Stories for Chip

by Nisi Shawl

  “Oh,” Fift said, and frowned again. “Well, what makes someone a Mother?”

  “Your Mother carried you in her womb, Fift. You grew inside her belly, and you were born out of her 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. She’d been inside Mother Pip for ten months. Singlebodied, because her other two bodies hadn’t been fashioned yet. That was an eerie thought. Tiny, helpless, singlebodied, unbreathing, her 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? There was a little bit of debate, but I think we all knew Pip would emerge as the Younger Sibling of that struggle. She 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 uterus could sort through all the sperm and pick the genes it wanted, but you had to publish something or other to get approval, and after that it was too complicated. You’d have one on each body, dangling between your 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?” she 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.”

  ◊

  The new clothes were bright white shifts, like Father Grobbard always wore. And Mother Pip, mostly. Fift felt grown up, and strange, and stiff. She was scrubbed and polished and her heads were shaved and oiled and her fingernails and toenails were trimmed. She sat in a row on the rough moss of the anteroom, trying to sit lightly, balanced, spines straight.

  The anteroom of their apartment was full of parents, practically all of Iraxis cohort. Fathers Squell and Smistria and Pupolo and Miskisk were there in a body each, and Father Frill and Father Grobbard were both doublebodied. Mother Pip was on her way. Only Fathers Thurm and Arevio were missing, and they were watching over the feed.

  Father Frill knelt next to Fift, brushing bits of fluff from the moss. He was lithe and dusky-skinned, with a shock of stiff copper-colored hair sweeping up from his broad forehead, wide gray eyes and a full mouth and a sharp chin. He was dressed for the occasion in cascades of tinkling silver and gold and crimson bells, and a martial shoulder sash hung with tiny, intricately-worked ceremonial knives and grenades. He crouched like a sharp-toothed wild hunting-animal, resting in a tree’s limbs somewhere up on the surface of the world. He ran his hand gently over her bare, oiled scalp, which felt nice, but also distracting because she was trying very hard to sit straight. “Oh Fift,” he said, “we’re all very proud of you, you know.”

  “Well she hasn’t done anything yet,” Father Smistria said, glowering, and pacing back and forth under the pillars of the anteroom, “except finally take a bath! Keep focused, Fift.”

  “Ignore him,” Father Frill said, taking his hand from Fift’s head, leaning in against Fift’s shoulder. He smelled like a rainy day in a mangareme fruit grove on the surface. “He’s cranky because he’s nervous. But there’s no reason to be nervous, Fift. Grobbard and your Mother say that this thing today is just a formality. I—”

  “Ha!” barked Smistria, tugging at his beard.

  “Stop it, Smistria,” Miskisk said. His fists were clenched. “You’re making it worse.”

  Fift got an uneasy feeling in her stomach. {What are my Fathers talking about?} she asked her agents.

  The context advisory agent answered, {About your first episode of the Long Conversation; today you will enter the First Gate of Logic.}

  {I know that!} Fift sent back. She hated when her agents acted like she was a baby.

  Father Squell cleared his throat. “It’s really none of our business, Frill,” he said. He was standing near the wall, rubbing the slippery red fabric of his shirt between his fingers. “Whether it’s a ‘formality!’”

  Father Smistria glared at Squell. Frill, in his standing body, languidly cracked his back.

  “I just mean—for us to argue about her chances!” Squell said. “It’s not appropriate! This is Pip and Grobbard’s domain….”

  “None of our business?” Smistria barked. “None of our business?”

  Father Frill frowned, leaned away from Fift (the bells tinkled as he shifted), and twitched his lips the way he always did when he was sending a private message. He was staring at Smistria, so he was probably sending something like: {Stop talking about this now, you’re scaring Fift.} But Smistria ignored him.

  “It really isn’t,” Squell said. He took a step away from Smistria, and looked back toward Pupolo, who was swinging gently in a seating harness at the back of the anteroom. “It’s a Staid matter!”

