I, Alien

by Mike Resnick (ed)

  On Sarah’s birthday (which is my birthday as well but not really, only in my own head) we went into town so Sarah could pick a present. She wanted a doll which I knew already and I have been trying to make her one from the broken wood in the back garden, but it never looks right. It is not like drawing or as easy as forming my brood where all I have to do is think a thought. But I couldn’t make a doll and daddy put it in the fire anyway, but I don’t think he knew what it was and I didn’t tell him or he would feel bad.

  We went to lunch first, but I had to stand outside in the dusty road holding their bags with a dog which kept barking at me. I wished I had a mouth so I could say shush dog, but I don’t so I couldn’t. The owner came and untied the dog and he said good boy, you tell the ugly alien, which I didn’t think was very nice of him.

  After lunch we all went to another shop where I had to wait outside again. I wish I could go in and look at all the things. But I had to look at the window instead and stood making faces at my reflection which was fun.

  Daddy came out and went across the road to a shop filled with bottles. Mummy and Sarah were still looking for dolls.

  Then at the same time, which is funny if you think about it, daddy and Sarah and mummy came out of the shops at the same time. Sarah saw daddy and ran toward him waving her new doll which was very pretty. Both daddy and mummy shouted no, then stop her! stop Sarah! catch her! which I don’t think they were saying to me because I am Not Allowed to touch Sara.

  Sarah ran to her daddy and one of the floating cars hit her in the side while she was waving her doll in the air.

  Sarah’s arm came off and landed on the car. She flied through the air and landed on her neck in front of the shop where she got her doll. People screamed and dropped things. People shouted at me why didn’t you stop her? You stupid alien! You killed her! And I started to cry because I thought I wasn’t allowed to touch her and now they wanted me to and I didn’t know.

  Daddy came up to me and his face looked horrible and angry. He hit me in the head so hard I fell down and he said to me get out of here you fucking beast I never want to see you again, and he kicked me. Then he turned away and fell onto the ground crying and I went away from my family.

  I ran away over the dust for four days. (I took my dress off first and folded it into a bag so it wouldn’t get dirty.) I ran away to my brood because this is where my clan have sired For Ever and it is a peaceful place.

  I lay down in the hole where I was born and cried.

  I didn’t mean to kill Sarah. I wondered if they would ever forgive me.

  I closed my eyes and let my mind join my brood. I listened to their minds and their hearts beating in time with each other. It was like a tune for a lullaby and I sang myself to sleep, a song I heard mummy sing to Sarah.

  Golden slumbers kiss your eyes Smiles await you when you rise: Sleep pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby

  I dreamed that Sara was alive and we were a happy family again. We ate lunch in the garden and little bugs sat at the table and shared our food. They talked about bug things which are secret and much more important than anything we talk about, but we were all allowed to hear the secrets because everyone was happy. Then the bugs gave everyone kisses on the cheeks and flew away making bzz bzz noises.

  Then it was my birthday and mummy and daddy gave me a room of my very own inside the house and not in the garden where I used to live. Their was a sign on the door saying Mary’s room because this is the name they decided to give me as it was daddy’s own mummy’s name.

  Then we all laughed and laughed, but then I cried because I was the happiest I’d ever been in my whole entire life.

  I woke up with A Plan about how to make mummy and daddy happy again. It would take a long time, but sometimes those are the best surprises because you have to wait and wait and then you get it and it’s really nice.

  I dug the dust and earth away from my brood. Then-sacks throbbed and moved which is good because it means they are still alive. But not all the time. Sometimes a creature burrows into the sack and eats the babies and the creature wriggling around in the sack munching only looks like the babies are alive.

  Munch munch.

  But that is not the case here as I touched them all with my mind and they are happy.

  It took me ten whole days for me to make my own sack. It is very horrible because it grows in my tummy and then when it is too big I sick it out and it hurts. But then I climbed inside and the wet edges joined together and Just Like That! I don’t have to move or feed from the air because my sack does it all.

  I closed my eyes and my brood joined me and I started to work.

  I wake up after many days. A hundred and a hundred and another hundred! My sack has split open and the wind rubs dust onto my skin which hurts a bit. But then I look and see that my brood has also wakened. They have all gone away except for one that I made stay because it is part of my plan. It is sitting in its sack looking at me and I laugh and clap my hands because balancing on the long neck is the face of Sara smiling at me. Her head is still too small and it wobbles a lot, which is funny, but I don’t think mummy and daddy will mind because they will have Sarah back and they will be happy.

  I gather her up and run back along the dust because I want to give them their present as quick as I can run.

  But I still wait. Because I want it to be a surprise. So I sneak in the house at night and take New Sarah to her bedroom. A Wonderful Surprise awaits me. Mummy and daddy have had another baby! Now we will be a big happy family. I put New Sarah into the bed with her sister and tiptoe back downstairs. (Although this is just a Figure Of Speech that means very quiet as I don’t have tiptoes.)

