People of the Sun

by Jason Parent

  Tryst wanted to strangle this human who spoke to her. Who is she? Why does she keep calling me Connor? Her heart and mind raced. Her palms and forehead were clammy. She tried to shout at the girl, but she couldn’t control her own vocal chords. She couldn’t even move. It was as if she were a passenger in another’s body. Am I paralyzed?

  Everything around her was foreign, yet somehow, it was familiar, too. Tryst couldn’t make sense of it. She certainly hadn’t been there before, this human environment. A playground? She knew it was, though it was a term her mouth had never formed.

  A girl not more than fourteen years old sat beside her on a swing. Her dirty-blond hair was braided, her teeth in braces. Pimply with purple-rimmed glasses, tall, and lanky, the girl had hit her awkward teenage years hard.

  Monkey bars loomed like a medieval torture device one sandpit over. A row of rusted see-saws occupied the next, a merry-go-round creaking in the wind beyond it. Behind Tryst and the girl, a field where two older boys tossed a football stretched out toward the horizon. To Tryst’s right was the school to which the playground belonged.

  The girl’s name is Natalie Winger. How do I know that? How do I know this place? How do I know any of this?

  Tryst’s gaze darted here and there, looking for answers. She started to wheeze, choking on her panic. It seemed as if her whole life had been a dream. From it, she’d woken into a reality where she was a human boy, someone she didn’t know or couldn’t remember. Tryst had so many questions and so many answers to them, answers she should not have known. Trying to comprehend what was happening to her, she found one question disturbed her more than any other. How do I understand her?

  Tryst stared wild-eyed at the girl beside her. She wanted to run, afraid and ashamed for it. Natalie was a harmless, fragile human, and Tryst was a proud warrior. Nonetheless, she was terrified. She couldn’t move. Her legs dangled beneath her in clothes not her own, sneakers drawing random patterns in the sand below the swing.

  Help! She tried to scream. Instead, other words, human words, came out. And although they came from Tryst as sure as the breath that passed her lips, the words and voice carrying them were not hers.

  “Are you sure?” a boy’s voice asked. Tryst swallowed hard. “We don’t have to—”

  “Stop being such a chicken,” Natalie said. She scooted the seat of her swing sideways, inching closer to Tryst. Natalie closed her eyes and puckered her lips. Tryst could smell her warm breath inches away from her nose. Its aroma was unpleasant.

  Suddenly, Tryst felt herself running. “Chicken!” Natalie called out behind her. As she ran, she could see her hands and arms swinging in front of her. They, too, were not the white, muscular arms to which she was accustomed. Instead, they were red and flaking, skin peeling off where it was most dry. Dark, fuzzy hairs sprouted from her wrists to her elbows. Was this some Earthling trick? Had she exchanged bodies with one of the humans? Tryst almost cried. What had happened to hers?

  Then, her environment went blank. Her entire reality—the swings, the playground, even Natalie Winger—were wiped clean like the histories of losers.

  Tryst’s heart beat like it wanted out of her rib cage. She thought she’d run straight into oblivion. What other explanation could there have been for the emptiness that had swallowed her? She looked around for an escape but saw none.

  Color and noise emerged, faint at first, then loud and rapid, filling in the canvas around her. A new world formed, the hows and whys beyond Tryst’s comprehension. She screamed in silence, believing she had somehow rifted the boundaries of space and time, existing at a point where several realities converged. She prayed that this time, the one emerging around her would be her own.

  It wasn’t. Although everything seemed familiar, again it was not a time or place Tryst had personally experienced. It couldn’t be her memory. It couldn’t be her reality. It couldn’t be real. It was all too human.

  Lenyx, I need you. She called to him across the void, but the sound of her voice was lost in a vacuum. She was alone. Lenyx would not come.

  A hollow feeling rose inside her gut. Tryst wanted to vomit. Even more than that, she wanted to be back home. Where was Lenyx? Where was their ship? At that point, she would have settled for anything familiar, even Kazi and all his miserable pessimism.

