The Alejandra Variations (26 page)

Qui listened to its cry. It penetrated his heart. What had compelled it to rise up out of the haven of the shallow sea and fly off with such a doleful sound? What forces in the veltane's life made for it a heaven or a hell?

He knew that he was projecting his own feelings of desolation into the senseless animal. Perhaps the water creature was only looking for a better meal. Perhaps the veltane only wanted to do something different from the routine of its usual underwater life.

He wished such a simple existence for himself.

"The one who approaches should now be in sight, Qui. You may need immediate protection," his allies suddenly chimed in.

Qui chewed his tiny nuts slowly. "Then, protect me."

His allies were uneasy. "Qui, let us remind you that if antagonisms ensue, there may be punishments assessed. We wish to participate in the Migration. We cannot be sacrificed because of your petty squabbles."

"Calm down," he told them.

"But we know who is approaching!"

"So do I," he said, sighing heavily. "It could be no one but Elena."

She is the source of my unhappiness, he suddenly realized. Elena. It is always Elena.

"She can only make things worse," they told him. "She cannot enslave a soul that doesn't wish to be enslaved."

"But she will try."

"It's her nature. Let me handle this. It's
my
incarnation, after all. You each had your chance."

"But remember the Final Day!"

"Yes," Qui said stiffly. "The Final Day is upon us all." Qui glanced along the shore. The waters of the lazy sea lapped at his feet. He waited for Elena's allies—all eight hundred million of them—to shimmer into view with all the wondrous light and luminescence of a globular cluster. He had known that Elena would quickly tire of life on one of the majestic Migration Shields. Even with over a million people—and their attendant allies—ringing each Shield, she was bound to get bored sooner or later. There were few intrigues, few invigorating scandals, almost no gossip-fodder among those waiting for the Final Day. Elena was insatiable. Qui was the only man living—at least as far as he knew—whom she had yet to sample.

And here she was!

The cluster of lights sparkled brightly over the dying ocean, flying low along the southern edge of the world. He knew that she would have some difficulty finding him, because his own allies were not out in force. He kept his allies contained within their jewel for that very reason. He had no desire for company at the moment.

He had finished his evening meal by the time the lights of Elena's allies were upon him.

"I've found you at last!" her throaty voice boomed cheerfully down as she eased over the ruins. The shell of luminescent allies around her concealed her completely except for her happy, smiling face. Her former incarnations pulsated with the colors that befitted their myriad personalities and dispositions. They sparkled with her excitement.

"So you have," Qui responded with disinterest, sitting alone and exposed upon the fallen pillar. "So, tell me, Elena. Is life that uninteresting in space? Or are you just living dangerously now that the Engineers have informed us of the Final Day?"

The globular cluster bobbed slightly several meters above the ground. "Darling one," she sang, "the Elders have assured me a place upon any Shield I choose, and they have guaranteed that you will be beside me. They are grievously concerned about your foolish quest for happiness. There are children to be had, dear one, and allies to be set free."

Qui looked out over the empty ocean. "So that's it. You've conned the Elders into creating another child."

"Every soul deserves a body in which to work off the millions of years of karma it accumulates upon this woeful earth, dearest one."

"You don't need me to reproduce. You've had a child by almost every man alive."

Still concealing her from view, her allies beamed proudly. "I should be so lucky!" she laughed.

Qui stared up into the multifaceted lights. "You know what they are saying about you on the Shields?"

The lights scintillated gayly. "Oh, darling one, I can imagine!"

Qui picked up the glass bowl his nuts had come in and tossed it idly into the listless waters. "They are saying that you've slept with every man alive—and that those you haven't slept with are your sons." He smiled wryly.

The lights began to slowly drift lower. "And which are you, darling one?"

Qui crossed his arms. "You need nothing from me, Elena. I've nothing to give you."

"But that is not true," she said.

Qui fingered his wrist once again. His allies were sending him silent warnings. He could sense their cautious ripples.

"Elena," Qui began, "my allies are very nervous today. You understand. Please withdraw your own horde."

