“How is everyone this morning?” Flor asks.
“Kyth’s khui died again,” Sabrina says immediately.
“I had a rough night of sleep,” Valmir adds in a sly voice. I didn’t even hear him come up. He stands across from me by the fire, his arms crossed over his chest and a smirk on his strange face. “Someone kept screaming.”
A few of the women give tired chuckles.
“Yes, well, someone was having an excellent time.” Flor isn’t ruffled by the teasing. “Kyth, let me take a look at your vitals. Everyone else feeling okay?” When no one else volunteers any aches or pains—or khui death—she nods at her mate.
“We will be breaking down the tents and heading out for the village,” I’rec tells us. “You will like the beach. It is protected from the worst of the winds and snows and there is plenty of fishing. Food is shared between all and there are many friendly faces.”
“Sharing,” Skarr mutters. “Bah.”
“Is there a problem with sharing?” Flor asks even as she holds her fingers on Kyth’s big wrist, taking his pulse.
He shrugs, his jade-green skin stark against the white furs bundled against his skin. “I would rather compete.”
“I would compete, too,” Chalath adds. He rubs his hands, and I can see wicked claws tipping his fingers. “I am ready.”
“There are no competitions,” I’rec tells them in a hard voice.
“You lie,” Skarr replies, all confidence. “You told me yourself that hunting is a competition. That we compete to get the most meat to feed the females. And then of course, there is the breeding competition.”
Breeding competition? Oh my fucking god. My head jerks up in horror. “What—?”
“Breeding competition?” another woman screeches. “No fucking way! You guys are having a competition to get us pregnant?”
Flor shakes her head. “What? No! No one’s doing that—”
“I am doing that,” Skarr replies. “My mate has been chosen by my khui. All that is left is to best her in a fierce battle and give her my son.”
I can feel people staring at me. I can also feel my mouth drawing into an expression of pure, abject horror. “That is not happening,” I say in a small voice, and when it doesn’t properly convey my anger, I say it again, louder. “That is not happening!”
“I’rec, handle this,” Flor says. “I need to check Kyth out and I can’t right now.”
I’rec grabs Skarr by the collar and drags him away from camp, no doubt for a nice “talk.” That is one way of handling it, though I suppose it’s too much to ask that he comes back wearing Skarr as a pair of boots. I breathe a sigh of relief as they leave, but everyone else is still watching me, waiting to see what I’ll do.
I do what I always do. I duck my head and escape. I head for the tent, where I decide I’ll hide out until it’s time to break it down.
The day doesn’t go as planned. Kyth is given another khui from a small rabbit-like thing, but it dies before lunch, making Flor fret. One of the tents falls over, and I help fix it up again, because Isadora and Natalie have no idea what they’re doing, and I…do? Sort of? Vague memories rush through my mind as I pull the tent together and drive stakes into the frozen ground while they watch.
“Shouldn’t you angle those?” Natalie asks me.
I shake my head. “Straight is better.”
“I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be angled,” she replies. But she doesn’t pick up a rock to hammer them in, so she’s clearly not confident in her answer.
“What if we’re replicants, you guys?” Gabriella is saying nearby. She’s scraping furs, learning how under Flor’s tutelage. “Like in Blade Runner? They only lived for four years. What if we fall apart after four years? Because the clone pieces stop working?”
“Will you quit scaring us?” Isadora says. “We have enough to worry about.”
“I’m just saying!” She puts her hands in the air.
My insides clench with fear. What if she’s right? What if we’re discards? What if we’re flawed in some way? Is that why they ditched us? Because we’re a shitty batch of clones and we got thrown into the galactic trash?
But the conversation draws both Natalie and Isadora away. I finish hammering the stakes in and make sure the tent is taut and won’t fall over. Yasmin is there scraping furs, too, and I wonder if I should learn how to do that. Nothing in my memories has surfaced about hides or furs, so whatever past I might have had with camping, it didn’t involve skinning.
“How does the whole ‘replicant’ thing work anyhow?” Yasmin asks.
“The movie was kinda vague. Just that they were people created to do human jobs and they only lived four years and didn’t have proper emotions.” Gabriella shrugs. “But some of the replicants had emotions anyhow. Maybe that’s why we’re on this planet. Someone created us all fresh and new and realized we had emotions and just like, tossed us down here like scraps.”
I pause, running my hand over the edge of the tent, because that does sound possible.
“Wait, they made us? Fresh and new?” Yasmin looks as if she’s just now figuring out the implications of this. “Are you saying I might be a virgin?”
I look down at my hand, where the tattoo should have been, and my skin is pristine.
“I would be happy to help you with that,” Skarr says, walking up.
My jaw drops and I look up to see the lizard-alien staring down Yasmin with a challenging look.
What the fuck? This guy gets worse by the day.
“Okay now,” Flor says. “Women are allowed to discuss sex without men propositioning them, all right?”
“I am not propositioning,” Skarr says. “I am simply letting her know I would be glad to assist with any learning needs.”
“Uh, that’s exactly what a proposition is, my dude,” Colleen retorts. “I’m not sure what planet you’re from.”
“I am not certain either,” Skarr replies, distracted. He turns and gestures in the distance. “And someone is coming.”
I’ve heard enough. I can’t believe that the guy I resonated to—not that I want him!—is already propositioning other women. What an absolute creep. I shake my head to clear it and retreat away from the campfire. I need fresh air.
No, I need to escape. I hug my leathers closer to my body and head away from camp. Not so far that it’ll be dangerous, but just far enough that I can pretend that I’m somewhere else. It’s daylight, so it should be safe. I sit on a rock and gaze up at the two moons hanging in the sky, one flirting closer to this planet than the other. Another memory pricks at my mind, and I try to follow it.
“Stars are gonna come out soon. Think you can pick out which one is the North Star?”
“No. Can you?”
Dad laughs. “Honestly? No. It’s supposed to be easy but they all look the same to me.”
And I laugh, too.
Dad.
I went camping with my dad. He’s the man I keep getting fragments of memories about. A wave of yearning hits me so strong that my eyes tear up. I wish I was back on Earth with my father right now. That he could reassure me that I’m not a flawed clone. That I’m his daughter. That I’m not on an ice planet but camping with him instead.
But…he’s not truly my father. That’s the mind-fuck of all of this. Even if I was on Earth, he wouldn’t be my dad. Is the original Vivi there? She must be. She must know her name, too. She’s probably camping with him even now, her boots stretched out by the fire, telling her dad about some creep that’s hitting on her at her new job…