 
Alien Purgatory

Book Two of the Alien Something Trilogy

By

Mary Margaret Branning
Copyright 2010 Mary Margaret Branning

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

eBook formatting by www.gopublished.com
Big Fat Thank You page:

My Sincerest Gratitude belongs to:

Detective Mark Burgess of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department for his help with the car accident logistics, for providing me with an organizational chart which helped me understand ranking in the Sheriff's Department, and for his explanation of the Attempt to Locate. Any misinterpretations or outright mistakes are entirely his. I mean mine.

Readers: Cheryl, Sean Kane, Patsy, and Charlie. Your insights were invaluable.

Nina Davies and her Autocrit software, without which this book would have been even messier than it currently is.

Astigmatic One Eye Typographic Institute for Yellowtail Font via 1001fonts.com.

Denis Masharov for Tenor Sans Font via 1001fonts.com.

Maureen Cutajar for expert formatting and kind instructions.

Graphic Artist Toshi Simon of Allegra Print, Sign, and Design in the White Mountains of Arizona, for his excellent work making the book cover look less like my pencil drawing and more like a professional work of art.

Magann (Markus Gann) for the purple iris, via fotolia.com.

Everything for "Beautiful sand and sea" via Shutterstock.

Paul Rommer for "London skyline in watercolor splatters" via Shutterstock.

My Mother, who has floated my boat since the car accident. If it wasn't for your support, I never would have gotten this done.

My Father, for his kind, thoughtful, intelligent example. I greatly miss his quiet qualities.
Foreword

When I wrote A.P., it didn't seem to me that much was going on in the areas of women's rights. My main character, Carol, made comments in Part One of this story regarding this perceived state of stagnation. Discussion of these issues seems to have resurged, or perhaps my attention has been drawn to them. Either is an excellent development, but I decided not to change the story. Perhaps we can simply think of those lines in an historical context. This story was written during the winter of 2008-2009, and set in 2008, so I believe the context remains appropriate.
Contents

Part One: Betrayed

Part Two: Betrayer

Part Three: Redemption

Part Four: Justice

After Words

Bibliography
Part One: Betrayed

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

The Golden Rule

Matthew 7:12[i]

In college I studied horticulture and pest control, but I learned, among many other things, that the more I know, the more I know I don't know. Someone said this to me once, a professor, I think. Much later I heard that this little ditty is Socratic.

I have learned, from my working life, that many people are ignorant regarding darn near everything, but believe they know it all. They're so smart, these ignorants; they seem to spend every working moment trying to prove their perceived intelligence to me, usually by lying about me, influencing others' opinions of me in an unflattering manner, and inciting those others to say and do enough nasty things to me to cause me to run off the job in a screaming fit. This always works, because I do not, can not, and will not tolerate slanderers. Therefore, I'm usually broke and unemployed.

In my opinion, the world is divided into those who know they know not, but strive to behave with kindness and humility, and those who know not that they know not, and are deceitful, spiteful, and malicious.

This story is about such deceit.

After the car accident I tried to go back to work at Freda's Home Emporium, one of those everything-you-want-for-your-home warehouses. Freda's carried products ranging from plumbing elbows to vanity mirrors to paper towels to rebar and everything in between.

I started as a cashier, which is a hard job and not the best choice for a gal with chronic back pain. Cashiers stand all shift long. Often the head cashiers forgot to relieve us for breaks or else didn't have enough people to cover. God forbid I should sit on the counter to rest my aching back and feet; I would get fired for sitting down on the job. I didn't much care; I sat on the counters anyway, especially when I worked in Building Materials, which occupied the whole north side of the warehouse. Security cameras covered the entire warehouse interior, and head cashiers could sneak up on me, but, well, I just didn't care. Hours standing at the register hurts. The counters in the Garden section made good seats, too, way over on the south end. Of course, while working Returns, Self Check, Customer Service (aargh!), or the regular registers, I couldn't sit, because everyone was concentrated there, in the middle of the store. This included the HR manager - I'll rename him Pat, the Operations manager, whom I'll call him Dave, and the duty managers will hereafter be referred to as "The Three Stooges": Larry, Curly, and Moe. The Big Giant Head Manager I'll refer to as Calvin, to protect the guilty, after all.

They tried to keep up with corporate standards, I'll give them that. Of course, in my opinion, they were woefully under qualified. Then again, corporations, well, you know.

I put on a happy face every day and enjoyed the work, for the most part. Some customers were funny, lovely people, others, complete jerks. Other shoppers hurried to supply their jobs. On the weekends many folks bought for their home projects and liked to chit chat. Humor usually worked to get the customers out the door happy even if an employee on the sales floor had marred their experience. I felt my job included getting them out of the store quickly and in a better mood than they had come to the register in. I succeeded a lot, and believed myself to be a valuable member of the Freda's team.

Of course, there were the jerks. I didn't appreciate how management handled them. A case-in-point was the Jerk who came in to Building Materials, locked on to me at the register, and proceeded to verbally abuse me about the lack of employees to serve him. He went on and on, and he was right, in this case, because the only other employee besides me working in the department was busy helping another customer pick out what she needed. The Jerk couldn't find anyone to assist him and he looked pissed. I took his abuse while explaining about our short handedness (a shortage of employees being business as usual). We should have more people on to help customers like him, he bitched.

Well, duh! Don't tell me. Staffing the place is not my responsibility. I don't have anything to do with scheduling!

This is one problem with being a cashier. You're chained to the register, i.e. the money, and when a shopper needs directions or, say, someone to abuse, they make for you like a laser weapon.

So I called the duty manager, which happened to be Curly. I told him I had a customer who wanted to talk to a manager. I put some stress in my voice, trying to get the point across regarding the aggravated man. I needed help. I couldn't say to Curly, because the customer was standing right there, "Hey, I have a jerk getting in my face, he's escalating, I'm working by myself and feeling very uncomfortable, and will you get your beer gut down here and deal with this man before he takes my head off?!!!

Curly said, "Why are you calling me? Get a lumber guy to take care of it."

I replied in a pleasant but firm voice, "Curly, there is no one else. Jake's with a customer."

"Okay, I'll be right down," Curly sighed as he hung up.

He arrived with Sally, a head cashier, and honest to Socrates, they took this jerk into the aisles and catered to him for about thirty minutes. They even called Jake over to pull the stock and load the materials on a cart, because, God forbid, the managers should do manual labor. Of course this left Jake's customer, the pleasant woman, abandoned. She ended up leaving without any supplies.

I don't blame her. Had I been a pleasant shopper getting some help and found myself on my own after the Jerk came in and threw his fit because he wanted ALL THE ATTENTION RIGHT NOW, I would have departed the store without making a purchase as well. I'd also have called Freda's Corporate and complained, but then, that's me.

After the Jerk received his metaphorical massage and blow job from Curly and Sally, Sally came to me and pointed out to me the items to be discounted. So the Jerk got personal service from the managers and discounts for being a jerk! Unbelievably, after Sally left he informed me I was to discount his entire purchase! No, I'm not kidding. Apparently the whole show had been a scam to save a few bucks.

Had I been the manager I'd have told the guy not to abuse my associates (they called us "associates" at Freda's) or he'd be asked to leave until he succeeded in improving his civility. Yes, I would have said, we should schedule more employees to help with your needs, but I can't keep enough staff on since customers like you abuse them. I would have fought with Corporate, even jeopardized my job over the issue, because the jerks number one in fifty or so, and shouldn't be tolerated. Of course, the jerk rate varied depending on which employee you talked to about them at any given moment, and the amount of abuse they'd suffered. In other words, how many jerks had abused them during their shift, the week, the month, that year, or the course of their lives. Some days everyone seemed like a jerk, but my observation caused me to think bad customers didn't consist of such a large proportion of the profit pie, certainly not as big as losing employees and continually training new ones. So, in my opinion, the abusive shoppers should be ordered to leave. That's my idea of good management. But I'm a cashier, and cashiers don't usually manage. In too many lousy jobs the lowest cogs in the machine aren't allowed to critique, even though we staff the front lines, so to speak. We could relate problems to our supervisors which, if solved, would increase efficiency and please the customers. More sales and happy employees should be the goal of Management, but they don't seem to view us as worthwhile resources or try to make this happen.

Later, Jake came by and I said to him, "Geez, I was close to walking away from that guy."

"I don't think it would've done you any good. He'd have followed you."

The Jerk had been scary. I shouldn't have had to deal with him. Management's handling of the situation made me wary and unhappy. I questioned their competence.

I enjoy questioning and even pointing out management and corporate idiocy. Personally, I had the option of standing up for myself if I felt the need. I was able to walk off a job when I couldn't tolerate the games anymore, because unlike most employees, I didn't have children to support. This could be both positive and negative. Bringing attention to lousy conditions can be good, since people who can't stand up to Corporate and Management idiocy need someone like me. Walking off the job in a snit is bad, because when you can walk away, you don't have to work out the problems and find solutions to them. I imagine one learns plenty of lessons by working things through. I'm not sure what those things are, but I suspect the information might help me not leave a job because of other peoples' stupidity. Not walking away teaches you to not walk away. How ironic is this paradox of my funny old life?

I had always walked away. I would handle this, yet another, horrible job situation, the same way. Afterwards, everything changed because I ended up in circumstances where that behavior wasn't an option, but we'll get to that in due time.

Not long after I'd first started working at Freda's one of the head cashiers, Lara, told me to go work in Returns, so I did. She stayed in Customer Service, separated from Returns by a four foot cubicle-type wall. After a few minutes I heard her bark, "Carol". I turned to face her, because Carol's my name. She stomped up to the separation and glared right up into my face.

"When I say to go to Returns and tell the person working there to come to me for reassignment, you do what I say!"

"Okay," I said. I turned around and told the gal in Returns with me to go talk to Lara.

I wasn't happy about Lara's tone, so I decided to keep my eyes and ears on her because she was obviously an outstanding bitch. She hadn't told me to tell anyone anything. And who says 'reassignment' anyway?

Not too much later I worked the night shift. We closed at nine in the evening, so at about eight o'clock we all started sweeping up, changing trash bags, taking returns back to the departments they came from, bringing the grills and lawnmowers in from the outside displays, and cleaning the restrooms.

I walked by Jenny, another cashier, who had a foul look on her face. I asked her what was wrong and she said Lara and Elva were making her clean the bathrooms because she didn't like to. She complained, "They're picking on me, I know it. They always do this to me. Every time I work nights they make me do the toilets."

I sympathized with her, but I let her complaint go because, well hell, I'm never too fond of cleaning public restrooms either. We all had to take a turn. One afternoon a guy practically exploded in the men's room. Afterwards, some misguided person poured a whole bottle of bleach in there, which didn't cover the stench. It only added another offensive layer. At closing, poor Diana had to clean the nasty mess up, and you know, she just did. She's older, like me, not young like Jenny. I thought Jenny's age and lack of work experience might be part of the reason for her distress. The inexperienced women got grossed out; we old gals just did what needed to be done.

A few days later I overheard Lara and Elva talking about Jenny. They snickered and mocked Jenny. She'd been right, they didn't like her. Lara said, "She's working tonight." Elva murmured, "Well, I guess she's cleaning the restrooms."

So I did a stupid thing. I asked, "What are you gals doing? There aren't enough cashiers here anyway, and you're running her off."

Lara's face briefly showed a little surprise. She looked at Elva, turned back to the paperwork she had in her hand, and said, "I don't care."

Elva did her best not to speak to me during the rest of my time at Freda's, though she did say something to me on my last day that put me over the edge. Lara had to talk to me, as she was my supervisor, but she wasn't unpleasant to me anymore. I'll give her credit for keeping her nastiness in check. In hindsight, this might have been because she knew I would get mine.

Around this same time one of the gals I'd trained with, Terry, came over to me while I worked Returns. She appeared agitated. I'd gotten pretty good at Returns and spent many of my working hours processing them. Terry told me how Deena was leaving her alone to teach herself her new position. Deena waited to catch a mistake and bitched at Terry every time she did something wrong. Terry's husband had been disabled from stroke and she needed the job.

Deena had worked at the local hospital for a long time as a lead cook, and when it had been purchased, the new management sent her packing. After Freda's opened up she got a position as a head cashier. She'd moved out of that position and into the department Terry worked in and was supposed to be teaching Terry. I didn't understand the job; it didn't sound like anything I would want to do.

Sometimes, the reason people act like Deena did is due to the fact that they don't comprehend the work and are faking it. Fakers can't teach anyone else work they can't do themselves. When Terry did something wrong, Deena didn't show her the right way because she couldn't. Revealing her ignorance regarding either teaching or the performing might cost her, so Deena abused Terry instead. This behavior is typical for a certain kind of woman.

Alternatively, employees who behave as Deena did are envious and greedy, and after they learn something, they won't share their new knowledge because they want to be the only ones who can do it. They tell the Powers-that-be a story similar to this: All these other women are just so stupid, and aren't you glad you have me? There's some deep-seated self-preservation at work here. Being a team player doesn't have any appeal to people like Deena, and simply getting better at what they do to therefore become more valuable doesn't suffice. No, they enjoy ignoring, abusing, and slandering those around them whom they dislike. They talk themselves up in order to be desirable to the people who matter: the managers in control who aren't paying attention to the real game being played. Those who follow the Deenas of the world can be friends of a sort with them, but anyone who isn't a sycophant is a potential enemy. Deenas are destructive in any organization, yet organizations don't seem to recognize them as troublemakers. The ignorance never ceases to amaze me.

Deena told me one day, "These machines are idiot-proof," as she patted a register. I guess I was supposed to figure out the myriad DOS based procedures for setting up deliveries, retrieving special order sales and installed sales, for taking cash, credit cards, personal and traveler's checks, employee discount cards, various and sundry coupons, and more, all by my little lonesome. If I couldn't, then I must be an idiot. This bad attitude came from a woman who had started as a head cashier and who presumably had trained or at least influenced the others. No wonder they kept losing recent hires, and yet the managers couldn't figure out why they experienced such a high attrition rate! Management's ignorance was a bad sign. Have I told you the head cashiers were responsible for training the new ones?

Now you understand the reason so many employees left before their probationary period ended.

The pervasive culture of insults, neglect, and persecution of those just beginning to work at my place of employment made for a sink-or-swim situation.

This was a shame because the registers had a training mode, which of course, had not been programmed with educational scenarios like they were supposed to be. Deena, Lara, and Elva had terrible attitudes. Elva didn't even cashier, though she sure as hell managed to put her twelve cents in a lot, her being one of the bitches and all. Training on the floor was a nightmare, so most of the new trainees quit. The managers figured our town didn't have quality workers, which was true in a sense. Mostly, however, the good employees wouldn't stick around to be treated badly by Deena and her posse and ignored by management.

Deena always bolstered the idea that the gals who left weren't good enough. She knew her game absolutely could not be found out. She understood, way down inside, she would be the one to lose her job if leadership got wise to her. She had to keep her badness a deep dark secret. And yet, I guess at some level maybe she actually believed us to be useless and stupid because we weren't like her.

Ignorance and arrogance vied for supremacy in Deena.

The little cabal consisted of Deena, Lara, and Elva. I later met Sherry, who worked mostly unseen in the cash office. I learned she backstabbed, too, when she came out to tell Lara about the "stupid mistake" a new cashier had made. These women were so spiteful, mean, and nasty. They ran off quite a few recent hires during the short time I worked there, and eventually they harassed me off the job, too. Like I said, I just cannot tolerate slanderers, and when the Management can't figure out what's going wrong and goes along with the status quo - meaning, the backstabbers – then I know I'm in hell, and I must get out. In this kind of situation, the Deenas always seem to win. It looks bad on my resume, shrinks my bank account, and blackens my reputation. Oh well. This was the fight I picked.

A few weeks before they managed to run me off, I wrote a one page letter to Calvin in an attempt to educate the poor moron. I'd already brazenly told Calvin, "I don't tolerate bullshit" during my interview, and he'd said he didn't either, which turned out to be bullshit. He did say the good old boys' club wasn't tolerated at Freda's. He failed to recognize the good old girls' club. Not many men do.

My letter described Lara's and Elva's treatment of Jenny, and Deena's conduct toward Terry, and recommended he get the abuse under control in order to reduce the high attrition rate among new hires. I told him about my little tiff with Lara and asked him not to put me in jeopardy with these women if he talked to them. I didn't go to college for seven years for nothing.

Between the letter and the time I walked away from Freda's forever, these mean women bitched another decent employee off the job. Betty had been a good head cashier, and a nice person to boot. Therein lay the problem. Like me, she wasn't one of them. Lara yelled at her just as she'd done to me. My new friend complained to the clueless Calvin, who didn't act with kindness toward her. On top of this abuse Betty was pregnant, and her father had medical problems. She decided to quit her job. She left crying.

Fortunately, Lara had already been warned, so Lara got her notice, spent a couple weeks moping around, and then she disappeared to a different life with her new husband. Poor guy.

I didn't receive an invitation to the wedding. Go figure.

Somehow Deena and her pal Elva put two and two together, probably because of the stupid remark I'd made to Lara and Elva about running Jenny off the job, and therefore the fate of my employment at Freda's was sealed.

The shift started the same as always. I clocked in at an unused register and found out where they wanted me. Building Materials. Great.

Yet another shift in the most understaffed department in the store. I had trouble keeping my attitude positive. In fact by the end I was downright pissed off.

The time crawled past two in the afternoon on a Monday. By three o'clock the atmosphere had already gotten nasty. As usual, nobody was working with me, and almost every customer wanted help, so, they came to me. By five that afternoon I'd been abused by no less than eight customers because nobody helped them lift their plywood, 2x6x12s, cement, blocks, bricks, backerboards, whatever, onto their carts and into their vehicles. Of course, this was my fault. I paged code thirty, which means, "I need help", six times trying to get 'associates' from other departments to come and assist, and every request went ignored.

Eventually, Lorne came over to lend a hand. Lorne had back injuries like myself and shouldn't have done any lifting either, but he did. He was the department manager and a nice guy, too - too nice because he ended up handling a lot of material. So on top of the abuse I handled, I worried about Lorne herniating a disc or twelve. Terrific.

At one point there were, thankfully, no customers and Lorne walked over to the register. "Lorne," I said, "I'm a little tired of working down here without help. Five people should have been on in this department all the time. I'm going to talk to Calvin."

"I don't think that'll make any difference," he answered. "Saturday they pulled people from Garden to work down here, and when I showed up for my shift they all left. Calvin and the managers disappeared too, and I worked by myself with one cashier all evening."

"I ran a business..." I began.

"I own my own business," Lorne said.

"...and this is not how you do it," I finished.

"No," Lorne agreed.

"I don't need this job..." Uh oh. Where was I going with this? "...and I don't like working this way." I didn't want to stick around until Lorne broke his back lifting cement bags or I got punched in the face by some jerk.

"I don't like it either," he said.

A customer came up so I rang her quickly through and Lorne went out to help her load.

I called Sally who told me Larry was the Duty Manager. I called Larry.

"Larry," I asked, "who's on code thirty?"

"No one," Larry said.

"No one," I repeated. "Lorne and I are down here alone and we're both cripples and no one has answered the code thirties and I've had eight people who needed help loading..."

I heard Larry turn away from the phone to talk to the other duty manager who was apparently standing next to him. Why hadn't either of these doofuses answered my code thirties?

"Moe, how many people do you have in building materials today?" Larry asked him.

"I don't know," Moe replied unhelpfully.

"What do you need to load?" Larry asked me.

"Nothing right now, but we need help loading down here."

"The department head should be handling that. He should pull people from other areas to help load." Larry sounded annoyed.

"What people? There are no people," I said, annoyed.

"OK, I'll talk to Lorne," Larry said, and he hung up.

Oh, great, I'd just gotten Lorne into trouble.

"Hey Lorne, heads up. Larry says you should pull people from other departments to help load," I warned him.

"What people?" he asked. "I've got one person each in Tools, Hardware, and Milling and they're spelling each other for breaks."

"I know, Lorne," I sighed.

There wasn't anything else to say.

Later that evening Sally came down to show me how to complete some new training on the computer and of course when she showed up the area had cleared of customers. I tried to look busy by sweeping the floor.

"You're not being picked on, Carol," she said.

Oh, I suddenly saw so clearly how they were playing me. I complained because management wasn't staffing the department adequately. Therefore, instead of populating Building Materials properly with workers and thereby solving the problem, the managers were completely ignoring my code thirties, and stabbing me in the back by talking to each other about how I thought I was being picked on. This couldn't end well for me. I clearly saw the writing on the wall.

In college, I took classes in Agricultural Biology. The coursework consisted of plenty of entomology, mammalogy, biology, plant pathology, and crop ecology. I'd learned to identify insects and taken courses in subjects like weeds, soil science, chemistry, and even farm and greenhouse management. I'd earned two degrees and, believe this or not, I'd spent several years afterward trying to find a position in my fields that I could enjoy and dig in to. That never occurred, because while studying these sciences was meat and potatoes for me, working in them left a lot to be desired.

I'd been enjoying a job I'd found as a pest control technician on the day the accident happened. I was the passenger in the work truck on the way back to the office when the idiot who was driving began dialing his cell phone while going seventy miles an hour on the freeway. We'd drifted over the breakdown lane and hit the guard rail. I was disabled. He was fine.

Since I'd herniated discs and damaged nerve roots, surgery didn't help. Well, to be fair, the operation had repaired the structural damage and kept me from becoming paralyzed, but it did nothing to alleviate the constant pain. I developed bone spurs, arthritis, and degenerative disc disease too. I spent my time thereafter gauging the amount of pain I was experiencing at any given moment, and what kind of work I would be able to do and for how long before I had to stop and treat the pain and recover. I sampled every treatment I heard of. I resorted to medications. I applied the tried and true icepack and heating pad method. I stretched and rested. When everything failed, I went to a nearby clinic if it was open, or the E.R., to receive an anti-inflammatory injection and a new prescription. As the years passed, I experienced slightly less pain overall, but not by much. Not enough to make it so I could rake the yard and do the laundry, shopping, dust and vacuum all on the same day as I'd been used to doing on my weekends before the accident. No, I was lucky to be able to do just one of those chores in a day after I was injured. Sometimes one chore took several days. I usually had to medicate, stretch, ice, and rest after each small effort. If you haven't been there, you can't understand, and I hope you never do, ever.

When I'd hired on at Freda's I'd been, oh, so happy to be a productive member of society again. Five and a half years of being on the dole had taken its toll. No one could understand my joy, but I did try to spread it around. It's sad there are so many hateful, nasty spoilers on Earth.

Two months later, what remained of my joy was spoiled. The pain had been building up and my tolerance for nonsense had shriveled like meat in a dehydrator. I felt like meat in a dehydrator.

Andy, one of the nasties, took a bite out of my joy without any warning at all.

She seemed competent enough on the registers, although whenever she worked I didn't see much of her. I think she was a hider. Have you noticed those people who hide from work on the job?

Though only in her early twenties, Andy was hugely fat. She sported one of the biggest butts I'd ever seen. I couldn't imagine what hauling all that weight around did to her skeleton. She had a pretty face and nice, healthy blond hair, but geesh what a mind!

One day she told me she would be getting married to some guy she'd found on the internet. She hadn't even met him yet. She assured me she'd checked him out good, but didn't give me any details about how she'd accomplished this.

Another time I heard about her marriage. She said her ex-husband had beaten her several times, the last beating sent her to the hospital with a broken arm. Then he'd filed charges on her because she'd fought back. I'm guessing it was mutual.

I pondered her judgment. Okay, so she'd been married to a man who turned out to be a wife-beater. Some guys are real fun and charming until they break your nose. I understand. But to then agree to marry someone she hadn't even been in the same room with seemed pretty stupid to me. What if the way he smelled wasn't appealing to her? I think when someone I'm attracted to can't kiss well or be taught to, well, I don't want him. A good kisser who's unaccomplished in the sack and won't train up to my satisfaction - forget it. We're talking about a lifetime of togetherness here. I'm not going to spend my life with someone who I can't enjoy sexually, but that's just me. If she wasn't interested in auditioning her man, well it was no skin off my mud flaps. I didn't exactly discuss all this with her, though somehow one of our conversations got to the point where she'd declared, "No sex until marriage!" Yikes. What a self-imposed set up for disappointment.

Oh well, she and her mistakes weren't my problem, until one day I walked into the break room and there stood Andy, looking agitated, talking to Sophia, who worked in Garden. Sophia looked uncomfortable. I took a seat near her at the end of the table.

Andy bawled about how her brother ridiculed her for wanting to marry this guy she'd found on the internet. Apparently this affronted her judgment, which she didn't appreciate. Of course, I sided with her sibling, but I was smart enough, for once, not to say so. She was pissed off and in a mood to rant, and I imagined she could inflict a lot of pain on me if she so desired. It's best to let people vent when they need to, without interruption. Otherwise, they turn on you.

During this one-sided conversation in the lunchroom, Andy responded to her brother's comments. Of course, this meant she hadn't confronted him, because had she discussed her grievances with him, she wouldn't have needed to rant. She questioned his inference by stating disdainfully that he'd married a woman who had chosen her career over having children. The wife's choice had pitched both her brother and his wife in Andy's bad judgment department. Therefore, she dismissed his concern for her, which she'd taken solely as an insult.

Now, as usually happens in a new job, people had asked questions of me and I had of them, in the manner of getting to know each other. In the course of this initial questioning I'd learned of their families, and they'd discovered I'd never been married and had no kids. When asked why, I said I hadn't wanted children. There wasn't a reason for marriage since I wasn't interested in having children. So I didn't.

I know it's "normal" for most people to want kids. I'd met many women and men who loved their children and were willing to make personal sacrifices to see they had everything they needed to succeed. Some, however, have told me that if they'd known about the total commitment making a family required, they might have made another choice, or at least waited a while until their finances were better and they more mature.

As a teenager I'd fantasized about what it would be like to have babies and make my own family. I had a great imagination. I'd decided that life was not for me. This attitude hadn't change for a quarter of a century. There are quite a few of us childless singles around, mostly, though, you just don't notice us. If you ponder for a second the increasing population of this planet and its dwindling resources, you'd think those of us who've decided not to procreate would, oh I don't know, get a reward or something.

Hmmm. Andy dismissed me as she did the brother and sister-in–law. She looked right at me when she said it, in that judgmental manner of hers, like I was just wrong, stupid, and so not worth bothering with. I hadn't told Andy I didn't have children and if I recalled correctly, she hadn't been in the room when I discussed this with others. Apparently people were talking about me and not necessarily in flattering terms.

I thought I might ask her if she'd settled on a date for her marriage yet, and whether she was uncomfortable marrying a guy she hadn't even smelled or kissed. I remembered Sally telling me, "You're not being picked on, Carol." She and The Three Stooges apparently discussed how I, in their opinion, was feeling harassed. I considered my letter to Calvin and about Lara and those backstabbers, Deena and Elva. If they put two and two together, they'd want to hurt me for trying to break up their coven of control over who could work at Freda's and who couldn't. I recalled Andy had been one of the original crew, with Lara, Deena, Elva, and Sherry.

This all flashed through my mind in a few seconds, in the amount of time it took me to look from Sophie to Andy. Then I looked at the clock, got up, and walked out. Break was over.

At this point I think a little cultural illumination about this pocket of America is necessary.

Arizona at the time was a conservative, mostly Republican state. In northeastern Arizona a large proportion of the population believed, as Andy apparently did, that a woman married, took care of the house, the kids, and the husband, and if money was tight, she worked. That's an admirable choice in my opinion, one most women would gladly make. But in Northeastern Arizona those who chose a different path were ridiculed and shunned for their decision. I'd chosen not to have children, and I hadn't married. Also I was a college graduate. People in the area had insecurities which resolved into a baseless hatred of college educated people because they believed these people looked down on them for their lack of education. The irony is that in reality, the uneducated are prejudiced against the educated. All this made me a prime target. Obviously, there was something wrong with me in their view. I had idiotically valued a career over family and I'd never married. I wasn't looking for a husband, so therefore, in their opinions, I must have psychological problems, I was a lesbian, just a plain stupid, or all of or some combination of the above.

Once upon a time, I heard someone discussing the "good" old days. She'd said that in the past, before suffrage, civil rights, and feminism, if a man wanted to marry a young woman, a virgin usually, and she did not want to be his wife, then all he had to do was get her alone, rape, and impregnate her. The pregnancy would be her undoing. He'd deny the assault, if the subject even came up, and say she had been willing. Because of the moral norms of the day, she'd be forced to marry the rapist unless she could find another man who'd consent to wed a woman pregnant with another man's child, hardly an easy task in any era. Her family could disown her because she had sinned; she'd fornicated outside of marriage. Her only other option would have been to beg on the streets with her baby, an outcast, and probably become a prostitute. The younger, more protected and naïve the young woman, and the more arrogant, greedy, and devious the man, the better were the chances of her being forced into marriage by rape.

I think feminism has been a double-edged sword. Women fought hard for the right to choose the directions of their own lives. But those who didn't understand the enormous gift women's liberation has been for us, who felt their values threatened, used their erroneous definitions as a cudgel to attempt to bring us in lock step with their views, or to humiliate us and cast us out if we refused to line up behind them.

Was I experiencing a time warp?

Strangely, people like Andy readily used the benefits of having cultural restrictions lessened or nullified in their own lives while they disdained the feminist: Andy worked, she chose her mate - however badly, she spoke her mind, she expected certain protections, and she could vote if she wanted to. She benefited from the work of feminists, yet she disdained us our choices because they weren't like hers or the group she belonged to, which said women are for marriage, children, housework, and, if necessary, extra cash. She is to be a satellite in her husband's orbit, his domestic support, while he goes out into the real world and does the work she has no business doing.

So much for progress.

Like I said, women getting to choose their own way of life is wonderful, but when a woman's decision is a cultural mandate, and those who choose a different route are abused for their choice, well, that's not so great.

I blame women's organizations for not being pleasant and consistent in their public education on this issue, because great things have been born of feminism.

But this is just my opinion, which means fuck all in Shallow, Arizona.

At the time of this writing, a religion existed in Northeastern Arizona - in fact, in a large part of the Southwest - characterized by the adventures of one Prophet Joseph Smith, who, it's said, went into the woods to dig up some gold tablets, the further words of God. These religionists believed the husband was literally the Lord of his household. Women have children. Someone told me Mormons have to have a certain number of offspring to get into heaven! But you know, people say a lot of things. After high school the boys went on interesting missions to other countries and continued their education or began their working life, and the girls married and started their large families. And the families were large. I believe they feared the brown people were outbreeding the whites. For myself, I think we're all just different shades of brown.

Non-Mormon Christians in the region seemed to be of a fundamentalist bent as well. The groups hated each other in general, but not as much as they despised my type, of course, because after all I was a pervert, a loser, unmarried and childless, college educated and career oriented, although disabled now and underproductive. Obviously, I was a "feminazi", a plain wrong fool, and a target. That was the atmosphere I went to work in every day.

Andy, a young version of Deena, just starting out and learning the ropes, would become like Deena. I call this kind of people "Broken Rulers". Broken Rulers once upon a time asserted their opinions, and other Broken Rulers, usually their parents, family, and family's friends, humiliated them. They learned not to Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You, but to Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto You. Broken Rulers become annoyed with anyone who doesn't agree with their thinking or do as they dictate, anyone who dares to challenge them in any way. I did this when I complained about Lara, Elva, and Deena, and made the comment to Lara and Elva regarding running Jenny off the job. Broken Rulers are super vigilant to this sort of criticism because it undermines what they see as their authority, and it reveals the enemy within. Argument is considered a threat to their self-designated authority; disagreement is grounds for assault. In the time-dishonored tradition of Broken Rulers, they slander their target. They manipulate the opinions of others and direct prejudice toward her. They incite their followers to bully their enemy.

Strangely, most Broken Rulers all do this quietly, in secret whispered conversations. It's as if somewhere deep inside of them, in the little child who once spoke her mind and experienced abuse for her unacceptable opinions, they understand what had been done to them and what they are doing and is wrong. Underneath their defensive masks, these bullies know the real perversion is theirs; they remember how they felt when someone hurt them like this.

Stranger still are all the people who swallow their objections and join in with the bullying. They aren't really mean, but abuse the victim because they want to be part of the group and not its mark. The demand of the bullies is strong, and few choose to risk ostracism. Better to go along with abusers than be targeted by them. Cowards all.

The religionist influence in this community could be seen in this cliquishness. After I first moved here I learned that twenty years before, if you didn't belong to the Church of Latter Day Saints, you couldn't get a job. By the time I'd arrived, when you started a local business, you had to tithe to their church or they wouldn't let their members shop at your store. You didn't have to become a Mormon; you only had to give up ten percent of your profit to them. This sounds like extortion to me. Again, though, people do say a lot of things.

This was the situation in which I found myself, in this red heart of a red state. I felt surrounded and overwhelmed by Broken Rulers. I became somewhat fearful because, in their righteousness and secretiveness, they would go so very far in their abusiveness. I often wondered where all the Golden Rulers hung out, and why they didn't band together to turn against the Broken Rulers and keep them from slandering good people and running us off? We Golden Rulers should organize ourselves and others to turn against the Broken Rulers, but I never observed this happening. The Broken Rulers' real strength lies in the Golden Rulers' failure to band together and fight against them.

In 2008, the year I died, I'd believed Broken Rulers outnumbered Golden Rulers. Much later I learned that at the beginning of 2009 the pendulum had indeed begun to swing the other way. The Broken Rulers were being outed from their secret deviances by their own actions and by the attention of the Golden Rulers. The weight of their collective numbers and their abusive ways pulled them into public scrutiny, and once again the Golden Rulers would become dominant. Of course, eventually, the pendulum could swing back again, if the vigilance ceased.

Such are the opinions of a murdered woman, but you'll have to wait just a little longer for that part of the story.

I woke up feeling my last day at Freda's was most likely today. I very much didn't prefer the attitudes which seemed to prevail there, and even though I'd met a few people I did like, and would have enjoyed as friends, they too had complained regarding the same things I had, and those problems weren't being corrected. One switched departments because the gal working with her had been mean to her. Another thought about quitting to take care of her dad, and several had already quit because of the nastiness.

I contemplated writing another note to Calvin but I didn't want to spend my valuable time outside of work dealing with the job. Calvin failed to understand the dynamic, or couldn't care less, or lacked the ability to staff his store with the kind of people who worked well together. The customers and the good workers knew it, and both suffered from the inadequate staffing. The ignorant and the meanies remained in control. Freda should be training Calvin, not me, if indeed he could even be trained. Apparently Freda had gone vacationing in Barbados, or more likely, Corporate just couldn't comprehend what the hell was going on. If they knew, they didn't care, or maybe were unable to figure out what to do. I'd lost respect for Freda's.

For example, one day I had a problem with one of the guys working in Tools. A couple of shoppers became tired of waiting and asked me to help them. I told them I didn't know anything about the power nail gun they wanted to discuss, but I would find someone who did. Two isles down stood an employee in his yellow Freda's vest, holding a clipboard, doing inventory or such, completely ignoring them. While returning some tools to the Hardware desk, I passed him and mentioned the customers. He smiled at me and nodded. I returned the items, and as I walked back to my register, I saw he hadn't moved. I thought maybe he hadn't heard me. Had I spoken too softly? So I stopped and smiled and again mentioned the shoppers who wanted some information about a nail gun. I pointed to them and they grinned at me. He nodded and said, "Okay," and I went back to the register.

The customers watched the employee with his clipboard, two short isles away, ignore them. They looked at me. I shrugged. They looked at him. He ignored them. They looked at me again. I made a sympathetic face. This went on for twenty minutes. I'd say they were fairly patient. I swept the floors. When they left they said to me, "I guess if you don't want to help us we're going to Jerry's Hardware across the street."

Jerry was Freda's arch enemy. A rumor informed us that Jerry and Freda had once been married and now only screwed each other by competing in business. Jerry's always went up across the street from Freda's. I wasn't sure whether a Jerry or a Freda actually existed.

I said, "Okay, have a nice evening."

I couldn't tell if the employee with the clipboard snubbed me because of all the apparent slanderous backstabbing going on, just didn't give a shit about the customers, or cared less about doing his job properly. This was par for the course at Freda's, though, and I had a choice to make: continue working with these horrible people, for this ridiculous company, or walk away from my meager paycheck.

I made the decision the next day. I woke up experiencing no tolerance for bullshit of any kind because I was finally full to the brim. I hoped there wouldn't be any. Of course, I was disappointed.

I got stuck on fourteen, the Customer Service register (aargh!). I wasn't fully trained in the position because as I mentioned, the Head Cashiers had abdicated their responsibilities. "Call me if you need me" just doesn't count as training. Obviously I was too stupid to figure it out for myself; therefore I was too stupid to work at Freda's.

Three customers came up, one after another. All had different problems, none of which I'd been trained to handle. Each time, I asked someone to step in and take over. They did. I wondered, what the hell am I doing here? I didn't understand how to do the things I was supposed to do, and no one was willing to teach me. So of course I experienced instantaneous fury when Elva stepped up with a customer and told me to do a bunch of stuff I wasn't trained to do. When I said in frustration, "I don't know how to do this, this is ridiculous," instead of saying, "Here, let me show you," Elva sneered with a nasty expression on her face, "Oh my, aren't we having a bad day. Why don't we try to get a grip on ourselves?"

I turned to Sally, cashiering on Register Thirteen, and told her, "Get me off this machine." I'd had enough.

She said, "Find Andy."

I scanned the area and shrugged at Sally. Andy was nowhere in sight, as usual.

Of course Calvin and Pat stood behind us, observing.

Sally finished up and closed down Register Thirteen. She came over and I said, "I'm this close, Sally," pinching my fingers together in front of her face.

"Finish with this customer," she said, which I did, and then I walked away toward the break room.

Calvin somehow ended up near the door to the employee area. I thought, now is not the time, but like a fool, I asked, "Can I talk to you?"

"Sure," he replied. He didn't walk to his office as I'd expected though; he stood there staring at me.

I started to blow all my frustration in his face and he stopped me by admonishing, "I don't use that language with you, do I? I expect you to give me the same respect."

Granted, I shouldn't have used those words, but he should have been able to overlook the language and frustration and listen to me. I could have told him all the problems and the solutions and made him a better manager. I would have cut him slack had I been in his position and he the frustrated employee. In fact I had done just this when I'd worked as the supervisor at a distribution facility. But Calvin, too ignorant and inexperienced to handle the situation, didn't get the goods from me. It also occurred to me he might have gotten caught up in the backstabbing and had used the opportunity to kick me when I was down, as Elva had. Like vultures, they'd waited for it. Suddenly I fully realized I was in the company of ignorant, mean buffoons who had all the power and were having loads of fun at my expense. Calvin was the head buffoon. No wonder those attitudes had been allowed to thrive and grow. I turned and walked into the break room.

Lorne stood near the door looking at the schedules.

"I'm sorry Lorne. I just quit. I tried to talk to Calvin, but he was too busy pissing on me about my language to listen."

"You quit?"

"I quit."

I opened the locker, took off the vest, cleaned out the pockets and gathered my things. I slowed my breathing, and, although I was sad I'd lost another job, I was thrilled that the nightmare had ended. I thought so, anyway.

Sally came in, walked over to me and said, "You're not being picked on, Carol," confirming all my suspicions.

Calmly, I replied.

"I don't think I'm being picked on, Sally. I think I'm being stuck on fourteen without being fully trained, I don't know what I'm doing and everyone else has to step in for me. I think I'm being stuck out in Building Materials with no other staff and nobody answers the code thirties. I'm sorry, Sally," I said as I patted her shoulder, "I like you, but this isn't working out."

Stupid me. Polite to the end.

I said, "Sorry" to Lorne as I walked out the door and he replied, "I am too, but I understand completely."

I went out of the break room as Deena headed in. She had a huge grin on her face. I knew, for absolute certain, and had no doubt whatsoever she'd been the ring leader. She hadn't talked to me or looked at me for two weeks, not since Lara had left her job, not even when I'd tried to talk to her.

Though I knew better and I told myself not to do it, I flipped Calvin off on the way out the exit door. He seemed surprised.

"Oh, that's nice," he said. "Thanks a lot. Have a nice day."

Had they really expected me to just bend over and take it without complaint? Apparently they had. Could they really not see how their petty behavior had caused yet another self-respecting employee to walk out the door, never to return? No, they could not.

As soon as I got to my house I called in a complaint to the corporate 800 number and told them every dirty detail.

"What do you think about the new one?" Elva asked as Deena drove her home from work on Wheeler Mountain Road.

Deena glanced sideways at Elva.

Elva laughed.

"Sherry says she screwed up her drawer again," Elva said.

"Have you listened to her talking to customers?" Deena asked.

"Oh yeah. She's so damn pleasant. Hey, look up ahead, the blue truck. Isn't that Carol?" Elva leaned forward in the ratty seat of Deena's red and silver 4x4 half ton pickup.

"Is it?" Deena glared into the rearview. There were no cars behind or ahead. Deena said shrewdly, "She complained to corporate. That's why the bosses came down to sort us out."

"Did she? Was that her?"

"Who else? She's the college girl, the corporate snitch."

"Oh, fuck her. Speed up," Elva hissed.

Deena eased the faded and scratched red and silver truck closer the smaller SUV. Elva kept an eye behind and in front of them on the long rural road. Wheeler Mountain Road was the back road from the 1060 to the 460. The roads made a triangle, the 460 making up the small side. Not many people knew about this back way except the locals. Most took the 1060 to the 460, clogging that main artery and leaving Wheeler Mountain Road pretty much empty.

Deena drove up behind the blue SUV. "Is it her?" she asked.

"Yeah, it's her," Elva replied. Her eyes opened wide and shone wickedly.

I recognized Deena's ugly truck. Elva's grin seemed sinister through the windshield. Deena had that familiar hateful expression on her face. Curious how purely their faces reflected the hate and glee they felt inside when they attacked someone. I remembered those expressions and intimately realized I was alone on this remote rural road with them and their hatred and willingness to hurt me.

Deena slowed and rode my bumper closely.

"She's checking the rearview. Doesn't she look scared?" Elva laughed.

"Let's give her something to be scared of." Deena let her truck fall back.

"What are you gonna do?" Elva nearly yelled. She turned around, looking for cars behind them.

"I'm gonna push her off the bridge," Deena said.

"No way! The cops'll figure it out. The truck's paint'll be on her car."

"So? We'll report it. It'll be an accident. The shelter's right back there. We'll tell them a big dog ran across the street and we swerved while we passed and hit her car."

"The shelter knows how many dogs they have. They'll know if they're missing one."

"People drop animals in this area all the time. We'll say it was a big mixed dog, a Border collie mix. Lots of them around here. And it's two against one, right?"

'I'm in. There's no one else on the road. Here comes the bridge."

"Good. Watch this."

Deena pressed on the accelerator, sped up behind my truck, and swung out into the empty oncoming lane. She pulled beside me and wrenched her steering wheel to the right just before I reached the narrow bridge. Our vehicles met with an obscene crunch, then separated. The bitch was trying to kill me!

"Look at her face, she's freaking out!" Elva yelled over the shriek of metal on metal.

I made it onto the narrow expanse, barely missing the beginning of the guardrail as Deena again yanked the big truck into mine again. My smaller vehicle smashed into the right-hand railing and screeched along for what seemed like hours, but was only seconds, and then the rail ended. The nose of my truck slammed into the hillside, and it crashed to a stop for an instant as its front end crumpled. I smashed into the steering wheel, knocking the breath out of my chest. Pain blossomed. I fell, rolling and crashing down into the creek bed, fifty feet below.

Elva, yelling excitedly, stretched out the window and looked backward to delight in the crash, so she didn't realize Deena had lost control of her vehicle. As the blue SUV crashed into the hill, Deena's truck rolled on.

For a moment Deena still pulled her steering wheel to the right, and then she had to pull to the left so as not to follow Carol grill first into the hillside. Deena's gut burned, her adrenaline flowed, and she severely overcorrected. Her vehicle began to roll. Elva briefly saw the pavement coming up before it crushed her against the door frame. The four-by-four rolled onto its roof and skidded diagonally across the road toward the left side. Deena's head snapped around inside the cab, stunning her, but she clung to the steering wheel with all her strength. The upside-down truck hit the end of the guard rail on the other side of the road, spun, and fell off the edge of the asphalt. During its plummet down the hillside, a tree stump protruded into the driver's window and struck Deena in the head. Her neck broke at the exact moment Carol's snapped when her truck crashed into the rocky creek bed below. They died simultaneously.

I sucked in a deep, long, spasmodic breath and opened my eyes. A bizarre vision appeared before me. Strange creatures stood in the area around me. They all glared at me. So I looked at me too, and I was no longer human! Somehow I had become something entirely different! I stared back at them.

The moment was like a photograph of a group of folks after they'd all turned to face the same thing and froze in place - except these creatures didn't resemble people. Noise and movement exploded. They rushed toward me, scaring me. They seemed sinister and insectoid until I realized they were checking the tubes coming out of my mouth, and elsewhere.

The face of one of the monsters appeared close to mine. A female. How I knew the thing was female I don't know. No language as I understood it was spoken, but noise clicked out of – what, mandibles? A jerking type of dance was going on, too.

I comprehended the meaning of this monster's clicking and dancing even though I'd never learned enough to be able to interpret any language other than English. Nevertheless, comprehension came to me as I examined the insectoid face. I glanced down at myself again with HORROR - I was one of them!

How had this happened? I had a green, hard, chitin shell (not skin) and long pointed limbs, some of which had been glued together at the breaks.

At the breaks! I was a broken bug! Then the pain screamed loud enough to get my undivided attention until the tunnel closed in and I passed out.

Sometime later I regained consciousness in a room resembling a large cell in a beehive or a paper wasp nest. Occasionally, the creatures poked and prodded me. Their long pointy feet examined the glued breaks. For the most part, they used their front pairs of limbs. They could, in an emergency, as I'd noticed before I'd blacked out, also use their second two legs while balancing on the third set and abdomen.

Taking stock of myself, I remembered my former life in the White Mountains of Northeastern Arizona, USA, Earth, yet here I lay. My hard, green-blue skin had a sheen similar to an oil slick. Six limbs, long and pointed like the others', were articulated three times. The feet were also jointed, four segments in a row, and then split into two small, hard knobs - toes of a sort. I had no idea how this body compared in size to humans, but I wasn't a normal Earth-type insect. For one thing, my thinking hadn't changed from my old human self.

I understood the breaks in my exoskeleton meant my gooey inner juices would leak out and I'd dehydrate and die. A simple break in skin couldn't be so dangerous, or fatal, as this. This reality differed greatly. I'd have to keep these new limitations in the forefront of my mind.

I moved a little, but this body was ungainly. I forced myself to relax. I tried to understand my position in this world. I spent some time trying to remember the bug's life. I failed. I could access muscle memory though. I'd be able to perambulate, although at the moment, not so much.

Who this creature had been or what the thing had done in this reality I couldn't recall. Did bugs have jobs? They must, at least primitive duties such as insects had on Earth; food collection, housekeepers, drones, queens, soldiers. There existed a sort of health care here, manufacturing, too. Earth bugs didn't have technology, so I couldn't be on Earth.

I fed from a tube which went into my mandibles and down my throat. More tubing snaked up my cloaca; I remembered that word from college. This one took waste away quite visibly. How nasty. I thought I experienced a brief bout of stomach sickness, but realized this was a mere human sensual memory. This body did not feel nausea.

It was all very confusing.

