Kanagen

  She'd burned the beef.

  Burned was maybe a strong word, but the little strips she'd cut from the filet were definitely a bit darker than they were supposed to be, if the recipe Haven was working from was any indication. She'd spent hours digging through the Affini's cultural database, trying to find the perfect recipe to make for Tara, finally nding on one that seemed to lie at the confluence of "fancy enough to be special" and "simple enough that she could actually cook it."

  This had to be perfect. She'd already burned the beef a little, but it was going in a thick sauce of mushroom gravy and sour cream — maybe it wouldn't be that obvious. She scooped the brown and bckened strips of meat out of the pan and into a waiting bowl, and added the chopped mushrooms. In a pot next to the saucepan, noodles boiled away, slowly softening.

  Haven had had beef stroganoff a few times — that was another reason she'd chosen to make it. Armed with knowledge of what a proper beef stroganoff was meant to taste like, smell like, feel like in one's mouth, she could no doubt produce a passable attempt at the dish. The fact that it was Russian in origin had sealed the deal. Haven would give Tara a taste of home, and that would make the evening all the more special.

  They deserved it for having to put up with Haven. She may have fooled Tara into thinking she was worth spending time on, but that didn't mean she couldn't try to make it up to them.

  Oh shit. She hastily reached out and added the small dish of minced onions, followed by a glug or two of cognac — she'd forgotten to degze the pan after the beef, or to sweat the onions before adding the mushrooms. Hopefully she hadn't waited too long.

  "Are you quite sure I can't help you with this?" Anix said, hovering behind her. Haven was standing on a broad stepstool, almost like an elevated bench, to be able to access the work surface and stove. It was a little awkward, but Haven was pretty sure most of that was just her being useless.

  I probably need it. But she buried that part of herself. This was for Tara. "I really want to try to do it myself," she said, gncing back over her shoulder. "It's for Tara, and-" And they deserve better than me. And I need to make it up to them. And maybe if I can do this for them I'm not such a worthless sack of shit. "-and I think it would be really special if I did it on my own. I never, uhm... I never did anything for them, and I want to fix that."

  "I don't see how my aid would negate that in any way." Anix's vines coiled gently around Haven's waist.

  "Maybe it wouldn't," Haven said. "But all the same...I think it would make it really special if I did it all myself." I'm going to fuck it up. I'm going to fuck it up. I'm going to fuck it up. "But thank you for the offer, I really do appreciate it," she added. If nothing else, she'd learned that the Affini liked it when you were polite, and Trish's warning to always be on her guard was lodged firmly in the back of her mind.

  "If you're quite certain," Anix said, giving her a little squeeze. "I'll just be in my office if you change your mind, alright?" Haven nodded, and, after a brief caress and headpat from the vines, she was alone in the kitchen once more, watching the mushrooms and onions cook down. After a little while, when the mushrooms and onions looked like they'd browned, she added the beef stock, and- Wait, crud, was I not supposed to put the cognac in before? Well, it had all cooked away. A little more probably wouldn't hurt. This time, at least, she wasn't in a rush, and could measure out the appropriate amount before adding it. Then, she stirred the beef back in, along with a healthy helping of sour cream, and brought it all up to bubbling to reduce.

  This needed to be perfect. Tara had given her so much. Not just since the Affini had pulled them out of cryostasis and saved their lives, but even before that. Tara was the best thing that had ever happened to Haven, and they weren't even something the Affini were responsible for. It was pin old human connection, something she'd given up hope of. Being a Hudds-Friday was about the most isoting thing imaginable — the only people you ever associated with were other people like you, other soulless things ruining everything around them, dancing the meaningless dance of shareholder meetings, board meetings, luncheons, regattas, soirees, salons, summering in McMurdo, having dick-measuring contests over who had more, always contests, always more, less was not an option and he who died with the most won.

  Won what?

