067: CYCLE

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Captain Sands had said ten minutes, but I really want to get to the bottom of this mess, so I go to grab supplies from Laboratory Ring 2 immediately. I’m pulling a box of sample containers off a high shelf when I hear Renn behind me.

“Aspen.”

I turn around. He’s lingering in the doorway. Alone. “How can I help you?” I ask.

“You’re upset.”

I shrug. “It’s nothing important. I’ll get over it. Can you grab those syringes over there?”

He fetches the syringes. “‘Nothing important’ is the most dangerous thing to be upset about in a small, confined, long-term group situation like this. You’re upset about Lina’s research?”

“Well, no, I… it’s not really that. It’s just… kind of hard to explain.”

“Listening to emotional problems that are hard to explain is the majority of my job on this ship.”

I put the box down and sit on a lab stool. “I know it’s stupid to still be upset about this after a whole year, but… this isn’t the future we were promised. Not just being awake on the ship, and not being at Hylara yet; honestly, this is probably better than the colony’s going to be, to start with. We’re all going to have to live in domes and stuff there anyway, so whatever. But we were supposed to have a ninety eight per cent revival success rate. We expected to lose a hundred people in the whole colony, maybe a few more if there were mechanical problems or health problems or whatever, but not like this, and now we’re just… it’s all so fucking routine now. And it just doesn’t seem fair to the dead, you know? They don’t have anyone else to remember them. They only have us.”

Renn nods. He doesn’t speak.

I take a deep breath. “When I found my first body on this ship, I… I’d been expecting it, I knew there was at least one dead crew member to be found, but I didn’t know what to do with them. I couldn’t even be sure who they were, at the time, and I certainly had no idea of how they’d like to be honoured. I didn’t know their funeral practices. I put them in the freezer figuring that when we get to Hylara, we can honour them properly, one of the brave people who gave their lives to give us a new home. When I found my second body, it… she was in pieces, all over the storage ring, and I wasn’t sure what to do then either. Now it’s just ‘oh, more corpses, I hope we have storage for them. How many should we keep breathing for scientific purposes?’ And it’s sort of worse when it’s a colonist, because at least the astronauts I found signed up specifically for this task of shepherding the rest of us. The colonists are our peers.”

“Have you talked to any of the others about this? Captain Sands, or Lina?”

I shrug. “Why? They’re right. Our duty is to the living. We can’t help the dead. My emotional hangups aren’t helpful.”

“Perhaps not, but I have no doubt that other members of the crew feel the same way you do.”

“… Maybe.” I don’t know that much about Texan or Tarandran death rites, and that encompasses most of the crew.

“Perhaps we should do something. Write eulogies for them, or something. It might be difficult, given how little we actually know about them, but do you think that would help?”

I shrug. “Is that how you guys do funerals?”

“You don’t?”

“Arboreans believe that if you’re going to honour somebody, it’s best to do it while they’re still alive. Ideally, an Arborean wouldn’t have anything to say in a eulogy.”

“How do your funerals work, then?”

I shrug again. “It depends on the condition of the body. It’s not always practical or safe to hold an ideal funeral. Symbolic substitutes sometimes have to be made.”

“What’s an ideal funeral like?”

“W-well. The dead person’s cluster – um, their family – gathers at the node tree. Others can witness, too, but only the cluster participates in this part. The body’s laid at the base of the tree. M-most node trees have a stone slab or something, to put bodies on.” I pause, trying not to remember Shia lying on the cold stone, and how much of her body, usually pristine and whole, had been wrapped in strips of fabric to hide the fractured bones and split flesh. Renn waits patiently for me to continue.

“The, um.” I pause again, searching for the Interlinguan word for what I’m trying to describe, but it probably doesn’t exist. “The youngest member of the cluster who’s over twelve is given a knife.”

“The youngest?”

“Over twelve, yeah. If they’re inexperienced, someone else can guide their hand, but they have to make all the cuts. First, they cut here, and here.” I run a finger over my two cartoid arteries. “They drain the blood into a special cup, and everyone in the cluster drinks from it. The rest of the blood runs into the ground to water the node tree and contribute their strength back to the node. Th-then, they cut from a fleshy part of the body. The thigh, usually. They cut several strips of meat; how much depends on the size of the cluster, and this is wrapped and given as a gift to the deceased’s mother, if they’re a part of the cluster, or to the oldest cluster member if they’re not. This concludes the part that everyone involved needs to watch; most people leave after that, because the next part is kind of gross.” (I hadn’t left Shia. I hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to her.) “Then they slice open the abdomen, here.” I run a finger from my pelvic bone to my sternum, indicating the cut. “The organs are collected – adults usually do this part – and put in big pots that’ll be taken back to the cluster’s home to feed their fish ponds.” (I remember holding Shia’s heart in my bloody hands.) “Then the cluster goes home. They can also invite others, who were close or important to the deceased. The person who was gifted the meat cooks it over a fire and shares it with the cluster and their guests, and we all talk about whatever we need to talk about, which is usually just talking about the deceased, and eat meat and drink wine. I-if the blood or meat isn’t safe or practical to eat, because of how they died or the body being too old or some other hazard, an animal is used as a substitute. That’s… that’s pretty much it. It’s over when everyone goes to bed.”

I break off awkwardly. Foreigners, as a general rule, tend to reach pretty negatively to learning about our death rites. But Renn just nods. “What happens to the rest of the body?” he asks.

