Chapter 9: The Lone Traveler

There was beauty yet profound sadness in a world where all that remained were the remnants of life long gone. Sometimes he would walk through houses and see decayed meals upon cobwebbed plates. Once he saw a man sitting in a reclining chair in front of a television set with a remote control still held in his skeletal hands.

Those were the worst. He wanted to explore his connection with mankind. Instead he sometimes felt overwhelmed by the desolation and the complete loss. He tried to keep to places that held artifacts and memorabilia like books and pictures. His favorites were the department stores where he tried to understand some of what he saw. He ran his sensors over the clothing trying to imagine being sheathed in something so uncomfortable. Yet humans had grown accustomed to it. This he couldn't understand.

He'd once allowed his form to shift into a shape that could slip into a coat. It had stifled his senses so badly that he had felt ill afterwards.

Bilal felt like a nomad more so than other Centaurians. His parents remembered another world, a different culture, but Earth was all he knew. He had been born on the mother ship and was six Earth years old the first time he saw the humans. Bilal grew to adulthood alongside human friends, influenced by their culture. At one point his fathers wanted to separate him from his friends, but his First Mother said that Centaurians had to adapt.

Bilal was doing only what he was supposed to be doing.

Yet that was no consolation when other Centaurians looked upon him with distaste. Bilal is the name that he took for himself after meeting a man with brown skin and hair that was twisted into long tendrils that ran down his back. He was six years old then and had seen humans with straight hair and curled hair, but he'd been intrigued by dreadlocks. The man had been equally intrigued by the smaller being. Unafraid, Bilal allowed the man to touch him and to satisfy his curiosity, and in return the man had allowed him to touch his braids and his brown skin. The brown man's name was Bilal Akunyili.

After figuring out how to make his vocal chords speak the words, he announced it as his new human name. His Second Mother did not like it, perhaps because he had already changed his name four times, or maybe because she had a difficult time forcing her mouth and tongue to form the proper shape. Whatever the reason, it was hard for Bilal to know for sure because his Second Mother found displeasure at most things Bilal did. She always faulted him for trying to be human, reminded him that he was more evolved, and scolded him for trying to emulate humans. "They should be emulating you," she had said.

This had made no sense to him. He wasn't trying to be one way or another. He was only himself, and like it or not, Bilal was an Earthling even if he was not a human being.

Centaurians did not breed as often as humans did. He was the third offspring of his First Mother and only the second of his other parents. Of the several thousand Centaurians that remained in the known universe, only a few hundred had produced offspring within the last thirty years. He had met a few of them and didn't like them nearly as much as he liked his human friends. They acted and thought like his parents, and some had never befriended a single human.

Bilal knew that many of his parents wished he would conform because they were important, high-ranking officials in the Centaurian hierarchy. Though there wasn't an exact word in his language for "embarrassed," Bilal knew that was what many of his parents were. They were ashamed of the way he spoke and acted because he had little interest in his own culture. It was why he was allowed to travel down to Earth for extended visits, something forbidden to other Centaurian offspring. Bilal felt that they were happy to be rid of him for a while.

Earth was hard and rough with none of the smooth edges of their mother ship, where their bodies glided without hindrance. Not many Centaurians cared to leave the mother ship for Earth, where the death of so many billions still disturbed their senses. Bilal's desire to study the anthropology of Earth mixed with his parents' shame of having a son who had no connection to his own species made the decision to allow him access to the restricted planet an easy one. Perhaps time away from his humans would help him readjust to his role in this new world order.

Bilal spent months at a time away from home going to places his human friends had told him about. He kept communication with the mother ship and his parents using the sensor signposts set up all over the world. He had a space pod he used only when he wanted to travel back home and spent most of his time combing the land and making discoveries the Centaurians had never known, could never know because they refused to immerse themselves into human culture the way he attempted to do.

Using his sensors, he collected samples of plant life, which he stored within his body until he returned them to the mother ship for analysis. Bilal once discovered a special treat, a plant that caused him to feel joy and contentment in an exaggerated manner. It sometimes caused him to do things out of character, like pretending to be human. Once he had awakened to find that he had shifted his gelatinous body into the shape of a human and had been walking around on two legs. He would never do that on Earth 2 or the mother ship. When he was a child, his human friends had urged him to form himself into a human, and when the Centaurians saw him, they became outraged. His parents admonished him never to do it again. He didn't know why at the time—though he now understood.

