Candidate (Selected Book 4)

by Robin Roseau

  I stared.

  And stared.

  And stared.

  "Are you repulsed, Andromeda?"

  "No," I whispered. "Those are..." I licked my lips. "Tentacles."

  "That is the closest word in English, yes. Most humans have a variety of reactions at this point. Some recoil. The rest almost universally stare, just like you are. After that, nearly all of them equate me to a certain terrestrial creature."

  "Octopus," I whispered.

  "Yes. Outwardly they are extremely similar to the arms of an octopus. And you're still staring."

  "I can't help it."

  "Should I feel degraded or humiliated, Andromeda?"

  At that my eyes snapped upwards to hers. "Did you just call me a hypocrite?"

  She smiled broadly.

  But then I hardened. "Except there's a difference. You don't feel humiliated. And you're not on display for absolutely everyone. And even if you offered to let me post such a video of you, I wouldn't, whereas you did it, and then you told me about it to achieve exactly the reaction you got. You couldn't have been surprised."

  "I'm not doing any of this to hurt you, Andromeda," she said. "I am, however, doing it to make you meek. The sooner you get over your rebellion, the sooner you'll open yourselves to the possibilities of the situation."

  "Being raped?"

  "Could you, for one conversation, give me the benefit of the doubt on that? None of the women here will be raped, not even mind raped the way you put it. You're going to leave here with a woman you like. You're going to live a life most humans can barely imagine, mated to someone who treats you exactly the way you want to be treated, experiencing things very few humans experience. I know you think the worst of me, but I'm not doing any of this so you can be miserable for the rest of your life. The harder I push you now, the sooner you'll start to consider the possibilities of your situation."

  We glared at each other for a minute before I said, "I think maybe I need to mull this over."

  "I understand," she replied gently. "Do you insist on being returned to your cell? I really hope you'll say 'no'. I could use your skills, Andromeda. I really could."

  "I-" I looked back up at her eyes again. "I liked operating the cameras yesterday."

  "You did a good job, too."

  "I had an idea."

  "Oh?"

  "Apple's bio didn't include any interviews with her. I haven't had a chance to look at others."

  "Interviews?"

  "You know what an interview is. Humans would call it the human interest perspective."

  "Ah. Interesting. But you must understand. While there are some semblances to your human reality television shows in what we do here, that isn't our prime purpose."

  "You don't believe interviewing me would increase your ratings?"

  "We don't have ratings."

  "Fine. Raise interest?"

  She smiled. "I suppose it could. But we don't have time to explore that thought today. Maybe in coming weeks."

  I nodded, then her tentacles moved, and my eyes flashed to them.

  "Are you intimidated?"

  "No," I said.

  "Do you want to see one?"

  "I'm a hypocrite, aren't I?"

  "If I asked to examine your arm, would you let me?" And then one of the tentacles reached into the space between us. "The tip is sensitive. Be gentle with it."

  At that, I raised my hands and collected the tentacle. She let me have its weight, and it was heavy, heavier than an arm, but then it was both longer and broader. Then she surprised me, doubling it back and wrapping around my left arm twice, the tip coming to a rest just at the crook of my elbow. I stared for a moment, then relaxed.

  "Did you just try to scare me?"

  "It was a reflexive action," she replied. "I have not done this many times."

  "Shown them to a human?"

  "Accepted such a close examination. You are only the fifth human who has touched one. Somewhat remarkably, the others have been two pairs of sisters."

  I nodded then used my free hand to gently stroke along the tentacle. It was smooth and dry. "What do you use the suckers for?"

  "Holding things, breathing, tasting, eating."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I don't breathe through my mouth or nose. Are you suddenly repulsed?"

  "No."

  But then I released it, and she released her grip around my wrist. She glanced at her clothing, and I thought it was with distaste. But then she reached down with one tentacle and collected her clothes. She shrugged into the blouse but didn't button it right away. She pulled her undies and skirt into place and stepped into the shoes.

  "It is strange to me," she said. "You long to wrap these clothes around you. And at the same time, I long to be free of them."

  "Why?"

  "Imagine breathing through a hood much of the day. I believe it is as close an experience as I can explain."

  "Then don't," I said. "At least, not on my account."

  "Are you sure, Andromeda?"

  "I might ask to touch them again. Would that bother you?"

  "No. But if I asked to examine portions of your body that are different from mine, you would not offer the same answer."

  I turned away. "Forget I asked. I didn't realize I was asking to do anything your society felt was taboo."

  She stepped closer, and then there were far more than two hands touching me, but it was very gentle. "I won't ask that of you. You may look, or even touch, all you want. But even if you are not startled by these," and she slipped a tentacle around me to make her point, "you would be uncomfortable if I am partially undressed. If you are sure we can work with these waving around, I have blouses that offer me more freedom."

  I turned to her, and then we were standing very close. "Please dress to be comfortable."

  She smiled, and then she caressed my face with a tentacle tip before pulling away. I watched her go.

  She reached a door and looked over her shoulder. "I'll only be a few minutes. Your visor has information on today's events. Beginning today, I hope you will review the scheduled events prior to arriving at work."

