by J G Clements
“Do what?”
“Feed that animal.”
“The chipmunk? He looked hungry and I had enough to share. Anything wrong?”
“No, not wrong.” She seemed to gather her thoughts the released a tsunami. “Do you sense in yourself a need to be helpful? To share, as you say? There are others…,” I think she was searching for a word again, “…that would consider it wrong to help a lessor creature. Their sense of ‘rightness’ would come from each animal taking care of itself, with no intercession on their part.” Tilting her head to look at me, “Does that make sense to you?”
I mulled it over for a second, looking for an opening. She had done this sort of thing a few times in the past, playing some sort of thought-games. I always wanted to impress her, either to convince her that humans weren’t stupid, or at least that I wasn’t. “But what is to say that my previous behavior didn’t somehow disadvantage the animal, and thus I was only making up for past errors?” I smiled at my cleverness. Then again, I often do.
She liked my reasoning. I could tell. “So you believe it’s possible to correct past mistakes by altering what you do in the present? Even if you can’t identify what the past mistakes were?”
This took a bit longer for me to think about. I sipped the tea, and looked out across the mountains. “I think it’s important to try.”
She seemed pleased. I had probably passed some sort of test. I suppose. Or maybe not. I struggled to stay serene and alert. Don’t think I was very successful. Maybe she was just bored talking about birds. Reaching into her left trouser pocket she removed a piece of paper and handed it to me. “We’d like you to recruit this person. We think he’d be helpful in making us better at what we are doing.”
No further explanation would be forthcoming, nor would I ask for any. This is usually where our meetings ended. I started to reach for my pack, but something remarkable happened. She asked me to wait, and I could tell she wasn’t comfortable. In all the times I’ve met her, she’s never been anything but totally graceful, poised. But now the silence was awkward.
“Recruiter”, the only name she uses for me, “Recruiter, do you find me interesting?”
I didn’t hesitate. I have no defense against her. I wore my heart on my sleeve, if only she could see it. “Yes. I think you are fascinating,” I would like to have used a different word but didn’t have the courage.
She seemed to think this over, making a decision. “Do you think if we no longer needed to conduct business with one another…that you would still find me interesting enough to spend time with? Or would you prefer to go about your life and not see me again?” I was about to answer her, but she didn’t give me the chance: She had a more pressing question. “Do you think of me as a human, or something alien?”
I had a ready answer. I had thought about this almost everyday for twelve years. “I would miss you terribly if we could never see each other again. And yes, I see you as a very attractive human female. But one that I think was not raised on this planet?” I made my last comment provisional, hoping for clarification.
“That’s very kind of you. But completely backward. I am alien, but I’m in a body that is pretty much human by now, and becomes more so each day.” She didn’t give me time to do a double take but plowed on. “It’s not that hard. You know how you can harvest conscious minds from bodies that are failing? My mind was harvested into this body. The body was grown without the use of DNA, just protein signaling. But my mind is, or was, not of your planet. Are you ok with this? Does it change your opinion of me as human? Could you accept me as a human female, or would I always remain something alien to you?”
For a second, I was tempted to detour into the how this was done to her, but I knew they did work with growing cells without DNA. In fact, I think that’s how they rejuvenate some of the folks I recruited. And if she had taught me anything, it was not to become prisoner to tangent thoughts. The biology or science of this was not important. She seemed to know a little of what I was thinking and didn’t give me a chance to answer. She was no longer totally poised, but now seemed awkward. I was fifteen years old again and having a first date. But she had more to say, almost bordering on babbling.
“I was chosen because I probably think more like a human than some of the others we work with.” A small smile crossed her face, she was thinking of something, some private joke. “And that I’d be patient enough to work with you.”
Her comments were ‘place holding’ comments…not needed but just filling up a gap in the conversation so I could order my thoughts. I hadn’t answered her question yet, and she was talking to give me an out. An out I didn’t need.
With an act of courage I thought I would never be able to muster, I held my hand out to her. Looking into my eyes as if trying to understand my meaning, she put her hand in mine, then continued to look me in the eyes to see what I would do. I more or less blurted out, “I see you as feminine. And I would like nothing better than to be with you. I was never certain if you were human, but I realize it doesn’t matter to me. To me, you are so poised and calm, that it’s a bit un-nerving. But in your presence, I feel exhilarated and privileged. Sometimes, I fear I am embarrassing myself in front of you. That I’m babbling and you’ll think less of me.”
An enormous amount of awkwardness drained away from both of us, but to be replaced by uncertainness. Locking her gaze on me, “No, I would never think less of you. You have insights into things that I can only marvel at.” Then, she placed her hand against my cheek for a second, and smiled. “It’s you who might be better off thinking less of me.” The, withdrawing her hands, she folded them into her lap, “But you will form your own opinion over time, I’m afraid. So, I come back to the question. Do you find me interesting enough that you would like to be able to speak to me whenever you wish?’
“Yes. I would consider it an honor. And a pleasure.”
“Then I promise that today will be the last time we will part.” I saw two meanings to that, but discarded the one I didn’t like. I’m good at that. She unfolded her hands, and traced the pattern of the tattoo on my collarbone. I think there was some mild electric shock because I jumped a bit. And then her voice was in my head!
