Even though the details are slowly fading, you still remember the strength of the embrace, and the warmth of the voice that reached out and spoke to the very core of your being.
A part of you is screaming, outraged, and desperately aware of the danger you are in. But it is so muffled, so distant, you barely notice it.
Never mind that you disobeyed over a dozen rules, any one of which should lead to your immediate discharge. For now, all is right with the world. You will bring the much-needed supplies to Grand Maharlika, and then you will return home. Perhaps chance will allow you to cross paths with him again. You never even thought to ask his name.
MAHARLIKA DOES NOT answer your repeated transmissions as you approach, but the docking bay doors have opened. You position the docking clamps, and open the cargo bay as you land.
The lights flicker on and off, casting momentary shadows all around you, as you walk down the ramp. You fumble in the unfamiliar surroundings. When your hand touches the walls, it comes back wet and red. Before you can react, a calm, reassuring voice calls out, from beyond the door leading into the station.
Welcome to Grand Maharlika, Captain.
You turn and see a man wearing the station commander’s uniform. You salute, and he smiles.
You must be hungry, he says.
There is a growl that comes from your stomach, and you nod your head in agreement.
“But the supplies,” you say.
He raises a hand to silence you. We’ll deal with that later, come to the mess with me.
There is a feast waiting, when you enter the commissary. You are surprised at all the meat that is on display. Perhaps they still had more supplies than they let on.
He gestures, and you take the seat across from him. He watches as you fill your plate with food. Your first mouthful is rich, red, and warm. The meat is unlike anything you have had before, a taste sensation that you could die for, and you tell him so.
His lips curl up, almost imperceptibly. It is nothing less than you deserve, for all your efforts to get here, he replies.
You forget yourself for a moment, lost in the savory flavors that fill your mouth. Your teeth work on a piece of gristle, masticating it into submission before you take another mouthful. The meat is juicy and tender, a bit on the rare side, but that is something you aren’t about to complain about. It’s enough that you aren’t eating the same generic sludge that serves as sustenance on a starship.
You are lost in gustatory delight, as you scoop another serving onto your plate. That’s when you notice the wrinkled mass that was once Ortega’s eyeball, afloat on a thin patina of blood and grease.
Your scream mingles with a shout, as a man charges into the room. You recognize him from your briefing as the station engineer, Santos.
He yells at you to move away. He brandishes a vibro-knife and lunges at your host. The station commander calmly rises from his seat, even as the knife bites deep into his stomach.
With one fluid motion, the commander pulls the knife, reaches into the engineer’s chest, and rips out the still-beating mass within. The engineer’s mouth fills with blood. He moans and slides to the floor, awash in a flood of crimson.
The commander turns his gaze on you. He moves closer, until his face is almost touching yours. You can feel his breath on your cheek. His eyes are empty pools that widen, drawing you in.
What big eyes you have, you want to say, lost in the fathomless depths.
The better to see you with, my dear. You hear the voice in your head, and the Busao smiles, revealing rows of razor-sharp white teeth.
Vincent Michael Simbulan has written stories for various publications, including the annual Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology, The Philippines Free Press, and The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories. He’s a founding member of the LitCritters writing group, and served as editor for A Time for Dragons (Anvil Fantasy), and co-editor for Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 5. His next story is slated to appear in the second edition of Maximum Volume. Vin has recently taken up swimming to relieve stress from work, and to offset the calories he takes in while tinkering with recipes in the kitchen.
Francis Gabriel Concepcion
Children of the Stars
WHEN I WAS nine, my father told me the Tinggian story of the Star Wife: how Gaygayoma – the daughter of a big star, Bagabak, and the moon, Sinag – fell in love with a sugarcane farmer.
“Joseph,” he began, “everyone on this earth is an immigrant.” He went on to tell how the Star Wife had seen and tasted this farmer’s excellent crop, and so longed to whisk him away and take him as her husband. And she did so, much to the dismay of the farmer, who already had a wife and son. But because he was afraid of being devoured by these foreign entities, he obeyed and went with them.
