A lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest, Michael Robbins has been the author and a contributor to six books. BUTTERFLY & SERPENT, the first book in a series, was published in 2012. Mike takes pride in being part of the American labor force for over 40 years. In his prose he strives for unity, not division; humor over prejudice; and heart over heartlessness. His art page can be found at Deviantart.com
I found this in one of those cut-out bins at a local drug store in 1979; that must have been 45 plus years ago. I don’t know why it was in a cut-out bin, it was an extraordinary album. It was my first experience with Blue Oyster Cult. Apparently, the best way to listen to this band is in a live setting. It’s actually their second live LP, after 1975’s On Your Feet or On Your Knees. This record’s only sin is that at 38 minutes, it’s too damn short.
The classic line-up is here—Buck Dharma on guitars, Eric Bloom on vocals & stun guitar (whatever the hell that is), Allen Lanier on keyboards, Joe Bouchard on bass, and his older brother Albert Bouchard on drums. Four of the numbers are from their most recent albums (‘R.U. Ready to Rock’ and ‘Godzilla’ from Spectres (1977), and ‘E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence’ and ‘(Don’t Fear) the Reaper’ from Agents of Fortune (1976)). Only one song originates from their early albums (‘Astronomy’, from Secret Treaties (1974), but then they’d only released five albums at this point. The last two numbers are cover tunes.
The cover reaches out and grabs you. The Grim Reaper rides a black horse over a desert landscape. T.R. Shorr (ie, Todd Shorr) painted it based on a concept by Hillary Vermont and Marty Pekar, with Andrea Klein for the sleeve design. This album recalls the times in the 1970’s when Metal gave the impression of obscure meanings in mystic lyrics.
This was recorded at different venues, for instance at the Fox Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia (‘R.U. Ready to Rock’ & ‘Kick Out the Jams’); the Columbus Municipal Auditorium in Columbus, Georgia (‘E.T.I.’ & ‘Astronomy’), both in April, 1978; New Castle City Hall in the UK, June 1, 1978 (‘Godzilla’ & ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place’). ‘(Don’t Fear) the Reaper’ was recorded live at Barton Coliseum, Little Rock, Arkansas on April 9, 1978.
The show launches off with a kick-ass rendition of ‘R.U. Ready to Rock’ and never lets up on the momentum. Donald “Buck Dharma” Roesner cranks out some masterful solos without a trace of the self-indulgence Led Zeppelin was known for. Not one song overstays its welcome. I didn’t know MC5 growing up, but I think BOC took their version of ‘Kick Out the Jams’ and made it their own.
I first heard ‘Godzilla’ on one of those late-night rock concert shows they had in the 70s, Night Flight maybe, with a Godzilla head bobbing in the background. I couldn’t believe somebody had actually done a song about him. I’ve always been a Godzilla fan, having watched a lot of admittedly dubbed movies on Saturday afternoon reruns. That song captures the grandeur and sheer terror, the force of nature that is Godzilla.
Everybody knows (Don’t Fear) the Reaper’; it’s the only BOC song they’ll play on the radio these days. This performance from Arkansas is more energetic than what we heard on vinyl. Eric Bloom channels Eric Burdon’s vocals on the closer, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”, and it’s just possible BOC exceeds the Animals on this tune. I know there’s an expanded version on CD somewhere out there, but this LP remains a treasured favorite. You need to try it sometime.
Some Presidents age better under scrutiny than others. Despite well-known faults, I’ve found that a John F. Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln holds up the more I read about them, and in fact my opinion may actually improve. As far as Richard Nixon goes, the more I read the more appalled I become.
George Washington has always been a hero of mine. I found myself lured back to Ron Chernow’s massive biography because frankly I’ve become disillusioned with the whole party system in this country, especially the cult of personality around one man undeserving of our devotion. Reverting to backwards customs and prejudices best left in the 19th Century is not the way forward and will not advance our nation’s progress. Reminding ourselves of the integrity, decency and civility of the Founding Fathers, as well as their faults, might engender some much-needed humanity in our future leaders.
This biography is dense but engaging. In terms of bias, the author is clearly in love with his subject, though he’s not shy about expounding on his contradictions and failings. While Washington didn’t originate radical ideas, he had valuable coaches in the Revolutionary period like George Mason, and once these ideas were formulated he was able to express them eloquently. Reading about Washington, I miss the grace and humility of our forefathers. Although he began the Revolutionary War with disdain for the soldiers he had to work with, by the end of the war he had so thoroughly bonded with them, they could truly be considered this country’s first ‘band of brothers.’
Young and brash, he was only 21 when he involuntarily launched a world war, the Seven Years war, known in America as the French and Indian war. The death of the French ambassador led to a humiliating defeat at Fort Discovery, a swampy piece of land poorly situated for defense. He learned from the experience but British General Edward Braddock was unwilling to listen.
At the Battle of the Monongahela River, Braddock’s reliance on European imperial battle tactics was defeated by the frontier tactics of Native Americans and the French. Braddock fell back dying while his men deserted en masse. Washington had two horses shot out from under him yet somehow seemed impervious to harm—well, despite the fact that he went into battle exhausted from dysentery. By the time he retired from military service at the age of 26, he’d survived smallpox, pleurisy, malaria and dysentery. For a time he settled into domestic tranquility by marrying the widow Martha Custis in 1757.
The Revolutionary War period takes up the better part of the book, as it should. He served eight years as commander in chief of the Continental Army. By 1780 Washington was stymied by lack of support from state legislatures and “Congressional ineptitude.” He repeatedly had to exhort Congress and the states to remedy desperate shortages of men, shoes, shirts, blankets and gunpowder. This meant dealing with selfish, apathetic states and “bureaucratic incompetence in Congress.” Sound familiar?
After the war, his hopes for a peaceful retirement last only four years, after which he was drafted as president of the convention to devise the Constitution, then essentially drafted as the first President of the United States. He was aware the world was watching everything he did as President and set precedents for the conduct of future Presidents that mostly held.
Jean-Antoine Houdon life sculpture of Washington, perhaps the best representation of how he actually looked.
The best one can say on one subject is that while privately he despised slavery, he was ambivalent about making any effort to eradicate it nationally or on his own plantation. He frequently displayed a schizophrenic application of liberty. One week after the first Continental Congress in October 1774, he sold off property on behalf of his partner George Mercer, including ninety of his slaves. His views evolved in the course of the war; his actions were negligible. The very existence of his plantation, Mount Vernon with its five farms bound him to that ‘peculiar institution’. He was only able to free his own slaves (not the dower slaves from the Custis estate) by writing it into his will.
Partisan infighting is no stranger to American politics. In his second term the press, especially the Aurora, had pretty much declared open season on Washington, denigrating him in ways that would make Fox News blush. In the course of his two terms, he was backstabbed by Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, as well as Thomas Paine, who never learned to tamp down his revolutionary fervor. In his notes on an early draft of his Farewell Address, he complained that the newspapers “teemed with all the invective that disappointment, ignorance of facts, and malicious falsehoods could invent to misrepresent my politics.”
The most important precedent was his decision to step down after two terms. The Presidency is a killer job that wore down every man who answered the call of office. It’s important to remember at that time, in the 18th Century, no leader had ever voluntarily relinquished power. Not only did he surrender power, he welcomed the relief of that burden, looking forward to the bliss of retirement after two decades of public service.
Washington was not perfect. He took a great deal of time to come to decisions; he often suffered from feelings of inadequacy, both qualities I see in myself; and frankly he had a tendency to live beyond his means. It’s those imperfections that made him strive to better himself, make the best decisions possible. For that we should be grateful he was first in so many things, and that he put country before himself.
She awoke at planetrise. She didn’t know when her rhythms had begun to synch with that of the ice giant this station orbited. Perhaps that was the way of space travelers. At first Granny was surprised to find herself curled around a small warm body. Then she remembered Dr. Jensen coming to her with her nightmare, and then the child came.
She scooted out of bed with the ease of a lifetime of practice. Dr. Jensen nestled close to little Gita as she tucked the blankets around them. She smiled. They needed this bonding experience,
She dressed lightly and proceeded to the Portal. The Visitor was still guarded, but she allowed her to speak some words of comfort tonight before she moved on. The market had her provisions ready for pickup. They could have been delivered to her quarters, but she needed to get out this one night. Part of this was selfish, something to make believe she was making an extra effort for her guests. And honestly, she didn’t mind escaping the walls of her quarters.
