Redeeming Factors (Revised)

by James R. Lane

  “Just be warned, old chaver,” Ross said in a grim-sounding stage whisper. “When S’leen’s in heat—she bites!”

  * * *

  Captain Cory Ross finessed the computerized controls of the little starship like a concert pianist performing for the Queen of England. Unlike a concert pianist, however, the young Ross wasn’t interested in his audience’s pleasure; his goal was to minimize the stress on his father’s fragile, dying body during the descent into the planet’s atmosphere.

  After what seemed to be an interminable time during which none of the passengers spoke, Cory Ross announced that they would be landing in less than five minutes. “People, if you need to relieve yourself,” he added dryly, “you’d better do it now. This is an alien world, and I don’t know what the, uh, facilities will be like.”

  The figure on the gurney barked a feeble laugh, stating, “Son, when your military days are over you’ll make a fine passenger ship pilot.” As if in response to Jack Ross’ comment, all three H’kaah females, with Lisa Thomas in the lead, scrambled for the ship’s tiny toilet.

  “Women,” Shapiro commented and was answered by laughs from the men and a confused look from L’niik. “It’s something about being female,” Shapiro explained to the male H’kaah. “We guys view taking a piss as relief from an annoyance; females treat it as a social occasion.” After a moment of thought, L’niik smiled, then snorted and chuckled in agreement.

  The ship touched down in a small grassy clearing near a nondescript portion of a strange, rounded building complex that appeared to be partially buried into the side of a hill. Shortly after the able-bodied passengers maneuvered Jack Ross’ hospital gurney out of the ship and onto the ground a doorway in one of the buildings swung open and three lab-coat-attired otter-like Mn’rii emerged guiding a floating gurney-sized platform. The female H’kaah and several of the humans watched the aliens’ approach with open wonder. Seeing the brown furred mustilid aliens in photographs and video clips was far different than seeing them in person, and their fluid, almost boneless way of moving made even the graceful H’kaah feel clumsy.

  The silently floating platform barely rated a second glance.

  Cory Ross, L’niik and Nolan Green had somewhat different feelings as they watched the Mn’rii approach. Upon hearing of Ross’ critical wounding the male H’kaah had wasted no time in sending a courier to contact friends back on his homeworld, and those friends quickly organized meetings with like-minded aliens of several other species, the Mn’rii included. Less than twenty-four hours after the shooting Green received a courier-delivered message from a small group of scientists on the Mn’rii homeworld.

  This secretive, desperate trip to the Mn’rii homeworld was the culmination of a plan both dangerous and politically radical. What began as a desperate attempt to repay Jack Ross’ act of interspecies kindness had, to L’niik’s astonishment, quickly become a determined crusade. L’niik, along with the others in the small party of conspirators, now knew that not only the non-aggressive H’kaah, but literally every other species—predator and prey alike—owed their chance for species survival to Jack Ross’ intervention. Humankind had the ability to keep them isolated indefinitely, or it could help them learn to live with one another—or it could simply turn their respective worlds into radioactive cinders. Ross appeared to be the catalyst that made things happen, and they weren’t going to give him up without a struggle.

  The three Mn’rii technicians helped load the helpless human and his modest life support equipment onto their floating work table, then they guided it gently over the ground and into the nearest doorway leading into what turned out to be a spacious, mostly underground medical research facility. Introductions had been brief, and there were few formalities observed. Every Mn’rii present was a scientist, a doctor or a skilled technician, and they all spoke fluent yet lyrical English. The otter-like aliens didn’t believe in useless layers of bureaucracy and civil servants; all of their people had solid reasons for being there.

