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Sun tilted her head to the side.
The captains reply was concurrent with a pointed look from Dossa Nirav, Suns mentor.
She paused and reluctantly added, They retain their eggs until they hatch internally.
Then they come planet-side to refill their crops after the birth.
They dont make nests.
Thats what I meant.
No, she said.
Now Sun watches the clouds with a mug of Earl Gray cupped in both hands.
She wonders if he knows that he has whipped cream in his beard.
It was a great compliment that we were invited for the capture, you know.
Most pilots never see this.
I could have just watched the recording after.
In the flat expanse of the clouds, there is a stirring.
When is the flock supposed to arrive?
They estimated half an hour.
She leans into him, points to a stirring in the clouds.
Do you think so?
She feels the pang in her chest, and she bets Dossa does, too.
After working with her bird for years, the wonder has never left.
If anything, it has grown.
The crew of theCyclopsdoesnt see the held-breath silence of the sky preceding the arrival of a flock.
If she said a word, they could call it prescience.
She hooks her arm into the crook of Dossas.
When the flock breaches the clouds, they make even the peaks seem small.
Sun has rarely seen a flock of Gastor siderum this numerous.
Their last meal paints their faces red.
She picks out the eldest pilot-bird from the frenzy.
Gastor age like whales, combs cauliflowered and wattles tickmarked.
Around Sun, the crew cheers.
Their eyes flicker every which way.
Here, only she and Dossa know where to look.
She finds the hatchlings little head nestled beneath the two birds on the mountainside.
Her heart leaps into her throat.
She can only tell it apart from a misplaced rock by its wide, four-eyed stare.
They usually dont find pilot-birds so young.
Above them, droning hydraulics indicate the release of the capture vessels.
This could be yours someday, Dossa muses.
She wants to crack open his skull and figure out how he arrived here at this unearned optimism.
No one knows how long gastor live for.
Sun and Dossas bird has been served by generations of pilots.
When she met it, she felt like a child.
That is, if there are any unmanned birds at all.
More likely, she will be abandoned, groundedWaiting and waiting and waiting.
She imagines meeting this new, egg-wet thing, imagines cradling its head in her hands.
She is filled with a sudden hatred for the pilot destined for this bird.
She didnt think she would feel like this.
If it is a shock to anyone, it is one especially to her.
When Sun returns toMessinas Third Daughter, she visits her bird first.
The door behind her seals shut with a hiss, then the one before her swings open.
Down a shining, aluminum walkway lies a pair of metal hands within a glass dome.
A radiant, cerulean sphere, the piloting chamber, the birds home.
At the midpoint between, she needs to hold onto the railings.
The exception being hatchlings captured days after birthor birds born and raised in captivityhoused without zero gravity accommodations.
And no one has ever bred a pilot-bird.
By unknown means, gastor control the production of pilot birds to exactly one per flock.
One per wild flock.
Captive flocks dont produce any at all.
Does Sun want to see that anyway?
How insulting that would be, she thinks, to do the same to a pilot-bird.
Pushing against the railing, she propels herself toward the chamber and pulls herself inside.
Like Sun, the bird has been on vacation.
The technicians, mercifully, have tinted the glass panels, obscuring the flight of the wild flock.
One of the panels is a slightly different color than the rest due to an old repair.
Accidentally, of course.
It must have been startled.
I dont like being gone for so long, she says to it.
It makes my skin itch.
Suns mother thinks her dog understands humans, too.
The capture was strange.
Dossa doesnt seem to understand why I think so.
In the comfort of space, wings are not for locomotion.
Her head falls to the side.
Did you ever hide any hatchlings under there?
With a click, the monitor to her right turns on.
Sequences of white text play across the screen.
This data is transmitted from the electrodes installed in the birds brain.
But she cant make heads nor tails of this.
Theres an entire screen filled with the same line repeated over and over.
Her finger hovers over the power button.
A shadow falls over her.
Her mask muffles her voice, her words bent in strange ways by the gastorian exhaust.
Leaning back in her recliner, Sun drags a finger down todays neural output.
Flickering on her computer screen, it doesnt scare her as much as it did before.
The electrodes were probably malfunctioning, she tells herself.
She picks at her hair as she reads.
he asks as it boots up.
Was fine, Sun says.
Tapping the down arrow, scanning the rest of the output for familiar codes.
Im not sure what I expected.
He gestures to her computer.
She wheels her chair over quickly.
He doesnt reply, but he does cross his legs.