She carried two bags in her arms while an automated cart dogged her ankles, loaded with five more parcels, which was when she bumped into a diminutive Japanese teen—indeed, an old acquaintance. “Hoichi?” she exclaimed.
His puzzled gaze evaporated at once, superseded by an ear-to-ear grin. “Granny!” he cried, ducking under her chin to sweep her into a hug. They rocked happily together for several seconds. “I never expected to see you here!”
“Likewise,” she smiled. “How did you–?”
“Fong is practicing in this District! I’m clerking for her.”
“I’m glad you’re still together. Practicing, you say? It’s only been six weeks. What has she been practicing?”
Hoichi staggered back, with a stare akin to panic. ‘Six—it’s only been six weeks for—” Before she could inquire further, or even shift one bag in her arms, he was already backpedaling toward the main corridor. “I-I-I have to get back, Fong’s expecting me to—I’ll tell her you called—oh dear!” and he darted into the bowels of the station before she could say another syllable.
These middle of the night spells were not unusual for Lianna. It was a useful instinct she retained from those months alone on the Lost Ship. At first she was only aware of Granny’s absence, of the pillows piled around her head and shoulders. Then her attention was riveted by the small body nestled around her. She gazed down on the sleepy body pressed to her shoulder, and somehow nothing else mattered in the universe. She could easily spend a lifetime watching her nostrils softly exhaling on her skin, the circle of coils cinching tight around her waist, an uncomfortable reminder of what an extraordinary child she was.
Gita’s long lashes batted, and her deep green eyes glowed in the darkness. By that light she signed, “are we going to be okay?”
Lianna nodded. “Yeah, baby.” What would Fayd say? “This will pass. Don’t worry, I’ll make this right for you.”
Sign: “Promise?”
Sign: “Yes. I’ve got to go. I want to see what Granny’s up to. I’m gonna set you down on the bed, okay?”
Gita nodded. Reluctantly her coils eased off of Lianna’s middle, curling up beneath the blankets as Lianna set her among Granny’s pillows. She tucked her securely into the blankets, then blew her a goodnight kiss before padding into the living area.
Granny hadn’t noticed her approach. Her attention seemed fixed on the mirror hanging beside the spare bedroom door, her body shuffling back and forth while muttering, “People are crazy and times are strange…” Yet her reflection was not that of the brown skinned woman before her, but that of a blue skinned giant with red eyes and many arms—
Lianna blinked, but the illusion remained. Granny seemed oblivious to it, to everything until Lianna tapped her on the shoulder. She whirled with a yelp, snatching the headset off her head. Lianna leaned sideways, gazing past her. The back of Granny’s head and shoulders showed in the glass, and nothing else. “Whatcha doing?” Lianna asked.
“Dancing,” Granny squeaked. In a normal voice she continued, “I hope I haven’t disturbed you.”
“No, I just…” Lianna peered at the mirror again, but only their images remained. “Do you always go off in the middle of the night to…dance?”
Granny shrugged. “Why not? You know how it is. Sometimes you just need to.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Surely you’ve just wanted to, haven’t you, just to relax?”
“I…I don’t dance.”
Granny’s mouth turned upside down. “You’ve never danced?”
“Not exactly. I never had the time.”
Now the frown tightened into a full-blown scowl. “Who had done this to you? I want their names!”
In spite of herself, Lianna started to giggle. “Huh. You’re the second person to ask me that.”
“Who was the first?”
Lianna stopped gigging, suddenly looking away. “Yeah, well…she was a goddess. She might have even been my mother.”
Granny’s features softened, her cheeks softening with a smile. “It’s not that hard. Let me show you. Stand over here with me, I’ll keep it simple,”
Lianna shuffled to her side, staring at the floor until Granny’s hand tipped her chin up. “Start with planting your right foot firmly, then extend your left leg in front of you—”
“Like this?”
“Yes and now reverse—jump as you switch feet. And reverse—jump and switch your feet in one fluid motion. Follow me.”
Lianna extended her left leg, stiffly, bouncing on her right leg, before switching legs, and nearly toppling over. “I’m sorry, I-I—”
“Don’t worry, you just need a little rhythm. Perhaps this’ll help.” She slid the headgear gingerly around Lianna’s ears, adjusting them to her head. “Hear that?”
At first it was only the drumbeat. Then the guitar kicked in, a steady thrum that sent a twitch to her legs. “Is this…?”
“Music, baby, like we haven’t heard in decades. Oh, we’ve so much to teach you.. come on, jump as you switch—baby, you’ve got feet of lead.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve never had to…”
“Don’t apologize. Practice. Let your movements be light, like…like moonwalking in half normal gravity.”
“Like a spacewalk?” She could do that. At first the back-and-forth shuffle on one leg seemed awkward. The more she did it with Granny whispering encouragement beside her, the easier it came to her. Her feet followed the steady beat and the guitar leading her on. “Sorry, I’m not very good at this,” Lianna said.
“You’re doing fine.” She might have done better if not for the battering at the door.
Lianna’s heart seemed to triple-beat. Granny raised her hand for silence. They both waited and then came another tattoo. Without a word Granny shooed Lianna back towards the bedroom, where Gita stood, rubbing her eyes. Turning to the door, she paused to fluff her boobs before touching the entry code.
The door whooshed aside, startling the dozen FAITH members standing on her threshold, with both Pastor Ludden and Reverend Bienbouw facing her. She greeted them with a smile, leaning on the door frame as her visitors shuffled nervously. “One, two…twelve of you? How disciple of you. Well, there’s not much to go around but I’m happy to share.”
“We’re not here for that, slut!” a boy in the rear—Nick, was it? —called.
Granny’s hand was open behind her back. While Lianna watched, her kettle floated across the apartment, with the handle rotating into her hand. She brought the kettle around to present to her guests. “I meant tea. What did YOU think I was offering?”
“He thought nothing,” Bienbouw interjected. “Absolutely nothing,” he reiterated to his fuming son. “We understand that you’re harboring Dr. Jensen.”
‘Someone had to,” she shrugged. “It seems some hairlips made it impossible for her to return to her ship.”
“Yes, that was a misunderstanding—”
‘It was a mob thirsty for blood. She was lucky to get here alive, not to mention what those maniacs would’ve done to her child.” She pushed off the door, fixing the crowd with a glare. “Exactly what did you intend for the child?”
“Ma’am, I don’t understand your accusation,” Ludden said. “We meant the wee one no harm. We are patrons of the Lord Christ.”
“That’s hardly reassuring. My experience has been that people are ready and willing to inflict all manner of harm on children if they’re not perceived as ‘one of us’. I’m surprised how easy it’s been to justify child butchery in the name of someone’s god.”
“Pa, we don’t have to listen to this—”
“Quiet, boy,” Bienbouw growled. But his frown was distracted. “I know you,” he said.
“I doubt that,” Granny said, “unless you been haunting old reels.”
Nick pushed through the gathering, his face a mask of hate as he stood behind his father. “We know she’s in there, Pa! I say we—”
Lianna clutched Gita to her hip. For her part Granny sighed, raised her right hand, and snapped her fingers. The sound actually seemed muted, but the effect was immediate. All of the congregants’ knees buckled, and then half of them, including Nick, flopped to the deck.
Granny smirked at the two reverends’ panic-stricken stares. “Huh. Someone hadn’t gotten enough sleep. You may want to carry these young fellows back to their bunks.”
Reverend Bienbouw barely seemed conscious of what had just transpired. His eyes were still glued on Granny. “I’ve seen you,” he insisted before bending over his son. It was only after the door slammed on her uninvited guests that Granny allowed herself to sag over her knees, “Hey, are you okay?” Lianna asked.
Granny nodded, though her back was coated in perspiration. “It’s too early for me to be dealing with these idiots. Wake me in a few hours, would you?”
As it happened, Gita ambled out of the bedroom as Granny was stumbling in. Her pet bat Gordon poked its head around her shoulder as Gita read from the book she carried. The cover was a deep maroon with a faux leather texture. “Whatcha got, sweetie?”
At first Gita extended the book in her small hands, but when Lianna only shrugged her incomprehension, she tucked the book under her arm. Then she signed some very curious questions. “What do you mean, discrepancies?”
