The Next Thing I Knew (Heavenly) Read online

  Several Rrilk crews around the world were pushing for a vote to resume the cleanup. Our Rrilk crew was resisting. Something was about to give and we had to make sure our side prevailed. Zhrrii had been promoted to the equivalent of team leader after the death of her mate. Using a holographic interface, she communicated with hundreds of other leaders each day. From her memories, I found out that they were giving her biomechanic one more day to find the problem before forcing the vote. Shaval would find out soon that progress had stopped and the results could be catastrophic for them all.

  I decided we were taking things too slowly. During the next rest period for the Rrilk, I ran through my meditation routine until I was focused on Zhrrii. Instead of picking apart her recent memories, I dug deeper. Searching her mind didn't work the way computers did. Like the human mind, hers was full of irrelevant interference like hopes, dreams, abstract feelings, remembered sensations, etc. I couldn't input a key word and expect a list of all memories like a computer. But I'd thought of another way. Usually my contact was one-way. This time I pushed thoughts of Shaval into her subconscious.

  The results were almost immediate. Fear spiked and she started making snuffling noises through her snout almost like a whimpering noise. I pressed harder and was rewarded only with a memory about other Rrilk who seemed to be talking about Shaval in a gathering. Video played in a holograph. Several Rrilk were gathered around it, watching a planet as a black cloud of ash spewed from a pinpoint on the globe. The video zoomed in to reveal a blackened spot in a sea of green ooze. Charred remnants of a city crumbled from an attack.

  At this point her anger and grief overwhelmed the fear. Shaval had punished them. Don't defy Shaval. She feared Shaval. She hated them.

  I kept this up until Zhrrii's terrified whimpers and her feelings overwhelmed me. It was hard separating my emotions from hers. I felt horrible. But I had learned something. Neither Zhrrii nor any of her companions had ever set foot on their home world. They had been raised and trained somewhere else. Once their tour of duty was over, they would be allowed to live on their home world.

  Another thing I figured out: none of them had seen Shaval. But they certainly knew the dangers of defying him, her, it, whatever the hell Shaval was. I wanted to scream. What was Shaval?

  Then the obvious occurred to me. Well, obvious if you're a ghost that can possess aliens, anyway. I reached out with my senses and pushed myself into Zhrrii's motor control. At this point I'd learned that infiltrating the host's physical brain and controlling the host's body didn't necessarily go hand in hand. The Rrilk had several smaller brains or the equivalent thereof located in their bodies. It didn't matter. The key to controlling the body wasn't to override the brain, it was to press yourself into the physical body and sort of latch into it. It's one of those things that you feel. Trying to explain it would be a lot like trying to explain to a guy how menstrual cramps felt or why shoes are so awesome.

  I latched into Zhrrii which wasn't nearly as hard now as it had been days earlier. The more I interacted with a single body, the more attuned we became to each other. Until a certain threshold of familiarity was reached, it was impossible to impose any sort of motor control. But I had pushed myself hard to reach this point with Zhrrii. I felt her muscles engage when I prodded them to. Her four walking tentacles stiffened into approximations of legs and she stood.

  I sensed another presence with me. It was Zhrrii's consciousness, similar to what I'd felt while in Nick's body. She was terrified. This was not what I'd wanted. I didn't want to frighten the poor girl to death. I had hoped she might be unconscious during this. Nick had been in a drunken stupor when I'd controlled him which was probably why I'd not sensed terror in him at the time.

  "Don't worry, Zhrii," I said, my voice trumpeting in her language. It felt so weird talking like that and I marveled how my--her--mouth and nose adeptly navigated the syllables, intonations, and sub harmonics of each word. My words didn't quite have the intended effect. Zhrrii's fear mutated into horror. She probably figured she'd lost her mind. Which, in a way was true, although it wasn't so much lost as pushed aside.

