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"You're supposed to be helping me. Not drinking until you soil yourself."

"Fuck off, mom. I've been doing what I was told, learning about the aliens." Pattie reached up to scratch her side, wincing as her new claw left another deep scratch to join the others scattered all over her body. "I'm bonding with them. Isn't that what you wanted?" She looked at her changing hand and grimaced. Another scale had appeared, covering the finger's base knuckle, as the stain coloring her skin crept further from its origin.

Titania sighed with one glance at the changes sweeping over her own wrists. Both were now a pale green with yellow highlights surrounding small patches of finely interwoven scales of the same color. The intelligence officer threw the loofa she'd been pointedly waving at the naked woman sitting against the wall of the bathhouse. Her vomit-soaked tunic lying next to her. "Not by trying to out-drink a creature that you already know weighs over eleven hundred pounds."

"Five hundred five and ten kilograms, according to Soma."

"How might..." Titania stopped when a pair of men came chattering in a language the woman didn't recognize into the bathhouse. They froze, their gazes being drawn as if by magnets until they stared openly at Patti's chest.

"Take a fucking picture, it'll last longer!" the owner of their fixation snapped. Her venomous tone chasing the two men from the communal facility even if they couldn't understand her words.

"I really wish they'd given us more privacy than this. Women should have their own area." Patti's younger and diminutive handler said, in vexation. The older woman grunted and pulled herself laboriously up to sway on her feet. With a bang, she stumbled into a toilet stall where Titania was flustered to hear her relieving herself.

"Ha! Have you seen those aliens? What makes you think privacy is something they understand at all? I hate to scandalize you, my queen, but clothes do not make much sense for what we're becoming. You might as well embrace it. I think it's more important to note how communal all their designs are and how little difference they display in their behavior between the sexes. Seems we could learn a thing or two from them when we so willingly debase half our species because some of us had the audacity to be born with a cunt instead of a cock."

"How might their odd specificity be used to our advantage? Is it possible for us to confuse them with conflicting data?" Titania asked, musing out loud while ignoring the woman's gutter mouth.

"Look, kid," Patties said, emerging from the stall. The aliens still apparently believing in privacy while using the toilet, but in little else. "You're young, smart, and ambitious. 'She that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding.' Right now, we just need to learn as much as we can and pass it along to the analysts we were told to report to. That's all we're doing, not being paid to think up plans to attack them or engage in subterfuge to piss off two different species of alien. You know that our only hope against the one all-powerful species is by being in the good graces of the aliens that claim they're here to help. Do you really suppose anyone in the government is going to accept anything you say at face-value now that you have those scales on your wrists?"

"What... what are you saying?"

Pattie didn't answer right away, instead cleaning up after herself and inspecting her breast and side. In the mirror, it was easy to see the array of angry scratches showed the unfamiliarity of the single claw protruding from the end of her distended finger. Only speaking after she'd wrapped a towel around her chest in a way that left rather more cleavage than Titania found prudent for one of her country's ambassadors to alien life.

"I got a piece of paper in my bag with the president's John Hancock on it assigning me a captain's commission that sets my daughter up for life out of this. I also know that we are choking the oceans with our bullshit and figured now is as good a time as any to do something about it. As for being human? Can't say that I'm particularly invested. What do you think you are going to get from this? Patriotic adulation? We'll see what kind of hero's recognition you get for your part when you have two rows of teeth and a tail. They've played you. Cheap."

The captain walked out with her dirty laundry, leaving her shocked handler behind leaning against the sinks. The woman glanced at the evidence of her nascent transformation. It'd had been a day since it'd begun, and there were now three greenish yellow scales interlaced on her dainty hand. The blob of sea-green skin marring her flawless complexion around the scales with its sand-papery roughness had doubled in size. A beast's mark that, possibly, made her just as compromised as Pattie had said.

"Fuck." Titania, startled by her own outburst, covered her mouth in mortification at her expletive.

