“The customer is always right” can lead to some very awkward situations if you’re not really clear on who the customer is, what he wants, and why..
You’re not the first person in town to ask me what kind of crazy contraption I’m driving these days. But in your case, Pastor, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to tell you the whole story. Never could be completely open about some of it, not even with Sunny; my wife’s been through enough. Can you spare the time? In that case, I suppose it never hurts to start off with a bang.
If you’d asked me that Wednesday afternoon, I wouldn’t have said that everyone in my neighborhood hated my clinic. Aside from you, Sunny merely felt “jittery” about it, or so she claimed; Mrs. Murphy, living directly across the street from the main building, had never uttered a complaint; and our son, Alex, even labeled it “groovy,” a word he’d hijacked from one of the more usual unusual visitors to the institution. Of course, Ember Murphy suffers from multi-infarct dementia, and Alex recently turned eight. And while I’m being candid, an unprofessional condition for someone in my profession, I’d grown a bit sour about the place myself.
Still, I was surprised that anyone felt so strongly about it that they would try to kill me.
I picked myself up off the parking lot pavement, stared at the smoldering remains of my almost brand-new car, and then turned toward Tad, the extraterrestrial still gripping my right arm with a hand longer than my torso. My shoulder hurt and I was breathing hard, but at least I was breathing.
My ET companion, a female1 Vapabond from what I’d come to think of as the wrong side of our galaxy, gazed down at me with her big brown eyes and a grimace that may or may not have been sympathetic. You’ve never seen a Vapabond? Think double-height gorilla with two appropriately hairy arms and legs but then add a torso covered in armadillo shell that expands and contracts hugely with every breath, plus a walrus head with three shrunk-down tusks. Throw in size 22 footwear with an improbable resemblance to huaraches as the only articles of clothing and a pungent odor only an elephant might find sexy. That puts you in the ballpark if not quite in the infield.
“How did you know, Tad?” I asked her. At that moment, I was only mildly perturbed. What had happened was too surreal to take seriously. Besides, maybe my first guess had been wrong and some fluke, rather than someone with a grudge, had ignited the car’s fuel cells.
“Scent. Explosive,” she said, finally releasing my arm.
Tadehtraulagong was a being of few words, or rather few words at a time. She was supposedly fluent in English and Spanish, but you’d never have guessed; perhaps her jaw structure and tusks made human languages uncomfortable to chew on. When in the mood, Tad acted as a nurse and was the clinic’s official security officer. Now she’d added something new to her resume: bodyguard.
Tiny rectangles of safety glass glittered across the parking lot like obese snowflakes. I shook my head, and a few pieces fell out of my hair.
Doors slammed. I looked around and watched neighbors rushing outside, undoubtedly hoping that the clinic had blown up rather than to enjoy the lovely fall afternoon. They must’ve been terribly disappointed judging by the glowers I was getting. Even sweet old Ember Murphy nearly frowned at me.
I felt a rush of blood to my head along with a rush of fear as the reality of what had just happened began to penetrate my brain fog. It also dawned on me that I was being an ingrate. “You saved my life, Tad. Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
If she hadn’t chosen to walk me to the parking lot today, which was hardly her usual practice, my neighbors would have had to find someone other than me to mutter about, and I definitely appreciated her effort. A nice change, since she’d given me three kinds of headaches ever since she joined my staff.
My shoes felt unaccountably warm so I lifted one and found the back heel half worn away. Evidently, friction was the culprit. Now that I knew what to look for, it was easy to spot the long, dual track of black rubber leading from what remained of my car to my present position. All this confirmed my vague impression of what had just happened. My least favorite employee had dragged me backward and twenty yards away from my Volvo Hydro even as I’d pressed the clicker to unlock it. I hadn’t even had time to wonder why I was suddenly zooming in reverse before the BOOM.
I waved apologetically at the neighbors, then used my DM to call Sunny and asked her to retrieve our Alex. Naturally, she reminded me that it was my turn to perform that crucial errand, but I explained that my car was out of commission while cleverly skirting the word “fireball.” She gave me her much-put-upon sigh but agreed to go. Incidentally, the first name on my wife’s driver’s license is “Sonja,” but don’t tell her I ratted her out.
When she logged off, the reaction finally hit me full force. If I’d been using an old-fashioned external sat-phone rather than my DM, I would’ve dropped it. My hands got busy shaking, my legs gave out, and only Tad’s renewed grip kept me from falling. That’s when I heard the approaching sirens and realized I’d better postpone doing a proper job of falling apart.
An impressive turnout: six police cars, two ambulances, an unmarked black sedan, a fire-truck, and a nanosecond late to the party, a large van containing the city bomb squad. Five uniforms cordoned off the parking lot with green Day-Glo cones and yellow tape. Festive. Another three either engaged in crowd control or took statements from the locals—hard to tell from where I stood. After a paramedic pronounced me unworthy to ride in an ambulance, two grim officials in dark suits interviewed me and tried, unsuccessfully, to interview Tad. One, a Detective Lenz, clearly believed the incident was my fault. Probably a neighbor. He oscillated between glaring at me and staring at the Vapabond as if about to challenge her to a bout of arm-wrestling.
Luckily, the other law minion, Detective Carl Beresch, did most of the questioning and stayed reasonably polite although from the lines on his face I guessed the man was allergic to joy. Our little chat started off awkwardly as we performed a conversational duet that’s become so familiar I could do it in my sleep, and probably have.
“Dr. Al Morganson?” he asked, pro forma.
“My friends call me ‘Al.’ Short for Alanso.”
He flicked his eyes toward Tad, then back to me. “No disrespect intended. But you are the man known as ‘Doctor Alien’?”
“’Fraid so.” And how annoying is that, since I’m not exactly an alien here.
“You are the owner and operator of the—” He consulted an item practically considered incunabula since the DM revolution: an actual paper notepad. “—the Morganson Center for Distressed Beings?”
I hadn’t chosen that name, and it always made me wince. “Only the operator. A Trader Consortium owns it.”
He failed to jot down that vital, psychiatrist-exonerating fact. “We’ll want a list of all your current and past clients, human and . . . otherwise.”
I shrugged. “I’ve only had one ET client this last month, and she’s been here almost since we opened.” Baffling case. “And I’m positive that none of my human—”
“We need to rule out every possibility,” he said smoothly. “That’s the routine and it works. It’s in your interest to let us do our jobs.”
I gave that a quick chew. “Okay, my receptionist will DM you that list, but you know I can’t discuss my patients.”
His eyes, already chilly, went sub-zero. “I’m sure you won’t. But can you tell us anything that might point us in a specific direction? Any enemies? What about that one alien client?”
