Manipulate (Alien Cadets)

by Corrie [kids] Garrett

  “And the unnamed ones, now the Rik – they want to be human?"

  “That is correct.”

  “But why do they care about us cadets?” Sam asked. “I mean, well, we’re just kids. Even if they killed all of us, couldn’t you go collect some people off the street to take our place in the trial?” He felt like a traitor for suggesting that his friends could be replaced.

  “They wouldn’t have any training in dealing with aliens, most likely they would, uh, “freak out” at an inopportune moment.” Greg sorted through the papers on Nat’s desk.

  “Also, we couldn’t be sure somebody off the street wasn’t already Rik,” Greg added. “The cadet program was a form of witness protection. We injected you with a protein reactant that protects your brain from the Rik transformation. They can’t infiltrate the cadet ranks, but they could be anywhere else.”

  Sam stared at him. “Do the Rik know that? About our protection?”

  “Probably not, unless their agents have been more enterprising than we suspect. They know almost everything about you, but we kept the procedure very quiet.”

  “Then… it’s obvious why they took Nat. They were trying to infiltrate the cadets through her.” Sam sank down on Nat’s bed. “What will they do with her when it fails? With her sister?”

  Greg paused, suddenly suffused pale orange with disgust. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter 22

  Nat huddled next to Akemi on the tiny cot. It wasn’t cold exactly, but fear made her crave contact. Nat brushed her fingers through Akemi’s black hair, and listened to her labored breathing. The Rik had stabilized her, but they didn’t have the same kind of immunosuppressant that Akemi needed for her lung transplant. Slowly, her body was rejecting the lung.

  The Rik didn’t care. They weren’t planning to need her body very much longer, so they didn’t mind if it deteriorated.

  Nat cared. She couldn’t bear the thought of giving up on Akemi. With every minute that passed, Akemi’s body fought a war with the strange lung. She wouldn’t last much longer.

  They were already on Mars, soon Tishing would come to escort them to the Rik station. Alone, on Mars, with a species she was mostly unfamiliar with: Nat’s chances for escape and survival were bad. If she was also trying to care for Akemi, who could barely walk, her chances were somewhere around absolute zero. Nat’s best hope was to find a way to send a message to the Spo, and let them know where she was. But Nat very much doubted that the Rik would let that happen.

  Nat’s vision was reduced to a small triangle by the mask that Tishing strapped on her face. It would protect her from the deadly Mars environment, but it made it awfully hard to see anything. Tishing wore a mask also, and they put a third on Akemi. Technically, Tishing was just as human as them…. which was extremely disturbing.

  One of the seal-looking Rik pushed Akemi on the cot, and Nat followed on foot. Tishing pulled Nat's arms behind her back and handcuffed her, moments before they exited the ship.

  The ship was docked on a small circular air field, the surrounding rock was pale yellow. The ships were arranged around a central shaft that housed huge elevators.

  Tishing directed them into one of these elevators quickly, which Nat guessed also served as an airlock.

  Nat felt the descent in her stomach as the huge elevator began to drop into the ground. How long had this underground facility been here?

  The doors opened and the little Rik wheeled Akemi out into a storage and loading bay. Huge pods were stacked on one side, where a human in a forklift type machine was slowly shifting one down.

  Not a human, Nat reminded herself. He must be Rik.

  Nat followed Tishing and her sister down wide, low hallways, again with the triangular lighting motif, which seemed to be their only decoration. No one took any notice of them. The Rik didn’t seem at all discomposed to have three humans in their midst.

  They passed an open door and Nat craned her head around to look in. The room looked like a shabby teacher’s lounge, and at least twenty men and women filled the chairs and stood along the wall, chatting.

  Nat stopped walking and stared. So many of them. How many people had the Rik stolen?

  Tishing came back and gently took her arm. “No time for gawking now, your sister isn’t doing well. They’re preparing the surgical room now.”

  Nat gritted her teeth. “Already? She’s barely stable.”

