by Gini Koch
“Why, though?” Roy asked. “Based on the little we know, they aren’t as powerful as an average Espen, and the moment they leave their Birthing Sacs they have no more telepathic power. Why hunt them down and leave Espen alone?”
“Espen acquiesced,” Ciarissa said sadly. “In order to preserve our world we took oaths and agreed to the tele-restraints and more when we were off-planet.”
“And the Pillar did not wish to capitulate to evil,” Dr. Wufren said. “Any more than the Seraphin did.”
“And the result was the same.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Roy, none of us have acted normally since we spotted the wreckage. You, in particular.”
“What do you mean? Because I wanted to get out of here and keep our crew alive?”
“Frankly, yes. And I think you resisted and Willy was species-ist and you both angered me and Tresia enough that we went against your orders because, as I said before, we were all being tested. The Pillar with us are young children. They’re curious and, right now, they’re very afraid. Horror and devastation cause beings to not think right all the time, as our good doctor mentioned earlier. They wanted to be sure that the beings rescuing them weren’t worse than the beings that had destroyed their entire colony.”
“I didn’t feel emotionally manipulated,” Roy protested.
“Me either, and I don’t buy it,” Willy said. “I think you’re all jumping to a heck of a conclusion, little girl.”
“I spent most of the time we were hiding from the Diamante Cruiser being afraid. Of Roy, of all of you deserting us. Of other things, things I’ve never worried about since our first mission together. I firmly believe my emotions were influenced by the Pillar, so they could see if their fears were grounded or not.”
Tresia nodded. “I experienced the same – the same fears, and the same reasoning that my fears were groundless.”
“I’m not a fan of the Pillar,” Willy said. “Don’t wish ‘em ill, but they were never my favorite aliens. So how did they affect me?”
“I think they just helped you speak out. Note that you still helped rescue them. I don’t think they care that you don’t want to hang out with them, Willy. I think they care that you’re trying to help figure out how to keep them alive, despite not having affinity for their race.”
Doven nodded. “It proves you are not like the Diamante Families and their troops.”
“That makes sense, but why affect me to not want to search for them?” Roy asked.
“Because the proof of what kind of beings we are was based on that, my boy. What would we do when our captain and leader told us to let them die? What would that captain do when we were insubordinate?”
“Get pissed off,” Kyle muttered.
Willy cocked his head. “Yeah, the kid’s right. So, Roy was angry with the situation, I wasn’t happy, but you three went and helped anyway. Four, really, because Kyle couldn’t wait to get a spacesuit on.”
“Everyone likes to get in on the action sometimes,” I pointed out. Then went on quickly, lest Roy start lecturing Kyle about how he shouldn’t risk himself ever. Basically, if Roy could keep his entire crew wrapped up safe and tight and still manage to do the work we needed to, he would. “But are you angry now?”
Roy sighed. “I’d love to say yes, but I’m frankly far more worried than anything else.”
“I hear the babies talking, in that sense,” Willy said. “They’re alive and happy to be so. So, no, I’m not angry.”
“I feel them as well,” Doven said. “They seem to…like us.”
“All of us?” Roy asked a little suspiciously.
“Ask them yourselves,” I suggested.
“I don’t know how,” Roy said. “I don’t feel anything different.”
Willy barked a laugh. “Roy, if they’re talking to me, they’ll talk to you.”
“Maybe they won’t –” Roy jerked. “Oh. That’s…different. Are you sure they’re telepathic? It feels all emotional to me. They’re kind of…hugging me and apologizing for being afraid?”
“Probably they are, yes.” I felt the Pillar tell me I was correct.
“Empathy is rare,” Ciarissa said, “but not unheard of, and it’s definitely a telepathic trait. A specialty, if you will. Most Espens don’t focus on emotion manipulation because controlling the mind is more effective.”
