by Chogan Swan
Una sighed.
Someday, you are going to do something fun.
Una moved to the corner of the mat, clapping in time to the music. One of the girls—Azurine—ran toward her, slanting to her right and holding out her right arm for a catch. Una recognized her intent from a game Riniana Tiana had played with her mother and caught the back of her arm, spinning in a circle and releasing her back into the dance just in time to catch the next—Assegai, taller and darker.
… and the next.
It's a good thing I don't get dizzy.
After Una had gone through the sisters twice, Tiana slowed the last phrase of the music to signal a protracted ‘big finish’ that coincided with a wipeout as dramatic and extended as any hammy death scene ever performed in Shakespearean comedy.
The applause lasted for a full minute.
Then, Marian and the waves all pulled on their flip-flops and flapped out the door, heading for the swimming pool. Jerry and Wendy ambled after them.
“Supper in twenty minutes,” Jonah called after them.
Una strolled past the serving tables and stopped next to Jonah who’d taken the piano bench when Tiana had finished playing for the kids.
Una rested her hand on the piano, letting her fingers absorb the sound as Jonah explored the keyboard, improvising on a soft Samba jazz theme.
This was a dangerous moment for her. Una knew that HumanaH's branch-sisters had an almost irresistible attraction to the piano. ShwydH could play, he’d been curious about Earth music, and Una would be able to perform any piece that ShwydH knew. But it would take her years to be able to demonstrate the sort of virtuoso genius Tiana brought to the keyboard. If Una were to play a piece Tiana knew, Tiana would know she was an imposter.
Tiana had installed a piano for HumanaH to use in the underground hideaway ten kilometers from here. HumanaH had never played during the early part of her recovery, but in the months shortly before the pulse, she had started again. Not playing works she already knew, but learning aggressive modern piano works from the 1930s, a time Tiana had not lived through.
For some reason, HumanaH had insisted that ShwydH learn some of them too. When he had asked her why she herself had never learned them before, she'd only said, “I never would have had any interest in this kind of music before, but it speaks to me now. Doesn't it call to you?”
The strange thing was that it did. One of his favorite pieces had been the Carl Ruggles piece Organum, and HumanaH had liked the way he interpreted it.
When Jonah moved off the seat and offered it to her, Una took it without hesitation. It was time to go on the offensive.
She could already tell from hearing Tiana play that this particular instrument was a masterpiece of engineering. Now, it performed the rumbling base and crashing dischordal progressions with sustained power, evoking a sense of danger and a longing for resolution held continually just out of reach.
At the end, Una added an extra chord she judged well in keeping with the rest of the piece then she rose to her feet.
Tiana had come to stand beside Jonah during the song, and Una turned to them both. “Why are we not doing something to help the people north of here? I'm wasting my time organizing the defense of your little haven when we should be taking the offensive. You are wasting an opportunity to move when lasting change can finally be effected.”
“What would you do?” Tiana said, curiosity in her voice.
“The best comparison I can think of would be union organizing.” Una paused. “I applaud you for attempting a bloodless revolution, but now the game has changed. To save innocent lives, it's time to get our hands dirty. If we can establish a voice-of-the-people movement to counter the power grabbing by the warlords during this new Dark Ages, we have a better chance of making a sustainable recovery. You can't do that through the United Nations, we need to infiltrate and educate.” She turned to face Tiana square on. “I know you have important work to do, but what you are asking me to do now doesn't need my skills. It's pointless.”
She jerked her head to indicate the tall white-haired governor across the room. “Governor Handy could do the job as well or better.”
“But you were only here one day before you uncovered a spy,” Jonah protested.
Una waved her hand, dismissing the point. “That was simply luck. I already explained that. Have you been able to backtrack to her contacts yet? That would be helpful.”
“We'll know more soon,” said Tiana. “As for why I put you here … I thought you might need more time to adjust.”
Una shook her head. “Our older sister put me in place because even then she could see that the future would be a time of tremendous upheaval. I was prepared for something not too different from what I found when I woke.”
Tiana nodded. “Good, we'll talk tomorrow. We've gathered a lot of intelligence you'll need to digest before we launch this effort. I'm glad you stepped up so fast.”
Nice work, Una. You just volunteered for the most dangerous assignment in the world.
Tiana turned and headed toward Governor Handy. Jonah stepped out of Tiana’s way before she even moved.
She knew he would move for her.
Una frowned and looked at Jonah. “I don't know HOW you two do that, but you need to stop it when you're in front of people,” she growled in a soft voice. “Someone else is going to figure it out.”
Jonah looked at her blankly.
“Just don't move out of her way before she even moves when you're in public.”
Jonah nodded, blushing.
