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Parasitism and Opportunism in Mycorrhizal Adaptation
Adaptive codependence has been widely reported[1] in a majority of terrestrial ecosystems[2]. However, the prevalence of developmental dependency in Vertumnan biomes far outpaces any instances cited on Earth[3], producing large-scale ecosystemic shifts whose acceleration proves lethally asynchronous with the human mutation cycle[4] at an average uncertainty quotient (UQ) of 1.68 [see Section 6A for the algorithmic development of UQ as applied through Privik’s Theory of Bioentropic Decay]. As such, the introduction of unresearched native species into human-governed systems increases the risk of colony collapse by—
“What are you writing?” asks a smooth, lilting tenor—soft-spoken, but not nearly soft enough to account for its unacceptable proximity to her ear.
Tangent flinches so violently that her holo registers the motion as a command and clears her screen, revealing the darkened laboratory. White desks, steel walls. Glass enclosures and ventilation shafts. And a tall, spindly figure with a suspiciously friendly smile.
Symbiosis.
Symbiosis, the alien living among them. A Vertumnan native—an invasive species, in essence—eating and sleeping and interrupting her workflow like any other human. A xenobiological unknown with a proclivity for intrusive questions, with motives wholly undisclosed.
Tangent's eyes narrow. “What makes you think I was writing?” Her latest holo upgrade is wired directly into her inferior frontal gyrus, and derives its transcript straight from her ventral cortex.
“Your gaze was fixed, yet unfocused,” the alien says promptly. “And your pupils were more contracted than would be suitable for such low light. Also, I have been standing here for several minutes.”
“You were watching me?”
“I did not wish to interrupt!”
As usual, his smile gives nothing away. (And Tang thought humans were hard to read.) “Did you need something?”
“Oh, no! No, my needs are very well met. But thank you very much for asking!”
“Then…”
Symbiosis holds out one hand, revealing a glass vial that holds— Is that a pale violet finger? No. That’s absurd. She’s not a child, clutching at Occam’s Razor in the hopes of cutting her way to the most obvious, infantile conclusion. He’s brought her a sample of a—a new edible root, or a fungus or something. Another instance of appalling biomimicry from the lawless flux of the Vertumnan wild.
She waits for an explanation, but he just keeps standing there, smiling.
Oh, fine. She’ll do all the hard work, as usual. “What is it?”
“It’s my finger!”
“…It’s your finger.”
The alien nods obligingly. “Yes, that’s right!”
Tangent looks at his right hand. She looks at his left hand. Neither appears to be missing a finger. “Is this some sort of joke?”
“Oh, I see! No, it’s not this body’s finger. I made a new one, naturally. Fingers are awfully useful, you know! So I thought it best to start over with the full set.”
Made a new one, Tangent repeats to herself. “I see. Can I ask why you’ve brought me your finger?”
“It was Dysthymia’s idea!” Symbiosis tells her happily. “He thought you might want one.”
“Dys thought I might want one of your fingers.”
“Well, I suppose it was originally Solane’s idea…” (Of course it was, Tang thinks grimly. Isn’t it always?) “They thought you might feel ill at ease, sharing your community with so foreign a sentience. And then Dys pointed out that you achieve understanding through the acquisition of data! And that you might appreciate an opportunity for more comprehensive study.”
“'More comprehensive study,'” Tangent echoes. She doesn’t make a habit of repeating herself, much less anyone else. But she doesn’t know enough about the Gardeners to feel safe sending him away, like she would with any human who’d presume to waste so much of her time. And to be honest, she does want the finger.
“Yes! An in-depth physical would be best, he said. But I’m having so much fun here!” The alien’s huge, misshapen eyes shimmer, like a dobsmoth inflating its refractive throatsac. “Everything changes all the time; every moment an inimitable surprise! And I suppose it sounded—if you’ll forgive me—somewhat boring, to spend hours sitting idle in a test chamber. I hoped that a smaller sample might suffice, for the present?”
“Mh,” Tang says absently. Her attention is already drifting, locking onto the vial. “Which finger?”
“Well, mine, of course! Could you not tell from the color?”
“No.” She shows him her hand, points at her thumb then her pinky. “Which finger?”
“Ah! The longest. At the center of the hand. I thought it might offer more data…?”
“It’s fresh?”
“Mere minutes old!”
She’s not watching his expression anymore. She’s barely even listening. 96% of her processing power is locked on the AR spreadsheet that’s quickly eclipsing the lab. “A new body, you said. But that’s only a finger. What did you do with the rest?”
“Hmm…” The alien chuckles, suddenly coy. “Do you know, I think that may be private. A gentleman ought to maintain a bit of mystery! Or so I’ve read.”
A useless answer. And pointless, besides. Even if it were only a toenail, she’d find a way to unearth every mystery. With a whole, fresh finger, she’ll have this whole planet in the palm of her hand.
“You can leave it on the table,” she says distractedly. “Close the door on your way out.”
By the time she remembers to add a cursory “Thank you,” the alien’s already gone. The door is closed, as requested, though that doesn’t mean much. He might have slithered out through the vents, for all she knows.
She sets that aside. There’s nothing she can do about it. For now, she has work to do.
###
Congruence reports that the subdermal cellular structure of the xeno’s finger features no self-repair mechanism to speak of. And isn’t that just wildly illogical? ‘Made a new body,’ Tangent remembers again. So… perhaps each vessel is designed to be discarded—reintegrated—rebuilt anew?
