Quarus

by S J MacDonald

  When the third image came up, laughter erupted through the theatre, in which Tom Holland himself was laughing as heartily as anyone. More so, in fact, as he saw himself exposed like that and how ridiculous it was. The third image was that of a movie-star hero, snake-hipped and ludicrously over-groomed, with a brilliant white smile that went ting and a purring, macho sensuality.

  ‘This is perfectly normal for humans,’ Silvie observed, with a chuckle. ‘The insecurity that makes you think you’re unattractive in some way, and the effort to present yourselves as you would like to be seen. Confusingly, how you want to be seen varies incredibly depending on the company and situation that you’re in, so if Holly was in a meeting with the skipper, his wannabe would look like this.’ The third image changed to that of an extremely smart, professional young officer, radiating keen efficiency from every pore. ‘It took me ages,’ Silvie admitted, ‘to get to grips with this constant changing of who you think you are, it’s like you all have multiple identities and chop and change amongst them all the time. But this, you see, is what you look like to me, I can see all three at the same time. How bright the images are depends on how energetic and emotional the person is at the time, and the relative brightness between them depends on how insecure they are feeling and how hard they are working to present themselves to others. This image…’ she went back to the movie star version along with the others, and dimmed the lights in the theatre so that she could illustrate her point more clearly. ‘This is how Holly looked to me when we met at breakfast.’ The central figure became strongly bright, the snake hipped version considerably less so, and the insecure podgy-legged one was scarcely visible at all. ‘This is Holly feeling perfectly at home, relaxed. If he was feeling anxious and under pressure, being evaluated in some way, he would look more like this…’

  The central image faded and became foggy, as the insecure version became vivid and the movie-star version positively strident.

  ‘And this,’ said Silvie, ‘is what Holly looks like when he’s tired.’ The central image remained, though dulled, but the other two faded almost into obscurity. ‘I do like sleepy people,’ Silvie observed. ‘It’s the closest you ever get to being sane. Though there are some exceptions…’ She deleted the holo of Tom Holland and flicked a grin at Alex as she put up three images of him. They were identical.

  ‘This,’ Silvie said, ‘is what I mean when I say that the skipper is gorgeous.’ A ripple of glee at that, and many glances at Alex, who just grinned. ‘This is what a fully integrated identity looks like,’ Silvie explained. ‘He knows exactly who he is and is completely okay with that, feels no need to put on a show to impress anyone. His only duality is this…’ the central figure assumed a very cold, severe expression familiar to anyone who had seen Alex von Strada in formal or public situations, while the other two were giggling helplessly. ‘Or this…’ the central figure remained stone-faced while the other two were clearly furious. ‘But we’ll look at that more when we come to emotional states. For this part of the module, you should understand that when quarians look at you we do see a triple image – sometimes even more, some of you can manage four or even five identities at once – but generally, the physical, the self-image and the image you want to present to others. When those are quite similar and balanced it’s just about possible that a quarian – other than myself – will be able to cope with it. When they are wildly different or out of balance, though, it is actually distressing – this, for instance, is what Jen looked like when she came aboard.’

  There were gasps, and some exclamations of dismay. The central, real image of Jen as she’d come through the airlock was barely present, as was the dim ghostly image of the way she looked now. Dominating the trio was a cringing, trembling, petrified mess.

  ‘This is what it looks like when insecurities have taken over. And this is what Jen looks like now.’

  Three images, all of how Jen actually looked now, no insecurities, a fully integrated and harmonious sense of herself.

  There was a spontaneous burst of applause, which made Jen laugh and Silvie shake her head in mystification.

  ‘I just want you to understand,’ she said, ‘how quarians will see you. The work pack which accompanies this module contains an exercise in which you’re asked to modify an image of yourself into a triad like this, and I would ask you to be really honest about that and then to sit back and look at it the way that quarians will see you. If you think that your insecurities need work or that it would be helpful to change your physical image to be more like the way you’d like to be seen, there will be opportunity for therapy and makeovers. But nobody of course,’ she added conscientiously, ‘will be asked or come under any pressure to do either. So, that’s physical appearance. Now – personality.’ She grinned. ‘Those of you who’ve seen Jen doing spot readings will know how that goes; a first general impression and then dominant character traits, the things that make that person who they are. For those of you who haven’t seen that before, we will demonstrate – Jen, please.’ She gestured to the stage beside her, ‘Spot test.’

