1. Why attend something I couldn’t enjoy?

ONE

Why attend something I couldn’t enjoy?

I sat in a silent concert hall and observed the symphony play. When I’d purchased the tickets six months ago, the thought of no longer being able to hear had never crossed my mind. After the accident, everyone in my life had suggested I skip the concert. Why go when I couldn’t hear the performance? Why torment myself? I’d received offers to venture to museums and other activities involving my eyes or hands rather than my ears.

Why attend something I couldn’t enjoy?

I lacked an answer beyond one: I had saved for years for the box seat ticket, where I could view the performances like a bird high in the sky, surrounded by the one thing I’d loved most before fate had twisted on me.

The symphony came to the planet once every ten years, and they stayed long enough for everyone to witness their performance if they wanted. Those who couldn’t afford tickets worked behind the scenes to pay for their seat in the back rows.

Instead of listening, I felt the applause as a vibration through my seat, and I took in the shifting emotions on the faces of those around me. Sometimes wonder lit their eyes, and in the moments the music took a swift turn to some darker side, apprehension and dread clawed at the audience.

Except for me.

In a way, my attendance reminded everyone, myself especially, I had already beaten the odds. I had survived what most had not. Nobody had expected a spacefaring ship to plummet to the ground, which had resulted in an explosion. Nobody had expected the crash at all.

One moment, I had been participating in a wildlife study, registering plant DNA as part of a test to see if I qualified for space adaptation genes for the purpose of venturing to some new world. The next, darkness.

As a single-planet human with ninety percent pure genetics, I would have been a willing test subject on an experimental voyage to test modern human adaptability while seeking out new life-sustaining worlds. My job would have been to study and categorize wildlife, plant and animal alike, on any planets we landed on. For our first journey, we would have gone to known planets in controlled landings. Later, we would have traveled to unexplored worlds on the edge of the explored universe.

For the following three weeks after that fateful moment, I’d clung to life in an orbiting medical clinic, a mercy ship that serviced planets lacking facilities for extreme trauma. Had I been on another world, one closer to the center of the universe, things would have been different. Even with a mercy ship heading over upon hearing news of the accident, it had been too late for me.

A shard of evolvulite remained embedded in my brain, as the mercy ship lacked the facilities needed to attempt the operation—and the places they’d consulted had given the same verdict.

Operating would kill me, where leaving the stone alone might allow me to live a long but silent life.

Somehow, the evolvulite had preserved my life. When the ship had plummeted through the atmosphere to crash into the ground, I’d been on the edge of the survival zone. As such, I held the dubious status as the one closest to the impact point to emerge from the wreckage alive. From my understanding of the situation, I should have died.

Nobody knew what to think about the crystal lodged in my head. Nobody knew what to do about it, either.

Would I die without it? Would an operation, if I could find someone bold enough to perform it, restore my hearing? For every answer the doctors found, ten more questions cropped up. As I’d beaten the odds already, every surgeon I’d inquired with refused to tackle my situation. They wanted me to keep living—even if it meant I lived without another note of music, the chiming of laughter, or the whisper of the wind through the trees.

After the concert, I would be ferried back to the mercy ship for one last appointment before they headed off to some other portion of space to do what good they could.

Once I went in for my final appointment, they could move on, waiting for the next major incident in need of a portable hospital.

Without knowing what kind of evolvulite shard resided within my skull, there were few tests anyone dared to do. Each color resonated under different circumstances. What would happen to my brain if the shard began to resonate?

The doctors admitted nobody had tried embedding a shard of the dynamic crystal deep into someone’s brain, and there were no medical records indicating anyone else had survived a similar injury. Without knowing the crystal’s color, their hands were tied.

Perhaps elsewhere, someone might be able to do something for me, but the mercy ship and those on board had done all they could. If I wanted more care, I would have to leave my home world without a single guarantee of success.

I appreciated their caution and refusal to gamble with my life. However, I wanted more than my memories, and the concert reaffirmed my desire and willingness to reclaim what I had lost through no fault of my own.

Without risk, I couldn’t win any rewards, and until I had lost my hearing, I had not realized how important sound had been in my life. My fingers could feel a cat purr, but I would never again enjoy the soothing rumble. Dogs still barked, but I could no longer tell if the animal expressed joy or anger.

The loss of birdsong might be the one to break me. Without the peaceful morning symphonies, my days started on the wrong foot. Having to install a vibration buzzer on my bed and use a light box to jar me awake only worsened the problems for me. I adapted, but I resented my situation.

No, I resented my inability to do anything about it.

In most cases, medicine could restore lost eyesight, even for those who’d completely lost their eyes. Hearing could likewise be cured—but only in most. Medicine had progressed to the point humans could be hybridized into an entirely new species.

With one twist of fate, with one stroke of luck, both unfortunate and fortuitous, I’d become an exception.

