“IT’S AN ABOMINATION,” Yumi said, pacing through Painter’s room. “Worse, it’s blasphemy! A dead thing can’t summon the spirits.
And if it did, it would be like lying. A deception. It… Why are you smiling?”
“Oh, no reason,” Painter said, leaning back on his altar. “Please continue the rant.”
“You disagree with me,” she said, stalking up to him, her eyes narrowed. She was so angry she hadn’t even changed out of the sleeping clothing, so they matched. “Out with it. Why do you disagree?”
“Well,” he said, “I just find it poignant. The way you describe stacking—always focused on the idea of precision—is so mechanical.
You complained every time I injected emotion into it, and once said you’d be better if you were a machine. Now…here we are.”
She breathed out through her nose, then folded her arms. “I forbid you to find irony in this situation, Painter.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“But only in my world,” she added with a nod, “where my rules apply.” She stalked in the other direction, trying to sort through the host of emotions arrayed to assault her.
A machine. To stack stones.
A machine to…replace her.
If it worked, would that mean no more yoki-hijo? No more girls spending their lives trapped by the invisible walls of expectation and
responsibility?
But it was an honor.
Would it be so bad if no one had to bear that honor?
The spirits are in pain, she thought. They want me to do something to save them.
“I’ll bet,” she said, turning toward Painter, “this is why the spirits asked me for help. It’s to stop that abomination.” She gasped softly.
“That’s why they sent someone useless to hold my body… I needed to fail to stack…so these scholars would come and I could see their evil plan unfold!”
“I’ll ignore the wisecrack about me being useless,” Painter said. “I don’t think those scholars are evil, Yumi.”
“They are creating devices to replace the honest efforts of good people!” she said, spinning on him. “What if they made machines to harvest crops? To sew clothing? Soon no one would have anything useful to do with their lives! People would wither like fruit dropped to the ground.”
“Uh, Yumi,” he said, “where do you think those pajamas came from? The dresses you bought?”
She looked down at the clothing. She had noticed the incredibly precise stitches.
“We have the things you mention,” he said. “Machines to help with planting and harvesting crops. Machines to make clothing. That shower you love so much? Another machine. Same with the viewer.
And guess what? People in my world still have useful things to do.
Machines require workers to build and maintain them, along with others to cultivate and position the hion lines. Your people will be fine.”
“Your machines don’t replace a holy purpose,” she said. “The spirits will be offended.”
“If they are, won’t they just refuse to come to a machine’s stacks?”
Well. Probably.
Unless something was deeply wrong. Something that prevented
them from seeking help anywhere else.
Free us… “Wonder how they’re powering the thing,” Painter said, standing up and glancing toward the room’s light—which had a faint pair of twin colors leading to it, the ever-present hion. “Your people haven’t discovered hion yet, have they?”
“I doubt it exists on my world,” she said.
“Maybe they’ll use something more ancient. Do your people have
coal engines?”
She stared at him blankly. Coal?
“Guess not,” he said.
“We’re not primitive,” she said, waving around the room, “merely because we can’t make faces appear in boxes on the wall. You don’t know how to make buildings float.”
He didn’t reply, so she moved a few stacks of painted bamboo and went about her morning routine. Once showered, combed, dressed, and the rest, she sat down with her ink and brush.
“I am ready for instruction, Master Teacher,” she said, bowing deeply.
“Do you call me that,” he asked, “because it annoys me?”
“Yes,” she said, bowing again.
“You admit it?”
“Why else would I call you names you dislike?” she said. “I mean, I thought it was obvious.”
He waved his hands and sat on his altar. “Isn’t annoying people against the…spiritual girl code or something?”
“Your world,” she said, raising her chin, “your rules. And from what I’ve seen, Painter, annoying people is basically a religion to you.”
She did feel mischievous saying such things to him, and it would have been proper for her to stop. But…why was he so amusing to tease? If he’d bowed his head, she would likely have felt guilty.
Instead he raised his hands toward the heavens and shook his head dramatically.
“I,” he said, “don’t understand you at all.”
“I am your humble student,” she said, bowing once more, “in the
fine art of painting.”
“I suppose.”
