“Might end up blaming me for everything that’s happened to them.”
“Yes,” Nathalie agreed.
“And what about you, Nathalie? Have I lost your friendship?” Erin said, her voice steady, but there was a definite note of concern in it. Nathalie paused a moment, reflecting upon their past together, upon her own resentments. It took but a moment to decide. Nathalie was not one to dwell on her own misfortunes or blame others for them.
“Of course you haven’t, you idiot.” Nathalie sighed impatiently. “Would I be talking to you otherwise?”
“Don’t hold anything back now, Nathalie,” Erin laughed.
“I’ll stand by you, too.” Ho-ling promised.
“Just imagine,” Nathalie said, a half-smile on her face. “Erin was one of the aliens all along—all those years in training, and we never knew it, never even suspected—”
“You’re not one of the Char—Orians, are you?” Ho-ling wondered, disturbed by the idea.
“As far as I know, my mother was one of Selesta’s original crew.” Erin replied, shaking her head.
“But—” Nathalie began, her brows raised in open skepticism.
“How do I know?” Erin asked. “I see what you’re thinking,” Erin shook her head. “And I’ve wondered how I can be certain myself, since I don’t have any memory of who I was before I came to the Earth. But I can tell you that I did recognize my biological mother’s voice that day when we heard fragments of the original crew log. Unfortunately, her voice is about the only thing I do remember. Cheung, Knightwood, and Zhdanov have been asking all kinds of questions, but I’m afraid I haven’t been able to help out any more than I did before.”
“So you don’t know why we’re on this trip?” Ho-ling asked. Erin shook her head.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Then you’re as much of a prisoner in here as we are,” Nathalie said. “And in my book, that counts for something. Don’t worry about the others, Erin. They’ll see it my way,” Nathalie vowed, with a glow of conspiracy about her.
* * * * *
Knightwood was finishing a long preamble when Ho-ling, Nathalie, Hans, and Nikolai entered on cue and tried to prepare the others. The Blue Stripes had accepted the new Erin Mathieson on their own and urged the others to consider that she hadn’t really changed—only their perception of her was different. Had she murdered the crew in their sleep? No. Had she betrayed them to the enemy? No.
Hans had only laughed out loud at the news with good humor. Nikolai had been preoccupied with questions about alien anatomy, as though concerned Erin might be missing some human essentials, questions which were quickly resolved to his satisfaction. Einar marveled that he would never have been able to keep such a secret. Erik had said nothing. His eyes had given away nothing of his reaction to Erin’s new form, but he was present at the present meeting.
As reasonable as the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks’ introductory arguments had been, Erin’s entry defied the threshold of reality. As she walked in, a low hush faded into stony silence; the small surprises of the past two years did little to mitigate the disbelief on all of the ship’s officers’ faces as they stared at a creature unlike any they had ever seen before.
In order to stem any premature questions on the subject, Kansier was quick to point out that though Erin appeared similar to the Orians in hair color, she had been found before the arrival of the second alien ship—outside the Selesta the day it landed.
“You know, it all makes sense,” Nikolai Kaganov declared suddenly to Einar, Hans, and the others while the officers fell into various discussions. “It was Erin who found the entrance to the ship.”
“And who knew her way through. Plus all of those discoveries—” Hans added, expounding upon Nikolai’s idea.
“And it also explains how the lieutenant was able to communicate with the alien creatures on Elphor, Tiernan, and lom-vaia.” Zhdanov interrupted from a few seats down, where he had been eavesdropping. “Without her abilities, we would not have learned all we did about those planets—we may not have even escaped from Elphor.” Zhdanov added, remembering how Erin had cleared up the misunderstanding when the crew had taken the dthúl plants for food.
“And there were also times I thought our escapes too miraculous,” Knightwood put out, drawing looks of confusion. “All of our experiences around Selesta and Enlil have been well timed to minimize the danger to us. At first I thought it was only the Selesta’s computer acting, but I have on occasion noticed unusual behavior from Erin. I would guess she was behind our good fortune.”
The officers around them had stopped to listen when Zhdanov spoke; now near silence reigned as they digested Knightwood’s suggestion and wondered how much of it might be true.
“After she found out who she was, she told me she would never let any harm come to the crew, that she would do all in her power to protect us,” Knightwood continued, aware that she had the assembly’s attention. “If that is not true fidelity, then what is?”
“But who is she, Knightwood?” Hans wondered suddenly; the question was on all of their minds, but no one had answered it to any degree of satisfaction. Knightwood regarded him thoughtfully; she did not know the answer herself.
Kansier then decided it was time to give a detailed account of the interchange between Erin and the alien pilot and called the meeting to order to replay the holographic footage that had been taken. The pilot’s information cleared up the strange crew log transmissions Erin had translated over the intercom. Strangest of all came the realization that they had been blind to the tell-tale alien characteristics of Erin-Mathieson Blair present all along and unmistakable throughout the alien interview.
Learning of the discovery of Faulkner in the forest and seeing the replay of his reaction to being discovered now intrigued those that had not been present at the time. Kansier had yet to allow access to the forest, but the stories from those who had seen it already had raised the Blue Stripes’ anticipation of enjoying the area, and he knew he would not be able to hold off the crew for long.
