What was this? “I don’t understand.”
“I won your love, then left you to your desolation despite my promise not to. Just as Lucy did.”
“You couldn’t help it! Neither could Lucy!”
“But you can help it.”
Brom digested this. “Star has been the perfect wife. But it’s her job, not love.”
“I know her as it seems you do not. It is her job, but also love. She learned to love you because she knew it was what I wanted. Because we starfish can’t properly understand humanity without understanding love. She knew that I chose her because she was the best substitute available for me in every way, including the potential to love you. She knew that I wanted her to do everything for you that I could no longer do, being with you constantly, thrilling you with sex, and loving you. I want you to be loved. Not every starfish would do that.”
“But you love me. That’s all I want.”
“Remember when I sought the grandparents? Because I wanted Maple to be with those who loved her. I sought Star similarly, for you. I gave her to you. Are you rejecting my gift?”
“Aliena, I don’t want to be unfaithful to you! I have done the rest with Star, but you are the only one I love.”
“Brom, it is a changed situation. Star is doing the job, but she can’t do it alone. She needs a man who truly understands her nature, and supports her completely, and loves her. The way I needed you and your love. The best way you can love me is by loving her. Let yourself do it!”
“I—can’t. In time, yes, but not right now. It’s too soon.”
“You can. You will give up nothing of me; I will always be here for you. I still love you. I joy in your success and happiness. But I can’t give you sex or another child or the rest. Star can. She complements me. She is doing everything I could have done, including loving Maple.”
“Maple!” he said. “I forgot her!”
“You forgot a lot,” Aliena said sternly. “Now accept Star. Not some time in the future. She needs you now.”
The realization was crushing. “I have wronged her.”
“Not yet. Now it is time for you to abolish the shell. Let it be real, as it was with me.”
Brom knew she was right. He had been selfish in excluding Star, and it was not what was feasible or fair. He realized also that he had fallen in love with a starfish mind in a human host. Now Aliena was a starfish mind in a starfish body, no longer human, almost cynically practical. She was not the same creature. Now she had a different job to do. He would only be in her way. She was trying to let him down easy.
But Star was a starfish mind in a human body. She needed him, as Aliena no longer did. She was now closer to what he loved than Aliena herself was, ironically.
“Look at her, in the reflection,” Aliena said.
He saw Star in the wall’s reflection, standing with Maple hugging her doll. Both were tense, afraid of what was to happen, but not interfering. As Aliena had been when he learned her true nature. Star had said she would not oppose his going to Aliena—because she loved him. She would not take him against his will. It was his decision. But his departure would be utter grief for her.
She was the perfect woman in every imaginable respect. How sad that he was not the perfect man. The whole world loved her. He did not?
It was like a dam bursting apart, releasing the pent water to flood the region with emotion. He did love Star, as well as Aliena. It was right that he be with her.
He stood up. He turned to face Star. She gazed at him without expression, refusing to plead or try to influence him. She was almost painfully fair-minded.
“My soul’s going to shine like a star. . .” he sang as he walked toward her.
She sounded her Note as she gladly opened her arms to him, her tears flowing.
So did Maple, to his surprise, sounding her Note.
And so did Aliena.
Author’s Note
I am a disciplined writer. I plan ahead on my projects, so that I have a general notion what I will be working on and when it will be completed. But my ideas come randomly, often when I can’t write them, such as when I am amidst an exercise run. Yes, Aliena’s exercise runs were inspired by mine; I am 78 at this writing and indulge in a sedentary occupation, so I make sure to exercise regular to maintain my health. My runs are not very fast, but that’s not the point, revving up my body, making its systems function, burning calories, maintaining muscle instead of fat, that’s the point. The fact is, exercising the body is better for the brain than doing mental exercises. So when I get a notion while running, or showering, or eating, or catching up on chores, I work it out as far as I can in my mind, then when I can, scribble it in pencil on paper. Then when I am at my desk with the computer on, I transcribe the pencil note to a more complete typed note in my Ideas file. The computer count informs me that that file is at present more than 181,000 words long. I could reduce it by a lot if I erased notions once they have become stories or novels, but I prefer to maintain their creative history. Ideas have been accumulating for some time; the oldest notion is dated January 7, 1977 in pencil, transcribed to the file on June 14, 1989. Some ideas languish for decades; some may never be used. Some get used when I review the file, looking for a story to write on request, or something to fill in a gap in a novel. But some grab me from the outset; they will not be denied. Aliena was such a case.
