by Ann Aguirre
“Don’t even,” I cut in. “You’re special. Get used to it.”
“She’s right, Beatriz. Thank you.” Nadim sounded soft, warm, almost shy. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”
Beatriz, I noticed, raised her head when she was talking to Nadim. “You built a pool for your last Honor. Did you design this place for me?”
“Not specifically. Marko played piano here. I altered the space a little for you.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “You made a pool. You made a concert hall. How, exactly?”
“The pool was easy. I can grow or shrink open chambers within my body, and the filtering of water was just a special organ I grew for that purpose. Like creating and filtering the air you breathe.”
“Okay, fine, you grew a room—” Weird as that was. “But you didn’t grow the chairs!”
“No,” he agreed. “Those I requested from Earth. An accommodation for you.”
Beatriz laughed. “I don’t even care how you did it! I didn’t have my own stage at home. I worked on music in my room and sang in the shower.”
“Then I hope this is better?”
“This is magnificent. It’s a little . . . overwhelming.” From her tone, I didn’t think she meant it in a bad way.
“What was that, the first thing you sang?” I asked her. Because I’d never heard anything like it.
That turned out to be the magic question. Beatriz was into opera, and she elaborated for a while about composers and history, more of a musical education than I’d gotten in school. Then she bit her lip, seeming as if she was about to confess to some shocking secret. “Sometimes I dabble with my own arrangements. I did a jazz adaptation of La Bohème for fun last month.”
That sounded impressive as hell. And it sparked my curiosity, because I’d noticed a few different qualifications that stood out among the Honors over the past few years. More recruits had a musical background. Marko did. Now here was Beatriz, who sang so brilliantly.
There has to be a reason they picked her. And me. Since we were bonding over music, I kept the questions coming. “Do you have a favorite opera?”
“Norma. You ever heard of it?” she asked me, and when I shook my head, she said, “Nadim, do we have a music library on board?”
“Of course. Each Honor has added to it. What would you like to hear?”
She enjoyed Caribbean fusion, insanely dramatic opera, reggaetón, Afro-Cuban jazz. While I didn’t love everything she called out, I could feel Nadim soaking up the input, registered the moments when a particular cluster of notes gave him pleasure. Nadim especially liked the merry blare of horns, and I knew that because it washed in an irresistible flush of pleasure that cascaded over to me. Like emotional overflow. I wondered if I could control that. If I should. Sure, this feels good. But what happens when it goes bad?
Beatriz distracted me. Her expression animated, she asked, “What do you like, Zara?”
“Well, I don’t know much, but . . . there was this old-time singer, Billie Holiday? I relate to her music, I guess. And her story. You heard of her?”
“Claro.” She grabbed my hands in her excitement. “She was a legend. What’s your favorite song of hers?”
“That’s a tough call. But I guess . . . ‘Summertime.’”
“I have it,” Nadim said. “Shall I play that one?”
“Please.” Normally, the word didn’t come easy, but I’d revealed an important part of myself; my mother and Kiz and I had all listened to Billie Holiday together. This time, I didn’t feel scraped raw over it, because I wasn’t listening alone.
What started out as Music Appreciation 101 evolved into a proper party. Beatriz taught me dance moves to the beat of some of Nadim’s favorite jams. The girl definitely had rhythm, and soon I was executing complicated steps that could’ve been on a stage backing up some auto-tune diva. The sheer joy of it took me over—and not just me, I noticed. Nadim too was soaking up our enthusiasm, our happiness, our energy. It seemed like a good thing.
If we could join together this way, I felt solid about our chances at making this partnership work.
Beatriz finally wandered off to bed, and even though I was tired, I lingered behind.
“That was fun,” I said, more to myself than Nadim. It had been. Better than anything except a few times back in the Zone, and that made it impossible not to think of Derry. I had some shit times with him, some outstanding moments too. Now I also had the bitter memory of the way he’d burned me.
