Understanding Yourself
by Selma McCrory
copyright 1999

I wake up in the darkness with only a vague image of what I've been dreaming
about. Dr. Park and my parents' memories tell me that it's perfectly normal not
to remember one's dreams. I just wish I could remember mine.

This time, I was in a forest full of plants in shapes and colors I've never seen
before, with the sky a color I've never seen before. I have a sneaking suspicion
that this is the memory of one of my ancestors, but without being able to
retrieve it, I'll never know. I've never had much luck retrieving my non-human
memories. Dr. Park thinks it's because I've mostly been around humans since I
was born. If I had grown up with a different mindset, for example a captive of
the Taelons, I might find it easier to retrieve those parts of myself that
aren't so human. Of course, if I'd been a captive of the Taelons I probably
wouldn't be alive at this point.

I'm too awake to go back to sleep. Maybe I need to do some stuff, some normal,
everyday human stuff, to push out whatever's bothering me. Paperwork.

Unfortunately, my office is in Da'an's chamber, and I'm not keen on disturbing
Da'an. I don't know why my desk is in his chamber - my predecessor and parent,
Ronald Sandoval, worked and sometimes lived down the hall from Da'an's chamber.

I think, despite his best attempts to hide it, that Da'an doesn't know what to
do with me. After all, I'm totally within my rights to despise the Taelons for
what they did to my kind.

I think sometimes Da'an has taken me in and tried to parent me out of regret for
what the Taelons have done. He knows that right now I'm the last of the Kimera.
I wonder if he's going to have problems when I start breeding. A child that's
the sole representative of a species your ancestors destroyed is one thing. A
whole bunch of people with the genetic memory of a wrong done to them is
another. Even Da'an might be taken a little aback at that.

Maybe just looking at Da'an might help me figure out what's been bothering me.
Da'an has been teaching me some Taelon meditative techniques, and I know one or
two through my human parents.

There's nothing much to be done about it. I'll just get dressed and go.

* * *

Da'an is recharging. I damp my energy as he's taught me to do, just so I don't
bother him. Besides, I came to work out my problems, not be stared at. I call up
a report I haven't finished yet, just to look like I have a reason for being
here.

I've just made a few notes for this report that I have to do anyway when Da'an's
energy stream ceases and the Taelon re-forms to look directly at me. "Is this
not an early hour for you to arrive for work?" he asks.

"I couldn't sleep, Da'an," I say to him, a bit more roughly than I intended.
Wish I'd stop doing that. Even though I like Da'an, there's some part of my mind
which insists that he is dangerous to me, that he will destroy me and finish the
job his ancestors started on my people. "I figured that I might as well do
something useful."

I can tell he doesn't believe me. That's not surprising, since I don't believe
myself. "Does something trouble you?" he asks.

"Just dreams, Da'an," I respond. "I couldn't get back to sleep after the last
one, so I came to work early instead."

"And what troubles you about these dreams?" Da'an says, apparently not knowing
when to stop. This is not what I came here for....

Finally, I shrug, figuring I'm never going to get out of here if I don't throw
him a morsel or two. "I never remember them. All I remember are bits and pieces,
scenes from worlds and places *I've* never been to...."

Da'an gets up, moving from his chair towards my desk. "There is nothing to fear.
The part of you that is human is dominant in you, and from what I have learned,
it is normal for humans to not be able to remember their dreams. And yours may
be merely expressions of other parts of your ancestry."

I try to stifle my frustration. Da'an isn't saying anything that I don't already
know. "I know, Da'an. But I wish there was a way for me to access those
memories."

"As you mature mentally, you should be able to access more of those memories
that you cannot access now."

Da'an sounds uncertain. I know that he, like me, has Kimera ancestry.
Unfortunately his is a bit watered down by passing generations whereas mine is
fairly strong. It's like being taught your family secrets by a distant cousin
who doesn't have any real idea of what they are.

Which reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask him sometime. "Da'an, why
were you so afraid of Ha'gel?"

His fingers flutter around, indicating his distress at my question. Tough. It's
not my fault that the Taelons were so afraid of my Kimera parent.

