Xenocultivars, page 4
“I’m Minhe,” one of them says, sketching her pronoun and name in the air with a series of fluid gestures. She breaks into a smile, wrinkles deepening around her eyes. “This is Gaoyu, my partner. And the one brooding in the corner is Suyi.”
“I’m not brooding,” Suyi protests. She throws herself into the chair, scrawling her name and pronoun before tossing back a handful of shrimp chips.
I must have been really out of it when I first saw Suyi. She looks nothing like a legend now. She’s too angular, too ordinary, too cranky. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s barely older than me.
“You’re always brooding,” Gaoyu snorts, then turns to me, quickly writing out their identifiers. “Call me Ah Gao.” They have a round, friendly face, and they’re slightly shorter than their partner. The two look comfortably middle-aged. “How do you feel?”
“I feel like crap,” I say honestly. “I’m Guilan, by the way —”
Suyi interrupts. “We know. We scanned you earlier.”
“Didn’t want to administer biomeds without checking your allergies first,” Minhe says apologetically. “But now that you’re awake, you can take them yourself.” She holds out a bottle of loquat syrup and a sheaf of biomed tabs.
As I take the medicine, I sneak glances at everyone. They’re wearing Survey Office uniforms like me, but theirs look different — a vintage-style badge on the shoulder, a lighter shade of blue, and no com link thread. Their jumpsuits have clearly been mended multiple times. Suyi wears hers like it’s a suggestion, with the jacket looped around her waist and the pants cuffed at her ankles.
“So you work for the Survey Office?” I venture. The Survey Office has hundreds of departments handling land survey, mining and extraction programs, and on-world research.
“Sort of,” Minhe says. “We’re an independent research group, but our funding’s from the Survey Office. Our focus is Outer Reaches restoration.”
“Then you’re trying to restore the wetland?” I ask.
“That’s the goal,” Ah Gao says. “Decades ago, the whole ecosystem of this place was disrupted. We’re trying to accelerate its recovery. Actually, we’d love your help while you’re here. We could always use an extra pair of hands.” They say this so earnestly that I immediately nod.
“Slow down,” Minhe says. “Guilan needs to rest first.”
“What happened to you, anyway?” Suyi demands, glaring at me like I personally ruined her day.
“My pod shut down. I can’t go home until I clear my health scan.” I don’t bother explaining my internship. If they scanned me, they know about that.
“That’s what I thought.” Minhe sighs. “I’m glad you found us.”
“Dead zone bugs aren’t remotely contagious, and they’re easily treatable,” Ah Gao grumbles. “All these years and still the same ridiculous protocol. Would it kill the Survey Office to do the right thing for once?”
Suyi snorts. “They’d rather collect a dead body than save a live one. It’s cheaper that —”
“Enough, Suyi,” Minhe says sharply. “Guilan, you should sleep. The biomeds will kick in soon.”
As she shoos Suyi and Ah Gao out, I catch Suyi glancing back at me, a faint line creasing her forehead.
* * *
Relief floods my system when my phone blinks on the following morning. I feel the way I did when I got into Kaoye Central University. I cried like a baby that day. My cousins are all lawyers and interstellar pilots, and the pressure really gets to you.
I check my messages. The only one I can access is from my mom — it’s standard mom stuff like “wear a jacket” and “drink water.” Nothing else loads. When I check my signal, it’s non-existent, which shouldn’t be happening. When I got my internship, I installed an amplifier key on my phone — I wasn’t about to be like Ke Guan, hero of Star Rider: Houtong Drift, and end up stranded without a functioning link to my crew. But even with the amp key, my phone isn’t cooperating.
Fortunately, I don’t need a link to play the shows I have saved. I spend the next blissful hour watching pirates raid a hydroforming vessel haunted by a handsome ghost. It’s just getting good when Suyi busts in.
She sets down a tray and thrusts a steaming mug at me. The bitter smell reaches up and punches me in the nose. I grimace. “Any chance I can just take biomeds?”
“Nope, you have to drink it all,” Suyi says smugly. I chug the brew until there’s only leaf sludge left.
