Through The Wormhole, Literally

by David Winship

  "Really? That dramatic?" Melinda asked as she tried to remember where she was in her menstrual cycle.

  "Oh yes, one of the things the BBC does remarkably well is period drama," said polkingbeal67. "What are you laughing about? What is it?"

  After a while, Melinda revealed she was nervous about the meeting they were about to have.

  "Don't worry," polkingbeal67 reassured her. "Smolin9 will be there."

  "Yeh, but what's this leader guy like? What's his name?"

  Polkingbeal67 cocked his head slightly. "He doesn't have a name as such. He's just our revered leader. That's what we call him and that's how you address him." He noticed Melinda's baffled expression and tried to explain further, but he couldn't. "That's it," he said.

  "But what if he gets deposed or overthrown or whatever? What if you elect a new leader? What will he be called then? He must have a name! Literally."

  Polkingbeal67 took a deep breath and shrugged. "We don't elect our leader. He arrived on Morys over two thousand of your earth-years ago and he's always been our revered leader. And he always will be."

  "So you people don't believe in democracy and all that stuff?"

  Polkingbeal67 was stunned. "Of course we do!" he said. "We elect our government and the planet is run the way we want it to be run. Actually, there's an election due soon. It's just that we don't elect our revered leader."

  "So, are we going to one of your government buildings?"

  "No," said polkingbeal67, looking a little confused. "We're going to our revered leader's palace. We don't have government buildings."

  Now it was Melinda's turn to appear confused. "You don't have government buildings? So, where do they... how do the government people, y'know, govern?"

  "They're not physical people. Think of them as virtual people."

  "Virtual people? Literally? Do you mean like androids? Your government is run by those sad androids?"

  "That reminds me, I was going to speak to you about the medibots. They seemed to be in a wretched state. Have you any idea what happened to them?" He went on to explain that the functions of Mortian government were carried out by sophisticated artificial intelligence systems in accordance with the flavour of ideology determined by the electorate.

  They passed a flock of spherical-shaped birds. "Totally erratic!" Melinda exclaimed. "What are those?"

  Polkingbeal67 was a bit of an authority on Mortian ornithology and launched into a detailed lecture on the anatomy and physiology of the orbis bird. It did not last long. "Wait, they don't have beaks!" Melinda shouted. "They don't have beaks! Totally insane! How do they... I mean, they don't have beaks!"

  Polkingbeal67 explained that the orbis tucks its wings in and lands on the top of dwelling pods so that its momentum propels it down the structure towards the ground. Its special feathers absorb the moisture as it rolls, providing it with all the nutrients it needs.

  Melinda watched them in childlike awe. "That's so erratic, wonderful. Literally."

  Polkingbeal67 twisted his mouth to produce what might have passed as a smile. "You're going to like it here," he said.

  Melinda nodded. "I'm going to need a coffee soon, but you know what? You're right. I really am going to like it here."

  "It's just as well," said polkingbeal67. "After all, you can't go back."

  Melinda's face froze. "What?" she said.

  "Did no one tell you? The changes to heart tissue brought about by BBCs are irreversible in earthlings. You can't go back." He became aware of Melinda's eyes staring at him in disbelief. "So it's lucky you like it here. Right?"

  As the cruiser sped past the Voyager 1 dish antenna half-buried amongst the ponds and fountains of the leader's palace gardens, polkingbeal67 and Melinda noticed smolin9 careering around the lower slopes of the palace building on a modified skateboard propelled by plasma jet thrusters. As soon as the cruiser shell touched the ground and polkingbeal67 released the angel wing doors, Melinda slid out from the seat and raced over towards the marble steps where smolin9 was now waiting, jetboard in hand. As she ran, she was torn between hugging him and pounding him with both fists. In the event, she did neither. Sobbing bitterly, she stood in front of him, arms stiff by her side, unable to utter a single word.

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  When Melinda finally found her voice, she spoke in a whisper punctuated with suppressed sobs. "Why didn't you tell me I could never go back to Earth?"

  Smolin9 looked bewildered. "What do you mean?" he said.