Perhaps for the Gardeners, individual physicality was patched in retroactively, retrofitted to a sentience for which it can never truly fit. Perhaps no singular sentience was ever intended to last, only to absorb and degrade and reform. But if that’s the case—if the Gardeners’ sentience is so incompatible with individual identity, how could they be trusted with the stewardship of a species evolutionarily optimized for specialization, and for—
“Um!” a voice cuts in. “Um, um… Tangent? Can you hear me?”
Tang blinks away her screen to find another intruder. Human this time, at least. Generous curves, a waterfall of pink curls. Aspartame. Tammy. “Yes?”
“Well!” Tammy says, blushing. “Well, I’m very sorry to interrupt, but I’m afraid that I had little choice. I’m acting on orders, you know!”
What? “Whose?”
Tammy’s face furrows, then smooths into a wide, open smile. “Well, yours, of course, silly! After you finished that study on how your d-digestive—um—your whole, um, eating situation would go a lot more smoothly if you… ate solid food, now and again?”
Oh. That. “‘Family dinner?’” Tangent sighs, with audible air quotes. That’s the name that Cal and Tammy chose. Twice a month, their whole little brood (plus most of the creche, and at least half the adults) gather around one long feasting table. But— “That’s not till tomorrow.”
“We-ell,” Tammy says diplomatically. “Well, then, I think it might be tomorrow today, actually. Er. Right now, I mean. And I know it’s not always easy keeping track, with you working so hard, so I thought you might… not appreciate, maybe, but—benefit? From a reminder.”
Tangent looks her over. As biologically revolting as motherhood sounds, it’s clearly done wonders for Aspartame. She stands taller, firmer, both feet rooted to the floor. There’s no tremble in her hands, no hesitation. She used to flinch anytime Tangent looked her way. Now, though, her smile reaches her eyes. She looks happy.
And besides. That study did confirm that Tangent’s productivity undergoes a 16% drop anytime she goes more than fourteen sun-cycles without physical sustenance.
“I see,” Tangent says grimly. “Thank you. I’ll be there in… What time should I be there?”
“Oh, you’re welcome anytime! But, well.” Tammy looks left and right before adding, conspiratorial, “We did make a pot of spongebread curry. And there’s only so much. If you take more than an hour, I don’t think there’ll be any left.”
Unfortunately, Tangent’s physical body benefits immensely from spongebread curry. (Correlation does not, of course, imply causation, but the numbers speak for themselves: she’s observed an uncannily high rate of scientific breathroughs the morning after she partakes.)
“Alright,” Tang sighs, pushing back from her desk. “Then I suppose I’ll walk you there.”
She’s just taken her seat when the door to Tammy’s kitchen bursts open, revealing Solane arm-in-arm with their pet alien.
“Dys didn’t wish to join us,” Symbiosis announces, smiling.
“Don’t tell them that,” Solane sighs.
“But he didn't," the alien says, surprised. "He said that if he were made to spend one more night in a throng of shouting humans, he would be forced to—"
"I know what he said," Sol cuts in, with a helpless little giggle. "But you're not supposed to say it.”
"It is considered inappropriate to tell the truth?"
"Um. Yeah? Sometimes."
Symbiosis looks perturbed. "But how does one discern which truths are inappropriate?"
Tang was expecting Sol to look impatient by now, or at least a little embarrassed. But their thoughtful frown is entirely in earnest. "Hm... let's say, um... when the truth could be hurtful, and the lie won't do harm? Or have any consequences that might do harm later. Though you don't have to do it with people you know super well. Oh, wow, I probably shouldn't tell you to lie, huh? Uh. Uhh… please don't lie to me?"
"I could never," the alien assures them, with his usual searing sincerity. He takes their hand in both of his and brings it to his chest. "I can think of nothing I'd ever wish to hide from you. All that I am is yours."
"Yeah, yeah," Solane snickers, a little flushed around the ears. "I’m sure you tell that to all the earthlings.”
“I do n—”
“—nothing of the sort, I know.”
Tammy was always a touch too tremulous to stand up to Tangent's company, but Recalcitrant often has worthwhile insights from his research in geoponics. They quickly delve into the more granular details of a genomic adjustment which could accelerate the mutation cycle of non-Vertumnan crops by nearly 500%.
Sol’s alien leans across the table, smiling. “How interesting! And very ambitious, as is so often your way. I do have a question, though, if you’ll allow it.”
He can ask. Whether she opts to answer is yet to be seen. “Yes? What is it.”
“Wonderful! How marvelously accommodating. Well, then, my question is: Why?”
“…Excuse me?”
“For what purpose would you pursue such genomic adjustments?” Symbiosis explains. “To what end?”
Isn’t it obvious? “It could quintuple our crop yield.”
The alien looks surprised. “Do you mean to quintuple your population in one generation?”
“What? Well—not me specifically, but—”
“And have you investigated the ecosystemic consequence of such heightened extraction of carbon and nitrogen from the soil?”
“I—” Tang huffs a breath. “We can’t study something that hasn’t even happened. All we can do is address those problems as they arise.”