“Ignore that directions. She’s not . . . functional. As to enemies, I’m not Dr. Popularity around here, but I can’t believe anyone would actually try to murder me.” My voice rang with a lack of sincerity. “Right now, Detective, I’m mostly thinking about my family’s safety.”
He bared his teeth, possibly to simulate a smile. “Of course. We’ll make sure you and yours are protected until we find the doer.”
But when the smoke cleared, as it were, the only fact anyone could determine was that an “incendiary device” had been rigged to detonate when I unlocked my car. After a damn thorough check, the clinic and its surroundings were declared bomb-free. The news dot com crews appeared just as my ex-car was hauled away on a huge flatbed truck with its own crane, but the interviewing cops herded me away from the cameras, then drove me home. We waited in the cruiser until the bomb squad and a goofy-looking dog had gone through my entire house and its landscaping. I was certainly squeezing good use out of my tax dollars today. My wife and son showed up while we were waiting, and when Sunny heard the truth, she turned pale and kept a grip on both Alex and me that rivaled Tad’s.
Three of our new pals with badges kept us company in the house for the next four hours. We served them coffee and Sunny’s homemade pastries—not donuts.
The chocolate biskvi were getting scarce when four more armed personnel joined the festivities: two male FBI special agents, Dunn and Miller, who only accepted coffee; and two other officials, Smith and Jones—if I took their word for it—from another collection of three letters, one so esoteric that even God had probably never heard of it. These last two, Smith, a white female, and Jones, the opposite, said little to me at first, asked less, and refused refreshments. Soon, all four agents went into a huddle until Smith broke out to inform me that the quartet wished to interview me immediately. She grudgingly admitted that she was legally compelled to inform me that the upcoming session would be recorded not only by the agents’ DM systems, but also—because what government doesn’t love unneeded redundancy?—through speck-cams placed inconspicuously on their persons. All recording features of my own DM unit, she added, had already been temporarily disabled through the electronic power of government mandate. I tested this by sub-vocalizing a recording command and got rewarded with a link-failure message flashing across my vision. Smith nodded as though she’d also seen the message and expressed her hope that crippling my DM wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience. I promised to withstand the grief of not having videos of the agents to remember them by.
Then Jones, a man who’d evidently botoxed his entire head, demanded I provide a space with privacy for their questioning, and the final four accompanied me to the dining room, where Dunn shut the French doors so that eavesdroppers would have to strain.
We all sat around the glass dining table. Jones handled the inquisition while the others watched me with the focused gaze of portrait painters. I didn’t understand the tension in the room, but it worried me.
“Fourteen months ago, Doctor,” Jones began, “NASA spent upwards of a million dollars to shuttle you to the Tsf Trader mother ship in circumlunar orbit at that time. Walk us through how this happened and your experience on the mother ship.”
Was this a test? “Parent Ship, not mother ship. When it comes to sexism, the Tsf don’t have any.” Maybe I’d run a test of my own. “Care to know why?”
I pretended his dismissive grunt meant yes. “They evolved as predators on a planet with food resources so scant they had to live in small, isolated groups until they developed enough social skills to raise food animals collectively.” I only knew this because after I’d started working for the Traders, they’d shared some family history. “The evolutionary result is that each Tsf, unless pregnant, changes sex every few of our months, a major survival trait for small groups whose sexual distribution might be so uneven that—”
“Perhaps,” Jones interrupted, “we might focus on relevant matters.”
“Sure. Sorry.” Which I wasn’t. Test results were in: The agents weren’t here on a general fishing expedition. “But why ask about my little adventure? By now, the story’s grown a beard, and God knows, there’s been enough info about it on the newswebs.”
Jones’s frown was a microscopic lip-tightening, but it was nice to see that his expression could change. “Some unreported fact pertinent to today’s incident might emerge. Doctor, this will proceed more rapidly if you simply answer our questions. How did you wind up on this Parent Ship?”
I shrugged. “Tsf explorers had rescued three, um, spaceship-wrecked sentients, all from different alien species that even Traders had never heard of. All seemingly insane. Since we humans have apparently developed a rep among Traders for being the galaxy’s worst neurotics, Tsf leaders figured that a terrestrial shrink might—”
“That wasn’t my focus, Doctor. Why you in particular? ”
“Oh. I worked for NASA from 2020 to 2024, evaluating prospective astronauts. So when the UN passed the Tsf request to NASA, I’d already been vetted. Plus, not that many psychiatrists are fit enough to handle a space launch. Or survive the heavy gravity on a Tsf spaceship.” Or manage two push-ups.
“You had no prior relationship with Traders?”
“None. I had a lot to learn. But I figured from the start that the mission was absurd.”
Jones’s micro-frown had evaporated. “Then why did you accept it?”
“You don’t get such opportunities every lifetime.”
I’d fed him an answer with all complexities strained out. Aside from the unique opportunity and enough government pressure to squeeze carrot juice from apples, I’d taken the job for the glory of being the first human to visit a Parent Ship, and because I’d been afraid that some other shrink might actually dream they were qualified to evaluate aliens.
He nodded. “Now, on to your time on that Parent Ship.”
I walked them through at a gallop, briefly describing my three patients and confessing that I hadn’t had to flex any psychiatric muscles whatsoever to effect my three cures since none of the supposed psychotics, as far as I knew, had psychological issues. Their problems were more down to earth, so to speak. I also admitted that my unearned triple victory resulted from a glut of luck plus assistance from a military-spec “brain” hooked up to my Data Management implant.
“And the Traders paid you in technology,” Jones said, “with the promise of more to come?”
So he knew. That shouldn’t have surprised me although, during my debriefing, I’d asked NASA to withhold certain details because I’d had a hunch there is such a thing as too much publicity and that I’d be inundated just from having been in a Parent Ship.
I’ve never been more right. In fact, Pastor, if you want the remainder of my overextended minutes of fame, I’ll be delighted to hand them over. What technology? Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up. I’d prefer not to burden you with . . . irrelevant secrets.
Anyway, Jones’s face could’ve been carved in onyx as he waited for my response, but I sensed strain beneath the mask.
“They claimed the technology was a bonus for my success. But I suspect it was mostly to, um, lubricate my way to accepting my current job.”
“What did they propose, exactly?”
“To set up a clinic with various controllable environments near my home, staff it, and bring me the most interesting patients the Tsf found in their galactic travels. They said I’d be welcome to treat my human patients on site if I wished.”
“Any more specifics?”
I couldn’t help feeling defensive. “None. Honestly, the plan sounded wonderful at the time.”
“What did they hope to gain from this arrangement?”
“My invaluable services as a trading asset.”
“You said their offer sounded wonderful.”
