He fills the kettle with water and sets it on the metal plate. A red glow peeks out from the edges of the kettle, like an electric range. But given that this is Zairion Prime, it’s probably driven by some other atomic trickery.
“There are only so many ways to improve upon a form,” he says.
“Does that mean it’s not from Earth?” Why does that make me a little sad?
He chuckles, and there’s more of that rasping click. I haven’t yet identified which part of his mouth makes that noise, and I’m not sure I want to find out.
“It’s from Earth. I was only justifying my use of such a primitive device. It was a gift from an… associate.”
“A black-market trader, you mean. Anything recovered from Earth is supposed to be in a museum.” Including our personal belongings, mind you. Somewhere, some sapient kid withtwelve eyes and four arms is looking in a glass case at the plush dragon that was my most cherished possession, even as a teen. I’m sure the curator’s caption reads something like,Humans created facsimile objects, even of fantasy species, to evoke neural responses of companionship and comfort, especially during difficult times.
Too bad they didn’t let me keep that comfort. We were only allowed to pack so little to begin with. I watched my world shatter and take out all my favorite movies, outfits, plants, pets, and memories with it. I’d carefully optimized the one cubic foot cargo allowance I was given to keep the items that meant the most to me.
Then they took that too.
The research is clear. Optimal health is achieved when you move on. By removing all objects from your past, we reduce the activation of those neural networks. You will develop new ones—new ones where you can be happier. It will be better.
What if I didn’t want to be better, though?
That was a question they could never answer.
What if I wanted to cling to the grief, the spite, the anger? What if that’s the only thing that makes me feel like apersonwith awilland not just abody? What if I want to tell the story of my home going to shit, to warn others to not make the same mistakes humans did? What if the lack of evidence that Earth ever existed makes me feel crazy, like these memories aren’t mine, like someone injected them into my head as a cruel joke?
But this kettle is real. Maybe it fit—only barely—in someone else’s one-foot cube. Or maybe it was collected by the daredevil pirates in their zippy little space speeders, who dodged ICSS fire and the violent tremors of a world dying to grab anything and everything, with no idea what would or wouldn’t be valuable later, only knowing that in mere moments none of it would exist at all.
Either possibility is equally charming to me.
The kettle hisses quietly as the water begins to boil.
“So you have honest-to-goodness tea?” I ask. “AuthenticCamellia sinensis?”
He nods. “From the finest clones.”
Any species that seemed to be a good candidate for in-vitro culture had been saved not as samples or clippings, but as DNA. The format was incredibly efficient for information storage, and I’d once gotten a glimpse at what was called ‘the totality.’ That is, the record of every salvageable species. The entirety of the Earth’s plant and animal life fit into a few odd cassettes the size of textbooks.
It shouldn’t make me feel sad. Those species were in better hands with the ISCC than with us humans. Already, the cultivation planet set aside for Earth’s species had achieved greater biodiversity than we’d had for decades—if not centuries. Countless extinct species lived again in carefully curated micro-ecosystems mimicking the conditions of their evolution.
It was gorgeous. Astounding. An incredible achievement of biology.
I resented it. I’m not sure why. Maybe because Earth had beenours, and we had fucked up, and it felt like there should’ve been permanent consequences for that.
But the ISCC hadn’t held humans accountable for their mistakes—they hadn’t deemed us advanced enough.A natural result of how social instincts evolved in their species,they’d ruled. Basically, we couldn’t be held any more responsible than a few starving dogs biting each other over scraps.
The kettle whistles, startling me out of my melancholy.
He moves it off the heat, then slides the strap off his shoulder and tosses me into a nearby silk hammock.
It’s a comfy, springy landing—except for the fact that I land on my face.
I wriggle like a weird worm and manage to flop over so I can see him again. He pours the water into a teapot.
Maybe he didn’t trust me that close to him while he manipulated a pot of boiling water.
Wise.
“This is a pretty slick setup for being off-grid,” I say, hoping flattery will earn me some points. “Solar panels, I’m assuming? And you’ve got some sort of rainwater collection system for the plumbing?”
His pointed ear twitches toward my voice, but he ignores me.