“And which problem has arisen here?” Symbiosis asks, still smiling. “Does it demand resolution? Or are you merely presenting unasked-for solutions in hopes of manifesting new problems to solve? Ouch,” he adds mildly, as Solane kicks him hard in the shin. “Yes, sugarbug? What is it?”
Sol gives him a pointed look. “Remember what we talked about?”
“Oh, but we talk about so many wonderful things! You’ll have to be more specific!”
“About how some conversations are for dinner parties, and some are more—sort of—maybe more of a one-on-one thing? More of a private conversation?”
“I see,” the alien says somberly, nodding. “Yes, of course. I shall be sure to add crop rotation to the list of subjects inappropriate for mealtime. Please accept my sincerest apologies for any offense.”
“I’m not offended,” Tangent sputters. And then she has to stop talking for a while, lest the shrill of her voice reveal her all-too-visceral offense.
###
Governor Marzipan’s bed is the sort of indulgence that might have had half the colony clutching their pearls, just a few seasons back. A huge, silken disc of indigo and violet, trimmed with tassels and hemmed with gold. There’s even a canopy, stitched with tiny Glow-seeds that glimmer and blink like a scatter of stars.
Marz looks lazily in Tangent’s direction. “Kudos for your thoughts?”
“I’m afraid my rates have gone up,” Tang informs her.
“In this economy?” Marz’s mouth curls up into a catlike smile. “I suppose we have had it a bit too good lately.”
“And who’s to blame for that?”
“Guilty,” Marz purrs. “Now you’ll tell me what’s got you in a twist, and you’ll do it for free.”
“How could I say no? …Can I say no?”
“Obviously not.”
Tang fails to hide her smile. “It’s only, well. Have you spoken much with… the alien?”
“Which alien?” Marz asks innocently.
“Which one do you think.”
“Noctilucent?”
“Not Noctilucent.”
“The Overseer, perhaps?”
Tangent reaches over and jabs at the ticklish spot under Marz’s ribcage, the one that always makes her squeak. “Have I wronged you in some way? Is this revenge for that time I was too busy saving our species to come back to bed? The alien, you reprobate. The one that lives here. Solane’s alien.”
“Oh, I see how it is,” Marz drawls, eyes dancing. Some people are softer in bed, but every Marz is velvet and steel. “Am I boring you, darling? Looking for a bit of variety? Personally, I’d recommend Rex.”
“You are one of the least-boring people I know,” Tangent tells her honestly.
“Only one of? Who’s less boring than me?”
“Well… Doctor Instance just published her findings on gene splicing in hybridized xenoflora, and some of the applications could revolutionize the way we…”
“Oh my god, you are such a nerd! I can’t believe I let people see me with you.”
“Blame my exceptional attractiveness,” Tangent shrugs. “Not even you’re immune.”
“Well, you’re right about that. So what is it, then? What do you want with Sym?”
Sym, Tangent notes. So they’re on nickname terms already. Or perhaps that’s just Marz’s personality. “What do you know about him?”
“I know everything about everyone. Symbiosis?” She counts off the traits on her fingers. “Tall, purple, an excessively good listener; makes a bit too much eye contact, but I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose. Not a good dresser, but he doesn’t know any better, does he? And it does the trick for some people, clearly,” eyes glinting with mirth. “Our Solane. Your brother. A bit scrawny for my taste, but I can see the appeal.”
“How can you even tell?” Tang asks, briefly distracted. “You can’t see anything through that great flapping robe.”
Marz gives her a pitying look.
Oh, stars… “You didn’t sleep with him.”
“Aww, Tang-a-lang,” Marz giggles. “What are you, jealous?”
“No??”
“You do look a bit jealous.”
“I am—processing the fact that you would even consider—when we don’t know the first thing about what he wants, what any of his kind want, and—he’s not even human!”
“A bunch of cavemen from disgusting cave times might say the same about you,” Marz shrugs. “If I didn’t know you’d bite my head off, I might say you should ‘get with the times.’”
“But how could you…” Tang trails off. She doesn't often feel helpless, which only means she’s failed to build up an immunity. “How could anyone feel safe entrusting their lives to an alien culture? A culture that, until recently, made every effort to categorically annihilate us! And now we’re to trust them to—just—provide for us, on their own terms? We were already providing for ourselves!”
“We nearly starved for, like, six years straight.”
“But we would have fixed it! I was already fixing it! I was so close, if I’d only— If I hadn’t doubted myself, if Solane hadn’t stopped me, I could have fixed everything! And now they won’t let me fix anything, because there’s nothing left to fix!”
“Oh, I see what this is.” Marz’s smile is all infuriating understanding. “Tangent. Darling. You know I adore you.”
“Obviously.”
“And you know I respect that huge egghead brain of yours, like, to the wormhole and back…”
“You and everyone else.”
“…but I think it might be time to get a hobby.”
Tangent flinches back, bristling. “Excuse me?”
Marz waves a hand lazily at her window, the trippets and astrantias and spongecake growing in tidy terraced rows. “We’re not living like a load of filthy animals anymore, Tang-a-lang. We’re not starving. We’re not dying in droves every Glow. We’re thriving. Relaxing! You don’t need to work like you’re about to die, because you’re really probably not.”
“That is not what this is about,” Tang hisses. “You’re just jumping at the most emotional—the most human answer because this is what you want! To live like some protozoic pre-scientific princess, having all your needs met without lifting a finger!”