I explained. Flushed with triumph, giddy from one of my best days ever, and blinded by opportunity, I’d accepted without pinning the Traders down as to details. I failed to ask what kind of “staff” they had in mind, just how close to my home the clinic would be located, how I’d pay my new employees or shelter them or feed them, and whether I’d be responsible for property taxes or rent on the new building. All of which proved that my three triumphs weren’t the result of my own brainpower.
“Tsf are honest,” I said with as little grump as I could manage, “but when you deal with them, it’s up to you to explore and fully understand all conditions of a trade. If you don’t, you’re stuck because they’d just as soon dismiss verbal contracts the way Crusaders would’ve thrown away the Holy Grail.”
“How did it play out?”
Like a good concerto on a bad piano, which I didn’t admit. “Could’ve been worse. My new employers assumed construction costs, taxes, wages, and my staff’s nutritional requirements, and put me on a nice monthly retainer. But they also used the Feds to do an end run around my community’s zoning and building laws, placing the clinic a mere four blocks away from Chez Morganson, and erecting it in two days with a really alien construction technique.”
Jones’s eyes flicked toward Smith, then back. “Describe this technique. We understand the clinic appeared to build itself.”
“Right. The Vapabondi, a species that trades with Traders, developed the technique. My security officer’s a Vapabond.”
A sore point. Given a chance to interview Tad first, I wouldn’t have hired her to walk my gerbil, but she came to me as part of a trade agreement, and that was that. I shouldn’t complain too loudly; my employers did better in choosing the rest of my staff, and they’d even followed my request to only sign up beings who could absorb human languages the way my fat cells absorb ice cream—didn’t want my new associates dependent on artificial translators.
“Go on,” Jones demanded.
“Vapabondi build things by using ‘macramites,’ a word coined by my receptionist combining ‘mites’ with ‘macramé.’” Macramites are semi-organic crablike, flea-sized machines. They communicate with each other and with their programmers with microwaves and can reproduce faster than gossip. The weird part is that their main building material is themselves. My clinic, including floors, walls, ceilings, doors, plumbing, even the wiring is almost entirely interlocked macramites, self-assembled. Even what looks like glass is specially bred macramites. The whole thing went up in two days, and it’s not a small structure.”
I could almost hear a four-part AHA! echo in the room. “Could enough of these machines,” Jones asked in an elaborately casual voice, “detach from the building to carry an object of any substantial size?”
“Maybe. What do you mean by substantial?”
He ignored the question. “Could they . . . camouflage such an object while transporting it?”
I shook my head in bafflement. “Doubt it. I don’t think they can change color.”
I glanced over at Smith, who’d sighed almost loudly enough to hear with both ears, but she’d resumed playing portraitist. The excitement level sank, replaced by an equally palpable disappointment.
Jones’s non-expression didn’t budge. “Since your clinic is so close, why didn’t you walk to work today?”
“You’re thinking I’m lazy and anti-green? You’re only right about the lazy part. I had to go straight from the clinic to my son’s school to pick him up on time. Really. Once, I was five minutes late and his second-grade teacher gave me a look to make Hitler blush with shame.”
No one chuckled at my wit.
“I understand the clinic has generated some local resentment?”
“That’s beneath an understatement.”
He rubbed his botoxed chin, probably making sure it was still attached. “Tell us why.”
I studied his face for a moment, which wasted that moment. “Partly it’s because hundreds of curious souls drive s-l-o-w-l-y past the place daily, creating perpetual traffic snarls. Then there are the—pardon the unprofessional expression—crazies that show up. What I think clinches the deal, though, is that for some reason, folks dislike the idea of insane and potentially murderous aliens leaping or flying or burrowing . . . or oozing into their backyards.”
“Are you aware of any contact between your neighbors and extraterrestrials other than those on your staff?”
“Good heavens, no! And almost none with my staff. What are you getting at?”
Smith tapped lightly on the dining table. Jones didn’t look at her but sat a bit straighter.
“Does any ET at the clinic have access to any form of teleportation?”
“Not as far as I know. Your questions keep getting stranger.”
“Getting back to the patients you helped on the Parent Ship, tell us more about the first one.”
“As I said, it looked like a cross between—”
“Excuse me, Doctor. You mentioned that it could dematerialize enough to move through walls. Do you believe it was capable of manipulating solid objects in its dematerialized state?”
Stranger and stranger. “If by ‘manipulating’ you mean pick them up, I don’t see how.”
“Hmm. Then can you add anything concerning your third patient?” The three observing agents leaned forward a millimeter or so.
I let my puzzled expression speak for itself. “Not really. It was practically flat when I was trying to diagnose its problem, and I never saw it, um, reinflated.”
“Your report suggests that this patient may have come from another galaxy.” My therapist ear detected a new eagerness beneath the smooth surface of his voice.
“That’s what the Traders deduced. Since the creature’s recovery they’ve confirmed the theory, and also confirmed their suspicion that like themselves, that patient’s species engages in trading on a colossal scale.”
“Possible competition?”
I tilted a hand back and forth. “Also possible collaboration. I think the Tsf’s main purpose in bringing me to the Parent Ship was all about that patient. Last I heard, they’d made progress in communicating with it and had even gotten its name and the name of its species, the Hoouk. At least, that’s how I pronounce it. The Traders are hopping with excitement about—”
“Did you ever see any indications that this Hoouk, like your first patient, possessed . . . unusual abilities?”
A chill brushed my spine as my subconscious caught on ahead of me. “Remember, I never even saw it after—wait!” Funny, how one hint following an entire parade of them could transform confusion into clarity. “You think the Hoouk might be playing dirty to spoil Trader operations on Earth?”
Jones said nothing but didn’t deny it.
I shook my head. “Forget it. If the Hoouk operate on a scale only half as large as Traders, my little business would still be far beneath their notice. What would make you even look in that direction?”
Jones eyed Smith and got a distinct nod.
“Are you aware,” he asked, “that your clinic is under twenty-four hour government surveillance?”
I hadn’t been, but it made sense; the authorities would want to stay alert for unfortunate interspecies incidents. But the presence of a video feed offered me a blazing ray of hope. “So! You’ve got videos of the bomber?”
Jones made the quietest snort in the history of snorts. “That’s the problem. As far as our analysts can determine, no one approached your vehicle from the moment it was parked until you set off the explosive with your key-button. Therefore we must consider extraterrestrial activity.”
I stared at him. “Couldn’t the explosive have been planted earlier? Or maybe the key-signal wasn’t the trigger and someone detonated the bomb remotely.”
“Our colleagues,” he gave the two FBI agents a nod, “and the police are exploring those possibilities. However, investigators found metallic traces suggesting that your car’s locking mechanism was wired, yet no evidence a timer was involved to explain your earlier successful drive to the clinic. Also, we doubt the explosion’s location was random.”
