The Unraveling Read online

  The Unraveling

  Dedication

  Introduction 1

  Preface

  Epigraph

  First Childhood

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Interlude

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Interlude

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Interlude

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Interlude

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Interlude

  Chapter 17

  Interlude

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Interlude

  Afterwards

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Introduction 2

  Interlude 8

  Introduction 3

  Appendix 1

  Appendix 2

  Appendix 3

  Appendix 4

  Appendix 5

  Acknowledgments

  About-the-author

  Copyright

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  Guide

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  To Aviva and Noah: the spoon is in your hand!

  To Esther, my delight and my Sheltering.

  And to the former denizens of the Maelstrom,

  our own little Unraveling.

  BEGIN DOCUMENT

  TRANSMISSION

  Document Contents

  Extent of the Dispersal of Humanity

  Excerpt from the Long Conversation

  BOOK ONE: FIRST CHILDHOOD

  BOOK TWO: AFTERWARDS

  DOCUMENT ATTACHMENTS

  Planetary Location and Characteristics

  Dramatis Personae

  Brief Glossary of Planetary Institutions

  Life Cycle

  The Ages

  Acknowledgments

  Document prepared, translated, and transmitted during the year 467,341 After Dispersal (standard origin coordinate time)

  Extent of the Dispersal of Humanity

  The world runs on pride.

  The heart of the world is its economy, and its economy is an economy of the heart. Every encounter is a transaction: a tiny battle, in which something is seized, and something is lost.

  The one who loses, who is cast out, we call: Older Sibling.

  The one who wins, who nestles in, we call: Younger Sibling.

  Across genders (it is so for every Staid, as ze sits quietly at the center of things, composing zirself . . . for every Vail, as ve sallies forth, vir heart full of rage or joy!); across nations; across name registries, social clusters, professions, religions (Kumruist, Tricksterian, Unfeeling, Groon, Ascensionist, Diversionist . . . ); though some revile it, some deny it, some seek to evade it, or at least clothe it in a decorous subtlety, the fact remains: the heartbeat of the world is the heartbeat of struggle.

  The heart is the heart of the Sibling. And every contest hearkens back to that first contest, over the love of the Parent, when Younger displaced Older.

  —Omolo, student of Melihor, in the second excursus of the ninth work of the third cycle of the Long Conversation

  Book One

  First Childhood

  1

  Fift was almost five, and it wasn’t like zir to be asleep in all of zir bodies. Ze wasn’t a baby anymore; ze was old enough for school, old enough to walk all alone across the habitation, down the spoke to the great and buzzing center of Foo. But ze had been wound up with excitement for days, practically dancing around the house. (Father Miskisk had laughed; Father Smistria had shooed zir out of the supper garden; Father Frill had taken zir to the bathing room to swim back and forth, back and forth, “to calm zir down!”) Just before supper ze’d finally collapsed, twice: in the atrium, and curled up on the tiered balcony. Father Arevio and Father Squell had carried zir, in those two bodies, back to zir room. Ze’d managed to stay awake in zir third body through most of supper, blinking hugely, breathing in through zir nose, and trying to sit up straight as waves of deep blue slumber from zir two sleeping brains washed through zir. By supper’s end, ze couldn’t stand up any longer, and Father Squell carried zir last body to bed.

  Muddy dreams: of sitting on a wooden floor in a long hall . . . of zir name being called . . . of realizing ze hadn’t worn zir gowns after all, but was somehow—humiliatingly—dressed in Father Frill’s golden bells instead. The other children laughing at zir, and dizziness, and suddenly, surreally, the hall being full of flutterbyes, their translucent wings fluttering, their projection surfaces glittering . . .

  Then someone was stroking Fift’s eyebrow, gently. Ze tried to nestle further down into the blankets, but the someone started gently pulling on zir earlobe. Ze opened zir eyes, and it was Father Squell.

  “Good morning, little cubblehedge,” ve said. “You have a big day today.”

  Father Squell was slim and rosy-skinned and smelled like soap and flowers. Fift crawled into Squell’s lap and flung zir arms around vem and pressed zir nose between vir bosoms. Ve was dressed in glittery red fabric, soft and slippery under Fift’s fingers.

  Squell was bald, with coppery metal spikes extruding from the skin of vir scalp. Sometimes Father Frill teased vir about the spikes, which weren’t fashionable anymore; and sometimes that made Father Squell storm out of the room, because ve was a little vain. Father Squell had never been much of a fighter, the other Fathers said. But ve had a body in the asteroids, and that was something amazing.

  Squell reached over, Fift still in vir lap, and started stroking the eyebrow of another of Fift’s bodies. Fift sneezed in that body, and then sneezed in the other two. That was funny, and ze started to giggle. Now ze was all awake.

  “Up, little cubblehedge,” Squell said. “Up!”

  Fift crawled out of bed, careful not to crawl over zirself. It always made zir a little restless to be all together, all three bodies in the same room. That wasn’t good; it was because zir somatic integration wasn’t totally successful, which is why ze kept having to see Pedagogical Expert Pnim Moralasic Foundelly of name registry Pneumatic Lance 12. Pedagogical Expert Pnim Moralasic Foundelly had put an awful nag agent in Fift’s mind, to tell zir to look zirself in the eye, and play in a coordinated manner, and do the exercises. It was nagging now, but Fift ignored it.

