In The Stars' Brilliance — Part Six
By Georgina Kamsika
Her slowly creeping companion has moved off behind a rocky headland. She has not explored that direction before. Even with low gravity, the uphill drains her energy. The sand ridges here lay hard under her boots, like the spine of a long-dead monster.
Blossoms blanket the slope in the hues of aubergine flesh sliced by nimble-fingered Lakini. Tiny petals on each purple flower curve wide to capture the tandem sunrises. Warmth floods through Mehtab. Life. Flora and fauna. Maybe the planet is no good for humanity in the long term, but surely someone will care about this. Enough to reply to her messages, maybe to call her.
Mehtab cannot see other new insects or animals here, but she does not doubt their existence. A whole ecosystem thrives, new to science. She can name everything and Earth will have to accept it.
Her excitement changes to yearning. For home. For other people. For any kind of contact. Maybe humanity will survive on another planet, one of the many rockets providing a new birthplace, seeding a star, but here, now, she is alone. She will never again talk face-to-face with another person.
The realization weighs down her chest, the familiar pain of loneliness assuming a physicality that pins her to the pale orange soil. What good are discoveries that cannot be truly shared and not just transmitted as information to be passed up the chain of command? She will never press these aubergine flowers into Lakini’s palm, never feel her fingers dragging over the petals or watch elation bloom on her face. There is no point in any of this without human contact.
The heavy blanket of despondency is broken by the sight of the alien sliding through the blossoms. Compressed stalks spring high in its wake. Mehtab wonders about the scent, if the flowers smell sweet or if broken stems yield the aroma of fresh-cut grass. She wishes the atmosphere would allow her to jaunt about, free of suit and helmet.
She approaches one of the alien’s rocky appendages. Lemon-coloured dust now sticks to its surface, lumped like pollen around a bumblebee’s leg. It draws tiny insects out from the ground as miniature cyclones swarm upward.
Mehtab watches, entranced, as the insects pluck at the pollen. Sharp jaws dig at the creature’s skin, mandibles that rip away thin strips of the mossy substance. Are they cleaning the alien in exchange for food? Do they even recognize life in the monolith? Is it aware of them? So much to learn.
Georgina Kamsika is a speculative fiction writer born in Yorkshire, England, to Anglo-Indian immigrant parents and has spent most of her life explaining her English first name, Polish surname and South Asian features. She graduated from the Clarion West workshop in 2012, was the UNESCO Cities of Literature Writer for Wonju in 2022.
As a second-generation immigrant, her work often utilises the speculative element to examine power structures that are mirrored in the real world, touching on issues of race, class, and gender. She can be found at kamsika.com and @GKamsika on most socials.
Copyright © 2025 Georgina Kamsika