Fight for the Future

by Chogan Swan

  Tiana met her eyes. “What?”

  “I received Riniana Tiana’s memories of Xilonia Tindata and her threshold into sexual maturity.”

  “All the way to sex on the beach?”

  Ayleana stared at Tiana. “On the beach?” she said, switching to English. “With sand? What were you thinking?”

  “It was every bit as disappointing as it sounds,” Tiana said.

  “That’s not what I want to talk about.”

  “What then?”

  Ayleana reached out, wiped her finger across Tiana’s bare scalp, and held the finger under her branch sister's nose. “That.”

  Tiana pursed her lips. “Let’s go outside.”

  The sky was still dark as they wound their way out of the compound. Tiana kept up with Ayleana’s rapid stride, but stopped when they cleared the security sweep boundary. “So you never thought about what those smells meant?”

  “As I’m sure you recall...,” Ayleana said. “Riniana Tiana was never curious about the subject until it hit. I suppose I’ve never pondered it much either.”

  “It’s easy for me to assume you know everything,” Tiana said. “You usually do, and when you don’t, you still act like it.”

  “Fun nii,” Ayleana snorted. “When I woke, remembering Riniana Tiana’s threshold and Rinia mother reading the rules of sexual behavior to her, I realized that you and Jonah are far outside the rules. Well, you are. There aren’t any requirements for our symbionts. Since you are now what she became, and, I am like you genetically, it made me question what would happen between Kest and I when this body crosses threshold. I want you to explain what is going on with the two of you.”

  Ayleana waved her hand, trying to find a clear way to express herself. “I’m not judging. You have two thousand years more life experience than me, and my memories of nii society may be way out of date, but... damn sister!”

  “Have you noticed you are speaking in English?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It’s what I speak most of the time.”

  “So do I, but you took far less time to think in the languages of Earth than I did. I have lived away from our people for over half a centian of experience time. Our other branch sister has seen twice that. Other than her, that's longer than any other nii I’ve heard of. Things are happening to my mind and my body that I don’t fully understand yet. I’m not convinced they are bad things though. Jonah is one of those. You know his mental connection to me surpasses anything known to our kind, at least since last I checked in.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen what he can do. He always knows where you are and what you are about to do.”

  “It goes farther now. It took me four years to even begin understanding how that happened. I think my subconscious decided I needed a deeper relationship to grow. It picked him and my new body expanded the tone of our partnership. It surprised my conscious mind as much as you might expect. The leap he made... none of us understands yet.”

  Tiana looked at the light growing in the east. It lit her face, revealing a soft wondering expression. “What I’m trying to say is that we don’t know what will happen. What makes sense where we came from doesn’t always hold where we are now.”

  She reached out and touched Ayleana's cheek. “What you and Kest become and decide is up to the two of you.”

  Chapter 20 — Family Reunion

  When Ayleana left the room early that morning—in a tearing hurry—Kest had stayed awake for a while, wondering if he should be concerned. After a few moments of considering, he decided it was none of his business unless she wanted to tell him.

  He’d dozed off again. But, when Ayleana opened the door with a breakfast tray smelling of coffee, he woke and sat up, reaching for a cup. The breakfast food might be cold, but at least the coffee was hot. He was glad they were willing to splurge a little energy for the important things; though he was sure they had an efficient way of doing it.

  Ayleana, now wearing a halter top and kilt, settled herself in the middle of the bed, holding the tray on her lap. “There is one thing I have to do before we go back, and I need you to come with me. Can you ride a mountain bike?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not a black-diamond trail rider. If it gets to that point, I’ll have to walk.”

  “That should be fine. We’ll just need to cut cross-country for about ten miles.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To visit my sister, the other one.”

  “You seem... quiet. Is it about the visit? Are things uncomfortable between the two of you because of her decision?”

