“They’re nice,” I mumbled, and she beamed at my reply.
“I ordered them from a shop on this planet and had them delivered by a drone.”
“Really?” I stared at the bright roses printed on the cushion in my arms.
“Yes. It said ‘colourful’ in the description, and I figured you would like them. I’m so glad you do.”
Still staring at the cushion, I took some time to rearrange my understanding about this place and the people here.
On one hand, decorating the place for me with ‘local elements’ reminded me way too much of the way I once set up an empty jar with grass and flowers for a caterpillar I found in the garden when I was little. I made it pretty, and was very upset to find the caterpillar dead in my beautifully decorated jar the next morning.
The efforts of the Kealans to keep me well seemed to be there, but very misguided. The six-year-old me didn’t put the right leaves for the caterpillar to eat and closed the lid of the jar a little too tight, essentially killing it at the end. And I was beginning to worry that if not my body, then my mind and spirit could end up being irrevocably damaged with me locked up here.
On the other hand, this woman seemed to care enough to go through the hassle of getting these cushions here for me . . .
I turned to Zavis. “The plants there.” I gestured at the shelves. “They need sun, right?”
“Not really,” she objected. “These are indoor plants that do well in artificial light.”
“Well, humans do need sunshine in order to thrive. Vitamin D?”
“You’re given all the nutrients and vitamins you require through your meals and supplements,” she assured me confidently.
“Okay. How about the exercise?”
“Extreme physical activities are harmful in your state.”
“Again, I’m not talking about anything extreme.” I brushed a hand over my face. This conversation was beginning to feel extremely exhausting. “All I’m asking for now is to be let out of these rooms and for you to explain to me the purpose of separating me from Tairan. It makes no sense other than a power trip on Ricread’s part—”
“Your vital signs . . .” she leaned in and lowered her voice, as if sharing a secret with me. “The readings were off the charts during your insemination process. Especially, the last time. If that relatively mild level of activity resulted in spikes of that sort—”
“Zavis,” I interrupted her softly, my heart filling with something sweet and painful. “Not all strong emotions are negative. In fact, many are positive. I really like Tairan. I wish I had a chance to get to know him better or that I had met him some place other than this. But even the way it happened, I truly enjoyed being with him, every minute we got. Surely, as a woman you would understand.” I pointed at her armlet. “Check your readings now if you want. I bet there was ‘a spike’ in my numbers when I simply mentioned his name.” I exhaled a long breath, my voice low, “It doesn’t take much . . .”
She didn’t check the screen. Her head down, she said, “I’m afraid those spikes may be a part of the reason behind the instructions of zero contact between you and him now.”
“So, if I’d lain there unmoving and emotionless while he inseminated me, it would have improved my chances of getting to see him now?”
“No, of course not . . . Well, maybe? Anyway, that’s not the only factor.” Lifting her gaze to mine, she tugged at her braids anxiously. “Professor Ricread is a brilliant scientist. His studies give our race hope. And now that he has successfully bred two interplanetary specimens—”
“He’ll be unstoppable,” I finished for her.
With a deep inhale, she rose from the couch.
“No one would want to jeopardize his incredible progress by demanding changes to the protocol he’d established, Isabella. Definitely not I.”
“I understand.”
“What I can do,” she added softly, “is to present to the professor and the team the correlation between the fluctuations in your readings and your emotional instability, as well as suggest possible improvements through regular, mild physical activity like walking and possibly exposure to the open space you call ‘outdoors.’”
“You would?” Dropping the pillow, I jumped off the couch, hope flooding me with excitement.
“Remember . . .” she spread her arms in the air, palms facing me. “We need to keep those numbers within the acceptable range if and when these changes happen to be allowed.”
“Absolutely.” I nodded earnestly, pressing both hands to my chest. “Thank you.”
“No need to thank me yet.”
With a smile and a brief nod, Zavis left me alone once again.
Chapter 12
A FEW DAYS LATER, THE implantation was confirmed and I was officially pronounced pregnant.
Ricread had personally delivered the news during a set of tests the research team did that week. In an uncharacteristic move, he even shared that the purpose of the tests at this point was to monitor every miniscule change in my body as well as to continue tracking the development of the embryo—now a fetus—on a cellular level.
I sat on the bed long after he and the team were gone and stared at the grey walls surrounding me.
An intense feeling of warm tenderness threatened to rise from low in my belly to my heart and flood the emptiness that reigned there.
I struggled but fought it.
Nothing belonged to me, and I forbade myself to feel anything at all, desperately holding on to that emptiness instead.
This was not about bringing a new life into the world, not about Tairan and me. It was all about Ricread and his ambition.
And it might be gone soon.
APPARENTLY, ZAVIS TURNED out to be better at persuasion than I had been.
Nearly a week later, Gran rolled into my bedroom with a black cloak draped over his wire-arms.
“You have mild physical activity on your schedule today—a thirty-minute walk through the facility—provided you finish your morning meal.”
