Nnedi Okorafor - Binti - The Complete Trilogy

Relax, I heard New Fish say. She spoke in my head. Just be. You are safe.

What’s… what’s happening to me? I shouted. Again, my voice was just a rumble. I could feel myself shaking, shuddering. Not myself, not my body. New Fish’s body.

Your body too, now, she said.

The word she’d said before came back to me, “union.”

Your body is partially me, she said. That’s how the deep Miri brought you back. And in turn, I am partially you.

As I relaxed, I realized that for the first time, I could do something I’d always dreamed of when I was little. I was in space with no suit, in no ship, and I wasn’t dying. This was my chance to do that for real. I let myself be New Fish and noticed that I was just floating. There was no up or down. I felt neither cool nor hot, though I felt a warmth from within and that was enough. I looked straight ahead at Saturn.

The Seven are Great, I said.

They are.

How do I—

But then I was doing it. I was flying forward. I flipped and flew what my body perceived as down. I laughed with glee and flew fast and stopped and flew faster and stopped. The feeling of floating in space made me euphoric. It was such freedom. I was doing a barrel roll when I remembered Mwinyi and Okwu were on the ship and in that moment, something odd happened. I could feel myself gradually slow down. Then I was back inside, looking down at Okwu and Mwinyi in the Star Chamber. Mwinyi was hanging on to a pole, a look of horror on his face. Okwu was simply hovering, now on the other side of the room. Then I was back in my body, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room. I looked around, blinking.

“Binti? Can you hear me now?” Mwinyi shouted.

“Huh?” I said, resting a hand on the soft floor.

“You nearly killed us!” Mwinyi said.

“She nearly killed you . Not me,” Okwu said. “And I caught you. You are fine.”

Mwinyi frowned angrily at Okwu.

“Sorry,” I said. When I stretched my legs, I had to use some effort because the bottoms of my legs were adhered to New Fish’s surface with some kind of mucus. This was why I hadn’t been thrashed around like Mwinyi. I pulled some of the gummy substance from the backs of my legs and dress. “Can you become me as I became you?” I asked New Fish.

“ It is not that you became me. I’m a Miri 12, it is how we connect. But no, I would not connect with you in that way. You don’t have the capacity. ”

I was too tired to address New Fish’s quiet condescension.

“ The final thing I must tell you is that if we were on Earth, because you’ve taken so much from me to live, you and I can never be too far from one another. ”

I yawned. “Why? What would happen?”

“ I don’t know. ”

“How far is too far?”

“ I’m not sure, ” she said. “ When my mother sent me, she couldn’t answer every question I had. With all the shooting near the launch port, I was more worried about getting shot down on my way to you. ”

“It’s alright,” I said, standing up. I didn’t have the energy to wonder about this, either. Not at the moment. Plus we were in space and I wasn’t going to move away from New Fish any time soon. And where were we going now, anyway? I needed to rest first.

“We’re going to go throughSaturn’s ring,” I said hours later, after a long nap. “I’m not discussing it. Then we turn around and head to Oomza Uni, as you planned.”

“Okay,” was all Mwinyi replied.

Okwu said nothing, nor did New Fish. I turned back to the large window feeling satisfied with myself. I’d been ready to argue with all of them and it was nice to get what I wanted so easily.

After waking from my nine hours of sleep, I’d connected with New Fish again. This time, I did it on my own. New Fish might have been asleep, for I didn’t sense her presence at all. It was just me out there as a living ship. I felt the air in my breathing chambers, the strength in my body. I even felt Mwinyi standing in the corner, moving his hands about as he talked to several people in the desert on Earth and Okwu in the room below. Okwu was not talking to the other Meduse on Earth, it was observing. When connected to New Fish, I brought all my skills with me. I considered attempting to tree while connected, but decided against it. The results of treeing were affected by size, and who knew what I’d call up.

As I floated out there in space, enjoying the absolute quiet, I gazed at Saturn. We were near enough to see its shape and rings. Saturn was close enough to reach within hours, even if New Fish took her time. This was when I’d decided we should go.

“ My mother says edans are unpredictable, ” New Fish said now. “ She said yours especially could have its own consciousness. ”

But I wanted to see. Had to see. After all I’d been through, I needed to get to the bottom of this mystery. “I don’t care,” I snapped. “We are going even if I have to hijack you and force you to fly there.”

“ You can’t, ” New Fish said.

“I’ll try,” I said.

“ Go ahead, ” New Fish goaded.

“Only if I have to,” I said.

“Ugh, will you both shut up?” Mwinyi snapped, taking his hands from the floor. “No one’s fighting you on this, Binti. No need to be like that.”

Okwu vibrated its dome and blew out so much gas that both Mwinyi and I started coughing.

I got up and went to the breathing room where I’d lain for days. I picked up the Night Masquerade costume. Then I went down to another of New Fish’s breathing rooms. I’d felt this one when I was connected to New Fish. When I went inside, the light in here was very similar to the midday desert sun and when I saw the trees, I knew why. There were ten of them, some were saplings, several were small nearly matured trees, and one of them was fully matured, reaching the ceiling and bending a bit to the side. Undying trees! The saplings looked recently potted inside the flesh of New Fish, and the mature one had roots that extended down into New Fish like nerves. The floor was slightly transparent and I could see the roots going deep. These trees had all been growing while New Fish was in utero.

Not for the first time, I wondered if Third Fish was also psychic. And did that mean New Fish was too? There were other plants here that I recognized from Osemba as well. Plants that were usually peopled with land crabs, lizards, and other creatures because these plants attracted insects and smaller life forms. They attracted life. The floor here was dry, even coated with a layer of sand in some places. I touched the trees’ leaves, which were all rough with what the Himba called “life salt,” a pinkish grainy substance that healers used to cure and treat all sorts of ailments.

I tasted it now and it invigorated my tongue. When I’d first found my edan, my father brought it to his tongue to taste what kind of metal it was. He hadn’t been able to identify it, but he’d said it tasted like life salt. I laid out the Night Masquerade on the floor and looked at it. The smiling side of its many-masked head stared back at me. I shivered with residual disbelief that this was the costume of the Night Masquerade, that it was a costume. I sat down facing its head. Then I brought out the edan pieces and the golden ball.

I brought the ball to my face and looked at its fingerprint-like surface closely. Then I held up my left hand and looked at my fingerprints. Had the print on my left middle and index fingers always matched the ones on the ball? I’d never compared them before I’d lost my left arm, so who knows. But now they matched perfectly and this didn’t surprise me. Nor had the presence of Undying trees.