  “Let’s talk afterwards,” Ayleana said. “It might be easier to explain then, and we’ll have plenty of time on the drive back. Jonah and Tiana are stopping by in a moment. They have to leave early. Daniels will drive us to Tucson when we get back from talking to my sister.” Her lips quirked up for a second. “Amber said you can keep her Tri-shorts so you’ll have something to remember her by.”

  Kest pursed his lips and scratched his nose. “You know, I can hear her saying that in my head.”

  He took a sip of the coffee. “How long has it been since you saw your branch sister?”

  “Almost three years. Maybe it will go better this time. I’ve changed a lot since then, so perhaps she has too.”

  “That bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kest put the coffee on the bedside table and leaned over to give her a hug. He was surprised how tense she seemed when he touched her.

  She must be wound tight about this now. It’s strange, she must have known about this trip last night...

  Ayleana was working her way through the kelp biscuits, so Kest started in on the cereal and nut mixture she’d brought for him.

  She handed him a jar with a screw top, filled with something that looked like milk. “Tiana wants you to drink this.”

  Kest unscrewed the lid and took a sip then he drank the whole thing. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew he liked it. “That was delicious.”

  “Good, I’ll tell her you liked it,” Ayleana said. Her eyes made him think, just for a moment, that she was laughing inside, a hopeful sign she might cheer up soon.

  ~~~{}~~~

  Kest peddled hard to keep up with Ayleana. It felt good to zip through the early-morning air. The route they followed rolled up and down small hills. After a few miles, Kest realized they were heading back towards the border, following the buried seawater pipeline.

  Ayleana turned into a cleft between two cliffs on the left. Kest down-shifted as he saw the grade ahead and sat back on the seat to maintain traction for the climb. They didn’t go far before Ayleana hopped off the bike and leaned it against a boulder. Kest jumped off beside her and put his bike next to hers. He followed, sipping from his hydration pack as they wove through a tight crevice in a rock face. When it opened into a small clearing, there, under an overhanging cliff, stood an adobe wall with a door in the middle. The door opened as Ayleana approached. A dark, male figure stood there, tail arching in a graceful curve behind him. Kest noted strong features—with a lean and hungry look—but his face was only nominally human, as though he didn’t care to adopt the appearance of his surroundings.

  That must be ShwydH.

  “I need to speak with my branch sister,” Ayleana said.

  “Welcome, Riniana Tiana,” ShwydH said, bowing.

  “Come on, Kest,” Ayleana said, stepping forward.

  Kest followed her inside.

  Sunlight—filtering down through a window high above—fell on a female nii sitting on a stool at a simple wooden table.

  “Greetings, branch sister,” Ayleana said. “I have come to present my partner symbiont to your attention and to invoke the pact of protection. Kestrel Tashquinth-Avsar is his name.”

  “Welcome, Kestrel Tashquinth-Avsar,” said the female nii.

  If Ayleana were likened to a colt and Tiana a racehorse, then this nii would be a warhorse. She stood, and somehow the simple act an
nounced her strength like a trumpet blast.

  “I, HumanaH, acknowledge my duty to protect you where you come within the scope of my knowledge, power and influence,” she said and sat once again.

  Ayleana bowed to her then turned to ShwydH.

  ShwydH stepped forward. Kest considered classifying him as a panther or a wolf, but then settled on shark, cold, deadly, unreadable.

  “I, ShwydH, as a member of the household of HumanaH, acknowledge my duty to protect Kestrel Tashquinth-Avsar where he comes within the scope of my knowledge, power and influence.”

  “Thank you both,” Kest said. “I’ll try not to be any trouble.”

  “Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward,” ShwydH said.

  “Yes,” Kest admitted. “There is that.”

  “New International Version, ShwydH?” Ayleana said. “So, you’ve been here two hundred twenty years and you’re just now getting around to the local literature?”

  ShwydH glanced toward Ayleana. “Perhaps I should recommend Luke chapter six verse thirty-seven to your attention. Have you read that far yet?”

  Condemn not and you will not be condemned... Hmm.

