PART 1
How I Died
Chapter 1
My name is Mawukana na-Vdnaze, and I am a very poor copy of myself.
The Major tells me that it is important that I channel my curiosity into expansive things, and goes to great lengths to keep me occupied. Regulated. To this end, I have written numerous papers on subjects such as extra-planetary botany, xeno-archaeological linguistics, inter-species sociology, the history of art, and one slightly whimsical article on juggling, which received a surprising amount of traction.
However, when my efforts are cited, it is rarely in the context of the work itself. My detailed analytics, exhaustive research – these are not of interest. Rather it is myotherness, my non-being/being, my perceived deficiencies in certain matters of sentience that seems to capture people’s imagination, regardless of how absurd these metrics are when one actually stops to think about them.
In short: I am a frustrated academic.
People get anxious when I am frustrated. They are concerned it may provoke unpredictable consequences. Thus, to keep me occupied, it has been suggested that I write down some of my experiences in a less formal manner, with an eye to “mainstream” audiences. I do not see the point – there are plenty of romantically inclined individuals with harrowing tales who will happily sharetheir trauma in exchange for cash and an inter-planetary speaking tour, thank you very much.
However. I do appreciate that if left to my own devices, I can experience unwanted episodes. It would pain me deeply if my actions were to cause emotional or physical harm to those around me.
In telling my story, there are certain things I should perhaps lie about.
(I am a dreadful liar.)
I should make myself a hero. Pretend I knew certain things before I did, was not used by strangers and gods, did not leave people behind.
I should claim that I understand love.
This last is most important, and I am trying.
I am always trying.
Is that not enough?
Chapter 2
This is the story of the supernova event known as Lhonoja.
By the end of it, several planets will have burned, a couple of civilisations will have fallen, and I will have spoken to an entity some consider a god, and whose theological status will remain in question throughout.
Before then, I must explain how I came to be, and for that, I must take you back several centuries, to Glastya Row.
Glastya Row started as a landing strip on the planet Tu-mdo.
Most urban establishments on most colonised worlds begin this way. Tu-mdo had been a prime terraforming candidate – comfortable gravity, good magnetic shield, not too hot, not too cold, not tidally locked and already possessed of a moon which, once water was thawed out in sufficient volume, would serve to stir the great big mixing bowl of Tu-mdo’s freshly churning oceans. The first colonists didn’t even need to spend five centuries in arcologies waiting for atmospheric conditions to settle, but were out and breathing without aid within a couple of pioneering generations. Two millennia later, Glastya Row had been transformed from pioneer’s outpost to merely another borough of some few million in the great city of Heom, a middling hub of profit and endeavour within the interplanetary-spanning United Social Venture.
They say you can tell a lot about a Venture based on how its employees name their children.
In Antekeda, the Venture that ran my city, these were the most common middle names given to children at birth:
Chairman – 15 per cent
Entrepreneur – 10 per cent
Director – 9 per cent
Abundant – 5 per cent
Diligent – 4 per cent
In Theymann, a Venture specialising in deep space habitation, the distribution skewed towards Pioneers and Engineers, while in Halsect there was an almost sentimental emphasis on children called “Aspiring”.
