The Shapeshifter Chronicles

by Peralta, Samuel

  Skalet put away her knife and pulled off the outer glove on her left hand, securing it in her belt. Her fingers numbed almost immediately, but she managed to grip the fastener and twist. It was meant to be mobile to -70oC, so the antenna could be replaced at need. It wouldn’t budge.

  Cursing substandard equipment, Skalet stripped off her gloves, restraining a cry as the wind seemed to flay her skin. She pressed both palms around the fastener, warming it with her own, slightly greater than Human, heat. The core of her body seemed to chill at the same time, a dangerous theft. Skalet fought to hold form as much as she fought to keep her hands where they had to stay.

  Another twist. Nothing. She screamed in fury and drove her fist into the metal, feeling a knuckle break, but something else give as well. Satisfaction. Another twist and the fastener came free.

  By now, Skalet’s hands were shaking so violently she could barely get them back into the gloves. She couldn’t feel any difference with the protection on, but knew it was necessary. Form-memory was perfect. If she lost fingers to frostbite, she’d remember herself that way forever. She refused to believe it might be too late.

  Meanwhile, the wind, now her ally, was busy at work. The strut creaked and groaned, succumbing to the force hammering it. Skalet touched the support, feeling irregular shudders. Good. It would take only the slightest of bends to make the antenna uncontrollable. As if hearing her thoughts, the strut snapped and the array began to tilt.

  The outpost -- and the fleet -- were blind.

  Time to leave. Skalet made her way back down the ladder, groping in the dark with her left hand for the guideline. The right she’d drawn inside her coat completely, cradling it next to her heart, a source of searing pain as the flesh thawed and the abused knuckle complained of ill treatment. Reassuring.

  She’d anticipated an easier return journey, the wind shoving from behind and her trail already broken through the drifts. Instead, with a perversity she should have expected, the wind was a wall in her face and her footsteps had filled with snow. There was only the guideline and the strength of her grip on it.

  Her progress became a series of forward stumbles, never quite on her knees, never quite stopping. At any moment, Skalet expected to collide with a Kraal hurrying from the outpost to see what had gone wrong, to try a futile repair. Ephemeral and fragile, yet they readily risked their fleeting lives. Exceptional.

  Then the line came alive in her hand, yanking her backwards into the snow before becoming limp. Skalet stood and gave a sharp pull in the direction of the outpost. The line came towards her with no more tension than its weight dragging through the snow.

  The entire array must have become unstable, the bent antenna a sail catching too much wind. Whether the structure had toppled to the ground or merely leaned didn’t matter. It had moved enough to pluck the uncuttable guideline from the outpost dome.

  So much for meeting a Kraal.

  So much for finding her way back.

  * * *

  I whined and curled in a ball, my tail covering nose and eyes with a plume of fur. Despite this, and despite being perfectly safe and warm, I shook miserably. I’d assimilated nothing like this before. I’d never felt what it was like to truly risk one’s formself. My other web-kin, being far more sensible, would have cycled long before this point. I would have. Skalet’s resolve was as horrifying as the Kraal themselves.

  If I could have stopped remembering, I would have. But Ersh had given me all of it and I whirled through Skalet’s memories as haplessly as a snowflake--or the Kraal fleet.

  * * *

  This form reacted to fear with a rush of blood to the ears, a sickness in the stomach. Skalet ignored biology, intent on her problem. She couldn’t see, feel, or hear her way to safety. The broken line in her hand, however, would give her the distance from the array to the outpost. The wind in her face would give her direction. A risk, given that same wind had already swung 180 degrees, but an acceptable one. If she reached the end of the guideline and found nothing, she could walk in an arc bounded by the line--if she could move it--and have a fifty percent chance of being right. Or have to abandon this form when it reached its physiological limit.

  But not before.

