by Dan Glover
"Father says there are as many planets in the sky as there are stars. He says we might one day sail through space just as we sail the oceans. Perhaps we'll escape our fate, mother."
"Your father is a dreamer, precious Maon. If we are tied to the earth as I suspect, if we leave it, we'll perish. But I've been wrong about many things."
Chapter 8—Future Dreams
Her Gypsy dreams foretold a land brimming with love and a sea filled with the descendants of Nate and Lily, yet subtle disappointments greeted Natalia's waking moments.
Maon and Sileas conceived both a boy and a girl. They were not brother and sister, however. Sileas confided in Natalia how they were unable to give birth to any other children. She revealed to her how her mother Karen worked her usual miracles to allow them to have a girl. Like Alpin, Ena was another hybrid between the Ladies and the People but she was unrelated to her family.
Natalia could not love the two of them more.
"Ena is a wonder child, Lady Natalia."
Karen often visited Natalia not only to indulge in wine and friendly discussions but seemingly to bounce ideas off her so far as the medical research was concerned.
"Of course she is. You are a genius, darling Karen. Without your expertise there would only be the girls of the People."
"I made use of a special technique with Ena. Rather than seeking for frozen sperm cells, I requested that Lila gather old bones from the ossuaries deep beneath Lake Baikal. By combining the genetic material I retrieved from an unknown male of the Lake from those bones along with cells from Lady Lauren as well as from Sileas, I created a four parent embryo, something no one ever dreamed of doing.
"What is really interesting is the cells from Lady Lauren are not her own. They are residual cells left from the birth of her son. Amanda is working as my assistant. She came to me with an old article on how a mother carries the cells of her children in her body for the rest of her life. We decided to test it on Lady Lauren, with her permission, of course."
"Who is the fourth parent?"
"When I created the embryo that became Nate, I froze a number of unfertilized eggs that I harvested from you, Lady Natalia. You are Ena's fourth parent. I didn’t know if this new procedure would work so I didn’t ask your permission. I apologize for that."
"Oh no... please think nothing of it, my sweetest Karen. I am thrilled to be part of this grand experiment called life. Ena is such a precocious child, just like Nate and Maon were as babies. She will grow into a stunning adult."
"Maon and Sileas have hopes that Alpin and Ena will become lovers when they come of age. I warned them not to expect too much, especially seeing them raised as brother and sister. Still, if such a mating occurs it will be a boon to our new species."
"Do you ever think of bearing more children?"
"Yes I do. How about you, Lady Natalia? I envisioned you having a half a dozen children by now."
"Well, I have this problem..."
"Oh? What problem, Lady Natalia?"
"There is no man to help me in this quest."
"Luckily the Ladies assure us we are blessed with time. With patience, and if our plans succeed, this will no longer be a problem in a few centuries. But yes, I have encountered the exact same problem."
"Kirk does not appeal to you either, beautiful Karen?"
"No he does not, although he seems to be maturing with the passing years just as Lady Lily foretold. He will perhaps one day make a fine father and a good husband... just not mine, thank you so much."
"I am pleasantly surprised to hear of Amanda and the work she's doing as your assistant, darling Karen. From what I understand she is a natural born doctor. I try not to prejudge people but when she was growing up Amanda seemed so dull. I put it off to her parentage: Drummond was a moron and Kendra made a pair."
"I feel the longer the People are around the Ladies the more changes are wrought upon us. I see it in myself, Lady Natalia. It isn’t something that happens overnight but the accumulated years have an amazing effect upon human beings. It is almost the opposite of what used to happen to us when we grew old."
"In my case these changes happen much more quickly. Perhaps it is my sharing a bed with the Ladies that does it. At times I dream of breathing beneath the waters of Lake Baikal and cavorting with the Ladies in the depths. Is such a thing possible, gorgeous Karen? Can human beings change so much as to grow gills?"
"I am not in a position to say so one way or the other. Everything changed for me on the day I found Lily half dead upon the shores of the Lake. Until then, I was a scientist, pure and simple. Lady Lily taught me magic."
"Speaking of magic, pretty Karen, what are the ramifications of a person like Ena with four parents having a child with a man like Alpin—when they grow up, of course. Will they have many babies together, or just one?"
"As the succeeding generations of hybrids flourish, there is no reason to believe Alpin and Ena will become sterile after having one child. Their progeny should include both girls and boys. These children will help to shape the world in the coming centuries.
"Lady Lily speaks of her granddaughter as being exceptionally well-tuned to her environment. I think she means that Ena senses the world in ways we as humans will never comprehend. Even now, when she's just two years old, I can tell how different she is from children of the People and even her brother Alpin.
"Out of curiosity I sequenced her DNA to compare it with ours. As human beings, our DNA contains remnants of retroviruses that are embedded within our genome. These viruses sometimes shuffle their genes with the host within the infected cells playing a crucial role in our evolution. We are like time machines; our genome contains a record of all of humanity for the past several million years.
"What's interesting with Ena is how much more fossilized retroviruses are contained within her genome. With human beings, roughly eight percent of our genome is made up of what we call endogenous viral elements while Ena's genome contains nearly three times that much."
