The Symbionts of Murkor

by Tarulli, Gary

  “Thankfully, I come to you with the well-intentioned consent of my government and the peoples it represents. Intention, however, is useless without action. Although I hold an olive branch in hand, it is with the keen understanding that without fertile, irrigated soil in which to grow it will soon wither and die. And so, within the year, Unión Latino will commence construction of a desalination project sufficient in scope to provide the fresh water needs of the Pecos River Valley, the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and the Ojos Negros Region—areas impacted by drought and the subject of acrimonious water rights disputes between our respective nations. The entirety of the project cannot, however, be accomplished unilaterally. In consultation with and approval by your government, we propose a collaborative effort: The installation and shared operation of facilities so as to enable the extension of water distribution mains to farmlands within both nations.

  “For too long we have exploited one another’s resources even though the gain was achieved through another’s loss. If you question our motives, I say there are more insightful questions that must be answered: Do policies dictated purely by national self-interest lead to our undoing? Is climate change and the resulting social disruption and strife not sad proof of how we fail ourselves by seeking advantage over one another? Is it not, in the final analysis, common sense to see our Earth as common ground?

  “The unmistakable answer, the only answer to these questions is for us to join together. To provide what the other lacks—yes, while remaining mindful—prideful—of those attributes of ethnicity and national character that make us excel. In doing so we shall make each other exceptional.

  “If we dream this now, one day, and soon, we will awaken to find a better place. A verdant planet where each person flourishes within our shared humanity. We will be astounded to discover what we have accomplished, transforming our home, this Earth, into the best of all possible worlds.”

  “Well done,” Ellis commented as Garcia joined her, Davis, and Gustavo for dinner. “I believe you won over more than a few people.”

  “Agreed,” Gustavo said, surprising his former Comandante by filling his glass with Torrontés, a bottle of pleasing white wine he had hid for the occasion. “But I am curious. How’d you get the desalination project funded?”

  “It wasn’t easy,” the former CO replied. “In the end I had to imply that the best way to avoid any disruption in anecrecium production—and the free flow of funds into Unión coffers—would be to allocate a portion of those funds to the desal project. As a deputado, and with a little help from Commander Ellis, I’ve managed to cultivate the contacts I previously established on Murkor—both Unión and Coalition.”

  “Except you kept me in the dark about this,” Ellis said, pretending to be offended.

  “Wasn’t sure I’d pull it off. A pleasant surprise, no?”

  “A pleasant surprise, yes.”

  As they were dining, the Coalition vice president approached. After a brief exchange of pleasantries he turned to leave, saying, almost as an afterthought, “The president appreciated your anecdote. He asked me to tell you all—his exact words—he’s ‘onboard.’”

  “That was quick,” Gustavo remarked when the VP walked out of earshot.

  “Does the president have a choice?” Garcia commented. “The offer made is part of the public record. A refusal to participate means withholding irrigation to the entire southwest region, alienating a sizable portion of his party’s power base.”

  “I see you’ve acquired some interesting skills while in office,” Davis said.

  “I have to credit my father for that particular thought,” Garcia responded.

  “¿Cómo esta tu padre>?” Gustavo asked, lapsing into Spanish.

  “Very well. Seeing his only son in politics has invigorated him.”

  “Have you heard from the others?” Ellis asked.

  “Nothing recent from Roya. Mariana is coming to visit me next month. Amanda seems pretty content to stay on Murkor—at least for the time being. Carlos became bored after upgrading Nadir. He ‘turned civilian’ when his term of service was up. Purchased a small farm not far from where his parents had a place. The owners, wanting to sell, had refused better offers from the big corporations.”

  “He’ll do well when water comes to the area,” Davis observed.

  “That’s an astute observation,” Garcia responded. “Land values will double. To avoid any hint of impropriety I told only those who had good reason to know about the proposed project.”

  Something about the way Garcia said it made Davis wonder if the constraint included Carlos. He let the thought go. Instead, he addressed his wife, saying, “The lessening of border tensions will make your assignment a little easier.”

  “Possibly,” Ellis said patting his hand. “But only for the next eight months or so.” She then gave herself completely away by breaking into a broad smile when she caught Davis staring at her unfilled wine glass.

  “Something to tell me?” he asked, trying to look calm.

  “Tell the whole world, my love. You’re going to have a son.”

  “¡Qué buena suerte!” Gustavo and Garcia blurted out, slapping Davis on the back. They couldn’t get close to Ellis. She had disappeared in Davis’s massive hug.

  When the congratulations had subsided, Gustavo caught Davis’s eye. “Hey, papá, Mindstor II’s your baby,” he joked. “I’ll let you tell her.”

  “A surprise for me?” Ellis asked.

