by Zara Zenia
The vase had been a triumph, as had been convincing the computer to give her flowers to put in it. They weren't Earth flowers, but they were pretty. Almost like hydrangeas in big, colorful bunches in shades of blue and pink. They didn't seem to be dangerous, so she said to hell with it and put them in the vase in the center of the table. They were the only spot of color in the otherwise plain room. The computer didn't seem to understand how to do any color beyond white or occasionally black.
Once she'd exhausted the entertainment potential of asking the computer for weird things and watching it present increasingly unrecognizable results, she lay on her bed, contemplating how she could go about requesting a book or a video game or just something to do. Maybe whittling? She'd had her wood carving badge in girl scouts. She hadn't done it in ages, but it seemed less complicated than asking the computer for the latest season of her favorite TV show.
"I don't suppose you'd give me a knife?" she asked the computer without sitting up. A red cue light blinked on the panel accompanied by a brief harsh buzz. She'd come to recognize that as an indication that the computer not only couldn't make that, but it wasn't even going to try. It had done the same thing when she'd jokingly asked it for a puppy.
"Yeah, I didn't think so," Jewel sighed. "I need entertainment, damn it!"
The computer pinged gently, and the colorful toy thing it had tried to tempt her with back in the human habitat appeared on the night stand. She rolled her eyes and picked it up. The little glowing sphere in the center of the nest of colorful pipes jingled like a baby toy but didn't do much else. She threw it at the door in frustration.
"Try again," she said, irritated. It chimed and dropped a second toy on her chest. She threw that one too. It collided with the first, jingling gently in the corner near the door. She rolled over to face the wall, boredom quickly slipping into misery. She usually tried to stay busy to avoid this, but now there was nothing to do. It was just her and her thoughts. And she and her thoughts had never really gotten along.
She shifted uneasily and closed her eyes. Maybe she could nap the boredom away. It was better than lying here thinking about how she couldn't even get abducted by aliens right. She was probably going to spend the rest of her life in a habitat like the one on this ship, being the worst possible example of her species. Then again, maybe they'd send her home when they realized how incredibly unspectacular she was and abduct someone a little more worth putting on display.
She wondered if anyone was missing her yet. She hadn't had many friends after the discharge. Just Amos really. When she didn't show up to work, he'd probably assume the roads were washed out and she couldn't get down the mountain. But it had been a few days now. Had he tried to call her? Asked the police to check on her? Had they found her truck abandoned on the road, her shoe stuck in the mud? Or had it all been buried by the mudslide like Kay had said? Did they assume she was dead? Had they told her family? Her parents were both gone, one to heart disease and the other to a stroke, but she had an aunt in Indianapolis and a handful of cousins around somewhere. Not that she'd spoken to any of them in years.
Christ, what a depressing, empty casket funeral it would be. If they really let her go in six months, she'd have a fun time explaining to everyone where she'd been. Then again, maybe she wouldn't tell them. Maybe she wouldn't resume her old life at all. It wasn't like she'd been very attached to it. Maybe she'd ask them to quietly set her down somewhere nice and remote and she'd just start again.
Travel like she'd always wanted to. It sounded better than the alternative, going back to a life of steady loneliness, working and going home and telling herself she'd never have anything more. It was also preferable to the possibility of being a caged zoo animal for the rest of her life. She fell asleep imagining where she would go. But in her dreams, she was running through the foreign landscapes of the alien habitats again, laughing and victorious as she was chased through the leaves, climbing a tree that spiraled up and up into the sky, never ending.
Chapter 7
The sound of the door opening woke her with a startled jerk.
"Good, you are awake," Kay said as he stepped inside. "I would like to begin immediately. You can eat while we work."
"Out," Jewel growled, rolling over.
"Pardon?" Kay asked.
"Get out!" Jewel snapped, chucking a pillow at him.
"You cannot just—"
"One hour," Jewel demanded. "Come back in an hour."
Kay made an impatient noise, but he turned around and left, closing the door behind him. Jewel sighed in relief and fell back into her blankets. A few minutes later, she rolled out of bed and had a frustratingly long-winded argument with the computer as she tried to explain the concept of a bathroom until at last, an alcove opened in the wall big enough for a toilet and something that approximated a shower.
When she got in, instead of running water, it began vibrating loudly and she felt a rush of static electricity over her skin. With a yelp, she fell naked out of the shower stall, flailing to get away from it. She ran her hands over herself in a slight panic, but everything was still where it was supposed to be. And she felt clean, actually. The thing had just zapped the dirt off her.
She spent another few minutes talking the computer into giving her some new clothes, ending up with a plain white shirt and pants in the same loose material as Kay’s robes. Attempts at anything more complicated than that had utterly failed.
She noticed the bandages were still on her hands from the day before, still as pristine as when they'd been first applied, despite her romp through the forest yesterday. They weren’t even loose. She tugged at them curiously for a moment, impressed by their resiliency. Then she yawned and stumbled over to her chair, too tired to be properly curious.
When Kay returned, she was sitting at the table with a bowl of fruit, methodically chewing her way through a banana.
"Are you feeling less hostile now?" he asked.