  "I can't go back to Earth. I've got this blue blood and it's messed around with my insides and so, apparently, I have to stay on this god-forsaken planet for the rest of my life!" Her emotions veering wildly from fear and self-pity to anger and back again, she started pulling at her hair. "Why did you do this?" she yelled, "Why didn't you tell me? You must have known I wouldn't have agreed to come here if I'd known it was a one-way ticket!"

  There was an awkward silence. Smolin9 looked at polkingbeal67 with an expression of covert hostility.

  Polkingbeal67 was the first to speak. "He didn't know," he said.

  "I didn't know," smolin9 confirmed.

  "What?" Melinda whimpered. "Why didn't you know? So who did know?" She turned to polkingbeal67. "Why didn't you tell him?"

  Polkingbeal67 shrugged. "It's a misunderstanding, that's all," he said. "Smolin9 wasn't around when we analysed the simulation test data." He started to sound more and more defensive as the other two stared balefully at him. "Listen, I thought... I mean, I didn't know this was meant to be a temporary visit. I thought... you two being married and everything..."

  "I didn't know," smolin9 said in a small voice. His mental faculties had temporarily regressed to a state of infantile helplessness. He knew well enough that he would have to shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for this catastrophe. After all, Melinda's wormhole visit had been entirely his own initiative in the first place and it was entirely his own fault that he had neglected to supervise the laboratory simulation tests.

  "Anyway," said polkingbeal67, breezily. "Don't forget, you agreed to the terms and conditions. It's done now. Better get on. We're almost late for our meeting with our revered leader." He adjusted the strap on his sherg-encrusted helmet and bounded up the steps.

  Melinda sat on the bottom step and took a tissue from her fake crocodile skin bag. Dumbfounded and lost for words, smolin9 sat beside her and tentatively placed his hand on her shoulder.

  Melinda blew her nose. "It's not that I'm ungrateful to you for giving me this opportunity of seeing your planet," she said, folding and unfolding the tissue. "When I was a little girl, there were these little plastic 'My Little Pony' toys. Me and my friends, we all loved them. It was a real craze at the time. Literally. My favourite was Skydancer. Skydancer was a ballerina and loved to dance to the sound of the wind when it flowed through the clouds like the music of string harps, and she pranced and pirouetted in tiny circles. I simply had to have one!" She blew her nose again. "Anyway, my dad... this was before he left us... for Christmas, he got me, you won't believe this, he got me a real, live pony. Insane! There was a farm down the bottom of the road and he'd rented a stall there and everything. He said he'd show me how to feed it and groom it and muck out the stall. I was going to have riding lessons and learn how to lead it and tie it up properly and how to put a halter, saddle and bridle on it. The thing is, I was barely four foot tall. It seemed scary huge to me. It frightened me! And, the point is, all I'd wanted was a little plastic Skydancer. With rainbow hair. Literally."

  The point of the story might have been a bit obscure; it certainly flew right over smolin9's head. "Don't worry," he said. "I'll get you a Skydancer."

  As Melinda followed smolin9 through the palatial labyrinth to the leader's private rooms, she gazed in awe at the architectural opulence and marveled at the grandeur that oozed from every gilded surface and every ornately decorated portal. She started to think about wealth disparity and how it seemed to be so different on Morys Minor compare
d to the economic inequality back on Earth, where the rich were cocooned from ordinary people's ordeals. 'Ah yes,' she thought. 'That is it. This leader of theirs clearly enjoys a life of incredible luxury and privilege, but the ordinary people don't have ordeals.' She had witnessed no evidence of poverty or hardship or discontent or social injustice.

  "So what is it with all this?" she said. "All this abundant richness, all this treasure and wealth. It's insane. Back on earth, for someone to enjoy gold and precious stones and jewels like this, a whole bunch of other people, the underclasses, have got to put up with, er, well, bling and, er, designer labels, um, yeh, forget it, I guess it's not so different."

  "Get ready to like us!" said smolin9. "We're the product of a complex molecular soup, but we have a social cohesion that most planets would die for. There's no corruption or sleaze. Everyone's happy with their lives."

  "The soup sounds great," Melinda agreed. "Actually, can I get a cup of coffee?"

