A Ray So Alone

By Jack Morton

A warm, spring sun beats down. I picture Pai, and young rays basking in the light.

Maya, my granddaughter, helps me dig in the spring soil of the garden. Geordi, my pug, snuffles in the grass. The rays almost feel like a beautiful dream to me now, but Maya, who had them around for half her short lifetime, talks about them often.

Maya’s father, Will, who works as a professor of biology still finds them fascinating as well. He waits for Maya to wash up when it’s time for her to go home, and I hear him discussing the rays with a colleague on his phone. They call them by the scientific name, Batoidea Caelum. I listen inattentively, tired from the afternoon outside, when I suddenly catch the phrase “The specimen.” I focus on Will’s half of the conversation until I’m sure I’ve understood. Will has a ray in his lab.

I have to sit down.

A ray stuck inside is a shame. One imprisoned and unable to reach its fellow rays, the fever, is a nightmare.

Will must have seen me looking shocked, after he hangs up, he comes over to ask if I’m alright. I act as casually as I can, and ask if I heard correctly, that they are studying a ray at his lab.

The excited scientist disappears behind Will’s nervous shifting. He stammers out, “I’m not really supposed to talk about it. But, um, yes.”

“Well alright, I won’t tell anyone,” I assure him. I feign simple interest “Could I see it?” I can see the negative response forming on his face and I add, “Of course I wouldn’t mention that either.”

His eyes flick from side to side, calculating. He understands the implied bargain. I’ll keep my mouth shut in return for access to the ray. As Maya bounces into the room he straightens up and says, “I’ll give you call.”

I smile at him, but inside I fume.

After they go, I call Geordi over. I pick him up and he consents to being held tight. He knows something is wrong too. I stroke his fawn-colored fur and remember the first time I met Pai.

Something peeled off a nearby tree, looking like a black plastic bag freed by the wind. But it moved slowly, its fins rising and falling gently, and I realized it was intentionally heading towards me. It paused, hovering in front of me, barely moving at all to maintain height. I noticed large, dark eyes, which blinked slowly and solemnly. I raised a forearm towards it, like a falconer. It floated forward and landed gracefully on my arm. Its fins wrapped around to embrace me, maximizing skin-to-skin contact. I felt a warm sensation. Not on my arm, its skin was actually a little chilly and rough, but directly in my mind, as if I’d just been greeted by a friend. The eyes looked to my face. I read expectation in them.

“Hello?”

It was all I could think to say, but the eyes grew wide at the word. It shifted its position, like a batter checking their grip, and then I felt warmth in my mind again. It seemed to turn and morph, like a sleeping form under a sheet, until suddenly words emerged. You understand me?

I didn’t hear anything aloud. Even inside my head, it wasn’t as if a strange voice spoke to me, the voice, the words, were my own. Something other than me had nudged them to fire in my brain, like when song lyrics intrude on wordless musings. Except I could feel what had guided them. The thin, black, creature on my arm.

“Yes, I understand you!”

I’m glad. It’s so lovely to meet you. I realized as I thought the words, I meant them too. Whatever method it used to activate language in my brain affected feeling as well, I didn’t just know what the creature said to me, but I knew that it was true.

“I’m Lily,” I said.

You are you. That’s wonderful.

“What should I call you?”

I don’t understand.

“I’m Lily. You’re…?”

I am me. Yes, that’s wonderful too.

“You don’t have a name? A word for you.”

I don’t have words. I’m using yours.

“Then I guess I’ll name you. You’re Pai.”

Pai is Pai. That’s wonderful.

Each time it triggered the word ‘wonderful’ in my mind, it came with a rush of feeling. Not the kind of simple pleasure we sometimes call ‘wonderful,’ but the sincere, unknowing awe that makes you feel six years old. I reached up and stroked the creature’s back, and streaks of electric blue raced down its black skin where my hand touched it.

Considering they’re holding an alien against its will and without public knowledge, the lab seems very everyday. The building is an ordinary-looking brick and steel affair on the college campus. Will greets a friend casually in the hallway. He needs a security card to get into the room itself, but I don’t see any guards or cameras. And I’m looking.

A hard plastic tank, illuminated by bright light from above stands at chest height on one wall. The ray isn’t hard to spot against the white background, though patches of paler skin dapple its black back. It lies on the ground, motionless, the occasional twitch of its tail the only sign of life.

“We give it plenty of direct light, as you can see. That’s how they feed, of course. The top sides of their fins are like solar panels. They soak up the light, and, in a process like photosynthesis turn it into energy.”

“Aren’t you worried it’ll escape?” I ask. “They move fast enough to travel between stars, don’t they?”

