Polkingbeal67 wiped his cheek. "I'm okay," he said. "I'm fine. I've got to go. I've got an appointment."
Nonplussed, Melinda looked askance at him and smiled a crooked smile. "Did you just wipe off my kiss?"
"No, of course not," he said, impatient to be on his way. "I was just, uh, rubbing it in. When are you going back to the Pale Blue Dot?"
"Well, if you're...," she broke off as polkingbeal67 was striding away as fast as his portly frame would allow him.
The on-duty consultant, mendel8, was in a conference, so Melinda sat on the bed polkingbeal67 had just vacated and gazed out of the window. After a short while, her bottom lip trembled and tears started welling up in her eyes. She had been trained to understand and interpret human behaviour and considered herself a good reader of contextual cues, but her inability to read hostile signals from polkingbeal67 left her feeling bewildered and vulnerable. Actually, if she had been honest with herself, she would have had to admit that it was not so much an inability to read the cues but a refusal to acknowledge them. "What have I done wrong?" she sobbed. The android medibots, who had yet to become aware of polkingbeal67's disappearance, were oblivious to her distress at first. Then one of them whirled closer and spoke with a high-pitched nasal whine: "Problem detected. Please try again. Enunciate clearly and speak slowly." Another approached, offering a thin gauze-like tissue. "Where is the patient? Where is polkingbeal67?" it intoned querulously, finally noticing the elephant in the room (or the absence of one).
Melinda wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "I just don't understand," she said.
A few more medibots gathered around, offering tissues. One of them spoke. "You are a mere earthling of limited intellectual capacity."
Melinda sniffed. "Yes," she said. "Thanks for that. Literally. But I'll never apologise for being a mere earthling, as you put it. Anyway, if you're so clever, how have you managed to lose your patient? Hmm?"
The medibots scattered, emitting high-pitched squeals and odd clicking sounds. One of them came closer. "Please try again. Enunciate clearly and speak slowly."
"You may be programmed to be really smart, but I see you're not above a bit of selective hearing!" she remarked as the androids retreated to their various nursing stations.
After a short time, mendel8 came up and sat beside her. "I suppose polkingbeal67 has discharged himself," he said.
"Yes, I think so," said Melinda. "He was leaving as I came in to visit him. Is he well enough? I thought he looked quite rough and not himself at all. Grouchy and ill-disposed."
Mendel8 smiled pleasantly. "Well, it sounds like he's turned himself around completely," he said.
"Oh?"
There was a twinkle in mendel8's eye. "Definitely. He used to be ill-disposed and grouchy!"
Melinda chuckled. In her experience, Mortians were often inadvertently funny, but it was rare to encounter one who actually attempted to make someone laugh. "He's put on a lot of weight too," she said. "I know he hasn't been able to exercise or anything, but he looks like a giant lemon."
"His weight gain is a concern of ours. And I have a confession to make. When I asked him about it, he told me he was following a strict diet between meals. I must admit it didn't twig with me at first. I only paid attention to the words 'strict diet'."
Mendel8 came across as warm and friendly and had already succeeded in putting Melinda at ease. She opened up about her feelings of guilt concerning the heart swap and asked him if it was possible to reverse it.
The consultant pursed his lips and looked at her reproachfully. "Technically, yes, it's a reversible procedure." He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. "But, first of all, we don't really do surgery on Morys. It's frowned upon. The circumstances giving rise to your heart swap were considered truly exceptional and the surgery was authorised at the highest level."
Melinda was intrigued. "But you all live for hundreds of years. What happens when you become ill and your organs fail?"
"Well, we've evolved to a point where cell degeneration is simply not the phenomenon it is for your species. We can regulate apoptosis and we can treat disease and injury trauma with highly sophisticated cell therapy techniques."
Melinda noticed polkingbeal67's old eye patch lying on the bedside table. Mendel8 read her thoughts and nodded. "It's his own choice," he explained. "He could have had the eye replaced at any time. He still could."
"He's a real mystery and no mistake," Melinda said, picking up the patch and examining it.
"And that's not all," mendel8 continued.
