by P. K. Tyler
“We could have had children,” I told Anone one night in the cave, after a long day’s wading up the river for harvest. It would be another season yet until our cultivated buds took to the river reefs. Anone sat by my burrow in the dark, eating a bud and urging me to eat.
“In the other-dream,” I continued, “you said it would be too complicated. You wanted the experience of this. We could have been a family.”
“We decided that was not what we wanted,” Anone said. Cave water had been dripping slowly above him and now he shook himself off, spraying droplets. I flinched as some of them hit my too-tender face and neck. I sensed the wince of Anone’s apology, though it was as if from a distance. The feel of the bond, or maybe the feel of me, was growing fainter.
“We can still have a family,” Anone insisted. “We will have children, as many children as you want, when we get back.”
“To get back is to die, Anone. I don’t know how you can do that, to die in one life, then die in another, and another.”
All that I had felt, in the last weeks and years, came surging up. Some strength returned to my arms, if only in my need to express myself. I pushed up to face him.
“This is why we weren’t supposed to be together here,” I said. “Something went wrong, and we met, and I thought it would be a good thing. Before we came, I had hoped for it. I wish now it had never been.” I let out a soft keening. “I let you be everything, Anone. I never wanted any of this. Just you. Just you.”
I huddled back into myself. Pain crept up the razors of my legs, shivering me of its own volition.
“Gemina, we’ll work it out—”
“No! I can’t work at it anymore. You aren’t what I need anymore. I need to be...I need to be myself.”
And with the realization and the words came a sudden, unexpected release of tension. My legs spasmed out from their protective crouch, and I moaned in what was at once agony in my muscles and pure relief. Anone spasmed too, reeling drunkenly to one side.
“Ahh, ahh!” he keened. “Gemina! What have you done!”
I panted. I could not feel him. Anone was gone. The sting of that thought came as suddenly as the ending of the bond, and then began to fade.
There was loss, yes. But what I had spoken was true. Maybe the truest words I had spoken in years. I had loved Anone, but not the true bonding kind of love. I loved Anone because I could let her be my self for me, so I would not have to be myself on my own.
* * *
I stayed the night and felt the delicious cold of my own mind, alone. I had my own thoughts for the first time in this life. For the first time in any life.
Anone, I said in my heart. You have given me the greatest gift, an understanding of myself. For that, I thank you.
I said farewell to what had been my family, who now keened and turned away from me much as my birth family had. Anone watched me, swaying with grief and a rage I could not penetrate and did not try.
He said, “If I wake in the other-dream before you, I will not have them put me back in the cold-sleep. I won’t wait for you, Gemina.”
I left and began my sojourn alone on this world. I wandered the rivers and gathered buds, and dug burrows, and warded myself at night against the predators. In the weeks of rain, I took shelter in caves and slept, and ate the hoarded buds I’d carried in nets on my back. I thought of Anone’s cave and Anone and my family, both of my families, and it hurt.
But as the seasons passed and I carried on, the hurt grew less. I encountered others over the years, and sometimes we travelled together, sharing friendship, though never long enough to bond. I had learned from that mistake the first time. I would not repeat it, or so I vowed.
But one day, late in my years, I found a male whose taste was irresistible to me, and mine to him. He stood easy by the bank of the river, at home in himself. His carapace was weathered and scuffed but still strong, and shone the green-black common to that part of the inlands.
“I am Naska,” he said.
“I am…” I hesitated. I had been calling myself Gemina for years, but I was not Gemina. Not here.
The memories of the other-dream had faded with time and distance from Anone. One day, when I died on this world, I would wake up in the other-dream, to resume that different life. But here, I was of this world. I was who my mother had named me.
Naska waited, patient.
“I am Katchtan,” I finally said.
I was no longer sure of anything about the bonds, and was not surprised when we grew to share one. He had been alone, as I was, and was older than I; both of us past our fertility. As we went on, I learned from him that he was like me. He had never felt fully male, nor fully female. He had thought he was defective, and so he had never taken a mate.
“You are not perfect,” I told him. “But you are exactly you.”
He wove his head in a soft laugh. “And you are exactly you, Katchtan. Can we not be ourselves together?”
There was ease between us, a deep ease of shared company. And we no longer needed to have children, so there was no pressure in the bond. Or maybe there never would have been, with us as equals to each other, grateful, but not needing our bond to be whole.
We shared our lives and our selves. We travelled the rivers and streams, and gathered buds, and dug our burrows, and warded ourselves with our venom at night. We grew to know each other. And we joined together, sweet and gentle, under the white halo of insect stars. We knew love.
* * *
I woke, gasping a lungful of strange air. I rolled over and coughed, my arms cracking against metal bed rails. I cried out. And then I stopped and drew up my legs and smarting arms and shivered.
“Gemina,” a voice said. “Gemina.”
I looked up and the haze resolved into the face of a woman. Human, from the other-dream. I screamed.
* * *
I woke again.
“We have run your mind through your memories of humanity,” the woman said. She wore a lab coat, a different style than I remembered. A different doctor then, her black hair tied back, and too much makeup caked on her tawny skin. Decades would have passed since I’d last been awake here.
