Adaptation: book I

by Pepper Pace

  “Will you just … leave? Leave my house. And don’t come back.” She glanced at Wolf. “You helped me and you helped Wolf. But if you hadn’t come here, we would have never needed your help. You do understand that, right?” Her eyes narrowed. “It’s only when you show your ugly face that we need your help! So just get out! Get out!”

  Bilal’s body elongated and he retreated, not taking his eyes from her. His skin began turning black.

  Carmella began to sob. “You took everything and … you think that you can make it right?” Carmella’s hands formed fists. “You can’t magically bring my husband back. My child back! You can’t give me my mama or my brother or that fucking postman who refused to deliver the mail because the neighbor’s dog broke out of the gate!”

  Bilal backed out the door to the porch, surprised at the woman’s sudden and complete turn. She had followed him out the door with a look of pure hatred that caused him physical pain. He had never been witness to human hatred at its worst. Most humans were happy to be on Earth 2 where they could live in comfort and security with no fear of the disease that had taken almost everyone that they knew. Yes, there were those who hated the Centaurians, but he had been protected from it by his parents and friends.

  Bilal turned and moved down the porch stairs and away from her.

  “Help me? Help me! Bring my baby back. Give me my baby. Give him …” She couldn’t finish. She dropped to her knees and gave in to the grief of all that had been lost. She cried all the tears for all the men, women, and children who had ever lost anyone. She cried for those who were dead and could no longer do so. She cried out her hatred and anger—and her loneliness.

  Bilal was in the woods before he turned to look at her again. The woman lay on the porch curled into a ball as if she had been physically harmed. She cried harder than he had ever seen or heard anyone cry.

  He turned and continued to his pod.

  Physical harm has been done to her and to all mankind, Bilal thought. By my kind.

  Chapter 8

  ~Righting a Great Wrong~

  “There you are. Have you been hiding?”

  Raj had found Bilal in the glade behind his mother’s home. Bilal liked being there despite grass and stones dotting the ground that were not friendly to his skin. He enjoyed the ways the sun filtered through the leaves of the trees and transformed everything. He huddled in the shadows and hoped to become so small that he would eventually disappear.

  Bilal didn’t answer, and Raj sat next to him. Bilal wanted to be alone, but if anyone was going to interrupt his poor mood, then he was happy it was Raj. Bilal cared deeply for Lawrence because he was funny and upbeat and liked adventure enough to be best friends with an alien and a forty-year-old man. But he disagreed with Lawrence’s idea that if anything bothered you, you should “just get over it.” Unfortunately, life did not always cooperate.

  “What’s wrong, Bilal? You’ve been acting weird every since you returned from your last Earth visit.”

  “I saw the Earthling again.”

  Raj frowned. “You said that you wouldn’t bring her. It’s why you didn’t tell your parents or anyone else about her. Did you change your mind?”

  “No. I just wanted to see her.”

  Raj pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. Bilal didn’t understand smoking, but once a month he linked with his friend through his tentacles to make sure Raj’s lungs stayed clear and healthy.

  “We have a word for that. It’s called stalking.”

  “No. I’m not stalking her. I wanted to see how she lives. How is that stalking her if I’ve only seen her twice?”

  “Then why are you mooning over her?”

  Bilal had not heard this expression. “Mooning? Like when humans show their asses?” He remembered Lawrence explaining what mooning was by dropping his pants and showing his pale butt cheeks.

  “No, it means that you like her and can’t stop thinking about her.”

  “Ah. Yes. I am mooning over this woman. But she hates me. She hates all Centaurians.”

  Raj nodded. “I see. Not every human wants to be friends with you, despite how cool you are, Bilal.”

  “I know that!”

  Raj reached out and rubbed one of Bilal’s rough patches until a tentacle formed.

  Bilal allowed the tentacle to encase his friend’s hand and wrist. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never saw anyone cry with so much pain. I can’t stop thinking about it. I know that I am not directly responsible for the loss of human life, but she made me feel that way. Centaurians always talk about making things right, but no one has made things right for her. We aren’t doing enough!”