Gita answered by bouncing onto the lounge, patting the cushion beside her. Once Lianna settled beside her, she took the book. Gita leaned over flipping through the early pages, then turned it over to the back. Lianna skipped back to the beginning, scanning each page. She read quickly, even with Gita’s serpentine trunk weighing down on her lap. She recalled everything, as she’d told Granny, and her reading comprehension had always been excellent. But damn, that child was sharp. How did this make sense?
Gita cozied into the arms of the lounge under a blanket, Gordon nestling beneath her hair and over her neck. As her trunk lay across Lianna’s legs, she asked, “Why are humans so cruel to their children?”
Lianna huffed. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I mean, we’re not like that anymore. Centuries ago when we were more primitive it was easy to dismiss other people, other races as savages, or something less than human. One thing they taught me at the Observatory, people are the same everywhere, whatever they believe. They all want their children to grow up happy, they all want to support their families without whatever state they’re in meddling in their lives.”
(Sign) “They haven’t left you alone, though.”
“No, I guess not.”
(Sign) “I was scared they were gonna hurt you.”
She leaned in and rubbed Gita’s nose with her own. “I’ll try not to get hurt in the future, okay? Now let’s see what this book has to tell us.”
“Where did you get that?”
Lianna flinched. She hadn’t heard Granny coming out of the bedroom until she was looming over her. “What time is it?” she stammered.
“Late morning,” Granny frowned down on her. “Where?”
“Gita brought it to me, with questions,” Lianna replied, passing the book back to her host. “It’s a very detailed chronicle of misery.”
“It took a lifetime to gather,” Granny nodded, hugging it to her chest. She sighed, cocking her head. “What troubles you about it?”
“Some curious discrepancies.” Lianna pushed off the cushion, lifting Gita before settling her comfortably back on the lounge. “She’s gonna be long when she grows up…I had journals like that in school. We used them exclusively at the observatory. They register direct entries or allow for written posts. Either way the journal makes an automatic entry for the date and time a given post is entered. Each date, each hour is accurately recorded.”
Granny nodded, waiting. “A lot of these entries have contemporaneous dates, spread over the most recent decades. Then it stops, for a period of five years. Now, when it resumes, for the bulk of these entries, the dates…”
“Go on.”
Lianna snatched the book back, flipping through to the middle and rapidly on through the pages. ”The journal has been registering posts that are hundreds of years out of date. Deaths recorded as they happened, five hundred years ago, before you were even born. The book is not defective. I know that.”
Gently Granny peeled the book from Lianna’s suddenly sweaty hands. “No, it’s not defective. And the stories are all true. I was there when each of them died.”
“How? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t suppose you would. I told you, I’ve been travelling.”
“Yeah, but no one’s seen you in 20 years—”
“TIME travelling.”
Lianna stepped back, staring at the volume she cradled in her hands. The dates— “No, that’s not right. Nobody on Earth is going to experiment with temporal physics, not after Moscow.”
Lianna threw her hands up. “I was lured there! I-it was stupid! I wanted to make damn sure that planet was destroyed! Everybody died on the Naga Sentry, never having got to see it. I didn’t think—I didn’t think they were real.”
Granny pushed the tip of Gita’s tail to the back of the lounge, patting the cushion beside her as she sat. “Speak to me, child.”
She joined her, nerves all atingle. “It was all in my parents’ journals, all the speculation connecting Hindu cosmology to physics. They thought there might be more literal truth to it than standard cosmologists attributed to it. That was why they booked passage on the Lost Ship. It was supposed to be the beginning of a lifetime of exploration.
“My dad was there, on a spiritual plane inside the event horizon, at least his spirit, and so was my mom, kind of. I-I forgave him. I think that was part of why I was there. It wasn’t his fault, all the adults went insane. Mom sent him on his way…to atone. His atman may go through many cycles of samsara before the cycle is broken…look, what you’re asking me to believe is fantastical, even compared to what I’ve experienced. I can’t accept that without some solid evidence in support of your claim.”
“Nor would I expect you to. Twenty years ago, I was approached to join a mission of mercy. Kate was there, as were others I’ve come to call friend. They’re all gifted people, working anonymously. I never expected it to go on for so long, but…” Granny shrugged.
“But your family seemed so important in your life. How could you give them up–?”
“They didn’t need me anymore. My sons were all grown up, with children of their own. My husband was dead. I needed a change. Now,” she smiled, laying the book on an end table. “How about breakfast?”
She and Gita joined her as she drained a bowl of chickpeas she’d been soaking overnight. This she added to a processor, along with the leaves of parsley and cilantro Gita passed to her as she requested. To this she piled in an onion, shallot, chili powder, garlic, cumin and coriander, oil, plus a dash of baking powder. Once that was sufficiently ground, they shaped the batter into balls. Lianna and Gita retreated to the living area while Granny fried them in small batches. Before long she padded to them with a serving of crispy golden brown falafel balls over fresh salad. The interior was as savory as she remembered.
“This is perfect,” Lianna said around a mouthful of falafel. “How did you know?”
Granny set her drink aside. “An old Palestinian mother taught me her family’s recipe. It’d been handed down for generations since the Nakba, and lost when she died.”
Lianna’s drink fumbled in her hand, but she kept it from spilling to the floor. Granny continued. “That’s what I do. No one explained what my power was good for, or even what it was, when I was Gita’s age. I was told to hide it and pretend I was like everyone else, even when I felt like a freak. I didn’t understand how I could be useful until my first trip to Palestine.
“The first spirit I came into contact with was a fifteen-year-old American girl named Sydney. She opened a window onto a nation long past, from a time when her proud land was fracturing into separate confederacies. I told you I was a spiritualist. I’m able to observe the living energy of things, alive or not.
“It’d been in the third year of my marriage that a sister spiritualist, a Spaniard named Yolande invited me on a pilgrimage. We saw no harm in it, so we traveled with her to Palestine. Yolande was gifted as I was, and she explained we were going to bring peace to the souls of the martyrs.
“Gods, if only it’d been so simple. Stepping off the boat at Jaffa, and the sight of so many lost souls, so many mothers and children…it was a fist between the eyes. Most of them didn’t realize they were—and the stories–!
“I could only stay a few days. Then I had to flee. There were so many needing me, pawing at my skirts, crying for their fathers, could I feed them and their brothers—well, I went back a year later. I was too ashamed not to. Yolande understood. It had been hard the first time she undertook the pilgrimage. I managed ten days the second time, and I remembered their stories about harvesting olives, and the occupation. We went back, sometimes twice a year. They needed us to hear their stories and share them in their own words so that they were never forgotten.”
Lianna reached across the end table to clutch Granny’s hand. “You must have heard hundreds of stories.”
“Thousands. I’ve given peace to so many, posted their stories to the Palestinian Remembrance Log in Beirut. But there are so many more. Two, three of us are not enough to do it all in a single lifetime.”
“I grew up on those stories,” Lianna said. “Late nights when I was hiding in the calibration chamber, Fayd would tell me stories about his family, their survival in the Diaspora. He saved the best stories for tucking me in at bedtime.
“Everybody at the Observatory was always talking about family. I swear, Fayd’s eyes glowed when he spoke of their get togethers, their feasts and celebrations. The Professor, even Lady Smirnoff, that jealous old bag, they all had relations. Every time someone visited the station, they would always ask, where is your family?
“The Professor kept all my parents’ things in a storage bin at the far end of the Observatory, and at a very young age, I’d sneak off while the Professor was sleeping, and I’d read through their journals. It was one way to remember them. Well, the first couple of times he chased me back to bed and scolded me, I needed my sleep to be a smart young lady, blah blah.
“After a while I guess he realized how important this was to me. Because pretty soon he brought me blankets and sat with me as I read them out loud. Some of their ideas were far out. You know the rest. The Naga Sentry was blown off course by a storm of gamma ray bursts into a sector where the multiverses converge. Or maybe different dimensions. No one’s dared to investigate further.
“The quantum energies from different dimensions warped the adults’ minds. Everyone went insane…even my parents. The grown-ups all killed themselves. I spent the next seven months hiding from the culling gangs, rolling the bodies of the adults into freezer compartments. I-I thought they deserved that much. It’s funny, I’ve never told anybody that, not even the Professor.”
