The Zygote Crystal

by Ashley Thomas

  “I’m sure he did,” said Joosthava.

  I suddenly remembered something she had just said and so asked, “What did you mean when you just said you knew what it was like to be a ‘little cat’ inside?”

  Joosthava laughed quietly and said “Oh that’s a long story and it’s about a lot more than having the Azz-Lex transposon in my DNA like you do. But what I would like to say now is that I knew much of the story Mr. Cat told you. In fact I may know more. Do you for example know what happened to Azz-Lex?”

  “No, Cat never told me what happened to Azz-Lex. I assume he just died like any real domestic cat does now after 50 or 60 years?”

  “No one really knows,” replied Joosthava. She then continued, “As you know, he appeared just around the end of the first battle that humans fought with the Mud Lizards, so around 2170, and then disappeared without trace some years later. I don’t think he died, I believe he went back to Planet X. Azz-Lex isn’t the ‘dieing’ kind. Did you also know that Mr Cat is genetically a complete clone of Azz-Lex?”

  I looked at her and said “Yes of course, I know about the war with those nasty creepy Muddy Lizardy creatures, which thankfully Earth won. But I didn’t know anything about what happened to Azz-Lex. Also, though he said they were related, I didn’t know that Cat was a complete clone of Azz-Lex. With the IQ that Azz-Lex had no wonder Cat was such an insufferable know-all who could never be wrong.”

  “Now, you don’t really mean that I’m sure,” said Joosthava.

  I followed my slightly impolite response to that with, “But, tell me Joosthava, how is it you know all this about Azz-Lex and Cat? I guess Cat must have told you? No matter, what I’m really interested to know now is how you came to know Cat and why do you insist on calling the ex-irritating little creature ‘Mr.’?”

  Joosthava’s story

  Joosthava smiled again and said “I call him Mr. Cat because that’s what I used to call him when I was young.” She paused briefly and then continued with, “I think it’s probably time that I told a story now. My story. Would you be interested to hear?”

  “Of course I would. Go ahead. Listening to you is a heck of a lot easier than it was ever listening to Cat, I can tell you. And please don’t tell me that I don’t mean that because I do. Even though I seem to be inexplicably mourning him, he was the most annoying and irritating intelligence I have ever met. And he knew it and delighted in constantly winding me up!”

  This time she laughed quite loudly and then said “Ok, here goes. You mentioned previously my association with Planet X and Mr. Cat told you that part of my genetic make-up comprises DNA that actually originates from Planet X, right?”

  “Yes he did,” I responded, “though he did not tell me much more about you.”

  “I see,” she said, “Well basically because of my Father’s position at the time he was able to get samples of the DNA that the Locator 27 probe had somehow brought back from Planet X in 2183. I remember the year very precisely. You could say it is one of my Birthdays!”

  “When you say your ‘Father’s position’, what do you mean exactly?” I enquired.

  Joosthava let out a sigh and went on, “Well he was Chief Executive of CloneMate at the time and as such was heavily involved with the World Council for Genetic Modification. This included him being frequently used in an advisory capacity by Virgin Galaxy. Once he heard about the DNA from Planet X he obtained a sample and analysed it. He noticed very quickly in simulations that the DNA not only encoded functionality and form, but also proteins that caused specific, fixed and pre-determined behaviour. He was so excited, my Mother told me, that his totally ‘science first’ attitude basically led him to abandon all rules. As he and Mother were at the time trying to conceive, he experimented on a number of foetuses they had jointly made to try to prove the behavioural component in the genetic material from Planet X. One foetus developed much faster than the others during its first few hours and he chose this one for Mother to bring to term. Subsequently I was born ‘officially’ in 2185 and, shall I tell you one of the first things that I remember?”

  “Go on,” I implored as I was now most interested to hear more.

  The time travelling infant

  “Well,” she continued after a short pause. “One of the first things I remember is going back into the womb when I was almost a year old.”