  The guideline proved harder to combat than the wind. Though light, its length gave it considerable mass and weight. Exposed portions flailed with every gust, the rest being buried by the snow of a continent. Skalet barely managed to hang on to the piece by her side and keep moving. Her best estimate put her near or within the outer ring of domes, but they were difficult to detect under good conditions, let alone in the dark. Her goal was the ramp down to the central dome.

  Her feet started fighting a drift larger and more compact than most she’d encountered. Gasping with effort, Skalet nonetheless felt a thrill of hope. There were always drifts curving around the slight rise of each dome. She began step down the other side and suddenly lost her footing as well as her grip on the line. Before she could recapture it, it was gone.

  Skalet sat on the slope of the drift and replayed memory. She knew this area, had walked its winter night a hundred times. Yes. She should be able to see the dome from here.

  Skalet pulled her hand from inside her coat, using both to remove her goggles. Instantly the cold hit her eyes and lashes, freezing them shut. She rubbed away the beads of ice to peer into the darkness, flinching at needles of hard, dry snow.

  There. Skalet threw herself at that dimmest of glows, refusing to believe it was anything but the rim of the door she’d left hours earlier. Seconds later, she was moving down the ramp, waist-deep in new snow but out of the wind at last. The door. Her fingers wouldn’t work any more. Sobbing with fury, tears freezing to her cheeks, Skalet fought this betrayal as she tried to open the latches.

  They opened of their own accord, a figure mummified in fur blocking the light from within. With an incoherent cry, the figure caught Skalet in gloved hands and drew her inside.

  The warmth, near the freezing point, was an exquisite agony. Skalet shuddered on the iced floor, gulping air that didn’t burn her lungs. The figure pulled off hood and goggles, becoming Maven-ro.

  She crouched beside Skalet. “So the Icicle can freeze after all,” she shook her head. “Give your report then get to medical. Scan’s gone down at the worst possible time. I’m off to see what I can do about it.”

  “No... no point,” Skalet wasn’t vain about her voice as a Human, but even she was shocked by its reed-thin sound. She got to her knees, wheezing: “The array...it’s collapsed...the storm. Guideline’s ripped loose...”

  Maven-ro’s face paled beneath its tattoo, but her mouth formed a firm line. “It is our privilege to serve. The fleet relies on us, S’kal-ru.” She stood, replacing her goggles and hood. “I must see what can be done.”

  With her better hand, Skalet found and held the other’s sleeve, used it to pull herself to her feet. What she hoped were feet--she couldn’t feel them. She didn’t understand why she felt compelled to stop the Kraal; a flaw in this form, perhaps. “There’s duty and there’s being a fool. You told me that, Maven-ro.” She staggered and Maven-ro was forced to steady her. “Dare you think I would give up and return if there was any hope of restoring the array?”

  Maven-ro lowered her head. She dragged off her goggles with one hand, keeping the other firm on Skalet’s belt. “Forgive me, S’kal-ru. There are none braver--” Her fingers flattened protectively over the tattoo on her cheek; her eyes, haunted, lifted to meet Skalet’s. “But now I fear the worst.”

  * * *

  Hands and feet bandaged with dermal regenerators, which with typical Kraal sensibility did nothing to relieve pain, Skalet was in no mood for company. But her visitor that outpost night wasn’t one she could refuse, however dangerous.

  The courier waved the med tech from the tiny clinic. “Have you heard, S’kal-ru?”

  The surprise attack, the ragged desperate signals, and incoming casualty lists had silenced the domes. Kraal walked in a daze, huddled i
n anguished groups, worried about their future, their affiliations. Except this one. “You brought down your own House,” Skalet observed, curious. Under the blanket, her bandaged fingers gripped a knife.

  The courier smiled. Her age-spotted fingers lifted to the mask of tattoos on her face, selected one. “With you as my poison, I have cleaned it of those who would have destroyed it. Bryll will rise to prominence once more.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “But you doubt your own future.”

  Skalet smiled thinly. “I’m a realist. With what I know, I should prepare to disappear.” Which, given transport and a moment unobserved with some living mass, S’kal-ru the Kraal would do.