  Jen went up on the stage and settled herself with a little roll of her shoulders to relax them, a deep controlled breath and an air of rooting herself firmly – the tree visualisation, as anyone who’d attended one of Rangi’s meditation classes could recognise at once. Then she closed her eyes and just waited.

  Silvie pointed at Hetty Leavam and beckoned her up, laying a finger on her lips to indicate that she was to come up on stage without speaking. She did so, not hesitating for a moment. Things went very quiet. Everyone knew that Silvie herself said that Commander Leavam was pretty, which seemed very improbable given her less than prepossessing exterior and rigid, humourless manner.

  ‘Put your hands like this, please,’ Silvie demonstrated, holding her hands out slightly, palm outward, and when Hetty had done so, Silvie guided Jen’s hands so that they were touching palm to palm.

  Jen immediately burst out laughing. ‘Oh, too easy!’ she exclaimed, but then picked up the vibe from Silvie and went on, ‘Yes, okay, I know, work it through. So…’ she composed herself again. ‘Crystal,’ she said. ‘Shining, flashing, sparkles … very like the skipper, but not. Scent of something… citrus. Fairness. Things must be fair. It is absolutely essential that things are made fair, and just, and right. And she will fight for that against any obstacle, nothing will stop her, no mountain too high, like a knight in sparkling armour. Lovely, heroic – Commander Leavam!’

  She took her hands away, opened her eyes and acknowledged the IA officer with a laughing, ‘ma’am’, which Hetty responded to with one of her thin, tight little smiles.

  ‘Full marks,’ Silvie said. ‘Though as you said, rather too easy.’ She nodded to Jen, who returned to her seat in the theatre, but kept Hetty Leavam on the stage beside her. ‘I would like you to see,’ she told the crew, ‘what I see when I look at Hetty.’

  On the screen behind her appeared the triad they’d learned about in the first part of the lecture.

  ‘Note, again, the fully integrated identity,’ Silvie pointed out, as all three images were the same. ‘As Jen said, very like the skipper. But when we add in the personality…’

  Standing behind and above the three, as if on a podium, appeared a fourth version. This one was clad as a warrior, as if from a historical fantasy, with crystalline armour and a silver broadsword. Sparkles gleamed in the air around her. It should have been ridiculous but somehow it wasn’t. The image was one of strength and nobility, like the statue of a hero. There were murmurs of surprise, a few titters, and then from nowhere, gathering applause.

  Hetty bore it stoically, merely casting a glance at herself portrayed as a sword-wielding heroine, and giving Silvie a resigned glance. She waited out the applause, clearly unmoved by it, and then returned to her seat as Silvie released her.

  ‘Anyone want to see what the skipper looks like?’ Silvie asked, and at that there were shouts and whoops of encouragement which turned rapidly into shouts a
nd whoops of delight when she put that image up. This time, behind and above the identity triad was the personality, the essential core of who Alex von Strada actually was. It came as no surprise, really – he too was a warrior, though a rather more modern one with a pistol at his belt rather than a sword in his hand. He was a dashing adventurer, too, with a rugged explorer’s outfit and a twinkle of bright-eyed mischief.

  ‘And Tom…’ Silvie put his image up, and Tom Holland was revealed as a gallant young knight. ‘Anyone spotting a pattern, here,’ said Silvie, ‘it is no coincidence. Nearly all of the people on this ship have that courage, strength and dedication to service, all of you have that zest for adventure, and all of you have some degree of that warrior spirit, too, or you wouldn’t be serving in the Fleet at all, let alone going front line with the Fourth. There are some interesting variations, though…’

  She changed the image again, and this time it was Commander Jonas Sartin who stood revealed. His physical appearance triad looked strong – self-image, physical and presentation were all very similar and no one of them garishly brighter than the others – and the personality image did not look very different, either. He was wearing Fleet uniform – quintessentially who he was. But instead of the flashing sparkles which had surrounded Hetty and the others, there was a cloud of cogs and wheels all ticking and whirring busily. Musical notes sounded in brisk, precise patterns and harmony.