“There’s no danger of that.” He assures me. “Within Earth’s atmosphere they just flap their fins, that’s why you’ve never seen one flying faster than an air current. In space, it’s true, they can really get up some speed, but it takes time for them to accelerate. They deploy their fins as solar sails. Over a year or so they can accelerate to nearly ¼ the speed of light. During interstellar voyages they enter a state of deep hibernation, hence needing to charge up with plenty of light when they reach a star. They wake up in time to start the process of decelerating as they approach a new star’s system.”

“Can I touch it?” I ask.

Will’s look suggests we both know I’m pushing my luck.

“You’ve done it before?” he asks.

“Oh yes, several times when the fever was here.”

After a glance around he seems to decide there’s no harm. “You might have heard a voice in your head on other occasions, but you probably won’t now. The specimen’s been quite quiet.”

“It stopped using its telepathy?”

“It’s technically called peripathy. Tele means far, they have to be close,” he says. “We’ve never experienced the true connection they feel. They claimed two rays in physical contact have complete mutual understanding. There are significant barriers between species, but they say they can communicate with trees, mushrooms, any animal that will touch them as easily as they do with us. It’s actually a little frustrating. You probably heard they reported encountering life around other stars, the news made a big deal about it. But it’s impossible to judge whether they mean intelligent life or not. They distinguish animate from inanimate using the word ‘voice,’ but to them, dogs, cows, worms, trees all have voices. Even though it’s hard to imagine the processes involved in those creatures being anything like human language—” he realizes he’s babbling and cut himself off. “In any case, this one has mostly clammed up.”

He opens a panel that I can fit an arm through. As I reach in, it doesn’t even stir towards the opening. I put a hand gently on its back.

Lily is Lily. I think.

No response comes.

The second ray I ever encountered appeared at a dog park. It lifted off from a patch of grass and wafted towards me. It had a large grey-white vein of scar tissue down one fin. I offered it my arm and it landed.

Lily is Lily. Lovely to see you again.

“Again? I don’t think we’ve met.”

Pai met Lily. Pai is Pai.

“That’s you Pai? What happened to your fin?”

Torn on a tiny rock while moving fast. Long ago, far away.

“Long ago? But you didn’t have it last time I saw you.”

Last time was another Pai.

“What do you mean another Pai?”

A different me.

The concept took a while for me to grasp. It was using Pai and me to refer to itself, but also to all the other rays in the fever. I struggled to communicate to it that I had meant Pai to be the name of the first ray I’d met. I realized that since my encounter with the first ray, it had shared its experience with this one. Their communication is so perfect, that the others remembered meeting me as if they had done it themselves. Any ray that had made contact with the first one I’d met would have identified itself as Pai to me, because it would remember me naming it Pai.

“How many rays know me then?”

All rays connect. All rays know Lily is Lily. All Pai is Pai.

“But you’re so far from each other.” Since my first encounter with Pai, there had been reports of rays from all over the world. “How could you all connect?”

When the world spins away from the sun Pai flies back to space. Pai is fast in space. All Pai connects, then flies down on the bright side of the world.

“So, every day the entire fever learns the memories of every single ray?”

Yes.

“How can you live with all those lives in your head?” I wondered. I have enough trouble keeping my own straight these days.

There is much to know. But Pai will need much for the dreams of the long sleep.

“When you’re hibernating, you dream?”

Yes, remembering all Pai knows.

“Will you remember me?”

Of course. Lily is Lily.

At first, in the reports I heard on the news, everyone seemed as enchanted by the rays as me. Some celebrated them for the knowledge they’d brought from other star systems, others hailed them as divine messengers showing us the beauty of our own world, others were personally touched by how all rays seemed to accept and love them immediately.

But of course, some people just can’t stand to see something beautiful.

One day, when my daughter Angela arrived to drop off Maya for me to babysit, I found Maya sobbing loudly. I asked what had happened. Angela answered. “She was on my phone, and found a video that she shouldn’t have. Which is why you need to ask before using mommy’s phone, right?” Maya only cried louder.

“What was it?” I asked.

“Some horrible person who killed a ray. Clubbed it to death and mounted it like a trophy. It’s on the news, but she shouldn’t have seen that.”

I bent down to hold Maya while she cried. I wished I could send love and comfort through my skin, like a ray. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything like “it’s okay” or “don’t cry”. It wasn’t. And crying made more sense than any other response.

I felt that myself the next time I saw a ray. It greeted me cheerfully when it landed.

Lily is Lily. Lovely to see you again.

I burst into tears.

Lily is hurt.

