by Robin Roseau
“I find it unlikely you’re offering tech.”
“I’m not. I’m exploring ways he’d practically beg me to let you work here.”
I laughed. “Now you have to tell me.”
“We’re going to open one or two more resorts, similar to Beginnings.”
“And?”
“And, I wondered if we should make one of them very high-tech. Entirely automated.”
“And?”
“And Hunt Robotics could have a very lucrative contract.”
“Oh shit,” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s a half-baked idea.”
“You’d do that to lure me here?”
“No. But I was trying to solve the problem you represent so that I can use you for my own reasons, and it occurred to me.”
“So, you would rather I not focus on that.”
“Yes,” she said. “Taisha, I can’t promise you everything. I can promise you that money shouldn’t be a factor. I can promise you that you won’t be idle. This isn’t entirely fair, but I consider this a short-term impediment to helping me solve a long-term problem, but I don’t know how to show it to you. It sounds like I’m not taking you seriously, but I am.”
I got up and walked away, staring at the wall with the view from Beginnings. Without turning around, I said, “I didn’t know what I wanted when I arrived here. I know my career is important to me. And I know the opportunity to meet some of you is important to me.” I thought about what I wanted to say. “I was entranced by Carolina the moment she walked out of the water. For a minute, I thought she really was a mermaid, and I don’t think I’ve really changed how I feel. And I found myself responding to Aventurine.”
“Is that what you’re calling it?” Skye asked.
“Yes, that’s what I’m calling it. I also really liked Forever Twilight, and if Makiko were interested in a relationship that didn’t involve beating me up, I really like her, too.” I turned around. “I haven’t had many girlfriends, and none of them was more put together than I was. We were all just kids, figuring stuff out. I’m so overwhelmed, I don’t know where to begin explaining it.”
“You want it all,” Audra said. “Hot alien sex and your career.”
“Is that wrong?”
“No,” she said. “It would be hypocritical for me to answer otherwise.”
“You know I can bribe you,” Jasmine said.
“Is that what this is? You’re deciding how to bribe me to play along with your scheme?”
“No. What this is about is trying to find the right answers.”
“Life is a compromise,” Skye said. “When you make one decision, you close off others. You can’t live on a mountain and beside the ocean at the same time. You might find a mountain near the ocean, but you won’t hear the surf at night.”
“Sure,” I agreed.
“If you let Forever Twilight have you, you won’t be sleeping with a warm Kitsune every night.”
“I get it.”
“There’s something that humans find nearly impossible to separate,” Audra said. “There is a relationship between career and financial standing. And that’s something the aliens can barely understand. They understand human reality, but it’s not something any of them have ever experienced for themselves. Their societies advanced beyond that millennia ago.”
“The Catseye operate businesses,” Jasmine said. “We understand business at least as well as humans, and far better than most of you. But it isn’t about individual economic need.”
“It’s about fulfillment,” Violet said. “That part we understand entirely, Taisha.”
“Let me ask this,” Audra said. “If you won the lottery, what would you do?”
“She doesn’t bribe me, so you do?”
“That’s not what I meant. It was the only way I could think of to separate the financial aspects from all the others. Would you continue to work at Hunt Robotics?”
I stared at her for a long time. Finally, I admitted, “I don’t know.”
“Humans have a hard time separating financial realities with fulfillment,” Jasmine said. “As Audra has pointed out.”
“Lots of ultra-billionaires keep jobs,” I pointed out.
“Not working for someone else,” Audra replied. “Would you start your own company?”
“No. I don’t know enough, and I don’t think I want… I like working with the tech. I don’t want to manage people, budgets, all that.” I paused. “You’re helping. Keep going.”
“All right,” she said. “Why did you get into robotics?”
“Because robots are cool!”
She laughed. “Seriously?”
“I got the doctorate because I wanted to be taken seriously, and Ph.D. after my name helps. And I loved it.”
“Intelligent people always love expanding their education,” Violet observed. “Keep going.”
“I loved getting the doctorate, and I was so proud.” I smiled broadly, just remembering. “Partly that was because of how other people would see me, but it was the biggest accomplishment of my entire life.” I paused. “It’s possible that helping to fix Muriel’s avatar will be the most meaningful accomplishment of my life.” I turned to Jasmine. “Don’t take that away from me.”
“I will if necessary to ensure you have other meaningful accomplishments,” she said. “Keep going.”
“AI and robotics represent the two biggest areas of research in the tech fields that have the potential to be life changing for all humanity,” I said. “Everything else is just… refinement. Fine, the phone is smaller, or bigger, or has a better screen, but it’s still just a phone.”
“Sure,” Audra said.
“And I didn’t want to be a tiny cog for Intel or someplace like that,” I added. “Working on something like your visors would be cool.”
“Okay,” Audra said.
“But robots. Here’s what I think. I think if a machine can do it, why would we let someone waste her time doing it?”
“I knew I liked you,” Jasmine said with a snuffle.