  ‘Never get tired of looking at Jonas,’ said Silvie, ‘such a lovely bright tick-tock mind. The only other person I’ve met like him is Barney…’ she looked across the gym to where several of the Second’s team had squeezed themselves in. ‘And there’s a case study, if you like.’ She grinned, worked on her comp for a moment and put up an image.

  There was a confused buzz in the audience. They had learned enough now to recognise that things did not look right. The identity triad was skewed. The central, physical appearance was very much dimmer than both the others. The self-image was that of a sleepy, bored looking youth who looked as if he might yawn or give a dismissive ‘Whatever!’ at any moment. The way he presented himself to the world was almost dazzlingly bright, revealing that he was putting considerable effort into getting people to see him that way, and that was the same as his actual appearance, the dreamy-eyed, vague academic. Behind them, though, was the reality of a brilliant, sharp-edged mind flickering with rapid calculations.

  ‘Why do you do that?’ Silvie asked. ‘Pretend to be the clichéd absent minded professor when you’re not?’

  ‘Sheer laziness, frankly,’ Professor Barnholdt was the wave space physicist who’d come to upgrade the Naos system. ‘People expect it, and it’s easier to go along with it than to fight their expectations all the time. And it is also admittedly extremely functional for me – it means I don’t have to bother remembering people’s names, for a start, and when people think you’re this helpless absent-minded genius they do things for you. I never have to do my own laundry or shopping or anything back on campus. But I guess…’ he was aware of some indignant looks from colleagues who had already fallen into the habit of doing things for Barney, ‘I’m busted now, huh.’

  He clearly didn’t mind very much – was more interested than offended – and there was some laughter.

  ‘You sure are,’ Silvie agreed. ‘But you should know that this kind of dissonance between who you really are and who you show yourself to be will be regarded by quarians as a form of mental illness. Seriously,’ she said, as there was more laughter at that, and they quietened down, looking at her attentively now. ‘It is mental illness as far as we are concerned, a form of personality disorder which we consider to be as serious as you would regard something like schizophrenia. I know, I understand, that it is quite normal and even common for you to construct these false identities, pretending to be something you’re not, and it may, as Barney says, even be a good thing from your perspective, functional for you. But deceit of any kind is a very difficult concept for quarians to get our heads around and what little we can grasp about it is so offensive to our own moral code that we find it really disgusting. So if you are doing that, pretending to be anything other than who you really are, you need to be aware that when you meet quarians you will be as unpleasant to them as someone ranting in the street and stinking of excrement.’

  She looked pointedly at Barney and he stared back at her with rising horror and remorse.

  ‘You mean…’ he saw the answer in her face and grimaced painfully. ‘Sorry. I had no idea.’

