by Drew Briney
By this point, I thought I was pretty much out of the picture. I was the fly on the wall observing this magnificent interchange and had carefully backed myself behind a leafy bush – foliage that I still don’t know how to classify. But it saw me nonetheless – and it glowered. It growled without opening its jaws much like you would expect from a mountain lion or perhaps some other large feline. When the woman’s eyes discovered my presence, she waved her hand at the dragon as if ordering it to fly away – and it did.
Now, I wouldn’t readily admit this to anyone who asked but since I’m just writing in my journal for posterity’s sake, I will say that this is the first time in my life that I was genuinely afraid of a woman. I had a mind to turn and run away but something kept me glued to the stony ground – but it wasn’t fear. Her walk was almost tender, mesmerizing. I don’t know how to describe it. She came towards me like a woman might approach a small, frightened child hiding underneath a table – but without the slightest air of condescension. I later found out that she was as curious as I was. Over six feet tall with pale skin, amber eyes, and ruddy hair splotched with white around the temples, she had never seen anyone like me and wanted a closer look. It seemed like an eternity as I waited for her to climb up to where I was. And she seemed entirely oblivious to the possibility that I might run away while her attention was distracted climbing up the rock wall – or that I might perhaps attack her or otherwise bring her harm. She has always seemed so innocent – which is very strange considering what she really knows and who she really is.
When she climbed up over the ledge to where I was, she remained on all fours, her knees slightly bent still above the ground and her eyes gazing up at me with those enchanting looks she gives sometimes. When I saw her up close, I was strangely attracted to her despite her odd skin color and her idiosyncratic features. And yet, part of me wondered whether or not I should have run away – whether or not I should be intensely scared of her; but then, the other part of me was still a scientist. I still had that worldview where discovering a new species was something exciting – something worth taking risks. Foolish. I know.
If I then had only a tenth of my understanding about species on other planets, I would have long before abandoned this barren wasteland we once called earth. There are much more wondrous places to explore – places where the inhabitants haven’t been so abusive to their environment or to each other – places where we can easily take up residence and enjoy a much easier lifestyle than what we endure here. Places where scientists haven’t made their final refuge in the forests of Borneo so that they can gene splice their hearts away, creating ever new and more monstrous creatures – even griffon-dragons. What fool was behind that project?
But there she was, some sort of new species walking – or somewhat crawling – right there in front of me. I hadn’t noticed until then – as she was working her way towards me – that she had a tail as well. It too appeared to be tattooed and it too had that glowing quality to it and there was only a subtle puff of hair punctuating its tip – hair that matched her head: a thick black color with an iridescent shine to it – bluish. By now I could see her eyes: also sort of a blue but they reflected a greenish tint when the light caught them right – sort of like when lights shine on a cat in the dark – but the effect was different and it happened in the daylight – never at night. Her pupils were oval instead of round but not pointed like a feline. Her ears had small, pointy tufts of hair that made them look almost elvish in appearance except for the extra concave curve on the sides.
Oh – and I didn’t notice it then – it was dusk after all – but the nape of her neck has gills. You almost can’t see them at all when they are closed. I didn’t notice them until the third or fourth time that I met her by the pond at midday. Perhaps the strangest thing about her though was her nails – although not hollow, tube-like feline claws, they are retractable and unusually sharp – though far from lethal. I noticed them retract as she turned her hands over and she reached towards me. Her movements have always been so gentle and soothing – graceful. Watching her is sort of like watching a swan or an egret – every movement is somehow soothing and relaxing and makes you feel like leaning back in a chair to soak up the nature around you. She is organic like that.
She smiled at me but I didn’t see her teeth until later. This was a soft smile – and perhaps she was aware that if I had seen her canine teeth, I might have been startled – or maybe she was too naive to think such things. Maybe she was just a little cautious herself. But her smile was so captivating and her eyes were so riveting and flashy that I didn’t even notice that I was no longer afraid of her; I was no longer wary of what she might do or what she might be like. I was like one of those prey fish staring at the glowing appendage of a vicious angler fish – only she was no predator – though her hand was glowing a little more than the rest of her body. As I reached out my hand to touch hers, I noticed for the first time that her skin was shimmering – not just … glowing – oh, what is the right word?
***Computer Contextual Suggestion***
***Glistening, shiny, glimmering, sparkling.***
***End Contextual Suggestion***
Because she wore little clothing, I could easily discern that some portions of her skin were more shiny and glowing than others. Her backside was quite shiny compared to her face and her front side but there were patches even there (mostly around her darker skin designs) that shined more effusively. She was stunning to behold.
The scientist in me wanted to study her, to run tests, perhaps even to dissect her – so much so that at first, I pretty much failed to even notice her breathtaking beauty. I guess that wasn’t the first time. I have seen rare birds and beautiful creatures before and hardly noticed their aesthetics – too entranced in learning about their anatomy and their ecological significance to see form and beauty.