  "I will."

  She stepped through the door, which closed behind her. I stared at the spot for a while then moved to the table, sat down, and accessed the visor.

  * * * *

  Jasmine was only gone for a few minutes. When she returned, she was wearing a different blouse. I looked up when she entered, and she turned around slowly. The blouse was backless and open at the sides, allowing her tentacles free roam. She turned back to face me.

  "You have a nice body, Jasmine," I said. "I like it this way better than the other way."

  I may have surprised her. She stared for a moment then recovered. "Thank you, Andromeda. Ready to work?" I nodded. "All right. I have an office for you. Let us move there." She turned and gestured, and we exited her conference room through the same door she'd been using. It was a short walk and we entered a large office. One wall was completely glass with the most stunning view I could envision.

  "Um."

  "Oh. Catseye home world. I was feeling homesick last night." She cocked her head, and the image changed to match what I might see outside the facility.

  "You didn't have to do that."

  "I did. It's not good to pine for something I'll never see again." She gestured. "This is my office. Yours is there." I turned, and there was an obvious doorway, although the door was closed.

  "I don't get your doors. Some are obvious. Some are not."

  "We use the magic ones to impress the natives," she replied. "But it is somewhat expensive."

  "And yet you do that to every single one of our cells."

  "Well, that's another technology, although similar. It is also expensive but necessary."

  "You could use metal bars."

  "Ah, but that would be far too mundane, and we must keep the natives guessing." She smiled. "We can use your office." She gestured, and I headed towards the door. It opened auto
matically, and I found a very pleasant office with all the comforts I could desire. It was warm and cheery, with gentle lighting. There were two chairs, both equally comfortable-looking.

  "In the future your visor can lead you here," she said. "Sit."

  I took one chair. She grabbed the other then gestured to the computer. "I would use your visor, but until you grow accustomed to someone doing that to you, it tends to make humans ill unless I go slowly. This is better for today. I'll still drive."

  She didn't touch the computer, but it came alive. Then as she stared at it, the screen changed to the image of four human women. "The women arrive in batches of approximately 64 every two weeks, just under 500 a year."

  "The math doesn't work."

  "We process men as well, but not as many. We don't get 64 each time, and it's not necessarily every two weeks. I can usually tell at the end of the first week when we would be ready for the next group."

  "All right."

  "The women come only from some countries."

  "Only some?"

  "First world," she explained. "Can you imagine the shock to someone from, say, Bangladesh? As I've told others, people living in certain parts of the world are born into greater privilege, and thus they bear greater responsibility."

  "I see."

  "We have selection criteria. A low score in xenophobia is critical."

  "Good idea."

  "After that, we look at the overall picture."

  "I suppose you want healthy future mothers."

  "We can cure many diseases," she replied. "And of course, we can repair most trauma your bodies may have experienced. We can also cure addiction such as alcoholism, but someone who is an alcoholic probably scores low in a wide variety of areas and thus won't interest us."

  "All right. So what do you value?"

  "Curiosity. Intelligence. The two aren't the same thing."

  "Right."

  "A sense of adventure helps. This is, after all, about as grand an adventure as humans could envision."

  "I suppose it is," I said.

  "We avoid extreme scores on claustrophobia, paranoia, and susceptibility to motion sickness. These are difficult for us to manage."

  "All right."

  "We also tend to avoid anyone who speaks her native language in an accent most of us find undecipherable."

  "Oh, I know what you mean."

  "Then, for similar reasons to why we take from first world countries only, we tend to prefer candidates who are educated and have lived a certain standard of living."

  "Then how did Emma arrive here?"

  "Did Emma sound like she is from a poor upbringing?"

  "You said-"

  "She's had a difficult life. She lost both her parents when she was young, her mother first. Her father remarried and then was dead six months later. She was largely raised by her stepmother."

  "The wicked stepmother? Or the wicked step-stepfather?"

  "Moving on," said Jasmine.

  "Right."

  "These four women will arrive in four or five days," she said. "They do not all come together. The women from the United States and Canada arrive aboard one flight. The women from Europe may come from two others. We get one or two from India and more from Japan. These women arrive together."

  "I see."

  She gestured to the screen. "These four are all Americans."

  I studied them. They couldn't have been more different, physically speaking. One was Black. Another was Asian, but I couldn't have told you more accurately than that. I would see shortly she was of Korean heritage but with an American grandparent -- her grandmother, actually, a former American soldier stationed in Korea for a time. The other two women were Caucasian. Both had long hair, one blond, the other red. The redhead was deeply freckled, but she was cute.

  Ages appeared to be about twenty for the blonde, twenty-something for the Black and Asian women, and upper twenties for the redhead.

  "What we need to do is become acquainted with what we can learn about each woman."

  "Why?"

  "Several reasons. First, there are species that prefer willing mates."

  "How do Catseye feel?"

  "Willing."

  "I suppose I should first ask whether you are even interested in human mates."

  "Three of those four sisters I mentioned are mated to Catseye. One pair are living on the space station and the other pair are mated to their own pair of Catseye sisters living in Boston."