Granny clapped her hands, making both Lianna and Gita jump. “I’d like to get out for a while. How about you?”
“That’d be nice,” Lianna squawked, “except what about those loons haunting my ship?”
“I’ll arrange something. Get dressed.”
That was easy for her. Her skinsuit slipped on like butter, and Gita helped smooth it over her limbs. She wished she had access to the outfits she’d ordered for Gita that first night. All she had to wear was the sari that she arrived in three days ago. Granny offered her a small dress from her drawer, possibly a keepsake left over from one of her children. It was a beautiful maroon color, with a lion, a meerkat and a wild pig singing in unison, and below them a strange tag, ‘hakuna mata!’
Granny shimmied into transparent thermals that actually seemed to accentuate the glow of her ebony skin. Over this she wore a plain white dress, along with a shawl adorned with a smattering of prints featuring a pride of lions.
She was still nervous. She’d accessed the tracking mode for the clothes she’d ordered for Gita. A visual delivery record was displayed via a holographic bubble, for her customer satisfaction she supposed. Except Henri’s delivery ‘bot was bracketed by four security ‘bots from the station’s main contingent. Oddly, the crowds clotting the landing bay around her ship seemed denser. They opened a narrow corridor for the ‘bots to slip through. Henri’s DB knocked on the ship’s hatch. Ernie appeared in the entryway to accept the parcel. The hatch slammed shut and all the ‘bots made the return journey under the watchful gaze of the mob turning to dog their steps, if only with their eyes. Then the report ended.
Gita scowled at the Slosh Pit when she saw that Fries or Frieza had been shuttered. All the lights were off and the bulkheads sealed. Other restaurants were also closed to business. Evidently FAITH had driven the proprieters back to their home worlds. A deathly quiet had settled over the station’s corridors. The small bands of humans standing in every doorway had little to say to the three of them as they padded the central corridor.
Everywhere they went, there seemed to be small clusters of humans. Only humans. “I thought Cassie had deported these—” Granny shot her a look, and Lianna tightened her jaw against her first response. “Troublemakers,” she modified.
“They had an excellent solicitor,” Granny whispered. “He argued that the Commander hadn’t the authority to remove people en masse. Each individual would have to be provided legal counsel to advocate for their due process rights, as well as substantiate any allegations of religious bias—”
“Bias? The entire station is run by ‘bots!”
“I know. Listen, baby. I’m afraid the deportation order was so broad, their solicitor Mr. Hobson was able to pick it apart. Here we are.”
“Here we are what?” They’d stopped in a shadowy alcove facing a viewscreen displaying a wide-angle vista of Uranus’ spinning cloud-tops. At the moment the polar regions were illuminated by a burst of auroral cascades. Granny’s answer was to drop to her knees, pressing her hand to the floor while keeping her eyelids shut. “Enhance magnification,” she called, “factor of nine.”
A panopoly of moons juggled around the ice giant, with Miranda surging into the spotlight. After Granny’s request was processed, the view obediently zoomed in, penetrating thousands of kilometers into the cloud cover, past a layer where diamond-hard methane dropped like hail toward the slushy layer that was the mantle. Granny clasped Lianna’s small hand in her much larger one. And then she saw.
At first it appeared as a random plasmoid, a cumulous rising from the ammonia-and-methane gush from below. Then it spread its wings like a manta ray, and floated through the dense fluid layer. Beings of living energy with a translucent membrane of diamond, skimming through the planet’s interior while feasting on the energy generated by the superionic layers that composed Uranus’ mantle.
“Baby, come here,” Lianna whispered. She too had fallen to her knees, her right hand open to receive Gita’s. When the child touched her, she uttered the first word she’d ever heard her say: “Wow.”
White hot sparks traversed its every nerve fibre, made visible by the electrical impulses traveling along its transparent wingspan. “I don’t know if they’re indigenous to Uranus,” Granny said, “or some invasive species from outside our solar system who found this planet hospitable. Wouldn’t that tickle our religious friends’ funny bones to ponder that?”
“Who’ve you told about this?” Lianna asked, eyes fixed on the image.
“No one.”
Lianna swerved to stare at Granny’s profile. “I don’t understand. Something this monumental, on a body supposedly devoid of—”
A heavy sigh exhaled from her with what Lianna sensed was exaggerated patience. “I don’t trust people. We virtually rendered our mother planet uninhabitable for our own children. Luna originated as a labour camp before declaring its independence. Mars is nothing but a glittering tax shelter for trillionaires and their scion. I love people…I love children. But our leaders have a penchant towards exploitation. Why would I inflict that on another species?…Forgive me, it’s too much. Let’s go back.”
No one harassed them on their return to room 1263. The little clusters of Anglo-Saxon FAITH members, for that seemed to be all who were left on the station, ignored them as they passed. Some even turned their backs to them. The lift hummed quietly, like a sleeping quadruped, depositing them on the upper level with the gentlest of bumps. The corridor was ghostly silent as they strolled to Granny’s suite. The keypad accepted her entry code, and they piled into the living area without a word between them.
Granny was halfway across the apartment, headed for the bedroom before Lianna dared broach the subject foremost in her mind. “What was your mother like?”
Time seemed to freeze around her. Her shawl was halfway down her back, shoulders tense beneath her dress. The temperature actually seemed to dip in the room. But then her shoulders relaxed. The shawl slipped into her arms, tossed lightly over a seat. “She was a very spirited woman. She cared very deeply for me. Why are you asking?”
“I-I’m worried. My mum died when I was very little. I didn’t have a chance to learn anything about mothering before I lost her. I don’t want to—what if I screw this up?” She turned a tear-filled gaze toward Gita.
Granny laughed then, a soft gentle chuckle that welcomed rather than ridiculed her. “This is so familiar. You’re experiencing First Mother Jitters!” She crossed to her, pulling Lianna into a hug. “There’s no field guide to parenting, baby. Every parent has had to learn the ropes. You’re going to have to make some adjustments. You can’t take the same foolhardy risks you have as before. You must teach her discipline while giving her wings. You must set the rules and then kiss their booboos when they stumble. Have faith in yourself, baby, you can do this.”
“But my life is not over, is that what you’re saying?’
“It’ll never be the same, but no, your life is not—” But then a polite rap on the door stiffened both their spines.
This time at least the rapping was muted, even apologetic. Granny almost floated to the entry humming, “who can it be now…?”, in a singsong voice. Outside the door stood a crimson, boxey android on treads that hardly appeared suited for its frame. Without a word it pushed a sheet-covered handcart inside, whose contents bubbled volcanically. “Ernie!” Lianna screeched, catapulting across the floor into his spindly metallic arms. Gita leaped onto his chassis, delivering her hugs there.
“I presume you missed me,” Ernie pronounced. Lianna nodded, nuzzling her oldest friend, ignoring the stare she sensed poring onto her back. After a moment she stepped back. “Granny, this is Ernie. He took care of me on the Lost Ship. How’d you get past those religious freaks?” she asked.
“Protocol 47,” Ernie replied. “I’m allowed to prevaricate in extraordinary circumstances. In this instance I assured the individuals clustered around the ship that this cart carried radioactive isotopes emitting 90,000 rads that required disposal in the station’s disposal chute. They provided ample space for our passage. Once outside of earshot, I explained to station security my true intent. They were receptive to my entreaties.”
–You lied, Gita signed.
“As you wish. Now, if I may.” Like a true magician Ernie rolled back from the cart, swishing the sheet over the top of it. This unveiled two circular tubs, 30 liters each. Granny yelped as crimson and aquamarine tongues like pythons stretched over the rim of each tub. Each tongue planted themselves on the floor, where they pooled into two-meter pylons which took on humanoid form, arms snaking from both sides.
The lower portions of each column separated into shapely legs, the middle narrowing into approximate waists. The upper portions became rounded, sprouting humanoid ‘hair’ and features much like Lianna’s. Before long there they were, proud aquamarine Amba and bashful crimson Stavros. “Wait, where’s Little Stavros?” Lianna asked.
“In here.” Ernie flicked two stubs on his upper carriage. Swinging open his chest plate, he revealed the inner cavity, small enough for a child to curl up inside of. And indeed a child sized ameboid waved at them, sharing Stavros’ crimson membrane. “I recalled that you could hide there in your younger days. It appeared the safest option for her.”
