I thought about this. “Where?” Takanli would be preferable.
“The far side of the moon, Mars or Venus. The Galilean moons of Jupiter are also possible.”
We considered the options together. NASA had orbiters circling Mars taking photos, so that was out. Jupiter was a lot further, although not significantly by Cruiser standards, and her icy, irradiated moons were perfect; but then the Juno probe might show up and spoil the show. Venus’ cloud layer was tempting also, but probes travelled there fairly frequently for a speed-stealing slingshot, and to test out radar equipment which would certainly pick up something metallic and man-made like Phoenix. The moon just felt weird, as if it were too close. People had walked there. Not nearly remote or safe enough.
Two hours passed as we worked out a solution. The first problem was getting the Cruiser safely from the lake. That would have to wait until tomorrow. We had to get it out, into space and away before anyone knew it had been there. And certainly before any divers decided to head down there and see what it was.
“Your companion is still upstairs, you know”, Hal reminded me. “Let’s not ignore her while working this out.”
Shit, of course. I headed upstairs to see if she was awake. Opening the door to leave the living room, I found Gemma sitting on the stairs, wearing one of my t-shirts and little else.
Oh, Christ.
“Good morning!” I began cheerfully. “Did you sleep well? Coffee?” I made to head towards the kitchen but she cut me off.
“Where is Takanli?” I think my heart might have stopped for a second.
“What are you on about?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I heard all of that conversation. Your ship is in a lake in Snowdonia, right?” A hard lump of panic materialised in my throat and refused to leave. “And some divers found it, or think they have, and now you want to hide it on the moon? Or send it to Jupiter, or something?” She had a hardness in her eyes, like a woman betrayed. She looked ready to kill me with her bare hands.
“Hal and I were just throwing around some ideas, that’s all…” Not nearly good enough, and I knew it straight away.
“Is Hal from Takanli?”
Shit. There was absolutely no way out of this one. I took a very deep breath. “Why don’t you come into the living room. Hal and I will explain everything, I promise.”
I got her a bathrobe from upstairs while she took a new look around the room. “Good morning, Hal. Did you hear all of that?”, she asked.
“Yes, Gemma”, Hal answered. “It seems we need a bit of a chat.” We got comfortable and I opened my mouth to explain everything, from the beginning. Gemma stopped me immediately. “I’d like to hear it from Hal. I’m not sure I’d believe anything you said right now.” Ouch. I kept my mouth shut.
“Hal, why don’t you tell me what’s been going on?”
He cleared his throat rather theatrically and began. “About two months ago, a deep-space research spacecraft from a planet called Takanli visited the Earth and abducted him.” Gemma’s head swivelled round to look at me. I kept a level gaze. “He was taken to Takanli using an untested, experimental drive system which accelerated his body to several times the speed of light. The journey took forty years, but his body was in a form of stasis which rendered him unconscious and suspended the ageing process. He experienced various hallucinations but arrived otherwise unharmed.”
“Forty years?” she gasped.
“On arriving at Takanli”, Hal continued, “he was subjected to a battery of tests which were designed to discover the psycho-chemical basis of the human emotional system. These tests were very successful. The purpose was to generate a vaccine through which the native humanoids could rediscover their own hormonal potential, which had been suppressed in government attempts to generate the perfect society.”
“How long did all this take?”
“He was on Takanli for only three months but gained an enormous amount of celebrity and status. Accompanied by several other delegates and advisors, he then journeyed towards the Outer Rim of our system in order to solve a protracted and complex dispute. This was a major success and the Council, the leading group on Takanli, permitted him to return to Earth.”
“Why come back? You’re famous out there.” I kept silent.
“He had learned of the various catastrophes which would engulph the Earth in the next generation or two, and was desperate to help. He made contact with an advanced science team on Holdrian, who agreed to assist him by sending his ship, the Phoenix, back in time to 1967. He then made the same forty-year journey in reverse, arriving back two months ago by essentially crashing the Phoenix into a lake fifty-six miles from here, in the Snowdonia National Park. Since then, he has been involved in creating and putting into practice an elaborate plan to stave off the impending environmental and social disasters by providing cheap access to space, limitless energy from orbiting solar power stations and a space elevator constructed from materials mined from an earth-orbiting asteroid. He also met you, which I know was rather an important event.”
Gemma stared at the black, obsidian box on my sofa. “How much of that was total bullshit?”, she asked, tears welling up.
“None of it”, I answered. “Every word was true.”
She sat and stared out of the window for several, long minutes. At least she hadn’t actually started crying, I noted. I don’t think I could have dealt with that. She seemed to be working things out in her head, checking the facts against her perceptions of reality. Was this all possible?
Finally, she turned to me and said, “I’m going to need to see some proof. OK, you’ve got a talking computer who can design things, but what about this ship? The Phoenix?”
“It's difficult to show you the ship right now, Gemma”, I began, steadily, “as it is in 300 feet of water. But, if you really want to see it, maybe take her for a spin… I’m sure we could work something out.”
Hal piped up. “I think someone in this room is out of their tiny mind.”
“Hey, go easy, Hal, I’m trying to make things better, here.”
