When Aliens Weep (14 page)

“Shh . . . Maya honey . . . settle down,” Netty placed her arm on the slender shoulder of her daughter. Forbation tossed a baleful glance at Netty and Maya before continuing.

At a signal from Forbation, the minions drew back and a wall in the cube opened. Inside sat another cube, this one five inches tall. A blast of frigid air wafted out at the Elders. The minions rushed in and placed a solid piece of wood in the farthest corner and ran back to the door to press the button that closed the door. From a concealed control, one of the minions pressed another button and a large panel slid back where the door had been, revealing a window into the cube.

“What are we supposed to see, Brother Forbation?”

The wise minion placed his hands to the sides of his face for emphasis. “You will be witnessing one of the most destructive and insidious weapons ever devised by another species.” He held up a finger. Even Maya settled down, feeling the tension from the adults. With a nod to the minions, he commenced the demonstration.

All eyes focused on the small cube inside the big cube. As they watched, the cube grew translucent and fractured, splitting open along the break. An olive-green round object sat up and slithered out over the fractured cube. It was tubular in shape with a glistening eye at the tip of what appeared to be the head.

“It is called a skate.”

Like a five-inch cobra, it focused on the block of wood in the far corner of its shared space. And then it vanished. The Elders laughed nervously, glancing at one another as if to ask “Did we see that?”

“Allow me to caution you, my Brother and Sisters. Do
not
take your eyes off the skate.”

“But it’s gone, Forbation,” declared Jose. “There is nothing to keep our eyes on.”

Forbation bristled. “Patience and well-trained powers of observation are skills I recommend highly, Brother Jose.”

“Look!” shouted Wil. Before the word had fully left his lips, the skate reappeared. It was hanging in the air three feet over the piece of wood. Its head dipped down and what everyone had assumed was its eye detached from the body like a projectile and attached to the wood, sending up a spark of light that promptly blinked out, taking the block of wood with it.

The corner where the wood had stood was now empty. All eye turned to the skate. Where the previous eye had detached sat a brand new eye, milky and new. As they watched, the milkiness disappeared, shed off in a clump of discarded cells to float to the floor.

The skate then turned back on itself and dropped down toward the remains of the cube where it had been housed. Landing on the shards, it curled itself into a ball. The shards reattached and sat as seamlessly as it had been before the disappearance of the stick of wood.

“Huh.” Jose turned to Forbation. “Well, that was cool. It made the wood disappear.”

Wil rested his hand on Jose’s shoulder. “I think there’s more to it than that, Jose.”

Forbation seemed pleased, though his aura plucked somberly. “Have you not learned that all is never exactly as it seems here in the Womb?”

“The wood didn’t just disappear, did it, Brother Forbation?” asked Wil.

“That is correct, Brother Wil. It was actually evaporated. There might be some cells left from the wood that we could locate on the floor but I doubt it. The temperature inside the cube is now high enough to create the energy it would take to power what was known as New York City from your vanquished planet for three hundred years. The power of the skate is immense. We have never been able to completely measure it.”

Forbation raised his staff, the signal for several minions that stood by to go into action. They hurried up to the cube with a slender black contraption that sank into the cube. Elaborate tubing of a never-before-seen metal emerged from the contraption.

Jose scoffed. “A book of matches would do the same thing, just take longer.”

“That is where you are dead wrong, my Brother.” Forbation faced the group. “The skate is quite a weapon. It adjusts its power based on the size and composition of its adversary. Had it been a piece of metal, the spark would have been larger. Had it been a city, we would not be standing here.”

Forbation’s statement was met with surprise. “A city? The skate has that power?”

Forbation turned to Netty. “Yes, my dear Sister. The skate has the power of all of the bombs that destroyed your planet so long ago all rolled into one . . . and more.”

More than one face drained of blood.

“Brother Forbation, isn’t it a risk to house it here?”

Forbation smiled, his aura calm and confident. “There is no better place to contain it. We cannot risk it falling into the wrong hands or worse yet,
escape
. It could destroy our planet or any other it found in its line of sight. We discovered a cold environment renders it mostly harmless. It’s alive yet not entirely organic. It does not have a brain as we know brains but does respond to electrical and some chemical stimulation. It cannot communicate. It is a very ancient weapon and at one time was controlled by its maker. We do not attempt to control it. Merely subdue it.”