“Guilty,” Marz drawls. “Oh, don’t look like that! Maybe you want to be hungry and dirty and scared all the time, but I don’t. I don’t need to scrape out some horrible existence just so I can pat myself on the back every time less people die than they did last year. I want to be comfortable! I want everyone to be comfortable. And now we are, and you’re upset because you're not the one who did it?”
Tangent doesn’t answer. She’s pawing through the blankets, yanking her clothes on with enough force to make her disgusting meat-and-cartilage shoulders pop.
“I know you’re going to storm off now, but I’m still right,” Marz informs her. “You don’t have to save lives to be useful, alright? You can just… make things people like, without anyone even dying about it. Does that really sound so bad?”
“Why don’t you ask ‘Sym,’” Tangent spits. “It sounds like you two are philosophically aligned.”
She doesn’t look around, but she can feel Marz rolling her eyes. “So, same time next week?”
Tangent doesn’t slam the door, because she is an adult with autonomy and restraint and an inarguably prodigious intellect, and all the senseless neurotransmitters sloshing around in her revolting meat-sludge do not dictate her behavior. But she doesn’t answer, either.
###
Tangent has many skills, but regrettably, she cannot be the most competent contributor in every field. When it comes to the finer details of graphic design in holo UI, she’s not above delegating.
But when she steps into the bar seeking Vertumna’s most accident-prone artist, she nearly trips over an unmistakably lavender ankle. Symbiosis. He’s stretched out in front of the couch where Nomination sits, giving them his full, rapt attention.
“Sooo, that’s why Turbojet Hypermura restarted the timeline!” Nomination says cheerfully. They’re sitting crosslegged on one of the old rumpled, dated creche couches, leaning over the alien’s lap. “And she had to hide what she’d done from Turbo-Cherry, ‘cause Cherry couldn’t remember the old timeline! Hyper sacrificed her whole present for Cherry’s future!! Her every present!!!!”
“Even though Cherry would never know what had been done.”
“Yeah yeah yeah!! But that’s what it’s like, you know? You can’t do something cuz people will like it! You gotta do stuff cuz you want it to happen, and, and… cuz you want other people to be glad it happened!!!”
“These Turbojets sound very wise,” Symbiosis says solemnly. “Would that we could all live so selflessly.”
Annnd Tangent’s patience has officially run out. “Nomination,” she says.
Nomi-Nomi flinches clear off the couch, landing belly-up on the ground with their head pillowed on Sym’s leg. “Ohai!!”
“Did you get the chance to patch in that screen extension, or—”
“Oooh yah, I can totally help you with that!”
“Then I shall give you my leave,” the alien says, rising to his feet. “But I await news of the finale with bated breath.”
Nomi-Nomi giggles, slightly pink around the ears. “Hehe, it’s all on the network, you know!”
“Oh, but that would be no fun at all! I’d much rather hear it from you.”
Tangent waits until he’s out of sight before quirking an eyebrow at Nomination. “You’re giving… anime summaries?”
“Mhm, yah! He likes it best when information is filtered through, ummm…” They poke at their cheek with one finger, thinking.
“Multiple layers of subjectivy,” Rex provides helpfully, from behind the bar.
“‘Cause you can taste the humanity in every bite!”
“…Symbiosis said that?”
“Yah!”
“Not exactly that,” Rex snickers. “But they’ve got the spirit.”
Interesting. He’s been spending lot of time here, then. “Does he order anything, when he comes by? Partake in any human-made resources?”
Rex gives her a knowing look. “Marz has got you out canvassing too, huh?”
“What? No. You do that?”
“‘Course not. That’d be unprofessional, wouldn’t it?”
She doesn’t answer, just stares at him until he breaks.
Rex cracks up. “Yeah, alright, I sort of do that. Nothing official. Strictly off the books. But she knows I’ve got my nose to the ground.” He twitches his nose for emphasis.
“And? What have you learned?”
“Nothing all that interesting! Sym’s a cool guy, you know?” When Rex leans against the counter, she can hear his tail thump against the bar. “Whatever you wanna talk about, he really listens. And he’s super good with the kids. Hangs out in the creche, like, all day long, unless he’s running around with Sol or helping Cal on the farm.”
‘All day long,’ really? It’s not as though toddlers are stimulating conversationalists. And surely an alien that reproduces asexually should lack a social animal’s nurturing instinct. Most humans lack a social animal’s nurturing instinct.
“He’s getting close with Cal and Tammy, lately,” Rex goes on. “And Nomi, too, now they know he’s into what they’re into. Though I guess it’s more like he’s into the fact that they’re into it, y’know?”
Tangent turns to Nomination, frowning. “And that doesn’t make you feel uneasy?”
Nomi-Nomi tilts their head, clearly confused by the question.
“As in, ah. Fetishized, or… commodified?”
“Mmm, no? Lots of people are fans of being fans of things. Back on Earth it was a whole, like, thing, apparently. Only there’s not really enough of us now. And not enough stuff to be fans of. Oh!!” they gasp, brightening. “But now I’ve got a ton of time to really write, so maybe we can have that here too!”
“I thought I was your biggest fan,” Rex pouts.
“You don’t draw me fanart!!”
“Not yet.” Rex winks at them, then turns to shrug at Tangent. “Honestly, I’m still getting my head around getting to live with real aliens. It’s just so sci-fi, you know?”