“By exposing the project to the maximum amount of potential publicity? What are we going to do, fly Phoenix out of the lake, land at Cardiff airport and whisk you both off to orbit for a day or two? Maybe a quick walk on the moon? Be serious.”
I had thought of that. “Why not Relocate over?”
Hal thought about this while Gemma gave me a puzzled look. I explained the basics of Relocation, including the relay infrastructure required. This was only fifty miles, I reasoned. We’d only need a couple of stations.
“OK”, signed Hal. “Ready for your next little surprise, Gemma? Wake up, boys!” He whistled cheerily and my two little construction robots shot out from under the sofa and went through their self-diagnostic routines, flexing arms and morphing tools from one type to another. They seemed in great shape.
“What the hell are those?” Gemma gasped, somewhat horrified by the sudden, mechanical display.
“Gemma, meet Brunel and Wright. They make things. The printer-shaped fella in the corner”, I motioned to him as he emerged from under a side-table, “is Forager, who can produce any material we need. Let’s start with a quick demonstration, shall we?”
I went to the kitchen and got a pitcher of water. “Gemma, would you do me a favour and pour this into the little funnel at the back of Forager, please?”She did so, warily. I winked at Hal. “How about a bar of gold? How long would that take?”
“Nineteen seconds”, was the prompt answer.
“Go right ahead.”
Forager went to work, almost silently. The only sign of the phenomenally complex physical processes going on within the little machine were the sequences of lights which blinked on and off. Gemma looked on, not a little perplexed. I didn’t know if this mind-blowing experience would help or hinder, but she needed to be introduced to the other results of my relationship with Takanli. I guessed this was as good a way as any.
Twenty seconds aft
er the instructions had been sent, a bar of gold about a foot long, four inches deep and five inches wide slid out onto Forager’s output tray. It gleamed, highly polished, and I invited Gemma to touch it.
“It’s real”, she said, trying to take this in. “How was it made?” She was taking it as well as I could hope. At least, throughout this discussion, she had yet to totally freak out. I believed then, and now, that this was largely because I wasn’t claiming to be an alien, just to having friends from other planets who enjoyed making a gift of incredible feats of technology.
Gemma was still handling the gold, somewhat stunned, when I took her hand and led her to the kitchen. We stood by the sink, where the replicator was hidden behind its cupboard door. “What’s your favourite food for breakfast?”
She thought for a second, gave me a strange look. “Muesli and toast with jam”, she answered, slightly wary. I opened the cupboard and ordered the food from the replicator, which whirred instantly into action and, within seconds, had produced a bowl of muesli, a jug of milk and four slices of toast with a range of jams in small bowls.
“Bon appétit”, I offered.
We spent most of the day talking things over. Hal was brilliant, putting together presentations and examples which helped Gemma to take in the leaps of technology Takanli’s scientists had made. We went through some of the forms of radiation I had experienced, and their medical benefits. We demonstrated how the replicator and Forager used water as a base material to produce any other material, through an understanding that all matter is made from the same indelible stuff – energy – and that with the right tools and know-how, this fact can be exploited.
Hal showed her pictures of Takanli and episodes from my stay there as portrayed on the local Net. I was grateful to note that he left out the racy stuff, which actually must have comprised the majority of Net output relating to me. We watched part of the televised debate from Numkli and the speech I gave on Jakalzzi when the crowd were all buzzing on Ecstasy. There was even a video of the Phoenix leaving Holdrian, and another of us approaching the vortex, which the ship’s computer had grabbed at the last moment, and exchanged with Hal during the long cruise.
She had a thousand questions. But first, I wanted to make sure she wasn’t too weirded out. I thought of her as a level-headed person, and figured I would find out fairly shortly if this were true.
“I’m sorry to hit you with all this. I know you found out by accident, which can’t have been pleasant, and you would be forgiven for thinking of me now as a liar.”
We were sitting on the sofa with freshly replicated coffees. “You didn’t lie, exactly, but you hid an awful lot of truth.” I nodded. “On the other hand, how the hell do you go about telling your girlfriend that you’ve visited an alien planet hundreds of trillions of miles away?”
She was coming onboard steadily, I was delighted to see. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of another human being knowing about all of this. I could share it with someone. It would no longer be something I had to deal with alone. That felt better almost immediately.
“I mean, they’ve got some amazing technology…” She had loved Forager’s trick with the gold bar, and I let her play with the replicator. “You could really help people. I mean, there’s your project, which is so great, and there’s the medical stuff, too. You could cure cancer, couldn’t you?”
I put down my coffee. “Yes, I could. I could cure every disease we have. I could develop a vaccine which would wash away the faults in cell division which lead to ageing, and we’d all be rooted at the age at which we received it. You could stay 29 for life”, I added, “and never look a day older as long as you lived.” She was quiet now, considering all of this.
“Between us, Hal and I could add to the longevity of every human. 1000-year lifespans could be routine. We could give away learning machines which would render traditional teaching virtually obsolete, enabling people to absorb a University degree in seconds. We could even modify the hormonal responses of humanity, through a vaccine, to render war almost impossible and altruism ubiquitous.”
