by Tim C Taylor
Then she walked away, striding for the grassy bank where the deer had paused.
And as she did so, she shed her clothing, stripping away everything down to her scales.
Halfway up, she turned and looked back at Arun. “Well, are you coming or not?”
He wanted to.
Oh, how he wanted to!
As she’d aged with her skin parasite, the pattern it painted on her body had darkened and softened, as had the scales themselves, which had taken on a slight sheen like ancient, yet well-oiled, leather. For the first time since he’d connived in her reinvention as a Wolf, her nakedness looked entirely natural to him. She seemed at one with the grass and the deer, far more than Arun did, even if he was still wearing his original skin.
Her patterning hadn’t been designed but was a natural expression of the skin parasite combining its DNA analog with hers. The result were repeating fractal motifs that looked to Arun as if she had been rolling in abstract art. Suddenly, she appeared more like the artwork primitive people might paint on stone artifacts, her body coated with looping regular patterns of ribbons, as if an alien artist had removed the arteries from human cadavers, dyed them in woad, indigo, and ocher and then laid them out in pleasing patterns.
Centered on her navel and her nipples was a motif of three spirals that intimately interlinked, each curling into the others with no clear division between them.
He wanted to follow her up that little hill and let her lead him wherever she liked. He wanted that so badly.
But Arun couldn’t. Springer’s logic was unassailable – they should enjoy this time – but he didn’t know how. When they were kids, he’d always fought to keep his unit from the Cull, and for himself to qualify for the next year. Then there was always the next campaign to plan for. There had been carousing, release, sex, food. But in the morning, the cares of the galaxy would claim him again. Since his earliest memory, he’d been fighting to survive. Ceaselessly. He didn’t know how to relax, to be carefree. How could he? He’d never experienced such things.
Springer made a show for him of licking her lips.
He growled deep within his throat.
She tossed her head from which long twirls of auburn hair still spilled through the scales, and resumed her walk up the bank, his gaze drawn to the three-spiral pattern that nestled in the small of her back and rested on the upper swell of her behind. With her buttocks rolling with the sassy sway she was putting on, the spirals became intertwined woad snakes writhing. Beckoning.
He smacked his fist hard into his forehead. It was all right for her. They’d renewed her body. She was still strong, utterly desirable. Springer could revel in her new form, whereas he…
He looked down at the black smart fabric that fixed to the edge of his hoverchair and gently constricted itself around his waist. He’d have to take medication to dull the pain that filled his body before he could enjoy rubbing it against Springer’s. Dammit! Of course they’d end up vulleying themselves raw, but it wouldn’t be easy. They weren’t cadets crawling into each other’s racks for an exploratory look see. Didn’t she understand that?
He glared at Springer who was standing on the crest of the hill, hands on the multicolored swell of her hips. Damn her!
Suddenly, she jerked in surprise – and dropped into a loose crouch.
Arun put his chair into gear. “Come on,” he roared at it, but he accelerated too hard and the contraption almost tipped over, the auto-safety system shutting down the propulsion unit, making him wait while it righted itself.
I got it, said Barney, taking over his chair. They sped uphill, leaving Pedro stuck by the drop pod.
“Arun,” said Springer, not turning her head away from whatever she was looking at, “we’ve got company.”
— Chapter 16 —
Human Translation of Annotated Nest Archive
Date: 6635-154 [estimated]
Subject: Interrogation of Human McEwan
Key scents: humans~gender~friendship~historical record
CONTEXT: The human, Arun McEwan, forever friend of the Nest by deed and by scent, was interrogated immediately prior to being placed into long-term cryogenic suspension. His human female mate was already in deep sleep by this point. The subject appeared reluctant to leave this time period and anxious about the dangers he and his companion would face if they were successfully revived. With his mate unable to overhear, he appeared grateful for the opportunity to recount his memory of the events that had taken place in this time zone.
