Alien Tongues (36 page)

I climbed gingerly out of bed so I would not wake him.  I poured myself wine and sat in a chair next to the bed, enjoying watching him.  I recalled my anger during the death-spiral.  It seemed so bizarre I could feel any anger towards Ben.   Where did it come from?  I allowed the sensation to return.  I realized it had nothing to do with Ben himself.  At that moment he represented my family.   I still retained a deep well of anger towards my mother who had left my father and I to become a trucker herself.  And though my father didn't deserve it, I was angry at him too for his lack of understanding of a daughter and his obvious bias towards my cros brother.  I felt I was left to battle the world alone, finally taking my mother's career just to get away from the pain and confusion of emotional entanglements.  By running away to space, I could reject dependency on others and responsibility for others.  A lonesome cowboy out on the vast range.  I could dabble with suitors and the simplicity of mals.  I could avoid the mess of human intimacy and tell myself that romance was a single fem piloting a Gold Wing the size of a planet-breaking asteroid.

But Ben brought out something special in me and, in a weird, quick-matter moment, it pulled me back into the normal human fold.  One of us had experienced this "Brain Bang" of unimaginable proportions, followed by salvation, utter mental confusion, then exhaustion & sleep.  Human society had provided me with a rational explanation for everything, except unfortunately it didn't match my memory.  Did my memory matter?  Maybe my memory of my mother and father was also twisted.  Was there any memory inside Ben?  Why had he not shown even the slightest interest in the video?  Regardless of who had the Brain Bang, it was his steady hands that had been essential to save us.  If he were a fem or a cros, then you could bet that even his faithful execution of my instructions would have made him a hero.  But the news feature had treated him as no different from a piece of tractor machinery. 

I gazed at him in silent thanks.  Then I noticed his latest sketch lying on the other side if the bed.  I had been too busy with my mail that day to pay attention to it.  I walked over and picked it up.  This sketch was of both of us.  I was sitting in a control chair, pointing with a finger and my mouth wide open in speech.  He was looking at me and had his hands on the console.  Instructor and instructed.   Ben was endorsing the world's conclusion that he was simply the vehicle for my inspiration.

I drained my wine glass and climbed back into bed, carefully drawing Ben's arm around me again.  Suddenly I had a new concept of myself and my powers.  I felt immensely strong, and with that power the desire to cherish Ben.  But to help him, I knew I had to help all mals.  And more than anyone in the galaxy, I knew they deserved help, and they could be trusted to repay greater human kindness.  Now I had a mission for life, other than driving up and down the Blue Highway.  It would begin when I woke up.

Chapter 2

I had never invited Al and Jo to a conference call together before, but had no reluctance to do it immediately after breakfast.  They knew each other and there was no real animosity.  Their rivalry was a bit like that between two sporting teams.  Their competition was serious but it created no ill-will.

"My Dears, thank you so much for making the time this morning," I told them.  "It seems that brainstorms come in pairs.  I decided last night I want to take full advantage of my new-found fame, and I need both of you to help me."

Al rubbed his hands together.  "Oh, goody!  We'll kick off with a huge press conference when you land. Where is it and what's the timing?"

"Copper Five in the Dry Zone, and three days if the fuel gets here on time." I replied.  "If you both leave soon, you should get there ahead of me and Jo a half-day later.  As for the press conference, I'm fine with it, but remember there's a limit to what I can say until I meet with my CEO, the insurance folk and Highway Safety.  The media shouldn't expect more than a few teasers.  We need to decide on a platform for the real story."

Al looked up as if there was a "thinks" bubble floating above him.  "It's been in my dreams for two nights, Honey.  The Zac Lyon Show. You deserve no less.  Say the word, and – damn it – this is one call of mine that midget cros is actually going to
take personally!
"

Jo raised an eyebrow at him.  "I trust you'll sound more nonchalant than that when speaking to him, Old Chap. We still want to get top dollar."  Al assured him that he knew his craft.  Joe continued, "So where's the political angle, Meg?  With me in this team, you must have one."