“And think of the jobs people do that are kind of dangerous,” I added. “I could make a robot that, I don’t know. Installed roofing on houses, maybe.”
“That’s a good use,” Skye said.
“How do you resolve moving to the space station with wanting to make cool machines to help people?” Audra asked. “If you build it up there, it’s not like you can send it back here.”
“I suppose that would be too expensive.”
“You said you don’t want to create a company,” she replied. “You said you would expect to be put to work on the station, and I’m pretty sure that’s true. But it won’t be making robots for humans. It will be important work, but you’re not going to build a roofing robot up there.”
“Well, maybe that’s plan B,” I said. “It would still be meaningful, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know the jobs up there, but I imagine that yes, you would have meaningful work.”
“But Jasmine wants me to stay here.”
“She wants to know if you’re open to the idea, and what roadblocks need to be cleared. Do you think you could form a sentence that begins with, ‘If I were to have my ultimate dream fulfilled…’?”
“All right. Hmm. If I were to have my ultimate dream fulfilled…” I thought about it then asked, “You’re talking like you’ve been to the station.”
“We took a vacation.”
“So that’s possible?”
“That’s possible,” Audra said. “But Violet and Posey will give Skye and me anything we ask for, so you’ll have to make sure you wrap your wife around your finger.”
Everyone laughed, but I thought it might be true.
“Then… My dream. I’m not making demands. You asked for my dream.”
“Your dream. No limits.”
“I want to meet as many of the ETs as I can. I want to make friends with them.”
“That part is easy. Keep going.�
��
“A trip to the space station.”
“Via Saturn,” Skye said.
“It’s not exactly on the way.”
“Oh, please,” she said. “No one takes the direct route. Head to Saturn then hang a left.”
“Could I walk on the moon?”
“Easy,” Audra said. “Ask for something hard.”
“Mars?”
“We did,” Skye said. “We told you to ask for something hard.”
“I want…” I thought about it. “I want to build a roofing robot.”
“Specifically for roofing?”
“No. I want to be involved in the team that brings everyday household and light industrial robots to humanity. Roofing is just an example. I don’t know how many roofers fall off roofs.”
“Is that it?”
“Can I have all that and a hot alien wife who treats me as well as Posey and Violet treat you?” I paused. “And.”
“And?” Audra said. “We’re not done dreaming.”
“I don’t know how to put this.”
“Living in an underground bunker sucks, and you want a view?”
“Yeah.”
“Violet,” Jasmine said. “She’s right. I think you should look at the implications of creating a village in one of our coves.”
“I already did,” Violet said.
“Did you?”
I looked back and forth between Jasmine and Violet, settling on Jasmine. “Is this some game?”
“No,” Violet said. “I didn’t tell her. We’ve had bigger issues. Jasmine, I think we should offer to let people live here.”
“I think I can build a small village for our use without talking to the council. I can’t make a more expansive offer on my own.”
“Then we probably should discuss it.”
“Probably not in front of unaligned humans,” Jasmine said.
“Agreed. There’s a beautiful location south of Beginnings. I gave Posey permission to bend the skids, and we flew it in eight minutes.”
“From startup?”
“Yes.”
“So… fifteen-minute response the next time Taisha has a medical emergency.”
“We’d have to keep staff here,” Violet said.
“Look,” I said. “You could build houses outside, normal houses with real windows. The view would be the forest. Green is nice, and real sunlight is nice. Why are you underground?”
“Because the person who built this facility had just spent a long time living on the space station and was agoraphobic.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, actually.”
“And how long have you been here?” I asked. “Seriously, Jasmine.”
“I’ve picked my battles. That was one I wasn’t ready to pick.”
“Do you need permission to live in a decent house? Is it about money?”
“I don’t know if I needed permission. It’s certainly not about money.”
“Jasmine is what humans might refer to as filthy rich,” Skye said. “But it’s not like she’d hire a human construction company.”
“Not here,” Violet said. “But we could for the place I have in mind.”
“Who else have you talked to.”
“Dry Rain.”
“The Wookie?” I asked.
“Yes,” Audra said.
“I want to add to my dream.”
She laughed. “Wookie hug?”
“Yeah, and isn’t Yvette D’altrea, like, your best friend or something?”
She laughed again. “I’ll introduce you the next time she’s down, or we’ll pick you up if you’re back in California when we go visit.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I like this dream thing,” I said with a big smile.
“If you don’t ask, you don’t know what’s possible.” Audra shifted her gaze. “Taisha wants to help humanity. I think you’re on board with that, Jasmine.”
“You’re right,” Jasmine said. “I am. Violet, why didn’t you come to me about the village? Is there a reason?”
“Jealousy.”
“Excuse me?”
“Some of us need to live here,” she explained. No one said anything. “Seriously, I thought the new resort took priority, and I wasn’t sure I wanted divided attentions.”
“Let me ask more bluntly. Do you think we should build the village you investigated, or haven’t you come to any conclusions?”
