She cringed in discomfort as her secret pouch containing the keys to her humanoid shape deep under her animal skin shifted as she curled up to a more comfortable position. She had become a rekka, a bear-like creature with shaggy red fur and a big ursine head. The Masters determined this to be the best way to get onto Qesak. There was a need for rekkas in the various zoological gardens being constructed throughout the massive ring-shaped habitat.
Tekui had been chosen to go to Qesak and observe, perhaps capture, one of the people rumored to be coming from an outside galaxy. She didn’t much believe them. Galaxies were much too far apart for people to travel back and forth with any expectation of getting there within a lifetime. To her, this was a chance to get out and see somewhere other than Ikleu.
She was a Renuea, a shape changer. Her natural form was a lightly furred anthropomorphic creature with a small head, hooded ears, dark nose and large eyes. Tekui’s natural form had dark yellow fur with orange stripes. She could not return to her natural form anytime soon. It required far too much energy and time.
It would be hard enough changing into the humanoid form taught to her by Master Kerrechu. He purportedly had seen one of the people and described them as furless and gangly. She had seen a holographic image of her humanoid form and didn’t much like it. It did not have claws and its teeth were pitifully small.
She lay on her side, thinking of how she could escape from the cages as they moved them throughout the habitat. Anywhere quiet and unobserved would do. The act of changing took two whole days and left a bit of a mess, shedding skin and other tissues. She would awake ravenously hungry and the pouch contained a list of what she could eat and currency to pay for it. Changing took a lot out of one, literally.
One of the other animals reached through the cage wall and pawed her rump area, making her snarl ferally. Her claws unconsciously extended but she did not use them. An alarm startled all. The lumbering spacecraft hissed and creaked as it transitioned out of hyperspace on its way to the Qesak Habitat.
Tekui could not see it through the dirty window but she knew that it looked like a giant bracelet in space made of many rectangular plates. It was on a way point along the main hyperspace route in this galaxy. She hoped that it was as pleasant as people said it was. She was tired of impersonating animals and living in dirty cages.
Minutes later, one of the burly Cuaxa keepers came in. The large white furred biped snarled at his rekka charges. “Ya stupid animals.” It went to the cabinet where they stored the shock stick. After recovering it, the creature went down to a control panel set into the far wall.
Tekui suppressed a snarl, remembering her own experience with the device that singed some of her rump fur when she had first been ‘captured’. After changing into this form, she had drifted into a catch herd like any other rekka.
The Cuaxa started to pull the lock pins out of the cage doors and pulled loading chute gates into position. It swung the shock stick carelessly and struck one of the animals, making it yelp. The Cuaxa grunted in amusement. Chains retracted with a snap that caused them to slap skin.
Tekui wanted to bite the white furred creature for its carelessness and cruelty. She watched as the cage doors opened via an electric lift system that screeched and buzzed. It made her wonder how old this spacecraft was and that led to fresh worries about its safety.
The creatures started to file out into the central chute and she followed them when it was her turn to go. The Cuaxa herded them down the chute to a large holding pen that faced a door that had various warnings posted on it.
Tekui’s monochromatic vision as a rekka was poor so she couldn’t really read them, which maybe was not a bad thing she thought. She watched as the Cuaxa busily operated various controls and talked with a fellow through a comm piece in its collar. It then pressed a button and the entire ship shuddered with a loud groan of stressed metal. Something beeped and the door popped and hissed. It creaked and opened to reveal a long corridor with a rough metal floor and guide chutes.
The other rekkas started to shuffle down the corridor and Tekui kept up, discreetly looking around. She saw a wonderful opportunity to get away. An open access door near the corridor’s far end led to an open field and a water pond. She closed her eyes and willed herself to distribute muscles to her feet and legs, strengthening her claws and balancing herself for sprinting. She had noticed that the Cuaxa did not have distance weapons.
She eased her way over to the door and looked back at the Cuaxa. It was facing the far wall, arguing with someone into its comm piece. There were no other tenders in sight. Tekui took a deep breath and clenched her claws. She bolted for the door and let her claws dig into the soil in the field, tearing into the grass as she ran faster than any other rekka could. She could hear the Cuaxa yell but was too far away by the time it got to the door.