“Or the body,” Dr. Wufren said cheerfully. Then he looked at me and no longer appeared cheerful. “You’re going to be the only one capable of doing what must be done.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean?” Kyle asked. “They’re in Round Form. We can get them into one or two Polliskins easily enough, same with the space suit or suits.”
“Yes, but that won’t be enough. And I don’t think we actually want to remove them from the Birthing Sac. However, your idea is still a good one, Kyle.” I went and gave Roy a kiss. “Help me get into a Polliskin or six, will you?”
“Why?” he asked, looking worried.
“Because I’m going to shift into something dangerous.”
Roy shook his head and hugged me to him. “Why did I know that’s what you were going to say?”
“You’re smarter than the average spacer.”
“Yeah? I don’t think that can be proven by anything that’s happened in the last couple of hours.”
Roy and I both would have liked to have done something more than just get me into a Polliskin, but time was running out and we’d spent more than enough of it explaining what was going on.
Per Willy, Polliskins were like wetsuits from Old Earth, only they were far more adaptable and also good protection for anyone who wasn’t a Polliwog who was visiting Polliworld. They were also incredibly hard to get into. Getting more than one on was a challenge of major proportions. Whether the effort would be worthwhile, based on what we wanted the suits to do, was, currently, anyone’s guess.
“Why are you willing to die for them?” Roy asked me as we finally got the last suit on. “Because what you’re going to do means you’re at as much risk as they are. More, really.”
I leaned against him. “Because they need someone who loves them.”
“That’s true of every being, babe.”
“Yes, but the Pillar are different from others, in many ways. And one of those ways is that they require the love of others to survive. That’s part of why they create music – to spread love.”
“You got that from floating around in space for a while?”
“No. I got that from what the Pillar told me emotionally, both while floating around in space and once we were back here.”
He sighed and hugged me tightly. “I need you, too, you know. We all do. And not just because of what you can do. But because of who you are, and who you are to us…to me.”
I buried my face in his chest. “I know. I feel the same way about you, you know that. But…”
He kissed the top of my head. “But you can never truly have a Seraphin child. And we don’t know if we can have children of our own. And there are a dozen children in my cargo hold who need a mother who loves them. I get it, babe. But I don’t see it as a long term solution.”
I laughed. “Roy, when we met, you said taking me with you was a short term solution. Trust me, we’ll manage. We always do.”
He kissed me. As always it was amazing, but not as long as either one of us would have liked. Not smart to spend too much time making out when our enemies could be back and in greater numbers.
We went back to the cargo hold. I put on a Polliskin helmet and my spacesuit. Then I shifted.
As a shifter, the form was the thing. You could do whatever your form could, and could not do whatever your form couldn’t. But the stronger the shifter, the more options you had in terms of just what your form was going to be.
The strongest beings in the galaxy were the Troglodytes from Rockenroll, because they were literally beings made out of stone. In Round Form a Pillar’s shell became like iron, but only for as long as
that form could hold out under the stress of warp.
However, a cross between a Troglodyte and a Pillar could, in theory, survive an extended warp. Only there was no such cross, because those two races did not interbreed with each other.
Until now.
The beauty of being a shape shifter of my strength and skill was that I had the ability to become anything I wanted. The danger was that what I wanted might not be something that could, in actual fact, survive existence, even for a short period of time.
I needed my outer shell to be made of Troglodyte stone, the inner shell to be the iron hardness of the Round Form, but the rest of my inside portion to be soft and filled with the fifty little legs of a Pillar, so that I could hold the Birthing Sac and keep it safe and steady. All of which needed to be inside both the six Polliskins I had on and my spacesuit. And I needed to be four times larger than the Pillar actually were and two times larger than the biggest Troglodyte, in order to be large enough to surround this Sac.
And I had no idea if this would work, or if I and the Pillar young with us would die. I only knew that, when faced with watching the last of their colony and, possibly, the last Pillar in the galaxy die, I was willing to risk whatever I had to in order to ensure that didn’t happen.