A bug entered. She peered into my eyes, pulled on both of the tubes, and pushed them back in almost to the hilt, checking their placement, I guessed. How inhuman. The bugs had no concern for privacy, embarrassment, or pain. She stood next to me, moving her mandibles and jerking about a bit, and I understood her meaning as this:

How are you?

I'm fine, I hope, I replied by jerking and clicking. The body remembered. For all I knew I could have said something quite nasty. I interpreted everything in my mind as English.

I think she laughed. She danced for a while and clicked her hard mouthparts. I translated the movements as, You've been broken. You understand the seriousness of this. We've glued you back together, filled you with food and water, and your body should fill the voids. Fortunately, the parts that have cracked are the legs and antennae, not the thorax, abdomen, or head. You seem to be surviving, so far. These breaks could be fragile in the future, or even go the other way and be stronger than the exoskeleton is. We won't be certain until you become active again.

I thought, okay, and my mandibles moved and clicking noises came out. She seemed satisfied. She spent more time checking the glued seams on my antennae and two legs and left after dancing, Rest. Do not walk.

Okay, I heard in my mind a moment before my mouth moved.

Walking would be a challenge. I became thankful I'd been damaged so when I did get to my feet any awkwardness might be seen as a result of the inactivity and injuries; I couldn't figure out how to control the legs. I still wondered about my role in this society. I'd no idea who this creature had been before I'd taken up residence.

This new body was something else. I practiced moving my four undamaged limbs and one antenna, but I didn't get up. I stayed in the six sided cell and wasn't able to investigate too thoroughly what materials made up the walls. The creatures came and went; some spoke to me, brought me food, checked the tubes and the glued seams, or removed waste. I liked the place about as much as I'd enjoyed hospitals on Earth, which was to say not a lot. I'd experienced plenty of damage in forty some human years. That body had started a swift decline after the bad car accident and subsequent spinal surgery. Without total regret I found myself experiencing this new, albeit strange one, which had damage, but was so young! Youth has many advantages. The constant aches of the injuries to my human body were gone. The breaks in this one didn't cause much pain. Would they stay glued, I wondered? What if they broke again under excessive or even normal use? I hoped my job wouldn't be too stressful. When one of their own literally couldn't keep a leg or two together and do its job, what did the bugs do? Was this the kind of society that took care of the unfit, or the type which heaved the cripples out of the collective and left them to the elements and predators? Would I be killed outright if I were unable to perform my duties?

Who knew? Not I. I couldn't ask, because I should have already known. This became a gnawing dilemma.

A sort of physical therapy started soon after they pulled the tubes out, which consisted of walking. This area of the hive housed recuperating bugs, boding well for my future. If they cared for the infirm, perhaps they wouldn't kill me if I functioned improperly. On the other hand, these patients apparently all expected to recover.

At first they strapped me into a sling which hung from a ceiling railing. Two bugs helped me amble forward and backward, the length of the rail. They danced and jerked, making comments like, Have you forgotten how to walk? Did you take a blow to the head? You're so clumsy, this is worse than training a new pupate.

I struggled to control those six limbs and the ungainly abdomen quickly. I knew I couldn't spend too much time learning to walk. I'd understood limb breaks weren't so serious if they didn't kill you by allowing your fluids to drain out. They expected me to get myself together and on the job quickly. It was quite a challenge; I succeeded out of desperation. The body's memory saved me.

I learned "family" wasn't a concept among bugs as it was with humans. The entire hive served as a collective. Everyone had a job and duties to perform, for the good of the whole. All were familiar, but bloodlines didn't exist. No family names spoken. There were no Smiths or Joneses. Bugs didn't bear and raise their own offspring. Queens had the children - laid eggs, rather. Nursery Workers cared for the soft, vulnerable larvae in their cells, and Nursery Guards protected them. Food Gatherers aplenty collected, converted, and stored food. Carpenters built and repaired the hive. Drones serviced the Queen. Cleaners cleaned and Guards defended the colony from predators and fools. These bugs spent the majority of their time and resources doing this. As I practiced walking, I listened and observed and picked up on all these facts and more.

I learned I'd been a Hive Guard, a good one, and was well respected. I'd damaged myself defending the hive from a, well, in my head the noise sounded like kookool. I hoped I'd never meet one of these things, because the last one had broken this body up pretty good.

All of the bugs had wings, except the larvae and me. One of mine had been torn off in the accident and the other damaged. A Nurse had chewed the second wing off, I heard from my therapists.

Bug life followed a thoughtless, dull, repetitive routine. Not a lot of creativity involved, in fact, none at all. My days consisted of constant work, but nothing like human muscle burn and fatigue bothered me. The exoskeleton took most of the stress and didn't seem to have nerves. The inner workings were mostly painless. My circulatory and respiratory systems functioned magnificently. Consequently, we bugs worked every minute of the day as the sun shone. When the skies were overcast, our physical busyness warmed our bodies as long as the air didn't get too cold. They all wagged their wings to warm themselves. Here I discovered a disadvantage; I really slowed down when the clouds rolled in because of my lack of them. As sunset approached, we flew or walked into the hive for the night.

The bugs didn't sleep; they became cold and kind of stopped. Foragers finding themselves far from home when it became cool enough to limit or stop their movement just grabbed the nearest branch and waited out the darkness or clouds until the sunlight warmed them up enough to get moving again. Otherwise, when the sun went down and the air cooled off, everyone piled into the hive to wait for the heat of the next day.

After the hospital released me, I returned to my duties, which consisted of standing on a tree limb in front of the hive and jiggling all day. I picked a fine spot in a beam of sunlight and the body did the work. The brain and body remembered the movements and I wiggled and jerked to the tune of everything's all right, the coast is clear, and no danger in sight. My bug brain simply didn't have any thoughts; it was programmed to do the dances, to eat and drink, and to stay vigilant for predators. That was it. Why I now resided in this body was unknown to me. I thought about my consciousness, my personality, my soul if you prefer, and how it must take up no space whatsoever, since this bug was a fully formed individual. Unless, of course, this bug's life essence, spirit, or conscience had existed and departed, leaving the vacancy to me. This seemed likely, for although these insects were programmed for mindless repetition, after a while I perceived they did have identities of a sort. Reality constrained these personalities, of course. Bugs couldn't travel to foreign countries or go to universities. Their education was imitative. They didn't seem to form cliques or friendships; they were too busy serving the collective.

Day after day I stood and I danced. I observed the other guards, all spaced out around the hive. The dances seemed much the same, with slight variations. This was not the New York City Ballet.

The plant life didn't appear to be the same as the plant life on Earth. It was alien. The flora might appear huge and therefore unfamiliar to me if I were small, as to bugs on Earth, so I could perhaps still be on the planet. But the colors and the shapes differed from what I remembered.

Something exciting finally happened to liven up the repetition of my endless days of guard duty. A koolkool hunted the nest.

The threat revealed itself as I looked in the opposite direction. I wasn't aware of it at first. It slunk up through the ground cover and got fairly close before a guard drummed his feet on the branch and began to dance, sending out the alarm.

Things changed fast then. The guard that spotted the koolkool switched to an infectious and agitated Warning! Danger! dance which spread like a virus through all of us. I did the Warning! Danger! dance too, while the inhabitants of the entire hive went on Red Alert. The agitation became palpable. The food gatherers took flight and I danced over to stand above the koolkool to show the others where the thing lurked. The guards lifted into the air too, but all I could do was stay on the branch and dance my legs off.

The threat was a lizard. I'd never seen this kind before, but I don't really know lizards. The creature seemed incredibly huge compared to me, and if I hadn't been caught up in my duty of warning the hive I would have run away.

The foragers, soldiers and guards all bombarded the reptile. They flew at great speed, attacking its tail and dive bombing its back. The koolkool spun and snapped and ate quite a few of the defenders. It made a meal out of them, and took its sweet time doing so, too.

The bugs never faltered. They tried to scare the thing away, but it didn't frighten. It had a leisurely supper and then left! My coworkers did their duty mindlessly, and many lost their lives. I, with no wings, simply danced on my limb above the beast, witnessing the fruitless warfare.

After the lizard moved away the agitation subsided, although we remaining guards continued active patrolling. We paced our areas, covering the whole circumference of the nest doing a sort of yellow alert dance. Slowly, everything settled again, and one by one we went back to our no danger in sight jig.

It was one hell of a rush!

I thought I should feel sad about those who died in the fight for the hive, but I didn't experience sadness. In the following days, as in those before, new pupates emerged as winged adults and took the places of the ones eaten by the koolkool. Bug life continued the same as before.

Somehow, someway, I got the sneaking suspicion some of the others didn't appreciate that I'd not risked and perhaps lost my life in the defense of our home as everyone else had done.

The koolkool came back for another easy meal. Apparently this was a routine happening. Before I became aware of the lizard, I realized two of the guards had left their positions and stood close to me. I experienced a sudden moment of clarity, and a flash of Deena's and Elva's faces appeared in my mind's eye. I was dimly aware of the koolkool creeping directly beneath me. Suddenly, two hard feet stamped into my thorax and shoved me off the limb. As I fell, I caught a glimpse of the pair of guards who'd kicked me putting their limbs on the branch and beginning the Warning! Danger! dance. I could swear they grinned when I landed in the lizard's snapping jaws, exactly as Deena and Elva had on a lonely country road.

Crunch!

Again I slowly came to. The pain overwhelmed me. I hadn't opened my eyes yet, but I inhaled the cool mulch of soil and decaying leaf litter, and a heavy, sour odor mixed with a fecal and urine chaser.

Consciousness fled and returned, bringing enormous pain. I briefly contemplated the variation in different species' concepts of agony while I blacked out.

I woke up again. This time I smelled a pleasant, clean dust... and blood. A slight breeze cooled my nose and dried my gums and tongue. The wind relieved some of the foul odors. A bit of sunlight warmed me. I opened my eyes, but I couldn't see. A single star's light, bright and low in the sky, glared into them.

Physically and psychologically, bringing these dead bodies back to life was hard work. I wondered whether the souls I was replacing went on a similar bizarre journey to mine.

My hide warmed in the star's radiation. Without moving, I assessed my latest situation. The bright orb had risen higher. A huge mound of longish brown hair stunk nearby. Large tawny paws, like those of a cat's, with faint stripes and claws stretched in front of me. Scents filled my palate. Slowly I closed my mouth and moved my dry tongue, which stuck and scraped. I couldn't understand the shape of this new mouth.

Carefully I turned my head. The resulting throbbing pain made me nauseous. I breathed through my mouth to try to keep my gut from clenching over the foul odor of the vomit. The effort it took to retch increased my awareness of all my wounds, including the mortal one. My heart pumped furiously to replace lost blood and I fainted again.

The sun continued to abuse my eyes when I next awoke. Vulture-like creatures tore at the dark-haired hide beside me. I didn't feel it; they weren't feeding on me. Slowly I rolled and realized my mistake because one of the scavengers hopped lazily off of my dusky body, a strip of meat dangling from its hard, toothed mouth.

Christ! They were eating me alive! This time I jerked up onto my four paws in one motion and stood, swaying and retching. All the carrion eaters moved away, but not far away, eyeballing me.

The thudding waves of pain and nausea defeated me for awhile, and then the searing hot agony of open wounds brought me around.

This was bad. I needed to get far away from the dead beast and the scavengers.

I stood in a little meadow, complete with a pooling creek and surrounded by forest.

I stumbled to the stream, experiencing agony with every twitch of muscle. My whole body was like a giant bruise. I collapsed at the shore of the pool. My head fell into the muck. The water cooled my dry, chapped tongue and tickled my whiskers which transferred an annoying tingle to my upper lip. I contemplated this as I passed out again.

I came to snorting and coughing, my face sunk into the mud. Water had crept up one nostril.

Steeling myself, I rolled onto my chest and abdomen. That stretched my right flank which flared in anger. I smelled fresh blood.

I looked back toward the hairy mound. All the scavengers feasted on the carcass, perhaps ignoring me for the meal that didn't lurch into action - unreasonable, from their perspective.

Huge tawny paws stretched ahead of me into the pool. Small waves lapped against them, pushed by a breeze. I stuck my face into the liquid and sputtered. I used my whiskers to help me judge the distance to the surface, and my tongue came out, into the cool liquid. I lapped it up, curling my tongue under and depositing the water into my lower jaw. I gulped. The crisp coolness soothed my parched tissues. After several more deposits I swallowed again.

My throat was hellaciously sore. I stretched my neck. Tendons and cartilage snapped and crunched. I breathed easier. Swallowing was becoming simpler, but still painful. Was the mortal wound a crushed throat? Who knew? Not I.

I drank and moved and rested. What was I now, a reviver of corpses? What fresh hell was this? What had I done to deserve this torture? I couldn't remember.

My reflection in the surface of the pool revealed a feral face, an animal image with a cat-like beauty. The battered visage had two shallow claw marks bleeding from above the left eye diagonal to the right of the nose. The eyes weren't damaged. Deep fang wounds exposed the meat on each side of my neck. Flaps of skin and hair hung. Blood had drained out, soaked my fur, and dried. What had made the fluid stop draining out to allow the heart to refill the veins? Had this creature bled out and died, and had I stepped in, restarting the pump? How had I come to be in this victim? My shoulders and flanks, also mauled, gaped flesh and fur. I couldn't imagine I'd be long in this weakened container.

This animal's ability to ignore pain and keep moving was superior, because agony filled the body and my mind. Move it did, though, past the carcass with its abdomen torn to shreds. Claw wounds on its rib cage and the back of its shoulders showed my violent potential. The animal I now inhabited had ripped its enemy's guts out and shredded them with its hind claws. The scavengers feasted on entrails and organ meat.

I stumbled along trying to wipe off the blood and offal on my toes and claws into the meadow grass and soil.

My skin grew cold when I entered the deep shadows, so I returned to the sunshiny-bright clearing.

I looked back at where I'd exited. About ten yards in, the woods became dense and dark. Why I wanted to go that way I couldn't guess, but I did.

I reentered the woods and reacquired that chill. The cold seemed to make my wounds hurt more. They bled as I moved, but this didn't stop me, and I continued. The darkness smelled dank and moldy. My padded, clawed feet disturbed the rotting leaf litter. Fungi pushed through the soil everywhere, and where the sunlight managed to filter down to the soil, flowers grew. A beautiful variety made the walk pleasant, and my feral brain filtered out the pain as if it was a noise I was getting used to. My heart beat very hard, making me pant. Drops of saliva dripped off my lips. I could barely stand to waste a drop, though, because I was still so thirsty. I snapped my jaws shut. My tongue traced the inside of my carnivorous teeth. Canines. Sharp molars.

The forest began to thin out as I stepped out onto some large rocks. A small river fell gradually over them, down to a wide meadow which opened up onto a crescent shaped plain surrounded by trees on each side. The view was beautiful.

I climbed down the boulders. My four limbs protested but obeyed. The wounds began to scream again as I stretched them to their limits over the rocky terrain. Damaged muscles faltered.

When I reached the end of the fall of rocks, the meadow opened up before me, ever widening. The land here was flat and the river slowed, split, and divided more, turning into five streams which meandered in sparkling ribbons through the green carpeted silt.

Home.

Far off I spied a small herd of something. My predator instincts heightened. A rustling to the right caught my attention and out of the trees walked a group - of people!

They weren't humans, exactly, but sort of shaped like us, bipedal and symmetrical, with two arms and a head, grasping digits and two legs, two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and a mouth. Short and somewhat broader than a human would be, they were sort of flattened from front to back. They appeared to be starving, the poor beasts. Like rabbits, they poised to run, yet they came to me, clumped in a pack.

The four males and five females were all naked and their cinnamon colored skin was filthy. Two carried bundles of rolled skins. A swarm of insects, some cross between gnats and houseflies in behavior, hovered above their dark hair. The flying bugs dipped and landed on festering sores and weeping eyes.

Still they advanced, timidly, pressed together. They looked anxious, but didn't seem worried that I would attack them. I didn't feel that strong, feral, hungered urge I'd experienced when I'd seen the herd of grazers at the far end of the valley.

They appeared concerned about me. As they advanced, I cringed at the thought of them touching me with their filthy hands and infecting me from their draining wounds.

I had the sudden urge to rear up, and so I did, but the creatures didn't scuttle back or cling together more.

Then something amazing happened. I lost focus and floated briefly. The sensation was similar to the floating weightlessness I used to enjoy when I went scuba diving on Earth. Everything got a little fuzzy around the edges, and when my vision snapped back into clarity, I towered above my short, dirty companions. I was standing.

Casually, I glanced down. My rounded chest and flat white belly now had no fur, but skin. I stood on human-like feet. I had hands, real hands, complete with opposable thumbs. I still had retractable claws, the tips of which protruded from human-like fingers and toes. Fantastic!

The wind kissed my defurred skin and a sudden weight pulled on my head as all the remaining fur transformed into a long cascade of tawny hair. My arms and legs were fawn colored with darker, tiger-type stripes. Wow! I was a beauty!

Again, the dirty creatures advanced.

My wounds had healed somewhat when I'd transformed, but were more painful in this form. I wondered if it was possible to pick up infection from the little people through the breeze alone.

They stank. They all needed a bath. The sun shone hot on my hairless skin. One biggish male led the group, slightly forward but pulling them along. They did what he did. Not exactly old, he was worn, scarred, and bent. His amber eyes leaked a perpetual slew of tears and puss. As they came nearer my nose was assaulted by an even gamier odor than their sweating bodies. Two of them carried babies wrapped in the rotting skins. I peered closer. One of the infants appeared tan and robust under the layers of dirt coating it. The other, thin and pale, didn't move as much, and leaked the same teary puss from its eyes. As I looked, it coughed.

These poor creatures! Not only were they starving, but suffering from preventable diseases.

I could help them. Maybe I would live long enough to teach them hygiene and fire starting, hunting, agriculture, and my meager construction skills.

I began to slowly walk away, up the valley toward the area under the rumbling falls where they pooled. They followed as if afraid to be left behind. I stood with my now furless feet in the frigid water. The sun streamed through the tall tree tops and warmed the rocks and the ground at the spot I'd chosen. I stepped further in, up to my knees. My toes stung from the bruising of the fight when my predecessor had kicked the beast's guts to pieces.

The battered male stared hard. He led the small group to the edge of the pool. I retreated again until the cold water was waist high. I nearly screamed and fainted. The pain of it surging into the wounds on my thighs and hips threatened to drop me like a stone. I locked my knees and gritted my teeth until my body numbed and the darkness passed. Again I stared at the gnarled one. He eyeballed me and stepped into the liquid. The rest balked. One of the females wailed. The man turned his head to look at her, and then at me, and took another small step. A long while crawled by, but finally I had him with me in water up to his waist. He walked about, trailing his fingers and smiling. I washed and he imitated me, cupping the water in his hands and splashing it onto his filthy chest and arms.

I reached down and splashed my faced and he did the same. The people on the banks had slowly crept in, some more than others, and learned the new bathing ritual. I walked among them, teaching them to wash each other's backs. I took the babies, one at a time, throwing the rotting skins onto the bank. I cleaned them thoroughly, and placed them to dry on the sun heated boulders which I'd splashed first to cool a bit. Their mothers waded over to be near them, sat on the rocks and washed themselves. I taught them to squat down in the water, tip their heads back and run their fingers through their matted hair as best they could to scrub the dirt off their scalps. Then we all climbed out, thoroughly chilled, and steamed ourselves dry in sunny spots.

Unfortunately, the heat made the lacerations in my hide ache as much as the cold water had numbed them. I'd imagined, while we'd bathed, their filth and infections entering my wounds. Then I thought, so what? I didn't know how long I would be in this incarnation. I might be attacked by another of those brown creatures tomorrow. I could wake up in different body at any time. I stayed upstream for the most part.

Here and now, I would make these people healthier, feed them and give them work to do. There was no other choice. I wouldn't walk away.

As we dried I watched the pool clear. All the nastiness dropped to the bottom or floated downstream. The mothers picked up the rotting skins and tried to wrap their babies in them again. I gently pulled the pelts from their hands, shaking my head and saying, "No." They resisted and worried, but let me have my way. I picked up one baby and gave him to his mother, and did the same with the other, pushing the infants close to them and folding their arms around to support their heads. I wanted them to cradle the babies close to their breasts for warmth. That would have to do for now.

I'd had many cats and dogs as a human, and I was a decent trainer of things which did not have language. I'd broken up fights, distracted them from destructive behaviors, and they'd learned phrases, like, "No", "Good", "Bad", "Come", "Stay", "Outside", "Get 'em", and "Snackies!". I was certain I could train these helpless creatures as well.

A gnawing hunger growled in the pit of my stomach. I took the decaying skins with me and walked into the woods, turning back at the peoples' distressful noises to say "stay", holding my hands up, palms toward them. The further away I went, the closer they huddled together. They backed into the cold forest watching me. At least they were dry; I'd made sure of that. As they disappeared into the dark shade I turned and threw the skins away. With a weightless, fuzzy feeling, I assumed the form of the cat-like hunter again.

The pain lessened immediately, becoming more like background noise. My eyesight sharpened in the stark world. Silhouette and movement became paramount. My ears perceived sounds far and near that I hadn't heard in my bipedal form. The breeze caressed my whiskers, which annoyed my lips.

The damaged muscles didn't move freely, and I knew I wouldn't be able to run down one of the herd beasts. I followed my paws to a little clearing where the grass grew thicker. Several of the small furred creatures that had lost their skins to my new friends were feeding there. I settled down on my belly in some cover at the edge of the tiny meadow and I waited. Sure enough, several of the little beasts frittered near. They seemed to be performing a kind of courtship. I cut short their lust when I pinned them each under my giant paws. One spine snapped but the undamaged creature squirmed. I picked my paw up off the broken one and bit into the back of the struggling one. I must have punctured an artery because blood flooded my mouth. My will was strained as I fought not to crunch the damn thing up and swallow it whole. I opened the bellies with my awesome claws and ate the organs and intestines, but not the meat.

No, they weren't for me. Quickly I changed into the bipedal creature, the other me. I wiped the blood and fur from my face and picked up the two warm, limp bodies.

I imagined my new friends would happily eat the flesh raw, but I thought up a better idea. I collected dry wood while walking back toward the pool. Feeling slightly less ravenous than before, I moved somewhat easier and experienced less pain.

I stopped and skinned the little beasts with my ever present claws before I reached the clearing. I'd raised rabbits as a kid on Earth and had watched my dad dress them out. I hung the skins on low branches for the time being, and collected two slender, longish sticks. When I came out of the forest beside the river, some of my friends had ventured out into the valley and were digging in the wet silt. A few of the others had left. The babies lay in the tall grass in the sun, barely visible.

They hadn't seen me yet. I searched the ground for small branches to rub together to start a fire. I'd never been a scout and hadn't ever made campfire with sticks, but I understood the concept. I collected some brittle, dry grass from last season, and then I found something even better than rubbing sticks. Flint!

Growing up on the coast in California my ex-Navy dad had shown me this sedimentary stone in the hill behind our yard. I'd loved the way I could chip patterns in the stone, the smooth glassiness of the rock, and the sharp edges. He'd knocked two pieces together in a sideways motion that I now remembered and they had made sparks.

Perfect!

I cleaned an area of grass, surrounded the space with stones, and collected more kindling and wood. As I struck the pieces of flint together over the bundle of straw, the women noticed me. They came closer and spied my prey, but I didn't let them have it. Somehow, between standing over the meat and pushing them away - they were starving - and striking my flints together, I made fire.

The women backed away, one gnawing on the raw hind leg she'd torn from one of the beasties I'd killed. I carefully nurtured the little flame, adding twigs and more grass, small chunks of wood, larger sticks, and thin branches. I tended the tiny fire until it was hot, and then let it slowly recede to red and yellow coals as the sun set and the sky lit up in pastel colors for a brief time. I skewered the meat and put the loaded skewers over the fire, the ends of the sticks on the two large stones I'd found and placed opposite each other. I turned our food as it began to roast.

The males returned. They dropped the things they'd collected and stared in fear. I calmly sat and cooked our supper.

The air had become much cooler and the ceiling of this world darker. Still terrified, the men and women moved closer to the blaze, yet far enough away to run if necessary. They seemed to enjoy the heat. They'd brought the babies and their collections with them. The men carried something like berries in their hands, and in the women's was a kind of root.

As the evening cooled further they came closer to the fire. The fear never left their eyes, and they flicked glances into mine. I tended the meat. My calmness seemed to reassure them. They squatted down and began to eat the raw roots and berries.

Our dinner cooked through and I moved the beasts from their suspension over the coals to the rocks at the fire's edge. I allowed them to cool and then removed the sticks that had suspended the carcasses. I divided the meal into roughly ten equal portions with my awesome claws.

I crept over to my friends in a crouch, so as not to scare them. I held a chunk of meat out to the mother of the sick child. She flicked her eyes from mine to my offering and gently took the piece from me. I pointed to her roots and put my hand out, palm up. She picked up the biggest one and gave it to me. The other mother did the same, as did the three other women. The men traded some of their berries to me for their portions.

I sat with my back to the fire and consumed mine. Strangely they'd all waited, watching me. After I took my first bite they tried the meat, which disappeared in a hurry. They then started chewing up the bones and the rest of the roots and berries. They licked their fingers clean.

I examined those tubers. They looked similar to onions, and smelled like raw garlic, which accounted for some of the pungent odors coming from my friends' bodies. Apparently they'd been trying to live on these vegetables. I tried a small nibble. Its texture was of uncooked potato.

I put my five roots in the coals, and as I waited, I ate the berries.

The mothers nursed their babies while everyone watched. They all seemed to care whether their kids lived or died. The mother of the robust one took the weak baby and rubbed her nipple across his lips until he suckled, too. His own mother's milk was not enough. Everyone seemed relaxed.

I flattered myself that I'd taught them the concept of sharing, or at least reinforced the idea, and had inadvertently saved the baby from starvation at his mother's weak breast.

"Good," I said quietly through the alien mouth. "Good."

The mother of the sick child moved her lips and grunted. All the other adults tried, too. A chorus of guttural noises interrupted the night. The wild sounds out in the forest ceased briefly, then resumed as my new friends grew quiet again.

The people petted the little ones and passed them around.

I picked the smallest root out of the coals and let it cool on a rock away from the heat.

When I bit into the vegetable I was amazed at the potatoey, oniony, garlicky goodness. I considered sharing, but my hunger wasn't sated yet, and they had all huddled together and lain down. The men circled the women, who snuggled the babies.

This was my family now.

I woke before dawn, when the air was the coldest, and quietly put several logs onto the warm charcoals. I changed again into my animal self and went into the woods. I had to feed myself and these people until I'd taught them how to hunt.

Chattering noise awakened in the forest. The sky started to glow and individual trees made dark profiles against the light. Stars and moonlike planets twinkled above.

What prey could I catch in my weakened state? I decided to try for the small creatures we'd already eaten and started for the clearing where I'd caught them before. Nothing stirred.

I prowled the perimeter of the little meadow and picked out their thin trails. I found a nest of soft insects in a rotting limb, metamorphosed into my humanoid form, picked them out, and ate them. They tasted woody and foul but I was hungry and I didn't care. I changed back into the beast and followed a trail to a hole dug in the loamy soil. I lay down behind the burrow, downwind of its mouth, on my belly, with my paws stretched out in front of me. I rested my chin on my long legs and waited.

Through the soil I heard them stirring. I listened to them coming up the tunnel until a little head peek out. The small thing wasn't a rabbit but behaved much like one. The beastie came out, sniffing and looking around. I waited. The creature departed its home and began to sniff the ground. Its babies followed.

In a split second I had the adult in my mouth, dead. The young squealed and ran back down the burrow. I tore open its belly and gulped down its insides, then spent some time breaking, tearing, grinding and swallowing the body, fur, and bones.

My predator's mouth savored the flavors, even the little pellets that fell out of the rectum. All. I dug up the burrow and swallowed whole each of the young.

My belly finally full, I felt no remorse or nausea, only satisfaction and relief.

Nearby I found the head of a small spring whose stream dried up a few feet away. I lapped at the water and quenched my thirst, swallowing hair. I sat and had a good cleaning.

I cleaned myself like a cat, washing my face and whiskers, ears, paws, and fur as best I knew how. I left licks of hair standing on end in some areas but I couldn't clean everything because the lacerations, scabby and tight, prevented me from bending every which way. They itched. They seemed to be healing fast.

I lay in the sun and dozed. As I grew warmer some of the gnat-flies landed on the cuts and fed. I let them, remembering a story about how flies had cleaned out the wounds of civil war soldiers in the fields, and how these men sometimes survived, while those in hospital more often died. The flies ate the dead tissues, preventing disease, but the injured who were doctored and wrapped in bandages suffered horrible gangrene.

My stomach growled and my hide warmed. I determined to hunt for my friends. I crept back toward the clearing, but on the way I heard grunting and twigs snapping. Something was foraging nearby. Larger than the rabbitty things, the hide looked gorgeous. I daydreamed about how good a baby blanket that pelt would make!

With difficulty, I stealthily snuck up to the prey, chased, pounced, and bit into the back of its neck until the spine bones crumpled. I realized the power of my jaws, how the teeth punctured the meat and prevented escape. I was a hunting machine!

The beast kicked its last while I thought of my little cat Chloe. She'd been quite the huntress. She'd brought me mice, lizards, snakes, grasshoppers, crickets, birds, bunnies, and even one of those fancy horned lizards. She loved to devour birds in my office. I'd always praised her despite the mess, because she'd been so proud, and now I fully understood why.

I took my people their supper.

The carcass I carried was the size and shape of a round and compact dog, with short limbs and plenty of muscle.

When I reached the clearing I stood up and became humanoid again. They all gathered around. This time they waited without trying to grab the food from me.

The logs I'd earlier added to the fire glowed as hot coals now.

I found a large piece of flint that fit in my palm, and easily chipped a cutting edge into it with another rock. I showed them how to skin the fine beast from the back legs to the neck, and the right way to cut the guts out. Showing them the gallbladder on the liver, I demonstrated how to remove the small organ without breaking it, which would spoil the meat.

Placing the carcass directly on the coals, I turned it over frequently. I put the organs on heated rocks set in the fire pit. We ate those as appetizers since they cooked faster than the whole beast. My new friends had spent the morning collecting and had their little piles of roots and berries. Eventually, half the tubers went into the cinders. I didn't know if they would enjoy them cooked. I sure did.

Cautiously the people explored the fire. They threw sticks at it from a safe distance, and chattered excitedly when the flame flared. I showed them how to collect the dry old wood from the forest and make a pile near, but not too close to the flames.

I collected the small skins from the branches where I'd hung them and rubbed them on rocks to soften them. I staked the warm, wet skin to dry, fur side down. The little folk watched everything I did.

That day they'd learned many new lifesaving skills, and they looked a lot cleaner and healthier already. They seemed less frightened too.

After dark we feasted on the beast, roots, and berries. We devoured the whole business. The people had decided they liked the tubers cooked, and had braved the heat to roast the remaining ones. That night we all slept very, very well.

Somehow the ability to morph between the two forms of my being healed and rearranged my damaged flesh, but I still wasn't pretty. I remained tender and eventually scarred badly.

My little tribe and I practiced our daily routine. I awoke early and stoked the campfire and went hunting. While I was gone they collected the roots and the berries, which seemed to get tougher and seedier every day. After I returned, one of them skinned the meat. Everyone was getting a turn. Some of them grew bold enough to place the carcass on the fire and turn it. We bathed frequently and slept the afternoons away in the warmth of the sunlight until the weather changed. The monsoon season arrived.

Most people on Earth think of monsoons as a tropical phenomenon, but all forests are rainforests, and if they are big enough they create their own special climate.

This alien forest did. The rain, often hard and drenching, lasted maybe twenty minutes, sometimes longer or shorter before the sun came out again. The precipitation caused fevered growth among the seasonal plants because the air was still warm, though cooler than before the clouds spread across the sky. Two chores needed to be accomplished now: one by building roofs over our heads, and the other, planting food.

My little friends took care of the shelter aspect by leading me up the waterfall. The falls were not the spectacular drop of calendar pictures but a more gradual grade downward over the mountain's boulders, cutting through the forest on either side and flattening into the valley below.

When the first rain fell, it killed our fire with sputter and smoke. The people cried and fled up the side of the falls. I followed their tracks, finding them in a dry cave behind a small entrance disguised by shrubbery. I nearly passed by, but one of my friends peered out and tittered something that sounded like, "ta-ta". I crawled into the opening and found a high-ceilinged cave which allowed us to stand up. A dark doorway at the back seemed to lead away, but I didn't explore it yet.

They were upset about the loss of our campfire. They put their hands on the ground and pulled them up in a waving pattern and cried, and made what I guessed they thought were noises of the fire. Anyway, I got the picture. They seemed to think I could produce another, even though I knew I couldn't make it with wet straw. They'd just have to wait. I wasn't able to explain this to them.

A slight breeze came in from the entrance of the cave, moved across the floor, and exited out the dark back passageway. Because I was wet the cold wind chilled and goose-pimpled me. We huddled together, sharing our body warmth, until the rain passed.

I wanted to explore our new shelter further but the darkness stopped me. A flashlight would have been useful. I lived in such a raw world now that I'd become used to thinking of substitutes for things I'd have taken for granted on Earth. The flashlight, for example, became a burning stick.

I pondered the possibility of an opening at the rear, because of the draft. A back door would be a convenient thing to have in case a large predator decided to seek shelter in our new home.

Once the clouds cleared off a bit, we exited the cave to bask again on the sun dappled rocks. The forest was closer up here and shade more prevalent. Gradually we all drifted back down to the pool and our now wet charcoal fire pit. Instead of watching the people fret, I wandered around collecting last season's grass and some kindling. I moved our woodpile out of the shade that had crept over it. The air was very dry here, and tended to rapidly dehydrate us, which was why I'd located several water sources away from the waterfall. When I went out hunting, I didn't want to get dehydrated and end up with a headache and the inability to keep up with my prey. Puddles formed and streambeds filled, and the falls would become stronger now that the rain fell every afternoon.

I finished stocking the cave and sat on the boulders by my little tribemates, contemplating the valley.

This was a prime time to plant. Where should we cultivate crops, though? The flat area below was pretty much soaked because the river split into so many streams down there. To get some good planting area, we'd need to channel to direct the water into the beds. We could plant the berries in drier areas, since that's where they grew best, near springs but not soaking their roots in mud. The garlicky tubers thrived in the wet silt and would grow well along the banks of any channels we built.

Channeling would decrease the area that supported the roots, and increase the drier soils which the berry shrubs needed. We'd have to move the tubers from the original banks to the new ones before the soil they were growing in dried up. Soon after we changed the flow of water, the berry seeds needed to be planted. I didn't know how long the rains lasted. If the bushes grew, but then became too dry and wilted, we could divert channels to them.

We had no buckets or hoses and the only way to get the little people to do anything was to show them. They parroted me well, and apparently never thought to themselves, "What the hell am I doing this for? Screw it, I'm going to go lay in the sun." They were curious and enjoyed everything I led them to do. They had a good work ethic, I decided. Every once in a while I hummed the Oompa Loompa song, and darned if they didn't try to hum along with me!

Early that evening the chill set in as the ground was still damp. I went to the cave and my little tribe followed me, but damn, the air was even colder in there. I worked for an hour to get a bunch of grass to catch the sparks from striking the flint and boy, were my arms and hands sore and bruised by then! I carefully tended the sparks until the weak flame became a small blaze. Some of the smoke collected under our roof ceiling, but flowed with the slight ventilation toward the rear door. Soot floated around us and settled on rock, so it wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be. The draft was a blessing and a curse. It unfortunately continuously blew over the cold floor, though it moved the soot. We huddled by the fire. I kept the flames blazing hot until our shelter grew warm, and then let it slowly reduce to coals.

We slept uncomfortably on the hard floor.

As usual, I awoke in the early morning darkness, stoked the coals, and left the cozy cave. The soil under my bare feet was moist and the air chill. I entered the forest. Some patches of the ground were drier and others wetter. The tree canopy had acted as a sort of umbrella, protecting the areas beneath the branches and leaves, while the raindrops had pooled at the edges of the canopies to fall in concentrated rings, creating circles of mud.

My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. My animal self gained the advantage of predatory vision and hearing.

Always, I kept a lookout for other predators, wary because of the creature I had woken up beside when I'd arrived here. So far no hungry, hairy, vicious beasts had made an appearance.

I found a wide variety of prey in the vicinity including a large bird-type animal that reminded me of wild turkey. The things had sweet, tender flesh and they seemed to flock together. Most of the other potential meals I'd seen so far had been a burrowing or herd type.

Trotting along, I sniffed the air and eyed the terrain. A large thing burst out in a sudden crashing of limbs from underneath some brush cover. I was on it in a second. The creature was one of the herd beasts I had spotted down at the river early on and often since, with the long legs and bounding leap of deer.

My powerful muscles bunched and stretched. My claws dug divots from the forest floor. The animal dodged trees and shrubs, but I followed easily. The anticipation of sinking my canines into its flesh and the warm flow of blood onto my tongue made me drool.

The chase was a short one as the creature bounded right, then reversed to the left and crossed my path to avoid a close patch of thorny shrubbery.

Too bad. My left claw caught its left shoulder and I squeezed down on the meat. The animal's behind swung out and away and its head was forced toward my jaws. I pushed powerfully with my hind end, jumped, and spun in the air. My right claws tore into its right ribcage while I bit with the whole of my strength into the neck behind the head. My rear feet landed on its rump, forcing its back legs to collapse. As I lay on the beast it kicked and struggled, wearing itself down. I worked my teeth out and clamped down on its throat, crushing the windpipe and holding on as the life slowly left its body to me.

I'd made a superb kill of the largish creature. My people had been eating as much protein as I had been lucky and skilled enough to provide. I wondered how long it would take us to eat this entire animal. If we were unable to finish it off in one meal, how could we preserve this meat? We had no refrigeration, salt, or sugar.

As usual I gutted the carcass by eating the entrails and organs. I was so full that dragging the remainder back through the forest was a chore. This was one disadvantage to killing large prey. As my animal self, I bit into the neck behind the head and dragged it underneath my body, stepping around it. I struggled in this manner around trees and over rocks and dropped branches. I tired and morphed into my bipedal form. With difficulty I hoisted the animal onto my shoulders, the front and back legs dangling on each side of me as I walked to our clearing by the pool.

By mid morning and I decided to cook the meat in our cavern, since otherwise, it wouldn't be finished by the time the rain came. The carcass didn't quite fit on the fire, so out of necessity I placed the rear haunches in the pit with the shoulders, neck, and head on the cave floor.

My friends had skinned the beast, exclaiming, I guess, over the size. Now we were all crowded inside our home, with supper cooking, and the large skin dried draped over a big rock beside the stone wall. It would take hours for the flesh to cook enough for us to eat, so I shoved the end of a thick branch into the coals. When the end was glowing, I held it like a torch and exited our living room through the back door into a dark passageway.

Beyond the narrow slit a tunnel branched backward from our cave, curving enough that I couldn't see much of whatever surrounded me. The rock floor graded slightly downward.

Something twinkled ahead, sort of like the stars, and then the passage opened up and the twinkling was all around me. I realized I had left the hallway and entered another chamber.

One of my tribe bumped into my back with an exclamation, stood at my side, and looked about. Two more walked up behind me. One was the little female who insisted on calling me, "Ta."

"Ta. Ta," she said. I think she was pointing, but the glowing stick didn't cast a lot of light, so I wasn't sure. I heard water dripping, but in the big echoing cavern it was hard to tell where the sound originated, or even the size of this space. The cool breeze flowed differently than in our cave; it didn't flow across our feet, more like the cold air entered and kind of hung before moving away from us toward an unseen exit. The effect was chilling. I had my left hand on the cave wall and I walked about ten more steps in, keeping my palm in contact with the rough rock. The alarm in my quietly chattering companions' voices increased, so I stopped. They'd followed me. I turned around and found them poised in a line behind me, all of their left hands on the stony wall. I switched the burning stick to my left hand and raised the other in the palm forward, "stay" gesture I'd taught them. Indeed they stayed as I went past them and put my right hand on the wall. They all rotated and did the same. I then led them back to the tunnel and into our chamber where the others were doing an artful job of turning the carcass over.

For a few minutes the chattering was unbearable. One of the men was showing the group what he had taken from the cavern.

He held a bit of the luminescent material. They were passing it around. The thing glowed more brightly near the fire. I realized their prize was a crystal which was phosphorescing like an emerald, and casting a green light on the walls. Damn, the glowing rock really looked like a raw emerald!

Everyone took a good look and then passed the gemstone back to the male who'd brought it out.

I tore a handful of cooked game from the now upside haunch of the roast and savored the juicy goodness. Emeralds. Here we were, rich, with no one to know.

Ah, the irony.

The next morning I pulled what remained of the roast beast off the cold coals. I stoked the fire up to flame with new wood, collected the hind legs, pelvis, and the back end of the spine, and took them into the woods. Those bones were stripped. We'd eaten well. The people would put the meat back on while I hunted, and we'd have breakfast, too. What a treat! We'd only managed to polish off half of the beast, but that was okay. If we ever managed to eat a whole one, it would be past the time to teach my little people to hunt. The pressure on me to provide all the protein kept me out in the forest every night, increasing my chance of injury.

I dumped the bones into the latrine.

Shortly after I discovered, by stepping in some, that the tribe defecated aimlessly in the forest, I made a pit with a stick and taught them to use this makeshift toilet by example. They parroted me well, as usual, and when the depression was half full, I'd buried it and dug a new one. Most had gotten the idea quickly and they began policing the latrines themselves, burying the old and digging one fresh when necessary. They even went around, by their own initiative cleaning up a good section of the forest floor of their previous deposits. I was charmed by them, and of course, I made them all rub their fingers with dirt and rinse them down stream of our bathing pool afterwards.

On several occasions some of the slower learners tried to urinate in the falls, or defecate above our bathtub. I said, "No, no, no," and, taking them by the hand, led them to the appropriate area. They had no comprehension I was trying to protect our water supply, but as ritualistic creatures they observantly, even slavishly, followed my every example.

I also taught them to drink from the small ponds located above the bathing pool. Whenever one tried to drink from elsewhere, I wagged my finger back and forth and again said, "No, no, no." I grabbed a hand, and led them to the smaller pools above our bath, where we both proceeded to quench our thirst. "Good, good," I praised.

Of course, when the little folk went down to the valley to collect roots, I suspected they peed and drank as they wanted. I couldn't do much about this as the flats were a long way from the latrines and drinking pools.

Usually, while they gathered the tubers, I hunted, so I didn't have to see them doing this. I made sure I drank from water they hadn't fouled. I did the best I could.

I found myself unable to hide my surprise when one day the big baby grabbed a handful of the smaller one's sparse hair and pulled until the poor thing screamed pitifully. Imagine my pleasure when one of the mothers unclenched the offending darling's fist and said, "no, no, no," and then stroked the startled infant's empty hand saying, "Good, good."

Amazing.

I returned from my hunt and discovered the rest of the beast had been eaten. I examined the piles of roots and berries and they seemed approximately the same size as yesterday. The ambition to collect these declined as the availability of easy (for them) meat increased. This was a logical phenomenon, but I worried about the possibility of cold weather of some sort, making food hard to come by. How would I motivate my little tribe to keep collecting and storing so we'd have enough to get through a winter, without being able to talk with them regarding the concept of the tough season and starvation? In fact, how had they survived past winters? This may have been one reason I'd run across so few of them and why they'd been in such bad shape when I'd found them.

Most of the little people dozed. The one with the emerald tried to gaze at the embers through his stone and pondered the green reflections on the walls. The mother of the big baby had him in her lap, and she dangled what looked like a thick piece of shiny string above him. He laughed and tried to catch the end in his clumsy hands.

I sat next to the mother and took the other end of the strand to look at it. She chewed on the middle part and watched me. "Ta," she said, and she leaned against me.

It was some sort of pulpy fiber, about as thick as a pencil, as long as my leg, and somewhat flattened and shiny like waxed dental floss. The taste resembled jicama. Refreshing.

Our cave was warm, so the baby lay naked on his mother's legs, his little feet pushing at her belly and his head on her knees. I picked up the two small skins he'd been sandwiched between, now discarded on the cave floor: the ones I'd pulled off of our first meal together. I laid them next to one another on the rocky ground and punched matching holes in one edge of each skin with my awesome claws. I gently took the fiber from Mom, as I thought of her, and put one end through the last two punctures in both pelts. I tied a square knot, and then I worked the floss through the holes, sewing the skins together. At the end of the row of holes I tied another knot. Now Mom didn't have to try to hold her boy sandwiched between the two pieces; she could wrap her big kid up.

Mommy, mother of the weaker, smaller child, was using the bigger skin for her little son. Mommy's sick baby wasn't as healthy as Mom's robust offspring, but at least the poor thing had a better chance at survival now.

While I did my magic, Mom cooed and cackled, waking the whole tribe up. They stared in fascination.

They all got up at once and pulled me out of the cave and into the forest, walking me to a slight clearing overgrown by dark shrubbery. My group led me to the area where some animals had been stripping the shrubs of leaves and bark for food, and also chewing the twigs. The people picked at the broken branches and stripped out the inner fibers, which were the tasty floss I'd sewn the hides together with. Oh, this was a rich find indeed! Now we could make clothes, shoes, and blankets from the skins we'd been collecting. Something to wear and wrap up in would be lifesavers in case we did have to endure some kind of winter.

We all traipsed back to our cave with our stringy booty in our hands. I skinned the two small carcasses I'd caught that morning as the people sat around chewing their yummy fibers. I placed the meat over the coals and then I chewed the woody, sweet string, too. I sucked much of the moisture out of my length and then laid it outside the oval of rocks surrounding the fire to dry. My people did the same, and afterwards we sat and grinned at each other.

Several got up and gathered the drying skins from around the cave. They scraped and pounded and worked the dried, stiff leather with rocks while I tended our dinner. They remembered how I'd softened the other hides, and they were on the job.

By bedtime that night, I'd used flint to cut some of the skins into patterns, like fat tube socks, and had sewn the pieces together, fur side in. The people stared curiously. I now had booties and mittens to sleep in, and I wore them all night. With a pelt underneath me, the little folk radiating heat around me, and the coals glowing merrily, I finally slept warm and comfortably after many weeks of shivering sleepiness.

By the time I came back later the next morning with our next meal, my new family had banged out more flint cutters, cut out the patterns, and tried hard to figure out how to sew them together as I'd done. I spent the afternoon punching holes with my handy claws, and, with my guidance, they sewed up their very first pieces of clothing. That night we all slept comfortably in the furry embrace of our booties and mittens, using the rest of the softened pelts for blankets.

Frequently, I wondered why they exhibited such finesse with physical things, imitating my behavior, taking over chores, and even advancing them, yet they spoke no language. Mom and Mommy called me "Ta," and the others imitated them, but when they needed to attract each other's attention, they barked or threw pebbles.

One day Mom decided to name the man with the emerald 'Ne'. She'd realized he'd amassed a small pile of the glowing stones. The others began to call him 'Ne', as well. They also called the emeralds 'Ne', and the act of getting burning sticks and going into the rear cave to collect the stones became 'Ne', too. The rock hunting turned into a past-time for some of them, and soon several had decent piles of the crystals. I witnessed with extreme pleasure that the ones who enjoyed collecting them also liked to give them away. Eventually I started to discern a pattern, I thought. The folks shared with members of the opposite sex. Either they were choosing partners, or sharing with the mates they'd already had. Although the people traded their rocky booty freely, it became clear they had favorites.

