by Jessie Jasen
Chapter 2
Who is Mother’s Milk?
I HOP around the bridge, look left-right and notice how everybody is busy with their work and nobody is watching me. I hop a few more times, look left-right to see if the situation has changed. Negative. Nobody is watching me.
I sneak up to the first ensign, the one who takes care of the ship’s navigation, and blow a dash of warm breath into his ear. Negative. He doesn’t see I’m here. I look at the gigantic screen in front of me, the one that allows us to see the space outside, and I smile. I smile because I like what I’m seeing. I see the depth of space, a myriad of stars and the insanely beautiful colors of gases in the Orion Nebula. I turn my head to look into the eyes of the first ensign.
“Hello, there!” I call. I shake my hand in front of his eyes. “Boom!”
He still doesn’t see me. He never does. I know that. It doesn’t bother me. Because I am the ghost of this starship, the ship they call Scorpio, I am as pale to myself as milk, and as transparent to them as air. I call myself Mother’s Milk, that’s a suitable name for me. Yes. Mother’s Milk. Why do I call myself Mother’s Milk? Where do I come from?
I ask myself those questions every day. The truth is that I don’t remember. I’m not really sure how I got here. What I do know is that I’m on this ship, and that I will remain on this ship. Starship Scorpio is big, and I like the way it looks. Its construction follows the main fundamentals of engineering. The ship is round on the outside and perfectly aerodynamic. Inside, it is home to the bridge, the sick bay, the mess hall, recreational facilities, labs, and dozens of private quarters. It is full of corridors that connect the premises with one another. I’m walking through one of the corridors right now. This corridor is one of the outer corridors that have windows looking outside into space.
All the windows along the corridors are square but with round corners, and the glass is thick enough to resist a gas blast. The glass the windows are made of is thick and flexible. It’s capable of modifying its structure according to the outside pressure. When Scorpio took off from Earth, it was equipped with latest technologies that allowed it to travel distant galaxies and resist the space radiation.
I look through one of the windows. There’s a planet to my left. It is cookie-brown, and it has holes on the ground and almost no atmosphere. Megan Ashley, the captain of starship Scorpio, ordered that we come to the orbit of this planet and scan it with our long-range sensors. Now I’m looking at it. I find the planets and the moons of the Orion Nebula interesting. I don’t know what is going to happen to me, but I am very curious to travel with this crew and see where the journey will take us.
This cookie-brown planet I’m looking at is one of many planets we’ve passed by in the Oxydia Solar System. The Oxydia Solar System is long way from Earth. Most of the crew on Scorpio are human, but there are other species of alien origins too. Sometimes I juggle the origins of my crewmates in my head, juggle and mix them like pool balls, unsure who belongs to which species and who has intermixed background.
I look up to the ship’s ceiling. It is bright, even though I can’t tell where the source of the light is. There are no lightbulbs here. The ceiling is made of potassium-based material that absorbs the light from nearby stars and the sun, converting it to smooth even interior light. I once heard an engineer talk about this technology. He said that charging the potassium-based material with electric impulses makes the molecules of the material light up. It is the luminous molecules of potassium that create an even smooth light that is very similar to the sunlight on Earth. That was the goal of the engineers—to create an artificial light that is like the light of the sun.
I will mention my name again: Mother’s Milk. I like people to call me that, even though nobody can see me, and nobody knows I exist. I’m the ghost of this ship like I said, the ghost of Starship Scorpio. My crew, which I consider my people are my people, because I live among them. But they can’t see me, feel me or smell me. I’m not tangible. I’m a ghost.
A ghost doesn’t know how it came into existence. Ghosts are not born. Ghosts don’t die. Ghosts live forever. I like to be called Milk for short, because to myself I look like milk. When I look at my hands they are milky white, like alabaster glass, and a little bit transparent and fluffy like cotton. Milk is what they use around here to drink with coffee and eat with cereal, yes, that’s what they do. They make cakes with milk, with all sorts of milk, and when they pour that fluid into a bowl, it somehow reminds me of my body.
As I said, I don’t know how I got here and when I got here. All I know is that I’ve been on this ship for as long as I can remember. Hm. Now I’m thinking … I’m thinking about what has been … I’m thinking about the past. No, no, I shake my head. I can’t remember the moment before now. I have a small theory of mine, a theory about how I got here. From Earth people on this ship, I learned that theories are hypothetic ideas beings with thoughts can create and share with others. I’ve learned about theories from my crew. They are very skilled when it comes to thinking.
Well, my theory about my origins is that I came into existence on this ship. I think I was conceived and given birth to here. They do all kinds of different experiments, all kinds of different experiments in their labs, and I think I may have been one of the byproducts of these experiments.
But I’m alive, very much alive. Just as alive as anyone with two legs on this ship.
