SEVEN
“Well, if that isn’t typical. I wonder what I did to provoke that.”
Lianna shrank in her seat as Ernie adapted a power pose, leaning over her with his hand grips pressed to his robotic midsection. “This is hardly a laughing matter,” he said. “FAITH has operated with virtual impunity on this station. Having successfully driven all its non-Human visitors to their respective homes, they will have little to inhibit their efforts to remove you. Their congregation may perceive these deportations as proof of divine sanction.”
“They’ve tried to remove me already,” Lianna said, rubbing the back of her scalp.
“It may be prudent to consider an early departure.”
“What, quit because of a bunch of religious crazies? I’ve been in trouble before, and I have been engaged for a full month with my symposium.”
“Which by all appearances may be suspended indefinitely.” Ernie eased back to his normal posture, his palm pad raised. “You also no longer have only yourself to think of.”
Her gaze followed his to the kitchenette, where Gita and Little Stavros each balanced in a head stand on the kitchen stools. Part of her admired the little tykes, that they could so easily balance on such a small rotatable cushion. A more powerful urge propelled her across the suite with both hands grasping as Gita tumbled down.
She needn’t have worried. As she unfolded from her headstand, Gita’s legs merged into one thick trunk that flowed down to anchor her safely on the deck. Little Stavros’ fluid body performed a similar feat, projecting a fluid column to flow down. Then Granny beckoned from across the suite: “Baby, come here.”
Lianna peeled herself away from the girls and crossed to the couch. Granny took her right hand and pressed it into Amba’s. She overlayed her own large hand over the top of theirs. “This is going to be an adjustment for both of you,” Granny said. “You’re not going to be able to keep on with the hare-brained stunts you’ve done before,” glancing pointedly at Lianna.
“You’re going to find your private time extremely limited, which will make it al the more precious. That won’t mean your love for each other has been diminished. I know Lianna has lavished a lot of attention on Gita in the last few days. Maybe she hasn’t included you as fully as she should have in this transition,” she added now to Amba, “but you needn’t fear. Believe me, Lianna has more than enough love to spare of both of you.”
Gita padded beside Lianna, looking first to her, then at Amba. Now she slipped her small hand beneath Granny’s to grasp Amba and Lianna’s. Initially Amba’s translucent head was bowed. Then she focused on Gita. A smile formed on her lips, and her arms opened wide. Granny stepped back to give them space and found herself standing beside Lianna’s other ameboid companion, Stavros. Below her, Little Stavros signed, –She is very unhappy.
“I imagine so,” Granny whispered. “But now that you’re all together, things will look better.”
-That was not our meaning, Stavros replied.
Granny frowned, but she had witnessed this before, the smiles too thin hiding an inner turmoil. She’d wrestled with such trauma herself often enough. “You’re very perceptive,” she observed. “Have you always been female, or was it something you learned from Lianna?”
Her signing flowed surprisingly well. –Gender is unknown to our colony. We have no need for such fluid concepts.
And for a moment. Stavros smirked. “I never knew ameboids could be such smartasses,” Granny said.
-We have had many years to observe her, and to glean her thoughts. Lianna dwells on her parents much. There is too much time between worlds to think. It is part of why we surprise her daily. It serves to distract her from her pain.
They watched as Amba joined her hands, quite literally, into one long tube uniting her arms, sliding a protoplasmic mound back and forth beneath the surface of her epidermal layer. Gita gazed bright-eyed as the mound shifted between her forearms, occasionally poking it with a forefinger. “You seem more comfortable with this relationship than your partner,” Granny said to Stavros.
-Our home is more hospitable than Amba’s. It contains many warm pockets, geothermal vents in your terms. Amba’s world is harsher, not so blessed with light, which may attribute to her assertiveness. Gender is an adaptive frame for us. It suits our compatibility.”
She knelt before the child ameboid next, making eye contact as it were. It was difficult knowing what sensory ability those button-sized orbs possessed, if any. “You seem very wise, for one so young,” she commented, signing as she spoke.
