Monstrosity

by Laura Diaz De Arce

  They paused to let Flor cry and say her final curses. The nearly unventilated shack was filled with smoke. It smelled of herbs and burning flowers that the hearth maiden kept feeding to the fire. She had to make the flames build larger, higher. The highest flame danced just a little below where Flor’s naval had been. The heat rose up, cauterizing the open edges of skin.

  The cleaver took a breath through her cloth and bent her head to Flor, meeting their foreheads together for a few seconds. It was a sympathetic gesture, a plea for forgiveness. Finally, in a moment that seemed to drag from Flor's infancy to this agonizingly real present, the cleaver ran her knife up the height of her face, over the top of her head, and thus brought the body-encircling wound fully around at last to meet its far terminus at the base of her neck.

  A flash occurred and the pointers let go. What was once the body of Flor fell into the fire. In the heat of it, the last of her human vestige, her body, was burned away. The five priestesses dropped to their knees. Rising from the flames was a goddess that looked like Flor, but her hair had grown to wrap itself around her body. She glowed like a lighted lantern.

  When everything had gone white, Flor came to know everything. She knew the past that was. She was there the day the deal had been made with her mother. She was there the day the Hickt had conquered the Jel. She was there when a bright little star lit up a lonely planet.

  Flor knew the present that was. At the edges of her fingertips she could feel the pulses of every living creature. She could see a child losing her toy in the street across the city. She could feel the last breath of a dying man fields away as if he were breathing on her skin.

  She knew the future that would be. Every crumbling building, every shattered bone turning to dust. Every sunrise to come.

  For the first time, Flor was whole. Made complete by unspeakable pain and by a bargain made in the name of a dead child. The flames rose around her, her, but she spurned their cocooning grasp, stepped out of them and left the shack. The priestesses went after her.

  Ilda had prayed outside the shack, already mourning the loss of her daughter. When the goddess stepped outside, she wanted to run to her and hold her. The face was almost the same. Flor offered her mother a brief glance and a little nod and moved on quickly to a trail that led off toward a nearby hill. The priestesses followed close in her steps behind and Ilda trailed on after them.

  The waiting crowd kept their distance. Goddesses were temperamental— without knowledge as to what kind of goddess she was, approaching could be a fatal mistake. At a sufficient distance to view it in its entirety, the goddess that had been Flor turned around and looked out onto the city. She saw it as it had been. She saw what the city was at that moment. She saw the city for what it would be. She pointed a solitary finger at the shack. From her fingertip came a bolt of flame finer than thread, which hit the shack with such power that it lit up the entire building in a moment.

  The priestesses looked on in terror, was proof that, alas, she was in fact a destructive goddess. They prayed.

  Ilda approached the goddess that had once been held in her daughter. She felt this was her sacrifice to make, having brought this creature into the world. This creature that she could not stop loving no matter how terrible it turned out to be. She looked her in the eyes and asked, "Who are you?"

  A smile scrawled itself across the face that looked like Flor's. The goddess went back to gazing at the burning shack and only said, "I am Change, Mother. I am here. I am the Last."

  A Promise

  The tracker display read that it would only be a matter of hours. Three hours and four seconds, to be exact. Now three. Ilacti found herself tensing up at the prospect. She had started taking the pills days ago in sequence, as instructed, to begin the process. It was easy— each pill and syringe had been laid out and perfectly marked in color-coded packets. The changes had started first in her feet, the edges growing taut and enlarging. She could no longer wear foot coverings. That was fine; she moved very little in the pod.

  Then it hit her stomach. She found herself with no appetite and unable to digest anything. She could swallow nothing except liquids and supplements, to further prepare her body for what it would have to do. Then her back became rigid, and she could not lie down. For the last two days she had been unable to sleep anyway, for she would never sleep again. Or she would always be sleeping. She was not clear on which it was.

  Ilacti looked at her little pod, littered with photos of her loved ones. In a slab there were the images of her parents, bodies long turned to dust in the great disaster some decades past. Next to them were the images of her partners, Calagti and Hull. If she closed her eyes, she could still hear Calagti’s golden laugh, freely given at any moment. If she kept her hand perfectly still, she could imagine Hull’s tender fingers encircling hers. They had all been a good, loving partnership for each other, each balancing the temperaments of the other. She missed them, their touch, the sounds of their voices. Even the way they fought, as would happen on occasion with any relationship. If Ilacti thought too much about it all, she would begin to cry.

  Adjacent to the aforementioned images and covering most of the walls of her little pod were pictures of her children, Qwueliu and Monixt, named after their people's names for the stars. They were why Ilacti was making her way to this distant place: For them, for their future. Her favorite picture of them was of the whole family outside on one of the few clear days left. They had gone to a park, played games and eaten beneath the trees, struggling to survive. There was a photo of their little family, dressed for their first day out in ages. The image captured Monixt’s quiet stoicism, even though ze was still a toddler. There was Qwueliu, eyes upturned and radiating their perpetual hope. They were her joy, and this, she reassured herself, was a demonstration of that love.

