She has a lot to prepare. She'll need some of her best field agents. She has no intention of meeting with this human without backup. She'll need people she can trust, who can maintain absolute secrecy, and who'll be able to spring a trap quickly if needed and the opportunity presents itself. Should she tell Toshi and the rest? Perhaps later, right before the mission. No need to imperil secrecy just yet.
∞∞∞
Zaleria is back on Earth. She is walking with Rolle Andersson again, but this time, it is through a forested region, and they are both wearing animal skins to keep warm in the cold winter air. Zaleria doesn't seem to mind, although she would normally abhor dead skins. They are both carrying sharpened sticks to use as arrows, with bows to launch them—Stone Age weapons used for hunting deer and other similarly sized game. She is hungry. The winter has been long, and food is scarce. They have been tracking a herd of reindeer all morning and are nearing some of the weaker animals that are beginning to trail the rest of the herd. Suddenly, a kel'taite comes bursting out of some bushes, heading straight for them. For her.
They must fight it with their primitive weapons. It is pointless, but what else can they do? Neither of them is willing to give up without a fight. Rolle veers left, and she swings right, acting as a perfect team, instinctively knowing what the other will do. The kel'taite lunges for her, and Rolle stabs it in its right eye with a stone dagger. It howls and rears up, Zaleria goes for the left eye but misses when it pulls its head back at the last moment. It anticipated the attack. It fixes her with its two remaining eyes and charges, bowling her over. It was inevitable. Just as its mouth, full of sharp glistening teeth is about to bite her head off, the kel'taite jerks with a start, and falls over dead, a perfect hole burned clear through its head. She looks over at Rolle, who is holding her spectrum analyzer. Where did he get that from, and how did he manage to reconfigure it to use as a weapon, she wonders, before waking with a start.
She sits up, and rubs her eyes. Another night, another dream about Rolle. This time it was similar to her first mission on Earth. That time that poor human boy, what was his name? It comes to her from her on-board storage. That time the human boy, Achi, attacked the kel'taite with nothing more than a sharpened stick and a stone ax. She smiles at the memory, still amazed he'd been able to injure it to begin with. How he smelled. She reflexively wrinkles her nose at the memory. He'd probably never bathed in his life. She laughs at the memory, and who could say, perhaps Rolle was his long-lost decedent. They looked similar enough…Achi and Rolle…Rolle and Achi. She freezes, the smile slowly draining from her face as she grows cold all over. Mentally, she starts comparing the two, overlaying their facial features. Bone structures. Hair growth pattern. They are eerily similar. She reaches out for more computing power from the collective. If Rolle were age regressed back to a similar age as Achi, they would look…identical. Eye and hair color slightly different, but if those are adjusted… They would be the same. And Rolle seemed to have had her symbiots…
Her head starts to hurt suddenly, an acute, pounding headache pulsing in time with her accelerating heartbeat, accompanied by a dull rushing in her ears, like all the blood was being drained out of her. Time slows with each beat, until both her pulse and time stop. [You will remember this; cherish your bond.]
In a flash, she remembers! She is standing in front of the Being of Light, and standing next to her is Rolle Andersson. But it is not Rolle; it is Achi! They are bonded, two beings melded into one in the eyes of their Creator, Who is full of joy. Their union is significant, important, full of implications. She doesn't know what any of them are, but she remembers this much. It is important.
And just as suddenly, all is as it was. She is in her bed, in her home, but suddenly she feels very, very alone. Separated from an important part of her inner being. The rushing sound ebbs, her head clears, and she sits there stunned. Tears form and roll slowly down her cheeks, while she breathes heavily.
She takes a deep, shuddering breath and thinks back for the first time in many thousands of years about that first mission, reviewing everything she did. Every interaction she had with Achi, isolating every detail, seeing if there is something she missed. And there it is. He is wounded. She is wounded. The thermal oscillator had just kicked in. They needed to reach safety. Their blood mingles. There are 53 symbiots in contact with his body. She doesn't want him to die for her mistakes. Their DNA is so similar, her symbiots execute her order. The moment of contamination. She contaminated Earth 10,000 years ago and forever altered its evolution. She is to blame. To blame…
But wait. Achi is Rolle, and wasn't he a force for good? The Being of Light was pleased with their bond. She was with Rolle, helping him on Earth. She died by his side. Would she have really done that if he was trying to make mankind fail?
She reviews everything about what is known of their movements during the time she was on Earth. She tried to get on Rolle's security detail to be able to watch over him, but he arranged her first mission as a date, to try and draw out Sklávoi Ashtoreth. But he didn't show; it was apparently a stand-in. Perhaps a wise move considering the double died in the explosion, but afterwards the real Andersson had her body removed from the scene. Only her body.
