Small-five was working.
This had been a strange concept to her at first, but no longer was. A task you took as seriously as survival, that wasn’t survival.
At the time it had been explained to her, she’d thought that sounded very stupid. But it often led to learning. Which lead to more learning. Which led to being smart.
Small-five still very much enjoyed being called smart.
A year since arrival at Far-away-light, and Small-five had grown larger than she’d ever dared hope. Two pairs of barbels decorated the corners of her mouth, where they tasted the currents in aimless, eternal optimism; her proboscis was thick, strong, and spine-tipped slenderly enough to split a current six ways at once; and she could swim so fast she even surprised herself sometimes.
Also, she was now an adult. As of today. Funny, she’d been looking forwards to it for months, but she’d nearly forgotten that it was happening this morning. She’d better hurry, before she was late.
Small-five hauled herself out of the little cubicle she’d been assigned to rest in, drilled lightly but firmly into the outer skin of Far-away-light: just deep enough to enjoy the warmth coursing through its innards, just shallow enough to avoid bursting into one of the hundreds of (often huge) communal chambers that enjoyed the lion’s share of the city’s insides. She’d learned at length over the past few months that these hadn’t been arranged entirely efficiently; Far-away-light was a new city, of a new sort, and mistakes had been, were being, and will be made with that sort of thing. Extremely often.
She swum into a current and was lifted upwards, fins twitching without her conscious attention to keep herself balanced steadily. She still looked up and down ceaselessly of course. Every time she did this, she saw something new. A stranger. A new entrance to an unknown room. A wandering creature from the depths poking its nose out of the darkness to gawk at a pillar holding more light than it had ever thought could exist, before plunging back into the safe, quiet, terrible abyss.
There was always something being worked on. No-one had ever built a city this deep before.
Small-five swam out of the current just a little too slow, and felt the still-bizarre sensation of air smacking against her back, making her shiver. The pillars of the city’s peaks broke the surface above her head, woven together with nets, holding its contents snugly ensconced.
The gate inside was a small tunnel, barely large enough for one adult – one of many. It was barred and locked with a simple computer interface, just complicated enough to keep out illiterate children who might leave it open.
Small-five had first breached that particular barrier what felt to her to be a long time ago, but she still found something new to be surprised at every time she entered the place. Here, life rioted.
It was a reefcolony, she supposed. Unusually broad, thanks to the reverse-tapering structure of Far-away-light, but otherwise identical to the memories of her youth, smaller than before yet somehow larger, grander.
Also, almost everything here was food now. It was amazing how much less threatening Stairrow looked when you were quintuple their size at minimum. Small-five ate as she swam, as much for the sake of it as anything else. Today she felt she owed herself a treat. And judging by the relative sparseness of the overwhelmingly enormous bounty surrounding her on this particular day, a lot of other people had felt similarly.
She went from being surrounded by food to surrounded by friends very abruptly, as she always did – one masking the other quite effectively until it was almost completely inside your eyesockets. They were her friends, her fellow students, her fellow almost-adults. Some of them were older, some of them were younger, but never by much. The qualifier for adulthood was only about a third physical age, the rest was divided between time-spent-learning and time-spent-killing-time-waiting-for-a-useless-ceremony-that-can’t-come-soon-enough.
At least, that’s what All-fin told her. A lot.
This is stupid and useless and we’re wasting time, said All-fin.
You’ve told me that before, said Small-five. She’d lost all ability to be startled by her sister’s sudden appearances very quickly over the last year, but not nearly as quickly as All-fin had lost any sense of restraint. Freed from the demands of both the hunt for food and the approval of Nine-point, All-fin had become as restless in body as Small-five had been in mind. She had visited every last cranny and hollow of Far-away-light twice over, and twice again, and knew who almost everyone was. She couldn’t lie still in the water any more than she could stop her heartbeat.