****

It had been another tortuous and ill-slept night that left Ms. Bennett soaked in sweat from her soaring body temperature. In the end, her night sweats and razor-sharp hunger pangs had driven her to the central pavilion. Only after demolishing an entire extra-large pizza, had she at last been able to find some rest with the others in a cooling bath. All companions on their similar transformative journeys. The experiences left her not looking forward to another day listening to Soma delineate her new species' peculiarities. No matter how pertinent it was to her orders and future.

Titania paid only half the mind that the situation deserved with so many distractions. She remembered keenly how it was down to her to assess all the individuals here and pass along her recommendations. No matter what the cynical patterns Pattie had built for herself led her to say.

The scales had multiplied, and the creeping stain had reached up to her arm. More disquieting were the strengthening feelings of pressure throughout her body. A burning that surged through every inch of her frame. Turning her. Twisting her. The aliens had provided a scale and a measuring stick at Ms. Bennett's request. She had been unnerved to see the stick reach the roof of the central bath, and that the scale was forty feet long and fifteen wide. The out-sized designs planted a small sense of dread deep in her mind with the thoughts that she would soon be so large as to require such things. The elfin young woman was already two inches taller than when she'd come to the island and thirty pounds heavier. A shocking speed of growth felt in the unfamiliar inertia of her body. Like all the other volunteers, she frequently misjudged the effort the increased mass required. To her great dismay, the wreckage of her fine motor skills had left her calligraphic handwriting in shambles. Soma insisting that they could still write after a fashion, even at the great ancient's size, was only some comfort.

She tore another bite from her third cheeseburger, her hunger a force of nature that could not be satiated. Which made sense to Ms. Bennett, thinking of the size and mass of Soma and her ancient, absent companion. The young woman's specialty was in intelligence, not physics. So, she only had a vague comprehension of the mass energy conversion needed to do... whatever process that was working its way through her. The fairies that were working their magic on the humans had been vague and condescending when questioned. Only insisting that the technology was millions of years too advanced for humans to understand.

Which left Titania with little to do but turn her attention to analyzing the other volunteers for patterns that could reveal the alien's plans. Her eyes flitted around the pavilion, assessing the potential value of the humans... no... why limit herself? The value of any being here in serving the needs of the United States of America. The argus gaze of the large, gray-eyed dragon was the first to draw Ms. Bennett's analysis.

No. Too willful. Nor had it responded to any customary social courtesies. The dragon only stared at her the few times she'd spoken to it. She might have thought the poor human-creature did not understand her English. But the hostile and all too knowing gleam in those steely eyes made her suspect otherwise. The spy didn't know the source of the vitriol. Neither was she certain how the human-creature's form had altered their mentality. Under those circumstances, Titania thought the best way of remaining in one piece lay in not probing the silent dragon for motivations and triggers. The garrulous human-dragon from New Zealand was a much more likely possibility to learn how they thought after all.

The M?ori couple the talkative dragon loomed protectively around? Too dedicated to this cause to want to subvert it. They saw in the aliens a way to preserve their way of life after their children turned their backs to it. The spy supposed they believed they could rekindle wonder in those jaded by the modern world. She sincerely hoped the couple could achieve what they wanted. If they respected national sovereignties, of course. In any case, their desperate hope precluded their use to the CIA agent. She did not need cultural fanatics.

One by one, she dismissed many in the diverse crowd. Such as the dragons after initially giving them consideration. Ms. Bennett didn't know how to relate to them, nor how to read their facial expressions and body mannerisms. What did licking their noses, or all those tail movements, mean? When they flicked their heads, did it mean the same thing as flaring their wing? The spy did not have time to learn, as fascinating as it would have been.

Others, not knowing English, were equally out of the question once the CIA agent refused the use of the translation devices. In the end, only a handful of candidates remained.

Like that unbearably paranoid blonde or the deceptively intelligent giant.

The spy could already tell the two despised each other with their open glares. It might have had something to do with yellowing bruises dotting the larger woman's skin. How the French-accented ditz could harm someone who out-muscled her by at least a hundred pounds Ms. Bennett didn't know. But knowing the conflict existed was enough. Each of them could be a useful tool to further her own nation.