"What does this mean, precious Karen?"
"I am not a paleovirologist but I suspect these findings lend support to Lady Lily's claim about how her species split from ours some twenty five million years ago when Lake Baikal formed."
"Yet the grandchildren seem to prefer the sea to fresh water. Why is this, my precious Karen?"
"I'm sure it has to do with a dominant gene, or perhaps a series of them. I suspect all their offspring will exhibit this preference. They will no longer be shackled to Lake Baikal, Lady Natalia."
"That is an interesting way of putting it, my gorgeous Karen. Do you mean to say they will no longer need to periodically return to the Lake?"
"Yes, this is exactly what I mean. Rather, they will feel a need to swim the oceans. In time, say a couple million years, they may even come to prefer the depths of the ocean to living on land. We live in interesting times, Lady Natalia."
Chapter 9—Brothers and Sisters
"You may believe you are communicating with these creatures, my children, but do they consider you as confidants too?"
Sileas worried about her children's tendency to swim so far across the sea apparently heedless of hazards and though Alpin and Ena sought to reassure her how they were adepts beneath the ocean's surface—how they subtly communicated with the denizens of the deep, even the great white sharks that grew to immense size—Sileas could foresee a day when that wouldn’t matter.
She had desired dozens children. She dreamed of them dashing happily about the castle hiding in dark nooks and in her dreams she heard their laughter and their cries yet when she woke to search for them she found no one, for she was able to conceive but one child, a son, and another—a daughter who wasn’t a daughter—with help from her mother, the good Dr. Karen.
Alpin and Ena were not only her hope but the expectation of an entire species. Karen counseled Sileas and Maon to raise the children as brother and sister even though Ena was not related to Alpin or to the rest of the family for that matter.
Sileas often wondered if she was doing the right thing.
It was difficult to believe Ena was not her daughter in the traditional sense since their physical characteristics were remarkably similar: raven hair and dark features hinted at a Native American ancestry; they were both small and lithe with black piercing eyes that flash when they were angered and showered their lovers with caresses when placated.
They both had perfectly round faces with chins that were a tad small and yet did nothing to offset the symmetry of beauty. As with all hybrids of their species they had huge hands and large flat feet with intricately laced webbing between fingers and toes. They did not hear the world of sounds so much as they envisioned it.
On the other hand, her son Alpin resembled his father Maon. He stood nearly two meters tall with pale blue eyes that seemed to change their color according to the season—a bit bluer in winter and a tad greener during summer—and wispy blonde hair that shone in the sunshine.
Sileas never learned to fully develop that part of her which tied the inner world to the outer. Ena on the other hand seemed to come by that naturally in ways which made her the envy of her peers.
"They call me freak, toad, and fish girl, mother."
Tears streaked her tiny face as she stared up at the bedroom ceiling as if she was ashamed of making eye contact.
"Who calls you such vile names, my sweet Ena?"
Sileas recalled going through the same rite of passage when she was growing up among the People. She once begged her mother for permission to stay in Lake Baikal instead of going back to Orchardton Hall when it came time.
"All the other kids... they say I am a cross between a fish and a human being."
"You will accomplish that which all the others only dream of doing, my little one. They know this too, so they torture you now. When you grow in stature, they will fear you. Be kind to them, my precious Ena."
It broke her heart to see Ena set apart from the others. She was not of the People and yet she was not of the Lake. She was something new, something that heretofore never walked under the sun and the moon.
Sileas believed all mothers must feel the pain of their children. She wondered why the happiness of the world was not as vast as the suffering. The moments of mirth were fleeting at best and soon forgotten while the times of torment seemed never-ending.
Now her little girl was grown. Standing on the shoreline with her and watching Alpin race into the sea to dive beneath the deep blue horizon she sensed the same kind of hurt flowing from Ena at how she was not invited to swim beside him.
"Come home with me, sweetie. I'll fix a late breakfast."
"I'm going to watch the ocean for a while yet mother. I'll be along. You go."
Sileas didn’t understand why Alpin wasn’t here alongside the mother of his child. She hated how she doubted the sincerity of her son wishing instead to confer upon him the benefit of idle youth. She tried to talk to him about Ena's pregnancy yet the boy seemed embarrassed, as if he was ashamed of what occurred.
"I know we are having a baby, mother. You don’t have to remind me."
"I'm sorry, Alpin... that isn’t my intention. I feel bad for Ena, that's all. She feels so lonely. Perhaps if you spend more time with her..."
"This is as much her fault as mine. I don’t know why I have to suddenly be with her all the time. I don’t want to be her boyfriend. I like being her brother a lot better."
"You know you are not her brother, Alpin... and no one is at fault. It is a miracle."
"That's how we were raised. Until just a couple years ago you and father let us think we were brother and sister. It's hard to think of her any other way now."
There was a crowd in the main kitchen at Orchardton Hall. As she had no desire to be among so many People right then Sileas made her way upstairs to the sixth floor where she knew the auxiliary kitchen was fully stocked.
This place was their secret.
