Turning the tablet around, she held it up for Rosalyn to see.
“We can run the nonlethal decontam hoses to the atmospheric regulator in cold storage. You can take my oil atomizer and run it, too. With some oregano oil and melaleuca, you can create a hostile environment for the Foxfire.” The schematic was way beyond Rosalyn’s understanding, but she nodded and took a photo of it with her AR display.
“Oregano and mela . . . mela what now?
Misato laughed, a belly laugh that shook her whole body. “Melaleuca. In combination they’re lethal to most fungi.”
“I see. So why didn’t you try it on yourself?” Rosalyn asked gently.
“Oh, we did. Just made us sick. By the time we tried ridding our bodies of the Foxfire, it was too late.” She took her coffee mug back and chugged from it. Afterward, her smile had faded away and Rosalyn felt like a jerk for prying. Still, she was part of this mess now, too, and any weapons were good weapons in her estimation.
“Right. Forget I said anything. I’m sure you tried everything you could.”
The old woman stroked her thumbs down the sides of the mug. She looked so tired, and the smiles and laughter seemed thinner and more fragile in hindsight.
“Is this what you were out here to study?” Rosalyn asked. “The Foxfire?”
Misato shook her head and took in a deep breath, turquoise eyes flickering a little as she sat back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Oh no. Other xenobio samples? Definitely. Foxfire was never part of the mission. CDAS had intercepted some pirates with alien contraband, and Merchantia Solutions wanted us to take them and study them in various environments, zero g being one of them. It was exciting stuff, top-level stuff, so they brought me on.”
Rosalyn frowned. “Top-level stuff? That doesn’t make any sense. The dossier said you’re running a routine research vessel . . .”
With another big belly laugh, Misato finished her coffee and twirled the cup between both hands. “Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s what the dossier said. No offense, chickadee, but I don’t think a salvager has clearance to know about what we were doing out here. Not that it matters now, poke around all you like. Take pictures. Spread the word . . . if you can.”
Rosalyn made to stand up, moving slowly, cradling the food pouches in one arm as she lowered herself to the floor with her left. She flinched and made a face.
“You got quite a jostling in that engineering vent,” Misato said.
“I can feel that.” Her shoulders felt like they had been run through a blender. On the counter behind Misato someone had lined up a row of insulated drink cups, each labeled with the crew’s names. One was missing. “Speaking of poking around,” Rosalyn said slowly. “One cup missing. Can I ask what happened to Tuva?”
The old woman closed her eyes tightly, then opened them to stare into her empty mug. “She died just days before the first sign of Foxfire. A brain tumor, maybe, a seizure . . . Rayan found her asleep in her bunk, not a mark on her, just . . . gone.”
“I’m so sorry,” Rosalyn murmured. “On top of everything else that’s happened, what a nightmare.”
“She knew something,” Misato said. Her jaw hardened, and she looked up suddenly. “I don’t believe for a second it was a tumor or whatever else Piero keeps saying. He put her mug away somewhere, he can’t stand to look at anything that reminds him of her.”
“Why not?”
Rosalyn had forgotten all about the food packets in her arms, remembering what Girdy had warned her about on the launch platform. Her stomach hurt again, throbbing with intuition. This was the second time blocked clearance had come up. A mysterious death. The Foxfire itself . . . not to mention the other doomed expeditions and Reevey’s inexplicable, murderous madness.
Either it was a trick of the light or the blue glow in Misato’s eyes dimmed a little, as if the humanity there ached to win out. “Because he killed her. I’ve been in his mind. We’ve all been in each other’s minds. He’s hiding it well, there are fragments, suggestions, but when I try to think of it through him, I just keep seeing this room. The aquarium. But I know he did it.”
“How?” Rosalyn asked, breathless. “Why?”
