by Robin Roseau
I stared at her. "Do you think that's funny?"
"Maybe a little." She offered the little growl that I'd come to appreciate as her laugh.
"What else?"
"Health is a factor. You are in good health. But frankly, if we wanted you enough, we'd cure whatever you might have. But in a way, each of these factors is a point. Do you remember any of the dreams?"
"Just one. Some sort of gladiator scene. I've been having nightmares since."
"Telling you to choose."
I stared. "Did you make me have those nightmares?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she said, "We make you sleep, but your eyes and ears remain open, and we give you images and sounds. We present situations to you. We further test your xenophobia. You ranked relatively low, although you held a decidedly adverse reaction to some species."
"Any look like spiders?"
She growl-laughed again. "Yes."
"Snakes?"
"You seemed intrigued by the Hurmari."
"Snake-people?"
"After a fashion, yes. An intriguing species. However, it is only the females that can accept a human mate, and unlike some species, the mate must be male." She paused. "We could change you."
"Excuse me?"
"If you wanted to be male."
"Do I have a choice?"
"On this, yes."
"Absolutely not."
She growl-laughed again. "I didn't think so. That was another scenario. Your reaction suggested horror."
"I'm glad I don't remember. Eww."
"Not as much horror as the spiders."
"Do we have to go there?"
"No. I feel for the Listandi. Their most obvious allies, from a taxonomy standpoint, would be in our opposition. Most races react to them like humans do."
"Getting sidetracked."
"Ah. Yes. Several scenarios tested your reaction to threats against the young. At first, they were human young. But then we tested the young of other species. And while you were not equally protective in every test, your reactions were generally quite fierce."
"I imagine most humans react the same way."
"Yes and no. You were ready to protect the young of most species, except those you already found distasteful."
"How many different tests were there?"
"Several dozen in all."
I sighed. "Fine. And after all that, you told them to select me?"
"I had nothing to do with that decision. It is a simple mathematical score. Occasionally someone is excluded due to some factor not normally scored. Other times, someone is so desirable in some areas, that as long as they are not horribly xenophobic, they are taken, anyway. But your scores were so high there was no question."
"I see. A perfect mate."
"Yes."
"For you?"
She paused. "Humans refer to my species as the Temier. I told you we have three genders, and that two of them could be considered female. I represent one of those genders."
"Yes."
"Humans cannot serve as the other female. We can make significant changes to your body, but we cannot change you so far that you can bear our young."
"But you can mate with us?"
"We can adjust your reproductive DNA to be compatible with ours, in some ways. We could more easily alter a male. We could alter you to become my gender."
"I could nurse the young."
"You would first produce the eggs. And then yes, you could nurse our young. But you could not carry our young. We can not change your body that much."
"So I'm not for you."
"It is not known whom you are for. But for us to become mated, I would need to be changed dramatically."
"Ah." I thought about it. "I'm still mad at you."
"I imagine."
"I liked being a tiger though."
She offered her growl-laugh.
I tried to look away. When I couldn't, I closed my eyes. But I said in a small voice, "I thought we were friends."
"We are, Sapphire. I hope."
"Why couldn't you just have invited me?" I opened my eyes to watch her. "Why this way?"
"Would you have accepted this role?"
"I don't know. But now you should know. I'm going to fight you with my last breath."
"Good."
"Excuse me?"
"I interrupted your education. I'll explain briefly. Mating rituals within a single species can be eclectic and deeply involved. When you factor in the wide variety of species, and the stress of all of us being so far from home, the combination of desired mating rituals is expansive."
"So?"
"Of the sentient races in the Federation, about eighty percent, including humans, involve conquest in at least some of their mating rituals."
"You want me to fight?"
"From there, the differences are vast. And so we have developed some combined rituals that fit most of the species. First, you could accept your role and offer yourself as a mate."
"That won't happen."
"And so that eliminates six of the races in nearby space. The remaining relish your struggle."
"They want to rape me." I spat the words.
"No. They need to win you. In the end, you will have choices."
"Choices."
"Yes. You have another two and a half days where you are. Then you make your final choice to accept or to fight."
"I already told you-"
"Yes. You might change your mind. We're not done talking. And you're not done learning."
"Whatever."
"After that, there is another set of choices to make, and then, probably, your first challenge. If you win, you are returned home."
Hope soared within me.
"What sort of challenge?"
"Combat."
"I'm supposed to fight some sort of extraterrestrial warrior for my freedom?"
"You are not obligated to fight, and the warrior will be attempting to capture you, not hurt you. I imagine you will not feel so constrained."
"Absolutely not."
"But that is only the first challenge. There are at least two challenges, and depending upon who wins you in the first challenge, as many as ten. Depending upon the suitor, you must only win once to be free. With others, winning only changes the nature of the next challenge, and it is the last challenge you must win to be free. With others, if you lose the first challenge, and you almost certainly will, then the remaining challenges only define what is to happen next."
