A. Warren Merkey

by Far Freedom

  “And I heard her sing,” Constant said. “So did Etrhnk. You knew she was your mother! That’s why you let her take the Freedom. Speak up, Etrhnk! Petros! What else do you know?”

  “I remember nothing of my previous life.” Etrhnk was still trying to reason how Constant knew so long ago who he was. If she knew, why wasn’t she more effective in stopping Demba? Why couldn’t she have just killed him as soon as she realized who he was? “I’ve been told a few facts by someone who knew me or knew of me. Admiral Demba is my biological mother. I only learned that after the Freedom escaped. My sister is also aboard the Freedom. They have taken the ship to search for my father and three others. That I let them go is probably the act that threatens you. If I had thought at the time it could bring harm to the Golden Ones, I would have prevented it. I have spent my life trying to hold the Union together and now I have information the Freedom could, in fact, pose a danger. It disappeared from inside a secret facility.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “It jumped.”

  “It’s too large!” Laplace argued.

  “The evidence is ambiguous. The asteroid was destroyed by a delayed explosion, making analysis difficult. But knowing what we know of jumpships places the probability higher that the Freedom was modified at this facility to achieve jump capability. There is also another fact that should add to your concern. My mother has two other names by which she was known, and one of them is Keshona.”

  Constant looked at Etrhnk with changing expressions. He had kept secrets from her which should have angered her. He had betrayed her theoretical love for him which should have hurt her. Still she gripped the fingers of his hand. Still she was able to look at him without total disgust. She was old, older than he could comprehend. It was probably impossible for her to dwell on such brief passions. As Constant stared at him, and as the voices of Golden Ones fought to state arguments and facts, Etrhnk found himself reaching a state of relaxation, if not enjoyment. He accepted the future, whatever it was, he accepted the past, whatever it was, and he lived in the moment, however brief it was.

  “Have you reached a decision?” Constant asked almost sarcastically as quiet returned to the gathering.

  “Death,” Laplace answered.

  “We don’t make such decisions,” Constant objected. “The Lady does. None of us has ever killed a human.”

  “And she or the humans - the barbarians - will kill him,” Laplace said. “He goes to Oz to fight in the games. Now.”

  Constant would not turn loose of him. Two of the Golden Ones pulled her away, pulled her fingers loose from his. Etrhnk saw two blue oceans of tears in Constant’s eyes, and then she was gone forever.

  Section 007 Volunteer

  The narration of Samuel Lee resumes.

  “Do you think you have conscious control over your genetic design?” Aylis asked Jessie, reading the vital signs of Nameless with her fingertips. “You have ten fingers. Nameless has only eight. You don’t seem concerned, so perhaps that’s normal?”

  “I grew thumbs,” Jessie said. “I wanted thumbs. I used to visualize having thumbs. One day my hands started to itch inside. It took years but the itches became bumps and the bumps became thumbs. Then I contemplated bigger changes but I think they were already happening. I had arms and legs with an extra joint in each. The joints began fusing and single elbows and knees developed. You can still feel where the old joints were.” She offered an arm to Aylis and showed her where to feel for the lumps in her bones. “I was partially crippled for years while my limbs changed. I don’t remember wanting each and every thing that changed in me. It wasn’t a pleasant process to undergo. No, I don’t think I had conscious control of my metamorphosis.”

  “And babies? Did you want to bear a child?”

  “Sam made sure to describe pregnancy and childbirth as a tortuous and messy process.” Jessie grinned. “I believed him. Yet, over the years my interest grew. It wasn’t the biology of reproduction but the idea of family. Sam talked so much about his family and Milly’s family. Family just seemed like the most wonderful thing in the universe. I did want a baby, even if I had to suffer the torture. But I think my body wanted it long before my mind knew what it wanted.”

  “Wait a minute,” Aylis said. “It never occurred to anyone to ask, but are you saying that your species did not reproduce the way humans do?”

  “Aylis, we didn’t reproduce at all.”

