It is Easter. I like writing stories. I wanted to share a story which I wrote for a chapel speech I gave earlier this year. I also drew the illustrations. I have been a Christian all my life, though these days I really have a hard time embracing the teachings and it’s hard for me to say with certainty what is true. However, I keep hoping that there is a loving God out there, and this story is kind of an expression of that hope. I really wanted to write a Christian-inspired science-fiction story, and predictably took some inspiration from from C. S. Lewis’ sci-fi trilogy with the following. The title is a pun playing off of the dual meanings of “body”–and the Japanese title is also a pun, though it works differently… It’s “Hoshi no Karada,” which means “Star Body”–but the word for “desirable” or “to want” is “Hoshii,” and so I was wanting to kind of implicate that meaning in my story, too. A Desired Body. Happy reading–and Happy Easter!
The Japanese version follows the English. Japanese translation provided by Yukakology from Fiverr, with additional edits from my Japanese tutor hero and my coworker Yukiko. All artwork was done by me on paper with pencil, then scanned. Apologies–it’s not great art!
The ATOM pods turned in the gravity pull, detecting the nearby planet and its riches before we could come out of the long sleep. I felt adrenaline as I awoke, knowing that something good had brought me to life. Even just looking out of the sensor window, I could see that the world below us was beautiful, full of treasure we could take for ourselves.
“It’s a good one, I can see even from here,” came Evelyn’s voice over the interphone. “This planet will be our biggest profit yet.”
“Let’s take it, then,” I said. “We’ve been floating for six days. Finally we have something to wake up for, huh?”
We turned our pods toward the planet, and we fell from the sky. Our pods, egg shaped, burned lines of fire through the atmosphere, but the shells protected us as we streaked towards land. We skimmed over the water, the stretching oceans, the shimmering flames of the nearest star glittering above us as we searched for a lifeform we could use to adapt into and begin to take everything for ourselves.
“Remember,” I said. “The lifeform we choose has to be big enough that we can get a good DNA sample. We need to be able to take the organic matter into our biosuits in enough volume or else the mutation will be incomplete. We want to make sure everything goes smoothly so we can really enjoy ourselves.”
“Yeah, I got it,” said Evelyn. “Plenty of life here to choose from, too.”
And there was. Strange bird-like creatures fluttering and singing through the air. Long pin-legged insect-like things dashing across the surface of the lakes. Billions of tendrils poking out of the hills and reaching for the sun. But we needed something big, and these lifeforms—we could take their lives later, but we needed something large for our adaption engines to really work.
“How about that tree?” Evelyn said. “Over there. Biggest tree I ever saw. Lush. Powerful. We can take it, and it will transform us, make us suitable for this world.”
I turned my ATOM pod in the sky, triggered the shade mechanism in my viewing port so that the streaming sunrays wouldn’t dazzle me, and took in the organism before me.
It was like a tree, certainly. Hundreds of feet tall, with gargantuan limbs splayed out, welcoming us in. The outer material—the skin or bark of the thing—was an intricate play of dark and light, whites and blacks, and splotches of gray. Instead of leaves, the thing had bubbly orbs of glittering green that seemed to suck the energy from the atmosphere and beam out heat themselves. But most beautiful of all were the fruit. Massive hanging bulbous fruit, juicy and inviting, thick with organic material that would be perfect for our adaptation engines.
I sucked in air across my newly-grown teeth.
“It’s against the rules to use the trees,” I said, though I liked what I saw. “Sometimes the trees don’t make for good adaptations, you know. It might not…”
“It’s fine,” Evelyn said. “We aren’t going to find anything nicer than this. Those old guidelines about trees are outdated anyway—our new adaptation engines have been updated and can handle the transference even from plant life.”
She didn’t wait for me to respond. Already her ATOM pod was diving. It plunged into one of the enormous red fruit, larger even that her own space-traversing machine. Immediately the pod began to transform, merge with the fruit, and gorge itself on the available organic material.
“It’s amazing, Guy,” Evelyn said. “The fruit, this tree—it will provide everything we need to adapt for this world, so we can take anything we want. The power—it’s astonishing!”
