Adaptation: book I

by Pepper Pace

  When Carmella felt the loss of his lips on hers, she opened her eyes. After a moment she reached up and captured a few strands of his hair, feeling Bilal shudder as if her hands had stroked him. Her heart raced even faster. “Bilal, I …” She lightly bit her lips. “Bilal, I know how you feel … because I feel the same way about you.”

  Bilal exhaled. “Carmella, what does this mean for us?”

  “I don’t know Bilal, but I don’t think we should try to figure it all out at once. Is that okay?”

  He nodded. “Yes. We must not figure this out all at once.”

  He wrapped his arms around her body and pulled her into a hug, holding onto her tightly. It was like wrapping his tentacles around someone he loved but better, a million times better.

  “I want you to know that I want you,” he whispered.

  Chapter 24

  ~The Truth~

  Carmella stiffened and pulled back from his embrace. “What? Bilal, I think we need to take things slow. I mean, this is a lot for me. I never thought I’d ever come this far.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Go slow? We are in a place that I could have never dreamed. I wanted for you not to hate me. And now you tell me that you care for me as much as I care for you. I can’t ask for anything more. Slow? This is anything but slow. I’m content, Carmella. I will stay in this spot with you for as long as you need me to.”

  She relaxed and smiled. He wasn’t thinking about sex, but she was. What did that mean?

  As they ate their lunch, Carmella decided to find out more information about the man she was now living with. “So, how old are you?”

  He finished chewing his beans. “I was six Earth years when we first arrived in the mother ship. To you, it was twenty-two years ago, but in actuality we were here five years before that observing and learning about your world. Your scientists knew and began communicating with us even then. When we finally arrived in the sky, you were told that it was a ‘mysterious’ appearance. But it wasn’t. We were invited.”

  So the world conspiracy was five years in the planning, she thought. And all we invited was disaster.

  She sighed and suppressed her mounting anxiety. “So you are thirty- two, thirty-three?”

  “Thirty-two Earth years.”

  “Good.” She smiled. “I was afraid you were underage.”

  He inhaled and exhaled deeply. “In my culture you are not an adult until you leave your parents’ home and begin your own household with your spouses.”

  “Spouses?”

  “Yes, Centaurian marriages usually consist of two males and two females.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “We had limited space on the mother ship, and out of necessity families combined. Some untraditional families have developed since we arrived that contain only one male and one female because we have more space and are adapting again. A Centaurian can live for several hundred years. So in the eyes of my people, I am still a child.”

  “So you still live with your parents?”

  “I technically live with my First Mother. She has separated from the family unit, and I joined her. But I have my own quarters.”

  She couldn’t read his emotions. His face was peaceful, and his skin was pink like Pepto-Bismol. She wondered exactly what pink meant. “Do you … have a girlfriend?”

  “No,” he said. “Centaurians do not socialize in the way that humans do.” He finished his beans and rice and got up for a glass of water. “Centaurians go to the mother ship and share with the ship, and that is entertainment, socializing, even sex.”

  “What?”

  He sat drank, happy that she was interested in his life. “We don’t experience sex in the same way that you do, and it doesn’t have the same meaning. Relationships are based on forming a family unit. Procreation is considered technical more than pleasurable. How we share pleasure is by hugging.”

  Carmella blinked. “Hugging.”

  “We twine our tentacles around people we feel fondness for.”

  “So, when we hugged, that was very intimate to you.” She felt goose bumps forming on her arms.

  “It’s hard to explain. Intertwining your tentacles isn’t forbidden or done discreetly. It’s fully accepted by all ages. But I will say that it is more meaningful for us than a hug would be to you.”

  She cocked her head at him. “It’s sex?”

  He shrugged. “It’s akin to sex in that it involves pleasure through contact. For example, one of my mothers would rub the nodule that would cause my tentacle to extend if she wanted to wrap her tentacle around me. Raj and Lawrence would do that to me when they said I was bummed.”

  “Ah, okay. I think I understand.” She gathered the dishes and placed them in the sink to wash later. “You miss them, don’t you?”

  He looked at his hand on the table. “Yes. I’m not like other Centaurians. I find little interest in the things that they do. Because I am more interested in behaving the way a human would, I am shunned by my family and my kind.”

  She sat. “I’m sorry.”

  He met her eyes. “It doesn’t mean anything to me as long as they leave me to roam. It’s why I’m allowed to do what is forbidden for others, to get me out of sight.”

  She shook her head. “So you’re saying that Centaurians don’t come to Earth anymore?”

  “It is forbidden. No one is allowed on Earth.”

  “I don’t understand. Why?”

  Bilal didn’t answer.

  Carmella leaned forward. “Humans have to want to come back to Earth. Why is it forbidden? Why do you collect us remaining humans like we’re stray cats that need to go to a shelter? I mean, I’m home, I’m happy. But I have to hide from Centaurians!”

  He met her eyes, surprised at how quickly she had become hostile toward him again. How much distrust still remained? “Carmella, you don’t understand. The world that they remembered doesn’t exist here anymore. That is found on Earth 2. There are schools and homes and jobs …”

  “So? We had that here before …” She turned away.

