I pulled the covers back. “Then hop in.”
She scrambled into the bed and disappeared under the blankets as I threw them over her. A few seconds later her head popped out and she pulled a pillow over and snuggled in to it.
“You do know you’re going to have to wear clothes when we go out for breakfast tomorrow don’t you?”
“Yeah, I suppose. Until then, though ….”
***
The next morning I brought out an old bag of clothing Arlene had left behind in the bus. I pulled one of the tee shirts over her head and helped her get her arms through the sleeves. We rummaged through the bag and found a pair of shorts and sneakers that fit pretty well. I had her turn around to make sure everything was okay then added one of my foreshortened long-sleeve shirts I’d left in the dryer too long.
“You look really good, Ell. But how come no spiky, red hair?”
“That wouldn’t work on a real-world body, so I used something a little less garish. Are you disappointed?”
“No. Not at all. Blonde quite becomes you.”
That brought a self-conscious smile and a half turn of her head to show off the back. “You really think so?” It was a uniquely feminine response.
“I do.” I couldn’t help but smile at her human reactions. I had not seen those when we were together in the glider and suspected most of her mannerisms had been loaded from my own memories the glider had retained. “Come on. I’m hungry. How about you?”
“That feeling in my stomach?”
“Yeah. That’s your breakfast call.”
***
At the restaurant Ell brought me up to speed on her dilemma. While the titanium rod I had provided worked reasonably well on short hops, it still had a huge unpredictable error factor on galactic-size jumps. When she had tried to return home, the glider had emerged so far off target in space and time, it didn’t even recognize the star patterns. It was only due to the glider’s maintaining a link to its last jump that allowed her to return to the vicinity of Earth.
“So you actually need titanium pure beyond anything we could produce when we met.”
“Apparently.”
Ell had started slow on breakfast. The dexterity needed to operate the knife and fork were apparently not a part of her download. She had watched me, though, and was starting to figure it out. She had diced her fried eggs into her grits and buttered her toast fairly evenly. The coffee had burned her tongue, though. “This real-world eating is a lot trickier than it looks.”
“Try a little of the ice water. It might make your tongue feel better.”
She took a cautious sip then continued her story. From Ell’s perspective only a few days had passed. It took her that long to track me down over the ten years that had gone by for me since my download back in Stubbinville. She had finally discovered Aunt Cealie and placed a sentinel at her cabin to look for me if I ever came back.
“A sentinel? Did it look like a crow?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I guess I’m on to your little tricks now. Did a female named Arlene ever show up?”
Ell glanced up at me. “A female? Don’t tell me you have a mate.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Well, the sentinel ran scans over a twelve year span but no Arlene ever showed up. Should she have?”
“No. I was just curious. But what about you? Ell is still with the glider and you’re a copy. I take it you’re supposed to help me somehow.”
“Yes. I’m your assistant.”
“You said it only took you a few days to find me. How did the glider manufacture a twenty year old you in a few days?”
“You and James left skin cells with DNA in the glider. The glider used them to design me. It just paired your X chromosome with the X James’ got from his mother so I would be female. I’m actually growing in an incubator on the moon at this moment and will be ready in another twenty years when the incubator will hop back in time to deliver me ready for Ell’s download. That happened yesterday.”
“Um. Then what happens to you after the Ell in the glider gets another replacement rod?”
“I’ll have to stay here. Only one of us can exist on the glider, or anywhere else in the virtual world, for that matter. I’m like you now. I’ll die at some point. I’m still Ell but with a lot less capability than the original because I’m in human form. So don’t think of me as a copy. I’m Ell. Your Ell.” Her blue eyes held mine to make the point.
I dropped my gaze. “Sorry. It’s a little confusing as to just what’s happened. And I’m having a hard time dealing with you growing old and dying.”
“I won’t grow old. I’ll always look like this. Remember, I’m not completely DNA-based. The glider stripped out the aging components of the DNA to give me a fixed appearance. Nevertheless, I’ll die at some point. Meanwhile, I’m very much enjoying this experience.”
But two minutes later she didn’t look like she was enjoying it at all.
“Ell, are you okay?” She had blanched as white as the porcelain plates.
“Oh!” Her fork clattered to the floor. “Something is extremely wrong.” She was obviously in serious trouble. “I’m failing already. This shouldn’t be happening.”
I’d just slid out of the booth to try to help when she moaned, “I’m dying, Cager. I’m sorry.” Then she threw up breakfast all over the table.
I dropped a twenty on a clear spot, scooped Ell up and carried her toward the door. The distraught waitress followed trying to give my money back. I told her it wasn’t the food and to keep the change.
“But it’s only eight twenty-two for the meals, sir,” she wailed as the door closed behind us.
Ell threw up a bit more in the Jeep as I sped back to my lodgings, then she fell over in the seat groaning. I stroked her forehead whenever we hit a straight stretch of road and she fell quiet. By the time we got to the cabin she seemed somewhat recovered. I wiped her face with a wet cloth and gave her some mouthwash to get the vomit taste out. Her color was beginning to return by then.
“I’m sorry, Cager. I don’t know what went wrong back there.”