“Hello, Recruiter.” I must have looked surprised, but her laughter erased any trace of embarrassment. “Can you say hello back?” I think I just blinked for a second, and she enjoyed my reaction. I said ‘yes’ out loud, but she shook her head. “Just say it in your mind.”
It was as easy as it sounded. In a few seconds, we were conversing. And even better, emotions seemed to be as easily transferred as thoughts. I seized on this, and in a brief instant we both knew what we thought of one another. The emotional transference was perhaps more profound than being able to form words with one another. In an instant, I knew she cherished me as much as I was in love with her.
Then just as easily as I accepted this new ability, my mind found a problem. Something else I’m good at. So I spoke out loud. “Will you be able to hear everything I am thinking?”
“No. You need to form the thoughts and then address them to me. I’m sure your mind is a very interesting place, but there wouldn’t be room for both of us.” Along with these thoughts came laughter. Then speaking out loud, “And I would think you would tire of hearing me discuss new ways to cut my hair?” I’m sure that she was thinking about substantially more important things than that. The Earth was targeted for destruction and she was working on how to prevent it. “You must also know that the reason I wanted to forge this mindlink is twofold.”
She hesitated…twice in one day. A record for her. Then out loud, “One reason for our mindlink is that I will need your help in the coming weeks. Things are happening and though we will be far apart, we’ll need to inform each other of events.” I knew that things were happening, bad things. There was a rumor that the McKinsie Fleet had run into something out near Mars. I suppose this might speed up whatever timetable she had.
It took a second as I digested
this, then realized that she hadn’t mentioned the other reason. So I waited. We faced each other for a few seconds, and she knew she had to answer my un-voiced question. “And I think you and I are very compatible with each other.” She actually blushed, a bit. And I was dumbfounded. “Now, we are going to have time to address that, but right now I need you as my Recruiter again, alright?”
There was no argument on my part, I was too stunned by the last few minutes. Still, I needed a snarky comment. “As long as you kiss me goodnight each evening?” She laughed in my head, enjoying my snarkiness, but also recognizing my desire. If she liked my sense of humor, we would get along great. I hoped. But if she didn’t like my sense of humor, I could take it out and shoot it.
“I will be very busy soon, but I promise if you say goodnight to me, I will answer, no matter where I am.” It seemed more like a vow to me than a mere promise, and I felt that maybe I overstepped myself. Just because I could speak to her, what did she call it? A mindlink, didn’t mean I could be a jerk. Well, I’d need to work on that. Being a jerk I mean. She must have felt my misgivings, and added. “I would be flattered if the last thing you did each day was to seek me in your mind and say goodnight.” Then in a smaller voice, barely discernible, “I truly would.”
I did not make that promise to her, I didn’t need to. I would do what she asked and I vowed to myself that I would always say goodnight to her. Remaining silent, a few more moments passed, then I felt in her emotions an imperative: There was some place else she needed to be and I was keeping her from it. I knew this audience was over and it was time for me to leave: What ever I could be, I couldn’t be selfish. So, standing, I retrieved my pack and slung it over my shoulder. Patting the paper in my pocket I spoke out loud, “I’ll get right on this. Probably tomorrow night, if that is acceptable?”
She nodded, then lowered her head, as if in meditation. “That would be fine.” But then with my new-found courage, I reached down and helped her up. Standing, I looked her right in the eyes and let my words form in her mind. I let her know again my feelings for her. I still saw the uncertainty in her, and realized that the mindlink made her vulnerable to me. It would only go away with time, and only as I proved myself to her. Simultaneously, she had given me a great gift and a great burden. I was only beginning to appreciate that fact.
The emotions that leaked from her told me things. There was a deep imperative in her to be somewhere else, but also a longing to remain here with me. Not to be selfish, I looked at her a last time, then completed another act of courage. I took her hand, and kissed the back of it. Her emotions flooded my mind, and I realized that it charmed not just Earth women. But sensitive to her imperatives to be elsewhere, I retrieved my backpack and started down the mountain. I never looked back, and was several miles down the trail before I read the paper. “Captain Tom Adams”, then a room number, a floor, and the name of the hospital he was in. Fine by me.
After all, I’m the Recruiter and this is what I do.
Chapter 2. Jim-88
Ceres Report:
The solid fuel rocket was almost enough to get me off Earth and into orbit, but I used the liquid thrusters anyway. I didn’t really need the extra thrust, but I did need to burn off the fuel in the top two tanks. My ship wasn’t designed with a cabin: During launch I was in a small capsule called the Mule. Its about the size of a phone booth and couldn’t provide life support for more than twelve hours. But once the two fuel tanks were empty I vented the remaining propellent to the vacuum of space and moved in. The hydrogen tank was to be my living quarters and mess, and the oxygen tank was my workshop and head. In one stroke of design, I had more living space than any ship NASA had ever launched. Dragging empty fuel tanks around is stupid.