Tekui ran for the pond and noticed a parked cargo train about to leave. She could hear its motors powering up. She curved toward it and saw an open cargo car. She increased her speed and leapt up, sailing over the dangerous electric induction track and into the car, which was full of boxes. She crashed into some of them, grateful that they contained something soft. The train powered up and began to move. She lay where she landed, struggling to catch her breath.
After a few moments, she sat up and looked around. The boxes contained clothing for sale, wrapped in plastic and boxed up according to style, color and price. She couldn’t believe her luck. She got up and went to the door, having to rear up on her back legs and using a paw to trigger the door lock. It slid closed and locked with a loud snap.
If she could smile, she would have. It was a magnetic lock, ultra-secure. She cleared out a space behind the boxes and calmed herself with meditation. She willed the change to start and cried out as the process began with a sudden constriction of everything. She fell unconscious onto the floor as blood started to flow from all her orifices.
Tekui came to in the unpleasant phase of shedding the rekka skin. She would miss having fur. She tried to ignore it as the skin split along the back and arms, making a wet tearing sound. She could not feel it. The skin was dead tissue to be cast off just like the molting of an insect or reptile. It fell away in vast pieces, revealing her new skin.
She could not believe how much smaller she was. Her skin was bare and the color of a pale peach fruit. She immediately felt cold and icky from the blood, which totally covered her. She shuddered, feeling as if part of her had fallen away. The change felt like this every time, driving an anxiety only helped by keeping her mind on her task. The pouch lay in the discarded skin.
Tekui sat up, removed it and opened it to find identification for her new form, a currency card, and her smart keeper. The keeper was how she got by in the world. It was a type of computer that remembered anything. She usually wore it on her collar but a collar didn’t seem right for this form. Also in the pouch was a cleaning kit. It opened up into a large sponge, cleanser and drying cloth. She used it to clean off her new skin and hair, which she willed to grow a few inches. It had been unfemininely short.
After she was clean, she got up and stretched, noting that she would be weaker than her normal forms. She increased muscle density to compensate without bulking up her small form. Once that was over, she got up and used her smart keeper to find her some clothes. It suggested dark colored, flowing attire popular here on Qesak. The boxes weren’t hard to open and she managed to find a lot of clothes quickly.
Tekui put on a dark purple jumper and matching over-robe. She liked the warmth they provided. Shoes were a foreign concept to her but she managed to find some that went with her clothes. She also found a suitcase in a shipping crate and put her purloined clothing into it. Tekui frowned when she looked at her discarded skin.
Renueas were small creatures. Those blessed, or cursed depending on the perspective, with the changing ability could alter the density of their bodies to expand or shrink. This was done by consuming massive amounts of food or dropping tissue and skin, just as Tekui had done. It was psychologically painful and hard on the physiology. Most who could change did not like it.
She used a special enzyme mix provided with the cleaning pouch to break down the old skin and blood into inert dust. No trace of the rekka skin was left and the internal parts had already become humanoid. Tekui wiped a tear away with the back of her right hand. She hated to shed her skin.
The train had not stopped in all the time she changed or since she had been ransacking this cargo. Turning from the now dust of her discarded skin and tissues, Tekui went to the door and slapped the door lock. The massive door slid open, revealing an utterly dark part of the habitat. Stars glittered in the bizarre sky as did the far arc of the habitat’s plates.
She wished that she could take the bird form of Av’rite-er and fly out of the moving train but that was quite impossible. It took twice as long to change into a non-mammal form and she would have to regain some of her bulk by eating. Not possible here. She smiled as she thought of her yellow feathered hawk form. It was her favorite of the six forms she knew how to take.
There had to be some other way off this train. Jumping off could be deadly. If they caught her in here, they would expose her secret of being a Renuea and the theft of the clothing. She had arranged the boxes in a way to where they would not miss the missing clothes until after final delivery. The wind tousled her dark yellow-orange hair and over-robe. She clutched the handle of her dark cloth sided suitcase and watched as the occasional yellow light sped by, a blur to her still-developing color vision.
