Amygdala

by Harper J. Cole

  AMYGDALA

  © 2018 Harper J. Cole

  All rights reserved

  Cover design by James, GoOnWrite.com

  Based on artwork by Tithi Luadthong

  Dedicated to the OCD sufferers of the world

  You need not bear your burden alone

  https://iocdf.org

  PART THREE – RAMIRA

  I

  New York, 4th April, 2147

  “You’re not my mother.”

  Amelia’s claim was surprising enough that Miriam Hunter stopped in mid-sentence. A smile touched Amelia’s lips, and her sharp eyes glinted with triumph. It wasn’t often that she managed to slip beneath Miriam’s iron defences.

  Their argument had hitherto been proceeding along familiar lines. Miriam had acquired, at short notice, two tickets for the pair of them to go and see Double Negative, a new Broadway production about a mischievous imp who reversed the gender of every human on the planet, then switched them back a year later. As the reviews had been almost unanimous in praising the show as both humorous and thought-provoking, it had struck her as the perfect opportunity to reignite her daughter’s flagging interest in her matrilineal legacy.

  Amelia had planned to spend that evening with friends and kicked up quite a fuss. She wasn’t one to scream and shout, instead preferring to launch into melodramatic diatribes about her mother’s controlling ways. Miriam’s usual response was to keep calm and remind the girl about all the hardships her forebears had suffered, or sometimes to simply point out that fifteen-year-olds were obliged to do as their mothers told them.

  It was the latter approach that had prompted Amelia’s denial.

  “Not your mother?” asked Miriam, one eyebrow cocked in a calculated display of mockery. “Would you care to explain that one to me? Because I have several memories of your creation, and we do look rather similar…”

  “From the dictionary,” said Amelia, blue eyes flicking upwards as she quoted from memory. “‘Mother, noun, a woman in relation to the child or children to whom she has given birth.’”

  Miriam’s face hardened. “Ah. You’re referring, in your roundabout way, to artificial incubation.”

  “I’m referring to you sticking me in a machine because you weren’t woman enough to carry me to term yourself.” Amelia’s cadence noticeably quickened as she delivered this barb, rising in pitch – a rather bad habit that her expensive elocution lessons appeared not to have eradicated.

  The elder Hunter’s laugh was mirthless. “Not woman enough? I take it you wanted me to put my career on hold so I could spend an extra six months as a baby porter?”

  “So that you could love me, nurture me, build a bond. But why bother? Lilith Transports is your real baby, isn’t it Miriam.”

  “Enough. We’ve been through this a dozen times. Incubators are safer for the baby and liberating for the mother. Where’s this nonsense coming from?”

  The question was meant rhetorically, but Amelia answered. “I went to a Darwin’s Arrow meeting.”

  “What?” The elder Hunter set her hands firmly on her hips. “I expressly forbade you to go anywhere near them.”

  “And I expressly ignored you.” Amelia’s voice trembled slightly before her mother’s glare, but she ploughed on, defiant. “They laid it all out for me – how people like you want to ignore the truth of millions of years of evolution, robbing men and women of who they are, turning us all into idealised puppets, with no -”

  “Stop.” Miriam raised a hand, and her daughter reluctantly subsided. She studied Amelia sadly: the golden hair so like her own; the light olive tones of her attractive, intelligent features; the expensive clothes, colours muted in line with the current fashion.

  She’d known that their relationship had taken a downturn in recent years but had never really doubted they’d get back on track. Things were worse than she’d realised.

  “Okay,” she said at length. “Sit down and listen to me, Amelia. You and I are going to have a long talk about extremist reactionary cults and how they can make their message seductive to the young.”

  Amelia never took her sullen eyes from her mother’s as she seated herself at the dinner table.

  “Fine: lecture mode engaged. Well, you can talk as much as you like, but you can’t make me listen.”

  * * *

  “Okay … commencing recording. This is Hunter interview D1. Ship’s date: February 2nd, 2161. Year 5 of our voyage.” Her camera set and rolling, Daniella Winters seated herself across the desk from today’s subject. “Captain Hunter, thank you once again for making the time to speak with me.”

  Miriam Hunter smiled easily. She was showing her years a little more than she had when the Bona Dea set out from Earth four years ago – a few streaks of silver hair had appeared in amongst the gold – but she had lost none of her poise or self-assurance. Of course, Daniella mused, she wouldn’t have made it to the top of the business world if she hadn’t been adept at masking her doubts. Hopefully she’d get a glimpse behind that mask today.

  “Always a pleasure,” said the captain. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Unfortunate, but the past few months have been rather busy, as you know…”

  “That’s quite an understatement! Well, I’d like to begin by looking at where we are now, and then maybe we can run through your feelings about our last weeks on Mahi Mata. You’ve had to restructure things a bit, unfortunately, after the deaths of two crew members…”

  “Three,” corrected Hunter. “You’re not the first to make that mistake.”

  “Ah, yes. Well … the circumstances surrounding Cartwright’s death were quite unusual, and we had no body to bear home. As you say, we’re three short – a big difference, given that there were only twenty-one on board to start with.”