"Why do you ask this?" Da'an replies, seemingly unbothered by the question, but
I know him better.

"I'm exactly three months old today, Da'an. In that time, I've lost two of my
parents to the void, and I hope the third never finds out that I exist. I've
been deprived of the parent that could most help me get through this is one of
the dead ones. I know you've tried your best to help me, but there are
differences between the Taelons and the Kimera, and I can't help feeling that
I'm missing something important."

His fingers are fluttering again. I've made him think. Good. "I sympathize with
you for the loss of your parents, but you do not understand the threat that your
parent represented to the Taelons."

"What threat? All the Kimera ever did was to try to save your people from what
was killing them. It wasn't their fault your ancestors were a bunch of
xenophobic bastards."

Da'an turns an unhappy expression on me. "While I realize that your language use
is symbolic of your anger and immaturity, I must ask for you to restrain
yourself here."

I realize that I'm probably not going to get anything out of him if he gets
pissed off at me. "Sorry, Da'an. But I do have reason to be upset..."

The Taelon gracefully gestures with his hand. "Your anger is understandable,
even if your mode of expression is not. Your ancestors did save my people, but
in a way that terrified us. We did not want the blending that they were forcing
upon us."

"But that was a normal method for the Kimera..." I protest.

"We are aware now that the Kimera considered that a normal method for
interacting and working with other species. We are also aware that the Kimera
were only doing this because they could not imagine not doing so, giving some of
what made them what they were and taking some of ours to mix and pass along with
the rest of what they were to the next species."

"All they wanted was peace," I say grimly. "All they wanted was to give every
intelligent species that they could find was something in common, so that maybe
one species might think twice about destroying another."

"What you say is true, but to this day my people do not agree with the methods."

"Not agreeing with the methods is one thing. Hunting down the last survivor of a
species is another. You've never answered me. Why were you so afraid of one
being?"

Da'an's fingers are fluttering again. He's really getting distressed about this.
"We feared Ha'gel because we knew what he could do."

"He wouldn't have gone on a killing spree, Da'an. Kimera don't do that, even to
species that they can't stand. All he wanted to do was continue his species
before you had a chance to snuff it out completely."

"That is what concerned us," Da'an replies finally. "That he would find a way to
continue the Kimera and bring down what we had accomplished here on Earth."

I realize what Da'an means. "You were afraid that he'd find a way to conceive a
child. Me."

"The Kimera were experts at blending with any species. They had millenia to
perfect their methods. We were concerned that if Ha'gel managed to conceive
offspring, that offspring would be human enough to convince the people of Earth
that we needed to be distrusted and thrown off the planet."

Of course, I don't think that's what Ha'gel had in mind. In fact, I think the
only thing my parent had in mind was staying alive long enough to complete my
conception, and hoping that he'd live long enough to attend my birth. He didn't,
of course, but that's another story. "But I haven't done that."

"No," Da'an says. "Whatever purpose your birth served, it was not to interfere
with our presence."

"I don't think there really was a purpose. Or if there was, it's so buried
within me that I don't know about it. I have my own purpose."

"And may I ask what that is?"

It's not like he doesn't already know. "To help both species here realize that
the only chance for a future is to merge into a species neither Human nor
Taelon, but with the best characteristics of both."

"A very Kimera purpose."

"Not really. Just the view of someone who sees things a bit differently."

"Let us hope that we can bring your view to both worlds," Da'an says, before
wandering back to his chair and reseating himself. I relax a little as I realize
that Da'an isn't afraid of me. He wants me to live, for I may well hold the
future of both species in my hands.

My desk is not in his audience chamber because he's afraid of me. I am here
because he's afraid for me, afraid that the synod will find out about my
existance before I can aid him in getting what we mutually want done. It doesn't
hurt that, in some ways, that he is my parent and I am his child.

I came here to work things out by myself, but sometimes you do need to talk to
people and understand them better. As my mother's memories tell me, it's the
best way to know yourself. And that is probably one of the most important things
you can do.

-end