Alien Earth

by Megan Lindholm

  In Raef’s fantasy, he wasn’t just one of the many faceless Humans who had trudged or biked or jetted to the evacuation points. He didn’t stand in line for hours, only to be turned away like all the others who had prison records or diseases or genetically passed defects. He hadn’t watched all those young people with their perfect bodies and high school and probably even college diplomas go on past the roped-off gates into an inner building. No. Forget that shit.

  No, he’d been singled out at once. The Arthroplana had seen him immediately for what he was, had called him forward and told him in front of all the others, “This is the kind of man we’re looking for to be your leader. This is the man who has the determination to bring you from this dying planet and deliver you, alive, to a new world.” He played the scene a thousand ways, a thousand times. Sometimes he was on a pinnacle before the massed emigrants and the twang of the Arthroplanas’ synthetic voices rang out from loudspeakers. Sometimes he stood before a long table where the president and the chiefs of staff looked at him in amazement while a videotape played on a big-screen television, telling them that he was the one they needed.

  [But you were not even alive then, for the first evacuation,] queried his mother’s voice. So puzzled, so distressed.

  Only dreams, Mom. They’re just my dreams. Of how it should have been. He should have been there, at the very beginning. Those dreams had amused him through a thousand stimulation cycles, for however many years. A part of him knew that he dreamed of achieving glory in the eyes of people who were generations dead. But another part of him took a special satisfaction in that. For the truth was, they hadn’t recognized him; they hadn’t even wanted him. Well, his mom had, maybe, but no one else. They’d always shuffled him aside and ignored him. They’d always found ways to say he wasn’t as good as the others. Oh, they tried to put polite labels on it: Dyslexic, Learning Disabled, Socially Underskilled. “A remarkable memory, but unable to integrate gained information into day-to-day living.” “Fails to respond to normal social stimuli in socially acceptable ways.” “Test results contradictory.” “Test results inconclusive.” “Further testing recommended.” “Counseling recommended.” “Unable to develop full potential.” They always acted like they paid lots of attention to him because they really cared. But it only meant they could put him in a different classroom, could test him over and over, could always blame him for the fights he got into, could punish him for being teased or beat up. Act like he was too stupid to bother with. He’d gotten out of school with a certificate, got a job. He’d signed up with one of the Low Income Equal Opportunity Emigration Centers. And he’d made it, he’d passed their physicals. That was what they had cared about most, that he had a good healthy body. A whole new world had waited for him.

  And then they’d found the cancer, and snatched it all away from him, just like everything had always been snatched away from him, over things that weren’t his fault.

  So he’d dream it however he wanted it.

  In the dream he’d hitched straight from Walla Walla to the loading stage in the Arizona deserts. Hadn’t called anyone or told anyone; hadn’t had anyone to call or tell. He’d turned bright red in the Arizona sun, but the heat of Earth’s sun hadn’t been enough to warm his slush-grey eyes or straighten the prison slouch from his walk. People had still stepped away at the sight of him, had glanced once and then looked away, especially women. Except for the few ones who recognized him from television and newspapers and fax prints. They’d stared, but he’d stared back. And they’d always turned their eyes aside, always walked away. Just like in real life.

  Stop that. Stop wrecking the dream. Because real life didn’t matter now.

  Because they were all dead and he wasn’t. Not just them, but their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren. All dead and gone to dust. Because in the end he’d won, in the only way that really mattered. He’d survived them all, by hundreds of years. Survived them all and would continue to survive them, for hundreds of years to come. He’d dream in this womb and awake, when Tug chose to buzz him, for a week or a day or a month. He’d still have a man’s good body; that’s one thing this had given him. It would take the cancer forever to catch up with him; Waitsleep slowed it down. So he’d wake up, and he’d stretch and shower and eat and Tug would tell him what had passed with the Human race while he’d slumbered. Then he’d tour his ship, stroll his domain. Tug would show him all the new gizmos in the Human quarters and be sure he knew how to work them. And then Tug would ask him questions, and listen, really listen, while Raef told him how old Earth had been. And then Tug would open his womb and he’d ease himself down again and go back into the Waitsleep dreams. Sort of like a Pharaoh returning to his sarcophagus. Chosen. Royal. Dead, but with his next life well provided for. And when next he awoke, another generation or two of his race would be dust behind him. But he’d still be alive.