“I think I know. Was that the first time you’ve ever eaten?”
“Yes. It was going so well, too.”
“You’re almost human now, Ell. Humans can’t tolerate a big meal on a stomach that hasn’t had food for a long time. In your case, never. You just got a bit of nausea. We need to start you off slow. And get your insides set up with gut bacteria too. There’s some yogurt in the fridge. We’ll start you on that when you feel better.”
That afternoon we went clothes shopping. The salesgirls helped me pick everything out. I remembered the clown suit Ell had chosen the night we met. It reminded me she used to be a whale-like creature. Whales had no need of clothes, so fashion was as alien to Ell as she was to Earth. The shopping spree ran into the late afternoon but we had her pretty well outfitted by close of business. She had put away two yogurts and was hungry again so we stopped for ice cream. She loved it. I had to show her how to lick it instead of eating it in big bites. She threw that up on the way home. At least she recognized the symptoms and asked me to pull over. After several heaves she dragged herself back into the Jeep and said, “I think I’m getting the hang of it.”
Chapter 42
Over the following months, I procured a complete set of identity documents for Ell from the contacts I’d made. The papers were professionally produced and could withstand scrutiny by any law enforcement agency that didn’t run an exhaustive background search. Even then, I was confident everything would check out. The original’s parents had died when she was ten. Her foster home records indicated she disappeared with a drifter who had caught her fancy. No foul play had been suspected so her name wasn’t on any law enforcement list. Best of all, her name had been Ellen so Ell was a natural nickname.
And so Ell, now an official resident of Earth, began settling in. We ran the hills in the mornings. Her body hardly broke a sweat as she glid
ed gazelle-like through the countryside. Every experience was new for her. She dawdled by the trail to study the minutest details of the forests. It reminded me of my first trip to Aunt Cealie’s with Joey and that I still had a mission in life I needed to get back to.
While Ell was a bit of a distraction, she was still a mathematician of the highest caliber. I had made a lot of headway on the equations she had gifted to me and I pointed out to her that I was back to the equation behind the two that linked the real world to the quantum world.
“That’s the Creation Equation, Cager. Everything else can be derived from it. The five variables on the left define the real world and the seven on the right define the quantum world we both share. Those two variables right there,” she said pointing to my scribbles, “are quantum gravity.”
I shook my head. “The units in those variables are mind blowing, Ell. I have a degree in physics but still can’t figure some of them out. I’ve been able to derive quantum entanglement and time dilation and most of the rest like entropy but the interplay among them—I’m at a loss. I do, however, see the time travel possibilities when I rearrange the equation so the time variables are on one side isolated from all the spatial and gravitational variables. It’s still a mess, though. Who figured all this out, anyway?”
“No biological mind, I assure you.”
“Really? Then you’re saying I have no chance in solving the time travel parts of the equation without outside help? Non-biological help?”
“No. I’m not quite saying that. I’m just saying the derivation of the Creation Equation wasn’t made by a biologically based mind. Solving it once you have it is a different matter. Still hard, but I suspect within your capability.” Then she brightened. “But don’t forget, you have me now.”
“And so I have two problems.”
“Am I a problem, Cager? I’m trying not to be.”
“No, no. You’re not a problem. What I meant is, we now need to figure out how to produce pure titanium for a new rod for your glider too. So don’t ever think you’re a problem. You aren’t. But we have a long road ahead of us. Meanwhile, there’s not much we can do but keep investing, so we might as well have a little fun while we wait.”
Chapter 43
I had about 200,000 dollars invested by that time, and both Ell and I had IDs showing us as twenty-one.
A month later, we rolled back into Carmel flush with 160 grand from the blackjack tables of Reno and Las Vegas. Before we’d left, I had bought a 42 foot steel-hulled ketch and had it documented as Lovely Pebble. It now lay moored at a Monterey marina not a ten minute drive from the cabin. After we unpacked, I drove Ell down to see the boat.
As we strolled past the transom with the vessel’s name emblazoned on the sea-green hull in bone-white letters trimmed in gold leaf, Ell stopped with a little jolt before spinning around toward me, her face alight with surprise.
“That’s my name”
I smiled.
She turned back and studied the entire vessel. “Oh, thank you, Cager. I love that it has my name. It’s such an elegant construction. The curves and lines. So graceful. So beautiful. It’s nothing like the glider. And it goes across the water powered only by the wind?”
“Well, it has a small diesel engine, too, but that’s only for when the wind isn’t blowing and you’re in a hurry.”
“Who would ever be in a hurry on a vessel such as this?” She glanced over at me. “Can I go on it?”
“That’s why I bought it.”
A half hour later I had shown her around the cabins and explained all the electrical systems and panels and navigation equipment. Then we clambered up on to the teak deck and aft to the wheel well and compass binnacle. She stood behind the wheel like a kid, staring upwards to the mast tops. After that we removed the sail covers as I explained the sheets and vangs and halyards until she cried out, “Stop. I’m overloaded. I can’t remember it all. It’s not like being in a virtual world with unending memory storage.”
“I understand completely. That’s what we humans have to put up with.”