Now I was the one frowning, nothing subtle about it.
The questioning resumed, but since the cat had already exited the bag and I had nothing useful to add, the interview soon fizzled out. The session ended on a sour note: Smith finally spoke, cautioning everyone to say nothing to the police about any possible ET involvement. She didn’t ask nicely.
We left to join the party in my living room, and Sunny displayed her usual elegance and courtesy though I could tell she was shaken. Suddenly, phone calls started flooding in, so many we had to let our DMs handle triage and only responded to the most pressing. My insurance agent wasn’t pleased.
A police cruiser crouched outside my house that night as my family tried to sleep. My mind refused to shut up, even for a second, and I knew that Sunny was also keeping vigil. When we got up in the morning, the cruiser had apparently reproduced because now there were three. One of them drove me to work, and its two taciturn inhabitants, Officers Phillips and Braun, accompanied me to the front door, where Bradley S. Pearson, my dear neighbor, was lurking with some papers under one arm and a tired-looking policewoman at his side. I could feel my blood pressure soar. Never met Brad? Count your blessings.
Thanks mostly to this one man, I’ve suffered through four rough meetings with the town council and some exciting times at town meetings. I’ve a theory about what his “S” stands for, but wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing it with a man of the cloth.
“Good to see you, Al,” he trumpeted. “Glorious morning, isn’t it? This pretty lady with me is Cathy Bennett.” The policewoman gave me a wary nod, then winked at her fellow cops but said nothing. “Now I don’t want to make any trouble for you . . .”
Bradley always tried to radiate sincerity and likeability, and never succeeded. He was a beanpole with a pallid and slightly freckled complexion, an extra high forehead, thinning light-brown hair cut short, a sad mustache barely covering his philtrum, and an unfortunate combination of a long but very thin nose and large, watery blue eyes. He usually smelled of solvents and today was no exception; perhaps his hobby involved gluing together small model lawsuits in his basement.
“What kind of trouble don’t you want to make today, Brad?” I asked.
He waved a bony hand at me, brushing off any tendency I might have to take offense. “Really, Al, I must remind you, again, that this is nothing personal. It’s just that we all have to reevaluate the situation here. I’m sure you can see that.”
The cops bracketing me radiated impatience and did a splendid job of it.
“What are you talking about, Brad?”
“That blast yesterday. A child could’ve been injured, or even . . . killed! We can’t have any more of that sort of thing.”
“I agree. That’s why the authorities are investigating the explosion, and why police cars have been parked here since it happened, and why these two gentlemen are keeping me company this glorious morning. And also why Officer Bennett is keeping such a close watch on persons of interest.”
He ignored my dig and waved his hand again, a bit too close to my face. “That’s not enough! See here. A few of our good friends have come to me with this petition.” He pulled the document from under his arm with the kind of flourish you’d expect from a magician pulling a moose out of a hat. “Now, I didn’t want to bring this to you, but the entire community insisted and I couldn’t disappoint them. Just look this over.”
He handed me the papers. I glanced at the first page and knew that Bradley had written it himself. With about triple the necessary words, it essentially stated that neither my clinic nor anyone associated with it, particularly me, were welcome anywhere near this vicinity.
“Do you see how many signatures there are?” he demanded, oblivious to the significant glances the cops gave each other.
I’d already counted twenty-five names on the first page and wasn’t interested in following up on pages two, three, and four. I fought to keep my twinge of guilt from transmuting to rage.
“Brad, we’ve been over this a hundred times. I’ve always understood your concerns and share them more than you may know, but I didn’t choose to put the clinic here. When I learned that my employers did, I immediately asked them to locate it elsewhere, and they refused on the grounds that they’d already, um, purchased the grounds.”
“Then why not quit and make us all safer?”
We’d been over that ground as well. “Our government and most others around the world are pretty damn eager to keep me at this. The only reason the city council hasn’t shut me down already has been pressure from Washington. Have you any idea how important the Tsf are to us? How much a good relationship with them could help us? Or what a tragedy it would be if—”
“So you’ve claimed. All I know is what’s written on those papers, and you should look them over carefully. That’s your copy; I’ve got the original. And I hate to say this, but it can be used in a civil case that . . . I’ve heard may be pending, one that could have quite the impact on you.”
He lifted his weak chin to look down his nose at me or perhaps to mime nobility. “That’s all I have to say at this time.” Head held so far back that he risked tripping over small obstacles, Bradley S. strode past me and between my two flying buttresses and headed toward the sidewalk. Officer Bennett stayed with him until he’d crossed the street, and then she got into a parked unmarked car.
Officer Braun looked at me and held out a hand. I got the message and passed over the petition. “Nice of him to provide a list of suspects?” I said and got a hint of smile in response. I led the way through the door and into my troublesome sanctum.
I watched the cops take in everything: the absurdly large reception area, the huge and impossibly clear skylights, the 450-gallon saltwater aquarium, my multi-armed cleaning robot docked at its charging station, the full-sized olive tree, and the abstract sculptures. Then their eyes widened as they realized that the figure behind the coca-bola reception desk was no sculpture. Their hands moved closer to their guns. Understandable. My receptionist, L, takes some getting used to. No doubt he’s the main reason most of my human clients prefer to meet with me in the Cabin, my small separate office in back.
L isn’t quite as large as Tad or nearly as weird-looking as Gara olMara the Vithy, the third member of my staff, but is hands-down—not that he has permanent hands—the most intimidating of the three . . . to humans. Hard to pinpoint why. It’s not just the way his body parts practically radiate efficiency but are, excepting for his variable eyestalks, utterly unrecognizable—to humans, I should add again. And it’s not his aura of absolute confidence. Maybe it’s his . . . jaggedness. Where he isn’t downright serrated, his body is all zigzags and sharp, hard surfaces that gleam metallically in the dimmest light. And the oddest thing about him is that the total effect of all these angles and edges suggests something ferociously streamlined: a shark, perhaps. Or the first Disney version of Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. But you don’t need prior knowledge of a Great White to know in your gut that it’s not safe to pet.
After an admirably brief hesitation, Phillips forced himself to walk toward the desk. I imagine he planned to ask questions, but all he could do once he got close to L was stare. After a moment he wrinkled his nose. Under other circumstances, I would’ve found that comical because L uses something he calls “olfactory camouflage,” constantly matching his body odor exactly to his surroundings, which meant the cop probably smelled himself—from the outside, as it were.
“How may I improve your life?” L asked him, but Phillips just turned and headed back toward me.
Braun pulled his eyes off L to glower at me. “We’ll be waiting outside for the next four hours, then two other cops will take next shift. We got officers with your wife and kid. You good here?”
“Yes,” I said. “And thanks for everything.”