  The scene completed, Tryst glanced erratically from object to object, hoping to make sense of her condition. She stood in a long hallway lined with doors and bustling with humans and human activity. Machines made peculiar noises. Bald men with glasses and smart-looking women in white coats wrote on clipboards and spoke softly to captivated listeners.

  How did I get here? Am I injured? Am I dead? She gasped. The concept of an afterlife was new to her as well, yet she clung to some now deeply rooted hope that she had been born again in a better place.

  Suddenly, Tryst understood where she found herself. The humans called it a “hospital,” and not just any hospital, but the one where her baby was about to be born. Her confusion slipped away, replaced by the happiness swelling inside her. Kalima was in labor. Tryst was going to be a father.

  She paced anxiously in front of a doorway, waiting for someone to bring her news. Eventually, a man, Dr. Spevak, exited the room. His face was sallow, his expression grave. Dark-red streaks smeared his white coat. Kalima came barreling out behind him on a gurney, pushed by two orderlies moving in a hurry. Blood, so much blood, pooled between Kalima’s thighs. They sped away, down the hallway.

  Tryst’s elation became desolation. She thought to race after them, but Dr. Spevak grabbed her arm. “Let me go!” a man shouted from her throat. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

  “We have to remove the baby surgically,” Dr. Spevak said. The gravity of his expression and tone sent Tryst’s stomach aflutter. Its contents begged for release, but she choked them back. Her mind lost its focus. By the time she regained control of her thoughts, crafted the questions she would ask the doctor, Dr. Spevak had already departed, dashing down the hall after the gurney.

  “Why?” she asked aloud, her quivering voice still male, still human. “What’s happened?” The question lodged itself in her throat as she struggled to get it out.

  A gentle touch came to her shoulder. “The baby appears to be turned around and tangled inside your wife,” a young nurse with sympathetic eyes explained. “The umbilical cord may be compressed in several locations, depleting the baby’s oxygen supply. Your wife has already lost a lot of blood. We need to get your daughter out of her immediately. They’re bringing her to the operating room now.”

  “Can I go to them?” Tryst asked.

  “It’s best you wait here,” the nurse began, “and let the surgeons do what they’re trained to do. I’m sorry, but I have to attend to other patients. Our staff will do everything it can for Kalima and your baby girl. I’ll come back when I have some news. Please, have a seat and try to relax until then.”

  Tryst collapsed on a bench in the hallway, blankly staring at Dr. Spevak as he walked away. She felt lost, helpless. Even then, she suspected Kalima wouldn’t survive. Loss turned to guilt. Her wife would die alone.

  Her world once again slipped away from her just when she was feeling like it might. Tryst was transported into an empty, white nothing, left only with an empty pit in her stomach until a new reality formed around her. Her mind unraveled, verging upon breaking. What were these events she witnessed? Why was she witnessing them? Would this torment ever end?

  An artificial happiness overcame her as she watched her daughter, Suzette, walk across a stage with a giant banner over it that said “John Hopkins Class of 2019.” Suzette wore a cap and gown and a smile that wouldn’t quit. When she was handed the diploma, she waved to Tryst and returned to her seat. Tryst felt a tear run down her face. I wish Kalima were here to see this.

  Again and again, images formed and played like home videos around her. With each one, she absorbed vast knowledge about a family, a culture and a planet that she couldn’t possi
bly know. With each event, she moved toward the present. Eventually, she came to her exploration of an alien spaceship and the death of a friend, Officer Matthew Simpson. Lenyx killed him, and in the distance, she saw herself staring back at her, watching in horror as the human was incinerated. Both she and her doppelganger screamed.

  Once more, the world went white until nothing remained around her. This time, it stayed that way for a long time, as if her unseen tormentor had nothing left to show her and had abandoned her to wallow in nothingness. Tryst was alone and terrified. Was this to be her sarcophagus, her tomb?

  The bright-white nothingness began to wither. First it turned gray, then black as death, which she assumed it to be. It grew darker still, to the point where she could barely see her own hand waving in front of her. She smiled sadly. At least it’s my hand.

  She felt another’s hand on her shoulder. She gasped in fear and awakened to a new reality, her reality.

