Without so much as a jolt of electricity, VIFAI retaliated by disappearing. For a second, the hefty presence of a secondary, inorganic consciousness was lost. A gaping chasm within his mind yawned open, a raw sore left by a missing tooth. Iris couldn’t help but fixate on it, run his thoughts over it like he would obsessively pick at a scab. But there was an allure there too, a calling of a void that would take him indiscriminately, welcome him, give him a home when nothing else would. He could get lost in it; cast aside the world he knew if the void embraced him. Iris was already falling into that dark solitude when VIFAI returned.
Take the next right,it said firmly, and Iris decided to not further explain his feelings towards the dead passenger in the cabin. Instead, he took a committed right towards a dark stairwell.
Uniform, sterile, smooth metal lined the steps and walls. Nature had failed to make the stairwell its domain. Peppered with tiny holes, the stairwells prevented any soil or moisture from settling long enough that roots could take hold. Unlike the corridors and communal spaces on the first deck that were once furnished with elaborate planters to add greenery to the space, the stairwells were designed with only function in mind. Mossended along a rigid line at the first step. Not a single tendril of it contaminated the otherwise stripped, gleaming metal.
Iris winced at the jolt of cold shooting from the balls of his feet up his calves when he first stepped into the stairwell. Hiking up his robes, he jogged up the stairs, skipping one at a time, to the third deck. A part of the landing was missing there, and he hopped over the gap and into the attached hallway, gliding a little on the once-again mossy floor.
Cool, dry air met him, instantly piercing through his sweat-drenched robes and sending waves of shivers through his body. Cracked overhead paneling flickered on and off with dim lights as Iris passed beneath. The vines were sparse here as well, starved of both light and warmth. Still, it was a testament to what nature was willing to endure to survive.
“Can you read out what you’ve found on our scholars?” Iris asked as he ducked under hanging wires, his steps now slow and calculated. The wires were most likely dead, but this wasn’t a worthy gamble.
Whom would you like to know about first?
Iris took a few careful steps around an exposed wire that had fallen through the cracks in the ceiling and dangled concerningly close to the floor. “Tell me about Ishtan, please.”
Dr. Ishtan Ora, VIFAI sang in a crackling voice,head of the Archaeology Department over at Sychi. He’s been working for so long. Seriously, he’s been publishing for longer than you’ve been alive. The university wants him out within the next few years though, to make room for someone more innovative.
“Innovative? In archaeology?”
I know. Anyway, he never married, although he tried four times. Tough luck. He’s allergic to shellfish. Oh! He has some original artifacts from that one ship that docked at P’Ilani. You should ask him about those. He’s super proud. He’s kind of a generation ship fanatic.
“Where did you get all this?” Iris asked, bending around another dangling wire.
Here and there. Socials mostly. Now, Dr. Riyu Alo is interesting.
“Oh?”
Oh indeed. No wonder you like her. She was raised Catholic but fell out when her grandmother passed away.
Monotheism. Iris made a mental note of it. In all his years as a Vessel, he had come across only one other monotheist, a lone Mormon from Arien IV. There were others, of course. Iris had come across several digitised copies of the Qur’an at the library that were regularly checked out, with requests going out to all the arms of the galaxy, and Bacai had even befriended a rabbi enough to exchange long, written debates on all things faith and prayer. They had been at it for nearly five years now, and their letters had yet to reach any definitive conclusion. But Iris had only been fortunate once, and after a thirty-six-hour chat, Cohyn offered Iris his Bible as a gift but wasn’t particularly upset when the Vessel declined the Mormon’s generosity. Iris remembered the interaction as a largely pleasant one, for him.
Dr. Alo has three older sisters. She’s a new hire at the institute, so she’s willing to bend over backwards to get ahead. Specialises in First Earth flora and other alien plants. And she’s single.
Iris laughed out loud. “Now, why would you mention that?”
Just making sure you’re aware of all the options.
And the optionwasalways there. Celibacy was no longer required of Starlit monastics, hadn’t been for centuries. Many modern Vessels had companions they frequented, informally, sometimes multiple at once. There were no explicit rules to follow, as long as no one demonstrated overt possessiveness, and no one’s work or mood suffered for it. Some eventually left the temple to start families, have children. It was neverdiscussed as a failure, but rather as the natural flow of existence. Natural, as the birth and death of a star. It was all a choice, and like any other choice, it came with its own consequences and its own complications. Historically, when choice was taken away, people had the tendency to rebel, to obsess over it, spending their energies to suppress their desires until no energy was left to fulfill their duties. Yet sometimes, as Iris had learned, it was simpler to avoid people and the complications that accompanied them, altogether.
Perusing VIFAI’s reports and lost in his own internal musings, Iris crossed most of the corridor. His mind map suggested he was coming up on his destination just ahead. He couldn’t get there sooner; the hem of his trousers dragged along the wet moss, absorbing much of the moisture. His ankles ached with the chill.
Should I read engineer Yan out next?
Iris was already by the doors, hands on the handles. He wanted his entire attention fixed on what was beyond the doors. “It can wait, let’s see what’s inside,” he said, giving the handles a tug. The doors parted without much of a struggle. A cloud of steam accompanied by hot air puffed out into the corridor, blinding Iris instantly. He braced for more dead passengers, shielding himself from the steam with the sleeve of his robes. When his eyes adjusted, he was greeted by several long rows of shoulder-height, uniform trees running along the room. These were clearly domesticated, gleaming with abundant green and red fruit.
Don’t eat anything,VIFAI cautioned, sensing Iris’s blooming childlike glee. But Iris had long grown accustomed to ignoring it in matters of food, and without hesitation, he let go of the door handles and ran inside. Black soil was scattered on the floor, its deep musk mixing with the rising scent of sweet decay. Rottingfruit, leaves, fresh moisture. The scents all blurred together to manufacture something that was undeniablyreal.At Iris’s feet, discarded apples littered the ground, turning into sustenance for the trees.
He pulled a red, lopsided one from the nearest tree and rubbed it clean against his robes. Imperfect, bruised. No waxy coating to preserve its sheen weeks past expiration. No geometrically appealing form or precise colour to signal to a buyer that it was ready for consumption. Better still, it was wild grown, not manufactured in a factory or lab, the way the meat in his sandwich had been. It was as real as an apple could get. Iris bit into the fruit; ripe juices dripped down his chin. Wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his robes, he followed the line of trees down the long room. “Sometimes I really wish you could taste, same as I do,” Iris said, giddy with the sugars from the apple juice.
Then I would be able to taste the poison as you ingested it instead of analysing it for its constituents.
“It’s not poisoned,” Iris said, his words muffled by another bite from the apple. The hundreds of trees around him were all organised in neat rows by apple colour and variety. The heavy, humid air had Iris sweating again, from his bald head to his bare toes. In one final, delicious bite, Iris devoured the core of the apple and wiped his hands on his trousers.
That’s not good.
“It’s an old superstition that—”
No. Look.