It cooled me down, got me steady. My natural defenses came back up again. I had to be practical, even if I didn’t need to be ruthless. That meant I had to wonder if Nadim and Beatriz would do me the same way Derry had, eventually. I’d liked Clarice for a hot second back in rehab, and look where that had got me.
The memory of rehab, and of the dirty purity of the Zone, crept back in. That Zara wouldn’t have held a dance party. That Zara would have grinned and slipped away to rip off the marks while their defenses were down.
I wasn’t one of them, I had to remember that. Beatriz had trained to be an Honor. Nadim . . . I could feel a lot of what went on with him, but how could I really know what he thought or felt? He was an alien. It might feel like I knew him, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.
It surprised me when the alien suddenly spoke up and said, “You and Beatriz are . . . brighter than Marko and Chao-Xing.”
“Brighter?” That was weird. “You mean smarter?”
“No. I mean—you have more light inside. Both of you.”
It was the opposite of how I’d been trying to feel. Darkness was cover. Darkness was safety. “Yeah, probably just adrenaline or something.”
A pause, as he was probably thinking about how to respond. Or if he even should. “No. It’s dimmed a little now in you, but you are still bright. Marko was the closest, kind but somber. He was always a little muted. You and Beatriz are different.”
“So no dance party with Marko and Chao-Xing?”
“Definitely not.”
With Nadim talking as I walked, it felt like he was seeing me to my room. I don’t need watching over, I wanted to tell him, but at the same time, it felt good. Safe. “Okay, well, I’m out.” Because I was at my door. And I suddenly realized I was bone-tired anyway.
Nadim said, “Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning, Zara.”
I fumbled with the panel. The life I’d chosen in the Zone didn’t grant privacy; freedom had its price. I’d gotten used to sleeping in overcrowded dorms or public squats, with people doing whatever all around. I hadn’t really thought about it, but now I realized that privacy felt like isolation. “So you don’t come in here without an invitation, right?”
“No,” he said. “Unless you are in medical distress.”
“Well, you’re officially invited.”
“As long as you’re sure. You can tell me to leave anytime.”
I sat down cross-legged on the mattress, fiddling with a pillow. I left the door open, through some bizarre notion that it made it easier for Nadim to get in and out. “I didn’t want to freak Bea out; she seems to be finding her peace and I don’t want to blow that. But you need to explain some things to me.”
“Such as?”
“Why did you pick me?” I immediately rephrased. “Okay, I know you didn’t pick me. Why are the Elders all of a sudden yanking crims out of rehab?”
He didn’t answer for so long I didn’t think he was going to. I had an impulse to pull the pillow in closer, and instead, I put it down and waited.
Finally, Nadim said, “The Elders began by choosing scholars and mathematicians, and for a while, that was what was needed. But now they think we need different strengths.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know why they picked you, Zara, but you clearly have many qualities that will be of use.”
So now they need tech-savvy and a scrappy attitude? Sure. “I’m a good mechanic, but you could get that anywhere. What else?”
“I can o
nly tell you that when the Elders find there are gaps in our knowledge, in our needs, we seek those that can fill them.” He seemed uncomfortable now. His tone had gone flatter, and the warmth of his presence had dialed down to room temp.
“You want to hear what I think? I think there’s more to this than cultural exchanges and bullshit like that. You’re picking our brains. My question is, why? Why do you need to learn from me?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m not hearing a denial, Nadim.”
“I wouldn’t ask my partners to do anything that wasn’t for the greater good.”
“Psht. Maybe in Leviathan speech that plays better, but let me tell you, back on Earth, a ton of humans have murdered for the greater good. And I’m not here for it.”
“I suppose then the question is: Why are you here, Zara? If you don’t believe in the mission of our partnership?”
“Because—” I hesitated, and smoothed the fabric of my uniform over my thigh. There was a scar there, one of many from fights in the Zone. Reminders that safety was an illusion. “Because it’s a way out.”
“Out of what?”