Just then, my cleaning robot decided it simply couldn’t eat another joule and it unplugged itself to scurry toward the flakes of dirt the cops and I had tracked in. The seven-foot-tall machine with its multitude of waving steel arms, designed by Tsf to resemble themselves, always made an impression on the uninitiated. So if the cops departed with a little extra haste, we must forgive them.
L extruded a limb and waved it to attract my attention. I walked over to his desk. “Such rude myrmidons.” His voice emerged from the device he wore as a pendant, a personal voice amplifier. Although he could duplicate virtually any kind of noise and had proved a supergenius at languages, he needed mechanical assistance to be loud enough for human ears. “Still, I ignore their slights for I have more interesting matters to discuss. But first I must ask, are you in need of therapy yourself from the recent trauma?”
“I remain sound in mind and habitually unsound in body.”
“Delightful news!”
“Some detectives asked me for a client list. Can you take care of that?”
“With ease. And since the subject of lists has arisen, have you scrutinized your revised schedule for today? I transmitted it an hour ago.”
“I’m sure my DM got it, but I haven’t looked it over.”
“Then I shall summarize. I canceled all your appointments for this week save for your usual daily failure with Cora.”
“You did? Why?”
You wouldn’t think anything that appeared so alien could look smug, but L managed it. “Being reduced to fragments might be less than therapeutic for your clients.”
I rubbed my tired eyes. “You’re borrowing trouble. The bomb squad checked out this building from the roof down and the police have been watching the place nonstop since yesterday.” I didn’t mention the government surveillance or the invisible bomber on yesterday’s videos.
“Are you familiar with the English phrase ‘better safe than sorry’?”
“Oh. Point taken.”
“Your gift of free time is adorned with lagniappe!” L shifted position to jut over the desk as if he were about to launch himself into space. “You now have the leisure to hear about my latest discovery. Doctor, are you familiar with the term ‘acronym’?”
I stifled a groan. “Sure.”
“Ah! Then did you know that acronyms were once referred to as ‘cable codes?’ ” L used the temporary limb to point at an open book in front of him, one of many on his desktop including both volumes of the compact OED. L had become a serious—make that an obsessed—student of human cultures and languages, which in turn had become a damn nuisance.
“That I didn’t know,” I stated with an abundant lack of enthusiasm.
“If you wish to remember it, you only need memorize AWORTACC, which itself is an acronym standing for—”
“Acronyms Were Once, etcetera. L, I’m starting to understand the way you think.”
“Ah! Ah! But AWORTACC is not only an acronym. In this context it is also a pneumonic! A pneumonic is—”
“Hate to interrupt,” I lied, “but what came in those crates over there in the corner?” The five large boxes in question were shiny and tan-colored, certainly not cardboard or wood. They all lay side-by-side, which made me suspect they were heavy.
“A new patient. He, she, it, or something else, no judgment implied, arrived early this morning.”
I glared at him. “Why can’t you get it through your . . . look, you’re supposed to call me the minute—oh hell, never mind.” I’d been down this road too many times before, and it always terminated in a dead end. Despite all my pleas, requests, and orders to inform me the instant a new alien patient arrived, L would never call me at home. He always had some rationale; perhaps the real reason involved religion.
I’m probably handing you the wrong impression. I thought highly of L, and in most areas he was great at his job. True, his constant verbal games had gotten old enough for their beards to grow mustaches, but I loved to hear him talk about exotic beings he’d met and his own species, the Pokaroll. His take on psychological matters was always fascinating. An example? Well, he told me once that the most surprising thing that ever happens in a person’s life is getting born, or in his case hatched, and that all artistic expression amounts to an attempt to handle the shock. Could be true—for Pokarolls, anyway. Back to my story!
“How,” I asked through teeth trying to unclench, “did the boxes get here?”
“A Tsf Trader brought them,” L said.
I went from glaring to staring. “Just how long ago?”
L didn’t need to consult a timepiece any more than I did, but unlike me his internal chronometer was natural. “Three hours, no minutes, and twelve seconds.”
“What did this Tsf say, exactly?”
The translator emitted a rapid series of clicks—Tsf speech.
Patience, Al, I told myself. “In English, please.”
“Get on the horn, pal, and tell the Doc he’s got ’splainin’ to do.” Yep, sounded like a Tsf. Whoever had programmed their translation devices had squeezed in every cliché, slang term, tagline, and snowclone inflicted on the human race during the last century. As I’d once suspected but now knew, they’d been acting in strict accordance with the ET Operating Manual and had been monitoring our entertainment transmissions for decades.
I glanced at the boxes again wondering which one, if any, had contained my new patient; they all appeared identical.
“Did the Trader vouchsafe his or her name?” I asked, hoping that “vouchsafe” would keep L from his daily ritual of pestering me for a new word to play with.
He generated a thin finger, used it to flip open the OED’s P to Z volume, turned a few pages, extended an eye-stalk to study the practically microscopic letters, and made a little squeal of joy. “Yes! The Tsf vouchsafed the name Deal-of-ten-lifetimes.”
“Deal! Haven’t seen him since—”
“Him is currently a her, Doctor, judging by the green cilia coloration.”
“Got it. So what information did she leave me concerning the patient?”
“She vouchsafed none.”
I was already regretting forking over that particular word. But that wasn’t my main problem. “Hang on. I’m supposed to be treating an alien I know nothing about? Again?” I’d also been vouchsafed no clues about Cora, my long-term patient who’d come with Tad, but the Tsf had only been indirectly involved with that fiasco.
“Perhaps you could discuss it with the Tsf herself?”
I blinked a few times. “You mean Deal is still here? For God’s sake, why didn’t you say so right away?”
“Why rush? Life is brief and the one thing we lack time for is excess haste.”
I took a slow breath. “Where is she?”
“Gara’s demesne.”
Well, I thought, at least Deal won’t be the weirdest thing in that room.
At the polished door to Gara’s office, I faced my reflection and a decision. Should I follow shop practice and knock before entering, or obey Tsf protocol and walk in cold? Among Traders, only those who questioned their welcome would knock. So after glancing at the environment readout to make sure the office’s present atmosphere wouldn’t poison me, I touched the open-sesame plate and the door slid aside.
This room, like every room in the building, was expansive with a sky-high ceiling; after all, some clients might be gigantic. Alien equipment edged the space with oddly curved surfaces in unexpected hues, all gleaming in the morning light through the tall windows that Gara needed, but not for seeing. Her spooky computer must’ve been put away in whatever en-suite pocket dimension Gara used for storage.