Little Stavros’ body jiggled as though from giggles, but she signed as well as her parent body. –We carry all the memories of our progenitors, as well as of the world-atman we are separated from. We only lack the lived experience of an individual
“Time will take care of that. Will you carry these life experiences home with you someday?”
-Our thoughts are connected still with the world-atman, our mother colony. All that we know, we share.”
Granny whistled. “That’s amazing. Can I hug you?” The baby ameboid nodded, then jumped into Granny’s open arms. Her smooth epidermis was cool to the touch, but the embrace was sincere. The two of them ambled over to Lianna, while Granny approached the last person in Lianna’s extended family.
“You appear to have found joy in Miss Lianna’s happiness,” this great crimson android she’d called Ernie commented. “May I ask why you are regarding us this way?”
Granny frowned. “In what manner do you mean?”
“This intense regard you have focused on us, in correlation with that peculiar tilt of the cranium.”
“I’d just never examined an android in such close proximity before. My people deride your kind as soulless automatons, forgive me, but you…May I?” Granny leaned closer, raising her right hand, palm open. Gently pressing it to Ernie’s cranial unit, she shut both eyes—then stepped back with a sharp gasp. But giggles soon followed.
“Is something wrong?” Ernie inquired.
Granny shook her head. “On the contrary. There’s more to you than you realize, my friend.”
“Thank you.” Ernie inclined his upper torso ever so slightly, then wheeled beside Lianna, who was seemingly entranced with Gita and Amba’s interchanges in sign. “I must return to the ship, Miss Lianna. Enjoy your stay.”
“Will you be all right?” Granny asked.
“I believe so. Androids are not considered living beings by the FAITHful, and are therefore not capable of unrighteous behavior. Be well.” He pat Lianna’s right shoulder while she nestled to his hand. Then as efficiently as any other machine, the door whisked shut behind him.
They settled into an awkward companionability. For an hour they played cards, Lianna at the end table with Stavros and Amba, while Gita, Little Stavros and Granny congregated around the kitchenette counter, though it was hard to bluff beings who could read your tells as easily as they read minds. Granny disappeared at some point that afternoon, so Gita slipped into Lianna’s lap, her trunk wound twice around Lianna’s waist. Little Stavros did much the same to her progenitor, while Lianna reached across to Amba to squeeze her hand.
Granny appeared distracted upon her return, not acknowledging Lianna’s greeting until she repeated it. She prepared a heaping bowl of jollof rice without comment, with sahlab drinks on the side. Lianna grinned at the cinnamon mustache it imparted to Gita. While Amba and Stavros seemed to be meditating over the bowls in their laps, she could almost perceive the silicates draining from bowl into their translucent bodies. All this before the nighttime interruption over the station’s public amplifier:
“The purification of our home system is nearly complete. The invaders have been turned back to their heathen worlds. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, behold I will stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethims and destroy the remnant of the sea coast—”
Granny lifted her head, then jabbed at her jollof. Lianna scowled as the lesson continued:
‘And I strike down on them with great vengeance and furious rebukes, and they shall know my call sign is Sandy One when I—what the f—Nick! Jesus Christ, this is not Ezekiel–!” Somone must have had hindsight enough to ‘cut the mic’, as it were. Everyone chuckled at this snafu, even the ameboids. Except for Lianna, who had a question for Granny.
“What do you know about Kali?”
There it was, a half-moment of hesitation as Granny scooped another mouthful of rice. “I saw her in your entryway mirror,” Lianna persisted. “While you were dancing.”
Granny huffed, setting her bowl aside and sipping her sahlab. “She is the goddess of Death and Creation, the Divine Mother who leads us through darkness and chaos, into clarity and enlightenment. Time and death are embodied in her, and somehow are nothing to her.”
“That’s interesting. Most people preface that with ‘according to Hindu myth’. You speak as though you know her personally.”
“It’s not possible to know a god personally.”
