Chapter 3

The following day, Ayaan waits outside the base’s gate, where Yachi had dropped him off. He periodically glances at the hills, but each time he turns away quickly, uncomfortable, tugging at his hat. Yachi turns up in a scratched-up scooter and hands Ayaan an extra helmet from the storage box. Their embroidered cobalt tunic flaps in the wind. “I could not rent a better one – none of their stock was new.”

Yachi turns out to be an inconsistent driver, and Ayaan finds himself clinging desperately to their waist even though they couldn’t be going more than thirty kilometres an hour. After twenty minutes of whizzing along, during which Ayaan’s soul attempts to depart his body at least three times, they park in front of a looming greenhouse; another, smaller mudbrick building lurks nearby.

Ayaan totters off the scooter, clamping a hand over his mouth to stop the nausea, while Yachi unbuttons their trouser pocket for a key to unlock the greenhouse door. They throw it open and march inside, flicking a switch that raises the translucent screens against the walls. Ayaan sidles after them, half expecting some great carnivorous flower to lunge out and eat him. He looks up and draws a sharp breath.

Rows and rows of plants trail over white rafts, right up to the curved ceiling, so verdant they almost glow. The sunlight that had outside been harsh and oppressive now spreads butter-soft over the dense overlapping leaves and fruits. On the far side, a rolling ladder with comfortably wide rungs stretches up to the highest raft.

Ayaan’s feet are rooted to the ground. He has not seen such lush green up close in over a year, but it feels far longer than that.

Yachi jostles him by the shoulder. “Let me show you the berries!” They lead him through the rafts, and Ayaan boggles at dark rilled leaves the size of his head and gleaming waxy fruits and what look like crosses between Romanesco broccoli and regular cauliflower. He wants to touch everything and crush it in his hands and stick his face in it. The idea of eating reconstituted or pre-packaged food on the ship again fills him with dismay.

Yachi stops abruptly and Ayaan collides into them with an oof . He stumbles back, but Yachi is solid beneath their slender build. They gesture to a cluster of small round fruits the colour of a red sky. “They grow farther from the equator, and I’d never had one before coming here.”

Ayaan wipes his upper lip, where sweat has gathered, and suddenly remembers Onkar’s nagging. “Would you have some water?”

“In my office.”

Yachi leads them to the other building. A quick glance inside shows that it consists of an office that could perhaps accommodate two people with difficulty.

Above the desk on the far wall hangs a painting swept in glaring colours. In it, a figure – Ayaan cannot be sure they are Farish – is in the process of cutting open a semi circle in a dark sky, with a curved blade, one of their hands pressing against it. His eyes start to itch and the milky swirls in the sky writhe and twist and the stars shrink into themselves and the forests on the land flicker in the light streaming from the gap.

“Do you like it? One of the previous supervisors made it; they had an interest in art. That was some years ago, though. I do not know where they are.”

“It’s…” Mesmerising, in a lurid and terrible way.

“It is a scene from the story of a god – not a ‘god’, but that is the closest translation I have – and how they brought light into the world. The sky looked upon the land and was unhappy to see it was dark. They asked the god for light, and the god asked if they could bear pain. They said yes, so the god slit a great wound in the sky and held them down as they screamed, and that is where the light came through.”

The painting drops a sedate, leaden discomfort in Ayaan, but he cannot stop looking at it. He finally turns away when Yachi hands him a large canteen. Ayaan thanks them and drinks almost the whole thing in one go. “I hope you don’t mind me asking,” he says, turning the canteen over in his hands, “but why did you come here? It’s…solitary. I’d have thought you’d have preferred a city, or at least a larger town.”

Yachi tilts their head. “The previous hydroponics supervisor for the organisation quit, and they didn’t have anyone else who was willing and qualified.”

“And you just came? Don’t you miss your friends? Your family?”

Yachi’s face grows sombre, and they drop their soft dark eyes. “I do. Very much. But I love this work. I don’t regret my decision, and I wouldn’t change it.”

Ayaan’s tablet pings, and he takes it out of its sleeve to find a text from Onkar asking where he is. “It’s late. I had better go.”

“I’ll drop you back.”

Outside, the temperature has dropped sharply, and Ayaan shivers, looking up at the cold pinpricks of stars. At the IPL gate, Yachi says, “Tomorrow, same time?” and Ayaan cannot find a reason to say no.

He trundles, yawning and stretching, to the mess hall. He gets a chicken sandwich and orange juice and sits down at a table where Onkar and a couple of other people are chattering away. “I didn’t see you at all this afternoon,” says Onkar around a mouthful of fried rice. “Where were you?”

Ayaan sips his juice. “I was with a Farish I met yesterday. They showed me where they work.”

Onkar laughs. “Where it works , huh? You sure it’s not trying to hit on you?”

Ayaan’s chest constricts. He pulls his collar up to ward of a chill, though the ship’s temperature is regulated as always. “No, I doubt that.” They. The textbooks said they tend to use “they” around humans. “There have been Farish-human relationships before,” he says carefully. Only two, and they ended before Ayaan was even born, but they existed. Why do I care? he thinks, taking a bite of his sandwich. I never thought of correcting him before .

“Those shouldn’t have been allowed; how can you let humans marry species that are so different from them?”

Ayaan’s belly twists, and he finishes his meal in silence.