The star maiden and the farmer had a son, one who was amazed at the beauty and majesty of his father’s homeland. They would visit every now and then. Each visit, the boy hoped to lengthen his stay in the fields. He and his half-brother often played together – up until the younger boy’s celestial mother began to weep and call out for him to return to the heavens.
Maybe it was because of the nature of our family that I felt such a connection to this story. My mom wasn’t exactly the prettiest Filipina in our neighborhood. And yet, my Dutch father was drawn to her like a dog chasing after a female in heat.
My mother was like a cloud – a sponge that sucked in and slurped my father’s affections, and drained him of resistance. He was lost the minute he’d laid eyes on her – maybe because she possessed this ineffable charm, or maybe just because she looked nothing like the women he was used to, back in Europe.
Maybe it was from my father that I inherited this love of the strange and the foreign. Either way, the story he told me stuck to my bones. Mostly because of the way he told it – it didn’t sound like he was just trying to tell me a story. It sounded more like a confession. My dad worked abroad. And most months out of the year, he was away.
Either way, I inherited it – his love of the strange and unfamiliar – and I found I could not get rid of it. Not that I wanted to be rid of it – not until I met a true maiden of the stars.
Her name was Maria. Maria Divinagracia. I’ll always remember the very first day we met.
IN HIGH SCHOOL Filipino class, I was asked to read a verse from the Ibong Adarna. It was an epic I know I would have loved and enjoyed – if only I could have understood it as well as everyone else.
Classes had been going on for only a few weeks, and we were just about to dive into the epic. As our teacher, Mrs. Esmero, was introducing a little bit of background about the epic, Maria walked in with her half-sister, Fatima.
Maria’s skin was the first thing you’d notice, because it wasn’t white or brown or yellow or black. It was a color difficult to describe. Kind of like gold, but duller. Or maybe it was brown, with little specks of gold, like glitter that shone brighter when touched by sunlight.
I still remember what she wore that day – she wasn’t in uniform like the rest of us. She had a silver band on her head, her curls running down the sides of her face in black and auburn streaks. She was dressed in a long robe, the weave and make of which looked like royal tapestry. The hem of her dress fell to her ankles, a silver belt tied around her small waist.
We were just high school students. Most of the girls in our class were just that: girls. Not Maria. Though I couldn’t see beneath her robe how much of her body had matured, I took it from the way she walked – a gait that was poised and alert, intimidating yet innocent.
“Hi. This is my sister, Maria,” Fatima said. “She just arrived from the Gaygayoma.”
A round of whispers erupted in class.
“They’re sisters? Does that mean Fatima is –?”
“Hindi, ah! Kita ko, her mom and dad are Pinoy.”
“So, si Maria lang ang bulagaw?”
“May nagsabi sa akin na they can see in the dark daw.”
“Quiet, please!” Mrs. Esmero
finally bellowed, hushing all the whispers. She let the silence hang for a moment, before signaling Fatima to continue.
“Um, she doesn’t speak much Filipino, but she really wanted to see what it was like here, so… ayun. Ayan siya.”
As luck would have it, I was called and asked to read the first part of the epic: the author's dedication to the Virgin. Whatever blessing the dedication was supposed to grant, I didn't feel any fall upon me. On every single line, I stammered and paused. “Oh, Beer hen kaibig-ibig, Ina nam-ing nasa-langit, liwa-na-gin yar-ing isip, nang sa layo, di malinis,” I read.
I remember blinking my eyes rapidly, because the letters on the page seemed to shift: lines turning into squiggles, curves both straightening and elongating. Some words grew longer, one or two letters added to their bodies. Other words shrank.
To make things worse, the syllables just couldn't seem to form properly on my lips. Like the rest of my body, my lips rumbled and shook, as though a drill were being driven through them, grinding my teeth and bouncing off my blubbering tongue.“Ako’y isang hamok lamang, taeng lupa ang ka-tawan, mahilo ang kai-sipon, at maulap ang pawanaw – pananaw!” I finished.