Melinda understood straight away. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed. You mean... Oh my God! Literally."
"Yes," mendel8 confirmed. "We can use totipotent stem cells to create new Mortian body parts. Any body part. Mind you, it takes a fair bit of time."
"How long?"
"The entire mitotic process to create a new fully functioning heart takes about one year."
"Is he aware of this?"
"Yes, I've spoken to him about it," mendel8 confirmed. "He knows a new Mortian heart will be ready for him in a year's time. Now please excuse me, I've got to sort out these androids."
Melinda lay back on the bed and spent a few moments in quiet contemplation. Before long, her thoughts turned to home and the life she had left behind. She felt she was now ready to make arrangements to travel back to Earth with smolin9.
Meanwhile, her Mortian husband was in an informal meeting with some of the back office staff at MMBC Headquarters. Having acquired a considerable reputation for his earlier investigative work on the Pale Blue Dot, smolin9 had his audience eating out of his hands. In fact, they were devouring every word he uttered. "Our mission," he declared, sitting on a table with his legs crossed, "is to get at the truth and do amazing things with it." He had the air of a wise professor bestowing his knowledge and life experience on a fawning group of assembled disciples. "I will be reporting on all the news and events from the Pale Blue Dot, including their current obsession with global warming and the environment. Yes, my first assignment will be a visit to one of their wind farms, where they're presumably hoping to grow some, er, wind. Make sure you don't miss it!"
. . .
The Mortian leader's health had been deteriorating for some time now. He had been treated for a number of infections over the last hundred years or so and had begun to struggle with basic activities like personal hygiene and dressing. His lips chattered constantly and he was losing his grasp of social graces, often getting up in the middle of a meeting to announce that he needed to empty his bowels. No one on Morys dared to discuss the matter openly, but in private many had started to speculate about his successor. Although there had been no change of leader for over two thousand years, everyone was aware of the tradition that the new leader had to be appointed by the current incumbent. You could sense an unspoken concern that this crucially significant task might soon be beyond a leader whose cognitive powers were becoming increasingly fragile.
If Mortians had had eyebrows, a few of them would have been raised after it emerged that the leader had made a clandestine appearance at the medipod shortly after the heart swap surgery. No plausible reason for this had been forthcoming and none of the medical staff had been privy to conversations that had taken place during the secret visit. However, when polkingbeal67 discussed his imminent trip to the Milky Way with the head mechanic at the intergalactic starship depot, he spoke cryptically of "having seen the future", a remark that would start resonating around the planet as soon as he departed in his wormhole-traversing mineral spotter.
If polkingbeal67 were to be proclaimed as the new leader, it would certainly be a popular appointment. It was common knowledge that the battle helmet belonging to this self-proclaimed war hero had seen action at the great battle of Tharsis Crater on Ynonmaq Decimus and it had been scorched by ionizer blasts during the liberation of chilloks in the Fourth Intergalactic War. It also featured prominently in illustrations commemorating the charge against General Vog's Trox army at Ybesa
n. Those closest to him, like smolin9, were aware that polkingbeal67 had not actually been wearing the helmet on any of those occasions and had "inherited" it from a drunken museum curator, but, let's face it, many a reputation has been enhanced by vague associations and a total lack of scrutiny.
None of this was uppermost in polkingbeal67's mind as he reclined in his mahogany and red leather pilot's chair, studying the charts for a superluminal passage to the Pale Blue Dot. As he had no celestial coordinates for heaven, his plan was to cruise the Milky Way using the Pale Blue Dot as a base and point of reference. By the time the ground crew saw the flash of light created by the departure of the mineral spotter, the journey was already over and polkingbeal67 was jabbing his leg with a syringe of HDA to neutralise the effects of neutrino oscillation. Switching over to the cold fusion and hot plasma power systems, polkingbeal67 orbited each and every planetary object, scanning for visual clues. He was in a zone of pure concentration and fanatical zeal. Occasionally, he would break out into a Mortian space shanty, a high-pitched, mewling chant of barely-decipherable gibberish which, roughly translated into earthling English, went something like this:
Our good ship is heading north and south
Both east and west we fly
Way down below they watch in awe
While we traverse the sky
Away boys, away, away we go
Away, away-o
A-hunting high and a-hunting low
Away, away-o
Sometimes we're bound for Fidderzog
Sometimes we're bound for Oov
Sometimes we don't care where we go
Come on you boys, let's move.