  Raj looked around and put out his cigarette. “Bilal, be careful. There are ears everywhere.”

  Bilal shuddered and turned a miserable black. “Yes.”

  Raj stood. “Come on. We’ll listen to some old music and get high.”

  “Okay.” Bilal got up and followed his friend.

  His First Mother would be gone for a few weeks to take care of business on the mother ship where the Centaurians still presided over everything that mattered within the universe.

  ~***~

  If he could singlehandedly right the wrongs of each human who resided on Earth 2, Bilal knew that he would.

  But that was impossible.

  He could, however, help one, but he needed the mother ship’s direct link to do so.

  He weaved as he moved to the mother ship and his pod. If they knew what he was intending to do, they would put a stop to it, but he visited the mother ship often enough with his plant samples not to raise suspicion.

  The mother ship was a living organism. It consumed what Centaurians did not use. It adapted to what they needed it to be. It provided nourishment and housing. When needed, the ship also stored, analyzed, and manipulated the data fed into it. Without the Centaurians, the mother ship could not live, and it was because of the ship that the Centaurians had thrived. Now it processed the humans, who also kept the ship nourished.

  Once aboard he determined the location of his parents and avoided those areas. The last thing he wanted was for his parents to see him while he was wasted. He knew that he should not have indulged so much, but he felt better even if he had consumed twice as many dandelions as he had ever previously consumed.

  The yellow caps of the dandelion were a narcotic for Centaurians, and as far as Bilal knew, he was the only one who had ever figured it out. He was definitely the only Centaurian to be indulging in it. It wasn’t as if Earth 2 had weeds.

  Bilal unsuccessfully tried to move gracefully so he wouldn’t draw attention, but he decided he was being paranoid. He had every right to be on the mother ship. He had several samples that he needed the ship to process, and no one knew it was for his own purposes.

  Bilal went to a level where the ship’s receptors were located. There were several other Centaurians connected to the ship for various reasons, and he ignored them. Bilal slipped his body into one of the niches and extended his tentacle until he was linked with the ship. The ship felt warm and comforting, the familiar humming undercurrent putting him at ease.

  Bilal allowed his filaments to push from his tentacles and communicated his needs. He retrieved several samples he had stored within his body and passed them to the ship. One of them was some of the ovum he had collected from the human female. She was a bit older but still of childbearing age.

  Bilal knew that he could not procreate with a human. Not directly …

  He located Raj’s sperm cells, fed them to the ship, and monitored every step as it performed the relatively simple task of impregnating the egg. Once the cells began to multiply, Bilal extracted samples of his DNA and spliced it into the developing egg. It aborted immediately, which is why he needed the ship. He programmed the ship to make his cells adapt.

  That was the ship’s purpose. It hadn’t been the Centaurians that had created the end of mankind. It had been the mother ship. The Centaurians in their ignorance had no idea that it
was happening until it was too late and someone had programmed the ship to stop adapting. By that time, however, most humans had been infected by the alien cells, which had been carried through the mother ship’s connection to the earth—the signposts.

  The alien cells lay dormant in humans, and they needed to be reprocessed annually to confirm that the cells did not come back to “life.” If that happened, it would wipe out the remaining humans. It meant that the mother ship could never leave the humans. The Centaurian’s nomad existence had come to an abrupt end in an attempt to pay their debt to mankind.

  Bilal waited anxiously for the ship to adapt his cells to that of the humans. When the fertilized egg began to thrive, he marveled at the new life form. It multiplied rapidly as human eggs did, but because of his alien DNA, it happened at an even greater pace. He had known that his cells would dominate, but he didn’t want that. He slowed the rate and manipulated them further until many of his traits remained dormant.