  I furrowed my brow and responded “Wow that must have been a tight fit as you would have been a lot larger when you were 1 than a newborn, obviously.”

  It was her turn to furrow her brow as she said “I never quite know whether you are joking or are as stupid as Mr. Cat always said you were.”

  “Oh, that was a joke I can assure you,” I said. “That was one of Cat’s problems. He could never take a joke. I remember when I accidentally kicked him out of the window and he plummeted 700 floors to the ground. He didn’t find that at all funny. I on the other hand was very amused. He bounced for such a long time. He and I definitely did not share a sense of humour. I think that might have been largely why he was so crotchety with me a lot of the time. Anyway, moving on from my incredibly funny joke, what exactly do you mean you went back into the womb?”

  Joosthava continued, “It was around the age of 1 when I realised I could move about in time and space. It’s not surprising that my first thought of where to go was back to the safety of the womb. You see, to be frank, from very early on I realised I was little more than a laboratory experiment to my Father. His name was Aradon Minot and he went totally mad when I was about seven. Oh, and by the way, it was actually a bit of a tight fit, getting back into my Mother’s womb. I managed though with a bit of space-time jiggery-pokery that I’m not sure I still fully understand.

  Before my Father went mad he became completely obsessed with my capability to affect time. I think he thought I could help him discover the origins of the Universe and also, ultimately, stop him from growing old. He tutored me in the same lab complex as he studied me, asking me to perform increasingly complex and sometimes quite dangerous movements from one time to another. By the age of five I could predict the local weather exactly and he once won a small fortune on a unicorn race I happened to see the result of whilst I was away.”

  I blinked rather overzealously at that last bit and said “Now that sounds very interesting. The Sinosovurean Cup race is later today. I don’t suppose you fancy popping off to check out the result for me so I can place a bet? Purely for scientific purposes of course.”

  She flashed her blue teeth again as she grinned and said, “I don’t think Mr. Cat would approve.”

  I looked pensively at her and responded “No I don’t suppose he would but, as there’s only a small chance that any of the specific bits of him recovered by the crash investigators would care, does it really matter what he might think?”

  “Inspector,” she said, “If I wasn’t sure by now of your jokey nature I would be shocked by what you just said about your recently lost best friend.”

  I sensed I may have dug a tiny hole for myself with that one but got out of it by playing along with the jokey impression she had gained of me and said, “Yes, you’ve worked me out, I was only joking. Naturally. It’s the best way for me to keep my spirits up, to make the odd joke at my ex-friends expense. Reminds me how were always verbally jousting.”

  As she answered “I’m relieved to hear it,” I was mentally parking the whole ‘make a mint from the bookies’ possibility in the ‘not too far back’ part of my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I did miss my dear friend Cat, but riches were something I had always craved and Cat of all beings would understand my acute interest in making free money out of Joosthava’s amazing gift. And of course Cat, the little spoilsport, had always done everything he could to ensure I would never benefit from any money making scheme that sailed even a ‘teensy’ bit close to the border of ‘illegal’.

  Joosthava continues her story

  Joosthava interrupted my thoughts with “Shall I continue my story?”

 
; “Yes,” I said, “Please do.”

  “Well,” she duly resumed, “my Mother, her name was Pilustria, was totally against my Father using me to further his research and did all that she could to protect me from his experiments with time and to give me as normal a childhood as possible. Then, sadly, Pilustria died just after my fifth Birthday.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry. I didn’t know that,” I said.

  Joosthava looked down momentarily and then replied, “Please don’t be sorry. I think she was glad to go in the end. Although I was young I knew she was ill and had been in pain for some time. With her increasing anguish over my childhood, or rather lack of it, I was glad she had to leave. I know that may sound cold to you but it’s how I am, or at least that part of me that is not human, ‘is’. I am not sure but I think the death of my Mother, allied to my Father’s growing desperation to drive forward with his experiments on time with me, led to him losing his mind. Then one day he was gone and I was put into the charge of a pair of foster robots, one in the form of a middle aged human female and the other in the form of a cat - that was ‘Mr. Cat’.”