==INTERROGATION FRAGMENT CONTINUES==
HUMAN McEWAN: So we all get to the top of that hill – well not a hill, just a little bank but with my chair and your… bloated body – no offence, Pedro – we gotta face that you and I are no longer all-terrain guys. Anyway, we get to the top, I’ve got my pistol ready, and there’s Springer looking as imperious as Xin – for heaven’s sake, don’t ever tell Springer I said that – and there’s a hunting party of locals bowing down like she’s their goddess come to bestow favor on their tribe. I mean she does look like a goddess, what with all those beautiful patterns over her super-buff body. But she’s more. She’s beyond beautiful. She’s perfect, and no one on Earth would look anything like her until we show up in 2739. She’s not just all woman but she’s all warrior too, which I think was vital to the locals. These guys were local nobility – well fed and fit for their era – but they’re still Earth natives while she’s from the Marine branch of the humankinds. There’s no contest. One on one, she could take any of them with ease and they were all warrior enough to know that.
So they get to their knees and half bow their heads. In reply, Springer clears her throat and speaks.
They don’t understand a word… at first. Of course they don’t, but you already know what happens next.
GREAT PARENT: Yes, Friend Arun, I know my experience of the events, but you promised your recollection. I am finally a Great Parent, but I am still an archivist and scholar. Treat me as if I were an inanimate recording device.
HUMAN McEWAN: A microphone that keeps prompting me to say the right thing. OK, I’m hearing you, Big Guy. So Springer speaks the same tongue we learned back at the Detroit base on Tranquility-4, which is ironic because that’s a descendant of English, and the place Greyhart sent us to is a little English village called Elstow. Except we’re at least two thousand years too early for our languages to even begin to match up. Consequently, these guys don’t understand a frakking thing.
There’s consternation amongst the locals, and I could tell that because they all boasted huge moustaches that they now proceed to curl fingers through.
Then their voices grow more agitated. They stand up, and one reaches to a long straight sword decorated with grooves similar to the patterns spiraling along Springer’s naked body. I can understand their reaction. First, they get the shock of meeting a goddess… but then it turns out to be a foreign goddess who hasn’t even bothered to learn their lingo. These ancients turned out to be pretty tribal about their deities, and Springer would have to go.
ASIDE: Subject at this point looks at me expectantly. I believe he is expecting a bilateral conversation, a more comforting form of interaction that he has become accustomed to. I believe he is saddened to be separated from his mate, Springer, and anxious about his return to a war zone. For a human to seek comfort in conversation with one of our race speaks eloquently of the capacity of our two species to coexist, the recent troubles between our peoples notwithstanding.
HUMAN McEWAN: So, yeah, Springer’s AI, Saraswati, is as mad as a box of Khallenes, but she’s got some tasty AI moves – yeah, I know you have too, Barney – but it’s Saraswati who does some serious real-time linguistic analysis. Springer speaks again, and this time she’s following Saraswati’s prompts in her head to speak in their language. She garbles the pronunciation, but they seem to accept that deities from far away will have stupid accents.
They’re what our history records as Celts, though that’s not their name for the
mselves. Their unit commander’s name is Tasciovanus, and he’s enjoying some downtime after making a ruckus and stealing a few goats from a village the other side of the tribal frontier. It’s hardly total war, but his raid is enough to make the village pay tribute to his tribe, who are called the Camuvellauni. Tasciovanus is smart, and we realize that he’s more than the poster boy for the local mustache-growers’ association; he’s the king. When I’d gotten to know him a little more, I came to understand his people loved to talk constantly of war, but that was mostly bravado and the mead talking. Although the king would switch to all-out war and kill or enslave every one of his enemies if he was pushed, Tasciovanus understood that would be bad for business. From what I could make out, being a Celtic king is like running a series of protection rackets. Like a twentieth-century mafia boss, but with a thicker mustache and more swords.