“And in the finer art of being aggravating.”
This time he smiled. Which worried her. Despite her intentions, she was relaxing too much here, wasn’t she? What else could she do?
She needed to enjoy this less.
Focus on the work, she thought, picking up a brush. “What is my
next lesson?”
“Bamboo,” he said.
Yumi turned to look around the room, which was stacked with sheets of painted bamboo. They’d had to go to the supply store three times during the week. She felt she should clean the quarters, as she was severely adding to the clutter. Maybe she could have Painter ask Chaeyung and Hwanji for tips next time in her world. Cleaning up after herself was novel.
No. Don’t enjoy it. And it’s not right to talk to your attendants. You shouldn’t even think of that.
“I have mastered bamboo,” she said. “Yesterday I taught you something new. In return, you should also teach me an advanced technique.”
“There’s no reason for that,” Painter said. “You just need the basics to defend yourself in case of a nightmare encounter.”
“I can defeat this stable nightmare with…bamboo?”
“No,” he said. “Once again, you’re not going to face the stable nightmare. If we encounter it, we’re going to run.”
She sighed but bowed, this time sincere. She needed to listen to his wisdom—well, his experience—in this matter. So she launched into more painting. Until a knock at the door drew her away. A glance at the clock told her it was late in the day—at least as this society measured it. Although Yumi and he always rose at morning in her world, Painter kept a strange schedule in his world, working when many others slept.
It was dinnertime. Or breakfast, for the painters. The other painters generally met before or after shift to chat, and Yumi often had to turn down Akane’s invitations to those gatherings.
She pulled open the door, prepared with another excuse for Akane.
Instead the entire group was standing out there. Not only Akane— who was stylish even in the trousers and painting shirt she wore on duty. But also Tojin, with sleeves rolled up to show his muscles. Short Masaka, with a turtleneck, her glaring eyes shadowed and lined with excessive amounts of dark makeup. Finally Izzy, the long-limbed girl with the bleached yellow hair.
“This,” Tojin said, “is an intervention!”
“We’re here to rescue you from your books, Yumi,” Izzy said,
grabbing her by the hand.
“I don’t need—” Yumi began.
“We’ve all been there,” Akane said, “studying for the tests. Yumi, trust me. If you don’t relax now and then, you’re going to stress yourself to the point that your mind rots. You need a break.”
“Gotta rest the muscles between reps,” Tojin said.
“Oh, great,” Painter said (lowly), stepping up behind her. “I’d almost managed to forget about the weightlifting metaphors.”
“Just some food,” Akane said. “It’s Ashday. Even we get a half day off work, trading shifts with Department Three so they can take time off on another day.”
“Get rid of them,” Painter said, turning back toward the room with a yawn.
Yes. That was definitely what she should have done. But the thought of another day spent painting bamboo again and again and again… She looked around by reflex to see if Liyun was there to
disapprove.
“Very well,” Yumi said in a soft voice.
“Really?” Izzy said, jumping up and down.
“Wait, what?” Painter said, spinning.
She told the others to wait, then closed the door and hurriedly threw on a dress instead of the oversized painting shirt and trousers she’d been wearing.
“Wait,” Painter said. “I have to beg to get a water break, but you can go to a noodle party?”
“You told me I don’t need advanced techniques,” she said, pulling on her short jacket, then checking herself in the mirror and tucking a
stray bra strap back in place. “I have bamboo down, right? So I don’t
need further training.”
“I suppose…”
“Then,” she said, her heart fluttering, “I’m going to eat with them.”
She paused and looked at him. “Can I? … Please?”
“It’s up to you,” he said. “Anytime you want to go, you may. I’m not
your master, Yumi.”
Her choice? She hesitated.
What was she doing? She reached to begin taking off her jacket.
“Go,” he said. “Don’t think about it, Yumi. Just go. It’s all right. I want to see Design anyway.”
And so she did. Nervous, elated, terrified. She joined the others as they led her to the noodle shop. They mentioned going to some other restaurant, but they noticed how she panicked at that idea and quickly decided against it. In minutes she was seated with them, her money out on the table—at Painter’s suggestion, she’d offered to pay as a thank-you—a menu in her hands.