I contemplated introducing the concept of privacy to them because, frankly, I'd tired of watching them do it. I couldn't figure out how to teach this idea to them. I didn't want to introduce guilt or shame, but really, they needed to go out of sight when the mood struck instead of sharing their good fortune with all of us. Geez!

If they paired up and we built separate houses for each couple and their babies, and one for me, then I wouldn't be bothered. I imagined teaching them to do the nasty in their houses instead of out in the open, just like I'd taught them to go potty in the latrines we'd dug. Yikes, I would have to interrupt them and take them by their hands and lead them to their home. "No, no, no." "Good, good." Icky. Whether they paired off like humans in their mating habits, or were communal by nature I hadn't discovered yet. It might be wise to build one big home for them all, and a little one for me. This was getting complicated.

Could I impose my morality on them? Well, of course, but should I? If I hadn't awakened in this body, how would they have evolved? They might not have even survived. But I had resurrected the corpse of this cat person and here I was, feeding, cleaning, and clothing them, and worrying about their habits.

It was possible my marbles had come loose and now rolled around willy-nilly in my brain case.

I decided to let be those things which I couldn't resolve. I would just leave them alone until they sorted themselves, or until I came up with an answer which didn't cause me to grind my teeth in my sleep.

I've never been a goddess before, or even a queen. Once upon a time I took a position as the manager of a little satellite office and warehouse of a corporation, but no one has absolute autonomy in a corporation. I'd been a cashier, a waitress, and a security guard. I even worked at a small firm raising beneficial insects. Here though, I enjoyed complete obeisance from my people. I could teach them everything and sit back and have them take care of me. That idea was tempting, but teaching them to hunt, plant, tend, harvest, dry and store food, and make tools and build homes would consume years. The only way to educate the little folk was to show them; otherwise, we were going to starve. I wanted to be an integral part of the society, not its goddess.

I had reasoned that if we were lucky, the winters might not be too severe. These simpletons lived through them in the past, unless they'd been dropped here before I slipped into the creature I now inhabited. This didn't seem likely.

The mothers had given birth in what would have been winter if the seasons followed like on Earth. I decided this because when I woke in this body, leaves were beginning to bud and pasture to push through last season's straw, as in spring on Earth. That seasonal periods followed one another here as on Earth seemed reasonable.

Where I'd come from, the monsoons poured down sometimes during the end of June, and definitely during July and August. If the weather on this planet followed the same pattern, this should indicate that this must be summer now. I might be wrong. My experience beyond Earth was limited.

I still couldn't figure out how this little bunch of humanoids came to live here, seemingly the only group of people in the area. They'd survived on roots and berries, though they were malnourished when I met them. Starvation had been normal for them up until the time I walked out of the forest in my new skin. Why hadn't they feared me? They'd been starving, but unafraid, so I reasoned my predecessor hadn't preyed on them. Likewise the beast hadn't fed them as I was doing. Since I'd begun feeding them, they'd muscled up significantly, and their health had improved. Their energy increased and every one of them showed interest in everything and seemed eager to expand their knowledge.

I changed their lives dramatically by changing the behavior of the body I now inhabited. Maybe the other one was their pet, or treated the people like pets. Perhaps it had nothing to do with them at all. If these folk had no natural enemies, this explained why they knew little fear.

I still hadn't run into another predator, except for the thing that I'd apparently killed in a fight to the death. I'd seen signs of several large animals while out and about: footprints, clawed soil, spoor, broken shrubs and small trees, but not often. Possibly the former inhabitant of this body cleared its territory before I arrived. Perhaps the other beasts' needs and ranges were unlike mine, or they hunted at different times. At any rate, my little tribe was fairly fearless, and gregarious, too.

This seemed a strange way to evolve, and didn't fit my understanding of evolution, but suggested we were put here.

I suspected something or someone was manipulating me, or I'd gotten into some kind of soul loop which moved my consciousness to another body every time the one I inhabited expired.

Was death, then, a series of rebirths? Had this been going on forever? But I didn't remember my soul moving into my human body, Carol's body. I sought the memories of my childhood on Earth: schools, friends, and family. No recollections of lives before Carol's life remained with me.

I'd thought life was a test. The way to pass was to always select the best option that occurred to me. The challenge became choosing to do the correct thing even when no one was looking, even if getting away with being bad and profiting somehow was possible, and especially if I'd pay a hefty price for being good. A toll was often extracted from if I did the right thing. Regardless, I thought I'd been pretty damn careful not to do wrong no matter how tempting or easy this would have been. Then again, I'd walked off the job and flipped off the boss. I hadn't backed Andy down with the words I'd wanted to say when she'd been prejudiced and spiteful. I hadn't been as good as I'd wanted to be.

Also, I never was able to take that leap of faith and just believe. I went back and forth between believing someone watched, listened and judged, and thinking we were alone and 'God' was simply a human fantasy and vanity. Still, I chose to be as good as I was able to figure out how to be, which seemed to be the prudent choice.

If this was some kind of karmic ride, I feared I might never get off, especially since I sometimes failed to understand the often subtle differences between good and bad.

I knew I shouldn't have flipped Calvin off, that wasn't astute or constructive, but damn it'd felt good. I could have backed Andy down, but why bother? Her prejudices went deeper than I would have been able to reach.

I should have said what I'd wanted to Andy, and taken the time to sit down with Calvin to talk with him regarding the problems of staffing and training I saw. I might have been clearer about the nasty women who decided which of us stayed on the job, and who bullied the pleasant gals away. I'd probably still be on Earth working at Freda's. But I hadn't, and I wasn't, and anyway, what kind of prize was cashiering at Freda's? This new life was much more satisfying.

I'd enjoyed myself so far, other than the agonies of death and resurrection. The deaths had been quick, almost immediate. The resurrections involved long recoveries. The adventures - amazing.

I wondered if I'd ever understand what was going on, and whether I'd continue to die and resurrect forever. Was this the afterlife, another test, or a weird fluke? Back on Earth I'd believed we'd never know the answers. Some people arrogantly believed they had life all figured out, but I always thought their beliefs revealed insecurity. They desired to be in control of others to keep bad things from happening to them, when they should have been controlling themselves. Many people couldn't face the possibility of being alone instead of part of a group, with no God or biblical guidance. They relied on ritual and verse, believing in stories that had never happened.

Or had they? What was happening to me right now?

I walked down into the valley. The river bed, marshy and thick, supported the growth of thickly stemmed grasses. The leaves' serrated edges gripped the skin unpleasantly. Throughout the swampy area the tubers grew, easily located by the flower stalk. Each root sent up a single stem with a round, yellow, blossoming cluster the size of a fist on top. The scent also gave away the edible fruit beneath the mud.

The wet strip through the flats in which the root thrived averaged a hundred feet wide. Since the marsh went on into the length of the valley for about a mile, I figured altering some of the stream bed would be alright. Even if I destroyed a fifty foot section and nothing I planted or transplanted grew, we'd still be able to harvest from the whole remainder of the undisturbed area.

My plan was to redirect and consolidate all the branches of water into the one trench, move as many of the tubers to the river banks as possible, and take the rest to the cave to dry and store. Then I wanted to plant the berries alongside the streams in the drier soil, close enough to the water for their roots to grow into the moist banks to drink and feed.

We could irrigate the berry bushes if this proved necessary by trenching. I'd end my single trench by directing the water back into the five streams to continue feeding the valley floor as before.

I hoped this would give us access to more berries while not killing the tuberous plants growing closest to our cave.

After taking a good walk around, I decided to alter only three of the streams into one trench, and let the other two continue to wander. This would be enough work for the time being. Creating new wet banks for roots and drier, outer banks for berries left two streams in their original muddy configuration. This constituted less labor then trying to trench all five into one. The damage to the environment would increase if I disturbed more. If my trenching failed somehow, we'd still have two of the original steams and their rooty bounty near our cave.

Great, but I didn't have a shovel. I'd have to dig the trench through the mud with tree branches, as I'd dug our potties. At least this soil wasn't the hard ground like in the drier areas. Even though the rain fell every afternoon now, the dirt in the forest where we made our latrines was difficult to dig into.

The morning after I finalized my plans I went out hunting as usual. I'd been trying to kill smaller animals to try to motivate the little group to collect more roots and berries. This appeared to be working. They'd also added gemstone collecting to their schedule though, and this activity sometimes took precedence. I hoped the novelty would wear off, but the phosphorescent stones fascinated the funny folk. I couldn't blame them.

I put the carcasses on the skewers and balanced them above the coals, grabbed the stick I'd picked for the job, and started down into the valley. It was late morning.

The forest was making its own weather. The trees drank up so much water they became saturated, and when the sun warmed the bark, a mist wafted out from them. I never grew tired of watching the trees make fog.

Even down on the flats- a treeless, grassy plain - the ground released an opaque moisture. The daily afternoon rains kept the heat down, but the humidity stifled me. I worked slowly and steadily, choosing the area to start my project where the streams branched off of the main flow from the mountain. I trenched, knee deep in the muck, occasionally straightening up to make sure I continued to follow the line I'd tried to draw by dragging the stick across the mud. Some was still visible; much had been swallowed by the inflow of water, but enough remained to guide me. Four of my friends came down to watch, silently and studiously, having no clue what I was doing. I dug out a few roots and tossed them towards the little group, and they took up the harvest. I dragged that trench until I heard Mommy up by the pool, barking and squawking and waving her arms. Dinner was ready.

I helped my companions carry the substantial pile of roots they'd gathered up to the cave. The rains came and went while we worked and we dried off slowly. The air was too moist for us to dry completely.

I didn't know how long the berry shrubs would take to mature and fruit. I hoped we'd get the seeds into the soil before the rains stopped so I wouldn't have to worry about irrigation for a while.

When we arrived at our homey cavern it was already late afternoon. I checked our store of berries and found few, about a pint, all of which we'd eat that night. I wondered how to get the people to go out and pick some more. I wanted to have enough to plant in the banks when I got through trenching.

I'd trenched about six feet this afternoon and my muscles ached. I realized this project would take longer than I'd planned, even though I'd ignored two streams, because I hadn't factored in my own fatigue.

As I settled into the evening repast another problem bubbled into my head. How would I keep the little folks from trampling the berry bush seedlings? I'd have to mark the plantings somehow and train them not to step on them.

I was tired and fell asleep early, after noticing the clever beasts had placed many of their glowing emeralds in the cracks and on the little natural ledges in the walls of our cave.

Maybe this is heaven, I thought to myself as I drifted to sleep under the twinkling phosphorescence.

The next morning my old routine melded with the new one. I woke in the dark and stoked the fire. The people barely stirred. I went on a hunt and killed another of those medium sized, short-legged, dog-type creatures, ate the belly parts and organs, left some poopy intestines behind, and dragged the remainder home. I noticed on the way several berry bushes and tried to mark their location in my mental map. I'd developed a certain territory and range which I knew pretty well. Funny, I hadn't paid attention to the fruited shrubs before, as my tribe did the collecting, but today they attracted my attention. Last season's berries still clung to the branches and new ones plumped up greenly. I knew last year's old fruit had seeds inside ready to sprout, and that the plants we picked clean would produce more fresh fruit than bushes still harboring the old, wrinkled stuff. Last seasons' produce tends to suppress this year's growth.

Apparently, not too many animals dined on those berries, which surprised me. Come to think of it, I hadn't noticed any birdlike creatures other than the turkey-types. Surely the turkey beasts ate the little fruit.

I'd seen and killed mostly grazers. They liked berries too, didn't they? At least the ones that were able to reach them should be eating them. How else would the seeds propagate? Wind maybe. Something besides my people must eat them and spread them through the forest in their feces, so why were so many left on the bushes? Had last year's been a bumper crop?

Fauna did seem to be somewhat thin on the ground on this planet. Flora ruled.

I arrived at the cave and put the meat on the bar-be. I swear nothing smelled as good as that daily game cooking.

I took my stick and went down into the valley. Surprisingly, everyone except the mothers came down with me, and they all carried sticks! I dragged a directional line in the mud, and we spent the rest of the morning and late afternoon digging and widening the trench. We got soaked and frustrated for a while as the heavy rain spoiled our new stream banks, but we managed to get a good ten more feet roughly dug out, which pleased me.

By the time we returned to our cavern, the meat had been pulled off the fire and sat waiting for us. The mommies had even cooked roots for everyone. Before we ate, we neatly laid out the fresh tubers we'd been digging up all afternoon. We'd learned how to spread them out so the outsides would dry, but not mold. We had a nice bit of stock going. Those which had been collected earlier and had dried enough we pushed into a pile against the cave wall.

I realized while laboring over my engineering project that the reason we didn't have more berries was because the old ones had become dry and tough, mostly seed and skin, and the fresh fruit wasn't yet ripe enough to eat.

If I ever had extra time in a day, I'd have to search for different foods to expand our cuisine. Perhaps the rains would bring something else up.

I fell asleep gazing at our green cave stars.

I awoke in the dark and repeated my activities of the previous day, and did the same the next, and again after that.

On the sixth day we completed the trenching. Hallelujah. We'd made a slightly curved river about fifty feet long and ten feet wide, and finished off by splitting our stream to connect back with the original three branches. Then I opened the dam by removing the rocks I'd piled up, and let in the water that I'd temporarily redirected to the other two streams. The rest of the valley, except for the dispersed silt from our efforts, was unchanged.

I sprawled on my back in the cool mud with my feet in the new stream, and my companions flopped down all around me. They had no idea why we'd just dug in muddy water, in the sun and the rain, for six days, but I was sure they felt that "job well done" feeling, like I did.

Soon enough the mothers at the cave were barking at us, so we all groaned and moaned our way up the hill with our hands full of roots, to dinner.

The next day I took my chatty co-workers down and we finished digging the remaining tuberous plants out of the original streambed and replanting them in the new one.

Then it happened.

The valley ended about a mile away in some rolling, grass covered foothills. The river's path, not clearly visible at this distance because of the uneven terrain and haze, seemed to turn gradually to the right. The forest there grew out in a slight crescent toward the river, which turned into these woods and disappeared behind them. An unnatural sound came from that direction.

The odd drone registered at the hindmost of my consciousness, and when I finally recognized it, I stood and stared. Nothing was visible yet. My little buddies imitated me, looking something like prairie dogs. Their ears weren't as sharp as mine, but they mimicked me, alarmed at my rigid stance.

The noise became louder; the source still invisible.

My companions grew quiet.

We stared and waited until something came into view, following the riverbed along the crescent of trees.

The aircraft appeared and in a few blinks meandered up the river toward us, over us, up the falls and out of sight.

Oh, crap.

A harsh wave of air and noise hit us and the people broke, running for the cave soundlessly, except for their pounding feet and ragged breathing. I followed.

We huddled together in the cavern experiencing and expressing utter shock and dismay. They sat silently and stared at me through widened eyes. Poor little critters, I could do nothing to alleviate their fear.

I smelled our dinner burning and pulled the roast off the fire. I stripped the meat off the upper, cooler side, holding out the chunks. At first they would not move. Eventually they loosened up, took my offering and ate, but I'd never heard them so quiet. They kept glancing at the cave mouth and I felt their ears listening. I put myself between them and the entrance, to sooth them.

That night our home was spooky, and when I came back from hunting the next day, it was obvious to me that no one had gone out. Ne looked catatonic as he sat with his pile of stones in front of him. He picked them up and dropped them, picked up some more, and dropped those; the clattering treble became monotonous.

"Problem, One," Five said.

"What?" One demanded.

"Inhabitants."

"How many?"

"Just a handful."

"Are they advanced or primitive?"

"They're not sophisticated, One," Four replied. "There are no dwellings or industry, and only a small amount of heat emanating from the boulders besides the falls, probably from a cooking fire."

"What about the rest of the survey?" One asked.

"The planet has evolved various flora and fauna but the inhabitants we flew over are the only advanced life detected," Four said.

"You are sure?" One queried.

"Our bio scanners penetrate to five meters underground. Any creatures living under that depth would have escaped detection."

"Wait two rotations of the planet and then repeat the survey. Discuss the results with no one. Encrypt your reports and send them directly to me, Two, and Three," One ordered.

"Affirmative, One," Four and Five answered simultaneously.

One, Two, and Three sat comfortably in One's eating area. The remains had been cleared away and libations poured.

One, Two, and Three, the senior crew members and decision makers, were deadly serious.

"Two and Three, you've heard about the inhabitants on the planet?" One asked.

"Yes, One," Three said, "We've received the encrypted reports."

Two nodded in the affirmative

"What is the problem?" Two asked.

Three stared at Two.

"There are inhabitants, Two, you know that means we are to negotiate," Three said.

"The Opiniatrety clearly states..." One began.

"Yes, yes, the Opiniatrety." Two interrupted. "We all understand, but we need the mineral wealth of this planet. The scanners tell us 375,000,000,000,000 tons of material may be mined from this planet, mostly located in the first 10,000 meters depth."

"These inhabitants, how advanced are they?" Three queried.

"They have no industry and are living in a cave beside the river. We detected only eight of them out in the open. The operators say it looked as if they straightened out part of the streams in the valley," One replied.

"Agricultural development denotes intelligence," Three said.

"Besides the stream alteration and the fire, no other signs of intelligence are observable," Two said.

"Those are signs of intelligence. The Opiniatrety states we must negotiate with intelligent inhabitants," Three said.

"We need those minerals," Two said. "Likely these things can't negotiate a contract."

"Let us contemplate," One interjected. "The inhabitants number eight. Let's call them intelligent. Perhaps four or five more are in a cavern. We kill them all, contact the mine ship, and mine the planet. We don't talk about the creatures we murdered. We report this orb uninhabited."

Two continued. "We disintegrate the bodies, naturalize the cave, and meander the streams. Clean up every sign of habitation. We direct the miners to another region of the planet to mine first; nature takes care of what we missed during our cleanup. By the time the miners get to this area, there won't be any sign left."

"No, no," Three said. "The Operators saw the beings. They made reports."

"Operators occasionally die by crashing in their craft. We can arrange this and alter the reports, or create new ones," Two said.

"I ordered their reports encrypted, and no discussions amongst the Operators," One said. "Deception is possible."

"And since I'm disagreeing with you, will you kill me, too?" Three asked.

"If need be," Two said.

"Enough," One interjected. "Now the Opiniatrety."

"Our instructions are to contact any inhabitants," Three said. "Make them understand in whatever way possible that we are interested in their rocks. We cause them to comprehend what we want."

"We will have communication problems," Two stated. "They do not speak our language, or, we can assume, Infinite Standard."

"There are ways to communicate with primitive intellectuals. We've done this before," Three said.

"It never goes well." One said. "Once they realize we're moving in and stripping their planet they renege pretty quickly. The Opiniatrety states in this case we must abandon operations."

"At the heavy cost of lost future production and of setting up in the first place," Two complained.

"But between the negotiation and the renegotiations, some extraction will be achieved," Three protested. "We can start on the far side of the planet. By the time they reject us, we'll have increased our wealth. Additionally, total extraction must by necessity nearly destroy the planet. If they survive and prosper they'll eventually need to expand. Consequent climactic changes will make planetary life much more difficult, if not impossible. Some is better than none, or all."

"This small group seems to be the only intelligent inhabitants here. In two rotations, the Operators are directed to scan again. Shall we adjourn until the new data is available?" One asked.

"Agreed," Two said.

"Indeed," Three agreed.

The hollow ache of fear would not leave my gut. I tasted bile. I even felt bad about killing our dinner this morning. We were all prey now.

The airship was shuttle sized, but I didn't think this small transport ship had been built for humans. This was no boxy shuttle dreamed up in twentieth century imaginations. It was ovoid and reflected the scenery around us, and I'd not been able to determine where windows or doors might exist.

They must have seen us. What had they been after, just an afternoon flight over a mostly uninhabited landscape?

I'd never learned whether other sentients lived on this rock. There wasn't any way to know except to walk around. I supposed I might have done that had I not joined the little people. It seemed unlikely that my group represented all the inhabitants, and I hoped we didn't. How easily the shuttle creatures could shove us aside if they wanted something and we were the only inhabitants hereabouts! Considering my recent history, I feared the worst. Would I reincarnate this time, or just die?

I continued on as normal. What else could I do? When I got back from the hunt I gently herded my frightened little tribe out into the forest to pick shriveled berries. We worked all afternoon, mostly in the rain, under the leafy canopy, without much chatter. The mothers came with us today, as Ne wanted to stay in the cave. He'd sat by the meat on the coals and wouldn't be budged. Both moms seemed happy to be out with the group, even though we were all pretty subdued. They carried the babies with them.

I'd brought some small skins and we piled the berries in them. We had several bundles as we trudged back to our home. We ate our meat and roots and dried by the fire. Ne, still sullen, withdrew to the side of the cave with a handful of roast beast. He played with his emeralds.

The next day I had them down at our stream, all except Ne who would not leave our home. He tended our dinner while we planted the streambed with berries. I taught them to plant the seeded fruit outside of our rows of roots, about so deep and this far apart. They were good planters. They measured the distances between the plantings by eye and the depths by digit, and got both measurements right every time. I couldn't have asked for better farmhands.

I decided to teach Ne to hunt, to get him out of his slump with exercise, and determined to fashion him a weapon. A sturdy stick with an end sharpened by flint should do. I would show him the trails, springheads, and ponds where we would wait until our unlucky prey happened by. We could practice our spear chucking at trees until it became second nature. I felt sure that after much repetition he'd become sufficient at hunting, and teach the others. I imagined other things to devote my time to, like designing and building our homes.

We planted all the berries we had, and then headed up to the pool to rinse off. On the way up I scouted the edges of the forest and found a good, stout branch of about the right length for Ne. The little tribe picked up my idea and each collected their own stick. Why imitating what I did made them so cheerful I couldn't tell, but it always did, and their enjoyment never failed to bring a grin to my face. I'd learned not to smile too broadly around the people though; my teeth seemed to make them a little nervous. I think my predacious fangs scared them.

That afternoon I carved a spear for Ne, and dragged him protesting into the forest. I held him beside me and kept him with me while I chucked the pointed stick at trees. He pulled from me and tried to return home until the pointy stick stuck and vibrated in the trunk. He looked at me with eyes widened. I knew I had him then. In about an hour Ne and I learned to throw the weapon so that it stuck into a nearby tree nearly every throw. He had a natural ability and was pretty good. By the time I was ready to go back to the cave, he was reluctant to come. The evening grew too dark soon though, and he had trouble finding the spear anymore on the few occasions he missed, so we gave up for the night.

The next morning I caught our daily repast, and then took the tribe out to collect berries again. Ne hung back to tend the roast, and when we returned, he was outside practicing his new skill. As we arrived, I put my palms up and said, "No, no, no," and stopped him from throwing the deadly weapon. I pointed to the babies and to the rest of the people. His eyes went wide. We were both holding onto the horizontal spear, which I set up vertically with the butt in the soil. I patted his hand. "Good. Good." I didn't know if he understood, but he stopped throwing and we all went in to eat our dinner.

The next day we continued to plant our streambed. We planted the tuber-producing plants three rows deep along both sides of our stream. The seedy fruit we poked into the moist soil in two rows outside the roots, for about thirty feet, by suppertime.

Things were going very well. I hoped the plants would settle in, germinate, and grow.

The planet seemed fecund in flora at least. I couldn't foresee any problems. The unforeseeable, though, more than once, had kicked me in the teeth.

On the third day after the shuttle had flown overhead, it flew over again.

"Report," One ordered.

"We detected nine adults today and two infants. One is of a different species," Four reported.

"Has any transportation been found?" One asked.

"None."

"What were they doing?"

"Planting the streambeds," Five replied. "The cave mouth again showed signs of heat, about right for a cooking fire."

"Anything else?"

"The cavern in which they are living in shows a high concentration of the crystals. Almost as dense as the best region in the southern hemisphere."

"Encrypt your reports as before and speak to no one."

"Yes, One," Four and Five replied in unison.

"Two, Three, the Operators detected eleven sentients today planting the stream beds, and one cook fire."

"Have other inhabitants been located elsewhere on the planet?" Two queried.

"There are none," One replied. "Operators Four and Five confirm the creatures are sitting on the second largest find."

"Shall we vote?' Three asked.

"Yes," said Two.

Said One, "In favor of negotiating?"

Said Three, "Negotiate."

Said Two, "No negotiation."

"I say we try to negotiate first, Two," One said.

"Negotiation it is, then," sighed Two.

When I returned from hunting I found most of the people down at our new streambed, poking berries into the mud. I'd shown them how to put a large pebble besides each planting so we knew pretty much where everything was. They were careful not to step on or near the pebbles.

I took the gutted carcass to the cave, skewered, and laid it over the coals. Ne came in from outside carrying his spear, which he carefully propped against a stone wall, to tend the meat, so I started down to our little farm. The minute I stepped out, the strange hum of machinery became audible again. The shiny, round ship flew slowly up the valley. The people stood up and stared. I ran to them.

As I came up behind my friends, the aircraft drifted off to our left and hung in midair. The air beneath the shuttle wavered a little and creatures appeared on the ground below.

The ten things wobbled forward in a pyramid, one in the front, two behind, three behind those, and four in the last row.

They were opaque blobs with no heads or limbs to speak of. They advanced toward us, somehow looking like Weebles. I found it hard not to laugh, but I suppressed my mirth by examining their ship. Obviously they'd mastered superior technologies.

I walked through the people and stood in front of them, facing the blobs' leader, who started to shake. A startling sound came out of it. The body was like a bellows and large pores opened up to release a vibrating squall.

I stared stupidly. I was reminded of bagpipes and accordions.

The leader stopped wiggling and spewing, and one of the two behind wobbled forward. This one also began to vibrate and the noise started again, but in a higher pitch.

I stared stupidly some more.

The lines of three and four behind spread out a bit and shaped themselves into a short semicircle around the first three. Those did not vibrate or make noise.

The third creature wobbled forth and I watched as it sucked in a breath like a bellows. This blob vibrated, too, while the pores formed in its flesh and opened, and then issued a mellow deep sound.

I swear the third one sounded eerily similar to Hypnotoad, only quieter. How the hell was I going to communicate with these things?

I noticed a shadow to my left and recognized the gregarious Mommy coming forward. She held out one of the green crystals toward the deep voiced, sad sounding blob.

The alien mass grew a tentacle, and slowly and carefully advanced the limb in Mommy's direction. A thin gelatinous finger wrapped around the emerald. The melancholy blob carefully withdrew the limb and seemed to examine the crystal. Melancholy Blob passed the stone over to the one beside him. This one I'd mentally named Squealy Blob. It also developed a rubbery protrusion to grasp the rock with, and examined it. Then the crystal was given over to Leader Blob.

They seemed interested. Mommy's pleasing nature might prove to be our undoing. Or not, maybe we'd find a way to trade the crystals for tools, seeds, pots, utensils - roofing materials! This could be good.

Leader Blob returned the crystal to Mommy and began his bladder talk again. He grew many tentacles. All pointed to the stone and the jellied tips in unison made the sign that humans make for "come here" or in charades "keep it coming".

They wanted more.

I put my hand in the air, palm toward them and waved back and forth. "No," I said. I pointed at their empty tentacles and made the same "keep it coming" sign.

Two seconds later the shuttle had eased up closer to us and the light underneath shimmered a bit. Suddenly, what looked like supplies appeared on the ground beneath.

Yes, we are negotiating a trade agreement, I thought. How exceptional!

I led the people over to the materials and they began ransacking the stuff, every one of them looking at me frequently for direction and reassurance. I let them pick through the pile and only stopped them when they seemed about to tear something open or pull something apart. My friends didn't know what they were looking at, but I did. The offerings were hand tools, seeds, pots, utensils, and what sure as hell looked like rolls of some kind of thick plastic.

I studied at the creatures and wondered how to ask, how much? The air shimmered again, and a metal box materialized, about the size of an old Earth wooden fruit crate.

"No!" I said, frowning. The people skittered back from the booty. I made my hands go from the size of that box to the size of a pint container. Their container disappeared and a gallon sized bucket took its place.

I walked over to examine the hardware. Pick type tools, hammer type tools, and chisel type tools lay among rakes and hoes and shovel types. I went over to look at the tub. I nodded affirmatively at the monsters and said, "Good."

Leader Blob sucked air like a bellows and whooshed out something that sounded pretty similar to 'Good'.

I grinned in delight and the gelatinous animals quickly wobbled backward. The seven individuals behind them rushed forward and made like guards until I pressed my lips together again. Damn those fangs.

I guessed we had an agreement, so I picked up the container.

I returned to the pile of offerings and selected a few tools. I gave each of my tribe a pick or a hammer and chisel. I started to walk up the stream bed toward our cave, making 'come' motions to the people with my hand, and saying "Come. Come on. Let's do some work. Come and work."

That confused them for a moment because those were the phrases I'd been using to get them down to the flats to dig and plant. At first, they all went to our planting area. I turned to the blobs and said, "Wait, Wait," and gave them my 'stay' hand sign. Again I waved to my tribe, repeating, "Come," to them, and I led them up the hill to our cavern.

I ignored their personal piles of the green stones and stuck the end of a small branch into the fire. I took the bucket and a handful of grass, twigs, a log, and my burning stick into the back cave. The people followed my example. They all had their tools and some were carrying sticks with flaming or glowing ends. I built a fire in the rear cavern while they watched. I studied the cave walls, floor, and ceiling.

I didn't want them to cause a collapse and kill us all, so instead of starting on the vertical areas I chose a place where some rock bulged toward us at the bottom. Crystals grew out of this bulge. I took a hammer and a chisel from Ne, worked a large cluster out, and placed it in the bucket. I gave the two utensils back and took a small pick from Mommy. It was a hand pick, not the kind you swing over your head. This was the peoples' first encounter with tools besides sticks and flint. I didn't want them to hurt themselves with the big stuff. I showed them how to use the pick to loosen the rock around the glowing stones and break them free.

These were large and usually developed in clusters, so it didn't take us long to fill the tub. I made sure everyone chipped out one cluster and we developed a fine pile of them. By this time, all of my friends sported at minimum one bruised finger. With the container filled, I directed the people to put down their tools and follow me.

The night was pitch black outside and cool. The aliens still bobbled in the same place as we'd left them, in some kind of glow that lighted them, their ship, and the supplies. As we drew nearer I also realized this illumination was a heat source. My little tribe quietly chattered and tried to get closer to the warmth. Pretty soon we were all warming under the light.

I handed the bucket to Leader Blob. The front three blobs started harmonizing as they examined the crystals with their jelly tentacles. The guards drew in a little closer. Even the people grew excited. I pointed at the pile of goodies and Squealy Blob wheezed, "Good. Good."

Anybody who has dealt with humans knows you just never know what they're going to do. I found out this applied to my humanoid tribe mates as well.

A shuffling occurred behind me and to the right. I turned to witness Ne stumble out of the forest. He ran toward us, pulling back his arm and cocking the weapon.

Oh Shit.

We all stood in shock as Ne advanced to about fifteen feet away, and threw the damn spear!

The long stick arced perfectly through the air. I actually experienced a little pride until the sharp tip hit Leader Blob, slowing to a stop as it made Leader Blob's outer covering dent in considerably. Then the skin or membrane or whatever it was pushed the spear back out and it fell clattering into the dirt.

I was sure they would blast us, but they didn't, perhaps because Leader Blob wasn't hurt, apparently. Its hide didn't even have a mark that I could see. I felt like we were all standing there wondering what had just happened.

This might be a cartoon. Yes, I decided, I was in a cartoon. It couldn't be anything else. I'd reincarnated in Warner Brother's Studios. Or DreamWorks. Pixar?

Leader Blob shuddered and the ship came to hover over them. The air pulsed and they disappeared. The bucket vanished and the crystals dropped tinkle, tinkle, tinkle onto the ground. The supplies disappeared. The shuttle whished away.

Double Shit.

"Ne, what were you thinking? You killed our first trade agreement!" I shouted.

Ne had no idea what I was saying but he knew I was unhappy. I don't believe I'd ever yelled at any of them before.

I picked up his spear and handed it to him as the people collected the fallen emeralds. We were about to start back up the hill when the shuttle returned. The little folk rushed toward it as it flew towards us, holding the damn green rocks up in their hands like an offering. Even poor Ne did the same, though unhappily. When the beam of light underneath the aircraft touched those in the front, my trusting little friends disintegrated into puffs of dust. One by one, puff, puff, puff. Puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff. I was the last, and I walked willingly into the light.

I woke in agony again, my face mashed into some kind of foul smelling grit.

Oh, God, my people are all dead and gone, I wailed in my head.

A huge roaring sound surrounded me and reverberated in my bones. I heard and felt heavy clunking around me and dimly recognized hairy, black feet as they crossed my blurred vision. Individual voices shouted out above the din. The languages seemed different and I couldn't understand them. The pain pretty much enveloped me. I curled up in the fetal position. Sand-like stuff stretched away from me to the dark hairy legs and beyond to a wall which appeared to be splattered with many different colors of paint.

My view of the furry gams ended in a scary nightmare creature; its arms were raised and its gigantic fists pounded the air in what seemed like a victory gesture. Way up beyond the beast's head and the stained wall a gigantic crowd stood, screaming, cheering, and pointing.

They pointed at me.

Uh oh. I finally recognized the stink in the sand as decaying flesh and fluids as the beast spied me staring at it. The thing screamed, turned, and charged in my direction.

Holy crap! I was in combat in some kind of coliseum, in agony, with a monster charging toward me!

I straightened out and rolled and rolled and rolled until I hit the wall. My sense of smell told me the paint was decaying blood.

I heard and felt a huge thump. The rumble vibrated in my skin on the sand and up through my body. The creature had fallen, landed on its face, and apparently stunned itself. Did the colossus trip? I didn't know. I'd been too busy getting out of its way.

I struggled to stand. Oh, the agony. I screamed and charged. I leaped and came down feet-on-neck, punched the head with all the strength in my arm and jumped off. That was some leap! I landed, rolled, and ran away as far and as fast as I could.

Surrounding me, the stinking, circular, unscaleable wall was dotted and smeared with the variety of different bloods. The arena - an odorous sand-filled pit - contained me with the angry beast. Figures stood above us, screaming and hanging over a clear partition. Colors - bright blues, scarlets, yellows, and greens - abused my eyes. The stands went way back and up to where the ceiling started. We entertained many hundreds of spectators, maybe a thousand or more.

A flashback of the eradication of the little people stunned me momentarily. All that work for nothing. Those lovely innocent creatures - my friends! Sorrow assailed me, but mostly an intense and uncontrolled fury overtook me.

The beast slowly gathered itself and began to stand. I ran and leaped, punching feet first into its midsection. It grunted, stepped back, and shook its head. Its mouth gaped, and long, blunt teeth stood out at odd angles. Shades of yellow in the eyes circled red pupils. Muscles bunched as the huge paws grabbed me, turned me horizontal, and threw me into the wall.

I bounced off and sprawled in the sand.

This body was resilient; the pain faded quickly, but persisted, receding into the distance.

I scanned the arena for weapons, but found none.

I circled the beast, which turned to keep facing me, but stayed in place. I sped around in a circle and it stumbled, trying to keep me in sight. Maybe I had injured the creature somewhat; it seemed to be having trouble with its balance, or perhaps the animal was just clumsy.

I ran fast enough to get behind it and leaped on the monster. Wow, this body could jump! I wrapped my legs around its neck and clawed out its eyes. I flipped myself off as my opponent howled, bent over, and pressed its filthy paws into its bloodied eye sockets.

I was a killer in this incarnation. I let the body take over; muscle memory finished the job. I ran at the wounded thing's left side, jumped, got horizontal, and knocked the damn thing over. Its paws still clutched its upper face. Howling in agony, its legs kicked sand around as I came up from behind and landed on its neck again. This produced much crackling and crunching. As I ran away, the hideous beast roared and screamed, thrashing and chopping with its limbs. The desperate monster spun around on its side in the stinking grit. I waited until the frenzy slowed, and when the creature wore itself out, I attacked the neck again. This time when I jumped off, the animal lay in a dead, broken in a heap, fouling the sand further.

The crowd roared as one, a crashing, reverberating noise, loud and almost soundless, as huge noise can be. I lifted my arms, clenched my fists, and pumped the air. I circled the pit, facing the crowd, taking my victory dues, keeping one eye on the beast, just in case.

My victory lap lasted a long, long time until a bunch of some other kinds of things came in and moved toward the carcass, watching me. Guards with weapons protected the crew. One of the small gates at the rear of the circular area opened. I figured that exit was for me. I made my way toward the opening, still celebrating. The guards had encircled me warily, keeping a distance, as several of the beings removed the body of the deceased. I retreated through the opening into a tiny cage. The arena gate clanged shut between me and the guards. Another opened, letting me into a jail full of relaxed alien combatants who apparently watched the fighters and waited their turns.

I looked down at this new incarnation of me, assessing a tall lean body with rather large bones, joints, feet, and hands, but no obvious genitals and or breasts; the chest looked like a large boy's. Bruises and lots of faded, light colored scars covered it. The other inmates were all naked too. None of them were human, or anything similar. I was going to get very familiar with alien genitalia; some doozies were on display here.

"Cal nok far pat tuk, Ghee-nye," something said from outside the big cage I stood in.

The speaker was probably the closest thing to human visible, maybe even closer than me. A uniform and protective gear covered it. Several others behind and beside, uh, him(?), carried things that looked to me a lot like cattle prods. The guards were short and thick and really muscular. The speaker looked directly at me.

"Ghee-nye, lot put roc ton ram cam dal," he said. I think.

He held the grip of a bizarre contraption. A pole came off the handle at my waist height and split forward into a "y" ending in two solid metal shackles. These extended through a gate between the pen holding the variety of monsters and another one separating the uniformed creatures from us. From the first shaft with the handle in it, a single tube split upward, ending in a larger, similar shackle at neck height. This also went through the gate, so all three shackles were on my side, and the controls and handler safely on the other.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shackled combatant being walked toward the cage opposite the one I stood in. The restraints enclosed the thing's neck and limbs, and the fighter walked forward with a guard behind grasping the handle. Several guards with the cattle prods spread out behind and beside the one handling the shackles.

"Ghee-nye!" The guard glared at me. He rattled the shackle contraption against the bars of the gate and his knuckle moved on the handle. Electricity flowed and flashed like lightening across the circles.

When the flickering stopped, I backed into the restraint. I figured if I didn't, the punishment might be worst than whatever I would get because of my delay.

To my extreme relief the handler closed the shackles around my neck and wrists and didn't electrocute me. The material wasn't hard cold metal as I'd expected. It was smooth and warm against my bare skin. I may have been a slave, but I was a somewhat comfortable one.

As the guard walked backward, his eyes on me, the gate behind me clanged opened. He pulled me in as the second gate rattled to a close in front of him. He still had hold of the shackle handle. The bars were designed to avoid it. The gate I'd backed through closed before me and I was snug in a little cage. Behind me the gate opened and he pulled me into the room full of guards. More annoying metal-on-metal noise assailed my ears as the double entry system secured itself. The yeller stayed on the handle, forcing me to circle, and the electric prods rotated too, staying to the side and behind me.

The guard who had been handling the other fighter withdrew the empty restraining device after the opposite gates secured themselves with an alien fighter inside the opposite pen. He hung the shackle on a hook and he and all the guards with stunners faced me. I became the center of attention.

My handler pushed me toward a door at the rear of this area, making guttural barks at me that sounded like cursing. I guessed my lack of cooperation didn't please him. I had no idea what to do; I'd just have to wing it. Go along to get along, I thought to myself, and try not to provoke them into electrocuting you.

One of the stun stick wielders yelled to an unseen controller through a grill set in the exit door.

"Coc can!"

The door slid open.

I entered a hall that stretched far before me. Small cages lined both sides, some empty, and others with naked aliens in them.

Exhaustion defeated me. My muscles refused to cooperate. I wondered how long I'd been in the pit with the monster I'd killed. The guard on the handle seemed somewhat apathetic to my discomfort. When intersections occurred he yanked me roughly around, still cursing me. The cages became roomier and less spartan as we walked on. Eventually we came to an area of solid walls with barred sections at the level of the guards' heads, and gated doors. The handlers all seemed to be of the same species and of the similar height, so they were able to look into the semi private cages. They brought me to one of these.

We stopped. This gate opened and he pushed me into yet another small cage and double door system. When it closed behind me the shackles came off and the one in front of me slid to the side. My handler pulled the restraints through the rear gate and they all trooped back the way we'd come.

I sank to my knees on the hard mats which covered the floor and bruised me. This gave me the excuse to cry.

Being alone allowed bad memories to surface and torment me. My thoughts returned to my previous incarnation. Puff, puff, played in my mind's eye. Puff, Puff, Puff, Puff. "Oh, God!" I screamed. A raging pit of despair gripped me and lasted for hours, or for days, I had no way to tell. I just let it happen. Who cared whether I fell apart or not?

As I ran out of even the will to cry, the sound of pouring water drew me to it. An opening in the wall to my left revealed a bathroom. A thick, clear stream filled a bathtub. I recognized the noise as one I'd heard many hours – or days - before, when I'd first been shoved into the room. Maybe bath time was a regular event. I sat and watched, still sniffling. I pictured the faces of each friend that I'd lost, especially the babies, and the waterworks started again. I remembered the breakthroughs: our little triumphs of communication, cooperation, and skill.

I sank into the gorgeous, perfectly warm bath water. A dispenser squirted out some kind of liquid which turned out to have remarkable powers of cleaning and disinfection. The stink of the terrible sand left my body. I soaked neck deep until the bathtub automatically drained. As I stepped out, a blast of warm air blew on me from two areas in the ceiling, front and back. It dried me a little. I had no hair to squeeze the water out of, only some stubble on my head. When I walked back into the main room, I smelled a heavenly odor.

Someone had set a meal on the small ledge standing out from the wall below the narrow barred window. A little gate showed how my dinner had been put there. I looked out into the empty hallway, and back at the food. A ledge about right for sitting complimented the table.

I managed to eat around bursts of horror and emotion. I couldn't manage my feelings, and didn't even try.

Dinner included a shallow bowl of roast of some unknown kind of beast, and something that appeared to be boiled vegetables on top of what seemed like a starch. Two bottles of a wine-like liquid and a pint-sized mug also graced the tiny table.

The mysterious providers had given me a lot of food and I devoured every bite. After I finished, I lay down on the huge pillow on the floor. The lights turned off. Only the dampened glow from the corridor shone into the room through the bars in the wall.

I'd begun to think of each reincarnation as a new cage, no longer a trial or a treat. I'd surely passed any test and proved my worthiness by my behavior with the little tribe. What more could any god want from me? I might have preyed on them and eaten well, but I had befriended them and, I thought, made their lives better. I would have continued on the same course if the blobs hadn't cut our existences short.

Perhaps the spear hadn't been a good idea. Maybe the timing was off. How could I have known? I couldn't have foreseen the future or predicted Ne's behavior.

Even if I hadn't been reincarnated into the cat creature, wouldn't the Blobs have come anyway? My arrival couldn't have changed that. Had I not been there would the blobs have acted differently? They might have killed the people anyway, or ignored them and left them to live and die without interference. Would they have tried to negotiate, or regarded my friends as animals and pillaged the planet around them, or just disintegrated them as nuisances? I didn't know. I had reincarnated into that beast, I had befriended and taught those folks, and I had tried to negotiate with our alien visitors.

Poor Ne. Poor, poor Ne. Who knew what he had thought? Not I. He hadn't even hurt Leader Blob that I could tell. Why had they exterminated us?

I knew the answer. Greed. They wanted the emeralds. Nothing would stand in their way. The negotiation had been a formality. When our attempt at business went wrong they removed us to get on with their business on our planet. The blobs knew no humanity.

I must remember I'm not human any longer, and anyway, humans behaved badly too.

This couldn't be a test, because surely I'd have passed. If I'd satisfied some requirement, I wouldn't have been brought to this horrible situation. No one could have tried harder or been better. This wasn't a reward, or even a reprieve. I refused to beat myself up. I knew people and had met creatures much crueler than I. In fact, I wouldn't accept a God so cruel as to punish me after my time with the little people.

If God was this mean, then Fuck God. I would not worship such a God.

I woke up on the big comfy pillow. The temperature in the room was perfect for me, thankfully, because no one had provided me with a sheet or comforter. I slowly rolled myself upright. As I did the lights glowed brighter. I leaned against the grey wall, missing a cold feeling on my skin. The material at my back and the air were the same temperature. I didn't feel too badly, considering the beating I'd taken - when? Whenever. This body healed itself quickly. I sat for a long time feeling myself heal. My stomach growled in hunger but didn't see any food.

I walked to the bathroom. A European style hole in the floor greeted, so I peed and shat in it. A moist wipe squished out of a slot in the wall, which I used and dropped in. A slight woosh sounded in the toilet. A swell of heat and a burning odor arose. Water flowed from a pipe as I passed, so I rinsed my hands. It exited through a drain in the floor.

I went back to the table-ledge to get the mug, which remained although everything else had been removed, and took it to the bathroom. I splashed water into it from the unfinished pipe that served as a faucet. I filled the cup and gulped. My lips and throat were dry, so I drank some more.

Everything was automatic: the bath, the soap, the air blower, the food, the lights, the incinerator toilet, the wipes, the water.

I finished drinking and walked back into the main room. To my left was a clear wall and some type of courtyard. Through a rectangular opening I found a sort of lawn surrounded by a narrow square pathway. What seemed like a mature but miniature tree grew in the center. The smell of soil and vegetation permeated the little room. Walls of the same warmish, grey material as everything else - the stuff looked like metal, but didn't feel like metal - encased the small area of about eight feet square. Along the top of the wall, lights set in long rectangular boxes directed the glare out of my eyes. Above, a ceiling of blackest night twinkled with dots of stars. Some sort of projection, I guessed. I knelt down and put my hand on the growth. I worked my fingers through the long, blue-green, clumping, grass-like blades to the root mat, and into the roots. Underneath, about six inches down, I found the same material as the floors, the walls, the ceilings in the other rooms, the bathtub, the pipes, the bars, and the table and chair ledge.

That was all there was to my new cage.

I had nothing to do: no TV, reading material, or music, and no way to get out. So, I went back to bed.

I slept until the guards woke me by banging those shackles on the gate. They yelled. I got up and slowly walked to the bathroom where I peed, wiped, and washed. I backed into the restraints. I yawned.

They pulled me backwards through the double gates, one at a time, into the hallway, and we all marched back the same way we'd come before, toward the cage beside the arena. The guards reversed the procedure at the door and into the guard area, then into the small, double-gated pen, where they released me. This little cage let me into the big one.

Plenty of fighters already milled about in this slave pen, and in the identical cage opposite. They seemed relaxed for the most part, although some who tried to hide in the back sweat with anxiety. I imagined those were the creatures that wouldn't last long, and they'd figured this out. Perhaps this was just their species' natural behavior – and smell. I found myself not really caring.

The guard pen extended along the backs of both cages. The fighter's entrance-exit points faced each other across a sort of wide hallway, which led to the fight pit in one direction, and the handlers' area in the other. A gate in the middle gave the guards access to this hall, and the arena.

I didn't understand who picked the combatants, but our minders seemed to know.

While the cleaning crew removed a deceased fighter, the victor took his laps and then left the arena to huge roars from the spectators.