Just when I think Springer’s got this, Tasciovanus starts to get fidgety. He’s got his priest with him, a guy in a pristine white cloak he calls his druid. Now, this druid guy is seriously stoked to be in the presence of a real live goddess and can’t wait to get back and tell his druid mates. Unfortunately, that means Tasciovanus has a problem. He’s just been seriously outranked by Springer, and when the priest gets to tell everyone about her at the druid club, everyone for miles around will forget that they were supposed to be paying him tribute and start paying their homage to her. At the end of the day, Tasciovanus can’t escape the fact that he’s just a guy with impressive facial hair, whereas Springer has scales and spirals, and being properly divine, doesn’t need to bother with mundane details such as clothing.
Tasciovanus says nothing, but I’m sure he’s wondering whether he can get away with killing the druid so news doesn’t spread. In the end, he calculates that he can’t get away with murder, but he’s not a happy king.
Springer’s one smart woman – which is one of the things I love about her. She sees all this going through the king’s head while I’m still caught on the facial hair.
She commands Tasciovanus to leave her and her goblin servant (that was me, by the way). This hillock where she’s standing, and the ground for five hundred hides around, is declared holy, blessed land. No hunting or warfare is allowed. She tells them they may walk her land but leave nothing but veneration, and take nothing but the joy of harmony. And if the king wanted to tell all his Celtic mates that the Goddess Phaedra was on his patch, then that was okay with her. Better still, if anyone wanted to come in peace to her sacred grove and make offerings in the stream that ran nearby, then they would receive her divine blessing.
The king doesn’t like being told what to do. But then he thinks through what he’s just heard, and the scales fall from his eyes. Once the druid comm network starts buzzing with talk of this living goddess, parties were going to travel hundreds of miles to do a little venerating and chuck some precious objects in the river nearby – Celts are really into that kind of thing, forever tossing swords, silver jewelry and torcs into the nearest puddle – and they would all have to travel through his kingdom to get to her. Lodgings, tithes, guest services… right there and then, I saw the concept of ‘tourist attraction’ being born in the Celtic mind. Springer was not only going to make Tasciovanus rich, but she was going to make him the most prestigious king in the whole of Celt-dom.
Of course, you were supposed to dig us underground, Pedro, so we would never have to meet the locals. Unpopulated area, Greyhart told us. Well, it was unpopulated, because we’d arrived slap bang in the middle of the king’s private hunting grounds. Just bad luck, I suppose, but Springer had turned it around, putting them at ease. In fact, now that the fear of being struck down by a bolt of lightning or turned into a toad was receding, their tongues were lolling at the sight of this utterly beautiful warrior goddess.
GREAT PARENT: Were you jealous of the humans taking pleasure in the sight of your mate?
HUMAN McEWAN: Jealous? Springer was loving the attention, and I was proud fit to burst. I mean, how many people can say they go out with a god or goddess? Literally. I was more than happy to play the role of her goblin servant. I’ve been the center of attention for tens of trillions of people since before I left my teens. Now it was Springer’s turn.
Anyway. It’s my girl’s smarts that get me; they always did. We needed some privacy for a while to get digging, bury the drop pod and all the equipment, and then begin our long slumber. Springer had read the king’s mind and turned him from reluctant enemy to enthusiastic ally in moments.
ASIDE: Subject moves to the cryopod containing his mate and draws back the outer shield so he can see the outline of her face. He kisses her through the shield, despite the many times I have told him not to. His lips bond to the cold surface and he yelps in pain as he pulls them free. Humans can be so foolish, but that is what intrigues me to study them.
HUMAN McEWAN: You know, I laughed at you and Springer about the whole idea of romping naked in virgin hills. But that’s exactly what we did for three months, until Springer persuaded me it was now or never to sleep. Sorry, friend, for doubting you. [Subject becomes emotional. Tears form and voice timbre deepens]. The time you gave us here was precious. Thank you. But now… now it is so very hard to go back to the war.
GREAT PARENT: Perhaps this will help. [Hands the human a white cube, small enough to fit in his fist.]
HUMAN McEWAN: What the hell is this?
GREAT PARENT: I do not know. Greyhart tried to give it to you shortly before we left. You were fully engaged with Springer, so I promised him I would hand it to you myself.