  “That’s right,” said Pupolo. He looked tired, but he still sat straight in his harness. He was in a green smock, and he had dirt on his hands, from the garden. Father Pupolo was Fift’s oldest parent and once, a long long time ago, he had been sort of famous as a military poet.

  “Well, I’m obviously not talking about the details of the…process,” Smistria said, taking a step toward Father Squell and flinging his arms wide. “I’m not an fool. Don’t insult me! But the outcome, that’s another matter! The outcome affects our entire cohort, and you know perfectly well—”

  “Smi,” Frill said sharply. He leaned in toward Fift again; in his other body, he crossed to Smistria and grabbed his shoulder.

  Grobbard stood to the side, expressionless. Fift wished she would say something. Or that Pip would finally come, and they could leave and get it over with. It was hard to sit up straight.

  She tried her agents again: {Why is everyone fighting?}

  The emotional nuance agent sent, {Bails often react to being tense by crying or shouting. Don’t let it scare you!}

  Smistria swiveled to glare at Frill. Frill didn’t take his hand from Smistria’s shoulder. They stared into each other’s eyes. Then Smistria softened a little, and pulled Frill roughly into an embrace—Frill’s musical clothes jingled and rang. They stood like that with their cheeks touching, Smistria’s beard caught in Frill’s bells, Smistria’s eyes squeezed shut. Frill put his hand back on Fift’s head. “There now!” he said.

  Pip came, singlebodied, through the door.

  Pip was large, and round, and bald. She wore a white shift too, and her skin was a deep forest green, and it hung in wens and folds from her face. She had powerful, searching eyes, white and gold and black, that looked deep into you. She had fat stubby fingers and one hand held the other hand’s thumb and stroked it.

  “Greetings, beloveds,” said Pip. “Greetings, Fift.” She turned to Pupolo and clasped his hands briefly, nodded to Grobbard, quirked an eyebrow at Frill and Smistria.

  “Finally!” Frill said, releasing Smistria in a cascade of bells. Smistria breathed in loud, and crossed his arms. “What took you so long, Pip? We were about to check into the Madhouse, all eight of us!”

  Squell touched Pip’s cheek, ran his hand along her shoulder. Pip’s expression softened into an almost-smile, and she took Squell’s hand.

  “Oh, Pip,” Squell said, “will you please tell them that it’s fine, and to stop arguing about today! It’s just absurd!”

  Miskisk looked angry, as if dark clouds were massing across his sunset face.

  Pip blinked, and looked to Frill, to Smistria, to Pupolo, and finally to Grobbard. Then she chuckled. “Fift is ready,” she said. “I have absolute confidence. Do you remember what we pra
cticed, Fift?”

  All it was, was sitting still and waiting to be passed a spoon, and passing it on at the right moment, and saying the names of the twelve cycles, the twenty modes, and the eight corpuses of the Long Conversation. You couldn’t use agents to help with anything, but that was okay because Fift and Grobbard never let her practice with agents anyway. She nodded.

  “And Grobbard concurs,” Pip said. “You are all disturbed by the betting, I know, but there is always betting around a Staidchild’s first Long Conversation, especially when…” she pursed her lips. “…when a cohort looks weak from outside.” She raised a hand, as if to quiet objections. “Only nine parents, only two of them Staids—the initial birth approval barely granted—the questions around Fift’s somatic integration--well, of course ignorant bettors imagine they see an opportunity! But they do not have the information we have. They are speculating. We know.”

  “There!” said Frill. “You see?”

  Smistria harrumphed, and stretched his arms above his head. “Very well. Then let’s send you all off, and get back to our day. This fussing and waiting is making me old. Frill, how about a bout on the practice mats?”

  “All right,” Frill said. He kissed Fift on the top of her head. “Enjoy yourself, little stalwart.” He stood.