  Ze looked under the bed for zir gowns. They weren’t there.

  Fift closed zir eyes—ze wasn’t so good at using the feed with them open yet—and looked all over the house. The gowns weren’t in the balcony or the atrium or the small mat room or the breakfast room.

  Fathers Arevio, Smistria, Frill, and another of Father Squell’s bodies were in the breakfast room, already eating. Father Miskisk was arguing with the kitchen.

  {Where are my gowns?} Fift asked zir agents . . . but the agents didn’t say anything. Maybe ze was doing it wrong somehow.

  “Father Squell,” ze said, opening zir eyes, “I can’t find my gowns, and my agents can’t either.”

  “I composted your gowns. They were old,” Squell said. “Go down to the bathing room and get washed. I’ll make you some new clothes.”

  Fift’s hearts began to pound. The gowns weren’t old; they only came out of the oven a week ago. “But I want those gowns,” ze said.

  Squell opened the door. “You can’t have those gowns. Those gowns are compost. Bathing!” Ve snatched Fift up, one of zir bodies under vir arm, the wrist of another caught in vir other hand.

  Fift was up in the air, wriggling, and was held by the arm, pulling against Squell’s grip, and was on zir hands and knees by the bed, looking desperately
under it for zir gowns. “They weren’t old,” ze said, zir voice wavering.

  “Fift,” Squell said, exasperated. “That’s enough. For Kumru’s sake, today of all days!” Ve dragged Fift, or as much of Fift as ve’d managed to get ahold of, out the door. Another of Squell’s bodies—this one with silvery spikes on its head—came hurrying down the hall.

  “I want them back,” Fift said. Ze wouldn’t cry. Ze wasn’t a baby anymore; ze was a big staidchild, and Staids don’t cry. Ze wouldn’t cry. Ze wouldn’t even shout or emphasize. Today of all days, ze would stay calm and clear. Ze was still struggling a little in Squell’s arms, so Squell handed the struggling body off to vemself as ve came in the door.

  “They are compost,” Squell said, reddening, in the body with the silver spikes, while the one with the copper spikes came into the room. “They have gone down the sluice and dissolved. Your gowns are now part of the nutrient flow. They could be anywhere in Fullbelly. They will probably be part of your breakfast next week!”

  Fift gasped. Ze didn’t want to eat zir gowns. There was a cold lump in zir stomach.

  Squell caught zir third body.

  Father Miskisk came down the corridor doublebodied. Ve was bigger than Squell, broad-chested and square-jawed, with a mane of blood-red hair and sunset-orange skin traced all over with white squiggles. Miskisk was wearing dancing pants. Vir voice was deep and rumbly, and ve smelled warm, roasty, and oily. “Fift, little Fift,” ve said, “Come on, let’s zoom around. I’ll zoom you to the bathing room. Come jump up. Give zir here, Squell.”

  “I want my gowns,” Fift said, in zir third body, as Squell dragged zir through the doorway.

  “Here,” Squell said, trying to hand Fift’s other bodies to Miskisk. But Fift clung to Squell. Ze didn’t want to zoom right now. Zooming was fun, but too wild for this day, and too wild for someone who had lost zir gowns. The gowns were a pale blue, soft as clouds. They’d whispered around Fift’s legs when ze ran.

  “Oh, Fift, please!” Squell said. “You must bathe, and you will not be late today! Today of all—”

  “Is ze really ready for this, do you think?” Miskisk said, trying to pry Fift away from Squell, but flinching back from prying hard enough.

  “Oh please, Misk,” Squell said. “Let’s not start that. Or not with me. Pip says—”

  Father Smistria stuck vir head out the door of the studio. “Why are you two winding the child up?” ve barked. Ve was tall and haggard looking and had brilliant blue skin and a white beard worn in hundreds of tiny braids woven with little glittering mirrors and jewels. Ve was wearing a slick swirling combat suit that clung to vir skinny flat chest. Vir voice was higher than Father Miskisk’s, squeaky and gravelly at the same time. “This is going to be a disaster, if you give zir the impression that this is a day for racing about! Fift, you will stop this now!”

  “Come on, Fift,” Miskisk said coaxingly.

  “Put zir down,” Smistria said. “I cannot believe you are wrestling and flying about with a staidchild who in less than three hours—”

  “Oh, give it a rest, Smi,” Miskisk said, sort of threateny. Ve turned away from Fift and Squell and towards Smistria. Smistria stepped fully out into the corridor, putting vir face next to Miskisk’s. It got like thunder between them, but Fift knew they wouldn’t hit each other. Grown-up Vails only hit each other on the mats. Still, ze hugged Squell closer—one body squished against vir soft chest, one body hugging Squell’s leg, one body pulling back through the doorway—squeezed all zir eyes shut, and dimmed the house feed so ze couldn’t see that way either.