The guards screamed and yelled at one of the sweating aliens in the back of the pen. The creature huddled in the corner. The other captors apparently got tired of the shouting, and manhandled the slave into the little cage set in a bigger gate. I'm sure the guards appreciated the fighters' impatience, because it meant they didn't have to enter the aliens' pen. The combatants seemed resigned to their fate, and weren't tolerating any nonsense from each other.

Whoever managed the show allowed no time between the contests, which were handled like a business. For someone, I guessed, it was. Usually the fights lasted some little while at least. The audience liked the longest lasting matches best, unless the opponents simply chased one another around. Any contact between fighters was cheered. The spectators enjoyed blood and broken bones to the fullest. Death caused near communal orgasm in the stands. There seemed to be betting going on. Celebrations were pronounced and disappointments extreme. The rowdy crowd consisted of many different species.

Mostly, the fighters were mismatched, and the better ones toyed with their opponents. The effect was quite gruesome, a slow death by torture until the final deadly blow, reminding me of cats tenderizing their prey. The crowds adored the most torturous predators, raucously cheering each injury they inflicted.

My turn arrived. The guards glared at me and screamed, sending bolts of tiny lightening from their prods into the vertical cage bars. They seemed excited.

Okey dokey. I stepped into the small pen and when the gate opened I ran down the hallway as I'd seen the others do.

For quite a while I circled alone in the arena and the spectators blasted me with noise. I walked and jogged around, looking up at the sea of faces, while stepping through gooey patches in the sand. The crowd berserked.

A long time later I learned that I was indeed one of the eight favorites; fighters who always won, put on a brutal show, and didn't fight too often, but consistently made those in-the-know betters wealthier than before the contest began. We all had the nicer cells, the best and most food, the pillow beds, bathtubs, running water, fancy toilets, and little gardens. Occasionally we asked for extras, like blankets and towels and privacy walls in our cages. Infrequently, we received them.

Finally they forced my opponent into the ring. He cowered and cringed and hugged the nasty smelling circumference, and I perceived he wasn't going to be easy to make a fight of.

Hugging the wall turned out to be a big mistake.

Once again I let muscle memory take over, and my rage reign. I'd finished being sorry for myself and crying. I was through trying to be the best person I knew how to be. Now I just wanted to release intense fury on something.

I sauntered around. The crowd roared so loud I heard almost nothing but roar. The idiot cringed against the enclosure, limiting his movement and routes of escape. I ran up to him and planted my feet on his chest and bounced him off the wall. Gently, I didn't want to crush him right away because I wanted to keep my poop-burning toilet, the roast beast and wine, and big fluffy pillow bed. I liked the lawn and the tree and the nighttime sky projection. I especially loved the bathtub. Oh yes I did.

The fights I'd seen and the one I'd been in had been death matches. No other type seemed to be allowed. I eventually learned that the combatant aliens and even the guards were slaves purchased by the owner, which was some thing none of us ever saw. A period of what I guessed to be at least fifteen hours of fights occurred every day-like cycle and the during the remainder of the time we bathed, ate, and slept. No real sense of time existed, only fighting and resting periods. The stands always filled and the slaves were plentiful. Those few of us who consistently won got to know one another well, because we returned to the holding pens after every match, as opposed to the ones who died quickly. We headliners, we rock stars, never fought each other. Our opponents' competence varied greatly but in the end we always killed them. Our skills increased until no one matched us.

It didn't take long for me to learn to give good show. Once in a while, after a particularly eventful fight, I even rated dessert, or a massage, surrounded by the prods, of course. The valued masseurs and masseuses arrived heavily guarded, as if we would hurt one of them. They brought us some relief, which we all were able to appreciate.

I herded my frightened opponent out to the middle of the arena with kicks and slaps. He didn't fight back, though once I got him out into the center, he found his spirit. He put up a decent defense, but I made a mess of him.

It felt good. It felt great! I punished him for other things, betrayals others had committed, because for all I knew he was the same kind of creature as they. That's what I told myself. Fuck being nice. Fuck doing the right thing. What the fuck did nice get me? Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity Fuck Fuck. Fuck it all to death.

Oops. I'd killed him too quickly. The crowd booed my unsatisfactory performance. I'd have to do much better next time.
Part Two: Betrayer

Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto You

Common bastardization of The Golden Rule

After the car accident, Deena awoke with the dry heaves, retching miserably. The violent cramping gripped her. Her stomach was empty, but the contractions continued. Her guts twisted. Her head pounded every time she tried to move, and the eruptions made her move. She tried to get up, to put her hands down under her, and saw... black feathers. What the hell?

Her attempts to rise disturbed these. She studied them, dark but dusty, with a slight iridescence. They were feathers, and the sensation of her arms came from inside them! She traced them visually up until her neck was craned to the side, and yes, they went all the way up to her shoulders.

No. This must be a dream. That's right, I'm dreaming, she thought, and she decided to wake.

Once again she tried to get up out of bed, and the wings flapped uselessly.

No!

She shook her head to clear it, the pounding had lessened somewhat. Something was stuck to her face. She thought about brushing the offending object off with her hand and those damn feathers came up and touched her mouth.

Yuk! They smelled funny. They couldn't be clean. Awful!

Deena had been a meticulous cleaner, as long as she could force others to do the cleaning. She'd been a cook before an incoming administration had kicked her out of the hospital, saying they'd decided to go in a different direction.

After they let her go, she learned from people who'd been her inferiors that the new administrators said her cooking wasn't healthy enough; she used too much salt in her fat-filled, out-of-date recipes. This wouldn't do for a hospital. Well, everyone had enjoyed her food; she'd made sure of that. Anyone who worked under her in the kitchen and hadn't, who came up with suggestions, didn't last long. They soon found themselves unemployed. And clean! Her kitchens had been spotless. She'd made everyone scrub to her satisfaction, and she'd been hard to satisfy. None of the employees had liked her, but she'd been in complete control. They were welcome to leave if they didn't want to do what she'd demanded. The administration couldn't complain about the cleanliness of her kitchen. No, they could not.

Still, she'd found herself unemployed. She'd hired on at Freda's, a good national company with plenty of jobs, health care, and 401ks. Even Freda's stock was available for purchase. She'd started as a head cashier, and if anybody hadn't towed her line they'd found themselves unemployed. Oh, yes.

She'd run off many people who hadn't met her standards, anyone, in fact, who hadn't recognized her authority, who complained about her, or questioned and refused to do whatever she told them, no matter how ridiculous. She harassed them until they quit. Oh, yes, she had fun giving those people the jobs they didn't want to do, being mean to them, and telling the others nasty things about them. Turning other employees against them had been delightful.

The harassment, like the delightfully screwy schedule changes, was entertaining. When schedulers assigned them work at the registers in Garden where the uncomfortable heat and cold couldn't be relieved, and made certain individuals clean restrooms night after night instead of rotating, Deena felt proud of herself. As they became less comfortable and more agitated, Deena grew happier. How she, Elva, Lisa and Sherry had laughed! Seeing them walk out the door in angry fits, to know they would have financial problems and trouble explaining why they'd left, was climactic.

Those weaklings thought themselves respectable, so they wouldn't take what she loved to dish out. Deena showed them they weren't special at all.

How much fun she'd had going to the managers and telling them she would always be available. They could count on her even though they couldn't depend on so many others. She'd cemented her position with management and they'd never figured out that she ran the show, not them, deciding who would and wouldn't work at her store. If only she could get the big checks like the managers received, well that would be something!

But now, what was this nightmare? She couldn't wake up. She tried again to brush the thing off her face but it gaped open and a squawk came out. "AAWK!" She squawked! Instead of her own voice, the thing on her face opened and a squawk came out. "AAWK AAWK" barked out when she opened her mouth to talk! Deena scrambled around, trying to stand upright. She still thought she was stuck in a dream; she would wake up, put her warm bare feet on the rug, walk down the hallway to turn up the heater, and return to bed until the air warmed up.

But this wasn't her pile carpet at all. It was dirt!

She tucked her legs under her and rolled up onto them, trying to straighten up. Nothing made any sense. Something had gone wrong. She looked at her feet and found, oh, God, what the hell was that?

Deena thrashed in a sudden panic. More dust flew up and clogged her nostrils, coating her throat. She realized her mouth gaped. She snapped it shut.

Bird feet, with claws. Nasty yellow scaly bird legs. And claws! How awful. So ugly. That thing on her face was a beak! This wasn't right! She couldn't possibly be a damn bird. Could she? Was she in Hell?

No. I won't go there. I'm a righteous, God-fearing gal. I'm not in hell. This is just a dream, a very bad one.

Deena tried again to wake up, in vain; she only accomplished kicking up more dust.

She suddenly realized she might be making a spectacle of herself. What if someone was watching?

A shadow passed quickly overhead. She rolled onto her back and looked up into the sky.

Something had gone wrong with her vision. These weren't her eyes at all. Everything appeared brighter and the shadows more distinct.

The shape glided above her again, and way up in the brilliance the silhouette of a large, dark bird glided on drafts. Something in her chest began to flutter.

Intense fear assaulted her senses. Scrambling, still thinking like a human, but manipulating a bird's body, she flopped and crawled until she lay under a thickly leaved shrub. She stopped, tottering over her crazy new bird legs. She managed to tuck her flailing wings up against her sides and sink her belly down onto her feet. She quit moving and tried to collect her wits.

Deena panted, exhausted, experiencing intense thirst. So thirsty! Where could she get a some water? A sports drink would be perfect right now, so quenching. They sold them at Freda's. She cautiously looked around.

She was in some woods with no bottled drinks in sight.

The trees were odd, though not completely unlike the pine forests near her home, which were sprinkled with oaks and juniper. This was a strange forest, with trees and plants she had never seen before, sporting huge leaves on fleshy stems. Many kinds of vegetation surrounded her, but nothing seemed familiar or recognizable.

Carefully she studied the shrub she'd blundered under, until she recognized fuzzy caterpillars covering the twigs and small branches. Without conscious thought, she stretched up and snatched one and swallowed the worm whole with her beak up and her neck stretched out. Her new mouth didn't detect the furry protrusions on the worm's body. Her throat clenched and relaxed, forcing the insect down. Ugh! Repulsive! She snatched and ate another, and another. Horror! She realized her hunger dictated her actions. Her stomach and not her mind were in control.

Deena gulped the worms down and but they didn't make her full. The emptiness in her belly never subsided, though some of her thirst was sated. She still needed to find a source of water.

Under the shrub, Deena settled her chest down on her scaly feet and passed out.

She awoke with the point of her beak in the dirt and her head fallen to the side. As she straightened up her neck cramped and seized. A breeze blew across her toes as she stretched and stood. Trying to wipe the grit and dust off, she got a face full of feathers again. She resigned herself to the fact that she had no hands. Bird life was going to be hard.

Where was the water? Where did the birds drink? She didn't know. To follow some of the animals to a stream or river, she would have to master the ridiculous creature she now wore.

Careful to stay under the covering leaves of the shrubs, Deena practiced walking, stretching, flapping her wings, and even did a little pecking. She discovered new limitations and abilities, still waiting, though, to wake up from this long and detailed nightmare. Deena couldn't remember having had a dream as lengthy and complex as this before, or as painfully sensual.

The dirt, her feathers, the leaf litter, and the air stank. The forest was an awful, dirty, smelly place, and this bird's body a retched, filthy, stinking thing.

Still under the shrub, she tried to flap a bit more, taking small hops, getting coordinated. She began mastering her new self. She briefly got air a couple of times, but couldn't control her flight and crashed to the ground. She thought about moving out from under the bush and trying to fly to something, but the idea scared her. She wasn't ready to lift off yet.

Deena spent some time picking larvae off the low twigs again, carefully manipulating her feet up the branches, and climbing to where the caterpillars munched on leaves, not too far away from her. Keeping her wings folded as much as possible, they nonetheless flapped about when she lost her balance. Several times she caught them in branches, and had to extract and refold them. Twice she ended up upside down. Her feet gripped tightly, of their own volition it seemed; she didn't have to think about them anymore.

After a while, she fell into another deep sleep. When she woke, she was still up in the thin limbs, up, though, about four of her new body-heights. Her claws clung but she had teetered over. Her shoulder rested against a branch and her head hung down. She straightened herself.

She had eaten clean most of the branches below her. The rest of the caterpillars grazed above her. She climbed again and didn't end up upside down once. Deena became quite spry and feisty, and was proud of herself. She ate all the larvae within reach. Her stomach had settled down, but oddly, that comfortable full feeling never occurred.

Deena knew she'd have to learn to fly in order to find more food and get to water. It would be necessary to escape predators like the snake–like thing creeping beneath her.

Fear exploded in Deena unlike anything she'd ever known. Primal terror! The urge to flee pulsed so strongly, she could taste it.

She unfroze and tried to walk toward the outer edges of the shrub. She'd almost reached a sparse area when the ugly, scary predator peered up and spied her. For a moment, she gazed into its eyes and was frightened into paralysis.

No! She shook off the fear and jumped. Blasting out of the shrub's canopy, she spread her wings and pulled with her breast. When her wingtips touched below her, she contracted her back muscles, repeating the movements and quickening them. A trunk loomed in front of her. She banked instinctively and beat her feathered appendages up and down, managing to fly around and not into the tree. She flew with ease away from danger, and the experience of flight was wonderful, but she grew fatigued quickly. Spying a thin branch she experienced dread. How would she land without screwing up and falling to the forest floor, into the waiting jaws of the predator?

As cautiously as possible, for she still flew badly, she tested her new skills. The branch came up fast. Too fast! Brake! Deena tensed her neck, pulling her head back instinctively, causing her body to rear up. She held her wings vertical, which slowed her movement, but also caused her to miss the damn branch! Aaargh! Deena flew up and around again, making a bird-line for the perch she wanted. She could do this. She would conquer this - and soon - because exhaustion threatened to consume her.

She missed.

Should she try another landing spot? No, her muscles were tired. She needed to rest, to lie down and pull the covers up over her and sleep, but no. No more comfy bed with clean, crisp, cool sheets, or warm comforter. Only wind rifling through her feathers, and bark or dirt under her scaly feet, welcomed her now.

This time she reached down and grabbed the damn wood, wrapped her toes around, and didn't let go. She spun on the branch, on top again and under, and hung, her mind spinning and little bird breast heaving. She used her beak to grip the bark and flapped her wings and to get upright. Her toes clenched and her knees bent until she rested her belly on her feet and sort of sat until her breathing normalized. Then she stood erect without falling over.

While flying, she hadn't experienced a sense of vertigo. The view had been gorgeous. Birds flew far away, some in flocks and others on their own. She checked the tree in which she perched, and found no nasty snake things creeping up to get her as she relaxed in the breeze. She spread her wings a bit to cool off until she got her respiration under control, and tucked them in to keep from getting chilled. They're sort of like blankets, she thought, and she dozed. She dreamed about her hunger and thirst.

Deena practiced flying and landing. She ate every bug and berry and seed she found. She spent time in a tree tasting some sour fruit, and learned to tell the rotten from the immature. She feasted on the ripe treats and accidentally got a bit drunk on the ones that were turning a little. She found herself awakening on the ground and determined not to eat the fermented produce ever again.

Finally, a flock of birds like her landed, screeching, in her tree. When they flew off, a strong urge to congregate with them gripped her. She took flight and tried hard to keep up. She watched their aerial acrobatics, and their nimbleness in the trees, and she learned.

They flew to a small, gently flowing stream to rest and bask on the rocks. Deena drank her fill and stood in the cold, clear flow, dunking her head in so the water ran down her back. She splashed with her wings, dipping and splashing, dipping and splashing, and she dried herself on a hot rock while examining the others.

The black birds stood on pale, scaly, clawed legs, and a rainbow effect patterned their cleaned, shiny wings. Their brilliant yellow beaks contained nostrils circled by a bit of bluish grey. Red skin surrounded beady jet eyes. The males sported phenomenal crests, similar to mohawks, with long individual feathers coming out quite attractively.

A lot of mating went on which Deena fought against like a thing possessed. She flipped over on her back and pecked and scratched until the males stopped approaching her. She found her personal, human feelings about sex nearly nullified by the bird hormones. By force of will alone she retained her honor. She despised their frivolous fornication; the promiscuousness. Biological chemicals directed her to breed. Deena knew God dictated procreation as the ultimate aim for all species, but these creatures didn't seem to think about God's will so much as be driven by desire, hunger, thirst, and fear. Instinct reigned supreme in bird society. Thought, well, Deena wasn't even certain much thinking, as she understood it, was going on, except for hers. She was sure the dumb things were having sex for sex sake. No concept of the consequences, desire for children, or any kind of morality seemed involved.

Lice infested her body, which caused Deena to itch and scratch endlessly. How foul. The flock congregated and picked the insects off of each other with their beaks, eating them. They rolled in the dirt to coat themselves because the parasites didn't like dust. The bugs ran around on the bird's bodies to avoid this coating, and the birds found them and ate the lice and the soil.

Her fury at being trapped in this being, among these filthy, nasty creatures, roiled.

Deena stayed with them, but to the side. After her initial near possession by the hormones, she got herself together. Deena picked lice off her body whenever she could reach them. The parasites crawled all over her and made her itch, forcing her to use her beak to pick at them and scratch. Occasionally, she allowed one of the other females to groom her, to get the lice on the back of her neck and head, where she couldn't reach. She didn't reciprocate. She spent most of her time feeding and drinking to keep up her strength, and took to flying with the flock. They flew because something scared them, or they thought a shape or movement was scary, to look for food and get to water, and to warm themselves with activity. Sometimes they flew just for fun. Their silly games wasted a lot of hard earned energy. A bird's life consisted mainly of finding and consuming bugs, seeds, and fruit, and then they burned precious resources playing and humping. Bird brains.

Deena stayed for the most part on the outskirts of the group, and she flew less and less, only enough to stay with them and to keep warm. The flocking instinct pulled strongly on her, but the animals revolted her. She found this life repulsive. She despised her new body's limitations.

One day, the idiots rollicked up in the air, playing stupid games, while she conserved her hard won energy on a branch below. Suddenly, a larger creature with a hooked beak and extended talons swooped out of the sky and into their flight paths. The predator chose one of the black birds and fell in behind, following its every move. The prey bird flew for its life, dodging and spinning and dropping, but the magnificent hunter followed with ease.

Now why couldn't I be one of those, Deena thought. She wanted to be a destroyer, not one of these idiotic lice eaters.

From her perch high up in a tree, Deena watched the other black birds harass the killer. Some flew up above, and attacked the hunter's back. Deena experienced a desire to fly and help ward off the large predator, but she overrode this urge as she had so many others.

The small birds chased and dive bombing the predator. The prey birds performed the most marvelous acrobatics to avoid their nemesis' beak and talons. Soon, the hunter flew away to look for easier game. The others followed for a short distance, and Deena thought she'd better join the group and pretend she'd helped as well, just in case. She launched herself off the branch and flew among the tired flock before they all settled down to rest in the same tree she'd vacated only moments before. Whether or not they'd been fooled by her play, she couldn't tell.

Deena learned long ago, before becoming a sort of predator herself on Earth, to play along with her group: her family, friends, and her eventual coworkers, or at least pretend to. Independence exacted a high price in their culture. If she didn't defend them, they wouldn't stick up for her. In fact, they'd sabotage her. Long ago she learned she disliked being the outsider and the butt of jokes. The bullying hurt most when her mom and dad and sisters were the bullies. After she grew up and went to work, and made a family of her own, she became the bully, and enforced the same rules of behavior on her children, friends, and coworkers. She learned the joy of growing up was in becoming the predator instead of the prey.

Deena failed to realize that here, she wasn't on top, but only a member of the flock. She'd so long been a leader, she was unsuccessful in comprehending her position as one among many, and incapable of acting appropriately.

Deena couldn't tell if the birds were aware that she didn't help defend against the predator. She refused to pick the lice off of others, and sometimes, when she found something good to eat, she neglected to share with them, filling herself up first. They would come and dine if they saw her eating, but if not, she couldn't be bothered to attract their attention.

Deena waited for the answers to her many questions. Where was she and why? How did she come to inhabit a filthy, dirty bird? When would this end? What was next? This couldn't be heaven, clearly. It wasn't hell, either, because she did not deserve to be there. Judgment, then. She waited for her reward. What was taking so damn long? She always did the right thing by being true to her values.

She wasn't doing anything wrong, she knew. She was conforming to the flock, but really, she was human. Humans did not pick lice off each other and fornicate like heathens. Well, good people didn't. She wouldn't do those things. Deena thought she might be experiencing a test; perhaps Judgment was being rendered. She wanted to belong; all the bird instincts and hormones tempted her to abandon her beliefs, but she wouldn't. She'd pass this test.

The air grew somewhat colder and the food a bit scarcer. The little body used a lot of energy and shelter was sparse. Deena was greedy and ate everything edible that her beady eyes spied. She even fought other birds off when necessary. The cold season approached and Deena knew what that meant; she'd lived in the White Mountains of Arizona long enough to know the winter would kill you if you didn't prepare.

Deena sensed the weather cooling, but her imagination fooled her. The cooling occurred more slowly than what she was used to. Food became harder to find, but it wasn't as scarce she feared. The temperature decreased, though it wouldn't get as cold as she anticipated. By paying attention she might have been able to tell that indeed this was a more temperate climate than her human home, but she wasn't attentive. Her habits were set. She clung to her old knowledge and did not adapt.

She grew greedier and more preoccupied than ever before. Deena impatiently waited for the Lord to place her in heaven, where she'd have peace, and wouldn't have to put up with anyone's bullshit anymore. No one would try to steal from her, humiliate, defeat, or deceive her. She'd have everything she desired.

She wondered if running Carol off the road might be the reason she'd ended up here, but Carol was one of them. Carol complained about Lara, and asked Lara and Elva why they made Jenny clean the restrooms so much. Elva told Deena about this. Carol knew they wanted to get rid of Jenny and she hadn't gone along. Instead, she'd asked, "Why are you doing this when we don't have enough cashiers?

Why did they do that? Because the store was theirs and they decided who would be employed there, and who wouldn't! And then Carol hadn't worked there anymore!

Carol proved herself a dangerous threat when she tried to break up their control over their workplace! Screw that. Carol thought she was special, better than they were. Given time, she'd have turned Calvin against them, just as she'd turned Calvin against Lara. Carol had gotten just what she deserved.

Though God's Law says Thou shalt not kill, defending oneself was widely recognized as appropriate. Of course the accident constituted self defense. If Deena had lost her job because of Carol, she wouldn't have had money to pay the mortgage, the utilities, and to buy food with in another country. This would have led to a slow death by starvation, not to mention the humiliation of losing the house and going on welfare. This was not acceptable. Better Carol should suffer than she. Carol had caused the trouble in the first place. The Bible says an eye for an eye, so this covered getting Carol to walk off the job. Maybe running her off the road had been overkill. But God, Deena prayed, I love you. I try to be like you, to follow your example. Didn't you cause the flood and kill all the heathens and save Noah? Consider Carol's death my Noah moment. Too bad I only got one heathen, but I submit to Your will.

Judgment is standard procedure of course, just God proving He's the Lord. Deena understood this, and soon God would see she wasn't giving in to temptation, and He'd promote her to heaven.

Deena continued to survive, to live according to her values, and to wait for salvation.

The flock flew about the skies, and Deena went with them, not to play their mindless games, but to keep warm. A predator circled high in the sky, and dived among them before the group could scramble. It cut out a big male. The predators, in their hunger, were a deadly nuisance. They took many members of the flock, ignoring the attempts to run them off.

Deena didn't care. None of them were her friends, and she protected herself well. She stayed lower than the other birds if she flew with them at all. She spent most of her time hidden by foliage, hunting food, hydrating, and eating the seeds, which became plentiful as the season ended. So when the predator sped into their presence, she was ready.

The prey birds followed the hunter, harassing and annoying it as Deena made for the trees.

A heavy weight struck her from above and Deena lost altitude. She continued to fly even though something had gone wrong. Her wings didn't work quite right and she was experiencing directional trouble. Then, the pain came. Her beak opened, the breath coming hard. Deena targeted a branch, but it seemed so far away. If only she could get to the tree to rest and discover what had gone wrong.

The killer struck again. The predatory bird had spied Deena separating herself from the flock, and took the opportunity. It's first strike was a glancing blow, breaking some of the ribs in the little bird's back.

The other birds did not come to Deena's aid.

Soon enough, the hunter's claws grasped her body, and dug its toes into her flesh.

God is taking me at last, Deena thought.

Her killer carried the black bird that was Deena to the branch she'd spied as refuge only seconds before, and consumed her with thorough relish.

Deena awoke in pain once again, not just pain, but the agony of starvation. This wasn't heaven.

She lay in a small, dark cave. The opening to the outside allowed in the only light. Her limbs ached. Her stomach clenched. She moved slightly, and ignited more agony. She brushed the pain aside in her mind. She put one hand in front of her face and didn't see feathers, or her human hand. The thing in her vision was altogether alien.

Something wiggled. It was beside her, not part of her. As she took stock of her new body and limbs, she found another, smaller creature with her, encircled by her, covered in the dust she also wore like a coat.

She pulled on the various pieces of the small beast until a squid-like shape became apparent. The little thing sported five tough, though supple limbs. She recognized it as a smaller version of herself; a child perhaps. Mine, she wondered?

She moved toward the light and exited the cave on the strong tentacles. The sinewy legs didn't enclose bones. Deena was starving again, and her energy low. Her head throbbed. She managed her new legs clumsily, but the coordination would come, she knew.

The light outside blinded her and she waited impatiently for her vision to clear. In front of her a bleak landscape stretched, only shades of grey. Rock and sand went on for miles. A dome of sky was shaded white near the horizon to light charcoal grey above. The view was a dull monotony, a depressing sight. Dark shadows, perhaps caves similar to this one, appeared here and there. Odd tracks crisscrossed the sand, resembling those made by creatures with multiple limbs. Others like herself must travel through the area.

Apparently Judgment was going to be a longer trial than she'd imagined. Of course God had an imperative to make sure He didn't let the wrong type into heaven. This was fine, Deena believed she would pass in due time.

The air seemed heavy and dry, thick against her body. No breeze blew. Complete stillness.

A slight movement attracted her eye, capturing her full attention.

Sand mounded and fell in a miniature cascade nearby until a prickly, pincered head poked out and appeared to look around. She stayed absolutely still. The small monster worked some more of its body out of the sand. Fleshy protuberances covered the top, but otherwise the beastie seemed flat. The back mounded up slightly under the soft thorns, covering the length of the back. The thing wriggled all the way out, revealing a form which tapered to a point. Like everything else, its hide was grey. Only movement gave the little creature away. When unmoving, it became nearly invisible. Deena knew it was there only because she'd seen it emerge.

The grit beside the animal began to mound again. A second pincer came up, as if seeking the air, and then another. The head poked through, and soon enough, a second one extruded itself and lay motionless on top. The third one did the same.

Deena waited, aware of her ferocious hunger and the strange tension in her five sinuous legs. Her body, of its own volition, reared back on two limbs and lashed out the little animals. The tentacles flashed in a blur of motion and wrapped just enough of the tips around the little beasts to grasp them. To Deena's horror and her body's apparent delight, her craw opened beneath her and her limbs threw the creatures into her gullet.

Strong muscles contracted and she forced them into her stomach. If she'd been able to observe herself from the outside, she would have seen the prey hanging in suspension, paralyzed, and already being quickly digested in her opaque figure.

Shocked, Deena merely sat. As before, her stomach rebelled at the sudden nourishment after so long without, but she didn't allow herself to expel the food. Deena fought to keep the meal down until, incongruously, the sand stirred again. I must be above a nest, she thought. Another creature poked through the crust, perched atop, and peered about.

In this reality, patience and stillness paid dividends.

Deena grasped the little beast, but instead of ingesting her prey, she remembered the little one in the cave. God had put the infant in her care; it wouldn't do to let a baby starve to death. Clumsily she turned and undulated back into the cavern. The small one squirmed but didn't cry. There wasn't any sound in this place. Even her movement over the gritty sand made no noise. She couldn't hear the grating under her limbs or against the mouth she carried beneath her.

Deena's locomotion was becoming more elegant with practice, and by the time she reached the child, she felt comfortable in this body. She grasped the small creature with two tentacles, rolled the baby over, and shoved the prey into the gullet of the land squid, withdrawing her tentacle when the digestive juices stung her a bit. She was none too gentle.

She patiently waited while the smaller version of herself dissolved the animal she'd introduced to it.

Deena had two daughters and two sons back on Earth, grown now, thank God, as they'd all been a trial to raise. One son had married and built life of his own. The younger boy, too, was out into the world. One girl married but the other, well, she considered herself a career woman, for however long that lasted.

Deena taught her girls that work was fine but family came first. Deena had worked out of necessity, but also for the control she craved and the pride she felt at being able to do so. Her own kids hadn't been easy to manage. Going to work gave her what she needed. Nothing satisfied her like being in control of other people's lives. She'd thought she could make her children into little versions of herself, but her assumptions hadn't turned out to be true. In many ways, work provided the satisfaction she couldn't get at home. Though she received payment for it, she knew she'd deserved more money and respect from workers and management alike.

Certainly, life was a trial. God didn't make life easy, but Deena had stuck to the script and tried to apply it. If the heathens wouldn't conform, well, they'd be going to hell. Then they would regret not listening to her. A lot of supposedly God-fearing people went to church and "talked the talk" but didn't really get it. Such fools. When she was human, she waited for her children to understand, still hoping that they'd come around to her brand of thinking. Life had a way of knocking the hell out of people, even if someone taught them the correct basics growing up. Deena made sure her kids learned those lessons. They would realize the sense of her teachings someday. Too bad she wouldn't be there to witness and enjoy their eventual comprehension.

Controlling other people's lives because they depended on a paycheck was fairly easy. They were trapped since they needed to feed their families and maintain their respectability by working the same job day after day, month after month, year after year. They became miserable and were treated badly and none of that mattered. For Deena, being in complete control over employees gave her great joy. Those who wouldn't submit to her ministration were more than welcome to quit as object lessons to others. In fact, she would help them make the decision to leave. About half understood and submitted to her ministrations. The rest found themselves out on the pavement.

Family, however, was a different matter. Her children hadn't cared to socialize with her much after leaving home. They rarely came around unless they needed something. Deena dearly loved her grandchildren but they visited infrequently. Her daughters rejected her gifts and spared no time for her. Her sons led busy lives as well. They didn't appreciate her parenting suggestions, even though she'd raised them all successfully to adulthood. Not every parent could say that. Being a mother had been difficult, and she'd sacrificed. She bore their disobedience and stupidity. They seemed unable to appreciate this, too. Although Deena's friends told her that they would after they had their own children, this hadn't happened by the time Deena had died on Earth.

Deena failed to understand why they didn't emulate her.

Now Deena was locked into this bad fantasy. She remembered the car accident and decided this couldn't be a dream; it was lengthy and too complicated and, well, real. Never in her dreams had she changed bodies before, therefore this must be Judgment. No doubt occurred to her. She hadn't realized Judgment would take so long.

The bird thing had ended wrongly somehow, perhaps because she hadn't gone along as she'd learned to do on Earth. God created the birds, too, right? Maybe she should have adjusted to their ways. Early in life on Earth she'd discovered that mimicking her role models kept her from being victimized. She acted the same as the others so they wouldn't hurt her like they did to those who didn't conform. When Deena grew up and become skilled enough to have a family of her own, and friends of her choosing, she led the pack among peers similar to herself. It was only natural to grow up to lead and have others follow or be weeded out. Her parents and their relations and friends told her throughout her youth that this constituted adulthood, and they'd seemed proud of her. The more she conformed, the more she grew to appreciate the examples her family had modeled for her, but her own children didn't follow in her footsteps. They resented her lessons and the way she taught them.

Perhaps she'd been too soft with them. Maybe she shouldn't have worked so much. She would have been able to more directly control and influence her children if she'd stayed home, but the money wouldn't stretch far enough. Anyway, it bored her to be home with them every minute of the day; she'd wanted to work. Her kids didn't turn out like she'd expected them to, and that was the price she paid. In fact, they were damned similar to those she'd run off the job for years. The perverse nature of children made them turn out different from their parents. She hadn't failed; she was a victim of circumstances.

The difficult lessons, of course, produced tears, anger, and resentment. Deena thought she'd been hard with them, but perhaps she should have been harder. All kids experience growing pains, she told herself this many times. Children were more difficult to control than adults with familial obligations. She could have done a better job of denying them their treats, bringing them fewer presents, and not letting them do what they wanted unless they behaved as she demanded. Some of that she did, of course, but maybe she hadn't done enough.

All this flowed through Deena's mind as she watched the little land squid digest its meal and become more alert. The baby snuggled against her and went back to sleep as Deena contemplated whether this child came from the animal she now inhabited.

When she'd been a bird, she found it impossible to know whether she had any children. Birds became independent once they learned to fly. The bird's body could have laid many eggs and fed the chicks until they left the nest and she wouldn't have recognized them. Deena took a moment to wonder what had happened to the soul that occupied the bird before her. Did birds even have souls? It didn't really matter. She didn't care. It was all God's will, not hers.

What, she thought, can I get out of this situation? Here I am in an alien body, in a difficult landscape, eating strange creatures, caring for a helpless child. Where are the others? There must be more. This creature wasn't born from the sand. And why am I out here in this cave alone with a dependant kid? Is my family around somewhere?

So Deena decided that when they both became well enough, they'd look for the others and find the answers to these questions. Then she would go along to get along, which she talked herself out of as a bird. She'd grown beyond this in her human adulthood after she became the one others needed to please. Oh yes, and now she'd gained another opportunity to teach a child these life lessons, to help it grow and teach it to succeed like she had. Perhaps the reason she found herself here today was to try once more to educate this one to behave properly, to succeed where she'd been foiled on Earth. Raising a child to surpass her own success and powerful ability to teach others to do as she bid them might just be the test God was challenging her to pass. God wanted her to be more God-like.

Frightened and confused by its parent's thoughts, the little baby sought comfort the only way it knew. It snuggled closer to Deena, as if in childish agreement, which was just the sign of confirmation she needed.

When they were strong enough, Deena and the small squid left their haven. They both moved elegantly now, in a sort of sensuous undulation. The baby stayed close and Deena became somewhat annoyed at its dependency, which impeded her movement, so she frequently pushed it away.

From the entrance to their cave Deena had observed several types of prey and their behavior. She successfully fed herself and the child. Tracks in the grey sand attracted her attention. Because of their similarity to the ones she made when finding and capturing food.

Once in a while, Deena spied movement in the distance, undulating bodies which seemed to enter and exit at the same location on the horizon. She headed in that direction.

Closer to this place the sand had been trampled by many tentacles and all the food captured and eaten. Presumably any prey straying in to the area didn't live long.

Deena flattened out and slowed as she neared the entrance, but the little one failed to follow her example, so she slapped it down hard. You'd better learn to do as I do, Deena thought angrily.

The warmth and dryness out in the open provoked in Deena a strong desire to enter the cave. This urge echoed in the small one. She heard a timid voice in her brain whining about the heat. She sent the thought, shut up, to the child and then blocked the annoying noise from her mind. The kid would learn.

However, she experienced some anxiety herself as they approached the tunnel's mouth. They moved slowly. The child's thoughts once more touched hers, complaining, and begging to get into shade and shelter. She mentally slapped its thoughts away again. The kid was so distracting.

The landscape grew hotter and drier and somehow and even more grey, suppressing activity.

Her ward became quite slow and annoyingly uncoordinated. Deena relented and gathered the little one up in her tentacles and carried it into the cave's mouth.

Instantly they cooled. She released her burden and they pressed as much of their outer covering as possible against the cool, sandy walls and floor. The child recovered somewhat so they moved along the tubular cavern, descending deeper into the cold, slightly moist rock. The tunnel opened into a communal area where they stopped. Many creatures, like the one Deena found herself in, occupied the large space. She heard them all thinking towards her. The beasts didn't stop their activities or turn to face her, as the squidish animals were faceless, but they were well aware she'd entered.

Feelings of discomfort and alien-ness surged in her. She knew about this; as a child on Earth, when unsuccessful in her social world, Deena had experienced the same dejection. Now, as then, she understood her exclusion, the shunning. These animals considered her an outsider and unwelcome. The thing she'd become had done something to offend the whole--what, tribe? Pod? Herd? Whatever.

Deena knew how to turn this around, so she groveled by pressing herself against the ground. She willed the little one to follow her example. It obeyed immediately, fearing the whip of its parent's tentacles or mind again.

Good, Deena thought, it does learn.

She reached back into her childhood memories and used the tools that had worked for her then. She apologized, not just, "I'm sorry," but real self-abasement. She let them know she understood her mistakes, and her transgression would never happen again. I've learned my lesson, and I want to be with you and don't like being alone. Please, please, please, she thought to herself and projected to the others, please let me prove myself to you.

The creatures formed two lines in front of her, and at the end, the largest creature swayed. They waited, still pummeling Deena with their disapproval and dismissiveness. Deena recognized a gauntlet when she saw one.

As a human child, Deena had experienced a psychological punishment the moment she disobeyed, ignored, or disagreed with her parents. This demonstration was a physical representation of those bad moments. On Earth, the adults and older children all found ways to humiliate her. Sometimes they hit her, and the other kids fought with her. Not just her mother and father, but the whole family, and even friends got a turn punishing her. She'd used the same technique on her children, getting friends and family members to join in helping her to discipline them. This was also the way she behaved at work, getting those smart enough to go along with her to humiliate the employees who didn't. People either obeyed Deena, or she and her coworkers got ride of them. Here, though, the group turned on her.

Deena believed she'd be alright. She would go along to get along, until such time as she could make the decisions and lead them. Deena understood. So she suffered the gauntlet, which was psychological but not physical. As she undulated through the passage between the lines, the tentacles whipped around her threateningly from both sides, and she endured the humiliation. They didn't touch her or the little one and they shielded the child from their mental onslaught. Deena couldn't know how the creature she now animated had misbehaved before her arrival in its body, but she relished the idea that one day they would all discover the mistake they'd made in punishing her. She prepared to bide her time.

Deena stood in front of the largest one of them and the damned thing thought to her in the most dominant of tones. She stopped herself from thinking of dominating because she could never let this Dominant One know she planned to take its place and become the ruler. She'd have to develop her plan slowly, finding those who thought like she did, who would accept her superiority, and make a coalition. She suppressed her own thoughts and experienced only the Dominant One's disgust for her. Groveling, she pressed her body into the cave floor, releasing the kid somewhat from her control, but still impressing upon it the need to be servile. The smaller squid suppressed its own fear and confusion in order to avoid retribution from its parent. The Dominant One carefully shielded the little one from the force of its feelings as it overwhelmed the parent.

After the punishment ended, the creatures undulated gorgeously back to the activities they had abandoned when she'd arrived, and the Dominant One gave his orders to Deena, which she obeyed.

The chastisement continued. Of course Deena received the worst chore, it amounted to latrine duty. In this case, a particular cavern in which all did their dirty business needed constant cleaning. She found herself scooping the stuff out of the cave with only her tentacles and dumping the feces down a shaft into an underground river. She couldn't hear the splash or the roar of the water up through the deep hole, but felt the humidity, disturbances in the air, and the vibrations in the rock. She was expected to clean this area several times a day.

Deena had cleaned her share of restrooms in her time, but with disinfectant and gloves and brushes. Raising four children had destroyed all of her former squeamishness, though she worried about the lack of tools. She was forced to use her limbs to carry the deposits to the shaft. At least they were solid. Careful not to ever touch her dirty tentacles to her mouth, she had to hold the ventral maw above the filthy floor even as the muscles she used to do this burned. Twigs or leaves which would have been useful didn't seem to exist on this planet.

Wearily, she traveled up a hilly tunnel to a small above ground spring and pool to clean herself after her chores. She was the only one who utilized this particular water source. Considered tainted and befouled as the latrine cleaner, she alone washed in this water downstream of the bathing and the drinking pools the others used.

Between cleanings, she learned better than to discipline the child, or put a corrective tentacle on it. They coddled their children unbearably. They tolerated behavior Deena considered annoying. She would have punished the child into silence and stillness for it, but Deena learned her lessons well. She behaved only as they did, in her effort to earn their forgiveness, if not their respect. Someday, she'd be the one giving the orders, and all this nonsense would change. Fortunately, the little one stopped thinking at her and didn't do much except ride along on her tentacles. At least it had learned not to whine and complain into her mind. She'd corrected that annoyance, and the lesson hadn't been forgotten.

Deena discovered that if she stayed far enough away from the others, she was unable to sense their feelings or hear their thoughts in her head. She assumed they were unaware of hers as well, and so she made her plans while she cleaned the latrine. When she had to be with them, she blanked her brain and deferred to them absolutely. In the potty, she hated and fumed, but in the common cave, she prostrated herself and groveled.

One of the only kindnesses they showed her was to take the child off her tentacles, though they probably did this for the child's sake. They took the little squid and placed it with others, and worried at first because it would not communicate at all.

Deena grew strong in body. The latrine duty became routine, so much so that when she'd cleaned the hall, she washed up and went to the communal area to mingle with the other adults. They didn't allow her to tend the food; the algae-looking plant that the others scraped from the walls with their ventral mouths. She wasn't permitted to feed just anywhere, as they did, but only at a special section set aside for her, lest she contaminate the growth. Best of all, the child wasn't permitted to eat with her or be with her at work. This spared her its constant cloying, and she wasn't forced to treat it in the manner the stupid creatures required. They doted on the little ones. Deena found their parenting repulsive.

She did not recognize the final problem in time to do anything about it, being thus removed from the normal way of life and shunned by members of the pod. The parents drew her child out of its fear and confusion, and its thoughts thoroughly shocked and dismayed them. They didn't understand at first, and thought the baby was deranged in some way. But as they loved it into even more relaxed and trusting states, the small beast revealed all to them, and they found themselves mortified. They began to comprehend that, as Deena seemed to conform, she plotted to control. She would not accept or reconcile herself to the society which they all deemed so good. Her sickness became evident and the creatures, in order to save their way of life from her madness, decided to do a thing that they had never, ever conceived of doing before. In this manner Deena changed them, even beyond the child's revelations of her thoughts and feelings did.

During those times when she roamed among them, Deena blanked her mind of her own thoughts, mirrored theirs back to them, and mimicked their behavior. They were not male and female, and had no sex, thank God. After the bird adventure Deena welcomed their sexlessness. They seemed to be a family unit, and all shared the few duties, consisting of tending the algae and the children, except, of course, the latrine duty, which she was relegated to for punishment.

Once in a while, a new creature appeared, small and helpless, and tentacle-less until a few days later. She didn't interact with the babies, or feel love or any emotion about them. She simply needed to observe, so when she took over, she would understand their culture, physical attributes, and limitations in order to rule them. She witnessed the little spuds come into existence by budding off the bodies of a single parent, and separating to plop unceremoniously on the floor. From then on the adults lavished attention on them, which reminded Deena of some of the humans she'd known. Their children were soft and cried easily, expected to be hugged and catered to, recoiled from harsh looks or words, and thought themselves smart and special. They were so unlike herself as a child, and her tough and self-sufficient children, who didn't require much attention once they'd been taught to take care of their own needs. They understood how to dominate others rather than getting hurt by them, and to band together and ostracize anyone who turned against them. That was smart. According to Deena, two kinds of people existed: soft and hard, victims and victors, losers and winners. Those who planned, dominated, while others were fooled, cried, lost, and ran away. That's what these creatures were; pathetic, whiny failures. She despised them.

Deena would teach them how to be strong, hard winners.

Too late Deena found she had been thinking aloud in the communal cave, providing the group with the confirmation they needed. They realized the parent was deranged, not the child. Deena seethed as the Dominant One bore down on her. She saw no way to escape. The buds were all being hustled into one of the passages leading away from the hall. The rest of the adults encircled her. The Dominant One raised itself up in front of her now.

They pummeled her with their disgust and abhorrence. She realized not only had she slipped up by not guarding her thinking in the communal area, but they bombarded her with her past thoughts and feelings: the ones she'd had while cleaning the latrine, out in the desert, and back in the little cave. They had divined her viewpoint from the child; the creature had betrayed her by snitching to these holier-than-thou horrors! She defended herself. She opined fiercely about the way they'd ostracized her, and how wrong they were to do this just because she thought differently than they. They should try to understand her and not abuse her.

She didn't compare her predicament to the many times she had put people in exactly this same position back on Earth.

THWACK! The Dominant One had snaked out a sturdy tentacle and sent her flying.

SMACK! CRACK! Others joined in and punished her, too.

Still Deena thought furiously at them. She searched for one she could reach, who would sympathize, and found none. Not one of these beasts appreciated her point of view, just as she hadn't cared about her victims.

The horrible creatures lashed Deena, but she refused to discard her own beliefs and submit. They might beat her to death, but she would never agree with their wrong-headedness.

Beat her to death they did, to protect themselves from her wrong-headedness.

Again Deena came to consciousness, thinking of the birds that had not come to harass off the predator, about the land squids who had cast her out and killed her, and of the child who had betrayed her after she had fed him and had taken him back to his... whatever.

Her pain was enormous, as usual. Deena feared this was becoming a bad habit. This time she wouldn't even pretend to try to play their game or seek others similar to herself, of like mind to support her and back her up. Instead, she would dominate quickly. This wasn't Earth, this was nightmare. The rules differed. Thrice she had been, what, transported? Twice she had failed and had been betrayed. Not again.

Noise attracted her attention, sounding like shouts. She opened her eyes and moved her body carefully. Of course, something was wrong with it. She lay in a sticky, warmish pool. She unstuck herself and sat up. A corpse reposed next to her in elegantly embroidered robes.

This couldn't be good, so large an expanse of blood, around a dead man who looked like a nobleman of some sort, and shouts that were coming rapidly closer.

Deena crawled away from the scene of carnage, and from the yelling, down a stone hallway. As she fumbled, she assessed this new body. Excellent. This one seemed human and moved as a human's did.

Running now, holding her slashed left arm across the puncture in her ribs, she coughed up little bloody chunks until she cleared her lungs. A little fresh blood came up.

Why she kept ending up in these destroyed bodies she couldn't fathom, and the phenomenon was getting old fast. This body seemed miraculous though, and compared to the others was fit, athletic, and finely tuned. Deena reveled in this one, and in her ability to manipulate it even though it had been mortally damaged. She had learned to let the bodies do what they did in each incarnation, because they seemed to have some kind of physical memory, or something. Inside, no personality remained, and if she didn't fight the body, but instead allowed it teach her about itself, things went much more smoothly.

This one seemed to block the enormous pain as she moved. The agony registered dimly as she pushed out of a wooden door into a cold, dark, flagstone street. Some buildings rose up above her and the heavy metal-strapped planks closed on the shouts which had come close, too close. She needed to flee, hide, and escape.

Deena glanced up and down the fog-laden street. Decision time. She decided to follow the slight grade downhill. She ran, her shod feet slipping on the slick stones. This reality appeared sort of medieval and her mind pondered this as she navigated the slippery, cold passage. Her children had gone to a Renaissance Fair. Those robes on the corpse had seemed similar to that style.

"Kate!" Someone said close by. Deena turned.

"Here, Kate!" The figure spoke English and made the universal hand gesture for come here.

Deena went.

The man looked human. He put his arm around her and dragged her through a door, throwing a bolt after them.

"Shhh!" He pushed her onto the floor and sat down with her. Deena panted and coughed up the last of the clotted blood. No fresh, bright red fluid appeared. Good.