  “Because you lived such a long time, you didn’t need to.”

  “No! Because we couldn’t! Those few who died weren’t replaced. It never occurred to us that we were a species, a group of beings who should continue as a group or species. We were manufactured, we were servants, we no longer had anyone to serve, and we would eventually die.”

  “You were manufactured?”

  “Our investigations are by now quite ancient. There are records somewhere. But all of us remember agreeing on the fact that the Masters created us.”

  Aylis stopped to think, shaking her head at a conclusion that bothered her, making the baby - only days old - laugh at her. She smiled at Nameless, who was always such an easy-going little sucker, and turned back to Jessie with a question that struggled to get past her lips.

  “Jessie is quite old,” I said helpfully.

  “How old?”

  “Old as the hills.” Jessie laughed.

  ” She doesn’t know,” I said. “All of the Servants were made a very long time ago.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Sam’s appearance among us made us take another look at ourselves,” Jessie said. “We knew we were very old but we were surprised at how old. We couldn’t be precise. We could only infer from old records and form a consensus. Two million years was our estimate. I can’t remember that far back, of course.”

  Even though she must have expected some large number, Aylis reacted with shock. “I can’t imagine living that long! I just can’t! How many of you remain, Jessie?”

  “Nine hundred twenty-one, the last I knew. I’m sorry to lower your opinion of us because of our ignorance of biology. We have done well at least in the physical sciences, I think.”

  “Two million years!” Aylis shook her head. It was fun to watch the mighty Aylis Mnro try to digest this information. I liked Aylis a lot, but she had this air of total authority about her. Whenever she examined me, I got the feeling I was living in a body that I leased from her. Aylis was an historic figure and deserved my awe and admiration. But to her credit, she never complained if I failed to celebrate her majesty. Outside her domain of expertise she was just as nice as Zakiya.

  The daily routine changed as the pleasure of new knowledge began to fade. I was afraid I would injure what was left of my brain. I spent more time taking Nameless for walks and thrilling the crew - especially the females - with my offspring. Jessie often stayed home as she became obsessed with human popular culture and spent hours at a time immersing herself in old movies and novels and such. That amused me at first, then it worried me. I came back from a walk with Nameless one day and found Jessie waiting for me. She was stark naked, I mean featherless stark naked! “What have you done?”

  “I want to look more human.” I heard a note of distress in her voice, as a reaction to my tone of voice. “Why keep the feathers? You don’t like the way I look?”

  “It isn’t permanent, is it?” Nameless began to react to the negative vibrations and I picked it up and tried to soothe us both.

  “What if it is?”

  I took a deep breath and remembered the old days with Milly and the futility of saying anything I thought might be the right thing to say. “With your golden covering, you’re the most gorgeous creature in the universe. Without it you’re merely the most gorgeous human female.”

  “Don’t smile like you’re so clever! Do I really look human this way?”

  She turned around for my inspection. I remembered the early days of our acquaintance, when she had short stumpy arms and legs that unfolded. Even then it was eas
y to accept her as near-human. Now she appeared much more human, but I didn’t want her to be too human. I desperately searched for something correct to say. As I opened my mouth to seal my doom, a real cloud passed in front of the fake sun outside, altering the illumination in our house. I realized I was looking at a hologram - not of the real Jessie but of how Jessie might look without her golden covering. “You’re a hologram. You still have your gold.”

  “You said that with such relief!” Jessie sighed. Her modified holographic image evaporated. She stepped into the living room, dressed in her usual pajama-like attire, but showing her normal golden plumage. She came and took Nameless, put him to the breast. Him? Was I beginning to think of Nameless as a male?

  ” You don’t have to be human. I still love you. I love you because you’re not human.”

  “Will you always love me? What will you feel for me when we find Milly?”

  “Is that what this is all about?”

  “You answer questions with questions!”

  “Answers get me into trouble.” In seven hundred years how many times did we make that exact exchange of words?

