Three Cups of Grief by Starlight

Three Cups of Grief by Starlight

By Aliette de Bodard (excerpt)

Professor? – Ya Lan asked; hesitant.

Hoa did not move. Yes?

It’s the third paddy of that strain that fails in as many months…

She heard the question Ya Lan was not asking. The other strain – the one in paddies One to Three – had also failed some tests, but not at the same frequency.

Within her, professor Duy Uyen stirred. It was the temperature, she pointed out, gently but firmly. The honeydreamer supported a very narrow range of temperatures; and the modified rice probably did, too.

Hoa bit back a savage answer. The changes might be flawed, but they were best candidate they had.

Professor Duy Uyen shook her head. The strain in paddies One to Three was better: a graft from a lifeform of an unnumbered and unsettled planet, P Huong Van – luminescents, and insect flying in air too different to be breathable by human beings. They had been Professor Duy Uyen’s favored option.

Three cups of grief by Starlight. Photo by Elena

Hoa didn’t like the luminescents. The air of P Huong Van had a different balance of khi-elements: it was rich in fire, and anything would set it ablaze – flamestorms were horrifically common, charring trees to cinders, and birds in flight to blackened skeletons. Aboard a space station, fire was too much of a danger. Professor Duy Uyen had argued that the Mind that would ultimately control the space station could be designed to accept an unbalance of khi-elements; could add water to the atmosphere to reduce the chances of a firestorm onboard.

Hoa had no faith in this. Modifying a Mind had a high cost, far above that of regulating temperature in a rice paddy. She pulled up the data from the paddies; though of course she knew Professor Duy Uye would have reviewed it before her.

Professor Duy Uyen was polite enough no to chide Hoa; though Hoa could feel her disapproval like the weight of a blade – it was odd, in so many ways, how the refinement process had changed Professor Duy Uyen; how, with all the stabilization adjustments; all the paring down of the unnecessary emotions, the simulation in her mind was utterly, heartbreakingly different from the woman she had known: all the compassion that would have made her more bearable. Though perhaps it was as well that she had none of the weakness Duy Uyen had shown, in the end – the skin that barely hid the sharpness of bones; the eyes like bruises in the pale oval of her face; the voice, faltering on words or instructions…