"Depends," Jewel replied. "What kind of 'training' were you talking about last night?"
"Nothing too strenuous," Kay promised. "I need to have your mental abilities on record to prove my claims, and most importantly, I need to be certain you will behave yourself in front of the Council."
"Behave myself?" Jewel repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"I cannot have you throwing things at them or biting them, can I?" he said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Oh, yeah," Jewel said sarcastically, propping her elbow on the table. "I'm a wild animal, after all."
"Exactly," Kay said, not picking up on the sarcasm at all. "So we will start slow. Computer, initiate shape recognition test."
Jewel scowled, sitting back and crossing her arms. A box materialized on the table with a very familiar set of three holes on the top. Square, circle, triangle. The corresponding shapes appeared next to the box. Jewel looked up at Kay in frank disbelief.
"Seriously?"
Kay started a timer on the pad in his hand. Jewel could see notes appearing telepathically on the screen. She shook her head in disgust but decided to play along, grabbing the blocks and dropping them into the appropriate slots.
"Subject completed stage one without prompting or demonstration," Kay noted. "Administering reward."
He pulled a blue keychain-sized object and a tin box the size of his hand. The keychain was, it turned out, a clicker. He clicked it twice, then removed a small, brightly colored cube from the tin and placed it on the table in front of her.
"Good job," he said.
"Seriously?" Jewel's scowl deepened dramatically.
"It is tempered sucrose," he said, pushing it toward her. "Your species enjoys it."
"I am not a dog, Kay," Jewel said, lips pulling back over her teeth.
"I do not know what a dog is," Kay responded casually. "Initiating shape recognition stage two."
He removed the blocks from the box, shuffled them, and added a fourth, rectangular piece that didn't match any of the holes. He pushed
them toward Jewel expectantly.
"Begin."
"How about no?" Jewel stared at him, unmoving.
"It is very simple," Kay said, picking up one of the blocks and showing how it matched the space in the box. "See?"
"I'm not doing it," Jewel replied flatly.
"Subject can't complete stage two even with demonstration," Kay reported to his notes. "Shows signs of agitation."
"You haven't seen agitation yet." Jewel's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"The timer is still running," Kay said without looking up from his notes.
Jewel screwed her mouth up in disgust, then slammed the blocks into their appropriate holes.
"There, happy?"
"Subject completed stage two with below average time," Kay said, clicking the keychain again and handing her another cube of candy. "Possibly started with too complex a challenge. Subject becoming visibly frustrated."
"Okay, now I know you're just being obnoxious," Jewel said, pushing the box of shapes away. "I'm not a toddler or a chimp, Kay. I'm a civilized, tool-using adult capable of talking and reasoning and all that jazz. I'd appreciate it if you would stop patronizing me."
"Initiating stage three," Kay declared. He added a fifth, hexagonal shape to the blocks.
"Fuck you," Jewel said, throwing one of the sucrose cubes at him. "And your knock-off candy."
"Subject continues to display aggressive behavior unsuitable for public display," Kay noted.
Jewel stood abruptly and flipped the table, spilling colorful blocks into Kay's lap. Fuming, she stepped over the overturned table to stand over Kay, bending to put her hands on the arms of his chair and bring them eye to eye. He met her gaze with cool disinterest.
"We need to continue testing," he said, his face a breath away from hers.
"You need to get the hell out of my room until you can learn to treat me like a person," Jewel responded, her voice low and steady and dangerous. "I am not interested in playing along with this kiddy bullshit."
"These are standard intelligence tests," Kay said seriously, not flinching from her stare down. "It is the established method for measuring the intelligence of non-Ra'homi species. If I do not have clear, indisputable evidence of your abilities supported by the approved protocols, the Council will not even consider you."
"Good," Jewel replied, leaning a little closer. She could almost feel the cool of his skin. "Then you won't have any reason to show me to them, and you can take me home."
"I will not allow you to waste the opportunity First Contact provides for both my people and me," Kay said firmly, golden eyes narrowing. "You will be presented to the Council."
"What's in it for me?" Jewel asked, baring her teeth in a savage grin.
Kay frowned, staring back at her, and was silent for a long moment.
"You get to go home," he said at last. Jewel, caught off guard, backed off a little.
"You're bluffing," she said.
"I do not know what a vertical cliff face has to do with this, but I am being sincere," he said. "I will guarantee you are returned home if you cooperate. A guarantee I cannot make if you continue to act like a dangerous wild animal that is too dumb to cooperate with intelligence tests."
Jewel bit the inside of her cheek, fighting the urge to hit him.
"Fine," she says. "I cooperate with your dumb tests and you'll take me home? And I mean as soon as possible, not in like twenty years or whatever?"
"I will," he said at once.
"You promise?" she asked, offering a hand. He looked down at it in confusion.
"Shake on it," she explained. "It represents a contract for humans."
"A contract?" he repeated uneasily. "With what terms?"
"You stake your honor on your word," Jewel explained. "If you break it, you have no honor."
"Is honor a valuable currency on Earth?" Kay asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It's the only one worth a damn," Jewel confirmed.