“I'll want you two to brief me on whatever that is tomorrow.” She turned to the table then spun back. “Barton flew you here, right?”
Jonah nodded. He was still looking a bit dazed.
“Am I allowed a plus one at this party?”
“Of course.”
Una smiled and pulled out her cell phone. “Good,” she said and turned to step out to the courtyard.
Outside, the sisters were returning from the pool, their sandals flapping in unison.
I need to talk with them about hiding their abilities too.
Her call connected.
“Charles,” she said. “Can you meet me in the gymnasium? I'm inviting you to a party.”
CHAPTER 20 – MILLENNIAL DREAM
Ayleana awoke and opened her eyes. She was in the king-sized bed in the captain's cabin on El Salvador . Humana and Amber lay on either side of her. Amber was turned on her side, her bare back snuggled against Ayleana's front.
From behind, Humana's finger filaments rested lightly just under Ayleana's skin, pulsing gently with her branch-sister's electromagnetic field.
“How am I doing?” Ayleana whispered, trying not to wake Amber.
“In my opinion, you're doing better than you have been for some time. Why don't you look yourself? I suspect your threshold blindness and related problems have been sorted.” Humana stroked her shoulder and slid out of bed. “Welcome back,” she said before slipping out the hatchway.
Ayleana tucked her nose into Amber's shoulder and wrapped her arms around her. Amber stirred, wriggling closer before falling asleep again. Ayleana breathed deep of her welcome presence, letting all her senses assure her that she was with her family,
Alive.
Muffled cries from the flock of gulls—visiting from nearby Beauchene Island—drifted through the portholes. Slivers of sunlight peeked around the curtains. She allowed herself time to reflect and process all that had happened since she'd crossed the threshold into the deep. As much as she loved to swim, she was not a sea creature. That she'd survived was a miracle … and Shwyd had rescued her.
Entering the alien world of the ocean had exposed her to an environment controlled by dangerous, powerful creatures where many of her own natural defenses lost efficacy. She felt a memory of a similar experience rising to the surface of her mind and pulled it toward her.
She'd been on an ocean dotted with ice, sailing a tiny catamaran, jury-built from three pontoons. The i
ce had grown thicker, finally blocking her way. She'd been forced to reef the sail and paddle into the wind through the narrow gaps between ice floes. Something huge and powerful had rammed her boat from below. It had almost knocked her into the water, but she had leapt from the boat to the ice, watching helplessly while a female leopard seal more than 3 meters long destroyed her boat then turned to attack her.
This didn't happen to me, and it happened on Earth.
Acta Vila! One of Symbiana's memories. A new one.
She scrolled back a few days to an experience of crash-landing on Earth with Darmien and Amelie.
But these memories would only be 122 years old! I've skipped over 1,500 years.
Then what it meant clicked.
Darmien and Amelie are dead.
She turned and buried her head in the pillow to muffle the sobbing wails that shook her.
The bed shook as Amber lurched awake. “Aylie!”
Amber pulled herself close to Ayleana's back. “What is it, Aylie? I'm here,” she said, voice tight with concern.
Ayleana gasped. Words seemed far away. The memories of the events leading up to the deaths of her childhood friends looped through her mind, over and over.
“KEST!” Amber shouted into her com. “Come quick.”
But Humana arrived first, slamming the door out of the way. Ayleana felt her branch-sister's fingers and filaments touch her spine just below her skull and at the center of her back.
Ayleana turned and shook her off. “Darmien, Amelie—you never told me they were dead,” she shouted. “All this time I prepared myself not to know what had become of them, but I never expected they would die because of a decision YOU made. Why didn't you tell me?”
Humana's face froze. Her emotion markers lingering in the air changed from concern to sadness then anger and sadness combined. “How young you still are,” she said softly. “How quick to lay blame. Until now, you have only had memories of me losing friends. This is the first time you have lost anyone connected to your personal identity. And yes, they were your childhood friends. But they were that for me too, also my partners, faithful officers under my command and friends for two millennia. It seems you now have all my memories of what happened, but I doubt you've had time to trace them from the beginning because then you would KNOW why.” She turned to the door. “Consider yourself fortunate,” she said. “I can't even remember what happened. I will never really know the whole answer. At least you won’t have to remember when that monster took the memory of them from me.”
She left the door open when she walked out.
Ayleana put her face in her hands for a moment then stood.
Then I met someone who had no feet.
Humana hadn't deserved that.
Ayleana took two steps toward the door then stopped, took a calming breath then turned to the bathroom. She turned the shower on … hot.
Two-thousand years of memories needed sorting. She could make a start while she showered. It might distract her from the aching weight of knowing her friends were dead. When she’d done that, then she could apologize properly.