She still visited Small-five regularly, which pleased her all out of proportion. With twelve thousand people to choose from, being one of the few you went out of your way to see often was a heady thing. Even if you were sisters. That didn’t matter as much now, with food being a thing that happened instead of a thing you worked on against penalty of death.
Small-five realized that she hadn’t worried about dying once all year. It made her feel very strange.
Hurry up! shone All-fin. Small-five trailed after her as she shoved her way to the front of the shoal of almost-adults, proboscis jabbing sensitive spots and waving near eyelids.
At the center of the shoal, of course, was Outward-spreading. Looking at her, Small-five was surprised at how little she’d learned about her over the past year. She was very old – very very old, to let the colour bleach from her hide and the inches trickle into her bodylength so far, year upon year – and very patient, and she taught you how to learn properly. Which, so it seemed, was basically teaching yourself.
She was very good at what Small-five had realized was at once the laziest and most effective form of tutoring. Which was just fine with Small-five, because she’d never known so much in her life.
A speech was happening.
Welcome, said Outward-spreading, words moving slowly over their eyes and bringing them to darkened quiet, to the end of your childhoods.
Make no mistake, this is not the end of your education. It will continue for your entire life, however long that may be. That is simply the way things are. But it will be the end of indulgence. You have been given no duties thus far but to learn. Now, you will find your minds once again directed – yet as closely as they were in your days of youth, when hunger and fear ruled you! Remember that, if you feel worried.
A beckoning gleam, and four adults swum to Outward-spreading’s sides, discretely waiting below her amidst the jumble of the reefcolony until now. They were somewhere around middle-aged in size, and their glowshine broadcast their insignia quietly, constantly, a reminder and an announcement as to their positions.
Some of you already know what you wish to do. Some of you have already secured positions and had promises made. But many of you – indeed, most of you, worry not – are undecided.
Here are some choices to help you decide. These are not your only options, but they are those that are most in need of you now.
The first of the four glided forwards. She was sleek, very nearly thin (surprising to see, thought Small-five, surrounded by so much food), and her glowshine moved with nearly the precision of othershine.
I am Shine-at-the-center, she said. Beside Small-five, All-fin twitched in impatience at listening to introductions for people she already knew. I am the head of Maintenance. If you choose so, you will work to keep Far-away-light in proper condition. And yes, that is more than just planting Fiskupids. You will be working with heating, current-shaping, and management of all computers and machinery. Work for body and mind both. And I can promise you this: there will be a lot of it.
Small-five wasn’t listening very hard. Far-away-light was interesting, but she didn’t want to spend however-long poking at its smallest bits, especially just to put them back together. To her side, All-fin seemed similarly un-persuaded. And she was starting to leak muttering grumblings of glowshine.
Shush, said Small-five, without malice. Her sister subsided with one final grump.
I am Left-lights-up, said the second of the four. Solid by any standard, she seemed nearly a giant next to Shine-at; her profile scarcely recognizable. I lead Research. We are planning on an expedition to somewhere I’m sure is still very dear to most of you, I’m sure: the pole. Humour rippled her sides at the spontaneous complaints. Yes, yes, I know. But realize this: this time, you will possess food, supplies, and weight of numbers. Very few predators will be willing to harm you, and fewer still able. Unless a Godfish decides to pay us a personal visit, a lack of foolishness on your part should ensure absolute safety.
Left-lights drifted back, and the third moved forwards – she was rather small, but so muscled as to seem like one big proboscis.
Glow-over-all-points, she said matter-of-factly. Safety. Want to see a Jarekindj and then get right in its face, talk to me. And if you don’t want to, know it’s someone’s job to do it for you.
She sank back.
No one really knew what to say to that, although Small-five suspected that a hint of something that could’ve been a laugh touched Outward-spreading’s sides for an instant.
The fourth slipped outwards. Her glowshine was… strange. It seemed to wobble as Small-five watched it, turning her words soft at the edges and hard to read.
faint-marks-unclear, she said. chief of populism. you will be learning about yourselves. you will be learning about your sisters. and you will be learning about other cities. likely firsthand. in form, thought, and shine.