  It only took a few days. When it was completed, Bilal retrieved the egg and stored it. He wasn’t sure how long it would be viable outside of a mother’s womb and wasn’t exactly sure why he had done this in the first place. Now that he was no longer wasted, it seemed like an extreme and potentially dangerous thing to do. But each time he marveled at the life form that he had created, he knew that it was too late to undo it. He was incapable of turning off the life he had started it.

  But he would if she didn’t want it.

  He would destroy what was created if she wouldn’t accept it.

  Chapter 9

  ~Decisions and Consequences~

  As Carmella lay curled on the porch, eyes glazed in grief, she felt something soft and warm rub against her legs. The tears had stopped some time ago, but she was still unable to pull herself together. The depression ran so deeply that she couldn’t stand.

  Her eyes moved to the sight of a wolf lying against her legs. It wasn’t Wolf. The she-bitch? She looked at Carmella and whined. Carmella reached out her hands, and the wolf licked them. Carmella felt her eyes sting with renewed tears, only this time it wasn’t because of grief.

  ~***~

  When Wolf awakened, he groggily ignored the chicken butts as he stumbled out the door and began sniffing around the yard. It was a long time before he was satisfied that the alien was gone. He marked the porch with several smelly streams of piss and tried to mark inside the house, but Carmella drew the line and wouldn’t let him. Only then did he drink and eat.

  Carmella could see by Wolf’s panting that he was exhausted. Wolf came to where she was rocking in her porch chair. He whined tiredly and then rested his head in her lap.

  “Poor baby.” She rubbed between his ears as he sighed and fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Wolf and his wife stayed for nearly a week, longer than he had ever stayed before. It was nice having him help her herd again. At night he slept on the porch and watched the fields and woods intently, and every day he circled the house and barn repeatedly marking his territory. Carmella wondered at his endless supply of pee, and soon the yard began to take on a strong musky odor.

  He took great pains to mark the yard and to make sure his was the dominant smell. Whenever the she-wolf peed, he would immediately pee over hers.

  Carmella cackled. “He’s a chauvinist, isn’t he, girl?”

  Carmella truly cared for the she-wolf, and she named her Girl. Sometimes it took pain to bring family closer, and she guessed she had proven herself to the female.

  Running low on dog food, she decided to make a run into town. Both wolves climbed into the truck. Girl was skittish, but Wolf stuck his head out the window. Girl followed suit and began to relax and enjoy the ride.

  In town, Carmella got some supplies and decided to hit the Harley Dealership for another motorcycle. She didn’t know much about motorcycles or “hogs,” but she selected one that wasn’t too big and hoped that once she gassed it, it would run. She rolled it up a metal ramp into the back of the truck while the wolves chased down some squirrels and had a quick snack. Afterwards, they returned to the farm.

  As she pulled the truck to its position on the side of the house, Wolf gave her a swift lick in the face. He jumped to the ground, sniffed the air, and headed for the woods. Girl looked from her mate to her mother-in-law indecisively.

  Carmella held her breath. Would she stay?

  Evidently Wolf knew that she would follow him because he didn’t look behind him. After giving Carmella one last look, Girl followed her mate.

  Carmella grimly went about her task of putting away her supplies, unloading the motorcycle, siphoning out any old gas, and cleaning everything well before she filled it with fresh fuel. She climbed onto the bike and started it on the first try.

  She triple-checked that her guns were loaded and then checked the animals. When that was done, Carmella returned to the house and sank onto her couch. She stared into the empty space before her, lowered her head into her hands, and wept.

  ~***~

  A few nights later Carmella had a nightmare.

  She dreamed she was sleeping in her bed and heard the sound of her front door opening despite being securely locked. She reached for her gun, but when she looked up a shadowy figure was in her doorway. She screamed and fired off a shot, but the shadow moved quickly and pinned her to her bed.

  That was all she remembered of the dream. The next morning she awoke and cuddled comfortably in her bed, the memory of her nightmare fading as the sun shone through the windows.

