Rebecca smiled. “They’re nice too, and will be in on the secret.”
Lida spread her hands. This seemed impossible. “Whatever.”
“It’ll be fun,” Maple said. “You’ll see.”
It was hardly fun, with the loss of Quincy, but it was a considerable distraction, which actually helped abate her grief. She had to put their house on the market and prepare to move to another city with “Quincy” so their current neighbors would have no idea. All they knew was that Quincy was undergoing complicated treatment in another state and Lida could no longer afford to live here. The couple would be new to the bunker location, so no one not already in the know would be aware of the change in her husband. Lida was making the arrangements while Quincy was undergoing the brain transplant. She actually had considerable help, but it was masked; her name was the only one on the documents.
In two weeks Lida made her good-byes and caught a taxi to the airport. She was on her way to the new existence. All perfectly routine on the outside, but inside she was knotted. She wished Quincy could have been with her to handle the details as he normally did. That thought put her into a brief fit of grief she hoped the cabby didn’t notice. She did not like traveling alone. In fact, she did not like being alone.
The new residence did not resemble the grim bunker Lida had pictured. It was a quite ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood. But she quickly saw that this was illusory; the home was only the top part of a massive underground complex with rail transport to elsewhere. It was indeed a bunker.
She met the guards: a solid man and thin woman standing at the front door. “I will introduce you, if you like,” Aliena said.
“Yes, please.”
“Say ‘Aliena sent me,’ and introduce yourself.”
Lida walked up to the couple. “Aliena sent me. I am Lida Fisher.”
The man laughed pleasantly. “And she is with you now, Lida, as she is with us.” He touched his own ear, where a tiny button showed. “I am Sam, and this is Martha. We will be Quincy’s bodyguards, but we hope also to be your friends, as we were with Aliena. Come in.”
They showed her around the building, not excluding the subterranean aspect. “But normally you will stay in the upper section,” Sam said. “This is just to be sure you know what exists, in case you ever need it.”
“Why would I need it?” Lida asked, fishing for more information.
“The swan could not always protect Lida,” Martha said.
Now Lida laughed. “That was Leda, a different person. She was raped by the god Zeus in the form of a swan and became the mother of Helen, whose face was said to launch a thousand ships. I have no such history.”
“Oh, my,” Martha said, embarrassed. “I did get the names confused. But the point remains: the starfish may have godlike powers, but we still have to be careful. There can be nuts in any crevice.”
The master bedroom was pleasant, with all the amenities including phenomenal cable. There was a very nice kitchen and a well-stocked larder. “You will have do the shopping and cooking and laundry yourself,” Martha said. “So as to appear completely normal.”
“I normally do do these things myself,” Lida said. “And I am completely normal. Why should it be otherwise?”
“Because of him.” Martha said. “Your husband. He will need considerable guidance, as Aliena did at first.”
Oh. Of course.
As yet she remained alone. She put on a raunchy cable program, trying to distract herself from her isolation, then thought of how Quincy would have enjoyed it, and felt more alone than ever. In a few days his body would return, and that was bound to be worse yet.
She met the neighbors. Mrs. Green was an old retired woman living alone, lonely and friendly. “Oh, are you moving into that vacant house? The prior occupants were unusual.”
“You can tell her, and mention me,” Aliena said.
“I am Lida. I—my husband—you remember Aliena?”
“Oh my yes! Delightful girl. But then she went public and moved away.”
“Public?”
“When they found out she was an alien. Didn’t you know?”
“Uh, yes. It’s supposed to be secret. My husband—will be another alien.”
The woman gazed at her with sudden understanding. “You haven’t met him yet!”
“I—no. My husband was losing his mind, literally. They saved him by doing a brain transplant. Now he’s on the space station, and the alien will be joining me here.”
“Oh, you poor dear! I hope he is as nice as Aliena was.”
“I hope so too.” Then Lida was weeping, unable to help herself.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell,” Mrs. Green said. “He will have to have privacy while he learns to be human. We’ll help him, as we helped Aliena. Shame what happened to her.”
It was similar with the neighbors on the other side, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, a middle-aged couple. They too remembered and liked Aliena, and actually enjoyed being part of the secret. “But in time he’ll have to go public too,” Mr. Roberts said. “Then it will get complicated.”
Lida did a practice shopping run. Martha accompanied her, as a friend. There was no sign of Sam. “Don’t worry,” Martha confided. “If there’s even a hint of trouble, Sam will appear and deal with it.”
“He’s watching us?”
“Always.”
“That seems like a lot of trouble.”
“Lida, you have to understand that Aliena, then Star, was the most important person on the planet, bar none. The star man will be equivalently important. The main reason there’s not a visible army guarding them is that they want and need privacy, to learn the ways of Earth firsthand, not as celebrities but as ordinary folk. And your job is thus the most important too. The future of interplanetary relations is in your hands.”
“But I never asked for anything like that! I just wanted to save my husband.”
“Of course. They picked up on that dedication in you, and selected you for the mission.”
“Selected me? It’s my husband who is the one who counts.”