"Oh," Elena responded happily, "your allies are so suspicious! You have no need to fear me."

"Then show yourself—if you dare."

The gathering of rainbow lights touched down on the marble steps where the pale green waters licked at the drowning ruins. One by one, the allies flickered out of sight, returning like goblins into the bracelet the woman wore at her wrist.

She stood in the beauty of her nakedness, long ash-blond hair falling like the crest of a waterfall down to the base of her spine. Though she had borne many children, her body showed no sign of physical wear. The Engineers could work miracles; Elena was living proof. She was hundreds of years older than Qui, but physically arrested in form to seem only fifteen years his senior.

He had never understood her obsessive desire to own him. Her need for new children could easily be satisfied within the Shields. Her interest in him had always struck him as eccentric. Her single-mindedness was so strong that everything around him often felt distorted, as if there were nothing and no one in the world but him and Elena.

"I would do anything for you," she said, walking slowly toward him. His allies were still wary. He could feel their agitation.

Qui stared at her.

In his own short lifetime, he had known many women. But now they seemed like dreams. Names he had forgotten. Places were only blurs. He was by nature solitary.

But the sight of Elena's mature womanly form began to arouse in him emotions he had thought long lost to the past. He felt as if he'd just awakened beside this shoreline, on this earth, in this spinning galaxy—in this life. His emotions and desires made each moment intense. His allies shuddered with anxiety.

He had to be careful with this woman because his slight arousal had been entirely involuntary; and that alarmed him.

He turned away from her. "You know that I wish to be alone. You might try respecting that wish."

Elena's hearty voice was magnetic, compelling. "We were meant to be together, and I have nothing but time. The Elders say that we would make a joyous coupling. And I would even enter the halls of death with you if I had to."

Qui's allies shimmered in a wave of panic. They didn't like the mention of death. Qui comforted them as best as he could, rubbing his bracelet gently.

"There are no halls of death," he said slowly. "Not true death, anyway. There would be just further and further incarnations, and further imprisonment until liberation is achieved." He looked evenly at her. "And from what I understand, all the Perfect Masters are on the Shields, waiting to travel among the stars. True happiness belongs with them, not with me."

As she sat beside him, his body began reacting to her presence. None of the women he had known were like her.

She whispered, "No one has obsessed me more than you. You seem to be part of me. The Elders say that I bring this feeling from lifetimes of pursuing you. And I shall not let the Final Day pass without our union."

She put a soft, seductive arm about his bare shoulders.

The Elders were seldom wrong in such matters, but he couldn't summon the courage to accept their judgment. As advocated by the great masters of his kind—and even by masters among his allies of lives long gone—he had chosen to forget the past. His birthplace was forgotten. His parents had vanished to their places on the Migration Shields. Yet, this woman called him back to the past—the deeply buried past where the need to love, and to be loved, drove the human spirit to unhappy emotional attachments. Were his allies uncomfortable because they'd seen it all before? Probably. Were they complaining because the anticipated pain might be too much for him this time around? Unquestionably.

"I can make you happy, dear one," she crooned. "You know that. Why is it that you won't let me?"

He looked into the whirlpools of her eyes, and it was like entering a room of infinite mirrors—mirrors to the halls of past lives and past relationships. And past grief.

"Who are you?" he breathed, facing her seductions. "Why do you bother me so?"

She seemed taken aback by the questions. But she managed a smile. "You worry about things that should long ago have been forgotten. Be happy with who you are, with what you have!"

"I have you," he said, despair hanging like lead weights to the syllables of each word. "And the Final Day."

"You
belong
to me," she sang. "Happiness is not impossible."

Qui heard something stir in the ruins behind them. It sounded like a fart.

Qui and Elena both turned and saw, to their mutual amazement, a withered, beet-red old man staring at them from the top of a fallen cornice.

He began mimicking Elena's voice. "Romeo, Romeo! Where fa'rt thou,
Romeo?"
A broadside escaped his rear end as he fell backward, laughing hilariously.

Qui stood up quickly, very much surprised. Elena's reaction was most curious.

