by Ma West
“Species from third plant from the Sol star system, identify yourself!” Powerful and demanding, the voice rang out from all directions as if inside his head.
He responded verbally. “What?”
A solar map appeared in front of him. It zoomed in a few layers, where a map of this solar system lay before him. The display highlighted Earth. The voice rang out again. “Identify yourself, species, or we will do it for you.”
What an unusual question for purgatory. “Are you God?”
The voice responded. “No, I am the one asking the questions. What is your species identification name?”
“Why, am I being interrogated?”
“You are being cataloged.”
“By who?”
“By the ones who saved your life. Now quit being ungrateful, and answer the questions.”
“Why did you save me?”
“To catalog you.”
“Did you save my companion?”
“She will be cataloged too. Are you satisfied? May we finally proceed on to catalog? We do it with every patient.”
“How are we communicating?”
He felt a strong “ughhhh” sensation before the answer. “Through a translator stone.”
“Why can’t I see or hear anything?”
“Standard first-contact procedure. Now I insist, we must get on to cataloging. How does your species identify itself?”
“Human, are you not?”
“Have you not ever met another species before? Have you not ever been to other planets before?”
“No.”
“Well I’m not an information booth. I’m a cataloger. Save your questions for some poor sucker in the waiting room. Now let’s get back to the questions. Are there only the two variations of humans, or are there more?”
“Oh no, I don’t go for any other kind, just women, thank you.”
“So there are other variations? Please describe?”
“Wow there, missy, some doors I just have no interest in going behind. If someone wants to have a doc attach or remove a dingy, well that’s just not something I want any part of. Keep those doors closed is what I say is best.”
There was a pause before the alien continued. “The translator interprets your meaning to be no variation by natural occurrence. Is this a correct interpretation of what you just said?”
“Yes?”
Again came a pause before the questions resumed. “Are humans the only sentient species on this planet?”
“I saw a monkey drive a car once.”
Another audible sigh echoed in his mind. “Please, I am not a politician. I am not a scientist. I’m a data collector, so please just answer the questions I ask. We have many to get through.”
“Dolphins. Gotta say dolphins. Did you know I was sexually assaulted by a dolphin at SeaWorld?”
The questions came rapid fire, as if the being on the other side had stopped caring and accepted any answer given. Their nature was as disarming as the lack of quality control until they reached a most unexpected question: “Who is your Lord?”
A white haze filled her vision while a gel-like substance covered her ears. Two senses eliminated, the baroness thought to herself. All she could smell was her own breath, and no need to taste that. She moved cautiously and slowly. Her movement was challenged but not hampered, like walking underwater. Her legs had significantly less mobility, enough to find a comfortable sitting position.
Something touched her right forearm. She pulled it back, startled. The gripping object held, but only strongly enough to follow, not to control. It was a signal—it was trying to comfort her, and she relaxed. The tentacle’s grip slid lower, and she understood it to mean that she should release her fist. A polished rock was placed in her hand, and it quickly warmed.
A voice emanated in her head. “Being from the third planet of the star known as Sol, identify your species.”
She paused for a minute, gathered her thoughts, and focused them into the stone.
“My name is Veronica Mars, and I am human. Now I request you answer a question.”
There was a slight hesitation. “Request denied. Are there only two variations of human, or are there more?”
“Then answer denied. Now please let us not get off on the wrong foot. I feel like a cornered animal right now. I’m sure you can appreciate that, so please answer some questions to make that corner just a little bigger.”
“You humans drive me crazy! I’m very busy. Someone else can answer your questions after I have finished cataloging you.”
“Humans, how many others have you seen?”
“Just the idiot who pulled you off the roof, my dear. Now, my species has males too, and if you don’t keep them in line, they start jumping off of idiocy and into infidelity.”
“You saw us?”
“It made evening news after . . .” She felt a subtle warmth in an inner part of her brain before the voice finished the thought. “Going viral.”
“Where am I?”
“Ok, please let me finish my job after this question. I imagine there will be someone to answer your questions later. You are on the welfare ship.” An untranslatable alien sound crossed her mind. “You and your mate were brought here after one of the Arkapeligo scout ships caught you during your less-than-flawless escape from the surface. Now please answer the question. Are there only the two variations of the human species?”
Her thoughts swirled about. For the moment, they centered on him. That stupid idiot almost got her killed. Son of a bitch, she was glad he was alive so that now she could kill him. She calmed down and focused on the stone, answering the question. “Only the two, male and female, now please answer just one more question?”
“Fine, last one.”
“How do I look?”
“Why do you only say two types when clearly there is a third?”
“What do you mean?”
“A third type of human. It isn’t male or female yet. It’s,” she felt that warming in her brain again, “in your uterus.”
The questions were extensive and exhausting, many of which he simply didn’t know the answer to. They were specifically biological in nature, with an occasional cultural one mixed in. While No Tip was a prisoner, he didn’t quite feel like one. His senses had been hampered, his body invaded. Yet they demanded nothing from him other than what seemed to be required for medical treatment. His emotions were playing havoc with him. He found it hard to process and believe what he had just witnessed, yet he couldn’t deny his current state either.