Just as the name truly meant me, as I see myself, when it rang in my head, hurt resonated with exactly the mix of guilt and grief that I felt.

I tried to explain the video, which I hadn’t been able to keep myself from watching, and to apologize. But every time I thought I’d been clear it responded I don’t understand. I tried to use words that Pai had chosen from my vocabulary in the past.

“It was wonderful. Now it’s dead.”

I don’t understand ‘dead’.

“When something alive ends.” I tried again. “Something loses its voice.”

A fallen tree.

“Yes, exactly! That ray is like a tree that was cut down, its voice is gone, a human took it. That’s what hurts.”

Pai isn’t a tree. Pai’s voice isn’t gone. Pai is Pai.

For the same reason the scarred ray had assumed it was already my friend, this one couldn’t mourn its fallen kin. It genuinely didn’t see the other ray as existing separate from the fever. As long as the fever lived on, no ray’s memories were lost.

“What if humans kill too many rays for the fever to continue?”

Most humans are kind. Besides, Pai makes more Pai. And this world, with this sky, is wonderful. There will be many Pai.

I later learned what it meant about our sky. At each star the fever reaches, the rays mate. The young are more sensitive to stellar radiation and need protection. Some systems have little to offer, but Earth’s atmosphere regulates the radiation just right for young rays to develop, so the fever expected a large brood from this stop.

Young rays don’t have the black skin of their parents. They’re translucent, even thinner than adults. Barely visible, two small black eyes, but all their skin and other organs clear as a splash of spring water. More like a thought than a living creature.

The first time I saw one drifting down towards me, distorting the clouds and creating little soap-bubble rainbows with its body, I was anxious about touching it. I felt even a strong breath might tear it to shreds. I extended an arm, trying to still my trembling, and it landed, wrapping its fins around my arm with the confidence of an adult, though with clumsier movements.

Lily is Lily. It’s lovely to see you again. I thought it might sound childish but, as ever, it was my own internal voice.

“You already know me? You have the memories of the whole fever?”

Pai is Pai. It confirmed.

“So, you don’t really get a childhood, huh?”

Pai is having a thousand childhoods right now.

I thought of the scare Maya had gotten after a few minutes with the internet and imagined her getting the knowledge of an entire civilization dumped into her brain.

In Lily’s childhood she only knew what she saw herself?

“Sort of. We also teach children by telling stories.”

I don’t understand ‘stories’.

“Yes, that might be tough for you. Recounting things that happened before. Rays share memories by touching. We use words.”

Memories in words. Tell Pai a story.

I tried a story I’d told Maya last time I saw her. “Once there was a woman who met a man. She was supposed to be assessing his taxes.”

I don’t understand ‘taxes’.

“Neither did the man. He was scared he’d be in trouble. She could see he was wrong. But she found his fear, his vulnerability, endearing. She helped him through his trouble, and they fell in love, and had a daughter.” That was how Angela and Will met.

Stories are much longer than memories.

“That was a pretty short one. Humans tell stories that take hours to finish.”

Pai would not tell stories like that.

“What kind of story would you tell?”

There was a reflective pause, then the words came. Once I saw a rock so green it hurt.

“I don’t understand. It hurt?”

So green. So achingly green.

“Okay… and what happened?”

I saw the rock. And I hurt.

“I see. That’s a memory, yes, but it’s not really a story.”

That’s one of Pai’s favorite memories. I felt a hint of reproach in the words.

I tried telling my story as Pai would. “Once a woman met a man so nervous that she loved him.”

That’s wonderful. And like always, the ray meant it. Once I met a plant so old it hurt.

“Once I met a dog, Geordi, so small that I loved him.”

Geordi is wonderful. I already knew that. Once I saw a plume of frozen crystals so sparkling it hurt.

I did my best to imagine the sights the fever had encountered in its long travels.

Pai likes these stories. I will dream them in the long sleep.

“Why do all your favorite stories hurt? Don’t you like memories that make you happy?”

Of course. But those happen all the time. I met Lily, it made me happy. Lily showed me a dog, it made me happy. I flew under the blue sky of this world; it made me happy. I love these memories too, but I have many of them. Only once did I see a rock so green it hurt.

I wait until a weekend when I know Will doesn’t work. I employ Maya to steal his key card for me and return it afterwards. I decide against telling her why, making up an excuse about having left something in his office. Not because I think Maya would object to my mission, I’m sure she wouldn’t, but I know how badly it would hurt her to know her father is involved in the poor creature’s imprisonment.

On campus, I put on a surly face that says I know where I’m going, and nobody bothers me. All of the old people have similar faces, and none of the young people want to talk to me.

