White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Eleven

Liu and Krüger don't emerge until after lunchtime, and then only because Liu makes them come get food. Krüger barely eats, then refills his coffee mug and fiddles with his fork until Kwon takes it with the excuse of washing. His hand migrates towards the salt shaker instead. I clear the table. He drums his fingers on its edge.

When Liu finishes, they both dump their dishes in the sink and groan when I point them back to wash them. You'd think I was chaperoning a pair of teenagers. To their credit, they at least do a thorough job before entirely ignoring the to-do list on the fridge and heading back to the mess of charts, devices, Isoptera bits, pens, and notebooks spreading slowly across the lab like a renegade slime mold. I head for the gym instead.

Running has always helped me keep on top of my emotions. Whether it was a predawn beach in the Middle East or the coastal ice of Antarctica, whenever we were camped near some long, flat space, my Aventureros team knew where to find me when I needed to get things off my chest. Or just when I needed time alone. I run both hands down my face as the rubber tread whines through its endless loop beneath me. I keep half-wondering where Yahvi is, wanting to consult on our next move. Even after nine years of solitude, returning to what's basically my Aventureros job alone leaves a gaping hole beside me where my teammate should be.

If we were back on earth together, Yahvi would give me an hour here and then come to talk. We'd camp out in our tent, along a riverbank, or hell, up a tree if that's what it took to get privacy, and scheme out our approach for the problems we were facing. Something about the discovery in the field today has left me feeling acutely vulnerable, and for the first time, a different thought creeps in.

We're still in communications range. If I sent her a voice message tonight, it would reach her by tomorrow. Assuming she's in the solar system right now.

The reality of the prospect hits me like a fist. I stop the treadmill and step off, fighting the urge to double over as nausea makes my stomach churn. Who am I kidding? Reconnecting after nine years just because I've got something I want from her? After letting myself fall to a rival research team? Yahvi wanted to study Mahaha. After Jenu, at least. She brought it up in an interview the same day Jenu was declared a planetary consciousness suspect, and she's been fighting to get access to Jenu's tunnels ever since. Even now that planetary consciousness has gained a foothold in academic halls, Zuri could still breeze ahead and do what the theory's own progenitor could only hope to, years down the line.

My hand stills on the treadmill's handle. Planetary consciousness. Mahaha's ice—and Jenu's dust storms—move like they're alive. It's a stupid thought, one a scientist would never have, but I'm not a scientist. I never have been. That's Yahvi's academic background.

There's no allowance in the theory for control of things on a conscious planet's surface. I don't see how it would work, either. Planetary "thought" patterns sent through networks of vegetation may change the growth of those plants, but that's the extent of it. And yet there's a persistent, irrational kind of sense in the idea of planet-scale phenomena under the control of an equally large mind.

Would consciousness imply sentience? I don't see why it wouldn't. Could a conscious planet get angry? Scared? Feel pain? If earth was conscious, did she live out her last days aware of the human activity eating like acid through her living systems? The thought makes me shudder. But more thoughts take its place. Jenu's storms assaulted its largest city. Mahaha has wrecked our probes. Krüger said there's no living network here, but what if there is? Buried, like Jenu's tunnels, only deeper below the ground?

What if Mahaha's similarities to Jenu mean they're both conscious—and that the former really does attack of its own free will?

I'm freaking myself out. I abandon the gym and make for the station greenhouse, desperate for anything to help me battle the rising tide of anxiety. I hate being trapped. I've managed well enough as a pilot: at the front of a spacecraft, at least know you're going somewhere. But being here has reminded me just how much I miss the tangible work we did back on earth.