Joan: Part 4

Alan looked at the strange dinner Joan had assembled. The scent of an unusual cheese dominated, with milk and mushrooms rounding out the meal.

“So,” Joan said, Chloe’s body perched on the counter while the Alan-requested avatar sliced mushrooms, “Stargazer cuisine was fascinating. It’s not exactly what Ariadne eats, but it’s close. A lot of human milk products, fermentation, and fungi. They also gardened and fished extensively on Earth, but moved away from that once they colonized solar orbit.”

“Wait, what?” Alan had still been thinking about Teeth, and the logic of a first date built around a movie about a girl with a toothy vagina.

“Oh.” Joan shrugged with Chloe’s shoulders. “The Melmyrians were spacefaring before they industrialized. Ariadne had a few pop-history books on her computer. ‘Melmyria’ is like saying Japan or Germany—an anglicized label for one of the major Audience cultures. I understood none of the terminology, but the food culture seemed useful. Also, kind of vegan, in the ethical sense, as no animals are harmed. I thought they might vote more sympathetically if we made an effort.”

“Um, why did they use human milk exactly?” Alan looked at the plate with mild concern. “I remember something about drinking it instead of seawater?”

“They started changing themselves and realized milk was relatively convenient. They could produce more of it through magic than should have been physically possible.” Joan smiled with both bodies now, clearly enjoying the absurdity. “Some kind of violation of physics, as far as I can tell. It wasn’t the best food, but anyone could do it, so everyone did it. Kids, old men, soldiers, kings. They dumped it into gardens and fields, fermented it, fed it to livestock—anything to turn ‘free’ into something useful.”

“Oh.” Alan nodded. “Some of that came up, but it’s been a long week. How did it end?”

“End?” This time, Joan’s new avatar answered, not Chloe’s body.

“Like, they had to run out eventually, right?”

“They haven’t found a limit yet.” Joan shook both heads. “There are, like, a quadrillion Stargazers in their original timeline, and even more in colonies. We’ve spent centuries being scared of Thomas Malthus, and they never even came up with the idea. Sure, they cooked their Earth with the greenhouse effect, but then they rebuilt in space. That’s ancient history to the Audience. The solar system is big enough to hold habitats for that many people, and they just kept going.”

Joan set the knife down for a second and warmed to the subject.

“The books said there are arguments about whether magic has a limit. Some people insist it has to, but there’s no evidence yet. The theory isn’t as advanced as the practice. Maybe it’s like the sun: changing in ways you can’t really observe directly, so you have to compare it to other stars and wait for some revolution in understanding. Or maybe there isn’t one, and they can just keep growing forever.”

“But they can’t.” Alan frowned. “That’s not how anything works.”

“Why not?” Joan’s cute face lit with a big smile. “Even if there is a limit, it’s not soon. Ariadne thinks we could have billions of years if we conquer mortality. She’s got plans written up. The last stars won’t burn out for trillions of years, and the sun has billions left, depending on what we do with it. That’s normal science, not magic.”

“Conquer mortality,” Alan repeated. “You mean literally live forever?”

“Well, why not? Christian came back, didn’t she? Do you think the Audience dies of natural causes?” Joan blushed. “Marrying into the family seems like common sense.”

“Laurel and Chloe seem to think so,” Alan said. Then he paused. “How do you feel about that?”

Joan’s smile faltered.

“Well,” she said, “I was trans, anorexic, closeted, a computer science nerd, single, and a grad student. Do you have any idea what my suicide risk looked like, Alan?”

The attempt at humor died on the way out.

“Shit,” Alan muttered.

“Sorry.” Joan sighed. “Just… this is going to suck. Ariadne had notes on the seasons she thought were friendly, and they’re still awful. But so is our world. The past is a nightmare, we’re probably heading for some kind of apocalypse before we hit thirty-five, and most timelines had a nuclear war before now.”

She looked away.

“So, um, yeah. It’s been a long week for me too.”

“Well,” Alan said carefully, “if you honestly think this is okay, I’ll try to support you in it. You’re right that we were kind of screwed anyway.”

“At least now if I get screwed, I think I’ll enjoy it.” Joan grimaced. “Back home…”

She trailed off.

“Um,” Alan said softly, “about that. Were you and Chloe together before this? Or are you together now? It’s not bad if you were. She just seemed embarrassed.”

Joan looked down.

“I thought we were,” she admitted, “before realizing Chloe saw the situationship in different terms. It wasn’t great for my ego, to be honest.”

“Ah,” Alan said, nodding. “That makes sense. She’s kind of complex.”

He paused, then corrected himself.

“No. You deserve better than that answer. She’s awful at relationships. I’ve heard enough from both sides of her dating history to know you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Really?” Joan looked genuinely surprised. “I thought you’d take her side.”

“Is there a side?” Alan asked.

Joan was quiet for a moment. Then she put the chopping knife in the sink and looked at the finished meals.

“So,” Alan said, breaking the silence, “let’s try Stargazer cuisine.”

It was surprisingly tasty.