  I had to admit that Milly was on my mind much of the time. I wondered how it could be true that she was still alive. I wondered how it would feel to be near her again. I wanted to be near her again. After so many centuries she became fantasy and ghostly legend in my crowded mind. Would I love her as intensely as I thought I once did? Would I love Jessie less - Jessie, who was my soul mate for centuries? What was I going to do, then and now?

  Soul mate: was that the correct term? It was only a memory of a memory, but I know that for a long time it was hardly worth examining where I ended and Jessie began. We were all we had, our two small pools of knowledge and experience, all the entertainment, all the meaning, all the will to go on. We went on. She tells me we went everywhere together, that we visited worlds and alien races, that we had adventures. Then, like magic, our relationship took on another dimension, as Jessie slowly changed into a female. Now she was a mother. She wanted to be a real human wife. She was getting a new perspective on human culture beyond the narrow source I was. I couldn’t imagine what effect this would have on Jessie, but I could see that she was just as fascinated with my fellow humans as they were with her.

  This is a sample of some of the things that were said during the first full interview of Jessie and me by Phuti and Zakiya.

  “Be careful,” I warned, “they’re anthropologists.”

  “They look harmless to me,” Jessie said.

  “They make a science out of a body of knowledge which has a lot of value judgments in it, so you know they aren’t completely rational.”

  “I’ve never called it a science,” Phuti said. “It’s a hobby. Sam is just bothering me because I bothered him. I apologize, Sam. I didn’t fully appreciate what you were experiencing when you first arrived among us. Zakiya tried to warn me about your pain, but you were such a fascinating uh…”

  “Victim?” Zakiya offered. “Specimen? Artifact?”

  “He was my specimen,” Jessie said. “Until he asked the Protector to take him back to Earth.”

  “How did you know the Protector would do that?” Phuti asked. “How did it respond?”

  “When he learned what it was, Sam started talking to the Protector,” Jessie said. “Of course, it didn’t reply. He walked around it, pounding his fists on it. He did this for many weeks. He camped by the Protector. I would bring him food and sit with him. I knew it was hopeless. I felt sorry for him. I felt guilty for my part in his abduction. I began to stay with him by the Protector almost continuously, sleeping by his side at night. I think I learned more about Sam in those weeks than I had in the years before. One morning, when I awoke, Sam was already standing by the Protector, pleading and demanding, tears running down his face. His fists were bloody from hitting the Protector. I kissed his damaged hands. It was a spontaneous reaction that surprised me. We knew our blood and saliva could heal wounds but none of us dared try it on Sam when he was hurt. I just held his hands to stop him. He pulled away from me. I didn’t want him to pull away. I didn’t want him to leave me. I placed myself between him and the Protector. I felt my heart beating so hard. He turned away from me. I thought I was going to cry. Then he put an arm around my shoulders. That was enough to give me courage. I embraced him. I hugged him as hard as I could. I said, ‘Take me with you, Sam.’ At that same moment the Protector opened a portal. We stepped into it. I never looked back.”

  Zakiya softly clapped her hands together and seemed delighted. It was a memory I still retained and it sent chills down my body. I didn’t remember my exact feelings at the time but from this vantage point it was pure magic.

  “If Jessie hadn’t accompanied me,” I said, “I would have died of old age. I always thought the Protector was keeping me young, but Aylis says it was Jessie. I don’t know if the Protector was waiting for Jessie to volunteer for that reason. It wasn’t as simple for me as it sounds. The instant we were inside the Protector, I realized Jessie might be losing a great deal.”

  “Our first real argument,” Jessie said. “I used several bad English words just to make him listen to me. I didn’t make my decision on the spur of the moment, as he seemed to think. I should have better educated him about my feelings. I was ready to go to Earth with him at any time during the years we had known each other. I didn’t lose anything I wasn’t completely prepared to lose. I gained much more than I lost. I gained more than I dreamed possible.”

  “Wait until it becomes a teenager,” I said, knowing Jessie referred to Nameless.