Ms. Bennett could ignore many things, such as the itch she felt in her bones and the feverish heat radiating from her flushed skin. But she could not ignore the threat that all this farce presented. Without her country's interests represented, there would be no telling how this extraordinarily illegal endeavor might disadvantage America.

More problematic was the morality and patriotism of Ms. Bennett's ersatz partner. Her rampant alcoholism and cynicism making her nearly intractable. The spy did not rely on those whose loyalty could be bought, as some of her fellow agents did. Only by allowing one of Ms. Bennett's own interests to surface did a tenuous bond form with the senior enlisted Navy careerist. The spy was glad that the security council had got the presidential guarantees that had swayed the woman to forfeit her species. The CIA was keenly anxious to know why the aliens had invited these people out of billions of others.

To her knowledge, there were seven other areas like the one she was at around the world. On remote islands and coasts from Svalbard to Diego Ramirez. The return of other volunteers had revealed these locations in groups that ranged as high as a thousand. Ms. Bennett shivered, thinking of the sheer scale a group a thousand of these aliens presented. How could they ever be managed, as they so clearly would need to be?

None of them could be trusted. Not even herself when the time came. As Mrs. Moreau had so acerbically pointed out.

"For the next ten and five day-night cycles, your human peels will ripen to be made ready to stretch under nudging from meat and bone beneath. Okay yes? The manufacturing is going very well with no one falling into the abyss for their forever nap. So'waa'Ma'wae knows you feel between two and three additional Celsius as body adapts. Already if you peeked at your effluvium under centiscope you be amazed! No more D-N-A yes, okay? Human population of this happy island has reached zero. Confetti is in air now!"

Soma whooped exuberantly. A rollicking sound that rose and fell as she pumped up and down on her legs with her meaty tail thumping the side of its fin against the wooden floor. Scraps of white crepe paper rained down from unseen sources, accompanied by the buzzing of kazoos. Ms. Bennett tapped a finger on the gorgeously carved reef arrayed across her table as she waited for the bedlam to end. Panicked cries from what shouldn't have been a revelation intermingled with more celebratory ones. The ex-woman was silent as she shoved as many fries into her mouth as she could get her hands around. The hunger and disappointment intolerable.

Was the creature trying to be personable by supposing this was a milestone worth celebrating? Ms. Bennett hadn't really known what to expect in the behavior of space-faring alien species. She never would have considered such free-wheeling joviality a possibility. Her gaze lingered on the sea creature who now knocked her wooden bowl against those of the few humans who'd joined her in a toast, flooring them one and all. With a shake of her head, Mrs. Bennett succumbed to the realization that she was the fool for assuming anything at all when it came to the uncanny.

"¿Podemos ver en qué se ha convertido nuestro DNA, por favor?" A darkly bronzed, middle-aged woman asked in accented Spanish. A spattering of those around her nodded their heads vigorously in agreement. At least that language was one that Mrs. Bennett had some familiarity with. As the woman went on, it became obvious their interest was more professional than personal. Scientists, then, that cared more about pursuing knowledge than its cost.

The flow of information from this site would have to be addressed. It was worse than she thought. There were secrets here that needed to be evaluated before public release could be authorized. Ms. Bennett was unsure how, or even if, her government could block communications to and from the island. They'd already tried to approach it using a US Navy destroyer, but according to reports from the vessel, the island the spy occupied was no longer visible. Closing to within weapons range of the coordinates of Henderson Island caused the ship's electrical system to fail, and it had had to be towed away by a pair of tugs.

The only information flowing back to the CIA was that Mrs. Bennett and Pattie could provide. The U.S. needed every bit of data to contain the damage of the knowledge the aliens so glibly shared with all the nations represented at their illegal gatherings.

"Are we going to learn more about why transforming into...that... is so important?" Patti waved her hand at Soma, who bristled at the besotted woman's tone. At least Mrs. Bennett could give the cynical elder woman this much. She did what she was told.

Sometimes.

