Escaping Exodus

by Nicky Drayden

  She has my pai’s eyes, blessed mothers.

  Same eyes I have, a pale reddish brown, and everyone’s always going on about how unique they are. She has my pai’s jawline also, his brow. Might as well be looking into some sort of funny mirror, one that reflected a different reality. I’ve nearly forgotten the word for it—a word that’s become more of a cuss than anything useful—but then it comes rushing back.

  Sister. This girl could be my sister.

  “Hello,” I say timidly.

  She nods, then scurries off with the tumor chunk. I run off after her. It’s time to get going, after all, before a million tons of ichor come crashing down on my head. But my earlobe screams out in pain, and I’m yanked back, caught in my ama’s grip.

  “Don’t you ever talk to her again,” Ama says. “Do you understand me?”

  I squirm. We’ve got twelve seconds left. Everyone else has already evacuated, but she holds me firm.

  “Do you understand?”

  “But, Ama! We need to go. Now!”

  “Understand me, girl?”

  “Yes!” I scream. “Yes! I won’t talk to her again.”

  Then we’re running. “Beat!” I scream as we duck through the doorway and seal it behind us. I’m still pressed up against it as my entire world continues to shake, and it has nothing to do with the beat of the beast’s heart.

  Seske

  Of Lost Lines and Found Texts

  “Think harder, Seske,” Pai says, his brows arched and eyes peeled wide, as if he’s trying to project the quiz answer directly into my mind.

  My thoughts tumble past me, all the names of the Lines, but for the life of me, I can’t grab on to the one I need. Hamish, Inikodo, and Semirami are, of course, the first three, but then it gets fuzzy until Crown Safran, who decreed that every family would always be allowed one child, despite the additional strain on resources. But then years later, when it became evident that our generation ship would not be able to accommodate such a population, he stealthily defined a family as a man and two women. The men rejoiced, of course, but little did they know that this move would be the downfall of man. The Lines of Matriarchy were born under Crown Safran’s rule, both literally and figuratively, with Matris Abinaya, who when she came of age had taken the Crown by coup and took Crown Safran to the spirit wall. Well, his head at least. She’d pressed it into the wall, and the beast’s secretions covered it, where it stood, slowly digested by enzymes until there was merely a calcified husk left. They say Abinaya was such a cruel matriarch that when her own body was taken to the wall, she’d tainted it in such a way that enzymes no longer secreted from where her body had been inhumed.

  “Matris Abinaya,” I answer my pai. It is the wrong answer to his question, I know, but at least he will think I made an effort.

  “Oh, Seske.” He stands and dusts his hands on his thighs. “You’re off by over two hundred years. Trying to put knowledge into your brain is like trying to shove a fist through a wall of bone. Matris Tendasha is the answer. Matris Tendasha made the old Rule of Tens that helped to counteract the population explosion after the Great Mending. Ten fingers.” Pai opens his hands and wriggles his long, slender fingers, patinaed with the deepest shade of orange. “Ten persons in the family unit. Three men, six women, and a child shared between them all. Ten for Tendasha.”

  I wrinkle my nose at my head-father. “I may be slow at the Lines, Pai, but I can count.”

  He looks at me, skeptical. “Maybe we should save the rest for another day. Why don’t you run along and play?”

  Before I was a woman, two days ago to be exact, I used to impatiently wait for Pai to release me from the torture of his lessons with those very words, but now play is the last thing on my mind. “I don’t have time to waste. I need you to teach me everything there is to being a proper matriarch.”

  Pai looks at me and smiles warmly. “Seske, despite the many gray hairs as you’ve put upon her head, Matris is still very young. There will be time. It is better not to force such things.”

  My pai looks at me with kindness and admiration. In his eyes, I am his only child, and he has never let me forget that, despite that it is his blood running through Sisterkin’s veins and not mine. I am his only daughter, and he is my favorite father, not that I would ever tell my bapa that, though I am of his blood. It is tacky to make such distinctions either way, but every child has their favorite parent. And least favorite.

  “Matris thinks I’m a lost cause. I need to prove her wrong, now, not twenty years from now. I’ll be twice the matriarch she ever was and ever will be.”