She ordered a flavor of broth she’d never had before. After all, if she was going to be terrified of the experience already, she might as well add more strangeness. A short time later, Design waved for Painter to go speak with her—leaving Yumi with four people who
were practically strangers.
It was thrilling.
They chatted about their vacations, and their wages, and the foreman. A verbal thornbush of interlocking vines and spikes in which Yumi didn’t dare interject. They seemed to understand that she was already daunted by going out, and they didn’t push her into conversation. That let her watch. Up close. People interacting.
She’d never been allowed to do that. She was to remain distant. In the common way of things that are forbidden, that made them mysterious. She was fascinated by the ways that normal people conversed, and joked, and talked over each other, and laughed, and…and it was like a performance, each of them with memorized lines. How did they know when to speak or when to stop? When to tell a joke and when to share some fact?
To try to make sense of it all, she decided to focus on one companion. As she already felt she knew Akane a little, she turned
her attention to Tojin. Painter had said the man was always showing off his muscles to women. Yumi assumed it was to entice them to mate.
Liyun said details of courtship would only distract her from her duty, so other than some little tidbits overheard when she was younger… she had no idea how people paired off. She’d had trouble picking a dress. How did you pick a mate? She hoped, from what Painter had said, that Tojin would illuminate her.
He certainly did like exposing his muscles. Except as the noodles arrived, Tojin leaped up from his seat and rushed over to some people who had started sitting down at another table. None of them women. One was as bulky as Tojin—she wondered what beasts they fought, that they needed such muscles.
“Gaino,” Tojin said to the overly large man. “You were right about the lat press. Look.” He proceeded to take off his shirt and flex.
Yumi watched with eyes wide. Yes, glimpses of Painter when bathing had been one thing, but this was…illustrative. She barely remembered to chew her noodles as several other very large men at
the table clapped for Tojin.
“What were your reps?” Gaino asked.
“Four twenties,” Tojin said. “But if you lean forward instead of back, you can really isolate.”
“I’m plateauing,” another guy said, then flexed one of his arms.
“Need to lose at least another percent. See here, you can barely see my outline.”
“You look great,” Tojin said. Then he flexed his arm. “But maybe try some bench work with some reverse presses?”
Yumi couldn’t tear her eyes away. It wasn’t that this was attractive.
It was more enthralling. She didn’t even blush. Instead her jaw dropped. It was like something in her brain had gotten scrambled and her responses were mixed up.
“Tojin!” Izzy called. “You’re breaking the new girl! Stop comparing sizes!”
He looked back at the table, then he blushed. He scrambled to pull on his shirt again. It could have all been a display for her and the other girls, like Painter had flippantly said. Yet that didn’t feel right. He seemed more excited about talking technique with the other men.
And when he sat back down, he apologized to her with what sounded like true sincerity.
“I didn’t mean to make a spectacle of myself,” he said, lowering his eyes.
“I…” Yumi stammered. “It…um… What kind of beasts do you
fight?”
“Beasts?” he asked. “Fight?”
“Those muscles,” she said. “You train for…war? Battle?”
Izzy laughed so much she was likely to shoot noodles from her nose. Tojin appeared embarrassed. He was…shy? Really? Why would a shy person make such a display of himself, if not for battle?
“It’s not for anything like that,” he said. “I just like to make the best of myself that I can. See how much I can do. Reach my limits, then
pass them.”
“To accomplish what?” Yumi asked.
“That is the accomplishment,” he said, then flexed his arm in a very specific way that made his veins distinct. It was almost grotesque, yet somehow impressive all the same.
“Our bodies are the most incredible tools ever,” Tojin said. “Isn’t it odd that we’ll fine-tune an engine until it purrs, but never do the same for our bodies?”
She barely knew what that meant. But she did notice Akane gazing at Tojin with fondness. And when the woman went to get some sauce for the noodles, she put a light hand on his arm and then let it trail away. Tojin gave her a goofy smile, then looked down, grinning.
He actually was shy about women. Either that or Yumi was completely misunderstanding—admittedly also very plausible. But now she felt she understood the way a woman might look at a man.