"And why it's going to take so damn long? A pain-free time to adjust doesn't seem to be a curtesy you extended the other dragons. Or am I wrong about that, scales?" Patti said to the dragon whose tail she was patting. With a thump, the table jumped and spilled everyone's drinks as the dragon grumbled wordlessly. They withdrew their tail from Patti's reach to wrap around the trio of humans seated between their arms instead. "I'd rather be swimming with the fishes now than drawing the whole thing out. The sooner we get started, the more time we'll have to fix what other humans are inevitably going to meddle with."

Ms. Bennett marveled at her intemperate partner provoking the answers that all her own training was at a loss for when confronted by alien psychology. Although she might have enjoyed it if the uneasy dragon the sot was elbowing lost its composure and took her head off with one of their clawed and powerful hands.

"Children of Egg, Humans, and Dreamers are like bocce ball, apple, and spinning wheel."

Pattie made a choked gasp, joining two others who in spraying their drinks across three different tables with a roar of laughter at Soma's comment.

"What?"

"Bocce ball and apple very smooth and nicely round. Spinning wheel make pleasing hum when balanced, but wobbles and makes unfriendly crashing noise when not. Evolution different in three species from three worlds in three galaxies. If apple not split precisely and placed on spinning wheel as required, what happen? Wobbly wheel go bang, bang off the walls. Much different than equally smooth, kinda sorta equally round, but eight times denser and ten times more diameter bocce ball vis-à-vis apple.

"Maybe you not realize when spoken in effluent water human languages, but So'waa'Ma'wae know thing or two after much travel to have many stars reflect off her scales. All this make much good for waters. Just up to you to embrace swell of rising tide."

Pattie and the other's gales of laughter slowed to a trickle as the words of the sprite sank in. Ms. Bennett scribbled notes madly, inscribing all that she learned while the others tried to grasp what they were being told.

"Yes, you will have two noodles in same pot," Soma said in reply to a man questioning her in a foreign tongue. "How you think Dreamer control so-long body? Children of Egg have their way, we have ours, let us grow to size of respected elders and Dream about deepest mysteries of all. This why change from human take so long. So'waa'Ma'wae and friends need to keep you from losing your marbles like when Ma'wae woke up and spoke to So'waa in birth waters."

Mrs. Bennett's thoughts flew into her journal so quickly at this revelation it amazed her that her paper did not catch fire. There were two ways to interpret that, and she needed to understand both.

"You mean... you are two people?" Patti said, mouth agape in a gormless expression that Ms. Bennett saved for later by making a quick sketch of tittering to herself spitefully.

"Why... yes. Just like all you be, I story tell." She went silent with her eyes closed before snapping one lurid orange eye back open.

"I So'waa. You disrespect me or revered elder again and I show digging claws to bring you forever sleep in airless hole, yes? No more warning you get when So'waa rip and tear like the deserve you earned," she said in a clipped, snarling voice with jagged bursts of noise rising and falling beyond Ms. Bennett's hearing. Even her stance had changed. Her tensed body raising her forelimbs off the ground to where they flexed. Bands of brilliant orange and yellow flashed down her whiskers in time with her words. Words in a tone distinct tone from the female's typical singsong, echoing, whimsical dialect.

Then she or they switched identities. The virulent orange eye shut at the same time the other, colored a liquid cerulean that shimmered with brilliance, opened. Accompanied by a third voice that fired off speech in a staccato burst. The words were gruff and as jumbled as the colors of her body but lacking the homicidal edge that So'waa had had. "Ma'wae is me how are you doing isn't this the best you are so odd your bodies are so shallow shorten distance between so I can sense you better oh what are you doing of course this will be good for all do you want to go to the moon it will be fun and there will be much energy to find there yeah have you had the Me'lo'di'an snaffle it is so very good at oiling two thoughts yeah?"

Soma paused and shook herself with a flapping of her fins. Her eyes moved independently of each other, with the pupils dilating and constricting at different rates. All the appearance of having suffered a stroke before her features settled into synchronicity.

"Now maybe you understand why So'waa'Ma'wae not like you shortening our name. But no matter. Who want drink? Oh! Pushing halves apart very draining of sap!" Soma plunged her snout into her bowl to chug lustily, eying the human's reactions. Her whisker bulbs flashing signals above her head meaningless to the Earthlings.