Gemma just stared at me. The power that we now had, the incredible power. “So why don’t you do it?!”, she almost yelled. “Why don’t you help?!”
I sighed and put an arm around her. “I want to. I’d love to wipe away all of our problems. I do want to eradicate all the diseases which render us feeble and sick, and take away our loved ones. But humanity is on a journey, and it is a long and difficult one. It is exactly this difficulty”, I said, turning to her, looking her in the eye, “that pushes us forward as a race and as a society.” She held my gaze. “If everything was given to us gratis, without our having to strive to achieve it, what kind of humanity would we have?” She was nodding slightly. “A lazy one”, I said, answering my own question. “A bunch of spoiled brats who think that everything should arrive on a plate, without us having to learn, or work, or compete.”
“So, how do you contribute? With all of this amazing technology, what are you going to do?”
“We’re going to make atmospheric pollution unnecessary and then flood the world with high-quality resources. We’re also going to provide free access to space to anyone who wants it.”
“Why? Why not cure cancer first?”
I sighed again. She wasn’t quite getting it. Or perhaps I had spent so long working on the project already that its efficacy and logic was crystal clear to me. “Because our scientists will cure it soon enough. They’ll stay on top of most of the killer diseases. I’ll help a little, maybe, and I’ll be sure to leave a couple of insurance policies lying around”, I said, trying not to give too much away. “But all of these achievements, cures, vaccines, breakthroughs, all of these should be human achievements, not imposed from outside.”
She chewed this over, turned back to Hal’s presentation, still on the screen, regarding Takanli and her system. The planet looked neat, immaculately clean, ordered. Like one of the utopian civilisations from Star Trek, which always had hidden flaws which would undermine it and bring fresh challenges to the spirit of the Prime Directive. Wasn’t the moral of those episodes all about facing challenges together, about accepting where things need to get better?
“Once the orbiters are operating regularly, and we’ve got the asteroid capture underway, I’ll explain my plan to the people of planet Earth. They will think of it whatever they want. There will be panic, in some sectors. Some will refuse to accept the level of change I’m offering. Or, I guess, insisting on.” I shrugged. “If no-one insists on change, it won’t happen. It is too easy for us to carry on as we are, destroying our only home. Gemma, I’ve seen it…”
The memories returned and my eyes welled up. We held each other as I told her what this street, this house would look like in forty-five years’ time. About the diseases which ravaged us, just as our medical and other services began to collapse. About the massive, international, all-seeing corporations run by greedy bigots and fools, who withdrew basic services because we refused to be their slaves, to give them the allegiance they sought. I told her about the nuclear exchanges, the burned-out cities, the massive casualties. Incalculable deaths, countless, millions on millions. The death of all that could have been.
“It must be stopped”, I sobbed into her shoulder. “No-one else has the resources, the vision. You’d need a huge, co-ordinated global effort and every time I see the G8 or the UN discuss this, we take another step sideways. Never forwards, never bold or strong. Just capitulation. Just weakness.”
It was almost dusk by the time we both felt we had talked the whole thing out. Gemma had learned more in one day, she said, than during any other day of her life. I hugged her, kissed her, told her how sorry I was that things had to be weird, that our wonderful relationship should have to absorb this unwelcome new pressure. She was tired, she admitted. Time to think about the next few hours, about getting Phoenix out and to safety.
“Hal, I’m going to put Gemma to bed. You and I will work o
n the plan, and then I’ll grab forty winks myself. Babe?”, I handed her the Inducer, “would you put this on your head?”
I lay her down in my bed as she drifted off to sleep, pulling off the last of her clothes. I kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips. I couldn’t resist planting a gentle kiss on both of her breasts, one on her tummy and a few light, subtle kisses on her pussy. I enjoyed breathing in her scent as she fell under the Inducer’s spell. Finally, just for fun, I parted her pink lips and tasted her juice from her entrance. More tomorrow, I knew. I kissed her cunt once more, pulled the covers over her, and left her to rest while Hal and I put our heads together.
Forty minutes later, we had it. Gemma called my name from upstairs and I joined her in the bedroom. “Wow, I can’t believe how early it is!”, she said, astonished at how rested she felt.
“Neat little machine. My turn now. Get anything you want from the replicator and hang out with Hal. Brunel and Wright are working on something in the garage, and you’re welcome to check that out. I’ll be awake in less than an hour.”
She tucked me in, as the Inducer took hold, returning the little favours I had done her. She kissed me warmly, letting me suck her tongue just briefly, and placed kisses over my body, from my neck down to my stomach with its toned muscles, to my resting cock which responded to her at once as she licked my shaft and slid my tip into her mouth. By the time she released me, leaving her saliva on my member, I was asleep.
Chapter XXXIX: Day Tripper
I heard laughter from downstairs as the machine returned me to wakefulness. Today, I thought to myself as I padded down the stairs, is going to be a truly interesting day. Perhaps the most challenging since I’d been back. We were going to get back on track, and I was going to blow Gemma’s mind in several ways. I whistled merrily while the replicator produced coffee, croissants and juice for us both.
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