"Which is?"
"How your suitor is allowed to court you, and for how long, in an attempt to win your affection."
"Not. Interested."
"You say that now." She offered a growl-laugh. "Your suitor will be quite convincing."
"If anyone comes near me with dangly bits, he better have me well tied, because I swear I will do whatever I can to remove them."
"Are you sure you want to tell me that."
"You're safe, unless you have male dangly bits."
"Perhaps I'll share your threats with whoever wins you."
"Will you?"
"No, actually. But I suspect you will."
We stared at each other before I admitted, "Yeah, probably. So if I resist his advances, I get to go home?"
"Yes."
"Fine. No problem. I am very, very good at saying 'no'."
We sat -- or in my case, lay -- staring at each other for a while. Finally she said, "You have more questions."
"Why are you giving me this time? Don't you have better things to do?"
"We're friends. You're scared. Do I need more reason than that?"
"We're not friends."
"Yes, we are, Sapphire. But perhaps you want me to go."
I closed my eyes for a while. "How do I call you?"
"There's an option from Interactive Mode. You'll find it. The interface should be familiar to you. It is modeled after your modern computer interfaces. Mine is quite different. What other questions do you have?"
"Why the c
hair?"
"The chair monitors your health. It removes your waste and provides you with sustenance. It can also enhance your experience."
"Why was I effectively taken from my bed and not allowed to get dressed?"
"Ah. Remember that variety of mating rituals?"
"Yes."
"Well, in those species that desire or require conquest, a third of them begin with the mating candidate taken from her bed. For some of them, she is taken by friends or family and offered as a mate. For others, it would be your future mate who would take you, although most of the races that prefer a bride from her bed are willing to send agents to take you."
"I see."
"These are ancient rituals, and your potential mate will be satisfied that you come to the first challenge dressed as from your bed."
"In my pajamas and bathrobe."
"At least you were wearing something."
"Wait! I could have been naked, and they wouldn't have let me throw on any clothes?"
"Yes."
I screamed at her for a while. She accepted it, saying nothing until my words tapered off.
"Spitting mad?" she asked.
"Damned right."
"You understand the majority of species wear clothing only for the utility it offers. I, for instance, not only cannot stand the thought of confining clothing, but I don't understand human modesty. You have intriguing bodies, and I don't understand why you hide them."
"Neither do I, but we do."
She growl-laughed at that.
"My species wouldn't care what you wore to the first challenge, but we would seek to remove your clothing for future challenges."
"Clothing is protection for us, not just modesty. Protection from the elements. Protection from rough ground and sharp branches. Perhaps our ancient, ancient ancestors required no clothing, and those people who never wear shoes develop tough feet. But my feet are especially tender and quite easily hurt just by stepping on a Lego."
"What is a Lego?"
"It is a child's toy. It is a small construction piece made of plastic. It has sharp corners, and stepping on one hurts."
"It is like stepping on a knife?"
"No. They are rectangular." I paused. "Like an elongated cube. But due to their size, all your weight is applied to a very small area."
"Ah, I understand. I suspect my feet would dislike this experience as well, although perhaps not as much as yours."
I closed my eyes. "Moirai, I don't want to do this."
"I know."
"Can't you keep me safe?"
"Sapphire, you are safe. You need not fight, and you would be deeply cherished."
"I'm not letting some alien man have me!"
"It does not need to be a male."
I opened my eyes.
"You have more study to do," she went on.
"Please don't let them do this to me."
"Let me ask you something. Have you thought about how I answered your question about the intelligence of man?"
"Yes." It was said sullenly.
"Have you come to any conclusions?"
"I don't know if you're right."
"But you aren't willing to decide I'm wrong."
"No. I admit we were fucking up. I admit we as a species didn't appear to have the maturity to make the right choices. As individuals, many of us did, but not enough to achieve the required changes. But a lot of us realized this, and we were building momentum."
"I know. But I do not believe it was building fast enough. Am I wrong?"
"I don't know."
"We decided that the petroleum wars had already begun. They had not yet directly involved the United States, China, and Russia in direct competition, but we felt it was inevitable. We also had significant concerns about several of the growing terrorist groups, and the models after the Fukushima incident were not good."
"I know."
"We cleansed your oceans of the radiation and cleaned up the disaster."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. We utilized technology that will take you at least another century to develop. We weren't sure that Fukushima would destroy the planet, but we were deeply concerned. Sapphire, we're not sure any human society would be intact today. We're not talking a hundred years. We weren't sure you would make five, if we didn't intervene."
"But you didn't know."
"No. We didn't know. But it would have required something drastic to change the political climate worldwide in time. We were absolutely convinced global petroleum wars were inevitable. And that says nothing about overpopulation."
"You were heavy-handed about that."