  “Now, Seske, your head-mother has made mistakes—”

  “In birthing Sisterkin, you mean?”

  Pai winces at the name. “Mistakes in general. We all make mistakes. Even you make mistakes . . .” He lets the words hang and peels his eyes open again. With Wheytt, he means. Or perhaps any one of the hundreds of other mistakes that I’ve made recently. I can’t read his favor-barren mind. But I get the gist. “You need to go easy on Matris,” he says. “Forgive. Forget. It will eat you up on the inside if you don’t.” Pai smiles, but it is a smile of remorse.

  If my will-father had told me such a thing, I would have dismissed it as his normal blather, but coming from Pai, his head as firm upon his shoulders as a man ever had, perhaps I should at least consider it. “Yes, Pai,” I say. He squeezes me, then lets go.

  “We’ll start again tomorrow?”

  “I’m off to go study right now,” I tell him. “You’ll be so proud . . .”

  “I’m already proud of you, Seske. But you’re sure you’re okay with the Texts? Alone?”

  “I won’t eat or drink near them, I promise.”

  “Or fall asleep on them?”

  Again, Pai wants to add, but he is the matriarch’s husband a thousand times over, and decorum is his middle name.

  “No drool on the pages, I promise.” I swaddle the tome in my arms. It is heavy with the weight of our people, heavy with years of dust, of sweat, of everything that we’ve lived through during the past several centuries. It is the oldest relic we have, and besides our technology, it is one of the few items we allow upon our ship during exodus. Our world can be re-created, replicated, and refabricated just so, but our past is fragile, irreplaceable.

  I’m still beaming inside when I sit down with the Texts. I run my fingers over the Lines, saying them through aloud, once, twice, again. Vvanescript blurs. My head tilts, and suddenly the cool paper is upon my cheek. I press myself up, slap my face. I am awake. I quiz myself on the first twenty but make it only halfway through before my mind fails me. Then a familiar smell sets my mind alight. Kettleworm tea. Figures Bapa would have some brewing, even before we have walls up in the kitchen. Carefully, I close the Texts and slip the tome into its cover, old brittle skin from one of the first beasts we’d brought down from the days when we merely harvested their resources to store aboard our ship.

  Bapa greets me, a steaming cup of kettleworm tea already extended my way. I breathe in the vapors. Bapa makes the tea extra strong for me, with lots of pulp to help me keep my thoughts organized. Tiny bits of kettleworm dance and wriggle in the heat, trying to latch on to each other to form a larger organism, but I stir them all apart with my finger, suck it clean, and watch their dance begin again. The kettleworms themselves are a deep purple, but their excretions are a vibrant and fierce orange that stains your mouth. They are extremophiles, but when the temperature shifts too suddenly, they release their savory enzymes. Bapa has the brewing process down to a secret science, and his fame has spread well beyond the walls of our family unit. If Matris would allow men to own such things, he’d likely have a thriving business, but as progressive as she seems to the outside world, she’d never let such a thing happen in her own home, under her rule.

  “I hear you’ve kissed a boy,” Bapa says, stirring his own tea, unwilling to look me in the eye. “Is this an urgent need, or can it wait until your amas are raised from sleep?”

&n
bsp; Lust is a matter of will for Bapa to deal with, while love is a matter for my amas, and as for the technical mechanics of the physical act, well, that falls upon my head-father and -mothers. I’ve had the sex talk eight times. So far. Each time more excruciating than the last. And favors forbid I actually have a question. I get routed and rerouted, bounced between parents, until I get so frustrated that I give up. My head-father refuses to talk about the mechanics of sex between women, my amas can only speculate what it’s like to love a man, and my will-mothers are useless on any matter that doesn’t involve the Five Chronicles of Willpower, and Bapa just gets nervous and falls into senseless allegories. And Matris . . .

  “My will is strong, Bapa. It was a foolish mistake, that’s all.”