Suyi peers at my phone. “What’re you watching?”
“Just a dead zone series,” I say. “It’s got pirates.”
She scoffs. “Oh. Adventure dreck.”
I glare at her. “So what’s not dreck to you? Serious documentaries on nebula navigational systems?”
“I know you’re trying to be insulting, but that actually sounds amazing.”
I flop back on my bed, defeated. “Look, my brain isn’t fully online yet.”
“Obviously.” Suyi does this little smirk that makes me want to throw my pillow at her. “I just can’t take dead zone shows seriously. I mean, I live in the dead zone.”
“Then what do you watch out here?”
“Old stuff. Historical dramas. Whatever Ah Gao picks up when they go into town.” Suyi shrugs. “We’ve been watching this demon hunter series.”
“How is that better than what I’m watching?” I throw up my hands. “Never mind. Is that the one where the demon hunters were demons all along? My mom loves that show.”
“Hey, no spoilers!” Suyi kicks my bunk.
“Really?” I grin. “It’s been out for years. Everyone knows Jiangli is —”
“Shut up, shut up!” Suyi kicks my bunk again, and this time I do chuck my pillow at her. It lands with a satisfying whump. She whips it back at me, smacking me in the face. By the time I’ve recovered, she’s bent over laughing, tendrils of her perfect hair escaping from her braid.
Finally, she says, “Get up. Minhe wants me to show you the place.”
Suyi passes me a rice roll. It’s the first real food I’ve had in a month — I almost weep with joy. There’s bits of pickled radish in it, packed around a stick of fried dough, and it’s gloriously greasy.
Suyi marches briskly down the hall, pointing everything out in a bored drawl, like the planet’s worst tour guide. We pass the showers, lab, and library in quick succession. The whole place is painted in sterile shades of white and blue, but has a lived-in feel to it. File sheets and mugs cover just about every surface. Muddy boot prints lead into the kitchen, where dishes have been left to soak in the sink.
A paper star chart is taped up in one of the rooms, and I hang back to look. I’ve only ever seen paper charts like this at my aunt’s house, and hers are so faded you can barely make out the markings. But before I can step inside, Suyi yanks the door closed before I can really look. “Hurry up,” she says. “I charge by the minute.”
We arrive at a small greenhouse. A soup-like humidity envelops us as we step inside. It’s bursting with plants, their leaves brilliant in the sunlight. Suyi parts a curtain of rust-colored vines, impatiently waving me through. On the other side Minhe and Ah Gao preside over a wooden worktable, packing white-flecked soil into propagation trays.
“Guilan!” Ah Gao beams. They pull out a rickety stool, moving a tray of seedlings to clear a space for me.
When I’ve sat down, Minhe passes me an open seed packet and points to a tray filled with soil. “Just a pinch in each.”
“What is this?” I say. There’s no label on the packet, just a scrawl that says GEN 4, BABY!!
“That’s siltweed. It’s native to this area, but it died out when...” Minhe grimaces. “Well, when things got bad. It’s key to the local ecosystem, so we’re helping things along.”
Ah Gao shakes a few seeds out into their hand to show me. “Siltweed seeds can stay dormant for decades. They only germinate under very specific conditions, which we’ve recreated. Our goal — no, our dream — is for those conditions to naturally occur out there,” they wave at the door, “and not just in here.”
“All right, Guilan asked for an answer, not a speech,” Minhe says. “So, Guilan, what made you decide to intern for the Survey Office? Surprising choice for a year twelve.”
I remember with a jolt that they’ve seen my academic status, family registry, and all the other junk coded into my ID. When I answer, I settle for a half-truth.
“I’ve always wanted to see the Outer Reaches. I figured this was my last chance before college, so I just went for it.”
“Where are you headed for school?” Ah Gao asks.
“Kaoye Central.”
Ah Gao lets out a low whistle. “No wonder you took the internship. I bet the dead zone was a relaxing getaway compared to entrance exams.”
“Do you know what you want to study?” asks Minhe.
I consider half-lying again, but what’s the point? These aren’t my relatives. Whatever they think of me, it’s not my problem.
