Читать книгу The Record She Left Behind - Patrice Sharpe-Sutton - Страница 13

Zer fought another surge of fluorine ions in her brain. All morning, she’d kept the taboo exo-painting from escaping her body. Now she couldn’t stop the process; ions leaked from her skin, and she turned a degree more transparent. At least she was more visible than a ghostly spirit. Earthlings had seen spirits.

A ghostly electrical figment of trees emerged full blown from her semitranslucent skin and floated toward the viewscan screen. It hovered there as Pyrid Six locked into Earth orbit, again. Zer's exo-painted shroud of trees obscured her view of the roiling, yellowish clouds that still engulfed the planet. Tree images had plagued Zer for days because the real Exotica could’ve speeded cleaning the environment. Earth may as well have flipped upside down; the addled atmosphere mocked compass directions and hid landmarks.

Zer wondered if they’d land for good this time. Her brain-painted trees dissipated across the viewscan screen, exposing more billowy residue from fires below. She imagined the stench of charred and rotting life forms, and the song of seed spilling through the odors, a woo-ooing.

No. The woo-ooing was real!

The sound grew louder. Real seed. Real voices that burned with vigor. Zer became confused by another haze of purple ions swarming in her brain, but she knew the seed called her. A biolinguist, she spoke the language of trees—a deeper, gnarly oo-ooing broke into her thoughts. Mother tongue of Earth? The sound made the smoking globe look like the inside of her head felt. If she was talking with Earth, the foreign planet evoked a powerful sense of kinship. Earth was beckoning her; built-up ions threatened to erupt into the familiar tree scene, and she’d barely finished exo-painting the last one.

This time, before the picture fully formed in her thoughts, she remembered to leak, releasing a blurred pattern from her body; it did not relieve her. The strange kin bond she’d formed with Earth pulled on her will. She got to her feet and started toward the biolab.

Vatta shook her head in warning, but Zer couldn’t stop. She’d started expanding. Anyone could tell because she was naked, all her crewmates were, and on the verge of nova, their pearly bodies glowed. Vatta grabbed a sprayer and shot cold water at her. Zer stumbled onto her friend’s lap.

“Can’t you keep your mind and body to yourself?”

Zer groaned and stood, shaking her head, no. She looked down the circular deck, glad to see electrical figments of clouds and fire billowing from coworkers’ ear-slits, noses, and skin.

“No one stops for long, not since the undersea explosions. If we’re not exo-painting, we’re changing dimensions. We’re a threat to Earthlings’ sensibilities.”

“Quit saying that.” Zer thought of all the gimmicks they’d practiced to remain solid at will.

Vatta had decent control, yet she was sitting on the edge of her chair, about to jump out of her skin. Her eyes shined too brightly. Over dead, wild animals, Zer thought, as the women started pooling, sharing the inner dimensions of their pictorial brains. Vatta’s psychic tears, falling in droplets, bathed Zer in silken sensations. In turn, Zer focused on crystal ice and melting snow swirling down mountains and feeding streams and lakes.

The fertility image calmed Vatta but fed the forbidden portrait lurking in Zer's mind: Exotica glided across land and transmuted atmospheric haze. Purple ions drenched her brain.

“Draw.” Vatta flipped open the magneto-pad they’d made and slid it under Zer's hands.

Zer resisted, yet the cool slate osmotically sucked and transferred purple-ion heat from her head to her palms and fingers. She let remembered smells of moldering trees and cloud-eating trees flow through her hands, the finger painting less satisfying but less problematic than an electrical picture excreted from her body and left to hang like a fruit in air.

Unacceptable, Leon said, telepathically. Sans electrical figments of feeling, he conveyed himself as a watchtower at midship, his eyes sweeping the work deck and tracking the crew who worked on blueprints or studied Earth and its cultures.

Zer admired the controlled warning. Leon distilled pure thought from sensation without leaving pictures in air, but then he had the golden eyes. He was the only pureblood aboard their pyrid, the only mate who had mastered the art of remaining solid without a need to pool, leak preforms, exo-paint, or reverse the polarity of images.

Quit stalking, work on your flight plan, Zer thought back at him. He feared that once they landed, the crew's pictorial exo-thoughts wafting about them and left in their wake would cause Earthlings to hallucinate, maybe evolve. Never mind the effect on the crew. Aliens weren't supposed to influence the Earthlings' evolution, if they ever landed.

Depends on you. Leon thanked her for making it easier to spy.

