“Raymond Burr,” I said.
“Oh, jeez, right.” MacDonald tapped her head, lightly. “Sorry. Got a whole lot of Hamilton going on up here. Also I’m a little drunk. Any questions?”
We had none. MacDonald dismissed us, by which I mean she waved goodbye vaguely with her drink and then wandered off.
“I really don’t know what to make of this place,” Aparna said, watching her go.
“I like it,” Kahurangi said. He still had the uke and was plucking one of the strings absentmindedly.
“Let’s go find our barracks suite,” Niamh said. “I can’t wait to see what it looks like. And whatever it looks like, I get the top bunk.”
There was no top bunk. The barracks suite with our names on it was a tiny freestanding cottage in a row of tiny freestanding cottages that stretched well down a wooden path that was clearly meant to be the residential area of the base. The suite consisted of a small common room with a couch, table with chairs, and bookshelves. A monitor was placed between the bookshelves and was currently showing a screen saver. On the bookshelves were individually labeled packages—presumably our additional jumpsuits.
Two short, narrow hallways on either side of the common room revealed the individual bedrooms, each already with our names on their doors, which were wide enough for a twin bed and a small path to a wardrobe and a tiny desk with a chair. A small shelf was above the desk. A small window was above the bed. The bed included a mattress, a pillow, two sets of sheets and pillowcases. The desk had a folder on it, which said Tanaka Base Guide and Directory. On the shelf was an envelope, which read New Occupant, and a small plant in a tiny pot. I went into my room and walked over to the desk and picked up the envelope.
“Where’s the kitchen?” I heard Aparna say.
“Forget the kitchen, where’s the damn loo?” Niamh responded.
“Check the base guide,” I yelled back.
“The what?”
“It’s in your room,” I said, and then opened the envelope. There was a letter inside.
Dear new occupant,
It’s tradition here when we swap out our lodgings that we leave a note and a small gift for the new occupant, to welcome them and to wish them luck with their tour. This time, it’s bitter sweet for me because I’ve decided this will be my last tour. No one else knows this yet; you’re the first person I’ve told besides myself.
I paused at this, and then kept reading.
It’s also bittersweet because when we leave this world behind we leave everything about it behind. We can take nothing from it and tell no one of it. Three years of my life—four tours!—and all I have is the memory. It’s one of the reasons I have to leave it. As wonderful as it has been, it feels like too much of my life has been unreal. Imaginary. Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but even if it’s just me it’s enough. It’s time for me to go back to the real world, and have a real life.
I did a foolish thing this last tour: I decided my room would be nicer with some green in it, and brought a cutting home and put it in a pot on my windowsill. When it came to go, I realized I couldn’t take it with me. So I am leaving it to you, as a gift. I hope you will care for it like I did, and that it gives you joy as it did for me. And perhaps when you leave again in six months you will give it to the next occupant of this room, who might even be the person who replaces me.
Good luck and best wishes to you. Think of me from time to time, I who am back in our other world. I will think of you, too, whoever you are, and fondly.
Yours,
Sylvia Braithwhite
I set the letter down, picked up the small pot with the plant, and put it back on the windowsill.
“Whoever had my room last left a big pile of poopfruit on my desk,” Niamh yelled, from their room. “Seriously, what the actual fuck?”
CHAPTER
8
Brynn MacDonald pointed at Aparna. “Okay,” she said. “You’re the new biologist. Say it.”
“Say what?” Aparna asked.
“The thing that’s been bothering you since the moment you saw a kaiju.”
We were all in a （very） small conference room at the administrative building, and it was just after nine in the morning, and we were having, as promised, our orientation session. Brynn MacDonald, who we last saw a little bit drunk, was emphatically not so now, and as promised she remembered all our names and what we were at the base to do. We all sat at the （very） small wooden table, in （normal-size） wooden chairs, and I wondered if they had been made at the base. MacDonald stood, next to a bookcase. Right at the moment she was staring at Aparna in particular, waiting on an answer.