  Pupolo stood up from his harness. Grobbard came over doublebodied to Fift, and sent, {It is time to go, Fift.}

  But Fift did not stand up; she was watching Miskisk.

  “Well,” Miskisk said, his voice tense as the straining of the giant muscles that turned their habitation, “that’s wonderful, isn’t it? Fift is all settled then, isn’t she? All ready for her big day, no problems anywhere, and the cohort is perfectly safe and from here our ratings can only burrow in to greatness.”

  “Miskisk,” Pupolo said, dissaproving.

  “Oh, I don’t dispute it,” Miskisk said, raising his great orange hands. “What do I know? It’s a Staidish matter and I’m sure Pip has everything under control. As usual. But in that case, isn’t it time for the next step?”

  “Oh, not this again,” Frill said.

  “Misky,” Squell said. He frowned, clearly sending a private message, then—getting no reponse—said in exasperation, “Not in front of Fift!”

  “But where, then?” Miskisk said. “Where, then? At every family meeting it’s tabled immediately—”

  “Beloved Miskisk,” Pip said—it was a cold, dry kind of “beloved,” Fift thought—“I am, as you know, perfectly willing for us to hazard a second child, if the matter of maternity can be settled to our mutual satisfaction.”

  “We are not doing this here,” Frill said. “No. No, no, no.”

  Suddenly Fift knew what they were arguing about. A second child. A strange sensation, heat and cold together, shot through her bodies. She lost her careful balance and had to put a hand down onto the moss to steady herself. A sibling! A Younger Sibling—literally!—supplanting Fift.

  To be an Older Sibling—everyone said—meant being poor, being eclipsed, being in the shadow of the Younger. But it also meant not being alone. Having someone to protect and support. And it meant not being an Only Child; and everyone knew there was something wrong with being an Only Child. Something that made Fift’s parents worry and argue and quickly take conversations unspoken, when Fift asked too much.

  “Which means of course that it’s you again!” Miskisk said. “It’s always you!” Tears sprang to his eyes, and a great shudder passed through his heavy body. He looked around at the other Fathers. “It’s always her! She is the Mother, she guards our ratings, she decides where we’ll live and when little Fift has to—has to—”

  Frill brushed past Grobbard, squatted down again, and enfolded Fift in his arms. He picked one of Fift’s bodies up, slinging one bell-clad arm under her bottom. She was pressed against his bells and daggers and grenades. Squell hurried over, too.

  “Miskisk, you selfish ingrate,” Pupolo said, “blaming Pip will not elevate your chances of bearing, I’ll tell you that!”

  Father Frill hustled Fift toward the door. He was coming in another body, too, to fetch more of Fift—but then he wheeled around, facing Miskisk. “Miskisk, you’re being absurd. Pip won’t be the Mother the second time. It will be Pupolo or Arevio, or Thurm if he’d agree to it, or—or me!” Smistria snorted, and Frill glared at him briefly through slitted eyes, then went on, “Pip knows perfectly well that being Mother twice over would be—too much! But what is your rush anyway? Fift isn’t even five yet! Why does she need a Younger Sibling right away?”

  Squell scooped up another of Fift’s bodies, and followed Frill out the door, muttering: “Completely inconsiderate! Today of all days!”

  {What’s wrong with being an only child?} Fift asked her agents. {That is not the polite term} sent Fift’s social nuance agent. {You should use “an individual with a heavy relative familial-resource-allocation childhood.” Pedagogical experts, statistician-poets, religious officials, the Midwives, all agree: children who lack siblings lack the basics of human experience. All real human emotions—jealousy, rage, love, regret, forgiveness, rivalry, triumph, defeat, reconciliation, and ultimate shared purpose—are based in the contest between siblings.}

  “This is the age when it matters!” Miskisk rumbled, tears streaming down his face. “And what makes you think it will ever change? None of you will ever dare to struggle with Pip over the maternity—and none of you have the strength to watch Fift be supplanted!”

