A boy walks into the cryochamber. Well, a boy floats into the cryochamber; he's sitting cross-legged and cross-armed midair, an open book floating next to him but not currently being read. He looks identical to the boy already in the chamber except his hair is platinum blond and he's not wearing the thick winter coat the other boy is.

Which is a mistake. The cryochamber is kept very cold and he starts shuddering as soon as he's inside. "You know they can't hear you, Zash."

"—Nai!" he says in delight, whirling around and bounding towards his twin to tackle hug him.

Nai weathers this indignity with only a mild floating wiggle but now he has Zash bodily attached to him. "And there are thousands of them." [you can't possibly be greeting all of them every morning]

[not all of them but I greet a few of them per morning and then a few others the next morning and so on! I'll get through all of them in another year!]

[you are a ridiculous person, Zash] He's filled with fondness for his twin, though. His ridiculous twin.

"Why are you here?" Nai looks cold.

[of course I'm cold, it's freezing in here.]

[Rem wanted to see us]

[both of us? why?]

[don't know but she told me to come get you for a surprise]

[ooh, a surprise!]

[does it even count if we know there's a surprise?]

[we don't know what it is so it does!]

[whatever. let's get out of here before I freeze to death]

"Happy birthday!" says Rem with a huge grin as they walk into the room she told Nai they should come to. There's a camera on a tripod pointing at an enormous birthday cake and some snacks on the table in the center plus two ridiculously pink paper cones with elastic bands attached to them. "Put them on, put them on!"

"What's this?" both twins say at the same time, one with delight...

...and the other with deep suspicion.

Rem nudges them to the other side of the table and puts the birthday hats on them then turns the camera on. "Today is the twins' first birthday! It's already been a year, huh? It really went by in a flash!"

"...you made food."

"It's for a special occasion!"

"Mm." He doesn't like to eat.

"I'll eat your portion if you don't want it."

"I'm not gonna force you to eat it. I am gonna force you to be recorded for posterity."

"Such a pain..."

"It's our birthday!" Zash telekinesises himself a piece of the cake to put it on a plate and get to eating. Then a penny drops. "Do we get one of these every year?" he asks with his mouth full.

"Of course! Every year!"

Nai sighs (and also cuts himself a piece of cake, vexed), then looks at the camera and squints. "Hey, Rem, the recording light is off."

Zash blinks and looks at the camera, too. "Oh, it is."

"Wait, it is???" She turns the camera to look at the light.

(It's not.)

"...wait a minute!"

Both of the twins start giggling at her.

"Oh, you two."

He runs.

He runs and runs and runs and runs until he can't run anymore. He runs until he can't see the fire and the broken cryonics pods with the dead humans in them and he runs until his feet are bleeding and he runs until he feels like his legs are going to give out and the last thought he has as he passes out on the sand is that he hopes this time he'll manage to die.

("...hey, is that a kid over there? Holy fuck he's alive! Come over here, we need to help him!")

"Why do you always walk?"

"...mm?"

[we can float. we don't need to walk like humans. it's so wasteful.]

Nai himself is floating, lying horizontally in the air reading a book about the Hundred Years' War.

[the humans don't like it. it scares them a little bit.]

"Scares" is the wrong word, but Nai will know what he means. Humans don't like things that are different, and even though right now they're used to the twins it's still a bit unsettling.

[so?]

[it's not nice to scare people, Nai]

But they're plants. That's what they are. Why are the humans scared of them? And besides, Nai doesn't really like having to pretend he isn't what he is just because people are irrationally scared of it.

Zash... understands that, but people aren't always able to control what they feel. Nai is familiar with that, right? And since it doesn't bother Zash to walk, he walks.

He doesn't think Nai should walk if Nai doesn't want to. It's just that Zash doesn't mind.

...okay. He guesses.

Anyway, what's this book Nai is reading about?

A war.

(He loves it when his brother asks. He knows Zash isn't as interested, but he's interested in Nai's interest and he likes hearing Nai talk about it because it makes Nai happy and that, also, makes Nai happy.)

Grim topic but you can't argue with taste. Can Nai tell Zash about it?

He can.

Why won't Zash understand? It's not just one person. There was the whole team, William Conrad and lots of other people, and he saw what they did to Tesla. What they do to each other! Zash was there! Even back then, on Earth. The wars, they killed each other so much, hurt each other. All those books Nai read. Humans never change. They'll never change! That's what humans are! He'd hoped they were better, hoped it was all in the past, but it was thousands of years of them being like that, until they completely drained their planet dry, and even on that ship where they wanted for nothing they still did what they did to Tesla.

