by Laer Carroll
Susuki said, "Waymon can answer that. He's switched several times."
"Four times, to be exact. The first time was to a woman. I wanted to know just in general what it was like."
"What was the main takeaway, or takeaways, from that?"
"The most obvious was the physical: sitting down to pee, how your weight changes when your hips are wider, your posture when your upper body has breasts to support, the ability to hear higher registers (not a biggy but noticeable)."
"And most obviously..." said the porcelain statue made flesh.
"...how different sex is."
"What are they?" said Jane.
"I'll leave that for you to find out," the obsidian man said with a smile. "When you change to a man. And back, supposing you ever do. Some of it's too subtle to put in words."
He sobered. "Less obvious are the psychic differences. The conversion process, unless you modify it, changes everything including the default brain and hormonal systems. I was startled to find that I could keep track of several trains of thought at once, and do it well.
"As a man, even now that I've been a woman, I'm much more focused on thinking one path at a time, to the point often of inability to focus on a second or other path."
"It makes," Susuki said, "Men better at focusing on a target than women, a remnant of their primary job of hunting animals for food. Women were the ones who stayed home and dealt with lots of competing demands on their time."
Gilear spoke. "Keep in mind, Jane, that we are talking generalities here. Individual women and men are not clones of each other."
Jane nodded. "You said you switched several times. Why did you become a woman again?"
"I wanted to have a baby. And have it from my body rather than the traditional way."
Jane blinked. "The traditional way. Being..."
"Having it by artificial womb. We've been doing that so long that it became the new traditional."
"But... The pain of childbirth... I can't imagine choosing that if you have another choice."
"There is no pain, not for over a thousand years. One of the first major gene-mods was to make childbirth physically easy. For us it's a few hours of physical stress and mild discomfort, no more."
Jane sat back in her chair and took a sip from her wine glass, mostly forgotten in her focus on what her dining companions said.
Did SHE have this gene modification? She already knew she would be forever young, was several times stronger and quicker than ordinary Earth humans, could think a thousand times as fast when merged with Robot, never got sick, and so on.
She hoped so. Someday she wanted a child. With Phil, preferably. He would make such a good father. Well, of course. He already was one. She'd seen him many times with his children by his first wife.
Waymon did not hurry her thoughts. After a minute or so he said, "Enough about me. You should know that Susuki here has done a body morph into a Cat."
Jane focused on the super-white woman. "Really? But Cats have SIX limbs. Wasn't that a problem?"
"No. Not while I was a Cat. That was sixty years while I was in the Ambassador Corps. It was when I transitioned back that it took me a long time not to try to do things with my middle limbs."
Gilear broke in.
"This is a big topic, friends. Why don't we continue it in Jane's suite?"
And so they did, chatting almost to midnight. The Galactics had plenty of stories to tell from their several hundred years of life, all well-practiced. Some were hilarious, some sad or serious. Jane was greatly entertained.
<>
Breakfast the next day was synthesized in Jane's suite, a seemingly perfect plate of scrambled eggs and crisp bacon accompanied by orange juice, with creamed and sweetened coffee for a digestif.
Midmorning Bayview spoke to Jane. "A woman named Lola wants to speak to you. She identifies herself as a liaison with the Guardian Service. Will you answer?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"Hello, Ms. Kuznetsov. May we speak?"
"Of course."
"May I request Bayview to reconfigure your surroundings to resemble my office?"
"Of course."
The table in front of the couch with its load of books rose a few inches, floated to one side of the living room, and settled onto the carpet there. The rest of the room transformed into a large airy office with a desk in front of Jane. Behind the desk was a large window overlooking a steep drop to a grey ocean under a grey sky full of rain. Jane's couch morphed into an easy chair, the middle of three in front of the desk.
The woman behind the desk was the same blue-haired one Jane had seen the day before. She wore the same or a similar form-fitting green uniform with gold accents.
Jane had switched this morning to a casual outfit she often wore: faded blue jeans topped by a light blue armless tee shirt with dark blue running shoes. Over it she'd thrown a deep gold long-sleeved shirt to act as a light jacket.
Lola said, "Are you comfortably settled in?"
"I am. I had a good meeting with your nephew and dinner and conversation afterward with him and a couple of his friends."
"Glad to hear it. Now, I've spent a few hours familiarizing myself with your stellar system and the problem you face. You seem to have created a capable protective force. It should be able to handle any threat the Frogs present. However, you would prefer to have a Guardian confront them rather than do it yourself, or at least accompany you in your own confrontation. Is that an accurate assessment?"
"It is."
"A Guardian's presence can be arranged. You'll have to get the authorization from the Guardian responsible for overlooking the security of the zone in which this planet resides. S/he'll be arriving here in about three weeks. Is that acceptable?"
Jane smile. "I'd like to talk to a Guardian this instant, of course. But I can wait. That would give me a chance to sightsee here. A not-unwelcome circumstance."
"Good. Now, I need to apprise you of some practical matters."
