Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 2, May 2013 (31 page)

“He really doesn’t like you, does he?”

That garnered a laugh that might have come from the eastern desert. “You noticed.”

“So what’s the problem between the two of you?”

“What do you
think
is the problem?” I answered shortly, hating the bitterness in my voice but unable to keep the emotion out. “He knows about me, just like you do. ‘Poor Anaïs—from what I’ve heard, there’s no chance
she’s
going to have children. And what about her and Ochiba? Don’t you think they were just a little too
close
…’”

I stopped. Blinked. I was staring at the wall behind Hui, at the pencil and charcoal sketch of Ochiba I’d done years before, while she was pregnant with Euz. Hui had taken the piece without my knowledge from the desk drawer into which I’d stuffed it. He’d matted and framed the drawing, then placed it on the clinic wall as a Naming Day gift.
Don’t ever be timid about your talents,
he’d said.
Gifts like yours are too rare on this world to be hidden. And don’t hide your feelings, either, girl—those are also far too rare
.

Well, Hui, that’s a wonderfully idealistic statement, but it doesn’t fit into this world we’ve made for ourselves. There are some things that are better left stuffed in the drawer.

“You can’t let him intimidate you,” Hui said. “I don’t care how old and venerated he is…”

“That’s
khudda
, Hui, and we both know it. What Dominic says, goes—and that’s true even for the other Families, too. With the exception of Vladimir Allen-Levin and Tozo Koda-Shimmura, Dominic’s the Eldest, and poor Vlad’s so senile—” I cut off my own words with a motion of my hands. “Hui, we don’t need to talk about this. Not now. It’s really not important. Euzhan should be coming around about now. Why don’t you go back and check on her? Dominic would be more comfortable if you were there.”

He didn’t protest, which surprised me. Hui touched my shoulder gently, pressing once, then turned. I sat in one of the ornate clinic chairs (carved by my
da
Derek when Hui had declared me “graduated” from his tutelage) and leaned my head back, closing my eyes. I stayed there for several minutes until I heard Dominic and Hui’s voices, sounding as if they were heading back into the lobby. I didn’t feel like another round of frigid exchanges with Dominic, so I rose and walked into the coldroom lab.

It was warmer there than in his presence.

I set the pot of thorn-vine sap over the bunsen to heat, put on a clean gown and mask, then scrubbed my hands. I plunged still-wet hands into the warm, syrupy goo, then raised them so that the brown-gold, viscous liquid coated my fingers and hands, turning my hands until the sap covered the skin evenly. After it dried, I pulled out the gurney holding the Miccail body. I stared at it (
him? her?
) for a time, not really wanting to work but feeling a need to do something. I straightened the legs, examining again the odd, inexplicable genitalia.

“Ana?”

The voice sent quick shivers through me. I felt my cheeks flush, almost guiltily, and I turned. “
El. Komban wa.
I thought you’d left.”

“Went out to get some air.” Elio stepped into the room. “I, ummm, just wanted to thank you. For Euzhan. Dominic, he…he should have told you himself, but I know that he’s grateful, too.”

“He didn’t need to thank me. Besides, Euzhan’s rather special to me, too.”

“
I
know. But Dominic still shouldn’t have been so rude.” Not many in his Family dared to criticize Dominic to anyone else; the fact that Elio did dampened some of my irritation with him. Elio tugged at the jacket he wore, pulling down the cloth sleeves. “So that’s your bogman, huh? Elena told me about how she found it. Pretty ugly.”

“Give the poor Miccail a break. You’d be ugly too if you sat in a peat bog for a couple thousand years. It’s hell on the complexion.”

Elio grinned at that. “Yeah, I guess so. Might give me some color, though. Couldn’t hurt.” He leaned forward for a closer look, and I felt myself interposing between Elio and the Miccail, as I had earlier. Elio didn’t seem to notice. After another glance at the body, he moved away.