The first time he returned with his samples and the strange plant was analyzed, it was determined that it had the same effect on the Centaurian's system that marijuana had on humans. He was admonished never to interact with it, and he promised not to. Whenever he returned to Earth, however, he would find more of these strange plants and get stoned for a couple of days before getting down to his anthropological studies.

II

Bilal was stoned when he saw the woman. For a moment, he wasn't even sure if he was seeing what was real. In all of his travels over all of these years he had never seen another human on earth. He wasn't na?ve enough to think that the Centaurians had collected every single human from Earth. Many resisted and had died of the virus for their efforts. Some were living in madness brought on by years of solitude.

He was taught that should he cross paths with a human, he was to bring them to the mother ship for processing and reintegration with other humans.

Bilal had failed to consider that if he met a human, he or she would be want to kill him. He had found himself staring at her from across the yard. He hadn't camouflaged his gray color and didn't realize he should probably hide.

He regretted his decision to consume so much of the strange plant that his movements were slow and clumsy when he tried to grab her. She should have never been able to outmaneuver him. He had never had to deal with a violent confrontation before. Yes, with wolves and other wild creatures, but never a human. It went against his grain. Violence of any sort was not tolerated on Earth 2. Humans were prone to commit violent acts against one another, and their punishment was solitary confinement. He had tried to sedate her but was clumsy, and before he realized it, she had produced a gun and shot him.

When the first bullet entered him, it had done a great deal of damage. It had rendered him immobile, paralyzing him as it cut through several important synapses. Bilal had lain quietly rejuvenating and repairing the damaged portions of his body, fully aware that the woman intended to kill him.

She had disappeared for a while, but he knew that she might return to finish the job. As soon as he could, he retreated, repairing his injuries as he traveled back to his space pod. He was shocked to find that she was pursuing him. He knew that he could outrun her, even though he was losing much of his life fluid, but he sensed the wolves. Somehow he had to make sure the wolves wouldn't take her and that she wouldn't shoot him again. Another shot in a vital area might mean the end of him.

When the wolves overtook her, he doubled back to assist her. But instead of being grateful, she tried to harm him further. He produced his stinger and sedated her, wishing that he had been successful in doing it the first time, and then neither of them would be half dead right now.

III

Carmella's chest was on fire. She couldn't move. She tried to open her eyes, but that wouldn't happen either. Yet it didn't cause her any alarm. Instead, the gentle movement felt as if she was being carried, and the rocking motion made her feel sleepy.

Hours later she stretched and stifled a yawn and made to turn over in bed before she realized she wasn't in her bed but on her sofa. She sat up quickly, remembering wolves and a Blob that had stung her. Swiftly her hands moved to her belly, and she pulled her shirt upward to explore her belly for a stab wound.

She saw nothing.

"Shit!" she screamed, as she jumped off her couch.

Blood covered her ripped shirt, but she found no bite mark. She scrubbed frantically at the bloodied flesh and saw not even the faintest mark. Carmella lifted her shirt over her chest and looked down at her right breast. Her bra was snagged and bloodied, and when she touched the area where she had been mangled, it was sore—but not as sore as it should have been. She tugged at the bra until it exposed several faint punctures that seemed years old.

Her eyes darted around the room. The Blob had to be here because it had brought her home and had somehow fixed her wounds. She narrowed her eyes and scanned every nook, cranny, and corner of the room. Her eyes spotted the dark fluid on the floor next to the couch. There was so much of it …

A smeared trail led to the front door, and she hurried to it and flung the door open without thought of her gun. Her eyes scanned her yard for several minutes before she returned to her home, shutting and locking the door behind her.

Carmella went through her house making sure that nothing was out of place or hiding and then she got a bucket of hot water and scrubbed the floor. Both guns were gone, but she had plenty more. She retrieved two before going out to spray disinfectant on the pool of alien blood in the front yard. She grabbed a shovel and covered it with fresh dirt, grimacing in disgust.

And though it wasn't Sunday, she drew a lukewarm bath and washed thoroughly, examining her healed wounds in her bedroom mirror afterwards. She was exhausted and hungry and still needed to tend to the animals. Carmella sat down at her kitchen table and ran her hand through her dreadlocks instead.