Liyun might have tried to keep her away from people, but Yumi still had eyes. Akane’s way of looking at Tojin wasn’t the stare of a hungry woman wanting to feast. There had been more than a few of those around the room earlier.
Did he truly want muscles…just because? Was this what happened to a society that had hion lines to do all the hard work? Was that…a bad thing?
“It’s so odd,” Yumi said. “When my brother was talking about you, Tojin, he…” She paused, realizing that maybe she shouldn’t say it.
Indeed, all of them immediately looked straight at her, intensely
curious.
Talking to people was hard.
“…didn’t explain that part,” Yumi finished. “With the muscles. Why you’re building them.”
“I’m sure he didn’t,” Izzy said, with a smile.
“Where is he, Yumi?” Tojin asked. “If you don’t mind me prying. I normally see your brother every night or two, patrolling near us.
Foreman says he’s on personal leave. But it feels like we should still see him now and then.”
“He, um…” Yumi’s heart started thumping. Could she go grab Painter and have him tell her an untruth? She decided on something that was close to what he’d said. “He has important work. Very important work.”
“More important than his job?” Akane said, returning and handing the sauce to Tojin.
“No, no,” Yumi said quickly. “It is his job.” She leaned in. “He’s
hunting a stable nightmare.”
She expected shock.
Instead Akane rolled her eyes. Tojin paused, then shook his head,
looking down. Izzy outright laughed.
“You don’t believe…” Yumi said softly.
Why did everyone react that way to Painter? Was he really so useless? Strangely, the thought didn’t make her angry as it had before. This time she felt sad for him. Along with…an odd sense of indignance?
Surely they’re being unfair to him, she thought. He might not be the best, but he’s trying to learn stacking. And he picked it up quickly.
Perhaps, though, she could see why he had some hard feelings for this group, if their first reaction to this news wasn’t concern, but dismissiveness.
“Enough, enough,” Izzy said, holding up some paper with words written all over it. Not a book. This was loose-leaf and made at an awkwardly large size. “Have you read this?”
“Please, no horoscopes,” Tojin said, emptying what seemed to be half the bottle of hot sauce into his soup. They all appeared happy to
move on, without looking back, from the topic of Painter and his ways.
“Horoscopes are forbidden at this table,” Izzy said. “They’re a competing product. But this isn’t even a dramascope. They’re
launching the ship soon.”
“They said that last week,” Akane said.
“The shroud was too thick,” Izzy said. “But it’s happening for real this time.”
“I bet,” Masaka said softly, “they are very. Very. Friendly.”
“They?” Yumi asked, glancing around as she slurped up a noodle.
“What are we talking about?”
“The aliens?” Akane said. “Who live on the star?”
Yumi immediately started coughing. She drank half a cup of barley tea out of embarrassment, then spoke. “The what?”
“Don’t they have newspapers where you’re from?” Izzy said.
“We’ve been planning a launch! Of a ship that can travel the space between worlds. It’s been building forever. But it’s finally time for it to leave.”
“Friendly,” Masaka hissed, leaning forward. “Aliens are all friendly.”
“You really haven’t heard, Yumi?” Izzy said. “That’s wild. I need my notebook. This is good information for refining your dramascope…”
“Hush,” Akane said. “Not everyone reads the paper obsessively, Izzy.”
How did Akane remain so dainty when eating? Was Yumi supposed to be that way? It seemed hard to eat noodles without slurping. She’d never actually eaten in front of anyone but her attendants before.
“I’ll bet,” Izzy said, “the aliens are hot.”
Yumi started choking again.
“Wildly hot,” Izzy said, flopping back. “All the men dreamy. All the women sultry.”
“How many dramas involve aliens these days?” Tojin said, with a smile.
“Like half,” Izzy said. “And the aliens? Hot. All of them. Isn’t it
natural they would be though?”
“Um…why?” Tojin asked.
“I’m going to date an alien or two,” Izzy said, lifting her chin. “It’s in my dramascope. I’d never date one who isn’t hot.”
Yumi was glad for the others and their baffled expressions, so that she knew it wasn’t only her thinking Izzy was strange. Even Masaka stared.
“Your logic, Izzy,” Akane said, “is…um…”
“Terrible?” Tojin offered.
