The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

by Becky Chambers

  Ohan picked up the razor that lay beside the washbasin near their feet. They clicked a skipping rhythm with their tongue as they trimmed the patterns in their fur. The swirls of fur and clicks of tongue meant nothing to their crewmates, but they meant everything to Ohan. Every pattern represented a cosmological truth, every series of clicks an abstraction of the universe’s underlying mathematics. These were symbols and sounds every Sianat Pair knew. They wore the layers of the universe upon their skin, drummed its beat with their mouths.

  A sharp twinge blossomed deep within their wrist, and for a moment, the Pair lost control of their hand. The razor slipped, nicking their skin. Ohan chirped, more out of surprise than pain. They wrapped the fingers of their other hand around the wound, rocking back and forth for a moment as the feeling faded to a quiet burn. Ohan exhaled. They looked down to the cut. Thin blood oozed forth, matting a tiny patch of fur. But the razor had not gone deep. Ohan stood stiffly and walked to the dresser in search of a bandage.

  This was the first stage of the Wane: stiffness and muscle spasms. Eventually, the pain would spread to their bones, and their muscles would become increasingly difficult to control. The pain would then disappear completely, but this was a devious mercy, as it indicated that their nerve fibers had begun to die. Death would come afterward, in its own time.

  The Wane was an inevitability in a Sianat Pair’s life. Though the Whisperer unlocked the mind of the Host, it also shortened their life. Solitaries — blasphemous Hosts that avoided infection, a crime punished by exile — reportedly could live well over a hundred standards, but no Pair had ever lived to be more than thirty. From time to time, alien doctors would come forward, offering to help cure the Wane, but they were always refused. There could be no chance of a treatment damaging the genetic stability of the Whisperer. The infection was sacred. It could not be tampered with. The Wane was a fair price to pay for enlightenment.

  Even so, Ohan was afraid. They could disconnect themself from the fear, but it lingered, like an unpleasant taste in the back of the throat. Fear. Such a throwback emotion, meant to spur primitive lifeforms away from potential predators. Life’s universal constant. Every fear of rejection, of criticism, of failure, of loss — these were all caused by that same archaic survival reflex. Ohan knew that their own fear of death was nothing more than some primitive synapses firing within their Host’s brain, the emotional equivalent of jerking a hand away from a hot surface. When they reached for the higher parts of their mind, they knew that death was nothing to fear. Why should they fear something that came to all lifeforms? In some ways, having reached the Wane was a comfort to Ohan. It meant that they had been successful in avoiding a sudden, premature end.

  Ashby and Dr. Chef were the only ones who knew that Ohan had begun to Wane. The captain attempted to carry on as normal, though he often asked Ohan in a hushed voice how they were feeling, if there was anything he could do. Dr. Chef, kind creature that he was, had taken the trouble to contact Sianat doctors to learn more about the Wane’s effects. A few days after the Wayfarer left Coriol, Dr. Chef had presented Ohan with a variety of homemade tinctures and teas, made from herbs recommended for easing the pain. Ohan had been touched, though as always, they did not know how to adequately express their thanks. Gift-giving was unheard of in Sianat culture, and Ohan was always ill-equipped to express gratitude for such gestures. They believed that Dr. Chef understood this social limitation. In a way, Dr. Chef could see into the hearts of others as well as Ohan themself could see the universe. Ohan often wondered if Dr. Chef knew what a gift that was.

  Bandage in place and blood cleaned away, Ohan returned to the window. They picked up the razor, clicking their cheek as they dragged the blade through their fur. As they did so, they thought of the concept of purpose. Dr. Chef’s purpose was to heal and nourish. Ashby’s purpose was to bind his crew together. Accepting the Wane ran contrary to those purposes. For them, accepting the death of a crew member was difficult. Ohan hoped they knew how much the effort was appreciated.

  Ohan’s own purpose was to be a Navigator, to unveil the universe for those who were blind to it. After death, Ohan would no longer be able to pursue that purpose, and they could not deny that this saddened them. At least there would be time for one more job, this new tunnel at Hedra Ka. The Wane had only begun its first stage. There was time for a tunnel before succumbing. Ohan hoped that Ashby was not uncomfortable with letting them embrace the Wane’s final stage aboard the Wayfarer. They could think of nothing more fitting than dying in the place that housed their purpose.

  Ohan looked again into the black hole. They closed their eyes, and pictured great swaths of fragmented matter, falling and pressing endlessly. Larab, they would call it in their native tongue, a word to describe form. And gruss, too, a word for the color of unseen matter. There were no words in Klip for the colors or shapes that lay beyond sight. They had tried at times to explain these things to the Wayfarer’s crew, but there were no words, no abstractions that could open their crewmates’ handicapped minds. Ohan preferred to take in the sight alone, especially now. A black hole was the perfect place to contemplate death. There was nothing in the universe that could last forever. Not stars. Not matter. Nothing.

  The razor cut. Their wrist ached. The sky roiled, unseen.

