Through The Wormhole, Literally

by David Winship

  "Well," Melinda said, as polkingbeal67 waited for a suitable opportunity to unmask himself. "You've come to the right place, literally. Empower yourself and achieve your personal goals with my tried-and-trusted life-coaching tips! Okay, let's talk about your low expectations. You remember when you were young and you dreamed of being a professional footballer or an astronaut or a celebrity or something? And then reality kicked in and you realised how hard life is and how you must settle for lower goals? Well, first of all, life is hard compared to ... what? The alternative doesn't bear thinking about, does it? Literally. So let's not go on about how hard it all is, yeh? And second of all, in what game are lower goals easier to hit? Exactly. Insane, isn't it? You see? Erratic. Remember, the best way to avoid disappointment is to take a shot and call whatever you hit the target. So try to identify your outdated expectations and don't be your own worst enemy, right? Life is already full of disappointments. My approach to it is to be full of life! Literally. Remember, a glass isn't half full or half empty. It's always full! Water and air! You see? Ha ha. You see what I'm saying? So it's full even when it's empty. Literally."

  Polkingbeal67's patience was running out, but he still could not get a word in edgeways. Melinda continued: "I know life can be easier to get through if you don't expect much out of it in the first place, but there's a saying in my profession: 'eagles may soar in the clouds, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines'. Insane. What I'm saying is there's nothing wrong with being a weasel. Weasels are human too, y’know. And a peacock that sits on its feathers is just another turkey! Literally. Every creature has its own wonderful unique abilities. It's what separates us from the animals. So live each day as though it were your last. And remember, one of them will be! Isn't that erratic? And do you know what?..."

  Polkingbeal67 could not restrain himself any longer. "Oh help! Stop!" he shouted. "Stop, for pity's sake! It's me, polkingbeal67. You remember, I'm ..."

  "Yes of course I remember you. Literally. Why are you here?"

  "I've come to see smolin9."

  "I haven't seen him. Literally. I never thought I'd see him again. I, oh ..." She followed polkingbeal67's gaze and realised he had already spotted smolin9's biomimetic mutator on the shelf behind her. "Okay," she said. "Have you come to take him back?"

  "So smolin9 is here?"

  "Yes, he's here. Well, he's not actually here. He's gone out doing some of that graffiti art stuff. Insane."

  Hearing a sound outside the door, she turned around. When she turned back, polkingbeal67 had vanished. And so had smolin9's mutator.

  . . .

  I do not know why polkingbeal67 recorded his meeting with Melinda, but I was delighted to find the video on his microwocky, not least because it gave me a valuable insight into his disturbed state of mind. Firstly, having gone to all the trouble of tracking down smolin9, why would he return to Morys without speaking to him? And, secondly, why would he have stolen the mutator, leaving his friend trapped in earthling human form? I had precious little time to ponder this at the time, because the end of the baktun had arrived and my MMBC commitments in that regard were keeping me frantically busy. Polkingbeal67 had lent me his microwocky to show me that earthlings had also picked up on the apocalypse prediction. He and I both found the discovery rather disconcerting as we thought the doomsday prophesy demeaned earthlings and Mortians in equal measure. Were we going to have to revise our pretensions to superiority, just slightly? Surely not. Privately, I had always concurred with polkingbeal67's portrayal of earthlings as backward and insular. After all, even at a stage in their development when they were starting to reach out to other worlds, they had not seen fit to name their own sun or their own solar system.

  On my way to the studio, I stopped the cruiser and walked around for a while. It was quiet. Dark streaks of cloud were smeared across the pink sky, but there was nothing particularly foreboding about it, nothing to suggest a cataclysmic event was about to trigger our imminent extinction. The end of the world had indeed been postponed. Sadly, however, a small part of my own particular world had been extinguished. The final episode of the Earthwatch series had been scratched amid speculation that smolin9 would never return from the Pale Blue Dot. I could not shake off the suspicion that polkingbeal67 was in some way responsible.