Kay looked at her, considering it a moment longer, then took her hand.
"Agreed," he said. "I will make sure you are returned to Earth as soon as possible. I promise."
"Agreed." Jewel shook his hand, nodded, then stepped back to right the table and set the box and its assorted blocks back in place. She slotted them into their holes without comment.
"Very good," Kay said, clicking the little keychain and offering her another colorful sucrose cube.
"The candy is really not necessary," Jewel said with a sigh. "You're just making this more humiliating than it needs to be."
"It is part of the process," Kay insisted. But Jewel could see him smiling as he set up the next stage. This was his revenge for the tree climbing the day before. She knew it.
He continued for hours, each test as mind-numbingly infantile as the last. By the end, they'd at least progressed beyond kindergarten to some first grade IQ tests, but it was still tedious and infuriating. Jewel was fighting to maintain her patience.
"So what's in this for you, anyway?" she asked, her feet up on the table, chewing on a sugar cube. "Presenting me, I mean. Or is it just for the good of our mutual species?"
"Initiating safe, informed First Contact between Human and Ra'hom should be reason enough," he said, head down as he focused the puzzle he was preparing. It was about the fiftieth iteration of Hanoi's towers she'd been asked to solve.
"But it isn't," Jewel concluded. "This is personal, right? Or you'd just chuck me in a room and let someone else do this testing when I reach your home world."
Kay was silent for a long moment, considering his answer as he carefully arranged rings on the frame of the tower puzzle.
"I do not know how human society is arranged," he said. "How you govern yourselves or what values you hold most important. But the Ra'hom, at least our dominant cultural group, are a meritocracy. Your accomplishments are listed in your name and define your rank. Victories in battle, artistic achievements, positions in government, scientific discoveries . . ."
"So you want to be sure you're the one who gets the credit for discovering humanity?" Jewel concluded. "So you get the fancy addition to your name and a bump in rank?"
"It would be a triumph of such magnitude and unique value to our species that my entire designation would be rewritten in light of it," Kay replied. "It would almost guarantee me a future seat on the Council. There is no understating how much it would change my life."
"Wow." Jewel raised an eyebrow. "That's a big deal. I guess it would make me kind of a celebrity on Earth too. Hell, I guess I'd be in the history books and everything. First person to ever talk to an alien."
"If the Council decides to make formal contact with Humanity, yes," Kay said with a nod, pushing the tower puzzle toward her. Jewel began solving it, barely paying attention to her hands.
"You think there's a chance that they won't?" she asked as she finished the tower and pushed it back to him.
"Well, you are rather primitive," Kay said with a casual shrug, checking her work and handing her a piece of candy. "You have barely even left your own atmosphere. There may be ethical concerns about interfering with your development."
"Hey, we're smart enough to be looking for aliens already," Jewel said defensively, taking the candy. "I think we're smart enough to handle finding them."
"That will be up to the Council to decide," Kay replied, already shuffling another puzzle. "You can help prove your species’s maturity by being as well-behaved as possible."
Jewel rolled her eyes, dropping her feet off the table and standing up.
"I'm going stir crazy," she said. "We have to do something besides these stupid tests for a while."
"I suppose we have skipped a few scheduled breaks," Kay said, looking at the time on his tablet. "What do you want to do?"
Jewel smiled.
It was an effort convincing Kay, but Jewel had a gift for never taking no for an answer. Soon, she was running across the alien habitats again, sprinting and climbing with wild abandon. The computer, with Kay's
help, isolated a selection of safe habitats where she would neither be in danger nor endanger the wildlife on display and lined them up end to end so that she could run through them without pause. There was a frozen tundra where the snow was crystallized metal, rusting brilliant red almost as soon as it touched the ground. And a maze of wind-sculpted canyons through which flew gigantic Paleolithic insects, the prey of massive creatures, somewhere between alligator and ant lion, whose dens lined the canyon's sandy floor.
Beyond that, amaranth wheat rolled in purple waves as far as the eye could see, roamed by ground pheasant the size of cattle, their dark emerald and burgundy plumage catching the air as, startled by her passage, they took to the air, beautiful and impossibly huge. Further still, a white salt cliff crumbled into the sea under her feet, its water an impossible jewel green, through which sailed what she could only describe as mermaids, albeit mermaids the size of blue whales. They had no hair and their faces were flat and devoid of intelligence.
Their eyes were black as night and empty of thought or feeling. Their skin was the color of the wet stone around them. Occasionally, they dragged themselves up on their massive, car-sized hands into the shallows where they sat sunning themselves in perfect stillness, blending into the towers of stone around them until anything living wandered past on the beach below, at which point they would move like lightning, snatching it up and cramming it alive into their toothy black mouths. Jewel found them as fascinating as she did unsettling. She didn't linger.
Kay didn't join her on that first run, but when she demanded the same the next day, he silently joined her in donning the black exo-suit that protected them from the harsh changes in atmosphere and gravity between the habitats and ran along. The day after that, he did the same. He spent almost the entire day with her everyday between testing and their runs. Jewel began to wonder if he wasn’t lonelier than he was letting on. She knew she was.