Aliena

by Piers Anthony

  She quickly adapted, resembling a pleading puppy.

  “I will show you how to make an Internet search, purely as a skill you may need to use some day. I am not inquiring what you might wish to search for. That is not my business.”

  “Do not inquire,” she agreed.

  They went to a computer terminal at the rear of the car, leaving Brom with Martha. “And I thought she was shy and innocent,” Brom remarked.

  “She was, until her week with you. You transformed her. You taught her emotions, and the real world, and unleashed her phenomenal potential. All we can do now is support and protect her, and maybe enjoy the ride.”

  “I love the ride.”

  They completed the train trip, and resumed their honeymoon travels, returning home two weeks after starting. But Aliena was not about to relax. “The grandparents,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “This body is the child of two people who surely care about her welfare. I must meet with them.”

  He had forgotten for the moment. He tried, suspecting it was futile. “Aliena, that may not be wise. They probably regard their daughter as dead.”

  “But not their grandchild.”

  Brom was dubious, as were Sam and Martha, but Aliena was determined. The records had the information, and she had aptly researched them, and the parents turned out to live within a few hundred miles. They were contacted by message and told that the person inhabiting their daughter’s body wanted to meet them. They refused absolutely.

  Aliena phoned them. “I am the person your daughter enabled to live. I want to meet--” She broke off, looking at the phone in perplexity. Grandfather had hung up on her.

  “We must go there personally,” she decided.

  “Aliena--” Brom started, knowing that his position was tacitly supported by Sam and Martha.

  “Copulate distantly,” she snapped. “Must I go alone?”

  They went with her. Martha called ahead. “She is determined to meet you,” said to the other party. “We are unable to stop her. With luck you can make the encounter brief.”

  The limo pulled up in front of the house, which was a handsome stucco residence in the suburb. Martha hurried ahead and rang the bell. She gesticulated as she talked to the man.

  They were admitted to the Smythe residence. The man was of middle age, handsome in his solidity. The woman was portly, with long dark hair, bearing a distinct resemblance to Aliena’s body.

  “Be seated,” Johnson Smythe said brusquely. “I am stating on the record that this encounter is occurring under duress. We lost our daughter and do not wish to see her body used elsewhere. Your presence here is unkind. Please say your say and depart promptly.”

  They left it to Aliena. This was her show. She could be phenomenally persuasive when she set her mind to it, as they had discovered.

  “Mister Smythe, I am an alien brain in your daughter’s body, though I ask you not to reveal this elsewhere. You may be repelled by me, but there are three things I must ask of you, and if you refuse I will not bother you further.”

  Brom hoped that they took her reference to alien figuratively: a human brain from elsewhere.

  “You have the nerve to ask favors?” Johnson asked angrily.

  “You may hate me if you choose,” Aliena said evenly. “But I owe you enormously, for donating your daughter’s wonderful body to be my host.”

  “We don’t hate you,” Rebecca Smythe said. “We just don’t want to associate with you. The memory of our dear daughter torments us enough already. To see her body animated by another person is agonizing.”

  “It’s as if she returns as a zombie,” Johnson said.

  Aliena looked at Brom. “Zombie?”

  “A dead body reanimated but still dead,” he said. “A thing of horror.”

  “That is fair,” Aliena said, nodding. “I myself am nothing to you, Mister and Misses Smythe. But I am pregnant with your granddaughter. She is of your blood, as I am not. She must have grandparents.”

  The two were plainly taken aback. They had not thought of this aspect, and of course had not known of her pregnancy.

  “Don’t you have competent help?” Johnson asked after a moment. “Doctor, nurse, babysitting? If you are important enough to rate a caretaker and a bodyguard, and have a husband, you can surely afford such details.”

  “An alien mother is not enough. I have no experience of this nature. The child must be among those who will love her, as I know you will. She is your daughter’s child,” Aliena said, her voice quivering. There was a tear in her eye. How much of this was art Brom couldn’t tell, but it was devastatingly effective. Aliena learned all lessons well.

  Brom saw the man’s granite facade begin to crack. The woman’s icy reserve started to melt.

  “What do you want of us?” Johnson asked.

  “Please, I want you to name her.”

  It was like a hammer blow, knocking them both back emotionally. Names were potent.

  “What else?” Rebecca asked.

  “To let her be with you, when I must be away from her. To take care of her, as you did your daughter. To make her be like your daughter, to share her background, her religion, her heritage. As your daughter would have raised her. She deserves that.”

  They were both shaken, visibly weakening. “And?” Johnson asked.

  “And to teach me to sing. Your daughter’s fine voice should not be wasted. I want to do justice by her, too, to the extent I am able. To thank her in my fashion for the gift she gave me. Please, help me.”

  It was as if the man slowly crumbled into sand, and the woman dissolved into jelly. Rebecca got up and came to Aliena, putting her arms around her. Johnson followed, and put his arms around them both. The three wept together.

  After that it was simply a matter of ironing out the details.

  Next day Aliena visited them again, for her first singing lesson. She knew how to sing, of course, but wanted to do it their way. She learned to read music instantly, amazing Rebecca. Her voice was perfect.

