“Hours?” I said.
She nodded. “And yes, I’ll be able to tell you how far you and your ship can go from each other.”
My heart started racing and I sat down heavily on the yellow chair behind me.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, worried.
“I’m afraid of what you’ll find.”
“We’ll definitely find some interesting things, but nothing you can’t deal with, Binti. You already are what you are and you’re fine.”
“Am I?” I asked.
She patted me on the shoulder. “Let’s get started. You can stay sitting. We’ll test your reflexes.”
Afterward, I was in the waiting room for three hours, too paralyzed with worry to get up and move when a Meduse-like person came and hovered beside me. It was probably worried too, because it puffed out gas constantly and barely bothered to suck it back in. I would have had my astrolabe play some soft music for me, but mine was broken and, unlike my edan, its broken remains weren’t anywhere to be found when I’d awoken on New Fish. Since I’d died and returned, I’d been able to speak through the zinariya with ease, no more vertigo and no gaping tunnel or strange planet appeared behind me anymore. However, speaking to my grandmother or Mwinyi through the zinariya was out of the question because they’d both just ask me if I’d gotten the test results yet. At some point, I curled up on the blue chair and fell asleep.
I immediately awoke when my name was called and followed the small hovering droid back to the same patient room I’d been in before with Dr. Tuka. She sat on a high chair with a tray on which she had her astrolabe projecting a chart before her eyes.
“Have a seat,” she said without looking away from it.
I sat in the yellow chair, unable to hide my shivering.
“So, your tests have all come back,” she said, turning to me.
“Please, tell me how far I can go first,” I blurted.
“About five miles on land and she can fly about seven miles up,” she said. “That’s not so bad, is it?”
I smiled and said, “No. Thank the Seven.”
“But unless she follows, no more taking university and solar shuttles, okay? New Fish can take you.”
I nodded and then asked the question I’d been dreading most, “What happens if we get too far from each other? Will… we die?”
“She won’t,” Dr. Tuka said. “But you might, if the distance happens very fast and is a lot. But first, there will be terrible pain. It’s different for everyone. Just don’t do it.”
She paused, waiting for me to ask anything else. I didn’t want to know anything else.
“Okay, so your DNA is very interesting, Binti,” she said. “You’re…
“Am I… am I still human?” I asked.
“Do you think you are?”
“I mean, well, that’s not…”
“You are a Himba girl, right? That’s what you say you are?”
“Yes, but…” I touched my okuoko and smiled sheepishly. “Aren’t I equally New Fish microbes? Isn’t that why I’m alive?”
“Your DNA is Himba, Enyi Zinariya, and Meduse… and some, but not much, New Fish,” she said. “But your microbes are mostly from New Fish, yes. Your microbes exist with your cells, so this blend is what makes you, you. So you are different from what you were born as, certainly. But as I said before, you’re healthy.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“There’s more, however,” Dr. Tuka said. “Something you should know.”
I frowned. “Like what?”
“Well, at this point, this may not be much of a surprise or issue since you’ve already spent a year at Oomza Uni, met many people, and so on.” She paused and looked at the virtual chart. Then she said, “You’re seventeen Earth years old, correct?”
I nodded, but she wasn’t even looking at me.
“Have you ever thought about having children?”
I frowned more deeply. “Of course,” I said. “For me to do all that I’ve done and never have children, what kind of Himba—”
She turned to me. The look on her face made me close my mouth.
“What if Okwu gave birth to it?” she said.
“What?!”
“This will happen. Not now, but in time.”
“But—”
“And if you were to have a baby, it would have your okuoko because Meduse DNA is strong. It bullies its way into all offspring.”
“But Okwu and I aren’t—” I paused, thinking of who Okwu was to me and then I thought about when I’d kissed Mwinyi.
“On top of this, if you were to have a child, you would pass New Fish microbes to it and there is the possibility that your child would be part New Fish as well. Though no likelihood of the link. Also—”
“Stop!” I screeched, my eyes closed. “Enough. Enough!” There was a ringing in my ears and it was getting louder. My face was growing hot and felt as if something were squeezing my head. I was both falling and rising. “Even my astrolabe broke,” I breathed. “The chip is corrupted. I have no documented identity.” I giggled wildly and screamed, “What am I? I’m so much,” with tears welling in my eyes. “I… I didn’t go on my pilgrimage when I went home. That was supposed to complete me as a woman in my village. Instead, my mere presence started a war! In my home! They burned my home! And they killed me! I died! And then I came back as… am I really even me?” I was on my feet now. Pacing the small room. Smacking my forehead.
On the room’s counter was a vase full of soft-looking yellow flowers with petals that each looked like bladders of water. I grabbed one and crushed the flower in my fist as I stared at Dr. Tuka, who calmly watched me. The liquid that burst from each petal dribbled down my wrist to my elbow and the room suddenly smelled sweet and earthy. “My past and present have become more and now my future?”
I sobbed, throwing the crushed flower to my feet and sinking to the floor. I rested my head in my hands. “I have always liked myself, Dr. Tuka.” I looked up at her. “I like who I am. I love my family. I wasn’t running away from home. I don’t want to change, to grow! Nothing… everything… I don’t want all this… this weirdness! It’s too heavy! I just want to be.”
Dr. Tuka watched me, quiet.
“Am I human?” I asked. As I desperately stared at her, as she said nothing, she grew blurry as my eyes teared up more. For the first time since I’d left home, I wondered if I should have left home.
“Binti,” Dr. Tuka said. “In your tribe a woman marries a man, and in doing so, marries his family, correct?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“She marries a man chosen by her family and herself, who will provide for and protect her and nourish her being.”
“Yes.”
“This is the path to respect among the Himba. I read up on them before seeing you. So see it this way: You’re paired with New Fish and Okwu, each of whom has a family. Your family is bigger than any Himba girl’s ever was. And twice, you were supposed to die. And here you stand healthy and strong…” She chuckled and then added, “And strange. There is no person like you at this school.”
I sat down again, still shaking from all the information, all the reality. “I’m sorry I did that to your flower,” I said. “I don’t… I don’t normally destroy things.”
“It will grow another one,” she said.
I nodded. “Good.”
“Go and study, Binti,” Dr. Tuka said, turning back to her virtual chart. “I’m also scheduling an appointment for you with your therapist.”