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Cellulose & Steel	By : Not-Taylor Category: Misc Books > FemmeSlash Views: 1028 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own HDG or its characters and I don't make money from this work.

Chapter List
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The manual for the corruption system (or the Seed Snuggle Sender protocol of the Cutie Capture Communications system, apparently) that Ember has been using is truly fascinating. While most of it covers technical information that’s not especially useful to somebody who doesn’t have physical access to the hardware that seems to primarily be stored in interstellar space, a lot covers her tablet and what everything on it does.
There are utilities that can measure the health of “seeds,” utilities that report anything concerning, including emotional disturbances when the “seed” is present, indicators of violence in the proximity, and many more things that blend together because they feel to Ember like the same idea. The thought that simply picking up whichever communications device is being used subjects an unsuspecting target to this much observation by a complete stranger is horrifying. She’d thought that the conspiracy theorists talking about third party snooping were insane, but they were completely correct about everything (aside from space being a cannibal conspiracy and some other things).
Just how much can Verda see about Ember? Probably far more, since Affini technology would be designed to ensure that a “floret” is properly observed. She glances over at her captor, who’s typing thoughtfully. Her pace is sporadic, suggesting that she’s uncertain what to say next. Ember wonders what she’s writing about, or to whom she’s speaking. Probably asking for advice on how to better torment a Terran. The prisoner takes a deep breath and blinks.
At least the manual had some advice, or at least she was lucky enough to find the advice in the part she’d read. Nobody has time to read as much technical information as was there. If she breaks some law, that’s fine. Verda will be the one to take the blame, won’t she? If florets don’t count as citizens, surely they wouldn’t be held to the same legal standard. Or… maybe she’ll be “scorched.” The last Ember checked, Terrans didn’t rebloom, so…
Verda looks up from her work with a smile. She closes her computer and rests her oversized hands on the lid, looking at Ember carefully. Ember looks back, watching for any sign of weakness that could be exploited.
“It’s time for dinner, darling.”
“Fine.”
She would be ready for dinner even if Verda hadn’t suggested it. They get up and walk to the table, where Ember sits and Verda pokes the compiler until it beeps its completion. The meal consists of bread with a little homey and a bowl of a pale yellow soup that tastes a bit like cheese. It’s not as good as most of what she’s eaten in her time on Ruby Trunk, but it’s good enough to finish. Verda looks pleased with that, rustling gently as she sits across the table.
“How has your day been, Ember?”
“Do I have to answer?”
“Yes, darling. A short answer is sufficient if you can’t bear to speak to me more than that. I would at least like to know how your session earlier went, as I was obligated to take you there and wait for you to finish.”
“Good. I saw Evlen.”
Verda smiles openly. She seems to appreciate why that would be a good thing. “Anything else?”
“Vanessa said something that you just reminded me about. I’m supposed to tell you that I hate when you try to touch me.”
The affini’s expression darkens momentarily while she contemplates the obviously true thing she was just told. She does something that looks like sighing but isn’t and tilts her head to the left, staring at her captive and laying one of her vines on the table.
“Is that true?”
“Of course it is.”
“Pet.”
“You know what I have to say to that.”
“And thank you for not saying it. Are you aware that disliking being touched by one’s mistress is highly unusual?”
“I don’t care.”
A look of irritation spreads across Verda’s face as she realizes that that’s a perfectly logical thing to say. “What did Vanessa tell you would be the solution?”
“That we should talk through our differences rather than being pointlessly confrontational.”
“A wise perspective. This is why it’s helpful to have other people provide input on a situation. What do you have in mind, darling?”
“I never want to be touched by you.”
“You need to stay clean and groomed.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“You clearly can’t. When I found you-”
“I had been in a vat of some fluid for a week straight. That’s not representative of how I normally care for myself. Verda, I was literally fighting a war and was responsible for not killing dozens of people at all times. I can handle taking a bath and changing.”
“Then after our experiment is complete, you can return to doing those things for yourself.”
“Why can’t I now?”
“Because a typical floret is happier having assistance, and you would never consider allowing yourself to be helped if I did not proceed against your present wishes.”
“I’m fine.”
‘I’m sure, Ember, but you’re very reluctant to allow yourself to be helped regardless. You didn’t hide how difficult it was for you to ask for my help in navigating out of the hyperspace inhibition field.”
“Because you’re the enemy. I can’t just ask the enemy for help.”
“How much of an enemy did I prove to be? Did I force you to travel anywhere you didn’t want to go? Did I threaten you if you didn’t return here?”
“No.”
“You weren’t hiding your distress at that time, Ember. I’m certain that you believed you were, but you were not. Relying on somebody else at times is not wrong and does not make you lesser.”