"You said that So'waa and Ma'wae met. What did you mean by that?" the Samoan giantess asked. Her voice and demeanor were calm among the surrounding whirlwind. Ms. Bennett noted the bulwark her presence along with the M?ori couple provided the others. With the dragons, they formed the core stability of the group. Ms. Bennett needed to create a way to break that resolve if events took an unfortunate turn for her interests.

"Much good question! Answer simple. Dreamers have two part life-cycle. Ground, and water. Much more be explained later with movies and pictures! Not ready for you now, one shock enough for you this day-night cycle. Yes okay?"

When no one came with more questions, the alien's eyes turned distant and lidded nearly shut. She adroitly placed a fresh bowl of tart-smelling liquid between her hands with her undulating sensory appendages.

Ms. Bennett wasn't surprised when five more of the dwindling volunteers quit. She wasn't comfortable with the meddling her mind would have to undergo. Nor did she possibly know how to wrap her mind around being two... consciousnesses in one body. How would they talk? Which mind would be in charge of which bodily systems? Curse these aliens for coddling them by slow walking their explanations. But her country demanded her sacrifice, and she wouldn't shy from this task. No matter the cost to herself.

"The option to remove yourselves from this program remains available for those who desire that end," the one called Truth said. Ms. Bennett preferred an alternate name for the one portraying itself as being the sincerest.

Danger.

A more fitting name for those who claimed to speak a truth that caused harm to order. It addressed the two Asians and darker-skinned individuals whose providence was unknown to the spy. Out of her sight, the Australian, whose pleading sobs rose to new heights, begged her companion to leave with her. When opportunity knocks, Ms. Bennett answers. She added the Aussie to her notes. When her companion shook his head regretfully in reply to the desperate woman's pleas, the number quitting the program fell to four.

"You will need an equal amount of time to undo what changes have been done. At the insistence of the Dreamers, for your wellbeing. As much as we understand about each species, we try to defer such matters to those who live these lives," Danger informed the ones wishing to go. "The delicate fine-tuning of your systems can lead to half-existences if hastened."

"We give you parting gift of multi-colored cotton wrapping!" Soma pulled her snout of her drink to declare, rhythmically pumping up and down once again in alien excitement. All torpor forgotten. The bartender, Patience handed the four washing themselves of this affair t-shirts from behind the counter. They were white shirts that had a bold text saying 'I Came For A Tail And All I Got Was This Lousy Shirt' above an image of a cartoonish Dreamer. The being itself wore a t-shirt while holding a severed tail in its claws with a pitiful expression of dismay. Against Ms. Bennett's best efforts, she snorted in amusement at the whimsical presents.

The ones leaving were less than impressed. They railed loudly in different languages at all those that remained to continue their transformations.

"Don't you see? This is nothing but a game for them. We're all damned now that they've come, and you, their willing pawns, will be the first in line at Hell's gates! You heard it from their own mouths, by the time they're done with you, not even your mind will be human," said the one English-speaking man among them. "You, you, quislings! They won't be happy until we destroy ourselves, willingly! Until we erase all that we are and achieved to make way for our replacements. All for the promise of what? What exactly are they promising?"

"A balanced world," Truth answered.

"Balance? Balance? What that would require is..."

"A sacrifice."

"But... but.... We were happy!"

Soma snorted, blowing her drink up and out of her bowl on to the hapless people next to her. But it was not her that answered. It was one of the winged-dragon people. The one Patti had been yammering drunkenly to ever since it'd had the misfortune of becoming an object of her fixation.

"Iiiii don't know if Iiiii ever would haaaaave chossssseeeee thisssss myyyyy ssssself," it said, shifting its weight to hold up one hand as the former human hissed and drawled its vowels and sibilants. Patti made a note that it didn't seem able to rotate its hand as much as a human. It might prove useful.

