Ruthie's face crumples and she buries her head in her arms, running her hand over her messy mohawk. "Thank you."
"Will you tell me your story?" I cross my legs, keeping my pose deliberately different from hers, just to establish my own identity. "Or is it too hard to talk about?"
She shakes her head. "Not hard. Maybe we can compare stories, see where they branch out." Ruthie begins to talk, and it's clear we've had a very different experience in space. She “woke up” three years ago and was kept by an ooli slavemaster as a status-type pet. She was never touched or harmed and was treated affectionately like a household dog. She lived on a remote, swampy moon until her master died and his estate was auctioned off by the heirs. She was sold to one slavemaster after another on Prefalon until Bist found her.
No drama. No rape. No abandonment. Maybe that's why Ruthie's softer than I am around the edges.
I tell her my story in a flat, emotionless voice. About being woken up by pirates and raped, treated like a toy built only to please them. I tell her about being abandoned on the Buoyant Star and left there for years. I tell her about sneaking onto Straik's ship and how we fell in love despite things. Her eyes are wide with shock. "That's…a lot to take in. I'm so sorry."
Her words surprise me. Am I sorry that it happened? Maybe I'm not a big fan of chunks of my recent past, but I love Jade, Helen and Alice. They're like sisters to me, and if I hadn't ended up where I did, I wouldn't have met them…or Straik. "What happened, happened," I say with a shrug. "I prefer to look forward."
"Do you remember a lot of Earth?" Ruthie asks.
I hesitate, because Earth memories are complicated. I know things, but there are huge gaping blanks in other spots. Like I know what baseball is, and a hot dog, but when I try to think of my mother's name, I get nothing. There's just a big foggy patch in my head where that knowledge should be. "I'm not sure. I know that sounds like an absolute cop-out, but it's like—"
"—you know general stuff but not specifics," she interrupts. "But not always."
"Exactly." This isn't helping make me feel better.
"Like I know I had a dog, and I can see his face, but I can't remember his name," Ruthie says.
She's got more than me, then. I don't remember a dog. That sick feeling roils in my gut. "Maybe you're the real thing and I'm the clone."
Ruthie sucks on her lower lip again. "We don't know that. How do we know it's not all implanted memories? If they cloned us, who's to say they couldn't shove in some basic information to make us seem like the real thing and send us on our way?" It's clear that they don't want anyone to know we're clones." She taps a finger on her arm, indicating her pale skin. "So they're hiding us in plain sight. Give us just enough to make us seem like we're normal humans and maybe that's not it at all."
"What are you saying?" I ask.
She sucks on her lip again before making an unhappy face. "What if…we're both clones and the real Ruth is somewhere else out there?"
The thought makes me dizzy. I hold up a finger, my stomach lurching, and race to the lavatory at the back of Kazex's quarters because I'm going to be sick.
Ruthie is right. We don't know what happened. Both of our recent memories start from a few years ago. We don't know how long we were asleep, or what was done while we were under. What if there are ten thousand Ruth clones in the galaxy, all being sold as sex dolls to horny aliens? I don't know if it'd be worse to find out if I'm the clone or the original at that point. I puke up my night tea and my breakfast, gagging and retching over the toilet as my brain throws awful scenario after awful scenario at me.
What if I'm an experimental clone?
What if I'm a cheap imitation of the original?
What happened to the original if that's the case? What happens if we find her and she wants all other Ruths dead?
What if, what if, what if?
I vomit again, clutching at my gut, and when I'm done, I raise a shaky hand to my face, wiping away the cold sweat on my skin.
"You okay?" Ruthie asks. "You want some, I don't know, space crackers or something?"
"Your stomach's not in knots over all of this?" I ask her, a little surprised that she's so calm. "You're not freaking out?"
Ruthie snorts and rubs her hand over her short hair again. "Oh, I think I already did my freaking out. I've been a mess for the last twenty-four hours. But Kazex told me everything would be okay and…I believe him. Is that weird?" She blushes, and if she wasn't my clone (or I wasn't hers) I'd think it was cute. She sucks on her lip again in that goofy way of hers. "I realize he can't promise me anything, but I hope you and I can figure something out."