“Well, after any tava are removed, the best divers in the node will take it underwater and tie it into the roots of the cluster’s territory with rope. It feeds the ocean life over time, and the bones act as scaffolding to stabilise new root growth. If it’s unsafe to do this – it’s almost always fine, but there are a couple of waterborne infections out there that we try to keep out of the seawater where we can – then some bones are removed and sterilised, and the rest is cremated. The bones are tied into the roots and the ash poured between them.”

“What’s a tava?”

“They’re, um.” I search around for the right Interlinguan word. “Party favours?” Renn’s expression tells me that this probably isn’t the best description, so I explain. “Arboreans tend to move around a lot. Not always. Some of us stay with the same cluster our whole lives; I did. But it’s more common to grow up and eventually move into a different cluster, or form a new one on the edge; some people drift in and out of clusters every few years. So that their past families can honour them, parts of the body are removed, usually the hands or feet or head, and they’re frozen and sent to the deceased’s mother’s cluster, and any other clusters that they were a part of who might want them. Then they can be buried in their roots too, and strengthen their homes.”

“Right,” Renn says. “So you honour the dead by allowing them to continue to contribute and be a part of their communities? You let them feed you and your food sources and strengthen your home?”

“Yeah. It’s… it’s a cycle.”

“I think I understand. So… isn’t that what Zale and Clover and the dead in the freezer are doing? The doctors are using their flesh to learn how to protect the living people on this ship, both those awake and still in chronostasis. They came aboard to be part of a new community, in a new home, and while it’s tragic that they’re dead, their contributions are still being utilised and honoured to help the colony.”

“I… yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Thanks. Hey, um. Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course.”

“I mean, it’s not really a secret – the doctors would’ve seen it on all my scans and stuff. But they’ve never asked me why.” I press a hand against my right side. “This lowest rib here is a prosthetic.” I huff a humourless laugh. “It’s a good thing I fell on my other side that one time I fell off the ladder, because this one wouldn’t have been able to heal.”

“A prosthetic rib? Why? Don’t ribs usually heal well themselves?”

“Not if you have one completely removed four days before going into chronostasis.”

Renn’s eyes widen with realisation. “You gave it to your cluster.”

“To bury in the roots, yeah. I mean, they’re not going to be able to get a tava from me when I die on Hylara, so. I really shouldn’t have, but I did.”

“Why shouldn’t you? It sounds sensible and thoughtful to me.”

I shrug. I don’t want to explain about Shia right now. “It doesn’t matter. I need to go meet Captain Sands.”

“Right.” Renn picks up the box of sample tubes and hands it to me. “I can’t wait to see what he’s found out.”

“Oh, me neither.”

Captain Sands, Sunset, and Denish are already gathered in Chronostasis Ring 5 when I arrive. Captain Sands breaks out into a grin when he sees me and claps his hands together. “Fantastic! We’re all here. Let’s get started. Here’s what we’re going to do – I have three lists of chronostasis pod numbers here.” He hands a piece of paper to Sunset, one to Denish, and keeps one himself. “What I want you two to do is go down your list and manually check the readouts on each pod for the oxygen flow rate and nutrient slurry flow rate and mark them down. Also check when the last chronostasis fluid change took place. Then you need to take a sample of the chronostasis fluid; Aspen and I will demonstrate how to do that right now. Make sure to clearly label your sample containers. Aspen, I want you to take the samples back to the lab and confirm whether or not these glowing bacteria are present in each one. If there’s a fast and easy way to determine if some pods have more than others, do that too, but if it’s complicated or slow then don’t worry about that part. We can always check later if we need to; right now, presence or absence is the important thing. Let’s go.”

After Sands’ dramatic declaration at the end of our meeting, the actual work is really tedious. The engineers sample one hundred of the thousand pods in the ring, following lists that Captain Sands didn’t bother to explain, and I go to do SO. MUCH. IMAGING.

I mean, it’s not hard. I just run each sample through a bit of filter paper and stick the papers in the darkbox to see if they glow. Most do and some don’t. I take note of the brightness of each one (all the samples are the same volume, so there’s your relative population sizes, Captain Sands, assuming all the bacteria glow the same). It’s easy, but anything’s boring if you do it one hundred times in a row.

It’s almost lunch time by the time I’m finished. I take the results to Captain Sands (he’s in NAER 1 with Sunset and Tal, the three of them crowded around a single terminal and discussing some statistical theory I don’t understand or care about) and go to see what Adin’s making. He’s a little jittery, probably from neurostim withdrawal – I don’t mention it, and quietly cut the vegetables for him so he doesn’t cut himself. I don’t know a whole lot about neurostims, beyond their ability to cause alertness, mild euphoria and increased physical strength, but I do know that detox can be rough. If the Friend was medicating him to mitigate nerve damage caused by previous neurostim abuse, then without the medication dosage, the shake might not ever entirely disappear, either.

I have to talk Captain Sands around on that issue. Forcing Adin to go unmedicated just because the captain doesn’t like neurostims is just cruel.

I finish cutting the vegetables and Adin puts them in sandwiches, and we head out to the recreation ring. Most of the crew are already there, but we’re well into lunch before Tal, Sunset, and Captain Sands arrive. The captain takes a sandwich from the plate, smiles his thanks to Adin, and clears his throat.

“Crew of the Courageous,” he announces, “I’m pleased to report that we can, I believe, positively identify which colonists have had their cranial ports compromised by the AI.”

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