Deena managed her breathing with long deep breaths, more slowly each time. This body was fit and the muscle control exquisite. As a human, Deena had been a fat woman with a huge gut. Hypertension and high cholesterol had plagued her, a victim of her own cooking. If she had known a body could be like this, well, this was something.

The mob moved past, checking doors and making enough noise that Deena and her new companion were able to easily follow their progress along the street. When the sounds of search receded, the man struggled up and pulled her gently to her feet, taking care not to pull her arm away from her side.

"We must make the rendezvous. They won't wait after dawn."

Fine with Deena, she let him support her as she moved with him through the building to another barrier of metal-strapped planks that opened onto a different road. He propped her up against the wall near the doorframe, pushed the door open and looked out. The street seemed deserted. He backed in and put his arm around her waist again, pulling her out into the cold. They hurried up the cobbled road, away from the faint noises of the searchers. Deena had little trouble with the marvelous body. As they gained the hilltop by hugging the buildings, the view opened up before them. Two small moons hung low in the black sky, and a larger one was barely visible above the horizon. Few stars were perceptible around their heavenly glow. A cross street slanted downward to the left and leveled off to the right. Some uneven ground stretched ahead, and then a lake, or sea, reflected the moons. They crossed the road quickly and plunged into the rough, slowing to cut down on the noise.

The long hike was hard going. Deena's sturdy boots helped, but she had lost so much blood. Her heart pounded and she was dehydrated and achy. The man was clearly dragging her when they stepped out onto the beach. She used what little energy she had left to keep her arm clamped to her side. As they gained the open area, some figures came out of their hiding places in the shrubs at the edge of the sand. They picked her up, and one supported the man who'd gotten her this far. Others dragged a small rowboat into the water.

The ocean was salty and frigid. Deena passed out in the arms of her supporters as they placed her in the boat. The strong rowers hugged the coast. The forest grew thicker, the cliffs rose, and the land curved, so the little band could no longer be seen from the shore. They slowed their rowing into a more rhythmic cadence.

Deena remained unconscious until after the sun came up. She lay on a rough, wet pad in the bottom of the rowboat. A rescuer pushed thick cloths against her wounds with both hands. The rowers still worked; sweat dripped from their faces even though the air was cold and damp. Fog had risen. Deena heard shouts along the coast now, not of alarm, but of direction.

When they reached the right place, figures came from the beaches to pull the boat to shore. They lifted and carried Deena. Again, she passed out.

Deena woke slowly, her mind fuzzily muddled by what she feared were drugs. The room was small and dark, and she lay on a comfortable bed, from which she had no desire to rise. The scenes of her escape from the bloodied hallway played behind her eyes like a movie. She looked around, but couldn't identify much in the darkness. A slit of sunlight seemed to be shining through a gap between heavy, dark curtains to her left. A glint of light beyond her feet caused her to raise her head until she perceived a mirror. She tried to sit up, but straps held her down and her side screamed until she forced the pain into the background.

Sometime later, a door opened and closed to her right and a figure walked unhesitatingly to the curtains. His soft shoes shuffled on the uncarpeted floor.

He thrust open the draperies, blinding Deena. Before she shut tight her eyes she glimpsed a large, blond man in full length robes. He seemed human.

"Ah, Kate, my pet, you are awake, I see." The voice, strong and clear as a bell, belonged to a man long used to speaking in public. He pulled all the covers off of her in one draw, and proceeded to unbuckle the straps that held her. Deena tried to sit up but was unable. The man shoved his arm behind her back, pulled her forward, moved the pillows around her, and then loomed over her. Putting his hands under her armpits he hoisted her up so she sat with her back against them. She groaned.

"You seem well enough, my dear, and your mission has been a wonderful success," he said as she struggled to push the pain aside and catch her breath. "Lord Darion of Ruby Shire is dead as a doorknob, and you deserve a vacation, as soon as you're healed. What do you say about that?"

Deena thanked God that she was dealing with an English speaking human when she said, "Excellent."

The man had a large head and blond, almost white hair, pale blue eyes and a clean shaven face. His golden colored embroidered robes appeared to be fine velvet. His visage instantly turned ugly.

"Excellent, what?" he demanded flatly.

Deena knew he required something of her but she didn't know what. She stared at him hoping for a clue.

His face flushed purple before his flattened hand smashed across her cheek.

"Excellent WHAT?" he screamed. He slapped her again. "Excellent WHAT?"

"Excellent Sir?" she said weakly. She would have liked to have kicked him in the balls, but she could hardly move.

"Sire! Sire!" He screamed. "Why do you deny me? I feed you. I house you. I give you excellent work so well suited to your personality and training, and yet you..." He stopped and put one hand on his head in frustration, the other on his hip, and then he stared at her and said in a more reasonable tone, "Every time you return home from a mission you're this way. You make me beat you again. Every. Time. Just once I'd like you to come back and remember your place without my help."

"Yes, Sire," Deena said in a calm manner. You pompous ass, I will kill you, her inner voice threatened, though.

He seemed surprised. "Really? Well." He relaxed his stance. "Have I finally beaten some proper respect into you?" he asked rhetorically as he paced around the bed. He had been so afraid of her. Perhaps he'd knocked an acceptable deference into her, at last.

Not likely, Deena thought as she realized that once again she wasn't in control by any stretch of her imagination. In her condition, she couldn't take him, but with this body, she would, in time. She imagined slapping this pompous ass until his cheeks bled.

"Well, good then," he said as he turned on his heel and strode toward the exit.

Incongruously, a security keypad was secured to the wall, which he hid with his body as he entered the code. He slammed the door behind him.

Deena took careful stock of her situation. She wore dark blue cotton pajamas. The binding on her forearm allowed her to fingers move just fine. A bandage encircled her lower ribs and she was bruised and scratched. Her room, small but clean, was furnished with heavy dark objects: a nightstand, a large dresser, an even bigger wardrobe, and a vanity with a mirror. The bed was narrow and piled with pillows and comforters. Thick tapestries of courtship scenes hung on the walls. The walls were constructed of stone. Large wooden beams and planks crossed the ceiling. The space seemed medieval, and yet the warm draft of forced air heating reached her in the bed.

The keypad clicked and the doorknob turned. The door propped open two inches. She saw the outline of a small figure and the gleam of an eye. She said nothing but waited and soon it opened wide enough to admit a tray carried by what looked like a servant girl. A guard followed her in and stood just inside.

Ah, servants, very nice, Deena thought, and breakfast in bed. This will be worth taking over. I'll live like a queen. Hell, I'll be the Queen.

Deena contemplated where she would have been living and what she'd have been doing as if she'd conquered the other scenarios, and reveled in her good fortune. She thanked God. He did work in mysterious ways.

The servant stood beside the bed and Deena heard the dishes clattering. As she pushed herself up straighter with her healthy arm, the girl flinched. She didn't run away though, and instead set the tray on the nightstand. It was wooden with short folding supports. The girl pulled Deena's bedding back up over her and fussed a bit, and then unfolded the legs and placed the tray above her lap. She backed out and the guard did the same, closing the door.

Oh, this is lovely, Deena thought, and she inhaled the smell of steak and mushrooms and eggs-over–medium, a bowl of fruit, and coffee. Excellent.

Deena devoured the protein which her body craved and polished off the sweet grapes and strawberries. The coffee she savored, and when the girl came for the dishes, Deena had her remove the silver-looking carafe on the nightstand and put it beside her.

She couldn't get over her good fortune. This was worth everything else, and as soon as she killed the no-good, robe-draped freak, this place would all be hers. Perhaps she'd imprison him in a dungeon. Medieval castles had dungeons, didn't they?

This shell was miraculous, and in less than a week, she stood in front of the vanity mirror, admiring her new self. The body seemed human and was female, although it had a boy chest, and large joints and bones. Long and lean, it looked like a growing teenage boy's. She was reminded of her sons, though they'd been shorter and stockier. At about nine years old the boys had been smaller versions of this. Her new body required large quantities of food, and even after the meal, she still felt hungry. Maybe when the healing completed the hunger would ease up a bit. The long muscles became round and meaty as she contracted them. She had little fat and the tendons and veins stood out prominently. The hands and feet were large, the head neat, with brown hair sheered extremely short, and she sported scars everywhere. She even had a blur of tattoo ink on the back of her right shoulder, but the tat was obscured by what looked like healed burns. She couldn't make it out. Her eyes were brown and her skin seemed tanned, or was she just dark all over? Had she been in the habit of sunbathing nude? During her long days in bed she noticed that this exterior had the effect of not glowing in the moonlight as had her white human coating, but instead seemed to help her disappear into the shadows. If she was indeed an assassin, as she suspected herself to be, then this would be a positive attribute. Dark hair and eyes, and a hide that blended into the night; this, she could work with. The body wasn't beautiful, but was well suited to certain types of activities, and pleasurable thoughts of those filled Deena's imagination.

In the wardrobe Deena discovered her clothes; at least, they all fit her like they were hers. She found black leather pants and vests, and fine cloth slacks and shirts. Short and long cloth and leather jackets, and thankfully, cotton underwear and socks were in supply. She tried on the black leather pants that laced up the front, and a black cloth shirt which pulled on and tied at the neck. Its sleeves were puffed and elastic snugged the fabric close, but they fit over her bandage. The boots she found in the closet matched the color of the pants and didn't they look in style just like the army kinds? Yes they did, and they were comfortable and sturdy and the lacings provided support for her ankles. The perfect assassin-in-repose outfit!

She decided the building was faked medieval due to the heating and cooling systems and a glorious modern bathroom which she'd been enjoying. That silly pompous ass was living some sweet kind of fantasy here.

When Deena knocked on the inside of the door, she heard a guard keying the pad before opening it. The uniformed man held a dagger before him in his right hand; his left extended and pushed her back. Another of her jailers stood behind him, also with his short, deadly weapon drawn.

"Kate?" the guard in the front asked.

So, her name was Kate.

"I want to go for a walk," Deena said.

"Can't you wait until the castle is asleep?"

"No. I'm bored."

"Sleep. The night guards will take you out."

"Isn't there anywhere I can go now?"

"You can go to the courtyard when you have recovered sufficiently to train. Lord Steven has ordered us to keep you in your room until you are well enough to spar with the others."

"Take me out now. Some exercise will help me heal."

"The Lord..."

"Screw the Lord."

Both guards grinned.

"We'll be punished and removed from duty, but we're tired of this anyway," the guard behind said. The front one nodded and affirmed, "It's boring."

They stood back and she walked out into the stone hallway. The guards detached themselves from the doorway as she entered the hall and they followed. They, too, dressed in silly costumes. They'd grabbed spears from wall mounts and replaced the wicked looking daggers in their belts.

Deena wandered the castle, for castle it was, and peered out of the narrow windows at rooftops, agricultural fields, and beyond these, an excellent forest. The farmers used primitive implements, and their horses drew wagons. All the work seemed to be of human and animal labor, no trucks, combines, or tractors were in sight.

She followed her nose, and found in the lower depths, she found a modern, gleaming, stainless steel kitchen. The staff offered coffee and a meal of Cornish game hen, bread stuffing, and green beans. Other than serving her, they stayed clear. She sat at the end of a long countertop near the door, and the guards did not eat, but stood silently behind her.

She ate everything except the bones and the plate, got up and left her mess right on the counter. With servants, she would never have to clean up, prepare food and cook, make her bed, wash her clothes, mop a floor, or a scrub a toilet again. Deena swelled up her chest and straightened her spine, and with her head held high, she walked through the halls in the direction of the deep clear voice which she recognized as that of her captor. The guards became a little nervous. She strode into the room, exuding all the power she imagined she possessed. The blond man's blue eyes turned toward her, but held no joy or welcome in them. Quite the opposite.

"Ah, feeling better?" He asked, glaring at her. Then he stared at her guards. The knowledge that they were both in trouble hadn't stopped them from coming, which was a bold action. This fact did not escape him.

Deena contemplated along equivalent lines. The men had followed her into their commander's den, obviously against his will. They didn't respect him, and were willing to endure punishment to do as she pleased. If all the soldiers felt the same, she would be in control in no time. Power engulfed her. She envisioned cutting this fool's throat, taking over his kingdom, and rewarding these guards.

They'd stayed about ten feet behind her, far enough away to not be able to stop her in time if she took action.

A robed man, who'd been sitting at the table, stood. He looked tired and was elderly, small, and brittle. He also appeared intelligent.

"Ah, my good friend, is this your pet killer?" the old man asked in a surprising baritone. He had recognized that Its form followed Its function. "I've so often heard rumors. Am I to understand, since you are introducing It to me, that you won't be, shall we say, trying to overtake my throne anytime soon?"

Deena felt hot anger coming from Lord Steven.

"Will you excuse me, Lord Cline? I'll be but a few minutes. Please, avail yourself of the brandy while I'm away."

Her captor turned to Deena and his hand squeezed her above the elbow. His steely grip pinched into her nerves; his strength was impressive. He hauled her out into the hallway, out of sight of the other lord, and the soldiers followed. Then he grabbed her around the back of the neck with one large hand and squeezed the nerve bundles on either side.

"You stupid bitch!" he snarled through gritted teeth. "How dare you roam the castle against my orders? And you two," he snapped his head around in fury to take in both guards, "Why do you allow her to wander into the hall where I'm talking to her next target. Now he knows what she looks like. You're supposed to keep her out of sight. I don't know what you were thinking, but perhaps a lashing will remind you who your master is."

Lord Steven made a guttural sound and didn't wait for an answer. He walked rapidly, forcing Deena down the hallways until they came to yet another thick, wooden door. With angry, snapping movements, he unbolted the lock and threw her out into the courtyard where she pinballed off some soldiers sparring there. She righted herself in time to see him strike one of her guards in the face. Unsatisfied, he kicked the other in the groin, dropping him to the cobblestones.

Turning to her, he said through gritted teeth, "You work here until dinnertime, when we'll have another little talk." He kicked the retching guard until the poor injured man scuttled away from the abusive foot, and then Lord Steven left, slamming the heavy door. The bolt dropped back into place.

The guards had courted public abuse and humiliation from their 'Lord', which Deena found interesting.

Deena absorbed herself for some time in observing the courtyard activity. So this was where she'd learn to fight. She'd have to mask her ignorance as well as she was able by blaming her injuries. If this didn't suffice she'd claim a head injury and memory loss. No, that could be dangerous. Someone who thought she'd forgotten her skills might seek to end her.

In short order Deena would discovered that when she just let her body take the lead, it reacted with routine precision. She learned to control her strength and speed to match her sparring partner's, to get the most out of training with the least damage to either herself or her partner. The body taught her to be wary, and how to respond, and she learned fast. This turned out to be the first of many decades of study. Deena, in time, would become an excellent fighter. She'd be fitter than she had been in the other incarnations, had in the whole of her bizarre lifetime, and what she had once perceived of as a nightmare, she began to think was a special blessing.

His Heiney Lord Steven changed her keepers but left her alone for weeks. The vacation talk didn't happen. He ordered the new watchmen to keep her in her quarters and only escort her to the courtyard every other day. He reinforced their obeisance with the torture of the last ones. However, the night guards often let her roam the castle with them in the early morning hours. They liked and respected her very much and thought it a good idea to be friends with, not enemies of, the assassin.

Deena learned fast, and enjoyed her fantastic new body, but the boredom of being locked up and policed made her anxious. Her guards were compliant, as the former had been, and told her those two had survived their ordeal. The soldiers hated Lord Steven, considering him abusive, disrespectful, and undisciplined. They were, in effect, slaves, pledged to a master they didn't respect.

The meals were good and her quarters comfortable. For a while she was able to pretend her injuries kept her from sparring as well as whoever had inhabited this marvelous skin before had. Still, she had much to learn. She let the body's reflexes take over and she sparred with her partner while watching the rest practice around her. Often this led to strikes and throws she could have prevented had she been paying full attention. No one criticized, and over time she became skilled to give many others a good sweaty workout, even though she did seem to lose her concentration sometimes. She watched, she fought, and she learned.

Lord Steven acted as though he owned her, and maybe he did. Deena needed more freedom to explore the grounds, take in the landscape and people, and make plans. Everything seemed so medieval, although with upgrades, and Deena decided these folks were just playing at it. They had created some sort of society, with historical trappings, but more recent conveniences. How far did this illusion go? Did other types of fancy regions exist nearby, or modern cities? Did the medieval fantasy encompass all?

No work came her way, and as Deena became healthier, she needed Lord Steven to visit her. She wanted to negotiate more freedom, and get some answers, but couldn't figure out how to make him come to her. The guards were quite sympathetic, and she didn't want to attack them, or put them in jeopardy. She wouldn't risk losing their good will. She made friends with them because they might be useful later. So she did the only thing she could do to bring him to her; she killed the maid.

The stunned guards removed the body. Deena didn't answer their questions. As good as they'd been to her, she wouldn't take them into her confidences. As she waited for Lord Steven's visit, she enjoyed the view through the slits in the thick stone walls. This castle had double pained glass windows, unlike the original castles on Earth. The sun shone on the rooftops below and on the hay fields beyond. This should all be hers; she had only to figure out how to take it.

Just as she'd surmised, the loud, angry voice advanced through the halls. His fingers punched at the keypad on the wall. Fairly spitting, he barged into the room, slammed the door behind him, and came straight for her, the fool.

She stood erect and proud in her superb body in the middle of her quarters. His momentum was such that all she had to do was step aside, hook his foot with hers, and give him a little shove. Deena grinned wickedly as Lord Steven pitched forward, flailing to avoid ramming headfirst into her sturdy wooden dresser. He recovered well and was still on his feet when he moved toward her in a menacing manner. His contempt was divine. Deena knew all about arrogance, being arrogant herself, but she'd also recognized its weaknesses. She'd learned her lesson the hard way, and so would this man.

Lord Steven still foolishly thought he controlled the situation. He stepped up to her in his intimidating manner, about to strike, when she stunned and amazed him by grabbing him by the throat.

Deena dug her fingers into the sides of his windpipe, cutting off the insult, and smiled as a look of surprise flash across his features. His complete megalomania had set her up marvelously. He began to raise his hands to knock away her grip on him, but she squeezed harder and said quietly, 'No."

His arms fell to his sides and he glared grimly at her.

Deena bathed in the glory of the moment, marveling in this miraculous body: so strong, well trained, and quick. She stared at the large hand gripping the fool's throat and played a bit, squeezing, relaxing, watching him grimace and turn darker and lighter shades of purple. The evil grin didn't leave her face and he grew a little frightened.

Never before had Kate assaulted him. He thought he had her properly cowed. She'd endured whippings and beatings, constant surveillance, the withdrawal of food and water after she misbehaved and one long stint in a stinking dungeon cell She'd had to sleep, urinate, and defecate on the floor, and eat a gluey porridge only once a day. He thought he'd broken her to his will. He'd lived to rue his ignorance.

"Alright." He managed to choke out.

"Alright!" He choked out again when she didn't respond.

Deena, stiff armed him to the hard vanity bench and forced him to sit. She released him and let him rub his throat. He attempted to talk while trying not to pass out.

"What do you want?" he managed to get out, arrogant still. He mistakenly thought this was a negotiation. "More dessert?" he sneered.

Deena focused her laser-like attention on him and he seemed to shrink back a bit.

"I'm bored," Deena said. "I want out of this room. I want to roam the grounds and talk to people..."

"No one will talk to you, killer," he spat out.

"...and I want you to speak to me with respect. I'll sit at your table every night and eat what you eat..."

"Have you gone mad?"

..."and visit with your guests. Tell them whatever you want about me, hide my identity, I don't care, but I won't be your slave anymore."

"You have gone mad. I purchased you. I own you. You're supposed to be some kind of trained fucking commando. You barged in on my meeting with Lord Cline, your next goddamn target. Now he knows what you look like, you freak of nature, how you move, even that you're female! He's told his guards and all the other lords about you. You'll never get past them again. You stupid bitch! How am I to take over the whole planet if you can't kill the rest of the fucking lords?"

Lord Steven's face suffused with blood. Deena wondered idly if he might stroke out right in front of her.

"I'm so important to you but you treat me like this?" It was Deena who snarled now.

He looked around.

"What? This fine room? That magnificent bathroom? Gourmet food? Better than you deserve."

"I kill for you to make you more powerful and wealthy and this is what I deserve? How would you go about this without me?"

"Are you saying you won't assassinate for me anymore? What good are you to me then? I might as well have you killed."

"Good luck with that," Deena smiled. "Why don't you do me now? Give it your best shot."

Deena spread her arms out to the sides in invitation. For a split second, it seemed he would take her up on her challenge, but he reconsidered and the angry energy flowed away. He glanced at the door and calmed down.

"I know your skills. I realize you could easily take me. That's why I was so harsh with you. You have a place here, in my kingdom, with me. Yes," the wheels spun in his mind as Deena glared, "I can see it now. You deserve better. You'll be my partner and sit at my right side. My protector! My advisor! You'll eat at my table and yes..." cautiously he squirmed sideways off the stool, stood up, and looked around without losing his awareness of her, "...I'll find you a better room, a glorious suite befitting your new status. And robes. A horse. Whatever you desire. I'll start outfitting you today." He went for the exit. She moved too, and placed herself between him and his escape.

Sure, Deena thought, until you manage to poison me.

"I need a food taster and a contingent of guards, my own picks, answerable only to me, starting with those two," she nodded her head toward the hallway, "and the men you removed and tortured."

Lord Steven slumped a little and his eyes narrowed. "Now I don't think that's necessary."

"I do."

"Kate," he pleaded, "don't you trust me?"

"No."

"Stop," he said angrily. "What do you want? Tell me what you really want."

"I want what you have - everything I'm securing for you by murdering your peers. What's to say they won't send someone after you? Someone like me? Or make me a better offer to get rid of you? You need me. And in exchange for your generosity, I'll let you keep your life." Deena said. For a while, she thought.

Lord Steven, standing very still, blanched. For the first time he realized he was alone in a locked room with a killer. He could yell, alerting the guards to come in, but the pass code entry would hinder them. They'd be too late. He'd recently become aware they preferred her to him. The lord gathered himself and stood humbly, his palms up and out, like a supplicant.

"I understand, Kate. You want your freedom. You have indeed been good to me. You've enriched me... us. You deserve all you ask for and more. For my life, I will grant you your wish."

"We understand each other?" Deena asked.

"We do," Lord Steven deferred with false merriment. "Come, I imagine it's lunchtime now. Wait 'til you taste the meal we're having."

They walked to the door, eyeballing one another.

He keyed in the code in her full view, and gestured her through the doorway. She insisted he go first which he did, and she stared at the back of his head as they walked down the hall. He was nervous at having her behind him, and turned to motion for her to come forward and walk next to him. She did, and he looped her arm in his and patted her hand.

The guards stared at them, at each other, and followed in silence.

Deena knew he schemed even as they went to supper. He'd have to get rid of her, but if he did, his plans would be thwarted. Who else could do what she did? Apparently he didn't have another like her or he'd have told her he'd use the other to kill her. He must now be trying to devise a trick to gain control of her once again. She'd insist on the guards and food tasters right away, and glanced back at the two following. She knew by their stares that they wanted her guidance, her orders, and maybe an explanation. They'd have them soon. She grinned, wolf-like. As her bounty increased, those loyal to her would be rewarded.

Lord Steven wouldn't find a way to enslave her again. He'd give up all of his plans, strategies, tactics, and secrets in exchange for his life, and then he'd be killed.

Lord Steven did, indeed, die, by slow hanging in the courtyard after a lengthy and humiliating 'trial'. He was judged unfit to lead by a jury of soldiers, which Deena presided over. Her guards, among others, testified against him. His chronic and often severe abuse of the warriors they extolled at length. At first, he tried to defend himself, but eventually, he resigned to sitting glumly to await his opportunity to debunk their accusations. He never got his chance.

While he slowly died, bound and hung, his neck unbroken, gasping for air, the soldiers ceremoniously proclaimed Kate their new Chief Commander. Deena exalted in their glory and the admirals pledged their undying allegiance to her in the actual throne room.

Marvelous. Finally. Success, she thought as she reclined in the gold gilded and massive wooden chair carved with wreathing flowers and birds aplenty. Why the man had had such a feminine appearing seat was a ripe speculation, though it suited Deena just fine. The finery obscured the reality of her black heart, and softened her strange appearance.

Deena knew her own deviousness well, but her serfs wouldn't. To them she'd present a finer, gentler, fairer image. They'd be industrious, cherished, and protected, in order that they would supply her and her soldiers' needs without complaint, delay, or rebellion. One personality she'd use on the soldiers - the nearly real one, and another she'd develop for the gentler types, a fiction they'd adore.

At long last, Deena had triumphed.

Deena sat at the sumptuously laden table and watched Lord Cline of Emerald Shire walk forward, escorted by a unit of her guards. She had summoned Cline and he had come. Of course, he'd been given no choice.

The old man kneeled on one knee for her, which must have cost him dearly, considering his age and the creaking snaps his joints sounded. He waited for her to release him.

"Lord Cline, how generous of you to accept my invitation," Deena began. "Please sit and enjoy this fine meal with me."

Cline appeared pleased that she hadn't chopped off his head for her entertainment. The guards had to help him up and into a chair because he was feeble, but also terrified. This encouraged Deena.

"Thank you kindly, Lady Kate," Cline boomed in his deep voice, surprising from such a decrepit visage. "I must admit I expected execution."

Deena laughed heartily.

"Lord Cline," she said, "a beheading may well be the conclusion of our meal, as yet, depending on your demeanor during our visit."

"I assure you, my Lady, you have my full and undivided attention."

"Excellent. Try the wine, an older vintage." She smiled, speaking in a sing-song cadence, "I found the wine cellar."

He did taste it, never taking his eyes off of her, and involuntarily a look of pleased surprise passed over his wrinkled features.

"Most excellent," he exclaimed.

"You amuse me," Deena said, "and the pork?"

Quickly and obediently he tried the chops and was again pleasantly surprised at the juicy, rosemary-infused flavor of them. He hoped they weren't poisoned.

"Lady Kate, may I compliment you on the standards you seem to be keeping?"

"Of course, and I assure you I expect flattery and fawning. In fact, I insist."

"My great honor is to gratify you and it is no effort at all. I'm quite impressed."

They ate in silence, broken only by an occasional wordy compliment spoken by Lord Cline, until the plates and glasses were removed. Strongly flavored vanilla ice cream and coffee were served for dessert.

"My favorite," Deena stated.

"And mine," Lord Cline agreed truthfully.

Deena smiled genuinely.

"We seem to have many things in common," Cline said, attempting to make a connection with the killer. He knew he played for his life.

"This seems to be so," Deena finished. Quickly the table was cleared by silent servants.

Cline was surprised and pleased when Deena rose and invited him into the sumptuous private lounge just off the dining hall. As in that room, a fire roared in an enormous fireplace, trying to chase the cold damp out of the stones. Kate was clearing some of her forested regions, presumably for more agricultural area, and consuming the current stores of seasoned wood without reservation. The furniture was made of high quality hardwood and leather, the shelves were stocked with the excellent books of Earth and Faire, and Deena offered Cline a cigar from a humidor filled with precious, Earth style cigars. Well known for its tobacco products, Golden Shire traded planet wide. The servant, who otherwise stood silent and still to the side, poured brandy for them. Deena dismissed the waiter from the room as soon as Cline settled his old bones into an upholstered leather armchair which engulfed him.

As Deena sat opposite him, a small table beside each seat and the rosy fire mellowing the light, Cline said, "Lady Kate, your hospitality is first rate and I'll report so widely. Rarely do I enjoy visits with the lords as much as I have this one, and yet, I am nagged by the terminal doubt this shall be my last. Will you kill me tonight?" Cline dipped the wetted end of his cigar again into the brandy in his glass.

"I appreciate the candor," Deena replied, "but the answer depends entirely on your decisions."

"What would you have of me?" Cline asked calmly, though Deena could see his thin, bony chest rising and falling almost spasmodically.

"I insist upon your total and complete allegiance," Deena demanded.

"Done," Cline answered.

"The deeds to your lands and properties."

"Done."

"Your soldiers' absolute loyalty."

"Done."

"Your serfs' lives."

"Done."

"I will have your children's and descendants' enthusiastic, enduring, and compliant allegiance, without complaint or deception."

Cline bowed his head and said, "It's with exceeding pleasure to honor you thus and bequeath all that I am and own to your ladyship, in exchange for my life."

"These agreements will be legally bound in writing, documents to be held by me in perpetuity, dissent punishable by death."

"I would expect no less from as formidable an oppon...um, ally, as you," Cline turned red as he realized and corrected his insulting mistake.

Deena chose to cut the old man some slack.

"Excellent. There will be a formal proceeding. My lawyers, their staff, and my soldiers shall begin inventorying Emerald Shire properties tomorrow. You are more than welcome to occupy the castle and throne and maintain your lifestyle. Production must remain at peak. You'll provide ongoing hospitality for my advisors, their guards, and the soldiers, and you'll observe total and complete obeisance to me, and me alone."

"It will be my absolute pleasure, Lady Kate, to serve you, and as my first act of deference to your authority, may I assure you that as the oldest, wealthiest, and most powerful of the lords, I pledge my considerable leverage in turning the allegiance of the rest over to you."

As Deena smiled and smoked and sipped, Cline wondered what had just happened. How was Lady Kate impossible to deny? One felt something in her presence. The willingness to submit to her desires and to subsume one's own permeated him and controlled his behavior. Her generosity was rapidly becoming legend. All the lords and their soldiers were aware of her deadly exploits, the stories propelled most likely by her propagandists. Her kingdom soon would be one of peace and productivity. Her ambition defined her and everyone understood she'd soon enjoy ownership of the region if not, in time, this entire world. Little opposition existed yet. Everybody adored, or at least, compliantly obeyed this deviant killer. Cline would not, on his life, buck the trend, nor would his issue. His and his relations lives depended on their obeisance, so he'd make them understand. It was a generous offer, to be allowed to remain in his own castle, on the royal seat, enjoying the fruits of Emerald Shire until his life ended, hopefully in a natural manner. Yes, she'd made quite a desirable deal with him, considering the alternative.

People whispered that Steven had taken four days to die.

All the lords were required to attend the transfer of authority, and they did, with their ladies, lawyers, and admirals in tow. The ceremony was magnificent. Deena's kingdom was festooned with flags and ribbons. Musicians roamed the streets and vendors manned their booths. Soldiers in full regalia obtrusively lined the boulevards and accented the castle. Deena had layered her magnificent physique in the finest of golden colored silks. An orchid wreath adorned her head, and a gold, ruby and diamond jewelry suite she'd found in Steven's, now her, vault draped her for this stirring occasion.

The lords, ladies, lawyers and admirals gathered in the largest hall at the appropriate time, after sampling the wares and gaiety of the outdoor festivities. They had brought their offspring, as had been ordered. Lord Cline's entire family, upper level staff, lawyers, employees, many of his high ranking soldiers stood in the front, decked out in their finest. The throng in the grand hall had parted, allowing Cline's serfs to bring in and display a seemingly endless supply of valuable gifts, which were then taken to a vault under many eyes of what seemed to be a whole platoon of guards armed with firearms. Deena had found the weapons stored away in a secret armory deep under the castle.

The giant gold gilt throne had been hauled up onto a dais so Deena could look down on the entire crowd. In front of her sat her legal advisors on finely carved, elegant chairs. A long, narrow, highly polished table was before them, cut from a single tree, upon which the binding legal documents rested.

For six hours the gifts continued to arrive and to be presented: gold, jewels, exotic foods and plants, textiles and artisan crafts, paintings, tapestries, sculptures, furniture, and even serfs who had special talents. Cline had emptied his castle and his kingdom of all but the necessities and had even offered to give Lady Kate his own platinum gilded throne. Deena insisted he keep the royal seat. "Every shire needs a throne for their king," she'd told him, while thinking, I own you and your damn chair anyway, regardless of location.

Only the youngest of the children were allowed to sit on the floor when they couldn't stand any longer. No one's attention was permitted to wander. The soldiers who lined the enormous hall three deep had strict orders to awaken every dozer with spear butts or tips if necessary, and haul up any sitters. Rarely did the guards have to break ranks though. The process fascinated the on-looking lords who wondered when Deena would force them into the same spectacle, widely recognized be a matter of when and not if.

Finally the procession of goods came to an end. The lawyers waited until most of the comments and rustling stopped, and then the head council read the contract aloud.

"Hear ye, Lords, Ladies, Lawyers, and Admirals, and all assembled here this forty-fifth day of the Reign of Lady Kate of Golden Shire Kingdom this binding Proclamation: that Lord Cline of Emerald Shire Kingdom does bequeath and deed the entirety of his lands, property, buildings, streets, and other nature and improvements thereupon, including produce and production both now and in the future, all the natural constitutions of his Kingdom, his castle, throne, advisors, soldiers, and serfs, and the complete and total obedience and obeisance of him and his heirs ad infinitum, to Lady Kate of Golden Shire Kingdom. Any breach of this contract now or at anytime henceforth shall constitute a criminal act punishable by any means conceived of by Lady Kate, for any length of time declared by Lady Kate, up to and including complete and total destruction and annihilation of Emerald Shire Kingdom and all within, including serfs. This contract shall never be discussed with another individual or group not currently in this room, without direct consent of Lady Kate, under pain of death."

When the declaration ended, complete silence filled the hall. Not even a baby cried.

"Lord Cline, step forward," the lead council demanded.

"Sign here," he pointed to the proclamation and handed Cline a quilt pen. Cline signed, stepped back, and bowed deeply to Deena, who smiled and bent her head to him. Those who had been so directed began to clap loudly, and continued until every observer was clapping. The massive sound rang hollowly off the walls and out of the opened windows into the ears of the ignorant serfs in the streets below.

Guards threw open the huge double doors and the lords and their entourages were herded into the Great Dining Hall, where the party continued long into the next week. Though celebration was mandatory, the splendor of Lady Kate's bounty impressed every guest. In direct contradiction to her inhumane tyranny, the people thereafter referred to Deena as The Generous Lady Kate.
Part Three: Redemption

Agnostic: One who holds that the ultimate cause (God) and the essential nature of things are unknown or unknowable or that human knowledge is limited to experience.[ii]

The Sheriff's Department Space Cruiser Mark Burgess was a long way from home. Its target had been located close to the imagined line separating the region of space controlled by the Union of Galaxies from the Wilderness. The fight ship had last been observed here and in fact still operated just past the border. Its cunning owner would never allow the profitable business to drift into Union space, but he skirted the edges near the planets closest to the limit. Consequently the proprietor made itself rich beyond measure off the boarding fee, betting, and concession purchases of Union citizens.

Several members of the Rotagonian Space Force had witnessed the target inside this floating spectacle just outside their boundaries. Rotagon, a planetary member of the Union of Galaxies, contracted with the Sheriff's Department Space Force for additional protection in the outer spaces around their planet. The Rotagonian Space Force protected Rotagon inner space. The soldiers had reported seeing the construct to their superior. Word of the sighting had been forwarded to the Sheriff's Department and went up the ranks to grace the desk of the Sheriff. He shared the file with the Union of Galaxies Civilian Board of Directors. Discussions ensued. They decided to send the Space Cruiser Mark Burgess to investigate the veracity of this report.

Within the confines of the SDSF Mark Burgess, Captain Frank Jensen, Delgado Whitaker M.D., and Commander Leesl Reehn examined the reports above the holotable. They flipped aside the original sighting report and looked over one from Earth. This document described the target as a construct created on Earth in 2049 for use in combat and security. Earth had transmitted this information to the Union's Civilian Board of Directors almost a year ago within a hastily compiled historical document transmission.

Constructs had superior, resilient, carbon fiber composite skeletons, and humanoid bodies had been grown around them. Their original genome had been altered by replacing specific genomic regions with fragments of the DNA of a variety of species, chosen to enhance certain characteristics desirable for warfare. Primarily human, the constructs' introduced animal traits increased their longevity, stamina, strength, and the ability to suppress pain and heal rapidly. Their muscles were particularly dense and the connective tissues stronger than a human's, but more elastic. They were able to regrow organs and flesh lost in battle or to removal. Their immunity had been manipulated at the molecular level to allow their bodies to accept the alien grafts, and also so they wouldn't experience disease. Dr. Whitaker found this most impressive.

"These are lost sciences. No further information on the project was transmitted before the pox overwhelmed Earth. Other than this one report, everything else we think we know regarding the constructs is folklore. If we retrieve this thing we'll learn volumes about that time in our history."

"Not to mention the immunity." Leesl stated. "Doc, is this a crapshoot? Could immunity still be present in the construct after all these decades?"

"What we have here is a creature whose immune system has been enhanced. During the construction, scientists introduced into them an experimental series of cocktail DNA vaccines. The inoculants were developed from samples to protect them from all then known human diseases. Since these constructs are the only ones humans ever created, and the details have been lost, today the science is theoretical and no one can answer that question until we retrieve one and do some exploring."

"Didn't your ancestors sell the survivors to spacers?" Reehn asked.

"Those that survived our expansion into space were sold, according to legend. The receipts in this report might support that rumor, look, but they need to be enhanced. I can't read them," Doc replied.

"Only twelve remained of the two hundred originally created," Captain Jensen said.

"No others have been found? Just this one?" Leesl asked.

"None have been located, but these receipts may help us find them," Doc repeated.

The Captain took a moment to forward the documents, with orders to enhance them and send them back ASAP. "The other eleven constructs could be anywhere. They're probably out in the Wilderness, or someone would have said something."

Doc agreed. "We got lucky, Frank, Leesl, so lucky. Earth managed to send the information out and an Attempt to Locate was issued throughout Union space. Some Rot fighter jocks went on leave and spotted this one, and they weren't too stupid to report. That the creature is so close to us is a miracle. If this is our construct, we must get the thing back. The Interplanetary Institution for Disease Control and Prevention identified the pox as a combination of possibly up to four different pathogens. God knows how the Nams manipulated the diseases, or where they got the original material. Maybe they attained a construct and reverse engineered from the thing's immunity. Otherwise they somehow went into our infectious disease banks on Earth and took samples, which suggests human culpability. We can study the construct's genome and may be able to discover how the vaccine cocktails were developed and recreate them. This might work, but if not, my colleagues are working on developing vaccines from samples of victims. One way or the other... and, in case you hadn't heard, three more worlds initiated quarantines in the last two weeks."

"What does that leave you with?" Leesl asked.

Captain Jensen answered. "All the human inhabited trade planets are quarantined. Only the planets which are self-sufficient and allowed no outside contact remain unaffected. Four hundred and seventy-eight of the eighteen hundred cruisers and five thousand of the twenty-two thousand military ships escaped infection. Today five thousand four hundred and seventy-eight functioning vessels and their crews are still active. That's five million military personnel and two hundred thirty-nine thousand Sheriff's Department personnel. We've lost Earth, the original colony worlds, except for the self-sufficient, and we're losing the trade planets fast."

"We're running out of time," Doc said.

"And people. There'd better be a construct in that arena ship, but how do we get the thing out? Buy it?" Leesl asked.

"The Board convinced three Rotagonian gamblers to try to purchase it. They're Union contract mechanics who've patronized that business for the nearly the length of their entire adult lifetimes. As you're aware, Rotagons enjoy double the lifespan of humans. These three confirmed the fighter has the exact physical characteristics the constructs are described to have. They confirm that particular creature's been headlining on Spauch's ship as long as they've been betting there. They reported they'd seen the construct take such a horrible beating once they thought it must have died, but later they saw it fighting again, and have since," the Captain said.

"Could there be more than one on that ship?" Doc sounded hopeful.

"That's not the general consensus. The fighter's introduced as 'Ghe-nye'. The gamblers think there's only the one, but I imagine Spauch may have purchased more. Maybe he rotates them. We can't know until we get those receipts back and even then, they're slaves. He might have sold, traded, even acquired more from whoever purchased the others."

"According to the Attempt to Locate describers and the descriptions from the packet, the constructs look similar," Leesl said, flipping through them again. "Why so few pics? Their construction must be documented, at least."

"This is all that we received. Earth tried hard to get significant information off the planet before the population succumbed. We're lucky to have this." Doc paused in thought. "If the same construct is being fought over and over, that's proof of its lifespan, healing capabilities, and pain tolerance." He flipped through the holo document. "The female gender and breast suppression was theorized to keep the warriors own distractions to a minimum. No sensitive bulges to worry about smacking, though urinating is easier for males than for females in combat and crowded situations lacking privacy. I guess since they're all females with extreme physical skills, the possibility of rape is nullified. They can't reproduce and don't menstruate. The wonder is nothing went wrong. Here's a brief sentence about 'qualities of attraction' lending themselves to natural leadership, an apparent side effect they didn't count on that turned out to be useful."

"If the owner of the arena ship owned two or more, he would fight them both. So we can presume he only owns the one. He's all about the money, which is why we can't buy the construct from him. It's one of his best fighters, has been for nearly two centuries. Anyway, if this is a construct, which one it is doesn't matter," the Captain poked the holo and retrieved the enhanced receipts, "but these show that the construct designated as 'G-9SRO25T' was sold to 'Spauch' in 2060." He touched the holo again. "Spauch is the current and historical owner of this arena ship."

"One hundred and sixty-three years ago. How long's Spauch been in business?" Doc asked.

"As long as anyone remembers. Centuries, maybe a millennium," Captain answered.

"So if this construct is one of Spauch's best fighters, he won't sell. Spauch owns the ship and the slaves and makes his fortunes off them. I don't suppose he'd let us borrow the thing or even give it to us to save your race?" Leesl asked.

"Spauch is a Tzlotzl," Captain said.

"That's a negative," Leesl said, "so how do we take this thing? We can't buy it; we can't appeal to Spauch's better nature. We have no leverage." She touched the display. "The ship has big ordnance, an army, fighter planes, and pilots. Can we steal it?"

"Can we?"

Leesl scanned for a minute. She found the information she needed. "This ship's design is alien. We don't have and can't seem to acquire the blueprints. A lot of goods were offered to what were thought to be the few traders who might have the designs or know how to get them. Nobody came up with anything," Leesl said.

"I don't like where this is going," Doc sighed and leaned back.

"No, Doc, you don't," Leesl agreed. "We may ultimately be forced to threaten Spauch with the end of his existence unless he turns the damned thing over to us. We might need to back up our threat. We don't know who Spauch's allies are in the Wilderness, and we'll be threatening and possibly destroying one of the Union planets' favorite sources of entertainment."

"Just us? This ship? Don't be foolish," Doc said.

"No, not just this ship, the Department fleet. And probably the military. I don't see any other choice. The pox is close to ending the human race. We must force Spauch to turn the construct over to you."

Frank corrected her. "Three cruisers are on the way. Too many ships are in dry orbit because of the pox. Incursions are becoming a problem on most of the Border so the armed forces are stretched thin. We can't expect any help from them. We're expected to get this done ourselves. The remainder of the Force is occupied securing the outer spaces of the worlds closest to the recent perimeter incursions. On the other hand, several planets have stopped paying for protection we obviously can no longer provide. We're going to pull back and give up Union space. We must acquire the construct before we lose territory, since the Border will contract. We don't want to be caught operating outside the new borders in the Wilderness.

"Spauch is a business man. Somehow we must affect a deal. The action we're discussing is illegal, which is problematic. We'll be threatening a ship operating across the Border in the Wilderness where we have no jurisdiction or even any right to be. We've little intelligence on what exists out beyond, and nothing about the kinds of connections and support Spauch has. We can't predict the reactions our actions will provoke," Frank sighed, "and too few of us are left to defend against any response."

Leesl spoke. "The arena ship is fortified but won't expect this kind of action. No records exist of anyone who's ever challenging Spauch. Who threatens entertainment anyway? Perhaps he'll choose the least damaging course available if we're able to convince him we'll use force unless he turns the creature over. He's in business; he won't want to spend to repair his ship, not to mention the concessions he'll lose while he's in dock. If we don't take the construct, or we do, but can't get what you need, it's only a matter of time for the human race anyway - a short time, unless Doc's colleagues are successful. You're a species without a home planet and your numbers are dwindling. You're not the formidable force you once were. You can't presume the allies will defend you. The planets on the Border are already canceling trade agreements and pulling out of the Union of Galaxies as the Space Force loses the ability to protect them. My planet, by the way, pulled out and requested I return."

"Humans may survive," Doc said. "The four self-sufficient planets will endure. The deputies and support personnel on the uninfected Force cruisers, and what's left of the military, are taking the necessary precautions by avoiding human inhabited zones, and getting parts and provisions from non-human Union members," Doc stated. "Sabotage is possible, infecting us through supplies."

"I thought the pox was introduced by the Nameloids. If this is true and they want to wipe out your species, they'll try to infect the self-sufficient worlds and the remaining Space Force and military ships. How are the diseases disseminated?" Leesl asked.

"The Nameloids are technologically advanced race," Doc answered. "We can be infected and re-infect ourselves by physical contact or pneumonically. They contaminated material we handled. Pox was discovered on Earth almost two years ago and spread quickly through the colonies, the planets they traded with, and their trade partners. The virulence is astonishing. The entirety of the Union of Galaxies is contaminated. Whole crews contracted pox on human inhabited planets and from repair and supply depots in space. We're lucky we discovered this before we all became infected. We've abandoned regular protocols and our non-human allies are supplying us with tested elements for food production and water. Even the mechanical parts our engineers require to keep us in space are sterilized by them.

"All humans on Earth are deceased, as well as the inhabitants of the worlds we originally traveled to. Non-human traders report the Nameloids have moved onto Earth. The last of the quarantined trade planets will be void of human life in another two months. We don't know whether the Nams want to wipe us all out or if they only wanted Earth. Even if our target provides what we need, we can't help the infected. We can save ourselves, what's left of the Force and the military, and the self-sufficient planets. Once we've successfully synthesized enough vaccine to immunize the ships, we'll supply the rest. I'll admit, though I won't say this to anyone outside this room, I'm glad I'm on this ship," Doc concluded.

"What's the ETA of the other cruisers?" Leesl asked the Captain.

"They'll be here at 0600 hours tomorrow," Frank answered.

"Okay," Leesl sighed and stood, "I'll brief my people."

Spauch's medical personnel disabled and cut out the foreign devices they found in the six new slaves. The medicals wondered amongst themselves why the sellers had not removed the subcutaneous communication-location implants, since Spauch's doctors were reputed to remove them. What a stupid oversight, just giving away good com-locs to Spauch. For what reason had Spauch purchased the human specimens anyway? Humans were soft and so, well, defenseless. They discussed these things in their quiet language while cleaning and packaging the tiny instruments for storage, and handing them over to the courier for delivery to the massive units below. Spauch would sell the instruments when the ship arrived at the markets.

Chief Deputy John (Jack) Knott, Commander Lenore (Lee) Phong-Nguyen, Captain (Pak) Pakinajasool, Sergeant Sullivan (Sully) McTiernan, Sergeant Kim Jones, and civilian observer Daniel Abbas ibn Spralja, naked and still bleeding from the extractions, were hauled by their captors through hallways lined with cages. All of the occupants were alien; none of the aliens were familiar to the negotiating team.

The devices encircling their wrists and ankles were lighted tubes which wrapped themselves around their body parts like octopus tentacles exploring glass bottles in old nature films. The three 'arms' came together behind each captive and joined into single, thicker, solid white tube extending to a control handle managed by an alien. These guards were all of the same species.

One by one the guards released the new slaves into the small jail cells, consisting of vertical and horizontal bars, a hole in the floor to crap in, and that was all. Their cages were far enough apart, with many in between them, so they wouldn't be able to communicate with each other.