And what about Rem?! Nai knows not all humans are like that! It's not just that!!

If Rem hadn't interfered, all ships would've crashed, and they'd be able to live with their sisters. So no one would ever hurt anyone else, ever again.

[you're lying, Nai.] Lying to himself, and lying to Zash. He loved Rem, too. He's trying to, to, to pretend it was okay. It wasn't. [why, Nai? why...?]

"You have to be wondering what she's hiding, too."

"But we could just ask. We shouldn't be here."

He doesn't know what it is about this room but it just—feels—awful. It's in theory just a research lab, but...

Yeah. But.

He taps away at the console because he knows they can find something here, he just knows it, and...

...he doesn't have the passcode. Damnit, he knew they were hiding something, but—

Zash does. Have the passcode, that is.

...oh. Of course he does. Charmed the pants off the humans and...

...thank you, Zash.

[love you, little brother]

Okay, classified projects, one by one until...

"Project Code: Type-T," he says aloud. The first page is... a file on him. Name and height and weight and date of birth and... "Category: Independent Plant."

And another page on Zash, identical except for the picture and the name.

But Zash spots the little triangle over Nai's shoulder. "There's another page...?"

"Name: Tesla." Born fifty years before the twins. Also an Independent Plant. "Status: Frozen."

When he inputs the command to access the evidence file, the lighting in the room turns red and various floor panels in the middle of the room get detached and start going up, revealing numerous glass tanks underneath.

And inside them...

...what is...

...that's a torso.

That's a head.

Those are. Eyes.

The door to the lab opens and a woman runs in, looking panicked. "—Zash! Nai! Zash, what happened to Nai, why is he—" And then she notices Tesla's body. "Oh my God." She immediately runs to the twins to try to shield them from the sight.

Zash wraps his arms around her and hugs her tight and shuts his eyes tighter, no no no no this isn't happening this isn't happening that didn't happen but he can hear her he can hear her waking up and she's in pain she's in so much pain—

And Nai is just... sitting there. Unresponsive. Staring at the vats and not moving a muscle, not reacting, barely even breathing.

Barely even thinking.

When Zash wakes up, he is not lying on the sand, and he is not dead.

He's handcuffed, though, and while he's on something that could be considered a bed, it's a bit makeshift. And... there are people arguing.

"He's just a kid, Brad!"

"Oh, yeah, because we had a ton of those on the ships. Oh wait! No there weren't. Whatever is going on with this kid is against every single regulation in the book, at least, and all of the ships failing at once? Probably hostile action. So yeah, I want to question him instead of cooing over how he's small and cute and just a kid, he probably knows something about what happened!"

"I'm not against questioning him, but have some damned empathy! How bad are we if we find a kid who's near death and just immediately start shaking him down for everything he knows??"

The boy stirs and pulls his knees in to his chest to hug them.

"Better than being dead because we got blindsided by another hostile --"

"Hush, you, he's awake. Hey! Are you okay, do you need anything? We were going to get an IV in you but our med officer kind of has their hands full and none of the rest of us know how to do it, how are you feeling...?"

He looks up at her, and then away, hugging his knees in even tighter.

"... Okay, well, here's some water if you want any."

She does in fact deposit a water bottle next to him.

"Oh yeah, sure, not like we need that ourselves on this hostile and waterless wasteland world. Let's just hand out water to everyone."

"Brad."

He rolls his eyes, irritated, but does in fact shut up.

"Keep it," he says. "I don't want it."

Brad looks like he absolutely wants to say 'Well, you heard the kid!' and snatch back the water bottle, but: he's still shutting up. Verbally, anyway. His face is nonetheless very expressive.

"Well it'll be here for you anyway, we've got several plants that are already specced towards water generation." And no plant engineer to safely change their output, because their plant engineer's cryopod failed in the crash. He woke up suffocating in his own cryofluid, and drowned. "Which ship were you on?"

The boy flinches at something, then looks away again and says, "Ship Five."

"Five...?" repeats Luida. Five is not one of the ships that got out particularly well in the crash, with 'particularly well' being 'over a quarter of all cryopods failed and killed their occupants.' That there are any survivors at all is... a surprise. "Okay, well, that's really good news! Um, do you know how many escape pods made it out, can you give us an idea of where they landed...?"