  Jack Ross and his attending party were taken to a large, cavern-like room that contained an inordinate amount of advanced computer equipment. Next to a table near one wall a young adult male H’kaah, similar in size and athletic build to L’niik, stood nervously. In contrast to L’niik’s mid-length, snowy white fur this male was mostly covered in short fur so black it almost looked blue. His nose was a tiny chevron of pink in the middle of his dark face, his eyes pale gold the way Ross’ were icy blue. His finger and toe claws matched the light golden hue of his eyes, and he had yellow-blonde colored fur under his cheeks and chin that splashed and spread down his chest and belly to disappear beneath his utilitarian off-white knit shorts. The underside of his fluffy rabbit-like tail was the same yellow-blonde, as was the silky scalp hair that was pulled back into a short human-style ponytail. After Ross was carefully transferred to an articulated lab table the dark-furred male hesitantly joined the people grouped around the dying man.

  “Sorry I can’t properly greet you,” Jack Ross wheezed in English to the solemn young H’kaah, “but because of my…my situation, speaking H’kaah makes both my chest and throat hurt.”

  “Honorable Jack Ross,” the male stated in perfect hypno-taught English, his voice a light, pleasant baritone, “you need never apologize to one such as I.” The H’kaah hung his head in shame, then said with apparent sincerity, “I grieve to see you suffer, sir, and I am privileged to…to be able to offer you an escape.”

  Ross said nothing for a time, then sighed. “This is so damned unfair,” he finally husked, his weak voice colored by anger. “There’s no need for you to—”

  “Honorable Sir,” the H’kaah quickly interrupted, “there is all the need in…in the universe for this. My people, as well as many other species of non-aggressive sentients, still need your guidance, your knowledge, your…your spirit. Allowing you and what you represent to simply die when there is a way for you to continue your work is something that cannot be permitted.”

  “But, son, you have a life to live, things to do!”

  The alien shook his head in an all-too-human gesture. “My life is already forfeit, Honorable Sir.” The H’kaah looked pointedly at Ross. “I think you, perhaps more than any other human, understand why.”

  “Shit! I wouldn’t allow L’niik, here, to go through with such a damned fool custom, and while I can’t physically do much to stop you, I just don’t feel it’s right for you to just throw your life away because—”

  Again the male H’kaah interrupted Ross. “But Honorable Sir, that’s just it; my shameful actions have already made me a non-person. By assisting with what we hope to accomplish here today I can do two things: I can help save the life of someone critically important to my people’s survival, and I can perhaps erase some small portion of the dishonor I brought to…to my family’s name.” He momentarily looked down again in shame, then raised his face in defiant hope. “Please don’t deny me this last act of redemption, Honorable Jack Ross. You’re not only my people’s hope, you’re the only hope I have.”

  A lone tear dribbled from Ross’ one good eye. He swallowed several times before asking, “Son, at least tell me your name.”

  The alien looked away, whispering, “My crime has erased my name. I no longer exist.”

  Ross frowned, then stated in a strong, harsh tone of voice that startled everyone, “Everybody I deal with has a name; you’re no exception. LOOK AT ME WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU!” The dark-furred H’kaah jumped at the rusty steel in the dying man’s voice, and he brought his frightened eyes back to Ross’ piercing one-eyed stare. “That’s better. Understand this: You will either tell me your name RIGHT NOW, or this whole procedure will come to a screeching halt.”

  The alien looked silently at Ross for a long ten seconds, then he glanced at the others in the room. Each of them met his gaze, and each one solemnly nodded in agreement with the human’s ultimatum. Finally the male’s gaze returned to the helpless human. “My…my name was D’raan, of…of the fam
ily S’boon. My crime is—”

  This time it was Jack Ross’ turn to interrupt. “Hold it, D’raan. I only asked for your name; there’s no need to talk about your crime.”

  But then it was the dying man’s turn to be surprised when the male H’kaah would not be denied. “Honorable Jack Ross, now that I have been forced to speak the name I once carried, I am duty-bound to speak of the crime that brought dishonor to it.” His eyes briefly brushed those of the H’kaah females, but this time he was met with unfriendly stares. “I did one of the few things that, in H’kaah society, warrants the penalty of death. I…I assaulted a young and very unwilling female at a party we both attended, and in seven of your months from now she…she will bear my child.”

  “Why not simply marry her, son? My God, it makes no sense to throw away your life when there’s a chance to help both the female and the child!”