Little Stavros flowed from Ernie’s interior, reconstituting herself inside Lianna’s arms. She joined Gita and Stavros, and even Ernie in a group hug. Granny sensed the joy emanating from them all and smiled, But Lianna frowned as Amba stood back, her expression almost blank.
“You’re not going to lose her.”
Lianna and Amba both spun at Granny’s words. She reached out a hand, gripping Amba’s ameboid mitt as she would any other humans’. “Come, sit with me. We have much to talk about.” She smiled at Lianna. “Why don’t you catch up? We’ll be all right.” Amba appeared bewildered as Granny guided her toward the lounge, where they sat.
She wondered if she should say something. She had a connection to Amba she didn’t quite understand herself, a bond that operated on an empathic level. Amba was herself part of a gestalt mind, separate but linked to the host body she’d willingly peeled herself away from, so many years ago. Telepathy, empathy were just words that didn’t begin to describe the depths to which she’d penetrated Lianna’s consciousness.
But Granny was conversing with her, counseling her as she would any other being. As if with a word she could open up her ameboid heart and soothe her troubled thoughts. Amba pressed her right palm to Granny’s forehead, and from that moment they seemed to be communing on some higher level. “Would you look at that?” Lianna muttered.
“Miss Hadebe has a reputation as a valuable counselor,” Ernie said. “Of more immediate concern is the promise of FAITH.”
“I didn’t know you had the inclination,” Lianna teased, tapping Ernie’s casing with her knuckles.
“An unfortunate turn of phrase.” Taking her upper arm, he steered her toward the kitchenette. “What I meant to say was I have overheard them conversing outside the ship. I listened in, for security’s sake of course.”
“Yeah,” Lianna nodded. “Summerize?”
“That’s more like it. Certain members are imminently satisfied at having driven off the filth and riffraff, so to speak, to wit every migrant to our solar system. ‘Only Dr Jensen and her alien brood mares are left’, they said, ‘and they’re next.’…”
I’m afraid I lost my faith in humanity, and it’s from the last quarter I expected. I liked Joe Biden, I really did. He got us through the pandemic. Okay. But his blind obedience to the whims of Zionism opened a door that can never be closed.
i remember a time when Israel was the underdog. First there was Munich, which I was too young to understand except as something horrible that happened to those poor athletes. And then there was Entebbe — yay, they rescued the hostages and killed all the bad guys! Then Camp David. Lebanon in 1982 should’ve been a clue, but the bias, culturally and biblically, was too much to question. I was blind.
The mask is off. The more I’ve learned, the more I’ve realized we’re dealing with insane people. It took me a long time to remove the rose colored lenses we saw the world through, maybe too long. I was in my church for 25 years, we were told one of the signs of the Last Days would be the restoration of Israel in the promised land. We’d sing “Israel, Israel, God is calling!”
Yeah, well if he’s calling it’s not to say, “well done, my good and faithful servant, well done!” If this is a god I’m going to respect, when Netanyahu meets St. Peter I expect him to say, “what in the F— are you doing? Have you lost your mind? Why are you killing your children?”
I’ve seen this too many times. Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Somalia, Darfur, Gaza. Children murdered, subjected to famine. They treat famine as a tragedy in the media, oh those poor starving children. They tend to gloss over the fact that every famine is man made. Every one.
I’m trying to shed my islamaphobia. That’s the only thing that makes sense about this so called war. It’s part of our holy crusade on behalf of Israel. Not the biblical state of old, I mean the current state mangling the values of Judaism as badly as evangelicals have mangled Christianity in the US. How else can you explain the ease with which we dismiss the lives of Palestinians, women and children?
I don’t think I can ever trust Democrats again, not until they show a little humanity, an actual spine. They can’t lecture anyone on human rights or the international order ever again. Republicans I expect inhumanity from, but this past election demonstrated there’s no difference between them when it comes to bending the knee to Israeli policy.
I don’t know where this is going to end in Gaza. I have only one certainty. Netanyahu has already failed. The Palestinians are scattered across the Middle East, from Jordan to Egypt and even the United States. Yes, I know that’s not in the Middle East, but the point stands. There are large populations everywhere. Maybe they’ll eradicate them from Israel, but their culture is alive, their literature, their children will survive in some form. The Palestinian people may continue as a refugee class, but they will still be alive. And someday, when saner heads prevail, they will come home.
There has been a lot of negative pre-release videos critical of Captain America Brave New World on YouTube for months. I haven’t viewed any of them. The consensus seemed to be of impending disaster, literally; oh, this is the end of the MCU, whatever. You’ve probably seen the taglines. If you have, forgit ‘em. This is a really good movie.
I don’t know military life from personal experience. The military has some weird ass standards about not inducting kids with diabetes who might have a low blood sugar incident on the field. Funny, that. But I have grandparents who served with distinction in the Second World War. My dad and his brother Wayne both volunteered and served as radio operators in Alaska during the Korean War. I have two brothers who served in the 1970s, and a niece who defused bombs in Iraq. So, yeah, you could say I’m a relative of veterans. (If I’ve left anyone in the family out, it wasn’t intentional. Sorry.)
The is the first film Anthony Mackie has had to carry the film on his own, at least within the MCU, and that he does. Sam Wilson is a soldier who understands loyalty and duty, and respects the chain of command, even when his president is a man he has no reason to trust. He can carry himself in battle without the shield or flight gear, and certainly without any super soldier serum. But if he has to do things the hard way to clear a good man’s name, even over his president’s stubborn will, that’s what he’s going to do. And that’s America, too.
Danny Ramirez joins the cast as Joaquin Torres, Sam’s sidekick and Falcon-in-training, a role reprised from the Falcon & the Winter Soldier mini-series. I haven’t seen that series so all I have to go on is what I see in the movie. From what I see he’s got a lot of heart, but he’s going to need a lot of mentoring. He seems to have a healthy bond in that regard with Sam Wilson.
Harrison Ford is an excellent choice to step into the role of General Thaddeus Ross, formerly played by the late William Hurt. Hurt brought gravitas and a certain smugness to the role, but he never projected the disdain or rage that should’ve been percolating beneath the surface. With Ford it’s all out there, the temper just ready to explode. His Ross has no time for fools, no patience for anyone who dares to second guess him. Doesn’t sound familiar at all, does it?
At the same time Ford is able to express regret at his failure to connect with his daughter, and that’s as far as I’ll go in the Spoiler Department. At the same time, it’s unfair to represent Ross as a foil for our current president. The scriptwriters were wise enough not to fill Ross’ mouth with the kind of word salads for which Donald Trump is famous.
The plot basically circles around Ross’ legacy, a treaty he’s pulling together which involves a Celestial relic full of adamantium. This motherload is supposed to be harvested for the benefit of all mankind, all that BS, which can be read as mostly for whichever world power who claims it first. This leads to a pitched aerial battle Sam and Joaquin have to defuse with one of our closest allies, and…. nope, that’s all. Go see the movie. This ties in with a legacy hero Cap from the Korean War era, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), who’d spent 30 years in prison as a reward for his service, thanks to men like Ross.
As with most MCU films there are callbacks to previous projects, like 2008’s The Incredible Hulk especially, The Falcon & The Winter Soldier and Eternals, both from 2021. That being said, it’s refreshing to have at least one movie that’s not bogged down in Multiverse BS. I appreciated being able to follow the action without having to mentally backtrack every thread.
The most disturbing choice for me would be casting Shira Haas, a former IDF soldier as Mossad agent Ruth Bat-Seraph. At a time when her nation is committing genocide, I don’t know what possessed Kevin Faige to commit such a negative creative decision. Her character is exactly the kind of person I’d expect Ross to hire for his personal security. However, there are any number of capable female back-up characters from the Cap comics that could’ve been scripted in. including this character is morally indefensible and may sink an otherwise excellent film at the box office.
Judging by the frequency with which she kept nudging Lianna awake, she guessed Miss Jamai wasn’t getting through to the Infirmary. Gita stayed with her, seated beside her on the lounge, sometimes running a cool cloth across her brow. Time drifted from the blackness closing like a porthole over her consciousness to the next time Jamai shook her. On one occasion she caught her in a less dignified pose, shrieking into the wall comm on her behalf before finally slamming her fist into the panel.