“Everything that shuts me in.”
Nadim was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “I don’t understand that. I don’t think I can. My whole life has been seeking contact, not escape. And I live in . . . a very large space. In that way we are quite opposite.”
“Good. This would get pretty boring if we were all the same.”
I felt that flutter of amusement again, a kind of unfiltered delight that made the pull of artificial gravity feel lighter. Too much of that, and I might lose my own weight. I resisted the lure of feeding his feelings, and the delight faded. Then Nadim said, very seriously, “I can’t tell you what waits out there for us, if that’s what you want to know. We call this year-long voyage the Tour; we take you to predetermined places where you will gather geologic and biologic samples and evidence of defunct civilizations for your scientists to analyze. For us, we chart the regrowth of the destruction and hope to someday witness a civilization rise again. But this route is familiar to us. Safe. I’ve told you before that I’m still in training. I’m not to deviate from our itinerary until I am released for the Journey.”
“Okay. So if all this is preparing you for the Journey, then what happens on the Journey?”
Silence fell, and it seemed heavier than before. Emotional gravity, shifting again. Finally, Nadim said, “The Journey is a mission that lasts a lifetime. And I won’t know what it is until I am ready.”
“So you trust them that much.”
“The Elders would not betray us.”
I didn’t tell him that on Earth, it was our elders who sold us out all the damn time—that the young were sacrificed for whatever cause, whatever war our old leaders thought important at the time. I’d trusted my father, once. I’d ended up pinned to a table, with a crazy woman holding a scalpel.
Trust your elders didn’t cut it with me.
After all, at this point, whatever hurt Nadim would mess me up too—during the Tour, but still. I had to make him realize that trust had to be earned, not just given.
Part of me pretended it was just self-interest, but deep inside, I also had to admit that there was something so unguardedly honest about Nadim that I just . . . wanted him to be safe.
“Sure,” I finally said. “But you know the old Russian proverb, right?”
“I do not.”
“When the storm comes, pray to God, but row for shore.” A nicer way to say don’t be a mark.
He thought that one over. I put Billie Holiday on my H2. She was singing a different song this time, and I had to explain what it meant to him. Explain the shit my people had gone through and still did sometimes. He didn’t comment, but his mood shifted, soaking up the buried outrage, sadness, and horror hidden in the notes of the music.
Nadim and I listened to her voice, and sometime in there, I stretched out on my bed and drifted off, and I forgot to tell him to get out of my room.
I slept the best I ever had on the soft, warm mattress, with the whisper of Nadim’s presence like a mist near me. I’d learned how to sense him, whether he was paying attention to me or not. It felt a little like a memory I had of my parents watching over me. Of sleeping with my crew in the Zone, knowing they were there if anything kicked off.
Safe.
I dreamed of stars.
Like Nadim, I drank the light and felt their radiance on my skin. Unchained from my flesh, I flew like a Leviathan—stars and galaxies spun around me in a kaleidoscope of colors—and the pleasure that roared through me nearly cracked my skull.
And then I felt alone. So alone. It was a void that sucked all the life and love out of me, a dark longing so profound it hurt.
Trembling, I woke with morning light streaming in my window. Damn, there was no morning. No window. Nadim must have turned the lights up in my room. At least he hadn’t banged the alarm gong this time.
I felt breathless and strangely sad. On the verge of tears. And, oddly, I didn’t think it was Nadim, or at least, not completely. Following my first instinct, I fumbled for the intercom. “Bea?” The short form of her name slid out, and she didn’t object. “You okay?”
“I’m . . . here. Just got up.”
“You sound . . .” I didn’t know if I should say it, but her voice came across tremulous. “Have you been crying?”
“A little. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. What’s wrong?”
“There’s a word in Portuguese, saudade, it doesn’t translate well.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s like nostalgia, only . . . more. Longing for something.”
“Something that’s gone away?” I guessed. I knew that feeling, saudade. During that dream, it permeated me from head to toe, which was batshit. I’d felt it. And so had Beatriz.
