The Gaiist turned to Rosemary and Kizzy, the edge leaving his voice, a bit of desperation creeping in. “If you should have some time to yourselves during your stay here”—in other words, away from the alien—“please come see us again. We have many more Earthen wonders to share, and even more in the habitat tanks aboard our ship.” He switched the terrarium into his left hand and reached into his satchel. “Here,” he said, handing them each an info chip. “Take these as a gift. They contain videos of some of the magical places that await you on our homeworld. Just stick them in your scrib and enjoy.” He smiled, as if the mere mention of Earth brought him peace. “Do come see us again, sisters. You are always welcome among us.”
The Gaiist man retreated to his table, leaving the three crewmates to make a hasty departure.
“And that,” said Kizzy, tossing the chip into the first trash box she saw, “is why you never make eye contact. Way to go, self.”
“You know, there are crazy speciest Aandrisks, too,” Sissix said. “But they don’t go bugging other people about it.”
“What do your crazy speciests do?” Kizzy asked.
Sissix shrugged. “Live on gated farms and have private orgies.”
“How is that any different than what the rest of you do?”
“We don’t have gates and anybody can come to our orgies. Except the Laru. They’re allergic to us.”
“Stars,” Kizzy said, leading the way into the marketplace proper. She pulled a bag of algae puffs from her satchel and began crunching away. “I can’t believe Mala used to go for that stuff.”
“I can’t believe she used to be a Survivalist,” said Sissix. “She seems so grounded. No pun intended.”
“Sorry, who?” asked Rosemary.
“Mala. Jenks’ mom,” said Kizzy. “She’s in the Samsara Project. Works with mammals. You should ask Jenks to show you some pictures of her little fuzzballs. Oh my stars, the wombats—”
Rosemary paused. She must’ve heard something wrong. “Wait, she was a Survivalist?” That couldn’t be right, not if this woman lived on the ring. Survivalists were as extreme as Gaiists could go. They weren’t just xenophobic, but technophobic to boot. They believed that technology was what doomed their planet from the beginning, and the only way to achieve redemption was to live like the animals they were. Survivalists were strict hunter-gatherers and genetic purists, abstaining not just from routine gene therapies, but from vaccinations, too. Weakness, they believed, had to be bred out. They seemed to ignore the fact that the only reason Earth had land capable of supporting them at all was because the Solar Republic had given them a large territory of restored grassland, filled with edible plants and herds of prey all brought back to life by scientists using frozen DNA and gestation chambers. Rosemary didn’t know Jenks well at all yet, but how could that level-headed, laid-back comp tech come from a Survivalist mother?
“Yeah, she fell into it during her teens,” said Kizzy. “Ran away from home, hitched a ride to Earth, joined a clan, ate honest-to-god wild meat, the whole thing. Can you imagine?” She fell into a theatrical stalking crouch. “You’re like, all sneaking through the grass”—she skipped from side to side—“dodging snakes or rats or whatever, and you’ve just got this big pointy stick, and you have to run up to this fucking buffle—”
“Buffle?” said Sissix.
“It’s like a big cow or something. And then you stab it and stab it and stab it, and it’s all throwing you around like oh, shit—” Kizzy flailed in nonspecific pantomime, unaware or uncaring of the other marketgoers eying her cautiously. A few stray algae puffs flew from the bag. “And there’s hooves in your face and blood everywhere, everywhere, and then it’s dead, and then you have to take it apart with your hands. And eat it.” She raised her hands to her mouth, making messy chewing sounds.
“Ugh, the end, please,” Sissix said, grimacing.
“Did Jenks grow up down on Earth? In a clan?” Rosemary asked.
“No, but he was born into one. That’s why he’s small,” said Sissix. “No prenatal therapy.”
“Oh,” Rosemary said. “I thought he was a genetweak, but I wasn’t sure how to ask.”
“Yeah, no, it is a genetic thing, but he was born with it,” Kizzy said. “And by the way, I’m sure you scored some points with him by not pointing it out right off the bat. He doesn’t mind questions, but he does get tired of it.”
Sissix continued. “See, Mala didn’t get any routine screenings after she got pregnant. She—”
“She almost died during childbirth,” Kizzy said. “Seriously almost died. Can you believe that? Who dies in childbirth? Fucking archaic. And Jenks’d totally be dead too if Mala hadn’t decided to be awesome. Her buying into the crazy Survivalist stuff stopped the moment there was talk of killing her kid.”
Rosemary’s mouth dropped. “They were going to kill Jenks?”
Kizzy nodded, stuffing a handful of puffs into her mouth. “Srvsts mmdn mmf—hrm.” She swallowed. “Survivalists abandon babies if they’re sick or different or whatever. Just like, oh, hey, this one’s kind of weird, better leave it behind so we can weed out the weak genes.” Kizzy clenched her fists, crushing the puffs within the bag. “Gah! It’s so stupid!” She looked down at the bag as if seeing it for the first time. “Aww.”
“So what happened?” Rosemary asked.
“I made crumbs.”
“No, I mean to Mala.”
“She ran away again,” Sissix said. “She got away from the clan, found a group of scientists working planetside. See, they—”
“No, you’re missing the badass part,” Kizzy said. “She had to walk, okay, like a crazy long way, just hoping she’d find someone past the Survivalist border. No skiffs, no skimmers, no shuttles. Just walking. Bare-bloody-foot. With, like, lions everywhere. Lions.”
“Not everywhere,” Sissix said.
“Listen, when you’re talking about lions, it doesn’t matter if they’re literally everywhere,” Kizzy said. “Knowing that there are a few lions that might be around is bad enough.”
“Well, anyway, the scientists on the Ring gave Mala and Jenks safe haven, and she got around to the fact that they weren’t so bad. She took a shine to biology, and that’s where she’s been ever since.”
“No university or anything,” Kizzy said. “Just started shoveling shit in the breeding pens and learned the ropes from there. She’s still a Gaiist, though, just in a mellow way. A lot of the Human scientists on the Ring are, actually. They believe in all the souls-tied-to-the-planet stuff, and they don’t like being far from Earth, but they scrap all the speciest whatever for the fuckery that it is. And apparently she was only mildly freaked out when teenage Jenks decided to go see the rest of the galaxy. She’s totally fine with it now. A lot of Gaiists are cool people. Unlike those assholes.” She jerked her head back toward the missionaries.
“Could Jenks not get gene therapy when they went to the ring?” Rosemary asked. “I mean, even the Gaiist scientists must be okay with standard medicine.”
“Yeah, they are. They’ve got imubots like the rest of us, and they vaccinate, thank goodness. Gene therapy’s kind of iffy. They’re usually cool with tweaking for quality-of-life reasons, but not cosmetic ones.”