Captain Jensen woke up quickly, arose, and sat at his holotable. He fingerprinted the green circle and watched his commanding officer appear, head and shoulders, in front of him.

"Commander," Captain Jensen said, instantly alert.

"Frank, the Rots shafted us. This affects your mission. We had a five member negotiation team and a civilian observer on Rotagon when those bastards suddenly decided not to re-up and arrested the unit for espionage. They've been sold to Spauch, and have already been transported to the arena ship."

Frank was rendered uncharacteristically speechless.

"Frank?"

"George, yes, I heard you, I just don't believe this."

"Neither do we. The Rots arbitrarily redrew their Border. I'm sending you the revisions."

A map of the new Border appeared next to the Commander. The co-ordinates blazed neon red.

"You're in the Wilderness, Frank, get the hell out of there."

The Commander disappeared and Frank forwarded the information to Navigation.

"Helm."

"Yes, Captain," the navigator replied.

"Bounce us back behind these co-ordinates, double quick."

"Yes, Captain."

Three seconds passed as the talented helmsman programmed the MCEP.

"We're now in Union controlled space, Captain. May I inquire as to why the boundary has changed?"

"A major cluster-fuck, Bill. Make the necessary adjustments."

"Of course, Captain. Helm out."

Captain Jensen went back to bed, clutched the comforter up to his chin, and immediately fell asleep. His ability to sleep anywhere anytime, and rouse and act speedily and think clearly was legendary and widely envied.

I walked down the halls, wrapped in the new shackles, toward the outer door. Well, they were several decades old now, but new to me. I loved those yokes. If you had to wear them, they should at least be flexible and comfortable, and these were. On no occasion had they ever closed on my skin, pinched, or worse, bruised my trachea. They weighed practically nothing, and they never failed to release. The failure of the old contraptions to open had caused our minders endless anxiety. When those shackles malfunctioned they had to be manually opened, which often resulted in injury or death, usually to the guard. Most slaves took advantage of any opportunity. All in a day's fun. Also, the guards couldn't bang these on the cage bars. I liked the quietness.

I hadn't minded captivity once a few decades had passed. Oh sure, I fought the idea at first, until I realized I was never getting out of this place. Twice, depression had set in, and I'd tried to get myself killed in the ring, but this stupid body wouldn't die. The damn thing wasn't fragile like the others, and repaired itself. Also, I felt the blows in the abstract; pain didn't register as distress, which was nice. After a while, the body had overridden my mind, and protected me by killing our opponent, both times. Oh, well. Next I tried to starve to death. Again the flesh took over and I ate. Lesson learned. My soul wouldn't be slipping into another corpse anytime soon.

So I enjoyed myself. Every night they gave us a hunk of roast beast of some sort. I occasionally wondered if the meat came from a defeated fighter, but I pushed the nasty thought away and relished the meals. I very much appreciated the vegetables and the starch, two bottles of wine, and all the water I could drink. When I was exceptionally good in the ring I earned dessert, usually some kind of sweet runny mess with chunks in it, which were not unlike cake. Desert was a tasty treat I merited as often as possible.

I'd never met Spauch, though I'd learned his name. Spauch owned me, the guards and combatants, and the ship. He acted as the house or bookie for the betting done on us. Currently there were five prize fighters, including moi. I'd asked Kek once where the slaves came from and he'd told me Spauch had buyers who went to various planets and bought violent criminals. Routine transports brought the prisoners to this ship.

When I discovered my home was actually a spaceship, my head spun. For decades I'd thought I lived in a big building, a slave warehouse so to speak. The garden ceiling turned out not to be a projection after all, but a view of actual space.

Kek was my usual guard, and when he went off duty his brother Nok guarded me. At least three guards with electric prods still always accompanied us. Those weapons hadn't changed at all.

Kek's and Nok's entire species had been sold to Spauch when a neighboring warlord had decided he'd wanted their planet for himself. Kek's mate Tan guarded the meal server for this section. They pushed the meals through a small gate, and some had lost their arms to those fighters who preferred to eat the living, and had grabbed a hand. Hence the guards. Double door entry for the food wasn't installed because there were enough of Kek's people to guard the servers. Presumably they needed to be kept busy. Tan made sure I always got the best part of whatever beast we were eating every night, or so she told me. She probably said the same thing to all of us primes, which was very politic of her.

When I'd first arrived in this incarnation I found myself still thinking in terms of hours, days, weeks, months, years, but I soon learned time stretched out here. The cycles lasted longer. The waking and sleeping times, and the whole of a "day" seemed more like thirty-two hours than twenty-four. The difficulty of trying to reckon exactly how long I'd been in this place baffled me, so I let go of time - which didn't matter anyway. Eat, sleep, wake, pee, crap, fight, bathe, medical, and recovery: this was my life.

I was only allowed to socialize was in the pit. They always put me in the one on the right - when looking at the arena from the guards' pen - with other primes. We never fought one another. As time passed I learned something of sixty-eight languages. I became fluent in the original eight primes' and the guard species' languages. I mastered the common tongue called Infinite Standard. I spoke many more sufficiently enough to converse in what passed for intelligence in their societies, and comprehended quite a few well enough to say, "Get the fuck away from me now," quite clearly. Some I understood but couldn't speak, and many escaped me completely.

The guards walked behind me through the deactivated door, which reactivated behind us, and into their den. They always allowed only one of us in their area at a time now, just in case.

Also, if a problem occurred in the arena, say, a fighter wouldn't calm down, the audience had to wait until they sedated and removed the thing. This happened a lot, especially with new victors, and certain species.

I waited patiently while Kek was pulled aside for a mini-conference, something about a gate in the other pit sticking. A maintenance worker's body parts were strewn all over the floor of the left fighter cage. Some of the corpse was being eaten. Oops. Accidents happen.

Kek returned and looked me in the eyes. He tried not to chuckle. He grabbed the control handle from Tap and nodded at Cam to open the gate to the right fighter pen, and waited for it to close around the shackles. The second one opened and released me.

The first things I noticed were the six humans sitting on the metal bench closest to me. People!

Of course I played it cool, but I felt a funny little tickle, you know, down there. Strange how strongly your own kind can affect you in interesting ways when you've only been exposed to aliens for decades. I slid my gaze over them quickly and walked over to stand next to Klon, who faced the bars, watching the action in the arena. A frog-like creature jumped back and forth, sticking to the walls.

When Spauch had first started buying them, he installed a sort of clear mesh net over the pit to keep them from bounding out into the audience. The spindly looking frogs were ravenous. This frog's Spleetoid opponent was big and tough, but already missing all four of its upper limbs, the defensive ones. It wouldn't be long now.

Klon laughed joyously. His silver back hair rippled. He loved the froggies, and was the only fighter who'd managed to kill one. Even though the Spleetoid had been a friend of ours for quite a while, Klon wasn't able to restrain himself. As far as I knew, Klon didn't have compassion for others. At least he seemed to be trying to laugh quietly. The Spleetoid turned and glared at Klon. Klon tried harder to control himself but the damn frog unhinged its gigantic beak, dropped off the mesh, and our friend disappeared.

Klon fell apart. I couldn't help myself, I laughed too.

You do what you gotta do. Laughter can keep you alive as effectively as a killer's sense of timing in the ring. It's only a matter of when to do what, where.

I glanced at the humans. They looked a little sick. They stared at me and I realized they chattered in English, which only registered as background noise because I hadn't heard the language in so long. I reached back and scratched behind my right shoulder.

"That has to be the construct," Daniel said. "The thing's humanoid, tall, lean, vascular, and the gender's not discernable. I see ink over Its right scapula. Got to be the designation tattoo."

"But the ink's obscured," Pak said. "That big scar, I can't tell if that's the serial number or not."

"Seems like the tat was straight before the wound distorted it," Sully said. "I can't read it either."

"Is that even writing?" Lee asked. "It could be anything."

Jack stood up and faced the creature.

"G-9SRO25T," he said in his clear command voice.

Nothing happened. The thing didn't flinch or move a muscle, but continued talking to the big hairy beast. They were laughing.

"G-9SRO25T!" Jack said again, louder. This time they both turned to glare at him, but resumed their conversation. He stared at the back of Its head for a moment, but decided to sit down. He was a stranger in a cell full of killers.

"Sull-i-van Mc-Tier-nan."

One of the guards shouted Sully's name in an odd sounding accent, and pointed with his prod to the opening in the fence.

"Sull-i-van Mc-Tier-nan," the guard yelled.

They wanted Sully to fight.

Jack looked at Sully. Sully, an impeccable deputy and a fit young man, appeared frightened.

"Do I have a choice?" he asked.

"I don't think so, Sul."

The guards were agitated at the delay. They packed up near their entrance, getting ready to surge in when the hairy giant that had been laughing with the construct grabbed Sully by the head and tossed him through the open gate, which promptly clanged shut, trapping him. The second one grated open.

"Shit," Sully said, but he walked into the arena.

"Good luck, Sul."

"Kick some alien butt, Sully."

"Smear it into the sand, babe."

"Don't play around. Kill it fast."

"Fist fuck it to death, bro."

They all turned to look at Daniel.

The humans rushed to the bars. Sully rose to the challenge. He pounded his naked chest. He ran around the ring. The crowd roared. The other entrance gaped, and an indescribable horror squeezed out. For a few seconds the humans turned speechless, but then they screamed all the louder, shouting encouragement to their friend.

The animal was a see-through orange mass about one human height tall and six wide. Briefly Jack wondered what kind of planet had produced such a hue. Was the color camouflage, or a warning to predators? The creature rumbled when it moved. Grumbling, the thing oozed out into the arena and expanded to double human height, while skinnying up a lot, then stopped and quivered. The beast seemed to be sensing the audience, but no one really understood what it was doing. Sully played smart and froze. Lots of animals can't see well, or distinguish prey from background, and they cue on movement and sound, which may have been true with the blob, but this didn't matter. The monster struck out a hundred sharp barbs in all directions except down. Sully literally threw himself backwards and landed in the nasty, smelly sand, which scraped some skin off his back. In a smooth motion he rolled to his feet and ran to the middle of the ring.

Smart, you always wanted to be in the center. You never wanted to be pushed up against a wall, because then your options were limited. A fighter could use the wall to bounce off into an oncoming opponent, but unless you knew exactly what you were doing, this could hurt, or even kill you.

Sully pondered how to end the thing as he waited for its next strike. He'd have to study this foe for a while, which was dangerous. Getting too near this opponent was a bad idea. Normally he'd move in close to fight. Sully was now aware that the monster made weapons and extend them at least four feet out from its body. Could it throw something out further? Quicker? Sully had been lucky to be able to get out of the way of the needle-sharp points.

The blob still quivered and sat, waiting. Sully moved. He began to circle about eight feet away. His opponent didn't change its behavior. Sully bent down, grabbed a handful of sand, and threw it. The animal's attention focused fully on Sully for a moment. It made a lashing arm which whipped out. The limb formed a clawed, grasping end that just missed snapping on Sully as he cart-wheeled to the right. As the claw clacked shut and snapped back into the body of the animal, another assembled and jolted out into the space Sully would have been in had he not seen the limb's action while in handstand. As his left foot came down into the sand, he arrested his momentum and pulled his torso backward, pushing off with the planted foot. He landed on his ass close to where he'd taken off from. The claw snapped closed and retracted into the mass with lightening speed.

Sully contemplated the reach of the arms as he rolled away from his opponent, stood, and ran to the center of the ring. He'd managed to move the beast closer to the wall. His eyes traveled up the multicolored expanse. Many mouths were opened in the stands but he wasn't able to hear a sound.

Sully considered grabbing a limb to turn back against his opponent. He didn't have any weapons or protection, not even clothing. His groin ached in its unsupported state, a distraction he couldn't afford, though its nagging was impossible to ignore.

Sully paced in a half circle, ten feet away from the blob, and ended up back where he'd started. The clawed arms had stretched to eight feet, while the needle points had just reached four. There had been multiple needles, but only one claw at a time. Would the single limbs be massive and longer, the many arms finer and shorter? He palmed some more of the heavy sand. He had a good arm; the grit hit the orange hide. Again the creature fully focused its attention on Sully. This time, the deputy stood perfectly still. The monster didn't whip out any arms, but rumbled forward, closing the gap between itself and Sully by five feet. Sully stumbled backwards to increase the distance and another a limb flashed out. As Sully fell again on his sand-burned back, the arm came to a needle sharp point and passed above him, then retracted.

The reach had to have been at least nine feet. His opponent quickly stalked him as Sully crab-walked rearward in a big hurry. The blob gained speed. He had to get up on his feet, which would cost him time. Flattening his body and pulling his arms in, he rolled away, pushed himself up, and ran, circling. The beast had picked up speed and grumbled while moving forward in a straight line. The creature sensed his movement and altered focus, somehow following Sully's progress around and behind. However, the animal continued to rumble in the same direction and took several seconds to come to a stop. Then it sat and quivered some more.

Sully dripped sweat and breathed hard. The abrasive sand covered his skin. His stomach lurched and he bent to vomit, but only liquid came up. They'd not been fed well. The heaves continued and he had trouble getting them under control. Mouth breathing, he pinched his nose shut and watched the orange demon begin to rumble toward him again. Sully began to talk to himself, silently in his mind.

There's no way out. I have to kill it. I will kill it. I may get hurt, but I won't die. I'll survive. There's no way out. I have to kill it. I will kill it. I may get hurt, but I won't die. I'll survive.

Sully continued thinking this mantra as he circled the oncoming monster again. The blob quavered and couldn't seem to make up its mind about what to do. When Sully stopped, twenty feet away, it rumbled toward him. Sully moved to its side and charged in. The beast slowed. A large needle flicked out. Sully dodged, grabbed, and bent the arm backwards at the orange body. It was like bending Jello, but the limb moved and the point cut the hide. A small tidal wave of ooze fell out and plopped in the sand. Almost immediately the wound closed up.

Sully was ten feet away again. The blob quivered menacingly. The spilled fluid steamed and reeked. The odor engulfed Sully, nauseating him. He retched, but stayed upright.

After studying his four limbed, vertical opponent for a second, the creature rumbled toward Sully with a speed as yet unseen. The fighter had gauged Sully well. Moving fast, it closed the space between them by half and then lashed out a claw which snapped around Sully's legs. The crowd took a collective breath. Sully struggled and tore at the gelatin to no avail; the beast flipped Sully onto his side. The claw dragged Sully under and drew him inside the body, suspending him upside down. The creature expanded outward and Sully stretched with it. As he struggled, digestive juices and expansive action simultaneously dissolved and pulled Sully apart, ending his silent scream. The form of the bloated, distended, dissolving human remained visible within the quivering blob as the winner circled the ring in rumbling victory.

At least we won't be eating Sully for dinner, I pondered ungraciously.

The humans looked stunned. Two of them vomited. Three of them turned away and one stared vacantly at the remains of his friend circling the arena inside of the beast.

How awful for them, I thought, surprising myself with by feeling sympathy for the humans. Empathy wasn't part of my emotional repertoire anymore, and hadn't been for a long time, so its reemergence attracted my attention. It'd taken me some time to remember their language, my language, so I'd not followed their conversation well until they'd started shouting encouragement to their friend.

They were in shock; that was plain. I didn't appreciate the vomit, which wouldn't be cleaned up until the fights were over. The odor nauseated me. Nothing had affected me like that in quite a while. My body reacted to them in ways I hadn't since I'd been, well, human. I didn't have long to think these thoughts though because Kek was yelling at me.

"Ghee-nye!"

As I walked to the open gate, one of the men stared at me. He mouthed my name.

"Ghee-nye!" Kek yelled again.

I would be fighting a Saran. In general, they weren't difficult to kill, and you could play with them for a long time, to the delight of the audience. This I planned to do. I looked forward to dessert. My mouth watered.

The Saran, similar to a walking stick on Earth, was what these beasties reminded me of. The only obvious difference was the size; they were as long as a flat bed trailer. Also, their bulbous red butts reminded me of those baboons on Earth. Their heads were on stalks and the flexible body could bend around on itself like a dog licking it's nads.

The face always disturbed me. Their flat faces were gentle-looking and their eyes soft and brown, similar to said dog's. They don't fight well, but climb and kick like horses. They have six legs to kick with and frequently stomped their opponents to death.

I waited in the little cage. They wouldn't let me out because the orange blob took its time with its victory laps, probably savoring Sully.

The crowd ate it up, so to speak. Finally twenty prods ran into the arena from the ingress between the two pens. They hustled the beast to the left cage. A guard activated the small gate and the blob squeezed itself in. Apparently the thing was intelligent; the handlers didn't have to use the prods and it didn't attack them or the other slaves. The guards went in behind the creature and cleared a giant area.

I watched the Saran's legs carefully moving up and down, trying not to step on anyone while making its way forward. It stepped into the emptied space and lowered itself down enough to clear the ceiling. The guards positioned themselves between the Saran and the other fighters. One palmed a DNA ID sensor and a large gate slid closed behind the Saran, trapping the big insect in and the others out. The guard touched the pad again and the large arena gate began sliding open.

The small pens faced each other across the hallway and were built within medium-sized gates. I occupied one and the opposite cage had folded flat. When the medium or the large gates were used, the hind gate closed to segregate the selected fighter, and to prevent a mass evacuation of fighters into the pit. The DNA ID sensors accepted commands from Kek's people, and nothing else.

The Saran turned its lovely head and stared at me through those sad, puppy dog eyes. This one had been around a while, and only five of its six limbs remained. All that was left of the sixth leg was a long stump. Silently I vowed to break the rest of its legs tonight.

Its minders released the Saran, which walked gracefully into the arena and scanned the hopped up crowd with its serene visage. The mass of spectators berserked.

The guards closed the large gate and went through the one at the end of the hall into the safety of their area, then opened the hind gate. The fighters in the left pen surged to the forward barrier and began howling. The gate holding me back opened.

I dashed into the pit as fast as I dared. I ran around the ring close to the walls while the sweet face watched me, and as I neared the remaining hind leg, I sped flat out toward my opponent, leaped as high as I could, and planted both feet. The limb snapped like a dry branch and clear fluid showered me. My soles bruised but no matter, I stood up and kept running because the Saran was turning. Now the beast had only the front four legs and had to drag the last third of its body. This slowed the creature down and affected its maneuverability. I kept to the rear. I stayed right near that red ass until the damned thing tried to shit on me. I moved damn fast then, maneuvering around so I wouldn't have to run through its feces.

The sand wasn't absorbent. Some kind of drainage must be underneath though, because once in a while someone puts tons of water on as if to clean it. The muck then reeks until it dries, which takes about a month and we still have to fight on it. My feet stink so bad I always have to wash them before I take my bath. Spauch actually provides a disinfectant dispenser in the bathroom. I don't know what the fighters in the smallest cages do; they don't even have bathtubs or faucets. A few of them last for several matches. How they sleep and eat with that odor coming off their feet I cannot imagine. Maybe some of them throw their fights to get away from the stench. Of course if they're good enough they're moved to a cell that has a bed, faucet, and a drain in the floor. It's still small, about eight feet square, but at least they can wash the stink off of them.

I'd been trying to stay behind the Saran, which had adjusted neatly to the loss of its fifth leg, and was getting quicker. Suddenly I found myself flying through the air. I enjoyed getting off my sore feet, but the Saran's feet have little spikes in them, which pulled a few chunks out of my hide when it kicked me. I smashed into the arena wall and landed on the right side of my face.

Ow fucking OW! I thought. Fucking nasty sand.

Some skin scraped off, as usual. Involuntarily I retched. My face would stink until I was taken back to my quarters with its lovely bathroom. That made me mad. The anger gave me the hormone boost I needed to avoid the next kick, but just barely. This Saran was fast. One of the hooks caught the meat of my left deltoid and ripped a bit away.

Adrenaline flooded me. As the flesh tore I reached up with my right arm and grabbed the beast. I clamped my hand down and hung on as the Saran tried to flick me off. I managed to fasten my left one on, too, and I began to climb. The Saran really shook its leg now, but I was determined. I clenched my feet on the hard, bumpy surface and rode the shaking out. I got up to the knee joint. The crowd jumped out of their seats, screaming, spilling drinks and food. I was much closer to them than usual, which was a pleasant change of view from the usual bland and bloodied arena walls.

The giant bug got mad. They don't like stuff stuck on their legs. It stopped shaking its leg and put its foot on the ground. The concussion nearly broke my hands free but I stayed on. I climbed on to the limb beam which went straight across to the body. The Saran began to thrash its abdomen and two stumps left and right. I realized they weren't completely useless after all as one sailed over me and on the way back hit me so hard I ended up hanging underneath. I wrapped my arms and legs around and clung tight, nearly unconscious. The head came toward me and the beast tried to bite me. I scrambled away and ended up on the vertical section again, but couldn't hold on. I slid; the lumps and bumps on its hide bruised the insides of my upper arms and thighs. The damn thing flicked again and I went sailing up. I hit the net and landed hard on the beast's back. Winded, I hustled to get a grip on the ridiculous topography.

The crowd was getting a good show. I would definitely get dessert tonight. In fact I was heading for a double portion.

I crawled toward the head. The Saran turned and stalked to the nearest wall. I clung tightly as its front legs scrabbled up and its hooked feet grasped the top lip. I hung from its back as its second pair scratched at the vertical enclosure. Its front feet gripped the net. I couldn't hold on. I tried to climb down toward that red ass as it started to pull itself across the net upside down. The toes of the middle legs clenched the top of the wall. I dangled, swearing. I had to get the hell off, because as I craned my head around, I caught a glimpse of Kek moving toward the pulse control. He stared at me. His hand reached for the pad, so I let go.

I fell, twisting in the air. I cushioned my brainpan in my forearms and smacked the cement-like sand. I landed on my side, curled up, just as the electric jolt stiffened the Saran for two seconds. It shook off the shock and began to quickly climb down. By then I was ready.

My opponent tried to stay above me, but couldn't get a good grip on the vertical wall. As its first leg hit the ground, I took a running flying leap and barreled in, leading with my right shoulder. My whole body smashed through the limb and I collided with the wall, falling into the stinking sand yet again. The fractured ends cut me. The Saran lost its grip and fell in a crashing heap. I leaped up, ran to another leg and jumped, cracking it badly.

Oh, my aching feet.

That was three legs for me, plus the already broken one; only two to go. The insectoid alien thrashed its abdomen, snapping at me with its teeth. The creature still looked sad, the face, sweet. I punched out one eye and dodged a snap as it convulsed, screaming. I stayed clear and waited, eyeballing the orgasmic crowd. I would definitely be getting a double portion tonight.

I ran in and slugged out its other eye, and one of the two remaining legs knocked me down. The injured animal thrashed so badly I crawled away and stayed put. I spit blood and pumped my fists in the air. The crowd was supercharged. Energy surged through me, but I had to take care. I still had to kill the damaged fighter. They wouldn't let me out of the pit until I'd killed the beast.

The Saran weakened. I paced the arena, pumping the audience up, watching my opponent. It stopped thrashing and started twitching. I ran in and grabbed the fifth leg below the joint, stood above the bend, and pulled the other section until I could feel the cracking and splintering though my hands. The thing resumed its violent fit so I hustled away. Again I pumped up the crowd. They frenzied. My opponent lay, breathing, but still.

I walked up to it this time and climbed up on top, standing for the spectators' viewing pleasure. The giant fighter twitched some more and raised its head to face me with bloodied eye sockets. Meat bulged out. I jumped down and broke the last leg. The crowd noise climaxed and held. I circled to face my opponent.

The time to put the great beast out of its misery had arrived. We both understood this. It lay still in the stinking sand. I raised my arms and turned my back to the creature. The air vibrated with energy. I spun toward the face and cocked back my arm, punching through the bloody meat into the Saran's brain. Again and again I slammed my fists and arms in up to my biceps until I wearied and was sure the thing lay dead. Grabbing a handful of grey matter, I pulled them out, lifted my aching, trembling hands high, showing the audience. I plunged my other fist in and yanked out another fistful of brains, raising that mess up for the crowd, too. The blood and gunk dripped into my armpits and down my ribs. I threw the grey goo at the maniacal watchers. The arena shook under the stomping of feet. The sand vibrated and jumped. The net jiggled and bounced.

The prods came out to herd me. They worried about the vibration. I didn't care; I took my time, still exciting the spectators. I reached the small gate and turned to them again. Energy buzzed through my body. The handlers closest to me displayed the voltage; the prod ends sparked.

I stepped inside.

The small gate clanged shut, trapping me in the little cage. The guard gate opened and the prods exited the hall as the pen released me and I walked into the fighter pit. Klon was laughing again. The humans stared at me.

The guards had already begun taking fighters to their dinner during my bout, making more room in both pens.

Kek kicked the enclosure, beckoning me, so I backed toward him. Electric snakes wrapped around my neck and wrists. Kek pulled me backward and waited for the first gate to close before opening the second and pulling me into the guard pen. He turned me to face the exit and after it opened; Kek, three prods, and I went through. When the door shut the noise dimmed.

"Ghee-nye, you almost wrecked the ship tonight," Kek teased me in his language.

"That's one way to get out of here," I answered in kind.

"One way, yes, into the vacuum of space," he said.

"I wouldn't do that to you and your lovely wife."

"You, no, the crowd, yes."

"Crazy crowd tonight, huh? Real blood thirst."

"Blood thirsty, yes. You're covered in blood."

Kek took me to the medicals. They cleaned the fluids and goop off of a patch of my neck and injected the funky juice. When I was loopy, Kek removed the shackles and the guards backed up. The medicals shoved me into the steamer. Some of the most painful antibiotics ever created pressed into my wounds and condensed and washed me clean. The medical personnel made their soft noises as they looked me over. They glued the cuts and tears together and bound them with tape. One put on the glove and held it a centimeter from my face while it sucked the sand out of the scrapes. They sprayed some more of the antibiotic onto the burn. They clucked at Kek and the snakes wrapped my neck and wrists again. Kek maneuvered my now uncoordinated body into the hall. One of the prods gave his weapon to his cousin and helped me stay vertical as I walked to my quarters. They sat me on the little ledge and cleared out.

Yummy, yummy, yummy. Double dessert.

The good thing about being wounded is getting time off. Lots of time. Spauch never scheduled us if we had open wounds or broken things, which would be considered unsporting.

I spent several cycles lying in bed, leaving it only to eat and use my self-cleaning hole in the floor. Three days after the fight, Kek showed up at the barred window. He stood in the darkened hall.

"Ghee!" He whispered loudly.

"Go away, Kek."

"Ghee!"

"Piss off!"

"GHEE!"

"WHAT!"

I sat straight up. Big mistake. Everything screamed at me and the room swirled around. For a minute I couldn't breathe. I forced air into my lungs.

The bruises had turned brown and yellow. They covered approximately half my body, which healed fast, but the damage was bone deep.

"Kek, you asshole!" I hissed at him in his language.

"Yes, you always say that," he sighed.

I managed to stand up and make my way to the ledge, and sat down near where his eyes peered through the bars.

"This better be important. I was sleeping." I cleaned my eyes with my fingers.

Kek was short enough to look directly into my face if I sat down. His people were squat and wide, and as strong as young green trees with deep roots. I couldn't break them or topple them over. As long as I remembered, no one ever had. Not even Klon.

"A human wants to talk to you," Kek said.

"So?" How interesting, I thought, though I didn't show my interest.

"His name's Jon Jak Not."

"No wonder you like him." Kek's people weren't superstitious but they had a thing about names.

"He wants to talk to you. I'll bring him." Kek rushed off.

"Stop! Kek! You'll get in trouble."

Kek didn't wait. He wasn't taking much of a chance though. Most everyone was asleep. The ship closed down several hours every 'day' for maintenance and repairs. The betters and gawkers went to their ships and shuttles; the hangers emptied and shut up tight. Anyone who wasn't caring for the ship's systems slept.

Soon enough Kek returned with the naked human wrapped in the electric shackles. Kek released the outer gate and shoved him in, closed the exit, retracted the snakes, and opened the inner one. The human's eyes had darted around seeking me in the room during the whole process. I was out in my garden, behind the now smoke colored wall. Kek commanded the lights in the quarters to dim darker than those in the hall, in case anyone walked by.

I limped into the opening between the bedroom slash dining room and the garden, and waited for the human to notice.

The construct moved into the doorway from a dark area beyond. The heat of fear rose into Jack's gut. The thing didn't move, charge, or even snarl. It just waited.

Jack stepped forward slowly, utterly naked and defenseless. He'd seen It fight. He knew he was dead if It chose to kill him.

He would try to negotiate.

"I am Chief Deputy John Knott. My friends call me Jack." After a brief hesitation he said, "Please, call me Jack."

The being remained motionless, standing and staring.

It looked like a shadow blending into the background. Its eyes glinted. It was as tall as Jack, six foot, very lean, and vascular. The joints, hands and feet were large, but the head was small, shaved, and the face ruined. The eyes flashed with uncanny intelligence, doubtless borne of Its long years. It retreated behind the smoked screen.

Oh, great, thought Jack. You have to go through the doorway. No, it's okay. He walked forward slowly. You've been through tons of doorways and you haven't died yet. You won't die today.

He stepped past the framing. The construct kneeled in some kind of carpet facing of all things, a large bonsai. The tree, old, gnarled, and short, had a few leaves. The rug smelled moist and...something. Jack hadn't breathed organic since his early childhood. He'd been a spacer most of his life.

Carefully he knelt at right angles to It, about three feet away, facing It. Great, I'm on my knees. I'm dead any second now.

It said something alien and the lights came up somewhat. The smoked wall hid them from view of the hallway.

The creature was covered in bruises and scars.

"Speak," It commanded.

Jack opened his mouth, then stopped and thought. What the hell should he say in the few moments they might be together? He glanced in the direction of the gates. He would have to be fast and succinct.

"I'm a human from Earth, but I live in space," he began. "I work as a negotiator for the Sheriff's Department Space Force. My team and I were renegotiating the Rotagonian protection contract when they suddenly opted out, arrested us, and sold us to Spauch."

"Not slave?" the construct asked, speaking English badly, as if trying to speak a new language.

"No. We're not slaves. Now two of us are dead."

"Not slave."

"No."

"We all slaves," It said slowly. "Guards too."

"No. I am free, and so are my companions. The Rotagonians broke with the Union while we were renegotiating the contract..."

"Some negotiating."

Jack saw It grin. The monster had made a joke!

He laughed, quietly. He didn't want to startle It into any kind of action. Its appearance went neutral again. He matched the expression.

"Speak more," It said, "I forget human speak."

"How do you know English"?" Jack already had the answer because he'd read the Attempt to Locate and the describers, but wanted to confirm that this was indeed the construct.

"I knew."

"Were you on Earth once?"

It hesitated. "Yes."

"You were born on Earth?"

Again It paused. "Yes?"

"You don't remember?"

"No."

"What's your first memory?"

The construct paused for a while, and spent a little longer staring at the deformed tree. Its eyes followed the gnarled curving branches. It sighed and said, "Face in sand."

"In the arena?"

"Yes."

"What about before?"

"No before."

Jack studied the profile, the shaved head, the scars and bruising. Could there be brain damage? Did It truly not remember? Or was some kind of game being played?

"What is your name?" Jack asked.

"Ghee-nye," It said, pronouncing the words with a hard G, and hard vowels; Ge-Ni.

"Ghee-nye, your designation is G-9SRO25T. Ghee-nye, G-9. You have a tattoo on your right scap, your serial number. Your construction began in 2049. Your skeleton is a carbon fiber composition; organs and flesh were grown around this. You were finished in 2050. You trained for four years on Earth, then for six you were used as a soldier in space. You protected Earth and its original outposts with others like yourself, and the human armed forces. Two hundred constructs were created. As the first colonies succeeded and thrived, the people of Earth began to feel your construction and use was immoral. In 2060, the military announced you'd all been killed in battle. You were ten years old. Secretly the government sold the last twelve to other species as laborers and personal servants with the understanding that none of you would ever again enter Terran Galactic Space. Spauch purchased you. Eventually, Terran Galactic Space became the Union of Galaxies when we expanded to sixteen galaxies. The Sheriff's Department contracted with other planets to provide protection in their outer spaces in return for trade agreements. They pay Union dues and they send recruits to our academies. Human militaries protect the Border between Union space and what we call the Wilderness, where we are now. Each trade planet has its own protective military, but their outer space is the responsibility of the Sheriff's Department Space Force, and Union space is patrolled by the human military, because we have superior vessels.

"Rotagon lies within this Border, close to the edge of the Wilderness. Spauch's ship always operates beyond the Border, near the planets inside. Ships and shuttles bring people here to bet and watch the fights. Arena businesses like this one are illegal in our space, but Spauch hovers just outside, siphoning monies and goods out of our Union.

"What year is this?" Ghee-nye interrupted. She was remembering the language.

"By the Christian calendar, 2223 A.D.. You're one hundred and seventy-three years old, or one hundred and seventy-four if you count from the time your construction began. You've been on this ship for one hundred and sixty-three years."

"I'm not human."

"You're a construct, created by humans. They altered the original human genome to increase your speed, stamina, longevity, healing, immunity, and pain suppression."

"Ah!" Ghee-nye nodded her understanding.

Kek kicked the bars, startling them both.

"I need to tell you more," Jack whispered earnestly, "It's important."

Kek kicked again, looked up and down the hall. He barked.

"Kek says you must go now. No worries," Ghee-nye said. "He likes your name. His people call themselves with two hard sounds around a soft sound. Your names are all like that, John Jack Knott. This means something to him. He'll bring you back."

Ghee-nye watched him walk to the gate. A long time had passed since she had seen a man's backside. Carol began to remember everything she had suppressed for many decades.

Kek worked the gates and the electric snakes and the human backed out.

Jack was anxious. For all he knew he would be dead before he could talk to her again.

He didn't realize he'd stopped thinking of her as "It".

Well, hell. Now I wouldn't be able to sleep. One hundred and seventy-three years old. Or seventy-four. I had to look like crap.

I don't believe I've ever had a weirder conversation. Commander John Jack Knott thought he was talking to a Terminator, or more like a Fifth Element, though created by humans for humans. I'd loved all those movies, and the TV shows, too. Fascinating how fast the memories came back. But the original consciousness, or soul (hmm, did constructs have souls?) had fled, and here was I, silly little Carol from Earth, born in 1965, dead in 2008. This meant my personality was, let's see, two hundred and fifty-eight years old in a one hundred and seventy-three (or four) year old body constructed by humans forty-one years after I'd died.

Alrighty, then. Ah, Ace Ventura. You just cannot beat the rhino scene in When Nature Calls for pure comedic balls.

Boy, was my memory firing on all cylinders or what? Speaking English and talking of Earth with Jack had been fascinating. Learning about history I'd never lived through, studied, or imagined was a rush!

But wait! How did the human race advanced to sixteen galaxies in less than two hundred years? This didn't seem plausible. Was this nonsense? Was I being played?

Damnit!

Once again, Kek brought Jack to me. Kek hadn't asked. He decided that we'd speak together. Kek questioned me thoroughly last night after he deposited Jack in his little cell. I told Kek what Jack said about not being a slave. Kek and I discussed the Union of Galaxies and the Sheriff's Department, the Rotagons, and their deception. Kek was as disturbed as I'd been to learn Jack and his team were free people, enslaved by trickery and not by established law. I wouldn't tell Kek this body was a human creation. I couldn't understand what relevance my humanity had for me yet, and I didn't want Kek to know, because my humanness would lower me in Kek's opinion. Humans are considered the weakest species of our relative mass in the Infinite.

The poor, naked human joined me in my garden again. I'd brought in some of the roast beast, half the veggies and starch, a bottle of wine, and water in my mug for him. He was starving and ate like a barbarian.

Jack fed himself, gulped water, and struggled to keep it all down and put more in. He finished the starch and veg and some of the meat, poured himself more wine, settled down, and looked at me.

"I've listened to your story," I said, "and I don't believe you."

Jack choked on his wine.

"How did humans advance so quickly? Space colonization to sixteen galaxies in less than two hundred years over vast distances? Bullshit."

Jack recovered and cleared his throat.

"We had help, an alien species. They found us exploring our galaxy and gave us their propulsion system."

"Just like that."

"No, not just like that. They had a need and we filled it, common fungi necessary for their digestion. The Odoks had been traveling for so long they'd forgotten where their planet of origin was. They'd actually evolved, adapting to life in space faring ships. But they needed to culture fungi to keep up their health, and their strains were old and failing. We let them harvest the materials that satisfied their needs from Earth to invigorate their stocks. In return they paid us with the MC and the EP, the Mass Converter and Energy Propeller. They even provided us with maps and coordinates of local established interstellar shipping zones, which is how we expanded to the sixteen galaxies so fast. We haven't seen them since."

"Converter and Propeller?" I asked.

"The Mass Converter and Energy Propeller is a drive system. All our ships have them, as well as subluminal engines. When you were educated we understood these concepts, so I'm just going to plow ahead. See, for the longest time scientists thought to travel vast distances in space you needed warp speed, hyperdrive, a way to fold space, wormholes, or bridges between universes. The sciences concentrated on how to get mass through distance in vacuum. Look, light speed is six trillion miles per year which is one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. We couldn't travel anywhere near that fast. Our technology fell short. Theoretically, light speed can't be reached by matter, anyway, because of entropy. Six trillion miles a year seems like a lot, but in space this doesn't actually get you very far very fast. We were like ants trying to walk from California to New York. Plus, the farther out you go, the faster time goes on Earth, and the slower time goes for you. Time dilation means people return to Earth after a few years in space to an Earth hundreds of years older. The Odoks helped us build thousands of ships and fit them with their drives. They quoted the equation E equals MC squared, you know, one of Einstein's big concepts; energy equals mass times light speed times light speed. Light speed times light speed is represented as C squared; C means light speed, the constant that we couldn't surpass. Light speed is called a constant because it never changes; it's always one hundred and eighty miles per second. The Odoks made C-squared travel possible and instantaneous for us using their engines in the ships we built with their designs and materials. Really advanced stuff.

"Speaking of time, we still use seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, and millennia, based on the Christian calendar for continuity, and the After Odok - AO - calendar for official Union business. Ship time is still on the military clock.

"Anyway, the reason we still use the original Earth solar system-based time calculations is because now we can move through any distance in space instantaneously. If it's 1700 on Sunday, January 12th, 2223 on Earth, it's 1700 on Sunday, January 12th, 2223 on our ships, wherever they are. We also send data, visual and audio communication instantly, in real time, because of the EA. No matter how far we travel, our time remains synchronized. We don't stay young in space while our children age and die.

"Earth cycles are important to us because other societies which are advanced enough to propose their own measurements use different relationships, their planetary systems can differ greatly from our solar system. They may have two suns and four moons and a seven hundred day year, or get their light reflected off a dense concentration of dust from a nearby nova. Every galaxy, system, and planet is a different size and experiences its own unique rotation. All the cycles of time-telling species differ.

"Anyway, turns out we don't need to move mass through space. That's ridiculous. The MCEP converts the mass of the vessel and crew into energy, propels this energy between two coordinates, and reconverts the energy back into mass."

"Why don't your vessels crash into a sun or planet, or get chopped into bits by dust and space grit?" I interrupted.

"The Odoks told us that the friction from movement creates heat and light energy which is funneled up to the front of the ship, like a nose cone. This diverts matter around the ship, and is converted into fuel for the MCEP and subluminal engines. When we fly toward something so massive it won't be pushed aside, the energy cone pushes the ship around the obstacle. The ship, in energy form, moves around the mass or say, a dangerous dust cloud, and then the system compensates and puts the ship back on course. Remember we're traveling at light speed squared while all these calculations and adjustments are being done by the MCEP. The energy cone detects and tells the MCEP everything it needs to know while protecting us from collision.

"Most of the lanes we use are clear because they're traveled frequently, but since the Universe is expanding, sometimes bits and pieces migrate into them. This 'nose' pushes them aside. The Odoks gave us the alpha and omega coordinates of lanes in the region that became Union space. If we need to refuel the subluminal engines or take a route that isn't mapped, we can tell the MCEP where we want to go, and the destination will be calculated. All we do is touch a point on a holo map, and the MCEP displays the coordinate. Then we touch the coordinate, and we're there. Our vessels collect fuel from the friction. The EP does something similar for data and communication. Everything takes place in real time with no delays.

"I'm not a scientist, but I've spent a lifetime traveling in their ships and using their maps. One quit working early on, after they left us. Some of our physicists opened the sealed cylinder the Odoks told us was the main reactor, under controlled conditions of course, and guess what was in there?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"They lied to you?"

Jack shrugged. "All I know is, the ships we built and the drives they installed, except the failed one, are still operating and have allowed us to expand into space and meet new species, but we can't reproduce the technology."

The Odoks sounded like bullshitters to me, but I didn't say so. Anyway, what did I know? I could see why an advanced race would offer superior technology in trade for something they desperately needed, in appreciation for those who helped them. They might not want to or be able to explain the science to people who hadn't gotten far enough in their comprehension to understand yet. This was the least they could do for the life saving fungi. Also, on Earth I used a computer, even though I couldn't build one or repair one. This sounded similar to me.

"Aren't you worried the engines might get old and shut down and leave people stranded?"

"The concern's been discussed, but scientists say the drives won't all quit at the same time. That's not logical, so we could bounce out in another ship and rescue the crew. We'd have to abandon the broken one, though."

"That's fascinating," I said. "That really is amazing. I'd like to experience that kind of travel."

Jack leaned toward me. He stared intensely into my eyes. "You can, if you help us get out of this hell before we're all killed," Jack said. "We'll take you with us."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous. There's no way out of here," I complained. Was this true?

"There is." He pointed to a wound below his left ear. "They took our talkies. Can you get them back?"

"I can't," I said, deflating. Despite my denial, he'd had me going.

"Look, you've got friends here and you're respected. You're influential. Will you talk to that guard?"

"I'll speak to Kek, but I doubt he'll be able to help. I don't think he knows where they are."

"Ask. Please. Can you just ask? Two of my team are dead. Only four of us are left."

Kek would pump me for information anyway. I'd begun to think Kek was adopting the humans as pets.

"I'll ask," and I thought, Why not?

Kek came back after he'd dropped Jack off at his cell.

"What did he say?" Kek demanded.

"He says he can get out of here."

"No."

"Yes." I pointed to the spot below my left ear. "Communicators."

Kek frowned. "They're gone. Medicals took them out."

"Where are they?"

"Storage."

"Where is storage?"

Kek looked down. "Below."

Kek sat on the ledge eating the bones from my meal. I was sitting on my bed. He'd long ago learned I wouldn't attack him, and I enjoyed his company. Disappointedly, he said, "You fed him the beast."

"You know they don't get much."

"He gave meat to his friends on the way back. He's no slave."

No. Slaves don't share food, we kill each other over it. I felt strangely warmed by the thought of Jack taking handfuls of roast to his coworkers when he himself was clearly starving. I knew then that Jack was a good, caring man.

"Find the devices, Kek. Let's get them out of here."

"No, can't be done."

"Don't your kin work down in storage?" All of Kek's people are his kin.

"Of course. Guards. But not storers. Other species work stores. We don't understand their language and they make writing."

Kek's people didn't write, which generally meant those who wrote considered themselves superior and wouldn't socialize with the kin.

"The stored stuff had writing on it?"

"Yes, on containers. Probably what's inside. I don't know."

"Have I met the storers? Do they fight? Do I speak their language?"

"No. Different race, like us, all one thing. All storers."

Damn.

"Can you ask your kin what they know about the devices?"

Kek glared at me. I stared at the bone he cracked with his teeth and ground into moist paste.

"Enjoying my supper?"

Kek sighed deeply. "I'll ask. Tell you what I find out."

He finished the bones as I covered myself with my ratty old comforter and commanded the lighting to dim. When he left, the soft pulsing of the ship lulled me to sleep.

Kek came back after the next lights down, after the fights.

"One more human died," he said. He seemed upset.

Oh no.

"Jack?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Female. Only three left now. Jon Jak Not fought well tonight. He's good. Smart. He uses his opponent's weaknesses against him. Thoughtful. Deliberate. He fights like you, Ghee."

The high praise for Jack coming from the jaded Kek surprised me, and I told him this. He nodded and grabbed the roast beast and bit. Bones crunched.

I'd saved my meal so we could eat together. It wasn't hard. After the server and Kek's wife had left, I went back to sleep. I wasn't fighting and didn't need as many calories.

We ate and drank the wine. Kek was a good dinner companion if you didn't mind the mouth noises he made. I'd gotten used to them. I'd been listening to them almost since the beginning.

Kek and his brother Nok had become my guards when they were very young, after their father had been killed and partially devoured. Nok took his father's death in stride, but Kek had been frightened. I took pity on him and misbehaved with every other guard except Nok and Kek until Kek became my primary minder, with Nok relieving him. I'd never learned whether Spauch heard of my misbehavior and decided to give me Kek, or whether the kin made the decision themselves, but whoever had made the decision was nothing if not expedient. The situation worked well for both of us. Spauch had a talent for pitting slaves, who repeatedly misbehaved for no apparent reason, against their superiors in the ring. The kin had a talent for protecting fighters without appearing to, if they liked us. At the time I was going through those depressive episodes, and had been trying to commit suicide. I fought with a weird camel looking thing that almost killed me. Actually, I think the thing did kill me, and I'd let it. But this stupid body repaired itself on the fly and murdered the beast when it bent to hoist my carcass above its head to show the crowd its trophy. My recovery had taken months. I'd been severely depressed back then, but not anymore.

Depression was a waste of energy, a hard draw on reserves, making fights and recoveries more difficult. Once I'd discovered I couldn't get out of the matches, not even through death, I tried to mitigate the damage I suffered. Depression wasn't worth the energy it took, because it gave nothing back, like a parasite. It was easy to become infested with this particular parasite, and feeling sorry for myself was so satisfying. This relieved me of guilt and responsibility.

Self-pity is potent. Still, this wasn't enough. That had been my last bout with depression. I've become a much more dynamic fighter since, a show woman worthy of double portions of dessert. The kin became my close friends, especially Kek. This was also when I started to learn the languages in earnest.

Kek interrupted my musings.

"Nat told me their ship is here."

"Whose ship?"

""Human ship flown over by Rotagon soldiers; Jack and his friends prisoners inside. Nat says Dag shuttled the Rots back to their planet. Spauch bought the ship."

"Spauch bought the ship? For scrap?"

"No, it is altogether. Good vessel. Not been scrapped." Kek stared at me , not crunching bones.

I focused hard on this unexpected information.

"Nat and Dag are kin?"

"Yes. Nat is hangar guard, Dag a pilot. Dag guards this ship with the fighter planes." Now Kek was staring and crunching hard.

Holy crap! I got it.

"Kek, your kin guard the hanger and they're fighter pilots?"

Kek smiled.

"And they're also guarding the human ship?"

Kek then did a thing I'd discovered was the kin equivalent of laughing. Bone chips sprayed everywhere.

So, I thought, Spauch has a weakness. Complacency.

After all, this ship hadn't changed much since I'd gotten here, except tech upgrades like the new shackles. He'd been well established then. He'd purchased and integrated Kek's people as guards in Kek's father's father's time. Apparently, through the generations, they'd come to constitute all the guards. Had Spauch not realized that someday they might decide to vacate the ship? Who would stop them once they figured out where to go? Was Spauch counting on their never finding a place to run away to, or had he never conceived of the possibility at all?