  It appeared his eidetic recall was improving as Tiana had predicted; the page was clear to his mind, as he'd held it years ago, sitting by his grandmother during the services at the mission church.

  Ayleana’s branch sister rapped on the table with her knuckles. “Peace,” she suggested.

  She'd called herself HumanaH. Like ShwydH, the name had a strongly aspirated ending. He wondered why he'd never heard Ayleana or Tiana speak the name when referring to her.

  Ayleana took a step closer to ShwydH, her teeth showing, in an expression that was in no way a smile. “As my branch sister has taken responsibility for you, there will be peace, for my part, but you and your kind have been more trouble than mankind. I saw what became of the dymba homeworld.”

  “Perhaps men have only lacked the opportunities my kind had available to them,” ShwydH returned, his voice even and reasonable.

  “I know the choices you made, ShwydHHH,” Ayleana emphasized the aspirant even more, adding a meaning to it mysterious to Kest.

  HumanaH spoke with quiet force. “Let us leave this divergence from peace. I, for one, can attest that sometimes choices are limited. Whatever ShwydH’s story has been in the past, I know all of its possible endings. So let there be peace henceforward.” This time, her last sentence, though not loud, was a command.

  She rose and moved to stand facing Ayleana, standing between her and ShwydH. HumanaH reached out and wrapped her arms around Ayleana, holding her in a firm, gentle embrace. From where he stood, Kest could see a glisten of water leaking from her eyes. Ayleana took a shuddering breath and her arms wrapped around HumanaH in return.

  “Come branch sister,” HumanaH said in a soft voice. “Let us walk together so we can know each other better. Your choices since the crèche have shown strength, and I want to be closer to your heart. Kest will be safe here until we return.”

  Ayleana turned to him with a hopeful look.

  “I’ll be fine here,” Kest said, sensing her need. “Spend time with your branch sister.”

  Ayleana nodded. “Thank you,” she said and walked with HumanaH to the door and outside, arms still around each other.

  ... leaving Kest in the tank with the shark.

  Chapter 21 — Reciprocity

  Kest took a moment to look around the room. The floor was a smooth concrete slab finished with an epoxy surface. The front wall with the entrance they had come through was made from parged adobe bricks. Walls at the back of the room were simply the irregular cliff face. The overhanging wall was now a cave.

  Two tablet computers sat on the table along with narrow wireless keyboards. Other than the table, two stools, and a stack of long crates along the wall, the room was bare. Two openings, other than the door he’d come through, led out of the room. From here, it looked as though someone had tunneled through the hard sandstone with a pickaxe.

  “So were the Anasazi here?” he said.

  “No archeological remains were disturbed,” ShwydH said.

  “Just taking a page from them then...”

  “The concept is hardly unique in the galaxy.”

  Kest nodded. “Nothing new under the suns,” he mused.

  ShwydH’s mouth may have quirked upwards at the corners. “Unfortunately, I can't offer you something to drink, there is only seawater piped from Mexico.”

  “Can you drink that?”

  ShwydH nodded.

  “Thank you, but I'm carrying water and just ate before we got here. What do you do out here? Aside from spending time on the computer, I mean.” He waved at the machines on the table.

  “Protect the border, confiscate arms and drugs being smuggled.” ShwydH nodded to the crates against the wall. “And we go on occasional missions in other areas.”

  “What about the people coming over the border?”

  “Some we take to SST for interviewing; the more troublesome ones we send back... alive, if they are lucky.” ShwydH's teeth showed in what might have been a smile. “What you might call a catch and release program. The vows I made to HumanaH are not as stringent as those of the nii.”

  “The Apache tried something like that with the white invaders.”

  “HumanaH does not classify the humans by color, only by intentions. Most of the humans would not qualify as white by anyone’s standards, though a few arms smugglers from the north still make it this far south,.”

  “So, you get your intelligence on the activity and the border here?” He pointed to the computers.

  ShwydH nodded.

  “How do you attain the range to intercept the incursions from here?”

  “Bikes.”

  “Bikes?”