Her eyes would be red for a few more hours. They were the last thing to change. She could see at all times but it was like seeing through a piece of colored film. It would clear gradually. She would have to find an eyeshade of some type for the time being. Tekui pulled her keeper from her jumper’s hip pocket and asked it in her native language where she was in relation to the habitat.
A holo-map appeared like a diffuse blue ring in the air. A yellow triangle market her position, moving through a part of the habitat darkened by the far side arc. She was approaching the light and a train station at the outskirts of a large town. The keeper suggested that she visit the station’s general store for an eyeshade and some vitamins she required after a change.
The train started to slow and Tekui found her chance to get off it as it passed a massive concrete platform. She waited until it slowed even more before hopping off, stumbling a bit but not falling. She lowered her gaze so other people would not see her eyes and followed the keeper’s directions to the general store. It said that it was early morning local time and people should not be a problem. The store was automated.
She felt strange and a bit anxious. What if the people from another galaxy never came? She couldn’t return home until the Masters called her back, which was unlikely given their fervent interest in these people. She entered the store, which they thankfully deserted and quickly found the vitamins, sunglasses and her favorite kind of mint candy. She used her currency card to pay for them and quickly put the sunglasses on.
Tekui emerged into the morning sun, grateful to see that the train was long gone. She consulted her keeper for a place to stay and it selected a long term residence hotel near the cultural center of this town. That would be good for making friends. She had lots of friends in all the sentient cultures she had visited.
The hotel was a large airy affair of much glass and metal. There were leafy tropical plants in every common area as well as a massive pool in the lobby where some of the more unsightly aliens lounged. Tekui paid them no mind as she went to the counter and presented her identification and currency cards to the computer.
It ran them and approved the transaction, assigning her Room 34-C on the 18th floor. She frowned, not knowing the building was that tall. It didn’t look like it from the outside. Her stomach reminded her of how hungry she still was and she hurried to the elevators to settle in her room so she could order something.
The elevator was a frightening experience. It was totally made of clear glass. It rode a track set into the back wall of the side of the building. Below her feet was the concrete of the portico, in front of her was a literally breathtaking view of this plate of the habitat, a vast landscape of mountains and a massive network of rivers and a lake.
Tekui asked her keeper if this was worth the expense of coming here. It told her that she was wasting her time. The Cuaxa planned to stop the alien peoples from visiting this galaxy.
As she pondered this in the elevator, a strange voice said, “You are far from home, Renuea.”
She looked all around, seeing nothing. “Who speaks?”
“I am Qesak. I am the habitat mind. Did you think that you could just come in here and alter your form? I can see through you. Why are you here?” The elevator stopped in midair it seemed.
Tekui frowned. She was afraid that it would throw her out. “I came to meet some people.”
“Some alien people, I assume? Your masters are foolish in acting too soon in sending you. They may not even come here. I have it on good authority that they might reconsider. I’m not sure about letting you stay.”
“I’m not a criminal. I can’t change until I leave,” she said.
“Indeed? Let me ask you something. If I choose to keep you here for many years, will you stay as you are?”
No Renuea could maintain a form for longer than fifteen years. Beyond had not been tested because it wasn’t a good idea. She looked at the floor. “No.”
The artificial mind scoffed. “You should not have come here.” It went quiet and the elevator started to move again.
Tekui sighed and looked down. This wasn’t good at all.
She made it to her room without incident and noticed that it had Renuea furnishings and consumables. She could not live in this as she was. There was a handwritten note in her native language on a counter in the kitchen area. She picked it up and read:
Tekui of Clan Seshenu,
We have reconsidered sending you. We were foolish in acting too soon. The Qesak Habitat has told us that it plans to keep you until we pay a ransom. We apologize but we do not negotiate with such presences. Return to your natural form. We will see you in due time. Signed, Master Kerrechu.
Tekui was crushed. All of that time and effort for nothing? She went straight for the food storage to get ready to change back into her favorite and natural form.
Continued in ‘Change to Normal’ . . .
© 20 June 2004 Gregory Thompson. All reproduction is