  “Damn!” Carmella jumped out of bed. She had overslept. She had to milk the cow and collect the eggs. The animals needed to be fed—

  She rubbed her side when a dull ache bloomed in her belly. It wasn’t time for her period. She would take some ibuprofen later. Carmella made up her bed and splashed her face, brushed her teeth, and used the slop bucket. After dressing, she decided to save breakfast for later and went about her chores.

  Carmella had an odd feeling while she did her work. She looked over her shoulders often. She couldn’t understand why it felt as if someone was coming toward her even though she neither heard nor saw anything. She thought briefly of that alien, but the alien no longer scared her. It certainly would have killed her or taken her by now if that was its plan. She shrugged off the feeling and continued with her chores.

  Back in the house she cracked two eggs to make scrambled eggs, but the gelatinous yolks made her ill and she threw them out. Instead she made a cup of hot tea and nibbled on day-old bread. She didn’t feel like baking today. Oversleeping had completely screwed up her schedule. She was supposed to do laundry but didn’t feel like doing that either. She didn’t even feel like reading. Carmella climbed the stairs wearily and decided to take a nap.

  When she woke, she felt better and was ravenously hungry. She opened a can of Spam because the stuff never went bad and made herself a fried Spam-wich with the last of the bread. She felt tons better, and the queasy feeling in her stomach went away.

  ~***~

  “Did you just return from Earth, Bilal?” First Mother asked.

  Bilal resisted turning yellow. “Yes.”

  His First Mother followed as he headed for his living quarters. “You have been going there quite a lot.”

  “I like Earth,” he said. “And there is much to discover.”

  “Bilal, your fathers and mother and I have become worried. You seem preoccupied. And also …” A tentacle appeared, and she held dandelion caps in them.

  Bilal’s body turned black. “You’ve been in my quarters?”

  “I was worried. Bilal, you promised that you wouldn’t use this again. Is that what you do on Earth?”

  “No! I mean, yes, but I don’t do it all the time. Mother-Mina, you had no right to invade my personal space.”

  “Yes, I did. I had every right.”

  Bilal relaxed his body. “Throw that away, Mother. I haven’t consumed any of it in months.”

  His First Mother sighed.

  “Do you wa
nt to check me? You can. I’m not lying.” It had been three months since he had last indulged on the night he had created the embryo. Now it was a fetus; he was a fetus. Bilal had created a boy. He felt pleased and resisted turning red with pleasure. He didn’t need to have his First Mother suspicious. As much as he wanted to share his news, he couldn’t. His family would shun what he had done. Maybe it was wrong, but when he was doing it, it had seemed right. Even now when he was again thinking straight, it still didn’t seem completely wrong.

  “You’re forbidden to return to Earth,” his First Mother said.

  Bilal tensed. “What?”

  She formed several tentacles that waved in the air like snakes. “Your fathers have decided and I agree. You return hurt, you are indulging in this poison, and you have been moody and difficult to communicate with. You have let your commitments at home fall by the wayside!”

  “Mother, no! You don’t understand. I have to go back to Earth!”

  “Even now you only care about that planet, when I am telling you that your behavior has been poor. You should be focusing on your attitude and behavior, Bilal!”

  “I will. But give me another chance.”

  “Bilal! You speak like a human! It is done. You, above all should know that decisions like this are not arbitrary. I cannot take it back. It has been decided. You will focus on your position as a dignitary within our own kind.”

  Bilal knew her words were true.

  He had fucked up.

  ~***~

  “What is the problem Bilal?” Lawrence asked. “Man, I gotta tell you that you’ve been stranger than normal lately.”

  Bilal, Raj, Lawrence, and Lawrence’s girlfriend-of-the-week were in Lawrence’s house.

  Bilal shuddered and gave Treya a long look until the human female made an excuse to leave. She didn’t like him anyways. Bilal wished that Lawrence would date Lydia again. She was friendly, touched him without fear, and allowed him to touch her. Treya once threw up when he’d wrapped a tentacle of greeting around her wrist. He didn’t like her.