  Tishing didn’t speak.

  “I want to be there,” Nat said. “Don’t do it without me.”

  Tishing didn’t answer.

  They locked Nat in a small, colorless room, without removing her handcuffs.

  “We’ll come back when she’s ready,” Tishing said.

  Akemi was still sedated, of course, when they brought her body into the operation room. Her head had been shaved, and her skull looked tiny and fragile. Blue lines crisscrossed her scalp, diagramming the coming surgery. Nat almost threw up at the sight. She clenched her eyes shut while breathing deeply and swallowing the extra saliva in her mouth.

  They let Nat sit in the corner. She didn’t want to see what would happen, but she felt that not being there would betray Akemi. They had said their goodbyes on the ship, but Nat couldn’t think about that now.

  The surgery didn’t take long.

  “It’s a good thing we’re doing this today,” Tishing said. “She probably would have died in the next forty-eight hours."

  Nat hated him. If the Rik hadn’t stolen Akemi she would have been fine. But when the worst was over, and Akemi’s brain was put in a small opaque container, and her body covered with a plastic sheet, Nat didn’t feel the rage she expected. Mostly she felt numb. Detached.

  “How long will it last?” Nat asked. “The Spo use the trouncer brains only once. One trip, one brain.”

  “The Spo are overly cautious,” Tishing said. “Plus, the trouncers are intelligent, but not nearly as intelligent as humans. And if the Spo tests are right, your sister is quite a bit more intelligent than the average human.”

  “How long will she last?” Nat repeated.

  “If nothing goes wrong, and our biochemical receptors are calibrated correctly, she might last five or six jumps.”

  “Does she… is any of the personality left?”

  Tishing swallowed. Perhaps some of his latent humanity was cropping up again. “Not that we know of. Sometimes brains are bad, because the subject was damaged. That’s all.”

  “I want to see her test,” Nat said. “I want to be on the ship.”

  Tishing shook his head. “It’s a prototype, minimum personnel on board in case of malfunction.

  “Then put me on it,” Nat said. “I’m not any good to you. If the ship explodes, I’ll be out of your way. If it works, I’ll be right back here anyway."

  Some half formed ideas swirled in Nat’s head. If she was ever alone… if she could sabotage the ship… Explode in space with her sister, taking the Rik prototype with them… not a bad way to go. They would never let her go back to Earth anyway. She would never want to go back.

  Tishing tilted his head, eyes narrowed. “I’ll consider it.”

  ***

  Sam’s dreams were full of fighting and crowds and cameras. He and Greg fought, then he and Nat jogged down the beach. General Gustav and Melanie waved at them from a car, and over it all he heard the sound of a cheering crowd. Then the crowd started hissing and the smell of bleach overpowered him… and then he was awake. Nebbie crouched with his front limbs on the bed, flicking his tongue over Sam’s hair.

  “Oh, that’s disgusting!” Sam said, wiping some of the sticky spit off his hair. He smelled like a clean toilet now.

  “Did you miss me?"

  Nebbie pushed his skeletal head under Sam’s arm, and Sam obligingly rubbed the thick ridges of his neck.

  Sam let Nebbie follow him to the bathroom and they showered in hot, hot water. Nebbie stayed out of the direct stream of water, but he enjoyed the mist. Spo was a very hot planet, and Sam had quickly foun
d that Nebbie enjoyed a hot shower as much as he did. In fact, if Sam tried to leave the animal in his room, Nebbie would follow him to the communal bathroom. Nebbie could twist doorknobs open with his long toes. So Nebbie enjoyed the morning shower, and Sam tried to drown out the picture of the Chicago protestor lying twisted and dead against the toolbox.

  Sam didn’t precisely regret killing him. The man was unstable and had pulled a gun on him. But mentally absolving himself didn’t make it easy to forget the guy. Sam had killed him. Some part of him felt that it was only decent to mourn the man he’d killed.