As the tunnel closed on her again, she seemed to be fumbling with a hand unit and tapping all the buttons on its face. The next thing she remembered was a light intruding on her tunnel vision. It grew in intensity, a supernova blasting from the bedroom alongside a howling of angry banshees. Both light and noise faded as another oddball strode into the living area.
Lianna couldn’t be sure if she was imagining this person or not. A plush mane of red curls adorned her head. This figure seemed statuesque, if a bit on the thin side. A tartan skirt swirled under a—a buffalo hide? —thrown across her shoulders. Her lips were thin, her face narrow, but there was mirth in her green eyes as she clasped Jamai. “An’ what’ll it be this time, Granny? A nip an’ a tuck, a lift o’ yer boobs?”
“Kate–!”
“Na, ye dinna need that. Perhaps if ye’d pass some o’ that joy onto others in yer Posse…”
“Kate, please…”
The stranger, this Kate, grinned with a shake of the head. “Fear not. Ye know I ken never refuse me Granny.” She tossed the buffalo robe onto a settee, and then her gaze fell on Gita. “An’ who’s the we’en, hmm?”
“This is Gita. She’s fine. Her mother is the one in need.”
“Aye?” Her eyes widened as they fixed on Lianna briefly. Somehow she didn’t question the obvious fact that they were not related by blood. They conferred in whispers by the settee. Lianna couldn’t distinguish their words and caught a few covert glances cast her way.
Then she winked at Gita, shooing her away. “Dinna worry, lass. We’ll have ye sorted ‘ere long.” Kate hovered beside Lianna as she rubbed her large hands together. She stood over her for an interminable time. “Granny, will ye take a look yonder?” Jamai glided to the other side of the lounge, both now emitting ‘ooos’. “If I’m not mistaken, grey matter is nae usually green an’ blobby—”
“It’ s all right. I’ve seen her medical reports. It’ll reabsorb into her body once her skull is repaired—”
“Heyyy…right here,” Lianna moaned, raising her right hand.
“Fair point. I just dinna wanna do anything wrong ‘ere.”
“Sorry, what ARE you going to—” Two large hands pressed to her scalp. At first the warmth emanating from her palms was soothing. Until a knifing pain lanced through her braincase, right where the plates of her skull seemed to join together. Lianna’s eyes rolled, and the tunnel rushed forward to blacken her universe.
Then Jamai was seated beside her, supporting her as she swayed. Dizziness swamped her, spinning fast as a neutron star. But the spell seemed to pass, as had the stabbing ache in her head. “Wha…? How did you…?”
“Kate’s a great healer,” Jamai smiled. “Thank you, sister.”
“What are bandmates for?” Kate shrugged, gathering the buffalo hide around her shoulders.
“Have you seen the others? How are they?”
“Well, they—wait, ye dinna nae?” A frown creased her mouth. “Granny, are ye okay?” She would only shrug and duck her head. Kate apparently was having none of that. Her fingertips brushed Jamai’s chin and raised her head. “Eyy,” Kate smiled. “Ye know ye kin tell me anything. I’ll always love ye.” Their eyes closed as their lips caressed.
And suddenly Lianna and Gita were both alert, though they might as well have been invisible. Kate’s arms closed around Jamai, her hands stroking her back. No sound came from them apart from their satisfied moans. One eye opened partway to glance at Lianna. Then Kate smiled and winked, without interrupting the kiss.
With a soft smack their lips finally parted, and Kate stepped back. “Ye should visit us sometime. Ye’re always welcome. The buffalo are everywhere. Sometimes we sleep amongst ‘em, an’ not a bluidy flintlock in sight.”
“I’ll think about it. I love you, Kate.” That seemed to be all Jamai—Granny? —which was it? —could say as Kate drifted back toward the bedroom, their fingers touching as they smiled across at each other. Their fingertips touched, then she whisked into the bedroom. Jamai seemed unfazed as a white hole howled from the other room, soon to fade.
“I must be sleepy,” Lianna yawned. “I could’ve swore…”
“Best not to think about it just yet,” Jamai smiled, stroking her temple. “And it’s okay to call me Granny.” The darkness closing in was more like a soft blanket this time. “Sleep, baby. I’ll take care of…”
Gita tried to sleep. Their hostess offered her a guest room, off to the side of the restroom, but she didn’t want to leave Mama Lianna’ side. And despite her promise of safety, she retained her human form. Granny spread a quilt over them as she lay across Mama Lianna’s back. Sleep came easily to a nagini. She did not fear for her defenses; she could easily overpower this human, should she attempt any trickery.
The living area was dark as space. Her eyes adapted to that easily enough. What was unexpected was the muffled sobs from the bedroom Miss Kate had disappeared into. Gita slipped off Mama Lianna’s back, making sure to keep the blanket tucked around her. She padded into a room with a dresser on the far wall, and a massive bed taking up the center of the chamber. Miss Granny clutched a book with an inner light shining into her face, which seemed much older now.
She showed little surprise when Gita plopped onto the bed beside her. “Hi, baby,” she smiled. “I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s okay, your mother only needs some rest.” Her hand stroked Gita’s cheek as the tears streamed down. “I’m sorry, it’s been so long since I’ve seen a healthy baby. I’ve been in a war zone for so long. I thought we were doing some good. When they finally deposed Bashir, I thought maybe we could finally have peace.” Her face twisted, both fists balling in her lap. “Then it started all over again. Of course the bastards in the army, and the militias–!” She closed her eyes, but her fists remained balled. “I-I’m just disappointed in the powers that be.”
Gita’s eyes nodded at the open tome in Granny’s lap. “Right. This is a book of remembrance I’ve been collecting. It records all the names of the babies we’ve taken care of. Not all of them made it. Your mother won’t tell you this, but humans are often very cruel to their children. At least we used to be, hundreds of…well.” Gita’s hands flowed softly. “No, I don’t understand it, either. That’s part of why I’m here.”
She turned over a blank page, rotating the back of her hand to face the page. A sensor built into the back of her hand glowed. A moment later a framed image scrolled across the page, complete with biographical information.
“I’m close to being done,” Granny said. Gita dabbed at her damp cheeks with her fingertips. “I’m collecting this so they’ll never be forgotten. None of them.” She flipped back several pages. “This one is very special. She opened so many minds that were closed. Her name was Hind…”
The scent of fresh brewed coffee, peppers and eggs teased the air. Lianna shifted the blanket off her shoulders and eased to a sitting position. Apart from a little fatigue, her mind and body felt sharp and alert. Her stomach gurgled, and…there seemed to be a weight on her bosom. Lianna pushed them apart, just a little. A small snout yawned, showing rows of needle teeth. Granny’s space bat blinked tiny black eyes at her, then licked its chops and nuzzled her right boob.
Instinct compelled her to cradle the little creature nestled to her as she stood to take a look around. The lounge she’d been sleeping on was set ten paces back from the entrance, facing a curved sofa, with a jade end-table set between them. She’d been in rooms like this in other space ports, though usually not this cozy. Following the wall from the entry one first encountered a guest room, across from her lounge, and then a common restroom. Several meters past that was a private bedroom, and to the rear a small kitchenette with a countertop, cutting area and cooking surfaces.
Granny was turning something in a black skillet, while Gita spooned ingredients into the mix as she directed. “Ms. Hadebe…” Lianna began, but she already had a hand up to correct her.
She ignored a flush of pain in her noggin as she drifted to the counter. The fragrance of peppers and eggs spiced with cumin called her back to childhood meals with Fayd in the maintenance section. “This is shakshuka,” she said. “Where did you…?”
“A widow in Palestine taught me how to prepare it,” Granny said, serving first a bowl for Gita, then another for Lianna.
“There’s no life in Palestine—”
“Only olive groves and mass graves. I’ve made several expeditions to the area over the years. I know.”
“But this is perfect. I don’t—”
“Another time, Doctor. Please.”
She passed a cup to Lianna. The milk was flavored with sahlab and cinnamon. “I was born not far from here,” Lianna started, “on one of Jupiter’s moons. My parents thought it’d be the neatest thing to have their own star baby.”
“The Jovian system is 156 weeks and two billion kilometers distant. To say you were born nearby would be a misnomer at best.”