"Go ahead."
"None of the information I found in the latest update to the Encyclopedia entry for your system proves that the Frogs intend an attack on your home planet. However, it doesn't prove they don't, either. This being the case you should definitely confront them and ask their intentions. They may be truthful, they may lie. Whatever they say, you'd be in your rights to escort any forces inward and observe their actions. If they attack your forces or anyone else you could legally counter-attack.
"However, you would be in the wrong if you attacked them without provocation. Then the onsite Guardian would have to protect the Frogs with force, up to and including destruction of your defensive force."
Jane didn't like that. She merged with Robot so she could coolly and objectively review the Galactic Encyclopedia entry on Frogs. Had she mistakenly assumed the Frogs were a threat to Earth?
Distantly the superbeing heard Lola say
"Why
have
you
gone
to
combat
mode?!"
SHE ignored the distress of the Guardian Service official; Bayview was reassuring the woman.
"Relax.
She
is
only
reviewing
the
information
on
Frogs."
Jane had been correct. The Frogs WERE a possible threat to Earth. They had attacked and plundered human, Cat, and Lizard systems before. But only to rob them, not commit wholesale murder. They were more like the many tribal people of Earth such as those in the Middle East who considered anyone not of their tribe fair game for theft or cheating. They murdered only when unsuccessful in getting valuables covertly.
The Frogs might also merely be immigrating to the Earth system, specifically to Mercury's orbit to take advantage of the high energy from the nearby sun. From that location some fragments of their society might still try to steal from the other civilizations, but ordinary polic
e and citizen caution could routinely handle that.
SHE dropped back into HER biological component.
Jane said, "I apologize, Lola. I didn't realize that I might seem hostile when I went into cyborg mode. I just wanted to very thoroughly review the information on Frogs. It seems that I've jumped to conclusions in my study of the available information and of the data we've received from the Confederation sentinels and our own investigative drones."
The official examined Jane's face carefully for long moments.
"I see. You might be more circumspect in the future."
"I promise."
"Hmm. Well. I'm reviewing the data we're receiving from Bayview about you. It seems you are more highly augmented than anyone I've ever met. In fact..."
She paused.
"Bayview can't even assess just how augmented. The lung and dandruff cells you shed are totally wiped clean of DNA. Routine probes that Bayview does of your insides fail at your skin level. Your body does reveal, apparently voluntarily, that you contain at least two offensive weapons. And that your body contains some high-energy storage system."
Robot's routine paranoia relaxed minutely. It had been following events at its nanosecond time scale and, while not as generally intelligent as Jane, was super-intelligent in the specialized field of threat assessment.
Jane said as a double check of Robot, "You don't seem alarmed by all this."
"Confederation citizens, and those of the Cat and Lizard systems, have been genetically modified and technologically augmented for millennia. You are merely one more example, one I've never met before. In your time here you will meet many other varieties. Artists in particular experiment with all sorts of mods and augments--including none at all.
"Clearly you are from another human system than Earth, another Confederation system if I judge rightly."
"I am an orphan. I've speculated that I'm not from Earth. But I know nothing about where I'm from."
That was not completely true but she did not owe anyone information about her origins.
"Well, this has been very interesting. We'll contact you when the Zone Guardian returns and set up a meeting. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy your stay here. There are all sorts of sights to see and activities to do. My nephew has been waxing ecstatic about the two books you've gifted him with. I imagine he'd be very happy to be your local tour guide. And if not there will be many others."
"Thank you."
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
Suddenly Jane's suite reverted to its original appearance. Her chair became a couch and the coffee table lifted up and came gliding back to its original position.
Now what was she to do with all her free time?
<>
Her first act was to notify Gilear and his two friends that she was free for lunch. Her second was to drop down to ground level to shop.
The entire bottom floor was a high-ceilinged indoor mall the size of an Earthly football field. The salespeople were mostly force field simulacrums of real people controlled by robot minds.
Jane idly window shopped. The goods were not dissimilar to what she'd find in any upscale mall on Earth. She wondered at the economics of a civilization which could replicate in anyone's home any product whatsoever except living ones for modest amounts of energy, yet had shops where one could browse and buy those same objects.
The one product she wanted to get was a flying belt. After almost an hour of wandering she entered a shop which sold vehicles which flew, floated just above ground or water, and swam. It had a large showroom with holograms of various vehicles. As she watched the examples shown were swapped for others.
Jane approached a counter where a sales robot stood and told it what she wanted. The seller asked her about her experience with flying belts and what she wanted, then gave her several choices. She chose the most advanced one available but set initially to Beginner mode. Within a minute the belt shimmered into reality atop the counter.
The belt itself was about an inch wide, quite thin, and colored gold, the color she'd picked. The seller told her that she could tailor the color to her tastes and any outfit she might wear. An almost invisible buckle secured it around her waist.
Along with it came two coin-sized but paper thin discs which she placed on each temple. After they secured themselves to her skin through some attractive force a double tap on each turned them on or off.