  I wait in the garden and I shake because I am so happy. I put on my dress that I have kept clean all this time. I sit at the table where we will all have picnics and laugh and tell stories. When the sun starts to come up, I listen to the bugs, but they are keeping their secrets.

  Then I hear a scream. It is mummy and she is screaming for daddy. It must be about something else though because it does not sound like a happy scream. Then daddy shouts and then mummy runs into the garden with her new baby. She sees me and starts screaming Samuel! Samuel! (For that is daddy’s real name.) I see daddy at the window then he goes away again and I get up and walk to mummy, but before I can get there, New Sarah vanishes from my head. It is hard to explain, but she is just not there anymore.

  I wonder what is wrong because I feel all horrible and twisty and I want mummy to comfort me like she did Sarah when she was upset, but she is still screaming and so is the baby, and then daddy comes out and he has something against his shoulder. He screams for mummy to get out the way and she runs away and leaves me. I still feel horrible and I think New Sarah has gone. I wonder if the creatures that eat the sacks are in the house as well. I should tell mummy so nothing happens to the new baby.

  Then there is a loud bang and I jump backward and sit on the wet grass although I didn’t even mean to! There is lots of smoke in the air and I try to catch it with my fingers, but it slips through them.

  I think the run has left me tired because I can’t keep my eyes open. I decide I will sleep, and then when I wake up, maybe then we will all have lunch at the table.

  Then we will all be happy.

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  AQUARIUS by Susan R. Matthews

  I

  BECAME AWARE in the warm part of the year, resting and growing in the litter of the leaves, drinking the cool dew from the night breezes, growing and gaining in understanding of the world that was around me. I had siblings; all of the aware one was my mother, and there were others destined, like me, to be fruiting bodies—children of the aware one, and part of the aware one.

  I lay in the warm moist comfort of the tree-floor as I formed, as I grew stronger and throve in the nourishing forest. I had nothing to do but to eat and drink and listen to the voice of the aware one, the thousands of voices of the aware one, speaking quietly in the night o
f the moment of Creation and the nature of the world. We are old, very old, millions of dayblinks, thousands of warmcolds, but until only one hundred and thirty warmcolds ago we were not aware.

  How did it happen? Just as it happened with me, I supposed. In the natural progression as the caretaker of the tree-floor we grew in size, we grew in complexity, and in the course of time we became aware—not only aware, but able to communicate with the rest of our being, and know that we were with the aware one. I am of the aware one. I am the aware one.

  And at the same time I was only one of a generation of fruiting bodies, and there was something wrong, something that puzzled the aware one, something that had not happened in our memory which reaches back to long before the time at which we became aware. Something was happening.

  In my infancy I cultivated the tree-floor where I lay for nourishment, breaking down the litter and the debris, taking the material the insects made for me and processing it further for the smallest of insects to complete the cycle and free the food that the deadfall contained for the use of the trees and the insects and the aware one, and me. The aware one was hungry, I was hungry, I was not growing as quickly and as well as I could have; I felt it as something that was wrong, and wondered if I was working hard enough.

  The moisture was not there. The moisture was needed for the insects, but the moisture was even more important to me for my use. I could not make use of the nourishment without moisture. I cultivated my area, I sought out the moisture in every warm breathing spot where it could yet be found, and there was not enough.

  Without adequate moisture I would die. I would not be able to complete my development, I would never fruit, I would wither into the tree-floor to nourish the fruiting body that would come next; I would fail.

  I sought the warmcolds-old wisdom of the aware one for assistance, and there was no comfort in the answer. There is no moisture, the aware one said. Not throughout the forest as we travel in your direction. The others are being called back to the Body. Find moisture, or surrender your substance back to the aware one.

  During the brights I could do nothing but hide in the moistest places to be found, stretched thin, almost out of touch with myself from place to place. During the darks I could sometimes find enough moisture in the cool air to seek out my siblings to one side and the other side of me and ask for their report. No moisture, they said, something has robbed the forest of its water here, and dryness increases. We must return to the Body, or be lost.

  But when the wind blew through the forest from the one direction, the one that was in front of me, it was fat and rich and pregnant with moisture, delicious moisture full of nourishment. I rose up to the surface to capture the treasure in the wind, spreading myself as thinly as I could to drink the most deeply, watching always for the bright to come—knowing I had to protect my moisture from the bright—but filled with so much joy and delight in the dark, when the wind blew toward me, that it was as though something was different in my awareness, something very light and filled with happiness. I had no word then for intoxication, but I learned to be drunk on the night breeze’s moisture, and grew strong on its treasure while my siblings faded back to either side of me.

  Thus I grew and prospered, thinking only of myself, because that was my purpose at that time—the aware one had made me to be a fruiting body, it was my function to gain and grow fat, but before I could achieve my mission in life, the aware one took thought for the treasure I had found and changed my instructions.

  You are strong, my child, the aware one said. You thrive while others fail. What is the explanation?

