes and rummaged around among zir agents. The feed-navigational one could help zir find the main anteroom . . . and there it was. Ze could see it.
Miskisk had fallen to vir knees. “You are crushing my heart,” ve said, tears dripping from vir chin. “I have no voice here at all. It’s all zir cold dominion . . .” Ve gestured at Mother Pip.
The Unraveling Page 2