Misato vented a low chuckle. “She had this thing. She couldn’t stand a lie. At first I found it irritating but after a while it grew on me. Toward the end she had these violent headaches, and we all told her to rest, but she kept trying to corner Piero. She knew something. She must have known something. I know Piero did it, I just don’t know how.”
A heavy stillness fell between them. Misato seemed to drift away, her thoughts somewhere else entirely, or maybe the Foxfire was trying to reach her again and tear her away from Rosalyn. More than anything she felt sorry for Misato. She had tried her best to kill the entire crew, and this woman was still helping her. It made her wonder if there wasn’t just a sliver of humanity in there, but more. More. Trusting anyone was a mistake, she knew, but asking for help didn’t necessarily require trust. And maybe trust would come, maybe she could sway Misato to her side for good.
“I could help you look,” Rosalyn said softly. At once she saw the flicker of interest, of hope, in the old woman’s eyes. “If you can keep the others away from me, if you help me, then maybe I can find out what happened to Tuva. To be honest, I want to know, too. It might tell us how this whole Foxfire thing got on the ship in the first place.”
Misato didn’t hesitate at all. “I will do what I can to help you. You have my word. Thinking of Tuva helps. She was such a brilliant woman. And she’s . . . right there. Right on the other side of the Foxfire, something recent and clear and good.”
One person on her side. Maybe she could convince Edison next. One by one she could convince the crew to fight hard, and fight on the side of humanity. If it took solving Tuva’s murder, then that’s what Rosalyn would do.
“Did she leave behind anything?” Rosalyn asked. “If she had suspicions that Piero was up to something, she might have taken notes on her VIT.”
Misato shook her head, turning to put her mug back on the counter, next to the named canisters. The light from the aquarium shifted over the back of her jumpsuit, pale and spangled. “There was nothing.”
“That’s pretty suspicious,” Rosalyn pointed out. “Aren’t you worried Piero will realize you suspect him of something? You two do sort of share a mind.”
“Let him find out,” Misato replied. “Finding the truth for Tuva matters more. Honesty, truth, justice . . . that was everything to her. Do you understand?”
Rosalyn dared to walk closer, knowing it was risky. She couldn’t trust anything the crew said, and she knew it was possible that Misato could lash out just like Edison had. But somehow she felt safe, or at least, in that moment, Misato seemed like the closest thing to human she had found since boarding the ship.
“It means you’re still human,” Rosalyn said softly. She looked at the row of cups, and at the end where Tuva’s should have been. Girdy had told her to be on the lookout for something strange. The Foxfire was strange, obviously, but this mystery was something else. Something human. Maybe it would lead her away from the infestation itself and closer to what had caused it in the first place.
Her hunger, then, seemed very, very small.
“Did you keep the body?” she asked, hoarse.
Slowly, Misato nodded.
“Show me.”
20
Something remarkable was happening. They stood in the cockpit together, a wall of flickering light dyeing them a vivid grass green. Like the foothills in spring outside the città. It felt like the whole of the universe was open to them now, an endless horizon of opportunity, and all thanks to Mother.
No, thanks to the girl.
Ah yes, the girl, the salvager who had split Piero’s face down the right side and with it, forged an opening for Mother. Ingress. Progress. The wound had weakened the body and
opened the way, defenses lowered and useless against Mother’s assault. The gash was a wide-open door that led to the heart of him, and when the wound began to heal, it healed with the strong blue filaments of the cluster.
Mother was there, standing next to him, or so it seemed. A figure hovered in the corner of his eye, the suggestion of a luminous blue being.
Piero was hers. He moved now with Mother guiding his hands, with deft and determined fingers, not a hint of hesitation or fight left in him. He was freed and they were one and it felt almost painfully good to be whole that way. Mother understood now, understood what others of their kind had experienced—the undeniable rightness, the bliss, of union.
This was bliss. This was the human man improved and connected completely to the cluster. The ship may as well have been part of him, living and breathing as his skin, just one more organ but one that they now occupied. The corridors and rooms spread out all around him at all times, a map with a trillion spying eyes. And Mother felt that it was better for the man, that this human Piero had achieved a kind of grateful resolution.
