Part 3 (2/2)
”I'm receiving something,” Echidna said, tilting her head. ”Her mother wears the wrap over her head to block telepathy-not from her-from us. Her mother is terrified of the mind-scans and mind-screens. But let me go deeper. Yes. Here. Her mother was abducted by the workers. Let me probe more . . . typical abduction . . . at night, taken from her bed. Very afraid, seeing the workers, the *aliens' they call them. Her mother was teleported from her bedroom to a craft. Put on the table. Took her egg, DNA co-mingled with ours, re-implanted egg into her uterus. But no successive abductions.”
Echidna shook her head. ”I do not comprehend. Let me go deeper . . . understand I am looking at Kaila's second-hand mind memory, not her mother's. Kaila must have scanned her mother to receive these images.” She stared at Kaila, absorbing her. Then, ”Yes. Later, her mother, impregnated with Kaila, driving in a car late at night, very dark. Headlights of another car coming down street. Hard impact. Car crash. I understand now,” Echidna said, holding her head as if she, herself, had experienced the crash. ”Kaila's mother was taken to a hospital where she had surgery to repair her face. That's where our implant was removed.”
”I see,” said Mrs. Bourg. ”The implant was taken while her mother was pregnant with Kaila and we could not then track her mother to take the fetus before she gave birth.”
”Incredible,” marveled Lucius. ”She is one of us but born and raised on Earth.”
”Yes,” said Mrs. Bourg. ”Kaila is a sta.r.s.eed just like you. Half-extraterrestrial, half-human.” Mrs. Bourg contemplated Kaila. ”Poor thing. Hmph. She looks just like a doll, staring with those empty blue eyes. We will have to educate her. This is a wonderful situation. You will all have to become good friends with Kaila. I am sure she can teach you many things about being human. And we have many things to teach her too.”
”The moment I see her, I know,” Jordyn said. ”I never feel that about any human before.” He gazed at her, his face softening. ”She holds lots of interesting things inside. How much she feels emotion for her family. How she feels emotion for animals. I looked, and I had to stop because there was so much emotion.”
”That's the way it is with all humans,” Lucius said disdainfully.
”They haven't learned how emotions get in the way,” Echidna said.
Jordyn said nothing, staring at Kaila.
”Stop, Jordyn,” Echidna said. ”This girl has nothing to teach you. We have everything to teach her.”
”I like it,” called Toby from his desk, his blue eyes sparkling, his wide moon face trying to smile. ”Go inside her mind, watch her riding horses. I want to ride horses. I want to pet her dogs. I want to eat soup her grandmother cooks. I want to see her big white house with the rods.”
”Rods?” Mrs. Bourg asked.
”Columns,” Jordyn corrected. ”They call them columns. Like when our fathers were in Greece and those temples in their time past.”
”I see. But that's fine, Toby,” Mrs. Bourg said in a motherly tone. ”I'm sure if you make friends with Kaila you can ride horses. It will be a nice break for you all from your studies. I want you to feel some good things about being on Earth.”
She went to her desk and clapped her hands. ”Now listen to me, hive. Though the rest of this cla.s.s carries ancient DNA from the extraterrestrials, Kaila is a full sta.r.s.eed just like you: half-extraterrestrial and half-human. We must awaken her, but because she's been bred human, her awakening must be gradual. She is unaware of her sta.r.s.eed gifts. She will become frightened with instant, complete disclosure.”
”Can I do it?” Lucius asked.
Mrs. Bourg sighed. ”Sometimes it is hard, all of you constantly reading my mind. I so wish I had your gifts. But no, Lucius you may not. Jordyn, come to her while she sleeps. Begin the awakening. Give it to her in a dream. She trusts you. And you have a soft spot for the girl. As I have warned you, do not give in to the soft spots. To be human is to feel emotion. And to feel emotion is to create war and die. If you get too close to these humans, they will infect you. You will suffer their emotions. Remember always: we are one group unit and we serve not ourselves. We serve a greater purpose than ourselves. Humans serve only themselves! Do we understand?”
Mrs. Bourg leaned over Jordyn's desk. ”Do we understand?” she asked in a low tone.
”Yes, ma'am,” Jordyn replied.
”You needn't call me ma'am while the others are unaware,” Mrs. Bourg said, caressing Jordyn's cheek. ”After all, I am your mother.”
”Stop, Bourg!” Echidna cried, clutching her head. ”No motherly feelings.”
”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 s.h.i.+ps. If these animals,” she motioned to the stuporous human cla.s.smates, ”were raised in proper hive consciousness, they wouldn't be so worried about clothing and music and s.e.x. 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 cla.s.s, 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 r.e.t.a.r.d,” 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.smates and yourselves so that they feel they know and like their cla.s.smates 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 cla.s.smates, 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 s.h.i.+ft in gravity and the Earth stopped spinning, or if there was a polar s.h.i.+ft, the world could come to an end.
She glanced at Jordyn.
”You feel a little better about this cla.s.s?” 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 compa.s.sion, knowing he had not been raised normally.
”Give me your phone number,” he said.
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