  "One pair of sisters married to another pair? Like half an Octal household?"

  She snorted. "No, but at times it can be hard to tell. They are all quite comfortable with each other, but not incestuously so. Catseye share that taboo with humans." She gestured to the screen. "I selected these four women for us to study together. I have already reviewed their information. From looking at them, can you guess which might be most receptive to accepting a willing relationship?"

  "I could go by cultural stereotypes, but otherwise no, I can't."

  "All right. We actually know a great deal about these four women. I'm going to display the base scores." And then a series of bar charts appeared over each woman's image, although not enough to obscure her image. Each chart held six bars, and there was a red line across each about a third of the way from the bottom.

  "These charts are calibrated to human normal standards. The red line represents average, and we do something humans don't do. The scale is linear below the line and logarithmic above. Do you know what that means?"

  "Yes," I said. "What are the bars?"

  "The first is the inverse of xenophobia. You could call it xeno-tolerance. You will notice the scores for all these women are high. You will never see that bar near the red line."

  "Next is a combined value for intelligence, but we can drill down on that. There are different forms of intelligence, after all."

  "Right."

  "We're able to actually test intelligence rather than knowledge, something human standardized testing typically fails to do. Beside intelligence is curiosity, which is much trickier to measure, so be careful with that bar. After that is maturity. You will see scores all over for that value, and it is standardized for a 25-year-old human. We do not filter based on maturity except in an extreme case."

  "I understand."

  "Next is sense of adventure. That is also somewhat subjective. Small differences should be ignored, but extreme differences can be telling. Also, that can be a very complicated measure for humans. Some people love the idea of adventure but are actually homebodies. Other hate the word adventure, but if you force one upon them, they thrive."

  "How did I score?"

  "Slightly above average, but not remarkably so. We do select based on it, so while I wouldn't say you never see low values, they tend to be moderately high. However, we have a word for individuals with exceedingly high values."

  "Oh?"

  "Foolhardy." I snorted. "We exclude them."

  "I don't blame you," I said.

  "Fifth is independence. This score is also all over the board, and we don't filter on it."

  "What's the last bar?"

  "You could call it stubbornness, but it's more than that. But like the xenophobia, it's an inverse value. High means most accepting of change, open to reason. It doesn't necessarily mean a pushover. An Implac would score in the negative range." She turned to me. "You score moderately high, higher than I would."

  "Then your testing methods are flawed."

  "No, my explanation is flawed. You are hung up on the word I used. If I said it was openness to new ideas, or flexibility, then how do you feel about it?"

  I considered. "All right. Maybe that's fair. Higher than you do, hmm?"

  "Don't let it go to your head," she said.

  That was when I felt something crawling on my neck. I nearly leapt from my chair, trying to bat it away, and then it was gone.

  "Oh, Andromeda," said Jasmine. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize my touch would frighten you." She moved away.
"I'm sorry."

  "Wait," I said. "Just wait." I brushed at my phantom spiders. "I thought it was a spider. That was you?"

  "I'm sorry. I was... comfortable."

  "You had a tentacle across my back, and I didn't notice?"

  "I wasn't really paying attention to what it was doing. Can we just get back to this?"

  "Oh no. You weren't paying attention?"

  Her tentacles began quivering, especially the tips. "Please, I am embarrassed. I'm sorry."

  I crossed my arms and rotated the chair to face her fully. "Explain."

  "I don't think so."

  "Please."

  She closed her eyes for a moment, seemed to collect herself, then nodded. "I was sniffing."

  "You were smelling me?"

  "You smell nice."

  "Are you flirting with me, Jasmine?"

  "No! I was just... comfortable. I'm sorry. I won't do it again."

  I considered her carefully. "Were you sniffing your employee, or were you sniffing a mating candidate?"

  She began speaking rapidly -- and it wasn't English. I folded my arms tighter and shook my head. "No, no. Speak English. Which was it?"

  "Please, we don't have time for this."

  "Answer me, Jasmine."

  "Do not take that tone with me, Mating Candidate."

  I smiled. "That's what I thought. You may sniff me if you want, but don't make it feel like a spider crawling on me or I'll probably react the same way again." Then I turned back to the screen and studied the women's scores.

  After a moment, Jasmine moved back beside me. "I won't do it again," she said softly.

  "It's up to you," I said. "Just remember what I said about spiders. Do I have enough information to answer your question yet?"

  "Give me your initial impressions."

  I compared the charts. According to the bars, none of these women was at all xenophobic. They were of above average intelligence. The other scores ranged all over, although curiosity tended to be high.

  But I still didn't feel I could guess who might willingly accept what was going on, and I told her that.

  "That is at least in part because you're asking yourself the wrong question. Almost no women who arrive accept this willingly. But some wish to attempt to win their freedom through the challenges. And others see the challenges as a means of lashing out. Others either see the challenges as hopeless, anyway, or maybe just don't care for physical competition. And for some, accepting willingly gives some degree of choice instead of being forced into competing with a particularly unpleasant male."