“You both count. He because he is young, healthy, and has a fine voice.”
“Quincy couldn’t even hold a tune! He always went flat.”
Martha smiled. “That will change. But the perfect host is only half of it. The perfect support is the other half. There were a dozen couples as prospects, but you were the best. Because of you.”
“I’m just an ordinary housewife!”
“You are young, healthy, and completely committed to making your marriage work. That attitude translates into the ideal for training the star man. Because this is no easy thing. You must teach him to love.”
“I love Quincy! How can I do that with another man?”
“Lida, the star man needs you, in every sense. You must do for him what you did for your husband. I repeat, the fate of two worlds depends on it.”
Lida was sure she was exaggerating, but did not care to argue the case. What she had learned was complimentary in an appalling way. Quincy owed his life to Lida’s attitude? And she would have to do the same for the star man?
“She’s right,” Aliena said. “Brom taught me love. You must teach the star man love. He will be programmed to love only you, but you will have to show him how.”
“This—this is preposterous! I can and will do the necessary, show him the forms of marriage and commitment, the nuances of the human way. But to tease him into loving me, when I can’t love him back? That’s cruel.”
“But you will love him back,” Aliena said. “As Brom loved me. That’s essential.”
“You’re alien,” Lida said. “You don’t understand what love is. You can’t just assign it.”
“I am alien,” Aliena agreed. “Hence the name Brom gave me. It was hard for me to learn love, but he taught me, and I did come to love him. You must do the same. And you must love him back. Otherwise he will know it’s not real, and that will spoil it. We can’t have that.”
They couldn’t? Then they had picked the wrong woman for the job. But tomorrow was the day the alien would arrive, having had the transplant surgery and recovered sufficiently to operate the body. She was locked in.
She slept restlessly again. The specter of her husband’s body with an alien brain tormented her. Why had she ever agreed to this abomination? Oh, yes—to save her husband. Why did it feel like prostituting herself to a monster for a good cause?
A song was running through her head, endlessly repeating: “In the Gloaming,” one of Quincy’s favorites. He couldn’t carry a tune, but he loved music. Now the words haunted her. “In the gloaming, oh my darling, think not bitterly of me. Though I passed away in silence, left you lonely, set you free.” Quincy had passed away, and she was free to indulge in horror. They had been married less than a year, and now this. Gloaming meant twilight. That certainly fit; it was the twilight of her happiness.
The morrow came at last. It was the day. She dressed prettily and steeled herself for the ordeal. The mirror showed an ordinary face with gray eyes and shoulder length brown hair. She was not a beautiful woman, but she was adequate, without undue fat or blemishes. The alien was programmed to find her appealing? That would have to do.
A car drew up to the house. Three people and a child got out. Johnson, Rebecca, Maple, and—Quincy. Had they not done the surgery, and he was returning to her? Fond illusion! It was the alien.
They stood by the car. Maple skipped ahead, coming to the door alone. “We can’t introduce him until you name him,” she said.
Lida had been braced for she knew not what, but not this. “Name him? Doesn’t he have a name?”
“Sure, but he needs an Earth name. The way Brom named Aliena, and I named Star. That’s the way they do it.”
This was ridiculous! Lida said the first thing that came into her head. “Gloaming.”
“Thank you.” Maple ran back to the others.
The four now walked to the door. Maple introduced the key players. “This is Lida. This is Gloaming.”
“I am pleased to meet you, Lida,” the alien in the body said. Exactly like a human being.
Was it real? Was this actually happening? “Come in,” Lida heard herself say.
Sam and Martha were inside. “This is Sam,” Lida said. “This is Martha. They are our bodyguards. And this is Gloaming, from—from the spaceship.”
Sam stepped forward and shook hands with the body, showing him how to do it. “We’ll get along, Gloaming.” He gave no sign of amusement at the odd name.
“Thank you,” Gloaming said. “I am fatigued by the journey. May I rest?”
“He came from the ship nonstop,” Johnson said. “Moving to Earth gravity. He should lie down for a while, become acclimatized.”
This was her cue. “This way, Gloaming,” Lida said. She nerved herself to take his hand, and led him to the bedroom. Thus suddenly she was alone with the creature, and wishing she were not. “You may lie down on the bed.” Then, uncertain of the impression she was making, “Do you want me to join you?”
“Please, if you would. I should sleep, but am unable to do so alone.”
Was this a pickup line? Lida was not amused. “Take off your shoes. Lie down. I will join you.” He looked so much like Quincy!
He lay down on the bed, somewhat awkwardly, on his side. It occurred to her that starfish did not have to lie down: they were already flat on the floor of the sea.
She removed his shoes. Then she removed her own and lay beside him, facing him. “How is it that you can’t sleep when you need to?”
“It is a problem with our species. We are sea creatures. Outside of the sea we find it difficult to relax. We need the reassurance and contact of an understanding person to enable us to relax sufficiently. I apologize for this inconvenience.”
What could she say? It was more than an inconvenience. She didn’t want to be near him, let alone touch him, let alone sleep with him—even in the literal sense of losing consciousness. Was he a baby who had to be cradled and rocked?