"Kek, how many fighter planes are there?"

He smiled. Meat and bone chips stuck between his teeth. "Enough. Can squeeze the pilot and one kin in each, maybe two small kin with the pilot. Plus the human craft is larger and comfy. Ten, maybe twelve kin packed in, room for the pilots to fly. Also, four large supply ships are being unloaded right now: food, water, and alcohol. All together enough to evacuate every Mek, you, Jack, and his people."

"How long will the supply ships be docked?"

"Four days."

Four days. We could be leaving this shithole within four days.

"We'll work out a plan and I'll let you know," Kek said. "One thing, Jon Jak Not must promise to give kin sanctuary in exchange for his life. Ghee-nye, do you think humans will give kin sanctuary?"

He looked a little anxious, maybe skeptical. I couldn't speak for the humans. I didn't know them, and I told Kek this.

The kin regard promises as blood oaths and welshing on a promise results in killings.

"Bring him again, Kek, I'll ask."

"He fed his kin, Ghee," Kek said quietly.

"Yes, he did," I murmured in reply. The caring and kindness and selflessness Jack had displayed were flimsy hooks to hang our hopes of freedom on.

He sat at the little table and ate the remainder of the beast, veggies, and starch, and drank as much water as he could while I explained the escape plan to him from the edge of my bed. He was thrilled, and so excited, he shook. His face was highly mobile and animated. I watched his human expressions for any sign of falseness or malice. Human faces are some of the most expressive in the Infinite; which is another reason why humans are considered weak. They have trouble hiding their true emotions to a shrewd observer, and many of the inhabitants of the Infinite that I've met are wily indeed.

I interpreted the demands Kek made from the hallway through the bars.

"Absolutely. We'll give you sanctuary. I'm a highly ranked negotiator, well respected. I'll get you a planet of your own, Kek. That's no problem, really. I can think of four habitable planets right now in protected space without any sentient species claiming them."

Kek, outside in the hall, watched Jack as closely as I while he spoke and I translated. Kek was thinking of the three names. Three names, like kin names. though Kin had only one name. This had to be a sign of progress and hope.

"Next lights down," Kek said, and he left.

"Tomorrow night. Tomorrow night!" Jack was all twitches and ticks. "I can't believe this. Thank you, Ghee-nye. Thank you so much."

He grabbed my hand and squeezed.

"Not me," I said, "Your gratitude should go to Kek and his people. I'm just the interpreter. You need to know that if you go back on your word to them about finding them a planet, that they'll find a way to wage war on all humans."

"I understand. You interpreted the hell out of this. I'm impressed." He still kneaded my hands, and his were warm. It felt so good to be touched like that I almost couldn't listen, until he said this, "We need you Ghee. When they constructed you, they grew immunity to all the known human diseases into you. Some of those have come back. They're decimating humanity. Earth is dead as well as the colonies. So much has been lost, we can't fight hard enough. The disease is spreading too quickly."

"You need me to provide immunity?"

"Yes. I had no idea when I was on Rot that I'd be here, and I'd meet you. This is the opportunity..." a reflective mood had descended on Jack, "...to save the human race. How strange that such a tragic thing could result in something so hopeful. We were enslaved only to find you. You were sold into slavery by us, not me, I wasn't alive then, by humans, I mean, and we need you back now. So you see how we would never welsh on the kin. Our debt to them for helping us get you out of here will be great."

"Kek's entire people were also sold to Spauch," I said. "Their population's been controlled for generations, and they want a world of their own badly. Just to be absolutely certain, you can get them a planet, right? Because I don't think what's left of the human race will survive their disappointment if you don't. They will hunt you to extinction; yours, or theirs."

"I know I can, Ghee. I'm good at my job. I feel now that I was called, so I could be here at this moment in time."

"Don't get all spiritual on me. We may not pull this off." And if you're lying to save your own skin and you don't keep your promise, there won't be any humans left, and I'll still be free.

"It'll work. But Ghee, as a construct, you aren't legally a person. When we get back to Union space, I'll make getting you legal personhood a priority. Eventually, you'll become equivalent to a human, with all the rights humans enjoy. This is the least we can do for you, for saving us, but at first you won't have any rights. They'll take what they need from you and you'll have no legal recourse. You understand?"

"What are they going to do, put me in a blender?"

"No, no! Of course not. It'll be a while before they get your genome all mapped and figure out what they can do. They can't kill you. They might have to keep taking samples; blood, whatever, I'm not a doctor. I just want you to know you can't refuse. I'm worried they may cloister you; I might lose access to you. A lot is at stake."

"I won't refuse, why would I?"

"We sold you into slavery! All this," he waved his hand at her scarred body.

"You didn't. The people who did died long ago."

"Humans did. The military and the government did, and the authorities may think you won't want to cooperate. If something goes sideways, it won't but if it does, I'll petition to marry you to protect you. Humans can marry anyone, anything, as long as it's able to give recognizable consent, and then it gets instant status, humanity, if you will. Legal rights. I'll petition for marriage permission first thing, just in case. They won't let us marry right away, but this is a prudent legal move. I can go public should anything happen to you."

"I'm not interested in refusing. I want to save humanity if I can. Humans are my creators."

This was true anyway you looked at the situation. I, Carol, was the product of human reproduction, and G-9SRO25T a human construction. However, human beings hadn't moved my soul into this body, had they?

Jack's wonder had affected me.

Perhaps the people of the future were manipulating the past to save more of themselves. Had they become as God to the humans of today? Wasn't God simply a higher intelligence? Way, way higher?

Was this all a coincidence, or a species-preserving manipulation?

The crews of the Mark Burgess, the Toi G. Aguirre, the Tomas Elias Mennem, and the Dusundu Deshembe stared at the incredible sight. For centuries their descriptions would be retold.

Hundreds of Spauch's fighter planes, a Force light transport, and four Wilderness supply freighters sped toward them through open space. Chief Deputy Knott identified himself and communicated the situation and the department cruisers located, targeted, and destroyed the big guns on the arena ship's outer hull.

Sergeant Kim Jones and civilian observer Daniel Abbas ibn Spralja had also survived their captivity, probably because they hadn't been fought by the time of the escape.

The fighters quartered their numbers and entered the four cruisers' hanger bays. They completely filled them. The freighters, the Force transporter, and seventeen of the fight planes had to offload their passengers via connectors and were ditched. The last of the refugees were secured and the Force cruisers bolted to a safe location deep within Union space.

Spauch was abandoned with no guards, in a ship full of deadly slaves who had been set free by Kek's kin when they'd disabled the arena ship's interior electronics to aid in their escape.

Ghee-nye was taken to the Mark Burgess' hospital and placed in the doctor's care, under guard, as soon as Jack got the words out. Since she'd recovered her English, and Jack was required to explain what he knew of Kek's people, so he wasn't allowed to accompany Ghee to the hospital.

After hearing the story, both the Civilian Board and the Sheriff readily agreed Kek and his kin would have their own Force protected planet.

Unfortunately, because of the loss of so many humans to disease, the Union of Galaxies had to be broken up. The four hundred and seventy-eight ship strong Sheriff's Department Space Force and the remainder of the military fleets, retreated to the three galaxies which held the self-sufficient worlds. The new, smaller Galaxy Union would be patrolled and protected by the Force and the military. Those Space Force and military members whose planets would no longer belong to the Union were put off the vessels outside of the revised Border for security reasons as the ships made their way to the new Union Protected Space.

The thirteen galaxies which were withdrawn from began to protect themselves. New allegiances, trading treaties, and policing entities were created among these abandoned regions. Their existing forces would have to be strengthened without human inclusion.

They understood. The human race had been decimated.

Delgado Whitaker, M.D. visually appraised me when the deputies brought me into the hospital. Doc didn't appraise a human being, he regarded a thing. The Diagnose was ready.

"Put it up here," Doc said.

I walked to the invisible field and lay flat, belly up. Doc played with a few controls and the Diagnose came down from above and hovered over me, its holos displayed at the level of Doc's face. He moved the displays where he wanted them. He studied the projections.

This went on for about an hour, with Doc thoroughly engrossed with what he was seeing. He muttered things like, "walking scar tissue", "point five percent bend in the humerus", and "Ah. A graft. Right there". Presumably the last was a reference to the composition of my genome.

I had infinite patience, being as old as I was, but I did tend to get cranky. He hadn't talked to me. He didn't regard me worthy of engagement. I would change his perspective. When the pendant fell out of his scrubs, I recognized the gleaming gold fish symbol and seized my opportunity.

"Are you Christian, Doc?" I asked.

Startled, he grabbed the charm hastily, stuffing it under the undershirt he wore under his traditional looking scrubs. He resumed his observation of the data. Somewhat surreptitiously, he glanced back at the deputies, who had removed themselves to the outer room were pretending not to be paying attention. They would only react if something went awry.

"I see by your reaction that being Christian may not be a normal thing in this time and place. Don't worry, Doctor, I'm from another era altogether."

I would have to be careful here, for although G-9SRO25T had lived on Earth from 2049 to 2060, I'd died in 2008. I had no idea what religion was like in the 2050's, or now in 2223. "I'm agnostic, myself."

For the first time the doctor stared right into my eyes.

"Not atheist?" he asked quietly, his attention returned to the readouts.

"No, I only deny the official interpretations. I don't quarrel with the Truth."

Ten minutes passed. I imagined he struggled with his prejudice against talking to me as if I were deserving of interaction. He'd been ignoring me as a thing not worthy of acknowledgement.

"I can see how you would come to doubt, in your situation," he said finally. He spoke in a quiet tone, his lips tight together, as if he didn't want to be overheard. "I'm surprised you've explored religion at all."

Poor human, I thought, still so confused and unsure. The doctor had a lack of confidence in his own beliefs. I realized that in this day and age being Christian might be a capital crime; at best, scoffed at.

"Is Christianity illegal now, or disrespected?" I asked as quietly. We spoke as if we were in church.

Again the long wait. The observation. The manipulation of holos. The handwritten notations. He handwrote his notes and manually directed the machine, instead of verbally dictating and instructing. Surely this was old school.

"Not illegal. Not anything, really, Christianity's just not practiced openly."

"So you do so in private?"

"Yes."

I said, "The Book of Matthew says in Chapter six, verse five, '... thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are... for they love to pray... that they may be seen of men.' Verse six says, 'enter thy closet, and... pray to thy Father in secret...'."[i]

Again, he caught my eye and stared. For the first time, he ignored the Diagnose.

"You've read the Bible?" He asked.

"Of course. Well, some parts. That quote is one of my favorites."

He still hadn't looked away. I knew I had impressed him and he would no longer think of me as a thing. There wasn't any going back for him. He was hooked.

"Not many people have," he commented quietly, and returned to his work exploring my genome.

I didn't correct him by saying, "ah, but I am not a person," because I wanted him to think of me as such, and he was beginning to. Mission accomplished. Now to cement my personhood in his mind; after all, I was a person, even though G-9SRO25T apparently wasn't.

I said, "I got hung up where they say, 'Honor thy mother and thy father.' What if your mother or father is a criminal or an abuser? I wouldn't be able to honor them. No one should honor abusive, criminal parents. Honor is earned, not given. It's not an entitlement."

"You make good points." Doc physically took blood samples.

"You don't trust the machine to analyze my blood?" I asked.

"I like to keep my skills sharp. Especially these days, just in case," he admitted to me. There had been no hesitation before his response this time. He'd stopped debating the wisdom of having a conversation with a construct.

The Diagnose began to evaluate the constituents of my skeletal structure and stimulated my nerves uncomfortably. He seemed impressed at the readings on the Diagnose which showed my brain shutting itself off from the pain.

"Interesting."

I waited patiently.

"The manner of your construction is fascinating. I can't believe they created you so long ago. I'm certain they didn't quite understand what they were doing, but you know humans. Shoot first and ask questions later. Luckily they came up with something better than they'd anticipated."

"Thank you," I replied. I'd accomplished my mission. He was conversing normally with me.

I closed my eyes and began to doze. Doc watched the displays. The scientist in him was fascinated and the man had started to wonder about me. I sensed the shift.

Eventually, he said, "We've been at this a while now. Are you hungry? What do you like to eat?"

He washed the faux skin sheaths off his hands.

I searched my memory for human foods. I had forgotten all about my previous life while on the arena ship, but memories resurfaced fast now, stimulated by the language I was hearing and remembering.

"Pot Roast." I said. "Can I get up?"

The scientist won out. "You can sit up but stay under the Diagnose; the evaluation's not done and I want to watch the readouts."

He retracted the overhanging device enough to clear my head. I sat on the invisible field, legs dangling. In moments he had a tray of food suspended before me, floating in air. I played with it a bit, moving it this way and that, looking for wires or jets. No such. He pulled the holo fields down from the machine so he could observe the systems of my body as I ate.

I'd eaten about half when I paused. I'd started to say, "In my time," but stopped myself and began "Once upon a time..." because I couldn't tell if the doctor studied religious history. Would he know I was speaking of issues of the late twentieth century and not the middle twenty first? "...some pastors said they wouldn't judge, since judgment was the providence of the Father, and then they'd go on to make nasty comments about people who believed things they wouldn't and behaved in ways they didn't approve of." I resumed devouring the luscious pot roast.

"That's hypocrisy," Doc said. "Very common. In Proverbs the Lord admonishes us to be good judges, not judgmental."

I didn't push. To point out his prejudice against the construct wouldn't go over well. If he felt insulted, he might shut himself off from further conversation.

I said, "They believed homosexuality was just plain wrong, and they figured God would sort out the atheists and agnostics. I once heard a pastor say that global warmers believed burning coal created deserts. His argument was, deserts had always existed, which he thought proved the people alarmed about climate change were wrong. Over time, he pointed out, lush green places turned into deserts and vice versa. The Bible described deserts, he said, so global warming was nonsense." I hoped I hadn't dated myself too badly.

"Sounds like a misunderstanding."

"Also, they didn't understand how warming would cause increases in precipitation. The concept of the melted polar ice vaporizing into the atmosphere, causing more clouds, rain and snow which raised the water table eluded them. They thought, since more rain or snow fell in some places, the globe was cooling, not warming."

Doc agreed. "If you believe false things, then you can't recognize the truth, and you argue that what is true is false."

I continued. "In the olden days, it seemed like the less science you understood, the more likely you were to dismiss reality and believe the cultural parts of the Holy Book. The old timers believed every word in the Bible was God's Word. If that's true, then slavery and violence are normal behaviors and not something we should criminalize and discriminate against."

"And you believe what?" Doc asked. The slavery comment had bothered him. Violence was written all over her body. Wasn't this essentially the life those who had created her had imposed on her, he thought? He didn't realize he'd begun referring to the construct as her.

"I believe Jesus is a powerful symbol, and well meaning men attempted to codify moral guidelines, and they did this through parables. The Bible also describes actual historical events and military strategy written in the same type of language, so I can see how someone might get confused and think the fictional stories were real things happening to actual people, when they were fictional stories designed to carry a message regarding the right and wrong ways to behave."

"Yes, some of us understand this," Doc said.

I continued. "There's too much violence and retribution in the Bible, as there was in the human experience of the era. If I could take that leap of faith and believe in the God of the Christian Faith, then my God would be so much further advanced than me, he'd make his Word known without violence or retribution. This makes a lot more sense than the violent biblical deity, who is obviously not omnipotent, like God is supposed to be. Humans comprehend this dilemma. I believe the God as described in the Bible is simply men trying to describe God and influence behavior. My God would be so obviously truthful that no one would need to question. We'd just all follow. The Biblical God is beset by problems because human interpretation is confined to their perspective, which in the times the stories were written involved violence, retribution, and, well, was contradictory, as is the Bible."

Doc interrupted. "I'm surprised at the depth of your thinking about this."

"And you thought this was just another pretty face," I said.

He glanced at my disaster of a face. I'm sure I saw his mouth twitch.

"Do you believe you were created in God's image?" he asked after a while.

"I was made by humans in their image. 'Created in God's image' is a pretty arrogant human statement, I think."

"Seems more likely God was created in man's image by man than the other way around, doesn't it?" Doc asked.

"Yes, though we're made of specific combinations of some all the atoms and molecules we know to exist, so in this sense, since God everything, we're all part of, and children of, God. If all things are composed of a portion of all the elements, and you want to call the entirety of these elements and the forces bringing them together in their various combinations and tearing them apart as well, "God", then we are the sons and daughters of God."

"That's a very scientific approach," Doc said. "Personally I can't understand why so many Christians are skeptical and even afraid of science when science doesn't just disprove some beliefs, but adds to our knowledge. As a scientist, I'd think they'd want to have the chance to validate their beliefs with facts, but they seem to be afraid. Dogma which doesn't change, and dare I say evolve as we discover previously unrealized truths and verify them, cannot be correct. The truth is, the more we learn, the more we learn we have more to learn. I think understanding the formerly misunderstood or unknown can enhance our appreciation of God and His creation, if we're brave and honest enough to let go of those convictions which are proven to be untrue."

It was my turn to stare at him. I remembered the wisdom I'd learned so long ago on Earth; the more you know, the more you know you don't know.

Doc continued to talk while he worked. "I grew up on Earth. When I was a child, most of the people in my little town believed themselves so good, God-fearing, and God-like, they thought they had the right to judge and criticize those who didn't think as they described or behave as they prescribed. They thought, God is right and therefore since I follow God's Word, then I am also right, and I can punish you when I decide you're not right with God. I always recoil from this kind of conceit. I don't believe any deity except a false one would accept punitive behavior from believers. I think this is one of the reasons Christianity has become a declining faith, for the most part, because Christians believe they are right and everyone else is wrong. This is felonious, insulting thinking. Conflicts continue to rage among denominations and even between churches about whose interpretations are the correct ones. The notion that you are inferior to me because you disagree with me has crushed faith and discussion. Yet this is still a powerful tyranny used by the faithful that allows them to dismiss others and falsely validate themselves. This interpretation of God's word disables us and these forms of Christianity are delusions which have done humanity immense harm over the centuries. I still meet Christians who think like that."

Doc was opening up all right.

"Way back," I said, "people used home schooling and other physical and ideological isolations to keep behavior and ideas they felt were unacceptable away from them and their kids. Some actually retarded their children scholastically. You can't teach what you don't know, and you can impart your misunderstandings, ignorance and bigotry. Differences of opinion and lifestyle were perceived as assaults on their beliefs and way of life. They took as offense any thought unlike their own and became offensive in response. That's not religion, but arrogance, selfishness, and a perverse hatred of otherness; what the Bible calls 'froward'[ii] thinking. [Perverse: willfully contrary; refractory; not easily managed.] These are people with deep feelings of inadequacy and victimhood trying to manipulate others into agreeing with them and being the same as them, to validate their contrariness, and if this isn't possible, to hurt those who disagree. I think this behavior is pathological. People who want to control others enjoy using fear as tactic. Believe that or behave that way and bad things will happen to you. Believe this and behave thus and you'll be rewarded. Heaven and Hell are the folly of the writers of the Word.

"The men who collated the Bible stories left important stuff out. The Book of Mary was excluded. They changed things, too. Mary Magdalene was regarded as a prostitute. The Virgin Mary's entire human life was ignored. Think of what she'd have taught us! Ignoring her reflects the sexism of the day. And Thomas wrote about a mean and nasty five year old Jesus who by age eight had turned himself around and had become kind and generous[iii]. That's a lesson humans need if any, and the powerful men of the time left it out, which tells me more about them than Jesus and God."

Doc said, "I agree. People who are secure in their beliefs are not afraid of the truth. As a doctor, I know Mary wasn't a virgin. There's no such thing as resurrection, except in the sense of the writers 'resurrecting' Jesus in the centuries after his death to further Christianity in a violent land needing taming. The Scriptures were designed to combat tyrannical human behavior. They did the best they knew how. No one understood the brain or thought or consciousness in those times. The concept of thinking as divinely and demonically inspired helped make 'right' and 'wrong' fathomable to disorganized minds, and organized them. Unfortunately the teachings devolved into the same kind of tyranny they sought to suppress. That's what happens when your God is reported to use violence and threats to get His way. People are imitative. When I read the Bible, I replace 'fear the Lord' with 'respect and love Him'. This makes more sense."

I said, "You asked me what I believe. When we used to bury the deceased in the soil, their bodies dissolved into atoms and molecules and rejoined the lifecycle. I think our consciousness does this, too. Our souls dissolve and disperse into 'basic elements', for lack of a better term, and join a communal consciousness which we all can tap into. The answers to our questions come from here, but the ignorance goes there, too. It's our duty to seek the truth and behave accordingly in this life, so when we die, we can enhance, and not negate, the communal conscience. The concepts of heaven and hell are not necessary to direct behavior.

"I also believe truth is life, as it is - raw and unfinished, and life doesn't care about humanity, has no personality or soul, and can't punish and reward. Humans are only a minute speck in the infinity of existence. Fallible people made up the Bible and God. Confused and wishful people came up with the concepts of heaven and hell in the attempt to control behavior to make living easier for everyone, or maybe just for themselves, but they misinterpreted. Life is violent, generous, and mundane, and so are humans.

"Human beings are not the only species which attempt to organize their behavior to make things better for all. It's a natural desire of many sentients to try to control their own and others' actions so their lives are less violent and more prosperous. Races which have advanced further have learned to manage themselves and leave the rest to their own devices, and yet, everyone must defend against crime and trespass. Each species, and even individuals within species, is at a different level of emotional, spiritual, and psychological maturity. Ideas influence conduct. Managing one's own ideology, and therefore behavior, and guarding against violence perpetrated by those of less mature ideology and behavior, are the successful strategies of many advanced species. I spent much of my life among violent criminals, but I was able to stay true to my ideals within the circumstances, for the most part. Yet so much was beyond my influence, and at some point I just had to realize this was always going to be so. Anyway, nobody ever has complete control. Bad things happen. Good things happen. There's no intelligence, reward system, or punishment behind it, and the kind of person you are doesn't affect this. Control is a slippery illusion. Heaven is only an ideal. Hell is a fantasy. So what is our motivation to be good? Peace and prosperity, community and safety. Isn't this enough? Let's stop confusing the issue."

Doc chuckled. "I've always believed there is a God. My God wants love and respect, and I comply. Curiously, I'm a scientist; I respect and love science, detection, getting at the truth – The Truth. I like your analogy that the elements and the forces moving them are God, and everything is a part of God. Your description of what happens to the soul after death, and our duties to a communal conscience appeals to me. Prayer for me is the way I discover solutions. First I find the question, and then answers occur to me. Maybe they come from this communal conscience you describe. I don't know. Yours is as good a description as any I've heard. I'm a scientist. I search for the truth. I think God is The Truth."

I broke in. "Unfortunately scientists often fall short, too. They're human after all. But since science is an ongoing discipline, which doesn't stop and say, alright, we've got the answer, we're done now. Scientists continue on and eventually correct their mistakes when new information is proven. They're like religionists in that they are bound by their experiences, however. They understand only the smallness of their experience and they try to project this as the entirety of reality, but their experiences are really just a tiny part of the whole. It's very human to fill in what we don't understand with projections of the things we've already discovered, or even fictionalize solutions. In science, theory falls by the wayside when truths are proven. For religionists, well, they believe they've got all the answers, so they stagnate in their fictions."

Doc said sagely, "I think the fear of ostracism by family, friends, and community keeps more people in the faith than anything else. The dread of being shunned allows folks to accept fallacious arguments and think and do things they otherwise wouldn't without that righteous pressure."

I nodded my agreement. "I also have a problem with denominations collecting their adherents' dollars to buy ancient artifacts and the technologically advanced vaults to house them in. Or using the money collected to advertise and influence people in order to affect legislation and impose their morality on everyone. And like I mentioned before, my doubt began with the commandment 'honor thy father and thy mother'." Here I had to be careful to seem to speak as the construct, and not as myself, Carol. "I regarded the scientists and the military personnel who made me and trained me as my mothers and fathers, yet they sold me into slavery. I was angry. For a long time I enjoyed the arena, the killing."

"You felt betrayed and ostracized," Doc said.

I couldn't let Doc know about my little tribe, our death by blob, and my soul's bounce into the construct's body; the real reason I'd angrily turned into a killing machine. Instead, for this conversation, I blamed my anger on having been sold to Spauch after meritorious service to humans. This would become a trap for me if the stories were discussed between others, say, Jack and Doc. Jack could tell of my not remembering anything before my 'face in the sand' comment. Doc might reply, but wait, she told me she remembered being angry at being sold to Spauch. I decided to risk it. Memories were, in fact coming back, just not the construct's. My own. I couldn't tell the truth. I wouldn't be believed, or worst, I'd be judged insane. Hopefully no one would notice.

I thought fast. I wanted to tell him what a neighbor had explained to me over two centuries ago, in Show Low, Arizona, but constructs didn't have neighbors. Constructs were soldiers.

"A soldier once told me that the original commandment read, 'honor thy father and thy mother in righteousness'. She said the original scriptures had been translated so many times that much had been lost, and the translators had their own agendas as well. So between their manipulations, the misinterpretations, and the books which were lost and left out, how can we believe what any individual Bible says? Fanciful writings from folks trying to influence the thoughts and behaviors of others, and fancy explanations of natural events ancient people had no science to explain, make up a large amount of the so called 'Word of God'. Weather alone would have been terrifying to primitive peoples, not to mention organized and vicious armies of conquerors."

"So do you pick and choose which of the Scriptures you believe are true and which are fanciful writings?" Doc asked me.

"Of course. The men who put the Bible together picked and chose what books to keep and which to abandon. So I pick and choose, too.

"Certain truths exist and adherence to them generates good. Ignorance or rejection of them causes evil. Truths can be codified, for example, we agree, I think, that people who believe they are right and others wrong spend much of their time and energy trying to manipulate those they believe are wrong into agreeing with them. If they can't accomplish this, they punish those they perceive are wrong. Those who resort to punishment when they don't get their way are the ones who are wrong, in this case. Oh, speaking of truth, I'm fairly sure John ate too much grain with ergot in it before he wrote Revelations."

Doc laughed out loud. He recovered and said, "I can't figure out crucifix jewelry. I feel certain Jesus wouldn't want the device used to torture him to be a symbol of Christianity, and this is one of the Devil's tricks on us. Of course, whenever I state this to my faithful brethren, they're scandalized."

"And you're just wrong, right?"

"Exactly. Also, every Biblist since the beginning believed they lived living in the "End of Days", but the Greek word for apocalypse literally means the act of disclosure; revealing or disclosing. I looked it up, it's in my dictionary. Revelation is the discovery and disclosure of truths previously unknown, or misunderstood, which change perceptions. My Christian friends could use more revelations."

"I agree. The lessons are what are important. The Biblical stories aren't necessary to teach those, though. Too much misunderstanding and misinterpretations result from Biblical metaphors and the messages are lost in translation. Many other species disseminate the same information more effectively. Not all, of course, barbarians exist out there as well as sophisticated, mature creatures, cultures, and everything in between. Every race is at a different stage of development, but some very old ones exist in the Infinite, older than humans. I lived among a sampling of them for decades, learning their languages. You'd be surprised at the amount of time we slaves spent discussing right and wrong. The Golden Rule has variations across many species. Honestly, humans are so human centric."

Doc nodded, "Do you believe there are universal truths, like 'Thou Shall Not Murder', for instance?"

"Yes. Violence begets violence, our duty to each other is to be the best we can be, an eye for an eye blinds us all, Thou Shall Not Murder, defense of self or others against violence is necessary and acceptable, and many more exists among the peoples of the Infinite. And here I've been killing for over sixteen decades. So much for sticking to my principles." I sighed and pushed aside the empty meal tray. Doc shoved it over to the cooker where it hovered.

"Did you have a choice?" he asked.

"No. After I stopped being angry, I tried to starve to death, and get myself killed in the arena so I wouldn't have to kill any more, but these didn't work. This body has a mind of its own," I said, looking down. "The damn thing rebelled and saved itself: ate, and killed. I couldn't commit suicide, or get out of the ring until I'd ended my opponent. Still... I don't know how many creatures' lives I ended. So many..."

"Where did they come from?" Doc asked while sending the Diagnose back into its housing in the ceiling.

"I heard Spauch bought convicted violent criminals from various planets in the Infinite."

"Well, there you are. You killed killers. You adapted to the context of your circumstances. You did the best you could, considering. You have valuable and loyal friends who seem to believe the same way as you do. I'd say you did well." Doc took my hand. "G-9SRO25T, we're done for the day. I need to go over these diagnostics. The deputies'll take you to your quarters."

He spoke over my head as I walked toward them. "Find her some clothes, will you?"

I was almost to the door when he said, "G-9SRO25T." I turned. "The designation's awkward, isn't it? Can I call you Gina?"

I smiled. Complete success. "That would be pleasant, Doctor."

"See you tomorrow, Gina. Rest well."

"Thank you, Doctor."

The guards led me through the corridors, one before me and one behind, as if two humans could contain me should I chose not to be contained. We stopped in front of a panel door which slid aside when one of the guards palmed a pad on the wall. The other entered and demonstrated for me how to activate the cupboards using finger pads and pulled out a jumpsuit. He showed me the lovely, though Spartan, bathroom components. It pleased me when I noticed I had a bathtub. Apparently humans brought their luxuries into space, at least for guests. I'd learned from the slaves that many species enjoyed submerging in water, which was a precious commodity in the Infinite. You never knew when you'd find some, or how much time would pass while you located a source. Of course, Spauch could afford shipments since he was wealthy, but a Force ship? I was grateful.

The deputies stepped out and closed the panel and I found the palm pad on my side didn't open the door. Hmmm.

I put on the jumpsuit and lay down on the bed, a fine mattress on a pedestal full of storage drawers, and rested. Soon I fell comfortably asleep.

Someone was by my bedside. Two someones actually, a large human male and a slender alien, both in uniform. I didn't move.

"Ghee-nye, you can dim the lights by voice command," the man said. Jack must have told them what to call me.

"Oh, thank you," I sat up on the edge of the bed. "I was so tired I didn't even try."

"Ghee-nye, my name is Sergeant Staupher, and this is Senior Deputy Enna. She's the ship's translation technician. She would like you to help her program the translator to recognize Kek's people's language. Will you give her a hand?"

"Yes, of course. That's right up my alley. Nice to meet you Sergeant Staupher, Senior Deputy Enna," I stood. She bent slightly toward me so I bowed back.

"Call me Enna."

"Right. I'll leave you to it." Sergeant Staupher left and the deputy exited with him. Apparently I was being guarded full time.

"Ghee-nye, thank you for your kind help," Enna said with a beautiful accent. I had not met her species before. She motioned to my little dining area. "Shall we sit?"

Watching this alien maneuver her body into a chair made for the human frame was an interesting sight. I couldn't imagine that anything remotely resembling chairs were built on Enna's planet.

"Please, call me Ghee, or Gina, if you prefer." Ah, the pleasantries of polite society. I was already beginning to feel less like a barbarian. It was going to be an adjustment though.

"Thank you," said Enna, "now please, we will start with something simple. Pronouns. Can you tell me how to say, 'I' in Kek's language?"

So I spent about five hours with Enna, and as she requested various examples, I asked her to tell me how to say the same words in her language. The machine listened and learned. Pretty soon Enna and I were conversing in English while the translator repeated in Kek's language. I spoke the kin's tongue and the translator verbalized the English translation. We even had an elementary conversation in Enna's language, after she programmed the device to translate it into Kek's. The time was spent pleasantly.

Jack arrived.

He greeted Enna, and she thanked me and scooted out the door.

"She was nice," I said, yawning.

"You had a busy day, didn't you?" he asked.

"Yes. You?" I amazed myself by actually being interested.

"Too long, but interesting. Have you eaten?"

"Yeah, but I could do with some more of that delectable human food."

Jack walked around me to the cooker while asking what I'd eaten.

"Pot roast, and it was delicious."

"So, how about lasagna and a garden salad?"

Oh, boy!

"Yes, please," I begged.

Jack spoke to the wall and food appeared in a depression.

"How 'bout some wine? A saucy merlot?"

"Please!"

Jack chuckled. He placed a plate of bruscetta on the table, opened the bottle and poured. I contemplated the loveliness of having a human male serve me as he sat.

Ooh, toasted fresh bread and tomatoes! I hadn't tasted fruit or veg in forever. A strong burst of basil and olive oil filled my senses. I realized how basic the food on Spauch's ship had been, and I'd looked forward to dinner so much!

I'm afraid I inhaled the appetizer and the glass of wine.

"Ready for salad?"

"I love a man who cooks," I quipped.

A few seconds passed before Jack got it. Everyone seemed to use the cooker here. He smiled, an expression which completely changed his face. It was a nice one. He spoke again to the device and then placed big fresh bowls of lettuce, finely chopped vegetables, croutons, cheese, cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices, and an assortment of dressings on the table in front of me. He poured the rest of the merlot into our glasses. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had raw food. Jack again sat down across from me.

The uncooked produce crunched unpleasantly in my mouth, but my memory kicked in. Although I wasn't used to fresh, ripe produce anymore, by the time I finished the bowlful, salad tasted just right. I sipped the wine while Jack worked his way through his bowlful.

"Is this the real thing?" I asked.

"The real thing?" Jack dabbed his lips with a cloth napkin he'd retrieved from one of the cupboards. I realized getting the whole eating-in-public behavior down again would take me a while. I'd eaten too fast. "The cooker is programmed to synthesize meals from elemental components in storage. The products are exact copies of the originals, down to the last amino acid and B vitamin."

"Huh," I grunted, "Real enough."

"Good?"

"Delicious."

Jack spoke to the wall unit again, retrieved the steaming pasta dish, placed the two bowls on the table, and resumed eating his salad.

I took a big bite of the lasagna. Mmm, boy, it was soooo good. The sauce was slightly sweet and meaty, the veg crunchy but cooked through, and tons of cheese swamped the layers.

"Oh! Heaven! I haven't had lasagna in two lifetimes."

Jack chuckled. "Did the deputies show you how everything works?"

"Yes. One deputy even ordered me a glass of water from the cooker."

"You were just waiting for me then."

"Yes, that's it."

"You noticed the guards."

"Can't miss 'em. I'm a prisoner."

"I said you wouldn't have human rights here. You're not exactly a guest, but I'll fix that. I've already submitted a Request for a Formal Human Rights Hearing and a Marriage Petition. You didn't expect them to give a killer the full run of the ship, did you?"

"So blunt, Jack, please. I'm trying to remember the niceties of polite conversation."

"Oh, Ghee, I don't mean to be rude. You know how I feel about you."

"Not really, we've only just met."

"I told you I'd marry you."

"Thanks, but again, we've only just met. And telling isn't asking at the appropriate time," I emphasized.

He chewed that one over.

"You're right, I'm sorry. I'm a little confused how to speak to you, considering the circumstances we met in."

"S'alright."

"How'd Doc treat you?"

"Like a table, at first, but I thawed him out. He nicknamed me."

"You have a way about you. What's the nickname?"

"Gina."

"I like that. Gina. That's nice. I'm surprised. I always thought Doc was kind of a cold fish. What did you talk about?"

"Religion."

"Religion!"

"Christianity, precisely."

"You've lost me completely, but okay."

"Aren't you religious, Jack?"

"Not in the slightest. I need to understand some species' religious practices where they relate to our negotiations, though. You?"

"Agnostic."

"Interesting. I can see what happened. The doubting construct confounded the scientific Christian into breaking down and talking about his beliefs. You want to get into my line of work? You'd do great things, Ghee. I've seen Doc's fish, too."

"He doesn't hide it well."

"No need, really, although they are a conflicted bunch, Christians. They pretty much keep to themselves."

"The Bible contradicts itself. Some stories are history, true in many ways. Some are a reflection of the period's culture, and others are myth. The societies during the period were brutal."

You've read it? You believe that book?"

"Like I said, I'm agnostic. I trust in science and provable reality. Walking on water and turning it into wine doesn't fit into that."

"Mostly, folks today aren't Christians, just so you know. I think most people are what you're calling agnostic. 'God' is all that is: small particles, atoms, molecules, the forces: electromagnetic, gravity, strong and weak nuclear, water, flora and fauna, planets, suns, moons, galaxies, the universe."

"The universe! There's no such thing." I unwisely ejaculated. Geez, I should know better than to throw a guy's erroneous knowledge back in his face. Getting used to being around humans again wasn't going to be a walk in the park. Most people in this era aren't like those of my time, I would find out. They don't become upset when someone contradicts them. Rather, they seek the information, opinions, observations, determinations, and beliefs of others in order to make informed decisions and get along in a multi-specied reality.

Jack looked startled again.

"Explain," he said, his mouth full.

"You describe your understanding of the universe first. I've been out of circulation a long time."

He laughed. "Okay. Keep in mind this is not my field and I only have a deputy's knowledge of space. Our universe came from a huge blast which created everything at once and it's expanding and accelerating outward. We've not been able to find the center or the leading edge yet – the first matter which was projected outward - or the outer edge of another one, either."

"Okay. I'll tell you what I determined from the various species I discussed this with on Spauch's ship."

"Excellent." Jack pushed his salad and lasagna bowls toward the middle of the table and touched another finger pad in the wall. A door slid opened, located between us and he dumped the dishes in. "Recycler," he explained. He ordered a second bottle of merlot from the cooker and uncorked it, this time setting the wine on the table to breathe. I pushed my own utensils into the hole in the wall and fingered the pad. The little door closed.

"Okay," I said, "in the Infinite, which is a surprisingly uniform definition of space among the more advanced species I know of, the concept of 'universe' is unknown. They use the term 'the Infinite' for space, and a common language utilized by many peoples is called 'trade speech', or 'Infinite Standard'. If you want to call the Infinite 'the universe' it won't translate, or will, only as the Infinite. No one's found an end to the Infinite yet, hence the name.

"They'll recognize the region you call home as 'the universe' if you introduce the word and concept to them and give the coordinates for the area you believe encompasses the materials from your Big Bang. You and I can name any region experiencing an event reducing matter and energy to its basic elements and blasting them outward at increasing speed a 'universe'.

"Blasts like supernovae, black and white holes, gamma ray bursts - anything spewing energy and matter into a region of space and time are the Infinite recycling," I pointed to the recycler, "bits of itself. There're various ways this happens. Stars explode and reduce nearby matter to molecules, atoms, and smaller particles, deforming the material located farther out and blowing it all out. The deformed rock will be at the leading expanding edge of the universe and that's how you can find it. Stars create heavy metals by nuclear fusion and spew them out. Forces coalesce the infinitesimal bits into larger, more mature structures. Collisions disperse and combine material, spin occurs, gravity initiates, orbits form, gasses unite to make water and air, and over time microorganisms, bacteria, algae, amoeba, plants, fish, you name it, grow, and life begins.

"Some stars explode and implode to create black holes which suck energy and matter in and spit it out of white holes in other regions in different times of the Infinite. Black-white hole pairs occur in many sizes, as do stars and galaxies and virtually everything we can name. The Milky Way began in this manner and your universe did, too.

"A finite number of elements exist, but not all of them end up in every creation, and not in equivalent concentrations, and the forces develop in different strengths, all of which are why the systems and species differ. The atmosphere on the arena ship was almost the same as Earth's and the Mark Burgess'. The creatures I fought with and spoke to on Spauch's vessel came from planets with similar attributes. They told me about other species which thrive in different types of atmospheres and conditions, say, those who respire helium or hydrate with ammonia, whose planetary gravities are heavier or lighter, and who otherwise can't interact with our kind easily. Interacting with them takes a massive expenditure of energy and expertise and wealth. A few traders are accomplished at trading with these other kinds for some precious commodities, but only the very rich can afford to. Of course they go after materials in extreme demand and limited supply, therefore the profits justify the difficulty and expense. Unbelievable wealth is created from this type of trading. Wealthy traders dominate the field.

"Humans, and other species, too, can't know any more than they've experienced, and although they can imagine anything, they can't prove everything. All creatures try to apply the concepts they already understand to those they haven't figured out yet, so a higher level of nonsensical or mystical explanations is a result of ignorance and inexperience. Likewise, sophistication is dependant on experience and understanding.

"The laws operating in your little region of the Infinite operate in all other regions in some form: stronger, weaker, similar. Many more rules exist which humans haven't discovered yet.

"Anyway, the entirety of space isn't cut up into universes. It just goes on and on. One species even tracked the recycling process in one region by directing something elemental and recognizable into a black-white hole system, and found the white hole spewed the material out in the same proportions as the stuff was put in. Of course by doing this they changed the composition of the renewing system, maybe not such a good idea. Complicated mathematical equations are used to determine precisely when life will arise in a newly recycled area of matter and energy. The timing depends on certain measurable criteria, and they can even tell the rate of the new life's development."

"That's quite advanced," Jack said.

"So, for instance on a smaller, galactic scale, there could have been a gigantic sun where the Milky Way galaxy's black hole is now. When the sun died, the explosion blew out the basics and they coalesced to create the Milky Way. It also imploded into the black hole now at the center of the Milky Way. The young black hole ate the matter and energy and expelled them through a white hole in another regiontime in the Infinite, creating a sibling galaxy to the Milky Way somewhere else in space sometime. The regiontime that currently contains the Milky Way galaxy actually experienced a net loss of matter and energy, and the regiontime of the sibling galaxy experienced a net gain.

"By the way, the Milky Way's black hole is nearing the end of its life, in cosmic terms. That galaxy is still expanding at an increasing rate in response to the force of the explosion of our hypothetic gigantic sun, but baby stars are forming near its center. This tells us that this cavity has lost much of its energy, because those materials and energies would not have been able to coalesce into stars if the distortion was young and vibrant. The chaotic forces of a younger black hole prevent star formations. Fresh kinks are very kinetic, but the older they get, the weaker they become. Eventually they stop pulling things in. The singularity at the center of the Milky Way will blink shut as the white hole elsewherewhen winks closed, too. Its matter and energy'll continue to expand forever outward just as your universe has done, because there's no friction in space to slow down the expansion of either galaxy.

"Also, blasts of all sizes continually come into existence and die out, causing ripples in the microwave background like when you drop something into the water. Sometimes, by the time you find the waves the original cause is gone. These blasts add to the speed of your universe's expansion.

"One day Earth's sun will nova and recycle its own little region, adding to the forces of dilation and imploding into a small vacuity. Some or all of the system will spew out of a white emission in another regiontime.

"That's what they think about space."

"Ghee, you're fascinating, but you're giving me a headache! I'm just a lowly negotiator."

"Sorry. I find it interesting. I had plenty of time to listen. Let's change the subject. Am I allowed to watch movies and read books aboard this ship? I need to catch up on humanity."

"We have a library that you can access from here. I'll show you how, and I want to take you to the mat room, too. Would you to tune me up and teach me your alien moves?"

"You want to fight with me?"

"Yes, if you think you will without crippling me. Can you?"

"I'll try," I smiled.

I thought about touching Jack. The smell of him from across the table intoxicated me.

In fact, I ended up 'tuning up' the entire crew of the ship, while Kek's people examined four different planets and conferred to make their decision.

The Mek chose a beautiful world and settled in the warm, temperate zone. They called the planet KekTan, or Great Kek, after Kek, my former guard, who negotiated the Mek exodus, transport, and resettlement with the humans. They renamed themselves the "free kin", but the words in their own language was MekKop, so I didn't enlighten them about what "freakin'" meant in English. For all I knew, people weren't using the same slang anymore anyway. Kek's kin asked me to live with them on their planet, and I agreed after the authorities released me. Getting used to the wind and sunburn and dirt and rain and the seasonal changes took a while, but we forced ourselves. I felt safe among them.

Doc and his associates worked on the cure. Over fifty billion human lives had been snuffed out, and just over seventy-four million remained uninfected by the time the scientists, cloistered on a military battle cruiser retrofitted with their equipment, had been able to stop the pox. Doc explained to me in layman's terms how the Nameloids reintroduced three viruses and a bacterium, bringing back those human infections of the past. The diseases caused by these particular infecting agents had been "cured" by eliminating their vectors, not by vaccine. This meant the humans had no immunity to them, natural or otherwise. The Nameloids engineered the viruses to be pneumonic and super virulent, and the bacteria produced toxins which killed the hematocysts sent out by the immune system to kill them. People died in less than two weeks, mainly from dehydration. With the model of my genome, the synthesis engineers and molecular geneticists altered gene sequences and deliver them via vaccine into every uninfected person. Existing segments of DNA were sliced out by the genes and the modified bits inserted, creating an immune system similar to mine. The mutated sections created protein blockers specific to the receptors the viruses docked at, blocking them, and beefed up the hematocysts so they were able to overcome the toxins.

This is too simplistic an explanation and I'm sure I misunderstood. I'm no doctor, but you get the point.

The medical community had been curing diseases caused by gene malfunctions in individuals for over a century and a half, however this constituted the first incidence of population-wide artificially induced evolution. The new improved immune systems would replicate in the embryos of the new improved humans.

No one could anticipate the consequences, and fear and speculation were rife. Most folks, though, understood the alternative had been extinction.

People are always afraid of what they don't understand, and the gap between knowledge and ignorance is ever increasing.

Anyway, my super immunity hadn't hurt me. I hadn't been sick a day in my alien life. Once in a while I still wondered when I'd die and what would be the cause. Maybe someday someone would drop a building on me.

The Department worked on contacting the ruling bodies of the four self-sufficient planets to inform them of the threat and offer deliverance.

The MekKop negotiated with the Space Force and Union to obtain for themselves training and building materials. In time they proved to be excellent engineers, builders, deputies, traders, and even diplomats. Within four of their planetary years, with human help, they erected a university utilized by the Space Force, the MekKop, those species still trading with humans, and people who resided in or were able to travel to the Union protected region. An orbiting space port was built for the Department, which settled its new headquarters and the Sheriff on KekTan. A separate, luxurious civilian orbiter for visitors was also created. Shuttles flew continuously from the planet's surface to the satellites. KekTan became known as the safest port and planet in the new Galactic Union. The MekKop earned the reputation as the best security providers anywhere.

Jack and I did not marry, but we developed a deep friendship. He retired from the Force and became an intergalactic diplomat stationed on KekTan. He divided his time between negotiating and renegotiating trade treaties for humans and Mek, and in my apartment with me.

The Mek bred like bunnies. They'd been disallowed from having more children than could replace them on Spauch's ship, and they had their huge and gorgeous new home to populate. They were a very merry bunch. Soon the whole planet filled with infants named Jon and Jak and Not. The kin introduced the three-name concept to honor Jack and to tell their children apart. A Jak might be Jak Set Pok or Nor Jak Ged, and I think every child, male and female, born for several generations, had a Jon, Jak, or Not in their appellation. The designation "Kek", on the other hand, was reserved as an honorific for the Mek diplomatic corps. Mek Diplomats adopted the name Kek in front of their own.

Something I highly approved of was the introduction of cats to the planet. A voracious little mole-type creature lived all over the place, making farming difficult. Humans worked on genetically lowering the pests' birth rate, and brought in felines to see if they would help get the existing population under control. The Mek didn't want to use chemicals, and traps were inefficient. In fact, the cats went crazy for the moles. The Mek went nuts for the cats. Any time a visitor brought a cat or kitten to KekTan, the guest was treated like royalty. The MekKop bred the best predators and helped them teach their offspring to hunt, but housed them in an enclosed park. Many of these kittens were released to the wild after being spayed and neutered, so their populations were controlled. They also altered the not-so-great hunters and kept them as house pets. The cats reached the status of cows in India, protected and worshipped, and the released ones were fed treats and handled by everyone to ensure they didn't become too wild. The career of veterinarian became a high ambition among the kids.