  But Sam didn’t have much time for that. He had some ideas to work out, and the sentiency trial was coming up in a few days. He didn’t know what would happen after that. The trial was a black wall in his future. He believed that life would go past it, but he sure had no idea what it would be like. So, in a lot of ways, this week was the last he had as a free man.

  It surprised Sam that he’d only been on Earth a few weeks and he’d gone from being so dependent on the aliens to rather shockingly independent of them. He wasn’t sure exactly why that had happened after his botched execution, but he wasn’t going to question it. He might jar General Gustav back to his senses and get locked up again.

  After the shower, Sam locked Nebbie in his room and went to Greg’s office on the ground floor.

  Greg didn’t answer his knock, he was probably outside or eating breakfast. Sam went on in and took the opportunity to make two calls.

  The door swung open as Sam finished, and Downy shuffled in. He stared at Sam and his color was an unpleasant orange.

  “What’s the matter, Downy?”

  He shuffled forward without speaking, his eyestalks quivering with tension.

  Sam stood up. “What’s happened? Is it Greg?”

  Downy lifted a hand, and then Greg swung the door open. His eyestalks pivoted, taking in Sam at the desk, and Downy halfway to him.

  “I believe you have kitchen duty,” Greg said to Downy. “I can talk to you later.”

  Downy flushed deeper at this dismissal. “Never mind, Sam. It was nothing.”

  “You have business this morning?” Greg asked Sam.

  “Um.” Sam stared after Downy. What was going on with him? Downy felt like a stranger to him in some ways.

  “Sam?”

  “Oh. Yes, I called my sister and asked her to visit me. She delivered a letter from Nat’s sister to me, which I gave to Nat. I’m wondering if she might know something about their abduction.”

  Greg nodded.

  “Also, I want to talk to her. After the hostage mess in Chicago, I invited Lucio’s family to visit us here. It’s important that we reconnect with our families. The cadets have been… unstable since we got here. I think this will help.”

  Greg nodded again.

  “In the meantime, I want to know everything you know about the Rik.”

  “Right now?” Greg asked.

  Sam stood again, “Actually, I need to take Nebbie for a walk. Why don’t you come with us?”

  ***

  Nat went with a Rik scientist up to the ship. It was no bigger than a three bedroom apartment, probably one of the smallest ships that could make a jump at all. It only contained a few compartments in addition to the engines for maneuvering in and out of the jump.

  The walls curved into the floor, subtly fading from green to black. She followed the scientist into the control room where the ceiling was translucent, displaying a beautiful view of the sun peeking around the edge of the planet. Nat knew it might be the last sunrise she ever saw, but she didn’t care.

  The scientist talked while he carefully inserted the tissue (she couldn’t say Akemi’s brain, even in her head) into the computer nodule created for the biological element of the computer. He’d been chattering almost the whole way up. He spoke English very well.

  “Where’s Tishing?” Nat asked. “I thought he wanted to do this.”

  “He has somewhere to be,” the Rik said. “He only dabbles in science, his real work is political.”

  Nat couldn’t look away from his hands.

  “The Spo bioexperts have a ritual when they do this,” the scientist said. “The bioexpert bows to the captain and says, ‘“I present you the means of thought.” The captain says, “I accept the sacrifice.” And then – ”

  “I’ve seen it,” Nat said.

  He opened the circular biobank door. “The previous tissue was removed after the last jump. It’s idiotic to leave a used brain in the biocomputer, it might contaminate the residual readings on the next jump."

  Nat looked away while he gently lifted the tissue and inserted it into the biobank. The apparatus would constrict softly around the mass, until the surfaces met on all sides. He closed the door.

  “Now we test the biocomputer,” he explained. “Occasionally, when we use the trouncers, we get a bad one, and if we don’t catch it we might jump into a star.”

  “There are bad ones?” Nat asked.

  “Not often. The adult trouncers are usually stable, but they’re intelligent enough to have their own form of insanity. If we use an insane brain – all the connections are wrong. It might not jump into a star by accident – it might do it on purpose.”

