They anaesthetized him.
He dreamed that the doctors stimulated little people to grow from his legs. In his mind they looked like gnomes or Smurfs with their feet attached to his knees and calves. They couldn’t speak, but they waved their arms at each other and made little squeaking noises.
When he woke up he was strapped down tightly, unable to sit up or move any of limbs at all. He felt drunk. He had the sensation of moving and thinking in slow motion.
A sensor noted his open eyes and about ten minutes later a nurse came in to help him.
As she slowly untied his neck and arms, he was warned that he was financially responsible for any damage done to his surrogate body parts. “Your patron has insured these sites for $5,000 each. If anything happens to them, you alone will be liable.”
“How many of them are there?” he asked.
“Seven.”
“But, that adds up to $35,000. I’m only getting paid 6,000 bugs for growing them.”
“Then, if I were you, sweetie, I’d be careful of your legs.”
She showed him six spots on his legs which looked red and sore, as if massive boils were incubating under the surface. A seventh site was on the back of his neck.
He had to wait another forty-five minutes to be told that they were noses, seven noses all grown for the same patron who wanted options when she selected which she would actually replace her old one with.
He was released an hour later and billed $500 for hospital fees, half of which his medical agent was supposedly going to reimburse him for when he delivered the contract successfully. This left him with $5500.
Even though the additional proboscises hadn’t appeared yet, he imagined that he could smell everything around him. He wondered if, once they had fully materialized, he would be able to smell things from far away or in great detail the way a dog does.
The sites itched, but he didn’t dare scratch. He bought some salve, which the hospital had recommended and smeared them on the sites. They smelled of lemons.
Charlie didn’t go home; he went straight to the music store.
He bought two guitars, two amps, recording equipment, and an effects orb. That left him with enough money to pay his bills for two months.
Then he bought a stardust leather jacket and he was broke.
He stayed up all night practicing his chords and screaming incoherent lyrics. It was the happiest he had felt in years.
“I feel like a train crashing into a car,
Smashing into a bus,
Pounding into an airplane.
I feel like a rock thrown through a wall,
Into a stranger’s face,
And out the window on the other side.”
3
PRESENT DAY
Charlie went back to the white round room he had woken up in the day before. The bodies, the filth, all those many corpses wearing his face were all gone. He didn’t know who had cleaned them up. He took a moment to recall which of the beds had been his. There didn’t appear to be any indication of who woke up where, or who was generated where.
It was a plain white slab with very little decoration, just a few carved straight lines around the base. There were no pillows or blankets. They woke up lying on hard marble. There were no holes or openings, no visible wires or technology. The beds didn’t seem to be machines at all. And yet, they created people.
Up above, the domed ceiling was decorated with statues of the crew. He saw Aelfwyrd and Allambree. He now recognized Queen Gloryannana, Wu Gwei, Avraam, Umbra, Sally, the girl with the tail was Kalligeneia. There were three more crewmembers represented in white stone whom he hadn’t met yet. One of them looked like an alien with an elongated skull.
Charlie stood up on one of the slabs to get as high as he could and see if there were any details he had missed. The ultra-high tech room looked like it belonged in ancient Greece. There were no signs of technology, no cracks, no imperfections.
“How do you make people out of marble?” Charlie asked out loud.
A woman’s voice answered him from behind. Sally Brightly spoke stiffly and formally. “You don’t, Captain. The marble and the people are both made by the same outside force.”
Charlie turned around and faced the short woman. One drive gun hung from her waist, a second was slung over her shoulder. She didn’t look like she had changed her clothes or even slept since Charlie had last seen her shooting Mud Men.
“The Waydio signal,” Charlie answered, almost laughing.
“Affirmative.”
“It’s a bit of a funny name, don’t you think?”
She smirked. “Charlie’s a bit of a funny name, when you think about it.”
He climbed down from the marble slab a little less gracefully than he meant to. “Have we known each other a long time, Sally?”
“I’ve served under various Charlies for a couple of years now.”
“Are we friends?”
She looked a little uncomfortable with the question. “Sure, you always make sure that we’re friends. That’s something you’re good at. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with Charlie Daemon?”
“What have we been doing?” he asked.
“Sir?”
“You said you’ve served under me for a couple of years now. What have we been doing in all that time?”
She laughed out loud. “Charlie, you’ve been having the time of your life again and again and again. You want me to be honest?”
“Sure.”
“We’ve explored a few planets, but far fewer than we should have. You spend a lot of time writing songs, worrying about who you’re going to date each time you get over your ex, and then running in the same circles again and again. Honestly, I’m amazed you would even ask me. None of the other Charlies ever have.”
Charlie furrowed his brow. “Are you upset with me?”
“Permission to speak frankly?”
“Of course.”
“I’m upset with every Charlie Daemon I’ve met. You’re not President Daemon and I don’t see any reason to think you ever could be. You’re a good musician. I like your music, but you don’t know what you’re doing. If you had any – if you were smart, you’d let me train you for a while and then over time you could mature and grow into the role.”
