A Planet for Rent

by Yoss

  I work on a principle that a theorist worked out, based on a toy I once built to amuse myself. I’m not very good at formulae or tensor calculus, but I can tell you it has to do with graviton resonator systems.

  You know, of course, that the graviton is the elementary particle with the greatest concentration of momentum, making it possible, according to the Unified Field Theory, to convert any magnetic or electrical force into gravitational force. Any child knows that, but I only learned it after I fixed the balance system on that aerobus.

  The toy I made was a graviton resonator-based matter miniaturizer. I’d stick any object between the poles of a triphase magnet, supercool it to just above zero degrees Kelvin while bombarding it with positrons in a pulsating ultrasound field, and poof! It would shrink instantly. The effect was caused by overstimulating the mutual attraction between gravitons in the piece of matter. According to the Law of Conservation of Mass, its original mass was unchanged. But it became harder than bicrovan. I had artificially produced hyperdense matter, like the kind in the nuclei of neutron stars. And it was stable; it only returned to its original volume if the process was inverted, at a great expenditure of energy.

  The Center people were very excited. They had me create hyperdense projectiles capable of piercing any object, and superarmored plates of compressed cork that were dense as steel. Then it occurred to me to try shrinking things further, and I produced some nano-black holes, very cute. Of course, somebody got the idea into his head of building a weapon that would reduce the enemy to nothingness. They took everything related to black holes, which was what I was really interested in, away from me and gave it to a team of PhDs with a whole mouthful of titles, and they haven’t figured out anything after all this time. They told me I had to produce a miniaturizer that would work from a distance. No matter how much I explained to them that it was impossible, because it would violate the inverse square law and relativistic mass-energy conversion, they insisted, warning me that they wouldn’t allow me to work on anything else until I did it.

  That’s another reason I came here—because I’m tired of sitting on my hands, and it makes no sense to waste effort on an impossible project.

  But in the meantime, I’ve been working, in secret of course, on a few other little things...

  “Alex... What is the official reason for your visit to our planet, please?”

  No... not what you’d really call stable or permanent relationships, I don’t. Since my childhood I’ve been very shy around women... It always seemed to me that they talked a lot without saying anything. Like some theorists, for that matter. My mother said that’s why I was so good with machines, because they never talk.

  But that’s not entirely true; when I was working on Artificial Intelligence I got along very nicely with an AI that I called Meniscus.

  It all started because we were both getting bored, and we entertained ourselves by competing at mental calculations... I always lost on the simple arithmetic problems, but if we went on to topological or phase equations, I walloped Meniscus. Later, when we were on closer terms, we talked about all sorts of things: about life, the mind, what it was like to have sensations and not be just a bunch of electronic impulses inside a circuit box, self-conscious but not really alive.

  They erased him three months into the research. They said he wasn’t “stable” any more. I’ve never forgiven them.

  I think my problem with women is actually very different. Their scent, the way they have of looking at you, of moving. They make me nervous. They can’t be... reduced to logical parameters. I know it’s the hormones; I even know which hormones, one by one. But it’s the synergy of the hormones that throws me off. Even though I understand the effects of each part, I fail to be objective about the resulting whole. I spin out of control, I forget logic.

  Of course, I have had experiences. Plenty. But very... particular. When I turned eighteen, the psychologists at the Center, who kept me under special monitoring, put me in contact with various... professionals.

  Social workers, of course. All of them legal, safe, discreet, healthy. Beautiful. The psychologists felt my emotional stability would appreciate an opportunity to replace my theoretical uncertainty with practical experiences.

  They were right.

  It was great.

  Sensorially, a woman is a being of astonishing perfection, who seems to be made for giving and receiving pleasure. The meetings, three times a week, with my new “girlfriends” and their erotic skills propelled me into a period of mental hyperactivity. During that time I produced the invisibility field and outlined the principles of what would later become the silence generator.

  I also had a few homosexual experiences. Out of pure scientific curiosity, not genuine inclination. To have a way of judging. How can you say something isn’t for you if you’ve never even tried it?

  But it really didn’t work well at all. I guess the lessons in machismo that I’d been given as a child were ultimately stronger than any consciousness that it was all simply a matter of prejudices. Young men with waxed bodies, long limbs, smooth gestures, and fluty voices seemed like unnatural caricatures to me. Trying to imitate women and not succeeding. And the others, hairy and muscular, with booming, hypersexed voices, reminded me too much of my father to inspire any erotic notions in me.

  I devoted myself fully to the female sex. Time went by... And in the end, even though they told me I was a real stud and that they were more fond of me than of any xenoid client, it started to seem... insufficient.

  It was too easy. Too artificial. I wanted more.

  And I thought I knew how to get it.

  One of the few times they allowed me to leave the Center, I escaped from the pair of spies they had set to watch me (without my knowledge, or so they thought).

  I had taken every precaution. I disguised my body odors so that the mutant bloodhounds couldn’t track me. I used interference to make the locator they had implanted subcutaneously in my sternum go haywire. In a word, I disappeared.