My willingness to risk wasn’t based on the Pillar emotionally manipulating me, or on any kind of fatalism. Roy had actually called it correctly when we were alone – I had no idea if I would ever have a child of my own.
Normally, I never thought about this. We were usually too busy trying to stay alive for me to ponder progeny or my lack thereof. And I wouldn’t have called myself overly maternal on a normal day.
But this wasn’t a normal day.
While I knew the Pillar had connected in some way with everyone on the crew by now, I also knew that they’d connected the most strongly with me. They could have connected to Tresia or Ciarissa, but they’d chosen me, and I knew they had.
Not just because I cared and had risked my life to save them, but because I was the only one who could, at any time I wanted or they needed, become a Pillar. Become their mother, both figuratively and literally.
And I could also become something unheard of, in the hopes of saving them.
The first portion of this experiment worked – both the space suit and my Polliskin layers altered with me and didn’t rip or explode off me. So I’d have the protection these offered, and so would the Pillar.
True, I filled most of the hold, but I was functioning. I’d never gone into Pillar form before; there had never been a need. However, we’d visited Rockenroll enough, and being heavy and strong had its advantages, so I’d assumed Troglodyte form many times. Plus I had practice looking like one kind of being on the outside and altering my insides into something else.
I altered next into the Pillar portion of my experimental form, while remaining a Troglodyte at the same time.
Again, I had success. I hadn’t destroyed myself or turned into something that couldn’t move, function, or think. The Pillar shell was the hardest, but that was one of the reasons I’d put on more than one Polliskin – the outermost Polliskin layer I turned to the iron hardness of the Round Form. My spacesuit altered to Troglodyte stone. If there were still competitions for the most amazing shapes managed – as there had been before the Purge – I’d have been guaranteed to win.
I pointedly didn’t pay attention to anyone’s expressions, Roy’s in particular. There was no way this look was going to fulfill anyone’s fantasies. However, I was able to move, albeit slowly, and to curl around the Birthing Sac securely. The Sac’s rough edges didn’t bother me – I could feel them, but they weren’t causing discomfort because my many legs were able to position the Birthing Sac perfectly to hold it steady and not hurt myself at the same time. Plus the Polliskins were a great buffer.
Ciarissa was in my mind – at my request and Roy’s insistence. I wasn’t sure if I could communicate with anyone properly in this form, and if things were going wrong, the Pillar and I would have only seconds.
“I am here, DeeDee,” she said soothingly. “I am connected to you and the children as well.”
“Are you too tired?”
“Not for this.”
I could feel straps being put on and around me – to keep me stationary during flight and most importantly during warp.
“It’s almost time,” Ciarissa said. “Do you need one of us to stay in the hold with you?”
“Absolutely not. But please ask Bullfrog to stay close.” If I was in danger, he’d get to me fastest and was the strongest and so the most likely to be able to help open me up. So to speak.
“He is indeed staying near. But all will be well, DeeDee. Fren is also monitoring and will use his powers as necessary.”
The entire crew was going to be drained if this succeeded. And if it did succeed, we’d need to hope we could get to someplace calm where we could recuperate. But first we had to make it.
I could tell when we made the jump to warp because I could feel the extra pressure pushing against my outer shells. But it didn’t bother me any more than warp normally did. And, for once, I couldn’t really see the suffocating blackness that accompanied warp, because in Round Form my face was tucked down and inside the outer shell. As a matter of fact, my face was resting against the Birthing Sac.
So when the children began to sing, I heard it clearly.
Pillar music was their gift to the galaxy, but this was different. It wasn’t just music or sound, it was feeling and thoughts and history. All the history of the Pillar race. All of their race, each and every one of them who had ever existed since the first Pillar became sentient.
Everything every Pillar had ever seen or experienced was in this song, and it was being passed to me. Because the children knew the risk we were taking and, if they died, they wanted someone to remember them and to sing their song. Someone they loved.