There is just one conclusion to draw. He knew. He knew who she was. He recognized her in Denver and knew she would regenerate, because he still had her symbiots in him. Perhaps he wanted to confront her alone, in a place he could control. There's no telling what his motive may have been. But what would have been the consequence of that reunion?
She checks with her essence. She tried to meld from Rolle's estate. Her essence blocked the attempt because her unitary appeared to have been severely compromised. There was the presence of multiple alien personalities. Alien. She focuses on these personalities—it’s hard to tell from the sparse data gleaned by her essence, but it was a profound number. Some seemed very primitive, others nearly modern. All human. All male. Were they sequential, perhaps a series of personalities? Achi, in the many different guises he must have lived throughout the millennia? Possibly, certainly a workable hypothesis.
It must be! All the data fit. What would have happened? The symbiots that recorded those moments have been destroyed. Her symbiots record her memories, would they have done the same for Achi? They must have, especially if he was able to recognize her after 10,000 years. He must have figured out who she was from that brief encounter in Denver. Her symbiots would have done what they were designed to do, share data among themselves. All the data from both sets of symbiots. 10,000 years’ worth of separate memories brought together. It must have been incredible, and terrifying. They would have shared memories, but two consciousnesses. It must have been extremely disorienting, especially if that was the first thing she experienced after regenerating. No wonder her unitary had been acting strangely!
She feels woozy at the thought of it all, but this must be what happened. Her mother told her she'd have to figure it out. She reviews everything one last time, then again for good measure. She is as sure as she can be. Well, it is time to find out if she is right. “Mother!”
She hears Traemuña's hurried footsteps. She appears in her night clothes. “Is everything okay? What's wrong?” There is genuine concern on her face.
“It was Achi, wasn't it? I'd contaminated him all those years ago, and when we'd met again physically, we must have inadvertently shared all our memories, contaminating me to the point my essence would no longer recognize me.”
Traemuña stands there, mouth agape, not knowing what to say. How did she do it? How did she make that intuitive leap? She walks over, grabs Zaleria by her shoulders, bends down, and kisses her tenderly on the top of her head. “You continue to amaze me, my daughter. Yes! That is exactly what happened. How did you figure it out?”
Traemuña has reverted to using the human English language, a ploy she uses when she wants to make sure Zaleria thinks about what she wants to say. And, Zaleria thinks to herself, to ensure she doesn't give too much
away. “It was one of those damned nightmares. It led me to compare Rolle and Achi, and I saw how similar they were. And then I finally remembered what happened after we were destroyed. We underwent our life review together. The Being of Light said we should cherish our bond.” Zaleria stops herself. “They never found his body, did they?”
“No, they didn't.”
“Do you think he was destroyed, too?” Zaleria asks in a thin voice. She feels like a little girl again.
“I don't know. I hope not, because I actually liked him for the short time I knew him. Sometimes it is hard to have faith, but he was resourceful, as you have also proven to be. You were with him when it happened. Perhaps you both found a way to at least preserve enough of his corporeal form to give him a chance.”
Zaleria thinks on this for a while. The thermal oscillator destroyed her unitary, and likely destroyed his body as well. He would not have had a way to regenerate—he surely would have lacked an essence. But she thinks about what the Being of Light told her. She looks up at her mother. “Tell me everything you know, please.”
Traemuña nods her head. “You have grasped the key elements, so I might as well tell you what must be most concerning. No, I don't believe he'd compromised your free will. Whatever you did in your time together, and I don't know all the details, you did them because you believed it was the right thing to do. After you'd tried to meld with your essence, and were rejected, he convinced you to reach out to me.” She lets that sink in before continuing. “I think he cared for you. He told me that you were such a beautiful person, innocent. He was—perhaps is—quite evolved, very much like a galan now.” She sighs. “But you must know, he was not always so. His early years were very brutal, and violent. He said you were having a hard time dealing with those memories. How much, I'm not sure. As you surmised, all your memories had commingled. You knew each other as well as you know yourselves. You need to understand, it changed you. I don't think to the point you had become a baser creature, but you were no longer innocent; that is for sure. If you are ever in a position to come into contact with him, it'll happen again. You must consider carefully whether you are willing to go through that. It was quite traumatic the first time, but you were also severely injured, and neither of you were prepared for, or expected, what happened.”
Zaleria thinks about the implications but keeps coming back to the Being of Light's statement. “What was he like?”
Traemuña laughs a little. “Oh, he was charming, and intelligent, and a flirt. He had figured so much out, without any aid from the collective, and in some ways, I think he could see your motivations more clearly than you could, and more of mine than I would like. He respected you and was deeply concerned about what his memories were doing to you. He'd had a very hard life, growing from a complete primitive to an evolved being. But because of this, he was also very shrewd—very little escaped his notice. While only 10 millennia old, he has experienced more conflict, deceit, and adversity than probably any living galan. This makes him very formidable, I think, and probably very dangerous if adequately provoked. If he has found some way to survive, he could be a tremendous ally. But he would also be a huge complication—I do not know what the collective would do with him if you share what you know. Another thing you must think carefully about.”