I looked at my hands, brown and fleshy. Panic spiked, and then faded in a dullness of meds.
I lay back. Gemina. I was human Gemina again.
The doctor leaned over me. “I am so sorry. The team that was here before me contemplated bringing you out prematurely. Your mission partner reported it was a cold and cruel world, but she said you would want the full experience of it. And the readings of your pattern were within limits. After a time, they evened out.” She hovered a moment, uncertain. “Your mission partner is not here.”
Anone. Then she had already awakened and exacted what she thought was a petty revenge in leaving me on the planet. Years ago, it might have been a revenge.
I jerked as the doctor’s other words registered. They would have taken me from my mate. Naska. Where was he now?
I huddled against myself in the coldness of the room. The med monitors beeped out the rhythm of my heart.
I had died. I remembered curling up to sleep next to Naska, his body warm and solid. His carapace, peeling with age, was papery against my side. As was mine against his. I remembered a tremor in the muscles of my lungs.
In the unfamiliar air of the research ship, I forced long, slow breaths.
* * *
In the following days, they asked for my memories. It was why I had gone to the other world, after all. To live, and see, and report.
I told them of my childhood, gathering buds in the village by the sea. I told them of Anone. They told me she had not lasted as long as I had; she woke twelve years ago and left.
The doctor was friendly, and then more than friendly. I understood her quiet attentions; the reason we were sent to the other world in pairs was not to meet there, but to have a mate with which to join when we came back. Shared experience helped, but physical pleasure was a powerful grounding.
I did not
respond to her invitation, and was only polite to the young xenobiologist who listened to my memories. But e was quiet and reminded me in eir steadiness of Naska. E made some things more bearable to say.
I spoke to em of Katchtan, who had travelled farther inland than any of his village and had a family despite all warnings that it was not possible. I told em I had found love, because I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I could not deny my grief or the reality that I could not go back. I told em of Naska. And the whisper of my mate’s gentle touch on my neck; his scent, like deep earth in a comfortable burrow; his delighted laugh when I splashed too fast through the river.
After a time, the xenobiologist turned off the recorders. E came around the desk and put an awkward arm around me. The touch of soft human-ness broke me and I wept.
In another lifetime, I might have grown to care for em. Both e and the doctor had genuine affection for me. I did not dislike them. But I had learned about myself on that world. I had lived.
There would be time, of course, before I wanted another. And I felt the loss of my mate like a razor through my heart. But I knew I would heal.
I had gone to that world because I thought I would lose Anone, and lose myself, if I did not. But I found myself there. I found what it meant to be fully settled within who I was. I learned to love myself, and I found a love with another that was not conditional.
I was whole.
About the Author
Holly Heisey launched her writing career in sixth grade when she wrote her class play, a medieval fantasy. It was love at first dragon. Since then, her short fiction has appeared in publications such as The Doomsday Chronicles, Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, Escape Pod, and Clockwork Phoenix 5. A freelance designer by day, Holly lives in Pennsylvania with Larry and Moe, her two pet cacti, and she is currently at work on a science fantasy epic.
Glass Heart
by Sacha Hope
Summary: England, 1850. Wolt's wife is dying from disease. He is desperate to find a cure for her affliction...not knowing that he created a monster instead.
Fading
1850, Wales, England
It was a terrible accident.
Wolt did not foresee this happening. He always took such great care when conducting his experiments. The Academic Board would laugh bitterly at him if they saw his blunder. “How inept,” they would probably comment and give him the judgemental stare. Thinking of those old men back at the college only made Wolt shake his head. He kept forgetting that he was no longer part of the board.
It had been six years to the day since Wolt’s dismissal from the Academic Board of Wales College. For six long years, he had worked hard to prove to them wrong. Dismissing him without acknowledging his work and the contributions he’d made to science left a bitter taste in Wolt’s mouth, to say the least. It was not his fault those old men were stuck in their antiquated ways. “Too radical,” they said. “Your methods are unorthodox, unnatural. It is borderline heresy!” The words still echoed through his mind six years later.
Wolt’s grey eyes stared in disappointment at the ruined interior of his small lab. Glass shards covered every flat surface. The stench of sulphur hung thickly in the air. Who would have guessed that knocking over a small vial would cause such chaos? Clumsiness was unbecoming of a man of science, even if the board thought his brand of science was uncanny.
Black scorch marks lined the front of Wolt’s white lab coat. His hair stood in odd directions from the force of the tiny explosion. Shaking his head and sighing, Wolt slipped out of his ruined coat. Eleanor would have heard that blast and would most likely be pacing up and down in the hall. She did not venture into his lab. It was his private space and she was afraid to knock something over with her long skirts; at least, that was the excuse she made. Wolt had invited her numerous times into his lab; each time, she declined. He suspected she did not approve of his work either, but her demure nature and obligation as his wife prevented her from uttering any grievances.
A sigh escaped his lips. It was tiring to face opposition from every direction, however subtle that opposition may be.