Like going home. Like running to Mamma’s arms. She was always so warm and soft, and smelled like Bottega Veneta Eau de Velours, vintage, a precious bottle passed down and down, rationed like wartime essentials, just a dab behind her ear but oh how it delighted the senses! Oak and jasmine, but rosemary, too, from her hands and the bread she made on Sundays. Mamma hugged him tight and lifted him from the floor and swung him around. They would have to go soon, to the new colonies. The tides were rising, swallowing their town like they swallowed Venice whole. The water was coming for them, terrible, inexorable, with a hunger that could not be negotiated or stopped.
And there, as he hugged her and buried his face in her neck, he smelled a heavy men’s cologne, overpowering and foreign, and there was the lipstick smudge on her collar, transferred from that same strange man’s fingers. From her lips to his skin to her blouse and now to his cheek, an indirect kiss that soured his stomach in an instant. Stay, Mamma, he had pleaded, stay and make bread again, don’t go give your lipstick away to strangers.
That was how Mother got in. The hate was there, just waiting, a box redolent with mold, hiding in the very back corner of the cupboard. The wound had ripped off the lid and let the hate spill out, hate Mother found and swam up like a poisonous river running swiftly to the core of him. Piero.
Stay, Mamma. Stay!
She hadn’t, of course, which Mother reminded him in a bombardment that came not by the second but by the nanosecond, then constantly.
When she finally did stay, it was only to take him away from everything he knew. Mamma swept him up into her arms once more and said it was time to go to their new home, far away, across the stars to a place called Io.
But all my friends are here, he screamed as she carried him into their simple house.
You will make friends on Io, too, my heart, you’ll see.
No! he had screamed and screamed, beating his fists against her breast. He was already large for a child and he felt her wince, but she kept on carrying him anyway.
What about my friends? What about the old men playing dice? Who will take them? Or the stray dogs? Will the water swallow them all up?
I don’t know, his mother had said, gripping him tightly. Someone will look after them. You’re hurting me, Piero.
Of all her many betrayals, this one cut the deepest.
The hate, the hate, the hate. It was so powerful. This new mother of his, born from the Foxfire, knew the power of his hate. But she would never hurt him the way Mamma had hurt him.
“I will never make you do anything you don’t want to do,” Mother said. She was still hovering there, just out of sight. Perhaps he was imagining it, but it felt like she touched his shoulder. The smell of jasmine came to him suddenly, and he felt the urge to cry. The touch on his shoulder grew stronger, and he let Mother embrace him, wrapping her arms around him completely.
“I don’t want to hurt anybody,” he heard himself whisper. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
Mother hushed him. The perfume was all around him, painful and familiar, the scent of his true mother’s blouse, of her room. He had loved her little room on Earth, so small and cozy, with plush carpet faded by sunlight. Their new home on Io, cold and square and hard, never seemed to retain the smell of her, even when she was still alive.
“You’re a good boy,” Mother said, stroking his hair. It was matted with dried blood. “My heart, my heart, you must be strong, and you must listen. You may have to hurt again, but only for me. Only for our family.”
Her hands felt just like his real mother’s, and the scent of that perfume made him cry harder. She held him there for a long time. When he opened his eyes, just a bit, there was no one really there, just his own arms wrapped around him as he rocked back and forth. But when he went back into the darkness, Mother returned and soothed him.
“I should have stayed there,” Piero said softly. “I should have stayed and drowned with the old men and the dogs.”
“No, hush now, there is no time for sadness. Would you like to hear a song, my heart?” Mother rocked him harder and Piero nodded against her. Her voice was that of his mamma’s, but somehow sweeter and more melodic. “Busy the bee goes, ‘Buzz, buzz, buzz!’ Ollie the owl goes, ‘Hoot, hoot, hoot!’ and Mother goes: ‘I love you.’”