  “I think the body knows,” she said. “Maybe it is in the bran stem, enabling me to follow where it leads.”

  “Oh, I wish you could sing in our choir, as Becky did.” The host had been named after her mother, then renamed after the transplant. “She even soloed on occasion. Music was her life.”

  “I will do that.” No one made any objection; this continued to be Aliena’s show. They took hotel rooms and remained in the area.

  Two days later Aliena accompanied the Smiths to their local church. Rebecca drew the pastor aside as Sam, Martha, and Brom took inconspicuous seats at the rear.

  The pastor had been briefed, with no reference to alien creatures. “We have a special guest in the choir, today,” he announced. “She may look familiar to you, but she is not. As many of you remember, Becky’s brain was lost, and her body was donated for use by another person. This is that person, visiting us this one time, honoring Becky’s memory.”

  There was curiosity and evident nervousness in the small congregation. Many were not at all sure about this, and some seemed revolted. But Aliena took her place in the choir, lovely in her conservative uniform, and sang in the soprano section, her bell-like tone audible among the voices.

  Later in the service she soloed, singing the selection for the day.

  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

  That saves a wretch like me.

  I once was lost but now am found

  Was blind but now I see.

  It was absolutely, compellingly beautiful, and seemed highly relevant. If she had not won them over before, she did so now. There was a low murmur of appreciation. It was as if Becky was back.

  After the service she stood with the pastor and thanked the church members for their tolerance for the stranger among them that she was. The parishioners were gratified and moved. Now they knew that Becky had not completely died.

  “I think that’s a rehearsal for her coming out,” Sam murmured to Brom.

/>   “She’ll pass,” Brom agreed.

  They returned to their town. In due course the Smythes pulled up stakes and moved, so as to be closer to their coming granddaughter. It was clear that they had not only been won over, but smitten. Aliena welcomed them, seeming genuinely glad for their company. Brom doubted it was an act. Once she learned feeling, she practiced it fully.

  A month after the first visit to the space station, they went again, theoretically for Aliena’s routine checkup. But there was more on the docket.

  “This time we contact my home planet,” she told them. “I am now established in my native host, and it is time to tell my people.”

  This was news to Brom. “But your home planet is a hundred light years away!” he protested. “You can’t talk with them.”

  “Our technology is further progressed than yours,” she reminded him gently. “There is instant contact I can evoke. I need to do this, because only the home world can release the secrets of the ship for your use.”

  “Secrets?”

  “Like one third light speed travel. Advanced machines. And the history of our species.”

  “And you will share such things with us?”

  “Of course. But my people will need reassurance that your people are worthy of the information. I will assure them. But it has been three centuries, and they may have changed their minds. I do not know whether any of their other space missions have reported back. We might be the first one.”

  This was a startling new perspective. The starfish, too, had their uncertainties. “I can appreciation their caution.” He did not say more lest he run afoul of a sensitivity.

  They arrived at the spaceport, entered the shuttle, passed imperceptibly through stasis, and were at the Wheel. This time the Machine Doctor did not argue with Aliena; it merely verified that her pregnancy was normal for her species and she was in good health.

  There was a second machine. “This is important,” she confided. “I alone have the key to activate immediate communication, and they will know I am authentic. But the folk of the home world have not directly encountered me or any earthly person. We can not be quite sure how they will react. They may choose not to release the codes we need to progress further.”

  Brom hugged her and kissed her. “How can they not love you?”

  She laughed. “I love your foolishness. My natural form would be esthetic to them, not this one.” Then she disengaged and stepped into the machine.

  There followed a singing and whistling dialogue. Contact had been established!

  Then Aliena stepped out. “They are somewhat paranoid,” she said with a wry smile. “They fear that if they give away their secrets, Earth will use that information against them. They trust me, but not the human species.” Her mouth quirked. “I am not pleased.”

  “Don’t give them the silent treatment!” Brom said.

  She did not laugh. “They require reassurance of a nature I prefer not to give. But I agreed to ask.”

  “What is that?”

  “They want you to tell them.”

  “Me?” Brom asked, startled. “I’ll be glad to. I’ll remind them that trade is more profitable than war.”

  Sam and Martha kept straight faces.

  Aliena remained serious. “That is not enough.”

  “I don’t get it,” Brom said. “Do they want my input or don’t they?”

  “They want to scan your mind.”

  “Uh-oh,” Sam murmured.

  “You mean, to read my thoughts? They’re welcome to them. If I look at you, they’ll get a mindful of hot passion.”

  “They will get your entire life. You will have no secrets, no privacy. You will be undressed in a public place.”

  “Naked on stage,” Martha murmured, translating.

  That gave Brom pause. What would starfish think of his life history? Of Lucy’s suicide and his reaction? Of his private fury with the sects that had stolen his parents’ lives? His boyhood naughtiness? There was some ugly stuff there. “Is there physical pain? Danger to my well being?”

  “No. They merely read your complete mindset. You will feel nothing physically. But mentally you will know that they have fathomed all. It may change you.”