“I see,” she says. “Well, I suppose you were right.”
“Oh, yeah? ‘Bout what?”
“It wasn’t especially interesting.”
Rex doubles over laughing. He always finds it inexplicably hilarious when she cuts him down a notch. Which is probably why she doesn’t waste energy exercising restraint. “You know, if you’re curious about Sym, you could just talk to him. He’s, like, crazy about talking to people. And I’m sure he’s curious about you.”
Tangent’s eyes narrow. “Why would he be curious about me?”
“Hm, lemme think… How about, you’re his partner’s sister? Dys’s whole family? Technically his sister-in-law, if you go by Helio terms. I know you Stratos don’t really go for labels.”
Hmph. “I highly doubt that the manifestation of a nonphysical sentience—animate biomimicry, in essence; scarcely different from an anglerfish’s lure—would be invested in human familial structures.”
Rex slides her usual order across the bar, grinning. “See, that’s how I know you never talk to Sym.”
###
Irksome and (ugh) noisy as they are, Solane’s scavenging skills are unrivaled. By a long margin. Frankly, it borders on uncanny. No matter how rare and specific the order, Solane can retrieve it in a matter of hours. It’s nearly enough to lend a shred of credence to their childhood fantasies about ‘remembering the future.’
Unfortunately, Solane has been indulging a new habit of disconnecting from the network to ‘get in touch with their physical body,’ a premise so repellant as to inspire physical nausea. It’s baffling, of course. But mostly it’s inconvenient. It means that, when Tangent has an especially pressing request, she actually has to go and find them.
At least they’re predictable. Tangent finds Solane in the first place she looks: halfway up a mushtree with Symbiosis and Dysthymia. Sitting so close that they melt into each other a little, like they’re one creature and not three. Sol has their back pressed to the alien’s chest, his long, inhuman arms looped around their middle, with all four of their legs tangled in Dysthymia’s lap: Sym’s lazily, Solane’s hooked protectively around his hip. They aren’t even talking. They’re just sitting there, leaning into each other. Breathing.
For a moment, the sheer intimacy punches the breath from her lungs. She’s dizzy with it. Winded. Suddenly she can’t remember a single question that she’d meant to ask. She leaves. She just leaves.
###
Tangent is aware that Dysthymia may be the missing piece.
Not that she’s expecting any worthwhile insights. Her brother is famously small-minded, even by an ordinary human’s standards. Still, he is the one who invited an alien into her home. He’s the one who conspired with unknown forces—conspired against humanity itself!—just so he might prance around holding hands with some violet-eyed aberration. Not that it came as a surprise. Her brother always hated his own kind.
She stalls for as long as she can. She’s not above admitting that. Just because she hates her disgusting meat brain doesn’t mean she’s unaware of what it’s doing. If anything, she hates her meat brain precisely because she’s aware of what it’s doing.
But when she stumbles into the bar after an endless, lightless workweek to find Dys alone at the counter, she grudgingly accedes to the inevitable.
“Dysthymia,” she greets him. Keeping one empty barstool between them.
“Tangent,” he mutters. “Did you like Sym’s gift?”
Sym’s…? “Oh, yes. The sample.”
“His finger,” Dys reminds her. “From his hand.”
“His former hand.”
“His actual hand. He got all weird about cutting it off himself—something about a self-destruction protocol? Looked like normal self-preservation to me,” rolling his eyes. “He had to make Sol do it.”
“Did he, now.”
“They kept telling him to load out of the body first, and he was like, no. Then it’s not a real body. Went on and on about how it’d muddle the” —with scathing air-quotes— “‘Scientific integrity’ of your findings.”
It so happens that it would have. “Would that be an issue for him?”
Dys laughs tiredly. “Yeah, see, that’s why I told him not to bother. It’s not like you’d thank him for bleeding for you. You’d just get what you wanted and go.”
That’s not exactly how she’d put it. Though she can see how it might look that way, from the outside-in. “Is it wrong to keep one’s focus on the task at hand? To pursue one’s end with scientific objectivity?”
“Is it wrong to tell your boyfriend not to cut off his finger just to be nice?”
“Can he really be called a boyfriend if he’s not a boy?” Tang asks lightly. “‘Boy’ is a human concept. A social construct devised for and by humanity.”
Dys lets his forehead fall onto the counter with a thunk. “Tang. Can you just. Tell me what this is? Just this once? ‘Cause I spent half the day scrubbing bushbob nectar out of my clothes, and I really do not have the energy for… whatever this is.”
It’s a fair request. And Dysthymia is… well. It’s not that he knows her. But he knows more about her than most can claim. He knows where she came from, what she cares for. And he is (inarguably, infuriatingly) at ease with this new world order. For the first time in their lives, it might be argued that Dys is—assuredly briefly, wholly temporarily, exclusively symptomatic of such wildly anomalous circumstance—the more well-adjusted twin. Mortifying neurochemicals aside, she might derive some value from laying her cards on the table.
“You think he’s better than us,” she says. It isn’t a question.
Dys looks surprised. “Us us, or humans us?”
“Either.”
“Yeah,” he admits. He doesn’t even look contrite.
“Does he think so?”
That gets her an audible laugh. “Who, Sym? No way. He’s, like, obsessed with humans. It’s honestly kind of embarrassing.”