It seemed Deal was the weirdest personage in the room, although I suppose Deal might’ve said the same about me. He was—she was—average size for a Tsf, a bit shorter than me while hogging more floor space, and that hadn’t changed. Yet she looked so different just from the altered sexual coloration that without L’s heads-up I might not have recognized him—damn it!—her. I gazed around more carefully and still couldn’t spot my physical therapist, which didn’t prove Gara was absent. The room had shadows and she could be doing her version of fly-on-the-wall.
Deal stood in place, spinning fast enough to let most of her limbs extend straight out through centrifugal force. This gave me a splendid and unwanted peek at her gondola.
What’s a gondola? Sorry, of course you wouldn’t know. It’s this massive, corrugated structure where Tsf keep their brains, digestive organs, and a heap of fangs. No, you don’t see them on DM-TV, or on the newswebs because Traders don’t care to reveal that much of themselves, and the World Media Administration plays along. That’s why the only parts of Tsf anatomy shown in broadcasts are the ten outer limbs with those seaweedlike fronds halfway down the curves. Just between us, the fronds are bundles of cilia; the longest cilia act as fingers, the medium-size ones are sensory organs, and the short hairs flip like switches, making the clickety-clicks of Tsf speech. Traders also have three thick central legs to protect and support their gondolas.
If you ever actually met any Tsf, Pastor, I bet two things would surprise you: they smell just like curry, and their tiny clicking hairs can make one hell of a racket. I imagine the noise could bring a twinge of nostalgia to any retiree who’d once worked in a typist pool back in the days of manual typewriters.
Deal stopped spinning and a few dozen of her optical cilia pointed at me. Wide bands of some elastic material encircled four of her limbs: Trader pockets. One pocket held a Tsf translator device. Deal started clicking and the translator spoke up.
“Doc Morganson? That you?” The English came out in a parody of a western drawl, a new variation on a consistently bizarre theme.
I smiled. “Tricky to tell humans apart, Deal-of-ten-lifetimes?”
“No way. But I reckon your mug don’t look the same.”
“Probably all the new worry lines.” L, I thought, would love this conversation. How long has it been since “mug” was slang for face?
Deal’s optics stretched out a bit further and a score of additional eyes joined in to peer at me. “Matter o’ fact, you appear more buoyant than I recall. Of course, back at the corral, mostly I saw you lyin’ down on the job.”
I nodded with sudden understanding. “Right. On your Parent Ship you mostly saw me on my self-propelled couch and in much heavier gravity.” Tsf evolved on a world with almost five times Earth’s gravity and kept some of the extra squeeze on in their space station fulltime. “I must’ve looked more . . . saggy then. If you don’t mind interrupting our reunion, where’s the new patient?”
After months of experiences with various Traders, I’d come to interpret Deal’s minimalist twitch either as a sign of surprise or a gesture indicating contempt for my stupidity.
“In the reception area,” Deal said. “You didn’t notice them there crates?”
I stared at her and not because of the fake-cowboy dialect. “You mean my patient is still packed in one of those boxes?”
“In every dang one, you’d best believe.”
Time out, I told myself.
Ever run your Data Manager’s CPU non-stop for a year or so? The whole system gets logy and little errors start popping up. In this case, my brain was the device needing a reboot. I’d forgotten my own number one rule for dealing with ETs: never make assumptions. That explosion hadn’t taken me out, but apparently it had shorted my circuits.
Maybe I swayed a little. The Trader placed limbs gently on both sides of my shoulders to add support. “What’s the dealio, partner? You ain’t ridin’ so steady in the saddle.”
Distracted and irked with my own foolishness, I blurted out the question I hadn’t dared ask for over a year. “Why the hell are Tsf translators programmed to make you Traders sound so hokey? It’s annoying, not to mention frustrating. Do you know that some of the slang you throw around is so obsolete that I’d need my great-grandfather to tell me what it means?” Of course, I was instantly ashamed of myself, and I hadn’t even been honest. Usually, I enjoy the varied quirkiness of Trader speech.
Deal stopped clicking. When she resumed, the voice from the translator sounded entirely different. “My dear Doctor, the programming is precisely calibrated, I assure you. We are Traders and our goal is profit, mutual profit whenever possible. We calculated that by configuring our speech patterns to make us sound colorful we would ease human reactions to our obvious physical, mental, and technological superiorities.”
“I see. Smart.” And how very cynical.
“We have learned that ease between species lubricates the friction of trade. With particularly frail species, we do our utmost to project harmlessness.”
I tried to keep my face from expressing disappointment that Trader zaniness was all for show. Perhaps Deal couldn’t read human non-verbal cues, but considering what I’d just learned about Trader shrewdness, I wasn’t betting on it. “As to the patient, shouldn’t we do some, um, unpacking?”
“Indeed, but first I suggest you examine this item.”
She pulled what appeared to be a small cylinder from one of her elastic bands and gave it a tap. The cylinder unfolded and unrolled into a wide, stiff sheet of thin plastic. Deal passed the sheet over to me. It weighed almost nothing and for a moment was entirely blank. Then embossed patterns developed on its surface and the patterns darkened into elaborate illustrations that resembled, more than anything, those horrid pictorial assembly instructions included in kits from, say, Ikea.
“Touch an illustration,” Deal suggested.
“Okay.” It was distinctly warmer than the surrounding plastic, and the embossing felt taller than it looked. Also, it vibrated slightly under my finger. “Interesting. So this is a . . . one-size-fits-all-senses instruction sheet?”
“Our conclusion exactly, Doctor. The beings who sent us this document were clearly unsure about the nature of our sensory organs so they allowed for an assortment of possibilities. Even the color contains self-illuminated wavelengths well beyond my perceptions.”
“Huh. I just see an intense brown.” I squinted at the drawings. “When this machine is put together, is it supposed to be a life-support unit for my patient?”
“We believe the machine is your patient although it appears to be what you refer to as a ‘robot.’ If we obey these diagrams, you will learn why I have brought this problem to you.”
I studied the illustrations more carefully. They were laid out in a spiral pattern, but the assembly order was obvious from the way the robot—assuming that’s what it was—became progressively more elaborate. The reverse side of the sheet had a lengthy parts list. Even with twelve arms including my two, putting this thing together wouldn’t be a quick job. I checked the time.
Not wanting any virtual buzzers, gongs, or even a quiet internal word to further abrade my nerves, I had my DM place a countdown stopwatch at one edge of my vision, where I couldn’t forget it, yet it wouldn’t block my view. I set this timer for an hour and twelve minutes and started it running, further validating my self-diagnosis of a mild case of OCD since I had no good reason to meet with Cora at that specific time every workday. But that was my schedule, and I was sticking to it.
“How heavy are those boxes?” I asked.
“When full, some outweigh us both while others are less massive. In either case, they are easy to transport due to the adaptable material coating the bottom surfaces. Apply steady pressure to any side, and those surfaces become frictionless.”