  That did make him uncomfortable. And yet this was important. The aliens wanted to be reassured that he bore them no ill will, and had no intention of doing them harm. After all, he loved Aliena, and they were her kin. If they read his mind, they would know.

  What was appropriate? He could not make up his mind.

  “Do not do it,” Aliena said tightly. “It will be the ultimate violation of your privacy.”

  “But if I do not, will they release the information we want?”

  “They will not. But I will reason with them. There must be compromise.”

  His decision came in a flash. “Fornicate distantly,” he said with a smile, and stepped into the machine.

  He felt the alien environment take hold. It was like the stasis field, except that this was a thoughts field. It was not passive; it poked into long forgotten crannies of his mind, like turning over rocks and studying the bugs beneath them.

  He stood at a street corner as a child, observing a land crab walking there. It raised a claw to him, whether of welcome or warning he was unsure. Then a truck passed by, and its massive wheel flattened the crab, and it was no more. Brom was appalled that such an animated creature could so suddenly and thoughtlessly be destroyed by a power that took no note of its existence. It had simply been in the wrong plane and time. Could he have rescued it, had he anticipated its fate? He wasn’t sure, because it would have been hard to pick up bare-handed. How could he have helped a creature that might have pinched off a digit? Yet he was sorry for its passing.

  There was a small pine tree in a patch of forest, longleaf, with leaves (needles) as long as fifteen inches. He had noticed it only in passing. Then one day he discovered it crushed by the big falling branch of a dead oak tree. The oak had not intended to kill it, and had gained nothing by the act; it was already dead. Sheer blind mischance had caused the branch to fall directly on the little pine. Thus was its life snuffed out by a heedless universe. He mourned that little tree, though he had never joyed in it alive. It was the cosmic unfairness of its extinction that bothered him.

  He stood silently, observing a wild rabbit. It was cautious, but when he made no hostile move it came closer, nibbling blades of grass. It was such a tremulous little thing, its pink nose and whiskers quivering continuously. It ate its way almost to his feet. Could he pet it? Surely not. Then, alerted by something he couldn’t sense, it scampered away, not hopping but running, its tail flashing white. He was sorry to see it go, but also glad to have had it come so close. There was something precious about interacting with a wild creature rather than a tame on.

  And Lucy. After Brom’s parents got religion and died, he was wary of religion. He could take it or leave it himself, but hated any overcommitment. When a girl tried to bring him into her religion, he backed off. When he foraged for company in a local social group he shied away from religious types. He tried a secular online dating service, and the computer paired him with Lucy. She was pretty, smart, and motivated. What was the catch? Why was she fishing in these waters, instead of being already married and pregnant? When they met physically her appeal was confirmed; she practically radiated sociability. So he asked her: “Why haven’t you been long-since snapped up by someone else?” She answered him directly: “I’m a militant atheist. I don’t put that in my description because it greatly limits the field when it may not even matter, but I’m not shy about it. If you start preaching at me, I’ll tell you what I think of subverting your otherwise decent mind to an imaginary higher power. I will ask you if you believe in fairies too. In ghosts. In Heaven and Hell—many people believe in the first but not the second. They are hypocrites. Religion is a farce. I will ask why you want to cop out morally, depending on an ancient text, instead of making your own ethical decisions. Why--” She was cut off b
y his kiss. She would never get religion. Six months later she moved in with him, and they were happy together. Until his doubts surfaced. Was she really right for him? How he cursed his doubt, when it was too late.

  And Aliena. He had not yet understood her full nature when they went to the beach; he simply knew that she loved the water and he wanted to please her. Then she had sung and drawn him in, and they had made love in the washing waves. He loved her absolutely from that moment. When he learned that she was literally alien, well, that was what he loved in her, and it made no difference. She was truly a wild creature. She had become his desire, his future, his universe. She was simply Aliena. But now he had to ask himself: was she really right for him? She was far beyond atheism, being literally an alien creature. Could he make a life with her? This time he had not allowed his doubt to take over; he had crushed it like the crab.

  There were other memories and impressions, crowded together, overlapping, interacting, some pleasant, some painful, some neutral. These were just samples in a throng. He realized as it happened that this survey was more of feeling than of information; they wanted to know how he felt about everything, especially living things. Including Aliena, for she was one of them. Again he wondered: did he belong with her? Then he had a surge of reaction. Don’t let the doubt return from the dead like a zombie. He had been through this before, and lost Lucy because of it. Damned if he would make the same mistake again.

  Then it was over. Aware that he was dismissed, he stepped out of the machine.

  There was Aliena, hesitant as she had been when he had first learned her true nature from Sam. Now he knew why she had opposed the memory survey. Memories were not passive things; they were called up, assimilated, and re-filed changed, if only by perspective. His mind had been taken apart and put together again, theoretically the same, but not quite identical. He had a new awareness, a slight change of outlook. She feared he would no longer love her.

  “Ali ali ena,” he sang.

  She sounded her love note and flung herself at him.

  Sam and Martha bumped hands. They too were relieved.

  Now Aliena stepped back into the machine. And emerged almost immediately.