He would tease. At her suggestion, while awaiting the return to Earth, she and her crewmates worked naked, the better to see the results of trying to control exo-painting. Their pearly bodies contrasted with numerous paintings that hovered partially dissolved nearby.

For three Earth months, they’d exercised adequate control, but now, close to landing, their purple ions were erupting into exo-paintings again. Zer glanced at the day's collection, a gallery of obsessions. She had contributed a forest's worth of trees. “Spacefarers aren't called aberrant for nothing,” she muttered.

Preoccupied with radiation-transmuting trees, she practically considered herself one in disguise or at least encoded with tree genes. She had ended up a tree linguist because of her rapport with plants. Now thinking of them made it hard to maintain a dense body more than twelve hours.

Think of rooted trees, Leon suggested.

Zer silently chanted: roots in the ground, grounded. We ought to land, she thought, but Leon wasn't listening. In her mind’s inner space, she planted images of roots, thick roots, immobile roots. The vision provoked a stream of purple ions. Sighing, she let them have their way and relished the exo-rapture when an electrical counterpart of roots exuded from her, the conjoined ripples smoky against her skin.

She blew on the figure. The ripples wavered past the west quad and a pair of coworkers who blew on it, sending it round the bend. The root pattern circled all the way around the work deck, accompanied by claps and cheers, and reached her half dissolved.

In its wake, plumes of magenta-toned ions released from crewmates coiled around her and enticed her to pool. Her mates had grown tired of struggles with leaky thoughts, too. They loved to pool though their small one lacked a certain variety. Still, for all their quirks, they did make a Zenobian whole of sorts and savored the comfort. They had not prepared for the prolonged trip that had been precipitated by the plight of Earth and Earthlings.

Don't, Leon warned, mindstalking.

The crew ignored him, concerned with what lay ahead. They relived the moments after disasters struck Earth and caused explosions. They hoped ice sheets in the oceans had melted enough to warm the land. Haze from volcanic and other ejecta still hid the sun.

The crew shivered. They felt powerless remembering. They bore some responsibility for the disrupted atmosphere. They’d known of the Earthlings’ nuclear spacefaring explosions in the atmosphere, yet they’d traveled farther in space and added one-cell depth of influence that nudged the change in Mat’s orbit as it passed near Pluto and affected the asteroid belt.

Stop.

Heedlessly, Zer, Wyannie, and Xylona, a third of the crew, walked ‘round the deck, dubbed the hall of mirrors, following the semidissolved reflections of their pictorial brains. As if immersed in fog, they moved slowly through the jumble of ghostly, endlessly repainted scenes:

People in hooded bodysuits with breathing masks. Flaming skies. Fingers tapping blank computer screens. Quakes. Nuclear reactions. Stores looted for weapons and food. Runners on rooftops. Animals pacing cages. Whirling dust. Disoriented geese flying in circles.

They flopped on the floor with the others. Seven pair of eyes as radiant as full moons filled the corridor where they'd gathered, naked, their expanding, glowing bodies seemingly melted into one blob with many eyes shifting among the ghostly patterns suspended around them. One after another crewmate disappeared, turning fourth- or fifth-dimensional.

Zer, mesmerized by Exotica’s seed song and Earth’s woo-ing chanting in her mind, glided through the phantom forest into the biolab. She hesitated, but couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t resist Earth’s call. Instinctively, she gathered supplies, as if watching herself from afar, and saw herself reach into the first bag of seed, choose three, and lightly press the trio into a moist matrix. She all but heard the scratchy stirrings of seed wiggling into soil matrix and later erupting into light. Tears splashed on her fingers and the trio’s earthy bed. She’d broken taboo.

She wondered, would she also stoop to betting that Earthlings would appreciate Exotica? She dropped the supplies into the drawer, slid the tray into the back of the cool storage unit, and stole away from the biolab without looking back.

At the same time, Leon ordered a retreat beyond the magnetosphere and asked the crew to meet in the conference cabin.

When Zer arrived, Leon, Vatta, Brea, Raya, and the others were already in the cabin, settled in the spongy, built-in seats. She slipped into the room and sat as far from Leon as possible.

The co-pilot acknowledged Zer, bowing from his seat. “Decision time.” Raya never quibbled.

“We're a threat, we disrupt too easily,” Vatta was saying.

“We're not in Earth gravity yet.” Brea was looking at Vatta, who’d been on Earth.

“Same as any first timer. After a few days, I had to visit the restoration chamber,” she said.

“We can adjust, can’t we?” Zer asked, “if we stay longer?”

