Page 9 of Leviathan

"All waste is taken into my waste processing tanks and is turned into soil and fertilizer for my gardens," he said.

"You have gardens?" I asked. "Why?"

"I enjoy tending plants," he said. "Along with being a source of pleasure, they come with additional benefits, such as oxygen production for my internal atmosphere, nutrient mass generation, and being an excellent trade resource for other spaceships and space stations. Fresh food is a valuable commodity out in space."

"Can I see the garden?" I asked.

"Of course," he said. "But first, I would prefer if you ate and submitted to a medical scan so I can ensure you aren't carrying any pathogens that might hurt my garden."

"After a shower," I said.

I took care of my bodily functions first. The mechanism to empty it was at shoulder height and had the words 'Remove Waste' written on it in my language. I gently stroked the words, and the toilet lid slid shut from the sides, startling me as it made a sucking sound, like a high-powered vacuum.

Before I stepped into the shower, I glanced in the mirror. I had green streaks on my neck, chest, and arms. It likely was all over my bedding as well since I had gone to sleep without showering. I would need to ask how to do my laundry.

The shower was hot, luxurious, and there were several scented containers that opened to reveal cleansing soap and what I hoped was conditioner as I worked it into my fine, thick hair. The green gunk came off easily, leaving my skin clear and unharmed. There were thick towels folded up on the side of a sink to dry off with, along with a large mirror. I toweled the water out of my hair, staring at myself in the reflection. My appearance was always a little strange to me when I was surrounded by my siblings and cousins. I was the güera of the family, an example of the very subject I wove into my dissertation on the labels and power dynamics of control.

I took in a deep breath. I'd been treated as a nothing, a nonentity to be kept in a cage.

My education had meant nothing. The words I spoke to try to make a connection to my captors fell on deaf ears.

There was no expelling trauma of the past, only integrating it and changing it, and the blond of my hair and lightness of my skin were rooted in my family's history just as firmly as the brown of my brother's hair.

A wave of sadness rolled over me at the thought of my family.

I let it pass through me, acknowledging it and letting it go. I'd let the thoughts of them not knowing what happened to me torture me the first few weeks, and though I missed them, I knew that they would want me to focus on my present survival over the ache of my missing them.

I couldn't change the trauma of this horrible section of my life, but I could reclaim myself and change my world going forward.

"Dr. Maria Pilar Cortes," I said to myself before I turned away from the mirror. I'd earned that title. My education was something that no one could take away from me, even if it hadn't mattered at all in the outcome of the last few months.

There were drawers in the wall in front of me, next to the sink, and in them I found what I had been given as a teeth cleaner on the station, and a hairbrush that doubled as a dryer. I used both. It took a long time to get my hair untangled. I had tried to keep it tidy by brushing it with my fingers, but it had started to mat and dread in places. I had come close to just leaning into the dreads, but I didn't want to. My hair was one thing I held on to, one thing I could almost control, and combing it with my fingers was an activity that filled up the void of time I spent in that room they used as my cell until I managed to steal a tool that let me open up the vent during the hours that the room was in pitch darkness.

When I was done working out my hair, I put on the clothing that was left for me. It had underwear, including a soft sports bra to support my chest. The outer clothing was equally soft and loose, like wearing extremely comfy pajamas.

When I was done getting dressed, I went back out into the bedroom to investigate the tray.

I found food under the tray in the bedroom, still hot, but none of it was anything like the bland cubes I had been fed on the station.

There was a soft brown gruel that tasted like fruit, and thick slabs of something that looked like bacon but tasted like lightly vinegared potato chips. None of it tasted exactly the same as Earth food, but it was flavorful and delicious, and I had been starved of variety. There were thirty different options on the tray, and I worked through them all, returning to my favorites to finish them off, one of which was the spitting image of a fresh-cooked egg, sunnyside up.

It had a different flavor than I was expecting, with a little kick of sweet spice to it, just enough to prickle my tongue and warm my chest.

It brought the sting of unshed tears to my eyes to finally have something tasty.

"Lyrien, this is delicious," I said.

"I haven't yet fully removed my optical sensors from your chambers," Lyrien said. "Would you mind if I reactivated them temporarily so I can see which of the food samples you enjoy?"

"Go ahead," I said. It was nice that he asked. Just that simple, small request eased the knot of stress in my chest that had wound up tight from the last several months of dispossession of my bodily autonomy.

"Your hair..." he murmured.

"My hair?" I asked as I ran a hand down it, feeling for knots the way I had done so many times before in the first few weeks of my abduction. For the first time in a long time, it was clean. "What is wrong with my hair?"

"It is beautiful," he said. "It's like you have a hundred thousand neurofilaments. Do they receive sensory data?"

"Not the visible hair," I said. "But the follicles near the base have nerves. My species can feel a breeze through our hair or an insect crawling in it. It is less like a sensory tissue and more like a sensory extender."