Eating had been a struggle lately. Mild but persistent nausea turned me off food. It also proved nearly impossible to work up any appetite while lying in bed most of the day. The less I moved, the less I felt like eating or doing anything at all for that matter. Now I wondered if my regularly unfinished meals had aided in Zavis’s persuasion efforts.
In any case, I rushed to the table as soon as Gran put my food tray on it, and wolfed down the watery oatmeal, tepid chamomile tea, and a cupful of fresh blueberries, which were actually delicious.
“I’m ready,” I said moments later.
“Your instructions are to move at the pace I will set for you and strive to keep the distance between me and you of no more than one metre.”
“Right.” I swung the cloak over my shoulders. Bringing the two ends together made them fuse at my collarbone without any visible closures like buttons or clasps. “I’ll walk slow and keep close. Let’s go,” I urged him, impatiently.
Once we left my rooms, I asked Gran to take me to the gardens.
Tairan had spoken of visiting in the afternoon, just before dinnertime, and it was morning right now. But some wild, unreasonable hope drove me there anyway, making me realize how desperately I wanted to see him again.
“Would you prefer to visit the Kealan section of the gardens or the one from Earth?” Gran asked, taking me around the landing hangar at a snail’s speed.
“There are two sections?”
“The Earth portion was added to conduct studies in the environment of this planet, such as the work on improving the material used in protective clothing. It also houses a variety of Earth plants, including those used in your meals. The light inside this section is exactly the same spectrum as sunlight. It is therefore not a comfortable area for the Kealans.”
“Let’s go to the Kealan gardens today. The one with the waterfalls.”
“There are waterfalls in the Earth section, as well. Both areas were designed with aesthetics in mind.”
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“Why?” I retorted bitterly. “I am the only one on this station capable of fully appreciating the aesthetics of the Earth gardens here, without feeling the discomfort from the light. And I wasn’t allowed to walk in there anyway?”
“You are now,” Gran chirped, his wide smile shining cheerfully.
After we had circled the landing hangar, Gran whirred right and I followed him. The corridors here became wider, and the colour of the walls changed from grey to dark-brown. The ceiling gradually curved into an arch as we entered the Kealan gardens.
The corridors now were shaped like tunnels. They were much smaller than those I imagined the giant ure worms would dig, still my heart skipped as I found myself in a world I had learned about.
As we moved along the tunnel. More of them branched off in every direction, not all perfectly aligned or horizontal, some were slanted, running up or downhill. The floor on the one I walked in seemed to be made from the same rock as the rest of it, slightly uneven yet still smooth and even enough for the robot to roll along beside me.
Soft lighting came from the plant life on the walls and under the ceiling—some shaped like mushrooms or flowers, others sprawled like moss or mould—all glowed in various colours and intensity. My breath caught in my throat at the beauty of the warm yellows and pale pinks of the glowing plants. Delicate pulsating blue and violet streaks ran in swirls along the rock.
“It’s a shame Kealans can’t see the colours to fully appreciate it all,” I muttered.
“They don’t need colours to appreciate the beauty,” Gran replied. “Kealans cherish their lighting plants.”
I gave him a side glance. “You know, despite being a robot and a spy, you say profound things sometimes, almost poetic.”
“Thank you.”
After a while, the sound of running water alerted me that we must be close.
“Waterfalls?” I asked Gran.
“This way, please.” He turned off into a tunnel to the right, leading me into a wide-open cavern.
I spun around, taking in the high domed ceiling with stalactites hanging from it, long vines of glowing vegetation draped between them like strings of pulsating lights.
“This cave was built to imitate the naturally formed cavities in Keala’s mantel,” Gran explained. “The ure-dug tunnels often connect them in the fashion simulated at this facility.”
“How were all these plants brought here?” I bent to touch a delicate, glowing purple flower. Its eight petals moved under my fingers, like the soft brush of suede, they then bent down to the rock it was on, and the ‘flower’ scurried away. Surprised, I jerked my hand back.
“Edhie spider,” Gran said calmly. “They are non-toxic and harmless.”
“That pretty thing was a spider?” I gaped in the direction, in which the ‘flower’ had disappeared.
“Most of the life forms here have been transported as eggs, spores or seeds during the past nine years. Although some were in their adult form when they arrived on Earth.”
“How long does it take to get from here to Keala.”
“Using Kealan technology, anywhere from six months to a year, relative to Earth time. Keala would be impossible to reach if using the space travel technology available on Earth.”
“That's why they found us first,” I remarked softly.
Gran took me around a bend in the wall, and I spotted the waterfalls in the distance. The glow of the surrounding plants shimmered through the dark water, making it look as if the falls themselves were illuminated.
The air grew rich with moisture the closer we got. Tearing my gaze away from the wondrous plant life, I surveyed the surrounding walls and their rocky protrusions to locate the blind spot Tairan spoke about. There was an indentation in the wall, like a shallow grotto, partially hidden behind a rocky protrusion on the left side of the pool.
I stepped into the alcove, hiding behind a wall. The stream of the falls misted me from the opposite side. I exhaled a long breath, wishing Tairan was here.
“May I come back here this afternoon, Gran?”