  I wanted to live life on my own, for a little while at least. I had provided myself a phantom credit card that they couldn’t trace, so I had no lack of means. I flew to New Paris, the city of love. I rented a room and got ready to enjoy the dolce far niente. And I trusted to luck for finding the woman who would make my heart throb.

  But regular women didn’t find me attractive. I’m no model of male beauty... Of course, I could have had plastic surgery, but I like this face. It reminds me of my family every time I look in the mirror.

  After a week of solitude, when I was starting to adjust really well to everyday life, I went back to the pros.

  For three nights I spent my money hand over fist, until I was bored once more of sex and of love for sale, and I returned to my inactive solitude.

  One night, when I was walking through the recreation of the Latin Quarter, I met Yleka. A woman of emerald and chocolate on the outside, a panther of honey and fire on the inside, as a verse of Valera’s puts it. Are you familiar with him? I suppose not. What a pity. Try reading him.

  Yleka had been left stranded in Paris by a smooth-talking Centaurian. She didn’t have a credit to her name or a roof to sleep under. I did, and I felt lonelier than ever... We slept together. And all the rest. But I didn’t tell her I was rich. I wanted to see if that was so important.

  It was a great week. She was tender and funny, and she didn’t care too much that I wasn’t very good with anything but objects and machines. That I hardly talked. She talked for us both, and I loved listening to her.

  For those seven days she stopped wearing her supertight plastiskin body stocking, and she didn’t go out looking for xenoids. She said I was enough. And it wasn’t enough for me to spend all day long with her.

  I think we each lost several pounds.

  Things could have gone on like this a lot longer, I guess. If I had managed to keep my restless brain
calm. I tried to continue my work on the silence generator, using homemade tools in my rented room, but it wasn’t the same. I missed the labs at the Center and their almost unlimited resources. A habit’s a habit.

  I think my subconsciousness betrayed me, and I started making mistakes, minor acts of negligence. Leaving a trail. Doing all my shopping at the same store, going to inventor fairs, stuff like that. I wanted them to find me... and, of course, they did.

  Back at the Center, it wasn’t three days before they brought Yleka back to me. But it wasn’t the same. The magic was dead. Now that she knew the balance in my bank account, I only interested her as a client. Human, not xenoid, but otherwise identical. Her orgasms seemed fake to me, no matter how passionate they were. Though she insisted that she still loved me...

  Maybe her coldness was her revenge on me for lying to her. For not being just what I pretended to be. For smashing her illusions of finding happiness with a good, simple man. Even a social worker can have dreams, can’t she?

  When it was obvious that things weren’t working like before, I told her I wouldn’t be seeing her any more. It was a mistake. She cried buckets and swore she loved me. But how could I know if she loved me or my credits? I told her that her love was unprovable.

  Then she called me a “damned autistic” and an “unfeeling monster.” That’s the only thing that has always made me angry. Call me a stupid idiot savant, I let it pass. But to say I’m cold and heartless... I used to fight my brothers over less than that until I was out of breath and covered with bruises. Until they also started fighting anyone in our town who said it to me.

  I lost control, we argued, I yelled at her... I hit her. Just once, but I felt horrible. If I hadn’t restrained myself, I would have kept on beating her. For her own good, I asked the guards to take her away.

  I hated her for forcing me to do that.

  And my anger made me pressure the people at the Center: it wasn’t enough to get her out of my life; I wanted them to destroy her. Not kill her, but harm her badly, forever. Or else I’d never work again.

  At first they ignored me.

  Then Hermann and Sigimer tried to convince me the nice way.

  Later on, they used drugs, but it’s impossible to force a brain to think if it doesn’t want to.

  After not touching the machines for two weeks, they gave in. They’re capable of doing anything to get what they want. And I knew it, and took advantage. They were only interested in the stuff I could do. And only indirectly, in a secondary fashion, in how I felt. I was one more instrument. Expensive, like a radiotelescope or a synchrophasotron... and as such, they had to take care of me and keep me happy.

  Another reason why I’m here. I got tired of wearing an invisible inventory number on my forehead...

  One week later they showed me holovideos of Yleka. She had already become a human wreck. They had gotten her addicted to telecrack. I felt I had my revenge, but that didn’t make me any happier.

  I worked and worked. All the years since, I’ve done nothing but work. Solving very interesting, morbidly fascinating problems in physics and math. To keep from thinking about her.

  Every now and then I’d ask for a social worker, and we’d have sex—pure, paid for, and without any implications. Mere gymnastics to relax the body.

  One day, months ago, when I was having a few drinks with Lieutenant Dabiel, an officer in Planetary Security’s Special Section at the Center and one of the few humans I can call my friend, he told me how easy it had been to get Yleka addicted. How she had received the drug as a blessing... because she only wanted to forget. To forget me.

  That was when I knew she had really loved me.

  Then I regretted the wrong I had done and wanted to undo it. I secretly ordered to have it checked into... I know that cures exist for any addiction, no matter how powerful, and I was ready to pay any price. What is money good for if not to satisfy your whims?

