Our curiosity knows fathomless depths when exploring other worlds. Great stories can manifest with an Earth setting. But take the culture of that planet and use it as a narrative device when communicating with alien species with their own customs, and it makes an incredible story on its own. Films like Arrival and Stargate have touched on this theme, where humans and extraterrestrials build an understanding of the other by learning each other’s language and ways. In Michael Reid’s short story, ‘The Transmuted Child,’ which appears in Issue 268 of Interzone, he makes his own indelible mark on this by prompting the question: what happens when thousands of Earth people accept a gift from an alien culture that modifies their children beyond recognition?
In the opening paragraph, Reid instantly manifests his world. A weight of suffering is discernible as we read about Sister Dao Nghiem, from holy order located at ‘Cloud Forest,’ and the companion she is shackled to: a girl called Esmonde. The more the story unravels, the more we get a sense of all the years of Sister Dao’s sweat and pious devotion to her order and its quest to aid malfunctioning children and ultimately return its meditation centre back to its intended spiritual purpose. The Sister’s dedication is felt in the brown robes which she pulls tighter around herself for protection against the elements…and for strength on her lone errand.
Light years away from Earth, the two have landed on a foreign planet. The sister finds herself immediately lost upon disembarkation. She speaks no other language other than her mother tongue, Vietnamese, and mastering the alien ‘Erkess’ dialect proves difficult as it relies on rules unfamiliar to her. The ‘fish-out-of-water’ syndrome we as tourists feel when alienated in a foreign landscape is not lost on readers here. The girl Sister Dao travels with usually helps her communicate, however, as we are quickly told, she is mentally subdued by a mysterious trance. This ‘malfunction’ of hers is set up through strong evocative language in the second paragraph. A sense of foreboding is created that casts a shadow over the story’s whole premise: there is something incredibly wrong about the girl. She’s a prisoner. She doesn’t react to her world the way a child her age should. She ghosts along, but is crippled inside somehow. As Reid writes: ‘Any other child seeing an alien world for the first time would be excited or afraid. Not Esmonde. All she sees are the demons she’s brought with her from Earth.’
Tension is already fierce in the beginning and it only escalates. Fear is shackled to fear. We quickly get a sense of Sister Nghiem’s dilemma. She is morally and duty bound to protect the child as much as she is observant that she must, for the good of all Cloud Forest, see this mission through. Their combined objective is to appeal to the Erkess Senate and ask them to correct the mistakes their modified implants have made to Earth children. These manifest in nightmares and hallucinations the young girl experiences as she slips in and out normalcy, to empty entrancement, to feral child. The destruction of her humanness, which is said to have become permanent in so many children that have gone before her, shows the vulnerability of the Earth humans. They now must place their trust in these translucent, body-shifting aliens who they desperately depend on to alleviate the grievous errors they have caused.
A powerful story of two characters sharing a journey, each enduring their own pain, Michael Reid’s tale creates a fascination with interspecies interaction. Its greatest effect however is showing that even an advanced race can make terrible mistakes. It also posits how we make meaning of our suffering through symbolic characters like Sister Dao Nghiem, who draws strength from prayer and her uttering of Heart Sutras, and our wariness of ‘others’ who operate with unclear intentions.
By J.K.A. Short