  I ignored her presence away the best I could and concentrated on the real world. I'd had only Zhrii's memories to go on when it came to how she perceived physical sensations until now. The sensations now almost overwhelmed me. Each tentacle had millions of sensors on them. Her four walking tentacles had limited senses while the others tasted, smelled, and felt the air around me. I felt each tiny change in temperature and could discern the chemical composition of the air around me right down to tiny pollutants like tree pollen and Rrilk farts. Her eyes saw in a spectrum similar to those of a human but the detail and focus far outshined our physical abilities. I could pick out specks of dirt and discolorations on the walls. She had inner eyelids that could close and filter out certain light spectrums. Despite their monstrous appearance, the Rrilk had some cool abilities.

  The holograph room appeared to my right. I entered and inserted my tentacles into round sockets on the computer console. It took a while to access her memories on how to operate the thing. Her tentacles could pulse and apply pressure to different areas within the sockets. It wasn't too long before I accessed the cube's main database. The Rrilk written language consisted of note-like symbols and glyphs attached to each that modified the meaning. Fascinating as it was to figure this stuff out, I tried to ignore my wonderment and used Zhrrii's native knowledge of the language to search for information pertaining to Shaval.

  And that's when I hit a brick wall. There were three video files in an archive. One was the destruction of the city that I'd seen in Zhrrii's memory. The other two pointed out the benevolence and rewards for obeying Shaval. By now I figured Shaval must be the Rrilk equivalent of the Wizard of Oz: some guy hiding behind a curtain and laughing as he controlled an entire planet. More than likely it was a council of some sort that maintained power through fear.

  Then a tiny voice spoke to me.

  Who are you?

  I sucked in a breath. It made a funny noise in Zhrii's snout. I'm Lucy.

  That is an odd way to call yourself.

  I realized with a start that I'd just made first contact. Zhrrii was talking to me.

  Chapter 16

  I spoke with Zhrii for a while. Even with my knowledge of her language, there were a lot of language barriers to overcome. My name sounded unnatural to her since I spoke it like a human would. I had to transliterate it into Rrilk intonations before she slowly repeated it back to me.

  It took even longer to explain what I was. The Rrilk had no concept of an afterlife. They believed that Trrsha, the name for their planet and also the name of the giant sea of green ooze that covered eighty percent of it, took the bodies of the dead and used it to populate the next generation of spawn. She was extremely surprised to discover we humans had survived the wrath of Shaval.

  So Shaval killed us?

  Shaval takes without mercy or care. Shaval kills and sends us to prepare the remains.

  What do they want with Earth?

  It is to be a place of nature and relaxation.

  A nature preserve?

  I believe so, yes.

  Great. I'll bet Greenpeace will be happy to hear that.

  Zhrrii grew confused. Greenpeace?

  Never mind. Who is Shaval?

  I do not know.

  I sighed. She wanted to help, but she couldn't. She was somewhat in awe of me, I think, seeing as how Shaval hadn't killed us and that I'd taken over her body. But since the closest thing the Rrilk had to a god was their planet, she didn't revere me the way a superstitious freak like Ms. Tate probably would have if she were an alien with tentacles. I finally gave up on the Q&A and cut to the chase.

  Your people must not continue the cleanup of our planet.

  We must. Shaval will come if we do not.

  Wait, Shaval himself will put in an appearance?

  It has happened before. The Rrilk did not survive.

  You guys were cleaning
up another planet, stopped doing it, and Shaval came along and killed those responsible?

  Shaval killed all, so it was said.

  I felt a pang of fear rush through her. If you continue the cleanup, my people will be forced to take action.

  Can you defeat Shaval?

  I hesitated. How could I answer that without knowing who or what Shaval was? Maybe.

  Sadness coursed through Zhrrii. I feel for your people. We abhor violence. We only wish to live in harmony with Trrsha. Even if Shaval kills me, I will help you.

  Thank you, Zhrrii. I want to help your people too. But first we must know the enemy.

  What is enemy?

  I realized that the word "enemy" had come out in human speech. I scanned my thoughts and realized the Rrilk had no such word in their vocabulary. The closest was something that might equate to "adversary" but it meant "honorable competitor".

