My next life as a catfish, I swam until I passed a dark, curved object that my Piri-self recognized as a roof tile. Then I split off from my siblings, staked out that stretch of river as my territory, and measured myself every day. It took a few years, but when I reached one tile in length, I swam off in search of a fishing boat.

This time, Flicker informed me with some asperity, I did indeed grow big enough to provide sufficient monetary value to the fisherman who caught me, and nutritional value to the family that ate me. However – “Piri, you’re defeating the point of the karma system. You’re not supposed to gain positive karma unless you become a better person!”

I debated arguing that I was becoming a better person – but only for a second. Are you going to report me? I asked instead.

He hesitated for so long that I was about to start panicking when he answered, “No” in a defeated voice. He exhaled and his shoulders slumped. “No, I’m not.”

I really appreciate that –

“It’s not for your sake, Piri!” he burst out. “It’s because there’s no point! Yes, I could spend hours filling out paperwork to report that a soul is transgressing the rules, and then spend weeks filling out supplemental paperwork to document my observations, and responding to inquiries from my superiors as aforementioned paperwork makes its way up through the hierarchy…but I already know that in the end, Glitter will conclude that you haven’t actually broken any rules and hence can’t be punished – but by then she’ll have wasted so many departmental resources on this investigation that she’ll have to punish someone – and that someone will be me!” He broke off, breathing hard.

His skin flared and dimmed with his breathing rhythm, I noticed. Must be something star sprites did when they got upset. I gave him a moment to return to a steady glow.

Who’s Glitter? Have I met her?

Dropping his head into his hands, he muttered something that sounded like “Self-centered as ever” before replying curtly, “Superintendent of Reincarnation. The one who oversees day-to-day operations here.”

Oh.

“And you have met her. She was at the front desk in the audience chamber.”

Her?! Her name was Glitter???

I remembered that doorwoman clerk – mostly because she’d been the one who revealed Flicker’s name – and a less glittery personality I could not imagine. She’d been withered and white-haired, with thin lips and pinched cheeks and fierce eyes, the exact opposite of the Goddess of Life. But the clerks around Glitter had treated her like a queen. In fact, Flicker had addressed her as “honored one,” while he saluted gods with a less-exalted-sounding “my lord” or “my lady.” Honestly, I was surprised the gods weren’t offended.

Most likely because they hadn’t noticed yet.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. Your name is Flicker, hers is Glitter, and that clerk in the stairwell was Wink. How are star sprites named anyway?

“How are we named?” Flicker stared at me blankly, as if the question had never occurred to him. “We’re not. We…just come into existence knowing our names. How do you know yours?”

Fair enough. Fox spirits all had elegant, poetic names, in keeping with our elegant, poetic natures. When I’d first awakened as a fox, even before I’d learned how to transform into a human, I’d done so with the full knowledge that I was Piri. Flos Piri, or Pear Blossom, to be precise, in reference to the image of a delicate, weeping maiden whose tears resembled the raindrops on the petals of a pure white pear blossom.

I would admit, it didn’t exactly fit my personality. But it did conjure up all sorts of fantasies that I aspired to fulfill, which was the point.

Maybe star sprites were born cheerful, twinkling characters. Paperwork could, after all, crush the playfulness out of anyone.

Just look at Marcius.

Hey, how’s Marcius anyway? What kind of animal did he reincarnate as? What’s he up to on Earth?

I’d already seen the “Green” stamp on my document, so I knew that I’d reincarnate as an aquatic creature again. If Marcius happened to live near water, I could make my way to his river or lake and spy, er, check on him. Just to see how he was doing, of course. And maybe to mess with him. Messing with him would be entertaining. And free – since he wasn’t human.

“Oh, no no no. I can’t tell you that. That is absolutely forbidden.”

But what if I run into him? I coaxed. I won’t even know it’s him.

“That’s the reason we suppress your memories before reincarnation. So you can start fresh on Earth without all the baggage from your previous lives.”