“I’m on the science track, but I haven’t picked a focus,” I admit. “I’ve been putting it off.” I studied my ass off to get into Kaoye Central. It’s just plain embarrassing that I worked so hard to get in, but I don’t even know what to do now that I’ve made it. No wonder First Uncle’s always on my case.
“Let me guess. You’re still figuring things out, but everyone keeps telling you what to think.” Ah Gao shakes their head. “Reminds me of my college days...”
“Here we go,” Suyi groans.
“Minhe and I were star-crossed lovers once,” Ah Gao says dreamily. “We roomed together in college. It was love at first sight.”
“They spilled a bowl of rice noodles on me,” Minhe says dryly. “Spent six weeks apologizing. I wouldn’t call that love at first sight.”
“It was for me,” Ah Gao says. “But my parents were old-fashioned. They didn’t care that I’d found my life partner already. They wanted me to marry the son of a family friend, a very eligible bachelor working in interstellar politics. But I just couldn’t be who my parents wanted me to be.”
“So you ran away with Minhe and married her so you could be assigned to the same research expedition,” Suyi says. “Then you lived happily ever after. The end.”
“What happened to ‘no spoilers’?” I tease.
“Maybe next time you should tell the story, Suyi,” Minhe says, nudging her.
Ah Gao meets my eyes. “What I’m trying to tell you, Guilan, is that it’s okay to take your time. Go slowly. You don’t have to know just yet what you want to do, or even who you want to be. And no one else gets to decide for you.”
I nod, plastering on a polite smile.
“Oh, come on. That’s not what you were trying to say at all,” Minhe teases. “You just wanted an excuse to share our grand love story.”
Ah Gao takes Minhe’s hand, both streaked with dirt. The two share a look, and there’s something so sure about it, as sure as green life turning toward the sun.
My gut twists. I wish I was that sure of anything. I jump off my stool and leave them to gaze into each other’s eyes.
* * *
It’s still mostly dark out when Suyi crashes into my room. I screw my eyes shut, but she flicks the light on and off until I acknowledge her.
“Good, you’re awake,” Suyi announces, as if she didn’t just drag me into the world of the waking. “Get dressed. And drink this.”
She sets down another mug of herbal medicine, along with biomeds and a plate of scallion pancakes. The medicine tastes slightly sweet this time, like someone tried to temper the bitterness with honey.
The flaky layers of the scallion pancakes tear easily, and I cram pieces into my mouth as I follow her to the greenhouse, where she takes obvious delight in ordering me around. We tetris the grow blocks and propagation trays of siltweed seedlings into a crate, then carry it out between the two of us.
Outside, our breaths mist in the morning air. We get to work, tapping out the seedlings and nestling them into neatly dug furrows. Several lengths away, a murky trickle of water pushes past rustling cattails. An arrow of birds flies overhead.
Suyi and I fall into a rhythm. There’s something strangely peaceful about just doing the thing in front of me and nothing else. When we’re done, she takes me by the shoulder and turns me around. “Look,” she says.
I follow her gaze and see the expanse of land, now limned in golden light. The sky is a slow realization of dawn.
“It’s beautiful,” I say. You don’t get sunrises like this in Kaoye.
“Yeah,” she says, glancing back at me. Her brow creases, and she drops her hand from my shoulder. “It is.”
* * *
These last few days, I’ve been doing better, but it’s not enough. I keep running a mild fever, and I get tired easily. I’m like one of those crappy phones from the mineral ages, back when megacorps would install faulty batteries to trick people into buying new ones every year.
One evening, I head to the kitchen to rinse my mug and nearly walk in on Minhe and Ah Gao arguing. I backpedal so fast, I’m pretty sure I break the sound barrier. As I flee, I catch snatches of hushed conversation. It’s the first time I’ve heard Ah Gao sound anything close to angry.
“— taking a while —”
“— can’t keep doing this! We have to tell —”
I reach my room and slam the door, still clutching my mug.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Of course, Suyi’s perched on my bed. She’s the bane of my existence right now. She drops by every morning with medicine, then drags me along to work — checking leaves for blight, taking soil samples by the creek, that sort of thing.
