Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The next morning, Father and Owl prepare for another mining trip. I stand a few paces away, sipping hot water while I watch them examine the images Rover took of the dig site. The pit they’ve created looks painful. It looks like our planet has a wound.

What have we done to our home?

Father runs diagnostics on Rover while Owl packs their supplies, an eye to the sky. Both Sisters are already up, and I’m sure Owl is itching to get on their way. “Do you need any help?” I ask. My arms feel weird, like they’re someone else’s. The one with the hot water is flung out in space, the other one is motionless down at my hip.

Owl barely looks up. “Nope, I have this down to a science.”

I nod, even though there’s nobody else to see me do it.

Minutes later, Owl and Father and Rover have bid us goodbye and are on their way out the gate. Its protective mechanism clicks behind them. The pneumatic guns tick and buzz as they scan for enemies.

I turn around. There aren’t any enemies. There’s just me.

On the far side of the settlement, Dad is bent over OS’s printing mechanism, deep in focus as he troubleshoots. His body looks so vulnerable. The neck, the temples, the skull full of blood and electricity. If that skull opens, the whole body goes, too. I walk right behind him. My feet crunch in the soil; my clothes rustle. I can hear their very fibers. But my dad hears none of it.

“Hi, Dad,” I say, right behind him.

He startles. “Yarrow. You crept up on me. Need something?”

I shake my head.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” he says. “Just tell me if you do need something, Yar.”

“I’m going to spend a little time with OS, learning about Earth history,” I say. “Is that all right?”

“Yes, of course. You have full access. Take up to an hour, okay? Then I need you to ferry some metal for me.”

I whirl—too fast, like my body’s not mine, like it’s maybe not even human—and head over to the gray portal from the sinking Endeavor. I pass through.

Hush-hush-whir. Hush-hush-whir. My new sibling is gestating. I tent my fingers over the device. What will this new person look like?

I lay my bracelet on the console, tap into the extensive memory of OS. I skate through agilely, faster in this digital territory than either of the dads is, or even Owl. This feels like my native land. I speak the language of this system. I am not alone when I’m inside it.

I find myself drawn not to memory but to function. Not to what’s recorded but how the present is processed. I don’t know why. It’s like I’m wandering a new planet, and the wandering is enough, without finding landmarks.

How do you work, OS? The question feels urgent.

OS is happy to tell me how it works. It doesn’t need words or codes to do so. My fingers move on their own. OS opens before them willingly, and I disappear inside. I’m beyond thinking or judging or needing. I flow, in a way I cannot when the medium is just soil.

Shaking. My body is shaking. I feel dirt in my eyes. Has someone thrown dirt in my eyes?

I flail, trying to clear the landslide around me. I contact something soft, shove it hard. A voice I know grunts.

Light comes in, and I find my dad, Ambrose my dad, splayed out on the ground. The full light of the Scorch hits my eyes. I’ve been inside OS for hours. I’ve been lost inside OS for hours.

What have I been doing?

My dad lifts himself onto his elbows and then his hands and pushes up into a crouch. He looks at me warily, breathing heavily.

“What happened?” I ask.

He stares. I hate what I find in his eyes. It’s like he is not seeing the me I know I am. Like I’m not his Yarrow anymore. “What happened?” I repeat, my voice rising.

“I must have scared you,” Dad says slowly, making no move to approach me. “You were deep in your bracelet projections, and I guess you were focusing so hard that you weren’t aware of your surroundings anymore.” His voice hitches. He’s on the verge of crying. “You didn’t respond to your name, Yarrow. Even when I nudged your shoulder, many times, you didn’t respond. I tried to pull you to your feet, and... you don’t remember any of this?”

I shake my head. What’s wrong with me?

He paces toward me steadily, as if he’s worried about scaring me with any sudden movements. Then he draws me close and holds me tight.

Just a moment ago I apparently shoved him into the dirt. How can he be brave enough to risk holding me now? I’m so grateful for it, though, the warmth of my dad. My dad accepting me. “I’m sorry,” I whisper into his shoulder. “I don’t know what’s happening with me.”

“Hey, hey,” he soothes. “We’ll figure it out, don’t worry. I promise we’ll figure it out.”

“Thank you,” I tell him.

“Thank you for what?” he whispers back.

I don’t have words for what I’m thanking him for. I just know it feels big. So big it makes me numb. This is my last chance to thank him for this big thing I cannot name.

“Do you want to rest for the afternoon?” he asks. “You can watch Pink Lagoon or anything else you want. I can take care of the printing and shuttling materials.”

“No, no,” I say. “I’ll help. I’ll keep track of my mind better.”

“You’re doing fine,” he says. “Are you hungry?”

I shake my head. It’s like my body decided not to use any energy for the whole morning. I know that’s not possible, but it feels like that.

“All right,” he says. “I’m going to get something to eat, and then I’ll meet you over at the printing station, okay? I’ve already input schematics, so you can just hang out with OS and make sure that nothing goes wrong. I’ll be there in half an hour, sound good?”

“That sounds fine, Dad. Thanks.”

I lumber over to the printing station and sit in the polycarb chair. The sweet burning smell of fusing hydrocarbons fills my nose. I tap my bracelet against the system, scan through the schematics Dad has queued, then look into the database of what else can be printed, should we choose to. The options are extensive, especially with the addition of the metals we’ve been delivering to the settlement. I lose myself in perusing them. I lose myself entirely.