Oh. Since Flicker seemed determined to stick to this rule, I turned to a more immediate concern. Soooo, what am I going to be this time?

In answer, he slapped my file shut to show me the rune for “catfish” on the front.

Agaaaaain? I put a whine into my tone for Glitter’s benefit, in case she monitored her underlings. She’d looked like the type who kept her beady eyes on everyone all the time so she could maintain constant control over her domain. Fliiiicker, why do you keep assigning me as a catfish?

He bought the pretense. “As I have told you over and over, I do not make decisions as to the details of reincarnation. I merely carry it out. You’d have to ask Glitter how she assigns souls – and I do not recommend doing that.”

Okaaaaay, fiiiiine.

He studied me for a long moment, opened his mouth, and then shut it again, rather like a fish. I waited for him to ask if I were positive I didn’t want to use the Tea of Forgetfulness this time, but all he said was, “Are you ready?”

Yep. Hit me.

And he did.

My third life as a catfish, I swam downstream as far as I could, mapping the riverbed and identifying the types of water spirits here. I saw catfish and loaches, gobies and mussels, softshell turtles and crabs, water snakes and shrimp, all of whom answered to the local dragon king.

Steering clear of them, I followed a school of silvery baby salmon who were migrating to the sea. They were so tiny and weak that they hid during the day and only came out at night, when they’d point their tails downstream and let the currents carry them along. At first, they eyeballed me warily and darted away if I got too close, but after a week, they grew used to my broad, dark form. The bolder ones even flashed forward to nibble my whiskers. They were pretty cute, I had to confess.

Even if I did occasionally get an urge to eat one.

My fish brain kept calling them food, while my Piri-self was curious about how a catfish’s perception of flavor differed from a human’s. Salmon had been served in the palace, after all. And I’d eaten it as a fox.

However, if I attacked even one baby salmon, the rest would never trust me again. So I amused myself by playing tag with them and refrained from eating any kind of fish in front of them, just in case. For the duration of our trip, I fed on insects, water snails, and plants, noting the change in species as the fresh river water gradually turned brackish. Eventually it grew too salty for me, and I waved a flipper at the baby salmon as they vanished into the sea.

See you next year, I called, even though they couldn’t understand me.

Then I swam back upstream towards that roof tile.

“That was an encouraging life,” Flicker praised the next time I saw him. For some reason, his lips were twitching towards an attempt at a smile. “You showed flashes of altruism, Piri.”

I did?

I hadn’t thought that leaping into a fishing net so I could gain karma so I could advance to a higher Tier counted as altruism, but hey, if that were how the Bureau of Reincarnation defined it, I wasn’t going to argue.

I mean, of course I did! The cycle of reincarnation is helping me become a better person, just as it was designed to! I’m learning to view my past lives through fresh eyes – literally; one fresh set per life – and I am so, so ashamed of the person I used to be –

Flicker was groaning and massaging his temples again. “No need to lay it on so thick,” he muttered. His eyes flicked towards a grate on the wall. His hands, I noted, hid his lips from anyone who might be spying through it.

At the image of Cassius hunched over on the other side with his ear pressed to the metal, I let out a happy chime.

Rearranging his face into sober lines, Flicker straightened. “I was referring to those salmon fry, Piri. You could have grown faster by eating them. Instead, you chose to shepherd them to the sea. I was…pleasantly surprised.”

I, on the other hand, was appalled.

Of course I could have grown faster from devouring those baby salmon than from scrounging for bugs and plants on the river bottom. So why hadn’t I done it? The reincarnation cycle wasn’t erasing my personality, was it?

Did I get extra karma for it? I blurted out before remembering that a truly altruistic person wouldn’t have asked that. Probably wouldn’t even have dreamed of asking that.

Good. That meant I was still me.

