Starsight

“Yes,” Morriumur said. They seemed more relaxed as they continued. “Both of my parents lived here all their lives. There’s an excellent water garden not far from here! Come, I’ll show you.”

I locked the door, then tapped a message on my bracelet, using DDF flight code, to explain to M-Bot. Going on walk. Nothing wrong. Back soon.

Morriumur drew their lips to another calm line, and I noticed that the right half of them was redder than it had been a few days ago. I wondered if that was confirmation that Morriumur was getting closer to being born. Though, was born even the right word?

They beckoned me with an understated wave of the hand, the palm up—a dione gesture distinctly different from the yell or wave that someone from Detritus might have used. I started along the walkway with them, entering the flood of creatures that were always moving along these streets. The constant presence of all these people made me feel trapped.

I’d felt the same way sometimes back in Igneous. That was part of why I’d fled into the caverns to explore. I hated always being surrounded by people, hated walking shoulder to shoulder. Morriumur barely seemed to notice it. They walked beside me, hands clasped behind their back, as if trying very hard to be unassuming. Nobody on the walkway gave the flight suits much of a second glance. Back on Detritus, people noticed pilots and made way for them. Here, we were just two more strange faces in a sea of oddities.

“This is good,” Morriumur told me. “This is what friends do—go out together.”

“You say that like . . . it’s a new experience for you.”

“It is,” Morriumur said. “Two months of life is not so long, and . . . well, to be honest, I do not find the process of bonding to be easy. My rightparent is very good at it, making friends and talking to people, but that is not an attribute this version of me seems like it will inherit.”

“Scud,” I said. “I’m going to be blunt, Morriumur, the way you say that hurts my brain. You remember some things your parents knew, but not all of it?”

“Yes,” Morriumur said. “And the baby I become will remember the same: a mix of both parents, with many holes to fill in with my own experiences. Of course, that mixture might change, based on how many times we pupate.”

“You say that so . . . frankly,” I said. “I don’t like the idea of society modifying someone before they’re born.”

“It’s not society,” Morriumur said. “It’s my parents. They simply want to find a personality for me that will have the best chance for success.”

“But if they decide to try again, instead of having you, it’s kind of the same thing as you dying.”

“No, not really,” Morriumur said, cocking their head. “And even if it were, I can’t really be killed—I’m a hypothetical personality, not a final one.” They puckered their lips, a dione sign of discomfort. “I do want to be born. I think I would make an excellent pilot, and this program shows that we need pilots, right? So it’s not so terrible that maybe a dione will be born who likes to fight?”

“It sounds like something your people need,” I said, stepping around a flowing creature with two large eyes, but which otherwise looked like nothing so much as a living pile of mud. “See, this is the problem. If society is certain that unaggressive people are the best, only those kinds of children get born—and then they perpetuate that kind of thinking. So nobody ever gets born who contradicts the standard.”

“I . . .” Morriumur looked down. “I heard what you and Hesho said yesterday. On the Weights and Measures,

while we were flying home?”

At first, I thought they meant the conversation about hyperdrives—and I panicked for a second—before remembering the earlier one where we’d complained about the Superiority and the diones. Their elite, snobby ways, presuming to be above us “lesser species.”

“I know that you dislike the Superiority,” Morriumur said. “You consider working with us to be a chore—a necessary evil. But I wanted you to know that the Superiority is wonderful too. Maybe we are too elitist, too unwilling to look at what other species give us.

“But this platform and dozens like it have existed for hundreds of years in peace. The Superiority gave my parents good lives—it gives millions of beings good lives. By controlling hyperdrives, we prevent so much suffering. There haven’t been any major conflicts since the human wars. If a species gets rowdy or dangerous, we can just leave them to themselves. It’s not so bad. We don’t owe them our technology, particularly if they’re not going to be peaceful.”

Morriumur led us down several streets, past a multitude of shops and buildings with signs that I couldn’t read. I tried not to be overwhelmed by it all, tried not to look like I was watching each and every one of these strange creatures. But I couldn’t help it. What secrets did they hide behind those faces that were trying, far too hard, to pretend to be pleasant?