Mother Nova:[laughs] Now, you memorised that from a teaching, I can see. And you’ve done such a great job memorising, you didn’t even stop to think before you said it. It was right there at the front of your mind. But I want you to think of adifferent ending for the sutra. What if the remaining star never pulled as hard? What would have happened?
Apprentice:I don’t know, Mother Nova. The other star would remain, I suppose. In some way. Maybe not even drift too far.
Mother Nova:And what doesthatteach us about the nature of relationships?
Apprentice:They won’t inherently be destructive if we don’t clutch too tightly?
Mother Nova:Exactly! Relationships are notbad. They are an experience, just like everything else is in life. This can be a long experience or a short one, but an experience, nonetheless. When you try to control someone, when you try to hold on to them at any cost, you risk destroying the relationship. That’s what we try to teach here: to hold gently, to make space for one another, in whatever relationships you encounter.
[End of recording]
13
Maybe none of this should be for me.
Maybe none of the mantras should be for me.
Maybe none of the vows should be for me.
What if I pray for you? What if I serve you?
Will that feed the insatiable hunger?
From the unedited records of embedded companion AI construct
Construct Model: 3XU-T
Handler: Iris [last name unavailable]
Smoke and the crackling of fire welcomed Iris awake. He was still sore, but warm, so very warm. Someone had bandaged his temple while he was unconscious. The back of his skull, where it had slammed against the wall, pulsed with a dull ache. The burning in his throat was also gone, as was the glowing netting that had cradled him in death not too long ago. Iris tried to push himself upright and noticed that he was lying on a thick, twice-folded navy blanket. A protective barrier between him and the ground. Another heavy sheet of fabric was draped over his body.
With each blink, the fire danced with an orange glow at the edges of his vision. Fresh, jagged memories came quickly after. Tev was dead. Yan was furious, and hurt, and distant, and Iris, well, he was very unfortunately alive. Both shame and guiltleeched through his body like slow poison. Fists clenched. Teeth ground against one another.
“When I was twelve, my parents took my brother and me across the galaxy,” a voice said, this time without its habitual edge. Only then did Iris notice a hunched-over shadow by the fire, stoking it with a long branch. “We were moving for my mother’s work. She had just received an offer from Anin Central Institute, with tenure and everything, so we had to go. Had to jump five gates just to get there. Private shuttle and everything. We thought it’d be fine. There’s some water in a thermos there. It’s lukewarm, but it’s the best I’ve got. Sorry.” Yan jerked his thumb in the direction of the thermos without looking.
Iris tensed. Had he, failing to die on his own, doomed himself to meeting his end by Yan’s hand? Unlikely. Yan had bandaged his wound and brought him water. He didn’t strike Iris as the sort of man to draw out the inevitable. Iris slowly reached for the thermos and gulped down four mouthfuls of water. Yan had come alone. Surely Jesi and Ishtan had argued for him not to venture out without protection. He must have insisted they stay behind. Stay safe. Stay protected, with Eli by their side. Whatever memory Yan was sharing was for Iris and Iris only. He swallowed another mouthful of water and waited for Yan to continue.
“The first three gate jumps were fine. Our shuttle wasn’t old, the shuttle AI wasn’t old. Everything was fine until we jumped the fourth gate, and the AI got fried. Of course, theAIdidn’t fry, just all the electronics did. Then the AI had no way to exert itself on anything on the ship, so the ship went to shit.” Yan stabbed the fire with precise anger. “My parents shoved me into the airlock because, you know, airlocks run on a separate system from the rest of the shuttle. They reached back to grab my brother, and the whole ship just—”
Iris sat up and listened silently, VIFAI mute but alert in the far corner of his consciousness.
“—depressurised. My parents died instantly. I pray they died instantly. I don’t know how but my brother managed to reach an oxygen mask. That kept him alive long enough to send an SOS and get a suit on. Suit only had enough oxygen for eight hours. We couldn’t communicate because I couldn’t figure out how to work the system, but I knew he was alive. After a few hours, he lay down, and I didn’t know if he was alive anymore. I was in that airlock for two days. The reclamation system was working OK, and I was twelve, scrawny, so how much air did I really need. Then two days later, it felt like two days, someone docked with our shuttle. They wereyourpeople.” Yan turned around, and in the dim light cast by the fire, his face was painfully vacant. “Two Vessels. They came in and did their thing. Must have been told there were no survivors. I don’t know how I know this, but my brother’s air tanks weren’t empty. Don’t ask me how I know, but he was alive. He was alive when your Vessels got there and then he wasn’t when they were finished. I don’t know how I know this. They didn’t eventry. They didn’t even look. They went about their jobs and never spoke to me, never listened to me. I was akid,” Yan hissed and whipped the stick against the side of the corridor. “I was a twelve-year-old kid, and they dumped me off at a nearby station and left. I suppose I should thank them for that. They could have just left me in space.”
He finally met Iris’s eyes. “I never understood how you could do that as a Vessel. You have so many ways to help, so many medical advantages. I mean, you could gulp down a spoonful of arsenic right now, and your inoculation will neutralise it. To have all that and not even try? Maybe you can explain it to me,Iris, like a person, not like some extension of whatever greaterpower you believe in. Like a regular person. Tell me why they didn’t even try. Why you—” Yan’s voice cracked, and he coughed to cover it up. “Because I’ve spent decades looking at you people and learning about you people, and I still can’t figure it out. What is it that they do to you that makes you so averse to”—he almost cried that time but took a heavy breath instead—“to caring?”
Iris knew. Shamefully, regrettably, he knew. Spend too long away from society, and you lose interest in it. Spend too long away from people, and you lose interest in them as well. You spend a lifetime learning tradition and practice, but when you face a real opportunity to apply any of it, tohelpsomeone, you fail to notice it.
“I failed you,” Iris said softly. The painful realisation blossomed in his chest. “They failed you as a child, and I failed you now.” Iris prostrated himself in front of Yan, his forehead pressing hard against the blanket.
In solitude, people became nothing but abstractions. People became the same as the trees and the grass, and they were—Iris knew this in his heart—they were all the same, made of the same stuff. Yet, people were still different, more fragile than any tree he’d ever seen, more needy than any patch of grass he’d ever sat on. People were so much softer than stone and much more anxious than your average sand fox, dashing away at the sight of its shadow. They needed care. Where everything else in the cosmos could justbe, people needed tending to, gentle, loving tending.
Yan only laughed, a small, pathetic exhale of air from someone who had no air left in them. He turned back towards the fire and slouched even lower. “I’m sorry for hurting you, by the way. It was—it was the wrong thing to do,” he said and fell silent.
But Iris cared. He shut his eyes so tightly that lights exploded behind his eyelids. He cared so much he had committed twenty violations since setting foot on the ship. He stayed out of the academics’ way. He minded his own business. He did his best to never insert himself, never interfere, never impose, to keep himselftohimself. He cared so much he—Iris sat up and looked straight ahead, a different kind of realisation striking him.
You finally get it, VIFAI said, a gentle echo from a distant corner of Iris’s mind.
“I’ve done everything to remain in the good graces of the Starlit and nothing for the ones I am supposed to serve,” Iris muttered. With great effort, he rose from the blanket and on shaking legs, staggered over to the fire. Yan said nothing when Iris lowered himself to his knees, facing him, and only flinched a little when Iris reached for his hand.