It started on November 24, 2012, with 600 words summary on a notion I titled “Friend.” I had finished writing the 38th Xanth novel Board Stiff the week before and was trying to take some time off before writing a novelette “Forbidden Fruit” in Tweets, each chapter limited to 140 characters or less, for my Piers Anthony promotional effort. Promotion is a pain, but as with taking out the garbage, or answering fan mail, it has to be done. Next day I added another 400 words, naming the protagonists, and the day after that, another 700, working out her auto-immune illness and loss. Okay; the notion was complete, awaiting my convenience. Then a month later came another extended siege of notes, continuing pretty much daily through January 20013. The idea would not let go of me, expanding from story to novella to short novel. I simply had to write it.
So in February 2013 I wrote it. Many of the details I worked out did not make it into the novel, and its overall nature shifted. This is the nature of writing, which can be like traveling: you can mark where you are going on a map, but when you actually go there you encounter traffic, weather, detours and distractions that change the nature of the experience. You handle it.
Aliena was intended as a singleton piece, but by the time I finished it I saw that it could be taken as the beginning of a longer narrative. This, too, happens in writing; stories and characters can develop a will and direction of their own, and the author is obliged to fulfill their imperatives. Aliena started it, but Star is completing it. The starfish technological gifts will transform the world; shouldn’t we see some of that transformation? And what of Aliena, now running the starship as it orbits the moon; is her story over? Are there other sapient alien societies out there, not necessarily as friendly as the starfish? This is a roiling stew of notions that may not suffer itself to be ignored too long. All starting with the idea of a young man being a friend to a woman who turns out to be other than he knew.
My wife gave me a book for Christmas, Brain on Fire, by Susannah Cahalan, subtitled My Month of Madness. I realized that it was the perfect reference for what happened to Becky and then to Aliena: an immune rejection of the brain. Much of it is peripherally familiar to us, because in 2004 my wife suffered a similarly mysterious malady that turned out to be an immune rejection of the myelin sheathing around the nerves leading to her arms and legs. Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy, CIDP for short. Think of it as acid eating away the insulation around the wires in your electronic equipment, shorting them out. It put her in a wheelchair, and I had to push her around, and lift her in and out of it, because her arms lacked the strength to move the wheels. We had been married 48 years, and I
feared we would not make 50. When she finally got a diagnosis and treatment, the same infusions the author of the book got, it slowly turned her around, and today she is back on her feet and functioning, albeit without the pep of her pre-illness life. There are a number of auto-immune diseases; some can be treated, others can’t. We were lucky. But Aliena, with a genuinely alien brain, wasn’t.
So there is some of my life and experience in this novel, unsurprisingly. I pretty much fell in love with Aliena, and grieved with Brom when she had to leave. Now I will have to come to emotional terms with Star. This, too, is typical of writing.
Readers who want to know more of me are welcome to visit my Web Site www.hipiers.com/, where I have background information like a list of all my 160+ published books, a monthly ornery liberal blog-type column, and maintain an ongoing candid survey of electronic publishers and related services to help writers locate the best prospects. There is also the blog site at http://piersanthonyblog.blogspot.com/, and a Twitter site for my stories told in Tweets, at https://twitter.com/PiersAnthony. And my email, [email protected]. I am approachable, if that is your interest. Even if you didn’t enjoy the novel. (And why the bleep didn’t you? Tell me.)
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Piers Anthony
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5717-5
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Aliena Page 14