At least they were with the herd at the end …
Goodbye, Darmien. Goodbye, Amelie. Rich pasture; clean water.
∆ ∆ ∆
Ayleana pushed the shower knob, shutting off the flow of hot water. While she'd been scrubbing, rinsing and remembering, she'd been working through a time when her branch-sister was learning deep body control and adaptive techniques. Tiana had taught her some of the skills, but had never had time to take it far. Especially since the knowledge would come to her with the memories eventually anyhow.
When Ayleana tried changing the bone structure of her facial features—to see if she could make the techniques work, she'd found the threshold blindness that had kept her from regulating her body systems in crucial areas had vanished, as Humana had predicted.
Ayleana used the techniques to tweak some of the facial sculpting Tiana had done for her three months ago. Her awareness of her body and the control over its processes had never been so precise. Now she might even be able to compare her abilities to Tiana's.
The ache in her chest was still there, but the distraction had helped. Maybe now she could function without hurting someone else she cared about. She dried herself and straightened her shoulders before opening the bathroom door.
Kest stood facing Amber, but he turned to Ayleana when she entered. “What happened?” he said. “Are you okay?”
Ayleana rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. “Amber didn't tell you?”
Amber raised her hands in surrender. “I told him everything I knew; you were crying so hard I thought you were choking then Humana almost broke the door coming in. The two of you had a tense conversation in Nii. She left. You showered.” She took a step toward Ayleana. “Aylie, we want to help. What can we do?”
Ayleana shook her head. “Nothing; it's my mess to clean up. The hibernation state I was in triggered all the memories in the crystal to transfer to my mind. I was unaware of it until I remembered something that I'd never dreamed or lived through. The trouble was, it was a memory of when my childhood friends Darmien and Amelie died. I was upset and yelled at Humana for not telling me about it, not even thinking it might be one of the memories she'd lost.”
Amber and Kest took two steps to her in unison and wrapped their arms around her. After a moment, Kest tried to step back, remembering the threshold sickness and her related problem with being in prolonged physical contact with him.
Ayleana held onto him, pulling him back. “No, it's okay now. If I'd known all I had to do was ride a monster shark to the bottom of the ocean in order to hold you again, I'd have done it ages ago.”
Kest shuddered. “I will forever have nightmares about watching that on camera. That's a memory, I would gladly lose.”
“I wouldn't be so sure. Humana would do anything to have her memories back, even the tragic ones. But right now, I need to go find her and make the first of a series of apologies.”
“I don't understand,” Amber said. “Why a series?”
“The rest of them will be in the form of me telling her about the memories I now have from her.” She turned, looking Amber in the eyes and touching her arm. “After that, we need to talk about sleeping arrangements and related matters.”
Amber smiled. “We'll look forward to that. We've missed you.”
Kest nodded.
Ayleana pulled them both to her again, breathing in their familiar, precious, combined scent. She could have stayed just like that for a long time, but she owed Humana.
“Okay.” She stepped back. “We’ll pick this up when I get back. We … are taking the day off.”
Kest laughed. “Okay, but if it's your day to be the boss, then I have dibs on tomorrow.”
Ayleana smiled. “Kest, Kest, Kest. We only let you think you're the boss when it's your day,” she said.
“I know that's what you think. But have you considered that I might actually BE the boss every day?”
Ayleana patted him on the shoulder, and Amber touched his arm.
“You just keep telling yourself that,” they said together.
CHAPTER 21 – HALF-DAYS OFF
The slow rise and fall of the El Salvador scarcely filtered through Amber’s peaceful half-asleep drowsing. But—when Kest slid under the covers behind her, his skin still warm from the shower—she wriggled back against his body. “Mmmm,” she murmured and pushed against him more as he slipped inside her. She loved when they just rested like this, his body fitting tight to hers as he spooned against her. Sometimes it turned into something more after a time, and sometimes they drifted away into dreams, to wake later, still connected.
∆ ∆ ∆
She must have missed hearing the door to the hall open and shut, but she woke again when Ayleana snuggled against her front, tail slipping between and around all three of their right knees, locking them ALL together in a loose bundle.
This is different.
When she woke again, they were all still in a bundle.
“Good afternoon, sleepyhead,” Ayleana said. “It’s great that we are all three here in bed together again on our half-day off, but I’d like to some discuss things while the two of you are on the subject.”
Kest cleared his throat. “The subject?”
Amber laughed—a quick puff of air from her nostrils. “You don’t think she knows where the better part of you is and has been since you got into bed? You are aware she can smell arousal from a mile away, right? And how long have you been awake, anyway? You’re still hard.”
