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Lizzie ran in the sunshine, the amazing sky filled with the pale echoes of the rings that orbited the Daringi planet. At night the view was spectacular. You could barely see the stars for the brilliant light show of the colorful rings around the planet. Beside her, running at her pace, was Tarafau.
The large Daringi man was her “guide,” there to steer her through her internship as an Alliance Agent. He had been Gaston’s guide before her. They had replaced Gaston’s guide with a “gardener,” a humanoid agent of the Alliance. Why they had felt Lizzie specifically needed Tarafau to be her guide, she had no idea, although she had some vague suspicions.
Each of her podmates in agent training had been assigned a guide for this stage of their instruction. It had been a bit sad for Lizzie to be separated from her podmates. She especially missed Minth and Gi, with whom she had been so close.
Every time she sat in the quiet of the huge back yard of Tarafau’s home playing her mbira, she found her mind drifting back to those impromptu concerts between the pods at the agent training center.
All of these things ran through her mind as she jogged along the road that led from a wooded area beyond Tarafau’s home and the dome-like house he lived in. By now the path was familiar, and it was easy for her mind to drift as she ran. It was quite different from the grueling pace that Lall had put her pod through on the Alliance training grounds.
From time to time, they nodded to others walking past on various errands.
Suddenly, she felt more than heard the swish behind her. Without thinking, her quarterstaff was in her hands, meeting the intended blow with a loud clack. As she whirled to face her attacker, Tarafau grinned at her, swinging again, low this time, towards her shins. She caught the blow with her staff, connecting lightly and pivoting to swing a blow towards his stomach. He met her counter easily, which did not surprise her. She almost never got in a tap on Tarafau.
Back and forth they went, Lizzie oblivious of their surroundings and now completely focused on the task at hand, keeping Tarafau from adding to her current collection of bruises from these defense sessions.
She never knew when he might attack. It wasn’t malicious on his part, she knew. It was simply that part of his job was to see to it that she could hold her own in any situation. And it wasn’t just physical defense. He and his wife, Amenia, had been also working with her on mental defenses, not only to prevent someone from being able to overwhelm her with a mental attack but to also control her reactions to pain and to be able to control basic bodily functions such as slowing breathing and even maintaining or adjusting body temperature.
This was only the smallest part of what she had come here to learn. She had sat in on countless meetings with various groups of beings on this planet, which was home to five sentient species that all lived in relative harmony.
Council meetings, various cultural events, even classes in the local university were just a few of the things she had been exposed to over time in this part of her training. And all of this was just a warmup to the actual internship that was yet to come. When Lizzie had completed this part of the internship with Tarafau, she would return to the Alliance training center for an orientation with her podmates that would officially launch them into actual assignments, each accompanied by their assigned guide, that would take them to dimensions as yet unknown to them.
Finally, Tarafau got a tap in on what her dad called “the funny bone.” Not so funny, actually. Ruefully, she bowed to him as was proper, acknowledging his triumph. He grinned.
“Better this time,” he sent in mind speech. “But it might have been better yet if your mind hadn’t been drifting from the start. Generally, in most assignments for the Alliance you won’t be in mortal danger, but you need to be ready. However, you did seem to sense the first blow coming, so that is a definite improvement.”
Lizzie couldn’t help but groan. She was pretty sure she would never measure up to the majority of her podmates in this particular skill. Her elbow hurt, but not as much as it could have. Tarafau had exquisite control of his blows and could pull them as easily as he could direct a powerful killing stroke.
She, on the other hand, had only once been in a desperate conflict, and it was the adrenalin and fright that had given her blows the power to inflict serious injury. The staff she had used in that conflict had had to be replaced, as it had been shattered to a splinter by repeated blows with a heavy club. But, in that desperate battle for survival, she had killed a being who would have gladly killed her. Nevertheless, it still hurt her heart to think about it.
As she came to herself, she realized their exhibition had collected a small crowd of onlookers. She smiled and nodded at them. She hadn’t noticed that they had arrived just in front of Tarafau’s home, and these were his neighbors for the most part. These occasional staff fights had become a source of entertainment for them, evidently, since they applauded in Daringi fashion, snapping their fingers vigorously and smiling.
At that moment, Amelia emerged from the house at a run. “Quickly! It is time! They are coming!”
“Time? Coming?” Lizzie sent back, confused.
“Ynni! The babes! It is time! Come!” Amelia sent again.
They all ran into the backyard, skirting the little dome structure that hid a much more generous underground home. In the few months Lizzie had lived with them, this backyard had become her favorite place on the property. It was large, bordered by very old, towering trees of various types in which Ynni and her two companions had established a little colony of linklings.