“There are no more walks on your schedule for today.”
“Well, can we put one on it? I know for a fact my schedule is not that packed.”
“You cannot plan your daily activities yourself,” he replied coolly.
Didn’t I know that.
“How about tomorrow?”
“There is a thirty-minute exercise slot after breakfast.”
Well, at least I could leave my room on a daily basis now.
Thank you, Zavis.
“You have sixteen minutes to explore the gardens before we need to start on our way back,” Gran reminded.
I left the grotto and followed the robot around the spacious cave.
Several tunnels branched out from it here and there. I stopped in front of a short one that turned into the grey corridor further in the distance.
“Where does that go?”
“It leads to the clinical wing of the facility.”
“A clinic?” I stepped into the short tunnel. “Meaning this is where ‘procedures’ would be performed?” Zavis’s words about Tairan came to mind.
“Yes, but you’re not authorized to visit any of the rooms there.” The robot hurried after me.
“How about just walking along the corridors? You said I still had sixteen minutes . . .”
“Only fourteen now, and it will be a long detour to get to your rooms through here, with no time left to spend in the gardens.”
“Well, I’ll have lots of time to explore the gardens tomorrow, won’t I?
The robot seemed to be scrambling for an answer, so I just kept walking. “Let’s take the detour, Gran.”
The matte grey corridors were wide and empty. With my gaze, I traced along the strings of light running along the walls under the ceiling, noting the breaks most likely indicating entrances to rooms. Many of them were marked with symbols, too.
“What are these?” I pointed at them to Gran.
“Room numbers, along with a brief description of each room’s function.”
I felt the limitation of my translator acutely. As wonderful as it was for interpreting the spoken language, it did nothing too help me understand the words glowing on the walls.
“Can you read what it says to me?” I asked Gran.
“Learning the functions of the rooms in this section is not in your level of clearance.”
“I wonder why,” I mumbled sarcastically, moving from one glowing sign to another.
“I have no access to the reasons behind this decision.”
Following the curve of the corridor, we turned, and I stopped in my tracks, suddenly coming upon an arched opening in the wall—the entrance to a room that seemed to have been left open.
The light coming from behind it was brighter than that in the corridor, but I heard no voices or any other noise coming from inside it.
Keeping to the wall, I crept to the opening to take a peek inside. The room seemed completely empty. Bigger than my living area, it had no visible furnishings or equipment. Taking a step in, I noted screens of various sizes on the wall to my right.
“You’re not authorized to be inside,” Gran chimed in from behind me, but unless he was about to physically stop me, I was ignoring him—my attention fully turned to the screens.
The images on them were not transmissions, I realized as I came closer. These were biological samples, preserved in liquid, illustrating each stage of conception and fetus development—from slices of tissue, to invisible embryos, complete with magnified images of their cell clusters, to fetuses of increasing size and limb definition. The last one could have been a newborn.
Not a human newborn, though, I noted, staring at the last exhibit of a fully-formed baby with papery-white skin and long, colourless filaments of hair fanning in the liquid around its head.
Kealan.
“The exhibit of our losses and accomplishments,” a male voice stated calmly behind me, jolting me with surpri
se.
Pivoting on my heels to face him, I nearly crashed into the wall with the glass containers.
“I do not believe you are supposed to be here.” Valran narrowed his lavender-rimmed eyes at me, moving into the room from the entrance. A black cloak was draped over his wide shoulders. However, like mine, his hood was off.
“I’m . . . um, I was on my way back from the gardens.” I attempted to sneak past him along the wall, but he pinned me with his gaze, keeping me in place.
“This is not the best way to your quarters from the gardens.”
With his penetrating gaze on me, I had no idea what to say next and kept quiet.
“Did the robot lead you astray?” he asked unexpectedly.
“Yes,” I said quickly, though it felt like throwing Gran under a bus.
“I must disagree—” Gran protested.
Bending at the waist, Valran quickly reached behind the robot’s top disk that was turned upright as the smiley face. Gran’s lights faded, having been switched off.
“I’ll report the malfunction,” Valran informed me, straightening up.
“Um, thank you.”
“However, I must escort you back to your rooms myself, now.”
I ventured a glance at his face, his expression unreadable.
“Thank you,” was all I could say, feeling weighted down by his stare on me.
“This exhibit,” he said, without moving from the spot, “represents a decade of hard work.”
“Okay,” I replied, wondering why he wasn’t taking me back right away. Despite the bright lighting in the room, the atmosphere inside was gloomy. A heavy darkness seemed to spread from the glass wall, and I couldn’t hold back the question. “How did they all get here?”
“These are the results of the earlier stages of the experiment, when we still hoped to procreate on our own, without the use of human genetic material.”
He moved along the wall with the glass compartments, pointing at the beginning of the lineup. “These arrived from Keala during our earlier years here. And this stillborn is from eight years ago.” He splayed his hand on the glass with the fully formed baby, the last in line. “Our hope for a live birth of a pure-blooded Kealan is dead. Now, we need you.”
Experiment Page 12