He shakes his head. "My m- Rem Saverem. One of the researchers. She... rushed me into a pod. And then I ran."

"Oh. Okay. Um. Well we'll send someone to look, okay? When we get the chance."

"Luida. Don't give the kid false hope. We're over our heads in trying to untangle this mess anyway, we don't have the time or the people to go gravedigging. Kid, Five didn't make it out well."

His face looks anguished for a moment before it returns to just looking sad. "Please? If, if she survived—" Oh and he's crying now, he did not mean to do that. "Please. She, she was the one who warned everyone. About the, the—"

But he can't finish that sentence, because if he does he'll think about Nai, and he can't, he can't think about Nai right now, he can't, he can't...

[why, Nai?] he sends out, desperately, pleadingly. [why?]

(And one of the plants of this ship hears him and replies: [?])

.... If Ship Five was the one that managed to get out the warning in time for everyone else, then it might have been the source of all of this nonsense. Which means there might be other reasons to dig through its wreckage than a doomed attempt to save people that are very definitely dead.

".... Fine," he sighs, "we'll prioritize it."

"Th-thank y-you," he sobs, burying his face in his knees and shutting his eyes tightly.

Rem should be alive. Not him.

"Okay. I'll get you set up in a room somewhere, all right?"

Technically speaking it'll be the brig, because Luida is nice but she isn't stupid, but. It'll have a bed and a bathroom.

He nods but doesn't say anything.

Brad gives Luida a bit of a look, but she returns it steadily, and will obviously lead the kid down the corridor that goes to the brig instead of the general quarters.

She'll take the water bottle for him, in case he changes his mind.

"Why'd you rescue me."

"Because you needed it, silly. Why wouldn't we?"

"...I wanted to die."

Oh boy. Tiny suicidal child. Uh, there have got to be regulations for suicide watch, somewhere, but she has no idea where to find them. Especially right now.

"... Well, I'm glad you're alive."

"Why."

"Because... every person that dies is a terrible loss for everyone else. And if people are alive, the circumstances can always change, and their situations can improve. But if they're dead, that's kind of it."

"Nothing will ever get better."

"Well, I think 'ever' is a long time for absolutes. And it's not like either of us have seen the future, hm? Why not try our best and see how it goes?"

Everyone is going to die.

It's his fault.

He doesn't say that and just shakes his head, looking down at his cuffed hands.

The room he's taken to is in fact a cell, and once he's in it, the door locks and there isn't a way to get out.

But there is a bed, so. That's nice, right?

Sure. Nice. He supposes.

He killed... all of those people...

He's trying to, to hold onto the same mindset as earlier, trying to remember why he did it, the way humans are, but without Zash around for him to be angry at and try to argue with he's just left alone in his head with his own thoughts.

He's all alone.

He was still mad at Zash, and he let Zash run, and it wasn't until later that he noticed that he hadn't ever been alone in his head. And there aren't any plants nearby, any of his sisters, so it's just... just him. Just him, in his head. No one else.

Many plants probably died because of him, too. It wasn't just humans.

It wasn't going to be just humans. He wanted, wanted to save the plant carriers, but every ship had plants, the carriers only had more of them than all others.

And, and he didn't mean to include Rem...

[Zash] he calls with his mind, reaching out as far as he can get, as far as his mind can go, [please come back, please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I didn't, I didn't want it this way, I'm sorry, please come back—]

He did. He did mean it. He just, he hadn't, hadn't really thought—and he can't think, he's running and he thinks he's running in the direction of Zash but he can't see and he doesn't know because it's a desert and every direction's the same.

[please, Zash, please forgive me, please, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—]

And the ruins litter the landscape, pieces of debris and escape pods that didn't manage to land the crash, and the first time he saw a dead body he wanted to throw up.

It didn't, actually, feel any different than looking at Tesla's body.

[I'm sorry...]

Nai stops running at some point, he's sure he isn't going in Zash's direction anymore if he ever was and if he won't find Zash then what's the point? He thinks about trying to find one of the plant carriers, one of the ships that should have survived the crash mostly intact, and it feels hollow. He thinks about his sisters, about their judgment—and he realises that there will be none. That they'll look at him and they'll forgive him.

He doesn't know if he can forgive himself. The only person who could forgive him is Zash, and Zash isn't there.

Or Rem, but Rem also isn't there.

The humans... they're not there, either. He killed them all.