I buried my face in my book, just so I wouldn’t see the reactions of everyone around me – especially Maria. Days after that, I could still hear their giggling ringing in my ears, particularly whenever Peter and Ferdie came up to me, with huge grins on their faces.
“Hoy, Taeng Lupa!” Peter called out. “Kamusta na katawan mo? Naligo ka na?”
“Huwag mong patulan!” Ferdie said. “Maulap pa daw kaisipon niya!”
The thing that really ate at me about their taunts was the fact that I could never be able to come up with an appropriate reply.
“Hanggang diyan lang ba kaya mo, Kano? Hahaha! Supot!”
One thing I was grateful for that day, though: right after class, both Fatima and Maria approached me, as I was packing up my things.
“Okay ka lang, Joseph?” Fatima asked. She was much smaller compared to her sister, much plainer to the eyes, whenever they stood side-by-side. She was by no means actually plain, though. Her eyes were round, and her nose was small. She had the cutest dimples. They were the marks that distinguished her most.
“I can tutor you,” she said, smiling. “I’m tutoring my sister din naman, eh.”
I stared at her, not knowing what to say. We’d known each other only two weeks, and in that time we hadn’t really talked. Yet she seemed sincere in her desire to help. At that moment, I couldn’t help but turn to Maria, who, I realized, towered over me by a few inches.
“Sige! Why not?” I answered. Looking back, I feel like I must have had the weirdest look on my face, probably the most awkward smile I’d ever had.
ONE DAY, AN exchange student from Korea walked into our classroom.
“Dong-Jun! Asawa mo!” Peter cried.
“Yihee!” Ferdie immediately crowed.
Part of me was thankful for the arrival of Lee Yuen. And for that – as though karma couldn’t wait to punish me – I was again called to read aloud in class.
Once more I found myself standing, all ears poised and focused toward me. I tried not to look around. I tried. A nervous cough rang throughout the room as I stood there in silence, book in my hands – my wet, sweaty hands.
I did better. For that, I have to thank those afternoon sessions with Fatima. Still, my reading was filled with long pauses, dragging syllables, and constant corrections from Mrs. Esmero. There was no boisterous laughter. But there was some stifled mirth. Every now and then there was a squeak from one corner of the room. However, Mrs. Esmero quickly dispelled any further noise with one stern look.
She asked me to read an entire page. My entire body was drenched in sweat by the third stanza. And as I looked on, and found seven or so left, I began to feel faint.
At that moment, Maria stood up and said, “Teacher, can I try?”
“Uuyyyy! Yihee!” Peter cried. A fit of laughter erupted, and more teasing ensued.
“Bagay sila, ah!”
“Siyempre!” Peter said. “Mga puti, gusto exotic, eh, di ba? Ayan na pinaka-exotic. Alien?”
“Amen!” Ferdie cried. “Alien!”
This went on for a few more seconds, seconds that seemed to stretch on and on, as Maria stood there, silent as a tree. When the room finally stilled to an uneasy quiet, Mrs. Esmero motioned toward Maria and nodded. “Sige, Maria.”
I blanked. My ears blocked out nearly every sound within the four walls of the classroom. I didn’t even get to hear Maria’s reading.
“Naks naman! Narinig mo ’yan, Donya Leonora?” Peter said, winking at me. “Ayan na si Don Juan! Maililigtas ka na.”
“Damsel in distress ka pala, eh,” said Ferdie.
I buried my face in my hands, and peeked at Maria through the spaces between my fingers. She merely stood there, calmly assessing the situation, smiling faintly as she held her book in her hand. I couldn’t tell if she was offended, if she was embarrassed and trying to hide it, or if she was just indifferent to all the teasing.
“Si Dong-Jun at Lee Yuen naman!” Peter bellowed.
“Sino kaya best love-team?” Ferdie squawked.
Lee Yuen was fidgeting in his seat, looking around with a fever in his eyes. Poor guy. I’m sure he had no idea what was happening. I realized that even though I couldn’t read Filipino very well, and had probably just a few pages’ worth of vocabulary, at least I could understand what everyone was fussing about.