Only one of the self-sufficient planets refused to interact with us, and so was still at risk of the pox. Fortunately, they seemed unwilling to communicate with anyone, but if the Nameloids found them and wanted their world, they would be doomed. The planet was located in the Milky Way, almost exactly opposite of Earth on the other side of the black hole. The Space Force had four manned satellites orbiting their globe at all times, and every six of their months sent a communication probe down to the surface. We waited patiently for their reply.
Part Four: Justice

Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest you learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.

Proverbs 22:24 and 22:25[i]

"Another device has fallen from the sky, Deena," the admiral announced.

Deena had dropped the title and name Lady Kate after she'd subdued all of the shires and renamed herself 'Deena', which she proclaimed meant 'Queen'. She'd been the Queen of the entire planet during the span of a normal human lifetime, and then other arrangements had been made.

"Bring it here, Lance," Deena said, annoyed. The messages were invariably the same, delivered by various humans of a variety of pedigrees belonging to something called the Galactic Union, whatever that was. Probably they wanted her to join up and pay dues, exploit her beautiful planet, and bring unwanted ideas to her perfectly ordered society. Making the culture fit her ideal had taken Deena a long while and was a lot of work. She'd only been able to relax and enjoy the fruits of her labor for about the last century, Faire time, until the ugly things had begun to fall through her atmosphere and land in various fields and wildernesses. Fortunately, they weren't easy to get into and the collectors whose hands they had passed through had not had the technological proficiency to do so. The first had contained the code key to open the rest.

This one had landed in the field of a farmer, who, of course, came in to town and went to the local armory. He turned it over to the soldiers who delivered the bizarre thing up the chain of command. The device reached Lance, who brought it to her attention.

Obedient, every one of them, Deena hadn't had to make an example of anyone in...oh... far too many years.

Deena was in the castle within the gorgeous dark wood library, the one in which she had, so long ago, ordered Lord Cline into obeisance. This alliance had never failed her. He had lived up to his word, ever loyal, and she had treated his children, and all the descendents up to the present day, with special deference. Deena pretended to cease to exist, and they became the single Ruling Family. At a time when a normal human would have succumbed to old age, she made up The Oath of Rulers and forced the Cline clan to speak and sign it in her presence a year before she 'died'. Thus, the people wouldn't dare question their validity as her successor. From her shuttered castle in Golden Shire she ruled the entire planet through the Royal Family of Emerald Shire, the obedient heirs of submissive old Lord Cline.

A few times during Lady Kate's lifetime, especially at the beginning of her rule, Deena had become angry at some of the original Ruling Families' questioning of her legitimacy, their assertion of their superior suitability to govern, even, in fact, their feeble attempts at war. After all, they were the founders of Faire, the investors, in reality, the owners, but Lady Kate was strong and her and Lord Cline's army had been forceful, numerous, and loyal. They put down the rebellions just as Deena personally, and secretly, violated the rebellious families. She absorbed their shires. Cline's influence, and fear, had helped restrain the remaining lords and their relations.

Lady Kate, bolstered by her superior army, her admirals' loyalty, and her own willingness to slaughter her way to complete control of the planet managed, in a mere generation, to quiet all audible dissent.

The societal order of this world had been designed by the original founders. The lords hoarded printed material and controlled education and communications, and dictated that the agrarian society wasn't allowed to advance beyond the medieval period, with certain upgrades. These advances were primarily enjoyed by the investors, otherwise known as the Royal Families. The first generation of serfs, like the lords, had come from Earth, and had been courted by their future rulers with promises of a simple agrarian life on the clean and beautiful medieval fantasy planet. They'd desired this and so emigrated. When the owners decided they had enough serfs, they dismissed the Terran Shuttle Service, which then disassembled and removed the temporary Interplanetary Shuttle Port, but not before Steven had secretly purchased and transported a killer to help him secure title to the entire world, through murder. Possession of the documents of the murdered lords, which transfer his attorneys could skillfully falsify, such as wills and deeds, would seal the deal, so to speak.

Steven of course, had wanted to own all the lawyers and soldiers, as well as the lands and serfs. He wouldn't allow anyone to become strong enough to interfere. This had been his plan.

Steven had worked slowly at first, so as not to attract attention. He'd tried to use his assassin in subtle ways. He'd not taken over the lordless shires but had allowed neighboring lords to absorb them, knowing full well that in the end, he would be the last one standing. So the stage had been set for Deena, who had no compunctions about using violence, having been shed of Earthly constraints. She and Cline, and their combined resources, and her violent and consuming nature had made waste of the dissenters, and the rest had fallen in line, especially once the Legend had begun to take hold.

Most of the serfs brought their Bibles and continued their practice of the Christian religion. Deena created a story in the language of the Holy Bible, and by constant retelling, her fiction became as a Bible lesson. Not in the Bible, but of this planet, the Legend was much like the Mormon story of the Prophet Joseph Smith, which had been advanced to the Mormons in the raw and isolated American Southwest. Eventually, a new Book of Mores, including the Legend, the Ten Commandments, and other select Biblical writings, was integrated into planetary culture and belief. The Legend professed that a Divine Planetary Force existed which determined the culture should be continued as envisioned by the lords, and then slowly remade by Deena, the Queen. The medieval agrarian society must always be governed by the Royal Family (the Clines), and any dissent or challenge would be heard and punished.

This is where Deena came in, secretly. The original construct had been an assassin, and the investors had suspected such was in their midst. After Deena had taken over, destroyed Steven, and ordered Cline and the other founders to submit to her ministrations, she murdered the rebellious lords. Deena even killed her own admirals once because of some indiscrete revelations she'd made. After the populace was led believe Deena was deceased, she was unfortunately relegated to living secretly in her castle, but continued to silence dissent with murder. The murders were so heinous and violent that the people believed they were of inhuman origin. Thus did Deena manipulate the inhabitants into believing the Divine Planetary Force worked to preserve the current order, or something did. After a few generations, the Legend become a fact of life on Faire; a known Truth.

Deena learned she was very long lived, and her body healed even gruesome injuries. She indoctrinated successions of the hand picked descendants of her first four guards to make it their family business to keep her secrets and realize her desires reality out in her beautiful planetary kingdom. More like company managers than soldiers, they went through military training and earned rank by their own efforts, for the most part. Many sons and daughters were trained. A few, personally selected by herself and their fathers and mothers who were her admirals, took over their parents' roles when the time came. The others remained generals. The future admirals were privy to the highest of specialized training, the skill of embodying the dual personalities of the Public Face and the Private Knowledge. The successful ones graduated to be her personal assistants and the leaders of her military. Deena treated each generation in this manner. The most intimate intelligence of all, that she was the murderous monster of the Legend, she thought she had kept to herself.

Creating her perfect society had not been an easy or a quick accomplishment, but she'd succeeded, and now these alien humans and their probes threatened to destroy it all. Deena's anger had been mounting since the first probe had fallen. She would have to find some relief soon.

Deena had been going over the annual planetary production and census reports. The grain silos were full, so she'd encourage farmers to concentrate on fresh produce next season. Although the population had grown, and the combined appetites, too, so had the quality of farming and the quantity and excellence of land under production. Perhaps the release of some additional recipes for various alcoholic beverages would help lessen the glut of grain. Alcoholism would become more of a problem if she relented just to use up the cereals, though, probably increasing socialistic tendencies and even contemplation and conversations of subjects best controlled by sober minds. Her own supply of royal brandy and whisky were always available to her and her admirals, and of course, the Royal Family. Perhaps just a few recipes might be authorized and select breweries and wineries expanded. Why not? They were such good people, honest, upstanding, forthright, and most of all, obedient and content.

She'd seen to their contentment herself by making sure her nearest and dearest, and by this she meant the admirals, made certain any lesson learned be taught discretely. Carefully designed propaganda stifled the occasional dissenter, reinforced the mores and customs she dictated, and propped up the good will, complacency, and productivity of her serfs. Only once in a long while, these days, did she find it necessary to arrange accidents. A small, disguised murder here and there, which silenced a dissenter, was often preferable to the unholy slaughter that the Legend was prone to unleash.

Since she'd 'died', Deena had succeeded in staying out of society's view and therefore public conversation.

Very rarely now and only when it occurred did Deena ponder why the dissent still popped up. She hadn't achieved her goal of wiping out the opposition entirely, which puzzled her, considering the time frame. Many generations had come and gone. Granted, defiance was much less of a problem than it had been.

Ironically, the success of Deena's regime had left her bored and aggravated. Few rivals remained upon which to vent her chronic frustration. Practically no one remained to torment and torture, rarely anyone to kill, and few to manipulate and humiliate. She walked a fine line with the admirals and the Family, and treated them with respect, lest she lose her influence and her lifeline to the people. Then, she would have nothing. Being respectful didn't come easy to Deena, and was a major source of her aggravation. The orderliness and obedience she'd imposed upon her population, and her dependence on the Clines and her admirals, had left her flatly miserable, which increased her vehemence. She couldn't find release.

Her success therefore, had become her curse.

Lance entered with the probe.

"Go ahead and play the damned thing," Deena sighed.

After he placed the device on her desk he tapped the code onto the small surface receptor. The recorded holo image appeared; a woman's face this time. She was in uniform and highly decorated, though the decorations were subtle compared to Lance's.

"To the people of the planet upon which this message finds itself, we are humans bearing grave tidings. The human species has been attacked by a race we call the Nameloids. They've seized Earth. Much of humanity was lost to the diseases introduced by these invaders before we manufactured effective prophylactics. To protect you, we've sent samples of our vaccines, synthesizers, and the instructions for synthesizing both the innoculants and the means to deliver them. When you've succeeded, type in the following completion sequence (here a combination of numbers, letters, and symbols appeared below the image of her face) using the touchpad. If you would like our assistance to inoculate the population send the help code in the same manner (another one popped up). Please respond. We are concerned for your survival."

The image faded.

"Put it with the others," Deena ordered, and she went back at her paperwork. Lance complied.

When he reentered the office and stood at attention just inside the doorway, she barked, "What Lance?"

"Aren't you even curious?"

Deena stared at Lance with an incurious expression.

"Sit down," she said. Lance came forward and lowered his lean muscular body into the upholstered, intricately carved wooden chair in front of her highly polished desk.

Currently Deena had ten admirals. These people were her sole confidants, the only ones who understood she'd had an unusual lifespan, besides the Clines. She exposed herself to no one else.

Occasionally she picked a lover from among them. Not recently though.

"Say what you want to say, Lance."

"The alien invaders. These diseases. Shouldn't we protect ourselves?"

"We don't trade outside. Why should we care?"

"The other humans delivered the probes to us. Couldn't these Nameloids send the infections here? This is a desirable planet. Suppose they want it?"

"No one knows about us."

"The humans do."

"Their goal is to protect us. They don't want harm to come to us. There are probably ships in orbit as we speak. We are safe."

"Ships in orbit? What do you mean? You've never spoken of this before."

Oops. She must have been more tired than she thought. How would she mitigate this damage? She had been very careful to censor the information she gave to her highest officers and the Clines; after all, control of knowledge was one of her key controls. Now the cat was out of the bag. She couldn't ignore his requests for further information. He wouldn't tolerate her disregard and it would permanently damage their relationship. Her intimacy with the admirals was also key, for they understood control - the need to keep layers between oneself and the populace, boundaries of personnel, opinion, religion, knowledge and propaganda. What Deena and the admirals knew and what they told the generals were two different things. What Deena and the Royal Family knew, and what they told the people, were two different things. What the generals knew and what they told their inferiors, were two different things, and so on down the line. This was the system. But if Deena didn't explain her comment, the delicate balance might tip. From past experience she'd learned the cleanups of her verbal mistakes were costly, and often meant the risk of exposing herself to others. Once, early on, Deena had been forced to personally slaughter twelve of her best and brightest in one night, two of her admirals and the families they had revealed her secret to, in order to contain the information she'd spilled. Spouses and children had died. Promotions had been made. Life had resumed. The manners of their deaths had been horrible. The executioner had never been identified, and the myth of the murderous thing that massacred those who spoke wrongfully was solidified. This mistake, and the murders she'd committed, turned into a success, and had made Deena wiser about her personal revelations.

The memories lingered like the smell of offal.

"Their ships fly among the stars, Lance. You know that the original humans who founded Faire came from the planet Earth. They named this one Faire and created the shires, the farms, everything. They gave us our lives here and decided we would not trade or communicate with the others. You see how well this has worked out for us. The majority of the other humans are dead now but we thrive because of our ancestors' vision. I can think of no reason to go against our founders' wishes."

"Circumstances change. Shouldn't we get the most current information? 'Forewarned is forearmed', haven't you always preached? They keep sending the probes, and perhaps someday they'll come. Think what will happen among the populace if a space ship lands in someone's field. Shouldn't we acknowledge them, find out what's going on, and reassert our desire to be left alone? We must tell them to stop dropping the probes. What'll happen to us when the people realize other humans seek to meet us? They are our relatives. We'll lose control. Already questions are being asked because of these devices. The soldiers report the questioning."

"Those are excellent points, Lance. Excellent points. Perhaps you are right. Let's discuss this further."

They had a magnificent dinner, and then Deena and her admirals retreated to a high-walled courtyard where they were able to enjoy the warm early fall evening without being seen, and the nonsmokers found relief from the cigars. Deena drank spring water seasoned with raspberry and lime, as was her custom. The admirals consumed her whisky and brandy, some smoked the fragrant stogies, and they settled themselves among the furniture. They sat close to keep their voices down, and were bathed in the slight, though gusty, breeze.

"I imagine you've discussed this amongst yourselves. Give me your synopses."

"We are divided, Deena," Kurt began. "Lance, Donal, Merna, Christian and I think we must make contact. We cannot allow our populace to remain unprotected against the diseases and these Nameloids. However John, Samson, Rosaline, Evangeline, and Dirk believe..."

"We'll speak for ourselves, thank you Kurt," Samson said politely and Kurt nodded. "We think," Rosaline began, "control will be impossible if we confess the existence of alien humans. Citizens already want explanations of the origins of these probes. Most of the current conversations in homes, and the social houses, and church yards revolve around them. Everyone seems to be talking of them, though many say they do not care, and some don't believe. Lance told us about the ships. Once we acknowledge these others, we'll lose control completely. The key to our authority is propaganda; withholding knowledge and information, steering education, and creating public wisdom. We believe the suitable response to the devices will be retelling the stories of our ancestors and our arrival on Faire, and of their desires for us. We can say the probes are space junk falling to Faire from a malfunctioning cargo ship which exploded after leaving the planet in the beginning. Since no one's come here in all these generations, we'll deny anybody still in existence remembers us. We should send the completion code so they'll stop contacting us."

"Your proposal doesn't contradict the belief of Fairans that other humans are or may be out there, curious about us. Do you think that's wise?" Deena asked.

"Perhaps not, but what consequence?" John replied. "Farmers, animal husbands, blacksmiths, textile workers, builders and indoor climate techs are unlikely to produce spaceships anytime soon. As long as we tell the alien humans to let us be, then we'll still be isolated here. What harm may come of it?"

"As far as I can determine, the only manner to communicate is with the codes provided. I've seen no way to send a message, but I haven't explored the devices in detail," Deena said. She wondered if the device was simple enough for her to communicate with them.

Donal stood to pace, as several of the others had, still close to Deena so as not to have to raise his voice. They were always conscious of being overheard. "Will we not use the inoculants? It seems risky not to inoculate our population. If the human probes can so easily come to Faire, why can't an infectious probe? However, when we vaccinate the people, they'll know we have relatives beyond Faire and they'll want to meet them and learn more."

Merna continued, "The risk is too great not to utilize them. We could all die. When we administer the medicine, they'll realize, but there's nothing to debate. We must use it. Also, threats exist in space like violent species. We have to protect our planet. The alien humans will help with their spaceships and advanced mechanics. Perhaps we can deal with them. The grain silos are full to overflowing..."

"If we trade with them, they'll be required to come here to pick up our goods. We'll lose control, our way of life," Evangeline shuddered under her lavender blouse.

"No, we'll expand our opportunities," Donal said. "We grow and make quality goods to trade. We can manage the extent to which our population encounters their crews. A shuttle hangar built far out in the wilderness and a long road for transporting the products..."

"How will we keep our traders from colonizing the space port and the distances between, talking with the aliens, and spreading alien knowledge and gifts? How do we do this without the people becoming suspicious and demanding free choice?" Samson asked.

"There is no need to stop these things," Christian said. "We must change..."

"We must not!" Dirk ejected.

"We must," Lance quietly said. "The question is how much?"

"Enough," Deena barked. "Let me examine the probe further, and then we will speak again."

A recording instrument within the device wasn't unlike a computer touch screen of Deena's time on Earth. The screen's 'buttons' had common symbols like a tape recorder for record, pause, play, stop, and reverse. It was simple enough. A 'transmit' button sent the signal, so she wouldn't have to put the damned thing back into orbit, which she couldn't do. A comprehensive reply could be transmitted, but what would she say to get their various points across?

"A message can be sent," Deena announced to her reassembled admirals. "Let's decide what to tell them."

"Get them to understand we don't wish to be disturbed again."

"No, we need their protection from exterior threats."

"We can negotiate a treaty; get them to protect us in exchange for our goods."

"If they even want them."

"Of course they'll desire fresh produce, they live in space."

"How big are these spaceships? Do they grow their own food?"

Deena didn't know. She searched her vague memories of science fiction movies. "Probably."

"Perhaps they'd like our tobacco and alcohol products. Our coffees and teas are excellent. Should they not use such things, they could trade them with others for something else."

"What if this is a lie. Maybe the Nameloids are trying to find out if we are human."

Everyone stopped talking and stared at Evangeline.

"To take our beautiful planet," she added, undaunted.

"Just send the completion code and perhaps they will leave us alone."

Deena interrupted the conversation so they wouldn't present the same arguments again. "If this is from the Nameloids, and they are advanced enough to make a plague, then they can detect humans on this planet. They would have already sent the diseases, and we'd all be infected and dying."

"Jesus help us..."

"Jesus is not of this world. We must protect ourselves."

"I believe the probes to be human and genuine," Deena said. "Do we respond or not?"

Her admirals responded with five ayes and five nays.

"I'll think on this." She dismissed them.

Deena sat alone in the courtyard, bathing in the warm fall sunlight. The high walls kept the breeze to a minimum.

Her perfect order was coming to an end. She idly wondered when the ugly sterile body would die and release her. Deena believed an infectious threat had been spread with intent by a species called the Nameloids. They'd be fools not to want Faire. Its resources had barely been exploited. The humans knew of Faire's existence, which had not been a secret but a homestead business. Records existed. The outsiders were trying to help the human population of Faire survive. The diseases could infect the planet's populace unless they inoculated. The probes had already caused discussion among the people about others in the universe. The reason for the inoculants would be fairy-tailed, but Fairans were ignorant, not stupid. They'd connect the devices and the population-wide inoculations. Lance was right. Faire had been lucky not to have been approached from space for all this time. They needed protection and didn't have the ability to provide this for themselves.

Deena strolled down the dusty, empty corridors of her castle, and entered her suite full of tapestries, cushiony area rugs, and gleaming dark wood bureaus. She turned up the heat, undressed, and slipped beneath her down comforter. The door opened and the little cloistered maid popped her head in.

"Madam?" she asked.

"Wake me at eight," Deena said.

"Yes, Madam."

Deena pressed the transmit button, and then she, Lance, and Rosaline strode through the mostly unused corridors to the stables. Horses had been made ready and her admirals dismissed the stable hands. Deena waited for the clear signal. When it came she walked forward and mounted her mare. The two officers did the same. They rushed out into the inky black darkness.

Just before dawn, they reached the end of their journey and found a shuttle waiting for them. They were surprised; they'd expected to camp out for days awaiting its arrival. The crew greeted them formally and escorted them until they'd settled them into luxurious, cushiony seats. The horses were led to another entrance and tied in as well.

Deena observed Lance and Rosaline, in their handsome full dress uniforms, covered by light wool riding coats, managing their excitement and their expressions masterfully. She was pleased. Deena herself had never flown into space, but at least she'd known about it. Rosaline and Lance showed extreme bravery and curiosity, also.

Deena arranged this trip mainly because she'd been bored mindless for several decades. Success had resulted in this dire consequence.

I stared at Doc's image. He'd contacted me from one of the ships in orbit around the self-sufficient planet he called Faire.

"She's like you," Doc said.

"What?" I'm afraid I shrieked a little bit.

"She's a construct. Do you want to meet her? We'll bring her to you or you can come here. She's got two of her admirals with her. They're completely ignorant about space and other humans and, well, everything."

She's like you. Did she remember the "good old days"? How should I converse with her? Would she recognize this body? She'd worked and lived closely with this construct in the past, and only twelve had remained at the end, when they'd been sold. Had they billeted together? Probably.

"Gina?"

Well I had the concussion/brain damage excuse. I was currently pretending to have few recollections of that time, the ones I'd discussed with Doc. Perhaps more memories would come, or not, according to Doc. Of course they wouldn't.

"Maybe she can help you remember. Her name is Deena."

You know that feeling you get when an explosion or a very loud noise happens suddenly, when you're not expecting it, and this makes you feel like all your meat and gristle snaps around while your skin stays in the same place, and then it all jerks back again.

I had that feeling.

Deena. The car accident. My soul bouncing from one creature's body to the next. Hers too? No way!

"Host her here, Ghee, I want to meet her," Kek said. We'd been talking before lunch.

"So we'll bring her to you, right?" Doc asked.

"Sure, Doc. See you in a few." What could I say? I was in shock. Doc's image disappeared.

"Ghee, another of your species. How exciting? Do you think you will recognize her?"

The name sounds familiar came to mind but I didn't say it. The construct hadn't been called Deena. Here I go with the mental gymnastics again.

"I don't know. Maybe I will," I lied to him. I hated lying to Kek

Damnit. Everything had been going so well.

I said, "Kitchen," and when someone answered, the disembodied reply hanging in the air, I continued with, "Hold lunch. We're expecting visitors."

"Yes, Ghee." I recognized Pad's voice, the building's head chef.

"Thank you, Pad."

"My pleasure, Ghee," Pad said.

"End." The communication portal terminated our connection.

"I'm excited, Ghee, but you don't seem very excited," Kek observed.

"I don't remember, Kek."

"Maybe you will recognize her."

"I hope so. I'd hate for her to know me and have the advantage of me."

"I'll stay of course. We'll learn from her."

"And her admirals. Why don't you call Nok and you two can entertain them while I talk to Deena after lunch."

Geez, saying her name made my tongue grate like sand in my mouth. Deena had killed me, after all, after she'd run me off the job. If she was, in fact, that Deena, she'd died and her soul had bounced into another construct. The chances of those occurrences were so very small. I gained some inner composure by realizing, most likely, I'd just be dealing with a being who'd coincidently named herself 'Deena', and my 'head injuries' would explain my ignorance of the bad old days. Good enough.

Nok arrived in time to escort Doc, Deena, the two admirals, and six deputies, into my office lunchroom. The deputies stood at each side of the doors and became as wall art.

I usually met visitors here. The room was decorated like a small gentleman's club, or what I preferred to call gentlewoman's club, because it's mine. I didn't mind the extra syllable too much. Although most of my visitors were male, I'd made friends and acquaintances among our female trading and political allies. Jack often accompanied them here to visit with me, and treaties had been discussed in this room. Even consensus occurred occasionally. Kek and Nok adored the proceedings. The MekKop desired education in politics, diplomacy, and trade. In fact, Nok and Kek studied these subjects at the university and taught classes at kin schools. Some of their students had graduated to go on to study at the college. Becoming learned in the ways of the Galactic Union was an enormous source of Mek pride. I was proud of them as well.

She looked like me, except her facial features were different, though hers were similarly regular in a generic sort of way. Her face wasn't deranged by decades of fighting. Kek and Nok couldn't help themselves; they glanced back and forth at us as if watching a badminton match. The Mek adore badminton. I didn't recognize her.

"Welcome, Deena, and admirals," I nodded at them. "Please take your seats. Will you have cocktails?"

"Thank you", Deena said and as she sat, everyone else did, too. "I don't drink alcohol, but perhaps my admirals would appreciate something. I would like spring water with raspberry and lime flavorings."

"We stock an excellent local brew you might enjoy," Nok said to the officers, and he and Kek moved to the drinks cabinet. Both admirals nodded in agreement.

"Doc?" I asked.

"You know I drink the red stuff," he described the MekKop Mead from the end of the table. Doc's fish symbol was hanging outside of his shirt. He noticed me looking.

"It invites conversation. I'm a doctor. I treat pathologies." He grinned.

"Good for you, Doc," I smiled back. I could just imagine those conversations. We'd had one. "You don't chase any patients off with your radical views, do you?"

"Sometimes. Most listen and tell me I have an interesting perspective."

Deena was staring at me, so I stared at her in return. Now Doc glanced back and forth, as did her officers.

"I'm sorry," I risked. "I don't recognize you. Do you remember me?"

Deena hesitated.

"No, I don't. Looks like you've had a tough time of it," she looked around and accepted her drink from Kek, who openly stared at her, "though you seem to be doing well now."

Nok and Kek served everyone and sat one on each side of me, across from the admirals.

"They sold me to an arena ship and I spent many decades fighting, until we were rescued."

Kek and Nok nodded.

"An arena ship, fighting. Hmmm, like the Coliseum." Deena stated.

The Coliseum could be a reference to the Roman times on Earth, but both my killer Deena and the original construct would have known that. The constructs had studied history to learn tactics and strategies. I'd learned these facts from the files Doc had shown me.

"Yes, exactly."

"I was sold to a lord of Faire, called Steven, who used me to assassinate the other lords. He wanted to rule the entire planet," Deena explained. "Perhaps you remember me as Kate or K-8? I've been tattooed," she patted her right shoulder.

"I have one, too, G-9SRO25T. That's why Kek and Nok call me Ghee-nye, and Doc calls me Gina. You may use either name. How did you come up with Deena?"

Again, the characteristic pause. It was becoming disconcerting waiting for her to choose her answers.

"Deena means 'Queen'."

"Now you are the Queen of the planet Faire?"

"It's complicated."

She didn't seem to want to elaborate, and her admirals briefly turned to stone, so I called the kitchen and asked Pad to serve a meal for seven.

We made small talk about the local food and drink until lunch came. The odors blossomed in the room. I noticed Kek, Nok, and Doc smile. Pad, in her infinite wisdom, had produced Dap Kow Pon Dut Tam Rin, the meal we serve to the finest visitors, and to ourselves on special occasions like weddings and birthdays. The Mek are big on those holidays. Pad had come to my office with the servers and proceeded to stare at Deena and me as the others had while Doc, Kek, Nok and I lavished praises on Pad for the beauty and fragrance of the dishes she presented.

The MekKop really are the best starers in the Infinite. They will not be told staring is rude. Guests are informed they might as well expect to be stared at by the Mek. Only when a species in negotiation is seriously insulted by being stared at are negotiations attended by humans and not Mek, but Mek always observe by holo in viewing rooms. Everything in every office on KekTan is recorded, even me when I am picking my nose. Visitors are notified in advance. No exceptions are tolerated. Restrooms are off limits to recording devices, of course, but they are individual bathrooms, not the multi-stall public kind. If more than one being tries to enter any of these at a time, a Mek hall steward pleasantly interrupts and directs one of the individuals to another. Only Frell are allowed to go in to a bathroom together. Biologically, I've been told, it takes two Frell to pee.

I think I mentioned this before; the security on KekTan is impeccable and undeniable. Also unavoidable.

Unfortunately, Doc had to eat and run. He was organizing the potential inoculation of Faire.

Deena appeared annoyed by the brothers' noisy eating. Her escorts were amused.

The conversation proceeded in a halting manner as only Deena spoke for her side. The admirals stayed silent. She seemed to be carefully choosing her responses to my, Kek's, and Nok's questions. She might have been overwhelmed, but I sensed she was holding back. She was quite provincial after all. I asked her about her planet and learned Faire was pre-industrial. We concentrated on the excellent food, though she picked and ate little.

After the goopy, chunky, chocolaty dessert called Nam Dop Tar, which I never grew tired of eating, the boys drew the admirals to the drinks cabinet. I noticed they had looked to Deena for permission, and she'd nodded them on. I refreshed her flavored water for her and invited her to the balcony to enjoy the sights of our beautiful planet.

Outside, I realized she hadn't smiled once. She walked up to the clear partition and studied the view briefly. Then she turned her back on it.

"Deena," I said, lowering my voice and my head, moving closer to make a cozier ambience, "I understand you may be anxious. Your planet is self-sufficient, so there'll be problems. Perhaps after Faire's populace is inoculated, you'll want nothing more to do with us. Your wishes will be respected."

She sidestepped away from me.

"I assume you are the ruler of KekTan, since I've been brought to you. This little breed are your, um, constituents? The humans also work from this planet?"

"They are called the MekKop and this is their home. They run the planet, the Intergalactic Space Port, and the civilian orbiter. Humans do business from here, yes, and on their orbiting satellite."

I became stingy now in response to her stinginess. I didn't want to give out too much information anymore and I wasn't feeling friendly toward her. Something seemed wrong.

"But I am not the ruler. This is the Mek's world. You were brought here to meet me because we are the same."

"We are not the same," Deena sneered.

If she wasn't the Deena who'd killed me she sure did a pretty fine impression. When one had become used to ultimate authority, apparently, there was no reason for friendliness.

Deena decided Ghee-nye or Gina or whatever she liked to be called wasn't in complete control here, and therefore couldn't be trusted. Perhaps this was a democracy. Unaware of the grimace, her lips curled in an obvious display of disgust.

"No we're not," I agreed. "Certainly we've had different experiences."

"But I understand," Deena eyeballed me. "On Faire we practice what we call the Public Face and the Private Knowledge. Ruling is a matter of management, correct? You are a manager here?"

"Yes," I said, but I failed to appreciate her statement about the Public Face and the Private Knowledge, which sounded suspiciously like deception and manipulation to me. Was Deena deceiving her people? "I manage my own business."

I sipped my coffee.

"So the little creatures..." she began.

"They're called MekKop," I repeated, "or Mek if you like."

"The MekKop, they make up your population?"

"Mek and human."

Deena stared out across the architecturally brilliant high rise city and out to the parkland and wilderness beyond. The landscape was flat, the afternoon late, and the light gleamed off the shiny surfaces.

She was thrilled by the energy and power here - the spaceships, the orbiters and the spaceport, the thronging alien travelers, the superior workmanship and materials, the high finance business so obviously a goal of this city, the rituals and polite observances of multiple species interacting - and she became intimidated. She was afraid and angry. She did not belong to this future, and she'd be damned if Faire would become a replica of this world.

"Our population is human. We're farmers and craftspeople. We like our society the way it is." She related this with a touch of challenge.

"Well, as I said, we'll respect you. We're only afraid the pox will come to your planet. The Nameloids took Earth and have killed most of us. We hope they won't expand further, but since you're located in the Milky Way, we fear for you."

"We've no defenses of our own, which is why I'm here. Trade's been suggested in exchange for protection, but I won't allow my people to be exposed to this..." Deena dared to glance at the modern city she so obviously despised.

"What do they say?"

"They will say and think what they are told."

"You're not going to tell them about us?" I'm afraid I gasped.

"No. You're like them. For all your technology, you're children, liberals without self control or prudence. You allow many things I don't. You won't be invited to my planet."

"Fair enough, I don't want to go." Liberals? "We'll be able to work out orbital protection in exchange for goods and we'll proceed so few or none of your people become involved – a pickup center or something. They'll deliver and vacate the area. We'll pick up after they've gone. We can even automate the pick-up. Ambassador Knott will work out the details with you."

"Well enough. I'm tired. Are my quarters here or will I be returning to the ship?"

"We've arranged apartments for you as long as you like." I walked into the lunchroom behind her. Kek, Nok, and the admirals were laughing and having a good time.

"Come," Deena barked. They both practically dropped their drinks onto the counter top and snapped to.

I accompanied them to the door. The hall stewards Nat and Dom waited on the other side. The deputies followed us silently.

"Good afternoon, Nat, Dom," I smiled.

"Good afternoon, Ghee," Nat said.

"What can we do for you?" Dom asked.

"Would you please show the Queen and her admirals to their apartments and make sure they're comfortable?"

"Of course."

"This way."

And off they went.

I closed the door and almost ran to the bar. I poured myself a stiff brandy.

"They're good," Kek said.

"We like them," Nok agreed.

"Tell me why," I requested, wondering how their interviews had gone so well and mine so badly. I didn't believe Deena was good in any way, shape, or form.

"The admirals are called Rosaline and Lance," Kek began.

"They're excited to be off world for the first time," Nok giggled.

"They like KekTan and want to go exploring tomorrow."

I interrupted. "Deena will be spending the day with Jack talking treaty. She may want them with her, or not. I don't know."

"Ghee," Nok said, "we don't think the Deena is good."

"Why do you say that?"

"Rosaline told us the Deena would not allow the people off Faire, or us on," Kek replied. He was puzzled.

"She won't. She doesn't want her society polluted with our ideas. She called me a child and said I lacked self control."

"You?" Nok gasped. I nodded.

It was impolitic for me to talk about a Queen and a potential trading partner like this.

"She insulted you," Kek growled.

And that was why.

"Now, gentlemen, our ways are not hers."

"True," Kek settled down a bit. "But we have a particular bias against slavery."

"We must take things slowly at first", Nok said wisely. "Both Rosaline and Lance decided they'd like to return someday."

"We welcomed them back, but they think the Deena probably won't let them come."

"They are descended from the original admirals, Ghee."

"Lance and Rosaline said the Deena was first called Kate because of her tattoo. They told us their ancestors passed this knowledge down in secret through the family; she was an assassin and she murdered her way into power. The admirals cannot speak of this openly and we should not or they fear they will be killed, too."

"She is bad."

"She is bad."

"They also said the descendents tell the stories of their ancestors, but only in secret, because many times those who spoke against the Deena were murdered and torn apart. Also their families. Even their children."

"They said the Deena does not know that the people remember she is a murderer because the people practice something called the Public Face and the Private Knowledge."

"Also they know she is still alive even though she hides herself because the murders still happen."

"They think she is an alien because of the descriptions passed down about her awful long lifespan and her inhuman violence. Human's don't live so many decades."

"Lance wants Faire exposed to us."

"Rosaline said she doesn't want Faire to change, but she enjoyed the trip and meeting alien humans and Mek. She said she doesn't mind telling us because she'll never see us again, and her planet will be closed to us. Since her kin practice the Public Face and the Private Knowledge, the Deena won't ever find out how Rosaline feels, even if she speaks to her family and friends about us. She trusted us not to say anything."

"She trusted us, but she would like things to change."

Kek and Nok glanced at each other.

I was pretty sure the Mek didn't possess any psychic abilities, even though Nok and Kek did read creatures well. Every Mek did, after all, this ability had been the difference between life and death in their former occupations. I wondered what they were up to.

"I don't know what you're up to but don't cause an incident. These people will soon be out of our hair."

They continued smiling as they left.

I could only wait and wonder.

I was nursing my brandy out on the balcony and contemplating events when a bong sounded and Doc's voice disturbed the air above me.

"Gina, you alone?"

"Yes, Doc, where are you?"

'I'm in orbit around Faire. I'm putting a privacy lock on this conversation. I'm sending you the pass key."

I heard the soft ding announcing the receipt of the code in my private com locker. No one would be able to hear our exchange as we spoke or listen at any time later without that code.

"Got it."

"I just wanted to tell you I did some surreptitious scans of Deena and she exhibits the identical genetic modifications as you, in a base human genome."

"Okay."

"Also, I've been going over your medical records in more detail. Although I haven't proven this yet, it seems your ovaries aren't human in genetic origin, which is why you can't procreate, and I hypothesize the non-human hormones are causing the... how shall we say... hyper-attractiveness."

"Huh."

"Deena has these alterations, but not the personality. In her case, she has the hormonal attractiveness and she uses a certain meanness to enforce compliance. It's a powerful combination."

"Do you think all the constructs were manipulated in the same ways?"

"Seems reasonable."

"She's not just mean, Doc, she's a murderer."

"Like you?"

Touché, thanks a lot Doc.

"No, like do as I say and think as I tell you to or I'll kill you and tear your children apart."

"What?!"

I told Doc to review the office lunchtime recording of Nok, Kek, and the admirals for himself as soon as he had time, and then I said, "They were grinning like jackals when they left."

"What's 'jackals'?" he asked.

I always forgot that Doc had been born much later than I, and had spent most of his childhood and adult years in space.

"A dog-like creature. I meant they were planning something."

"Planning what?"

"I don't know yet."

"Okay. I want to find out who your donor species were and where they came from, so I'll be spending the evenings with the Diagnose reports. The medical community is in a tizzy over you and Deena. If you remember having heard anything regarding the donors during your, uh, childhood, give me a shout. I'll check out that recording tonight, too."

"Okay Doc."

"End."

I sat and listened to the audio again. As usual, Nok and Kek had spun a deadly accurate account of their conversation with the admirals regarding the secretive dictator named Deena.

Two evenings later I was relaxing with Jack in my comfortably overstuffed living room when the com bonged and the voices of my favorite Mek brothers burst overhead.

"Ghee, stop snoozing! We're coming in," Nok barked.

Apparently they were in the hallway.

"We have interesting news," Kek added.

"Come in," I said.

They rushed through my apartment door and headed straight for the kitchen.

"What are we having?" Jack inquired, sitting up a bit.

"Faire coffee. Rosaline and Lance gave us theirs."

As they brewed the drinks in the cooker Jack stood up and went to the kitchen entry.

"What's got you two in such a lather?" he asked.

"Lather?"

"What's a lather?"

"Being in a lather means you're excited, worked up."

"Oh!" I barked, bolting upright in my lovely armchair. Jack turned toward me. "I know what you two did. You bugged them."

The brothers brought the coffee into the living room on my ancient silver tray and poured the fragrant brew into the antique English china tea cups from my historic English china tea pot. They'd found the matching sugar bowl and creamer, too, and the silver spoons. My many investments in Mek and human endeavors pay well, and I can afford to indulge in a few expensive things.

"No," said Nok.

"Not them," continued Kek.

"We only bugged Lance," Nok corrected me.

"Does he know?" Jack asked.

"Of course," Kek replied with some disgust. Bugging someone's person without their knowledge is illegal. We all doctored our coffee to our individual tastes and snuggled comfortably into my luxurious furniture.

"This stuff is magnificent," Jack said.

"Really fresh," I agreed.

"Smooth," Nok said.

"We must invest," Kek nodded at his brother, who smiled back.

The brothers are well invested, too.

"You could be getting Lance killed," I admonished.

"I listened to the recording of the talk you two had with the admirals when I arrived," Jack said. "I also heard Gina's conversation with Deena. You really could be getting Lance killed."

"Nobody else knows except our kin Get who installed the bug and our cousin Ter on one of the cruisers orbiting Faire."

"State of the art audio and visual recording and transmission," Kek explained. "The cruiser Gemma Redsand has a receiver and the widest range of frequencies and storage capability, and Ter."

Jack had place himself in an armchair equidistant from me and the brothers. Always the diplomat. "Do you plan to catch her in some act?"

"Yes. Lance told us before they left that Rosaline likes space travel and us so much she confided in him she was thinking of telling her family and the other admirals about her experience. She is fascinated by our science and technology and thinks Faire should begin to study these things. The Admirals voted five for and five against opening Faire to the Union. The Deena has the deciding vote, but if Rosaline votes for, then the Deena will lose, and Lance says traditionally that's when she lashes out."

"Lashing out means murder," Jack said.

"So you're plan is to get Rosaline killed?" I asked.

"No one will die, unless it is the Deena."

"Good luck with that," I said. Nobody had ended me yet, and many had tried.

Jack sat forward, cradling the warm little cup in his large hands. "She's adamant her population never see or talk to any of us. I had to promise her automated ships and auto loaders and a remote storage facility in a cryptic port on Faire. Even so, I imagine her people will get curious. They're to deliver fresh produce, alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea to the warehouse and containerize them, and send a signal to the automatic cargo ship in orbit. It amounts to pushing a button. Then they're supposed to vacate the area within ten of their hours. They use horses and wagons, so they're slow," he explained to the brothers' curious faces. "The produce containers have climate control and ethylene removal systems. The autoship will bounce in, load, and jump out. Still, they'll see the workings of the facility if they stick around, and you know how curious we humans can be."

"Almost as curious as we Mek."

"The autoships have no crew or pilot?" I asked. I'd not seen those.

"They're fully automated. The autoloaders are pretty basic. They can analyze and make decisions regarding getting the containers loaded properly, and they repair themselves as well. If there's a problem they can't fix, technicians will shuttle in from the cruisers in orbit. I didn't tell the Queen this because it became pretty obvious during our discussion that she will have everything done her way. I can believe she loses all self control and turns murderous when she doesn't."

"She's bad," Nok said.

"Like a defective child who can't learn and just gets angry," Kek said. "Lance told us his ancestor was one of four who guarded her when she changed."

"Changed from what?" I asked, noticing Kek and Nok were both peering at me queerly.

"She changed from who she was to who she is now," Nok said. He sipped his coffee but his eyes were glued on me.

"Lance confided that one of the past fathers in his paternal line was tortured by a Lord Steven before the Deena killed the lord because this ancestor and his partner let the Deena walk around the castle in daylight. The story passed down says the past father said she never would have demanded they take her out of her room during the day before then." Kek had a funny smile on his broad face.

"After that walk, she started making other difficult demands of the guards and soon she murdered this Lord Steven and began to systematically take over the entire planet," Nok continued.

The knowledge smacked me then that Nok's and Kek's father had told them the story about the differences between Ghee-Nye as she originally was and the being she had become when I'd bounced in to her. The sly devils. They'd made the connection.

The difference between the original constructs and the constructs after Deena and I had resurrected them was revealed by how we had behaved toward others. And Nok and Kek knew it.

"Sounds like she got tired of being mistreated," Jack said.

"Lance told us the ancestors all agreed the Deena's personality completely changed and this change scared them," Kek emphasized.

"I thought she was sold to the lord as an assassin. Maybe she just decided to expand her horizons," Jack reasoned.

"The bad way," Nok said.

"Lance said during his grandfather's time she took a mate, one of the admirals. And the Private Knowledge is this partner asked her about this fable of her personality change, and she said to him that her soul had come from a different place and had taken over the body when its original personality had died. The lover admiral told his sister, who was another one of the high officers, and the Deena started hearing rumors and killed them both and slaughtered their families to stop the talk."

"Also 'Deena' does not mean Queen in any human language. We tried to look it up."

"So the admirals passed on this knowledge privately without her knowing, while still presenting to her the Public Face, using her own trick against her." She had to be my Deena.

"As they continue to do."

"All of the officers, the soldiers, and the people of Faire have their own stories and suspicions, and to keep from being slaughtered, they practice the Public Face and the Private Knowledge," Kek said. "It has become a cultural habit."

"So we have decided to free them from the Deena," Nok said.

"You've decided," I said.

"We decided, Ghee, just like we decided to free you from Spauch when the opportunity arose."

I felt my chest tighten and the prickle of tears in my eyes. The brothers had always taken care of me, as they forever would. I tried to cover my obvious emotions by sipping the delicious Faire brew.

"Well, it's done." Jack sighed, looking curiously at me. "They're already back on the planet."

"Our cousin on the Gemma Redsand will contact us after the proof is recorded. This and the recordings of the conversations we had with Lance and Rosaline, and the talk you had with the Deena, Ghee, will be used as leverage against her and also to instruct the people of Faire. We are sure they'll be happy to be free."

Kek and Nok were right, as usual. Lance informed Deena about Rosaline converting some of the admirals to her new point of view. Rosaline told them Faire could learn science and technology and advanced medicine from the humans and the Mek, trade should commence openly, and alien human ships were, in fact, in orbit. When Deena entered Rosaline's home on a cold early morning with murder in her heart, she discovered not Rosaline and her husband and their children in their beds, but her admirals lying in wait for her.

They had to beat her to unconsciousness, and all ten of them took over an hour to subdue her, she was so enraged. Lance's micro recorder caught the brawl and transmitted the footage to onboard storage. Deena was shown the incriminating recordings and then sealed in her castle. The first, second, and third floor external doors and windows were bricked over, and the only entry/exit was controlled by the officers. Supplies were placed inside this door regularly, but Deena was left alone. Guards were stationed continuously around the building.

It was a Faire coup.

The admirals and the Clines decided to withhold the recordings from their people and take over the management of the planet. They discovered many of them were set in their fearful ways and would not change, although they truly wanted to.

They continued to supply the auto port as Deena had ordered, but when the Cline Family members tried to make other changes, the people balked. They were afraid to embrace technology because they had been convinced of its wrongness for their whole lifetimes, and terrified of angering Deena and of being slaughtered in their homes. So the admirals and the Clines asked the Force to help them show the recordings to the planet's population, and the technological means were sent to the planet. Word spread like fire through dry kindling, and entire families made pilgrimages to the holo sites placed around the globe. Soon enough open trade was established with the Galactic Union in exchange for orbital protection, education, and technological goodies.

Nok, Kek and I all invested in the new trading enterprises and were richly rewarded as Faire products became the 'latest thing' in the Union. I also started an account in my name for Jack, which I left to him in my will, since, because of Diplomatic Corps rules, he wasn't allowed to invest in any trade arising from treaties he personally negotiated.

I truly hope I won't outlive him. He has become very dear to me, and the thought of being without him makes me cry. And I don't cry, ordinarily.

And so my story comes full circle. Deena was defeated by my friends in righteousness, unlike how Deena had long ago proudly and arrogantly used her sycophants to deceitfully defeat me. The humans stopped the pox, and the Mek foiled and continue to make warless war on slavery.

Unlike at Freda's, my friends and I all came together to understand and defeat evil. Evil is not an alien thing outside of us, something the devil or demons possessing us made us do, or any other excuse we can come up with. People do evil to one another daily, in ordinary circumstances, sometimes under the guise of secrecy and other times outright. In order to defeat evil, we must understand and expose it by shining the light of day on it, so to speak.

Once upon a time, I'd pondered whether life was a test. Doc found me a couple of biblical quotes, one from Proverbs 16:4 which states, "The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." Proverbs 21:18 says, "The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressor for the upright." I feel certain, whatever anyone's beliefs, that life is worth viewing as a test, and there's value in behaving as if it is. The solution to this confused puzzle of life is in learning to be victorious without being villainous - although I suspect Deena is sure we are the villains.

Ah, the irony! Deena should read Proverbs.

The End

(for now)
After Words:

Proverbs

Chapter 8

13 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

Proverbs

Chapter 11

20 They that are of a forward heart are abomination to the Lord: but such as are upright in their way are his delight.

Proverbs

Chapter 6

16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,

19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among bretheren.

Proverbs

Chapter 22

10 Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease.

Proverbs

Chapter 4

5 Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.

6 Forsake her (wisdom) not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.

7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
Bibliography:

[i] Biblical quotation herein are from:

The Holy Bible

Commonly known as the authorized (King James) version

National Publishing Company

1978

[ii] Dictionary definitions herein are from:

The American College Encyclopedic Dictionary

Edited by Clarence L. Barnhart

Volume 1

Spencer Press Inc.

1953

[iii] Banned From the Bible 1

Produced by Filmroos

Executive producer of HISTORYtm: Margaret Kim

2008