“Even so, what’s that got to do with me, or you? Are you supposed to set right what once went wrong and whoosh away? That seems kind of silly.”
Granny nodded. Gita’s gaze kept shifting back and forth between them. “I never lied to you,” she said. “My grandson sent me here because he thought I might find solace here. Instead I found myself staring at a reflection that was not my own. At first I thought it was a manifestation of some form of madness, but the reflection followed me in every mirrored surface. I tried to ignore it. And one day, the image stepped out of the glass into my suite.
“I fell back into my lounge as she stood over me, tongue flicking blood drops onto my shoulder. Four hands braced my cheeks, and she made a bargain. I was to be her avatar, your guardian in a time of trial. And when she was satisfied, she would unveil the mysteries of my visions.”
“What did you see?”
Granny pursed her lips, her eyes clouded over. But her hand stroked Lianna’s cheek as she shook her head. “What is Kali to you, baby?”
“You keep calling me that.”
“When you get to my age, everyone seems very young. And?”
It was Lianna’s turn to squirm in her seat. “I-I think she may be my mom.”
“That’s an understandable belief. As an avatar of motherhood—”
“No, you don’t understand. I think she’s my literal mother, reincorporated as an avatar of Kali. I know it’s crazy, I saw her. I was hiding under our sleep bunk when my dad—”
Amba placed her hand on Lianna’s neck. “It’s okay, beloved. She knows. I can see it in your eyes, Granny. There’s a sadness clawing at the surface, even past that sweet smile of yours.”
Granny returned Amba’s gaze. “Lianna doesn’t have to tell me anything. Whatever she chooses to tell me will remain in the strictest confidentiality.”
-But the kid is hearing everything, Amba signed.
-The Kid can read, Gita signed back with a wink.
“It’s hard to explain,” Lianna continued. “My parents studied the ancient Hindi beliefs at university, and they thought they found an intersection where our physical science and the Vedas overlap. They thought there might be some objective truth to be discovered. That was one of their motivations for booking passage on the Lost Ship.”
“The Naga Sentry.”
Lianna shook her head. “Lost Ship suits things better. They spent a big chunk of their savings on a shuttle pod we stowed in the cargo hold. Well, you know how that turned out. She was there when I crossed over the singularity at Alexis 7. I shouldn’t have survived that, but here I am. She set my dad on the path of samsara, Kali knows for how many cycles of rebirth, and…she sent me home. Back to the observatory. The professor was sure surprised when I popped out the wrong end of a garbage chute.” She laughed, suddenly aware of Granny’s hand clasping hers, that she’d probably had been throughout that whole sad story.
“I saw her again in the microverse. That’s something else those religious nuts would freak out about. She gave me a tail to remember the experience by.” Tea sprayed across the table. Granny gingerly wiped her mouth. “Probably sounds crazy to you.”
Granny smiled. “Hardly. I’ve seen too many things—lived such extraordinary times—that I can hardly dismiss anything lightly.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“A little closer. A little more entangled—” Her mouth scowled as the FAITHful kicked in again over the station’s loudspeakers, an all-male choir bellowing the first verse of “Amazing Grace”.
“Is that the only goddamned song they know?” Granny muttered. Before they knew it, Granny was out of her seat, crossing to the panel by the suite’s entry and flicking the audio from OPEN to DBM. Blessed silence now filled the airspace.
Sleeping arrangements were quicky settled. Lianna would stay in the living area with Amba and Stavros, while Granny would have her bedroom and the children could cozy up in the spare guest room. Sleep itself eluded Granny. Apart from her first two weeks on this bleak, dead rock, she hadn’t spent a night alone in lo these last twenty years. When she cast her thoughts back across those many passionate nights with Arthur—
Fine, time for a sleep aide, she thought, tossing aside the blankets. She yawned , shuffling into the living area, and yelped at what awaited.