Initially It had just been Lizzie and Ynni, but on one of her visits to Miriha’s planet, where she had initially encountered the linklings, Ynni had visited with her friends who lived in the grove outside Miriha’s little village. The result was that Ynni had become pregnant and, at her request, the “sireling” of her babies (she said it was twins), as well as her sister, had agreed to move to Tarafau’s grove to help care for Ynni and the younglings when they came.
They arrived to the soft crooning of Sympha and Rinn. It was a joyous sound, and in Lizzie’s excitement of the impending birth her elbow was forgotten. Linklings were not very big, less than two feet tall, not counting their tails, and she was sure the little ones would be tiny indeed. They had created a nest of sorts, low in the nook between branches of one of the trees closest to the yard, and Lizzie could just see the two heads on either side of Ynni. The bond between her and Ynni had become closer over the months since their first linking, and now she felt calm emanating from the three of them that surprised her.
She had heard that human births often came in the midst of a lot of huffing and panting and often even yells from the mother giving birth, but this was nothing like that. It was almost like the linklings were calling to the babies, encouraging them to emerge.
And then, there was suddenly another presence among them. Sympha and Rinn set to work carefully cleaning the new linkling and holding it as a second one was delivered. They gently laid the first next to Ynni in the nest. The infant linkling was already crooning softly in harmony with Ynni, who radiated calm satisfaction.
The entire miraculous process seemed peaceful, and the crooning never paused. Ynni sent to Lizzie, “They are Mina and Gil. A girl and a boy. Our tribe is now five. Rejoice with us!”
Lizzie almost danced with excitement, looking up into the faces of the linklings peering over the edge of the nest. Early on, when the nest was first built, the linklings had agreed that Tarafau could add a ladder leading up to it. It was a simple thing of wooden dowels lashed together, but it was sturdy. Lizzie had often climbed up to visit with the three of them as they tidied the area, preparing it for the advent of the younglings.
Now she asked, almost shyly, “Can I come up and see them?” She knew that newborns were delicate and mothers often very protective of them in the first several weeks.
“Of course! Lizzie must greet them! You are one with our tribe.” Ynni’s warm enthusiasm almost vibrated in Lizzie’s mind.
As she climbed the several steps up the ladder, she thought about how far her journey had led her beyond anything she had expected or even wanted. She would have never imagined any scenario where she would be bonded to an alien creature for life or would have such a strong resonance with another lifeform.
As she peered over the edge of the nest, she was flooded with such awe that her feelings overwhelmed her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She not only felt joy for her little linkling friends but received through the link the maternal feelings of a new mother for her offspring.
The tiny linklings were about the size of the palm of her hand. Like their mother, they had huge blue eyes surrounded by a halo of white fur. Every tiny finger and toe was perfect. Unlike the adult linklings, the dark-green long eyebrows that blended into the trailing mustaches were not yet evident. Their nearly chartreuse fur was still somewhat damp from the birthing.
They blinked up at Lizzie, almost in unison and then from Ynni...
“Mina, Gil, this is Lizzie. She is ours. We are hers.”
“Lizzie is ours,” they repeated, agreeing in mental unison.
Lizzie was shocked. There was no doubt. These tiny newborns had just spoken to her in the common language of all linklings. How was this possible?
“Lizzie is surprised,” Ynni sent, a smile on her face, her nose and eyes crinkling in amusement. “As linklings are quickened in the womb, they are already speaking with the mother. It is not so with Earth babies?”
“No, Ynni, it is not so. Humans generally do not learn to communicate vocally until they are well past nine months old. They do not usually communicate mentally at all. I had to receive this ability from the Gatekeeper to be able to do it myself. It is not a common gift among humankind.”
Ynni appeared thoughtful. “I had not thought it would be so different. Perhaps, because Lizzie can mindspeak now, it will be different for you when you have your own younglings.”
“Maybe... we’ll see.” Privately, Lizzie didn’t’ think she would ever find out. Marriage, children, neither of these were in her plans. In the meantime, it was enough for her to continue on the path she had begun.
“Do you have everything you need, Ynni? Can I get you anything?”
“Sympha and Rinn will take care of us, Lizzie. It is why they have come. When you can, we would like for you to play for us more. It is soothing to the babies and we like making music with you.”
Lizzie had taken to bringing her mbira out with her into the grove on her breaks and playing it under the trees. It had delighted her that the three linklings had joined in with their soft harmonic crooning. It reminded her of the little impromptu concerts they had done at the training center, and it calmed her mind.
“I would be happy to do that, Ynni.” Lizzie reached out her hand and Ynni gently wrapped her fingers around one of Lizzie’s fingers.
“Ynni will be with Lizzie more soon,” she assured her. “Ynni has help with younglings. You and I still have many things to do together. You will see.”
Lizzie’s face was again wet with joyous tears. She nodded and climbed down the ladder. She wished she could have taken a photo of the mother linkling and her babies, but she knew it was an image that would never fade from her heart.