I know I live, because I talk and I can see my fluffy white body, this bundle of molecules that other men and women of the crew can’t see. I move freely on this ship, and sometimes I go on the away missions with my crew. But I always wake up on this ship, no matter where I travel. I always come back here, magically. It’s as if I fall asleep when I go on an away mission, fall into a dream, and then after having slept long enough, I’m sucked into a murky magic tube that spits me out on the other end of the tunnel to which Scorpio is attached. I wake up and here I am again. I’m back on this ship. That’s why I know I’m the ship’s ghost, the ghost of Scorpio.
I’m Mother’s Milk.
Phew, I’m talking a lot today …
The experiments … The crew on this ship, my crew, conducts experiments with a machine they call the dream resonator. The dream resonator allows them to connect to parallel dimensions that can’t yet be reached through conventional space travel. They say that in the dream resonator, the present and the future merge, and that there is no time or space, or being for that matter, just eternal existence, that is neither physical nor tangible through means of conventional communication. The cosmos is multi-layered and far greater than any of us can imagine. I say this from the perspective of a ghost. The dimension I exist in is one of the parallel dimensions of the Universe, and it’s a strange dimension indeed.
Living in this dimension is like observing the world from behind a one-way mirror. I can see everyone in the dimension parallel to mine, which is the dimension in which the crew on Starship Scorpio live. As I said—living in my dimension is like observing the world through a one-way mirror. I can see everybody and everything, but they can’t see me. When I want to participate in their world, I step forward and begin participating.
I take a stroll through Scorpio and I have fun the way I please. I walk through the corridors, I visit the Doctor in the sick bay, I rest beside crew members, and I even pay them a visit in their private quarters. It’s all happening in the space I live in. I’m tied to this ship and the crew respectably, as if Mother’s Milk were an integral part of their dimension. Even though my dimension is tied to theirs, I can see the people and interact with them, but they can’t perceive me or interact with me.
What more can I say about the dimension I exist in? Not much, apart that I’m alone here. My dimension is void of other creatures. At least, I haven’t met anyone who is like me, who can see me and talk to me. But who knows, the cosmos is full of surprises. Maybe there are other creatures too, other ghosts living in my space, and one day I will have a chance to meet and greet
them.
My crew is here in the Orion Nebula to explore the Universe. Piece by piece, they try to artificially re-create the cobweb of the Universe, and ultimately map everything that exists. They used the dream resonator too to travel to parallel dimensions. Oh, but the workings of the Universe are mysterious. After having undertaken these experiments, something on this vessel has been stirred.
A residue of molecules from the travels to parallel dimensions has remained in the dream resonator, and somehow these molecules have liberated themselves. They have escaped the chemical compound they were trapped in. Merging with one another, single molecules created an ever greater and more complex cobweb of molecules that grew to its final form. This is how I believe I came into existence—I am what is left over from the trips to parallel dimensions.
When my form was ready, I was given consciousness. I possessed a mind all of a sudden. I could think, and I could speak. I had a voice. The molecular residues of the dream resonator were white, and they were dripping like mother’s milk, dripping from the dream resonator, one extraordinary machine I consider to be my mother, the womb where I’ve been conceived. That’s why I’ve named myself Mother’s Milk. And yes, like my mother, the dream resonator has the power to take whoever plugs themselves into her to faraway places. The dream resonator allows people to dream of stories, to have visions of other people’s lives, of events. Being a child of the dream resonator, I believe that I possess the ability to dream myself into every life and every cell across time and space. It’s jolly to be a ghost. Life is endless and life is wondrous!
I am here now to tell the stories that I see and hear and live, to share the stories of other people’s lives. Stories are precious. Stories make life up. Stories that can be told must be shared. Stories I have to tell are plenty. I’m a ghost who loves hopping around the bridge of Scorpio, hopping around my crew, a ghost who loves to snuggle up to people in their beds, and watch what they do under the shower. I know what all of them do and how they do it. I know it all. Because I’m Mother’s Milk, the ghost of Starship Scorpio. And more importantly, I love to dream.
I love to close my eyes and dream myself away into a distant galaxy, into a head of a stranger and see, watch, observe everything that happens. I can even float in the air and observe an event taking place without participating. I can hop from one mind to another at the snap of the fingers, yes I can. I can hop into the mind of one person, and know what they think and see, and hop into another person, and know what they think and see.
Huh … I’ve said quite a bit about me. Now I’m going for a ride. I’m going to hop into minds and lives of other individuals. I’m going to see the Universe.
If they think nobody is watching, they better think again …
Chapter 3
Rikes Meets Ku-uhala in the Mess Hall
HOPPY-HOP, I make a little jump and I arrive at the ship’s brig. One incarcerated fool in here, but nothing interesting going on. Off I am to Deck 2. Let’s see what Commander Ku-uhala is up to. I like to observe her. She’s very unusual.