  “But you did lose a lot,” Phuti said. “Your culture is so much older than ours.”

  “But so pale in comparison to yours!” Jessie said.

  “There I go, making a value judgment,” Phuti said.

  “Let’s start at a beginning point,” Zakiya said. “You lived on a planet?”

  “Not exactly. It was a natural planet at one time. It was rebuilt to resemble a real planet but it had none of the dangerous elements. No wandering continents, quakes, volcanoes. No bad weather. Even the sun was very tame. You could say the same of our history and culture - tame and placid. I don’t mind making value judgments. Earth is wonderful. The earth that Sam told me about was frightening but I couldn’t stop asking him about it. I want to see a hummingbird, a redwood tree, a dolphin, and so many other wonderful things.”

  “I’m sure there are still redwoods on Earth,” Zakiya said. “I’m not sure hummingbirds or cetaceans are successfully reintroduced to Earth. They do still exist in space countries.”

  “You had no family structures or other forms of kinship?” Phuti asked.

  “We had some kinds of groupings, based on shared interests,” Jessie answered.

  “Did you have leaders and followers within your groupings?” Zakiya asked.

  “Yes, but it was quite subtle. We didn’t even have words to label such differences in function. Now we have English or Korean words to use.”

  “What kind of art and music and literature did you have?” Phuti asked.

  “The boring kind!” Jessie declared. “Of course, I didn’t know it was so boring. How can you have an interesting literature without sex and violence? How can you have great music without passions? How can you appreciate beauty without ugliness?”

  “What effects did Sam’s arrival on your planet cause?” Zakiya asked.

  “It turned the world up-side-down. I extrapolate that from my own reactions by assuming all other Servants differed little from myself.”

  “What happened?”

  “A lot of heavy thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Sex.” Jessie made her reply with a grin and a few saucy face-feather words.

  I laughed, causing our inquisitors to stare at me for explanation. “What she said.” I gestured vaguely toward Jessie. Jessie liked to make me laugh as much as I liked to make her laugh.

  “All she said was ‘sex,’” Zakiya sa
id.

  “She said something else,” Phuti said, suspecting the face-feather vocabulary.

  I had to explain the secret language of Jessie’s facial plumage and translate the joke. Then I had to talk about the sex education classes and the consequences of not having brought any visual aids to explain female human anatomy to the Servants. I became quite an artist - or at least a good illustrator - trying to describe humanity. “Is this a live feed to everybody else on the ship?” I remembered how networked everyone was through their in-body hardware.

  “If anyone is interested,” Zakiya replied with a straight face that crinkled into a big smile. “I’m sorry. Are you really uncomfortable with that?”

  “I’ll be fine, as long as Jessie shows a little restraint.”

  “The subject of sex,” Phuti said, “prompts me to think about how Jessie’s transformation challenges evolution and natural selection. She’s evolved from a nonsexual being into a fully functional female in the space of a few centuries.”

  “Take a step back, Phuti,” Zakiya said.

  Phuti raised his eyebrows and found the meaning of Zakiya’s words as he smiled at her. I wondered how many Sherpa remained among the human races. Phuti was a rare person and we needed many more like him. “I’m guilty of being enchanted by Jessie. We should never presume to see the forces of our own evolution at work. We’re too ephemeral. Nor should we think of evolution as a progression toward a better form of life. Natural selection has no arrow of direction. Let some future-distant paleontologist fondle the bones of our generations and try not to make value judgments based on his own culture. But I do feel Jessie could have a profound effect on the history of our species.”

  A moment of silence permitted my thoughts to see the brevity of my few centuries of life against the geologic time scale of evolution. Another thought occurred to me. It was a notion that sentient species did not have much of a future, unless there was some other state of existence beyond the endpoint. Somewhere in our vast unremembered travels I must have seen some evidence that too much intelligence and curiosity could have negative consequences. Zakiya’s next question to Jessie pushed the somber thought out of my mind.