  “Welcome back,” a familiar voice said, a friend calling to her, pulling her from the darkness. It was Milliken’s voice, and he was speaking a human tongue. English.

  “How is Natalie Winger?” he asked. He laughed as if he’d just told the most hysterical joke ever told. Tryst found it eerie and disturbing. How could he know that human girl?

  Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the dark of night, still considerably brighter than the pitch black of her subconscious. Gazing up at the stars, she lay on a muddy path set between wet grass, shrubs and tall green trees. A cool breeze blew against her skin. Her surroundings no longer seemed strange. She was as comfortable in them as she was rolling in Symorian dirt. Better yet, she was back where she belonged.

  Lenyx sat up beside her. He shook the grogginess from his head. Tryst found it comforting, a sign that she was not alone. He rose and reached for her hand. She took it and stood, shaking off her own disorientation, remembering the earth and air around her. She was in the New Hampshire woods, not far from where their craft had landed.

  Connor crept toward them. His mouth opened to speak, but he only stuttered when he tried. Tryst waited patiently as he worked up the courage he needed to speak his mind.

  “How do you know Natalie Winger?” he asked, his voice barely audible. “She was my—”

  “First girlfriend,” Tryst said, beginning to understand. “We know.” I do know. Somehow, her dreams had gifted her with Connor’s memories, as impossible as it sounded. Though she kept calm on the outside, her insides were a mess.

  “You speak English, too?” Connor asked. One eyebrow shot up on his forehead. “What else do you know?”

  For one, she knew Connor thought he was as good as dead. She knew everything he felt and everything he thought as soon as he felt or thought it. For reasons unknown to her, she had established a mental link with the human, a member of a species she’d never known before that morning. It was rumored among her people that their ancestors could link minds with one another many eons ago, long before the old wars nearly wiped them out. Tryst never put much stock in rumors.

  Anyway, even if the rumors were true, she was pretty sure no humans were crawling around Symoria back then. This human had good reason to be confused. Tryst had no answers for him. How could she explain that by merely focusing her thoughts on Connor, she could hear his? How could she tell him that if she concentrated just a bit more, she could unlock his every memory, expose all his secrets, even those he might have forgotten and those he tried to forget?

  Tryst opted for the truth, plain and simple. “As Milliken explained, we’ve learned all there is to know about you from you.” She went for sincere, but what came out was menacing.

  “Yes, but how is that? Have you been inside my head?” Connor’s hands shook. He took a step back. “Am I your guinea pig?”

  “Guinea pig? Ha!” Tryst laughed at the image of the small furry rodent Connor’s question had instilled in her mind. Connor shrank away.

  “Sorry. You have some strange creatures on your planet,” she said, stifling her chuckles. Connor stared back at her, looking pale and confused.

  Tryst scanned his mind. “Ah, it also means ‘test subject.’ I understand you now.” Tryst moved closer to Connor, her arms reaching out to him in a gesture of peace. Connor stepped further away, and she realized her error.

  “We won’t hurt you,” she said, stopping her advance. She thought for a moment. Placating the human was not her responsibility. Her condition had changed, as had that of her crew members. Connor would have to wait. Their health would have to take priority, even above establishing interspecies relations.

  “Your questions will all be answered in due time,” Tryst said. “For now, and as peculiar as it might sound, the short answer is that your planet’s water gives us the ability to read and understand your mind. Imagine a dying house plant. A little water, and the plant rejuvenates. Well, our brains are similar to that plant. We’ve been dying slowly, for ages. I can feel the water coursing through my brain, reviving it, flowing into areas formerly barren, unused and wasted. Much like humans only use a small percentage of their brains, we had only used fragments of our own.

  “But everything feels different now. My thoughts are clearer. My mind is stronger, sharper. I’m not sure why, but I can use it in ways I never thought possible. Maybe… maybe we were meant to come here, to return to our home before—”

  “It was a malfunction,” Lenyx said. “Our ship—”

  “I know,” Tryst interrupted, smiling sheepishly. She knew he’d be the last to accept their evolution even while experiencing it himself, not without hard science to support it. And without proper biological analysis, Lenyx was right to be worried.

