Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille (13 page)

I thought about the lander sitting on the lunar surface and the tracks around it. The ancients left evidence, but I could not talk to them. Being in their bodies wasn’t the same as the groupmeld. I’d never know them either.

She kissed my back, her breath hot and moist. “The skin has a taste,” she said.

I stood. “There are other visitors I should attend to. Will you be at the afternoon session? We’ll do a discussion of the ethics of archeological tourism.”

“I know. I’ve heard it before. Can you come back later?” She sat on the bed with her legs crossed, her shirt on the floor, her face turned toward me, a visual echo of the extinct who’d been here before.

“I have many duties.”

Back on the observation deck, the changeless tableau waited. Since the moon revolved very slowly in relation to the sun, the shadows were nearly the same as when I’d left. I accessed the recordings from the last couple of days, examining them closely for the dark-haired woman. She had come to the deck alone yesterday. The image of her walking slowly to the center of the room captured her grace. Truly, she moved like she’d been born in the shell and not recently taken it on. She stopped, dropped to her knees, stared at the lander as if she’d seen something surprising then shook her head and rubbed her eyes. The recording captured nothing on the Moon’s surface, though. The moon and abandoned equipment were the same as they had been for millions of years. Either her apparition was imagination, or it couldn’t be recorded with our instruments.

She didn’t come to the late presentation. The tourists listened as well as any group of them ever did, which meant barely at all. A few in the front of the group looked attentive, but the rest giggled and coughed and touched themselves during my chat. I suppose if they extended their stay, the skin shell’s novelty would wear off. The red-head who had propositioned me earlier was there, wearing clothes this time, but the pants were on backwards and unzipped. A woman next to her kept mumbling in her ear while I talked, and I realized it was the body we’d given the tourist who’d broken his fingers.

The deck was close to the ground again, so the lander stood taller than my head, as did the flag. I liked this time of day best, when the observatory didn’t cast a shadow on the artifacts. The group stood to the side so we didn’t put our shadows on the lander either.

“We have catalogued the numerous sites for your perusal, including site 423 with the dead explorers in the capsule. If you have signed up for the transport option, a shuttle will take you physically to our observatory there, or you may prefer to transfer directly into their flesh units. I suggest you take the real-time journey, though. We have replicated several of their vessels to give you a more authentic recreation of their technology. You will pass over numerous interesting and historical points on the way.”

As I talked, the dark-haired girl joined the group. At the same time, a figure moved in the background, beyond the observatory’s confines. Startled, I kept the presentation going. I’d spoken it so many times before that the speech required no attention on my part.

A bulky figure shuffled toward one of the experiments, kicking up dust that spayed straight away from its feet and fell in perfect parabolas. The equipment on its back made it top heavy, and looked as if it might tip it over at any point. The suit was white with dark gloves. Tubes dangled from the front, feeding into the huge pack on its back, and on its shoulder was a patch that matched the pattern of the flag by the lander.

The dark-haired woman followed my gaze so that she saw the apparition too. Two of the tourists looked behind them, and then chatted with each other. They had seen nothing. Only the dark-haired woman and myself could see the vision.

“It’s just litter,” said the red-haired woman. The woman next to her, who had now wrapped her arm around her waist, said, “They were children, weren’t they? They never escaped their sun. Their consciousnesses were shipwrecked within them.”

The spacesuited figure straightened from its task and gazed at the planet overhead. I tried to imagine what their home looked like when the atmosphere was clear and they could see all the way to the surface. There must have been visible bodies of water. Analysis indicated over half the planet may have been covered, and there could have been water vapor clouds too. What did it look like when their sun caught the water and reflected back like a jewel on fire?

For the longest time, the figure in the spacesuit looked up without moving, and then it vanished. The dark-haired woman was crying. Although the ancient records mentioned physical manifestations of emotions, I’d never seen a skin shell cry.

“We’re having a going away party in the cafeteria,” said the red-haired woman. “The shells are alcohol sensitive.”

I waited until the tourists had left. The dark-haired woman stayed behind too.

