surrender ; minsung

faith and mercy

On Jisung's planet, stingrays were a symbol of luck, but also caution. It was exceptional to see one, such a graceful, stoic creature, but push too close and the pain would be agonizing.

He can't help being drawn to things that remind him of his home. His ship, the semblance of a stingray, a silent warning. The suit he wears, made of the same material as the diving suits he grew up with. Even the soap he uses, made from palm oil; he remembers sitting with his mother, cutting open the ruby-red fruit and scooping out the kernel.

His piercings are the only tangible pieces of his history he has left. They're meant to symbolize the five senses, a reminder of life's beauty. When he decided to become a merchant, to leave his planet and join the wider universe, he refused to remove them, though his mother threatened to disown him. She said he was disgracing their heritage by leaving, by devoting himself to money as if it were a god. Maybe she was right.

Now, he's staring into space, the endless stars and snow-white planet below, turning an organza bag in his fingers. The journeys between jobs are always slow. This is worse. This is drowning in still waters.

Would he be betraying God, his family, his faith, if he traded his old gems for new ones?

He feels guilty for even thinking about it. He's worn the same set since he was fifteen years old, wincing as his forebearers pricked him with needles. His past is everything he's made of, sacred and untouchable. Why does he want so badly to wear these new stones on his body? Revere them? Sanctify them?

He draws a breath, and lets it out.

He looks into the mirror, at the long and narrow piercings at the tails of his eyebrows. The uncut stones in his earlobes, the smooth ones in either nostril. The circular one fit into the crook above his lips, and the flat, shiny ones in his thumb webbings.

"Give me strength, my Mother," he whispers. "I want to atone."

He raises his hands to remove the stud, fingers trembling.

A boom like thunder plunges the ship to a slant; Jisung pitches backward and lands hard on the floor. Lights flare, washing the room blood-red.

Jisung scrambles for the bag, catches the string by his littlest finger and clutches it to his chest. He finds his footing and stumbles along the sloping wall, struggling into a pressure suit and gas mask. Everything in his chamber is upended, papers fanning across the floor, the desk nearly ramming into him before it crashes against the wall.

He tears his door open and slides out into the passageway; it winds throughout the ship like tunnels in an anthill, leads him to the wheelhouse where his company is desperately trying to right the ship, shouting into the com, holding each other and weeping. Deep space and an arctic planet quake outside the windowed canopy.

He grabs Lieutenant Vu's arm. "What happened?"

"Sir, we hit an agglovoid."

A human-made mass of meteoroids, satellites, defunct ships, clustered in steel netting to safeguard against storms of debris. "What the hell happened? Wasn't someone watching? Wasn't the sonar working?"

"It hit the starboard engine, sir, we didn't see it coming — and the sonar — we had it inactive. It was supposed to be a calm zone."

"The spare jets?"

"They're down, sir."

"Tele ports?"

"All down."

"Coms?"

"Still working, for now. Our remaining engine has malfunctioned. It's going to force us into breaching this planet's atmosphere."

Jisung looks out the window at the colossal planet drawing closer. "It's an arctic planet."