  If Ilacti looked too long at that picture her heart would ache. She would remember Qwueliu’s tears when she informed them all that she was one of those chosen to leave—that she had to leave. Monixt, still such a small child, had cried silently. They did not fully understand what was happening, that their planet was dying. That she was taking on a necessary purpose which their people had done before when they set sail on their little world to sparse, once-foreign lands. That dying; that she was taking on a vital mission; that this would ensure their survival as a species. She would do anything as a parent to ensure their survival. The two children only knew they were losing a mother.

  On the side of a small table there was a little glass container with a collection of stones her children had given to her. These were the stones had been dug out of the dirt walls of their home. Ilacti was of an age to remember when they first had to go underground. When the gasses had become harsh and the heat from it could fry the skin off a person on especially hot days. It was decided that their people would all move underground. That was cruel fate, for they thrived on sunshine and could only enjoy it when the smog cleared for a few hours in the cold months. She remembered herself as a child, diligently packing away her belongings, leaving her surface home behind for their designated one below the surface.

  She could picture her children now, some months after her departure, packing their things. Monixt, especially, would diligently organize zir small toys until each fit in a specialized place in zir suitcase. Qwueliu would have difficulty parting with anything, as ze was a sentimental child. Her children. Children she would not hold again, arranging the small items that had surrounded their lives up to that point.

  Ilacti could not form tears anymore, that was part of the changes happening to her body, but she became bleary-eyed looking at the little jar of stones given to her by her children. The stones were from their joint collection. Every time one found an interesting shape or a new color or a particularly shiny stone in the dirt walls of their home, they would pick it out and place it in this special jar. This jar, her photos, and memories were all Ilacti had taken with her.

  In just a little under two hours, Ilacti would reach her destinat
ion. She closed her eyes and tried to remember her purpose. She remembered the stories of her people, as told to her by her parents: How they had been a nation of travelers, and how their ancient techniques allowed them to settle in any environment. Such was what set them apart from the other beasts, that their physiology could change and adapt the world around them.

  The Exodus Incentive was born from this tradition. It was a solution started when she was a child and was only now coming to fruition. They tested the entire adult population for genetic compatibility and then from that pool asked for volunteers. Her notice, that she was one of fourteen possible candidates, had come by courier. Calagti had almost murdered the messenger, for they had all discussed the possible outcome. Any volunteer’s family would be set for life, and they would help ensure the survival of their people. Ilacti’s purpose was clear, even as her partners cried and begged. Even as Hull could barely speak from it all. Even as their children sobbed, Ilacti would not wait to see her people demolished on a dying planet.

  She and four other final volunteers were given their training and directives months ahead of time. The officials had allowed her to choose from one of the available planets. She had picked one that would be seven month’s travel, but had a bright, new sun. They had offered to name the planet for her, but she refused. She could not bear her children having to say her name and feel her loss whenever they spoke of where they were traveling. She had suggested they call it “Jhelmb”, which in the language of her ancestors meant “warm place”. It was accepted.

  She had taken the pills at the prescribed times. She injected herself in the correct spots throughout her journey. The chemicals would speed up her body’s acclimation and transformation. As she closed to within an hour of her destination, she took the penultimate pill. The others had been bitter, but this she could not taste. Her sense of taste would be the first to leave her, they had said. Ilacti closed her eyes and tried to remember what it was to taste. What it was to taste the sweet summer nectar her people made into delicacies. What was it to the taste of the lips of her partners? Ilacti swallowed her sorrow.

  With fifteen minutes remaining in her long journey, the pod’s ambient noise became silent. Her hearing had finally gone. They had assured her that would happen at the later stage. She steadied herself against the knowledge that she would never hear the voices of her children again. Looking out through the small window of the pod at the approaching planet, at the place that would eventually house her family, she remembered her purpose.

  It was barren, with little atmosphere, but it was not breaking apart the way her home was. There was no vegetation on this new place, on Jhelmb, then again, not much remained on the one she had left behind. Besides, that is what she was here to provide. Ilacti got up and collected her belongings— the photos, the jar. The pod landed. The doors opened out to reveal the rocky, soulless landscape.

  Her body was prepared to take the thin atmosphere. She picked a spot and laid her precious little objects around her in a circle and took the last pill. Then she closed her eyes and waited. She thought of the stories her parents had told her as a child of their people: How in a time of great shifts they had traveled to new, inhospitable lands and made them livable through the blood and sacrifice of the strong. Ilacti knew this to be true, for when some of her people bled upon the soil it would enliven for a moment. Dead flowers and plants would bloom anew in the presence of her people's blood

  But there was no amount of blood or carnage that would save her dying planet. Not as it was splitting apart in itself. Now they had to search for a home among the stars. All of what was would be dust before long.

  In the cool light of the creeping dawn, as her legs rooted into the ground and her body stiffened, Ilacti wondered if she would still know touch. When her children arrived in a few months, if they put a hand on her, would she feel them? None of the scientists one back on her world had ever managed to answer that question, but it hadn’t held her back because this wasn’t about her, it was about her kind’s survival.. She closed her eyes. The sun lit the bark on her face.