She came close to where I stood, next to the lander. “Do you think we made the skin shells so well that we can see the spirits of their dead? Are we seeing ghosts?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. They were a strange people who started a long trip they couldn’t finish.”

From my point of view, I could see most of the footprints they’d left, the scattering of equipment and tools, the lone flag duplicating the patch on the suited figure’s arm, but beyond the jumble of marks in the dust, the Moon’s surface was trackless. They’d only begun. They didn’t have groupmeld or the infoquarry. They couldn’t know any experience other than their own, each one of them, alone in themselves, working together to get so far.

The Moon’s gray surface was sobering and hopeful. Much could be accomplished by the isolated working together.

“How long will you stay?” I asked.

“If you don’t mind, a long time, I think.”

I took a deep breath. Even breathing produced sensations in the ancients’ shape. “I don’t mind.”

“I have to decide what to do with my life.”

Her voice sounded like it had come to belong to her. Unlike the tourists, she wasn’t borrowing it anymore. She was becoming herself in this shell, and I would never know more about her than she could share through the imperfections of speech and the limited (but intense!) senses of the skin shells.

And that seemed enough.

Plant Life

J
ermaine said, “Just being around growing young women makes me feel alive.” He poked a finger into the cement planter’s black dirt. “That’s where the excitement is, Bucko, and these are nearly ready to harvest.”

Gregory looked down the long aisle through the middle of the greenhouse where rows of heavy trunked plants like the one they stood next to grew from solid, gray planters. From the top of each plant, four branches sprouted and bowed with the weight of their fruit, full sized women.

They walked to the next plant and Jermaine picked a handful of dirt out of it, felt it like an expert farmer and then let it dribble back. Even though the planter was only three feet tall, Jermaine had to reach up to replace the dirt. He was very short, almost a midget. A moody man who Gregory didn’t particularly like, he had insisted they come to the flower shop when he overheard Gregory arguing with his newly “ex” girlfriend on the phone.

Jermaine said, “I hear that their secret here is meticulous care. Each gene splicing, forced mutation and pollenization is done by hand.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready . . . I mean . . . a plant . . . I want to live alone,” said Gregory.

“Not just a ‘plant.’ A designer house plant, a state of the art product! And don’t give me this stuff about living alone, Bucko. Unless you think house plants think, you’ll still be on your own. That’s the beauty of it.”

Gregory turned away from Jermaine and faced the next “fruit” dangling from an acorn like skull cap that cupped the top half of her head. Green streaks showed faintly through her pale skin, through her eyelids.

“This one’s almost ripe.” Despite his three piece suit, Jermaine clambered onto the planter, grasped the “girl’s” wrist and examined the hand, turning it palm up. “See, fingers separated.” He pressed his thumb into the palm and the fingers closed slowly around it. “Stimulus reflexes coming along.” He beckoned Gregory, “Here, touch its skin.”

Shaking his head, Gregory backed away.

“Relax, Bucko, it’s meant to be handled. That’s what it’s here for.”

“I’m uncomfortable.” Gregory’s face flushed. “She’s naked.”

“Come on.” Jermaine held out a hand. “It’s all right.”

As if afraid that someone observed his reluctance, Gregory glanced side to side then stepped up next to Jermaine.

“You said they were ‘fully functioning?’”

“Fully
reflexive
. Press here.” Jermaine directed Gregory’s hand to the small of the woman’s back; he reached around her tentatively but jerked his hand away when he touched her.

“She’s warm!”

“Of course. Would you want a cold one? Hold that spot longer. Don’t move your hand.”

Gregory touched her again. For a few seconds the three of them stood still; fans at the far end of the greenhouse blew humid air past them, ruffling Gregory’s hair, partially uncovering a bald spot. Then the plant moved. Her hips pushed against him rhythmically, and her arms moved up as if to encircle him. He stepped away. The woman’s arms dropped and her torso quit moving.

“Oh, my,” he exclaimed.

“That reflex will improve, naturally, when she’s completely ripe, about a week after she’s picked.”

“Are there other . . . uh . . . models?”

“Sure. Each trunk produces three slightly different usable fruits, like sisters, but the separate plants . . . well, you can see.” Jermaine gestured to the next planter where “girls” distinctly different from the one they were standing next to hung: more delicate, shorter. Gregory tried not to stare. He looked away.

