by Jason Parent
“Stop!”
Lenyx heard a shout from a voice that couldn’t be. He halted just before his blade could descend into flesh. His momentum made him stumble forward, nearly causing him to trip over the native before regaining his balance. He turned to see Tryst and Kazi’s backs facing him. Both were staring at another Symorian, the biggest of their brood.
A sudden chill ran up Lenyx’s spine. His knees felt weak.
“I watched you die.” Tryst crouched, short of breath. As she did, the individual opposite her came into full view.
“Milliken?” Lenyx stepped cautiously toward his dead friend, now resurrected. “How?”
Symorians did not rise from the dead, yet there Milliken stood. All signs of injury had vanished. He seemed healthy, strong, improved even.
Lenyx and his kind had little use for the speculative, for anything that could not be seen, felt or rationalized. Milliken’s revival defied all rational thought. Never before having seriously considered the notion of an afterlife, Lenyx began to wonder if any of them had really survived the explosion.
CHAPTER FIVE
“You were dead. I was sure of it,” Tryst said, her voice unsteady. Lenyx helped her back to her feet. “How is it possible?”
Milliken couldn’t tell if Tryst was relieved or terrified. Still, he was moved by her concern, if that’s what it was. It was in her nature to question, he supposed. And who wouldn’t question his miraculous turnaround?
The last thing he could remember was the vortex generator malfunctioning. It had dumped them near a planet, this one he presumed. All the ship’s systems blinked as the planet’s gravitational pull reeled them in. One of the thrusters blew. They lost gravity control; Milliken ricocheted off wall after wall in the ship’s engine room as it fell apart around him, trying to latch on to something when he impaled himself on some broken tubing. He thought for sure it would be his death, a rather embarrassing way to die. Still, he resigned himself to it, pinned in place without any means to change his fate. He fell unconscious, his life slowly slipping away.
Yet, Milliken knew everything that had happened since his becoming meat on a stick, not because he’d experienced it, but because he could now somehow sense it through the others. Remarkably, even the human’s thoughts and impressions were open to his scrutiny. He had traveled through the human’s mind from the time he had learned his ABCs through his doctoral essay on the anthropological significance of calcium in sediment. His revival had awakened some hidden power, something beyond mere telepathy.
Something akin to the legends of his forebears.
“I tended to your wounds,” Tryst said. “There’s no coming back from that.” She crinkled her snout and crossed her arms. She looked at him as though he were a puzzle she needed to solve.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Milliken,” she continued. “I’m overjoyed to see you alive and well, but all my medical knowledge is telling me that you should be dead.”
Her eyes examined every inch of him. The others, too, scrutinized Milliken as if he were a science experiment. Even the native creature watched him from his huddled position on the ground. His recovery wouldn’t be easy to explain. How he understood, or at least what he imagined had happened, was an oddity in and of itself, a thing even he found unbelievable despite having lived it.
“It would take me days to explain it to you,” Milliken said. “The short version may raise more questions than give answers, but here goes.”
Milliken took a deep breath. He didn’t know how to describe to them how in an instant he’d become smarter than all of them combined. Milliken, their workhorse, groomed for muscle and labor, now knew everything Kazi knew about astrophysics, everything Tryst knew about piloting, everything Lenyx knew about diplomacy and strategy, and everything the human knew about geology… and everything else he knew about the planet onto which they’d plummeted.
He also knew their secrets. Though he squinted at Kazi, he kept his mouth shut. For now.
“This world is called Earth,” Milliken began. He pointed at the man, who gasped in fear, undoubtedly unable to understand him. “That being is a human. His name is Connor. In many ways, he and his kind are a lot like us. Given the link I now share with him, I wouldn’t doubt if our two species had similar origins or a common ancestor.”
Milliken laughed. The others stared at him with concern or skepticism. He realized how he must have sounded. They hadn’t experienced what he had: death and rebirth. Still, he pressed on.
“Our differences seem to be functional in nature, products of evolution to suit our respective environments. Living in an enclosed world absent abundant light, we require acute senses of smell and hearing. Our eyes are big to absorb as much light as possible. Look at his skin.” He pointed at Connor. “It’s so loose fitting and porous, not very effective in regulating internal body temperature, not when compared to ours anyway.”
“So the brute uses a broader vocabulary and expects us to naïvely accept his bizarre theories?” Kazi asked. He laughed. “You’re speaking nonsense.”
“Kazi!” Lenyx growled.
“My ‘bizarre theories’ are—”
“Enough, Milliken,” Lenyx said. “Kazi’s not entirely wrong. Strange things have happened to you. That’s indisputable. You may have suffered more injuries than we initially detected. Head injuries. How could you possibly know all the things you claim?”
“A good question,” Milliken said. “My brain is fine, commander. Please let me try to explain. I know what I know, I live and I breathe, all because of Kazi and Tryst. What we lack, these humans have in excess.” He studied the ground, smoothing the dirt with his toes. “Providence…”
“What’s that?” Tryst asked.
Shaken from his burgeoning thought, he returned his focus to the conversation. “Nothing. If Tryst hadn’t knocked that liquid on me—they call it water—I’d be decaying like that human over there.”