  That morning, several of us were at the studio pod, collecting personal effects, packing away equipment and preparing media for archiving. Polkingbeal67 was downloading stuff onto his microwocky when I casually confronted him about smolin9's mutator.

  "If he thinks being an earthling is so great, maybe he should stay that way!" he snapped.

  Sometimes, halfway through a conversation with polkingbeal67, I would feel like I had got concussion. This time it hit me straight away. I was gobsmacked. "So you don't want to see him back again?" I asked. Polkingbeal67 turned away without replying. I watched him as he busied himself with his microwocky and I wondered if he was trying to get accustomed to life without smolin9. For a moment there, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps, just perhaps, he had taken the mutator to make smolin9 angry with him and make their parting easier somehow. There again, perhaps not. It was more likely to have been an act of jealous spite. To be honest, I was struggling to cope with all this emotional baggage cluttering up the place. And then it struck me.

  Emotions! Unlike earthlings, our Mortian neurocircuitry is supposed to be configured in a way that precludes emotions interfering with cognitive processes. And yet, here we both were, psychologically tossed around on a sea of destructive feelings like anger, resentment, sadness, vengefulness, bitterness, anguish and depression. Had we become tainted through association with earthlings?

  The rationale behind the Earthwatch series was based on the self-defeating nature of earthling behaviour, and emotional derangement was mooted as a major cause of this. It seems clear to me that logic and emotions are inextricably linked on the Pale Blue Dot. For example, all over the planet, earthlings are very angry with their governments. They think their politicians are too controlling, too intrusive and too interfering. So, what do these people actually want? They want their governments to do something about it!

  Anyway, I was thinking about this and thinking how ironic it was that a series that purported to reveal how all earthling enterprise is doomed to fail should itself collapse in such self-inflicted disarray, when I noticed polkingbeal67 with his back to me, huddled over a crate of bits and pieces. He was weeping into one of smolin9's 'Why always me?' t-shirts.

  At that very moment the pod door opened and smolin9 stood there, a pair of earthling headphones balanced precariously on his domed head. "Waddup!" he said. "Hey, p, what are you doing with my t-shirt? Get off! I've got a bone to pick with you. I've just spent thirty kins in an earthling prison, doing time for suspected terrorist activities. Would you like to explain that? And that's not all. You nicked my mutator, so I couldn't change form and escape. What have you got to say for yourself? Hmm?"

  Polkingbeal67 just gaped at him. Smolin9 turned to me. "So when are we shooting the next episode? I've got some really cool material!" He flicked his microwocky. "Look at this, p. I made some great crop circles. Check these out!"

  A silly grin tugged at the corners of polkingbeal67's mouth. I had never seen that before.

  I continued to reflect on that nagging sense that Morys Minor and the Pale Blue Dot may not be worlds apart after all. We may be separated by vast stretches of space and lapses of time, but we are in thrall to the laws of gravity and we pull at each other in all kinds of ways.

  3

  ONE WAY TICKET

  A spiral of diaphanous methane mist curled aimlessly over the ochre-coloured prairie, resisting the feeble incandescence of the red dwarf sun that peeked over the distant horizon. Morys Minor, a circumbinary planet, boasted two sunrises, two sunsets and a complex pattern of daylight hours and seasonal variation. Ironically, the inhabitants had dismissed Earth as a potential colonisation target for being too chaotic and volatile. The pale li
ght gradually infiltrated the medical pod where Melinda Hill sat patiently waiting for the effects of the homeodynamic disruption antidote (HDA) to wear off.

  Wormhole travel is a wonderful thing, but it is not without its drawbacks. At best, it feels like tying your shoe laces in a revolving door. Some life forms have even been known to suffer DNA mutation, so the Mortians administered HDA routinely to time travelers on both arrival and departure.

  Melinda simmered with frustration that her first day on Morys Minor had been spent confined to a convalescent unit staffed by four-legged androids who struggled woefully to engage in any kind of meaningful dialogue.

  "So, are you like robots?" Melinda asked. "Droids or cyborgs or something? This is so erratic!"