  “What about a - a human brain?” Nat said. She was watching his hands again. There was a Spo interface on the computer, which she knew. She’d been taught both Spo and Merith computer systems, the most common in the galaxy.

  “We’ve tested a few human brains, but this is our first jump.”

  “But doesn’t the computational part of the computer control the jump?” Nat asked.

  “Unfortunately, no. It’s great for crunching numbers, but the biological portion is in control of the jump. It handles the dialectical decision-making in the midst of the jump.” The scientist typed a series of commands while he spoke. Presumably testing the sanity of the biocomputer.

  “Dialectical?” Nat asked.

  “It considers the jump from multiple points of exit simultaneously. It has a tiny argument with itself to decide which exit point would be the best. For a moment it considers them all to be the best, and has to bring the options to one in the time it takes to jump.”

  “Oh. Greg called it multilogical decision making,” Nat said.

  “That’s what the Spo call it,” he agreed. He completed a last test, and a light over the biobank turned pink. “I guess that’s it.”

  Nat nodded. She sat on the floor against the curving wall. There were no chairs. The ship was Spo style, and they preferred to squat.

  A loud clanging from the hall announced the opening of the airlock again. The scientist frowned. “That’ll be the Rik guards.”

  He was right, three Rik, the normal seal-like ones, flopped their way into the control room.

  “The computer is hitting all functional highpoints. I’m locking it now,” the scientist told them. “In other words, keep your slimy fingers off it.”

  They barked at him, but Nat couldn’t tell if they sounded more aggressive than normal. Why was the scientist, also a Rik, being such a jerk?

  He stood and stretched from his kneeling position on the floor.

  “I am supposed to restrain you,” he said to Nat. “Tishing warned that you’d sabotage the test.”

  Nat wrapped her arms around herself. “I would if I could, I won’t lie. But what can I do? The computer is locked. My sister is gone for good.” She gestured toward the circular door where he’d put her brain.

  The alien looked at her. “I can’t read human emotion very well. I certainly can’t tell if you are lying. So, yes, I’m going to handcuff you.”

  He made Nat stand and pulled her hands behind her back.

  “Ow! Not that far,” Nat said, flexing her shoulders.

  “I can’t let you slip out.”

  “Our arms don’t go that far back,” Nat said. “You’re human, you should know.”

  The guy smiled a little and Nat congratulated herself on guessing right. He was pr
oud of being human, he liked being reminded of it.

  “I am actually…sorry,” he said, handcuffing her wrists loosely behind her.

  He went back to the shuttle and the door dilated shut. A moment later there was a jarring motion as the shuttle detached.

  Nat slid back against the wall and eyed the three Rik. She should have at least two hours before anything happened. The scientist guy needed to get back to the control station before they started the test. He would be involved with the other bioexperts in observing the results of this first jump.

  Nat wasn’t in despair. Not exactly. She was determined that the Rik would not get to use her sister’s brain after kidnapping and killing her. Her determination held off despair.

  Somehow she would get the Rik out of the room, so she could have a go at the computer. The handcuffs were loose, but it would still take a while to get free. Nat quietly set to work.

  Chapter 23

  Claudia got Sam’s call at three in the afternoon. She’d just finished doing a favor for Chris who had a friend with a sick hamster.

  She’d massaged the cold hamster, occasionally huffing a warm breath into its fur.

  “It’s a respiratory infection,” she told the Spo female. “You have to be careful with those, hamsters can die in hours.”

  The alien flushed a dark purple. Claudia noticed how her eyestalks drooped as well. She was getting much better at reading alien emotion.

  “What can I do for Snowflake?” the alien asked. “She is one of my favorites."

  “How long have you had all these?” Claudia asked. She counted four hamsters in plain sight, three hiding under the edge of a couch, and one peeking at her from a kitchen cabinet. She suspected there were more she didn’t see.