The Exo Project

by Andrew DeYoung

  “I’ve gotten used to it. When I had my first vision, the pain was impossible. But I’ve learned how to control the Ancestors, how not to be overwhelmed by them.”

  Matthew was about to ask her how, but then Dunne walked up to him, her face knotted with confusion.

  “Dunne,” Matthew said, trying to blink away the throbbing pain in his temples. “Hey, what’s wrong with Sam? He’s still hanging back all the way at the edge of the camp, and I don’t know—”

  “Forget him,” Dunne said. “I’ve got a more pressing question. I need you to ask how they reproduce.”

  Matthew blinked and shook his head. “Wait, what? Please don’t make me ask that. You said that they’re the same as us, right? Didn’t you say that?”

  Dunne nodded. “I did. The men are, anyway. Same sex organs, same kind of genetic material for reproduction.”

  “But the women are different?”

  “Not exactly. Basically, everything’s the same. But with one crucial difference. None of the women I’ve scanned—ten or twelve of them by now—have any genetic material to contribute to reproduction. I mean no ovaries. No eggs. Nothing for the male of the species to fertilize.”

  “You mean …”

  “I mean they’re barren,” Dunne said. “Every last one of them.”

  45

  kiva

  Outwardly, Kiva was calm, almost emotionless. But on the inside, a hundred questions buzzed in her mind, bouncing back and forth in her skull. She was so preoccupied she barely noticed that Matthew and Dunne had begun to speak excitedly to each other, their voices rising and their hands beginning to move in the air.

  The Ancestors. They are still inside Matthew. He can hear their voice—like the Sisters. Like me.

  Kiva’s mind scrambled to understand what was going on.

  The Ancestors favor Matthew—a Stranger, a boy. What does it mean?

  It might not mean anything, of course. Kiva was the one who had put the Ancestors inside Matthew’s body—when she’d spilled her blood to heal him, they’d entered his veins, gone inside to do their work on him. It wasn’t unheard of for the Vagra to perform the healing ritual on a man. The Vagra before her had done it—when one of the huts in the village had collapsed and Orloph, Rehal’s father, was injured and near death. Then the Vagra had taken him to her hut and allowed the Ancestors to enter his body and heal it. He walked back into the village the next day, whole. That night, there’d been a celebration in the village. Kiva had been nine seasons old when all this happened—and she still remembered it well.

  But she didn’t remember that Orloph had begun to hear the voice of the Ancestors. He hadn’t taken on the powers of the Sisters and the Vagra. The Ancestors had gone inside Orloph’s body to heal him, but they didn’t stay to give him visions. They didn’t allow him to hear the thoughts of others.

  The men were lesser creatures, concerned with the lower things: caring for the children, building huts for the Vagri to live in, growing food for the Vagri to eat. Kiva had heard this over and over as a child—from Grath, from Liana, from the other adults in the village, and finally, from the lips of the Vagra herself.

  But now …

  She left the thought unfinished as she looked to Matthew once more. There was something different about him. Even before she’d healed him, she’d seen him in her visions. More than seen him—she’d shared a vision with him. His consciousness had been inside hers—in the dream where he’d come over the hill to find her lying in the grass. He couldn’t seem to remember this dream, but Kiva had a feeling it would come back to him soon.

  First the vision, the dream they’d dreamed together—and now this. What were the Ancestors trying to tell her?

  She had to be sure.

  Matthew broke off from his conversation with Dunne and moved toward Kiva, breaking through her racing thoughts. His cheeks were red, and Kiva quickly recalled the color of the blood on his chest when she’d ripped his shirt open back on the plain.

  He was blushing.

  Matthew cleared his throat. “We want to know … ,” he began, then broke off and muttered to himself, “God, this is embarrassing.”

  “What is it?”

  “We want to know how you reproduce,” Matthew said. “How you make babies.”

  Now it was Kiva’s turn to blush, her gray skin turning a deeper shade as her black blood rushed hotly to her cheeks. But she answered without hesitating.