  Her previous attempts to converse with them had elicited high-pitched monotones in response, but this time the nearest android wheeled around and spoke in a surprisingly human-like voice with a soft lilt to it. They were clearly learning and adapting as they went along. "Please wait while I process this communication," said the android. "Parsing complete. Problem occurred loading translation function. Compiling, please wait. An unexpected problem occurred. Sorry, I am unable to reply to you at this moment. Please try again. Enunciate clearly and speak slowly."

  "Wow! That was good," said Melinda. "You sounded almost human. Literally."

  Another android approached. "Please prepare your arm for a blood transfusion." A sachet of bluish-purple blood was secured to her upper forearm and the retractable spine painlessly punctured her skin and found its target.

  Smolin9 emerged through the pod door at this moment. Melinda was still trying to get used to his native appearance. On Earth, he had used a biomimetic mutator to disguise himself as a human earthling. His soft, oily, smooth skin had a lustrous quality to it, and his eyes were large, coal-black and curiously expressive. "Hi Melinda," he said. "How's it going? Are you enjoying your first day on Morys?"

  "Well, I didn't expect anything like this."

  "Like what?"

  "Oh, y'know, the lavish reception, spectacular views, lush jungles, white sandy beaches, fantastic cuisine, a landscape teeming with extraordinary wildlife and undiscovered phemona... phonemon... strange stuff. Insane. Literally. Yeh, it's been the best experience I've had in, like, ever. Sorry, yeh, I'm being sarcastic, but, look, when am I going to get away from this freaky hospital and all these nerdy robot people? And what is this thing on my arm? Wow! Totally erratic! Am I going to have blue blood?"

  "Okay, you're entitled to know about the special blood configuration required by life forms on this planet," said smolin9. "And obviously you want to know about the unique molecular signature we have that's based on enzymes with special metabolic functions like converting methane to oxygen."

  "Okay," said Melinda, tentatively. "Signature function blood what?"

  "Now, that's a really smart question." Smolin9 realised Melinda would not grasp even the most basic explanation of blood composition. "Let's keep this simple," he said. "Our planet is different from Earth and you need stuff in your blood to help you survive the conditions. So, well, you know how you've got red cells and white cells?"

  "Of course. I'm not dense, you know. Literally. I learned all that back in school: text books, diagrams, the whole lot. Red and white cells, yeh, it was all there in black and white."

  "Well, what you need is some extra cells called BBCs, blue blood cells. So that's what's going on. It won't take much longer. The medibots will check your blood pressure and your body temperature and your pulse and make sure there are no compatibility issues. Yeh, anyway, I need to talk to a few people, so I'll catch up with you later."

  An android interrupted them. "Please confirm you agree to be bound by all the terms and conditions," it intoned solemnly.

  Melinda pulled a face and turned to smolin9. "What?" she said. "What terms and conditions?"

  "You just have to say 'yes'," smolin9 told her. "It's just a formality thing."

  "Okay, but this is rather erratic," said Melinda.

  "Please wait while I process this communication," said the android. "Parsing complete..."

  "Just say 'yes' when it's finished," said smolin9. "See you later."

  The people smolin9 had to talk to included no less than the revered leader of the planet, who had not officially sanctioned Melinda's visit and was reported to be less than happy with the turn of events. He had presided over the historic wedding between smolin9 and Melinda, the first ever between a Mortian and a humanoid from another planetary body. The ceremony had been conducted via a specially commissioned wormhole channel a short while after smolin9 had completed his reports on the suitability of Earth for Mortian colonisation. The discovery of the Voyager 1 space probe by smolin9 and his companion, polkingbeal67, had raised expectations of harmonious relations between inhabitants of the two planets, but Earth, known to Mortians as the Pale Blue Dot, exceeded volatility thresholds and was ultimately deemed unsuitable.

