by Darrell Bain
Samantha had been carrying a bag at her waist. She knew Juan had been curious but he had said nothing. Now she unzipped it. "You guys have fleas. I'm going to put something on you that will smell funny but it will kill those fleas that bite you and make you scratch."
She applied a tiny bit to the pups and a larger amount to the mother. "Now, in a while they won't bother you so much. I'll come back again and later and help you some more. How about a bite to eat?"
The pups and mother crowded around her, ignoring Shufus and Juan. She took out four milk bones and gave one to each pup and one to the mother. "We have to go now. Take your food back to your den to eat. We'll visit you again." She stood up slowly. The mother coyote made a noise in its throat.
"You're welcome, Boft. Go back home and eat now. Are you ready, Juan?"
"Yes. That was amazing."
"Shufus, do you want a milk bone?"
The dog nodded enthusiastically. She smiled and handed him one which he crunched and ate in a few quick bites. She took Juan's hand again and they walked on.
"I'm wondering how they understand you when you talk to them in English, Sammie. Do you have any idea?"
She looked at him and shrugged. "I've never thought about it too much in the past, since I've been doing it as long as I remember. Dr. Summers wanted to know but I couldn't tell her. So did Whit, the veterinarian at the Sanctuary. I've given it a lot of thought since then, although I've never said much."
"Have you reached any conclusions?"
"Maybe. I need to think about it some more, though."
Shufus stopped and looked upward, into a tree.
"He's spotted a squirrel, or smelled it. Hello, Squirrel. Come around to this side of the tree trunk so we can see you."
A brown furry head poked around the edge of the trunk about ten feet off the ground. "Come on, we won't hurt you." It edged into sight cautiously. "My, what a pretty, bushy tail you have. I wish I had a tail like that!"
She saw Juan suppress a laugh that very nearly broke loose. "Squirrels are kind of simple but they're fairly smart for their size. Anyone who's tried to keep them out of bird feeders knows that. Come on down, Squirrel and tell me your name and have a nut to eat. We won't hurt you." She held a shelled peanut in the palm of her hand and held it up.
The squirrel chittered and came down the tree trunk head first. It took the peanut from her hand and munched greedily. It swallowed and chattered again.
"That's all I have for today, Bushy. We'll see you again. Good-bye."
As they walked slowly on she said, "Most squirrels think of themselves as something like 'bushy tail' as a name, although many of them are more specific. That one wasn't so I called him Bushy, since that's what he said." She took Juan's hand again and smiled at him.
"This is the most fun I've had learning something new in a while," he remarked.
"Are you learning something about me?"
"Something in the back of my mind is ringing a little bell. I recognize the process but it isn't very far along yet."
"That's how you think?"
"Sort of. I'll have... oh, call it a hunch for want of a better word, about something and even when I'm not thinking about it my mind will be turning it over and over in the background while my regular thinking continues. It's about as hard to explain as talking to animals appears to be for you."
"Hmmm. I wonder if the processes are related."
He stopped at her words. She walked a couple of steps before her stretched out arm with her hand locked to his halted her. His brow wrinkled. He shrugged then urged her on. "Maybe. You have the damnedest way of thinking, Sammie. It's intriguing, aside from anything else."
The path widened into one used for walking and a woman came along leading a small Chihuahua on a leash. It immediately began a shrill yipping.
Samantha laughed. "Hi Chihuahua. Oh, don't you think you're a big dog!"
"He really does," the woman said, laughing. I'm surprised he stopped barking so soon.
"He's a good dog, aren't you, huh?" Samantha rubbed his head and they walked on.
"Do small dogs really think they're big?"
"Some do. Chihuahuas, in particular for some reason. Now Shufus knows he's big, huh boy?"
Shufus nodded his head and gave a small woof.
Samantha talked to a rabbit, another squirrel, another dog and an opossum before they completed the circuit and were back at Juan's car. "There was a fox along the way but it had just caught a little rabbit and didn't want to come out just then."
"That was extremely interesting and enlightening, Sammie. I really do think I'll be able to get an idea of how you do it, eventually. I need to read over Lynn's notes, though, with your permission."
"I've already told her she can show them to anyone that's studying me. It makes me feel kind of silly being studied though, if you want to know the truth."
"Get used to it. We've got a long way to go. According to that circle that's turning red, much less than two years now."
"That would make me almost eighteen, wouldn't it?"
"Sure would, unless I've forgotten my grade school math. Actually, I already knew it by grade school though."
"So did I. I was already reading when I was three or four. Somewhere around then or so Mom says. It seems like I've been reading all my life."
"Same here. We have a lot in common."
She hardly heard him. The thought of turning eighteen and being legally grown had caused her thought processes to veer off in another direction. She intended to keep it to herself for now, though.