I paused for effect.  "I want to raise awareness that it's time for us to review mal policy.   It should not have escaped anyone's attention that Ben was instrumental in this miracle of science.  No machine in the galaxy could have adapted to my needs so perfectly."

Al nodded, his expression showing that he was dragging his mind into line with my statement.  "Absolutely.  We're always underestimating mals, and people can be so rude to them.  I think we need to start with what we teach in schools."

Jo, who had the benefit of my confession the prior day, rubbed his smooth chin in contemplation.  "Do you have an endgame in mind, Meg?"

I shook my head.  "This is one where public reaction is too hard to predict.  I think it's likely to be very volatile.  We'll have to go carefully.  To start with at least, we're going to have to appeal to self-interest.  I'll be depending upon you to come up with some worrying statistics."

"That won't be too hard," Jo replied.  "The price for volunteer fems has sky-rocketed in recent years.  They now rely very heavily on reduced prison sentences for convicted fems, and clearly that creates worries about the gene pool."

"But useful if you lose your front-door key and need to break into your own home," Al quipped.  Yes, I could anticipate all these old jokes getting a second life on the late-night shows.  So long as they spun in our favor.

Jo held his hand in the shape of a gun, executing Al for his tastelessness.  "What will happen to Pilot Moon?" he asked.

"Probably retired," I told him.  "Gentle-Croses, I'm coming in from cold space.  I realized last night that I'd been running away, just like my mother, for the last five years.  I've loved it, but if I don't quit now I'm going to turn into that fem trucker who took a swing at me in a saloon on Planet Junkyard.   Ben saved me that time too, remember?  I think I need a bit more purpose and a lot more fun."

"Too early to drink to that, but remind me one evening," Al said.  "And with this return to the heaving, sweaty masses who don't wear space boots, might wedding bells be a possibility?"

I laughed.  "Well, I was saving that one for later, but since you set it up for me, let me check off another item on my agenda.  Yes, I want to get married, for just one reason.  I want to go through the full Sperm Bank process and learn first-hand about the mal cycle.  As far as I know, there's no other way.  As far as I am concerned, you are both equally eligible.  So please can I leave it for you two to decide between yourselves who will be my husband?  And can I have both of you promise now that, if it's not you, it will not damage our friendship and our new business enterprise?"

The croses looked at each other with a frown, then Jo raised a finger as if it were a sword.  Al did likewise, then Jo formed the gun and shot him again.  "We will find a way to decide this," Jo replied.  "And I promise you, the loser will not have to die."

"If it's any consolation, he will also be very well compensated.   As soon as I have money flowing in from my biography, tee-shirts and death-spiral simulations, I want you both on retainers."

"I wish pride forbad my acceptance," Al said.  "But you have just given me my one chance to get out of this boring regulatory job and follow my natural calling.   Meg Moon, you just got yourself an agent, Honey."

The rest of that day and for the remaining three of the journey, I waded through my ever-growing inbox.  It was clear that I was going to have to employ someone to assist me if I was not going to offend a great many people.  I forwarded many of them to Al and asked his advice.  The day before I was due to land, he informed me he had secured (what was to me) an enormous advance payment for my biography.  Based on that, I told him to quit his government job, gave him a 50% pay-rise plus ten percent of all future deals.  I shoveled a mountain of additional mail his way and told him to get started on the biography.

Jo informed me that he was finding groups which were already working on my political agenda.  He was sorting through them, in order to find the one that had the greatest potential for popular appeal. He told me he thought he was winning the argument about who should marry me.  I told him to tell Al that any husband of mine would have to work for free.  Now that Al had tasted his lucrative agency role, it might well be a clincher for Jo.

My other main occupation during the last couple of days was something I would have previously regarded as ridiculously trivial – how I would be dressed as I exited the cabin.  Quite possibly, billions would be watching.  Most had never seen a real, long-haul space pilot before but had some sort of image from movies and magazines.  While it would be silly to copy these stereotypes, at the same time I didn't want to look like plain old Jane Fem.  I could just hear too many people muttering, "
She's
no pilot!" if I didn't at least connect to something in the recesses of their imagination. 