  The male shook his head sharply as he replied, “It is not our way, Honorable Sir. The female and her family, along with my own poor family, have been terribly dishonored by my criminal actions. The only way to cleanse the stain is for me to die both in name and in body. As per our custom, at birth the child will be placed in what you call an orphanage, and will never know its parents. This…this is how we erase the shame.”

  “But,” Ross grimly stated, “your body is going to live on, only—”

  “This body has been genetically altered by the Mn’rii,” the male explained, “and now carries both a different DNA code and scent. You see, Honorable Sir, the H’kaah once known as D’raan is already dead, and you are therefore conversing with—” and he paused, the words sticking painfully in his throat, “—a corpse.”

  Jack Ross said nothing for a while, then called to one of the Mn’rii scientists. “Eeoi’ha, did you or any of the others tell my friends here that you and I are not strangers?” The chief Mn’rii scientist blinked in surprise, then replied that, no, they had not broken their oath of secrecy. “Good. When I met with you almost a year ago I never dreamed that I’d be the subject of your weird experimentation, but that was then; this is a brutal, cruel ‘now’.” He sighed, but nobody else broke the shocked silence.

  Eventually, “What were you planning to do with my body once I didn’t need it anymore?” He was quickly assured that it would be sent back to Earth for funeral services. “And you’ve had no living humans to experiment on, no volunteers for your bioengineering research?” The Mn’rii scientist said no. “Would you like one now?” he softly asked. All of the tall otter-like aliens blinked and whistled in surprise, and eventually the chief scientist nervously agreed that such a boon would be helpful in the extreme. “Fine,” Ross said. “You can have this one, but there’s a very special condition attached.”

  D’raan had drifted aimlessly away from the cluster of scientists and friends gathered around Jack Ross, and the man called him back over, then asked, “You believe that you must be punished for your crime, correct?” The H’kaah nodded his head. “You truly feel that your intellect, your being, is forfeit, and that’s why you’ve agreed to help with what we’re trying to do. Am I right?” The alien nodded again, this time openly confused. “OK, so what if you were given a chance to do far more than simply atone for your sin? In fact, if you’re brave enough to take this experiment even farther I believe we can have your name restored with honor. Also, wouldn’t you really like to know that the child you fathered gets the best of care?” Now Ross had everybody’s undivided attention, but the black-furred H’kaah listened hungrily to Ross’ every word.

  “Here’s the deal as it stands now:” Ross carefully stated.

  “My mental matrix is to be removed intact from this crippled, dying shell, and temporarily stored in what the Mn’rii call, for lack of a better name, a…a cybernetic box.”

  A nearby Mn’rii technician waved an arm toward two identical tan-colored, toaster-sized devices that were sitting on a small utility table. Each device had nothing more than a blank display screen, a trio of touch pad switches and a connector for a large ribbon cable to break its otherwise smooth surface. The cybernetic boxes looked like they belonged in a kitchen, not a laboratory.

  “As I understand it,” Ross continued, “the special terms of your H’kaah-imposed death sentence state that your mental matrix is to be removed from your body and—discarded.” The alien closed his pale golden eyes and trembled. “Open your eyes, D’raan!” The H’kaah did, but his eyes showed plain naked fear. “The final step in the plan as it now stands is for my mental matrix to be impressed upon the then-blank brain in your body. If everything goes well I, Jack Ross, will live on in the guise of a male H’kaah, free to continue my work.”

  Nobody spoke.

  Ross slowly licked his cold, thin lips and took as deep a breath as he could, then forcefully declared, “Here is what I propose changing: Your mental matrix will be, like mine, temporarily stored in the spare Mn’rii cybernetic box. From what I know of the process the devices have never failed, so having a backup machine for me is not necessary. Are you with me so far, Eeoi’ha?” The chief Mn’rii scientist stared at Jack Ross for several long seconds, then slowly smiled and nodded once in agreement.