  He looked at her with the concern of one in love and afraid to lose it. “Who knows what else the water may have done to us? It’s too soon to count these changes as blessings.”

  Isn’t this a blessing? Milliken asked, his voice sounding inside her head. He stood a few feet away, smiling. His lips hadn’t moved at all. We can read each other’s minds. And as you can see, we can communicate telepathically.

  “Milliken, stop it,” Tryst said, unnerved by his presence inside her head, her private thoughts his to peruse at will. “Talk to me normally. That’s so… invasive. Stay out of my head.”

  “What happened to our skin?” Lenyx asked. He startled Tryst. She hadn’t noticed him approach.

  “I was waiting for someone to notice that,” Milliken said, his grin broadening. “I tried to explain everything to you earlier, but you just looked at me as though I were crazy. Perhaps now, you’ll be willing to accept what I’ve told you.”

  Tryst stared at her skin. In the night sky, it appeared normal. Milliken walked toward an opening in the trees, letting the moonlight shine down on him. His skin was no longer white, but light gray. It was sleek like the head of a porpoise breaching the water’s surface on a hot, sunny day. Other than that, everything else appeared normal. Still, Tryst was afraid to examine her own under the light.

  “Do you trust me?” Milliken asked, moving closer. He drew a small, triangular blade from a pouch tied around his thigh. Connor stood quiet, his eyes locked on the weapon. Tryst wondered if it was fear or scientific curiosity that kept him from running. She knew how easy it would be to find out. What Milliken was thinking was another story.

  Tryst had always trusted her crewmate. Training together as long as they had, a true friendship had been forged. But Milliken hadn’t been himself since his miraculous revival. She cringed. Why would he draw his weapon on her? What did he intend to do with it? She tried to read his mind, not yet grasping the particulars on how to do it. Tryst couldn’t be certain, but she thought she saw his intent to stab her. Her pulse quickened as she backpedaled.

  “Hold still,” he said. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  Milliken rushed toward her, blade in hand. Lenyx reacted quickly, gone and reappearing in a flash, directly in Milliken’s path before the warrior could exact his monstrous and unprovoked act. But Milliken flash
ed out of existence and re-emerged behind him.

  Tryst turned to run, but as she did, Milliken thrust the blade square into her neck. She screamed. Cold metal collided with her skin.

  No pain followed.

  When she faced her attacker, she found him on the ground. Lenyx was on top of him, pummeling Milliken’s face with his fists. Tryst grabbed Lenyx beneath his arms and pulled him off. Lenyx turned to her, fangs still seething. He brushed her hair from her neck. He seemed just as surprised as she was to find it unharmed. She turned his hands in hers then examined Milliken. Neither Lenyx’s fists nor Milliken’s face showed any sign of the recent assault.

  “See?” Milliken said, picking himself off the ground. He held a folded blade in his hand.

  “Did my skin bend that?” Tryst couldn’t believe it. She searched the back of her neck for injury: blood, a gash or any sign of bruising or even the slightest blemish. If she weren’t so amazed, she might have been pissed.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” she said, staring at the knife in disbelief.

  Milliken nodded in agreement. He faced Lenyx. “Nice moves. You couldn’t teleport that well yesterday.”

  “What’s happened to us?” Lenyx asked. “I don’t see any other physical changes, but our skin is darker, gray like the clouds. And hard. Why is it so hard?”

  “We’ve been transformed,” Milliken answered, tossing the contorted metal weapon onto the ground.

  Wearing his sleeves like mittens, Connor discreetly picked up the blade and inspected it. He tried to bend the knife back to its original form, cutting his shirt in the process. The knife fell to the ground.

  Tryst wondered if the others had noticed. If it contacted his skin, they’d have noticed his screams and the burning-flesh smell that followed. From that point on, she tried to keep one eye on the human at all times, if not for their sake, then for his own.

  “Be careful with that,” Lenyx said. “We can’t assume that these changes have made contact between our species safe.” Connor gaped at the weapon, lost in thought, still quivering.