I enter the building, reach the lab, and plant myself where I can see the door, pretending to read. After a half hour or so a young woman emerges, and marches down the hall, her shoes clicking on the floor.

She turns a corner. I hurry over to the door, use my keycard and peer inside. The lab is empty. I enter, shutting the door behind me. Then I unlock the panel, and reach in.

“I’m back.”

The ray doesn’t answer.

“I can take you out right now, if you’ll trust me.”

Go away.

“Please, you need to try.”

Why? To be alone outside the cage instead of alone inside?

“Maybe you won’t be alone. Maybe others were left behind.”

Then their memories will be as lonely as mine. I don’t want more of those.

“Then escape and make new memories.” No response. “Maybe one day you’ll see a rock so green it hurts.”

I don’t need a rock to hurt.

“Happy memories then. Flying in the sun, meeting a dog. I know you’ll have more of those.”

New memories will be lost. Without the fever I will never share them. They die with me.

“Then make them for yourself, at least for now. That’s what I thought I was doing my whole life, making memories, some happy, some sad, but all of them bound to me. Disappearing when I die.”

The ray twitches away from me. I hear heeled shoes in the hall outside. I look to the lab door, but they pass by. I turn back and plunge my arm in right up to the shoulder so I can reach the ray’s back.

When I touch it again, I push all fears of being caught out of my mind. I focus on Jeffery, and how it felt after he died. “I have felt alone.” I tell the ray. “And wanted to give up. But if I had I would never have met your kind. And right now, somewhere out in space, thousands of rays are in their long sleep, and all of them remember my stories.”

I feel a tickling caress. The ray’s tail curls around my wrist. Slower than I’ve ever seen one move, as if with great effort, it rotates around the tail and wraps itself on my forearm. I draw it out of the cage and close the panel. I pull my sleeve down over it and leave the lab. I glance over my shoulder every time I hear a pair of heeled shoes until I reach the bus stop.

Despite their emotional maturity, the young rays still needed time to develop physically. The fever stayed on Earth a little over five years. I encountered rays of all ages calling themselves Pai. Maya grew up along with the young rays. Her wispy brown hair turned thicker and black, and she got skinny as she shot up, as if she were physically mimicking the rays. And I think contact with them deepened her naturally caring disposition.

Biologists like Will, and scientists of all disciplines learned as much as they could about solar sailing, efficient light-to-energy conversion, and peripathic communication. They noted places we could look for life when we one day left the solar system. Rays flew in kite festivals. A flock of them shaded heat-stricken farms waiting for a late rainy season one year. There are photos and videos of rays from all over the planet. Telescope footage showed some investigating other moons and planets throughout the system, but they always returned to Earth, where the fever was based, where the young could best develop.

The young rays passed through a wonderous palette of colours as they aged. In adolescence their fins seemed to be made of flexible stained-glass, and the sight of them flying in the sun was achingly beautiful. But colored rays became rarer and rarer, until they all resembled the pitch-black ones I had first encountered.

And then they left.

Telescope images showed the fever massing together out in interplanetary space. They clumped in clutches, sharing every memory they had created around our yellow sun, then they turned their underbellies towards it, and spread their fins. We observed them until they had passed Saturn’s orbit, but soon they were too small, too far, and moving much too fast for us to see. Will reported that attempts had been made to calculate where they were headed next, but at the time we lost sight of them it could have been any of hundreds of stars. We still didn’t understand how they avoid losing each other during hibernation, how all of them manage to fly together in such tight formation.

Except now I know, it isn’t all of them. Not this time.

“We couldn’t figure it out either. So how will you find them?”

I’ll see which star looks best to me.

“You have their memories, maybe you’ll make the same choice.”

I think so. Feeling the words used in my mind, I know they aren’t honest. The ray doesn’t believe it has any better odds than random chance. I’ve never felt a ray try to lie before. This one has learned how.

“I won’t forget you. And if any rays ever come here again, I’ll tell them about you.”

I won’t forget you either. You didn’t lie. Lily is Lily. It’s the first time this ray has said that. My name carries the memories of all the ones I met before, but also a new weight. I guess, from understanding that I am human, and everything that means.

I watch it slowly ascending, until it becomes invisible against the night sky.

If Will’s little team captured a ray, others must have too. Scientists, governments. They need to be freed. I’m too old to take that on, and we can’t wait for people like Maya, who grew up during the rays’ visit, to take charge. We need others to understand. That’s why I share Pai’s story. And if anyone ever encounters rays again, and needs to tell the story to them, it goes like this:

Once I met a ray so alone it hurt.