  Plum Moon

  1

  There's no air. It's what Etta Tuviano had to keep reminding herself. Otherwise, she'd just as easily shirk off her stuffy and all-too-tight helmet and let her dark, thick hair out in the non-atmosphere. It's part of the dream she's always secretly had - nothing separating her from the darkness of space. The cold weightlessness allowing her to move unencumbered. She knew that it was a stupid fallacy. That she would suffocate and freeze to death before she even had the chance to move a finger. But something always led her to gently lay her hand on her helmet trigger when she was waiting for an instruction.

  “OK E.T., take the HL3 pipe and insert the tapered end into the 7LM base,” Karen's voice buzzed over the intercom. “Oh, and Pierce wants me to remind you that that is our last 7LM base so if it snaps like the last one, we'll be shit out of luck until next month's transit.” Etta gingerly began assembling the post, frustrated at the odd angle and poor cut of the piping. “If Pierce doesn't stop giving me shit over that broken pipe, he can come out here and do this himself. Even if I have to drag him out here.” They both knew Etta was joking. She loved these exploratory walks, despite the fact that it was menial work.

  Karen also reminded her, over the intercom, that “You know how Pierce is, he'd just cry about how women's bodies are just made for these spacewalks. They take the pressure better.”

  “Pierce's body couldn't do anything better,” Etta quipped and swallowed her disgust. She paused, having finished the last sets of pieces, to look at the work. It was an odd thing, a combination of a drill and a well that stood out in strong contrast to the surrounding barren moon. Moon XKT-3049D was colloquially referred to as the “Plum Moon” for the heavy concentration of lepidolite that dusted the surface and because early excavations had located a dense, impenetrable core to the body. The Plum Moon revolved around an uninhabitable gas planet (G-XKT) and was a full six month's journey from the closest colony. The only reason the team was out there was to determine if the moon was a good candidate for mining.

  Continuous colonial expansion meant that humans had to cannibalize any material they had. Even now, the billions of them were swarming at different ends of that galaxy, eating through planet, moon and asteroid alike. Etta always felt a slight discomfort at the thought of it, even if she was only a tiny part of that machine. But this job was her chance to leave the over-crowded colony in which she had grown up. She looked out at the vastness of the Plum Moon, the still sand punctuated by impossible crystalline formations glowing purple in the muted light of a red sun, and thought of home. She was the only crew member that slept without her window set to opaque just to doze off staring out at the cold, quiet forever.

  “Three minutes, E.T. Turn on the thing and get back in here for lunch,” Karen said. Etta reluctantly turned on the machine and took one last look at the mostly untouched moon before heading back to their base. Karen met Etta in the depressurization chamber. “Hold it Sparky,” she said, holding up a green-lit metal wand. “Scanners detected a foreign body as you walked in.” Karen waved the DECT stick over Etta's limbs, looking for that telltale red blink, but no such luck.

  “No hitchhiking aliens or is the DECT stick broken?” Etta said with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well it sure ain't the DECT stick. I just reviewed this one. Maybe the scanners are on the fritz or maybe you're hiding something from us, E.T.,” Karen replied with a wink that made Etta's heart quicken despite herself. Etta stored her suit and they headed for the kitchens to eat with the other team members.

  Karen tilted her head to a tall, muscular blonde woman sitting at the end of the oversized metal table. “Scanner's on the fritz G.”

  “No, it's not. I just checked the specs this morning,” Goldie said, looking up from the odd fish-shaped dish she'd been picking at.

  Karen gave her a playful shove as she sat down next to Goldie. “Well it's not my DECT stick. I did di
agnostics on it just a couple of hours ago.”

  “Sure. Maybe you've been sticking your DECT stick where it doesn't belong,” Goldie said with a mischievous smile.

  Karen raised an eyebrow. “Is that a proposition?” she said, flirtation heavy in her face and tone. Her full lips curled up at one end into a smirk.

  Etta took that as her moment to turn away from their heavy banter, trying to hide the discomfort she felt. The pair had been bed-warming with one another the last few months, and while both insisted it was a casual affair, Etta could tell otherwise. She had masked her own attraction to Karen since they had met in transit last year, so well that Karen didn't even register it. It was ultimately fine with Etta: watching her closest friend on this far-off rock happily engage with Goldie warmed her heart, if not her bed. What bothered her was the closeness of it all. The way people crowded each other.

  Resident physician and nutritionist Rebecca had been coming their way and overheard their conversation. “What's this about the scanners?” she said as she placed plates in front of Etta and Karen, each made to their specific dietary requirements. Rebecca brushed a stray, smooth black hair back behind her ear and sat next to the trio. Her thin, artificially youthful face radiated a calm and restrained curiosity.

  “Oh, either the scanner is broken or the DECT stick is and Etta dragged in aliens,” Karen said, stuffing a mouthful of starch mash. “The scanners listed a code red but the DECT stick found nothing,” she explained, a bit of mash leaving her mouth in the process.

  “Or,” interrupted Heath from down the table, “Etta's just an alien, and we have to accept our new overlords.”

  Etta sighed and looked down at her dish, squash composite. “Probably the scanners caught a mote stuck to the suit.”