Leon caught their attention with a rare smile that shone as bright as a flare bloom. “Some things you will learn yourselves. Just as you discovered the difficulty of not flowing.”

Fifty-faceted understatement, Zer thought. Only Leon could stop his flow of exo-paintings. They’d expected to evolve but—

“Zer, speak aloud.”

“Brain eruption is not the way. Why change our lifestyle? We like our ways.”

“We’ve been over that. Moot point. It will end.” Raya would know if anyone. He'd seen plenty on numerous voyages for elders. It didn't matter to him if disaster resulted from a breach merge or Mat’s pull; Earthlings had gained a wider sphere of influence in affairs of this universe.

“The galactic merge won't affect Zenobia for centuries,” Zer said.

Brea disagreed. “It will. And it's not the merge. Mat’s orbital change and the increased gravitational pull on Earth recurs.”

“The orbital change is a symptom of the merge,” some brain burbled.

Orbital, scorbital. Same old arguments, Zer thought. When elders had asked them to mine iridium from the asteroid belt, no one expected meteoroid or asteroid catastrophe on Earth due to a far off effect affecting a local event. “Will Earth gravity affect us permanently?”

“Some of you.” Leon’s words hung there silent and heavy.

“Can't you teach us a dimensional trick?” Brea asked.

“If you stop exo-painting long enough. If you decide on an extended visit, or anyone’s body becomes more dense or solid, I can teach the old method.”

“Soul travel?” Brea laughed. “Went out eons ago.”

“Barbaric nuisance leaving the body behind,” someone said.

“Bodies are the issue,” Leon reminded them, “five hundred centuries is long enough for our people to repeat one phase of evolution. I realize most of you consider the current end cycle a myth, more an excuse to travel.”

Brea laughed. “Our ideal is alive.”

“And poses a challenge. We cannot influence, or interfere, with the evolution of others.”

“Fine motto for elders, not us,” Brea said.

Zer wondered what Leon was driving at. All Zenobians shaped light-space and affected others somewhat, though not as exquisitely as the old ones verily flowing with image-thoughts that manifested instantly, or so Leon said.

He searched their faces. “Before you decide whether to stay, the elders sent a message. They created a problem shaping light-space after we left our galaxy.” He hesitated. “There’s only one way I can adequately tell you.”

His eye membranes retracted, and he barred his mind. He had not pooled in a long while. He stunned them, sharing what the old ones had done. A storm swirled in their communal mind. The elders had asked them to mine the asteroid belt after precipitating dangerous asteroid or meteoroid splitting and calving. Accidentally.

Through sacred song, the old ones had assisted the intergalactic merge, the beginnings so faint only ultrasensitive beings could register the effects. A movement as light as a spider leg grazing an arm, Leon translated, no measurable effects in Earth's solar system for ages. With the song, they’d eased the travelers’ way but modified Mat's orbit enough to wreak gravitational havoc here. The old ones had lost their keen, subtle perceptive ability.

“Part of the lifelessness,” Leon repeated, as their minds pulled apart. “They did not intend to end an era, more to assist. This ongoing event will expand our affairs with Earthlings. Traveling here is part of the end cycle. Fifty-thousand years ago, your ancestors—”

“Caused disaster?” Brea looked outraged, blowing exo-painted fire out his ear-slits.

Some performance, Zer thought, wondering what he was up to. He didn’t sound outraged.

“If we help the aliens, we risk changing our ways,” Raya said. “That's the issue.”

“And the paradox the ancients faced,” Leon added.

Brea burst into laughter, the first to recognize the subtlety of the old ones’ movement. “They want the merge and bi-galactic culture. That way, they too can evolve.”

Elders routinely shaped light and events, using iridium chimes and other instruments to harmonize with the cosmos. But they’d gambled. Expanding their reach, they answered the Earthlings who'd used nuclear probes to question the universe. After the probes tore holes in the cosmic fabric between them, the elders beamed sound through the spaces to prepare for the merge. But this nudge enlarging the sphere of influence altered other events. The reformed space continuum now included a high probability for helical co-evolution of DNA among the two galactic peoples. They would be closer in nature—much sooner.

Plus the crew had thought in terms of social co-evolution, expecting to swap cultural views. But with both peoples coming out of relative isolation, their sets of DNA could change in the same direction. So Zenobians could teach exo-painting rather than hide it. Sharing the fruits of galactic disaster was a rich response. So why, Zer wondered, did Leon look sad? During the recent disaster, many Homo sapiens had died, many had lived for nuclear answers. It was not the fault of Zenobians.

“We’re freed,” Brea said.