He turns on the display, and the video chat interface is projected onto the wall.
The cursor still hovers over the nameMare Indranieven though their last call was nearly three weeks ago.
Hati, graciously, navigates away from this without comment.
He pulls up a video instead.
Is this what you wanted to show me?
These are the failures.
From out of view, a metal pointer lifts the hatchlings head up.
Hatis monotone rings through the speakers, Keel sensors poorly developed.
Wing vasculature under
He skips to the next video.
A light is flashed into its eyes, and it stumbles away with an alarm cry.
Two gloved hands pry open its beak.
Beneath the weight of its gravity-laden body, its legs tremble.
Shamans show high ocular resistance to UV radiation even at a young age.
Sublingual gland pores should be open and functional within an hour of birth, Hati says.
Although she isnt intimately familiar with the embryonic development of pilot-birds, Sun doesnt need to be told.
She can see it in these hatchlings already in their ghostly visage, the dullness of their eyes.
Theyre nothing like the child she saw today.
Did you grow all of these?
Unfortunately, Hati says.
Genetically, they are identical to your shaman, but correct maturation cannot be confirmed until late development.
These hatchlings were selected from a batch of fifty treated with a cocktail of pheromones.
Each one bore proto-pilot organs which, inevitably, failed to develop.
What happened to them?
They were no longer needed.
The next video plays.
Lined with red tissue, an eye-shaped organ emerges from the hatchlings keelone on each sideglistening, dark.
Barbels hang from the base of its beak and vibrate softly.
Oh, Sun says.
We are watching this one.
This one, Sun echoes.
Sun read the brief last night.
The nearest station is too far away to be detected with their current navigational capabilities.
She just needs to get them within a days travel or so.
Just needs to keep them on course.
Why do you think Dr. Metir still calls pilot-birds shamans?
she asks Dossa as they wait for the preparations to cease.
Even though hes in the adjunctive deck above the piloting chamber, she can see him shrug.
His voice trickles in through her radio.
He strikes me as the sentimental throw in.
Thats the joke, Officer Mare.
She stops herself from asking if he has seen Hatis hatchling.
Hati often confides in Sun first, particularly when his findings are promising but not confirmed.
Not to mention, theres other people in the observation deck today.
Either way, she hopes he learns of the hatchling soon.
She can only imagine his excitement.
A shrill alarm announces the chambers imminent depressurization.
A full suit and helmet protect Sun from the vacuum as the glass panels yawn open.
The birds skull cap is open now, the metal plate slid away.
Through the glint of green-coated protective glass, she can see the melanistic tissue of its brain.
Miphre sparkles with starlight reflected off its mica-laden peaks.
An iron-metal pull planet-side.
With a wave of her hand, she asks for blinders to her left.
The glass panels shift back with bone-shaking creaks,now tinted black.
She studies the monitor.
As she stares, the strings of code appear to float.
She touches each glowing character with the tips of her fingers because she knows soon they will disappear entirely.
Each calculation is automatic.
Dossa says piloting is like studying a painting.
She wishes she could tell her bird each of their names.
Although it is strapped to the ship, it thinks its flying on its own route.
Olfactory codes crawl across the screen:
Go here come here go here come here.
It must be from the Miphre flock.
Her bird isnt navigating anymore.
It has pulled its head back against its body, beak yawning wide, keel stomata flared.
Black wings on black night.
Would they ever see each other again?
With stomach-churning force, Sun drags herself back into her body.
Neutralizer for the propagation signal, yo!
But they should be out of the flocks pheromone range within the hour.
Already, the hatchlings smell fades away.
Shell resume the flight imminently, and that will be answer enough.
She reads the first line.
The nonsense output has returned.
It starts with the same olfactory code, the one she saw just the other day.
The birds smelling a gas that shes never even seen in space before.
She cant even find the compounds that make up the neutralizing gas in the jumbled mess that follows.
She presses her fingers into the screen.
She highlights the nonsense output, scrolls down and down and down.
Last time, the nonsense ended with the olfactory code.
If she can find that, shell know shes gotten the whole thing.
But its even longer than the first time.
Dossas voice pulls the chamber to a halt.
The stars return in stark focus and Sun hugs the monitor to her chest.
In the fragile stillness, she finds herself vibrating.
I need to go, she says.
In the evening, Sun finds a man in the cafe and brings him to her suite.
He has round, clear eyes, which remind her of a pond, and smooth skin.
Without his clothes, shes struck by how much larger he is compared to her.
