Starseed (5 page)

“I can’t help them, dear,” Mrs. Bourg replied. “As an earth human, I will always have emotion for my children.”

“To your credit, you turned away from humans,” Echidna conceded. “You, at least, had the intelligence to understand the importance of being selected as our breeder.”

“I am indubitably grateful that I was allowed remembrance and am now allowed to play a part in socializing you to Earth. There are so many women who don’t even
know
that they have star children . . .” Mrs. Bourg’s eyes turned milky.

“It doesn’t matter if they remember,” Echidna snapped. “They create an embryo and we take it to grow on the ships. If these animals,” she motioned to the stuporous human classmates, “were raised in proper hive consciousness, they wouldn’t be so worried about clothing and music and sex. Deep down, they are scared, unsure of themselves. They are a primitive species.”

“You are right,” Mrs. Bourg said. She reached up to stroke Echidna’s cheek.

“Don’t touch me,” Echidna said, stepping back. “You made my embryo. That is all. Emotion is wasted thought. Think of the mission!”

Mrs. Bourg sighed as she gazed reverently at Echidna. “I am incredibly proud of you, Echidna. If I’d had your verve and drive as a young woman . . .”

Echidna stared at Mrs. Bourg. Her eyes had again widened and turned solid black.

“Don’t you dare mind-stare me, young lady!” Mrs. Bourg shrieked. “If you mess with me, I will inform your Master.”

Echidna’s pupils instantly contracted to show the iris and whites. She looked away, her pale skin going even paler.

“Now,” Mrs. Bourg said, regaining her composure, “back to the mission. My children, before we create a screen memory for the class, please focus on Kaila’s language. Access the language in her brain. Download it. Learn to talk as she does. She has a lovely way of speaking mostly proper English with a southern lilt. She does not use many foul words and does not utter “like” and “you know” in every sentence, so hers is a good basis to pattern your language. This way you will not seem as strange and foreign to the other students and you may more easily gain their trust.”

The six hive stood in their silver overalls and clustered around Kaila. They leaned close, staring and absorbing. After a few moments, the hive relaxed.

“Did you download her language?” Mrs. Bourg asked.

“Yeah man, you retard,” Lucius said with a straight face.

“Stop playing games, young man,” Mrs. Bourg chided. “Now Lucius, Antonia, Toby, Jordyn, Echidna, Viktor—please create a screen memory of Introduction to Gravity and Rotation in the students’ minds and create notes in their own handwriting. When they wake, they will have surface quantum physics installed in their brains and memory of me teaching the class but no memory of the rest. After you’ve installed the artificial screen memories, in the remaining time we will explore as many students as we can. Give them the superficial memories of their classmates and yourselves so that they feel they know and like their classmates but not at the deep level. They’re too self-absorbed to care about anything deep anyway. Oh, and let’s put Kaila’s plastic wrap and wig back on her head.”

Kaila looked at the clock. Two-fifteen. She felt woozy, like a vampire had fed from her. But, still, she’d gotten to know her classmates, remembering as they introduced themselves. How these six strange people all had the same last name, Stryker, because they’d been raised in that cult in New Mexico and didn’t really know their last name as they hadn’t had parents. It was so sad.

She learned that Phyllis Joiner liked to write poetry and loved her cat named Millificent. Douglas Lafarge liked playing sword and sorcery games, adored
Star Trek
, and read everything he could on quantum physics. Brandy Powell never wore the same outfit twice, coveted a new Coach purse for her birthday, and wanted to make straight As. Tara Melancon’s father might run for mayor, and he wanted her to be a dermatologist when she grew up—but what she really liked was to read romance ebooks on her iPad.

Kaila read her notes. She’d never considered that the Earth, the planets, the universe itself, down to every atom in her body, moved in constant rotation. She chilled to realize that if there was a shift in gravity and the Earth stopped spinning, or if there was a polar shift, the world could come to an end.

She glanced at Jordyn.

“You feel a little better about this class?” he asked.

“Definitely,” Kaila said, not knowing why. She had an uneasy feeling, but still, when she looked at Jordyn she grew energized, like when riding horses at full gallop in the wind.

“Maybe we could hang out one day,” he said.

Kaila pondered why his language had changed. He sounded more natural. What on earth was going on here?

“Maybe we could hang out?” Jordyn repeated.

He looked at her so earnestly that her heart turned over in compassion, knowing he had not been raised normally.

“Give me your phone number,” he said.

“Do you have a phone?” Kaila asked. For some reason, she could not picture Jordyn using a phone.

“No,” Jordyn replied cryptically. “But I can call you anytime I like.”

Kaila nearly knocked her mother over as she blazed into the kitchen. “You people have kept me locked up in this centuries-old house, and I am getting into this century right now. Everyone has a cell phone and clothes and I am a complete loser. I have got to get a phone—like today!”

