We distributed the remains of a dead child amongst ourselves, ingesting each organ with reverent ceremony that mirrored communion.

Believe it or not, this had been the child's dying wish.

Her name was Guessica, a devoted servant and friend of our kind.

Her cold unclothed body lay on a bier of sticks and animal skins. Out of respect, precise surgical cuts had been made to remove the organs while keeping the exterior structure and flesh intact. Her face will not be mutilated in any way.

No sauces or spices have been used. We devour the flesh cold. This serves to again remind us that this meal, presented amidst a vast jungle teeming with meat, is not something we do lightly, nor is it a thing we should make a regular practice of.

There will be no recipes, no eleven herbs and spices, no twist of lime to add flavor. We consume a friend.

When finished, we are to sew the body up and prepare it for burial. The smaller organisms of rot will serve to complete Guessica's final act of giving, distributing nutrients into the surrounding soil. We will attempt to plant Earth plants in this area.

Only I and three others of my kind partake of this ceremonial meal. the queen Shasharmazorb, my great-grandmother, the one famous for battling the Ripley woman, and Lammy and Amos, my two younger siblings.

Friends of the deceased, those who can stomach the sight of human cannibalism, stand in a semicircle around us, observing the proceedings with reverent respect.

With the exception of Hosea and Sarah, they are cult members who have, for reasons unclear to me, deified those of my species. Two male adults lead them, Golic and Tido, the former relatively clean cut and well shaven, clad in a red jumpsuit, the latter in camo, horse faced, head shorn all the way to the scalp, save for a pony tail.

Two children stood by them, both in army clothes. Bo Peep, an African American with hair in cornrows, and Absolute, a plump Korean boy.

The woman Hosea, mocha skinned, thin, with a curving little nose like a bird beak, is a Ss'sik'chtokiwij trapped in a human's body, is technically my little sister, but as much as she wanted to participate, we were concerned about her health, both psychological and physical. Human meat would either make her sick, or require cooking, something which Ellen, our leader, expressly forbade us to do.

Sarah, the other female, the one with blonde hair and a gray jumpsuit, having been born a clone with little exposure to the outside world, observed our ritual with wide eyed fascination rather than disgust. She wished to absorb as much of reality as she could, to make up for all those years she'd lived in isolation.

A pair of the sturdier blue natives, Mulcow our guide and tribal chieftain Kihxumaj, stood alongside them, their gold yellow eyes reflecting a wary respect, possibly fear.

We are Ss'sik'chtokiwij. The humans call us Xenomorphs. We resemble enormous ants, of white coloration at our larval stage, shiny black as we grow older. Our teeth, ordinarily translucent, now dripped red with the blood of our dear departed friend.

Before this ritual, we had our memorial service. Since many among us believe in Jesus, the ceremony had Christian content. Unlike what we did at present, my entire team, my family and community had been in attendance, the less religious individuals observing in silence.

A family of Abreyas presided over the ceremony. Abreyas are humanoid creatures with furry bodies, three to four foot long opossum tails and hairless human-like hands and faces.

Pillow Barnes, a female with guinea pig-like facial features and a severed stump of a tail, led us in some very beautiful Earth songs, He'll Bear You Up On Eagles Wings, Lord You Have Come to the Lakeshore, and a few others from the planet Pathilon as well. Her husband, a human named David, gave the sermon from an altar he, Pillow and their adopted daughter Sharad built from rocks they'd found in the area.

The husband and wife had three infants, Nathan, Quana and Haman, plus David's fully human illegitimate son Pontius. During the service, an older woman named Camille (David's friend) and our leader Ellie (a half human half Ss'sik'chtokiwij clone) took turns caring for them and keeping them quiet.

Ellie's burly companion Moe (also a clone, but with no Ss'sik'chtokiwij characteristics) took care of her other three charges, a little blonde named Caitlyn, Luke and Mark, the latter two cloned from strains of DNA unfamiliar to Human, Abreya or Ss'sik'chtokiwij, assembled from a radio transmission from a distant star.

Surrounding all this were the hairless blue skinned natives of the planet, the Tamtiwa, whom we have grown to accept as friend and neighbor.

The Tamtiwa have feline features, not to be confused with the homely pig snouted Na'vi inhabiting the northern reaches of the country we occupy.

The Tamtiwa are peaceful fisher folk who dwell in a network of caverns surrounding the Great Jasmowo Crater Lake. Although they had been frightened of me at first, these gentle creatures now recognize me as a friend, and a boon to their otherwise struggling economies.

Few raised complaints during this ceremony. Even the Tamtiwa, who needed the rituals and speeches translated into their own tongue, understood the concepts readily enough, and did not protest what was being said.

The interment, however, caused many to shudder and go elsewhere. I was assigned the duty of calling everyone back when the child had been sown up (I picked up my sewing abilities from mother).

As great-grandmother passed me the child's heart, I looked at it, opened my mouth, and hesitated.

Of all the Ss'sik'chtokiwij, I am the most stricken in conscience by this act. Although I have killed and eaten a few soldiers in my efforts to free us from imprisonment in a human military compound, to devour a friend's body fills me with sadness, and a question arises in my mind: Would mother have done this?

Mother loved humans.

I am quite possibly the only alien of my species to ever hatch from a human being without killing the host.

For reasons I do not understand, my method of conception is difficult for most humans to accept, more so than if I had merely ruptured a victim's internal organs and burst from their rib cage, as in a traditional birth.

At mother's request, the Abreyas, being technologically advanced, created a special womb for me, one which simultaneously allowed me to be birthed like a human infant and protected the host body from internal damage. As far as I know, I am the only Ss'sik'chtokiwij to be born this way. I love both my parents, and would never kill or lay eggs in the human that birthed me.

My mothers and I live on a planet called Pandora, in the Alpha Centauri galaxy. We used to have a spaceship, but an army from earth shot us down.

The atmosphere of Pandora is toxic, but I have recently been impregnated with a helpful symbiote which allows me to breathe the air without mechanical assistance. For the first time in many days, therefore, I have had complete freedom to go where I want, do what I want, and sometimes, when hunger strikes me, to kill and eat whatever intelligent animal I want.

But even better than that, I have a true sense of belonging, to both family and tribe, something which has been denied to me by various government agencies since birth.

A sudden animal scream interrupted the quiet of this somber occasion, the fronds of hundreds of jungle plants exploding outward to reveal an army of horned pig faced creatures, all armed with shiny metal daggers and clubs. We ducked as a thousand arrows rained down from the canopies of nearby trees, some blazing with fire.

Their screams were like the squealing of pigs. Some of them fired pistols at us.

"Aywa!" they cried. "Ixec Aywa jod Neytiri!"

I hissed in pain as one of their bolts buried itself into my shoulder plate.

"Who are these creatures!" I called to Molcow, our interpreter.

"They are the Puvjong Na'vi!" he answered. "They possess the evil magic of the devil gods! Unless your magic is stronger than theirs, I suggest you run!"