Any time we wanted to use a world and make it ours, we first had to merge with organic material in that world so that our bodies could live there. If we just tried to exit our pods in our newgrown bodies, we would be too vulnerable, weak and fresh in a possibly dangerous environment. The rules, though… they said we should adapt using an animal—flesh and blood, not the tree.
“It’s good, Guy!” Evelyn cried through the interphone. “It’s so good! You need this!”
I couldn’t bear to stay away, hearing Evelyn’s excited voice. My ATOM pod seared down from the sky almost beyond my control, and I bonded with a second fruit, the pod hitting it with a loud, wet pop. Soon the skin of my pod was pulling in organic material—I could hear the juices gurgling around me, assimilating, pulling through the membrane of my cosmic machine.
And I did feel it. The power. The knowledge of this world that would sustain us, the DNA and the pieces of this gorgeous world that were becoming a part of me.
Yes. With this power, we would become the creatures we needed to be to live in this environment, and absorb the truth, the facts of how to adapt through the elegance of the DNA of this amazing lifeform that obviously was thriving here. I felt my body infused with everything we needed to rule and conquer this world.
Within a few hours, our bodies had been converted to something greater than we could ever have imagined, and we emerged from the cosmic membranes of our pods. My body was larger, muscular, my eyes sharper, my mind dancing with the information of a million lives, and I knew how I could make this world my own.
I fell dozens of feet to the floor of the world, and the tendril-like plants whispered away from my gripping feet. I roared and shook my fists at the sky, and I heard Evelyn cry out her own victory not far away. We dashed through the undergrowth to each other, each step cementing the use and the power of our bodies, making us more confident in our new skins.
We crashed into each other, and I lifted her above my head, and our eyes flashed as we looked on each other in naked triumph.
“We are masters of this world,” Evelyn said. “We will take everything we need.”
“Yes, but less us prepare ourselves fully,” I said, and reached to pull off strips of black bark from the tree. “We need to protect our new skin as it hardens for this world.”
The black bark oozed and shifted onto our bodies after we applied the clothing chemicals that shifted the structures of the molecules and created living vestments we could use to cover ourselves. Soon we were running, laughing, taking anything we wanted from our new world.
Nothing could stand against us. The creatures of our new home, for all their variety and beauty, could not overcome our space weaponry, nor our perfect new bodies and the power within us. Again and again, everything we found, anything we wanted, we took, the treasures, the fruits, all things of value bowed before us and went into our collection modules, crunched down to microscopic size via the portable black holes housed inside.
“This world is the richest one found yet in the history of our race!” cried Evelyn. “Look at the minerals, the rich biodiversity, the metals housed in the hills, the quality of the oceans and all that we can yet learn!”
I laughed, and I leapt dozens of feet in the air, pouncing over the shrubbery, crushing everything underfoot, sucking all that I wanted into my portable black hole.
But as the days passed, I realized something was wrong. I woke up with the knowledge that something had broken inside of myself, and I felt a streak of fear stab through my mind. I stood from the bed of pulverized downy cotton matter that had made my bed, and something gave in my leg.
I looked down, and my skin had cracked. The black leathery bark clothing was starting to split. I desperately tried to run, and found my legs seemed to splinter beneath me.
“Evelyn!” I yelled. “What is happening?”
She emerged from behind the cover of overlapping enormous leaves, but I knew from one glance that the flaw was in her, too. The power that I had seen that first day in her new body had halved and broken. Something creaked in her bones as she turned to look at me.
“Death is in this organic stuff we have taken in,” she said. “Did it not fully adapt us? Did the technology fail?”
I grabbed her arms, feeling the pain jag through my fingers as I held her.
“You did this!” I said. “The guidelines warned against using the trees when making the adaptations! Why wouldn’t you listen to me?”
“If you are so wise, then why did you follow and use the fruit for your own adaptation?” Evelyn retorted. “You are no wiser than I!”
“Do you both find yourselves so full of excuses?” came a voice then. “Listen to yourselves, and see how you have led yourselves to destruction.”
Someone was stepping through the flora nearby. The footsteps were like thunder. Yet there was a gentleness in the voice that reverberated through our hearts.
It was the Man. Larger than either of us. Perfectly adapted for this world. Somehow I knew right away we were supposed to adapt through this organism, and not through just any tree or thing we could find in our rush to take and make everything our own.