  “Our women mate with our men,” she said. “They visit their huts at night, after the men have finished their daily work. Sometimes they come back with a baby growing inside them.”

  “And after the children are born, then what?”

  “Then we bring the child to the men. The men care for the children until they come of age. Until the boys are ready to build their own huts and grow food for the village. And until the girls have their first visitation by the Ancestors.”

  Matthew relayed everything back to Dunne. Sam stood off to the side, listening to what Matthew said with his lips pursed.

  After Matthew had finished, Dunne spoke back to him. Matthew nodded and turned back to Kiva.

  “The women and the men—do they get married? Do they have families?”

  Kiva squinted. “I don’t understand.”

  “Do your people choose one person to be with and have children with?”

  Kiva nodded. “I see. Usually the women choose one man and stay with that one for most of their lives. But they don’t have to. Some of the women have more than one man that they mate with. Sometimes two or more women share the same man. It’s all up to the women—they choose who they want.”

  Matthew was silent a moment.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Have you chosen a mate yet?”

  Kiva dropped her gaze. Her hair fell across her face. “The Vagra doesn’t take a mate,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Haven’t you learned by now? Because the Ancestors have chosen it to be that way. As Vagra, my allegiance can be to no one man, to no one child. I am the mother to all the Vagri—to all the Sisters, to all the men and children.”

  Matthew waited a few seconds before relaying Kiva’s responses back to Dunne. In those short moments, he seemed to retreat inside himself. Kiva couldn’t quite make out his thoughts, but the look on his face was unmistakable.

  It was a look of disappointment. Of sadness.

  Whether Matthew’s sadness was for himself or for her, Kiva couldn’t tell.

  46

  Before long, the Great Mother began sinking low on the horizon.

  “It’s getting late,” Matthew said to Kiva. “We need to start walking back to our ship if we want to be there by sundown.”

  Kiva nodded.

  But Matthew didn’t go. He lingered nearby.

  “What is it?” Kiva asked.

  “The gun. We need it back. Our weapons could corrupt your people. We don’t want that.”

  “I understand,” Kiva said. “But we’d rather be corrupted by your weapons than be killed by them. You haven’t shown yourselves to be very trustworthy with them.”

  “I know,” Matthew said. “And I’m sorry. But I promise you that things are different now. If you allow us to take the gun, I’ll lock it up and we won’t use it again. We know now that we don’t need it. You’re a peaceful people. We can be peaceful too.”

  Kiva considered for a moment, then went to speak with the men. She got the gun, returned to Matthew, and put it in his hands.

  “Be careful,” she said as she let it out of her grasp.

  “Thank you,” Matthew said. He turned to go.

  “Matthew,” came Kiva’s voice from behind him.

  He stopped and looked back over his shoulder.

  “You’ll come again tomorrow?”

  Matthew blinked. “If you want me to.”

  “I do,” Kiva said. “There are things I need to discuss with you. You’ve asked many questions today. But I have my own questions to ask of you.”
>
  Matthew agreed and began moving away.

  “Matthew,” Kiva called out to him once more.

  He turned.

  “When you come,” she said, “come alone.”

  As the Strangers left the village, Kiva moved to intercept the Forsaken. She put a hand on one of the men’s shoulders, and he stopped and turned to look at her.

  “Let them go,” she said.

  “But the weapon,” he said, watching the Strangers as they moved into the outer village.

  Kiva shook her head. “Let them go,” she repeated. “We don’t have anything to fear from them. Not anymore.”

  The men nodded. Their bodies relaxed. Their grips loosened around their spears.

  “Where’s Po?” Kiva asked after a moment.

  The men glanced at each other, shrugged, then looked back to Kiva.

  “Don’t know,” one of them said. “I was keeping my attention on the woman, the one Po told me to watch, and—”

  “It’s all right,” Kiva said. “Go back to Xendr Chathe. Tell him that I’m pleased with your help, but that it isn’t needed anymore. Tell him the Strangers are no longer a threat to us.”