But she had agreed to do this. She had to perform. She reached out with her right hand and took his left hand. “Will this do?”
He held it lightly. “Yes. May I comment?”
“Of course.”
“You are hostile.”
She jumped. This was too close to the truth. “I—am ill at ease.”
“As am I.”
She had to say something to defuse this threatening disaster. “I’m doing this because it is the only way to save my husband, the man I love. Otherwise I would not touch you. I am not hostile to you personally, so much as to the situation. Why are you doing this?”
“That would be a complicated story.”
“Simplify it.”
“I was an energetic young male on my planet, prone to bending rules. I got into trouble with the prevailing norms. I was given a choice: pay a penalty for my misdeed and suffer re-education, or volunteer for the space voyage, which would take me entirely out of the culture, never to return. I volunteered. When I woke, seemingly an instant later, a hundred years had passed. I had been selected to occupy an alien host, so as to learn the alien ways and become an envoy for my world.” His mouth quirked. “Perhaps the machines did not realize that I was a troublemaker.”
Lida suffered a flash of empathy. “Or maybe they did. This was your punishment.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “Now I must do my best for my world, and for the association of dissimilar sapient species. I apologize for complicating your life in this manner.”
“No, you are like me in this respect: doing what you have to do. At least you have some spirit. I respect that.”
“If I may ask, what is the meaning of the name you gave me, Gloaming? I am familiar with the dictionary definition, of twilight or dusk, but I do not see how it relates to my situation.”
“My husband’s favorite song was ‘In the Gloaming.’ It was running through my mind as I thought of him, and of our marriage, which is finished by no choice of our own, our twilight. So when I needed a name on the spur of the moment, that was it. I really did not mean to inflict it on you. I’m sure we can change it to something more appropriate.”
“No, this is fitting. We accept the names we are given by those with whom we must associate. It was true for Aliena, and for Star. I am glad to have you name me; it is the first bond between us and I hope I will sufficiently honor it. Please, would you sing that song, so I know it?”
She was surprised yet again. She sang the song. She was a musician, not a superlative singer, but her voice was all right and she could hold the key.
In the gloaming, oh my darling
When the lights are dim and low
And the quiet shadows stealing
Softly come and softly go
When the winds are sobbing faintly
With a gentle unknown woe
Will you think of me and love me
As you did once long ago?
She continued with the second stanza, but the words got to her and tears washed out her voice. “I’m sorry,” she choked. “I can’t finish it right now.”
“There is a problem?”
What was there but candor? “It reminds me too strongly of Quincy. The man whose body you are using.”
“This causes you pain?”
“Yes. Emotional pain. I love him and want to be with him, and I can’t. That hurts.”
“You must teach me this pain.”
“You really don’t know of love lost?”
“I do not know it, lost or found,” he agreed. “It is part of the human condition. I am apt in other ways, but this type of emotion is alien to me.”
“Alien,” she echoed, smiling tearily. “That’s an irony.”
“I do want to learn it.”
“I will try to teach you,” she agreed. “But not tonight. Right now it’s all I can do to finish the song.”
“Do not be concerned. I have found the words. It was the emotion I needed, and you
have demonstrated that.”
Some demonstration! “Found the words?”
“I am musical in nature. I was given the words to popular songs. But words alone are not sufficient for the art of music. Its essence is feeling. That is what I must learn.”
Did he really know the whole song now? She could readily find out. “Please, sing it for me.”
He sang, and she was amazed. Not only did he have the words, he had the tune perfectly, from her one rendition, complete with seeming feeling. He was a superlative singer, perfectly on key. It was absolutely beautiful. It did something to her, stirring her emotion in a new way, replacing her aversion with grudging admiration. She listened raptly until the conclusion:
…For my heart was crushed with longing
What had been could never be
It was best to leave you thus, dear
Best for you and best for me.
It was over. “Oh, Gloaming, that was lovely!”
“It is the song you taught me.”
It was way more than that! “You said you were musical. You vastly understated the case. You must be the best singer extant!”
“If it pleases you, Lida, then it is worthwhile.”
She needed time to assimilate her shifting feelings. She had discovered in him a marvelous ability, but also a surprising lack. Could she really teach him love? “You are tired, Gloaming. You must sleep now.”
“I am tired,” he agreed. “Thank you.” He closed his eyes and was immediately asleep.
She continued to hold his hand, amazed. Quincy had always had a good voice, but his lack of ability to maintain the key had spoiled him for any singing that was not in the company of one who could stay on key. Gloaming had fixed that problem with a vengeance. To hear him sing was to be moved, and she had been moved. This was no alien monster!
But neither was he Quincy. A different human mind in Quincy’s body would have been difficult to accept; an alien mind was worse. Yet now it was clear that Gloaming did need her, and not just to be able to sleep. And that realization, astonishingly, helped.
Now she too slept.
Hours later she woke to find him looking at her in the continuing daylight. “You are an appealing woman.”
Aliena Too Page 2
