notsocommon | for Wanderer

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for Wanderer

Helen had promised to spend a little more time talking one on one with Wanderer when there weren't the concerns of arrival or the bustle of a party to contend with and she'd settled for having tea with her on a Saturday afternoon. She'd brought Gregory along, of course, because she hated to saddle Will with him when she was unoccupied and it seemed that Wanderer had been fond of the baby; Helen was always pleased with people who were interested in her son.

She was a bit early, so she'd snuggled Gregory in his sling across her chest and gone to boil the water for tea, hoping to at least have that done before Wanderer turned up in the kitchen. Whether or not they'd stay in the Compound was up to her - Helen hardly had an opinion - but this part would need to start here.

When she heard a noise behind her, she turned slightly. "Just getting a few things ready for us. Did you want anything in particular?"

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"I'm not used to telling people, to be honest," I said after a moment's pause, thinking how to start. "But not because I'm ashamed or afraid. It's just. By the time I came to this planet, everyone knew what I was." I paused. "Because nearly everyone else was just like me. There were very few humans left."

Better, I thought, to get to the worst out first.

"I suppose it would be best to explain how you colonize, to start," Helen said gently. She wanted to reserve judgment until the very end because just because a species might do harm to another, it wasn't inherently bad. Sometimes that was the nature of life.

"Its how we live, how we experience the universe. When we find a planet where the inhabitants are...not kind, we observe and then send the spiders in to learn. The spiders are from another planet we've found; they love to problem solve and welcomed us and the challenges we gave them. Once we learn all we can about the species, how to maintain the host bodies, how the culture operates, we start the colonization. It's very subtle, most species don't know were there, some don't care, but some do." I took a breath, sighed. "The humans were different. Like nothing we'd experienced before."

"They resisted your colonization, I presume? Knowing what I know about my own species, we're rather stubborn. I'm rather stubborn."

It was, quite possibly, an understatement of the grandest degree.

I shook my head. "Not at first. They didn't know what was going on in the first waves. Once the humans knew what was happening, that's when they started to resist us. To fight to stay."

Unbidden, my hand went to the back of my neck. Miss you, Mel, I thought. The silence in response saddened me.

"How does it work, then? Is it a symbiotic relationship or is it more parasitic?"

Helen softened a bit and gave her an apologetic smile. "Not to insult you, darling, I'm just trying to wrap my head around how this works."

"I've been called worse than parasite," I said, returning her smile in kind, "but that is the best description. And that's how it's supposed to be. We're inserted into the host by a small incision in the back of the neck, or the closest facsimile, depending on the species. I'm really very small. My actual body would fit into your cupped hand. We have connections, antennae that extend out and attach to the brain and spinal cords, so we can move the body, see, feel, touch, hear. Experience."

"That's fascinating. Has your species always needed a vector of some sort or are you viable outside of a host? Have you ever had a willing host that shares their experiences with you mutually? Is that even possible?"

The problem with learning something that was Helen only had more questions.

"On our home planet, The Origin, we can survive outside our host bodies, but that's the only place. Anywhere else, we have minutes only."

I felt her loss again, so strongly, my eyes actually teared up. I blinked them away. "I wouldn't call her willing, and I wouldn't call the way she threw her memories at me sharing, but I have had a more symbiotic relationship with a host body. Melanie." Saying her name, the tears fell.

"Oh, darling, I didn't mean to make you cry," Helen said, reaching across the table as best she could with Gregory in arms to touch Wanderer's hand.

"I'm sorry if I asked something entirely too personal. Curiosity is both a gift and a curse where I'm concerned."

"It's not you," I sniffled, wiping at my cheeks with my free hand. "I just. I miss her. What started adversarial at best changed to where we tolerated each other, when I brought her home to her family - her brother and the man she loved. Then, the longer we stayed with the humans in the caves, they came to accept me, accept us, and she became more like a sister. She was my strength when I was weakest, she helped me understand the humans in a way I never would have alone." I let go a very soft laugh. "I could certainly use her now."

"Would there be a way for her to show up here? Obviously I'm thinking this is a new body and not the one you shared with her," Helen said, trying to work out exactly how it worked.

"If there's a way for her to come here, I hope that she does."

"I've met two people that are here from the same place, so I suppose it's possible," I responded, not daring to even dream it. "And yes, this is a different body, but there's no sign of the original human mind here. Just me." I sniffed back the lonliness that was still just at the surface. "I'm guessing that the former host, Pet, had been here for a long time, or the host body was young when she was inserted. Whichever it was, there's no resistant mind."

I was quiet for a moment, thinking about what could have possibly happened after...after Doc removed me. "It wasn't supposed to happen."

"What wasn't? Coming to inhabit this particular body?"

