Kharmic Rebound

by Yeager, Aaron

  “Dyson, what are you doing?”

  Gerald looked over his shoulder as he hung there. “I’m climbing this wall.”

  Bar-gheiis pumped his fist into his palm. “This isn’t a rock-climb, you oxygen-sucker. This is a high-jump.”

  “A what?”

  A ranking window appeared over Gerald’s head and set his points to zero.

  “Keendland, you’re next.”

  As Gerald dropped back down to the ground, Tomar ran up and leapt high into the air, clearing the wall and touching down on the far side. The rest of the class followed suit.

  “Look, coach, I feel no shame in explaining to you that humans can’t jump that high.”

  Cha’Rolette passed by. “If you can’t do it, then why are you here, plebeian?” Her ringlets unfolded and she levitated herself upwards over the wall.

  “I’m here because there are people who will starve if I’m not.”

  The last student, a boy named Aryc curled himself up into an armored ball and dropped down heavily, piercing the ground as if it were nothing more than water. A few moments later, he burst up out of the earth on the far side of the wall.

  “Hey coach, he didn’t jump the wall, how come you’re not yelling at him?”

  “I don’t yell, I motivate with volume and force of will.”

  “Noted. Same question, different words.”

  Bar-gheiis twitched his ears. “We sometimes make accommodations for students with extraordinary abilities.”

  “Well, I would appreciate it if you would afford me the same courtesy.”

  Bar-gheiis cracked his knuckles. “All right, Dyson, show me how a human would do it.”

  Gerald stood up and dusted himself off. All eyes were on him. Clearing his throat, he walked around the side of the wall to join the others and held up his hands. “Taa Daa!”

  “Oh come on!”

  This is an outrage!

  “What? I’m on the other side, aren’t I?”

  Ilrica started laughing so hard she nearly doubled over. “This guy is hilarious!” she taunted. “We should keep him around just to be the class mascot or something.”

  Coach Bar-gheiis threw down his tablet. “That’s not the point, Dyson.”

  “That IS the point, coach. Measure me by things that are physically impossible for me to do and of course I’ll fail. Your tests are irredeemably biased! Why not dock me points for being unable to bend the flow of time while you are at it?”

  Everyone went quiet at his outburst.

  Gerald looked around. “Don’t tell me, some of you CAN bend time?”

  Ilrica raised her hand.

  “Ugh,” Gerald said, covering his face.

  “Look, these tests have nothing to do with muscle strength. All of this is just basic aether manipulation. Any race should be able to accomplish them.”

  “Well, you obviously didn’t keep humans in mind when you designed these minimums.”

  When Cha’Rolette cleared her throat, Coach Bar-gheiis snapped to attention. Coach, it makes no sense for the entire class to be held up by one student. The quality of our education is eroded by all this time wasted on the human.

  “The Duchess makes a good point,” Tomar added loyally. “If he physically cannot keep up, then no amount of instruction will change that. As they say, you can’t teach a Volm to breathe water.”

  “Okay, speaking of which, the rest of you get ready for the underwater pressure tests.”

  Bar-gheiis wrapped his massive fingers around Gerald and picked him up like a Ken doll. “Dyson, you’re coming with me to the director’s office.”

  “I think the Director probably has a lot more important things on his plate than dealing with me.”

  But the coach ignored him as he stomped off with the struggling human in his grip. There was a spark and a flash from under his arm.

  “Huh, that’s strange, my tablet broke.”

  * * *

  After yet another “motivational” session with Nathers, whose office was a tangle of cables as technicians looked for the problem with his office link, Gerald was ready for a nice late lunch. He found a couple of local fruits that smelled like a combination of asparagus and garlic, and tasted even worse.

  “Good afternoon siblings,” he greeted as he sat down at the table with a pair of his classmates. A furry little teddy bear-looking fellow named Tiboe and a blue-shelled crab with a single eyes poking out from his opened shell named S’Meskle. Both of them looked up at his ranking window and walked away without a word.

  “Good luck on the weapons tests tomorrow,” he called back. While he ate, he found himself watching the daily drama unfold in the center of the room, where Cha’Rolette and her minions entertained the line of young men that came to court her. There were about five regulars that tried every day, and about a dozen more that rotated in and out whenever they got up the nerve to try. Cha’Rolette basked in the adoration like a plant in sunlight.

  A tall and wiry grey-skinned boy named Cleylselle serenaded her with a beautiful Fievian opera. Next up was Ungliss, a floating cloud of orange and green energy that challenged her hand in a game of Trategim. They both linked into the machine and five thousand moves later she had bested him. It only took thirty seconds of real time.

  Finally Tomar walked up, looking even more confident than usual.

  And what have you brought for me today? she asked, tugging on a green ringlet. Gerald noticed that while she clearly had the ability to project her voice to only certain people, she almost universally preferred to broadcast it to everyone within range.

  “Today I have brought you only myself,” he said regally with a half-bow. “As heir to the Keendland conglomerate, I bring with me control of a company more wealthy than any ten planets combined. We control a full forty percent of all stardrive production in the Alliance. We employ a security force greater in strength and equipment than the Galactic army itself, and we have recently managed to gain the complete sovereignty for our head world of Ceventro. You were born a Duchess. Marry me and I will make you a Queen.”