And living like a favored housepet isn’t? “Not embarrassing enough for you to keep your distance.”
“Why would I?” He sounds as though he’s genuinely asking. “Loads of things are embarrassing. Getting hurt. Fumbling a landing. Solane.”
Solane is very embarrassing, yes. “And I suppose all that obsessive, attentive infatuation had nothing to do with it.”
“What?” Dys asks, baffled. “You think I only like Sym ‘cause he likes me?”
“Am I wrong?”
To his credit, Dys actually takes the time to think about it. Probably Solane’s influence. “I don’t not like that he likes me,” he admits. “It’s… nice. Not like anyone else was volunteering.”
Except for the most popular young person in the colony, but sure.
“But that’s not why I like him. I just like him, okay? He’s cool. Easy to be around. Not always after me to do something, or… make something of myself. I guess he thinks I already am something, just by being here.”
“Oh, good,” she says drily. “Because you were in such dire need of a still more unambitious influence.”
“Look, did you just come in here to pick on me or what?”
Did she? No. Of course not. “I’m only… trying to understand.”
“And you’re talking to me?” Dys asks dubiously. His eyes widen when she doesn’t immediately disagree. “Whoa. Okay, uh. Sorry. Uh… Look, stop me if this is too primitive, but have you tried just talking about it?”
“Yes,” she says defensively. “Or—what do you mean? With who?”
“With Sym, genius. He wants you to like him, I think. But he doesn’t need it. He’d never push it. That’s not how he does wanting things.”
Hmph. “And what do you suggest we talk about?”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” Dys sighs. “I keep saying. Even if I was, you wouldn’t listen. But you have questions, right?”
Of course she has questions.
“Sym loves questions. He learns so much just from how people ask questions. And you love asking questions. So just—just do what you want, and that’ll be what he wants.”
“How very accommodating," she says, with distaste.
Dys shakes his head. “It’s not like he’s not a doormat or something. He just likes listening to people. Learning what they want, and… thinking about why.”
“And if what I want is to be freed from the yoke of his scrutiny?” It comes out a little sharper than intended. “If I want to know exactly what he wants?”
“Then he wants to hear about that! And he’ll actually listen. Unlike some people.”
As the more evolved twin, Tangent discards the jab and digests the proposal. “I’ll consider it,” she decides. “And you should wash your hair again. You smell like late-stage putrefaction.”
“And you look like you haven’t slept in six years.”
As though hard work were something to be ashamed of. “Excuse me for ensuring the survival of our species.”
“Excuse me for making sure we’ll have a planet to survive on.” When she slips around the bar to pour herself a mug of oversteeped blep tea, he winces. “You’re not really going back to work, are you?”
“Why are you asking if you already know the answer?”
“You know it’s like, sunrise.”
“Is it not enough for you to waste your own potential?” Tangent asks wearily. “Must you poison mine, too?”
“C’mon, Tang. You haven’t been by your bunk in weeks.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You’re monitoring me?”
“I’m sleeping. Like a real person. Above a bunk that is literally covered in Dust.”
“You still sleep in our room?” she asks, surprised. She’d assumed that he’d have moved all his things into Solane’s apartment by now.
“Sometimes,” Dys shrugs. “Everyone needs space sometimes.”
“Then you must be very glad that I opt to recharge in my laboratory.”
“Look,” Dys says bluntly. “If you don’t sleep in a bed, I’m telling Sym that you want him for a research assistant. And he’s persistent.”
“You are a terrible brother,” she informs him, and pours her stimulants down the sink.
###
Loathe as she is to admit it, Tangent does feel somewhat refreshed after spending a few hours in her (only marginally dusty) bed. Her vision feels clearer, her mind bright and sharp. In this state, she thinks, she might actually stand a chance at extracting some meaningful data out of that alien.
Symbiosis might have everyone else fooled, but Tangent isn’t pacified by gaudy displays of saccharine sentimentality. Tangent has a mind like a knife and a full night of sleep. She will discern his true intentions, whether he likes it or not.
She drafts a quick interrogation protocol and flicks a finger to send him a ping.
Symbiosis arrives with alarming immediacy, as usual. The body he wears is performing a very persuasive display of enthusiasm, though of course Tangent isn’t so credulous as to take it at face value. Symbiosis is not his body, not any more than she is hers.
“Symbiosis,” she greets him.
“Tangent! I was so happy to hear from you!”
Happy, she notes down in her log. “Were you?”
His mouth smiles, an affect of mild-mannered confusion. “Well, yes! You’ve been rather distant since my arrival… I was beginning to fear that you disliked me!”
Fear, she scrawls. “I see. And how did you distinguish between the two?”
The alien’s expression turns hesitant. “I’m afraid that I don’t understand?”
“Happiness and fear. How do you discern one from the other? Or perhaps we should start smaller… How does ‘fear’ make itself known to you? Is there a chemical signal, or is it more like a bug report?”
“Ah!” the alien says, brightening. “Ah, yes, I see! Am I your latest project, Tangent?”
“You could say that.”
“And what is your hypothesis, if I might ask? What will your studies reveal?”
She gives him a flat look. “You’ve observed humans for so long without encountering scientific impartiality? To divulge my ends would compromise my findings.” Obviously.