  Both men nodded. “Thank you, Vagra,” each muttered in turn.

  And then they were gone.

  Kiva turned to see Quint, Thruss, and Rehal standing nearby. The three had wandered around while the Strangers explored, Quint straying but never going too far from Kiva as Rehal and Thruss ranged farther to observe the reactions of the Sisters to the Strangers’ presence.

  Quint ran forward and wrapped her arms around Kiva’s waist. As Kiva felt her sister’s arms squeezing her, something seemed to unwind in her chest, a tightness that she hadn’t even realized was there until now.

  She opened her eyes and looked down. Quint, without letting go of Kiva’s waist, looked up at her, eyes wide.

  “Thank you,” Kiva said.

  “For what?”

  Kiva shook her head. “I don’t know. For being here, I guess. It helped, having you nearby. It made me feel less alone. I don’t think I could’ve made it through this day without you.”

  Quint smiled a smile so wide and radiant that it made Kiva dizzy. She took a deep breath before continuing.

  “It’s getting late. You should go back to Grath.”

  Quint nodded, then left for the outer village, giving Kiva one last hug before she went.

  Thruss and Rehal moved close, and Kiva greeted them with a grim look. They made a tight circle and spoke in low voices.

  “Okay, tell me,” Kiva said. “What are the Sisters saying?”

  “They’re quiet, mostly,” Thruss said after a moment of heavy silence.

  Kiva looked to Rehal. “How about you?”

  Rehal shrugged. “It went as well as it could have, I suppose. Those who did come out of their huts were mostly curious. A few of them were angry. They asked me what you were thinking, bringing outsiders into the camp.”

  “They reacted well to the woman,” Thruss said. “Some of them even allowed her to touch them, to take their blood. Those who did bragged to the others that they had touched a Stranger, as if it was something to be proud of. They told the others that there was nothing to fear.”

  “Yes, the woman helped,” Rehal agreed. “But they kept their distance from the two others. That boy who kept to the edge of the encampment. And the other one. Your boy.”

  Kiva blinked. Her heart thudded. “My boy? Is that what they’re saying about him?”

  Rehal flinched and bowed her head. “I’m sorry, Vagra. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just, the way you were with him …”

  “That’s enough,” Kiva said. She didn’t want to hear any more.

  But it was too late. She could already hear everything. The thoughts of Thruss and Rehal, the thoughts of the Sisters as they began to retreat to their huts for the night or go to their men in the village.

  The way she talked to that boy. The way she walked so closely to him, practically touching.

  If I didn’t know better … If I didn’t know better I’d think …

  No. It can’t be. She wouldn’t. Not the Vagra.

  But the way she looked at him.

  It’s not right.

  Kiva pushed the voices away.

  “What about Po?” she asked. “Did you see where he went?”

  “No, Vagra,” Rehal said. “I was too busy with the Sisters.”

  Thruss, her lips pressed tight together, made a noise in the back of her throat.

  “What is it?” Kiva asked. “Tell me.”

  “It’s probably nothing.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  Thruss hesitated a moment more, then said, “He was speaking to Kyne. I saw that much. Kyne pulled him away by the arm and then whispered in his ear. I didn’t see him leave, though.”

  Kiva held stock still for a moment, then nodded slowly.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you both. You’ve been a help to me today.” She paused and forced a smile. “To your people. To the Vagri. I’m grateful to you.”

  Thruss and Rehal nodded, accepting Kiva’s gratitude, and left.

  Kiva watched them go, then made for the other side of the camp. She walked faster and faster with every step. Soon she was running, her dress swishing around her thighs.

  She slowed when she came upon Kyne’s hut. Her steps halted just outside the door. She lifted her hand and pulled aside the cloth hanging in the doorway.

  There was a small cot covered with rumpled blankets and a low table beside it. An oil lamp, the wick blackened and extinguished.

  Kiva came back outside and wandered around the hut, looking this way and that as if she expected to see Po and Kyne somewhere nearby.