  To say Melinda found the leader somewhat unimpressive would be a colossal understatement. Attached to his small wizened head were a pair of strange bone-like objects like truncated antlers and his body reeked of wet straw and fried oil. Desperately as she tried to dismiss the image, he reminded her of Gandhi with horns. When she repeated her request for coffee, he told her: "So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you." He snapped his bony fingers at one of his underlings and a brew was produced before he had finished outlining his plans for a grand televised reception to mark Melinda's arrival on the planet.

  There was not much that was beyond the power of the Mortians. Most of the food resources on Earth had been sampled, analysed and reproduced in dedicated laboratories, but the greenish brown sludge the leader had managed to acquire for Melinda left her begging for the soup. She spat it out and almost gagged. "It must be the methane?" suggested smolin9.

  . . .

  Melinda took up her place between smolin9 and the Mortian leader and did a double-take when the intro to Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" echoed around the vast banqueting hall. The music from the Voyager 1 Golden Record was being played in her honour.

  Thirty guests had arrived at the palace for Melinda's official reception. All were formally announced. Many, including polkingbeal67, wore full ceremonial dress, a curious ensemble of folded robes secured by graphene sashes, straps and belts sumptuously decorated with embroidered flaps and tassels. Random ornaments completed the outfit. All around the perimeter of the hall, androids were engaged in various activities that Melinda later described as 'kind of nerdy dancing'. They postured and mimed and re-enacted historical earthling events, none of which were recognised by the guest of honour.

  "Are these like the top leaders and dignitaries of your planet?" Melinda whispered to smolin9, pointing to the guests.

  "No, this is everyone," said smolin9. "We're all here."

  "What? This is your entire population? Really? That's harrowing. Literally. But why are there so few of you?"

  "It's all we need. We've optimised the link between population and resources. We love our planet and we've spent eons creating a fair and equitable state where every citizen is scrupulously engineered and has a specific role to play. Nobody gets marginalised and there are no sources of conflict. Our revered leader has always told us 'when two goopmutts fight, the grass suffers.'"

  "Okay, what have goopmutts and grass got to do with it?"

  Smolin9 was stumped. He had no idea. While he fretted over it, Melinda hit him with a supplementary question: "But what about polkingbeal67? He's obviously a confrontational, warmongering guy who loves fighting."

  "Yes," said smolin9, "but only with beings from other planets, like the carnivorous skavaks of Ork who killed and raped millions of our people and stole an entire vat of vitalmados."

  "When was that?"

  "Oh, many, many thousands of your earth years ago," said smolin9, who was still distracted by the goopmutts and grass business.

  "That's totally erratic. You can't go around killing people for stuff that happened centuries ago!"

  Rattled once more, smolin9 endeavoured to explain: "Ah, yes, but he only heard about it recently, at an intergalactic history workshop."

  They sat on soft piles of what looked like blossoms. In front of them was the most underwhelming feast Melinda had ever seen. A few lozenges were arranged in perfectly geometric fashion on a low table. Melinda picked one up and inspected it quizzically. "How do you eat it?" she asked.

  "Oh, yes," said smolin9. "Um, we eat them like, well, on your planet I think you call them suppositories. They're totally delectable. These are the most prestigious vitalmados pills on the planet, hand-picked for their premium quality. They fizz divinely."

  Melinda placed the lozenge back on the table. "I'm not really hungry just now," she said.

  After a short while, the leader struggled to his feet and signaled for silence. "May your voices have wings," he said. This was the signal for nipkow4 to deliver the first of a series of speeches celebrating Melinda's arrival. Nipkow4 had made a name for himself producing the hugely popular Morys Minor Broadcasting Corporation (MMBC) Earthwatch series aimed at encouraging interest in earthling life, and this ceremony was being recorded for subsequent broadcast to tele-immersion systems around the planet. Melinda was astonished to hear nipkow4 deliver an accurate insight into her personal characteristics along with details of her life that could only have been obtained through surreptitious monitoring, tracking and spying.

  Melinda poked smolin9 with her elbow. "What the hell's going on?" she hissed. "How does he know all this?" She gaped open-mouthed as video images of her walking down Glastonbury High Street appeared on the walls. "You've been spying on me!"

  Smolin9 moved closer so that he could talk to her without drawing attention. "Calm down," he said. "We didn't spy on you. Your own people did. We just used the data."

