by Chogan Swan
CHAPTER 3 – IDENTITY
The act of staring at long, smoothly muscled legs tapering upward from deceptively delicate-seeming springheels and feet was accompanied by spikes of panic.
They were admirable legs, but where they joined, something was missing.
Male genitalia.
In the place where one would have expected those organs, a mons pubis framed by hips forming a distinctive feminine curve remained despite all expectations.
A narrow, well-formed hand reached out and explored the small breasts that formed double arches above the ridged muscles of the abdomen.
The nipples were incredibly sensitive.
Darkness eclipsed the view as eyes closed tight.
Think!
Did the laws of geologic precedence that had served before fail as a logical anchor? The notion brought on a dizziness that made the room swirl.
No!
The memories of ShwydH's birth had come before the memories of Riniana Tiana's birth. The analogy of geologic precedence must logically guide, and a guide was needed before sanity failed.
But the control of this body had not come until the childhood memories of Riniana Tiana had been accessed. The knowledge of how to use this body was clearly tied up in those memories.
Thoughts raced through a mind untethered.
Memories had not been invaded. It was not what DuGwaedH had done to HumanaH. All the ShwydH memories were in place, so far as they went. ShwydH's memories, poured into an empty brain. Then—after awareness was established—new memories had been added from Tiana's childhood. Now, both were housed in a nii branch body.
HumanaH had told him enough for an idea of how the nii went about their longevity procedures—methods unlike the cannibalistic tactics of the niiaH who took over the bodies of their own offspring.
There was still the overwhelming question that needed an answer.
Who am I?
At least there was only one awareness.
One.
That was a useful place to start.
Did one have an attachment to the ShwydH identity? Certainly more memories were collected there. The surprise of failing to find a penis attested to an attachment to the identity. Perhaps the answer might lie in the memories.
One opened eyes again and looked around.
In the dim chamber, the straight-lined shapes invited.
One might explore.
The smell of the rock walls suggested they might be limestone. Though the odor—filtered through unfamiliar synapses—was odd. The Riniana Tiana memories, which spanned only about three centians, held no formal study of geology, especially Earth geology.
With caution, one put feet on the smooth rock floor, braced buttocks on the elevated stone table and tried to stand. After staggering, one quickly found balance and moved to the nearest object. It proved to be a shower stall.
Though light was dim, one could make out writing, in HumanaH's familiar style, that covered the glass door.
ShwydH …
Clearly, HumanaH thought one would be ShwydH, but one was not yet convinced.
… the water for the shower is plentiful and drinkable, but read the letter I left in the trunk before doing anything else.
An arrow drawn on the door pointed the way to another straight-lined shadow, lower and near the wall. One continued past the shower to the trunk and lifted its lid. The chamber filled with light. Somehow, a lighting system had activated. The entire chamber, a dry cave, roughly spherical and twenty meters across, was now clearly visible.
An envelope labeled ‘Read First’ lay atop the chest's other contents. One took the envelope in hand and opened it easily. Riniana Tiana must have achieved great small-motor dexterity at seven.
The letter was written on tough stone paper.
ShwydH, I am sure you have many questions, but I will only answer one at this time: I have not told anyone else about this.
For now, however, you have more immediate concerns. Your body needs sustenance right away, and you may be unable to sense how urgent the need is. You need to follow these directions immediately.
At least 24 hours will have passed from when you first woke, and your body could soon have a dangerous reaction to its lack of fuel.
it will be safe to drink from the shower as you wash off the residue from the crèche. But before you eat anything, insert the gourd-shaped pod that hangs above the bench into the opening of your genitalia. Your body will subsume the contents automatically. After the contents drain in, move the pod deeper inside until it is subsumed as well. Do this soon. Your life depends on it.
One put the letter down and looked back at the bench where the pod hung suspended from a lattice network above the body-sized opening at the lower end where one had rested.
The pod certainly seemed large to take inside oneself in the manner described.
Shower first.
One opened the shower door, stepped inside, and turned the handle. Needle-fine jets of water hammered one’s skin, making it tingle as the integument's sensory net hydrated. A bar of soap in a wax-paper wrapper rested in the soap dish. One opened the wrapper and tentatively soaped the female body. It felt as though one were taking liberties that made one want to ask pardon. One hardened one’s resolve and continued, even washing between the legs.
Besides, who could one ask? The childhood memories that had granted one the ability to move perhaps?
As water sluiced over skin into one’s dust-dry mouth and throat, one’s eyes strayed again to the spot above the bench where hung the enormous pod that one would have to deal with next.
Your life depends on it.