  “For almost everybody but you,” Davis responded. “It’s something you insisted on, almost from the beginning. It’s preliminary stuff—mindstor’s confirming an alien presence.”

  After he and Gustavo had finished explaining, Ellis had an unexpected comment.

  “Is it strange only to me that the fortuitous events of the last few years seem to trace back to what happened on Murkor?”

  “Coincidence or something more, time may tell,” Garcia said. “For now, I propose a toast.”

  Four glasses were raised. One filled with water.

  “To the continued health and happiness of the expectant mother—and to the belief we have in each other.”

  17. A Question

  “MUH-THA,” CARLIE DAVIS ASKED, “why do big people fight?”

  “There are lots of reasons—sit up straight at the breakfast table, sweetheart.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Ellis watched her husband, relishing the caldo de costilla made from a recipe Garcia had sent them, come to attention. Apparently, he, too, really wanted to know. “One reason will suffice for now,” he offered, finding enjoyment in watching El’s cognitive wheels slowly rotate into motion. He hoped to remain an interested spectator.

  “No, I want two reasons!” Carlie emphasized with all the innocent charm that a four-year-old could muster.

  El considered the cause of her brief hesitation. She wasn’t the type to hide the world from their two children. The trick was making sense of the insanity.

  “People fight, sweetheart, because they get real mad at each other. Sometimes it’s because one person takes something the other one wants.”

  “Like when Lyle grabs my toys?”

  Hearing his name, Lyle Pilot Davis, barely two, ceased wiggling in his chair. Resting his chin on the table’s rim, he peered out over the plateau. Absorbing all, he said nothing.

  “Not exactly,” Ellis said. “Your brother’s a little person. He doesn’t know any better—”

  She immediately realized her mistake. So did hubby, forming a slight smile.

  “Aren’t big people suppost to know better?” Carlie protested.

  “Yes, they are. That’s what makes it so sad. Now Daddy will give you a second reason.”

  “I will?” Davis said, pretending to be put off, but he already knew he would. He wasn’t overly protective either. “It’s because they’re afraid,” he said, tidily rolling a thousand reasons into one.

  Carlie tilted her head, squinted her eyes, and twisted her mouth—simultaneously co
ntorting her face into both a frown and a scowl to make it crystal-clear she thought her father was crazy.

  Davis liked stretching his kids’ boundaries. “When people are afraid they don’t always hide. Sometimes they want to hurt. Want to know what makes them afraid? Sometimes they’re afraid because someone looks or acts a little different. They can’t look past that to see they’re very much alike. Never be that kind of afraid, sweetheart.”

  Lyle, taking special notice, raised his head off the table. “Me too?” he suddenly asked.

  “Especially you, little man.”

  EPILOGUE

  ON A PLANET LIGHT-YEARS distant from Murkor there presently exists a profoundly complicated mass comprised of one hundred billion micron-sized structures interconnected chemo-electrically through one hundred trillion points of contact and which processes gaseous oxygen and carbon dioxide to function. Incredibly, although being an object wholly physical in nature, it is foremost capable of initiating the completely independent and non-physical property of mind. The morphology of this structure is studied to this day. We refer, of course, to the living organ known as the human brain.

  Despite this instructive example of what is possible, attempts at formulating a universally applicable definition of Life continued. It was an effort doomed to fail. As more planets were explored each revised definition had been discarded as too limiting.

  The Entity purported to inhabit Murkor was once again challenging scientists to stretch the parameters of their thinking, this time to the breaking point. How, they protested, were they to scrutinize, let alone classify, a theoretical “thing” that could so utterly mimic the chemical and molecule properties of water that every attempt to isolate and analyze it was thwarted? Because no progress in this regard had been made the Entity’s existence was scorned as something of a chimera.

  Two more years gone by, and this state of affairs still failed to deter Davis and Gustavo. Relying heavily on the expertise of cadre of researchers, they made substantial progress in developing Mindstor II, expanding the scope of its intuitive, creative (and sometime frustrating) thinking to the point where IHI felt comfortable releasing the AI on a restricted trial basis to a select handful of liberal arts colleges and think-tanks.

  It was during its latter stage of development that the two close friends coaxed Mindstor II into providing an elegant, if not definitive, explanation of the Entity:

  There is insufficient information to render factually unassailable statements regarding the events that took place on Murkor. Nevertheless, reasonable assertions can be made.

  For six billion years Murkor was a resplendent world, nurturing nearly as many life-forms as found on Earth. Life there would still be flourishing if the meteor that impacted the planet had its initial velocity altered by a trifling fraction of one kilometer per millennium or its original trajectory deflected by less than one billionth of one degree.