“A token amount, for the extremely circuitously indirect benefit to humankind. Less than what you earned as an oyster for ecosystem engineering, I’m afraid. But don’t focus on that,” Flicker urged. “Focus on the sense of satisfaction you feel when you help others.”

Mmmm, yes. I feel very satisfied when I help others. So how much did I help others by turning into their dinner this time?

The poor clerk sighed. “Why do I get the impression that telling you would be a mistake?”

Because it was one. But you’re still going to tell me, riiiiiiight?

He sighed again. “I have no idea why…but yes.”

I never made the baby salmon mistake again.

Instead, I spent my next dozen lives experimenting with my size at capture. Humans valued catfish primarily in terms of weight, i.e., the heavier, the better. Obviously, I had no way to weigh myself, but I could use length as a proxy. Since Glitter kept reincarnating me in the same river, probably to replenish its catfish population, I’d just swim until I found my roof tile ruler. As the lives passed, it broke apart and crumbled away, but by then I’d learned my growth rate.

After my seventh life, when I spent forty years growing to four feet, Flicker told me that the fisherwoman who caught me won special praise for hooking the largest catfish in local history. Accompanied by her fellow fisherfolk, she paraded up to the castle and presented me to the baron. That night, I was steamed and served whole in the great hall so everyone could admire my magnificence. The joy this banquet brought the baron and his vassals earned me a windfall of karma – but was it worth the decades I’d invested?

Since he was in a hurry, Flicker refused to tell me exact numbers. However, from the thickness of my curriculum vitae, I estimated that I’d gained more karma from that single life than what I could have earned from living two or three times in the same time span. Still, nobles didn’t throw a party every time a peasant brought them a big fish, so after some thought, I opted for shorter lives. Humans seemed sufficiently happy with two-feet-long catfish, which also gave me more opportunities to experiment with where and how I was caught. Of course, every time Flicker showed me the “catfish” rune on my file, I wailed about how boring its life was, how intolerably ugly it was, and so on.

It worked. I continued to reincarnate as a catfish.

“You’re accumulating karma very…efficiently,” Flicker commented after my fourteenth life, his pause conveying deep irony.

I ignored it. I had the measure of him by now: a lonely, bitter, overworked clerk whose social circle consisted of the souls he processed and the colleagues he nodded at in passing in the stairwell. I probably counted as his best friend.

So, how close am I to Black Tier? I chimed, expecting him to confess after much hemming and hawing and hedging that even though he really shouldn’t be telling me this, a couple more lives should suffice….

“Not even close.” His answer came with no hesitation whatsoever.

What? I nearly tumbled out of the air in shock. Catching myself, I yelped, Wait! I didn’t spend that long in White Tier, did I?

Admittedly, after a few centuries, the lives had begun to blur together, but I could swear that I’d already spent longer in Green Tier than I had in White. How could I possibly not be on the cusp of Black?

But Flicker was shaking his head. His chin lifted slightly and his gaze drifted past me to focus on nothing, telltale signs that he was about to start reciting some manual. “The Earth requires significantly larger populations of lower lifeforms than it does higher ones. Have you heard of apex predators?”

Let’s pretend I have.

Miracle of miracles, he skipped the natural philosophy lecture and cut to the relevant bit. “Simply put, the amount of karma that you need to advance increases with each Tier.”

Increases? That’s not fair! Pulsing fiercely, I demanded, How many more lives before I reach Black?

“It’s not that simple. There’s a very complicated function with many parameters that the Accountants have developed in order to calculate karma per life.”

There was one obvious follow-up question: And is that function constant over time, or do they change it whenever they feel like it?

The clerks, as I’d seen, harbored an awe for Accountants second only to their reverence for Glitter. Flicker fixed me with a hard stare. “The Accountants are selected for their personal integrity, Piri. Don’t assume that they operate under the same principles – or lack thereof – as you.”

Ouch.

I didn’t really care, though. He’d revealed enough for me to realize that I had to stop living normal catfish lives.

I had to get creative.