Lianna’s skinsuit was tossed across the lounge, while Lianna floated up to her nostrils in a rubbery blob, her body barely an outline within an oozing mixture of red and aquamarine protoplasmic tendrils. Bracing her head and shoulders were the upper torsos of Amba and Stavros, regarding her with almost clinical indifference. Emanating from this shifting mass was a faint aroma of cinnamon and honey. Amba shifted her gaze to Granny, smiling as she lifted a finger to her lips. Granny nodded, sleep forgotten as she inched backwards toward her bedroom.
She kept backing up, jumping when a small hand brushed the back of her thigh. But it was only Gita and Little Stavros standing beside her bed. “H-hello, little ones,” she stammered. “What’s troubling you?”
-You don’t have to worry about Mama Lianna, Gita signed. -Those faithless mortals are afraid of her shakti. It’s powerful, as yours is. It has opened doors that has welcomed her on many worlds.
Shakti. If Granny recalled correctly, that was the universal feminine energy manifested in the goddesses Durga, Kali and every other woman on the planet Earth. It was central to the power of creation. -I’m glad you recognize this, child, Granny signaled back. To Little Stavros she asked, -Is that what brought you here as well, child?
-I was just wondering what it is a granny does, Little Stavros replied,
Granny laughed, dropping to her knees to wrap both babies in her arms. “A granny’s there to hug you and spoil you before we give you back to your mama, baby. Speaking of which, would you two like to spend the night here?” They both nodded vigorously. Granny slid onto the mattress and the children bounded up on ether side of her, wriggling up to her chest. She smiled as she snuggled the blankets up around them.
Dawn, as least as Earthers such as herself reckoned it, signified as softly as was intended. The internal lights in the living area shifted from pitch black to a soft amber glow. The babies had cuddled close together in the night, Little Stavros snug to Gita’s back. Granny eased off of her side of the bed, making certain the girls were tucked in before padding into the lounge.
Lianna was still lip-deep inside her undulating cocoon, each undulation in synch with her reduced breathing. Granny no longer questioned this; given her own youthful sleeping habits, she understood the attraction, the subtle sensation of safety and companionship so often denied by her own kind. Instead of rousing them as she would have with her own school children, she hiked up her robe, settling into a lotus position three meters away on the floor.
Though Lianna appeared settled within their mass, Granny sensed the ache buried deep, within, and the words were called forth: “Some say love/ it is a river/ that drowns the tender reed…” She had their attention. Both ameboids turned their heads. By some intuitive instinct they settled Lianna’s feet firmly on the floor. Stavros brushed a glistening crimson hand to Lianna’s left cheek. She blinked, and Granny could’ve sworn that Amba mouthed, it’s her song.
Her voice cracked as she finished the first verse. Their swollen torsos meanwhile contracted into more humanoid shapes, two pairs of arms steadying Lianna while she regained her equilibrium. She smiled at her lovers, edging towards Granny with hands crossed over her nakedness. Granny extended a hand to her as Lianna joined her on the hallway floor, rocking slightly to the rhythm of her words.
“My mum knew that song,” she whispered. “It was passed down from mother to mother since the fall of civilization. Where did you…?”
“A young girl taught it to me, on my mission, “ Granny sniffled. “My teammates taught me many songs that were lost in the final wars. We sang them in the refugee camps to cheer the lost, the displaced.”
“You know. What it’s like to be alone. Standing in a crowd of people, and you might as well not exist as far as they’re concerned.”
“Yes.”
“How do you stand it?”
“Oh baby, the hardest lesson I’ve had to learn is to take pride in what you do, make your work the best it can be. Executives, presidents, whoever is in charge, they’ll never be satisfied with what you do. We have to make the best of our own little worlds, and the people closest to you will appreciate what you’ve done.” Her jade eyes bored into Lianna’s an insistent pleading she had to shake off. Luckily the trill of the comm panel buzzed them.
“Excuse me.” Granny pat Lianna’s arm as she eased up, knees popping. She took a seat on the lounge. “Open.”