But I digress.
She learned English in a matter of days. She could speak at a toddler level in less than a few hours and after I had spent a few solid hours with her the second visit, she could speak as well as any eight year old I ever met. I still cannot say her name – only half of it – and I still haven’t begun communicating in her language. She devoured information from our database much more quickly than anyone I have met before and she cried when I told her that she had learned almost everything we had to offer – and the database is almost finished. This woman knows nearly everything that I do – if not lots more.
***Computer Contextual Suggestion***
***Five completed database copies are housed in Unit 5, Compound B, and are held in receiving under code name “magic woman.”***
***End Contextual Suggestion***
Give us a few more months and I believe our efforts will be complete. I have unit seven reworking everything that has already been done to make sure that we miss nothing important but they remain thoroughly convinced that we are years away from completion.
When the database is done, I will take her with me to another planetary system. This one is being overrun by natives controlled by the gene splicing team – ever intent on gaining control over this ever shrinking piece of real estate we still call Borneo.
She believes she can find her way back to her home moon with a little help and that she was inadvertently left here by herself after an attack by local villagers. And because she gets quite lonely sometimes, she has always been anxious to trade promises of my resources for her knowledge of magic – the real thing. It’s all based on some primeval system of animism – only, rather than simply believing that everything around her has a soul, she actually communicates with them. She can communicate with soils, plants, animals, and anything with the slightest amount of life in it – she even changes the air. I’m a slow learner but I expect to learn enough to satiate my interests by the time I find her home moon. She says I could learn faster - she can use telepathy to teach me everything she knows quite quickly – I guess like we do with the database – but I suspect telepathy would lead to a
mutual exchange of information so I have not accepted her offer – I cannot let her learn my true intentions.
She describes her home moon as paradisiacal – a blissful patchwork of islands. Perhaps I will settle there – or perhaps I will continue to explore as I have for years. Either way, I’ve chosen to take a few more recruits with me this time. Each Order continues to grow infertile – some have so far devolved that they may be entirely unfit to continue our race even with our modern medicines. I will only take the best specimens (scientifically speaking); the rest will go extinct or fall prey to the natives I guess. But that is no concern of mine – the database is finished and nature will run its inevitable course.
***New Voice Transmission***
“Good morning Doctor; how are you?”
“Oh, hello. I’m fine thanks.”
***Inaudible***
***Unexpected Transmission Error***
***End Transcription***
“IT SOUNDS LIKE HE WAS DICTATING it for editing.”
“Exactly,” Evelia answered excitedly, “but because of an interruption, he inadvertently sent the transcription into database archives instead of into his personal files. The recording was made over a month ago … can you believe the database is really almost finished?” she ended with sincere disbelief.
“And Dr. Boyd has been planning on leaving most of us here to die,” Blaze grumbled, not even trying to conceal his growing unhappiness. Not to mention he used several contractions, he quietly castigated in his own mind.
“But it sounds like he is going to take you with him,” Evelia soothed, “and it sounds like there are other people in other units … right … here,” she added with a touch of disbelief mingled with curiosity. “… only a couple of months from completion …”
A quick but not overbearing knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Evelia swashed away the screen of Dr. Boyd’s memo, tucked her hologram pad underneath a small blanket on the shelf, and motioned Blaze to silence with her finger. As she opened the door, she nearly gasped in surprise: Dr. Boyd was standing opposite her, offering a genuine smile.
“Evelia – I am glad I happened to catch you home. I hope I am not intruding but I have a small item of business I would like to run past you … oh Blaze! Good to see you,” he blurted to his own surprise. Then, turning back to Evelia, he continued, “actually, this works out quite well.” Pointing to Blaze, he added, “I just spoke to Blaze yesterday about the possibility of joining a new team. Top secret, highest security clearances, and utmost confidential,” he said in his characteristic manner – by avoiding contractions, Dr. Boyd was known to speak in incomplete sentences, a nuance that few really noticed but a nuance that deeply bothered Blaze: if the Order was going to insist on linguistic purity, its chief leader ought to be the exemplar, not the exception – regardless of his advancing age.
“Space exploration,” he began again. “I know we’ve all been taught that space exploration ended with the Third Holocaust but it is a living, breathing, viable technology that we possess … we’ve just been waiting for the right time to tell more of our Order members.”
Evelia all but fell backwards with surprise. Subconsciously, she’d successfully dismissed that detail in Dr. Boyd’s memo as wishful thinking. Hearing the doctor speak of it in person dispelled all doubt that he was serious. Connecting the dots, she remembered that had Blaze mentioned that his visit with Dr. Boyd was top secret and that he was excited about being invited onto an elite team but he had failed to mention this exotic detail – proof that he can keep a good secret, she mentally noted.
Dr. Boyd barely noticed her surprise and didn’t skip a beat. “I have been on a few trips myself and our special team in charge of exploration has performed a number of other trips besides that. In roughly two months, we will be making an extremely significant trip and will be in need of a larger crew. I am hoping that you will join us.”