Away boys, away, away we go
Away, away-o
A-hunting high and a-hunting low
Away, away-o
He improvised a further verse and bellowed his way to a raucous crescendo:
We're heading for the Milky Way
Our target will be found
Fire the engines and set the course
For we'll be heaven bound
Away boys, away, away we go
Away, away-o
A-hunting high and a-hunting low
Away, away-o
But if the search for heaven had only just begun, the search for the Mortian leader's successor had already finished. At least, the vast majority of Mortians believed it had. You cannot stop the rumour mill once it gets going. Eventually, it runs out of energy or the gears wear themselves out, but until then you might as well try and catch the wind. Once the head mechanic had related his conversation with polkingbeal67 to his friends and colleagues, it was as if they could all see the future and polkingbeal67's name was writ large in it.
The speculation had not reached smolin9 and Melinda who were now finding their feet back on Earth. As it took a while for the HDA to really kick in, they were struggling with mundane tasks like walking up and down stairs and preparing meals. Melinda had picked up her Chihuahua from a friend who had been taking care of it during her absence and the poor dog was completely spooked by smolin9, even though the latter had assumed an earthling disguise by means of his biomimetic mutator. While Melinda searched the cupboards for something to eat, the dog jumped up and down and ran around in circles, gnashing its teeth.
"Sit!" smolin9 commanded. "Stay! Does he think I'm the postman or what?"
"Don't worry," said Melinda. "He's just not used to you. Literally. He'll calm down eventually. If it's any consolation, he's worse than that with the postman. This is nothing really. Why, he can jump as high as that table!"
Smolin9 looked perplexed. "Tables can't jump," he said.
"That's totally off the beaten cloud!" Melinda laughed. "Look, why don't you take him out for a walk? It'll give me a chance to get lunch ready and it'll give him a chance to get used to you." She attached the dog's harness and lead.
Smolin9 figured the dog was simply hungry, so he walked down to the corner of the road where the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the smell of bacon wafted out onto the pavement. A little later, looking ruffled and sounding out of breath, he hurried back through Melinda's side door, unclipped the lead and watched the dog resume its frenzied jumping.
"What's up? What’s happened?" Melinda asked, her eyes flicking from one to the other. "Why are you back so soon?"
Smolin9 told her he had glanced through the cafe window and spotted an empty table with a plate of full English breakfast, only half eaten. After tying up the dog outside, he had gone into the cafe and scraped the food into a large disposable coffee cup.
Melinda was concentrating on getting her fingers to grasp some cutlery. "Go on," she said. "I am listening. Literally."
"Well," said smolin9, "A man came out of the gents' toilet and walked up to the table to finish his meal. He was not very happy."
Before the day was out, smolin9 was broadcasting to Morys Minor from a wind farm in Avonmouth via a wormhole link.
"The power plants you can see here," he said, sporting his best snake-oil salesman fake smile, "have now fully emerged as giant fans ready to take on the task of cooling the planet." He made a flamboyant sweeping gesture with his arm. "Unfortunately, in order to print money for all the green subsidies, they’ve had to cut down all the trees."
. . .
"Oh my god!" nipkow4 exclaimed "It's bedlam in there!"
Yukawa3 curled his lip and rolled his eyes. "You could have fooled me," he said. "It's about as exciting as surfing in a bathtub. Nothing but ants, sorry, chilloks milling around like grit in a sand storm. Why are we here? How is this even a planet?" He kicked listlessly at the dirt. "What's our next assignment? Don't tell me - we get to cover the earthworm karate championships? We’re living the dream."
"Don't show your ignorance," said nipkow4. He was crouching over a fascinating structure composed of a conical base tapering upwards into a tilting columnar spire. "There's a full-scale war going on. Get over here and check out the myrmecam. It's got macro extension tubes and you can see everything that's going on!"