“Slippery when pushed?”
“So I said. I assume from your query concerning weight that you wish to open these containers in another location?”
“I do. If this robot really needs my . . . services, I’d like to build it in one of the rooms dedicated to extraterrestrial patients.”
“That is sensible since the automaton, once complete, will be far more challenging to transport. This will require several trips if we work alone.”
Tad could help, theoretically, but the fastest road to chaos I’d ever found was to have her help; her grasp of any job tended to be more miss than hit. L knew to distract Tad if she showed up, so I wanted him at his desk. And Gara was nowhere in sight.
“Let’s do it ourselves.”
“Then we shall begin.”
Deal was right about the boxes sliding along easily, although it took a while to get them moving, and the heavier ones adored sliding straight when you wanted them to turn. Still, five minutes later they were all sitting pretty in one of my controlled-environment rooms.
We got to work and by “we,” I mean mostly Deal, who was either very familiar with the procedure or incredibly adept at following pictorial instructions. And of course, with all those optical cilia, manipulative cilia, and arms, her motor skills made the operation dazzling to behold.
Three boxes were crammed with smallish pieces, the other two had very few, but much larger ones. Looking at the sheet, I counted fifty-seven assembly steps ending with a completed robot standing next to the presumably empty boxes, all neatly stacked. Now and then, Deal asked me to hand over “the tetrahedron with an octagonal protruded helix” or some such, but I think she was just trying to involve me in the process as an act of pity. The gizmo kept getting more impressive and once its head—at least it looked headlike—was on, I estimated the finished project would be nearly ten feet tall and as broad as three of me. Most of its surface had a dusty, bluish gleam.
My countdown timer had reached five minutes when Deal installed the final component: a shiny, twisted strip of translucent material that went around the thing’s waist like a frou-frou cummerbund.
“What do you think of it?” she asked. “Can you account for its surprising variety of waveguides?”
“No, but it looks like a robot all right. Sort of manlike, if I squint hard enough . . . except for the three legs.”
“Personally, I would assess it as an uncanny likeness, and see little difference between two and three legs, save for stability.”
L’s voice came from behind us. “The spitting image, as the locals say, of a human being.” L could sidle quieter than a cat by extruding a plethora of soft little tentacles.
“Need me for something?” I asked him.
“Not presently, but I thought it prudent to remind you of your upcoming appointment. And I must confess to a whim of curiosity concerning just what those boxes contained.” That must’ve been some whim since L had extruded a record number of eyestalks.
I opened my mouth to point out that I hadn’t forgotten an appointment yet, but the robot interrupted me.
“Doctor Alanso Jose Morganson,” it said very clearly, but in a voice like a squeaky hinge.
“Um. That’s me.”
“Doctor Alanso Jose Morganson,” it repeated.
I turned toward Deal. “What’s is this?”
“A pity. We’d hoped for a different response than we’d gotten after prior assemblies. Now you know why we brought the robot to you; no matter what we tried, the completed machine would only stand in one place and say your name three times.”
“Doctor Alanso Jose Morganson.”
“Just so,” Deal continued. “If it follows precedent, it will now remain silent indefinitely until it is disassembled and reassembled.”
I stared at my latest patient. “Where did this thing come from, anyway?”
Deal stopped clicking but to my surprise, her translator said, “Thinking.” The translator’s current mode evidently included a verbal “busy” signal.
My timer flashed discreetly and vanished just as the clicking resumed. “The issue you raise, Doctor, has convolutions. I gather you are presently under a time constraint, and suggest we return to this topic later.”
“Good idea. There’s a client I have to see now, but I’ll be back shortly. If you’d like to be more comfortable in here while you wait, my receptionist can boost the gravity while I’m gone.”
“If you have no objections, I would prefer to accompany you since I have my own whim of curiosity to satisfy.”
L backed out of the doorway as smoothly as warm butter gliding over an oil slick, but slowly and with his eyestalks all aimed at the robot. That gave me time to weigh the ethics of Deal’s request before giving her an answer. Normally, I wouldn’t consider bringing an observer to a private session, but in this case, I couldn’t imagine what difference it would make.
“What are you so curious about?” I asked.
“I’ve been informed that this patient is a Vapabond, reputedly a most interesting species. I have seen images but have never met one before.”
I looked at her in surprise as a baker’s dozen eye-cilia gazed back at me. “We’ve got two Vapabondi here. Thought you knew.”
“Yes, the other is your security officer.”
“Supposedly. And a nurse, also supposedly. Her name is Tadehtraulagong, but I just call her ‘Tad.’ You haven’t bumped into her yet?”
“I haven’t encountered her if that was your question.”
“Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen her today either.” This was odd since she was always underfoot—if “underfoot” can apply to someone nearly twice my height.
Vapabondi are comfortable in Earth’s gravity and can breathe our air as if they’d evolved here, so it hadn’t been necessary to customize conditions in my patient’s room. That is, it hadn’t been necessary for her. I’d arranged for odor filtering to make the space more pleasant for me; that elephantine smell tended to build up. A Tsf translating device, programmed appropriately, sat near the vast bed in which my patient, Coratennulagond, lay supine, staring at the ceiling. If she’d been human, I would’ve judged her condition a twelve on the Glasgow Coma Scale—more stupor than coma.
As a female2, Cora was visibly different from Tad: shorter but wider, and her torso-shell had fancier articulation. I’d never been able to mine much information from Tad, but a helpful Tsf visitor had explained that in Vapabondi, the female1 generates an equivalent to a human ovum and retains it until impregnated by a male1. After fertilization, the egg is transferred to a womblike organ in a female2 who, if all follows nature’s blueprint, is protected by a male2 until the little one is born, or more precisely, ejected.
“This is your patient?” Deal asked and I wondered why the translation came out sounding surprised.
“She is. Hello, Cora,” I said as always, the translator honked and growled as always, and I received the usual response. Cora’s walrusoid head gradually turned toward me, and the wrinkled eyelids quivered for a moment but remained at half-mast. “I’ve brought a friend, the Trader Deal-of-ten-lifetimes.”
Deal clicked and the translator did some honking and growling, then said in English, “I am pleased to greet you.”
The massive head slowed aimed itself toward the Tsf. Cora eyes opened fully, then blinked in slow motion. Surprise and excitement set my heart racing. The tip of a blue tongue appeared between her two lower tusks, licked across six inches of black, rubbery lip, and then withdrew.
As I gawked at her unprecedented responsiveness, Deal placed a few finger-cilia on my arm. “What is wrong with her?” she asked, clicking more quietly than I’d thought she could, and the translation came out as a whisper.