  An enemy is like an adversary that defies the rules and has no love for the children of Trrsha.

  That is Shaval.

  The longer I communicated with Zhrrii, the more I realized how little humans had in common with her race. The Rrilk had sports and leisure, but none of it involved violence of any sort. They had natural adversaries, large non-sentient animals that lurked in the depths of Trrsha which enjoyed snacking on their kind, but Shaval was their only real enemy. The only thing they hated. After conversing with Zhrrii, I realized just how strong of a term "hate" was for them. There was a special place in hell reserved for beings like Shaval, and I intended to send him there. After explaining hell to Zhrrii, she agreed this was a suitable future place of habitation for Shaval.

  Lucy, do you know why the Sst attacked us?

  The only reason I was able to quell my immediate reaction to this question was because I'd been expecting it. I didn't want her to feel my regret. At the same time, I was afraid I'd lose her support if she knew I was responsible for the death of her mate.

  I cannot say.

  I felt her consider asking more, but she didn't.

  When the other Rrilk started to awaken, I told Zhrrii I would leave her to explain my request to the other Rrilk. Hopefully they'd enlist voluntarily. I asked her what she would say and how she would prove her claim in case they didn't believe her story about me. Hell, if someone tried to convince me that a ghost asked for help defeating an alien, I'd have thought they were crazy. At least before I died, anyway.

  Why would I tell them something that is not? She asked.

  It was then I realized another yawning gap between our species. They had no real concept of lying. They wouldn't tell somebody something that wasn't true. If someone didn't know a fact, they wouldn't hazard a guess. It ran counter to their nature. This was why they'd taken so much time for Zhrrii's biomechanic to study the cause of the SSt's behavior. I hadn't told Zhrrii I was responsible for that. I'd lied to her. What kind of screwed up universe is it when you realize your race is full of lying bastards and nightmarish-looking aliens have a better code of ethics? I know looks aren't everything, but I'd totally misjudged the Rrilk by their scary book covers.

  I left Zhrrii to do her work. She was exhausted from staying up the entire sleep period but told me it was of no concern. She would do as I asked.

  Anil found me moments later. I could tell from his expression that he knew I'd done something reckless. I filled him in on my encounter with Zhrrii right down to the last detail. His eyes widened and his forehead crinkled in concern. Then a broad grin split his face. He looked almost proud.

  "I have tried initiating contact with my host but haven't been able to," Anil said.

  "I can do something you can't? Amazing."

  "You are a bit reckless."

  "No I'm not. I'm, uh, cautiously expedient."

  "And you're good at making up BS." He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder.

  "Yeah, yeah. Let's see how the other Rrilk take her message. It isn't that they won't believe her, but they may not understand her."

  Anil nodded. "True. There are vast differences in our cultures."

  "Don't get me started." I was still feeling pretty crappy that members of a noble race like hers might put their lives on the line for us.

  Anil contacted the others in our team and we assembled in the holograph room where Zhrrii had assembled her people. Kyle sidled up to me with a curious look.

  "I don't have time to explain everything," I told him. "But we might have a new ally."

  "For serious?"

  "Totally," I said and nudged him in the ribs.

  Since merging with the Rrilk, our team could understand the Rrilk language without needing to tap into a host. I guess we'd unconsciously adapted our hearing abilities or something. I noticed with a shock that one of the girls in our group, Lydia, had two tentacles sprouting from her ribs.

  Kyle caught me gawking and grimaced. "No limits."

  "How's she gonna explain that one to her boyfriend?"

  "Maybe he's into freaky stuff."

  I shuddered.

  While we waited on Zhrrii to begin I counted the members of our group. We had twenty-three. Harb wasn't among them.

  "Why didn't Harb ever join us?"

  "He's probably sulking somewhere."

  "He's still part of the team, right?"

  "He doesn't like Anil. He said his methods are too slow and he's got his own 'disciples'"

  "Disciples? Are you kidding me? What's wrong with that kid?"

  "He's got a chip on his shoulder big as a mountain. Life wasn't fair to him, so he figures people should worship him in death."