Though the Ladies loved the People they also desired privacy at times. These rooms were hidden away... a secret chamber set behind a sliding bookshelf replete with a hidden latch known to a select few only.
"Oh! I'm sorry, Lady Lauren. I didn’t know anyone else would be here. I'll go."
Lauren was sitting at the kitchen table. The only light bled in from a stain glass window above casting red and blue and green shadows across the room.
"No sweet Sileas... stay. I need a friend right now."
Sileas measured coffee and set the pot to percolating before warming up a frying pan. She popped four slices of bread into the toaster. When the pan was hot she cracked six eggs and stirred them briskly. Though she preferred salt with her eggs she knew Lady Lauren did not so she fixed them plain.
"You're worried about Alpin and Ena too, aren’t you, darling Lauren. I don’t understand it. The boy acts as if he is just that... a boy. I do not understand such mentality, sweet Lauren. He certainly wasn’t raised that way."
"Alpin will one day find his center, my precious Sileas. Give him time. He is a good boy and will grow into a fine man. Remember... we are immortal. Have the patience granted to you."
"Tell me what troubles you, Lady Lauren, if it isn’t Alpin and Ena."
"Lately I've been dreaming more than is good."
"Are they bad dreams, Lady Lauren?"
"No, not really, but neither are they good. They are disturbing, especially now that I see others giving birth to the children I will never have again."
"I'm not sure I understand you, Lady Lauren."
"Centuries ago I gave birth to a boy, precious Sileas. He grew into a splendid man but he was apt to take chances with his life the way men oft times do even now. One day he did not return. I was told that he lost his life deep beneath the waters of Lake Baikal."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Lady Lauren... I didn’t know."
"It isn’t your fault, sweet Sileas. Lately I've been dreaming of him nearly every night. At first, I enjoyed seeing him again, but now I am becoming unnerved by the portends of these dreams and what they might mean."
Setting a plate in front of Lady Lauren and one for her, Sileas buttered the toast, spoons out eggs, and filled two cups with coffee as she thought of her own fears about Alpin and Ena and their propensity to swim deeper and farther than she had ever done with Maon.
"What happened to your son, Lady Lauren? I don't mean to be rude... if it bothers you please don't answer me."
"I couldn’t talk about it for the longest time, precious Sileas, but lately it doesn’t seem to matter as much as it once did. I was told he was taken by a monster of the Lake. These beings often appeared after the monkeys began dumping filth into the waters.
"I think those monsters were driven up from the depths where they normally lived, probably by the poisons that they like us were forced to breathe. I harbored a hatred for all human beings for centuries. It is only the last few hundred years that I have come to see they are not all to be so harshly judged."
Chapter 10—To the Sky
As he taxied the Piper Sport back and forth down the runway a number of times the experience allowed Nate more confidence to take his experiment to the next level.
He rebuilt the Rotax engine using tools and manuals he found in the hanger at the airport just outside of Aberdeen. The runway concrete crumbled and reverted to native prairie but the land was flat and by mowing the weeds Nate was able to give the plane plenty of room to take off and to land.
From the literature that he read the two-seater was a good training plane. It handled nicely responding to the lightest touch and was almost impossible to stall. Upon reaching required takeoff speed he eased back on the wheel feeling the plane lift ten feet off the ground. Still not convinced he could land correctly he cut back on the throttle setting the plane back down.
After four trial runs he was certain he would be able to land without crashing so on the fifth try he eased the Piper into the sky watching as the ground receded below. After all his work and studies to actually be flying fi
lled him with both a sense of excitement and awe.
The navigation system in the plane no longer operated. Nate surmised the satellites once used as guidance had failed over the past hundred years although he realized too that his own inability to repair the complex electronics that might be the cause. Either way, he was able to use the compass as well as familiar landmarks to mark his passage.
The plane had a range of a thousand kilometers. It was equipped with the optional Ballistic Recovery System parachute which according to the manual would lower the plane safely to the ground in case of mechanical failure or should he run out of fuel. Feeling thus fortified he set his sights on zigzagging north and south over the interior of the British Isles in part to ascertain if there were pockets of human beings yet living here.
"I want to go with you, dad."
Maon loved to explore the unknown every bit as much as his father. Nate didn’t feel at ease as of yet in taking anyone else along, however. If disaster struck he felt better facing death alone rather than taking his beloved son with him.
"I want you along too, son. Please allow me to get a feel for the airplane first. I don’t want something to happen to the both of us."
Maon was disappointed, of course. He was young yet and felt invincible. Still, his family needed him more than ever now. Sileas gave birth to a boy four years ago and to a baby girl just last month. Nate promised his son if all went as he planned the next trip he took would be with Maon by his side.
"If that plane is so dangerous, why are you flying it, dad?"
"Life is dangerous, Maon. You know that. Each and every adventure we go on together can end badly. But there's no sense in just asking for trouble."
Now with the emerald Isle spread out below him Nate missed his son. Despite the closeness he felt for his family Nate realized Maon's destiny differed dramatically from his own. Like the Ladies of the Lake every seven years Nate felt the pull of Lake Baikal. Maon and Sileas feel the draw of the sea. Neither of them felt a love for the Lake.