“I take it you met a boy you liked?” Mike asked.

“No,” Kaila said, reddening. “I made two friends, Melissa and Pia, and they both want to come over, but I have no phone.” She would die before she told her parents about Jordyn.

“Why do you need a phone?” her mother asked. “Why can’t you call on the home phone like we did when we were kids?”

“Because home phones are dinosaurs,” Kaila said. “You can stay in this cave, but I am moving ahead.” She folded her arms and jutted out her chin. Her mother rolled her eyes.

Paw Paw trudged into the kitchen. He was painfully thin from the chemotherapy. Kaila ached to see him so frail. She recalled him strong and riding horses. He’d lost all his hair and his dark eyes were sunken in a shriveled face. But when he looked at her she could still see his love.

Paw Paw always had to have something sweet to eat. Even in the morning. He never chastised her for eating a Twinkie for breakfast.

“Goosy,” he called her by his pet name. “I’m glad you’re in school and away from this death trap. Come on. We’re goin’ to the store.”

“No, Dad,” her mother said. “You can’t drive.”

“Like hell I can’t.”

“Oh,” Nan said, nervously fiddling her reading glasses.

“Get out of our way,” Paw Paw said. “I’m takin’ my granddaughter to the store. She’s gettin’ a phone.”

They went to
AT&T
and bought Kaila an iPhone. In the minutes it took to get to the mall, she had the phone figured out. Kaila could dissect anything electronic. She had gotten her computer and printer working in less than five minutes. She was the one her family relied on to program the
TV
or work the
DVD
; she could program any device with focused concentration.

Someday, people won’t need these phones. They will communicate with their minds
, Kaila thought.
Now where had that thought come from? Forget it—iPhone.
She began downloading apps.

When they entered the mall food court, Kaila smelled fresh baked pretzels and her mouth watered. But when Paw Paw said, “Now I might be an old man, but you have till this mall closes to buy whatever you need to make yourself feel as pretty as you are,” she forgot her hunger.

“Oh Paw Paw, thank you,” Kaila said, hugging him, feeling his bony thinness.

“Don’t thank me,” Paw Paw said. “I’ve been living for this. I want to see you happy. You’re the apple of my eye.”

“Paw Paw, why are you so corny?” Kaila asked, dying to get into the mall and find some cute outfits.

“Come on,” Paw Paw said, linking arms. “Let’s get you decked out and get them boys shoutin’ yee-haw and whistling at you.”

“Stop!” Kaila said, pleased.

Paw Paw turned onto the long, clam-shell driveway leading to home in the dark, the truck tires crunching on the shells. In the distance, gas lanterns glowed in front of the house. Crickets and tree frogs chirped in the humid night air. Paw Paw carried bag after bag into the kitchen, then leaned against the wooden kitchen table, panting.

“I can help you, old man,” Mike said. The kitchen was cozy and redolent with the odor of gumbo, garlic, and deep-fat frying.

“Don’t need any help,” Paw Paw said. He sank into a chair. He turned to Kaila. “Show ’em what you got.”

Kaila opened the bags of skirts, tops, and jeans. She hadn’t known what to get. Finally, she had bought anything that hit her fancy, borrowing from all the groups she’d seen at school; and then she hit the makeup counter at Dillard’s.

“Oh my,” Nan said. “You spent a king’s ransom.”

“Yes, oh my,” Kaila’s mom echoed, dressed in baseball cap and yoga pants. Her mom taught a yoga class in the converted dining room several times a week.

The Guidry family, historically, were thrifty where money was concerned. “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” Nan often said, whose parents struggled during the Depression. This was why many of the furnishings in the house were antiques. Nan saw no sense in replacing things as long as they worked.

“We’re going to have the prettiest girl in school,” Paw Paw said.

“That we are,” Mike agreed, palming his thinning brown hair.

“In fact, she’ll be seventeen soon and I propose we have a party,” Paw Paw said. “You can invite all your new friends from school to come and go riding. Have a barbecue. Would you like that?”

“Oh, yes,” Kaila said. She could invite Jordyn. And Melissa and Pia. Have real friends to her home!

“Look at this,” her mother marveled at the iPhone. “How do you figure out this fancy equipment?”

Kaila sighed, wondering why old people were so technologically inept.

“Enough,” Nan said. “I made a big pot of gumbo, some fried chicken, and cornbread. Let’s eat and get this girl to bed. It’s a school night.”

Kaila gulped the gumbo and nearly inhaled the chicken and cornbread. Everyone chattered about her new phone and clothes while she daydreamed about Jordyn.

“Hey,” she asked, her mouth tingling with the gumbo’s cayenne pepper and filé. “You heard about that cult in New Mexico where they brought in some students to our high school?”