Charlie’s eyes grew wide. He couldn’t believe this stranger was talking to him the way she was.
She continued. “Charlie, how old are you?”
“I was forty-three a few days ago. I’m not sure how meaningful that is anymore.”
“I was seventy-two before they recruited me for this mission. I spent years captaining a starship, back when the technology wasn’t so easy. I visited more than sixty worlds in my first life. What do you know about being a captain?”
It was strange to think of the beautiful young woman as a septuagenarian in disguise.
“I led the group which destroyed The Machine.”
She nodded sincerely. “You’re not a bad fighter. You’re a decent field commander who got lucky. And if the history I was taught when I was a little girl is true, you’re going to be a great man one day.”
“Have I been that terrible?” he asked.
“No. Maybe not. But I get the feeling you’re out in space trying to find the best idea for a song, not the secrets of the universe.”
“I think you underestimate the value of a good song.”
“Charlie, I like you. Everyone does. But what are we doing?”
He looked back up at the statues. Sally’s was there, in immortal ivory stone. The statues were all dressed in the white robes they were reborn wearing. She looked like a goddess worshipped by some Mediterranean cult. His was there too. The sculptor hadn’t added the third eye, but the likeness was good.
“Why do you think they chose me?” he asked.
Without hesitating she answered, “because of who you’ll become.”
“Do you think it was a mistake?”
“Possibly. I don’t think you were supposed t
o have three eyes, and I don’t think you were supposed to have forgotten all of the important experiences which made you the man you became on Earth.”
“Have the other iterations of myself ever told you about what I see when I open the third eye?”
She shrugged. “Colors that aren’t colors. Shapes that don’t make sense. Fourth, eleventh dimensions. I’m sorry, but you’ve never gotten anything useful out of it. It’s a… birth defect.”
“Like my memory?”
“Mmhmm.”
“And what about the disappearing notes?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think that’s a glitch? Do you think something that complicated and intricate could happen by accident?”
“I don’t know.”
“And how about a ship full of poets and movie stars instead of people like you? Do you think they accidentally recruited the people that they did?”
“Charlie, I just want to help. Believe it or not, I am your friend. I like you. I like spending time with you. But it’s time we all acted like adults.”
“You’re changing the subject. Why is it you assume everything which doesn’t immediately make sense is a mistake? I bet they gave me this eye intentionally. I bet they erased my later memories on purpose, and I bet they delete everyone’s notes according to plan.”
“But why, Charlie?”
“I just got here. You’ve been here for years. What are your conclusions?”
She didn’t answer.
The captain walked past her, out through the doors and into the Marble City. It was dark out. The stars were bright and unfamiliar. He didn’t see the green glow which had filled the sky that afternoon. Sally followed behind quietly as he walked up a beautiful series of steps to the edge of a pulsating fountain. The fountain was decorated with animal statues, possibly astrological symbols.
“Sally,” the captain turned to her. “I want to take the ship back to Earth. How do we do that?”
She shook her head. “Captain, it’s imposs - ”
They both stopped. There was movement in the bushes, something large. Sally took out her drive-gun and began to circle around. Charlie moved directly towards the shrubbery.
Some of the plants glowed at night with a beautiful bio-luminescence. They seemed to have been planted with full and careful arrangement of how the different colors would interact. The movement was behind a plant which glowed light-blue. Charlie reached out and pulled back one of the branches.
Inside he found a pair of Mud Men. One of them was sleeping. The other was pressed against the first and looked nervous. They did not look dangerous.
“I’ve got them,” Sally whispered and moved forward with her weapon.
Charlie turned, at first not understanding what she meant. He raised his arm just in time to stop her. She had to lift her weapon and fire into the air. Blue electricity exploded in the sky like fireworks.
The two aliens got up and ran for their lives.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I could have shot you.”
“You could shoot me now. Why were you going to fire on them?”
“Are you crazy? You know how dangerous they are?”
“Were, Sally. They were dangerous when Aelfwyrd boosted their aggression levels.”
“They’re not kittens. Those are dangerous alien animals.”
“So, you just want to shoot them all?” he asked.
“Charlie, I assumed we were going to put them down. You said you didn’t want to have slaves anymore and they’re obviously too dangerous to keep.”
“I thought David was crazy. We’ll take them back to their homeworld, put them back where we found them.”
“That’s,” she started to answer him angrily, but halfway through the sentence she realized he was right. “ - Not a bad idea.”
Charlie smiled. “I don’t know if those Charlies were really me or not. Maybe you can help me to be better at this than they were. But I’m the captain.”
They walked through the Marble City together for about another thirty minutes. She followed him as he explored. She had lived there for a while, but it was all new to him.
“You’re a tourist,” she teased.
He answered in a serious tone, “Where’s our gold mine? Is it nearby?”
