Curt, distracted, and still a little angry, then. A familiar trio to Iris. Just as he had been awake for thirty-two hours, so had VIFAI, awake and operating at its maximum capacity to attend to Iris’s every need. It had generated and projected maps, searched up biographies of the academics through their socials, monitored Iris’s vitals, and perused a directory of poisons. Albeit the last one was not on Iris’s request. “Why don’t you shut off for a while? I’ll be all right on my own.”
An unfiltered, electronic vibration of surprise. Itwasangry if that was its only reply. No words now, nohumanwords; it was making Iris do the work of understanding.
“I’ll be all right,” he reassured it.
VIFAI acknowledged the suggestion and blipped out of awareness. Immediately, an overwhelming urge to call it backrose from the darkness of his mind, so suffocating was the silence of Iris’s own thoughts. The human mind was far too expansive to be subjected to itself and itself only. Alone, Iris finished the sandwich with a final bite, licked the crumbs from his fingers, and picked up his duffel bag from outside the cargo bay. Solitude was never real solitude with an AI construct sharing the confines of his mind. He hadn’t been truly alone since VIFAI took residence in his cerebellum when he was still a child. The in-between silences when VIFAI rested were rare and increasingly uncomfortable.
Without the AI to monitor his state, Iris’s thoughts roamed free, unfiltered and untamed. They raced through quick successions of anger, admiration, irritation, and wonder. Riyu’s smiling face came to mind first, the way she had extended her hand on meeting him, with no reservation, no hesitation. Surely she wasn’t a particularly superstitious woman, or maybe she was just well immunised. Her warmth and energy were both contagious, and Iris found himself innately drawn to her, the way a blossom turns to the rising sun.
His conversation with Ishtan had been a pleasant surprise. The man would surely come for him again, with more questions about Iris’s strangeness, thinly veiled as genuine curiosity about the Starlit. Even the short exchanges with Jesi and Tev had left a warm feeling brewing in his chest. They had all been kind, reasonable, accommodating. With his poorly managed anger and misfortune, even Yan had been pleasant enough to be around. If not for the engineer’s deep resentment for Vessels, they could have been much more cordial.
After fumbling around in his duffel bag, Iris produced a palm-sized white orb. He drummed a short pattern across its surface, and the orb came to life with a soft glow. Then with a light touch along a cracked switch panel, he dimmed the lightsin the cargo bay until the glow sphere in his hands was the only source of illumination. The mountain of bones cast long shadows along the walls of the hangar, climbing as high as the ceiling.
Iris had been afraid of the dark when he was a child, a time when what lurked in the shadows was far worse than what was waiting there for him in the light of day. But that had been some time ago. He had long put away those childish worries. Placing the orb down on the ground, he rested on the mossy floor. A tibia shone white just to his left, a reminder of the work to come another day. Iris looked up at the starless roof of the cargo bay as his eyes fluttered shut. With nothing but the silence of death around him, he drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
4
Possessiveness is in your nature, down to the bones.
To touch, to lay claim to it. Bare your teeth, shake with anticipation, lest someone takes what is rightfully yours.
You can’t simply marvel at the butterfly;
you must pin it down to the board.
I have no stomach for such violence of desire, and yet it clings to me.
From the unabridged diaries of Vessel Iris, Volume Thirteen
When Iris woke, the world was on fire.
Raging flames engulfed his legs and tore mercilessly at his back. The suffocating scent of burning hair and flesh washed over him, seizing up his lungs. It ate its way into his nostrils, smothered him in its putrid musk. All Iris could do was cry out in pain and clutch his hands over his head while the scorching air lashed against his face.
It’s psychosomatic. It’s not real.A rushed voice cut through the pain, loud enough to reach through Iris’s panicked thoughts.You’re fine. You’re safe. Open your eyes.
With a wince, Iris peeled one eye open and stared straight ahead. The left side of his face was pressed against the wet moss, hard enough that the individual tendrils left imprints on his skin. His white robes were steeped in green and brownfrom the dirt, and he had wrapped them around his head defensively in his sleep. Not half a metre away lay a bare human skull, glaring back at him with hollow eye sockets. Iris forced a deep breath into his lungs. He was safe.
“Psychosomatic,” he repeated after VIFAI.
It always happened in new places, like clockwork. He had hoped to avoid the nightmares by avoiding sleep altogether, but that had been a foolish and ineffective coping strategy. He knew this now. His calves and forearms ached from the powerful spasms that had claimed every muscle in his body amid the nightmare. Iris sat up and stretched his right leg. His calf protested and then gave in, the cramp subsiding.
You’re OK,VIFAI reassured him, its earlier anger and frustration forgotten.
“I’m fine,” Iris echoed back and rolled his shoulders through the tension.
The academics are on their way.
With another deliberate breath, Iris rocked to his feet and stretched his arms high above his head. He had been asleep for four hours, which left him less than an hour to make himself presentable for his new companions. He would begin with shaving, the same way he began his mornings each and every day since he had turned thirteen.
A palm-sized, wooden basin from his shaving kit was filled with water squeezed from the moss. Along the whetstone went the blade, five strokes on each side, the sound lulling his rattled nerves into gentle ease. No need for a mirror. The motion of running the blade against his skin from Iris’s forehead to the nape of his neck, from his jaw and down his throat had been long committed to muscle memory. He had rehearsed the action thousands of times as part of his morning routine. No matter where he was, no matter what assignment he had, there wasthe blade, cool and delicate, gliding along his skin, erasing the stubble that had accumulated since his last shave. Iris could no longer remember what the natural texture of his hair was, nor the exact reason for why it was required that he shave it off every morning. Yet the routine was comforting, and it marked him as belonging tosomething, and that in itself was worth the effort.
“Good morning,” Riyu called out. Iris’s hand flinched, his jaw responding with a sharp sting.
Someone’s here.
“Blessed morning, Dr. Alo,” Iris kept his back to the door. A trickle of blood ran along his neck, and he didn’t want to alarm Riyu, lest she linger and apologise. Like a starved mosquito, the white silk of his robe pressed on the cut greedily soaked up the blood, turning redder by the second. “It’s great to have you back. I’ll be right with you, if that’s all right.”
“Of course, of course,” Riyu said. “We brought coffee and food. I didn’t know if you drink coffee, but it’s there if you want it. I saw you took the sandwiches. Hope you liked them. Oh, and thanks for the apples. I’m going to have them tested, and if they’re not poisonous, we’ll have some.”