  “It is, though it was always my intention to have contingency plans ready in the event that anyone went down, and the remaining crew have really pulled together. I’d like it on record that I’m particularly pleased with Annabelle Grace’s attitude. She’s been taking lessons on how to fly the ship, which could be very useful now that we’re down to only two qualified pilots, one of whom is still feeling the after-effects of her concussion. Also, I understand that she’s been giving you a technician’s crash course…”

  Daniella smiled ruefully. “Uh-huh. ‘Crash’ being the key word. It’s pretty mind-bending stuff.”

  “She did say that you’ve been useful.”

  “As an assistant, passing tools back and forth. Safe to say that we’re in trouble if I’m ever left in charge of Engineering.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “But hopefully we’ll be safely home in a few months, and I can happily forget all about wires and conduits and generators. I assume that you’re still optimistic about getting back to Earth?”

  A curt nod. “Cautiously so. Our first two KSD jumps have gone off without a hitch, and without any signs of damage to the drive. It’s a sensitive piece of equipment, though, and a lethal fault could potentially be too small for us to detect. Gypsy estimates that we’ve another forty-five jumps ahead of us; all we can do is hope.”

  Daniella nodded, and took a brief glance at her notes. The room was silent save for the sound of her camera – a pleasing low hum.

  “Assuming that we do make it home with news of our adventures, there’ll certainly be other ships sent this way from Earth. Do you think that further human embassies would be welcomed by the Matan people?”

  “Well, that would rather depend on which of the six ex-Matan colonies we’re talking about. Given that we fought against a shipful of Legans, then collaborated with their nemesis to destroy them, we can’t expect a particularly warm welcome from that society. We detected some of their ships taking up defensive positions around Mahi Mata af
ter we left. It’s fair to say that they have no intention of letting us land there again.

  “But that still leaves five other colonies, and there’s no reason to believe that they’d be opposed to diplomatic contact. The creation of the colonies happened about five centuries ago; by now, each will doubtless have their own culture, priorities and agenda. An analogy would be the states and nations of Earth, as they were a couple millennia back. Falling out with the Roman empire would have had no impact on your prospects of trading with the Chinese.”

  “Right, so you anticipate attempts to contact those other colonies.”

  “I do. The decision would be GSEC’s, though. Conducting relations with alien species falls within their purview, not that they’ve had the chance before.” The hint of a smile flickered briefly across her lips. “I can think of one or two people who’ll be pretty angry that we went ahead and made first contact without them.”

  “That raises the interesting question of whether you’d be willing to work with GSEC if they asked you. What if you were invited to return to Matan space in an ambassadorial role?”

  Hunter shrugged. “I’ve not thought about it. All my focus is still on this mission, not the next one.”

  “Aha.” Daniella mentally lined up her next two questions. First, she thought, a change-up. Then a fastball. “Reflecting on this mission, then – and again, assuming that we make it home without further mishaps – would you say that your hopes and expectations have been met?”

  The captain’s eyes lit up. “Oh, heavens yes. Met, surpassed, pulverised.” This time, her smile was unrestrained. “You know, I remember growing up, how my grandmother would often talk about ‘First Woman Syndrome’, and how it creates a perception that holds us back. Any ground-breaking accomplishment by women has that caveat attached, it seems – she’s not the first person to win that award, to scale that height, to hold that office, merely the first of her half of the population. Women were only let loose in the candy store after men had devoured the tastiest morsels.

  “When Herr Kohler and Frau Schmid made the breakthrough that unlocked the cosmos, Grandma was one of the first to realise the potential significance for women – suddenly, humanity was no longer confined to the well-trodden paths of Earth. Anyone with a spaceship and a working KSD could make history; there’d always be stars and planets we’d not charted before.

  “Her dream was a mission just like this one. It took a couple generations longer than it should have done, but mission accomplished: we’ve made first contact with an intelligent species. Human history, not women’s history. And throughout our time on Mahi Mata, this crew conducted itself with poise and integrity in the face of serious obstacles and unforeseeable danger. They deserve their page in the history books, alongside Gagarin, Armstrong and all the rest.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “Apologies if I’m rambling. A simple ‘yes’ may have been more economical.”

  “Oh, no need to apologise for that – one-word answers are a journalist’s worst nightmare. But it does raise an interesting question. Balancing the colossal accomplishments of this mission on one side of the scales, and the loss of three lives on the other, would you say that the positives outweigh the negatives? Has it been worth the sacrifices?”

  Hunter shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She nodded slightly, acknowledging Daniella’s clever set up. It was, the journalist knew, a rather cruel question to pose. But then, that was her job.

  The captain, to her credit, never broke eye contact with her interlocutor as she mulled over the question. “I’d be happy to give up my own life for this cause,” she offered eventually, “but I can’t speak for the rest of the crew. I’d never have willingly sacrificed any of them, regardless of future benefits – it’s not my place.”

  She sighed before continuing. “Has it been worth it? I don’t know. Perhaps all I can do is let history be the judge…”

  II

  Sonoran training facility, Arizona, 31st May, 2153

  Oho, thought Annabelle Grace, as she stepped into the cavernous waiting room. What have we here? One of the gang, unless I’m very much mistaken. I think I’m going to enjoy this mission.