The idea of a body being completely blank and devoid of a personality was somewhat fascinating and in that way, Helen could see the relationship between Soul and host as something beneficial to both - if the Soul needed the body but the mind were gone, like with a coma patient, it wasn't inherently a bad thing. Then again, she didn't think it was a bad thing anyway because all species change and adapt in ways best suited to their particular challenges.

I nodded, trying to put words to my memories of those last moments in the caves. "I was tired of being a parasite, tired of living my life at the expense of others. When I decided...to give Melanie back, to leave so she wouldn't be imprisoned in my mind, it was with the intention of not coming back. Dying." I finished and had to take a breath to calm the erratic emotions.

"I asked Doc to bury me with my friends, to not put me in a cryotank. I didn't want to go to another planet, another life. I wanted to stay on Earth, be buried with my friends."

"And yet your friends made the decision to put you into this body instead," Helen said, smiling softly. She could see why. Wanderer seemed a gentle, loving person and incredibly self-sacrificing and altruistic. It seemed at odds with her species' preferred method of propagation and colonization.

"I must say, I'm grateful, because otherwise we'd never have met. I've never encountered a species like yours before."

The way she said that, it wasn't the first time I'd wondered just what Helen had encountered. "I still don't know how to feel about it. I'm not...there's no one else in here, but I'd made my decision to leave, resigned myself to it. Said goodbye to...to everyone. It's oddly disconcerting to be living a life I never expected. Just for my own curiosity, have you seen many other species?"

"Oh, a great many. That's what I did before I came to the island. I ran a sanctuary for exotic and misunderstood species that were either too dangerous to integrate among society or too easily harmed. I wasn't..."

Helen sipped at her tea, trying to think of how best to explain it. "I started out as human but through experimentation I became functionally immortal. Certainly, if I'd been shot and bled out I would have died but my healing factor kept me from most diseases and injury. I am 162 years old as of last August."

While I already knew that most here came from versions of the world that didn't match my own, I'd thought that Helen might not be. Now I knew differently. The species she'd met could exist off of their home planets, clearly. None of the ones we encountered could, except the spiders.

I smiled a little. "I guess there's no way any healer can guard against accidents or dangers like that, no matter where you come from. That's the only way we can die as well, other than if we give ourselves as mothers or, just choose to not move on when the host body dies."

"How does your reproduction work?"

She felt like she was possibly being rude, asking so many questions, but it had been a long time since she'd encountered a new species and she was as wide-eyed about it as she'd been about any Abnormal back home.

It most certainly wasn't the time for it, but I laughed just the same. I'd been asked the same thing when I had my little 'I am female' tantrum in Doc's hospital.

"It's relatively simple, all things considered," I replied at last, looking at the baby in Helen's arms. "There are very few of us with the potential to become mothers. One for every thousand, or something like that. Once the decision is made, the mother divides herself. Every cell becomes a new life and carries with it the mother's memories, so information isn't lost between generations."

"And is there some sort of shared genetic memory among all of your people? I hesitate to say hive mind, because that sounds derogatory, and I don't mean to be. Sometimes I find that the English language doesn't have nearly as delicate terms as I want to use for such questions."

The last thing Helen wanted was to offend Wanderer when she was being so forthright with her. "Perhaps I didn't mention this earlier but if there's ever anything I ask you that you don't want to answer, please simply tell me. My questions are merely for curiosity's sake, for wanting to learn about something beautiful and unique, and I don't mean to offend you."

I'd found the island's version of Doc and Jeb, rolled into one person. I gave a little smile and a shake of my head. "You remind me of someone from the caves. Jeb. He was curious to the point he drove me hoarse with questions. Wanting to know about me, about us, about where we'd been, everything. Then he, and others, started asking at mealtimes and it sort of became my job. To tell the others stories about us, so I suppose you could say that I'm used to the questions, and the curiosity."

I took a sip from my mug, set it down again. "Not among all of us, the memory thing. But we all remember what our mothers remember, and their mothers, and their mothers, and on it goes. So I guess there is some cross over, but they're dim recollections. Not photographic memories."

"I honestly could listen to you talk about what you are and where you came from from now until eternity, provided Gregory behaved for me," Helen said, laughing a bit.

Gregory, for his part, was awake and blinking a little at her. He had gotten a little better at focusing of late and Helen was reasonably sure he'd started recognizing people.

"Now, when you colonize...do you prefer adults or juveniles?"

"Once Earth was settled, it went to preference. Some, like me, chose a mature host; some preferred staring younger, for a longer life term. In the first waves, I'm not sure. I've always chosen planets that are more or less completely settled. For the other places," I said, and shrugged, "there isn't quite the delineation between the two."

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