  “We’re trying to return a sense of normalcy. Humans were dying, and we were frantic to find a reason why and to put a stop to it. We did.”

  Carmella turned to him but didn’t look up.

  “Some humans were resistant to the illness. They got sick, but it didn’t consume them. We manipulated and defeated the illness for those who couldn’t fight it. Then we brought them to a planet that was very similar to Earth.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Bilal, why didn’t you just return everyone to Earth?”

  “Because there was no way we could monitor if what we had done was good enough. We keep humans healthy. We monitor for illnesses. There is no more cancer or AIDS. A human’s life expectancy has nearly doubled. We take care of the humans …” He saw a cold look in Carmella’s eyes. “What would you have us do? Return the humans to a lawless world with no sense of direction? There would have been mass havoc! Humans are perfect and yet flawed in so many ways. Even now, you hate that we gave you a chance.”

  “Because we are not yours to rule!”

  “We are not rulers.”

  “Who created the rules, Bilal? Ultimately?”

  “We have a committee made up of both human and Centaurians.”

  “Why aren’t the humans returned here after all of these years?” She saw his skin shimmer from pink to black.

  “Because they can’t. They wouldn’t survive here because of the atmosphere. In order to breathe on Earth 2, humans had to be modified.”

  “Oh my God!”

  He reached for her hand. “Carmella …”

  She snatched her hand back and stood, her eyes dark and accusatory.

  “Carmella, please listen to me. I didn’t like it either, but there was no choice. When we tried to colonize on Earth, the rebels nearly destroyed everything. We had no choice but to find a safe place for the survivors.”

  “It’s funny how you remember it in that way. I remember prison camps whe
re people were forced to comply with you!” She turned and ran up the stairs.

  Bilal heard her slam the door to her bedroom.

  He didn’t know what to do. He was hurt by her words and at a loss for how to make this right. He understood completely how she felt and had argued this same point with his parents. But this was bigger than him.

  How could he let her know that this was bigger than him?

  ~***~

  Bilal gave her some time and then went to her room. “Carmella, may I come in?”

  “The door is open.”

  He entered and saw Carmella sitting on her windowsill looking out into the world, her eyes red from crying.

  “It will never be the same,” she whispered through trembling lips. “I thought, somehow I thought that it would someday return. Earth is dead now.”

  He looked down and felt the stinging in his own eyes. “I’m sorry. I hate what has happened to Earth. I love Earth, and I’ve wanted so badly to be a part of a world before this destruction. But there is no way that I could have ever lived the lives that you humans lived. I am on the outside always looking in. My friends and peers were all humans. I grew up with pop culture, listening to the music and wishing I was like them and not me.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “You’re not ever going to modify me, do you hear me? Ever. I’m never going to Earth Two.”

  Bilal nodded. “I understand.”

  ~***~

  Bilal was in the front yard hanging Raj’s clothes as icy winds whistled around him, and he wished he had taken time to put on a coat. When he returned shivering to the house, Carmella was settling down on the chaise lounge to nurse their son.

  He felt warmer at the sight of his family and stopped shivering when he saw Carmella’s face, her features smoother and no longer as hostile. Maybe everything would be okay.

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Carmella said. “You don’t deserve that. I just don’t want to discuss the past.”

  “That is fine by me. We have other things more important to discuss.”

  “Such as?”

  “Winter is coming, and there’s not enough wood. We are low on powdered juice, tea, and rice. We could also use more canned soup.”

  “I’ve pretty much used up the supplies around here. We’d have to go far away to find more. Do you know how to get diesel fuel from holding tanks?”

  “No.”

  “Then I have to go with you.”

  “What about Raj?”

  “We’ll bring him with us. The truck has heat. He’ll be fine.”

  “Carmella.”

  “The alternative is that you stay here with Raj while I go alone.”

  Bilal shook his head. “No. We’ll all go.”

  Neither realized how disastrous that decision would be.

  Chapter 25

  ~Shopping~

  Carmella made a long list of items they would need. “I think I’m pretty self-sufficient,” she said. “I preserve fruits and vegetables, hunt and fish, and I think I’ve done pretty well without having to go into town too often. Hell, when there was civilization, I’d go to the grocery story every single week and sometimes twice a week.”

  “It’s admirable, but there are other ways to live,” Bilal said.

  Carmella scowled. “Like on fake Earth.”

  “I don’t mean on Earth Two. There are ways that you can make electricity without running a generator. Solar power is an easy conversion. There is also organic energy, which is what we Centaurians use. I can convert the house to use solar energy, and you can harvest the energy from the sun to heat your water and your house.”

  Carmella rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure. We’ll be able to find dozens of solar panels lying around.” She starred “diesel fuel” and “kerosene” on the list. “Until then, we’ll need fossil fuel. My truck can use diesel or kerosene, though it prefers diesel. Kerosene makes it ping and smoke.”

  “Could the generator use kerosene, too?” Bilal asked.

  “It did when I ran out of diesel,” Carmella said. “But it nearly smoked out the cows and the chickens when the old thing decided to start.” She underlined “car seat.”