The Man stepped closer, taking us by the hand, leading us through the underbrush. We walked with him, tears in our eyes, our bodies failing, cracking, falling apart. Even just a few steps and I could hardly breathe, could not keep up with his quickening steps.
“I will carry you, but you must let go of your burdens,” said the Man. “There isn’t time nor space for you to carry all the things you have stolen. Let go of them, and I will carry you.”
What could we do? I did not want to drop the packages, the fruit of our labors, but my knuckles burned with pain as my body continued to shiver and crack. The black hole module fell from my grasp and into the swirling undergrowth.
“Faster, we need to go faster,” said the Man, and his glistening muscles pulled us along, and we saw the tree again from whence we had come, and He brought us there, and we saw He was crying now, His mouth pulled back in a grimace of sorrow.
“You will need to crawl back into your pods,” He said. “If you will follow me, I can save you, but I cannot force you to take the positions. I need to take my own.”
He put us beside the ATOM pods we had arrived in, and then he was climbing up the tree. I peered across at Evelyn, and she back at me, curled in our painful places. We knew if we climbed into the pods, we would lose everything we had ever known, and all the treasure we had tried to take. But what choice was there?
I coughed and spluttered as I pulled myself into the pod, my black bark clothing curling off of me. I was like a baby, barely able to move, and all I could do was weep, and realize the depth of my selfishness. I saw out of the viewport the Man had taken His position indeed. He was on the tree now, becoming one with it, His arms splayed out across the tree’s limbs, the thorns I had not seen before piercing into him, and His blood was joining the tree. As the pod began to take on His organic matter, I could feel the transformation begin.
I could not see Evelyn. I could only see the Man, and He died, shattering as the tree took Him, and He cried out once in a language that I could not understand, but which my heart took in like sweet words spoken to my soul. The broken body that I had boiled and churned in the pod, and everything purged away, in a riotous wave of stinging, shining new.