Because of that, I made my sessions with Fatima a priority for the next few months. I didn’t even understand why those two liked to pick on me. I wasn’t that much whiter than they were, yet somehow they were capable of making me feel like a blond albino.
Seeing Maria during those tutoring sessions was more like icing on the cake – sweet, but I wasn’t expecting to actually get anything substantial out of it. So I was taken completely by surprise when she came up to me one afternoon and asked, “Do you want to join us for dinner tomorrow night?”
I sputtered and coughed. I couldn’t blurt out a proper response. My ‘yes’ was more croak than speech.
MY FIRST BLUNDER that night was tipping my glass over, just as we were about to start eating. We sat at their table, Fatima beside me, Maria and Mrs. Divinagracia sitting on the opposite side, and Mr. Divinagracia at the head of the table. Maria, of course, was a feast that my eyes devoured – in swift, tiny bites.
If there was one thing the sisters inherited from their parents that I thought they should be thankful for, it was their flawlessness. Not a pimple or mole across any visible inch of their bodies. As Mr. Divinagracia called us to prayer, I had to tear my eyes from the strapless dress Maria wore, the locks of hair that fell softly on her bare shoulders. I felt a sudden rise of warmth in my chest, a growing rasp in my voice, and a fluttering in my stomach.
I was reaching out for some food when I caught Maria smiling at me. My arm suddenly took a sharp turn to my right. Thankfully, the spill I caused ruined nothing, and Fatima simply stood to fetch some towels.
After dinner, Mr. Divinagracia gave me a tour. “Joseph,” he said eventually, after showing me all the family photos laid out along the walls, tables, and shelves. “I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about me, about Maria. I’m sure you’ve noticed the differences between her and Fatima.”
I thought of all the gossip and rumors about their family. Not really knowing how to respond, I merely nodded and followed him, as he walked on toward the back of the house, where a private pool was lit. A few seconds later, Maria and Fatima came down to the pool, silken robes wrapped around them – silver and purple, glinting against the yellow garden fixtures.
Mr. Divinagracia chuckled at my silence, and I tried my best not to stare at his daughters, as they dropped their robes and waded into the pool, giggling at the temperature.
“Have you ever heard of the story of the Star Wife?” Mr. Divinagracia asked me.
“Yeah,” I said, distracted. “My dad liked telling
me that story when I was younger.”
“Maria’s at that age now,” he said. “And she wants nothing more than to stay here, on earth.” Mr. Divinagracia sighed and rubbed his chin. “She and I both.”
My eyes widened. “So – um – it’s true? You have another family abroad?” I bit my tongue the minute I asked.
“‘Abroad’,” he repeated, smiling. I half-expected him to be angry, yet his expression didn’t change. “Yes, Joseph. It’s true.” He paced about the pool, the girls preoccupied with their own sport.
I glanced toward them and watched, as they splashed one another. Two women, both incredibly beautiful. What was it that made me choose Maria over Fatima? “Do you think it’s in our blood,” I asked, “that we always search for the exotic or the unfamiliar?”
“I think so,” he replied. He looked me in the eye.
I was afraid that he could tell I wasn’t talking about him. I scratched my head and turned away.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily because of colonization,” he continued, “although I believe that plays a role. Rather, I believe it’s because the truth is, we’re all foreigners. We were never born on earth. We were born up there. In the stars.”
“My dad says something like that, too,” I said, just to say something, “that we’re all immigrants.”
His lips formed a wry smile. “Yes,” he said. “We are all aliens.”
“‘We’re all aliens’?” I repeated.
He walked up to the edge of the pool and stared across the horizon. “Everything started up there,” he said. “We all came from He that started it all. Separated at the birth of the universe. Now we feel like strangers in a stranger land.” Mr. Divinagracia turned around and faced me, a content smile on his face. He patted me on the shoulder. “My girls like you a lot,” he said. “Make yourself at home.” He then left me by the pool with his daughters.
Philippine Speculative Fiction, Volume 10 Page 19