  Today the future technicians of the Bona Dea would meet for the first time. While it was still over three years until the ship, currently being assembled in orbit, would depart Earth for virgin space, her crew-to-be had hundreds of hours of training to cram in before then.

  They would be greeted by Miriam Hunter herself in a couple of hours. Annie had arrived early, but another of the team had evidently gotten there first. The woman was standing at the window, which took up nearly the entire east wall of the room, contemplating the Arizonan sunrise. She had neat, shoulder-length hair, but Annie’s roving eyes were drawn to her thighs, hips and buttocks, which were full and voluptuous, very much as she liked them.

  “Greetings, sister-explorer!” she called out; the other woman jumped slightly and turned to face her. Annie’s ever-curious gaze swept over arms, breasts and neck, lingered but briefly on an obtrusive birthmark on the right cheek, and came to rest on the eyes. These were wide, green … and held absolutely no trace of sexual interest.

  Rats, thought Annie. Another fine specimen of womanhood has inexplicably fallen into the hands of heterosexuality. There’ll be no whirlwind romance here.

  Still, there’s nothing wrong with a little harmless flirting …

  “My name’s Annie Grace. I’m the youthful, irritating one. And you must be the mysterious, sexy one.”

  The other woman’s bushy eyebrows shot up. Her accent, when she replied, was easily identifiable as English. “If I’m the sexy one, I shudder to think what the other four look like.”

  Annie grinned. “Name?”

  “Flora. Flora Cartwright.”

  “Ah, yeah … you’re the boss, aintcha?”

  “I’ve been named chief technician, yes. Not sure how.”

  “Modest, I like that! Say, boss, you can fix who’s in what shift, right? Make sure we’re together. I wanna bask in your aura.”

  Flora’s eyebrows, which had been slowly descending, returned sharply to their maximum elevation. “Wow. Are you always this rapacious?”

  “Well, no. I mean, I’m asleep one third of the time.”

  “And when you’re awake?”

  “Let’s just say I’m a woman of simple pleasures, and I like to pursue them. But don’t worry, I’m capable of restraint, despite appearances.”

  Flora took in Annie’s outfit: a multi-coloured sweater with thin vertical stripes, extravagantly flared jeans, pink stilettos. Her hair, a fierce Celtic orange, was crew cut on the top but long and wavy at the back and sides.

  “Glad to hear it.” The older woman looked doubtful, and Annie began to wonder whether she’d pushed her luck a bit too far. She opened her mouth to apologise, but Flora abruptly smiled and extended her hand. “You’re going to be a fun companion, I think.”

  Annie took it. “Count on it. Fun, fun, fun, that’s me. And you’ll find I’m a loyal friend.”

  * * *

  Awake.

  Annie opened her eyes, patiently waiting for them to focus on her personal computer screen, where the time was displayed. The wall-mounted monitor, ten feet wide and four high, showed it to be half past five in the afternoon. She’d set her alarm for six but saw no reason to go back to sleep; she felt fine. Her rest had fully refreshed her, and she was ready for the nearest she got to a day off work these days – her next shift didn’t start until midnight.

  She tapped her wristband, and light flooded the room. A couple more taps set the temperature to a perky 17 degrees – Annie liked a slight chill in the air after sleeping, finding that it kick-started her brain into gear. The plush carpeting of the room gently caressed her feet as she rose and wove a path through her clutter to the bathroom.

  When she emerged, her orange braids now manipulated into a satisfactory state of ordered disorder, she fixed herself a small breakfast of yoghurt and oats and
sat down to eat. She tried to plan her next six hours, but found her thoughts turning to the past.

  Annie had dreamt about Flora again. She was having difficulty accepting that her friend was gone, for the simple reason that a part of her didn’t really believe it to be true. The concept of sentient robots was an old one, but Annie had never bought into it. So, when Flora had joined with Charlie to create a child, was that child truly a new lifeform, or was she still Flora Cartwright – transformed, modified, but bearing the same soul?

  Chamonix had been quite firm when asked; she considered herself a new lifeform, distinct from both parents. Annie tried her hardest to accept that, but for all the times she had cried for her lost friend, she had never truly buried her.

  Defiant, she dragged her mind onto a more positive track. Her flight training was going well; in her last session in the Simulator, she’d tried ten high-g landings, and only crashed the ship twice. Shamecca Jackson, the second officer, had described her performance as ‘borderline competent’, which was pretty high praise coming from her. Also, Annie was pleased with how she was handling her increased responsibilities in Engineering, her novel was going well, and they were on their way home. What was there not to be positive about?

  Finishing her meal, she grabbed her handpad, propped her feet up on the table, and called up her work-in-progress. Annie had already written over forty thousand words of Grays of Hope, her sci-fi romantic horror story set in an old folks’ home in the far reaches of space. She had a couple of social calls she wanted to make during this respite from work, but first she’d review the scene she’d written yesterday. Experience had taught her that an author never really knew how good her latest work was until she revisited it the next day.

  Annie read:

  The locusts were everywhere! On the walls, on the bed … heck, even UNDER the bed!!