As the song washed over me and burrowed into my mind, I realized I could only hear it as I was in this form and in this way. But all the Pillar’s music, every song any of us had ever heard, was simply a section of this one song. The Song of Life.
The Song was beautiful and, in some ways, terrible, all-encompassing and overwhelming, and yet also sublime and wonderful. The Pillar lived short individual lives, but the lifespan of their race was long, and as long as the Song existed, the Pillar existed as well. So long as the Song was sung, the Pillar lived. When the Song stopped, so would their race.
And now I knew the Song, and Ciarissa probably did as well. Two of us out of the billions of beings in the galaxy. But two was better than none. Two could share the Song with others.
But I didn’t want us to be the last ones to know the Song. I wanted the children who were singing the Song to me to continue on. To have their own children who would learn the Song and carry it on down throughout the generations. Because they loved me and I now loved them – for trusting me, for sharing their Song with me, for needing me in a way no one else ever had before.
They knew this, and that was why they shared the Song with me. Because I wanted for them what any mother would – for them to live and prosper and go on forever.
The pressure on my outermost shell was more intense for a moment, and then it stopped. I felt the straps being loosened.
“We are in orbit around Rockenroll, DeeDee,” Ciarissa said in my mind. “Kyle’s idea worked. Bullfrog is with you. Willy has friends on the planet who he thinks will be able to effectively hide, protect, and raise the Pillar children…and ensure their song continues.”
I moved slowly, to be certain that I didn’t jostle the Birthing Sac. Once the Sac was safely away from me, I shifted back to my regular form.
Bullfrog coughed. “Uh, DeeDee?”
“Yes?” My voice sounded funny. Higher pitched and more musical.
“You’re, ah, not really back. To you, I mean.”
I looked down. Among other things, I still had fifty limbs. “Oh. Uh…whoops.”
“I could be wrong, but I don’t think this is the look Roy’s hoping you use for every day.”
“You think not? Really?” As I shifted back to me, to DeeDee Daniels from Seraphina, not from Pilla, I could hear the children in my head. They were laughing and adding to the Song – so that future generations would know that there were some beings out there who would indeed love them, no matter what form they were in.
The Song of Life bound me to them. I now knew the Song, knew how to sing it. I would sing it, over and over again, aloud and to myself. And I knew one other thing – the Pillar’s telepathy wasn’t why the Diamante Families wanted them destroyed.
What the Diamante Families feared was the Song. Because somewhere in the Song was the key to defeating them. And if I sang the Song long enough, I’d figure out what that was.
About the Author
Gini Koch writes the fast, fresh and funny Alien/Katherine "Kitty" Katt series for DAW Books, the Necropolis Enforcement Files series, and the Martian Alliance Chronicles series. Touched by an Alien, Book 1 in the Alien series, was named by Booklist as one of the Top Ten Adult SF/F novels of 2010. Alien in the House, Book 7 in her long-running Alien series, won the RT Book Reviews Reviewer's Choice Award as the Best Futuristic Romance of 2013.
As G.J. Koch she writes the Alexander Outland series and she's made the most of multiple personality disorder by writing under a variety of other pen names as well, including Anita Ensal, Jemma Chase, A.E. Stanton, and J.C. Koch.
Gini also has stories featured in a variety of anthologies, including the Unidentified Funny Objects 3, Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens, Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets, and The X-Files: Trust No One anthologies; writing as Anita Ensal, in The Book of Exodi, Love and Rockets, and Boondocks Fantasy anthologies; and, writing as J.C. Koch, in Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters, The Madness of Cthulhu, Vol. 1, and A Darke Phantastique anthologies, and, coming in 2015/2016, The Mammoth Book of Kaiju and MECH: Age of Steel anthologies. Gini will also be featured in the Temporally Out of Order, Unidentified Funny Objects 4, Out of Tune 2, WERE-, and Alien Artifacts anthologies, all coming in 2015/2016. She will also have a novella, A Study in Starlets, the next adventure in her Sherlock Holmes universe, coming in summer 2015.