“I think we should talk about it,” Violet replied. She paused. “Excepting Taisha, it is my opinion the people in this room need to live on site as well as the current medical and emergency staff.”
“Then I want us to investigate more pleasant choices for us,” she said. “Taisha is right about that. How soon can you have a proposal to me? Could you have a tentative model?”
“Andie, I could use some of Bay’s time.”
“Of course,” Andie said. “You’ll need to share him with Felicia and Taisha.”
“I shouldn’t need more than a few hours, and it’s the sort of thing he likes to do.”
“Good luck getting him to limit himself,” Andie said with a smile.
Jasmine turned to me. “I believe that handles housing. For now, you need to trust me regarding your professional concerns. I know we can help you with your goals, but I don’t want to make promises more specific than that.”
I stared into her eyes. “Did you just tell me I shouldn’t plan on returning to California?”
“I think I told you that, unless one of the species that requires…”
“More creative mating rituals?” I supplied.
“Sure,” she said. “Unless one of them asks me to claim you, that you have choices that do not involve returning to California. Are we wasting our time, Taisha?”
“No,” I said. “But I think you know how humans work.”
“I do,” she replied.
“I want to meet people,” I said. “As many as want to meet me, as want to spend time. Males, too. Can we do that?”
“Yes,” Violet said.
I felt tears. “Really?” I asked. My voice cracked.
“Really,” she said.
“Thank you.”
We sat for a minute, then Jasmine said, “Did you have more you wanted to discuss, or should I retrieve Muriel?”
“I think I’m done. I probably have more questions, but I need to let all of this settle first.”
“Then I’m going to get Muriel. Can someone pick a happy movie we haven’t seen before?”
* * * *
There was a small theater room downstairs. Andie said it was the informal, multifunction entertaining area, but it was already set up for watching a movie. “We’ll settle once Jasmine gets settled with Muriel,” she explained.
“May I help hold her?”
“We rotate,” Audra said. “This was one of the things I used to convince Muriel to give us a chance.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She was ready to die. I think you can understand.”
“Oh,” I said. I turned to Andie. “Jasmine has to let us finish the avatar. Her current one is good, but the new one is far superior.”
“Jasmine will do anything for Muriel,” Andie said. “Short of extreme risks. If she can justify it to herself, she’ll ignore Muriel’s protests.”
It was only another minute or two before we heard footsteps. We turned, and Jasmine appeared, Muriel cradled in arms and tentacles. It was perhaps the most tender thing I’d ever seen. Audra stepped over and greeted Muriel, but the rest of us waited until Jasmine was settled at one end of one of the sofas, carefully adjusting the helpless woman until she was sure she was comfortable and could easily see.
I thought the sofa was poorly placed, at an odd angle, but I realized now that wasn’t an accident, as it let Jasmine hold Muriel so the woman would have an excellent view.
The rest of us filled in, beginning with Audra beside Jasmine, and Posey beside her. I was off
ered seats, and I said, “I probably won’t stay there, but if Muriel doesn’t mind, I think I’ll sit right here.” And I plopped down on the floor and leaned against the sofa. Jasmine made a small adjustment, moving one of Muriel’s legs so it was just touching my shoulder. I reached up, over my shoulder, and Jasmine guided Muriel’s hand into mine. It was awkward, and I wouldn’t stay like that for the entire movie, but I could for a while.
“You have a new admirer, Muriel,” Violet said.
“My adoring subjects,” Muriel replied. “What movie?”
“I thought we should watch a James Bond,” I said with a grin.
“Don’t say it,” Skye said.
“Octopussy was really good.”
“Like we haven’t heard that one,” Posey said. “Minus five points for a complete lack of creativity.”
“One million,” Muriel said. “Minus five. Can afford.”
I laughed and squeezed her hand.
* * * *
They paused the movie about a third of the way through. “Posey and Taisha can help me,” Skye said. “What kind, Muriel?”
“Surprise. No crunch.”
“Fruit?” Skye asked.
“Yes. Thank.”
She didn’t ask anyone else, but Posey offered a tentacle to pull me to my feet. I followed Skye upstairs and to what I discovered was the kitchen. “What am I helping with?”
“Dishing ice cream,” Posey said. “Do you want to be treated like one of the family tonight?”
“Yes,” I said immediately.
“Then take more than you’re going to eat,” Skye said. “The Catseye like to sample.”
I was in awe, watching them assemble bowls of ice cream. It wasn’t just the ice cream. They had various sauces, and fresh fruit prepared to add. “One of the mating candidates got all of us hooked,” Posey explained. “But we’ve made our own tradition.”
Some of the resulting concoctions made my eyes bug out of my head. I couldn’t believe someone wanted to eat some of the combinations. Posey laughed and said, “No accounting for taste?”
I smiled. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Yours is boring. You should add some sprinkles.”
“Ice cream shouldn’t crunch. I’m with Muriel on that. I don’t put nuts in brownies, either.”