To my disappointment, Cora’s eyelids drifted halfway down and she resumed her standard torpor. “Let’s talk outside,” I suggested.
Deal led the way to the hallway and after I’d closed the door asked, “What is wrong with her mind?”
“Wish I knew.” I puffed out my cheeks and let the air out in a rush, a way of expressing frustration that always bugs my wife. “Deal, you’ve gotten more out of Cora in a minute than I have in the last six months. Maybe it’s me, but everything about her case is . . . off somehow, even the way she arrived. I assume you know about that?”
“I do not, and evidently what little information I did receive is incorrect. Soon-to-be-wealthy, a Trader in another division who is still a novice at dealing with extrinsic species, made the arrangements. I understand that your notoriety had been attracting deranged humans to this location and Soon-to-be-wealthy’s solution involved a barter in which you were to be loaned a Vapabondi security specialist in exchange for your aid in treating a mentally ill Vapabond. What did you find unsettling about her arrival?”
The idea that Tad was any kind of specialist gave me an instant hit of what we shrinks call “cognitive dissonance.” “You Traders brought me all the other ET patients I’ve had. Not Cora. She and Tad just showed up one day in a van driven by federal agents. It seems Tad had flown a shuttle down from whatever spaceship had brought them to Earth and landed it in a field fifty miles from the clinic.”
Deal wriggled four limbs like pythons doing tricks, a Tsf gesture I hadn’t seen enough times to make a stab at interpreting. “Vapabondi are clever but cautious beings, Doctor. They insist on autonomy in all things, so they would inevitably wish to affect the delivery. I cannot explain why the shuttle landed so far away, but I am no authority on Vapabondi behavior. Did the unexpected arrival create a problem for you?”
“I wouldn’t say unexpected. Your people told me the pair was coming, just not when. They even gave me a micro-briefing about Vapabondi.” Thank God. “But they knew nothing about Cora’s condition. My problem was that she showed up with no documentation, patient history, or previous diagnosis—not so much as a Post-It—and the only thing I could get out of Tad concerning Cora was that Tad herself would be her nurse because only a fellow Vapabond could be qualified. In terms of evaluation, let alone therapy, I’ve been flying blind . . . without a paddle.”
“Your metaphor mystifies me, but surely this Tad has oriented you by now?”
I snorted. “Anything but. One theory I have is that Tad was ordered to tell me nothing so that I could assess Cora without preconceptions.” I had another theory less based on the intrinsic benevolence of all beings, namely that Tad was a jerk.
“Shall we return to your patient?”
We did, but this time Cora just lay there like a very large lump. Deal and I took turns talking at her, both of us failing to elicit any reaction. As always, I sensed that she heard but couldn’t or wouldn’t respond. Seeing that we were on a roll of non-accomplishment, I suggested we return to the room with the robot and continue wasting our time in a fresh venue. Deal agreed.
The machine, to no one’s surprise, stood exactly where we’d left it.
“We have time now,” I said. “Getting back to my question, where did this thing come from?”
The Trader aimed a few optical cilia at me, but kept most of them facing the subject of my question. “No doubt you recall the unfortunate Hoouk you correctly diagnosed on the Parent Ship.”
I managed to mate a chuckle with a snort. “Even if I habitually forgot my patients, I’d make an exception for the only one from another galaxy.”
“That is why I said ‘no doubt.’ After you returned to Earth, this individual recovered fully and was soon able, with our aid, to converse with its fellows.”
My eyebrows decided to levitate. “They must have one hell of a communication system.”
Several of Deal’s limbs rippled.
“Now what,” I asked, “is so funny?”
She twitched, just once but all over, and more eye-cilia swung around toward me. “Your perceptiveness alarms me, Doctor, although by now I should have learned to expect it. How did you become so expert on Tsf body language?”
“I’m no expert. But I’ve been around you Traders enough to pick up a hint or two. The source of your amusement?”
“I will tell you, if you will remember that I mean no offense.”
“Okay. Consider my skin properly thickened.”
“At last, an intelligible metaphor!” It made sense to her, Pastor, because Tsf can thicken and harden the outer cells in their limbs into swordlike weapons.
Then she let me in on the joke. “I was—” The translation device paused for an instant. “—tickled by something I’ve often observed. The manner in which a species survives long enough to become technological usually limits that technology.”
“For instance?”
“Humans. Despite your many physical limitations, humans possess adequate grasping powers combined with a shape that allows fair leverage. Therefore, your earliest foreparents depended on hurling objects both to hunt and to defend themselves against predators. Aids such as bows and guns flow from the basic idea of throwing, which has become so embedded in human perspective that in English, ‘weapons’ and ‘limbs’ are synonyms.”
“I think you mean arms.”
“I see no distinction.”
“Right. What does this have to do with long-distance communication?”
“All your devices for this purpose are tools for throwing such things as microwaves, light, or radio waves. The Hoouk are more advanced than we Tsf in transportation, but we use identical communication tools. Distance is irrelevant when nothing has to travel.”
I studied Deal for a long moment. “That’s interesting. How do you communicate without moving anything?”
Deal raised a limb and waved it chidingly; I wasn’t the only one who’d learned something about alien body languages. “This information could be the basis of a future trade. It would be irresponsible of me to supply it gratis. Perhaps we should now turn all curiosity toward disassembling and reassembling the robot. We must be certain that no mistake has been made.”
My curiosity wasn’t in the mood to turn, but I saw no point in arguing. “I’m game.”
“You might be distressed by how your last statement was translated, but I take it you are willing so we will proceed. Observe the process with critical eyes, if you will, for the smallest blunder could result in cumulative error.”
I pored over the assembly sheet while Deal followed the instructions in reverse but so slowly that I could follow the procedure and sign off on each step. From the start, though, I had a nagging feeling we’d missed something obvious. If so, we both missed it all the way to the end, where nothing but machine parts and us littered the floor.
“You agree,” Deal asked, “that I made no mistakes?”
“Seems that way.”
“Then I shall construct it again under your few but watchful eyes.”
I sighed. “One downside to having a mere pair is that they get tired, but go ahead.”
“Since I have memorized this process and wish to avoid automatically repeating any errors, I suggest you provide all assembly information as we proceed, and I will obey your directions.”
“I like it.” And that way I’d set the pace. I lifted the assembly sheet and tried to look at it as if for first time. “Step one. Push the three long, gray rods into the holes in the smallest cylinder. . . .”
With me calling the shots, the job took over two hours. I wouldn’t say we completely wasted our time because when we were finished, I had the fun of hearing my name repeated three times.
After that third repetition, I noticed that my shadow was darker than it should’ve been considering the room lighting. I wondered how long Gara had been with us, but if she wanted to go incognito, who was I to out her?
Copyright © 2010 by Rajnar Vajra