  ‘No, of course you didn’t.’ Silvie said. ‘And I would not have said anything before – I am a visitor in your space and I cannot expect you to change who you are for my comfort or convenience. And besides, I came to learn about you, not to try to change you. But things are different now, because you’re going to my world, and there, it will be important, if you really want to make friends with my people, that you learn to be honest, both within yourself and with others. And that brings us to another point, which Barney made very well – expectations. Humans have them; quarians don’t. You wouldn’t believe how confusing it was for me when I first came to the League. From the moment I arrived, there was all this pressure coming at me, a constant bombardment of other people’s ideas about what I was like, sometimes such rock-hard beliefs that it was overwhelming. I tried all sorts of ways to try to fit in – different looks, different presentations of myself…’ A series of images flashed over the screen – Silvie as an alien goddess, as a kid next door, as a sexy vamp, as a sharply-dressed businesswoman. ‘I kept trying,’ Silvie said, ‘but nothing ever seemed to be right, or at least not for long, as just as I thought I was getting somewhere I’d meet other people who expected me to be something else. It was all very confusing, and it was only when Tina Lucas pointed out that in every incarnation I kept my silver hair that I realised, yes, that’s who I am, that’s the one thing that I never change, my quarian identity. Tina helped me to find and stabilise that core identity and I’ve learned, since, to push back against that pressure of expectation with a right back at you attitude and just insist on being myself. Barney is right, though, it can be hard work when people have made their minds up about you so emphatically, often before they’ve even met you, it is easier just to go along with it. So you need to be aware of that, when you’re forming your expectations of what meeting quarians will be like. I’d like to say try not to have any expectations at all, but that would be asking you not to be human. So all I’ll say is try to have an open mind, be curious about my people, want to meet them and find out what they’re like for yourselves, and do your best not to come at that with solid preconceived ideas. For that reason I would ask you, please, not to read the Diplomatic Corps advisories for people going to Quarus, which are frankly useless and will put ideas into your head which are then very difficult to get out again. Above all, you should come to Quarus with an open mind and be prepared to have fun. We love fun, we’re a very happy fun loving people, we love to play and almost everything we do is approached pretty much as you would a game. Unfortunately most of the people the Diplomatic Corps sends out are so serious and deadly earnest that we don’t take to them at all. They’re like that guy at the party, you know, the one who wants to tell you all about his new filing system and his second cousin’s hernia. And quarians, well, we don’t do polite insincerity – if someone is boring the pants off us then we’ll just say so and leave. You should learn to do that, too. Yes, really,’ she insisted, as there was some laughter. ‘Remember this, if nothing else, that honesty is the only courtesy on my world. If you want to leave, leave. If you’re confused or annoyed, say so. Pretending you want to be somewhere when you obviously don’t isn’t polite, it’s just bonkers and insulting. There are role-play exercises in the training pack – quick cheat hint, here, you will score top marks, always, by being honest.

  ‘And that takes us,’ she went on with a grin, ‘to emotional states. That was actually one of the easiest things for me to understand and one of the hardest to lear
n to deal with. We share the same range of emotions – love, fear, anger, all the things you feel, we feel too. But you guys are so loud! Such intense, wild emotions… what my people consider to be ‘really angry’ is no more than mildly annoyed by your standards. We’re very much more placid, a peaceful people. But humans… it’s natural, I suppose, you’re a much less empathic species than we are, though generally a lot more empathic than you give yourselves credit for, so I guess you’ve learned to shout, emotionally, to make your feelings heard. But your feelings are just so intense, so violent and overwhelming, it’s like being swept around by cross-currents which chuck you around all over the place. I’ve learned to cope with that, mostly, though I still need a calm steady friend to help me when a lot of people are getting wildly over-excited – as with the launch, when Shion let me focus on her to stop me being swept off into screaming hysteria. But what I want to show you today is what emotional states look like at the individual level. So let’s go back to Tom – sorry, Tom,’ she added, in an aside to the Sub, ‘I know you won’t live this one down in a hurry but it is important, and you’re an officer on tagged and flagged so fair game.’

  That, suddenly, made sense of her choices, selecting people who were already expected to cope with a high degree of challenge. Tom managed a philosophical grin.

  ‘This,’ said Silvie, ‘is what happened when I met Tom in the wardroom this morning…’

  She played the clip, straight, just Tom turning away from the hot trolley with a plate in his hand. He greeted her with a friendly smile, ‘Morning, Silvie,’ then gestured at the drinks dispenser on the other side of the wardroom, ‘Can I get you some tea?’ It looked perfectly normal, casual, not a hint of anything inappropriate.

  ‘And this is what was really going on…’ said Silvie.

  The now-familiar quad appeared, with the front three as before but the knight in armour clearly in the grip of powerful emotion. There weren’t words, but the whoaaarrr noise was eloquent, as were the gestures. There was no doubt whatsoever that Tom really really fancied Silvie.