  Haven had everything she could ever dream of now. She had successfully convinced Tara to stick with her even without payment to make up for the misery it would cause, and she was even sucking others from the office game into her orbit now. People who thought that they should be friends with an empty hole in the world like Haven. There was no money — no real money — to dickmeasure over. No property. No holdings. No portfolios. The funny-money economy of Finance & Friendship was only there to keep the imaginary engine running while the pyers had the real fun with one another, the fun of Petra and Ollie pning a surprise party for Sue that Sue in-character hated but out-of-character loved the spotlight it gave her, the fun of doing something and doing it well, the fun of taking the awful life of endless misery and grinding away that the Hudds-Fridays of the world had made and turning it into something that gave joy.

  It was a perfect fuck-you to her asshole of a father. But even if it wasn't, it would be good and wonderful and pure, and that meant Haven had no business being a part of it, and that meant she needed to make it up to Tara for intruding on it and eventually no doubt ruining it for them. She didn't deserve to be a part of something that good.

  The stroganoff was bubbling away, looking vaguely stroganoff-like. Vaguely. Haven took a spoon and scooped out a small portion to taste — the beef and probably even the mushrooms were likely beyond what her stomach could handle at the moment, but she could chew and taste it all if nothing else.

  The minute the mixture hit her tongue she knew she'd fucked up. It wasn't smooth and creamy, but lumpy, curdled, oily. The sauce came with a strong metalic tang of alcohol that hadn't been cooked off, and when she began to chew, it only got worse. The beef was fvorless, rubbery, and tasted burnt; the mushrooms were like chewy little sponges. It was all bnd, horribly bnd.

  She'd completely fucking ruined it.

  She set the spoon down on the counter, leaned over, and spat the disgusting mouthful back into the saucepan. Then, both hands on the handle, she lifted. The sarcotesta wasn't make for quick movements like throwing, smming, or anything like that, so what came next was more of a reckless pouring-out onto the floor interrupted by Haven dropping the saucepan itself. The mess it made as it all spttered across the floor of Anix's kitchen was horrendous, but not as horrendous as Haven felt, and not nearly so horrendous as the sound the sarcotesta was making. It was supposed to be a wordless scream of frustration, rage, and pain. What came out was a sound that no human rynx could ever have produced.

  "Haven?!" The vines were around her almost as soon as the sound of Anix's voice echoed from her office, lifting her from the stool and cuddling her close. "What happened? Did you drop the pan?"

  "No," Haven said, the strangled screeching cutting immediately away to her voice, "I fucking threw the pan, because I fucking fucked up the stroganoff, because I'm a fucking waste of skin garbage piece of shit fucking asshole!" She was too mad at herself to hold it in any longer. This had only ever happened a handful of times and never around others. Before, she could find a private pce to rage and scream and maybe break something or punch a wall hard enough to hurt herself, or wash her hands under water so hot it burned, or one of a dozen ways she'd found to punish herself for having the gall to keep existing when she knew that she and everyone else would be better off if she would just fucking kill herself.

  "Haven, darling, I'm going to give you a dose of tricosapeltaric acid, you are clearly having an anxiety attack." Already, a vine was plugging itself into the injection port at her colrbone, the little flower at its tip pumping its payload into her blood. Colors started to run and the world began to swim, and the rage abated.

  "I don't know why you bother," she said, the rancor slipping from her voice. "I'm not worth the effort. Why d-d-did you even bother revi-vi-viving me? It's n-not like the world's a better pce with me in it." The frustration and the sorrow began to ebb as well. "You re-really should have just left me in the freezer-zer-zer-zer," she said, as calmly as if she were commenting on the weather, running through a small-talk script at one of her father's stupid parties.

  Anix's vines tightened around her, a warm cocoon that locked her in pce and held her against the affini's chest. Her arms added themselves to the embrace, while the vines of her lower body began to disarticute itself and clean up the mess Haven had made on the floor. "Not a word of that is true, and you know it," she said. "Who put that nonsense in your head?"

  "It's n-not non-non-nonsense," Haven stammered. And it wasn't. The ache and the anger that had opened the floodgates might be gone, but the words were still pouring out of her, direct from brain to mouth without a filter. Her brain had never been designed to brake that suddenly. Maybe the momentum was still there, even if the feelings weren't. "I'm scum, I'm th-the worst, and I don't know why it isn't ob-ob-obvious to every-ry-ryone."