  I shook my head vigorously in disbelief, almost falling off the stool I was sitting on, something I had only just managed to stop doing on a fairly regular basis. “What did you just say? Did you just say that Mr. Cat - I mean Cat, I mean ex-Cat, - he was one of your foster parents!! You’ve got to be kidding or have it wrong. I mean how could that be?”

  “I don’t have it wrong Inspector,” said Joosthava, “I know Mr. Cat so well. He was with me day in day out for over 10 years, from the moment my Father was taken away to the time I was awarded an International Academy of Applied Relativity Scholarship, to study time and its relationship to the other known dimensions. That’s when I left Earth and him to work on the deep space observatory, AuraLab.”

  “Good grief, I can’t take this in. Cat or Mr. Cat as you like to call him was a foster robot to you before he became my protective companion? He was effectively your surrogate FATHER!! Cosmic asteroids!!! - it’s a miracle you turned out even vaguely normal!!! Well, actually, you’re not even vaguely normal are you really? Never mind. Fancy him never saying anything about all of this to me the sly old dog, metaphorically speaking of course. I need to sit back down. I think I’m in shock.”

  Joosthava resumed with, “After I left to take up my scholarship in 2201, I stayed in touch with Mr. Cat but then after a few years we lost contact. That was just after he told me had a new job, working with the mentally sub-normal, that he needed to concentrate on. I was very sad. I think he meant that he had started working with you by the way. It would have been about 2205 I think. Was that around the time you started working for him?”

  I hissed out loud, which was unusual for me and said “Working for him!! FOR HIM!!! He was working for me Joosthava. Mind you I think he always thought that I was working for him. Cheeky little blighter. Mentally sub-normal indeed!! I wish he was here so I could chase him with a sonic air gun,” I said rather wistfully.

  Joosthava smiled as usual saying “I think I am getting to understand the type of relationship you and Mr. Cat had. It sounds like quite a funny one. It seems to me like you worked for each other!!” She then continued, “Anyway, despite my repeated efforts to make contact with him I did not hear from Mr. Cat again until quite recently. He asked me to meet him at Tax HQ and it was there that he told me about the suspected time mining happening at Messier 31.”

  “Well I must say again,” I responded, “that’s just so typical of the newly re-named Mr. Cat isn’t it? He said nothing to me about time mining until a few days ago. I had always thought, almost from the very moment I started working with him, that he was hiding things. Well in fact, lots of things!! He was forever telling me something was happening or going to happen when it was too late for me to run, errrrrrrrr….., I mean do something proactive about it.”

  Messier 31

  “Well,” said Joosthava, “That’s why I’ve told you all of this, so that you can be proactive. You see Mr. Cat was really worried about what was happening at Messier 31, I could see that. I remember him saying that he needed to get out there with you and sort things out.”

  “Oh really,” I said, standing a little taller and sticking what little chest I had well out there. “He said he needed me out there did he? Well, that must mean it’s serious and good that he obviously thought my skills and capabilities could help the situation. If there’s one thing Cat always agreed with me about my talents, it was that no one knew totally pointless Galactic tax laws like I did.”

  “Yes,” said Joosthava, “I am sure Mr. Cat respected your tax law knowledge however he also mentioned Mud Lizards in connection with Messier 31. I think he really thought that you were the number one Galaxy expert on dealing with those creatures.”

  I felt the blood drain from my body into my boots at the mention of Mud Lizards and stammered back at Joosthava, “Yes. I mean no. Mud. Lizards. That’s not good,” I gulped, “oh no, not me. I do tax. Not them. They have it in their minds that I have some desire to persecute them but in reality I just want to be their friends, to give them lots of tax rebates to help them. Cat never helped me make them understand that you know.”