  “I have seen them inside cars,” Bilal said.

  “That will be the first item we get.”

  They loaded Carmella’s idling Ford F250 Diesel while Raj was buckled securely in the middle of the front seat. Raj looked alarmed at being left in the foreign environment without his parents but smiled whenever he saw them through the windows. Bilal wedged several empty metal barrels onto the truck bed, stowing the hand pump and two eight-foot fuel hoses in the truck box mounted behind the cab.

  Carmella climbed into the truck, and Bilal took his place in the passenger seat.

  Wolf whined to come along.

  Carmella rolled down the window. “No, Wolf, not this time. I need you and Girl to stay to keep an eye on the animals.”

  Wolf whined but retreated.

  Carmella felt strangely excited. She, Bilal, and baby Raj were going on a family outing.

  It all felt so normal.

  She turned the truck and headed down the driveway that crisp December day, bulbous nimbostratus clouds drifting overhead. Snow flurries had already fallen on two separate occasions but thus far hadn’t stuck to the ground.

  Raj concentrated simultaneously on the movement of the truck, Raj’s busy hands and feet, and Carmella’s joyful expression.

  “So when can you make my house solar?” Carmella asked.

  “When I have all of the materials, I can do it this spring.”

  She glanced at him before returning her eyes to the road. “Knock yourself out, Bilal. You have five years here, right? It would be nice not to worry about freezing to death in my old age. I can’t see myself siphoning diesel from underground gas tanks when I’m eighty.”

  Her nonchalant words hurt him more than he could describe. Carmella growing old alone was not something he wanted to imagine. He looked out his window. “I will make it happen.”

  As they rode down a country lane, Bilal’s intrigue overwhelmed his sadness. He liked the way the scenery looked as they drove past houses and businesses. Some places had been burned down, most likely during the time of the riots when humans had rebelled against those who had chosen to live instead of giving in to the illness that was killing them.

  Carmella turned onto the highway, which was littered with burned out and abandoned cars, and weaved the truck through them until she slowed to a stop beside a green minivan with dark tinted windows. “I’ll bet there’s a car seat inside that mommy van.” She opened the glove box and took out a hammer. “Go shopping.”

  Bilal took the hammer. “Shopping?”

  “That hammer is your credit card,” Carmella said. “Never leave home without it.”

  “I do not understand,” Bilal said.

  “If the doors are locked, you’ll have to break a window to get inside.”

  “Oh.”

  Bilal tried the driver’s door and found it locked.

  “Come on, man,” Carmella said. “Smash the window. There’s a Target store I’d like to check out before it gets too dark.”

  Bilal smiled. She called me “man,” he thought.

  Bilal smashed the window with the hammer, reached in, and opened the door from the inside. He ignored the withered corpse leaning on the steering wheel in front of him and unlocked the back door. He found a dusty yet serviceable blue car seat in the middle row, unhooked it, and brought it over to the truck.

  “I don’t want that one,” Carmella said. “It’s the wrong color.”

  Bilal froze. “What?”

  “I’m kidding, Bilal,” Carmella said. “Get in, strap Raj in, and let’s go.”

  Bilal unbuckled Raj and handed him to Carmella, slid in and attached the car seat between them, and secured Raj into the seat. “I wish I could have cleaned the seat first.”

  “There wasn’t a … passenger in it, was there?”

  Bilal sho
ok his head.

  Carmella smiled at Raj. “Now you can see where we’re going.” She continued weaving through the unmoving traffic. “The Target was ransacked during the rebellions, but I remember seeing some baby items that were left untouched.” She supposed that rioters and looters didn’t have babies. She certainly didn’t when she had first scoured the area for food and supplies. She glanced out of habit in the rearview mirror. As if anything might be following us. “I want to find a baby sling to make doing chores so much easier. And maybe we can find a baby swing.”

  “I could take the truck out to find solar panels,” Bilal said.

  “Do you even know how to drive?”

  He suppressed a smile. “How do you think I travel from Earth to the mother ship and to Earth Two?”

  She had not considered this. “Do you have a spaceship?”

  “A pod.”

  “I’d like to see it sometime. Where is it?”

  “You can’t see it. I returned it. It will come back for me in two and one half Earth years.”

  She squinted into the sunlight. “Oh. I thought you’d be here five years.”

  “I have to go back to make a report, and then I will return.”

  “I see.” She felt relieved and then frowned. Bilal wasn’t staying forever, and she would do well to remember that.

  Carmella pulled the truck into the Target parking lot after dodging several red shopping carts. It still felt weird to pull up at the curb and bypass the parking spaces. The glass entrance doors were nothing but crooked metal frames, and trash and broken glass littered the sidewalk.

  “There could be wild animals inside, especially since it’s growing cold,” she said. “Since you don’t know how to shoot, you carry the baby and the flashlight and I’ll keep us all covered.”

  Bilal appreciated Carmella’s caution, but he sensed no animals larger than squirrels nearby. He didn’t tell her, however. He was learning when not to speak around her. After putting the diaper bag over his shoulder, he and Raj exited the truck.