“You planning to become the next Gabriela?” he asked, then blushed, as he realized that he’d given the words an undercurrent he hadn’t intended. “I mean, you work too much, Ana,” he said quickly. “You’re always here. When’s the last time you did a drawing or went to a Gather?”

Ages
. The answer surfaced in my mind.
Far too long.

But I couldn’t say any of the words. I only shrugged. “Elio, if I’m going to get anything done…”

“Sorry,” he said reflexively. “I understand.”

He didn’t leave. He watched as I worked patiently on the hand I’d uncovered earlier, straightening the fingers and the ragged webbing between them. When, sometime later, he cleared his throat, I looked up.

“Listen,” Elio said. “When you’re done here, do you have plans? I thought, well, we haven’t been together in a long time…”

Two years. I haven’t been with anyone in almost two years. “El…”
The unexpected proposition sent guilty thoughts skittering through my mind.
You’re the last of the Koda-Levin line, unless Mam Shawna gets pregnant again—and she’s already showing signs of menopause. If they heard that you turned someone down, after all this time—

And then:
Ochiba would tell you to do it. You know she would.

“El, I just don’t know.”

“Think about it,” he said. Muscles relaxed in his pale face; he gave a faint smile. “It’s not because of today,” he told me. “Just in case that’s what you’re thinking.”

It had been, of course. Anaïs: the charity fuck. “No. Of course not.”

“That’s good. It’s just that I haven’t seen you much recently with all your work, and being with you today, even under the circumstances, I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed talking with you.”

I wondered whether he’d also forgotten the miserable failure the last time we tried to make love.

“I’m sorry, Ana. I don’t know what the problem is,” he said, even though we both knew well enough. I kissed away the apology, pretending that I didn’t care. I think I even managed to smile.

I was fairly certain he’d only asked me as a favor to Ochiba.

“No,” I said. “It’s me. Not you. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” But we both had, and Elio had slipped away from my bed as quickly as he could, pleading an early morning appointment we both knew was a fiction.

I had spent the rest of the night alternating between tears and anger.

“Elio, I’m afraid tonight…well, it wouldn’t be good. I’m tired, and I was planning to stay here, just in case Euz needs some help.” I lifted my sap-stained fingers. “I was hoping to get some of this work done, also.” The excuses came too fast and probably one too many; I saw in his face that he realized it too. Guilt warred with anxiety over the battleground of conscience and won an entirely Pyrrhic victory.

“El, I’m sorry. It’s just that I.…“ I stopped, deciding that there wasn’t much use in trying to explain what I didn’t fully understand myself. And there was the guilt of turning down an opportunity when I’d yet to become pregnant and those chances seemed to come less and less. “Anyway, I
can
do this some other time, and chances are Euz is going to be fine. Give me a bit, just to make sure that Euz is stabilized and to clean up again…”

I wasn’t sure what it was I saw in his face. “Sure. Good. I’ll come by then. At your Family compound?”

I nodded. We were being so polite now. “I’ll meet you in the common room.”

“Okay. See you then.” Awkwardly, he leaned over and kissed me. His lips were dry, the touch almost brotherly, but I enjoyed it. Before I could pull his head down to me again, he straightened. Cold air replaced his warmth. “See you about NinthHour?”

“That would be fine.”

After Elio had left, I halfheartedly cleaned some of the clinging peat from the folds of the Miccail’s face. “What were you like?” I asked the misshapen, crushed flesh. “And do you have any advice for someone who isn’t sure she just made the right decision?”

The ancient body didn’t answer. I sighed and went to the sink to scrub my hands.

.

.

CONTEXT: Ama Martinez-Santos

.

There were times that Ama regretted having been apprenticed to Hui. However, Geema Kyra had given her no choice in the matter, and an elder’s word was always law. Hui was never satisfied—no matter how fast Ama moved or how well she did something, Hui always pointed out how she could have done it faster, better, or more effectively another way. Hayat was given the same harsh treatment, but that didn’t lessen the impact. Ama was fairly certain that it was not possible to satisfy Hui.