But she always notices when my battery runs low. We’ve started watching dead zone shows together while I recharge. Despite her initial misgivings, she’s now completely hooked.
I set down my mug and climb into bed. “Move it.”
Suyi makes room for me. Once we’re settled, I throw a projection up and hit play. We left the last episode on a cliffhanger. Suyi leans forward eagerly, her knee brushing against mine. I don’t move away.
* * *
The next day, Ah Gao serves up tonic soup for dinner. The sight of goji berries and red dates floating in the broth reminds me of Second Aunt. Every time I visited her, she’d make tonic soup for me. “Just a little boost,” she’d always say.
“Hope it’s okay,” Ah Gao says nervously. “If it’s bad, we can feed it to Suyi.”
“Hey!” Suyi flips them off.
I take a sip. “It’s good.” I take another sip, and the warmth of the herbal broth spreads through me. “It’s really good, Ah Gao.”
I go to bed sleepy and comfortably full. Apparently it doesn’t stick, because I jolt awake hours later, ravenously hungry. When I get to the kitchen, the lights are already on. Suyi’s sitting on the counter, a half-eaten durian popsicle in her hand.
“We’re out of popsicles,” Suyi says, waving hers. “This is the last one.”
“Uh-huh.” I snag a red bean bread. Suyi’s tracking my movements, like she’s waiting for an opening. Once I’m done eating, she hops down.
“So,” she says. “Want to see something cool?”
I wrinkle my nose at her. “Do I have a choice?”
“It’s worth it, I promise. If it sucks, I’ll let you pick the next show we watch.”
“Deal.”
We set off, heading outside in a direction I’ve never gone before. Our boots crunch over dry grass and the rocky remains of old waterways. Eventually, we reach a tall metal structure. It’s just a silhouette in the darkness, with the lines of a ladder barely visible.
“It’s some kind of extraction tank,” Suyi says before I can ask. “The survey teams used it to siphon raw material from the wetland and extract star metal deposits. Completely wrecked the ecosystem.”
That wasn’t in the Sector 426 docs. I knew the wetland waters had drained away long ago, but hadn’t thought about how or why. I’m starting to realize I don’t understand anything about the sectors I’ve visited. All I’ve done is play fetch for the Survey Office and watch shows in my pod.
Suyi grabs the first rung of the ladder, climbing up with practiced ease. I manage it with a lot more wheezing. I collapse on the cold metal surface, flopping onto my back.
I’m faced with the curved sweep of sky above us, dark and glimmering with distant stars. At the center are the three moons, bright as ever. Suyi stretches out beside me, just close enough that I could reach out and touch her.
Suyi shifts restlessly and says, “What’re you going to do when you go back home?”
Have an existential crisis, probably. I opt for, “Sleep for a month. Grab boba. Get a refund for my piece of crap amp key.”
“Oh.”
“What about you?” I ask. “You go home sometimes, right?”
“Haven’t in a while. I...” Suyi’s voice goes quiet. “I got into Taimun University last year.”
“What?” I dart a look at Suyi. Taimun is the top school in the network. Half of its students bribe their way in, and the other half study until they’ve transcended the physical plane. “Why aren’t you at Taimun then?”
“I put everything into getting in and I burned out, hard. By the time I was admitted, I just...” Suyi takes a long, shuddering breath. “I couldn’t keep going. I couldn’t do it.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it.
“It’s like everyone’s expectations became this crucible for me, and instead of coming out strong, I came out brittle. And then I broke.” Suyi sits up, hugging her knees to her chest. “I’ve been putting myself back together ever since.”
“For what it’s worth, I like who you are now.” I don’t realize it’s true until I’ve said it.
“You like me, huh?” Suyi says. I just know she’s smirking.
My face grows warm, and I hurriedly say, “So how’d you end up in the dead zone?”
“My dad’s friends with Minhe. She wanted an assistant and promised to look out for me. I needed to get away, so I took her up on her offer.”