  But no. They were gone.

  Kiva let out a sigh and hung her head, and as she did she spotted something on the ground nearby. She moved to examine it more closely.

  It was an arrow. She crouched by it, her toes nearly touching the grass fletching, but she didn’t pick it up. Her eyes followed the line of the shaft toward the arrowhead, covered in the dried, rusty red of blood. Stranger blood.

  Matthew’s blood.

  Kiva lifted her head, following the arrow’s line toward where it pointed on the horizon. It pointed toward the rock outcropping and the stone pit at the edge of the Vagri’s land.

  It pointed to where the Forsaken lived.

  47

  po

  “It’s disgusting,” Kyne grumbled as they walked through the grass beyond the village. “It’s not right.”

  Po was silent.

  “Kiva should have killed them when she had the chance,” Kyne muttered. “She should have had you and the Forsaken murder them where they stood. Instead she brings them to the village? To the Sisters’ camp?” She shook her head as a guttural sound rose up from the back of her throat.

  Kyne was talking to herself, but Po couldn’t stop himself from speaking up.

  “The Vagra, you mean,” he said.

  Kyne wheeled around and looked at him with rage in her eyes.

  “You called her Kiva,” Po said, his voice more timid now. “But she’s the Vagra now. She can do as she pleases.”

  Kyne turned away and kept on walking. “She’s no Vagra of mine. Not after what she did. Endangering the village like that. Now the Sisters must see I was right about her.”

  Po was silent. He hadn’t told her about what happened at the Strangers’ ship. If Kyne knew that he had nearly killed one of the Strangers, but that Kiva stopped him and performed a healing ritual over him—well, it could only make matters worse.

  “And the way she was looking at him. At that creature.” Kyne shook her head. “It makes me sick to think about it.”

  As much as he hated to admit it, there was a sick feeling in the pit of Po’s stomach, as well—but it wasn’t disgust he was feeling. It was something else. Anger, perhaps. Po had seen what Kyne saw, what everyone saw—the way that Kiva and the Stranger looked
at each other, how close together they walked, the way their hands brushed together. Po felt certain that Kiva, the Vagra, wasn’t capable of what Kyne was suggesting. Still, it was painful for him to watch, and when he’d followed the Stranger around the Sisters’ village as Kiva had commanded him to, he’d begun to feel as though he was invisible.

  So, when he’d felt Kyne’s hand on his elbow, pulling him away to her hut, he’d gone willingly.

  “You have to take me,” she’d said in the hut. “You have to take me to see Xendr Chathe.”

  Po squinted and shook his head. “No. I don’t have to do anything you say. I answer to Xendr now. And he’s loyal to the Vagra.”

  “Really?” Kyne asked, her lip curling into a sneer. “And what will he say when he learns that his precious Vagra has used his men not to kill the Strangers, but to bring them into the village? The Vagra isn’t the only one who has visions, you know. I see things as well. When you gave me the maiora at the pit, I saw a vision of the Strangers bringing death to the Vagri.”

  “So that was real?” Po said. “I thought you were making that up to get the Sisters on your side.”

  Kyne gave Po a poisonous look. “It was real. And it’s still coming for us. What Kiva’s doing is only making it worse. Xendr needs to hear about it. We can still prevent it from happening.”

  Finally, Po had agreed to bring her—but not before leaving a sign for Kiva, an arrow placed on the ground, the chiseled, bloodstained head pointing in the direction that Kyne was forcing him to take her. Pointing in the direction of the Forsaken camp.

  Now, as they crested the last hill and came in view of the Forsaken camp, Kyne drew in a sharp breath.

  The camp itself was not much to look at. Nestled into a low place on the grasslands, it was dominated on its far end by a single hut, where Xendr Chathe lived. Closer to where Po and Kyne stood were dozens of small tents made of woven grass. This was where the Forsaken slept, one to a tent. To someone who’d heard stories about the Forsaken camp her entire life, like Kyne, the sight must have been a disappointment.