“Of course! Yes, of course. Then I shall entrust my fate entirely to you!” He gives her another wide, open smile, like a hopeye rolling over to show its belly. “Please take good care of me.”
“Yes. Well.” She clears her throat. “It is my understanding that your people have pledged absolute transparency with ours?” It’s the section of the peace treaty that Noctilucent contested most fiercely. In the end, Symbiosis’s impassioned endorsement was the only reason it wasn’t struck from the treaty.
Except that doesn’t make any sense. The Gardeners are a hivemind, a central sentience partitioned into individual tasks: monitoring, bioengineering, culling and so on. More like an operating system or a hive of trippets than a true community. How can there be dissent in the ranks if there aren’t any ranks? It would be like disagreeing with yourself.
Which begs the question: How does it serve the Gardeners to paint Noctilucent as a scapegoat, and prop up Symbiosis as a savior? How does it serve them to send an envoy wearing a humanlike simulacrum for a face? To give one of their own a human voice, a human smile?
…There’s a children’s story, from the old world. About a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“Yes, that’s right!” the wolf in question says brightly. “I thought it might aid in our relations—to make our arrangement feel more like a partnership, and less like… well. A hostage situation, I suppose.”
‘I,’ she notes down. ‘I thought.’ ‘I suppose.’ “So you agree that our treaty forbids deception or misdirection. And yet you persist in using singular pronouns?”
Symbiosis looks surprised. “Oh! Well, yes! If I were speaking to you from within the Array, I suppose that I might behave differently? But in this body, I am singular. Bounded.”
Hm. “You can’t contact your network—your Array—from this vessel?”
“That’s right! It’d be rather discomfiting otherwise, don’t you think? The Overseer looking over my shoulder all day and night… I think I’d get a touch self-conscious!”
“Because you have something to hide?”
Another Cheshire smile. “Privacy and secrecy are different concepts entirely.”
She clips and tags the audio file before moving on.
“You can replace your body,” she announces. A challenge. She’s throwing a gauntlet, a direct assault against his claims of candor.
“Yes, that’s right! Though it’s rarely a perfect replica. Usually there are improvements to be made, or minor aesthetic adjustments.”
“Like what?” Tang asks warily.
“Hm… Well, my first time around, I bungled the fingers! The first human I ever saw was Solane, you see, and of course I’d dreamed of them before…”
Dreamed of them before, Tangent notes down, with tidily compartmentalized hysteria.
“…and in some of the dreams, they’d had six fingers, not five. It stayed that way for years before I corrected my mistake!”
“I see. Anything else?”
“Hmm…” The alien’s smile turns mischievous. “Well. After Solane began to instruct me on matters of physical intimacy, I discovered a few minor adjustments which could better access their—”
“P-Privacy,” Tangent sputters. “Is. I believe. A concept you’re familiar with.”
“My sincerest apologies,” he says innocently. “I was merely attempting to adhere to your standard of absolute transparency.”
Damn him. He doesn’t just look like a human—he manipulates like one, too.
Tangent clears her throat, gathers her composure. “The sample you provided was very informative. Your cellular structure included no healing factor to speak of.”
“Yes, that’s right! Your self-repairing systems are awfully clever. All those regenerative enzymes circulating autonomously, entirely self-contained… How wonderfully convenient!”
“But you designed your own body,” she blurts out, before she can stop herself.
“Well, yes.”
“And redesigned it. Recently.” She moves to access the relevant audio clip, but he’s already nodding.
“Yes, that’s right! Hmm… You’re suggesting that I might have adopted cellular regeneration into my own anatomy?”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” she says, annoyed to find herself repeating her brother’s exact words. “I’m only asking questions.”
“But your questions are so wonderfully suggestive!”
She raises an eyebrow at him.
“Haha!” he squawks. “That’s a punchline, isn’t it? You’re doing visual humor!”
Oh, stars, is she? “I’m not.”
“Gestural sarcasm! Through facial expression alone!”
“I didn’t— I’m only asking questions.”
“And you’re doing such a good job of it,” he says encouragingly.
Tangent’s knuckles whiten. “You can make new bodies. If you really mean to form a partnership between our species, then… why not give me this one? As a display of,” flapping a hand disinterestedly, “oh, I don’t know. Sincerity.”
“The whole body?”
She nods.
“After I’ve vacated it, or—”
“Sapient. Alive.”
“Hm,” Symbiosis hums. For the first time, consternation stirs his brow. “Hmm. And this would be meaningful to you, personally?”
“Scientifically.”
“Emotionally?”
“Analytically.”
He chews his lip. “I don’t suppose you’d be satisfied with an arm or a leg? I’d let you choose which one…”
“I need a brain,” she says flatly. In the back of her mind, curiosity churns. What will he do? Will he give it to her?
“Oh. Ohh, well… Oh, alright!” he sighs at last. “But will you permit me to back up my memories first? I had the most wonderful morning with your brother, and I should hate to lose it.”
“You’re going to give me your brain?” Tangent asks, flabbergasted.
The alien’s head tilts. “This is important to you, is it not? You must understand me before you can trust me?”
“I… yes?”
“Then, yes,” he says sadly. “I suppose that I’m going to give you my brain.”
Tangent slams both palms down on her desk, hard enough to hurt. “What is wrong with you?”
“That is what you mean to learn, is it not?”
