Becoming Andromedan

There's something wonderful about machines. They're made up of lots of little pieces, none of which can do anything useful by themselves. But when you put the pieces together in the proper order, in the proper combinations, all of those useless pieces work together. They mesh and become one. They become something greater than the sum of the parts, and they do something that none of them could do alone.

A clan is like that. It's made up of lots of different people, each with different talents and abilities. As individuals, we could never travel the galaxy and learn its mysteries. But when we come together on a clanship, we become something more. Each of us brings different talents: Hekkian, the pilot. Zhesuil and Tumaon, physicists. Doroan, the geologist. Luzhiel, the chemist. Anarays, my dearest mother, the biologist. Zhelead, my beloved father, the leader of our clanship, the anthropologist. Ileon, the ... well, I'm sure my older brother does something useful around here. These and dozens of others, work together like a well-oiled machine to fulfill the Koati mission: we travel from planet to planet, learning all that we can, and sending that knowledge back to the homeworld. It is a noble mission, one that we are all proud to fulfill.

And what about me? Where does Zhakaan fit in? As you may have guessed, I'm the clanship's mechanic. Daddy says I can fix just about anything. Ever since I was a hatchling, I've loved to take things apart and see how they work, then put them back together. Some kids play with puzzles; I played with the hyperdrive engine, much to the chief mechanic's dismay! But I always put things back the way I found them, if not better, so the chief quickly learned to appreciate my presence, and took me on as an apprentice. Ever since he moved on last year, I've been in charge of all the machinery on the clanship.

I have a lot of natural talents that help make me a good mechanic. I'm very strong, so I can move heavy equipment around with ease. And I have very good hearing, so I can tell by the sound of the equipment when something isn't working right. For example, this morning, I heard a sharp whistling noise coming from the hyperdrive engines. It wasn't affecting the ship's performance yet, so it didn't show up on any of the diagnostics. Nobody else could hear it, so nobody else would have known that anything was wrong. But to me, the sound was so harsh that it made my skin crawl from two decks away. When I checked the hyperdrive, I discovered that the Irilian disks had slipped out of alignment. If they had been left that way, they would have worn down and would have had to be replaced. I discovered the problem early enough that I was able to fix it before there was any permanent damage. But I guess I'm boring you with all these technical details.

After I crawled out from under the hyperdrive, I saw my reflection in the engine's shiny surface. My scarf had come loose, and my hair was coming out of its knot, a red waterfall spilling over my shoulders and down to my waist. I ran my fingers through the disheveled mess in frustration. I wish I didn't have hair. I wish I had feathers like other Koati. I tried to cut my hair once, but it was just too hard. Molecular density, Mom says. A nuisance, I say. I combed out my hair as well as I could and tied it back into a small knot, then I pulled up my scarf and wrapped it around my head and neck, concealing my hair and ears.

"I don't know why you bother doing that. Everybody on the clanship knows you're a freak." And speaking of nuisances, that was my older brother Ileon.

"Shut up, Ileon. I'm not a freak; you're the freak. At least I do something useful around here. What do you do?"

"At least I don't have hair like some kind of animal." He said the word "hair" as if it were something disgusting.

It always hurt when Ileon said things like that. I love my brother, but he can be a real jerk sometimes. He's lucky I love him so much; I'm strong enough to mash him into Koati pâté. All I said was, "It's not my fault; I can't help it if I wasn't born Koati."

Daddy's stern voice cut in. "Children, what's going on here?"

"Nothing," we both said at the same time.

Daddy clicked his teeth together in irritation. "Ileon, are you picking on your sister again?"?

"She's not my sister;" Ileon snapped, "She's just some alien freak that hatched out of an egg we found."

"I think somebody crawled out of the wrong side of the nest this morning." Daddy scolded, "Maybe you should go back to the nest and try getting out on the correct side."

"I'm not a child anymore." Ileon objected.

"Then maybe you should stop acting like one." Daddy replied in a cool, commanding voice, "Go to your nest, Ileon."

For a moment, it looked as if Ileon would challenge Daddy, but he didn't. He left the engine room without further comment.

After Ileon was gone, Daddy ran his long claws gently across my back to comfort me. "Don't mind Ileon," he told me, "He's an adolescent; he's establishing his place in the pecking order. But you shouldn't have submitted to him so easily." His voice shifted into a tone of academic curiosity as he said, "I suppose your species has different dominance behaviors than ours."

"My species is Koati." I insisted.

"Well, yes." Daddy agreed, "You were raised as a Koati, socialized as a Koati, but your biology is still... whatever your biology is. And we know far too little about the species of your birth."

"I know everything I want to know about them." I said distastefully, "They kill their young."

Daddy clucked at me disapprovingly. "We don't know that, Zhakaan. We don't know why those 100 eggs were left on that moon, or how they came to be shattered. All we know is that your egg was untouched, by luck or by design, and for that I am very grateful."

He sat with me in silence, stroking my back for a long time. "You've grown into a fine young Koati, Zhakaan. I'm very proud of you. But as I watch you grow, I realize how little we really know about you. I think it's important for you to know who and what you are. That's why I've brought us here."

Every muscle in my body tensed. "Where are we?" I asked, knowing that I would not like the answer.

"We've come back to the sector where we found your egg all those years ago, and we're going to learn what we can about your species."

To be continued...

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