  Pip crooked an eyebrow, coldly amused.

  “That’s—” Frill flung an arm out, ringing with bells, and turned to Miskisk. “That’s—Smi, take the child out of here!—that’s an insult!”

  Two of Fift’s bodies were out through the door and into the corridor. Frill and Squell put her onto her feet and smoothed her robes.

  Smistria sighed loudly, and stalked over to where her third body sat. He held out his hand.

  “It’s true!” Miskisk wailed. “You’re too cowardly and too comfortable! You’d rather she end up sisterless than endure the discomfort of her Supplanting!”

  {What’s “sisterless?”} Fift asked her agents.

  {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.

  {But lots of people are Only Children} Fift sent. {Grobbard and Arevio and Smistria are….}

  {It is one of the great social crises of our time} her context advisory agent sent.

  In the corridor, Fift shivered. In the anteroom, in her last body, she stayed seated, looking away from Smistria, looking at Miskisk. Her Father was crying—that was nothing, her Bail Fathers cried all the time—but this was different. Something was wrong here; Miskisk was serious. A chill raced down from her necks and settled in her stomachs.

  Smistria shook his hand in Fift’s face. “Come on,” he growled. “You’re going to be late anyway, for this…this circus of yours!”

  Pupolo drew a shocked breath, because one shouldn’t make fun of the Long Conversation like that. Smistria snorted.

  “Smistria,” Miskisk pled, “you agree with me—you know it’s too early for this—that Fift deserves a little more time at home to run and play and wear more colors than white, before—”

  Smistria pushed his hand at Fift, glaring, and Fift had to take it. She pulled herself to her feet.

  “Do I agree with you that Pip is bossy, and that everyone here is all too eager to postpone any argument…especially in the matter of Sibling Number Two? Of course I do. 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 Bailchild? No, Miskisk, I do not.” He pulled Fift toward the door. Grobbard came with them, expressionless.

  “You are crushing my heart,” Miskisk said, tears dripping from his chin. “I cannot do this anymore. I cannot—”

  “We have a pledge,” Pupolo said in horror.

  Miskisk covered his eyes with his
hands.

  “If I may,” Pip said coldly—and then the door closed behind them. Fift closed her eyes tried to listen and look with the feed, to see what Pip and Miskisk and Pupolo were saying in the anteroom. But the feed was opaque. Where that room should be was a blank silence. Someone had told the apartment not to show her what was happening there.

  “Come on now, little stalwart,” Frill said. “You won’t be late if we hurry. You’re ready and there’s plenty of time.”

  “What about Pip?” Squell said.

  “She’s also already on the way from her client in Temereen,” Frill said, pulling Fift along doublebodied towards the front door of the apartment, “she was planning to come doublebodied anyway—it’s not far—perhaps, since she’s busy here, one will have to do—Grobby is here, and you’re going to do fine!”

  Father Grobbard walked beside them, silent. She didn’t look upset, or worried. She walked as if she was in the morning hush of a forest on the surface, watching for unpurposed surface animals, the way they once had on a trip they took…up the long elevators, thousands of bodylengths through the deep dark bedrock…to the surface forest, quiet and cold and damp and strange….

  This was like that now, maybe. A trip somewhere new. A trip to the Long Conversation, which was secret and important and grownup and Staid.

  {What pledge?} Fift asked her agents.

  {A pledge is a promise that people make} began the context advisory agent.

  {That’s not what I asked} Fift sent. {You know what I mean! What pledge did my parents make? Tell me or I’m going to remove you!}

  Fift took Grobbard’s hands, and they all went out through the apartment door, through the corridor, and onto the surface of Foo.

  {Your parents all pledged to stay together for all twenty-two years of your First Childhood} sent the context advisory agent, reluctantly. {To all sleep in the same apartment once a month at the least, to attend family meetings, various such requirements. They had to. The neighborhood approval ratings for your birth weren’t high enough otherwise.}