As the explanations tapered off, the Blue Stripes Sky Hawks gradually began to realize that the scientists and Erin herself knew little more than the information they had presented them. Nikolai looked at Knightwood and Zhdanov with a knowing smile; now certainly they had some private suppositions but no doubt chose to keep them to themselves until further evidence could be obtained.
The greatest surprise to Hans was that neither Erin nor any of them knew who exactly she was and why she alone had survived whatever had caused the disappearance of her people.
“Selesta, if you know, tell me who I am.” Erin said suddenly, standing, as though unable to take the questions any longer. She glared at the ceiling as though defying the presence on board the ship not to answer her. “What is my real name, and who were my people?!”
Several minutes passed in silence, but just as the conversation began to pick up again, the walls stirred to life, emitting a dull, synthesized hum from no identifiable source, and the entire space in the room was soon filled with an odd resonating sound that formed into laconic, slowly pronounced English words, as though the speaker was not comfortable in articulating the Earth language.
“You—are—Selerael, daughter of Alessia, lasst sur-vivor of—Seynorynael—and the starship Selesta.”
The hum abruptly ended and the room was still.
* * * * *
“That’s amazing. The ship just spoke to us,” said Hans with a whistle.
“Say-nor-i-nay-yel,” Einar repeated some moments later. “We keep hearing about Seynorynael. What is it, do you think?” He asked, directing his questions to the scientists.
“You mean a city or a country? A planet or a colony or a galaxy?” Hans again interjected. “No idea.” He shook his head.
“I believe it was a planet,” Knightwood responded. “From everything we’ve heard about the place, it was the center of an Empire that had reached as far as Tiernan and Elphor.”
“And your mother was the last survivor.” Nikolai said somberly, turning to Erin. “So what happened to all of the others?” He wondered.
“Yes, very interesting question,” Knightwood said. “Maybe the others were killed. We know they were explorers. Perhaps they came into contact with something lethal to their kind, even as hardy as we can reasonably assume they were. Maybe they are the ones we found in the memorial room.” She added, thinking of the strange man of the picture, whose name she had so recently discovered. Who had been this Fielikor Kiel? Was he also originally from this place—this Seynorynael? Erin said that he had been their leader. But why had he died so young? Why had they all?
All except—
“Erin,” Knightwood said suddenly. “We’ve got to find your mother, if she is still alive somewhere. Do you think the computer knows where she is? Is it possible she is still on board? Could the computer show us what she looked like, so we might recognize her if we saw her?”
“I don’t know, Knightwood,” Erin admitted.
“Could you try to ask it for us?” Knightwood said.
“I suppose,” Erin agreed, and the room lapsed into silence. All eyes had turned to her. “Computer,” she called. “I—want you to show me Alessia!”
There was no answer. Then, a low whining noise was heard in the dormant terminal on the wall, identical to the countless other alien consoles and chronometers in most rooms across the ship. None of them had ever made any sign indicating that they still functioned.
At once the console sprang to life, illuminating a panorama of panels and displays. From one of these, a pale, ghostly light was projected, a sphere which grew until it reached the far wall and richoted back, then bounced off the reflective, metallic walls at different angles, growing in intensity until an image formed in its very center, now centering on the middle of the room around which the conference tables were clustered.
The young woman was sitting at a lab table, only recently interrupted by an intruder from the startled expression on her face.
It was a magnificent face. Her skin was a pale white, her white hair luminous as ice; she had strange eyes, as deep, mysterious, and unfathomable as the ocean itself. The irises were hypnotic. A cloak of light surrounded her. She wore a dark black uniform embellished with tiny triangular and elliptical panels about the shoulders and down the sides. Luminescent blues and greens reflected brightly amid the deep black, running together and creating a wave-like illusion of motion.
The creature seemed like a ghost.
She looked a lot like Erin.
* * * * *
Knightwood tossed and turned late into the night, her mind too active to let her sleep. Alessia had to be the Zariqua Enassa person the alien pilot had told them about, she thought. That was why the alien pilot thought he recognized her.
But who had Erin’s father been? Perhaps, if the races were of one species... Knightwood couldn’t help but wonder if Erin were half Orian—which might explain the reason her hair was not white like the others from Selesta, why it was white-blonde like the alien pilot. If her hunch was correct, then that was why the Charon aliens were following them but never seemed to win a decisive victory, even when they had taken the upper hand. Erin could very well be the Orian Leader’s daughter.
The next morning, Knightwood and Zhdanov joined the other scientists waiting in the Botanical Gardens to test the extent of Erin’s strange abilities. But the first item on the list was solving the mystery of Faulkner’s actions.
The examination ended up lasting two days, even with a team of scientists working. They found they could not extract material samples from Erin’s blood stream immediately. Knightwood had taken a needle and could not get the blood to enter the tube. She tried a large intravenous tube, piercing the skin on Erin’s hand, but received the same incredible result. Then, pulling the tube away, she watched in amazement as the tiny hole resealed as if it had never been there, leaving no trace of entry!