Chapter Thirty Nine
For the next several months Samantha felt as if she were playing a game of musical chairs. First one scientist wanted her for something then another did. Many times they were vying with each other over who got her next. Lynn generally had first priority because without her analytical reports they would have been working in the dark. Jane thought physical factors might be involved in her talent and that supported her contention that she needed to measure Samantha's reaction speeds, sight and other factors of her physical body. Some of it Samantha found was merely repetition of what Lynn had already done. Juan also had priority since Samantha was one of his projects and in fact, his main one, and had been for a couple of years. He was insistent that not much progress would be made where everyone was working by themselves in their own area of specialization. She supported him in this because she agreed with him. Nevertheless, many analytical procedures had to be performed before anyone could really get down to the basics of her talent, if they could at all.
Lynn was zeroing in on her synapses in the left hemisphere of her brain where language was dominant. She had gained access to a new device that required travel to the university. She chose to go with Juan but Gene insisted on traveling in a chase car. He wasn't at all satisfied with her security and had said so on several occasions. The problem, Anton told him, was that bringing in so many specialists, buying or contracting for advanced instruments and providing financial support to everyone had eaten up his funding for the rest of the year. Gene had to be satisfied with special permits which allowed everyone to carry hand guns, including Samantha. She chose the S&W .40 caliber. It was just suited to her hand. Gene insisted that she take time to practice despite her demanding schedule. Remembering the horror of the last day at the Sanctuary, she made time each week for an hour at the gun range. Juan, who had been a novice with weapons until then, always accompanied her with his own Glock automatic.
The procedures at the university took most of the day. It involved number of injections of florescent dyes and radioactive tracers before and after the scans, looking for both the number of synapses per cubic micrometer and the activity of proteins known to be active in transferring electrical pulses between dendrites and axons of the synapses. After those tests were complete a molecular neuroscientist and his wife, a neurologist, were brought in to interpret the workings of her nervous system, specifically the molecular biology, molecular genetics, protein
chemistry, and related methodologies of that profession, also using experimental instruments that he and his wife had built together.
"Lord, I'll be glad when all this testing is finished," Samantha said on the way home that day. It was already after dark.
"We're getting there, I believe," Juan assured her. "However, I think you can expect to be tested occasionally right up until the alien returns, if it does."
"Maybe we'll have a breakthrough and discover how I got my talent and maybe even how to teach it to others."
He shook his head. "If and when that discovery, or breakthrough if you prefer that term occurs, I have my doubts about you being able to teach it to very many others."
"Do you have a reason for saying that?"
"Yes. You're too far removed from the norm for girls your age. As Lynn keeps saying, you're not normal. You're too mature and too intelligent and possess too many other positive abnormalities that hardly anyone else does, teenager or not. I'm beginning to believe your talent is dependent on one of those factors or more likely, many of them. That's the little bell in my mind I told you about that's been trying to ring. I believe it just did." He grinned affectionately at her.
"Maybe I could teach you, Juan. You're not normal either."
"True, I'm not normal, but I'm abnormal in a different way than you."
Samantha didn't answer. Her mind had suddenly become very active. She was comparing Juan to the guy she had met at Palomar. She had accepted an invitation to attend a party with him. It didn't go well. He talked incessantly about himself and what a tough course of study he was taking.
"I'm into engineering math right now. We're doing matrix algebra right now. Damn, that's a bitch."
Samantha frowned. "It's not much more than manipulating a lot of numbers in a grid. What's hard about it?"
"You just don't know."
"I don't? I studied engineering algebra on my own when I was fourteen. It was a cinch."
He paid less attention to her at the party after that. He drank too much and she refused to ride with him when she told him she needed to go.
"You're so smart, find your own damn way home," he slurred.
She immediately called Gene, who had followed them to the rented home. Her drunk date followed her outside and attempted to challenge Gene. He wound up with his face in the dirt and immediately vomited.
On the way back, Gene commented, "I take it your date didn't go well?"
"That's putting it mildly. Gene, do you know what makes guys talk so incessantly about themselves?"
"Mostly they're trying to impress a girl or woman and think that's the way to do it. Sometimes they just don't know much else. Sad, huh?"
"Yes."
Twice more she had gone out with college students. One of the guys she thought had possibilities at first but he apparently thought a date automatically meant sex. He didn't even say good night when he dropped her off early.
She hadn't gone out after that. For a while she wondered if it was her setting standards too high but she decided that lowering her standards meant lowering herself and she refused to do that.
***
Both Samantha and Juan were kept busy reading and studying the encyclopedic variations of all the procedures and integrating them into a cohesive whole. Or trying to. It was proving well-nigh impossible until Liadra Asha, their computer sciences expert managed to sort the majority of it into a summary that nevertheless comprised pages and pages of data that required more study to understand completely.
Samantha was nearing her sixteenth birthday when she rebelled. She was at the weekly meeting of the inner circle, the ones with access and knowledge of the alien videos.
"This is becoming kind of ridiculous," she said mildly. "We've been at this for almost six months and I really can't see that much progress has been made toward understanding my talent. Not only that, so much of my time is being taken up that I can't study the subjects I want to or need to and most importantly, I can't practice my talent the way I want to. I believe that is a necessity. It's like any other second language: if you don't use it you begin forgetting some of it."
