Aliena by Piers Anthony Page B

organizing our resources took more time. But now we are moving on it well enough.”
    “You said her planet is a hundred light years away. How could there be a back and forth dialogue?”
    “It is that far. It took the space vessel three centuries to get here, which is incidentally much faster travel than we are capable of. As I said, they are more advanced. It was the vessel that sent the message.”
    “And there are live starfish aboard it?”
    “Not exactly. They were stored in suspended animation for the duration, and are only now being reanimated individually as necessary. Aliena is the first.”
    Brom suffered a siege of horror. “You were frozen for three centuries?” he asked Aliena. “That must have been horrible.”
    “It was an eye-blink,” she said. “One moment I settled in my tank. The next moment I was awake in the ship.”
    “And you had to sacrifice your natural body to be transplanted to this alien-to-you host?”
    “It was necessary. I knew it would not be fun when I volunteered.”
    “But to lose your—to do that—I don’t think I could stand it.”
    She turned her head to face him. “Brom, I found you. I love you. It is worthwhile, apart from my mission.”
    “You have more courage than I do.”
    “It was necessary,” she repeated, and returned to the show.
    “What was it like, to be in a human body?”
    “Weird. My rays, my radial limbs had become feet and arms, and my mind was on the end of the fifth limb. There was the constant oppression of gravity. I had to breathe air without stopping. I had to wear clothing, do my hair. Things were different, like breeding, and love.” She smiled. “But I came to like them.”
    “What happened to your own body?”
    “It remains, in stasis. That is a field that suspends the passage of time, so the body can exist without the brain. If some other starfish loses the use of her body, her brain might be moved to my body, to restore her. We do not waste things.”
    He was morbidly fascinated. “You were selected because of your intelligence?”
    She laughed. “Not at all! I am of only average intellect for a starfish.”
    “All your people are as smart as you?” He had assumed she was a genius among her own kind.
    “Not all. Many are smarter.”
    He was taken aback. “So we humans are comparatively dull.”
    “It is not your fault, Brom,” she said comfortingly. “You have other values.”
    “Such as?”
    “Feeling. Your creatures feel. Your brains process feelings for memories when you sleep. Feeling is everything. You care. ”
    “So why were you selected?”
    “I had the best potential for feeling. It was not easy, but I learned it, thanks to you. Others of my kind might have found that more difficult.”
    “Starfish are very straightforward,” Sam said. “They study what works best, and implement it without compunction. That makes them very smart, but they don’t generally make good friends.”
    “Aliena is a good friend!”
    “I am learning that from you,” she said. “Come, the nature show is over. Let’s mate.”
    “You’re managing me!” Brom said. “Diverting me from awkward questions.”
    “That is true. I prefer that you think of me as a loving wife, rather as the calculating creature I am.”
    “Are you pulling my leg?”
    She was perplexed. “Do you wish me to yank on an extremity?”
    He had to laugh. “It’s more idiom. I mean, are you teasing me?”
    She considered. “I did not think so. I want to be feeling with you, and mating tends to evoke that.”
    “But actually you are constantly calculating?”
    “I am. But please, how may I best impress you?”
    “Just be a little more subtle.”
    “Subtle?”
    “Make me think it’s my idea to have sex. That I am diverting you, rather than you me. I may know better, but it’s a willing self deception.”
    “I must learn this. But in matters of feeling, I am not smart. How may I make you think it is your idea?”
    “Oh, you might let me see some of