  The old woman’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Let go the knife. You are of more value than risk to me.”

  A figure of speech? Then again, a noble who aged in this society would be no fool at all. Skalet brought her empty hand above the blanket.

  “Good. I have another future for you to consider, S'kal-ru. I warn you. It means none of the comforts of homeworld or hearth. No lineages sprung from your flesh.”

  “I don’t seek such things.”

  “No. No, I believe you don’t. Yet you embody all that Kraal aspires to be, which is why I won’t see you wasted.” As Skalet twitched, the tattoos around the other’s lips writhed. A smile, perhaps. “Hear me out.”

  “I’m at your command, Your Eminence.”

  “The Noble Houses must communicate, one to the other, even in times of distrust and blood debt. To this end exist such as I, individuals of such clear honour we are given extraordinary latitude without hesitation. There are no watches on our comings and goings. No impediments to our actions; no constraint beyond affiliation. We are few, but we are crucial to the survival of our civilization, as you have seen. I would have you train as my successor, S’kal-ru.” The old Kraal moved her hand slowly, carefully, towards Skalet’s cheek. Involuntarily, Skalet reared her head back and away. Then, for no reason save self-preservation, she froze to permit the touch. Cold, dry fingers traced the fake tattoo once, lightly. “This might pass muster here, but never on a Kraal world. If you permit me, I will make it real. A ninth-level affiliation through me to House Bract, today’s power. What do you say, Icicle?”

  To be secretive yet a decision-maker, to be needed for her abilities, not just as another collector of dry facts and genetic information.

  Skalet found a way to bow gracefully, even lying down.

  * * *

  “I take it you finished.” Ersh tumbled to where I stood staring out the window. Picco’s orange reflection cast shadows the colour of drying blood. I found it singularly appropriate.

  “Yes,” I said quietly. “It’s called seduction, isn’t it. When you are brought to desire something until it’s impossible to refuse it.”

  “Apt enough.” A chime that might have been pleasure. Or impatience. The tones were regrettably similar. “Skalet might not have grown so--attached--to this culture, had she not been taught to thrive in it.”

  “Thrive?” I growled. “She’s responsible for the deaths of thousands.”

  “That’s what war is, Youngest,” Ersh agreed. “A uniquely ephemeral conceit, to settle disputes by ending life.”

  “Then why? Why do you let Skalet continue? Why not send Ansky or the others?”

  “Why tolerate insolence?” I acknowledged the rebuke by lifting my ears, which had plastered themselves to my skull in threat when I wasn’t paying attention. Ersh touched a fingertip to the stone sill of the window and the bell-like sound echoed from the corners of the room. Apology accepted. “Skalet’s mission to the Kraal outpost was her first successful interaction with another species. It has been her only success. She can spy on any species, glean information from a host of cultures, but fails every time to get closer. Except with the Kraal. So you see, Youngling, it is not always simple to decide which of your web-kin goes where. It matters where they feel they can belong.”

  I had to assume Ersh was telling me something important, but it made no sense. “Skalet wants to belong to the Kraal?”

  Ersh didn’t often laugh as a Tumbler. The species was prone to a more taciturn outlook. But now she tinkled like a rush of wind through icicles. “Esen-alit-Quar. You have so much to learn. Skalet may be obsessed with the Kraal and this form, but she is one of us above all else. She would never forge true bonds outside our Web.”

  I shuddered at the thought, heretical and yet attractive, in the way sharp edges attract fingertips. There was a trap I would avoid at all costs. Along with war.

  Like many young beings, I would have to wait for the future to prove me wrong.

  A Word from Julie E. Czerneda

  Esen-alit-Quar. Esen for short. Es in a hurry or between friends.

  I’m often asked which of my characters is most like me. I try not to answer. It’s one of those embarrassing questions for an author.

  However, I now confess what’s likely obvious to anyone who’s taken a walk anywhere with me when I’m in “oh, look at the slime!” mode. Fine. Yes. It’s Esen.