  The last real Human being in the universe.

  It had shook him up the first time he’d realized that. He still hadn’t gotten over it. It had been not the last time Tug woke him up all the way, but three, no four times before that. Hundreds of years ago, probably. But Tug had broken him out of Waitsleep, just to walk him through the ship, and talk to him, about silly stuff. Nursery rhymes, popular songs, even jingles from old commercials. He’d come out of it as always, like waking up with a mild hangover: that coating on the tongue, the clogged nose and sticky eyes, but with the added discomfort of a raw navel, and the lassitude of unworked muscles. Crawling from the disgusting moisture and softness of the womb always seemed sort of like crawling out the neck of a deflating balloon. He’d dragged himself lightly to his feet in a chamber whose walls reminded him of tripe, only crystal hard. He had stood, trembling, like the first time he had tried to walk after having pneumonia for three months when he was a kid. Funny, how clearly he remembered that first time. It shadowed all of the illnesses that had come later. There was that same feeling, like his muscles had been replaced with overstretched rubber bands. Low gravity seemed almost normal. He’d awakened to it that many times now. He’d trailed one hand against the ribbed wall as he half staggered and half swam from the Beast’s gut chamber to the soft ladder thing that led into the Human quarters.

  He always felt strangely relieved to emerge into a tubular corridor of familiar plastic and metal. At least, it looked like plastic and metal. Tug called it by other names, bioplastic, cell meld, weird shit like that. Raef didn’t care. It at least looked like regular wall and ceiling stuff, not like he was crawling through the insides of something’s guts.

  The hall stretched forever. “Someday,” he warned the empty corridor, “someday I’m going to be too weak and I’ll lie down right here and die. Then what are you going to do?”

  “Notify the crew to dispose of your body,” Tug informed him calmly. The voice came from nowhere, from everywhere. Raef didn’t care how and never asked.

  “But you’d miss me,” Raef reminded him as he lurched down the passageways, missing every other hold, overcorrecting and floundering along. He wasn’t cold, but he was shivering. He passed portal after portal. Each portal led to a womb chamber, and he could remember when every chamber had been full, with six to ten operational wombs in each. Like a hive of dormant bees.

  His muscles were complaining, not just his regular muscles, but his stomach muscles and his throat muscles, even his asshole muscles were saying, This is all too much for us, go back to bed. He probably looked like a sick tropical fish, darting here, then floating and twitching for a second, then managing another dart.

  “Yes, I’d miss you,” Tug agreed. “You’re one of a kind, Raef.”

  Raef reached the end of the corridor. There was a hatch, and he dialed it open, and went through into a chamber. He hadn’t realized how dim the corridor had been until the lights of the chamber made his eyes water. Behind him, the corridor light muted into darkness. “Gotta sit down for a second,” Raef announced, and levered himself into a couch. Fastened to th
e wall, for godsakes. Raef suspected that they designed these no-gravity rooms so weird not because they needed to, but simply because they could. He sat, breathing heavily, and letting his mind adjust the “floor” connotation to his present position.

  “Well?” he asked when Tug didn’t speak after several moments. He was always aware of Tug watching him.

  “Why be seated when you could rest as effectively just by being still?”

  “For the same reason that I’m going to get dressed, and have something to eat. Because I’m a Human.”

  “But you should be neither too cold nor too warm. These rooms were designed for the comfort of your species. Nor should you require nourishment immediately after coming out of a womb. Unless an adjustment is wrong. Do you feel hunger or thirst?”

  Raef scratched at the back of his neck. His damn hair was halfway down his back, despite using the inhibitor. He’d have had a beard like an old grampa by now if Tug hadn’t insisted he use the eliminator on his face. He considered Tug’s question. “Naw. Not really hungry or thirsty. But, dammit, when you wake up, you eat breakfast and get dressed. Uh, Tug, have Evangeline get me some coffee, toast, bacon and eggs. And orange juice.”