Instantly Robot interceded. Rather than connect to Jane's brain directly the discs would go through Robot. They'd still act normally but indirectly and were inspected at nanosecond speeds for danger and malfunction.
Colored moving images appeared in front of Jane: instructions on how to use the flying belt. Jane went to cyborg mode and spent several thousand milliseconds absorbing everything the flying belt's information system had to offer.
"Thank you," she said to the ghostly salesperson. "I'll take this one. You can take funds from my account."
"You're very welcome, Jane," it replied. Jane recognized Bayview's personality behind the silent voice.
"Bay. Were you helping me with this acquisition?"
"No, dear. I just now looked in on you when you finalized your purchase. I'll leave you to play with your new toy."
"OK. Good day."
"You too, dear."
Jane headed for the nearest exit. On the way she passed by a man in black pants and white shirt under a black vest. He spoke to her.
"Everything satisfactory with your dealings, Miss?"
She'd seen him or another man or woman similarly dressed several times as she'd window shopped. They were usually standing and watching other shoppers. Robot's gravity sense revealed that he was material, not hologram visual or force-field virtual. She had guessed they were mall security or managers.
"Very much so, thank you."
"We hope you will come again."
"I will. Bye"
She walked outside the building into a plaza filled with picnic tables under round umbrellas of red and white pie-slice-shaped panels. The tables were widely separated with potted treelets between them. Dozens of people were sitting and walking about. The day was bright with a few filmy clouds in the blue sky.
Beyond the plaza was a green lawn the size of a football field. In two corners kids played games involving flying no more than ten feet above ground. Jane was reminded of Phil's Quidditch games.
She switched on the flying belt's traffic-assistance hologram. There appeared all about her images of the nearest "streets" and "highways" where flying was permitted. Near each were the names of the pathways and numbers of the lowest and highest speeds allowed on them.
She studied the images for a few moments. They were dim enough not to obscure the real world but bright enough to be visible. The farthest trailed off into invisibility.
She knew from the flying belt instructions that she could zoom in and out on the images. She gave the Zoom Out instruction, not with words but with wishes. The belt obligingly let her see the holograms as if from a distance.
She zoomed out even more, and more. The flying pathways formed a dense faint spider web close to the ground. Higher the allowed pathways became fewer and larger, extending all the way up to space.
She looked for and found one which would take her all the way to synchronous orbit where her spaceship traveled in its path around the planet.
The flying belt would not take her that high. But Robot's flight system would and quite fast too.
For now she needed to take baby steps. She switched on the lift field of the belt, again not with words but with wishes. Instantly the belt translated that to action and she became weightless.
Instinctively her body assumed the bent legs and arms-slightly-out posture it would take in the middle of a jump. This raised her body a few inches off the ground.
She desired to rotate around her vertical axis and she slowly spun to see the field from her new viewpoint. The sight of the building behind her came into view. She looked up its entire height. It s
howed a shiny grey checkerboard of windows and balconies.
When she'd spun a full circle she began experimenting with controlling the belt, tilting forward and backward in somersaults all the way over and just to lying horizontally in the air looking forward.
Confident she could control the belt she floated toward the nearest up-down corridor and entered it. It took her at a jogging pace up to a cross path. No one was in it nearby so she entered the cross corridor and began to move at a running pace toward the edge of the green playing field where a modest forest began.
The path lofted upward a couple of dozen feet to clear the top of the highest trees which appeared to be some kind of dark-green oak.
Higher and higher Jane climbed, moving faster and faster. The wind created by her passage grew greater till the belt's protective force field took over. The whistle of her passage ceased, at least to her ears inside the field. Outside it must still sound.
By the height of a mile or so a warning sounded. She was approaching the speed of sound. That was prohibited so close to the ground. She'd have to go higher if she wanted to go faster.
She did so. A few thousand feet higher the flying belt's force field began to supply air the pressure and warmth of air at ground level. This saved Robot from deploying its own force field space suit.
At three miles height the belt told her it could go no higher. That was quite enough for Jane. Here she was above the slight cloud layer covering this part of the continent. Off to the east in the interior she could see a line of mountains. They reminded her of the coastal mountain ranges east of her Los Angeles home.
Robot reminded Jane that she had a lunch date with Gilear. She immediately began dropping down and down through the traffic system toward her temporary home.
<>
Due to Robot's warning Jane was seated on the dining balcony where she'd eaten with him the previous day. Thus she'd beaten him to the balcony though not by much.
Alighting with him on the entry/exit flight stage was one of his friends, the white-skinned Susuki clad in a pants-suit of brilliant blue. Instead of Waymon accompanying her she had two other people. The woman was slender, had green skin, and wore a tight bodysuit of gold with a coarse quilted texture. The man was stocky, a bit unusual. All the Galactic citizens she'd seen so far were quite slender. His skin was a deep brown and his clothing a loose coverall of light blue.