Cassie’s image, from the waist up anyway, popped into a bubble over the end table, dressed only in an oversized nightgown. “Miss Hadebe, is Lianna still with you?”
“She is, Commander. How may I help you this fine morning?”
Cassie’s features rendered into a scowl, which seem directed towards Lianna. “I regret to report there’s been an incident in the hydroponics garden. I’m making every guest aware of the situation.”
“Sounds bad.” Particularly since Lianna, Granny and Cassie were the only other humans left on the station.
“You haven’t heard the half of it. That bay provided all the fresh produce this station relies on. All the fruits and berries and greens…well, it’s gone.”
“How can it all be gone?”
“We had a cascade failure within storage containment. Coolant control received a faulty series of commands to shut down inside the hydroponics pods. Several of the lines carrying the coolant fluid subsequently ruptured due to the sudden temperature flux, and sprayed all over the produce. We haven’t determined how much produce has been toxified from the resultant condensation. Security is still assessing our losses. It may take weeks to purify the soils in the pods, and weeks before a resupply vessel could dock from the outer planet colonies.”
“That sounds like an awfully specific set of circumstances to be coincidence,” Lianna interjected.
“I know, but you can’t blame FAITH without proof.”
“It still seems self-defeating. Wouldn’t that affect them, too?”
Cassie’s view shifted toward Lianna. “Not in the short term. They declared their personal cargo, which was loaded with processed foods from Mars when they arrived. If they ration, they could extend their supplies into weeks, but yeah, eventually they’ll be in the same situation as the rest of us.”
“Mars? I thought they were an Earth-based congregation.” She glanced irritably at Granny. “Well, they never explained where they came from.”
“Not really,” Cassie explained. “The workers guilds on Mars arose from among the labor class who objected to the excesses of their equally foreign overlords. Look, we’re doing what we can down here. I suggest you ration whatever fresh produce you have and take stock of whatever canned goods you have on hand. We may have to go lean for a while.”
“I understand,” Granny said. “Thank you for your concern, Commander.” After Cassie’s image faded, her fist thumped on the table. Twice. Repeatedly. Lianna inched away, pushing a nervous Gita behind her legs. They both jumped as Granny swept the comm unit, a portable array half the size of her chest, across the halfway into the adjacent bedroom. Components clattered like glass across the floor. Lianna inches closer, every nerve tingling. “Granny…?”
Granny’s head snapped around so violently they both jumped again. But her eyes were strained, almost screaming for any shred of sanity. “I’ve spent the last twenty years fighting this exact kid of insanity!” she snarled. “My people have been freeing the enslaved, protecting the vulnerable from every sadist cloaking themselves ‘in the armor of God!’” –for a moment she struck an exaggerated pose, one hand raised as though to Heaven—“Now when I come here, I find the same voices crying the same false doctrine, raising every voice against the ‘outsider’, the infidel, never seeing the blood dripping from every word out of their filthy mouths–!”
She hunched over the end table, muttering to herself. “Is there anything I can do?” Lianna asked. But her mind seemed to be somewhere else, especially after she turned her gaze toward the time piece set in the wall above the restroom. “I have to go,” she said.
-She’s doing it again, Gita said, and Lianna nodded.
“And what would I be doing, baby?”
“Taking off like you do every afternoon at this time.”
“It doesn’t concern you, baby. You need to stay here where it’s safe. Take stock of our supplies—”
“SAFE?” Lianna laughed. “I’m not paranoid, Granny, and I’m not stupid, either. I know how these stations are constructed. Those hydroponic pods have triple security protocols. There wouldn’t be a systematic failure on this scale. This was deliberate, and I’m not leaving YOU alone, either. I’ve seen this kind of single-mindedness before, in me. We’re coming with you. Right?” She said to Gita, who nodded.
Granny shifted gazes from her to Gita, until at last she sagged. “I don’t suppose I can keep you prisoner here. You’d better get dressed, then.”