Zaleria sighs. Mother was right, as usual. Having learned what she'd forgotten, she wants more than anything to get back to Earth. But she can't and is now very frustrated that there is nothing she can do about it. If Achi survived, perhaps she can find him. She smiles a bit as she realizes she already has. But what can she do with that information?
“Mother, I believe Achi does live, and I think I know who he now is.”
Traemuña nods her head. “I had a feeling you might.”
“Why am I not surprised,” she says, realizing that her mother had probably figured out Nils’ identity a while back. “I have a…feeling…things are going to reach a crisis point soon. We must be prepared to act, assuming you will help me see this through to its conclusion.”
“Of course I will; in fact, I would insist if you'd not had the courtesy to ask.” Traemuña looks tired and grim to Zaleria, so she gets up from her bed, crosses over to her, and gives her a long embrace.
“Someday, perhaps I can help you with your burden, as you have supported me in mine. I haven't figured out what it is yet, but it is also probably getting near. And when it finally finds us, I will be there with you, even if all others abandon you.” She isn't sure why she feels the need to say this, but it seems…right. Traemuña doesn't say or share anything in response, she just holds on to her daughter, sharing something more important than thought or spoken words.
Chapter Thirteen
First Impressions
Achi sits in his room in his new house. It is a small, nondescript house in a working-class neighborhood in Raleigh. Part of his keeping a low profile. He is thinking through the coming encounter with Beltare and is uneasy. He has not shared everything he knows with anyone, and much rides on this meeting going well. He is increasingly convinced they will not be able to deal with their adversary without help from the galanen, but it is far too complicated. He sighs. If he can just get a message to one person, he thinks the most vexing issues will resolve themselves. If only he could access the collective! He can't afford a miscalculation or misunderstanding. He has to be prepared that Beltare could view him as the depraved being leading Sklávoi Ashtoreth, it would be somewhat logical, especially if Zaleria finally shared what happened in Denver. He can’t let Beltare find out who he is, at least not until he can deliver his message. How can he keep her from sensing his symbiots? He looks within to find answers.
“Alright guys, tell me. Can you hide your presence from another galan? Is there a way to not make a local connection? It would be very dangerous to my mission to be revealed to Beltare or any other galan without first reaching an understanding.”
There is actually a discernible pause as they think about his question.
“Beltare may believe I am a rogue galan if she discerns you but can't find a record of me. If she discovers you are encoded to Zaleria, she may remove me from Earth, preventing me from fulfilling my mission. It could also cause repercussions for Zaleria. Is this not reason enough?”
Achi smiles. “So after all that, it's 'so as you say, so shall it be'?”
“Then why didn't you just say so?”
“Garbage in, garbage out. Come on, that has been a trope for decades; I expect better wit from you guys. Switching topics, about Zaleria. If this works, we will likely see her again. What can we do to prevent our memories from overwhelming her again? I do not want a repeat of what happened last time; it will have to be her choice to meld that way.”
Achi thinks on this a moment. He knows a thing or two about what is essentially cyber security. He has another thought. “So, speaking of which, how hard would it be to 'hack' a galan's symbiots. Make them think you were their
user? Would all you need is their DNA? And what about the security systems on spacecraft or other galanen devices? I can use the med kit and sidearm because it recognizes Zaleria, via you.”
Achi starts to think about what he needs to accomplish. He needs to convince Beltare that he is nothing more than a human. To do that, he has to keep her from discovering he has symbiots, and failing that, keep her from thinking he is one of the beings trying to make humanity fail. Meanwhile, he needs to gain her willingness to allow him to send a message to someone he will not identify to her. He sighs. It'll be a tall order. He just knows this is going to go south.
So how to gain her trust. The first option is to be completely open with her. Just level with her and see what happens. This would be his preferred approach, but he would be betraying Zaleria's confidence if he did. She won't know that, but if they ever rejoined memories, she would. But Achi would know, and he just can't bring himself to do it. That is unfortunate, because based on what he knows of Beltare, this is the approach most likely to succeed, and also most likely to result in his living out the remainder of his existence far, far away from Earth.
So option two is finesse. Unfortunately, he isn't sure Beltare is the kind of person who will respond to finesse. He could tell her he has information, but he will only pass it to one person. She'll assume he means Zaleria. With luck, she might at least appear to go along with facilitating contact, perhaps far enough for him to hijack the link, if they can figure out how to do it. That would be awkward at best, but perhaps the best he can hope for.
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