“You’re relatively free to respond.” Leon’s voice faded.

Zer and the rest went back to pooling to celebrate, pooling splashes of thought, bubbles of excitement, and burps of realization in rapid succession. They agreed to live awhile longer than intended among their new kin. Possibilities had changed. With the accelerated merge, reduced gravity or increased radiation would surely result in faster bodily vibration of Earthlings thus technically enabling the Earthlings to turn semisolid–third- or fourth-di. With that thought, the pool flattened, and the group broke.

Raya addressed Leon. “You're part of this venture and have information we don't. Recommendations?”

“You checked data. How long before atmospheric conditions stabilize down there?”

“Another Earth month.”

Leon considered. “We can duplicate the record of events, make a gift for survivors.”

Zer didn't think a disaster show much of a present. Nor would it preoccupy the crew. They already had sensor-sims of events recorded by crews in all quadrants of Earth. Their crew was assigned the Arizona-California sector, nicknamed AriCal. Part of California had vanished.

“Zerera, please practice speech,” Leon said. “Most Earthlings cannot read minds. Personalize the gift by researching our sector and its people. First answer why and how.”

She knew the litany. Leon had visited Earth before and believed concrete facts soothed skeptics of this planet. Ample evidence existed. Via sensor-sims, events had been recorded and copied into small, cubic sim-readers, showing that Zenobians had not singularly created disaster. The co-pilot had set the pyrid's sensors to scribe details of Earth's hot flashes, the eruptions, quakes, and ice fissions that upset old weather patterns. On land, the bowels and bosoms of Earth had risen, fallen, or wrinkled vertically into tall rock mountains in eight areas of the globe. Parts of Arizona had turned into flood plains.

“Put the data in story form, with history,” Leon said. “No deliberately influencing others.”

“We'll bend the rule as we see fit,” Brea said.

“What about choosing contactees?” Vatta asked.

Two crewmates wanted to wait till the smoke cleared below to find out who’d survived. The meeting ended.

Zer stayed back and approached Leon. “You withheld.”

“You will divide consensus with your trees.”

“The seed are gifts. They help,” Zer said.

“Circumstances changed. Other plants used to fill gaps in Earth's food chain might cause mutation. That can't be helped. But Exotica are unique,” Leon said.

“I didn't cause—”

“You can avoid further interference with others. Consider, because of your work with natural materials, you, Vatta, and Brea are prone to more solid third-di bodies.”

“I don't believe you. And I don't like the new role you've taken on,” Zer said.

“Nor I. It came with the journey, a dormant bud opened,” Brea said.

“You need strong desire for a bud to open.” Zer was accusing him of taking on higher level development and at the same time hoping she never felt such a challenge.

“Look to yourself Zer.”

“I didn’t ask for or want any special training.”

“No?” Leon said.

“You've warned us about you, that's enough.”

“I'd like to believe that.”

“Try,” she said. “Back home we all trusted each other.”

“You're my best friend, Zer.”

“And you mine.” She saw the pain he couldn’t conceal, and she remembered countless times he'd wrapped her in his healing touch. Old habits. Maybe that’s all there would ever be between them. And she typically comforted him when his confidence wavered. “It'll be all right.” It was true for now. She let the warmth of love flow through her and let herself invite utter submersion in the petal dance. Leon hesitated, but looking into her eyes, he overcame his brutal self-responsibility and started circling. During the final movement while they were both highly vulnerable, he could have taken advantage, but he left her mind alone.

* * *

Earth time May 9, 2033. Zerera sat at her work station, awaiting final reentry into Earth orbit and subsequent descent. She still couldn’t remain, at will, in solid third-di form but usually managed to exist in a semi-opaque, third- or fourth-di state, susceptible to exo-painting. It wouldn’t matter except no one knew whether to expect semisolid Earthlings vibrating at faster frequencies, because of exposure to stronger cosmic radiation, or a dying species.

Either way, Leon insisted on honoring the old rule. Zer could not. She'd broken taboo, planting the Exotica trio. Nor could she easily hide her vision about Earth. When he stalked her, she diverted thoughts of trees, dissolving them half formed, and played the ionic sea in her brain, letting innocent pictures flow. She thanked the stars she’d become adept at something.

Right now, her brain ached from a purposeful buildup of ions. If she didn’t explode—before the starship locked into orbit—she would vent her tree opus at just the right time.

One night, she’d recklessly bet Brea she could establish rapport among Exotica trees, Earth, and Earthlings. He’d waylaid her leaving the biolab.