  I sent back my information, the flavor of the moisture on the night wind, the riches that came into the forest when the wind blew from the direction in which the aware one had not yet gone.

  The wind that travels over us is dry, the aware one said. You must go out and seek this moisture. Separate, my child, and when you have found the answer, send back to me so that we may live.

  Separate? But I wasn’t ready to fruit yet. If I separated now, would I ever get to fruit, would I become just one of the forgotten processes, and only share in the awareness as an afterthought—

  Separate, my child, the aware one said. I didn’t want to. I wasn’t ready. But the aware one said that it was more than just my siblings on the fore-line of our growth who were at stake; it was more than just my need for moisture that impelled the aware one. If I could never fruit, if I had to sacrifice my place in the history of the aware one, if I was going to be a sterile scout—well. I am of the aware one; I am the aware one, if only a very small part.

  And past the grief and the anxiety I felt in separating, in the loss of my identity as a fruiting body, I felt some interest and anticipation. Go out, the aware one said. Find out where the wind that bears the moisture is coming from. Bring back the news to us, so that we may live.

  It took me several dayblinks to collect sufficient moisture; it was the warm part of the year still, but the wind was very rich at that time, and I fattened on the treasure that it brought, spreading myself as thinly as I dared over the blanket of debris on the tree-floor to absorb as much as possible.

  On one night I fattened and grew full, and knew that the time had come. I called my substance back into myself, I made myself solid with my flesh and the water that sustained it, I rose up out of my bed in a form that I had borrowed from a small eater of vegetation, and I walked forward into the woods—past the boundary of my life, past the far edge of what was familiar to me, into the woods in the direction from which the treasure-wind came.

  It was frightening and exciting at once in a sense I’d never experienced but one time before—when a small animal had died and been buried in my leaf-mold by the insects for processing. The richness of the feast had sustained me in fullness for almost an entire warmcold. That had been in the warmcold of my coming to awareness; I could still remember it, but the husk of the memory was fragile.

  There was so much new to eat here, so much untouched food to process and to harvest. There were others here, too, others like me, in their unconsolidated state; but when I touched them, I could sense nothing that was aware, and wondered. They were not like me, then. They seemed to be the same, they seemed to do the same work, but they were not aware.

  When the bright came on, I sank deeply into the embrace of a bed I prepared in the tree-floor and rested myself, taking nourishment from the substance that was like me and yet not aware. Perhaps the aware one had been here before, and just forgotten, and left this food for me. I was very tired after traveling on footlike-things above the ground, carrying my substance with me; I shuttered up my sense-of-light and rested for some time.

  But I had a purpose, and could not rest for long. When the next bright dimmed, I spread myself out along this new piece of the tree-floor, to absorb the moisture in the wind; there was more of it, here, but as I was about to collect myself to rise again something new and unique came through the forest, treading upon the tree-floor, breaking through my substance with its weight.

  They were creatures such as I had never seen before, with two footlike things to travel on, and the only animals that I had ever known with only two footlike things were feathered. These animals were not feathered in the same way, though perhaps they were feathered, because they seemed to be wearing dead leaves of some sort upon their flesh. There were some of them, I couldn’t tell, more than two, then another two, but it was difficult for me to sort them out.

  They stopped in the middle of the blanket I had spread of myself to catch the moisture and made sounds to one another. One reached down into the tree-floor and lifted in its branch or paw or claw a piece of me—they had four footlike things, then, even if they only used two of them to travel—and, in contact with warm flesh uncovered by the dead leaves or the tangled hairs the nesters use or whatever it was that they were covered with, I tasted moisture.

  It was moisture with mineral salts, and I was greedy for it, and sucked it all up as quickly as I could. It was
n’t all there was. There was more moisture. There was so much moisture, juicy, warm, bursting with nutrients, and I couldn’t get to it through the rind of the creature; what was I going to do?

  The one who had lifted the portion of me dropped me from the height to the tree-floor once more, but another came down to the tree-floor as the first one dropped me, putting its other footlike things into the tree-floor where I could harvest the moisture and the minerals on its skin. I wanted through its rind. I was near frantic with desire, so much moisture there, the aware one would feed from this for an entire warm-cold as I had with the smaller beast. What could I do?

  I fruited. It was my only chance to get closer, to get in. I could smell the moisture when they made their noises to each other, and they had breathing-places that were similar to the other warm animals I knew. If I could only reach ... I fruited, then and there, in front of the creature, and thrust my spoor as hard as I could up toward its body, aiming for its mouth and nostrils. It wasn’t a full fruiting, no, of course, only a small process, I hadn’t had the time to do a better job of it; the creature fell into the tree-floor heavily, making sharp movements with its body, but I was in.

  Oh, it was heaven. Moisture, minerals, salts, nourishment—preprocessed nourishment, the rarest of treats, flesh bursting with the moisture that the aware one needed for survival—but it had been only a small fruiting, simple, and when the creature expelled me from its body too little of me remained behind to make an effective use of the resources.