“Astronomically speaking, it’s the closest thing to being next door neighbors as you can get. Pardon me for asking, but how did you get here?” Granny raised her gaze. “My android mate asked Cassie about you. She said you just appeared unannounced one day in the Slush Pit. Transit from Terra would take 70 days, even at one percent the speed of light. You can’t just decide to vacation on a distant planet. The orbital position of Terra in relation to Uranus would have to be projected precisely or you might overshoot the target by several billion kilometers.
“And your friend Kate just disappeared. Gita saw her march into your bedroom, and I’m pretty sure there’s no access to the rest of the station from there. So where did she go?”
“She teleported.”
Lianna blinked. Her host seemed to delight in her discomfort, smiling across her raised cup. She sipped and tried to explain. “Kate and I are able to travel point to point via wormhole transit. We’re agents of a sort, for beings who are able to fold space via contained quantum singularities.”
“Like a white hole.”
“Not quite. It doesn’t have the same gravitational aspects otherwise we’d never survive these transits. It’s how I transferred from Earth to this moon within a matter of minutes. Though I confess it’s the longest transit I’ve ever experienced.”
“Oh.”
“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it, baby?”
Lianna shrugged. “Trust me, it’s not the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
They continued their meal in silence for a few moments, until Granny said, “I notice you don’t apply a lot of makeup.”
Lianna shrugged. “It’s not a very practical concern in my line of work.”
“I meant no insult. You have a natural beauty. So many women in the cities on Earth are dolled up with rouge and powder, like they’re ghosts. Yours is an honest face, without all the ostentation.”
A different sort of warmth spread through Lianna’s chest. “Thanks. I meant what I said too, when I said you were gorgeous. You’re not a fan of cosmetics either, but gods, you’re beautiful.”
“I’ve been on a peace mission for a long, long time. It was never important to me.”
“Where’s my suit?”
“I sent it to Henri’s for cleaning. It’ll be returned by 0700 Station time. While we’re on the subject.” She set her bowl half-finished on the counter. She glided behind Lianna, peeling the blanket from her bare back. “What did this to you?” Her fingertips brushed the ridges gouged into her flesh. “They’re everywhere.”
Lianna shivered, shifting the blanket back over her shoulders and clutching it tighter to herself. “I-I’d like to contact my ship.”
“Of course, baby.” Together the three of them padded back to the living area. Lianna and Gita plopped onto the lounge as Granny plucked a handheld slab from the end table. She was gazing up at her host and the question just popped from her mouth. She pointed at Jamai’s chest and asked, “Are those real?”
“Sorry…?”
“I-I’m just wondering what it’d like for them to bud like in normal people.”
She smiled. “If you must know, I nurtured three strong sons with these. It was my youngest who arranged my passage to this outpost. He knew I needed someplace… quiet. He thought that would work for my well-being. Why would you ask such a thing? You’re not without endowments yourself.”
Lianna barely glanced at herself before she scoffed. “These? I was just trying to fit in. You wouldn’t have noticed me in my first year at the Academy. I was a skinny kid. I aced all my exams. I was able to apply a couple of years early. And the girls, all clustering together in the corridors, their chests all ballooned out and the boys flocking to them. I was still as flat as an ice cube.
“I liked it at first. I could concentrate on my studies. As the semester wore on, the isolation became intolerable. I didn’t think anyone knew I was from the Lost Ship, but I was alone, and everyone else was so gorgeous. So I lied. I told Professor Chronitis, my adopted dad, I needed an extravagant amount of credits for this upcoming seminar. He probed me a little, but he really loved me. He’d done everything for me after we were rescued from the Lost Ship.
“I had it done between semesters. When classes resumed, suddenly guys were stopping to stare at me, they were asking, ‘Where did you get those bazooms?’ Boys were asking me to the theater. Then it started to get creepy. All they wanted to do was stare and…I-I gave in to their demands, a couple of times. I couldn’t satisfy…they kept asking, what’s the matter with you?
“I completed the rest of my studies remotely. I only showed up in person for the final exams, and I usually sat in the back of the lecture hall. I thought these would help me fit in.”
“Why would you even have to have such a procedure? The budding of a woman is a natural part of—” Granny’s saucer clattered to the floor. Her hands suddenly clutched at her mouth. “Oh my god, I didn’t—how could I have been so stupid? And I’ve been blathering on about my children—baby, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to be so insensitive–!”
“It’s okay. Can I get ahold of my ship now?” She nodded, her eyes still haunted as she tapped her slab. She asked Lianna for the contact code for her ship which led to more beeping. Finally she handed it over to Lianna. “Just hit the flashing tab and it’ll come up.”
Lianna balanced the slab in her palm. She’d seen such things in museums behind cases. A numerical keyboard stared back at her, set in a touch-sensitive surface. “This is kind of quaint, isn’t it?”
“It’s served my needs for over 20 years.”
The flashing light she found in the upper left corner of the screen. Once she tapped that, a bubble filled the space between them. Gita giggled as an image resolved of the ship’s pilothouse. Ernie’s red android body swarmed into the foreground. “Miss Lianna! Where have you been?’
“We’re okay,” she smiled. “Say hi, baby.” She rotated the module to Gita, who signed a greeting. Then she set the module down on the end table. “Did you get the cargo stowed?”
“Yes! Never mind the cargo! What happened? Where are you?”
And he says he’s incapable of emotional excitability, she thought. “I was hurt but Miss Hadebe took me in for the night. We’re in…what room is this?”
“Suite 1263,” Jamai said, “in the private sector, Level One.”
“Tell Amba and Stavros I’ll be back later tonight, after my suit—”
“That may not be advisable,” Ernie interrupted. “Allow me to switch to an external view. That will explain things much better.” The image flickered seamlessly from the ship’s interior to a very crowded docking bay with even more fanatics clustered around the ship than last night. All Lianna could see was a sea of faces mingling suffocatingly tight together. “Stand by,” Ernie’s voice cut in. “Pastor Bienbouw is coming to make a speech.”
The congregants shifted to one side to allow a beefy specimen who towered over the rest to pass. He was dressed in a stiff white shirt, sealed with an equally stiff collar. His blonde hair was butched close to his scalp. A podium had been set up next to the ship’s dorsal fins, and behind this he stood with raised hands. The congregation became suddenly quiet, barely seeming to breathe.
“Rejoice, my brethren! The devil has been driven from our midst!”
“No he hasn’t, pal,” Lianna grumbled, “You’re still here.”
Though his voice was guttural, it seemed to carry across the bay. ‘‘We don’t know where Dr. Jensen has been taken. Nonetheless we can take solace in the fact that she has been driven into hiding. The last vestiges of alien trash have been driven from our solar system!” This was met with cheers and whoops. “Now we must be vigilant, patient, and allow Dr. Jensen to return to her ship. After all, she’s the only one who can pilot this wreck out of this station!” The congregation joined him in his chuckles.
“I want to thank our esteemed solicitor Mr. Hobson, for his service in delaying the deportation of countless brethren on account of Commander Stephensen’s spurious insinuations. For too long our liberties have been intruded on. Those days are over, I promise you.
“And our work is not yet done! We tried to build a more perfect society in Rhodesia, South Africa and in Zion. Each time our holy efforts were undermined by kaffirs and feminists and all the radicals, demanding we respect THEIR rights—”
Granny stiffened during that last harangue, her fists cracking in her lap. Gita, on the other hand, signed, ‘Rats?’ “He said ‘rights’,” Lianna signed back. “I know, he talks funny.” The three of them had a giggle about that, at least.
Bienbouw raised his palms again, garnering the mob’s attention. “The Last Great War was not as we were promised. Paradise was given over to the perverted. The wall we’d labored so diligently to erode between church and state had been reinforced. Other faiths were allowed to flourish over the true gospel. Even our hopes for a greater world in the New Frontier had been dashed. We’ve seen with our own eyes the alien taint oozing from Dr. Jensen’s own hands!”
The congregation’s murmurs rose to ululations as the pastor raised one hand like a conductor. “That’s it,” Lianna grumbled. “Ernie, patch me into the ship’s amplifier.”
“Doing so now, Miss Lianna. Although may I advise it may not be wise to antagonize—”
But she was already leaning over Granny’s end-table. “HEY! SMART-ASS!”
Granny started. That certainly got the pastor’s attention, since he immediately swung to the perceived source of the offending noise, as did the stunned mob before him. “Before you stick your foot any deeper down your gullet, I just wanted you to know I’m alive and well, and I’m not going anywhere! I’m not gonna waste any more time reasoning with you. I’ve visited neutron stars that were less dense than you loons! If it’s the devil you’re looking for, I suggest you look in the fucking mirror!”