The song repeated until Piero no longer wanted to cry. He stood up straight, feeling stronger, Mother’s hand still cupping his shoulder.
“What should I do?” he asked.
“You know what to do,” Mother replied. “You’re such a brilliant boy. A mind for numbers, for codes. For secrets. The salvager is just a small problem. No challenge for such a brilliant boy.”
Just a small problem. He had taken care of Tuva when she discovered his secret, and he could clean up this mess, too. The cluster needed to grow, and now, thanks to the girl, the answer presented itself. Mother had asked him to be clever, and so he had snatched the code blue idea from the biologist, a sneaky scheme, but this was more direct. Even if it brought human engines of war to them, it was worth it. Any opportunity to expand the network, to add more children, was worth the risk.
And Piero agreed. He scrolled quickly through the available emergency commands at the piloting console. HQ, Piero considered, would see that their ship had gone green again but that might only make them suspicious. A cry for help would be better. Wiser to look the wounded lamb than the hidden wolf.
“You’re so clever, my heart,” Mother told him. “I knew you would find the answer.”
“Emergency broadcast parameters met. Fire damage detected. Foreign matter present in crew-critical quadrants . . .”
Shit. That was the best they could do. No follow-up to assure HQ that they were docile, just trapped. The nav systems went haywire. Anything. Anything. Lies. But Piero’s damned credentials were blocked. There was no way to get a specific message out, and the screen flashing ENTER VALID EMPLOYEE IDENTIFICATION blinked and blinked, taunting them.
They still needed the bitch’s credentials. A minor problem. Piero was free now, part of Mother, inconvenient human reactions to force and violence no longer a prohibiting factor. Being human had never felt the way he did now—utterly submerged in the acceptance of another being. And there was the promise of more acceptance from more beings. As their family grew, that love and warmth would only increase, multiplying with every mind Mother added to their cluster.
But it itched, this human skin that locked him and Mother inside. Piero lifted his right hand and scratched at his cheek, at the gash healed over and through with connective webbing. Picking and picking, the raw edges of human skin around the opening caught on the fingernail and Piero dug in. Mesmerizing, the repetitive motion of the nail and the finger, the human skin resistant and then pliable, peeling away like the rind of a soft cheese, revealing the scintillating web of tur
quoise blue below. Better, that. Better the fine blue lightning over the muscle tissue. Better and better the more the skin came away. The body shivered but the mind delighted.
“You look so beautiful,” Mother said. “My beautiful heart.”
Soothed, he almost forgot the blinking irritation of the screen.
ENTER VALID EMPLOYEE IDENTIFICATION
They reached out together, he and Mother, not with hands but with the mind, traversing the intricate network that connected them together. It was stronger now, that bond, and they sensed each spore, each flowering shock of blue along the ship’s walls and ceilings. The crew had left the engineering bay, their locations pulsing noticeably, like three proximate hearts.
Misato and the salvager were traveling together down the corridors. Reaching out through their cluster, Piero prodded at Misato’s mind, searching for her intention. She resisted him, as always, but he was stronger now, stronger through Mother. Images flashed before him—a hand, a fish, a lock of white-blond hair.
Tuva. She was taking the salvager, the interloper, to Tuva. Piero snarled. It would be a short but infinitely satisfying hunt.
21
“We put her in the body drawer,” Misato was explaining, pulling on the long silver handle at about waist height. “She should be well preserved.”
Rosalyn took a deep breath, preparing herself, as she always did, for the sight of a corpse. The air felt stranger when a dead body was nearby. This one, however, was just as Misato expected. Preserved. Tuva Sverdal might have been taking a nap, her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted as if she had just exhaled. Her skin was ghostly, ghostly pale, almost like chalk, thin, blue veins visible along her jaw and forehead. Blond hair fell to her shoulders, parted in the middle, and her eyelashes were that same snowy color.
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