There was a silence as faint-marks returned to her holding position just under Outward-spreading.
You may ask questions now, if you wish, said Outward-spreading. Do not hesitate.
Congratulations, adults.
And then she was off and away, moving over the bulk of the shoal with those calm, careful beats of her fins that brought her cruising speed a good mark above anyone else’s by sheer volume of water displacement.
Small-five felt a little funny, and thought about telling All-fin about it. But All-fin wasn’t there. She was part of one of the four discordant mobs already forming around the recruiters, flashing with so many questions that it made Small-five’s eyes wobble a little bit. She appeared to be ahead of the curve, too, and was already flaring something directly in Glow-over’s face about what sort of weapons she could have.
Small-five shook it off and began to think. Four choices, and probably the best ones if they were looking for people. Maintenance she’d decided to avoid. The idea of Safety made something deep inside her head flinch – she saw that mouth appearing in the middle of blue water again, and felt only a few months old. A shiver, and the image was gone. Or at the very least, a bit quieter.
That left Research and Populism, the wilds or the cities, the poles or the peoples. On this too her intuition spoke, loudly telling her that the very idea of ever under any circumstances leaving the city walls was insane in any respect that could ever matter and if she considered it she had no brains left and was probably just an overgrown Ooliku, or was using a Stairrow egg in place of her skull’s contents.
But here her mind came into play, reminding her of precautions and special tools and food and company and Safety. They would have Safety along, and they would think nothing of stopping
that ring of teeth, each bigger than she was
from touching her. Small-five had seen Safety’s armaments in person, had read of them in the library. There was nothing to worry about. She would be perfectly protected. No harm could come to her from that thing that
One moment it wasn’t there, the next it was
ever. Ever again.
Small-five realized she was glowing erratically, and made herself stop. That was silly and there was no reason for it and she’d sort of drifted into the mass of questioners in front of faint-marks and she was looking right at her she had to say something.
Where would we start? she asked.
faint-marks’s words weren’t much easier to make out up close. If anything, they were more difficult – you had to think outwards a bit, giving yourself a bigger picture than you felt comfortable with.
the beginning, she said. you must start at the beginning.
The beginning of what? asked Small-five.
faint-marks took a moment to answer a few other questions on her other side simultaneously, something Small-five noticed the other recruiters were doing. Just thinking about it made her head hurt.
everything about yourself, said faint-marks. if you want to study people, you have to study where they come from. and you are our people.
studying yourself is the start of studying us all – that is populism. and the start of that is your beginnings.
Small-five thought about that. And about birth, and sisters, and feeding on Gloudulite young. And things bigger and smaller than that. And about exactly what this would mean.
The reefcolonies? she asked. More for confirmation than anything else.
yes.
Small-five thought about that some more.
But not for too long.
Small-five was working.
It made her very happy indeed to do that, even thought it wasn’t much that was new to her. She was reading instructions – which she was used to – and she was taking orders – which she did often – and she was being loaded up with a food-carrier harness – which she’d practiced with for the past month – and yet all of these stale, dull, excitementless activities added up into something strangely alluring that made her glowshine waver and wobble like an adolescent’s.
She looked around herself for farewells, and found few. All-fin was on Safety duty, and had already followed Nine-point to the pole for Research. Dim-glow had quietly decided to pursue Maintenance, to the surprise of all of her sisters and herself.
Time to make space inside my head, she’d told them. I will miss you, but I need to grow.
They’d all understood that. And they would all miss each other. But properly.
Sometimes, you just need space to swim and find out what you’re doing. Small-five at least had the comfort of practice – for most of the others on this expedition with her, this was their first time apart from their sisters since birth. Voluntarily, still – they all knew that now, that desire to make space inside themselves.
Just so you’d know what it meant to have company there.
Small-five pulled at her fins and swam away from Far-away-light. For the first time.