  Cha’Rolette grinned smugly. Keendland is indeed a worthy opponent. You are easily the only real competition left to us in the western spiral. The union of our two families would be a powerhouse the likes of which has never been seen in the galaxy. I wonder, however, if such a union would benefit you far more than me?

  “What do you mean?”

  Keendland specializes in stardrive production, but not by choice. Your bio-foods division folded, the Migjtengale debacle stripped you of your hypergate monopoly in the core-worlds. Stardrives are all you have left at this point. Meanwhile Ssykes Industries has diversified. We dominate the bio-meds market, we have a stranglehold on Alliance funding for heavy weapons manufacture, and we’ve secured enough innotium mining rights to last us through the next millennium. As heiress to the Ssykes family, I need to choose a husband that will add value to the future of my company, not just his.

  Tomar turned away, looking even more dejected than usual. It was then that Cha’Rolette did something she never had before. She placed her delicate hand on his shoulder and stopped him. But it was very sweet, she smiled. I may yet change my mind.

  A glimmer of hope returned to his eyes and he nodded firmly. Walking off, he tucked his large ears behind his shoulders and sat down without looking to see who else was at the table with him.

  “She turned you down again, didn’t she?”

  Tomar jumped a little. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “You know, Trajey from class 2-B fancies you something fierce. She hasn’t taken her eyes off you for days.”

  “I can see that,” Tomar said, fighting the urge to look over his shoulder, knowing that Trajey’s doting eyes would be staring back at him.

  “I know it’s none of my business, but why not try courting a girl who actually likes you?”

  Tomar scratched his neck. “No, see you don’t understand anything. The Duchess she’s... well, she’s amazing. Usually a girl will be
smart, or wealthy, or beautiful, rarely will she be two. Cha’Rolette is that singular gem who possesses all three.”

  Gerald gulped down a bite of garlic-asparagus. “What about kindness?”

  Tomar flapped his ears in irritation. “You go out of your way to be kind to everyone, how well has that worked out for you?”

  “Touché.”

  Tomar tapped his finger. “Look, my birthright didn’t guarantee my seat here. It doesn’t work that way. I worked my lobes off for years to get here. I bested hundreds of thousands of other applicants to become the representative of Majara to this school. I am the best of my people, and I earned that title, so I won’t apologize for boasting of it.”

  “Why would you?”

  “Exactly. I’ve been studying and fighting since I was a podling. After coming this far, you think I’m going to suddenly give up and capitulate? Do you think my family sent me here to come back with anything less than the best woman to marry? No. Not even close. There’s no way I’m going to settle for second best.”

  Tomar sat back and traced his finger back and forth along the table. “She is the prize, I just have to figure out how to win her.”

  Gerald took a bite that was particularly foul and had to catch his breath. “So, do you always do what you are told?”

  “What do you talking about?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. Your accomplishments are impressive. Amazing even. So far in your life you have cleared every obstacle, met every goal. I just wonder if you are truly happy fulfilling goals that are not your own.”

  Tomar snickered. “You gonna preach to me now, little monk?”

  “A little, yes. I hope you don’t mind. But, consider this, have you ever stopped to ask yourself why so many people like yourself work sixty hours a week when they could easily survive on two credits a day?”

  “Maybe because they don’t define ‘survive’ so broadly.”

  “No, I’m being serious. On an affluent world like this you can have a safe place to live, good nutritious food, clean air and water, and access to a million lifetimes worth of entertainment and literature through a free connection to Central, and it would cost you less than two credits a day. So, I ask again, why do people work themselves to death when all their needs can be met so effortlessly?”

  “Because you are leaving out some pretty groggin’ important needs. If a man only earned fourteen credits a week he’d be considered a loser.”

  “Exactly. Because if he did, the women he is after wouldn’t take any interest in him. Conversely, why do women spend a fortune on clothes when they could easily get perfectly good clothes cheaply from a secondhand store?”

  Tomar didn’t answer.

  “Because if they did, the men they are after wouldn’t take any interest in them, either.”

  Tomar flapped his ears. “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “The truth is, I learned everything I need to know about your world the first day I was here.”

  Tomar laughed. “Boy, you are just too much. You’re just a truck stop hick, what could you possibly understand about our world?”

  Gerald blinked, wondering if Tomar had actually said the phrase ‘truck stop’ or some Taulirian equivalent that the device on his ear had translated as “truck-stop.’

  “Look, I’m not a truck-stop hick.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. Heck, I wish I was a truck stop hick. We didn’t even have a truck stop. I’m lower than a truck stop hick. All we had was the galaxy’s biggest ball of twine. And even that was a lie. The ball of twine on Metrion is actually much bigger.”

  Tomar shook his head. “How can you so easily dishonor your homeland like that? My father would kill me if I said anything bad about Majara to an outsider. I don’t see how you can you be so self-deprecating.”

  Gerald picked up another piece of fruit. “It is easy to be honest when you’re not trying to impress people.”

