Vessel (25 page)

“I don’t believe you. If you had the technology to travel through space, surely you could’ve tracked me. Besides, what would an advanced civilization want with Earth’s pitiful technology?”

“It’s not so much their technology as much as their humanness, their emotions. We’ve lost them. You contain them. They’re within you. Not only do you hold vast stores of information, you embody love and anger and sadness. You are wholly human.”

“But you’re saying I’m not human.”

“I’m saying you’ve become human. We gave you the form of a child, and you’ve grown into a mature human.”

Spears of undulating purple and orange light shot across the sky. Kinder gazed upward.

“Our calculations put the supernova at any time now.”

He’d gone mad, but who could blame him? I was probably mad myself. None of this made any sense, so I played along with him.

“What will happen?”

“You know what a supernova means. The sun’s core will collapse. It will explode, and this solar system will be incinerated.” He couldn’t be serious. Was he trying to tell me something secretly?

“And how were you planning to escape this inferno?”

“They were coming to get us, Alana. They still may.”

I looked at the rainbow of colors in the sky now, growing brighter with hues of yellow, green, and blue.

“I don’t see any spaceships.”

“Well, you wouldn’t. They wouldn’t be close enough to see.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

“Because you wouldn’t have believed it. You would’ve thought I was insane.”

I laughed, but there was no joy in it. “Kinder, I’ve always thought you were insane. It wouldn’t have made much difference.”

“But I’m not.”

“Who are these people anyway? Where are they from, and why would they leave us in such an awful place?”

“They thought it was for the greater good, I suppose.”

“Who are they? Are they three-legged, one-eyed, lizard people? What?” I was losing my patience.

“They are the Intec. They are not a race so much as a collection of peoples from across the galaxies. They made the chip in your head.”

“The Reticents made my chip,” I insisted.

“Not yours. I changed it,” corrected Kinder.

“I thought about ripping it out after the crash.”

“But you didn’t, did you?” His panic made me glad I hadn’t.

“No, I didn’t.”

“That’s how they’ll find you.”

“The Intec?”

“Yes.”

“What are they waiting for? Now would be a pretty good time.”

“I’m not sure. Perhaps they want you to experience all the time you can here.”

“I think I’ve experienced enough now. I’d like it to be done.”

Tiber returned, smelling like blood. I cringed at the thought that it might be Recks’s, but his blood was all over me as well.

“Your turn. Let’s go,” he snarled as he cut the ropes from my arms and jerked me up. I tried to spit at him, but missed. Tiber just laughed at me.

“Anders would be proud of the butcher you’ve become, Tiber.”

“Ha! The Reticents are done for. I figure I’ll be King of Budapest instead.”

“King?”

“These people won’t know any better. They already follow me.”

“Mother, help them—”

“Mother ain’t helping anyone now.” Tiber chuckled like he was funny. He was right if what Kinder said was true. We climbed the steps of the platforms, a relic of other Cleansings I guessed. The fire’s heat was close enough to sear my eyes. I imagined the heat of Mother Sun, a thousand times greater. It was unfathomable.

The sky was a brilliant kaleidoscope now, a shower of constant color raining down on the Earth. People pointed at the dazzling sky. I gazed up myself. In all my life, I’d never seen Mother’s Love so vivid with so many colors. People knelt in awe, crying and confused. Was this how the first solar storm began?

The only person undistracted was Tiber. He shoved me closer to the fire, his excitement plain on his ugly face. He enjoyed this kind of killing too well, and I pitied him. Suddenly, night became day in a nanosecond, brighter white than any summer day. Even Tiber paused. I had no time to move or cry out at the sight of a supernova. Without warning, I plunged into darkness, a blackness without sound, light, or any sensation at all. I was sure I was dead.

When I awoke, everything was quiet and still. I opened my eyes a crack. The riot of color and screams and smoke was gone. A white room surrounded me, a white comforter lay over me, and a white pillow supported my head. I felt my body for any sign of pain. The fire was gone. Only the comfortable warmth of my body underneath the blanket remained. A bird warbled outside somewhere, and I rolled over.
Where was I?
It didn’t seem like Budapest anymore.

The room’s walls glowed with golden, warm sunshine which flowed in through the window. More awake now, I sat up. The view outside the window caught my eye.
How can it be?
Getting out of bed, I realized my dark hooded shirt and pants were gone. I was now clean and dressed in white shorts and a sleeveless top.

At the windows, I found a glass door and opened it. I stepped out onto a stone balcony overlooking an endless blue-green sea far below. The air smelled of salt and fishy things. I took a deep breath of it and wished Recks were here to see this. If I were dreaming, maybe I could dream of him too. I wrapped my arms around myself and thought of his face as hard as I could. I couldn’t see him as clearly as I should have. There were only bits and pieces in my memory: the smell of his hair, the feel of his cheek on mine.

I waited, but no one appeared. I walked along the balcony for a better view of the rocky beach and the waves lapping the shore. I wondered how to get down there. I still wasn’t sure it was real. I ran my hand along the rough stones of the balcony and sniffed the pink bougainvillea flowers, the petals as soft on my nose as any real flower.

In my mind, I ran through scenarios that could have brought me here. Were the ancients right about an afterlife? My stomach turned, reminding me I hadn’t eaten for a while. There wouldn’t be hunger in the afterlife, would there?

“Hello?” a voice called from within the villa. I rushed back to the doorway. Someone I didn’t recognize stood inside the room. My heart jumped, and I backed up against the wall, out of sight. Was I even supposed to be here?

“Alana? Are you up?” The voice was unfamiliar, a little foreign, but it didn’t sound threatening. “I brought you some food,” the person said in a strange, singsong voice.

“Who are you?” I said, not budging from my hiding place.