When the pod I saw in jettisoned from the tree, and sprung away from that world, I saw, too, that the Man who had climbed the tree was gone, too, and somehow I knew that He somehow was walking again. Somehow it seemed He had escaped the thorns and suffering of the tree which had nearly killed me, and which Had indeed killed him.
I knew He had escaped those thorns because, even as I left the wondrous garden that was the astonishing world I had tried to steal, I knew the Man lived because the blood that burned in my heart was not my own.
I was something new, again. And the treasure I walked away with that day was greater than any I had searched for.
アトムポッドは重力に引かれて回転し、近くの惑星を検知してから長い眠りから覚めた。目覚めたとき、僕はアドレナリンが出ているのを感じた。何か良いことが僕を生き返らせたのだと知ったからだ。スクリーンの中でも、眼下に広がる世界が美しく、宝物に満ちているのがわかった。
「なかなかいいじゃない」 とイブリンの声がした。「この惑星は、今までで一番の収穫ね」
「それじゃ、ここにしよう」と僕は言った。「ワープして6日目、ようやく目が覚めたってわけか」
僕たちは空から落下した。卵型のポッドが大気圏を横切って火の玉のように燃えていた。そして水の上を滑走した。広がる海、一番近い星のきらめく炎が頭上に輝き、僕たちが使える生命体を探した。
「忘れちゃいけないよ」と僕は言った。「いいサンプルが取れるような大きさでないといけないからね。僕たちが本当に楽しめるように、すべてがスムーズに運ぶようにしたいんだ」
「そうね」イブリンは言った。「選ぶほどたくさんあるんだし」
そして、空には不思議な鳥のような生き物が飛び、海には極細の足をした昆虫のようなものが颯爽と現れ、丘からは何十億という蔓が突き出し、太陽に向かって伸びている。でも僕たちはとにかく大きなものが必要だった。これらの生命体は、後で命を奪うこともできるが、僕たちの適応エンジンが本当に機能するためには大きなものが必要だった。
「あの木が見える？」イブリンが言った 「あそこ。今まで見た中で一番大きい木だわ。青々として力強い。あれなら使えるんじゃない？」
それは、確かに木のようだった。何百フィートもの高さで、巨大な手足を広げ、僕たちを歓迎している。樹皮は白、黒、灰色と複雑に絡み合っている。葉の代わりに、緑色の泡のような球体がついている。だけど、最も美しいのは果実だ。巨大な球根状の果実が垂れ下がり、有機物で厚く覆われ、ジューシーで魅力的だった。
見た感じは良かったが「木を使うのはルール違反だ」と僕は言った。「木がうまく適応しないこともあるんだよ。うまくいかないかもしれない… 」
「大丈夫 よ」とイブリンは言った。「これよりいいものはないわよ。どうせ古いガイドラインは時代遅れだし、私たちの技術はどんどんアップデートされ、植物でも使えるようになるわ」
彼女は私の返事を待たず、すでにアトムポッドを潜らせていた。それは彼女のマシンよりも大きな巨大な赤い宇宙リンゴに突っ込んだ。すぐにポッドは変形し始め、果実と一体化した。
「なんてことなの」とイブリンは言った。「この果実や木は、この世界に適応するために必要なものをすべて与えてくれるから、何でも手に入れることができる。驚異的な力よ！」
ある世界を自分たちのものにしようと思ったら、まずその世界の有機物と融合して、自分たちの体がそこでも生きていけるようにならなければならない。宇宙を旅する体でポッドから出ようとすると、危険な新天地では弱く、無防備すぎるからだ。しかし、ルールでは木ではなく、動物の肉と血を使って適応することになっている。
「やったじゃない！」イブリンがインターフォン越しに叫んだ。「すごくいい！これよ、これ！」
イブリンの興奮した声を聞いて、僕は離れていられなくなった。僕のアトムポッドは、ほとんど制御不能の状態で空から降ってきて、僕は2番目の果実と結合し、ポッドは大きく湿った音を立てて果実に衝突した。すぐにポッドの皮が有機物を取り込み、果肉と同化した果汁が私の周りでゴボゴボと音を立てるのが聞こえた。
そして、僕は確かに感じた。力を。僕たちを支えるこの世界の知識が、植物の繊維と汁を通して僕の一部となったんだ。この世界を支配し、征服するために必要なすべてが、僕の体に注ぎ込まれるのを感じた。
数時間のうちに、僕たちの身体は任務にふさわしいものに改造され、ポッドの宇宙皮から姿を現した。僕の体はさらに大きく、さらに筋肉質になり、目はより鋭く、頭は生物圏の知識で溢れそうだった。
僕は世界の底に何十フィートも落ち、掴んだ足から蔓のような植物が囁くように離れていった。僕は咆哮し、空に向かって拳を振り下ろした。