"Did you give us a choice?"
"I don't know."
"You won't argue we were wrong about all this?"
"No. I won't agree you're right. I'm sure you're right about some of it."
"Some of it still translates into disaster. We didn't have to be right about all of it. Fukushima. Terrorist groups and a nuclear warhead. Petroleum. Population pressure. I could keep going. We only needed to be right about one of them for your home to become a barren wasteland. Tell me I'm wrong."
"I don't think you're wrong. Thank you for saving us from ourselves."
"You are welcome. When we came, we offered to leave. We presented our fears to your leaders. We presented what we were offering to do to help. We made obvious offers to help the general populace accept us. We offered more, in private, to only some of your leaders." She paused. "We don't test everywhere."
"That's not fair!"
"Can you imagine a villager from Bangladesh being taken to a place like this? You come from an privileged society, and so you carry additional responsibility."
"Fine," I said.
"We made our offer, but we also explained the cost we would bear. We do not ask you to sacrifice your lives to us, although we sacrifice some of ours for you."
"Don't belittle the sacrifice you're forcing upon me. You had a choice. I didn't."
"I do not belittle what is happening, Sapphire. I only seek to help you understand."
"Fine," I repeated.
"We gave your leaders a choice. We could leave, or you could accept this situation. They asked us to stay."
"Fine. And how many of them have become your mates?"
"None, but has your current president's daughter been seen in public lately?"
"Excuse me?"
"She volunteered."
"That was her choice."
"We sent her through testing. She scored nearly as highly as you did. She would have been selected. She had advance warning, but ultimately she arrived at a processing center just like this one, dressed in a fashion not that dissimilar from your arrival."
"Was she handcuffed?"
"No, but are you angry about that?"
I sighed.
"I think I've given you enough to think about, Sapphire. Unless you ask me to stay, I'm going to leave you. But if you desire, you may call me later. If you do not, may I call you?"
"What have my parents been told?"
"That as a result of your test results, you have been offered a tour of our station out in space. It's a one-time offer, and so your vacation was sudden. They understand there may be a job offer during your tour."
"I see."
"Perhaps you should nap. The chair will see to your needs, and your visor can help you sleep."
"I'd like if you called again."
"Then I shall. I'm sorry this is frightening, Sapphire. When you're ready, you can end our call."
I stared at her a little longer. I wasn't ready to be alone. "I'm scared."
"There is no need, but I understand."
"Call me later."
"I will."
I ended the call.
Anti-Xenophobe
I didn't leave the chair. It did, indeed, see to my needs. I spent the next two and a half days either sleeping, talking to Moirai, or learning everything the visor would teach me. Moirai assured me I was even getting exercise, althou
gh not as good as real exercise.
The visor was quite clever. It had a variety of games, and I played a few, but I grew bored quickly. It had access to human news channels, and so I spent some time watching the news and a few movies. But mostly I learned about the aliens.
And the visor could make me sleep. The first time I tried it, I thought it was sleep mode for the visor itself. When I selected it, it asked for duration, and I asked for an hour. I was out seconds later. After that, it seemed to detect when I was fatigued, and it offered to help me sleep. Sometimes I declined, sometimes I accepted.
It was exactly eight AM on my third day when the visor interrupted me with a popup. "It is time to decide." A moment later, the background dimmed, the popup dimmed, and the visor automatically accepted a call. I found myself staring into an apparently human face, except for the eyes. They were the eyes of a cat.
"A Catseye," I said.
"Yes. Sapphire Fletcher, my human name is Dahlia Goldeyes. I am the administrator of this facility."
"So I can add you to the list of aliens I wish the most ill."
"Have you been abused?"
"My rights were deeply violated, and I have been imprisoned without access to a lawyer, without charges being filed, and, I am told, with no expectation of a court date."
"Ah. I understand. Yes, perhaps you have cause to wish me ill, but the feeling is not reciprocated."
"Of course not. I am to be a sacrifice to the greater good. Excuse me if I don't smile."
"I understand, Ms. Fletcher. I have reviewed your visor records. You have made good use of your time. You informed Agent Bower you would not volunteer. Have you changed your mind?"
"I have not."
"I didn't think so. Many do, but you seem quite fierce, especially for your size."
"I don't stand a chance in this combat you have for me, but I intend to die trying." I paused. "Literally."
"It won't come to that, Ms. Fletcher."
"I suppose I'm just one more human amongst far too many humans in the first place."
"No, Ms. Fletcher. You are not. You feel the results are foretold, but you still wish to accept challenge."
"No, I don't wish to accept challenge, but I'm not going meekly to some marriage bed. You'll have to drag me there."
"At this point, you are presented with two choices, and you must clearly choose between them. If you do not choose, you are choosing to accept challenge. Will you join with one of the races that prefers a willing mate, or will you accept challenge?"