"What do you suggest?" Elaine asked. She was beginning to feel protective as she had noticed the increasing strain her daughter was under.
"I'm not suggesting anything, Mom. I'm just going to take some time off to do what I want to for a change. Can anyone really blame me?"
From across the room she saw Juan wink at her. She already knew he would support her because they had talked about it for a few minutes the day before.
"But, Sammie, we now have only a year or so before the alien arrives. We have to be ready by then," Anton said from his dominant position behind his desk.
"We're never going to get ready this way," she said. "I'm leaving. Juan and I are going for a walk in the woods and I'm going to talk to some of my animal friends. After that I'm going to relax and do what I want to for a few weeks. Mom, Dad, is that alright with you?"
"I believe she's right," Elaine said. "I certainly have no objections."
"I don't either," Ronald agreed. He had stopped worrying that there might be some sort of romantic interest between her and Juan.
"Good. Come on, Juan, Shufus, let's go."
Outside, she blew out a big breath of air and grinned at him. "Did I come on too heavy, Juan?"
"Not at all. Everyone had that coming, Sammie. The whole study of your talent was slipping out of control. That's what happens when there get to be too many fingers in the pie."
"Like too many cooks spoil the broth?"
"Uh huh. Now I've got a suggestion. Let's you and I gather up all the data on you, then find us a nice quiet place to relax and go over them at our leisure. But for a half day only and the weekends off. For the rest of each day and the weekend, take walks, talk to your animals friends, go have pizza, do some studying of the courses you're taking and in general, do whatever suits you. If you want me to tag along with you during any of your leisure time, I'm available. How does that sound?"
"Wonderful, and of course you're included. After that last date I could certainly use some pleasant company! Where's the quiet place you mentioned?"
"My apartment if your parents don't object."
"Why should they?"
"No reason, really. Just an idle thought."
"Okay, but we're going to take the summaries of the tests done on you, too."
"Any reason why?"
She shrugged. "Comparing them might tell us something."
Juan frowned momentarily then relaxed. Brain scans, EECGs, and other of the same studies that had been done on her had also included him. Lynn had told both of them she wanted Juan as a high intelligence control to go with the numerous normal controls of average and somewhat above average subjects she already had records for. Samantha thought there might possibly be more to it than that, even if Lynn didn't realize it herself.
***
Despite her vow to read and study at all the reports that had been generated about her, Samantha hadn't managed the feat. She read them all but that was a far cry from understanding many of them. A large portion of the studies had required hard study to thoroughly understand, and despite her exceedingly high intelligence she simply hadn't had adequate time to accomplish that for all of them. The best she could manage for the present had been a superficial comprehension.
She had the freedom to get deeper into those she hadn't had enough time for now and a superlative tutor to help her through the rough spots. Juan had mastered the essence of almost all the studies. Her intentions didn't include more than several hours of study a day, though, and that was usually done in the evenings before going to sleep. She wanted to have fun and explore some of the places in the area she hadn't been to yet; the zoo for one and pet shops for another. She needed to practice her talent and talk to a more varied group of animals, if possible. That was something she had been promised but hadn't been delivered.
At one pet shop she purchased an African Grey Parrot,
often claimed to be the most intelligent of all avian species. She and Juan had both commented on the vague resemblance of the alien in the videos to a species of bird. She wanted to refresh her understanding of the basics of avian language even though different species communicated with her in a wider variety of ways than mammals. She knew this particular species of bird could also learn many words itself. The African Grey was friendly and interacted well with humans.
She took it home and in only one day taught it to ask to go outside to eliminate its wastes and to remain outside its cage but not fly away. It spent a lot of its time thereafter riding on her shoulder and talking to her and Juan or alternately, riding contentedly along on Shufus' back. It didn't take long after the purchase to revive her fluency with the avian way of speaking and to catch up on how they spoke to her. It was similar in some aspects to that of mammals but different in that birds lived in a three dimensional environment while other animals, with the exception of bats, lived in only two.
One late morning on a rainy day on the final week she had decided to absent herself from the stultifying studies of her talent, Samantha headed to Juan's apartment. She dressed casually in dark slacks and a simple cream-colored pullover blouse. As usual, she wore a minimum of makeup, all of it suggested at one time or another by her mother. She was pretty enough, her told her, that an excess of makeup would distract from her good looks rather than enhance them.
Once at Juan's apartment and with the inevitable cup of coffee in hand, she was ruminating on how birds communicated. "I'd like to talk to a bat sometime just to see how they would speak to me," she remarked to him. It was a more than a week after buying the parrot, who had been tagged with the name of Sheik for an unknown reason. She saw no real reason to change it.
"I'd like to learn to talk to any of them," he replied. "I still have that little nudging in my mind that tells me I'm missing something that matters."