  Melinda leaned back, closed her eyes and started daydreaming about the adventures she might expect to have during her visit. The happy thoughts of careering around in a dune buggy were soon eclipsed by disagreeable worries about the availability of chocolate and toilet paper. Everything seemed fairly earth-like in the hospital, but would there be gravity out there? Or would she have to prance around in slow motion? If that were the case, her leopard print, three-inch heel pumps were not exactly ideal footwear and short skirts might be out of the question. Where would she sleep? Should she have brought a toothbrush? Where could she get hold of some shampoo? And why hadn't she asked smolin9 these questions before she had agreed to the trip? First and foremost, where on earth (oh, she thought, that is really funny), where on Morys Minor was she going to get a cup of coffee? What if there was no coffee? What on earth (oops! there I go again, she thought) was this world going to be like? Wrestling with matters of such significance and import proved too distressing for her, so she sat up and looked around. Before long, she had resorted to type, slipping into her earthling role as a life coach and treating the bewildered androids to a fifteen-minute spiel on how to take themselves more seriously.

  "Ask yourselves some questions," she said. The androids were seemingly transfixed by her earnest voice and extravagant arm and hand gestures, "I mean, what sort of life do you want? Are you doing a job you love? Ask yourselves, 'What would I do if I knew I couldn't fail?' Literally. Yeh, you never know how far you can go until you take one more step." The androids drew closer. "Then make a list of things you really want. When you have a list of, say, twenty things, put an asterisk next to the five things you really, really, really want. Then choose two of them to really focus on." Melinda glanced around at her audience and thought she detected a hint of slowly dawning comprehension. Was this an epiphany moment for them? "Literally, you owe it to yourselves to do this," she urged them. “Think it, believe it, achieve it!”

  As she paused for breath, the androids retreated, wailing in high-pitched monotones. One of them pivoted around disconsolately and clattered into the pod wall.

  "I know," said Melinda, her eyes responding with empathy and gentleness, her voice little more than a cadence of soft breathing. "I know. Sometimes you just got to cry it out."

  . . .

  It takes a long while for an earthling body to adjust to a blue blood cell (BBC) transfusion. Reacting with organic tissue and bone marrow, the newly introduced cells mutate and stimulate the reconstruction of host organs. This facilitates and ensures the continuous regeneration of BBCs for the lifetime of the host. Polkingbeal67 described them as "like cockroaches - let one in, and you never get rid of them." It was an analogy that made Melinda shudder as she thought about what was going on inside her body.

  Later, having completed the first phase of her post-transfusion recovery, Melinda was on her way to an urgent meeting with the planet's revered leader in the company of polkingbeal67. The latter was reveling in his assumed role of planetary guide, making it his business to educate and instr
uct Melinda on every aspect of Mortian life.

  "Wow!" said Melinda, on discovering that polkingbeal67's cruiser had no wheels. "That's insane. On our planet, they only steal the tyres!"

  "We don't use wheels here," polkingbeal67 explained, as the colourless graphene cruiser accelerated away. "We use magnetic propulsion."

  The G-force snapped Melinda's head back into the headrest. "Woh!" she screamed, gripping the console with both hands. "Insane! It's time you people re-invented the wheel!" Polkingbeal67 nudged a button to moderate the speed and Melinda relaxed a little. Watching the featureless landscape whirling past, she interrupted polkingbeal67's illuminating description of the cruiser's specification: "So tell me more about this blue blood and what it's going to do to me," she said, "and leave out the cockroach stuff."

  "Well, imagine a rat..."

  "No!" Melinda shouted, shuddering perceptibly. "I don't want to imagine rats or any kind of bug or anything that scuttles or slithers or buzzes or crawls. Or flies into me, bites me or stings me. Okay? Literally."

  "Algae?"

  "No! Not algae!" Melinda insisted. "Algae is slimy!"

  "Right, well, it's all beneficial anyway. BBCs are the secret to our long, healthy, disease-free lives. Our experiments show that female earthlings, in particular, enjoy dramatic benefits from BBCs, and, er, effects."

  "Effects? What sort of effects?"

  "It's all to do with the stem cell properties of your menstrual blood," polkingbeal67 explained. "You'll find when you have your period, you will probably experience certain changes..."

  "Like?"

  "Like diseased cells getting zapped, teeth turning blue, hair colour changes and a general feeling of euphoria."