  ●

  Feed source: Reskit Museum of Natural Sciences - Archival Library (Public/Reskitkish)

  Item name: Thoughts On The Galaxy - Chapter Three

  Author: oshet-Tekshereket esk-Rahist as-Ehas Kirish isket-Ishkriset

  Encryption: 0

  Translation path: [Reskitkish:Klip]

  Transcription: 0

  Node identifier: 9874-457-28, Rosemary Harper

  When meeting an individual of another species for the first time, there is no sapient in the galaxy who does not immediately take inventory of xyr physiological differences. These are always the first things we see. How does xyr skin differ? Does xe have a tail? How does xe move? How does xe pick things up? What does xe eat? Does xe have abilities that I don’t? Or vice versa?

  These are all important distinctions, but the more important comparison is the one we make after this point. Once we’ve made our mental checklists of variations, we begin to draw parallels — not between the alien and ourselves, but between the alien and animals. The majority of us have been taught since childhood that voicing these comparisons is derogatory, and indeed, many of the racial slurs in colloquial use are nothing more than common names for non-sapient species (for example, the Human term lizard, to describe Aandrisks; the Quelin term tik, to describe Humans; the Aandrisk term sersh, to describe Quelin). Though these terms are offensive, examining them objectively reveals a point of major biological interest. All demeaning implications aside, we Aandrisks do look like some of the native reptilian species of Earth. Humans do look like larger, bipedal versions of the hairless primates that plague the sewer systems of Quelin cities. Quelin do bear some resemblance to the snapping crustaceans found all over Hashkath. And yet, we evolved separately, and on different worlds. My people and the lizards of Earth do not share an evolutionary tree, nor do Humans and tiks, nor Quelin and sersh. Our points of origin are spread out across the galaxy. We hail from systems that remained self-contained for billions of years, with evolutionary clocks that all began at different times. How is it possible that when meeting our galactic neighbors for the first time, we are all instantly reminded of creatures back home — or in some cases, of ourselves?

  The question becomes even more complicated when we start to look beyond our superficial differences to the wealth of similarities. All sapient species have brains. Let us consider that seemingly obvious fact for a moment. Despite our isolated evolutionary paths, we all developed nervous systems with a central hub. We all have internal organs. We all share at least some of the same physical senses: hearing, touch, taste, smell, sight, electroreception. The grand majority of sapients have either four or six limbs. Bipedalism and opposable digits, while not univer
sal, are shockingly common. We are all made from chromosomes and DNA, which themselves are made from a select handful of key elements. We all require a steady intake of water and oxygen to survive (though in varying quantities). We all need food. We all buckle under atmospheres too thick or gravitational fields too strong. We all die in freezing cold or burning heat. We all die, full stop.

  How can this be? How is it that life, so diverse on the surface, has followed the same patterns throughout the galaxy — not just in the current era, but over and over again. We see this pattern in the ruins of the Arkanic civilization at Shessha, or the ancient fossil beds on the now-barren world of Okik. This is a question that scientific communities have wrestled with for centuries, and it seems unlikely that an answer will present itself in the near future. There are many theories — asteroids carrying amino acids, supernovae blowing organic material out into neighboring systems. And yes, there is the fanciful story of a hyper-advanced sapient race “seeding” the galaxy with genetic material. I admit that the “Galactic Gardener” hypothesis has fueled the plots of some of my favorite science fiction sims, but scientifically speaking, it is nothing more than wishful thinking. You cannot have a theory without evidence, and there is absolutely none that supports this idea (no matter what the conspiracy theorists lurking on Linking feeds would have you believe).

  For my part, I think that the best explanation is the simplest one. The galaxy is a place of laws. Gravity follows laws. The lifecycles of stars and planetary systems follow laws. Subatomic particles follow laws. We know the exact conditions that will cause the formation of a red dwarf, or a comet, or a black hole. Why, then, can we not acknowledge that the universe follows similarly rigid laws of biology? We have only ever discovered life on similarly-sized terrestrial moons and planets, orbiting within a narrow margin around hospitable stars. If we all evolved on such kindred worlds, why is it such a surprise that our evolutionary paths have so much in common? Why can we not conclude that the right combination of specific environmental factors will always result in predictable physical adaptations? With so much evidence staring us in the face, why does this debate continue?

  The answer, of course, is that the laws of biology are nearly impossible to test, and scientists hate that. We can launch probes to test theories of gravity and space-time. We can put rocks in pressure cookers and split atoms in classrooms. But how does one test a process as lengthy and multifaceted as evolution? There are labs today that struggle to find the funding to keep a project running for three standards — imagine the funding needed to run a project for millenia! As it stands, there is no way for us to efficiently test the conditions that produce specific biological adaptations, beyond the most rudimentary observations (aquatic climates produce fins, cold climates produce fur or blubber, and so on). There have been bold attempts at creating software that could accurately predict evolutionary paths, such as the Aeluon-funded Tep Preem Project (which, though well-intentioned, has yet to unravel the mysteries of biological law). The problem with such endeavors is that there are too many variables to consider, many of which we remain ignorant of. We simply don’t have enough data, and the data that we do possess is still beyond our understanding.