He pointed to the minions who held the tubing up to the cube. “We are sucking out the energy for use elsewhere. The frigid atmosphere will re-establish itself and the skate will ‘hibernate’ until another object crosses its path and dares to challenge it. It only takes a few minutes before the skate is armed again, as you saw.”

“Maya, please leave Echo alone.” Netty had turned to see her daughter tugging on the hapless minion. She squatted down, her wings lifting high to clear the floor. She clutched her daughter in her arms as the child attempted to squirm away. “This isn’t playtime, Maya. Now behave or I will have you taken back to the nursery.”

“I don’t want to be with the babies,” Maya sulked, continuing to twist in her mother’s arms.

“Stop. I mean
it, young lady.”

Wil’s arm shot out from nowhere to subdue his truculent daughter. “
That’s enough, right now.
”

As her father
cowed her, Maya stood silent, all of the adults’ attention now back with Forbation as he moved them along to another display.

“You will be pleased to see we did not forget the weapons of Earth.”

And there they were. Laid out as proudly as any earthly gun collector could dream about. The array was mind-boggling. From the antique long guns, flintlock pistols and infantry rifles to the more modern Glock, Walther, Sig, and Smith & Wesson. Further down the line sat machine guns and torpedoes. Alongside every weapon sat open boxes of ammunition.

“We test them from time to time. They are kept in top-notch condition,” Forbation’s aura preened.

Jose reached out to examine a little Beretta 3032 semi-automatic pistol. “I bet you wish you had something like this in your pocket way back when, Netty, huh? Perfect for a woman to hide in her apron.” Jose aimed the Beretta at a passing minion.

“Jose!” A panic-stricken Abby knocked his hand aside.

“
Brother Jose.”
Forbation’s cane struck Jose’s hand, knocking the weapon to the ground with a clatter.

Jose stood perplexed, his gun hand cradled, wincing in pain.

“I was just playing, for Pete’s sake.”

“Who plays with weapons, Jose? Really.”

Wil bent over to pick up the Beretta, placing it back on the table to rest alongside its neighbor. “I’m so sorry, Brother Forbation. Your hospitality and heart is immense. But I think we will accept this as the end of our tour. I’m sure you understand.”

Forbation bowed at the waist. The crowd moved to the front of the room, Jose’s face beet-red.

With the attention off the weapons table, no one noticed Maya snaking her small hand out to lift the Berretta, jam it into her fanny pack, and skip happily back to her mother.

***

Dezi mopped the floor underneath his work bench. Setting the mop aside, he pulled his stool up to the bench and reached for the paper Forbation had left with him. He turned the pages on what had started out to be general notes and recipes with comments regarding the likes and dislikes of the survivors. It had morphed into a diary of sorts with Dezi jotting down other observations in the kitchen. It was surprising how many secrets and adventures were aired over a hefty slice of sweet pie with its fluffy lemon texture that had been ground from the slender but prolific vines cultivated in the minions’ growing field. The vines also made an unbreakable rope when dried and woven together.

Dezi picked up his ink pen and started writing. He shook his head and laughed to himself over the antics from dinner last night. He wondered if Jose was ever going to be allowed back with the rest of them. He almost felt sorry for the poor guy. But you just can’t go pulling a gun on someone and threatening to kill them.

And if it hadn’t been for Hud, who had liberated the gun from Jose, they might have a dead Cobby on their hands. Dezi wondered if Forbation would have let Cobby die. Or if they had some kind of healing procedure like they had in the Hive back on Earth.

Dezi felt an ache in the back of his abdomen as he thought of Earth. Pushing the yearning aside, he forced himself to continue to write. It was getting late and he wanted to drop in on Bonnie before he went to bed.

He’d seen the navigator minion hanging around earlier.
What was her name . . . IV?
He wondered what the attraction was. He thought he’d seen the minion’s fire butterfly leave ribbons of light down the hallway toward the bedrooms.

