Chapter 16: Chapter 16: Mutation, Part 1

At first, she thought she was just picking up a bit of extra weight. Lately she was insatiably hungry. She couldn't stop the hunger pangs, and her clothes didn't fit so well anymore. Fried green tomatoes never tasted so good. She had to ration her intake of tomatoes to two a day and even then she had run out. She had driven to nearby farms in search of abandoned gardens in the hopes of finding more tomatoes.

Also, she couldn't get enough lemon pudding. She found boxes of the mix and made lemon pudding every day. She could barely tolerate eggs and hated wasting them, so she found creative ways to bake with them. Lemon meringue pie became a daily indulgence. She made cheese and ate it in handfuls. She drank glasses of chilled milk, now preferring it cold.

When her period stopped coming, she realized there was something going on much worse than weight gain. Her breasts hurt, and she sweated during the night. Was it menopause? But how could she be going through that when she wasn't even forty?

One morning she climbed out of bed and felt something strange and more frightening than even the idea of menopause.

Something fluttered in her stomach.

Carmella froze and gasped. She pressed her hand to the flutter and waited, but it didn't reoccur. She kept pressing her stomach and felt a lump that wasn't fat. She shook as she pressed and prodded then stripped out of her nightclothes and stared at herself in the mirror.

Her belly was slightly rounded.

A tumor.

Dear Lord, she had cancer.

"Child, if your reason for calling this meeting is to convince us to change our minds," Mama-Baba said, "then you are wasting your time and ours."

Bilal pulled himself up until he was tall. "I'm no longer a child. I'm an unmarried adult."

Mama-Baba's skin flushed yellow. "Of course."

"Why did you call this meeting?" Father-Nile asked.

Bilal had practiced but still had a difficult time getting the words out. He reverted to Centaurian, which did not use words but waves. He explained about finding the female human, about the attack on her, and how he had repaired her. No one interrupted him, which surprised him. He explained about returning to make sure she was okay and how she had broken down in grief and accused him for her loss.

"Humans can not accept responsibility for their own self-destructive nature," Mama-Baba said, "and yet we are the scapegoats for all that has gone wrong with them."

"Well, in all fairness, we are responsible their end," Father-Nile said.

"Yes, we are, Nile," Mama-Baba said. "But they were in sad condition before we ever arrived, and now they aren't. Do we ever get credit for that?"

"Please continue with your story, Bilal," Mother-Mina said.

Bilal's body expanded as he explained about the dandelion tops and how he had consumed so many of them that it sounded like a good idea to give the human a child to take the place of the one lost to her.

Father-Tom became agitated. "You should have brought her here, Bilal. Had you brought her here, then she could have mated properly. I am very displeased with you."

"I'm sorry, but there is more. I used Raj's sperm without his permission. And I … spliced my DNA into the fertilized egg."

There was absolute silence.

"That is impossible," Mother-Mina said.

"No, Mother. The mother ship helped me to adapt my DNA into theirs."

"And you successfully implanted the embryo?" Father-Nile asked.

"Well, yes." They weren't angry? "She is in her second trimester."

"And the child is healthy?" Father-Tom asked.

"Yes, but I haven't been far from the human for long ... until now."

"I see," Mother-Mina said.

"You will bring her here," Mama-Baba said.

"There is yet another problem. She doesn't know she is pregnant. I failed to tell her."

There was quiet.

"What you did was unconscionable," Mama-Baba said. "The human has never been processed and has been living alone on earth for over twenty years. She obviously hates Centaurians, and in your wisdom you decide to impregnate her with one? Did you want to become a human so badly that you tried to create one?"

Mother-Mina stopped her with a tentacle. "Bilal was wrong in the way that he carried this out, but not for what he did. We adapt. That is what we do. When our cells merged with humans it caused their deaths. But this—"

"Madness!" Mama-Baba interrupted. "You always take his side, even when he does something like this!"

Father-Tom placed a reassuring tentacle on his partner. "Baba, please …"

"No!" Mama-Baba pulled away and moved across the room. "We should not mix with humans. Why would we want to combine with a lesser species? We should aspire toward higher life forms and not lower ourselves!"

