elders had learned to discharge excess emotional energy from their bodies in the form of pictures. They'd named it exo-painting. Electrical images formed in their minds, leaked through their skin, and displayed visibly in the space around them. Back home they'd taught everyone. The art became as natural as breathing.
Too natural, Zer thought. Newer crew members, like her, often got lost in personal visions, exo-painted or not, and forgot missions. So she forgave Leon for his insensitive, inexplicable teaching methods; he was stuck with monitoring crew attitudes. Zer sighed. She never understood his lessons until after some rotten experience he'd dreamed up just for her.
The second day of the storm Leon called her to the pilot’s room, but not to watch choreography, she realized, when he looked at her, his eyes veiled by the retractable membrane.
“Prepare for a session on adaptability,” he said, curtly. He touched a panel, and the room flooded with raw, percussive, primal sounds. She felt naked and vulnerable.
Violent noises tore at the room, Zer's bodysuit, her body. Shrieks clawed at her senses. The chaotic noise confused her. She panicked and grabbed at the first thought: mimic a tree. She stood and rooted in place with her feet planted solidly as if she’d sent roots down into the floor to hold her steady against panic: She felt shredded. She’d go nova. Tears welled in her eyes, but she stood her ground, calling on trees. Tree thoughts possessed her, shimmied sap-like up her legs, the deep pulse calming. She laughed joyously. Rhythms shifted around her.
Up through her feet, up her legs, she felt the ship’s steady thrum, more leverage against the ripping shrieks that swept through her. Letting go, she slipped into a timeless river and heard energy sounding from beyond the ship. Energy slurred and shifted again. Space opened to her, welcomed her into a passionate Uranian storm.
Abruptly, the tearing ultraviolence slowed, the lull resembling the dreamy process of exo-painting that started as streams of purple ions swirling in the head. Quiet, frothy fizzes and pings lapped at her mind. Clarity settled over her. Zer calmly sat before a recording slate, and her hands moved of their own will.
Her fingers transferred the key-coded frequency readings that blasted, moaned, or soughed through the music tube. Heat-beat tones swept into the hub at a frenzied pace. No time to think. Light flashed on the frequency-analyzer keyboard, demanding response. With her senses effortlessly swimming in that timeless river, Zer translated whatever feelings the ongoing sounds evoked.
When the starship veered toward Miranda, a Uranian moon, Zer was the mountains, the plains, cracks in the icy surface, fathoms-deep canyons. She was the flit of young terraces and the aged, broken surfaces. A bolt of lightning cracked: her vast body quivered with the seeding.
Spent, Zer leaned back, her fingers sliding from the keys. She felt shaken of energy yet more rooted in her body. Her skin felt thicker, her thoughts tougher and fascinated by the sensual focus required of a choreographer. Leon’s harsh preparation was worth it—for some unknown.
“Tree thoughts got you through.” His neutral tone indicated the idea didn’t bother him much. Smiling, he turned off the sound and moved toward her. The membrane hiding the shining light of his eyes rolled back. Burning golden eyes swept the length of her.
“Dance with me.” His arms reached for her and embraced her. They were wind and crackling light infused with the energy of stars, skimming the floor. When he let her go, Zer landed in reality with a thud, the magic gone. How did he do that?
He played their work, one section at a time, watching her. “What do you hear?”
Zer noticed nothing until he played their recordings at the same time. No significant difference sounded in what each transcribed from the celestial musicscape. They’d responded in the same, sensual way.
“All three hundred pilots produced a similar composition. We heard and shared a universal sound. Thank the trees for not flying apart.”
They prepared me for something, she thought, waiting for more.
“Records will be superimposed and adjusted for minor differences,” he said.
“That’s it?”
“We’re free to compose personal responses. You can do so in the work hall, if you prefer?” His gaze lingered.
“You know I’d rather stay.” Besides, she wanted to observe Leon’s skill at rendering a weathering landscape into symphonies. Like all purebloods, he was a maestro.
His fingers flew across the keys; his eyes were shining.
Zer lost herself in his music and rose to dance the liquid tempo. She swayed in one spot when he got stuck and played the same bars repeatedly. Hands and hips gesturing, she suggested variations, and he translated her movements into duets and light-hearted riffs.
“Greater than parts,” Leon said, smiling, “relatively rare.”
“You knew something like this—”
“Guessed.” Leon, eyes beckoning, began circling her with the slow opening steps and words of the petal dance. “Heart of my heart.”
“Heart of my heart,” she responded, gliding just out of reach. He sang to her, and the low timbre shivered her spine, her very bones trilling a subatomic symphony. Slowly, she moved closer till their skin barely touched, their bodies singing to each other. Her heart and womb opened, petal like, feeling the way as she and Leon began changing dimensions together. They danced as spirits of the fifth or seventh dimension, without separation, without the nameless sea of molecular matter between them. They found timelessness, together. She felt grown up.
The planetary storm raged another day. The co-pilot informed them they were headed for Jupiter, set the coordinates, took their records, and left them alone.
The starship orbited the yellowish gas giant whirling within its rings. Zer edged her keying slate closer to Leon, breathing down his neck and swaying while primordial energy within Jupiter’s body and cyclonic wind were erupting from one spot. Leon swept Zer around the room. She could have stayed forever.
At times she wished they were more than caring friends but glad they were close enough to explore another sort of love that was intimate yet not.
She huddled among pillows when the ship entered the asteroid belt where it dodged or blasted flying rocks. A huge wall screen displayed the explosions, but Zer was hearing the volcano that had wiped out her birth home and many groves. Leon had saved her.
Except, she wouldn’t have been alive to rescue if Exotica hadn’t protected her. They’d died saving her. Zer was tending them in the breeding grove when the fires came. While trees on far ridges combusted into fireballs, her trees herded her to the dock where Leon found her. And made her leave the trees behind.
He picked her up kicking and pushed her into an aircraft. As they lifted, she saw embers catch in the leafy crowns of Exotica and burst into orange torches. Her last sight of home.
Leon took her to his mother in Zenobia who brought her home to her mind and emotions. Zer adopted Zenobian ways. She never cried till that day Leon presented her with a dozen Exotica saplings. She learned everything she could about their biology and language, for she honored them.
Every chance, she’d gathered with other Lilio survivors. They loved and understood the trees as she did, making music and dancing while the trees shook their crowns in rhythmic snaps like ancient Egyptians playing castanets. Zer hoped Earthlings would appreciate the adventure and humor that Exotica brought to their lives.
Leon, much as he loved her, couldn’t fully understand her grief. Yet he’d brought her saplings, and the renewed symbiosis with Exotica restored her sense of wonder. They healed her, pulling the deepest sorrows from her mind.
She’d dedicated her life’s purpose to Exotica. Now Exotica would divide her loyalty.
Leon turned from the control panel, gazing at her. The membrane dropped over his eyes.
When the starship snagged an eighty-kilometer-wide asteroid, Zer left him to mine