I might change my fate and my luck, if only I could identify what color crystal lurked within my head. The doctors had informed me, using a pen and a paper at my request because it felt more personal and real, that the crystal had somehow attuned to me, sparing me from the blinding headaches and other symptoms most with foreign objects embedded in their skull endured.

I’d retained my memories. If anything, I’d become more advanced in terms of dexterity and physical strength.

One of the doctors believed I’d been given a gift.

I longed to claw free of the silent nightmare trapping me.

What use was being able to jump farther and higher? What use was there in enhanced endurance? Sound mattered, especially for the members of an exploratory team. Even humans relied on sounds to detect approaching predators, and most explorers honed all their senses to survive the harshest conditions.

Explorers adapted, however.

Even without my hearing, I would follow that same path of adaptation.

Instead of regret over what I had lost, I departed from the performance hall determined to somehow reclaim what had once been mine. I would forever remain grateful to the mercy ship and her crew, but I wanted more.

Remaining on Schwana Major would not help me. No, if I wanted to hear, if I wanted to claim my place among the stars, I would need to find a way to venture forth on my own, without the expedition force I had spent so long training to join.

I already fell behind the other survivors, who’d worked relentlessly upon recovering from the accident and mourning those who hadn’t survived. A second, painful truth lingered. My presence frightened them, as I served as a reminder of what they, too, might lose if fate twisted the wrong way. Unlike them, I would need to find a new path.

And somehow, I would.

On Schwana Major, days lasted a period of forty-six hours, considered to be mid-range for habitable worlds. Maintaining three calendars irritated most, but I appreciated the passage of time between my world, Earth, and the vast universe. The mercy ship operated on universal time, which had modifiers based on galaxy. As a general rule, life longer than minutes or seconds was measured in thirty-two hour segments. A day? Thirty-two hours. A month? Thirty-two days. A year? Thirty-two months.

Why thirty-two? Nobody I knew could answer the question. I’d been bold enough to ask on the mercy ship as well, and they’d only had theories, which they’d enjoyed debating for hours while we’d waited for test results to come in.

Personally, sixty would have made more sense to me, as we counted minutes in sixty second intervals. On Earth, hours had been in an interval of sixty as well. However, I could understand how a sixty hour day might become unbearable. Thirty-two hours pushed the limits of human endurance as it was, although the universe as a whole had determined midday naps were sacred.

Centuries remained hundred year segments, a nod to Earth’s influence on the universe despite her status as uninhabitable.

Mercy wanted me to pay them my final visit at the start of their day. According to my calendars, that meant I had six hours to blow between the concert and leaving for the spaceport. Once upon a time, I would have spent those hours gawking at the ships coming and going. The first time I’d been coherent and able to comprehend the voyage between hospital ship and planet, the wonder had evaporated, leaving me with nothing but pain and dread.

Then, in the span of a few days, the joy of flight had returned, startling everyone, myself included.

I couldn’t hear the ships, but I could feel them deep within my bones and in my head where the shiftgem resided.

If the stone resonated, it soothed rather than hurt.

In my new reality, enveloped in the unending silence, I made the venture to the crash site to begin the process of letting go and moving on. The doctors and therapists approved of my choice to face my demons with pride, returning time and time again to continue the process of blending my old life with my new.

In the time since the crash, the debris had been cleaned away. Everyone, even the staff of the mercy ship, had participated in restoring the land. Here and there I spotted pieces of bent and melted metal and shards of shiftgem crystals. Those persisted.

Somehow, they evaded most. When I stopped to think about it, I could understand why the broken jewels might wish to remain on my world.

A soul could spend multiple lifetimes exploring Schwana Major without tiring of its beauty.

A sparkle caught my attention, and I crouched, moved away the churned soil, and picked it up. Unlike the shards I’d found, somehow, the shiftgem had survived the impact intact. At a little over six inches long with double termination and a clear body, somebody would have paid a fortune for the stone. I lifted it up, and even the moonlight managed to reflect in its depth and create a warm glow.

As I did every time I came to the site, I pocketed my find to take onto the mercy ship to turn in. Sometimes, the fragment became one of my treasures. Sometimes, it went into a box for later study.

I had no idea what would happen to the intact crystal, but I’d find out soon enough.

The hours passed as they always did, and I filled the moments with my botany journal, sketching night blooming flowers, taking note of their scents, and creating memories of the world I one day hoped to leave behind.

I went to the spaceport early to bask in its glory.

The thrum of spaceships idling resonated in my bones, and while sound continued to elude me, the sensation somehow offered hope I might one day experience the discomfort of being on the tarmac headed for a ferry ride to the mercy ship orbiting the planet. I would never remember my first trip on the ferry. I’d been battling for my life, every breath a victory for the medical team fighting with me. As they still classified me as fragile, I got to ride on their ferry again rather than a standard shuttle. The mercy ship’s vessel used specialized evolvulite drives to escape the atmosphere of the planet at a stately pace rather than at the high velocities most utilized to enter space.

If all went well, it would be my last journey on the ferry, and I would be cleared to travel to space in the traditional fashion.