To the untrained eye of a rookie reporter like yukawa3, the towering city of Niffis on the planet Oov may have looked like a fossilised tree stump about to crumble into a heap of dust, but it was actually a marvel of engineering. The sophisticated structure boasted an outer layer of tunnels and chambers leading through a latticework of intersecting and entwining passages to a series of intricate sculptured walls and receding terraces, culminating in spectacular labyrinthine subzones of stalagmites and caverns.
Niffis may have looked peaceful enough, but violence had erupted again during the night and many chilloks had sought to escape the chaos by leaping to their deaths from the upper levels of the complex ventilated structure. Yukawa3 unwittingly squashed their bodies as he approached the city and peered grudgingly through the lens.
As the sun came up on the next day, the myrmecam was linked up to the wormhole communication channel between Oov and Morys Minor. Nipkow4 was preparing for the inaugural transmission by briefing yukawa3 on the latest developments. "Listen," he said, "Around midnight, Muqu rebel fighters stormed Naaffab sleeping chambers and shouted slogans, calling their enemies aishiwas." Noticing yukawa3's blank stares and uncomprehending demeanour, he slowed down his delivery and tried his best to hold eye contact. "Are you with me? Aishiwa means 'renouncer'."
"Renouncer," yukawa3 repeated, a lost and vacant expression swimming ponderously in his eyes.
Nipkow4 continued, "In retaliation, the Naaffabs shook their antennae and chanted the word ‘ramubakh’ at the Muqu population. Ramubakh means ‘reprobate’. Once again, this has highlighted the widening Naaffab-Muqu divide."
"I think I may regret saying this," said yukawa3, shrugging his shoulders, " but you're going to have to give me the background to all this."
"Well, the historical background to this conflict started with the death, in the ninth baktun, of the great chillok potentate, Da'Qunaa. You see, Muqus and Naaffabs both preach peace and understanding and devotion to their god,
but Muqus believe in a literal interpretation of Da'Qunaa’s admonition against wearing antenna rings, whereas Naaffabs have adopted a more liberal outlook."
By now, yukawa3 was simply watching nipkow4's jaw moving up and down. Nothing was getting through. "It's okay," he said. "I'll just wing it."
Nipkow4 conceded defeat. Trying to enlighten yukawa3 was as pointless as an IQ test for a goopmutt. "Roll the camera," he said.
The camera lifted, turned and panned slowly towards yukawa3, who spoke in a measured tone: "And so, another night, another outbreak of brutal sectarian violence in the power struggle between..."
Nipkow3 did his best to mouth the words 'Muqus' and 'Naaffabs', but it was no use. Yukawa3 inclined his head towards the chillok mound behind him and continued, "...the Mochas and the Frappes on the planet of Oov."
"Cut!" nipkow3 yelled. He waved yukawa3 away and provided the voiceover for the rest of the report: "The chillok news agency has reported that 79 Naaffabs and 32 Muqus have been killed in the clashes. Visual evidence of the violence is all around us here. Severed antennae lie in heaps at the foot of the city, as do the corpses of the Naaffabs who jumped to their deaths." Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that yukawa3 was peeling some of the bodies from the soles of his feet. He prayed the camera was not picking this up. "In spite of the hostility and acrimony that is everywhere in this beleaguered city, the chilloks have allowed observers and journalists free movement. In fact, our reception has been excellent. We are expecting a signal from the presidents of the Intergalactic Commission and the Oov Council condemning the violence."
Off camera, yukawa3 turned away, spread his arms in a gesture of futility and muttered, "What’s the problem? A few puffs of insecticide and the war's over!"
. . .
Melinda handed smolin9 another tissue as the tears streamed in rivulets down his face. Christmas was approaching and the leading charities had launched their usual campaigns: heart-rending television appeals featuring malnourished children and neglected animals. Staring open-mouthed at successive images of pitiful, shivering dogs, smolin9 was distraught. "Those poor, poor dogs!" he wailed. "Can't we do something?" He glanced at Melinda, who was painting her toenails with deep concentration. "Aren't you upset by this?" he demanded.
Through The Wormhole, Literally Page 13