Of course it does. Having to rely on an affini and be a pet does make you lesser. Their legal system classifies Terrans as inferior citizens who can be subjected to enslavement at any time and for nearly any reason. Verda literally said that Ember was competent enough to be free, but she can’t be free because Verda captured her and wanted her as a pet. The fact anyone could think that was an acceptable system for a society is incomprehensible to Ember. She doesn’t want to believe there are “people” who can think that way.
“I still don’t want to be a floret.”
“And yet, here you are. Given that fact, can you try to let me make you feel less pain?”
“Why can’t you just let me go?”
“As I’ve explained, terrorists can’t be allowed to roam wherever they please, harming whoever happens to stand in their path. Rehashing this discussion won’t be productive.”
She’s right. “Are you willing to try to touch me less?”
“I will try, darling, since that is what will make you happier,” the weed says tiredly.
That worked? Ember has a lot of trouble believing that. It’s too easy. Verda can’t be treating her as though she’s actually a person whose boundaries matter. Affini don’t see their slaves as people. It has to be a trick, a xeno scheme meant to destroy her.
“Since you’ve finished your meal, would you like to go for a walk in the evening light? We won’t have time for a long one, but I’m sure you would enjoy being outside.”
“Fine.”
“Now, since you’ve asked to be touched less, I’m considering letting you walk without your leash.” Verda fixes the collar on Ember’s throat, just because she can. “Do you promise to walk close to me and to not try to run away?”
“Fine.”
“That isn’t good enough, pet.”
“I promise.”
“Thank you, darling,” Verda says, smiling happily and tucking the leash she’s been holding into her central foliage. She rises to her regular height and beckons her captive with a finger as she glides to the front door. “As you’ve given your word, I expect you to act accordingly and demonstrate your trustworthiness.”
This seems even more devious than it already did. Ember can’t shake the concern that she’s being set up for failure by the xeno next to whom she’s carefully staying. Though they aren’t touching, she can feel everything Verda is saying to her. Every “let’s go this way” and “slow down a little” and “speed up’ and “which way would you like to go” echoes through her mind without being said. The pilot blames that on having spent so much time around her and being able to read the movement of her vines. That’s the only logical explanation. Since she’d know if she’d been implanted, that’s the only explanation that is not insane, as well.
Ember remembers that she has to be a good example for Lysander, so that she can resist too. At some point it’s going to come out that she’s living in the Compact rather than on whichever tiny colony has somehow escaped Affini notice, and that’s going to be extremely awkward. The egg is going to feel so betrayed, as though everything they spoke about wasn’t real. Ember can’t allow that. Vulnerable Terrans need to be protected, not… feel that everything has been a lie and that it’s just an excuse to use somebody. That might technically be what’s happening, but Ember would rather see it as helping somebody. If everyone is eventually captured, it’s better that somebody hatch sooner rather than later… right? And since Ember was able to make contact, she doubts that these feralists would really be free much longer no matter what. The idea that they’re being kept as training props for whoever needs them is sickening as well.
Perhaps none of Ember’s choices matter, leaving her trapped with Verda, sitting in space without thrusters, waiting for the universe to end. If there’s no point, why bother with anything? Why walk? Why comply with any Affini regulations? If everything is pointless, why does their torment of innocent people matter? In time, even the pain of defeat will be gone, and in its place, nothing. That thought eases Ember’s despair just a little. She’s done her best, so she may as well deny the weeds the satisfaction of having power over her. If she had been in command of the entire Cosmic Navy on the first day of the invasion, knowing what she knows now- Generals from the future have always been strategic geniuses who never would have lost a battle. What might have been is meaningless and illusory.
Verda slows to a halt at an intersection as the sky starts to become properly dark. It should be raining, Ember feels, but the rain stays in the ship’s humidifiers. She stands for a moment with the alien, thinking of humanity’s stolen future among the stars, remembering every science fiction story she’d grown up with, all the interstellar alliances (all directed against communist imperialists like the Affini, of course), and how strength came through cooperation. Affini don’t cooperate. They conquer, and steal, and enslave. What does it mean that at this instant, Ember isn’t resisting whatsoever?
And why not? Because they offered to let her play with somebody who’s about to be swallowed by the venus fly trap that is the Compact? Because Verda promises, cross her core and hope to wilt, that she’ll answer Ember’s questions honestly after it’s all over? Maybe the Affini are too strong to need to worry about lying most of the time, but they can’t be trusted when they think that knowledge is an unjust burden to inflict on a lesser being.