“You know me. I am Kinder.”

I didn’t answer. The disappointment I felt was too deep. Kinder never sounded like this. This voice was young, almost child-like.

“Are you all right?” His accent was as if he’d just learned English.

Tears welled up in my eyes. “You lie.”

“No, Alana. I only sound this way because I have returned to my true form. It is harder to make the proper sounds without a human tongue. Come see. Do not be afraid.”

“How do I know it’s you?”

“Stitch in time saves nine? Cat got your tongue?”

It did sound like something he would say, just in a more lilting tone.

“I have brought you human food. I know you must be hungry by now. It has been two days.”

That much was true. I was very hungry. I slowly stepped into the doorway; Kinder stood inside the bedroom, but I didn’t recognize him. No longer an old man, he stood tall and straight now. His limbs were longer than before with ropey muscles that showed through his pale white skin, the color of ice. His eyes and hair were steel gray, but his face appeared young. What looked like tattoos swirled over his neck, cheeks, and into his scalp. He towered over me, but his movements and demeanor were gentle and fluid. He wore the same shirt and shorts I did, but in gray.

“Kinder? What are you?”

“My planet of origin is Daecan, but it no longer exists. Now I am Intec.”

“What happened to Daecan?”

“Like Earth, it was destroyed. Come. Eat.” Kinder gestured to a tray of food on a small table by the door.

“Earth is destroyed?” Somehow I’d guessed right—I wasn’t in Italy, or even Earth. However, I wasn’t prepared for the news that Earth was gone. To hear Kinder talk about it so casually hit me in the gut and I crumbled to the floor. There was ugliness in the world I knew, but there’d been beauty too. It was hard to believe it was gone.

“Are you all right?” Kinder knelt beside me.

“No, I’m not all right. Why did the Intec do this to me? Is it some sort of punishment?”

“Not at all. It is a great honor to be a planet’s Vessel.”

Kinder’s gray eyes searched my face, clearly confused. This close to him, I could see the patterns on his cheeks and forehead were even more detailed than I first thought, intricate indentations in his skin like veins in marble. He was so oddly beautiful that I stared back at him.

“I do not understand, Alana. I thought you would be happier to have survived.”

“So I can be your lab experiment? I don’t think so. I was happy on Earth with Recks.”

“But Recks is gone,” Kinder pointed out, as if I wasn’t already painfully aware.

I laid my cheek on the cold, stone floor, unwilling to move.

“We made your room like Earth. We kept you in your human form. What more do you require?” he asked. What Kinder told me earlier about losing empathy was true. He’d never understood me.

I spoke without lifting my head. “What am I really? What do I look like?”

“I do not know your true form, but we can look it up in the archives. You would not look like me. I am the last of the Daeceans.”

“You’re a Vessel too?”

“In a way, I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

“Normally, a Vessel is someone chosen and planted among a people unbeknownst to them. I was merely saved. There was no time to plant a Vessel on my planet.” I didn’t ask any more questions. Every answer he gave me was crazier than the last anyway.

“Come eat,” he said again, getting up. I took his offered hand, which had three fingers and two thumbs on either side of his palm. It gripped my wrist tightly, but it felt like a human hand otherwise. I tried not to stare at him, but his appearance was so strange to me, so un-Kinder-like, I couldn’t help it.

“I thought you were old.”

“For Earthlings, I am. Not for a Daecean.”

I sat on the bed, and Kinder brought the tray of food to me. It was extravagant, even by Reticent standards. There were fluffy scrambled eggs, a juicy slab of pork fat, and fruits we rarely saw in Roma, even at the height of summer. The eggs reminded me of Puka. I wondered for a moment what had become of her, but then I realized.

“Did the Intec save anyone from Earth?” I asked while I ate heartily, talking with my mouth full. “Besides you and me?”

“I do not think so. Recks is the only human I would have saved. That was my recommendation.”

I looked up at him. I didn’t know he’d ever considered Recks as anything more than useful. I joined him out on the porch where he waited for me to finish eating. He looked out across the sea with those piercing eyes, deep in thought.

“He was my friend. And he kept me going when little else did.”

“Me too,” was all I could say.

“I shall replay those memories often. I will miss him.”

“What happens now, Kinder?”

He snapped out of his thoughts and trained those burning eyes on me. “There is much to do. There are uploads and debriefings to conduct with you. Most of your medical is done, but there may be more. And there is the matter of your form to be decided.”

“My form?”

“You may return to your true form if you wish.”

Without thinking, I touched my face. My scar was still there. I instantly thought of what Recks said about the exterior of things. Where was my ring? I checked and found it still on my finger. It gleamed a beautiful, deep grassy-green in the sunlight—an earth green. What if my true form didn’t have the proper kinds of fingers to wear it? What would Recks want me to be?

“Alana?”

“This is just a projected image,” I pointed to the ocean. “It’s not real, is it?”

“No.”

“Show me its true form, what lies behind it.” He looked at me, his expression a little confused or perhaps amused. Without the slightest movement from him, the view disappeared, and another view altogether replaced it. I’d only seen pictures like it in the Reticent database. It was a window into a galaxy of stars glittering in the blackness of space like jewels on a necklace strung across the universe.

“There are actually any number of forms you can choose from, if you wish.”

I stared at the worlds outside the thick glass. I’d been through more than anyone ever should in my short life, and I faced the prospect of much, much more.

“This is my true form. This is who I am now,” I told him.

“I thought you might feel that way.”

I smiled at his marble face.

“Ready to meet the Intec?”

Did I have a choice? I could delay, I supposed, but they wouldn’t let me stay here forever, would they? They needed what was locked in my head, and if Kinder was telling the truth, maybe what was in my heart.