  We are experts of the physical galaxy. We live on terraformed worlds and in massive orbital habitats. We tunnel through the sublayer to hop between stellar systems. We escape planetary gravity with the ease of walking out the front door. But when it comes to evolution, we are hatchlings, fumbling with toys. I believe this is why many of my peers still cling to theories of genetic material scattered by asteroids and supernovae. In many ways, the idea of a shared stock of genes drifting through the galaxy is far easier to accept than the daunting notion that none of us may ever have the intellectual capacity to understand how life truly works.

  Day 245, GC Standard 306

  INTRO TO HARMAGIAN COLONIAL HISTORY

  Sissix peeked around the doorframe. The hallway was empty. If she moved fast, she might make it to the med bay before anybody saw her.

  She hugged a bathrobe — borrowed from a pile of Kizzy’s clean laundry — around herself and hurried forward. As she moved, the itch spread up from her thighs and over her belly. She rubbed her palms against it through the fabric, barely resisting the urge to dig in with her claws. She wanted to throw off the robe and roll around against the metal floor, against a rough-barked tree, against a sanding block, anything, so long as she could rid herself of this dry burning aching shallow hateful itch.

  “Whoa, Sis,” Jenks said, skidding to a halt as she rounded a corner. “You almost ran me — ” His words stopped once he got a look at her. “Holy shit, you look terrible.”

  “Thanks, Jenks, you’re such a help,” she said, continuing on her way. She wasn’t embarrassed, she told herself, just angry. Yes, angry that this had happened at all, angry at how many times in her life she’d had to put up with it, angry at people not just leaving her the hell alone.

  “Sissix, hey,” Rosemary said, appearing from behind a door, scrib in hand. “I was coming to see — oh.” Her dumb, wet mammal eyes widened. She brought a hand to her mouth.

  “I’m fine,” Sissix said, never pausing for a moment. With as big as the ship was, you’d think it possible for a person to get from point A to point B without constantly running into — “Fuck off, Corbin,” Sissix said to the pink Human, who had just ascended from the lower decks. He froze at the top of the staircase, looking stupid and confused as she hurried past.

  She burst into the med bay, shutting the door as soon as she was through. Dr. Chef looked up from his work station. He rumbled sympathetically.

  “Oh, poor girl,” he said. “You’re molting.”

  “I’m early, too.” She glanced at herself in the mirror. Blistering pockets of dead skin had separated from her face, tearing raggedly at the edges. “I didn’t think I’d start for another three tendays, and I haven’t — aargh!” The itch started up again, though it had never really stopped. Her whole face felt like it was crawling with flies. She gave in to the impulse and clawed.

  “Hey, now, none of that,” Dr. Chef said, coming forward to take her wrists. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “No, I won’t,” Sissix said. She was acting childish, but she didn’t care. Her face was about to fall off. She had a right to be petulant.

  Dr. Chef pushed up her sleeve. “Really,” he said. He lifted her arm so she could see the light claw marks on her flaking skin. A faint crust of blood lingered where her claws had scratched too deep during the night.

  “Stars, you’re parental sometimes,” Sissix mumbled.

  “I feed you and heal you, how else am I supposed to be? Take off that robe. Let’s sort you out.”

  “Thank you.” She took off her robe as Dr. Chef opened a storage panel. He took out a misting bottle and a riksith — a small, flat board with a rough coating on one side. Kizzy had once called it “a nail file for your entire self.”

  “Where’s worst?” Dr. Chef asked.

  Sissix lay back on the examination table. “Everywhere.” She sighed. “My arms, I guess.”

  Dr. Chef gently took her right arm, the one with the bloody patch, and sprayed medicated mist over it. The dry skin went translucent, lifting at the edges. He went to work with the riksith, rubbing the wet pieces away. Sissix breathed a little easier, urging the rest of her body to be patient. Dr. Chef took one of her fingers between his own, examining it. “How’s the skin feel here?”

  “Tight. It’s not ready to come up.”

  “Oh, I think it is. It just doesn’t know it yet.” He moistened her skin, and with steady pressure, massaged her hand from wrist to claws. After a few minutes, she could feel an edge come loose near her wrist. Dr. Chef worked his fingers underneath, carefully, gripping it between two fingerpads. In one swift motion, he tore the dead skin free from her entire hand, like pulling off a glove.

  Sissix yelped, then moaned. The new skin was sensitive, but the itch there was gone. She exhaled. “Stars, you�
�re good at that.”

  “I’ve had some practice,” he said, continuing up her arm with the riksith.

  Sissix craned her neck up to make sure the door was fully closed. “Do you ever get tired of Humans?”

  “On occasion. I think that’s normal for anyone living with people other than their own. I’m sure they get tired of us, too.”

  “I’m definitely tired of them today,” Sissix said, laying her head back. “I’m tired of their fleshy faces. I’m tired of their smooth fingertips. I’m tired of how they pronounce their Rs. I’m tired of their inability to smell anything. I’m tired of how clingy they get around kids that don’t even belong to them. I’m tired of how neurotic they are about being naked. I want to smack every single one of them around until they realize how needlessly complicated they make their families and their social lives and their — their everything.”