Upon completion, or “close enough” as the cataloger put it, the thigh clamps released and a visual filter displayed a pathway for him to follow. The gelled substance acted as an escort, stiffening every time he tried to stray off the displayed path. He still had yet to see his captors, and that made him nervous. He needed to size them up, assess what kind of natural capabilities they had. They obviously possessed superior technology, but what they offered in natural capabilities would be much more telling.
The display arrows led him to a black wall with a panel on it. He tried to slide the panel, but it wouldn’t budge. He tried pushing on the panel; he tried pulling on the panel. He even tried to turn away, but his gel suit hardened. “Ok, I don’t get it.” He spoke the words out loud but received no reply. “Ok, computer . . . activate . . . on . . . interface.” Now he was getting frustrated. He felt his sides for objects that might be hidden in any pockets.
He cursed and tried kicking but only ended up hurting his shin on the hardened gel. He tried sitting down, hoping that the gel would harden as he neared the floor, but it didn’t, and he fell on his ass. His feet remained pinned to the ground as he tried to stand, but it was unmanageable with the placement of his feet and the restrictions of the gel. His thighs were burning, and he was sweating profusely. He gave one last thrust upward, at maximum allowable speed. He was approaching the top of his stance when a slight shift in his torso reopened his nipple wound, and he screamed, lost his u
pward movement, and fell backward. The gel supported him just enough at the thighs to bend his back, making it the most uncomfortable position possible.
His screams called attention, and several blobs of light began to move around him. Great, he thought, spectators, first human in space killed by equipment made for the handicapped. A warm, oily tentacle applied pressure to his back, slowly raising him to a standing position. The relief was immense. He moved close to the blob, and yet still his vision wouldn’t clear. He was unable to get a better sense of anything other than their outlines. These were tentacle creatures. His impression was of dozens upon dozens of tentacles extended from the top and bottom of its central barrel complex.
The tentacle slid down to his hand and wrapped around one time. He fought the temptation to pull away. He breathed and allowed his hand to be placed against the wall. The tentacle shifted its position farther up the forearm and then abruptly thrust his arm inside the wall. A warm beam scanned his palm, and a display on the wall lit up, showing some of his biometric data. Several shapes were displayed in boxes scattered across the monitor. He waited a minute for something to happen, but nothing did, so he looked at the shapes. One looked like a box, one like a chair. One looked like a coffin. One was a circle. He didn’t understand. He looked around, and several blobs were in the area, yet he couldn’t hear or see them. After a while, a tentacle grabbed his other hand and brought it to the monitor, where he touched a shape of a circle. The machine hummed and vibrated as it released his hand. Smoke lightly fluttered out, and after a long minute’s wait, there was a tone, and a smaller door opened along the bottom of the big door.
He bent down in order to go through it but was struck in the head and shoulder as he did so. The object smacked him in the head and stopped. He pulled back and discovered that the object that had hit him was circular, with two flat sides, about two-foot diameter, and soft on one side, hard on the other.
The visual display now highlighted a new route. Finally, he tried to walk it but was denied movement without the presence of his new object. The displays led him to a wall, where a cube area was highlighted. He couldn’t tell if there was an actual physical presence or if it was entirely visual. He stared at his new location, wondering what sort of stupid task he was going to have to perform with this, stool, he guessed. He hesitated before entering the cube—his prison, more likely, he thought. He tried to walk away, but his feet held firm.
After several attempts to get away, he ran out of ideas and simply walked into the cube. Again his feet would move him to where they wanted him, but nowhere else. The display changed, revealing another layer of clarity concerning his surroundings. A new message flashed across his eyes as he was assigned a patient number, followed by a smaller number, which he assumed was the patient-being-seen number.
He seemed to have free movement within the cube but was denied movement outside the cube. He began by searching the rear wall, physical enough. Maybe there was a control panel like the last location—nothing. Then he tried the floor—nothing but a cold, hard surface, like smooth black concrete. Nothing composed the side walls, just an inability to walk into or past them. His torso was free for all movement, but his feet were firmly planted on the ground and required force to move. He stood on his new stool and examined the ceiling, only to discover it was made of the same material as the floor.
Next he tried removing his gel restraints. Simply learning how to grab hold of the gel was difficult enough, and it took dozens of attempts just to get it right for the first time, and hundreds to become proficient. Although he’d accomplished grabbing hold of the gel, applying the pull-twist, tear, or pinch maneuver proved impossible. Every sudden movement was met with rigid force, every maneuver met with loss of grip. Even his thumb blade was useless in the gel-like substance, for it would immediately repair itself even as he cut. This was a prison he wasn’t sure he could escape from.