HUMAN McEWAN: It could be a bomb.
GREAT PARENT: It could be. Friend Arun, I do not understand the technology that brought us to this time. Nonetheless, I speculate that it enables Greyhart to kill people with enormous ease. Therefore, I do not think this object is a bomb.
HUMAN McEWAN: I don’t like it. Everything about Greyhart makes my skin crawl, so maybe I’m not best placed to judge. I trust your judgement better on this, Big Guy. Should I take this?
GREAT PARENT: Yes, you should.
HUMAN McEWAN: [Takes a deep breath]. OK. Stick it with Barney in the AI cubby of my pod. Speaking of which, I’m done talking. It’s time to lay to rest next to Springer.
ADDENDUM
Human McEwan entered cryo stasis within the hour.
To give credence to her magical nature in the minds of the indigenous humans, I made several appearances before them. It was no small thing to break from my labors preparing the birthing chambers in which my Nest would first grow. The urge to give birth fought with the desire to keep my offspring safe, but yielded long enough for me to return to the surface. Silhouetted by moonlight, I made an evocative vision, which they fitted into their mythology. I became Phaedra’s Dragon.
They fitted Human Springer into their culture too. The whorls and spirals on her body were carved into a thousand items of jewelry and stone in her honor, the triskelion pattern of three conjoined spirals becoming the defining motif of Celtic art. Three thousand years later, and many light years distant, I saw the human Marines of Detroit base wearing decorative tattoos and unit symbols based upon the patterns of Springer’s scales.
But I was no longer there to witness these cultural developments. I had waited long enough. It was time to start my colony. For so long, I had been a Great Parent to nothing more than a bloated abdomen. Now I had a nest to lead. That it would be built on the homeworld of the species that had fascinated me so long was a beautiful irony that my descendants would write many poems about.
For a thousand years, legends abounded in the culture of the British Celts – and those who came after – of the hero buried underground who sleeps through many lifetimes but will awaken when the darkest night falls upon the land. Then the slumbering hero will rise to defeat foul invaders. Later, in another age, these ancient tales were rewritten around the hero called King Arthur, but I believe Human Springer was the wellspring for that story.
In her case, of course, the tale
is not a myth. She was indeed a hero, and she did rise after sleeping three thousand years to fight the Hardit invaders. But she did far more. Her most courageous act would come later still.
==INTERROGATION FRAGMENT ENDS==
—— PART VII ——
ALIEN APOTHEOSIS
— Chapter 17 —
Governor Romulus
Beneath the ruins of the White House
“Who is the Voice of the Resistance?”
“How do you contact the so-called Human Legion?”
Zantoz and the Earth Resistance had worked real magic with their nano-effector factories hidden in my body, and specifically my brain. No matter how many times Tawfiq’s uglies struck my head with their plastic clubs, they couldn’t knock any memories out of it.
Teeth and blood, though… yeah, they were spewing forth in abundance.
Worst of all, I knew Tawfiq was crossing a line. For so many years, beatings and threats to kill had been part of her enjoyment of me, but she’d always stopped short of damaging her plaything. But now… you don’t hit a guy’s head so hard that bits fall off if you’re looking forward to exchanging banter in the future.
My usefulness was coming to an end.
I had nothing to lose, but instead of the fighting spirit of the Wolf I had been raised to be, my inner resolve was as bare, empty and featureless as this cell somewhere beneath the White House. I knew something was wrong with me, something false. I still didn’t understand what.
Which is why, surprisingly enough, Tawfiq ordered my beating to stop. “Fascinating,” said my lifelong tormentor. “I believe you, Romulus. You honestly know nothing of the Resistance.”
I didn’t reply. I was too busy gasping for breath, groveling in the puddle of my own blood.
Her guards grabbed my limbs so she could safely ram her face into mine. I gagged on the stink of her breath. Guess dental hygiene isn’t in the job description of Supreme Commander and Megalomaniac-in-Chief.