  "That's insane! What spies? What data? Why would they? How could they? This is invasion of privacy with a capital 'I' and, er, 'P'."

  "Sorry, but all this stuff about you is routinely recorded and stored in databases on your planet. I'm surprised you don't know about it. You must realise there's software on your communication devices that analyses your messages? It all gets used for beaming advertising at you. Your comms devices also keep track of your movements. You've got cameras in your streets and cameras scanning your vehicles. Your shopping habits are tracked by shops and credit agencies. Then there's your social media. I used Facebook while I was visiting Earth. Remember? I friended you. It's quite addictive. I used to break out in a cold sweat if I didn't see a status update for, like, ten of your Earth minutes or so. Obviously, all that stuff gets logged and stored in databases. And it's easy to see all your computer network activity. It's just basic communication data."

  "Oh my gosh," said Melinda as nipkow4 attempted a public analysis of all her recent retail purchases. "I feel like an animal in a zoo. Make them stop!"

  Smolin9 could feel her distress and discomfort but was powerless to do anything about it. Once the MMBC wheels were in motion, nothing short of natural disasters and acts of God could stop them. Upset about the possibility that the blue blood debacle and this new ordeal she was suffering would drive a wedge between him and his earthling wife, he cast several anxious looks in her direction. Then he drew himself up to his full height and hooted (Mortian coughs sound a bit like demented owls). "Wait," he said. "I have to stop you there."

  Melinda tugged at his arm. "Don't get yourself in trouble!" she whispered.

  Smolin9 suddenly felt conscious of the cameras. "Yeh," he mumbled. "All this information. Shopping and stuff... I just wanted to say..."

  "Just leave it," Melinda begged him.

  "I just want to say that... the lice shampoo was for me." All eyes turned on him and he visibly flinched a little. "Yeh, I, y'know, I get that itchy thing." He sat down and nipkow4 cast him a look of perplexed amusement before continuing with his speech.

  Smolin9 need not have worried in any
case. Melinda, for her part, felt these experiences only drew them closer together. Smolin9's naivety and helplessness lent him a vulnerability that she could clearly identify with in her current predicament and she felt a closer bond with him in consequence.

  A strange, ululating chant, the Mortian equivalent of applause, marked the end of nipkow4's presentation. Then everyone turned around and headbutted the nearest wall. Footage from the Earthwatch series was projected silently around the hall as various other people made speeches. Meanwhile, some androids filled the central area with a bizarre array of musical instruments constructed out of graphene, wire and silicon. Polkingbeal67, distinguishable from the others with his eye patch and sherg-encrusted helmet, was among those to pick up an instrument and contribute to a sonic composition akin to a bear with toothache being let loose in a junkyard. Smolin9 leaned across to Melinda and said "This is nice. You know what's going on?"

  Melinda gave him a wonky smile. "Not so far," she said. "Literally."

  Everyone fell silent as the leader struggled once more to his feet to formally welcome Melinda to her new planet. "Welcome to Morys Minor, Melinda. May your obstacles be stepping stones. You are with friends and we will travel together. There is a reason for this and every journey. Blind as we are, for the eye may see no more than the mind can understand, we must hope that we will recognise our destination when we reach it. We all have much to teach and much to learn." This prompted more chanting and headbutting of walls. Melinda smiled politely as everyone turned towards her. "You're expected to reply," smolin9 told her.

  Melinda stood up, bowed, curtsied and smiled at the leader. "Thank you, your, er, leadership," she said. "That's totally erratic of you. I'm also looking forward to this trip, er, journey thing. It should be good. Journey with a capital 'J'! Literally. But seriously, it's really great that you've given me this opportunity to come here to this galaxy far far away, ha ha, y'know, by wormhole and everything. It's also kind of appropriate, because, as you know, I come from Earth and, y'know, wormholes, earth, yeh? And while I'm on that subject, if there's anything you can do to get me back home... well, I'm an earthworm really, ha ha!" She desperately grasped for something profound or witty to round off with. "I hope our two planets can be friends and we can wormhole to each other all the time, so that maybe one day we'll be so close it'll be like not telling which end of the worm is which! Ha ha. Insane. Thank you." She bowed, curtsied and smiled once more at the leader who presented her with a bowl of what looked like glazed purple rabbit droppings.