“Yes. I’ve noticed that I can’t even recall every detail from yesterday. Just pieces. An incomplete picture of the past but enough to get by. It’s quite unnerving. But enough of this philosophy. When do we get to go out on the ocean?”
***
By noon we were closehauled across the blue Pacific as California’s coastline blurred into a long, hazy smudge over our transom. Only the rush of water sluicing beneath the hull broke the silence. I locked the wheel and went forward adding a quarter turn on the starboard winch to trim in the genoa. Immediately the vessel stiffened as it cut through languid swells born of volcanic archipelagos 7,000 miles to the west. Ell stood braced against the cabin searching the ocean ahead. A sudden explosion of breath drew her immediate interest as a pod of humpbacks surfaced blowing brilliant spumes high into the sunlight.
“Cager! Look.” She pointed her bare arm off the port beam. “There, there. I was like that once.” Then she quickly swept the horizon. “We’re the only humans out here. Can I get rid of these clothes for a while? I want to be like I was. Like those whales.”
“Sure. Un-suit yourself.”
She turned back to me. “Hey. That was a joke back when we first met wasn’t it?”
I shrugged. “Barely.”
“Is that another joke?”
“Just be sure to put some sunscreen on, or the sun will burn the skin that’s been under your clothing.”
“Yeah, I noticed that skin was whiter.”
“You already have a tan on your face and arms and legs. It’ll take a while for the rest of you to catch up.”
So, sails brimming with wind and light, we sliced through the rise and fall of gentle rollers as afternoon slipped by. Ell perched out on the bowsprit looking for whales, but, much to her disappointment, no more happened by. It was a reminder to me she was not actually human. Not what she appeared to be. And I suspected, alien beyond anything I had yet imagined. But it didn’t seem to matter to me as I watched her scanning the horizon.
I finally brought Lovely Pebble about and trimmed her to run before the wind back toward Monterey. Ell came aft around the cabin and stepped down into the cockpit. The salt spray had dusted her hair in sparkling crystals refracting the late afternoon sun. That, and the blue of the ocean captured in her eyes, transmuted her for a moment into an earthly version of that race of intelligent sea-life she had sprung from. It was an amazing creature that approached me. Studiously ignoring the vision as she sat down next to me, I pushed my finger into her shoulder. She had a slight burn in spite of the sunscreen. “Hungry?” I asked.
It was our first trip out, so I hadn’t planned an elaborate dinner. We finished our takeout from the Cabbage Leaf and were halfway through a bottle of German Riesling. It was the first time I had given this Ell any alcohol and she was a bit tipsy as we sat together behind the wheel watching the horizon flicker with the evening lights of scattered coastal towns. She leaned into me for warmth as a gentle breeze over the starboard quarter drove us forward. I put my arm around her and pulled her up close. Alien or not, she was all I had.
“Tell me about Arlene.”
“Arlene? What do you want to know?”
“Everything. From the day you first met. About how you grew up together. What happened to her. I want to know it all.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I don’t care. I love long stories. I love being out here on the ocean. I love this boat.” She paused for the length of a heartbeat. “I love you.” I glanced down to meet her gaze. “It’s okay to say that isn’t it? I know I’m not human.”
“It’s okay. I love you too, Ell. Even though I’m not a whale. And yes, I know you’re not a whale either but I think it must have been something close.” And in that moment the enchantment was broken.
Just as I had not loved Arlene, I did not love Ell, though I was struck by her nymph-like beauty. In both cases I had seen them evolve from somet
hing other than themselves and I could not get past it. Arlene remained, for me at least, Arlie, perhaps the closest friend I’d ever had. And Ell, though a technological marvel, was, after all, constructed from the virtual remains of some unimaginable and ageless carrion feeder that had inhabited an alien swamp halfway across the galaxy. I also suspected that, as nature had done with the geese in King Solomon’s Rings, the virtual Ell had imprinted this real-world copy of herself with me as its center of affection. That would have been the smart thing to do. And if Ell was programmed still more deeply, would she even know it? Could I ever truly trust her? Or was I just thinking too much?
Lately, though, it seemed nothing real existed in my life anymore. Not even myself.
Then Ell wrapped both arms around my chest and put her head on my shoulder. “I’m not anything. I’m just me. And I love you. Now tell me about Arlene.”
***
We were off the coast of Pacific Grove by the time I finished the story of Arlie and Arlene. I brought Lovely Pebble about and trimmed her for a beam reach into Monterey Bay. Ell had grown cold and dressed in spite of her cetacean disdain for clothing. She sat next to me in the dim glow of the binnacle light. A frown creased her forehead.
“So, in spite of her terrible father and being made fun of and beat up, she remained a good person?”
“Yes.”
“And obviously she loved you. For your sake, she sacrificed everything good she had finally acquired. Just left with nothing. Alone on a strange road on a rainy night.” Ell looked up at me. “I wonder what happened to her.”
“I don’t know. I have no way to find her.”
“Did she ever tell you she loved you?”
“Just as she slid out the door and disappeared.”
Ell shook her head slowly. “Wow. I had no idea.”
Chapter 44
A Gift of Time Page 21