“I was looking for something more politic.”
“Allegedly terrible?”
“You’ll see,” Izzy said. “When I have both a handsome alien hunk and a curvy alien knockout fighting over me.”
“Excuse me,” Yumi said. “I need to…um…go. For a little bit. For something.”
She dashed off toward the bar, where Painter was chatting with Design. When she arrived, she found Design stretching something glowing between her fingers. Like a cord made of light. Yumi momentarily forgot what she’d been about, instead staring at that strange sight. A glowing rope, whose ends vanished into nothing.
“Your spiritweb,” Design was saying, “knows what body is yours. It remains Connected to it, you see. You form Connections like that with everyone—and to a lesser extent everything—you’ve known. Nifty, eh!”
“And that cord,” Painter was saying, “is mine?”
“Yup!” Design said. “This won’t cut it. Don’t worry. I’m just lengthening it, and also checking it for problems. I couldn’t think of much else to help—sorry, I’m incorrigibly useless at times. It’s in my Pattern. But at least this will give you a longer leash, so to speak.”
“What is she doing?” Yumi whispered to Painter.
“She’s making it so that we don’t yank each other around,” he explained, “when we get too far apart.”
“Technically you will still do that,” Design said, “but the distance you can go before it happens will be much greater. I can probably get this to several blocks in length without risking any degradation to your Connection.”
That sounded like a good thing, although something about it felt… regretful to Yumi. All these years, she’d been alone. Selfishly, a part
of her had liked that there was someone who couldn’t leave her by herself. She shoved aside such impious emotions.
“Painter,” she whispered. “Do you know about this launch the others are discussing? A ship? Sailing the sky?”
“Oh, right,” he said. “Yeah, it’s more like a bus that rides hion into the sky. They’ve been discussing it for years. Off to…” He sat upright, then smacked his hand into his face. “I’m an idiot. It’s going to your planet, Yumi.”
“So?” Design asked. “Nikaro. You’re not going to sneak on board,
are you?”
“What? No!”
“Oh,” Design said, sounding disappointed.
“It seems like a strange coincidence, doesn’t it?” Yumi said. “That I should come here mere days before your people send explorers to my world. It could mean something.”
“Wait,” Design said. “Are you sure you’re from that other world, Yumi?”
“No,” she admitted. “It’s Painter’s theory.”
“I kept noticing the star,” he explained, “on the day when the swap happened. And, I mean, it makes sense. Her world, Design, has this enormous ball of fire in the sky!”
“Most do, Nikaro,” Design said. “Like, practically every world but
this one.”
“They do?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“Do they all have heat?” he asked. “From the ground?”
“Heat from the ground?” Design said, looking to Yumi, who nodded eagerly. “No, that’s really strange.”
“Could I be from some other place on this world?” Yumi asked.
“We surveyed the planet before coming here,” Design said. “I didn’t pay enough attention, so it’s possible—but I think the entire thing is covered in the shroud.” Design shrugged. “The theory that you’re from that other world—the one that orbits with this one strangely nearby—is solid. You could be from somewhere farther out, I guess, but Connection on this level rarely spans that distance. It was, for example, super hard for me to leave my homeworld, given my Connection to it.”
“Did you…see anything about that world in the sky?” Painter asked.
“Before coming here?”
“Afraid we didn’t stop there,” she replied. “Heat from the ground, you say?”
“Yes, and plants that fly!” Painter added.
“Neat!” Design said. “Well, I might be able to confirm it to be sure.
Your spiritweb’s Connection to your world will be fainter than the one sticking you two together, so I can’t see it without help. Hoid had some device somewhere in our luggage though…” She shrugged.
“Give me some time. I’ll try to dig it out.”
“Regardless,” Yumi said, “that group of people traveling from here to the other planet—probably my planet—might be involved in all of this. That might be why the spirits have done what they’ve done.”
“I thought you were sure our swap had to do with that machine,”
Painter said.
“They could be related,” she said.
Painter, remarkably, nodded slowly.
“You agree?” she asked. “We agree on something?”
“Not the first thing,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He smiled. “I’ll show you. Tomorrow.”