Nai stops running at some point, but he doesn't stop walking. Nowhere is better than anywhere else, but anywhere is better than here.

He hears a noise.

There are many noises, mostly of crackling fire and crumbling metal and the occasional explosion, but this sounds like... a voice? Like someone is...

Before he starts moving he is actually genuinely uncertain whether he'll move towards the voice or away from it, but something, maybe the part of him that's still a plant and not a human who destroys and destroys and destroys with nary a thought to consequences, could not actually ignore the cries of pain.

They're coming from an escape pod, with two ocupants. Its braking mechanism failed and more than half of it ended up crushed; one of the ocupants seems to have been reduced to barely more than a pulp while the other, still alive, seems to have a badly broken left hand and her left leg is crushed by the same damage that killed her companion. She's managed to get the door open but her motion caused something to get further crushed or dislodged and now she seems to have started to bleed rather a lot and she looks to be delirious with pain.

...it would be a kindness to kill her.

The thought feels repugnant. He can't kill more people, not, he, he just can't.

Rem told Zash and Nai to not use their powers in front of others, and Zash explained to him why. He understood, sort of, and he did promise he'd try to avoid it.

But...

She's dying. Whoever this woman is, she's going to die without his help.

He climbs into the pod, leans down, and heaves the bit of metal that's crushing her.

This proves a mistake.

Without the metal keeping the bleeding mostly contained she is starting to bleed out, copious amounts of blood starting to ooze out of her femoral artery. Her leg seems to have been sliced almost clean through, with only various bits of flesh and skin still connected, but the metal and gore make this very hard to see.

oh

He.

He's glad he doesn't like to eat. He knows it's a purely sympathetic response, the heaving in his stomach, a way his body is pretending to be human right now, but it's still very hard to focus on that when he's looking at, at, at what he did.

No. No, he can't allow this to happen.

He stops the bleeding. He tells it to stop and it stops. He doesn't need hands, doesn't need a tourniquet, he just needs to make it stop and it stops.

Once that's done, he... summons a knife into his hand. A very, very sharp one, so that when he cuts the rest of the woman's leg off it will take a single stroke.

Then he pulls her out of the wreckage, using mostly his mind. She's hallucinating heavily anyway, she won't... know what's happening. But he, he's remembering things he's read in books about how to care for humans. He knows the escape pod should have something to help, he's also read about it, there's a first-aid kit—here.

Antibiotics for the likely infection—is it likely? does this planet have microbes?—and a bag of plasma to replace the lost blood and hydrate and painkillers and—

Regardless of whether there are microbes on this planet, there definitely were some aboard the ships, and the woman does spend most of the next day slipping into and out of consciousness, blabbing incoherently or moaning in pain or crying.

When she finally wakes up, with a fever but cognisant of her surroundings, it's night again. She blinks her eyes clear of tears and tries to sit up, then notices the imbalance and startles when she pulls the blanket away to stare at the stump where her leg used to be. And then she notices her left hand is immobilised. And then her memories start coming back.

"I had to burn your leg," says the small child sitting a few yards away, leaning against the ruins of the escape pod and hugging his knees in. "To stop the bleeding."

"...the bleeding..."

The warning. The blaring alarms, far too loud. They were crashing. Incorrect navigation data had been tightbeamed to all ships simultaneously, causing some to crash into each other and most to accelerate much more than was safe towards the planet. The planet which is... not entirely terraformed. A desert. The air is very low oxygen, there isn't an ozone layer, and they—

The escape pod. Im Jaehee...

She looks at the escape pod, at the other blanket that's covering the half of it that Im Jaehee had been in, but there's dry blood there and the metal...

She wails, a deep primal sound from the pit of her stomach, piercing the silence that had dominated the night until now.

"We need to find other people," the boy says, almost heedless of her pain. "There isn't enough food."

It takes her a while to process his words, for them to go through her skull and into her mind. Other people—? Im Jaehee is dead, how can she think of other people—

No. No. He, he's right. And he saved her life, by the looks of it—he's so small, she didn't know there were children this small on any of the ships. And he's all alone, or maybe he wasn't, but...

...what happened to this boy, to make him so, so... stoic. Calm. Cold.

She leans forward and shivers, because of the cold of the desert night without her blanket and because of her fever and because Im Jaehee is dead and she can't, can't picture a world without him...

"Im Jaehee," she says, and it's the last time in her life she ever says his name.

Zash's food and water sit untouched when Luida next visits him.