  “If my transference works our friends here are to attempt to do the same procedure for you,” Ross said, “impressing your mental matrix upon the then-blank brain in this body. If that works—and I realize that’s a big ‘if’—you will live the rest of your life as a human, and in doing so you will have aided the Mn’rii in their bioengineering research. Based on what little I know of their advanced—and, I might add, highly controversial—secret work on other species, I firmly believe they’ll eventually repair the damage done to this…this physical wreck I’m about to bequeath you, D’raan. It may take some time, possibly a few years, and I don’t doubt that the process will be unpleasant at times, but I think they’ll eventually succeed, and you, son, will have earned more than just a second chance at life. Not only will your family’s name be cleared, the memory of your name will also be restored with honor. And I’ll personally see to it that your child never sees an orphanage, but is welcomed into a warm, loving environment.”

  A frightening grin twisted the man’s partially bandaged face. “Normally I’d be willing to stick around while they try to patch me up,” Ross said, “but a lot of things are coming to a head and, as you’ve correctly stated, I’ve got work to do.” The lapin alien was as astonished at the idea as everyone else in the room, but Ross had one more surprise for them all.

  “Should everything go according to plan and this body be restored to health, D’raan, the Mn’rii must physically alter it far more extensively than they did your H’kaah body. The visible facial features must be changed along with the fingerprints, the retinal patterns and its basic DNA identity. Except for a privileged few, everyone else thinks Jack Ross died in a hospital on Earth, and for both your ultimate safety as well as mine that must never, ever be in doubt. Who this new person will be—well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, this is my offer as well as my challenge. What I need to know is, are you strong enough—are you male enough—to accept it?”

  Chapter 11

  *Deus Ex Machina?*

  D’raan stood by the lab table where Jack Ross lay dying. He slowly reached out and, taking Ross’ cold, now-paralyzed right hand from beneath the white sheet that covered most of the man’s battered, shattered body, the alien gently enfolded it into his own warm, trembling grip. He reverently raised Ross’ hand and touched it to his bowed, fur-covered forehead. “I accept,” was all the H’kaah said, then he carefully returned the corpselike hand to the table.

  “Good,” Ross responded with a visibly pleased smile. “Now that the matter’s settled, maybe our Mn’rii friends will tell us how this infernal process works.”

  But he was shocked when chief Mn’rii scientist Eeoi’ha stated, “Please don’t be offended, Jack Ross, but we are unable to do that. You see, we have no understanding of how the cybernetic box function
s, nor can we comprehend how a living mental matrix can be stripped intact from a sentient being’s brain and impressed upon the blank brain of another sentient being, much less the blank brain of another sentient species. We only know that the process can be done, and to date it has been done twenty three times, each time leaving no copies, no ‘mental clones’, of the subject in either the original host body or the cybernetic box itself.”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Ross exclaimed. “How the hell can you work with something that exotic, yet not understand it? Based on what you’re telling me, this isn’t advanced technology, it’s…it’s magic-in-a-can!”

  Eeoi’ha fidgeted uncomfortably, then carefully stated, “What you refer to as ‘magic’ is, at least in this instance, apparently a ‘higher-order’ physics. It seems to follow rules in the same manner as the physics we advanced technologists understand; the problem is that it follows a different set of rules, and those are rules that we technologists—of any species—do not understand.

  “What do you think makes the jumperdrive you humans claim to have developed work?” Eeoi’ha asked defensively. “Don’t you agree that it certainly appears to violate your long-dead genius Einstein’s rules of the physical universe? Didn’t you ever wonder why all of the jumperdrive units are so carefully sealed at their factories? I can assure you that they are not sealed, as the popular reason states, to discourage tampering. The real reason is simple: The jumperdrive units, like the cybernetic box devices, will not function unless they are enclosed within a molecularly sealed container. We believe they are thusly designed for reasons of safety.

  “It’s just as well that the machines are sealed,” he continued, “since from what any of us can determine the processes that take place inside their containers when they’re operating are well beyond our current level of understanding. We, along with your human scientists, call this technology 7th level physics, no doubt easily understood by advanced minds evolved to operate on that level. Unfortunately, our 4th level physics-capable minds can’t comprehend how the technology works; we just know it does what we were told it would do.