One turned off the water, opened the door and—leaving a trail of footprints puddling behind—one walked to the pod. It was about the size of a 2-liter bottle, but once the liquid inside had been subsumed, it would no doubt collapse to something more manageable. Placing both hands beneath and on the pod, one pulled, testing the connection to the lattice. The heavy pod popped free of the connection unexpectedly, settling in one’s grip and oozing a milky liquid from the narrower end.
Startled, one clutched the container, in fear it might fall and burst.
Your life depends on it!
One took a deep calming breath. Then—with utmost care—one climbed up and settled on the bench to sit straddling it.
From this vantage point, the pod looked immense, and the body holding the pod in its lap hardly seemed to belong to one.
It would certainly not do to endanger the body’s survival simply because of … squeamishness on the part of one tied up in the ShwydH memories. The body reminded one of Ayleana. The hands, the legs and all other visible parts were nearly identical. And Ayleana was a person ShwydH had become more attached to than he would have ever admitted to himself when alone with his own thoughts.
But now we are one.
ShwydH had been devastated when Ayleana's gathering memories had given her the knowledge of what it meant that ShwydH had been born niiaH. It had severed their brief friendship and left him with only her disgust.
He should have seen it coming.
One focused on breathing for a few seconds. Though there was only one awareness, clearly one could be of two minds.
Spreading the body’s legs, one moved the tip of the pod, relying on the memories of a young Riniana Tiana's early bodily explorations to find the path. Three drops fell onto the lips of the bagua at the forking junction during the process.
The liquid lubricated the surface area with tingling warmth, distracting the ShwydH mind from the sensation of the pod's invasion and delighting the young Riniana Tiana mind with the pleasure of subsuming THERE as the tip, about the size of two fingers together, slid home and the drops of the nectar became a warming trickle inside.
One carefully brought one’s legs together and one’s tail up to steady the pod, balancing it between the thighs. Warmth from sublimation spread out from the center. A quiet well-being permeated the body, seeping into one’s divided
mind as sleep fell.
∆ ∆ ∆
One woke to ten more years of new memories from the Riniana Tiana mind and the resulting mental tools. One now had time-sense awareness, which indicated that a little more than a day had passed since one had fallen asleep. The lights of the chamber—still burning—added to the daylight filtering down from the panel above. The pod was gone. One had the dreamy recollection of one’s body somehow pulling the pod within by gradual stages as it dissolved.
The Riniana Tiana mind's latest memories had ended shortly after her sexual maturation threshold. One pondered the differences between the nii and niiaH cultures' and the ways they structured that pivotal event. The feedback loops from the emphasis placed on the methods of each culture had influenced their societies and resulted in two diverging races.
Nii society guided females through a controlled awakening using moderation and meditation during the sexual joining that brought forth a nii female's first experience with orgasm and the cascade of physical development it engendered.
The niiaH encouraged a more martial approach …
Feasting, Fucking and Fighting.
One felt a certain dark amusement at the alliteration of the English words that came to one’s mind.
The nii had become a cooperating race of mutualistic symbionts while the niiaH had evolved into a warrior-caste, predatory juggernaut bent on conquest.
The war between them had been inevitable.
One rose from the stone platform and moved to explore the containers in the chamber. Packets of dried, nii-compatible food were scattered across the top of the chest opened the day before. HumanaH's scent lingered on them, recognizable even through one’s unfamiliar senses. One unwrapped a packet and ate the dried food then stacked the rest to the side. The lower layers held four sealed packages of sturdy clothes in styles ShwydH had not seen since the late 1930s. The clothes were custom-tailored for one’s body and included skirts that would conceal tail and lower legs where the springheels would give away alien origin. Custom-made boots lay beneath the clothes in another sealed box.
The next layer revealed old financial documents—likely useless except perhaps outside the boundaries of the United States where currency might still function. The five kilograms of gold coins would still be valuable, though heavy.
At the bottom, ammunition containers held box after box of .45 caliber ACP ammunition and two 1911 semi-automatic pistols. Along with the pistols were two gun maintenance kits.
One would need to make sure the weapons were ready to operate as soon as the remaining containers were inventoried. The guns and a maintenance kit went on top of the crate before one moved to the standing wardrobe.
An inspection of the wooden closet revealed: 5 sealed outfits hanging from hangers, 2 Browning Automatic Rifles with 20-round magazines and .30-06 ammunition in boxes on the floor. A mirror hung on the back of the door. One examined the face and body that held one’s awareness.
A young female nii—much less-muscular than HumanaH—confronted one. The face, not yet sculpted to blend with human norms, swirled with the deep chocolate and red stripes almost identical to the post-adolescent one in the Tiana memories. This was a beautiful young adult, no longer adolescent. Hands touched the face.
Had one willed that to happen?
Was that a sense of satisfaction?