  “Come,” ShwydH said and turned to walk through one door and down the hall to another. The concept for the room beyond was recognizable from Kest’s pop culture library.

  Holy batcave!

  The hardware, weapons, armor, and vehicles parked in a row made his mind turn to comic book comparisons. And, the two-wheeled vehicles parked there resembled bicycles the way sharks resemble minnows. Kest ran his hand over the matte-black paint on the body and fenders.

  “Sorry,” ShwydH said. “Someone is at the front door, and I'll need to go back.”

  “Of course,” said Kest, turning to follow him down the tunnel, but glancing back with fascination at the bikes as the door closed behind him.

  Two girls were at the door. ShwydH greeted them as they came inside. Kest remembered seeing them yesterday at the project. They said hello to him, as they ducked into the next room—going the other way... not toward the motorcycles.

  “I have business to transact with my other guests. Would you mind waiting here? They prefer a certain amount of privacy.”

  “Would you let me take your bike out for a ride?”

  “I’m afraid I promised to watch out for your safety. HumanaH would not consider that honoring my word,” ShwydH smiled. This time the expression honestly translated to humor.

  Kest sat at the table and took a sip of water from his hydration pack.

  In a few minutes, sounds from the other room, mostly moans and sighs, indicated the business at hand. Kest was glad when Ayleana returned an hour later. The business was still ‘being transacted’ when he and Ayleana walked back to their bikes.

  It was still early enough in the morning and year that temperatures were still comfortable although the sun poured down on them. Instead of turning toward the greenhouse farm, Ayleana stopped at a thicket of mesquite trees and sat in the shade on a flat rock. “Let's talk now rather than in the car,” she said. “So I have your full attention.”

  Kest dismounted and walked to the rock to sit next to her.

  “Okay,” she said and took a breath as though she was ready to dive into a lake. “As I said yesterday before you put my face on your yummy neck and offered me a drink, I’m
not a vampire. It's not just blood I need to supplement to my diet. Homo sapiens is the most compatible symbiotic pairing with nii we know, some individuals much more so than others. Your particular makeup is unusually compatible with mine. Before my branch sister’s ship landed here at the end of the 18th century, We had never encountered a species that could, so easily, provide what we needed. It gave us the opportunity to take only one symbiont partner instead of several. In addition, your planet has several compatible plants and minerals we can eat.”

  Ayleana put her hand out to hold onto his. “I've yet to reach my adult stage though I am getting close. Until then, my needs are not high, though I find I do enjoy indulging them. They include body hair,” she said, stroking his arm in a way that made it tingle.

  Kest looked down to see that her fingers had left a trail of smooth bare skin on his forearm, and he lifted it to examine the tracks. “Interesting,” he said. “Do you take the roots as well?”

  “No, that’s unnecessary, but don’t get me sidetracked, eh?”

  “Sorry. Inquiring minds...”

  “I know...,” she tweaked his cheek. “From time to time, I will also need to take some stored body fat.”

  Kest fought the urge to ask if he should eat more starch and sugar.

  “I also get nourishment from skin cells that are about to be shed. There also are fluids in your lymphatic system useful in trace amounts.” Ayleana winked. “It may relieve you to know that I do not need to eat one of your kidneys.”

  Kest smiled.

  Ayleana looked him in the eyes. “Soon, however, I will need a steady supply of what you produce here.” Her fingers slowly reached out and brushed across Amber’s tri-shorts six inches below his navel. She kept her eyes on his and waited for her words to register.

  Kest felt his face flush hot.

  “Normally, for us, it's not connected to sex, though it would bring you pleasure.” She shifted on the rock. “Though I admire your body’s ability and potential, and your creative mind, until this morning, I would have assured you that I would never find you attractive in that way. I learned this morning, from Tiana that is not always the case. My branch sisters have been long away from our people and their bodies adapted to meet their emotional needs, which may have translated to me. Until my body passes the threshold to maturity, I won't know.”