  “You know we have no such substances. And if you eat that much, you will have to remain awake long enough for your body to process it before you can be returned to the womb.”

  “Fine with me,” Raef agreed. “Just get me some chow, okay, Tug? And no bullshit about it.”

  Tug was silent. Raef heard the synth machinery on the wall start to hum. He knew there was a way to operate it from his side, that he could have just pushed some buttons or typed in an order or something on his own. But, dammit, what was the point of being relief skipper if you didn’t let the crew know it once in a while?

  So he turned to a clothing dispenser instead, triggered it, and took out a garment box. Damn things were no bigger than a box of Kleenex. He popped the seal on it and pulled out the tissuey stuff. Tunic and trousers and belt. Exciting outfit. Same clothes every time he woke up. Same peachy color, too. He released the tunic and belt to float around and get in his face while he pulled on the pants. Lost his grip and went somersaulting around, trying to put his other leg in while his tunic floated over and tried to smother him. Raef thrashed wildly for an instant, before he remembered the consequences of that. He forced himself to spread out flat in the air and hang motionless until his drifting brought him within reach of a grip.

  Hang on to something and try to get dressed. Fun. And when he was finished, the cuffs of the pants were halfway up his calves and hellacious snug, while the tunic barely came past his waist. “Tug! What the hell happened to my clothes? You get me the wrong size or something?”

  “What is the problem with them?”

  “Way too small. Too tight. Look.” Raef did a slow pirouette, then clamped onto a grip again and pulled himself over to the food dispenser.

  “I perceive your problem. Recently, all clothing was reengineered to conserve material and to be more form-fitting to the crew. Loose folds of garments were found to be a safety hazard. Your body warmth will soon loosen your garment to a comfortable fit.”

  “Sure. These things wouldn’t fit comfortably if I were a Munchkin.” Raef opened the dispenser door, took out a tray with food components fastened to it. He pushed off, landed neatly in a couch. Graceful as a cat, once he got the hang of it again.

  “Munchkin?”

  Tug’s synthesized voice displayed that urgency of interest that it always did whenever Raef used an unfamiliar word. Sometimes, before Raef fell asleep or during his stimulation cycles, he’d amuse himself by thinking of words that Tug had probably never heard, and save them to use on him later.

  “Yeah, you know, a Munchkin. Little green guys, live in Oz. Good buddies with Dorothy and the Tin Man.”

  Raef stuck the tray to the armrest and tugged a warm container loose from it. Warm. Always warm, never hot. Could never convince Tug that coffee should be hot, at least to start with. Even if it wasn’t coffee, and didn’t have enough stimulant to rouse a mouse. He poked the suction thing clear, took a long draw of it. It cut the gunk in his mouth and throat, and made him realize how congested he’d felt.

  He sighed in relief. “Should always have that ready when I wake up, Tug. Clears all the junk out of my throat so I can talk. Now. What can I help you with?”

  “I have no references to Munchkins. Can you suggest literature on them?” Whatever reason Tug originally had for awakening him had been pushed aside by the new word.

  “Uh, sure.” Raef always loved this part. “Look for an old book, or the movie. It’s called The Wizard of Oz. Tells all about them, and lots of other stuff, too. Winged monkeys, wicked witches, talking scarecrows, the Tin Man.”

  Tug was silent. Long silent. Raef had enough time to suck up most of his coffee, eat his protein sticks and their edible wrappers and some flaky thing with red stuff inside it. The wrapper on the pastry thing was a disgusting greyish color. It was probably good for him, but Raef wasn’t going to eat it. He blew it and the coffee container down the recycler, and shoved the tray back into a cleaner. He returned to his couch.

  “Stuck?” Raef asked Tug nonchalantly. Enough time had passed that he already knew the answer.