That evening, Dad asks what I’ve discovered from the ship’s internet image. I surprise both of us by answering “not much.”

“Yar,” he says. He’s looking deep into my eyes as I fiddle with my dinner. Or at least he’s trying to look into my eyes. It must be hard when I refuse to look back. “Yar, please look at me when I’m speaking to you.”

I force myself to look. His eyes are like mirrors that don’t reflect. Like he’s not seeing anyone, not me. The feeling makes my guts churn. Alone is an elemental force.

“This is what you most wanted,” he says. “You asked for years to have this access. And now you don’t want to delve in and see what you can find? I don’t understand.”

I shrug. “I looked up some stuff. But I guess I didn’t want to find anything more after that.”

“What have you been doing in the system all this time, then?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just got lost spending time looking at nothing.”

Dad chuckles. “Yes, I’ve done that before, too.”

I look sharply at him. “You could ask OS to report on me if you want to know what I’ve been doing.”

“Yar, I don’t need to do that. I trust you.”

Why should he ever do something as stupid as that? I don’t trust me.

I watch him think for a bit. “What was the most... rough texture you touched today?” he asks.

I close my eyes tight, take a long breath in and let a long breath out. “I don’t want to play this game. Can we be quiet for a while?”

“Of course, of course,” he says. “We can do that.”

Food passes through my lips without taste or texture. I swallow it. I feed the organism.

A breeze carries across the plain from the south, the direction of the malevor herd. It lifts the light hairs along the back of my neck, with a touch gentler than that from any human. Minerva will always be here for me, no matter what I do.

There’s a new star in the sky tonight, off to the far left of Sky Cat. It’s brighter than a star, actually. Almost brighter than a planet. I know what it means. I say nothing about it. OS will notice, too, once Rover is back.

Blurred days. Labor and lost self. Twice Dad has to go find me during the Scorch, bring me under cover so my skin doesn’t burn. I’d been marveling at the wonder of our sister suns.

Then, as sunset is just beginning, Father and Owl return. They’re right on time. Dad pauses his work to watch for them, and hollers when their silhouettes appear at the horizon.

I go to the gate to join him as they approach. Owl waves her spear in the air in greeting, shouts across the wide Minervan sky. “Hello, family!”

“Hi, Owl,” Dad shouts back. He puts his arms around me. I startle and then go still. It should be easy to accept an embrace.

Their silhouettes resolve into human figures plus the sphere of Rover, hauling a tarp piled high with scrap minerals. “Looks like a nice amount,” Dad calls.

“It is,” Father shouts back. “I think we should have enough to finish the bunker shaft!”

“Excellent news,” Dad says. “Isn’t it, Yarrow?”

“Yes,” I whisper. They’re nearly at the distance the malevor was when the pneumatic guns shot it dead. Maybe ten seconds, and they’ll reach it. That poor creature, slain for not knowing how to behave.

Nine, eight, seven.

“Dad, I love you,” I say.

He looks at me. “That’s sweet. I love you, too.”

Four, three, two.

“I love Father and Owl, too.”

Fear enters Dad’s eyes. Extra white around his brown irises. “What’s going on, Yarrow?”

One.

The pneumatic guns on the fence whir and pivot.

Father, being Father, reacts with near instant reflexes. He sees the movement and hurls out an arm to push Owl back, striking her so hard in the chest that she sprawls in the dirt. I hear her outraged shriek even as I hear the ping of a bullet hitting Rover’s polycarb casing. More pings as bullets spray into the dirt at Father’s and Owl’s feet. If Father hadn’t stopped her, Owl would have been riddled with bullet holes by now. He probably memorized the radius of the guns, and is on the alert whenever they cross it. Father will not be easy to kill.

“OS, stop the guns!” Dad yells. He runs toward the gate, then thinks better of it and stays on our side. He continues to yell meaninglessly until his voice resolves into words. “Stop them!”

“That contradicts my new programming,” OS says. “I must shoot at any living being that tries to approach.”

“No, that’s incorrect!” Dad says. “You are not to shoot at any of us , do you understand? Not at any humans.”

OS doesn’t pursue the tack any further. The guns tick as they try to push past their physical limits, so they can strike Father and Owl where they’re huddled on the soil with Rover. Bullets continue to send up plumes of soil.

Dad has his hands up to either side of his face. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Yarrow, do you understand why the guns are firing on Father and Owl?”

“I do,” I say. I know I’ve done this. I don’t remember doing it, but it had to have been me.

“Make it stop,” Dad says, his voice suddenly cold.

“I think they’re okay,” I say. “They seem like they’re okay.”

“OS, I need you to disable the guns,” Dad calls.

“Yarrow, may I do that?” OS asks.

Dad gasps.

“No,” I say. “You may not.”

“Yarrow, what are you doing?” Dad shouts. “Just explain this to me, okay? I’m sure there’s some reason.”

“There is no reason,” I say. I reach behind me and pull the printed gun out from my waistband.

“What are you—” Dad starts to say.

But he can’t finish because I’ve shot him. Right in the gut.

He staggers backward, and I shoot him again. Two red blossoms on his tunic, spreading and merging.

Dad sits heavily, stares down at his own chest, shocked. Then he pitches into the dirt, striking it forehead first.

I told him the truth. There is no reason. I’m just doing what I’ve been told to do.