He looked down on the paper at his childish doodles. He would love it if some day Bonnie would take him seriously. But he knew it would never happen until that last spark about rescuing Peter faded from her mind, and that might take years. He sighed.
That’s just the way women are
, he mused, sighing again. Always a groomsman, never a groom.

***

Ivey stood at the entrance to Bonnie’s bedroom, watching as she played with an infant on her bed. The infant crawled toward the edge and Bonnie scooped him up, shaking and tickling until the baby burst with shrieks and laughter, baby blather flooding the room.

“Hello, Ivey. Come on in,” shouted Bonnie amid the squeals. “This kid is exhausting me.”

Two minion heads peeked around the edges of a chair, ecstatic golden faces that had eyes only for Bonnie and Baby Peter. Bonnie nodded toward her fans. “They’re waiting to take the baby back to the nursery. You would think the baby was theirs the way they fuss over it. I can’t even
get
into the nursery . . . it’s so crammed with minions that want to hold the babies.”

Ivey made her way to the bed, her aura casting out to Bonnie. “Do you mind if I touch him?”

“Not you too, Ivy?”

“The babies are special. We don’t bring the young of any species here. And we are born fully mature with all memories of our history intact. Our cells contain all the information we need and anything that is missing is supplied by the collective mind of our species. So we have very little exposure to newborns or young. And of course, the babies have come from you. You who are part of us yet very separate. We don’t get a chance to establish relationships with our birth parent after we are born. They expire shortly after giving birth. It is more like providing a replacement to continue the missions for the Womb.” Ivey’s aura slowed. She glanced at Bonnie from underneath her long eyelashes. “You are so mysterious and special to us. We are trying to understand some of your customs.” Bonnie covered Baby Peter, snuggling him tightly into the covers as the nursery minions looked on, golden noses inching closer to the baby.

“And what customs are you wondering about, Ivey?”

“Well, I know you are still mourning the Brother you call your husband. If you need a husband, why not just chose another one? I can tell Brother Dezi will be fine with that. He wants you to pick him next. Then you will be happy again.”

Bonnie laughed as her cheeks burned. “No Ivey, it doesn’t work that way. I’m not in love with Dezi. I mean, I love him but I’m not
in l
ove with him. Do you know what I mean?”

“I’m not sure.” Ivey’s aura slowed. “What about me? Do you love me? I love you. I loved you the moment I saw you when I was coming in from a mission. Do you remember that, Sister Bonnie?” Bonnie was shocked to silence.

Ivey’s aura continued, “You were so sad. I wanted to make you happy. That is love, is it not?”

Bonnie clasped Ivey’s hand in hers. “There are many kinds of love,” she started slowly. “I love both you and Dezi. You are my friend. But Peter was my husband. It’s different.”

“Yes, I know. You have intercourse to have babies. You don’t want to have intercourse with Dezi?”

Bonnie looked aghast and laughed at the same time. “You are very funny, Ivey. But no. I don’t love Dezi the same way I love Peter. Dezi does things for me because we are great friends. Best friends. But that’s not enough to build a married life.”

“He does things for you? I can do things for you. I will marry you, Sister Bonnie. We can have offspring. I will implant your eggs and give birth for you.”

“Oh honey, come here.” Bonnie took Ivey into her arms. “I love you for making such a fine offer. But my heart still belongs to Peter. It’s the human way. He will always be my first love. Maybe in time I’ll get over it but I doubt it. Besides, I don’t think an interspecies mating . . . er . . . coupling would be the right way to go here. We are both females by the way. In my race, we mate with a man to have a baby.”

“Yes, I know, Sister.” The aura whispered the dead serious thoughts of the eager navigator. “But I will check with Forbation.” Ivey slid off the bed. “I will tell him of my need and we will make a new rule. I will go find him now.” Before Bonnie could dissuade the misguided minion. Ivey wobbled to the door, encountering Dezi, then disappeared.

“Hey, babe. What’s up? Dezi strolled into the room, waving to the minions drooling over the baby.

Bonnie fell back on her pillow, looking up at the ceiling. “It looks like I have another problem on my hands. Turns out Ivy, the navigator, has become a big fan of mine.”

“What’s new about that? She’s been hanging around here every chance she gets. Just like a hundred other minions.”