After that she severed communications with a touch of a button. That was singularly satisfying, almost as much as the high five she shared with Gita, or the wide-eyed gaze Granny regarded her with. “Child,” she whispered, “you’ve got balls!”
…Pressure was exquisite. Her throat seared from dozens of ruptures. She coughed another mouthful of blood as its throat muscles contracted, ridges of muscle grinding into her hips and thighs. Her arms cramped as her suit was slowly shredded with her still inside it. Its mouth closed over her face as her hair was strained between its jagged jaws—
–and the scream died in her throat. She sat rigid on the edge of the lounge hyperventilating, dripping ice cold perspiration. Her blankets were soaked, clinging to her as she fought for composure. I haven’t had that nightmare for years, she thought.
The evening had passed easily. They spent a few hours playing cards. After dinner her suit was delivered as promised. She left it in its slipcover for now; she still needed to recover. She and Granny had tucked Gita into bed in the spare room, and then she did the same for Lianna, which worked out fine until now. “Baby? What’s the matter?” Granny called from her room.
“It’s fine,” Lianna called back. “Gita’s still asleep.”
“I was referring to you.”
“Oh.” She sat quietly for a moment, until her host spoke again. “Would you come in here, so I don’t have to shout across the apartment?”
Something in her tone seemed so familiar, so—family—that it brought a smile to Lianna. She cast off her damp blanket and padded into the bedroom. Sweet Mother Kali, her brown body was even more beautiful in her birthday suit. Lianna sat on the edge of the bed as Granny propped herself up on one elbow. “I had a nightmare is all,” she began.
But Granny abruptly tossed the covers off herself. “Oh my god, you’re frigid. And you’re wet all over. Wait here!” She dashed to her dresser. Suddenly a fluffy luxurious towel was tossed across her shoulders. She was very thorough, rubbing Lianna back and then front until every drop of sweat was scrubbed dry. “I-I’m sorry,” Lianna stammered. “I haven’t slept alone for so long…”
“Baby, what happened to you? What could’ve inspired such a vivid nightmare?”
“It wasn’t…it was real.” Granny stopped toweling her down for a moment. “You could sense what I was dreaming.”
She nodded. “How could you remember that so vividly?”
“I remember everything. I have hyperthymesia. I remember every hour of every day on the Naga Sentry. Every day of my life with precise accuracy.”
The bed creaked as Granny sat down beside her. “Tell me.”
Lianna wet her lips and leaned forward to make sure Gita was still tucked in. So far so good. She leaned back with Granny’s great hands gripping her shoulders. “I-I wasn’t looking for monsters. I just wanted to explore, without the dangers I’d been encountering. I thought it’d give the Professor fewer headaches,” she chuckled.
“There were stories in my parents’ journals about a planet with a sacred body of water. I set down a few kilometers from where my ship’s sensors pinpointed a cavern with a large body of water. I hadn’t known there was a mercenary army bivouacking there too. These were Blanchard Benzentine’s thugs, the Scourge of the Seven Empires. They got off a few shots, inflicted radiation burns to my right leg.” Her hand brushed a faded pink blemish spread across her upper thigh.
“I barely managed to shut a bulkhead door and deadlocked it behind me. And there it was, the Sacred Waters of Turin. There was nothing especially magical about it, besides the name but it cooled my wound. And then…you ever get those pinpricks on the back of your neck, like you know you’re not alone? The water surged in front of me, waves building till it was the size of a whale.
“Sweet Kali, if only that’s all it was. This was the mother of all monsters, a grey skinned squid full of tentacles twice as long as me and twice as thick. I was armed, sort of. The professor had given me a wrist mounted nullifier for self-defense. I didn’t know what it’d do against this monstrosity, but I had to do something. I raised my arm to take aim, and it threw its tentacles around my arms. And then my wrist gadget says, ‘tracking lens blocked—please remove obstruction.’
“Can you believe that? That thing was gonna kill me and it still thinks it’s in the lab! It was all over me in seconds, clutching my legs and shoulders, flowing down my throat. Its suckers were tearing into the inside of my throat. It wasn’t like Terran cephalopods. Its suckers bit right through my mother’s skinsuit, into my flesh.
“I-I think they were recording it. Gita’s mother told me she found a trove of data slats, covering dozens of travelers they fed to that creature, and,,. they were laughing about it. It lifted me like I was nothing, cinched its tentacles tight around my chest. Then it turned itself inside out. It was astonishing that anything that huge could regurgitate itself so easily.
“It had no beak. From the looks of it, Benzentine’s mercenaries had blasted its beak to pieces. There were only jagged nubs left around its mouth. Those jaws had opened to receive me. Gods, the stench of brine and raw flesh blasted from its throat. My soles slipped down its tongue. Its tentacles oozed up my torso as it forced me down. First my hips, then my hands, then its mouth closed around my chest. I was gonna die alone while they were back in their HQ, watching, pleasuring themselves over my…”
“Baby, stop. You don’t have to…”
“Let me finish. It had me, my hair was sliding through its mouth. And then my wrist gadget says, ‘Target acquired. Shall we respond?’ Oh hell yes, so I fired right down its throat. Blew a space-girl sized hole through the back of its head. It got the last word, though. It spit me out, but the force of the blast blew me across the pond into the retaining wall, head-first.
“I don’t remember much after that. I think it killed me. Ernie rescued me, Gita’s mother came and they ministered to me. I was in a coma for several weeks. I only had Stavros travelling with me at that time, and she contributed some of her amoebic fluid to heal some of my wounds. That’s where all those welts came from, and that’s part of how I acquired a little amniotic goo.”
“Please tell me that bastard was arrested for what he did.”
Lianna shook her head. “Not exactly. Gita’s mother had become extremely fond of me.” Lianna swallowed. Meanwhile Granny’s hands massaged her shoulders, “I didn’t want revenge, I didn’t…but she tracked the whole mercenary army, across several sectors, billions of kilometers, and she killed them all at once. She’s a goddess. She unleashed a demon horde on his soldiers, and then…
“She harvested their souls. She released her demon army from its servitude and bound Benzentine’s army to her service for the next thousand years.” She turned to stare into Granny’s shining eyes. “Why would she do that for me? I never dreamed anyone could care enough…” She was suddenly aware of her hands trembling in her lap. Then one of Granny’s hands pressed over both of hers, rubbing them gently. “I’m sorry. Can I stay here tonight?”
The request spilled out of her without a thought. Once spoken, she didn’t regret it. She barely knew this woman, but somehow all her instincts whispered that she could trust her. “Of course you can, baby,” Granny smiled. “Just lay down, you’ll be safe here.”
Hardly had the blanket covered them both before Lianna gasped, “Sweet Kali!”
“What? I’m sorry, is something–?”
“No, it’s just…gods, you’re so WARM. This is like bathing in a star.”
She sensed the smile in her reply. “Space is cold. You probably haven’t had a warm body to cuddle up to.”
Lianna was suddenly reminded of how tiny she was next to Granny as she spooned closer, her breasts smooshed across her back. Lianna’s hands, so very small, clutched the powerful arms draped around her waist. “Why are you so kind?”
“I know what its like to be alone,” Granny whispered. “I didn’t have an advocate to help me when I was your age. I never want anyone to feel that lonely…Oh. I guess you’re not the only one who couldn’t sleep.”
Lianna raised her head, brushing her hair out of her eyes while Gita peeked over the top of the mattress. Her trunk trailed a couple of meters behind her into the living area. “Hi, sweetie. Is something wrong?”
She didn’t sign anything this time, but clutched Lianna’s fingers. “You don’t want to sleep alone either, is that it?” she nodded enthusiastically. Lianna glanced back at Granny, who nodded.
“It’s a strange place. One night won’t matter.”
“Okay. Come on up, sweetie.” Lianna put her hands to her waist and lifted Gita onto the mattress beside her. The child wriggled up to Lianna’s shoulders while her lower body coiled once, twice, three times around her waist. Her scales stretched and contracted as she breathed, supple against Lianna’s bare skin. Her breath was warm and feather soft on her neck. Gita settled into Lianna’s arms while Granny snuggled close.
Papablues Scrapbook 