  “Impress?”

  “Yes, don’t you see that is everything in your world? That is the height, width, and depth of it.”

  Tomar breathed deeply and then sat back, his interest piqued. “Go on.”

  “Okay, look at this school. People everywhere say that they love learning, and they’d love to come here, but the reality is that anyone can get a free education from the best schools by sitting in unofficially at the classes and forgoing the credentials. But, how many people actually do that?”

  “Almost no one does.”

  “Precisely, because credentials impress people, credentials make you a more suitable mate; so people prioritize credentials over education, even though they claim otherwise.”

  Gerald tapped his fork onto the back of his neck. “Think about the connection you have to Central. With it, you have instant access to the history, art, and philosophy of a thousand worlds, but what do people use it for?”

  Tomar sat there in silence, unwilling to answer.

  “Your professors say they choose their careers for the love of learning and teaching, but listen to their conversations, what do they talk about?”

  Tomar looked away. “Office gossip.”

  “Indeed. When they get tenured, their output should go way up, instead it goes way down. Overall, they are basically deceiving themselves. They tell themselves they care about all these other things, but when push comes to shove, they always follow the priorities our genes use to control our actions. By their behavior they show it is ultimately more important to them that others see them doing things, than it is to actually do things, because impressing others is how you achieve a high-quality mate, and that is the only thing our biology really cares about.”

  A chair reformed itself and Cleylselle sat down, carrying a tray of jumping, cricket-like things. “Forgive me for eavesdropping, I was listening in, hoping Tomar would betray some fact that would help me win the Duchess before he could, but this is almost as interesting.”

  “Be my guest.”

  Cleylselle scooped up a bug and tossed it into his mouth. It gave off a little shriek as he bit into it. It reminded Gerald of the old black-and-white movie “The Fly” so much that he had to stop himself from laughing.

  “Now,” Cleylselle began. “It sounds to me like you are arguing that people can’t be altruistic. I would disagree, many of the wealthiest families are also the most passionately devoted to charity.”

  “I’ve been a monk for years, and I’ll tell you right now that most people who are passionately devoted to charities actually give them very little, and don’t seem to check up on how their money is spent. Did you know that most of the largest charities give less than two percent of their donations to the cause itself?”

  “I... I didn’t know that.”

  “Most people don’t. And they don’t realize that many charities only raise awareness for a cause. That means they buy a few ads and then pocket the rest. None of it goes to real research. No, those wealthy families just attend the public events to show off, because it only matters that other people be impressed by their devotion to charity. It doesn’t really matter to them if people get helped.”

  Cleylselle grew a little grim at this, his skin shifting to a darker shade of grey.

  “Now, please don’t take offense,” Gerald bade them. “It doesn’t make them cold or evil, it’s just the way they are programmed to behave.”

  Gerald directed them to look about the lunchroom with new eyes. In one corner Enass from Class 3-C expertly played the Zithero for a girl. Hundreds of hours spent just to acquire a skill to impress her.

  Off to one side, they watched Tausav present an expensive gift to the radiant Kzoyohaan. Not radiant like beautiful, but radiant like a Halloween glow stick. Tausav came from a less-affluent family and probably saved up for months just to buy it for her.

  At the table next to them, they saw Entayta furiously studying accounting, which he despised, because it will lead to a more lucrative career than what he really loved, which was graphic design.<
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  Rynvanour sat amongst her friends, deftly and meticulously applying makeup to make herself more appealing. Her friend Occonflen stared at her empty plate, practically starving herself just to make herself more attractive.

  In the corner, a pair of seniors raised their voices, fighting over a girl.

  Gerald leaned in close to Cleylselle and Tomar. “You are now seeing society for what it really is. A battleground of esteem. Trillions of people fighting tooth and nail to reproduce with the best mate possible. And why? Because that is what our genes have programmed us to do.”

  The two boys glanced at each other uneasily.

  “Now you both finally begin to see the truth.”

  “And what is the truth?”

  “That you are a slave. Born into a body of chains. A cage for your mind. We give them velvety names to soften the blow. We call them instincts, emotions, passions, but words do not change what they are. They are controls. Shackles to force you to behave the way you are designed to behave.”

  Cleylselle wiped a little sweat from his grey brow. “But, aren’t those instincts also survival tools? Don’t they benefit us?”

  “Perhaps they did in ages past. Resources were scarce, villages were small and isolated and mortality rates were high. In those days, it was a benefit to force everyone to breed as often and with as high a quality mate as possible. But times have changed. There are 180 quadrillion people in the galaxy now, and the instincts that once protected us from extinction are only a liability now. That is the core tenant of Soeck, to evolve past our instincts to the next level of existence and free ourselves from their control over us. To achieve Vashrya.”

  Tomar leaned in, his orange eyes focused. “So, how do we break out of it?”

  “Are you looking to join Soeckism or would you like the short version?”

  “Definitely the short version.”

  “Very well. Find something you want to do, and do it without praise, do it without fanfare. Do it and plan on never showing it off to anyone. Do it that way and it will be truly yours. You will be acting because you choose to, and not because your body compels you to.”