It makes her stomach roll, and for a moment, she forgets why she picked this one.
Here, she says, and she straddles his hips.
He lets his hands fall on her waist, but the touch is distant, hollow.
This used to be nice.
And simple, too.
Sometimes she convinces herself that she misses it.
Someone like Indrani probably misses it, and someone like Indrani probably cheats because she actually likes getting off.
He thumbs between her labia.
Do you like that?
Sure, Sun says.
She shoves the gear into the drawer.
She shouldnt think about the nonsense output.
Noise shows up from time to time, and pilots are trained to skim over it.
Researchers havent decoded every throw in of gastorian thought, but they have decoded those relevant to piloting.
Anything she cant read is simply a waste of time.
Thankfully, the man below her is already erect, so she doesnt have to get her hands dirty.
She lowers herself onto him slowly, exhaling.
At the very least, the sensation is comforting in its familiarity.
Sun
like dont talk, she says, finally.
She closes her eyes as she rocks back and forth.
Didnt it seem deliberate?
The same olfactory code, twice.
Thats how the birds talk to one another.
Their pheromone language is one of the most complex in the animal kingdom.
If a bird were to talk to anyone, wouldnt it try scents first?
The man kisses the space between her neck and her ear, and she thinks,Fine.
She thinks,Maybe hes on tosomething, so she sandwiches his face between her palms and kisses him.
Their teeth clink together.
He lets histhick fingers worm into her hair.
What if she were kissing Indrani?
Sun replaces the mans clumsy tongue with Indranis carefully manicured fingers picking their way over her teeth.
Sun squeezes her eyes shut and decides that his tannic sweat is a new designer perfume.
Last time she saw Indrani on a video call, it wasnt really Indrani.
Sure the face looked the same, but that doesnt matter.
Sun cant shake the uncanny feeling of looking into the holes and feeling nothing at all.
Would it help if she hurt him?
Shes embarrassed for him and embarrassed for herself for pretending at all.
Would another student imagine she were with Dossa?
The handsome teacher: older, wiser, gentler.
Last she saw him, she had just rushed back to the atrium, helmet in hand.
The doors swung open and Dossa stalked past silently, face obscured by the tint of his visor.
Hes going to talk to her about the incident tomorrow, but the wait makes it worse.
Youre too deep into your training now to make mistakes like this, hell say.
When youre an established pilot, therell be no one to save you.
Youre lucky you still have someone to clean up your messes.
When Sun had been assigned to Dossa, he was surprised to learn that she was married.
Their protests only made her cling to Indrani harder.
He nodded, looked to the window, and swished his drink between his cheeks.
Yeah, he said, because he knew.
There is a specific kind of person suited for gastorian piloting and a specific kind of love.
Suns love for Indrani was her prototype.
She hears a sound that reminds her of a wounded animal.
The hair along her spine stands straight up.
For the first time, she really sees the man beneath her.
His odor becomes sulfurous.
Her fingers slide into the damp meat of his abdomen.
As his mouth opens, she sees the yellow plaque that coats the surface of his lolling tongue.
With a gasp, she stumbles out of the bed, bare feet slapping against the floor.
The nighttime silence bears down on her shoulders.
He braces himself up on his elbows.
All she can see are his eyes: glassy, dog-like in their blackness.
You should go, Sun whispers.
I want you toleave.
Shes on her feet in an instant, her nails biting into her fists.
Dont fucking call me that.
The door slams shut behind him.
A draft plays across Suns bare skin.
Somehow, she feels more exposed now.
Still shaking, she goes to her desk and switches on her computer monitor.
The neural output is still there.
Its always there; she couldnt bring herself to even terminate the program.
Im afraid of you, she admits.
She picks up a stylus and bites the end of it.
Its been so long since shes really had to translate gastorian neural outputs.
With her other hand, she types her notes on her tablet.
She puts the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle.
She narrows the olfactory codes to a few potential configurations, which she searches up in their piloting database.
She pauses, squints.
Sun leans on the wall outside of Dossas office, half of her face buried in a scarf.
She thinks it must be from Dossa, but instead its a video from Hati.
His hatchling floats in a depressurized glass chamber.
Shes not surprised Hati has a lab in the zero-gravity unit.
Beak wide open, the teeth-like papillae lining its tongue catch the light.
Hazy gas escapes in wisps from its sublingual pores.
Hati says from off-screen.
Sun has never heard him speak like that.
What if this hatchling is already grown up by the time her bird dies?