Commander Ku-uhala has been onboard Scorpio from the very beginning. She belongs to the race of the aliens who have visited Earth in the past. Depictions of her race can be found in the caves of South America and other continents. To some humans, the individuals of her species looked like lizards, therefore they were named the Lizard People. But Ku-uhala’s species has nothing to do with lizards or reptiles. They are humanoid. Their looks are due to the adaption to the climate they live in. First of all, her species call themselves Hoola. Genetically they are well equipped to survive in dark environment, with little to no sunlight.
Their planet, which they call Hoola, has a hostile environment on the surface, but beneath the surface life is thriving. Ku-uhala grew up in one of the many caves in the underworld of Hoola. Her species is one of the oldest species known in the First Quadrant. They have developed space travel technologies centuries before humans could even imagine flying into the skies. They came to Earth and brought some of their extensive knowledge to human ancestors in former times. Humans used alien technology to enhance their own.
But humans weren’t a species who was able to control their violent impulses by detaching themselves from identification with their emotions, they way Hoola did. Humans sought out violence and destruction, and they forgot much of the technological knowledge that was given to them by the Hoola. Until one day in recent history, the humans changed the course of their actions and decided to pursue goals other than those of war and destruction. They developed space travel. The contact with the Hoola was re-established, a historical event that went down into history as the First Contact in modern times.
I observe Commander Ku-uhala whenever I can. She is tall and slim, with limbs that move like tree branches in the wind. She has a narrow round head that to me looks like an eel’s egg when I look at it from the side. Her skin has a greenish tone and the top of her scull is formed like a roof of a house, like rooster’s crest, with fish scales on each side that help her breathe. Her lungs are buried underneath those scales.
I enter the sick bay and find her sitting on the examination table. The doctor is holding a medical scanner in his hand. He’s examining her from head to toe.
“Can you tell me what the problem is and what the symptoms are?” the Doctor asks.
“Occasionally, I get short of breath doing my duty,” Ku-uhala says.
“I see. For what I can say, the anatomy of the Hoola isn’t all too radically different from the anatomy of humans. Your needs are similar to those of humans, but there is one crucial difference—the air you breathe on your home planet contains higher levels of carbon dioxide than the air on Earth. Your lungs haven’t adapted to the oxygen on Scorpio, which is made to satisfy the requirements of human anatomy.”
“Were my lungs supposed to adapt?” Ku-uhala asks.
“In some cases, the function of the lungs does adapt to new atmosphere. I’ve seen it happen with other alien species. Yours hasn’t adapted. This is the reason why you get short of breath. You need more carbon dioxide for your organism to function properly.”
“Is this bad news, Doctor?”
“No, not at all,” the Doctor says. “This is actually good news. All we need to do is adapt the function of your lungs to the atmosphere on Scorpio, and you’ll be able to breathe normally. We can do this by chemically increasing your intake of carbon dioxide. When you breathe, you will take more in than before. That should solve the problem.”
“Does this procedure have any side effects?”
“No, not at all. There will be no side effects, apart from you being able to breathe normally.”
“My instinct tells me that undergoing this procedure will be good for me,” Ku-uhala says.
“Then lets listen to your instinct, shall we?” the Doctor says cheerfully.
He takes a shot from the medical tray, fixes the dosage and administers it to Commander Ku-uhala by injecting it into her lower arm.
“It will take several hours for the chemicals to take effect,” the Doctor says. “I will need to see you back in the sick bay for a routine checkup in a couple of weeks.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“You will probably need to receive the shots on a regular basis.”
“I understand,” Ku-uhala says.
“You may go now, Commander. Should you feel unwell, you can contact me any time.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Have a good day,” Ku-uhala says and leaves the sick bay.
I follow her to see where she’s going. She scurries down the corridor and I scurry after her. A cadet passes her by. They greet each other with a nod.
Ku-uhala arrives to the mess hall. She walks inside and looks around her. Sitting at the table to her right by the window is Commander Sy Rikes.
Ku-uhala walks over to him.
“Hello, Sy,” she says.
“Hey, Ku-uhala. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry that I’m late. I paid
the Doctor a visit.”
“I hope you’re not sick,” Rikes says.
Ku-uhala takes a seat opposite Rikes.
“No, I’m not sick. I’ve been short of breath lately, and my instinct told me it was time to see the Doctor.”
Rikes smiles. “You people are not afraid of anything, are you?”
“Excuse me?”
“I know dozens of humans who dread the visit to the Doctor and postpone it until they can’t stand on their feet anymore,” Rikes says.
“Hoola are not like humans,” Ku-uhala says. “We are different.”
“You know no fear, do you?”
“We do know fear, but we have something that prevents us from being distracted by our emotions—our instinct.”
“I wish humans had an instinct as strong as yours.”
“But you do have your instincts. You just need to learn to listen to them more in order to be able to rely on them.”
Rikes leans on the table. “You see, that is where I think our species differ. You say you have an “instinct.” Humans, on the other hand, have several “instincts.” Maybe that’s why it’s harder for us to rely on them. It can be quite distracting when your instincts tell you opposite things. Lucky you. You have only one. It leads you like a compass, and it’s unmistakable.”