A faint metallic ting rang with each footstep through the empty corridors. The lights were dimmed to conserve power, automatically illuminating brighter for the sections they marched through before dimming again behind them. Gita was swathed in a sari with a pink and white flower pattern. Lianna had slipped into her trusty skinsuit, which was all she had with her. Granny slipped into a robe of red and green and gold embroidered with geometric patterns.
They followed her back to the Portal. Once inside the alcove, Granny’s right hand slipped between Lianna’s gloved fingers. She thought skin-to-skin contact would be necessary for what Granny intended. Apparently that wasn’t the case. One moment they were alone and the next she was there, illuminated by an incandescent corona emitted by her pale body. Even seated it was quite evident she would’ve been tall in life, hairless by Terran standards, with a circular plate where a mouth and nose would be.
“Not what you expected, is it?” Granny asked.
Lianna shook her head. “I know her,” she whispered.
Granny frowned. “How could you? She’s been here since this station was constructed 37 Earth years ago.”
“That’s it, exactly.” Lianna stepped around her, hands steepled before coming apart to form signs she’ knew well. She suddenly understood Bon’s mission to this station. -Freya.
The entity’s head raised, tuned in to Lianna, who continued. -Greetings, star sister. Your passing has not been forgotten. Our brothers sing dirges every season for yourself and all those who have been lost to the Clan.
Freya stared unmoving, seeming to examine Lianna as though she were a doll. Then her hands, all three fingers, flowed into a tapestry of sign. -You speak our words?
Lianna grinned. -I try. Forgive my clumsy attempts. I’m not as good at your language as I wish.
-Do not weep, sister. Your signs are very elegant, even given your stiff appendages.
Gita had joined them, slipping in beside Lianna and brushing Freya’s spectral hand, mouth downturned and eyes downcast. Her hands were as fluid as her flowing trunk. -Be of good cheer, reverend mother. You’re among friends. My mother speaks highly of our many sojourns and the happy festivals our peoples have shared.
-The aliens had driven my brothers afar before our remains could be taken home. Angry beings like your companions. And yet this one knows our ways. She nodded first to Lianna, then at Granny. -That one has a big mouth.
“That’s not the first time anyone’s said that,” Granny muttered.
-These two are not like the others. Granny is a seer among these people and Mother Lianna has been given charge of us in this special time. She could get you home. Gita glanced pleadingly to Lianna. -Pleeease?
-Absolutely, Lianna nodded as she signed. “Granny, come here.”
Lianna beckoned her closer, taking Granny’s hands and raising them to her temples. Briefly she frowned, her thoughts clouded as Lianna focused on the star charts she’d used to navigate to Freya’s home world, narrowing on the journey through folded space onto a pale blue globe with splotches of brown land masses eased into her field of view, until at last Granny knew which star-point to guide Freya towards from here.
Silently she offered her hand to the lost spirit as she gathered her precious bundle to her breast. Freya’s disc seemed to brighten as her hand brushed Gita’s cheek. She followed Granny to stand by the Portal where all visitors seemed to congregate. With a hand rubbing Freya’s back, she pressed a thumb to the glass, pinpointing one flickering point of light in the northeastern quadrant. For the first time Lianna noticed how close in height they appeared, and how short she really was next to them.
For a moment the nimbus glow around Freya increased in intensity as she laid her hand over Granny’s. Then nothing, unless you count a streak of light that seemed to beam towards that distant star like a comet’s tail. Granny’s sad smile spoke of another lost soul given some measure of peace, perhaps another short entry in her log book–
The charges shocked her out of those thoughts.
Granny jumped, too, facing toward the bulkhead housing the Portal viewport. Flashes banged in a ring around that section of plating. Suddenly the wall facing Granny blasted away into space. She had no time to grasp at the edges, not that would have helped against the outrush of atmosphere. In a moment she had been swept into space.
Already the emergency bulkheads were shuttering on this section. Gita squealed as Lianna bundled her in her arms, then tossed her between the doors thundering shut. Without a second thought she whirled, her legs a blur as she pelted into the breach, pushing off after Granny–
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