The thought consumed her, infected her mind. All thoughts of the new universe the baroness had entered were merely distractions. Thoughts of what had happened to her girls, her business, and her life never surfaced. She felt them though, like an elephant in a room full of elephants held back by the doors of life. Was she pregnant? Couldn’t be? No, she told herself, more out of hope and denial than circumstance.
The questioner ceased to answer any of her questions, but she answered theirs to the best of her ability. All of hers were answered with the standard reply: “I’m a cataloger, not a healer. Please direct that question to a healer.” Her thigh clamps released, and a new visual filter engaged.
She had a much better picture of her surroundings now, but still all persons were blurred, and nothing was completely clear. A yellow highlight displayed her requested route of travel, to which she acquiesced and followed obligingly. It led her to a display on a wall, next to a large outlet. A highlighted box appeared on the wall, and she pressed it with her left hand, which passed right through it. A warm beam scanned her hand, and a new display showed on the screen. She waited for a minute, trying to ascertain what the shapes meant. She scanned the room and noticed several of the blurred people scattered about, each with what appeared to be an object to lounge with. She got the idea that this was a waiting room and the shapes were a selection of possible furniture. Each guest had their own preferences, so each alien must have had their own as well. The choices on the display seemed to correlate to a chair, a foot stool, a bench, and a hammock—she was guessing on that one.
She pressed the bench, and the machinery behind the wall began to churn. She took her new bench, surprising lightweight, along the highlighted route. It led her to a cube in between two other occupied cubes. She gave her surroundings a quick once-over and then resumed her quest to find a healer. How she would recognize the correct blob was yet to be determined.
First she attended to her gel suit. It was too difficult to maneuver the substance, but it proved easy enough to hold in place while she moved out of it. The cold air on her naked legs made her thankful there were no other humans around. A long scar, well into the healing process, now appeared, running along both of her legs. She ran her finger along the scar, and a flashback of her legs snapping against the roof of the alien vessel flashed before her mind’s eye.
She left the headpiece on but was able to remove another filter by fiddling with it. While people were still blurred, their shapes were much more clearly defined. Most of the beings aboard seemed to belong to a race of tentacled blobs. Long, wavy tentacles bobbed innocently about above their silhouettes until called upon to perform some requested action. Others were much thicker and closer to the ground. At one point, she swore a flying cat passed her, right at eye level.
The waiting room was very large, with slatted walls running across at intervals so as to allow cubes to fill the entirety of the floor. She picked up on a small group of blobs traveling together and followed them for some time, until they arrived at a huge, towering shaft with large, slanted walkways speeding along the interior. The group traveled down, but her instincts told her that the healers would be up, more archetypal.
She tried speaking with a few of the blobs, but they acted disinterested, and without a stone, she couldn’t understand any of the sounds they made. None of the doors restricted her access, and most of the levels were filled with blobs simply waiting in their cubes.
She was feeling frustrated when her instincts picked up on something. It was a single blob, sitting alone along a wall of cubes. This would have been the floor below hers from her initial starting point, but at this point, it was the sixth floor she had visited. She hoped it would communicate with her, lead her to a healer, lead her to an answer.
She approached the blob carefully, slowly. It was alone, and she had no idea why. She considered how to begin, what to say, and opened her mouth to speak, but all her thoughts came out as a loud, weeping cry.
It felt like hours he had been sitting there, stuck stewing in his own thoughts, a toxic place if ever there was one. The only exc
itement had been when a blob a few blocks down and across went crazy. The alien pushed something along the wall, when a toner buzzed, bringing several new blobs to tend to the wigged-out one.
No Tip’s back was really bothering him now. First there were the girls, and then Big M, jumping from a building, and that stupid foot-stool machine—all in all, a pretty exhausting day.
His arm hair awakened, and his senses stretched out. Something was coming. It was moving fast, too fast to be another prisoner. He shifted his weight to his toes and slid his ass forward to the edge of his seat. If it entered, this would be an opportunity, an opportunity that shouldn’t be passed up. He extended his thumb blade. The creature was moving directly toward him—this was it. His heart pounded. As the creature neared, he noticed that it was bipedal—a surprising advantage for me, he thought. Familiarity would be where he struck. Four steps, three steps, lunge.
The sudden reversal in fortunes probably precipitated the action, slowing him down just enough to move at max gel velocity. The cry was distinctly human, and the voice familiar, even if he couldn’t place it immediately. It was too late, however. The cry was sharply cut off as his leg swept hers out from under her and caused her to fall hard on the floor. “Baroness?” he asked, bending down to help her up. “Is that you?” A warm, soft hand touched his shoulder and pulled, attempting to rise. He placed his hands under her legs and lifted. Soft, gentle lips touched his, and she kissed him passionately.
It was an amazing kiss. He couldn’t say that about many in his lifetime, but that would be one. Too bad it didn’t last very long, because before he knew it, she had jumped out of his arms and was pulling him down by the ear. Several open-palmed slaps followed. There must have been a slap following each of the seven words not allowed on TV. The baroness tried to say something more, but only tears and sobs came out, and she held him close, in the most loving way he had ever been held before.