  "My surmise is that it's because it's not true," Anix repeated. One hand cradled her head and began to stroke it gently. "You are a delightful little sophont, and if you're a bit skittish in nature it's perfectly understandable given what you've been through. Where are these thoughts coming from?"

  "The same p-pce they al-always do." She probably shouldn't have spilled her guts the way she did. The acid that was making the walls gently twist was keeping her from feeling the usual white-hot shame, it seemed, but Haven still knew she would be feeling it after an outburst like that. Stars, I'm such a maniputive piece of shit, she thought, venting like that for sympathy.

  "Always?" Anix's eyes narrowed. "Do you mean to tell me those sorts of thoughts are a common experience for you?"

  Fuck. She knows I'm broken. Good job, asshole. "Just get it over with," she said. Finally, it was going to happen. Why had she ever waited so long if it was so easy?

  "Get what over with?"

  "Wipe my fuc-fuc-fucking brain like you're going to. Trish told me how it wo-wo-works."

  Anix was silent for a moment. Then, a single vine applied gentle pressure to Haven's chin until she was looking up into Anix's face. "Haven, flower, are you referring to domestication?"

  "Tri-Trish told me how it works," she repeated. "You wi-wipe someone's brain and put a new mind in-inside."

  "That is not only incorrect but deeply offensive," Anix said quietly. "The haustoric impnt is a support system. It adjusts or eliminates unwanted thoughts, prevents any tent feral behavior from expressing itself, and generally ensures that the floret's experience of life is the best possible. It certainly doesn't erase the sophont it's given to. You say it's this 'Trish' who put this idea in your head? If memory serves...this was the little terran you met in the veterinary hospital when you went wandering, yes?"

  Haven nodded.

  "Very well. I will clearly have to file a wellness check on her. The idea that any terran could be wandering around spouting such feral nonsense at this point in their cultural domestication..." She gave a sigh and shook her head. "But that's another matter entirely. Right now, you are my priority. These self-hating thoughts, the suicidal ideation — how long have you been experiencing this, Haven?"

  She cringed inside. This was exactly what she'd wanted to avoid. "Does it matter?"

  "It matters very much. How long have you been experiencing these intrusive thoughts, Haven? Tell me." Something in her manner changed as she said those st two words, as if a curtain had been pulled back to reveal that the Anix Haven had been speaking to was part of something rger, incomprehensibly rger and more powerful that she could have dared to imagine. It was enthralling and terrifying all at once, and she felt utterly powerless before it.

  And so she answered: "I don't know. My whole life, I think. I don't remember not." The walls weren't bending anymore, and colors were staying where they were supposed to. Perhaps Anix had scared the drugs out of her.

  Every leaf on Anix's body seemed to sag for a heartbeat. "Your whole life?"

  "I think so. It's just...I'm awful. I don't know why anyone else doesn't-"

  "No one else noticed, my dear, because it's not true." She squeezed Haven gently, carrying her out of the now-perfectly-clean kitchen, setting the saucepan back on the cooktop as she left. "These thoughts you are experiencing, have been experiencing, are not reflective of reality."

  "My father noticed," she murmured.

  "And as we have established, your father was not a particurly wise or caring individual. You know this. You have said as much." She held Haven out, not quite at arm's length, and lifted her just a bit to stare right into where her eyes would be. "So why do you believe him and not everyone who loves you?"

  Shit. "Uhm. Broken clock?"

  "...what?"

  "A broken clock is still right twice a day," Haven said. "Because the hands don't move?"

  "Ah, I see. So you think that the one time your father, a man who attempted to flee the Compact by squandering an almost unimaginable amount of resources by Terran standards and sacrificing dozens of lives in the process including his own, one of innumerable other follies and malign behaviors, was nevertheless seeing things clearly was when he was evaluating you?"

  "Yeah. Basically."

  "I offer a counterproposal. You, my dear, were mistreated not only by your father, who was demanding and cruel and tried to force you to be someone you were not, but by your entire society, which was demanding and cruel and tried to force you to be someone you were not. This was compounded, perhaps, by underlying tendencies toward depressive moods and obsessive behaviors, and certainly by the complex and ever-building trauma of having a body that did not align to your internal compass of who you were and what you were meant to look like, behave like, be like."