Mother-Mina quivered. "You've made your dislike of humans quite evident. Your dislike clouds your reason. Adaptation is not based on personal preference but on necessity. Humans can procreate easier than Centaurians can, and they are highly evolved. They are the most intelligent species that we have found."

"I think that it is time that Bilal is told about the origins of the mother ship," Father-Nile said.

"Of course," Mama-Baba sputtered. "Tell him. Why not?"

Bilal looked at him curiously, ignoring his Second Mother. "Tell me what?"

"Do you know what the mother ship is?" Father-Niles asked.

"A living organism. We sustain each other."

"Yes," Mother-Mina said. "But there is more to it than that. Many centuries ago our world began to die."

Bilal knew this story well, so why was she giving him a history lesson?

"Needing a way to travel to other worlds, we began to develop the mother ship," Mother-Mina said. "But what you don't know is that the mother ship is a Centaurian who allowed himself to adapt to our needs."

Bilal froze. "What?"

"The ship is one of us," Mother-Mina said. "A Centaurian made the supreme sacrifice to adapt for our needs. And because he did, he saved the life of thousands."

"But … how?"

"We helped it to become something that could meet our needs, and then the most daring of us joined with the Centaurian who is now our mother ship."

Bilal was bowled over. He could have never known that such a thing was possible. He looked around and ran a tentacle along the familiar walls. "But why was I never told?"

"Because it is possible—though not advised—but we can adapt to be whatever it takes to meet our own needs," Mother-Mina said.

Bilal's tentacles explored the interior walls of the mother ship. "But Centaurians have a lifespan. The mother ship has never died. How is this possible?" It would be three times older than the oldest Centaurian.

"We keep it alive," Mother-Mina explained. "So you see, young one, adapting is what we do."

"You will have to return to Earth and bring the human to the mother ship for processing and monitoring," Father-Tom said.

"Why?" Bilal asked.

"Why?" Father-Nile would have sputtered if he could have. "We can't leave her on Earth with a child as important as the one she carries. She may do it harm."

"Maybe he can take the child from her body and bring it to the ship," Father-Tom suggested.

"It might endanger the child," Father-Tom said. "Best to bring the mother along with the child."

While his parents discussed this, an idea occurred to Bilal. He cleared his throat to get their attention. "I want to go to Earth, and I want to study the human and the child. If this adaptation is to be successful, then at some point it will be necessary to reintroduce mankind to Earth. Earth Two can only handle a portion of the growing human population, and there is no reason not to utilize the resources that are already in place on Earth."

"But monitoring the humans will be impossible," Mama-Baba interjected. "They need to be monitored."

Everyone agreed except Bilal. "How can we form a true opinion unless it is researched? Since I began this I would like to see it through. And besides, the human knows me. She is older in age, and I don't think the stress of a move and reintegration will be good for her or the child."

"I agree to allow Bilal to study the human and child on Earth," Father-Nile said. "Of course, he will need to provide regular reports."

"Agreed," Father-Tom said.

"Yes," Mother-Mina said.

Bilal's joy soared, and he suppressed his pleasure as much as he could.

"But the study must have a time limit," Mama-Baba said. "I won't allow my son to be lost to humans. He will return home in five years."

Bilal was about to object when Mother-Mina stopped him with a tentacle.

"Five years is plenty of time to study the human," Mother-Mina said. "You will transmit reports once a year, and on the fifth year you will return home. We will take your advisement into consideration but will form our own opinions on whether or not it is in the best interest of all concerned to breed with man. As always, this discussion and decision is not to be discussed." She frowned. "Your human friends do not know of this, do they?"

"No. I have not discussed it with them."

Bilal had become a good liar, a fact that did not make him happy. But this was one lie he had to tell in order to protect his friends. Further, he would have to discuss this with Lawrence and Raj again. He needed to express to them the importance of not telling anyone else. He didn't want to think the worst of his parents, but deep down he knew that in the grand scope, his friends were not as important as the secret of the mother ship. Bilal shuddered to think what could happen to his friends if others suspected that they knew. Even Mother-Mina, who was the most reasonable of his parents, did not place as much value on the human species as she did on her own.

But Bilal was not like that. He saw no species as more important than any other.

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