  “Good.” He sighs. “There are times when a woman’s needs become burdens, like the loads of water wax the beastworkers carry upon their backs. And when it comes time for the burdens to be laid down—”

  Mothers spur his wonderful will, I really don’t have time for this. “Excuse me, Bapa, my studies await,” I say, taking my cup with me. I dodge boneworkers who are busy putting the detailed touches on our home, consulting their ledgers. One worker gouges the pristine surface of our dining table with her agile chisel. I cringe, remembering how mad Matris had been when I’d practiced my Vvanescript right there on a single sheet of parchment, my sharp quill leaving etchings of ill-drawn words forever in the table’s finish. But then an involuntary smirk leaves my lips. Matris could have ordered the new tabletop to be left unblemished if she’d wanted. For better or worse, it is a part of our family unit’s history and a part of our future.

  In the relative seclusion of my room, I carefully set my cup next to the Texts and open the book yet again. My eyes dart back to my cup. I’d promised Pai, hadn’t I? No eating or drinking near the Texts? Suddenly, my hands tremble as I ease the cup away from my study area. Kettleworm stains are nearly impossible to get rid of, and the last thing I want to do is explain to Pai why our sacred texts are blood orange. With a cool sense of relief, I set the cup upon the sill overlooking the scaffolding of the cityscape beyond. Despite my better judgment, I crack open the window. I’m flooded by the sweet sting of newly let ichor, and bone dust tickles my nose. The echo of all the simultaneous construction is deafening and unrelenting. Work continues on at all hours. I shut the window. There will be months of this yet. I can see why Matris keeps the Contour class in stasis during excavation.

  The vapors go straight to my head. I sit down at my desk. The boneworkers have yet to detail my room, and my fingers run over the empty spot where I’d carved Adalla’s name and mine, on the side facing the wall so that no one would see. I take a pen and carve it again, deeper this time. And neater. My cheeks flush and my insides clench; a new and odd feeling pulses pleasure all through me. The hairs on my arms stiffen, as well as those at the nape of my neck.

  “Focus, Seske,” I tell myself, and I pull the Texts in front of me, staring down at all those names. Of the 118 matriarchs, only four of them had been will-mothers, and none of them had been heart-mothers. If I want to prove my potential, I’ll have to keep my head about me, not be distracted by the imminent conclusion of what was an innocent childhood crush.

  We haven’t much time left if there’s anything to come of it. Matris is probably already arranging my coming out party, and as soon as the rest of my cohort is raised, I’ll be expected to choose a suitor. Female preferably, to fortify the matrilines, but at this point, Matris would settle for my interest in any suitable mate. No matter what, all possibilities between Adalla and me will be over. In fact, I should probably put her out of my mind now and save us both some heartache. But that thought causes a sob to surface, and I fight to snag it in my throat. I catch a tear upon my fingertip before it lands upon the page. My nose runs as well. I sit back, clean myself up, wipe the bleariness from my eyes. Adalla’s thumbs will be safer with me out of her life. I nod to myself, willing my mind to accept that it is for the best, then look down again at the page.

  My heart stops. My nose was not running. It was bleeding. I stare at the glistening dome of the red drop perched upon the page. Don’t panic, Seske. I grab a towel and, with the slightest of movements, let the blood droplet wick up into the fabric. Better, I think. Just a pale-red splotch. I dampen the towel with my saliva and begin to gently rub. The spot fades to near nothing, but some of the ink has come up as well. I pull my ink and quill from my drawer and, with a steady hand, touch up the lettering. There. Perfect. Well, an accountancy guard would notice, but it will be enough to escape the notice of my head-father and -mothers.

  As I sit back, smug in my chair, the inkwell rattles upon my desk. The whole of my room begins to shudder. Another beastquake. They’ve become less common and less forceful, but this one is still enough to topple my ink. A black slick moves across the surface of my desk, bleeding into the back cover of the Texts. I swipe the book up, clench it to my chest as the tremor eases, but it is too late. I hold the mess in front of me in horror, wondering if I’ll be the first addition to this beast’s spirit wall.

  I can think of only one person who’s skilled enough to fix this.

  Sonovan.