"But Iiiii doooo know that Iiiii wassss not happy, nor were many that Iiiii knew. It wasssss likeeeee weeeee felt rejected byyyyy the world. Lost..." it finished in a rising croon and a torrent of birdsong. The other winged dragons answered in kind. Their heads bobbing on the end of long necks, and the pavilion rang with high thready song of parakeets interspersed by growls and chuffing. Outside, the native birds fell quiet, as if listening. An eerie moment that had goose pimples prickling along Ms. Bennett's skin. In sympathetic agitation, her side lurched painfully.

To distract herself from the disquieting silence and the dreadful feeling of someone continuing to loom over her. She gave in to the nagging desire to have something a little stronger than water on her tongue. Patience silently dispensed into a bowl that Ms. Bennett could barely lift her preferred session beer. An aromatic IPA from her hometown of Bend. Sipping greedily from a bamboo straw, she tore into another burger. More tales of ennui came into the open after the dragon's lead.

"Okay, so we weren't happy. But what you are asking us to do... What you are asking us to become... This is too much. Too alien for me, splitting my mind. I will not give up who I am to help. How could we possibly change the oceans?"

A wave started at Soma's broad tail fin that had it slap the ground. As the oscillation travelled up her spine, the crest rose and fell until the motion reached her head to leave it bobbing up and down. Ms. Bennett surmised she had just seen her first alien shrug of indifference.

"These are the shape of your waters. So'waa'Ma'wae understands this current cuts painfully across gills but must be swam through, anyway. Many of you ask what you must do? Answer is simple. You will be voices for many fishies who have no voice. Whether your tribal chiefs and earth walking friends listen, So'waa'Ma'wae not know. Golden-eyed ones think not, think best solution is not to give choice like Children of Egg humans. But help of Dreamers is needed, and we have conditions for our assistance. We have control of project, you in very good webbed claws, So'waa'Ma'wae vows by the waters of her re-birth.

"So'waa'Ma'wae know even with Dreamers help maybe fifty-fifty chance Golden-eyed ones grow impatient and delete humans. Very sad, but good for fishies. We do all we can to make sure dirt walkers not go to away."

The briefing ended with a few banal comments to the volunteers. To keep up their food and water intake. Soma also reiterated a solicitation to continue collecting garbage from the beach. Lastly, a reminder that the large water baths were available to soothe aches which would soon grow noticeably more pronounced. That coming as the transformation repaired wear and tear on the older recruits to prepare for larger changes to come. The young American woman wondered if that wear and tear was related to why her abdomen just above her hip on the left side was spasming so badly.

Ms. Bennett wanted to ask the aliens who were pulling the strings on the island if they could tell her what she felt was normal. But Patience had only grunted at her request and then pointed her towards the retreating tail of Soma, refusing to say anything else. The spy didn't think it wise to engage with the volatile Wily, watching her with a look that was disturbingly hungry. Truth was busy assuring the ex-volunteers there would be no repercussions for them quitting. Ms. Bennett ran, catching Soma just before she disappeared down a well-worn path to the ocean.

Soma looked down at the growing woman with languidly blinking eyes before making a clicking sound in her throat and swinging one whisker in a wide sweep. When the American spy didn't follow, she looped her head back.

"That meant come with So'waa'Ma'wae now. We get you answers at water's edge."

The giant lay in the shallows just offshore of the trash covered beach. Asleep, apparently, with only the fin of his head rising above the water to mark its location. Heaps of additional plastic flotsam stuck to the sides of the creature that Soma venerated.

Over the roar of the waves, Ms. Bennett could hear the unmistakable sound of gunfire and heavier artillery. The spy knew she had to investigate this immediately, but the agitated alien did not appear to be in a mood to entertain her for long. Soma's gaze being drawn distractedly away, often enough to complicate learning what was happening behind the wall of the ancient. Ms. Bennett should be aware if there were American forces, or anyone else, that'd found their remote island. Perhaps batteries of missiles pointed at them could bring these aliens to their senses.

"Stupid hu-mans blasting each's metal fish because they come to surround us and not like the word sounds of others coming to do same thing. Much foolish murdering for net that not hold fish, if ask us. So'waa'Ma'wae hopes you no longer hu-man make you wiser, but must wait to see how current runs. They kill us, death for all hu-mans closer to fin than before. Before end, you need learn oneness. Only way Golden-Eyed ones be happy."

