Alien Tango

more wrong than before. Brian wasn’t like that, ever. He’s not a violent person.” I looked at him, then at Chee and Michael, who were looking suicidal and glowering, respectively. My brain kicked. “Oh. Jeff, stay here. I’ll be okay.”
    I let go of his hand and went back to Brian’s cell. “Brian, please stop,” I said softly. “I understand, I do.”
    He quieted. “What do you understand?”
    I looked into his eyes. “I need to talk to you, whoever you are inside Brian. If I come in there, will you hurt me?”
    Brian’s eyes seemed foggy all of a sudden, and he shook his head. “Help. Please. So lonely.”
    “I know, I understand. Are there three of you or just one of you here?”
    “Can’t answer . . . not like you.”
    “What are you like? Animals? Insects? Run through Brian’s mind and see what sounds familiar.”
    “Kitty, what are you doing?” Martini hissed.
    “Hush, Jeff. Seriously, hush.”
    Brian’s foggy eyes looked at Martini. “Hates me.” He sounded angry.
    “No, loves me . He’s afraid you’re going to hurt me. He won’t let that happen.”
    “Feel the hate.”
    “Yes, but it’s not directed the way you think. He’s jealous. Look in Brian’s mind, you’ll understand why.” Brian’s head nodded. I knew it wasn’t Brian doing the nodding. “James, can you, only, come here please?”
    Reader was next to me quickly. “What’re you doing, girlfriend? Jeff’s ready to pop a vessel again.”
    “He needs to calm down. The entities are reacting to the discovery that their penguins are dead, okay? They’re upset and reacting based on the person they’re inside right now. Get everyone away from the cells, but where the astronauts and entities can see them. Then please come back.”
    “Okay.” He left, and I heard him talking to the others, heard Martini and Christopher both argue with him, heard Gower support Reader.
    “Do you understand yet?” I asked softly.
    Brian’s head nodded. “Males fight for females.”
    “Sometimes. What are you like, anything I can understand?”
    “Bees . . . ants. But like you, too.”
    “A hive mind? Combined consciousness?”
    Brian’s head nodded again. “No body.”
    “You’re a combined consciousness of . . . what? A-C talents?”
    “Yes. All combined in one, one divided into many, sent here to guard.”
    Reader joined us again, but he didn’t say anything.
    “To guard who from what?”
    “To guard all of you.” Brian’s foggy eyes shifted and looked away. Even disembodied A-C entities couldn’t lie.
    “To guard against us leaving, right?”
    “Once.” The eyes looked back into mine. “Then saw . . . ” He was concentrating and I turned around. To see the only crew of astronauts I could pick out of a lineup.
    “The crew of the Challenger .”
    “I don’t see anything, girlfriend,” Reader said softly.
    I turned back to Brian. “How can you show them to me when I couldn’t see the others? James can’t see them.”
    “You understand now. He doesn’t.”
    “Did you kill them?”
    “NO!” I heard Chee and Michael shout this, too. Apparently all the entities were involved in this conversation. “Too far from us. Couldn’t save them.” Tears were running down Brian’s face. “Took care of them.”
    “How could you take care of them?”
    “Joined with us.”
    I thought fast. “You joined the crew’s consciousness in with yours?”
    “Yes. All the others, too.”
    “You mean any others who died in space?”
    “Yes. Ours to protect.”
    I thought some more. All the thinking was making my head hurt. “Is that why you’re unhappy? Because the other penguins—” Reader coughed, loudly. “I mean other astronauts you’ve seen are dead, and you can’t join them with you?”
    “Ours to protect!” he wailed.
    “James, listen to me. I have to get in there, and Jeff and Christopher and all the others have to stay out and stay calm. I don’t care what you have to do, but get me inside and keep the others calm.”
    “Oh, no problem, girlfriend. I’ll just shoot them or something.”
    “That would be very bad. I don’t want anyone upsetting our protective friends. Tell Jeff they are, right now, more possessive and protective than he could ever hope to be, and we are on the edge of the knife.” I knew without asking that the entities were capable of mass destruction, and I also knew they would shoot Martini first and ask questions later.
    Reader was back. “Jeff won’t let you go in