One might need to work on making it a little more human though … as soon as Riniana Tiana’s memories of her body controls woke.
One shrugged mentally, a learned gesture from time with humans. The reflection's shoulders twitched.
The mind/body connection tightens, but unconscious movements can display vulnerabilities and must stay under control.
As one closed the mirrored door, an object fell from the ledge, and one caught it reflexively. It was a fine-tipped marker with HumanaH's scent on it … no doubt she had used it to write the message on the shower door. One opened the marker and applied the tip to the shower door below the message. The tip released fluid readily. One pondered. The date marked on the door below the message encompassed another message. HumanaH had been here not long ago. Since there was no reason to imagine she would lie about the date, one would still be almost current on events outside.
One turned back to the guns.
Current events required well-maintained weapons.
CHAPTER 4 – LUNCH
On the fifth morning of one’s life, the sunlight filtering through the translucent panel above found one integrating synaptic reflexes to the martial training of the young military scout, Riniana Tiana.
One moved hands, feet and tail through the motions of attack and defense: sweeps, kicks, blows, blocks—all flowed like water as the memories took one through the levels of the discipline.
One felt balanced between disgust and delight. Tiana's fighting skills from her training as a simple nii infantry scout were excellent, but its superiority to the specialized officer's training ShwydH had received at the height of his career was annoying.
For a war-focused race, the niiaH had been extremely reluctant to trust junior officers with dangerous abilities. No doubt, the ruthless command structure at the top had been more concerned about their subordinates taking over than they were about the enemy killing said subordinates. Not that one had any residual loyalty to the niiaH, Mostly one was just disgusted that ShwydH had never realized how handicapped he’d been. But now, one would not be.
At least not much longer.
One focused attention on the techniques with grim determination.
We won't get fooled again!
The sentiment, echoing out of the human song from the early 70s amused one darkly. ShwydH had been ‘tapped-in’ to human culture for centuries as a matter of self-interest. It only made sense to understand those you commanded, but DuGwaedH had viewed him as contaminated by humanity. Now DuGwaedH was dead … ashes in fact. A human-made 9mm projectile from ShwydH's Sig Sauer P210 had ended DuGwaedH's ambitions for the resurrection of niiaH ascendancy.
It had been a good shot too.
One almost smirked.
Shwyd's aim with human weapons had not been inferior to anyone’s no matter what race. The shot, which had saved HumanaH's life, was probably why she had given one this chance. She may have considered it a second chance for ShwydH. But in spite of one’s attachment to the ShwydH memories, one knew one was not fully ShwydH.
What one would become was still unknown.
Finished with the martial exercise, one went to the crèche platform—now being used as a worktable—and plucked a stainless-steel canteen from where it sat amid the projects. One took a long drink of water then set the canteen out of the way to review the status of the projects.
The M-1911 pistols were in better-than-new condition. Clearly, a master gunsmith had already deburred and optimized every piece of the weapons, before oiling and sealing them in a non-corrosive wrapping. One had cleaned and oiled them with the gun oil from the kit anyhow, making sure the oil was fresh. The 1911s might be a touch less accurate than the P210 ShwydH had favored, but the .45 caliber ACP projectiles offered much more stopping power than the P210's 9mm bullets. ShwydH wouldn’t have agreed, but one considered them more than good enough.
The two automatic rifles were in like condition. Their serial numbers indicated manufacture in the 1920s, like most of the items in the room.
This body had taken almost 100 years to reach maturity.
The development cycle of branch bodies might take that long to mature. However, the entire process was obviously independent after launch … fire-and-forget.
But this time the cycle had been disturbed. HumanaH had come back and altered the outcome, putting recent ShwydH memories into the empty, waiting brain then setting her own memories to start arriving afterward.
One suspected HumanaH had gotten the idea from Ayleana's experience.
HumanaH had revived the Ayleana branch for Edward's sake. Edward had been HumanaH's human partner until HumanaH had been me
ntally damaged when DuGwaedH had captured her in a mad attempt to steal her body with the intent of replacing DuGwaedH's own ancient and failing one.
Ayleana, HumanaH's youngest branch-sister, had been revived early—before her synapses had been ready to receive all the memory engrams that had been placed in her crèche.
But when Ayleana awoke in a thirteen-year-old body with the memories of a nine-year-old nii, she had refused to allow Tiana to release the rest of the backup memory crystal's content all at once. Instead she’d insisted on letting the memories trickle in during her dream cycles so she could hold to who she perceived herself to be.
The courage and determination that decision had taken had impressed ShwydH. One knew it had impressed HumanaH as well—even though Edward, her human partner, had been devastated at the loss of his friend and companion of more than 100 years.