  Or rather, writing Esen lets me be myself, more than any other stories.

  On her behalf, I’m free to gather the real life oddities that fascinate me, then use them to create aliens and environments to my heart’s content, most often while chuckling to myself. Through her adventures, I can express the wonderful, messy, amazing complexity that is life, and my joy in it. I’ve done so in three books so far, Beholder’s Eye, Changing Vision, and Hidden in Sight, as well as short fiction. There’s more coming. I can’t possibly stop now! (And my editor loves Esen too.)

  Esen and her web, including Skalet, featured in this story, came about when I was teaching animal behaviour. I pondered on k-strategists: long-lived organisms who reproduce slowly and in low numbers. Like us. Elephants. I extrapolated, as SF-minded scientists do. What if an organism had an immensely long life span? How could that be in the first place? I came up with the notion of beings able to manipulate their own mass and energy. As a consequence, they could assume—at the molecular level—the form of any species they’d tasted. Memory would be part of that. Each would be who she really was, regardless of form.

  What would such beings do? Why, they’d be collectors, I decided. Archivists who stored the accomplishments of more ephemeral intelligent species. (I’m not interested in the bored, tragic immortal. Strange and different, yes.)

  Enter Esen, youngest of her kind and the first to have a friend. With the very best motives and the worst luck.

  Her elders, especially Skalet, are aghast.

  Let the fun begin!

  Since 1997, Canadian author and former biologist Julie E. Czerneda has shared her love and curiosity about living things through her science fiction, published by DAW Books.

  Recently, she began her first fantasy series: Night’s Edge with A Turn of Light, which won the 2014 Aurora Award for Best English Novel. A Play of Shadow followed, winning the 2015 Aurora.

  While there’ll be more fantasy, Julie’s back in science fiction to complete her Clan Chronicles series. Reunification #1: This Gulf of Time and Stars, was released November 2015, with Reunification #2: The Gate to Futures Past out September 2016.

  For more, visit www.czerneda.com, or find Julie on Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads.

  Baba Yaga and the Quantum Universe Theory of Shapeshifting

  by Kim Wells

  “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

  ― Arthur C. Clarke

  Yaga

  THE OLD WOMAN SAT in the honored place by the fire. Its golden-red brilliance showed the many lines in her face, a craggy map of experiences, and the sparkle in her eyes gleamed as she began her story.

  “Children, this night, I will tell you a story of when this Earth stretched over the water and shaped into mountains and valleys…”

  The children knew that this was the beginning of one of the oldest tales. They whispered and shifted in th
eir spots, warm and companionable. They had all sat next to their favorite cousin or sister, ready to hear the story, told by the oldest Baba in the clan. She always told the best stories, the ones that could chase away the fears and silence the gnawing terror of wolves in the distance. She was like a mountain, steady and firm, but also comforting when someone needed a hug because of a scraped knee, or a more potent medicine for a deep cough. None of the children believed she would ever not be there for them. She simply was.

  In the excitement of the pre-story hush, one of the younger babies cried, ready for its mother, and was passed back to the circle of parents just behind. The parents remembered being in the front by the fire, and they smiled at each other, faces familiar from years of winter nights together. They knew: This was a good one, and a scary one, and one that everyone needed to hear.

  No one spoke or moved or dared even breathe loud as the Baba continued, “This story came to me from the oldest wise woman I ever knew, she who made this statue of the world mother…” She held it up, and as one, the children sighed, happy. The smooth black statue of a woman, round and beautiful, was one of their most important items. It was the Goddess, the Mother, and it blessed every child’s baptism into the Clans.

  The old woman held it with great care, and few knew that she had been a child when it was baked into hardness in an old kiln that she still treasured, and that her tiny fingerprint scuffed the base of the statue, there, from where she had poked it when it was still soft. She remembered the wise woman, whose leg had been hurt and never quite healed, who walked with a stick and never had children of her own, but who was everyone’s favorite Baba anyway. She smiled.