“You said there were three ‘fruits’ per plant, but I count four.” Gregory pointed to a fourth girl dangling in the shadow behind the trunk.

“Ah, you mean Rose.” Jermaine sidled around the plant between the trunk and the girls. “They’re a recessive gene, I understand. Quite unusable.”

Gregory hopped off the planter and went around to where Jermaine was standing. His hand sunk into the wet dirt when he braced himself. Little globs of soil flew from his fingers as he shook them, and he held his hand away from his suit until Jermaine tossed him a rag to wipe it off.

Relieved to be doing something mundane, something as unembarrassing as cleaning his hands, Gregory wiped each finger meticulously. When he finished he looked at “Rose” and gasped.

“Quite striking, isn’t she?”

Like the others, her toes brushed the dirt as she swayed slightly from her branch. Her hands rested against her thighs, relaxed, fingers curved as if waiting for someone to hold them, but no one would hold these hands, Gregory realized, no one would embrace this “fruit,” because huge thorns, hard, wicked and sharp poked through her skin at every point. She bristled with inch long stickers so heavily that she didn’t even mimic human appearance as the others did. From her forehead, her cheeks and lips, her neck and shoulders; from her breasts and belly, her hips and thighs, they curved out, translucent at the tips, needle sharp and glistening.

Gregory reached out to touch a thorn on her leg.

“Better not, Bucko. She’s fully reflexive too.” Jermaine lightly brushed the thorns on her belly, then pulled his hand away as her hips thrust forward. “You could get a nasty little cut from this one.” He laughed. “She got me and I knew it was coming.” He put the heel of his hand in his mouth.

“It’s hideous.”

“I don’t know. Depends on how you look at her.”

Gregory shuddered. “Why do they grow anything like this?”

“Like I said, a recessive gene. Completely unavoidable. Sometimes they sell one for novelty.” Jermaine climbed off the planter. “Let’s look at some of the others.”

A half hour later, Gregory chose a “girl” that he liked and signed the contract for delivery. He felt, absurdly, like he had as a child after buying a Christmas tree.

The next day, at home, Gregory waited for the delivery. He was watering an African Violet, letting the water’s weight push the leaves into the black earth, until the pot overflowed. He tapped the leave’s edges to shake the drops off, then rubbed the soft fuzz on the leaf as if the plant were a mouse. The violets were Sara’s, his “ex.” He had expected her to pick them up after she left, but as the days passed and the leaves began to droop and shrivel, he had watered them. “You have to talk to them,” she’s said when she’d bought them. “Talk and TLC and they’ll bloom.” She’d say, “Here’s water for my ducks. How are my babies?” That’s ridiculous, he had thought at the time.

Pots of African Violets covered the entire counter top. She’d replaced the florescent bulb over the counter with a grow light, and as each plant flourished, she’d pinched and pruned, divided and replanted, until not a patch of the mauve linoleum counter was visible. Gregory refilled the canister and, without talking, doused the next plant.

She had loved simple things: plants, horses, sad movies, sappy poetry. For a big woman—a hint of double chin, padded shoulders and cushioned collar bones, round soft hips, broad thighs, pliant skin—she had moved over the tiny plants with a delicate grace. “Water, water everywhere and here’s a drop to drink.”

Finished with the violets, Gregory checked his watch, opened the front door and looked up and down the long, empty street, sat in front of the TV, staring at the blank screen. A car hummed past the house and he half got up but sat again when it didn’t stop. Finally he searched his collection of DVDs for something to watch until the delivery. He paused at
The King and I,
a movie that Sara had watched over and over. He had found her slumped into the recliner one morning the week before she’d left, the remote control in hand, crying during a dance sequence. “Why?” he’d said. “Because they love each other,” she’d replied.

He pushed
Little Shop of Horrors
into the player and fast forwarded to the climax. (“Feed me, Seymour! Feed me!”)

He fell asleep before it ended and dreamed about Sara. He held out his hand to her, but when she took it she screamed. His palm was filled with thorns. He woke up, biting his lip.