Two of us, Mike-12 and myself, were out to look at harvesting any ice we could capture and also to prospect for asteroids that might have useful metals. Typically, we travel one right behind the other, a couple thousand miles apart. That might sound like a lot but when you think about the distances we were traveling, it’s not.
We were also two of the more unique ships: We were both nuclear powered. As you can imagine, the fact that nuclear reactors had been launched, illegally or not, from an independent island nation in the Pacific, was not the sort of thing we were emphasizing. But to get out this far and back, nuclear was the only way to go. All we had to do was find mass we could heat-up and use as a fuel. When you get it to a plasma, it’s actually over a hundred times more efficient then normal liquid-fuel rockets. Water is the easiest material but any liquid would work. Water has a bonus feature, however: You can split the water, using the nuclear reaction energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen when you have excess time. Stored in separate tanks, you can burn it as a combustible fuel in a non-nuclear ship. Both materials need to be stored cryogenically, but in space this was easy.
It was going to take months to get out as far as we wanted, and we were usually coasting to conserve our fuel. We had found a large chunk of ice that would make getting home a lot quicker. But with full tanks, we were still outbound looking for anything else we could catch. And until we did, there wasn’t much to do. To pass the time, we had the radios on, playing card games with each other and listening to the ball game. Earth Station was always glad to act as a 24 hour a day entertainment center to the fleet. They were directionally beaming the ball game in real time and it really helps to pass the slow periods. Otherwise, things were pretty quiet, meaning nothing important was broken on my ship for a change. I was spending a lot of time in my greenhouse, trying to get things to grow. I wasn’t all that good, but I had a green thumb compared to Mike12. With the fact that we only have prepared and packaged food, anything green that we could grow and eat is amazing. I never take lettuce for granted anymore.
Mike-12 and I had been coasting for the last several days. We had set the ice chunk on a trajectory back toward Earth, but set it up so we could catch if again if we needed a refill. Now with our fuel tanks replenished, we were hoping to rendevous with some more objects further out. It would be another couple of weeks before we turned to go home.
We did slight burns, very low thrust, for about 10 minutes twice a day. Just enough to give us a little gravity. The reason is clear to anyone who spent time in space: Certain bodily functions are so much easier to carry out in gravity, even a slight gravity. Otherwise, when not working in the gardens, we play on-line card games. The official fleet game is a particular role-playing fantasy game. We get a lot of flack from Earth correspondents about why real-life astronauts need to play fantasy games but that seems to be the nature of newsmen…criticize everything. We also use a virtual currency called ‘whuppie’. I’m not sure I understand it, but I don’t really understand how normal money works, either.
It was Mike’s turn, and he was just about to bring a card back from the graveyard. We were face to face across the computer screens and at only a thousand miles apart, there was no discernible lag time with the transmissions. Just as he was about to play the card, I could see Mike’s face get a puzzled look, like he was listening to something. Then, just like that, his image was gone. Only static left on my screen.
It took my brain only a second to discard why what I saw as normal. Instead, it had already figured out this wasn’t good. I glanced at my own console…reading top to bottom, all my lights were green. I still had signals locked on from the station, the moon-fleet, and from two other ships I was keeping tabs on. But Mike’s signal was gone. And not just the video, I mean his carrier wave.
I was just finishing examining my console when the klaxons went off, and the ‘Mayday’ signal was pounding on my ears. I killed the sound as I buckled my seat harness and knew what I had to do next. I knew where his last position had been, and I was checking my nav computer on how long it would take me to get to him. Then I realized that wasn’t my top priority yet. My top priority was to make sure that what happened to him didn’t happen to me.
Checking everything I could think of, and turning of
f anything I wasn’t using seemed prudent. Not just my ship, I was more or less turning my brain around from a relaxed mode to a sharply focused one. Sue had said when I get like that, I’m not really fun to be around. That’s fine, cause I know I’m operating with as much of my brain that is willing to pitch in and help. There was nothing to suggest that I was in any danger, but I decided to forego wearing the seatbelt and got into my spacesuit instead, leaving it open but with the helmet floating on its tether.
At the risk of sounding macabre, most of us always have programs running, plotting rescue vectors to known locations. For the better part of a week, one of my computers was doing nothing but plotting what it would take to get to his location, updating our relative location and velocities every few seconds. But there is a catch. Did I want to get to his location at a zero relative velocity or get there as fast as possible but just shoot past? I was mulling this over while I was firing up my search lights to look for his ship. We don’t have radar on our ships but bright search lights are almost as good at finding objects floating in space.
If Mike’s ship had been struck at high velocity by a meteor, there would probably be nothing to find…just cooling debris. But Mike had shown himself listening for a second, indicating that whatever happened had at least given him a second or two to respond. Meteors didn’t do that. No, something else had happened, like maybe a bulkhead blowing. Whatever it was, he had had a couple of seconds warning. Hopefully enough to let him get into a pressure suit. So I was hoping to find out what happened from the mouth of Mike himself.
It took almost five minutes…an eternity to my nerves. I located him not by the search lights, but by tracking his emergency beacon. A good sign that he had the time to get it operating. Our ships have an automatic one….no one needs to be alive to trip it. But this was a personal one….you gotta turn it on yourself.