The Fourth World

Chapter 1

Chapter 1This was the happiest Jenna Kitchener had ever been.

The sky was black, pinpricked by stars. The volatile O’Hara nebula licked back at her in a haze of purple and gold. She reached out her gloved hand in an attempt to touch, but she was too far away. The hollow echo of space was disrupted by the radio crackle in her suit. She waited, but no one from the Hippomenes broadcasted anything to her. She was the only one on Jonquil’s surface, a nearly-barren planet filled with sickly looking yellow rocks. When Jenna’s niece had been born, the only time she was allowed to see her was when the infant’s skin glowed yellow like this. Jaundice. Meant her blood was too full of bilirubin, discolouring her skin and eyes. It was ugly, horrifying to see in the hospital room, under the already harsh lights.

Jenna picked up a handful of pebbles, crumbling them in her hand like dust. The colour was no longer ugly or sickly, but beautiful. These rocks could be smelted on a separate space station and used for battery packs. The research suggested it was a better alternative to what they were using for their radios and video transmissions. The university needed more samples so they could run tests. Jenna picked up another handful and added it to her sample bag to her side. Between each scoop, she looked at the O’Hara nebula. The stars. They bathed her in shimmering light, which she was sure could—

“Hey, Jenna.”

The radio crackled next to her. She dropped a handful of the rocks and cursed.

“Jenna. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Was in a zone, though. What do you need?”

“How many more until you fill the bag?” Brad Cooper, her sergeant, asked. “Cap says we gotta wrap this up.”

Jenna gazed wearily at her pouch. “Full. Nearly.”

“Good. Grab another couple handfuls from piss rock island then waddle back over to the ship. We gotta blast.”

Jenna sighed. “Yeah, sure. Ten minutes max.”

“Sure, see you then.” The radio crackled as Brad clicked a button. Breathy laughter followed, the button not disconnecting them. “So it’ll be at least twenty minutes. We better get some cards for entertainment.”

“What do you mean?” Selina, another PhD from the university, asked.

“Women,” Brad said, “they’re always late.”

Jenna furrowed her brows as she gripped the transfer pod’s railing extra hard. She wasn’t supposed to hear any of this. The radio had always been a struggle—battery life this far away from Earth became tricky, hence the need for new materials—but Brad was also careless. He was second in command after their captain and thought he knew everything. Most people on the space pod a couple metres away did. All these PhDs in astrophysics, Jenna shook her head. Everyone was handpicked from the best in their classes; not everyone was human, but aliens who showed a proficiency in the STEM field and human economics were selected. All this prestige…and they still f****d up like teenage girls on phones. Jenna’s chest tightened. She didn’t want to hear the rest, but her mind decoded the words through the crackle of static.

“And blaming others for being late,” Jayden added. “What will it be this time? The rover?”

“Hey now,” Selina said. “Saying ‘women’ is too broad. I’m not like that.”

“Never mind that comparison,” Brad said. “S’not fair anyway. Jenna’s got different…let’s say space junk. So it takes her a moment to figure out how to get places, you know? She has to figure out how to maintain her forlorn masculinity, while still mastering the best and worst parts of womanhood.”

“Oh, please. Like you know anything,” Selina scoffed.

“I know lots. I have her file,” Brad said.

Jayden snickered. “And is that…thing still there?”

“How scientific of you,” Selina said. “But does she? I don’t know. She never changes or showers around me. And truthfully, I respect her privacy in that way.”

“Yet you still want to know if she has her space junk or not,” Brad said. “How charitable. Private to her face, but behind her back, well, you want to see what she has.”

“Well, I thought those files were sealed,” Selina asked. “Aren’t they? Gender stopped becoming important on Earth years ago.”

“Even for someone like her?” Jayden asked, skepticism evident in his voice. “Doesn’t seem right.”

“It isn’t. And technically, yeah, gender’s not asked anymore. But medical inventory is a thing,” Brad said. “And you remember when she burned her hand from getting too close to a blast? Well, there was something added to her file then, and I was…”

Jenna wasn’t sure how long to let the conversation continue. Brad was violating confidentiality, and at first she told herself she was only listening so she could later report him to Captain Paz. But neither he—nor Selina, or Jayden—had actually said anything relevant. It was all speculation. When her pronouns became he/his and its, she tuned it out. She scooped up several more handfuls of Jonquil dust and added them to the overflowing bag. Several grains were stuck in her suit, she was sure of it, like sand at the beach. Good, good. She wanted to be covered with it, as if it was armour to keep out their words.

She tapped the buttons on the communicator. “I’m done now, everyone. Bringing the space junk aboard.”

A gasp sounded on the other end of the transmission. Selina was the first to recover.

“Sorry for the delay,” she said. A few more buttons tapped. “Door’s open when you’re ready.”

Jenna didn’t say thanks. She glanced over her shoulder at the O’Hara nebula, the tendrils of stardust licking out at her. She reached her hand out, expecting nothing to return.