Ms. Bennett mulled that over as Soma bound into the surf on the lee side of her fellow alien. Thoroughly dousing herself in the aquamarine ocean as vibrant colors danced across her body and down the tendrils.

"Please remove wrapper and then hold frozen. This only take three shakes of tail. I make pleasant buzzy feeling that relax and perforate you."

Ms. Bennett made an ostentatious show of looking for anyone who might see, and a further one of not wanting to be vulnerable by exposing herself. Soma did not react as she'd hoped. Only narrowing her pupils into thin slits with violet bands ringing her body. Ms. Bennett made another mental note when Soma repeated herself and whipped one whisker with a crack.

"Please remove wrapper and then hold frozen. Skin to sensor contact needed, not little Titania's play behavior."

"P...please...don't hurt me... I'm so fragile next to you..."

"I offer help, and you offer games. If you do not desire sensor feel, be not here. So'waa'Ma'wae wish to enjoy water and must save what stupid metal fish not murder in very nice reef."

Ms. Bennett sighed, and the guise of a terrified woman disappeared under a stony mask. She took her slim tunic off, revealing her stretching body to the moist ocean air. The ground seemed oddly far away, and her body thicker as she stood naked before the female alien. The squeak from her mouth was no ploy, however, as the bulbs on the end of the alien whiskers wrapped around her waist. Showing that they were more flexible and giving than the woman had thought. Like amorphous sponges. Heat saturated the spy's skin, sinking in along with a gentle vibration that the tensed muscles of her core.

"Your cyclic egg dispenser...your ovary. It is ill and not shaped like the other. Cancer, So'waa'Ma'wae thinks you call sickness. Dreamers call it division run-away, not unseen to us, but not as common as Earth critters. It is felicitous you come volunteer. Becoming Dreamer will cure you but So'waa'Ma'wae feel cancer in your red cells. If leave before sickness cured you will be in forever sleep within one sun orbit. Two at most."

"You lie!" The words were out of Titania's mouth before she even knew she'd thought them.

"No, you lie, and then think every other fish does too. You and the other seven deceptions here to throw monkeys and wrenches in gears.

"Who? Who are they?"

If Ms. Bennett thought she would get the answer she wanted from the alien, the identity of other spies, she was sorely disappointed. Instead, there was a snort of briny air, and a wave splashing over her from one whipping tendril smacking the water.

"So'waa'Ma'wae will not stop your foolishness, nor will we give boost. Every swish of tail you take this way sinks the possiblehood of human future. We will only give two atoms of advice to you.

"One; make no mistake of Golden-eyed one's intent. They will delete humans if you make Earth less healthy. Don't let their low-tense behavior fool. This is future you create by not making work together.

"Two; do not lie to Ophelia, the Child of Egg who stares most unhappy at you. She sniff truth like So'waa'Ma'wae sniff division run-away. Angry Ophelia may put Titania Bennett in forever sleep and cause Patti mild heartburn. Lunatic alcohol mop is one we care about, not you. So'waa'Ma'wae not much like you and not atilt to stop Child of Egg removing your upper half from lower half. Actuality, it be best you not speak to Child of Egg at all. What one feel with Mother nearby all feel. So, try not to enter forever sleep speaking to any of them."

The Dreamer left Ms. Bennett alone on the beach when she ambled into the crashing surf. Soon the only thing visible of her was the shark-like fin of her tail propelling her around the unseen head of her massive sleeping species mate. For the young spy, the isolation was freedom. No one was there to see her collapse on her side to sob into her hands. Her slim body wracked by grief while doubt stuck icy claws into the resolve that had carried her so far in life. The words of Soma striking a chord the alien couldn't have known of. Or perhaps she did and had wanted to be cruel. Ms. Bennett did not think she would ever know after the expressions of mistrust that she may have deserved.

It was ovarian cancer that had cut Titania's mother down in the prime of her life at only twenty-eight. A tender age that was less than two years away for the young spy.