  "How many 'disciples'," I said with air quotes, "does he have?"

  "Maybe ten. And I wasn't calling them 'disciples' to be funny. That's what he calls them."

  Zhrrii started to speak so we hushed and listened.

  She got straight to the point. No flowery speeches, no hyperbole, just a simple explanation that she had spoken with a dead human and they wanted our help. What took the longest was explaining how humans still existed even after death. It wasn't that her people didn't believe her, but they had trouble understanding her. Anil's host, Phiirr, spoke up.

  "I think I understand. I have been visited by strange dreams of this planet and its people for many sleeps now. Perhaps one of these humans has also interfaced with me."

  Other Rrilk spoke up, acknowledging similar experiences. The ones who had not been possessed still seemed confused, but went along with the explanations.

  "These humans will help us defeat Shaval?" Phiirr asked.

  "Lucy says they can," Zhrrii said, struggling with my name. "What do you say?"

  "I am frightened," Phiirr said. "But if Shaval can be stopped from hurting our people, then we must help the humans."

  A majority agreed. The few dissenters consisted of those who hadn't hosted a human and thought perhaps their leaders might need more rest and less pressure. I could tell they were all scared, but my heart swelled with hope and a little bit of pride. I, Lucy Morgan, social retard, had somehow bridged the gap between humans and aliens. Now it was time to kick some ass. Or wait to have our asses kicked, as the case might be. For all I knew, Shaval was a giant radioactive robot that might never set foot on the planet. Hell, if Shaval made billions of humans drop dead, he might not need to even come here.

  But why would a giant robot need or want a nature preserve? Zhrrii said different planets had different plans. I had dreaded to ask her how many planets she'd help convert but she told me that Earth was the only one so far that had contained sentient life. The others had no sentient species but were able to support carbon-based life. Her crew had been responsible for surveying the planets and preserving their natural beauty.

  The Sst and other harvesting bugs were used to organically convert materials into energy. The Rrilk didn't understand all the mechanics of the energy conversion, but knew the Sst and the centipedes came from some planet Shaval had conquered. One energy cube could power one of the massive ships they'd arrived in for centuries if nee
d be.

  After creating a few thousand energy cubes, the Rrilk would be done with a planet and move on to the next. They had different directives on Earth. They were to clean up all debris left by the former dominant species. Humans.

  After the vote had passed, Zhrrii communicated with the thousands of other crew leaders scattered around the globe. She explained her experience and that she and her crew would help the humans. The other crew leaders acted a lot like the members of Zhrrii's crew that hadn't been possessed. They weren't really skeptical of her claim, they simply didn't understand it.

  Kyle and I immediately saw this would be a problem.

  "What did you tell them about the Sst?" Kyle asked me.

  "Nothing. I killed her mate, Kyle. She'll hate me if I tell her."

  "You have to tell her, Luce. That will convince the other crews we exist and can hurt them. Unpleasant as that is, it's reality."

  "How will that prove anything?"

  "They take everything literally. If she points to us as the reason, then they'll understand that more incidents like that could happen."

  I tapped into Zhrrii as the other crew leaders voted.

  Zhrrii, I have to tell you something very unpleasant. I don't want you to hate me.

  Tell me, Lucy.

  I'm the one who made the Sst attack. I'm responsible for the death of your mate.

  A shudder ran through Zhrrii. She drew in a hard breath.

  I'm so sorry, Zhrrii. I thought your people were responsible for our deaths.

  Another shudder ran through Zhrrii. Her mind pulled away from me, retreated as if down a dark hole for safety. I tried to speak to her again but she refused to engage me. I withdrew from her. My sense of elation crashed and burned. Misery fell on my shoulders. With one fell swoop I'd managed to destroy our chances of an alliance.

  "That well, huh?" Kyle said.

  "I think I ruined our last chance."

  "Damn it," Kyle said. "You know what this means."

  "I failed."

  "You didn't fail. Shit, none of us have a clue what we're doing. At least you had the balls to take over the Sst and do something. You saved thousands of lives."