I smelled their blood now. Heard the ripping. No screams, because that required un-torn lungs. Gasps. Spilling. I’d come here. My choice.
I held my otjize-covered hands to my nose and tried to inhale the sweet scent, flowers, clay, tree oils. But I couldn’t breathe. I pressed my hands to my chest, as if I could cup my own beating un-torn heart, as if I could calm it. For a moment, everything went black. Then my sight cleared. I whimpered.
“Shallow breaths, increased heart rate, you’re having a panic attack,” a stiff female voice said in Khoush.
“I am,” I whispered. I didn’t like for my astrolabe to speak, but Professor Okpala had had me set it to speak whenever I had a panic attack. I’d protested back then, but now I understood why.
“I suggest you drop into mathematical meditation.” The voice was coming from my pocket, in which my astrolabe was warming and vibrating gently.
“If I . . . do, I learn . . . nothing,” I gasped.
“There is time to learn, Binti,” the voice said. “This won’t be your last panic attack. But there’s no one in this hallway but me and all I can do is notify the ship’s medics. Help yourself, drop into meditation right now.”
Everything went black, again. And when things came back, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop seeing Meduse stingers tearing through bodies with surprised faces. Heru, Remi, Olu . . . I could not force myself to inhale and get air into my lungs. My chest was burning when I finally gave in. I “slipped into the trees” and dropped into meditation.
Ahhhhh . . .
The numbers flew, split, doubled, spun like the voice of the Seven.
And soon they were everywhere and everything.
I grabbed at Euler’s identity, e^{i × π} + 1 = 0, and I went from plummeting to gently floating down a warm rabbit hole with soft furry walls and landing on a bed of pillows and flowers. When I looked up from this fragrant quiet place, the narrowed telescopic view made things above clearer. I was on the Third Fish, a peaceful giant who was like a shrimp and could breathe in outer space because of internal rooms full of oxygen-producing plants that served as lungs. The violent death of many had happened on this ship, of my teacher, my friends, but not for me. No, not for me. I’d lived. And I’d become family with the murderous Meduse.
“Mmmmm,” I said, from deep within my chest. My heart beat slowly. I reached into my pocket and brought out my edan. Quietly, I whispered my favorite equation and the blue current etched into the edan’s fractals of fine grooves and lines. I still did not know what it was, but after studying with Professor Okpala and studying the edan itself, I knew how to make it speak and later sing. I went to my room’s door and let the door scan my eyes. It opened and I stepped into the room where I had learned to survive.
*
My first sleeping cycle (for there isn’t even any night and day in space, let alone ones that are on Earth time) was full of violent nightmares so sharp that I could barely tolerate being around Okwu the next day. I’d never told it about my panic attacks or nightmares and I didn’t tell it now.
Such things did not move Okwu and all it would say was that these would not kill me and I should strengthen myself and push past it all. Meduse don’t understand the human condition; my emotional pain would only irritate Okwu when it couldn’t make my pain instantly better. So, instead, I kept my distance from it that first day, saying I needed time to think. The ship had a separate gas-filled dining hall for Okwu and it found the food there so delicious that it spent most of that first day there. Being on the ship had no effect on Okwu; it felt right at home and easily reveled in the luxuries the ship and the university provided.
I didn’t analyze this too closely. If I went down that desert hare’s burrow, I’d find myself in a dark dark place where I asked questions like, “Who did Okwu kill during the moojh-ha ki-bira?” I understood that when Okwu had participated in the killing, it had been bound by the strong Meduse thread of duty, culture, and tradition . . . until my otjize showed it something outside of itself.
During those first months at Oomza Uni, Okwu had answered my calls and walked for miles and miles with me through Math City during the deepest part of night when I suffered from homesickness so powerful that all I could do was walk and let my body think I was walking home. It had talked me into contacting all my siblings, even when I was too angry and neglected to initiate contact. Okwu had even allowed my parents to curse and shout at it through my astrolabe until they’d let go of all their anger and fear and calmed down enough to finally ask it, “How is our daughter?” Okwu had been my enemy and now was my friend, part of my family. Still, I requested that my meals be delivered to my room.
By the second day, the flashbacks retreated and I was able to spend time with Okwu talking in the space between our dining halls.
“It’s good to be off planet again,” Okwu said.
I gazed out the large window into the blackness. “This is only my second time,” I said.
“I know,” Okwu said. “That’s why being on Oomza Uni was so natural for you. I enjoy the university with its professors and students, but for me, it’s left me feeling . . . heavy.”
I turned to it, smiling. “But you’re so . . . light already. You barely weigh . . .”
“It’s not about mass and gravity,” it said, twitching its okuoko in amusement. “It’s the way you feel about needing to be near the desert. You don’t live in it, but you played in it a lot and you like living near its vastness. It is always there. It is the same with me and space.”
I nodded, thinking of the desert near my home. “I understand. Is that why you wanted to come with me so badly?”
It puffed out a plume of gas. “I can travel home at any time,” it said. “But the timing seemed right. The chief likes the idea of irritating the Khoush with my visit.” It shook its tentacles and vibrated its domes, laughter.
“You’re coming to make trouble?” I asked, frowning.
“Meduse like war, especially when one isn’t allowed to make war.” A ripple of glee ran up the front of its dome.
I grunted turning away from it and said in Otjihimba, “There isn’t going to be any war.”
Three Earth days. When it came time to eat, though I tried, things didn’t get any better. I took one step into the dining hall where the Meduse had performed moojh-ha ki-bira, looked around, turned and went right back to my room, and again requested my meals to be sent there.