  Nine Entity types survived the cataclysm. Eight were discovered and studied. One Entity eluded astrobiologists by being capable of duplicating the molecular and chemical properties of water. While life on Murkor had either morphed or perished, the Entity bridged geologic epochs by becoming a master of stealth and disguise, using molecular duplicity to assure its survival unperceived within a multitude of living hosts. It could do so with impunity and perhaps without exception—for although life-forms on Murkor are radically different than those of Earth, the few studied have proven them to be water-based.

  The Entity is orders of magnitude smaller than a virus and indistinguishable from water present in the environment and living organisms, inclusive of human cells. Presently there is no detection device on Nadir, Zenith, the Varian System, Earth, or anywhere else that has the ability to distinguish the Entity from its surroundings—despite such devices being capable of screening and eliminating pathogens as small as a virus or prion. It appears that conscious humans, when stressed or in isolation, have an apprehensive awareness of the Entity when it hovers in close proximity. This perception ceases when it is harbored at the cellular level.

  The Entity left the environment Nadir’s Lava Tube N119 within the persons of Amanda Cruz, Roya Allawi and, less certainly, within the drinking water siphoned from that location. Inhalation, ingestion, or both, were the likely modes of transmission to the balance of Nadir’s unsuspecting crew. Its first effects were confused with the symptoms of oxygen deprivation resulting from a malfunctioning Environmental Support System. As the ESS failure became critical, the Entity became more proficient at regulating and lowering human metabolic function, intervening to delay asphyxiation and the eventual death of its six human hosts. If Nadir’s crew understood this, the encounter would have been less traumatic. In a similar, though necessarily more expeditious manner, the Entity intervened to save the lives of Ellis, Jensen, and possibly Imholtz when each was deprived of sufficient oxygen to maintain life.

  The Entity uses trace amounts of carbon dioxide and the cloaking presence of water to survive, and possibly the electro-chemical energy produced by a living organism to thrive. Any organism meeting these criteria will suffice as host. On Murkor it needed, or preferred, most or all of a small human population alive. On Earth, there is no such limitation.

  There is presently no way to determine the Entity’s intelligence (if the word applies), though it can be conjectured as an order of magnitude greater than human. For while the inhabitants of Nadir and Zenith showed their propensity for antagonism and isolation, it waited, seeking assurance that humans were suitable hosts. The actions of Commander Ellis, Comandante Garcia, and others adequately demonstrated this capacity. Whether this was entirely of their own volition or aided by a subtle alteration in their brain chemistry is unclear. In either case, the Entity committed its continued existence to them and to Earth.

  The Entity had seen its own world, and the life on it, brought to the brink of annihilation—a potential which Earth’s superpowers possess. It is plausible to assume it will prevent this from happening again, intervening proactively, when necessary, to guide humanity in a harmonious direction. In return for this protection it more than just survives. Through the beingness of a multitude of Earth’s living hosts it symbiotically experiences the totality and wondrous beauty of all Life.

  The designation Symbiont of Earth is applicable.

  ***

  This morning, El cried twice.

  Which was twice more than she had in the last five years of her life.

  The first time was when Brian chose to read her the foregoing Mindstor II declaration. “My dear wife,” he had said to her, “if anyone, it was you who brought the Symbiont to Earth from Murkor.”

  She had cried understanding the joy he knew the statement would give her and the love that his dedication represented.

  “It no longer matters what people choose to believe, sweetheart,” she had responded. “Have you seen the news today? The Accord has been ratified.”

  The unification of Unión and Coalition, faster than even Garcia anticipated, had come to fruition.

  The second time she cried was profoundly bittersweet. She was alone, staring at a holo image taken of her family, the four of them smiling. It had reminded her of a similar image she viewed fleetingly, years ago.

  Preparing to step out of a shuttle.

  And set foot on Murkor.

  The only thing missing now was a dog.

  Which could be easily rectified.

  About the Author

  GARY TARULLI holds a B.A. degree in Literature from the State University of New York at Oneonta. His many and diverse occupations have included that of Housing Inspector, Radiation Emergency Response Officer, and Hearing Officer. Activities he enjoys include scuba diving, hiking, and skiing. He and his wife live on Long Island, New York. Their dog, Angie, insisted on being in Gary’s first novel.

  Gary is the author of the well-reviewed science fiction novel, Orb. Visit him at www.garytarulli.com and www.facebook.com/GaryTarulli.

  Praise for Ga
ry Tarulli’s novel, Orb

  “Orb is highly satisfying for a first novel. The scientific questions raised are not cliché and the author deals with them in a mature but entertaining manner. Recommended for anyone with a thirst for good character study or deeply speculative science fiction.”

  —SFRevu

  “A story of close quarters and the psyche, “Orb” is an intriguing pick for those who like science fiction with a psychological edge.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “I think what kept me hooked the most was the element of suspense woven seamlessly throughout the story. There was always the question of “What next?” in the back of my mind.”

  —Red, Red Reader Reviews