“For the good of the colony” is a grimly compelling subgenre of space exploration stories in which the protagonists of a generation ship or new planetary settlement are forced into ill-fitting roles or relationships according to demands that, you guessed it, benefit the society over the individual. The toxic polycule at the dark heart of Kemi Ashing-Giwa’s sci-fi horror novella This World is Not Yours is a key example: Amara and Vinh escape Amara’s influential (and coldhearted) family, propel themselves centuries into the future, and honeymoon in the hopeful spirit of their fledgling colony of New Belaforme. Then a devastating attack from rival colony Jacksonhaven forces their government to break up all queer marriages and redistribute their biological resources (that is, their wombs) with cis male partners to give an emergency boost to the population.
So, it’s an unwitting polycule that seethes and works at cross purposes against the good of their toxic colony, wholly self-serving in an engrossingly messy story that nonetheless could use more fine-tuning and fleshing out. This foursome might have eked out a resentful survival if not for the Gray: the planet’s biological self-cleaning mechanism that obliterates all invasive organisms. But humans are safe. For now.
C’mon. Even moreso than the obvious lie of “for the good of the colony,” it’s a given that humans find a way to muck up every potential home. It’s only a matter of time.
The novella’s chapters count down rather than up, a sinister tick-tick-tick to the emotional and physical implosion. This effective device keeps the action moving at a swift clip; if anything, the handful of interludes from “Before” distract too much from the inexorable forward destruction. Their purpose is to fill in the blanks about Amara and Vinh’s codependent dynamic that matrimony only exacerbates, as well as to hint at the dark backstory of Amara’s friend (and polycule shit-stirrer) Jesse on a previous failed colony, but they serve more as narrative speed bumps than anything else. The real meat is in how the four—including Henry, a perfectly nice man who Amara nonetheless loathes simply for existing—struggle to provide New Belaforme with the reinforcements it needs, while keeping alert for another attack from Jacksonhaven. Of course, what they should really be worried about is how the Gray is adapting to them using up its resources, and what drastic steps it will take to restore the ecological balance.
PhD candidate Ashing-Giwa’s (The Splinter in the Sky) studies in geobiology and paleobiology are put to outstanding use in her depiction of this alien world, its lush verdancy counterbalanced with the eerie glide of Gray over every surface. Like fog, like clockwork, it covers every inch (including vertically) and methodically works its way through the organisms. Most it passes over, but it still consumes plenty, stripping them of every recognizable feature and organ. Despite its very speculative nature, the Gray is a convincing biological defense mechanism; for all we know, there could be a distant planet we haven’t discovered yet that has its own Gray to guard against changes to the ecosystem.
Part of the nail-biting tension is watching the humans watch the Gray proceed, knowing full well how it operates, and still plow into danger with every envelope-pushing interaction. Amara is a scientist; she can’t not draw up new hypotheses, whether in the lab or in her government-issued home, and prod at the subjects until they spit out results. Vinh’s position as the colony’s head of security could use more sketching in; she spends so long hiding her ease with violence as a solution from her wife that she obscures it from the reader, as well. Jesse is even more of an enigma; a late-stage revelation about his old home of Etretrat II would have been better served earlier on to lend texture to his obsessive fascination with the Gray, and what it offers him that humans (not even the ones he loves) cannot.
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This World Is Not Yours
There’s a tragic irony to the fact that neither couple would actually have to consummate their colony-mandated marriages, thanks to Vinh’s irreplaceable role and the fact that Jesse’s love for them doesn’t threaten the core relationship. Yet Amara and Vinh never actually discuss such things once they get reassigned, despite Amara growing up within the polyamorous dynamics of her birth family. Instead, resentments and assumptions fester like a boil waiting to pop. The same goes for the non-communicative competition between colonies, which in this future are business ventures that live or die based on the whims of the intergalactic corporations that sponsor them.
Despite setting up these excellent parallels about competition for survival, Ashing-Giwa does not explore them to their full potential. Some details, like gossiping colonists in the aisles of New Belaforme’s single grocery store, feel wonderfully lived-in; yet the actual dynamic between their settlement and Jacksonhaven is unclear. For the sole two civilizations on one planet, you would think that each would be obsessed with knowing absolutely everything about the other, just like a jealous lover. Instead we get extreme acts of violence that move the plot forward in the manner of mutually assured destruction, without giving us a true sense of the people who would okay these attacks.
But perhaps that’s the point; in another time, on another world, these two cities could easily have coexisted, or even collaborated toward mutual success and longevity. It’s only now, in this cutthroat and capitalistic endeavor, that they must compete over limited resources and support.
To be sure, there’s a lot to chew on in terms of interpersonal dynamics. But by the time the slow-creeping horror opens its metaphorical jaws, it becomes clear that the opportunity for any resolution has passed. The sequences of the Gray at work are nightmare fuel in the best way; after watching these petty humans pick away at one another, it’s strangely satisfying to witness an external force completely consume that self-sabotaging jealousy and emotional baggage, bringing a whole new meaning to the concept of possession.
Here is where ambiguity aids Ashing-Giwa’s story: Is the Gray equally emotional and protective of its planet and ecosystem? Or is that human anthropomorphization at play, and the Gray is merely a lethal yet matter-of-fact decontaminant? It’s difficult to say which is the more disturbing reality.
This World Is Not Yours is published by Nightfire.