Vines cycle around Verda’s central mass in the dimming evening as she stares across a little pond across the way. Her prisoner turns away from her, trying to escape her clutches mentally, even if nothing else is possible. A good floret wouldn’t, but Ember is most certainly not one of those. The steps of those around the pair have faded into the night as everyone on the deck begins to retire, an entirely appropriate reaction to the fact that it’s nighttime. One affini a hundred meters away is hurrying somewhere, and a bird flaps in a nearby tree, settling onto a secure branch out of sight of the large creatures that so often pass below it. The artificial stars of the deck above shine brightly enough that there’s no danger of walking into something, and streetlights illuminate anything that could potentially be dangerous. All the serenity of a Terran suburban nightscape a century ago, with none of the risks. To Ember, it feels sterile.
Plants don’t actually breathe. The only regular sounds are Ember’s breath, Verda’s rhythms, masked by distance, and another set from somewhere invisible. Perhaps the ship has a set to help regulate the more stubborn florets. That would be very Affini, she’s sure. The sounds echo off of the buildings around them, extremely faint in their reverberation. They’re at the same tempo, but offset enough to clash. Perhaps that’s a tragic loss of harmony, or perhaps it’s nothing. The cosmos will probably never know.
“Darling.”
“What?” The Terran doesn’t turn, even as Verda pauses before replying.
“Some affini live a hundred of your years at a time without seeing the natural sky.”
“Impressive.” Ember hopes the plant will get to the point more quickly if she doesn’t interrupt.
“How would you feel in that scenario?” Verda looks over, making Ember very uncomfortable in having to decide whether to meet her gaze or not. She stares forward, to the pond Verda was looking at before.
“Terrible. I have never missed having real ground under my feet, but…”
Why is Ember admitting that? Verda has no right to know any such thing! The affini nods.
“It’s the one unclosable window to the outside. Stars from before we were, from before anyone we knew… from before our homeworlds… With a sensitive enough detector, thousands of other worlds would be there too, any that happened to be speaking at the right time for us to listen. Many more would be watching their skies too, and perhaps, in the infinitely distant future, they might look up and see light from the star whose absence created the night in which we watch.”
“And on each of those living worlds, there could be a species desperate to claw its way into the sky to tear down everything you hold dear?”
“That’s true, Ember. It all depends on what you choose to see out there.”
“No matter what you want to see, it’s there or it isn’t, and knowing how big the universe is, anything you don’t want to be there probably still is.”
“I didn’t imagine you were a pessimist.”
“I’m not, just realistic. We didn’t expect you.”
“And we didn’t expect you. Those nights when I look out and up, away from the familiar landmarks of where I happen to live, it’s hard not to notice how small we each are, clinging to little clumps of soil and metal.” It sounds as though she has more to say, but she doesn’t say anything further.
“It’s true.”
“It is, Ember. Affini culture dictates that the most important thing in the universe is each other. Out of all of that…” She gestures to where she’s imagining the night sky of some distant alien world. “The only thing that matters is the atoms drifting between motes of dust. I doubt every living being in the Compact amounts to the mass of a single star.”
“What does that mean?”
“That sometimes, some among us become so obsessed with the interactions between intelligent beings that they can no longer appreciate the intricacy of the backdrop to things that in a thousand years will have for real purposes never happened. We evolved to drink the light of our star, and now most of us never look up. Anyone who mentions that is told to find a floret.”
“I know what you mean. Soldiers don’t think about that sort of thing very much, even where they’re locking eyes with a refutation of general relativity. I only ever wanted to understand.”
“To understand everything?"
“Everything.” Why strive for imperfection? Verda nods and they stand together for a while.
“You said you were a xenopsychologist. Why do you care so much about the clockwork?”
“I’ve lived for what you would consider a very long time and my perspective is unusual in many ways. When a floret looks into the night and sees the same thing I see -a planet and her orbiting florets, a troupe of galaxies dancing in a whirl- that to me is something precious.” Verda looks directly at Ember, clearly thinking of her and of something else unstated. “To see everything around us as merely pretty lights would be typical.”
“Those who reject wisdom but think they understand do not. They’re lost in the void, unable to see what surrounds them, wandering between false lights of their own creation for all time. While once I thought to rescue their ilk, I could not, and would have drowned in the attempt. Don’t waste your time, Verda. If they don’t get it on their own, they never will.”
“I know, but were any to look past the false lights in the sky to the place from which we all have come, I would rather know such a one than not.”
“Taste the fruit and know the tree.” Ember shrugs.
They both stare at the true lights beyond the endlessly spinning wheels of Ruby Trunk, thinking about the infinity outside their shared prison until Verda silently withdraws. Though she couldn’t see her companion’s exit, Ember turns at the same moment, heading back toward Verda’s house. Day’s light was entirely gone and the air was starting to grow cold, so Ember was ready to move forward.
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Cellulose & Steel