Ten hours later, when dark finally fell, it was time. I’d bought the container at the market; it was made from the shed exoskeleton of students who sold them for spending money. It was clear like one of Okwu’s tentacles and dyed red. I’d packed it with the fresh otjize, which now looked thick and ready.

I pressed my right index and middle finger together and was about to dig out the first dollop when I hesitated, suddenly incredibly unsure. What if my fingers passed right through it like liquid soap? What if what I’d harvested from the forest wasn’t clay at all? What if it was hard like stone?

I pulled my hand away and took a deep breath. If I couldn’t make otjize here, then I’d have to . . . change. I touched one of my tentacle-like locks and felt a painful pressure in my chest as my mind tried to take me to a place I wasn’t ready to go to. I plunged my two fingers into my new concoction . . . and scooped it up. I spread it on my flesh. Then I wept.

I went to see Okwu in its dorm. I was still unsure what to call those who lived in this large gas-filled spherical complex. When you entered, it was just one great space where plants grew on the walls and hung from the ceiling. There were no individual rooms, and people who looked like Okwu in some ways but different in others walked across the expansive floor, up the walls, on the ceiling. Somehow, when I came to the front entrance, Okwu would always come within the next few minutes. It would always emit a large plume of gas as it readjusted to the air outside.

“You look well,” it said, as we walked down the walkway. We both loved the walkway because of the winds the warm clear seawater created as it rushed by below.

I smiled. “I feel well.”

“When did you make it?”

“Over the last two suns,” I said.

“I’m glad,” it said. “You were beginning to fade.”

It held up an okuoko. “I was working with a yellow current to use in one of my classmate’s body tech,” it said.

“Oh,” I said, looking at its burned flesh.