Itll be like it never left.
The video spins around to Hati.
Sun lets herself smile back.
You should visit us, he says.
Down the hall, heavy footsteps echo.
He stops by her side, shoulder-to-shoulder against the wall.
Do you know how late it is, Sun?
Im sorry, Dossa.
She sucks on her lip.
Do you think she starts.
Do you think our bird likes it here?
It takes a second for Dossa to respond.
We meet every standard of gastorian care.
No, notnot that bullshit.
I mean, do you think it likes piloting?
Is it happy in there?
Does it remember being taken?
Something unreadable crosses his face.
Sun tries to rub the chill out of her arms.
Its best not to ask questions like that, he says, stooping down to eye level.
Nothing good comes of this.
With a sigh, she nods, and says, you gotta look at this.
She opens the neural outputs, hands the tablet to Dossa.
The pressure from her fingers makes the screen flicker.
Its from todays flight.
She doesnt know how long she can bear to hear him talk like that.
He has to believe hershe feels it in her bones.
She and Dossa are the same; Indrani and his nameless lover, the same.
He has to understand.
Just look at it, she says.
He peers over his glasses as he reads.
A first-year student could look at this and tell you its just noise, Dossa says.
Is this why you excused yourself?
We received this olfactory code right after you released the neutralizing gas.
The bird shouldnt have been able to smell anything.
So it was remembering a smell.
This has happened before!
Desperation drags tears to her eyes, which she furiously blinks away.
Stealing the tablet back,she scrolls to the end of the output.
The same scent, from two days ago.
We werent even flying.
She watches Dossas eyes roll across the screen.
The cold light makes him shockingly pale, ghostly.
Did anything strange happen after you took over?
she asks, haltingly.
He scrolls, reading more deliberately now.
She wraps her arms around herself.
When she speaks next, its in a whisper.
What if its only giving these messages to me?
He switches off the screen with a sense of finality that makes Sun feel as if shes been slapped.
Sun, do you hear yourself?
You dont think this is strange?
The pause he takes stretches for too long.
Sun can hear her heart pounding in her ears.
You arent acting like yourself, he says.
A realization washes over her like shower water cold enough to make her chest ache.
He thinks shes crazy.
She sinks back against the wall, meeting the gaze of the wall opposite of her, unblinking.
Were resuming normal flights once we leave the station, Dossa says.
I need you prepared.
For what its worth, he says, we took you up here, too.
You left your family behind.
But youre meant to be here, Sun.
Sure, she says.
He exhales, puts a hand on her shoulder, and squeezes.
Sun ties herself to theDaughters hand and sits cross-legged above the aluminum palm, the monitor in her lap.
My sister loved roses, Sun says.
Sometimes she made scents herself by picking roses from her garden and steeping the petals in oil.
Thats why I cant find anything that smells quite like her.
Her bird floats far out of reach, but it stirs at the sound of her voice.
Behind pink clouds of its own making, its undulating silhouette draws nearer.
But my wife smells like saffron, Sun says, although it feels like a lie.
How could she know?
Its been years since shes smelled Indranis skin.
She spends too much money on perfume.
The monitor clicks on and already, lines of code fill the screen.
She lets her hand drift across the surface, scrolling past.
Sun asks, holding out a hand.
Her bird doesnt move.
She presses her hand flat against its beak, which is shockingly cold to the touch.
She stays there for a moment, feeling her pulse swell up against her bird.
It is a rare pleasure to touch it.
The monitor chimes again, and Sun returns to it reluctantly.
Under the gaze of her bird, she takes notes on the scents at the end of the output.
First, the rose perfume again.
And thirdly
She recognizes the last code immediately.
The sight of these characters fills Sun with a reactionary unease.
Shes never considered herself either of those things: a superior, a motherto her bird?
Theres something unnatural about the thought, perverse, shameful enough to make her ears grow hot.
The bird could have a century on her.
It may die before her; it may outlive her.
She has no way of knowing.
OhOh no, this isnt me, she stutters.
Can it even understand her?
It has to know.
The bird turns away, dorsal stomata flared open as it snakes up towards the top of the chamber.
The same pheromone appears on the monitor, again and again.
If not her, she thinks, then who else?
They write a variety of fantasy, scifi, and horror fiction unified by their fascination with gore.
Their other pieces appear in Strange Horizons, Baffling Magazine, and Fantasy Magazine.
you’re able to find more of their work on their website:lowrypoletti.wordpress.com.
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