Smoothing his singed hair, Wolt breathed in deeply, trying to relax his frustrated mind. It was the seventh time that day his laboratory had gone up in smoke.
“Perhaps it’s time to rest a little and take some tea.”
Exiting the dimness of the lab, Wolt’s eyes were dazzled by bright sunlight and light, lilting birdsong. Among the flowers and fresh grass sat his wife. Her long, white dress draped over the Cedarwood bench, dappled sunlight filtered onto her pale complexion through the canopy of the great oak tree in whose shadow she rested. Golden-brown locks were neatly pinned into a bun; a few tendrils escaped to frame her face in a curly fashion. Her eyes, emerald orbs of worry, were closed.
Wolt felt his heart leap. It was not often that Eleanor would venture outside any more. Even rarer was it that she looked completely at peace. He wanted time to freeze at that moment so his love would forever remain peaceful and safe from the clutches of her affliction. A knife stabbed deeply into his heart. Her life-force was bleeding slowly from her. He prayed she would be able to hold on until he was successful.
Silently stealing over the grass, Wolt circled his arms around her frail body, inviting himself into her serene moment. Planting a gentle kiss on her cheek, he sat next to his wife, taking her pale hands into his own.
“You’re out early.” A smile graced her pale lips as she leaned into the crook of Wolt’s arm.
“I’m depriving myself too much of my ladylove. I needed to see you before I went mad.”
“Did your experiments blow up again?” Eleanor enquired teasingly.
“You know me too well,” Wolt teased, squeezing her shoulder affectionately. “Let’s go inside.”
“Not yet. It’s such a beautiful day… I feel like a prisoner in the manse sometimes… being unable to go out in the sunlight often.” Her green eyes demanded his attention. “The physician came earlier today, but nothing changed. I hate the medicine; it tastes awful.”
Wolt nodded absently.
His wife’s condition was unknown to the local physician and he’d had the best medical experts from the college examine her. The only thing those archaic fools could reveal was that Eleanor was suffering from some type of cancer. The disease slowly ate away at his once vibrant spouse, leaving her a husk of the woman she was. Eleanor used to dance and play the flute. She used to steal kisses, leaving him to give chase after her.
“The medicine is there to make you better, my love. Nothing can be done about the taste, but perhaps a drop of honey would help?”
Eleanor pulled a face. She was the only woman Wolt ever knew who hated honey.
“Come, let’s go inside and have some of Judith’s chamomile tea.”
“And ginger biscuits?” Eleanor asked, her green eyes twinkling brightly.
Instead of answering her, Wolt opted to scoop her into his arms. Her featherweight tore at him. There was a time when Eleanor was heavier, her hips rounder and her feminine characteristics more pronounced. Masking his sinking heart with a smile, he spun around in a circle, holding his wife tightly. Her laughter—a long forgotten sound—mixed with his chuckle as they twirled in the shade of the oak tree.
His grey eyes rested on the frail woman in his arms. She was still giggling and her face was flushed from the sudden rush. It was the most excitement Eleanor had had since the onset of her disease. The physicians had warned against exciting her, as they feared it would feed the disease and sap her strength. His hand moved of its own accord and removed the pins that held up her brown locks. Dry, brittle hair fell past her shoulders and framed her thin face. Her complexion took on a washed-out peach colour. It was the healthiest Wolt had seen her in months. A mere shadow of her former self.
“You look radiant,” Wolt whispered, claiming her chapped lips. A deep blush painted Eleanor’s cheeks in a feverish hue. Wolt’s lips moved gently to her cheek, the feel of her cold an
d clammy skin being a painful reminder of her once vigorous youth. Kissing her closed eyelids, Wolt carried her into the mansion.
* * *
After tea, Eleanor rested in their bed. The excitement of the day had worn her out. As she lay there blissfully dreaming, Wolt dabbed away the sweat that had collected on her brow. Her breath came in shallow gasps and her skin shone pale yellow once more. Still, even with her periodic spasms of pain, this was one of Eleanor’s better days. Quietly, Wolt returned to the small cottage that he had converted into his laboratory. He had to find a way to help her.
Fragile
Frustration tore at Wolt as yet another one of his experiments failed. Gazing down at the bloodied corpse of the rat, Wolt was horrified to see that the animal had bled through every orifice. Wolt had bred the rats to have cancer in order to test various serums he’d prepared; not one had yielded success. He felt bad for this little fellow. Moments before it died, the rat squeaked and contorted in pain. A later examination of the tiny corpse would reveal that every blood-vessel in the rodent's body had torn. What would shock Wolt more was the state he would find the rat's heart in: blackened and rotting.
Shrugging off his coat, his mind raved about his failures. This last rat had bled. The one before that had had seizures, and test serum on the rat before that one had made the cancer spread alarmingly fast, resulting in bulbous growths all over the rat's body. He tried not to recall the rat that had grown a human ear on its back when he used Eleanor's tissue in the animal. Her affliction was aggressive. Aggravated by her weakened body and, Wolt was certain, the useless bitter medicine she had to take. How he wished for more time! He knew he would find the cure, but he needed more time. If only he could find a way to stop time.