Apparently, he'd been there for quite some time.

"Who are you?" Elena gasped, covering her nakedness self-consciously.

Qui touched his bracelet and felt the reassuring presence of his allies and their ready power. Why hadn't they warned him?

Elena raged. "How
dare
you interfere with us like this!"

The very earth on which they stood seemed to shake with her indignation.

The scrawny, impish man leaped up on a sheared granite pillar and squatted obscenely. Another cloud of digestive gas escaped him—completely bursting the romantic bubble Elena had created. "I would hardly call this interference," he giggled. "Besides, the whole earth is free for any man to roam, as long as Nicholas here doesn't mind."

Qui stared in total bewilderment. The man clearly was mistaking him for someone else.
Nicholas?
The name was archaic, unfamiliar.

"My name is Qui," he introduced himself quickly. "What are you doing here? I've never seen you before."

The man's skin was a vile purple. He wore only a loincloth that bulged unpleasantly. Elena, seeing him clearly for the first time, staggered backward, a hand between her breasts covering her heart. Qui had never seen her so shaken. His allies began telling him just how much she was revolted by this transgression.

But his allies seemed not to realize there was a third person present. Something totally unheard of was going on, and he didn't like it.

The ugly little man hunkered down, grinning at them.

Elena shook with anger. The man ignored Qui's questions and kept smiling at Elena with his crooked mouth, his head cocked sideways, as if she were a peculiar creature in a planetary zoo.

"Get out of here! I command it!" she yelled, mustering up her courage. Qui was surprised by the strength and arrogance in her voice.

Qui stepped forward. "I think you'd better explain this, whoever you are."

The runt bounced up and down like a protohuman. "The name's Nemosten," he smiled. "I'd shake hands with you, but I fell in something back there.…" He began waggling his hand, and a lump of brown-colored slop splattered to the ground at Elena's feet.

"Oh, God," she croaked.

Nemosten kept waggling his hand to rid himself of whatever it was he'd fallen in. "I've been watching you both, so you'd better watch out!" He jumped up suddenly, dancing and clicking his heels. " 'You'd better not cry, you better be good, I'm telling you why…' "

Qui thought the ancient ditty familiar, but couldn't place it. The man was clearly out of his mind.

The hideous creature laughed with a genuine sense of humor. He seemed, just then, less like an old man than a child.

Elena thrust Qui aside with a strong, tawny arm. "There is no Nemosten, either here on the earth or in space! There is only myself and Qui."

"Nicholas," Nemosten said quickly.

"
Qui!
" she shouted.

"Oh, pooh," the man giggled in his child's voice. "Mind you, I am new at the game. But I still have access to all the facts. And you lose, dearie."

"Wait a minute," Qui called out. "Why did you call me Nicholas?"

Elena turned to him savagely, eyes afire. "This man's an imposter! You're not anybody named Nicholas. Banish him! Order your allies out and get rid of him!"

Qui glared at her. The woman had gone crimson with anger and outrage. The swollen sun at the horizon's edge glowed with the same color. Stars flickered on and off as if in accord with Elena's passion.

For an instant, Qui ignored the old man. To Elena he said, "Listen, you have no authority over me. I will not banish him!"

"Good for you, Nickie!" Nemosten laughed, clapping his hands idiotically.

Elena's allies rushed out of her bracelet, surrounding her. Her stance was highly aggressive.

"Ah," Nemosten said, flicking his warty tongue around his broken teeth. "I wouldn't do that, sweetie, if I were you!"

"I can do anything I like!" she snapped.

"Really, now?" Nemosten chanted. "Even as far as taking a man's life from him? You would allow yourself that much?" Before Elena could react, the allies from Nemosten's bracelet burst out and swarmed ruthlessly upon her, blasting her off her feet in a flash of energy. Elena tumbled harmlessly into the shallow water at the base of the ruins.

"You dare do this to me!" she burbled. "Oh!"

Qui's allies, without command or prompting, swarmed about him, ringing him with a protective shield. "Trouble!" they warned. "We sense provocation and great violence impending!"