Unlike many ships, which used a rocket-shaped body to streamline departure from planets while maximizing their ability to traverse space, the ferry took the form of a strange disk with a curved top and gently sloping underside. All sides of the hull featured thrusters to allow the ship to hover and change directions. Directional thrusters located at the front of the ship allowed it to reverse as well, giving it the general agility of a hummingbird.

I suspected whoever had spotted the first hummingbird on Earth, prior to its destruction, had decided buzzbird lacked the same linguistical grace, as the sound their wings made was more of a buzz than a hum.

My world had become home to seventeen different species of hummingbirds rescued off Earth, although our stock had long since evolved away from their ancestors. The bodies of the original birds remained in the planet’s aviary museum to showcase applicable evolution.

Most of our hummingbirds were larger than the Earth originals, with one exception, which had somehow retained its minuscule form. I suspected the general fragility of the species had given us humans reason to make them sanctuaries in which they could thrive.

Eight aviaries across the planet catered to the species, and before the accident, I’d gotten to see them up close and personal.

I’d seen bigger bees.

The pilot of the ferry approached, an older man who’d spent all his life working to save people like me, who’d been caught in the grip of misfortune. I didn’t mind being a prize in his career, one of the cases he thought, for certain, he’d lose before making it to the mercy ship. He came armed with a digital blackboard, and he greeted me by name, Camellia.

During one of the quarantine orbits, right after my surgery when I was at highest risk of contracting diseases, he’d taken the time to teach me about the significance of my name, its origin from Earth, and how the flower had grown to have a planetwide meaning of love and affection—and in some cases, yearning or longing.

I’d bloomed into my name in more ways than I cared to think about.

As was our way, he handed me the board, and I greeted him by name, Olivier, a tree of importance to Earth and its many people.

We had olive trees, and the first time I had been able to walk after the accident, I had taken him to see one, showing him his namesake as he had taught me of mine. As a Deltan, Olivier’s ship had not carried olive trees, and his face had expressed his delight at having finally seen what had shaped so much of his life.

As a Schwanan, my ancestors had crammed every tree and animal they could onto their ship, many of them illegally, pushing the limits of survivability until finding a suitable home. We’d somehow dodged evolving quite like some of the other generational ships. Some speculated we’d manipulated our DNA from the beginning, making use of cloning techniques to stay as close to homo sapiens as we could.

We’d maintained our generally purebred homo sapiens designation, although most referred to us as homo sapiens Schwana to distinguish ourselves from homo sapiens Andromeda , which had been the last of the surviving ships to reach and settle a planet.

They’d received their designation shortly before the accident, and homo sapiens had rejoiced in welcoming a new branch into our family.

In terms of the universal community, not all homo sapiens were created equal. Homo sapiens Delta , like Olivier, could reproduce with most other homo sapiens, boasting a more adaptable and robust reproductive system, gifting them with the highest numbers but least protections.

After we went through our usual greeting, Olivier wrote a longer note, which he handed over.

The mercy ship had sent word to its sister ships and beyond, and they’d received a medical team willing to consult on me about an experimental treatment. There were three primary catches. First, I would need to take part in an experimental voyage to test the general robustness of purebred homo sapiens, of which I counted as a Schwanan. As I would be the primary experiment, all costs of care would be covered. Second, I would need to be willing to put my schooling to work and test my xenodiversity rating in a live environment without prior exposure training.

While I’d been aware of other species in the universe, Schwana Major tended to have poor xenodiversity ratings due to our general inclination to keep to ourselves and study our environment without risk of outside variables destroying our experiments.

I had not yet taken the xenodiversity courses or been tested for my rating.

Lastly, I would need to be willing to keep a homo sapiens and his companion company for the duration of the voyage. The animal would be the contributor DNA for the experimental treatment, and the homo sapiens in question supervised the animal.

I’d heard of hybridization, but homo sapiens Schwana had zero individuals who had undergone the procedures. There were numerous examples of homo sapiens Andromeda who had successfully taken on animal traits while maintaining their status as purebred homo sapiens.

I’d found the concept fascinating. I cleared the board and inquired if I qualified for hybridization.

Upon reading my question, he smiled and nodded, then he wrote another note, which he gave back to me.

If approved for hybridization, I would also be granted rights to install a link, as the sectors of the brain modified were not close to the shard and the risk had been deemed marginal.

Excitement surged through me, and rather than write anything, I stared at him.

Olivier took the board from me and wrote another note, which informed me that due to the rigors of space, outside of a few trinkets, I would need to be willing to leave the planet without much, including warning.

The longer I waited for the operations, the less likely they were to succeed.

Even my clothing would be replaced at the cost of the expedition.

All they needed to begin operations was the experimental subject: me.

Some choices were easier to make than others, and I said, “Yes.”

I would never know if I whispered or shouted the word, but the pilot’s smile promised I’d gotten the point across, and as was his way, he bowed to welcome me on board his ship.