  “Yes. It appears it was among the obsolete literature, abandoned for lack of space and significance. There may be one communally recalled edition of the book in a repository on Pollux. It is filed as for children.”

  “Yeah, it was a fairy-tale kind of thing. As it happens, though, I read it myself once. Or actually, a teacher read it to us. Third or fourth grade, I think it was.”

  “And you recall it?” Tug’s voice was hopeful.

  “You know I do. What do you think total recall is all about, anyway? You want it right now? It starts out, The Wizard of Oz, by Frank L. Baum. ‘Chapter One. The Cyclone. Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with …’”

  “Wait, please. I shall have to have Evangeline prepare recording filaments. This will take some small time.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Raef loved it when Tug’s voice took on that respectful, excited tone. It would be a pain in the ass, as usual, to recite the whole Wizard of Oz from memory, and by the time he got to the end of it, he’d be ready to go back into Waitsleep. But it felt good, too, knowing that he had so much stuff in his brain that existed nowhere else anymore. Gave him power. Not only the last of his kind, but the holder of so much stuff that had been abandoned in the evacuation. Hell, the Human race had had to leave just about everything. Humans only, no animals or plants or fish or bugs or anything. Only books and stuff allowed were on biodegradable paper. All that stuff would be transferred to media that would “harmonize” with their new planet, and the old records of it had to be rotted down and recycled through the Humans. Bring yourselves and your knowledge. Leave your clothes and jewels and money, your fancy cars and your polo ponies, leave it all. You want to evacuate, you leave this world just like you came into it. Stark naked, like everyone else. That had been enough to scare a lot of people off. Knowing your kids would be changed to be harmonious with the new environment had scared off a lot of others.

  Raef sat pondering for a few moments longer. Then he swam up off the couch. “Hey. Tug. Where are they?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Where are the crew? The other Humans.”

  “In Waitsleep wombs. There are only two of them.”

  Raef felt a pang of disappointment. Only two. Not a very impressive crew. He had never thought to ask about it before, but had always assumed that a ship the size of Evangeline would have a pretty good-sized crew. Only two. Not much to be skipper of. But then, that wasn’t counting Tug and Evangeline. And look how big the whole thing was. It was no small thing to be in charge of a ship the size of Evangeline.

  “I want to see them. What chamber are they in?”

  “Seventeen-twenty. Why do you wish to see them?” Tug’s voice was very polite, but Raef had learne
d to read it. Old Tug was a trifle worried.

  “I just want to see, you know, how much you changed us. What Humans look like now.”

  “We did not change Humans at all. Humans voluntarily changed themselves, to make themselves biologically harmonious with Castor and Pollux.”

  “Yeah. Okay. I just want to see what we look like now.”

  “Well, I think I can describe the changes for you. An adult specimen, male or female, is smaller than what you considered average in the twentieth century. Stature is more comparable to the average Human in the twelfth century, old Earth reckoning. At the same time, puberty has been delayed, so that our present crew would probably give you the impression of being children. I assure you they are not. The delay of pubescence and the prolonged adolescence give your species a time of calm growth and education, undistracted by sexual drives. In a similar manner, the life span of the average Human is now nearly two hundred years by your reckoning. Thus intellectual development can continue to advance over a greater period of time than ever before possible in your species’ history, leading to the development of philosophies and artistic skills and talents unknown to earlier Human civilizations. In turn …”

  “Tug.” Raef cut through the bullshit.

  “Raef?”

  “I want to see them. Not hear about them, see them.”

  “They are in wombs.”

  “I don’t care. The membranes are nearly transparent anyway. I want to see them. Light me a pathway.”

  “Raef. You may find it excessively disturbing.”

  That sort of thing was as close to saying “no” as Tug ever came to with him. Raef played his hole card. “You want to hear The Wizard of Oz or not?”

  Light slowly came up in the corridor.

  “Thank you, Tug.” Raef pushed off from the couch and headed down the corridor. For the first few minutes the activity actually felt almost good. Then he felt the vague crampings of a digestive system that hadn’t had any real work to do in decades. He slowed his pace.