When the other scientists hesitated to believe her, Knightwood urged them to make an incision in Erin’s arm. The others refused, owing to the fact that it was completely unnecessary to cut the tissues for the bioscan, but Erin agreed with Knightwood and reached out to take the scalpel and made a long, clean incision on her left forearm. The others watched skeptically as she removed the scalpel. The tissues quickly drew together and healed, leaving only smooth, unmarked skin.
Knightwood’s discovery created some excitement. The scientists brought over a dozen scanners to do the work for them, and cataloged the layers in the computer bank, allowing it a few minutes to sort out the various strata of cells, beneath the skin to the tissues and blood vessels—it was the only way they were going to get a look at their subject. But it took them two days to decipher the function of the bizarre tri-nucleated cells and the chloroplast-like cell organelles. Still, the scientists were able to confirm one thing: the regeneration they had observed was a part of an overall body protection system, a system that halted the aging process beyond full maturation by protecting the cells and by perfect cell replication.
Knightwood was beside herself.
The magnitude of the discovery contented the other scientists, and gave them each a specific area in which to specialize while Knightwood completed the task assigned to her alone—to test Erin’s mental abilities. Kansier had hoped that Knightwood’s relationship with Erin might help the girl use her skills better, without a larger audience to distract her.
Erin’s telepathic ability had grown exponentially since it had first appeared in childhood—Erin explained that she had been able to “sense thoughts” even then, but she had not been able to control her ability well, and the thoughts she received were usually only vague ideas. Also, back then she had not been able to transmit her thoughts, but now she could speak to Knightwood without words easily. The thoughts she withdrew from others could now reach below the subconscious and extract colorful memories, complete images and feelings, recreating the actual moment in which the memory had been formed, retracing the imprint and pathways of the electric impulses.
Erin confessed to Knightwood about what had given her the worst feelings of guilt as a child; when she had wanted something badly, she had sometimes felt her mind involuntarily “push” someone to do as she wanted against their own will. The ability had come sporadically back then, but after her recent metamorphosis, she had found her control over it growing. Knightwood asked Erin to demonstrate, and Erin made Knightwood follow her to the nearest flight simulator and get into the cockpit. Knightwood activated the machine, ready to observe the images that only brought back agonizing memories of a tragic plane crash in her past. But Erin stopped her short of activating the program.
Knightwood nodded, feeling the vice-like grip of Erin’s mind as she forced Knightwood to climb into the simulator with the ease of a pilot. Erin then assaulted Knightwood’s mind with another ability, the “push” she had described, and convinced Knightwood herself that she loved flying. But when the feeling faded, Knightwood’s fear returned. She wondered if Erin could use these abilities together, to push someone to act and persuade them that what they did was correct and of their own choosing. Then Knightwood shrugged and laughed inwardly, wishing Erin had been there to help during years of UESF Council meetings.
Knightwood’s study prompted her to ask if Erin had ever before used telekinesis to move objects without looking at them, but Erin explained that she hadn’t really practiced much in moving things. Over the next few hours, she attempted to move small items first as she had a few times in childhood, closing her eyes and concentrating on the atoms of the air that separated her from the small writing instrument on Knightwood’s desk.
After several attempts, Erin was able to hold it in the air and move it around. Knightwood then urged her to move on to larger test pieces, and as the minutes passed, Erin found her power growing. The trickle of semi-sentient waves she sent through to the atoms in the air and to the objects beyond widened into a flood of energy.
>
Knightwood suddenly felt herself light as a feather and spun in a circle before Erin put her feet back on the ground.
Then, as Erin projected her own emotion to her, Knightwood knew what it was like to love to fly. The feeling became a part of her and confused her, existing alongside her hatred and fear of planes and shuttles.
“Can you send me thoughts and memories—feelings from other people?” Knightwood asked, and right away felt her husband’s enthusiasm for what she considered prosaic experiments, Kansier’s memory of his first glimpse of Neptune, and Ho-ling’s thoughts about the mess hall’s lunch menu.
“While you held me up there, I couldn’t move,” Knightwood stopped to consider something. “Do you think you could control the motor function of my body cataleptically—make me flap my arms or something while you hold me there?” Erin nodded, and Knightwood felt the motor functions of her body move involuntarily, as if she had sent the signal from her brain to her arms.
With ability like this, she shuddered, Erin could animate the dead.
Knightwood shrugged off her morbid scenario, brightening as she considered other possibilities. Or—someone who couldn’t walk or had lost feeling through the skin. Think, Knightwood, now what if I could animate the electric impulses of their nervous systems—why then I might be able to reform the damaged nerves by flooding them with these semi-sentient cooperative waves, almost like telekinesis...
“Of course, Erin—you should be able to control electrons, and leptons, quarks—even subatomic particles,” Knightwood shook her head.
“No,” Erin said emphatically. “I can’t control them—I can influence their motions temporarily. It is far easier to control living systems, where the systems operate through the will or by involuntary but electric stimulation. I think I might even be able to change organic structures. But Knightwood, there’s something else I forgot to mention,” Erin added, and Knightwood waited expectantly. “Two days ago, as we jumped through the wormhole near that blue star system—was the jump instantaneous to you?”