  I make my way through the Ides, the Texts bundled up in suede wrappings and clutched close to my chest. The beastworkers’ homes rise up and around me in unfamiliar clusters of warty domes. Artisans stir vats of water wax, preparing to mold furniture, utensils, and other necessities. Unlike the Contour class, where luxuries abound, in the Ides, they make use of what is given. Though the layout of each of the beast’s warts is as unique as a fingerprint, it is fairly easy to navigate, since the family units try to approximate the same location. I come to the cluster that I think belongs to Adalla’s family.

  I step through the doorway, into the living quarters of one of Adalla’s neighbors, a young unit all in their teens, with a baby boy being tossed between his fathers. The child giggles hysterically before being shushed. Eli is the boy’s name, as I’ve picked up from my many trips through their home to Adalla’s, but it is custom to turn your eyes and ears away from their goings, giving privacy in the mental realm where none exists in the physical. There is much I pretend not to see. Adalla’s cluster is a large one, and she’s close to the center, so I have to pass through four units to get to hers. I don’t see the amorous triad—a tangle of limbs upon a standard-issue water wax bed—don’t hear the angry cusses of fighting wives, don’t smell the man loosing his bowels into an old, dented pot, nor do I apologize when I accidentally kick over his soiled rag bucket as I try to scurry past. At last, I reach Adalla’s home. Her ama smiles as she sees me coming.

  “Who is this strange woman before me?” she asks, beaming. This is Purah, the last to join their triad. She pinches at the sides of my breasts, then knocks me in the hips with her fists. “Very sturdy. Oh, how your amas must have hoisted you!”

  “My amas haven’t been raised from stasis yet,” I say bashfully. “Just Matris and my fathers. We will celebrate when—”

  Purah’s eyes go wide, her wrinkled hands go to my hips, and all at once, she thrusts me into the air. She is retired from beastwork, but her body has not forgotten its strength. I tense through my core, trying not to tip over. “The cut of mothers, the cut of wives, the cut of leaders, she bleeds from inside! Rejoice the flow, so red and bright! A girl this morning, a woman tonight!” Purah chants, then starts again, another voice joining her this time, more hands beneath my hips. Another set. All of Adalla’s amas hoist me, tossing me higher and higher. But they are not through. The pretense of privacy is lost, and every heart-mother within hearing comes cramming into Adalla’s living room, twenty of them at least, all tossing me, all beaming at me as if I were their daughter. I allow myself a moment of joy, pushing aside all the trouble I’m in to savor their cheers. I love my own amas with all my heart, but their celebration will be one of planning and diligence, with everything prim and proper. I will sit on a hoisted throne, high above their heads. Poems wil
l be read, lengthy and droll. A soothsayer will agonize over spotting patterns upon my first rags and consult the ancestor spirits about what my life holds. It will be well and fine and—I’m sure—very expensive, but it will not compare to this.

  “Enough! Enough!” I protest, though inside, I yearn for just a little more. But the Texts are being jostled, too, and I can’t afford to tear a page on top of the stain that continues to set. The crowd gently lowers me, then dissipates. I look around for Adalla, but she must be off working her shift. I take a deep breath, then say, “I need to speak to Sonovan. Please, is he here?”

  The amas huddle together and their eyes dart about in a silent conversation that I am left out of. There are hushed squeals and giggles. “Aye, he is. Is that bundle you have there for him?”

  “Yes,” I admit. There is more squealing, worse than the wheeze of the gills of our last beast right before exodus was declared. I know the amas are known for their eccentricity, but this is odd, even for them. I can’t help but wonder what they’re so giddy about.

  “I’ll fetch him straightaway,” says Purah, leaving me with Doram and Morova. Their wrinkled hands catch in each other’s, and they both lean into me.

  “This must be an urgent matter,” Ama Morova says, eyes wide. The inks above her brows have long since faded, but even in this time of scarcity, she’s made the effort to pencil them in around the edges. Her hair is up in a gray twist of three celestial knots, each representing a principal star from her line, and the parts between them are painstakingly straight. Adalla had taught them to me many years ago, and I knew the tales of her ancestral mothers just as well as I knew my own. Probably better.

  “It is urgent,” I say, swallowing saliva. Matris’s name cannot bear to be tarnished a third time. The Senate would pressure her to concede the throne. If Sonovan can’t help me, then I’m ruined.