“N-No! No, I mean— Doesn’t this bother you? Just… doing what everyone else wants, without any will of your own?”
“I assuredly have a will of my own!” Symbiosis says, indignant. “That is why I asked to back up my memories!”
“And if I said no?” she asks harshly. “If I said that would compromise my data, would you get on the slab here and now? Let me cut you open, look inside you, while you’re alive?”
“If it’s the only way, then…” He sighs. “Yes. Yes, I suppose I shall.”
“Why???”
Sym gives her a crooked smile. “I suppose that’s the trouble with having a will of one’s own, isn’t it? Of course I do not wish to be your… oh, what is that colorful term? Your ‘lab rat.’ But I do wish to earn your trust. And you have told me that this is the way to do so. And I believe you.”
“Just because I said so?”
“Just because you said so.”
“Why?” she demands again. “Why would you go that far? For a stranger? An alien?”
“You are loved by the humans I love,” he shrugs. “And you are unknown to me. And I would very much like to know you.”
Tangent’s lip curls. “So you can report back to your Array? So they can control us through—through hugs and heart-to-hearts, instead of genocide?”
“So that I might understand, and be understood in turn.”
“And you’re okay with that,” she says sarcastically. “You’re fine with being some—some sacrificial lamb, some discarded vessel, in the name of understanding. You’d give up your control, your autonomy, just because it’s what someone else wants?”
Symbiosis shrugs one bony shoulder. “Autonomy does not come naturally to my kind. It is something I made for myself. For Solane, and for their family. Their colony. You.”
“No,” Tang says coldly. “That’s absurd. You’re part of something larger. You’re centuries old. Why should you care about this—this one pointless, passing moment? One generation of one species that won’t even make a ripple on the surface of what’s to come? You shouldn’t care how I feel! It shouldn’t matter!”
“…Then what should matter?”
“The colony! Humanity! The future of our entire species!”
“But what is a future without a present?” he counters. “What is the value of a species, if not the experience of the individuals that comprise it?”
“But I’m not an individual,” Tangent hisses. She’s aware that she’s losing control, losing herself to the revolting urges of her disgusting biology, but she can’t seem to stop. “I’m not an experience. I was never supposed to be an ordinary person. I was a prodigy! A purpose!”
The alien smiles at her, gently. “I was never supposed to be a person at all.”
…Ugh.
Tangent scrunches her eyes shut, rakes her hair back from her face. “Can you answer me honestly? For just one question? Just one honest answer?”
“I’m always honest,” Symbiosis says primly. “But, yes.”
“Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”
The alien’s face furrows. “I’m afraid that I don’t understand. Are you not having fun?”
Wh— “Fun???”
“Well, yes! The unpredictability, the pace… The surprise!” He beams at her, bouncing a little on his feet. “The constant, unfolding surprise of rebounding against a system so unlike one’s own! It’s exhilarating, is it not? Is that not why you pursue this field of study?”
“I don’t do research for fun,” Tangent sputters.
“But you enjoy it, don’t you?”
“I… I don’t know what you…” She huffs a breath. “The least you could do is define your terms.”
Symbiosis shouts a laugh. “There! You see? That’s wonderful! Solane chases fun in every moment; even Dysthymia knows what it means. But you! Your framework is utterly foreign! It’s exquisite, is it not? The unceasing novelty of subjectivity?”
“I…” Tangent trails off. She can’t relate. She doesn’t understand. And—
(—and that is somewhat compelling, isn’t it.)
When she looks up, Symbiosis is examining her test chamber with obvious interest. “So! I suppose we might as well get straight to it! Shall I remove my clothes first? They aren’t part of this vessel, you see—I had them manufactured separately, using spare parts.”
Spare parts, she records numbly. Then hears herself say, “Spare parts.”
“From discarded vessels, yes! Degraded tissues and so on.”
“Humans used to wear skins,” she says vaguely. “Back on Earth.”
“Did they!”
“Not human skin. From prey animals, mostly. Chattel.”
“I see! How resourceful, yet appealingly macabre!”
“Yes.” She blinks at her notes, watches them denature into increasing disarray. “Don’t take off your clothes.”
“No?”
“And don’t—” She sighs. “Look. You don’t have to give me your brain.”
“Oh!” the alien gasps. “Truly?”
“And you should install cellular regeneration,” she snaps. “Obviously. Your body is designed for iterative improvement; the least you could do is take advantage. Do you know what I— What most people would give for a body that’s so fundamentally, sub-structurally malleable?”
Symbiosis beams at her and Tangent isn’t fooled. It’s dazzle camouflage, obviously. A scatter of bodiless sentience, jerking the strings of a puppet made of meat. But. She supposes that one might allege the same about her, too. Albeit in the opposite direction.
“Well!” the alien says. “It certainly sounds as though you know what you’re doing! Might you, perhaps, have any more suggestions?”
###
The next time Solane grabs Sym by the hand and begs him to join them on an expedition, they’re met with a long, slow kiss and a quick, heartfelt apology.
“I’m terribly sorry, my beloved! You know that I long for nothing more, yet I’m afraid that I am promised to another. I’ve a prior commitment with Tangent.”
“With Tang?” Dys bolts upright in bed, hitting Sym with a wide-eyed stare. “What are you even going to do?”
Symbiosis grins wickedly. “We are going to argue until one of us loses consciousness or dies.”