“That,” Lenyx said, his eyes downcast, “was not intentional.”
“Be that as it may, it was unwise. You have left the other human fragile. Why do you think he doesn’t run? He’s frozen with fear.”
“Remember your place, Milliken,” Tryst said. “Lenyx is your commander.”
“And stop acting as if you know what that creature is thinking,” Kazi said. Contempt mixed with suspicion radiated from his eyes, as if the very thought of Milliken knowing more than him about anything was repugnant. He turned to Lenyx. “Maybe the creature’s plotting his attack. Let me exterminate him before he causes us harm.”
“Be still, Kazi,” Lenyx said. “I may not accept what Milliken is saying as fact, but he has earned the right to state his beliefs. When has he ever spoken falsely?”
Kazi frowned but remained silent.
“Milliken, what you are saying, it’s not supported by fact or logic,” Lenyx said. “There is no place in our mission for speculation.”
“Please, listen. All life on this planet is made up of water. It is in us, too, although to a much lesser extent, filling the tiny gaps between our much denser muscles. You saw what happened when the water spilled on me. Eventually, it absorbed into me like it wanted to be part of me, like it was meant to be part of me.”
“But… you were dead when that happened,” Tryst said.
“Here, water is life,” Milliken continued. “It’s molecules are the building blocks of existence. For us, however, they are building blocks for advancement, evolution. It is kalifer! Not only did the water heal my wounds, stimulating cell growth and filling in the gaps, so to speak, but it hardened my skin and opened my mind. I can see into your minds as if their contents were displayed before me.”
“That’s just—”
“Ridiculous?” Milliken asked, interrupting Kazi before he could finish his insult. “Is it? Then how is it I know that you tampered with the psychological exam to be approved for this mission? That you lust after Tryst? How else would I know about your hoard—”
“That’s not
true,” Kazi said weakly, shying away from the accusations.
Milliken stayed the course. “How would I know that Lenyx hates being celebrated for his victories in the old wars? That he and Tryst started their relationship well before the High Council had approved it? That Tryst wants to have a child?”
Milliken didn’t like revealing their secrets, but it seemed an effective means toward making his point. Tryst covered her face. Lenyx seethed.
“That’s enough,” he said. “If what you say is true, that you can see into our minds, then what you have done is unacceptable. If we kept these thoughts private, we did so because we preferred to keep them that way. It isn’t your place to expose them.”
“You’re right,” Milliken said. “It wasn’t my intent to invade your thoughts. It was an uncontrollable side effect of my evolution.”
“More like mutation,” Kazi interjected.
Mutation? The word, though perhaps accurate, had such a negative connotation. The changes Milliken felt were positive. They had to be. He understood more. He could do more. He was more.
Sensing his crewmates’ distrust, Milliken changed the focus of their discussion. He gestured toward the human. “Even more amazing, I can see into his mind, as well.”
“I don’t know how it is you know what you know,” Lenyx said, “but we have no time for unsupported hypotheses. Your counsel has been noted, but overruled. I have to terminate this ‘human.’ He could be a threat to our survival.”
“Wait,” Tryst said. “Milliken requires our immediate attention. Maybe it’s the air or maybe it was the liquid, but either way, he may be delusional and needs treatment.”
“I assure you: both my mind and my body have never been better.” Their doubts were beginning to annoy Milliken. “This could all be cleared up quickly if you three go for a swim. Or just have a drink from the waterfall Kazi found.” He paused, shaking with energy. “I can’t say that I fully understand it, but it feels unbelievable.”
“I’ll volunteer,” Kazi said. Milliken was thankful that at least one of them was open to what he was saying.
“Absolutely not,” Lenyx said. “We have no idea what effects on Milliken this ‘water’ may have had. Kazi, you’re the scientist. We need to study him, analyze his biology as well as that of everything around us. You know that.”
“He seems okay to me,” Kazi said. “True, the liquid may be killing him as we speak, but it’s not like we have much left to lose.”
“I’m not dying,” Milliken said.
“And you just had a giant hole through your chest,” Tryst said. “It isn’t natural.”
“Fine,” he said, throwing his hands up in defeat. “A demonstration then? Watch, and I will speak to the human.”
“This should be amusing,” Kazi said, snickering.
Milliken refused to let his crewmates’ doubts dissuade him from proving he could do everything he claimed. His telepathic abilities, barely more than a spotty lie-detection tool before his resurrection, now allowed him to unlock the means to understanding the human’s mind and walk freely into the caverns of his deepest thoughts. He approached the native, who scurried backward on his heels and buttocks until his back pressed against a tree. He stared up at Milliken, eyes wide and teeth chattering. In spite of that, Milliken was determined to converse with the human in a language he shouldn’t have been able to understand.
“Connor,” Milliken said in his gentlest tone. It was a strange word to pass his lips. The human didn’t respond, deafened by his own terror. He hid himself from Milliken, reverting back to his ball-shaped form.
“Connor,” Milliken said again, this time more firmly.