「私たちはこの世界の支配者よ」イブリンはそう言って、僕のそばに歩み寄ってきた。「必要なものはすべて手に入れてみせる」
「そうだね、でも気をつけるんだ」僕はそう言って、木から黒い樹皮を剥がそうと手を伸ばした。「新しい皮膚を保護しなくてはいけない」
分子を変化させる化学物質を塗り、身を包む布を作ると、黒い樹皮が僕たちの体に滲み出てきた。やがて僕たちは、走り、笑い、新しい世界から欲しいものを何でも手に入れるようになった。
もう何も僕たちに逆らうことはできない。新しい故郷の生物たちは、その多様性と美しさをもってしても、僕たちの先進的な武器と強力な新しい肉体を打開することはできなかった。見つけたもの、欲しかったもの、すべてを手に入れた。宝物、果物、価値のあるものはすべて僕たちの前にひれ伏し、キャリングケースの中の携帯用ブラックホールでミクロのサイズに縮小されて、収集モジュールに入った。
「この世界は、人類の歴史の中で何もかも揃っている最高の場所だわ！」とイブリンは叫んだ。「見てよ、この鉱物、豊かな生物たち、丘の上にある金属、海の質、そしてまだまだあるはずよ！」
僕は笑って、空中に何十フィートも跳び、低木の上を飛び跳ね、足元のものをすべて押しつぶした。
けれど、日が経つにつれて何かがおかしいと思うようになってきた。ある朝、目が覚めると自分の中で何かが壊れていることに気づいて、一筋の恐怖が心を突き刺すのを感じた。下を見ると、皮膚がひび割れていた。必死で走ろうとすると、足がすくむ。
「イブリン！」 僕は叫んだ 「どうなってるんだ？」
彼女は緑の中から現れたが、一目見ただけで彼女にも欠陥があることが分かった。あの日、僕が見た彼女の新しい体の力は、半減し壊れていた。彼女がこちらを向いたとき、骨に何かが軋んだ。
「死は、私たちが取り込んだこの有機物の中にあるのよ。完全には適応しなかったのかしら？技術に問題が？」イブリンは言った。
僕は彼女の腕を掴み、指の間からジリジリとした痛みを感じながら、彼女を抱きしめた。
「君のせいだ！」と僕は言った。「ガイドラインでは、適応する際に木を使わないようにと警告したのに！なぜ、僕の言うことを聞かなかったんだ？」
「あなたが賢いのなら、なぜその果物を追って自分の都合のいいように使ったの？」とイブリンは言い返した「えらそうな口きかないでよ！」
「二人とも言い訳ばかりしているの気づかないのか？」と突然声がした。 「振り返ってみなさい。どのようにして自分を破滅に導いてきたか」
誰かが近くの植物を踏みしめていた。その足音は、まるで雷のようだった。しかし、その声には優しさがあり、僕たちの心に響いてくる。
それは、この世界の支配者である「あの方」だった。僕たちの誰よりも大きく 完璧な形をし、無敵だった。僕たちはこの有機体を通して適応するはずで、どんな木でも、どんな哀れな生き物でも、すべてを奪って自分のものにしようと躍起になる必要はないのだと、なぜかすぐにわかった。
あの方は近づいてきて、僕たちの手を取り、下草の中を案内してくれた。僕たちは、目に涙を浮かべながら、彼と一緒に歩こうとした。僕たちの体は壊れ、ひび割れ、ばらばらになった。
「私が君を運ぶ。でも、君の宝物は置いていくんだ」とあの方は言った。「盗んだもの全てを運ぶ時間も場所もない」と。
どうしたらいいのだろう。しかし、体が震え、ひび割れ、指の関節が痛む。ブラックホール・モジュールは私の手から落ち、渦巻く下草の中に入っていった。
「もっと早く、急ぐんだ」とあの方は言い、彼の立派な筋肉が僕たちを引っ張り、私たちが最初に見つけた木が見えた。あの方は僕たちをそこに連れてきてくれたのだ。あの方は泣いているのに気づき、彼の口は悲しみの苦笑いを浮かべているのが見えた。
「君たちはポッドに戻るべきだ 」とあの方は言った。「もしついてきてくれるなら、君たちを救える。でも、君に強制することはできない。私は自分のをみつけなければいけない」
あの方は僕たちが到着した ATOM ポッドの横に僕たちを置き、木に登り始めた。僕はイブリンを覗き込み、イブリンも僕の方を見て、苦しみでうずくまった。僕たちは、もしポッドに入った時点で今までのすべてを失い、手に入れようとした宝物も永遠に失われてしまうことを知っていた。
でもそうすれば生き残ることができる。
僕はポッドの中で震えた。まるで赤ん坊のようで、ほとんど動くことができず、ただ涙を流し、自分のあまりの身勝手さを思い知らされた。視界の外には、あの方が自分の位置についたのが見えた。彼は今、木の上にいて、木と一体化していた。彼の腕は木の枝に広がり、見たことのない棘が彼の腕を刺し、血が木に流れ込んでいた。さやが彼の有機物を取り込み始めると、彼の変容が始まるのを感じた。
あの方は、僕には理解できないが、僕の心がどういうわけか知っている言語で、一度叫びながら死んでいった。僕の壊れた体は鞘の中で煮えくり返り、すべてが浄化され、刺すように輝く新しい波となった。
僕が座っていたポッドが木から飛び出し、その世界から離陸したとき、僕は木に登っていたあの方もいなくなったのを見て、なぜか彼が死んだ後再び歩いているのを見た。なぜなら僕が盗もうとしていた驚くべき世界である不思議な庭を離れても、僕の心で燃えた血は僕のものではなかったので、彼が生きていることが分かったからだ。
僕は生まれ変わった。そしてその日、僕が手にした宝物は、僕がこれまで探し求めていたどんなものよりも偉大なものだった。