Blaze’s temper, still smoldering after listening to the misfiled memo, was now brimming over – though by looking at him, you would never have guessed it. All of a sudden, the “special team” and the “extremely significant trip” meant a whole lot more to him than it had the day before and he felt indignant that anyone would be so brazen as to invite someone else on a mission to colonize a new planet without being informed that they would never return and that everyone you left behind would likely be exterminated by forces they didn’t even know existed and were therefore completely unprepared to defend against. Still, keeping a poker face was crucial in this situation and Blaze was bright enough to recognize that fact so he said nothing and revealed nothing. He simply looked at Evelia as if he was excited to have her invited on the trip with him. Truth be known – but for the memo – he would have been thrilled to have her with him on the trip – or maybe he was thrilled to have her with him on the trip despite the memo. But then, he realized he didn’t know if he really would be going – and if he was going to go, he didn’t know what the terms or circumstances might be.
“Yes, sir,” Evelia all but exploded with enthusiasm – whether well faked or sincere, Blaze couldn’t tell – but he guessed the former. “Well,” she began amending her first statement, “at least, I expect that the answer is yes – if I was to be responsible, I suppose I would have to say that I would like to think about it but based on my first impulse, I would have to say that my answer will be yes.”
“That sounds great,” Dr. Boyd replied, giving her an eye less full of caution than Blaze would have expected. “I will expect a definitive reply in a few days. Until then … no word of this to anyone … agreed?” Although his voice betrayed no tone of ominous pretensions, Evelia heard the veiled threat loud and clear – intended or not.
“Yes, sir,” she heartily agreed. “I presume Blaze is excepted from that requirement … is he not?” she pressed.
“Of course,” Dr. Boyd answered, “He is under the same injunction as you though. You are the first two new recruits that I have spoken with at this point in time. As I speak to others, I will let you know but even then …” he seemed to hesitate a little, “even then,” he repeated, “keep the conversations to an absolute bare minimum. Word of this cannot get out without causing a great deal of unwanted consequences,” he warned. Again, Evelia received the veiled threat with an enlarged understanding – she now interpreted Dr. Boyd’s statements with a great deal more context than he would have ever dreamed that she would hear.
As Dr. Boyd turned around and left the room, Evelia closed the door behind him in as casual a fashion as she could muster under the circumstances, nearly shaking from stress. She turned her eyes over to Blaze. He couldn’t tell from her look whether she was ecstatic, horrified, or whimsical.
“Looks like we will be spending more time together,” she observed without any clear emotional expression.
But that didn’t matter. Blaze accepted from her comment that at least something was going well in his life – even if everything else seemed to be falling apart all at once. At least he would be spending more time with Evelia. “What are we going to do?” he asked, hoping Evelia would have some insight better than his own stupor of thought.
But he was disappointed.
“I have no idea,” she answered, twirling her hair with her right finger and looking down at her foot as she tapped the tip of her toes to the ground. Then, as she looked up, Blaze could see for the first time a clear look of fear and uncertainty that mirrored his own heart. Fighting aliens was one thing; fighting false paradigms and incorrect beliefs is something entirely different.
But he was game.
That is, so long as Evelia came along.
“BUT IF SHE DOES NOT BELIEVE US, she will tell Dr. Boyd will she not?” The question was obvious but the answer wasn’t so clear. Neither of them had been able to sleep the night before; both of them had thought about it; neither of them had any answers.
“That depends on what she is really like,” Evelia answered, “and given what we know about her, it
seems like she would be pretty trusting.”
“But would she be trusting of us … or him?” Blaze retorted with unveiled skepticism. “I do not pretend to understand politics,” he confided. “You are a better judge of character than I am so I suppose you should make that call – what is your best guess as to what she will do?”
“Hmmm,” Evelia nearly sighed. “The database entry says that she can give information telepathically. I suppose …” her voice trailed off. “I guess we really cannot know for absolute positive but I suppose that if she can speak telepathically, she can hear telepathically – and if she can hear telepathically, that means she can read minds does it not? Dr. Boyd seems to think so and he knows her better than either of us.”
“Maybe – but maybe she can only hear whatever you speak in your mind. Dr. Boyd did not seem so sure but either way. What does it matter?”
“Well,” Evelia responded, feeling encouraged despite the slightly pessimistic response of her companion in conundrum, “if she can read our minds, she will know that we were not lying and that she needs to be careful of Dr. Boyd.”
“Okay – that is a good thought – but will that change anything? That will also tell her that there is nothing we can do to help her – we know nothing about space exploration – and that if we do anything to challenge Dr. Boyd’s plan, her chances of getting home are not so good.”
“Oh,” Evelia groaned, now more discouraged by Blaze’s pessimism than before. She paused for an uncomfortably long time before offering another thought. “But what if she just has a good heart? What if she just wants to do the right thing?”