The human peeked his head out from beneath the umbrella protection he’d fashioned out of his arms. He still shivered and cowered, but at least he made eye contact. To the human, Milliken assumed he must have looked like a seven-foot, three-hundred-pound monster.
Milliken considered his appearance. He did have fangs like a monster, six of them to be exact. Each of two primary molars, sharp and curved like scimitars set two inches apart in his upper mandible, were backed by a secondary incisor of smaller size but of similar shape. His bottom two fangs likewise resembled curved blades and were positioned such that they protruded slightly outward from their location between the primary and secondary upper fangs when he clenched his teeth. His face, even his oversized ears, looked a lot like that of a fruit bat’s, as far as an earthly comparison went. Except Milliken had white skin, much less facial hair, and was bigger than sixty fruit bats stapled together. This isn’t going to be easy.
His appearance was only part of the problem. It was no wonder to Milliken why the human feared him, given his species’ penchant for fairy tales and ghost stories. The burned remains of Connor’s friend lying nearby would not help Milliken’s cause. The others standing behind him, tense and ready to strike, were further hindering his attempts to pacify the human.
He crouched in front of Connor so that the two of them were as close to eye level as possible. Still a few feet away, Milliken dared not advance closer.
“Stay back,” the human begged.
“Connor,” Milliken said. “I will not harm you.”
Connor gasped. “How?” Slowly, he rose to his knees, still keeping away and trembling in fear. “You can speak English?”
“My name is Milliken. I can speak English and Spanish, just like you.”
“Are you from another planet? Have you been studying us? What do you plan on doing to me?”
Connor spoke rapidly, asking many questions without waiting for answers. He shook and fidgeted, a cornered prey, ready to fight or die.
Milliken smiled, until he realized his teeth probably weren’t helping. “Please, Connor, slow down. I’ll try to answer all your questions. Take a deep breath.”
Connor did. He fidgeted with his hands and bounced up and down like a child who needed to urinate. But he appeared to be settling and listening to Milliken. A step in the right direction.
“What’s going on?” Kazi asked.
“Please, be patient,” Milliken said in his native tongue without turning to address Kazi. Kazi shut up, Milliken guessing he’d had some assistance from Lenyx. He continued with Connor.
“Don’t mind them. They don’t speak your language yet. Are you okay?”
“Define ‘okay,’” Connor replied.
Milliken understood the sarcasm. He sighed. Over the span of a few minutes, he’d learned so much about humanity from Connor’s mind that he had little time to consider the culture shock or even process his own death and revival. Still, he wasn’t getting far with his audience. Perhaps Lenyx was right. Maybe they were better off just killing him.
Then, Connor made an effort. “Okay. Let’s start with an easy question. How is it you know how to speak like me?”
“That’s not an easy one,” Milliken said. “It’s hard to explain. My crew over there doesn’t even believe me, but I’ll try. Our kind has… used to have… what your kind calls telepathy. Your planet has restored and even amplified mine to limits of which I am not yet aware. Simply put, everything I know about your planet, your languages, and your people, I learned from you.”
Milliken took a step closer to Connor, trying to appear amiable. He guessed he’d failed when Connor took a step back. “You can relax. You have nothing to fear from us.”
“Oh yeah? Tell that to my friend whose skin you made magically disappear.”
“Yes,” Milliken said, shaking his head. That would be the toughest part to explain. “That was a most unfortunate accident. We only meant to subdue him, not knowing if you were threats to us. We had no idea our touch would do that to your kind. Please accept our apologies.”
“You just killed a man, erased him from existence, and all you can say is, ‘Oops, my bad?’”
Milliken said nothing. They deserved the criticism. They were smarter than the action they’d taken. Lenyx knew better than to engage an unknown species without first determini
ng the risks. He had acted with his crew’s best interests in mind, failing to consider the broader relationship between the two species.
Milliken looked back at Lenyx, who stared blank-faced back. The others appeared to be growing restless.
“Those behind me do not understand your tongue. They grow weary of our talk. Let me get right to the point. We are on a mission to save our home. An accident occurred upon liftoff, and we were forced to land here.”
“Yes, I saw that, too. What was once a beautiful lake is now a barren desert, thanks to you.”
Milliken couldn’t help but smile. Even in the face of potential death, the human had some fight in him. Perhaps they weren’t a species of cowards, after all. “That was another unfortunate occurrence, I’m afraid. We had no time for a proper landing after a full analysis of your planet’s terrain. Making matters worse, we’ve lost all contact with our home.”
Milliken sensed that the conversation was failing. He’d been foolishly relying on his own mind to foster their relationship when he could easily look inside Connor’s to find terms that the human would understand. Changing tactics, he asked, “Why are we wasting our time with this?”
“What do you mean?” Connor asked.
“I’ve seen inside that head of yours. Even if you believe we intended to kill your friend, even if you believe we’re alien invaders here to conquer your planet, which we’re not, you’d still want to know more about us. You have always wondered if there was life beyond your planet. Now, you have your answer. Are you really willing to walk away from us when we can show you so much more?”
“If you can read my mind, then you know all the stories I’ve read about aliens. You guys are rarely portrayed as friendly.”