  But Dabiel and his guys informed me that it was too late: Yleka had left with Cauldar, a Cetian who was recruiting workers for a slave brothel in Ningando. And Planetary Security’s power and jurisdiction stop at the border of Earth’s atmosphere.

  So... no. I don’t have any stable or permanent emotional relationships. And I never have, actually.

  But I’m here to remedy that...

  “What is your opinion of the current science policies of the government of Earth, please?”

  For years I’ve been practically an inmate in the Center for Physics and Mathematical Studies.

  My work is ninety-nine percent secret in nature, and its results aren’t even leaked to the holonet. I don’t get published in the science journals and I don’t regularly attend conferences or symposia of any sort on the planet, much less off-world. The Special Section of Planetary Security keeps me under a close watch. My life is insured for millions of credits. I’m considered a Planetary Scientific Reserve.

  I’ve never participated in any seminars or courses before, nor have I wished to. As an unknown in my field, I’ve never been invited before, either.

  My trip to this planet of yours to attend the 309th Galactic Conference on Hyperspace Astrophysics is no accident. It came about through a carefully laid but seemingly random plan. The final objective of which was to get to this building and confront this assessment interview... and especially its consequences.

  I do not wish to return to Earth.

  I’m tired of being a puppet. Tired of being alone. Tired of being a freak, of being the precious songbird that is never allowed to leave its cage.

  When a delegation of xenoid scientists were visiting the handful of non-secret areas at the Center for Physics and Mathematical Studies, I left my labs with Lieutenant Dabiel’s help. I was dressed in a maintenance man’s overalls and had disguised my features with some handy plastiflesh makeup, which the lieutenant himself applied to my face. And I was carrying a duster and a water bucket, like a regular janitor.

  While the group of scientists from other worlds was listening attentively to the guide’s explanations of a device, which I had created myself, for replacing material walls with stable force fields at minimal expense, I struck up a conversation with one of the Cetian physicists.

  I already knew that the 309th Conference would be held in Ningando, and my relative command of Cetian allowed me to whisper a few corrections into the Cetian ear of my conversation partner, a tremendous improvement over the arid cybernetic translation that he’d been listening to.

  Intrigued and astonished to find such knowledge and such a command of his highly complex language in a simple janitor, the scientist, whose name was Jourkar—you can verify it, if you so desire—was soon engaged in a hypertechnical dialogue with me.

  I told you earlier that I generally don’t do well with abstractions and theories, but on that occasion the subject was my own device, so...

  In under a minute, Jourkar had focused the attention of about three quarters of the delegation on me. Meanwhile, the guide—who didn’t recognize me in my janitor’s uniform and plastiflesh prosthetics, thank heaven—was probably wondering what sort of dirty jokes the mop monkey was telling the xenoids.

  His surprise must have gone through the roof when I risked everything, turned on the device, and gave the scientists a demonstration. Luckily for me, that left him so speechless that nearly a minute went by before he tried notifying his supervisors what was happening over his vocoder. The interference generator in my pocket kept his personal communicator from working, of course.

  It was another half a minute before he decided he should leave us and run to find some Planetary Security people to inform them of the irregularity. Then, not by mere luck, but by careful arrangements on Dabiel’s part (although we were friends, this cost me a good few thousand credits), a couple more minutes went by before he located them.

  That gave me more than enough time to remove my disguise,
reveal my real face to the xenoid scientists, and put on the finest demonstration I could.

  Once the device was running, in a matter of seconds I constructed a small room that floated half a meter above the floor without touching it. Its walls were pure force fields, not a milligram of matter. And when I concluded my “energy bricklaying” job and stabilized the whole system vibrationally, it was consuming scarcely more energy than a pocket flashlight.

  And by fiddling with the topological properties of the Moebius strip and Klein bottle, I even made it so the space inside my “building” was almost twice the size classical Euclidean geometry declared it should be.

  Astonished by that display of talent (all modesty apart), Jourkar and the others were of course thrilled to immediately offer me an official invitation to the 309th Conference. And they promised to bring all possible pressure to bear so the appropriate terrestrial organizations would understand how extremely important if was, if they did not want to mar their relations with the rest of the galaxy, to let me attend the event without any hindrance or obstacles.

  Then I said goodbye, destroyed my force-field room, tossed the overalls and the duster into the empty bucket, left it in a corner, and got back to my labs... twenty seconds before the alarm went off throughout the Center.

  Lieutenant Dabiel and several nanocameras (whose existence I had been aware of almost since they were installed, and which I easily had set to record on a closed loop) vouched for the fact that I hadn’t left my work desk for a single instant.

  They still can’t understand what really happened that day.

  The heads of the Center understood it even less when the invitation arrived a month later. Jourkar and the others had gone to great pains to keep their promise. The holovideo they sent bore so many priority marks and codes that it wasn’t an invitation so much as a virtual command to the government of Earth to allow me to attend the event... or take the consequences.

  All the Center officials came to interrogate me. Various leaders from Planetary Security, too, and not just from the Special Section.