So I had Ben lay out all my clothes in one corner of the cabin and spent several hours trying on outfits I often hadn't worn for years.  The formal uniforms were great, but it would look rather fake to emerge in some tight-fitting tunic covered in gleaming buttons and braid.   In the end I chose a comfortable jump-suit that was of a dark, shiny material to protect against heat blasts.  It had a cool, space-frontier look to it while there was a ghost of an excuse to be wearing it – heat blasts were not entirely unknown when landing and I had already escaped the mother of them all by the skin of my teeth.  I found a great pair of space boots to match and a satchel so hi-tech it could have contained weaponry.  The next issues were make-up and hair.  I highlighted my brownish hair until it was streaked through with blonde, then cut it to look rough and sexy.  Eye-liner and lipstick needed to be subtle as the last thing I wanted people to think is that I was trying too hard.  Finally I got the look I wanted.  For the first time ever, I thought I looked naturally cute.  In my excitement I turned on some music, grabbed Ben and showed him a few dance steps.  He wasn't half bad.

And he was my next task.  First, I shaved off his stubble and cut his hair short around the sides, so he looked serious business.  Then I chose a snug-fitting boiler-suit that tolerably matched mine.  I found him a good sized back-pack for the overnight stuff we'd need, and now we were ready.   I took a bunch of pictures of the pair of us. Were we the coolest space-kids that tumbled out of a small cabin descended from distant stars!  One really good thing about this lone cabin – it was designed to make one awesome landing on its own, throwing out bat-wings to ensure precision landing.  I doubted anyone at a second-tier station had seen anything like it before.

As we approached landing, I watched the live news coverage of it.  It was indeed spectacular.  Then I saw the crowds waiting and the sheer volume of news organizations present.  The space-port looked like it had been converted to a sports stadium for the occasion, with enormous screens erected for the endless crowds who kept arriving.  It seemed like everyone in this medium-sized city wanted to be able to say they had witnessed the cabin land.  And the only significance of this cabin was Meg Moon and her mal.

Suddenly I was gripped by panic.  They wanted me because they believed I was the first human to beat quick-matter, and all I remembered was confusion.  The sense of being a fraud returned.  In the quiet of space it was easy to tell myself I must have been the hero, but could I maintain that belief in front of billions of curious eyes?  The media liked to create heroes but also liked to tear them down.  The public eagerly adopted heroes and just as quickly stoned them.  I started to feel like I was being sucked down into yet another death spiral.  I quickly phoned Jo.  Interesting now that I chose him instead of Al.

"You'd have to be a mal not to feel panic right now," Jo commented after I told him how I felt.  "Remember, there's not a celebrity in the Galaxy who is anything like their image in the public mind.  It's fine to say that the quick-matter was a confused blur.  In fact, do your best to try and avoid detail.  They are not here to learn facts.  They want to know how it feels to be Meg Moon.  And don't think "fraud" like your fooling anyone, because you're not.  Think "I'm a small pilot fem who just wanted to do her job."

Jo steadied me just enough.  I felt sick but was sure I wasn't going to lose my breakfast.  On the screen now, a blizzard of ticker-tape almost hid the crowd.  The same anthem played, My Homeland 'Cross the Void, as when Ed Row had synced it with the video.  Maybe that was now stuck as my theme tune.  This was so huge, it couldn't really be about just me.  Humanity had just overcome the one threat it seemed to fear most.  Quick-matter symbolized what was most terrifying about space – everything being sucked down a hole and being crushed out of existence.  Whole star clusters had vanished.  Now cold propulsion could finally whack them, once they had figured out how to crank it up to planetary proportions.  There was truly nothing that humanity couldn't conquer.  This was all just a crazy celebration, and I was merely a mascot.  Who cared if I had even slept through the death spiral?  Without intention I had proven that humans could win yet again.