  Oh. That did sound pretty familiar.

  Anix carried Haven over to the couch, sat down upon it, and began to gently rock Haven in her p. "You tried to find a reason why you felt so miserable, but you were given incomplete information and inadequate care, and unable to properly pce the bme for your misery, unable to correct your circumstances, unable even to punish as Terran culture would do to misbehavior, your mind turned it inward. Over time, this became conditioning. Over time, this became reflexive. Now, the thoughts just seem to come from nowhere, even when it doesn't make any sense. You have these thoughts, I would wager, at times when even you can see they are nonsensical. You pour a cup of tea, spill a single drop, and think I am the worst creature to ever live, and I must be punished for it. Is that not so?"

  Haven was silent for a long moment, but Anix waited patiently. She felt the pressure to say something, anything, begin to mount, until it became intolerable. "Trish said you weren't really psychic," she mumbled.

  "We are not," Anix said. "But I am very observant and I have spent more than sixty years studying terrans, including your minds and the myriad ways they can twist themselves into knots. I may not be a xenopsychologist, but even a veterinarian must train themselves to spot the underlying condition so a specialist can treat it, you know. I am, in fact, very frustrated with myself for not having seen this for what it was long ago, and I must apologize for not only my negligence, but the negligence of every affini who has been treating you. We all should have seen it."

  The drugs must really have been completely out of her system, because all the shame was rushing back in like an uncontrolble tidal surge. "I don't deserve this."

  "Yes, you do, petal," Anix said, tapping Haven gently on her lips. "You know, I think it's at least partially because of the sarcotesta itself. We train ourselves so intensively to pick up microexpressions, subtle things about your body nguage, your natural biorhythms, as a way to discern how you're truly feeling, but with you inside this we don't have that information. We expect it, though, so we read its absence not as a problem state but as a baseline. Consequently, we didn't notice — I didn't notice — until you boiled over just now. I will have to write an article about this and submit it to the ongoing sarcotesta research project. But the important thing is, now we know about the problem, and you will receive the care you need. The care you deserve."

  Horror began to crawl up her spine like ice. "Are you gonna domesticate me?"

  "If it's necessary for you to thrive, yes." She began to stroke Haven's hair again. "You would be given a haustoric impnt — which, as I expined earlier, will not harm you or somehow existentially delete you in any way, but will simply help shape your experience of the world, right down to what thoughts you are and are not allowed to have. I have no doubt that you in particur would find it a relief, but let me be quite straightforward with you: no sophont has ever regretted becoming a floret."

  "...ever?"

  "Ever. It is not an outcome we permit. But even if you are not domesticated, Haven, I want you to know we have means to treat your intrusive thoughts. I've already contacted Thyrsiflora and Xanthisma to discuss how best to move forward. The real question is how aggressive we can be in the short term, given your present reliance on the neuromycelial bridge to connect you to the sarcotesta's mobility systems."

  Haven sat with that for a moment. The idea of not having to hate herself — which, she reminded herself, she deserved to, because she was scum — yes, just like that — was so fundamentally alien to her that she could barely hold onto the idea. What would it even be like?

  "We have a css of xenodrugs capable of altering cognition, and its most frequent use among terrans is, in fact, suppressing intrusive thoughts like yours. It was a very common issue early on in your species domestication, you know — the conflict between the self and the culture, knowing the culture was wrong but being unable to express it. It's all quite unhealthy for the mind. But thankfully, we can control it. You will not feel like this for much longer.

  Haven wanted to shiver. "You can really just turn it off?" She shouldn't let them — she deserved to feel this way — but she didn't see any way she could stop them.

  "We can, and we will," Anix said, giving Haven the biggest, tightest squeeze yet. "We would never allow such a sweet little creature as you to suffer like this, and I'm so sorry we've allowed it to go on as long as we have."

  It was going to stop. It was actually going to stop. Unless Anix didn't realize just how terrible she was, and how broken she was, so awful that even with all the drugs in the world in her brain, she'd still feel this way because she really was just that awful. "It's not your fault," Haven whispered, mostly to herself. It's mine.