And then there was Anaïs. She was just fucking weird. A good doctor, yes, and at least she’d give out a crumb of praise now and then, but she was…strange. The way she used all her free time lately examining that nasty body Elena had found.…

Anaïs had told her to put the Miccail’s body back in the coldroom. Ama threw a sheet over the thing before she moved it—she couldn’t stand to see the empty bag of alien flesh; she hated the earthy smell of the creature and the leathery, unnatural feel of its skin. The thing was creepy—it didn’t surprise Ama that it had been killed.

Ama had heard her
mi
and
da
talking—there was a nasty rumor that Anaïs and Ochiba had been lovers, though as Thandi always pointed out, Ochiba had died after giving birth to Euzhan, so if Anaïs was a
rezu
, then it hadn’t stopped Ochiba from sleeping with men. Ama sometimes wondered what it would be like, making love to another woman.…

She shivered. That was a sure way to be shunned. That’s what had happened to Gabriela—the second and final time she had been shunned. .

Ama wheeled the gurney into the coldroom. She slid the bog body into its niche and hurried out of the room.

She didn’t look back as she turned out the lights. Afterward, she scrubbed her hands at the sink in the autopsy room, twice, even though she knew that would make her late changing Euzhan’s dressings and Hui would yell at her again.

.

.

VOICE: Anaïs Koda-Levin the Younger

.

Most of my erotic memories don’t involve fucking. I suppose the wet piston mechanics of sex never aroused me as much as other things. Smaller things. More intimate things. I can close my eyes and remember…at one of the Gathers, dancing the whirlwind with a few dozen others out on the old shuttle landing pad, when I noticed Marshall Koda-Schmidt watching from the side in front of the bonfire. I was twelve and just a half year past my menarche, which had come much later than I’d wanted. Marsh was older, much older—one of the fifth generation—and in my eyes appeared to be far more sensual than the gawky boys my own age. He stood there, trying to keep up a conversation with Hui over the racing, furious beat of the musicians. I kept watching him as I danced, laughing as I turned and pranced through the intricate steps, and I noticed we both had the same stone on our necklaces. I thought that an omen. During one of the partner changes, there was suddenly an open space between us, and Marsh looked up from his conversation out to the dance. His gaze snared mine; he smiled. At that moment, one of the logs fell and the bonfire erupted into a coiling, writhing column of bright fireflies behind him. I was caught in those eyes, those older and, I thought, wiser eyes. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, and every time I looked, it seemed he was also watching me. I smiled; he laughed and applauded me. I felt flushed and giddy, and I laughed louder and danced harder, sweating with the energy even in the night cold, stealing glances toward Marshall. We smiled together, and as I danced, I felt I was dancing with him. For him. To him…

…Chi-Wa’s fingers stroking my bare shoulder and running down my arm, my skin almost electric under his gentle touch, inhaling his warm, sweet breath as we lay there with our mouths open, so close, so close but not quite touching. When his hand had traversed the slope of my arm and slipped off to tumble into the nest of my lap, our lips finally met at the same time…

…sitting with Ochiba at the preparation table in the Allen-Shimmura compound’s huge kitchen, peeling sweet-melon for the dessert. We were just talking, not saying anything important really, but the words didn’t matter. I was intoxicated by the sound of Ochiba’s voice, drunk on her laugh and the smell of her hair and the sheer familiar presence of her. I’d just finished cutting up one of the melons and Ochiba reached across me to steal a piece. She sucked the fruit into her mouth in exaggerated mock triumph while the orange-red juice ran down her chin in twin streaks. For some reason, that struck us both as hilarious, and we burst into helpless laughter. Ochiba reached over and we hugged, and I was so aware of her body, of the feel of her against me, of how soft her breasts seemed under the faux-cotton blouse. Then the confusion hit, making me blush as I realized that what I was feeling was something I wasn’t prepared or expecting to feel, and knowing by the way Ochiba’s embrace suddenly tightened around me that she was feeling it as well, and was just as frightened and awed by the emotions as I was…