  “Now Inspector,” said Joosthava, “don’t do this. This is your chance to live up to the image that Mr. Cat had of you.”

  “What image would that be?” I enquired, “was it one where various parts of my anatomy are hanging from a Mud Lizard butcher’s shop by any chance?”

  “She stared at me with a puzzled look and then said, “No. I think he saw you as someone who had the upper hand with Mud Lizards. Someone who had battled them previously, who had bravely confronted their evil plots and had confounded their plans in order to preserve peace and safety for Earth and indeed, ultimately, the whole Galaxy.”

  As she ended I decided there were 3 possibilities here. One, she was making fun of me. Two, Cat had actually told her all this, and he was now indirectly making fun of me from beyond the grave or breakers yard, or wherever ex-robots or bits of ex-robots went. Three, Cat hadn’t told her this, she had inferred it from things he and I had said and she actually believed it.

  Oh Lord, what should I do?

  Ordinarily at this point, with no Cat to stop me, I would have left the Earth as quickly as possible and gone to a Play Planet for some much needed rest and relaxation. I had little desire to travel to a black hole and even less desire to travel to a black hole where there could be some Mud Lizards. After all they did have a bounty on my head, and indeed a whole range of other parts of my body.

  But, here was my predicament. In my heart I was a hero but in my brain I was a careful citizen of the planet Earth or, as Cat would have it, a craven coward. However, whatever the real truth about me is in the bravery department, I was standing in front of a blue toothed woman who possibly thought I was a real hero. And also thought I was brainy. Or not. Or, she was just making fun of me.

  No matter how hard my brain tried in these brief moments to convince me that she was making fun of me, my heart ruled. The absolute idiot!! I could not take, for whatever reason, the risk that she really believed I was everything my heart thought I was. Whatever Cat had said to her about me, why, oh why hadn’t he been his usual irritatingly truthful and explicit self and ensure he left her with the right impression of me? Then, surely, she wouldn’t be asking me to go to Messier 31 with her.

  All of the above flashed through my brain in seconds. Cat had in fact frequently said that my thoughts were quick as there was insufficient physical matter in my brain to slow them down. And I missed him? What the heck was wrong with me? Here I was about to agree to go to Messier 31, to investigate something that had about as much to do with taxes as a Mud Lizard had to do with mercy. In fact, I had no idea what it had to do with at all, as Cat had not seen fit to tell me before he exploded.

  So, to sum up again for my heart’s benefit, I was on the verge of agreeing to go somewhere far away, near a place that sucks in matter
like a nuclear powered Direct Air Capture Device sucks in carbon dioxide. And this was in order that I might investigate something that had nothing to do with what I was employed to investigate, and where there was a possibility I might meet a Mud Lizard or two. And we all knew that Mud Lizards were a) hell bent on Galaxy domination and b) hell bent on dismembering me, ideally very slowly. I decided this was really not for me, so looked Joosthava squarely in the eyes and inexplicably said, “Ok, when do we leave?”

  Unbelievably, off to Messier 31

  I still couldn’t believe I had said ‘When do we leave,’ instead of ‘I’m outta here Joosty’, but here I was on the flight deck of what in effect was my fourth lightship of the year. I watched as my new cat robot, that hadn’t come with a name so I just referred to it generally as ‘Oiyou’, sat at the navigator’s console and plotted a course for Messier 31. Joosthava was also on board sitting beside me and for once had stayed fairly ‘stable’ during the pre-flight checks which had taken a couple of hours. She hadn’t disappeared at all since we had boarded the lightship.

  Whilst Oiyou continued take off preparations, I busied myself reading its manual. It was a Mark77 G-Soft Premiere AI, apparently. As that was a bit of mouthful I decided to continue to call it Oiyou. The manual confirmed that, unlike Cat, it was not a protective companion. Basically this meant that in the event of a dangerous situation its first thought, in fact its only thought, was for the integrity of the mission as opposed to my integrity. Of course I mean my physical integrity.