“Yes,” she said. “How could you know that? Are you saying you felt it too?”
“I think it’s coming from Nadim. Sometimes I can feel what he’s feeling.” Crap. I should have said that before now; I hadn’t been keeping it from her deliberately, but in a sense, I’d relished it being a tiny secret, too.
“You—you what?” She sounded less offended than baffled, which was good. “We’re not supposed to do that, Zara. They said—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all that. I look like some tight-ass rule follower to you?”
She just shook her head. “Why is Nadim sad?”
“No idea. Nadim!” No answer. I put my hand to the wall by the bed. “Nadim!”
“Good morning, Zara.” He sounded all right. Probably too much so, as if he was working at it. “It’s time to get up.”
“Are you okay?” I asked. I felt his answer coming through the wall, into my skin, a wave of emotion, of sadness, of loss. It made me shiver. “Nadim?”
“I’m well,” he said. “Thank you.” He was pretending to be fine so hard that I could feel the strain of it vibrating through his skin.
“You don’t have to put on an act,” I told him quietly. “Not with me. Not with us. What is it?”
He was silent a long time, so long I thought he’d gone away except that I could still feel his emotional presence. He finally said, “I’m fine, Zara. Beatriz, please don’t be alarmed. I had—what you would call a bad dream, I think. So we will put that behind us now.” His tone sharpened into briskness again. “Now. Zara, you’ve completed your tasks for today, which is why—”
“Hey, if I didn’t have work you could’ve let me sleep in.” Right now, acting like I didn’t know something was up with him was the best gift I could offer to keep him on track. I was an old pro at pretending to be okay.
“—why I have reconfigured your schedule,” he finished. “You’ll be learning navigation today. In the event it falls to either of you to pilot, you must be able to back Beatriz up.”
“Don’t you pilot yourself? I mean . . . it’s who you are, right?”
“
In case of emergency. Please get ready. You are due on duty in one hour.”
The H2 on the table next to me chimed and scrolled with instructions. With a scowl, I picked it up. “Really? A full day on navigational drills? You’re a jerk,” I said, and he laughed, a bright silver burst. I felt the pulse of his amusement run from the crown of my head down through my toes, in a singular shiver. “You understood that? Who taught you slang, anyway?”
“You all do,” he said. “I learn from each one of you. Some more than others.”
“Yeah, I’m colorful as shit. Nadim?”
“Yes?”
“Get out of my room.”
The shower was phenomenal, better if I didn’t think too hard about the filtration system. My Honors haircut hadn’t grown out, so I freshened my curls with some leave-in conditioner and finishing oil. The WHSC had stocked the stores up with everything I’d need for the year, so I didn’t even need to skimp to make it stretch. I moisturized my brown skin too, no getting ashy in space; the lotion was perfect, and it made my skin feel like it was sighing in relief. Finally, with a faint flicker of pride, I dressed in my uniform and met Bea for breakfast. For her, a double espresso, and I made a bowl of oatmeal.
As we ate, we compared lists. I was supposed to learn how to accurately chart a course using the data interface by the end of the day, with various goals to measure my progress. The prospect was daunting.
“Do you feel prepared?” I asked Bea. Because hers had something to do with attending to some experiments that were going to be underway during our journey, courtesy of various Earth labs and scientists. It all looked very complicated.
Her laugh came out tinged with panic. “Not remotely.”
“We got this.” It was becoming second nature to reassure her, and I didn’t hate the feeling when she smiled and offered me a fist bump on her way out. I didn’t understand it. I’m not a trusting person. So what, she could sing, she was nice, she made a good cup of coffee. I wasn’t used to sharing my space with anyone I didn’t know well. What was making me befriend her? I kept coming back to Clarice. When I turned my back on Bea, was she going to slip a cord over my head?
Why would she? some calmer part of my brain asked me. She’s got no beef with you. Just be normal for a while.