“There’s more than one, but one of them is about a mile outside of the city.”
“Can you take me there?”
“Why?”
“I want to see what we did,” Charlie answered.
She turned her head sideways, exaggerating her confusion. “Are you really Charlie? Or are you just trying too hard?”
“No, I’m not trying too hard. And just this moment I’m going through the biggest existential crisis of my life, so maybe give me a few days before you ask if I’m really me.”
They didn’t speak as they walked the short distance to the edge of the city and then out into the fields. Sally had more than one flashlight and she gave the second to Charlie. He wasn’t sure that he really needed it. The bio-luminescent plants had been placed along the way out of the city and along the path they took.
The mine’s entrance was very different from every other structure Charlie had seen on the Shamballa. It was rough and sloppy. There was a small and basic wooden warehouse just outside, filled with various digging tools. Some of which were advanced, but most of them were nothing fancier than shovels and picks. There were six dining tables, a large tub of water and a small blue closet which it took Charlie a while to understand was a refrigerator from centuries after he was born.
The ceiling of the shaft itself was quite low and Charlie had to stoop to walk under it. Sally was just short enough, but had to keep an eye out for irregular jutting rocks.
“I was half-expecting to find dead bodies chained together,” Charlie admitted. “But it’s all so clean.”
“There are animals that come and pick up the trash.”
Charlie laughed.
“No, I’m serious. They’ve been genetically designed to pick up after us,” Sally insisted.
“Are there special bears and foxes which clean our rooms and help you get dressed in the morning too?”
Sally laughed. “No, it’s not quite at that level.” She added more seriously, “Or we wouldn’t have needed the Mud Men.”
They walked down the steep walkway for a few minutes and came to a wall of bright yellow gold. Charlie placed his hand on it. Gold dust came off on his fingers. Sally stepped forward and wrestled loose a small gray rock with a bit of gold on it.
“This is a fortune,” Charlie was awed.
“It’s fuel. And it’s not limitless. We need to mine all of this and then we’re going to need to find more.”
“You said there were other mines on the ship?” Charlie asked.
“Sure, but again, it’s not limitless. If it were up to me, I would want to mine everything I could off-ship first and save these for emergencies.”
Charlie nodded. “That’s wise. We’ll do that.”
“We will? Charlie, we just lost our work force?” Sally protested.
“No, we didn’t. There are twelve of us, and if we can’t do it alone, we’ll have to find another solution - A solution which doesn’t involve evolving alien slaves to do the work for us.”
Sally smiled. For a long hanging moment it seemed like she was going to say something, but she didn’t. They walked back to the city together in silence. About two blocks from their home, it began to lightly rain. Sally lifted her jacket up over her head, but Charlie just let the cool shower drip down on him. The water felt nice.
4
They had named the Primus system based only on the fact that it was the first system the UUS Shamballa had explored. It seemed likely that the ship and their crew had formed from frozen ice and rock molecules in a sparse asteroid belt between the twelfth and thirteenth planets of the system. The third planet in the system, Primus-3, was a “supe
r-Earth.” It was nearly twice as large as the home planet of the human race, and covered with water over 94% of the surface.
It was warm, the way that Earth was back in the Jurassic Era, and filled to the brim with life in a way which perhaps Earth had never been.
The Mud Men were gathered up and loaded onto the shuttle in groups of fifteen, which meant that they would have to take twenty trips back and forth to the surface in order to return all of the creatures. Charlie wanted to be on the mission. He was glad when Wu Gwei and Avraam both volunteered as well. Sally was piloting the shuttle and another woman, whom the captain hadn’t met yet, sat next to her in the front of the ship.
The ceiling in the shuttle was low, so Charlie had to stoop as he walked over to introduce himself. Sally was adjusting the controls, but she looked up, smiled, and waved when she saw him, and then got back to work on her computer. Since their talk the night before, Sally had been obedient and optimistic, a perfect soldier again. He got the feeling that she was going to give him a chance.
The other woman looked up nervously and then quickly looked away. Charlie smiled, until he got closer. She was bald, and her dark head was large and misshapen. Her eyes were huge and it looked like she had more than one pupil in each one. She closed her eyes and seemed to fade away into the shadows. She disappeared so completely and effortlessly that Charlie almost wondered if he had imagined her.
Charlie found himself turning back the other way and watching as Avraam walked in. He had changed some of his clothes and was wearing a pair of black cargo pants instead, but he had that same dingy blood-splattered T-shirt on over his corpulent belly. He still carried the same battle-pipe tucked under his arm.
“Are we going to be safe in the alien environment? Can we breathe down there?” Charlie asked him.
“Oh, sure. I’ve been down there before. Remember, your body is not your old body. We are gods now. You’ve been designed to survive in environments which the old flesh never could have withstood. You were like cotton. Now, you are rock!”
The Secrets of the Universe (Farther Than We Dreamed Book 1) Page 11
