Sentients in the Maze: Symbiont Wars Book II (Symbiont Wars Universe 2)

by Chogan Swan

  Jonah got up and rocked back and forth on his feet. “Okay, fine!” he said after a few agitated minutes. “It’s crazy, but I would never forgive myself for missing the chance… if it weren’t for forgetting it happened.” He took a calming breath. “Okay, I consent. So what’s next?”

  “For the first step, we need the rest of this water, a comfortable place for you to lie down while I examine you, and…” she pointed at the window shades, “complete privacy.”

  Jonah, walked around the room pulling all the shades closed. Then he shot the deadbolt lock on the front door and walked into the dining room. He drew the shades there then pulled out an elastomer mat from a cupboard and unrolled it over the Persian rug. “Will that work?”

  “That will be perfect.”

  “Okay,” Jonah said. “What do we do now?”

  “We take off our clothes.”

  “We do? I’ve never had a health worker get naked with me.”

  Tiana laughed. “You can close your eyes if you want.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jonah snorted. “And miss the bare-nekked alien hottie?”

  “I guess I will take that as a compliment then,” Tiana said as she reached behind her neck and unbuttoned her dress. “Oh, by the way, don’t be shocked by the tail.” She laughed as the warning registered and he froze in the middle of taking off his shirt. She slid the dress off her shoulders and past her hips. Her tail, free of the weight of the dress, waved at him.

  ~~~{Jonah}~~~

  Jonah’s mouth fell open.

  In the light from the candles and the lamp from the living room, her skin swirled and flowed glowing like embers. She turned, moving her body in a slow, elegant dance for his inspection. “As you can see,” she said with a grin, “our bodies are similar.”

  Jonah nodded.

  Her joints and bones, didn’t move the way a human’s would. The elbow joint allowed higher rotation of her forearm, like the human wrist joint. Her shoulders were bulky for her size, and she had high, pointed breasts that made Jonah’s… libido… stir with approval.

  Her mons pubis was more pronounced than a human woman’s. The downy hair that covered her skin was uniform—no extra growth on the mons, underarms or anywhere else. Her legs and feet were proportionally longer; the joint structure, different. She had an extra joint above her heel, or was it an extension of the foot? It looked like it added springing power. He bet she could slam-dunk a basketball with ease. Hell, looking at her leg muscles, she might hurdle the hoop. She looked like Hollywood’s idea of a dark elf with a broad nose, high cheekbones and small rounded ears instead of pointy.

  She unbuckled two kukri knife sheaths from her thighs and tossed them on top of her dress.

  “Legend of the Drow,” muttered Jonah, collecting himself enough to finish taking off his shirt and pants.

  “I’m not familiar with that legend,” Tiana said.

  “And it would embarrass me to explain it,” replied Jonah. “You may pick up lots of human guys, but you’re the first extra-terrestrial I’ve ever gotten out of her dress. I’m hoping you can cut me some slack; I think you’re enjoying startling me a bit more than necessary.”

  “Would you lie down now, sir.” Tiana drawled, giving Jonah a slow wink. “I’ll be gentle, and, for the record, you reversed who got whom undressed.”

  Jonah lay down with a sigh.

  Tiana crouched next to him and looked at his eyes. “This is a preliminary examination,” she said. “Your nose will tickle when I move sensory filaments through your nasal passages, but it won’t hurt.” She put her fingers on the sides of his head.

  Jonah felt hair-thin threads flow up his nose and settle high inside his head. He tensed at first; it was strange, like using a neti-pot for the first time, but not painful. Tiana’s tail touched different parts of his lower body. He felt filaments from there tingling in a response to simultaneous sensations inside his head as she moved inside him and out.

  “Please relax, hold still and focus on a point on the ceiling,” Tiana said. “I’m checking your vision now. . . . You have a slight astigmatism and are a little nearsighted. Your accommodation has slipped, so I imagine it’s getting hard to pick a splinter out of your finger without corrective lenses. So, that’s one item you might choose.

  “I’ll wait to hear what else is on the menu,” Jonah said. “I can always cough up the money for laser surgery to correct my vision.”

  Tiana smiled. “Ha!… medical advances competing with my services.”

  “We’ve been busy.”

  “Indeed,” Tiana said, sliding her hands down his neck and arms. When she came to two moles on his arm, she placed her fingers around them. “With your permission, I can give you a sample of my work by removing these.”

  Jonah nodded. A slight tickle, gentler than acupuncture, began on the skin under her fingers. The moles collapsed, shrank and faded, leaving only unblemished skin.

  He whistled. “You do nice work!”

  “We live to serve.”

  “I didn’t know that phrase had been around so long.”

  “Oh, yes, Edward Barnes in 1893, a popular hymn, not that we ever sang it at St. Paul’s.” Tiana ran her hands down his chest. “You trim your body hair quite close, I can also offer a quick depilatory if you wish. It will be temporary, but it won’t prickle when it comes back, and I can do it along with the examination.”

  “Sure,” Jonah said. “Just leave the eyebrows and what little head hair is left.”

  Tiana started by putting her fingers in his ears and moving them in a gentle sweep across his face, around his neck then down his body. Where she touched, the same prickling as when she had removed the moles swept across his skin. Wherever her hands passed, the hair simply disappeared. Her hands moved all over him, not neglecting one square inch. When she slid her hands off the end of his toes she said, “Would you turn over, please?”

  Jonah turned over, hiding the reaction that had started when she removed his pubic hair. She continued with his neck, sweeping under his arms then down the outside of his legs and up the inside. From there, she worked her way across the small of his back and down the crack between his cheeks to finish at the base of his testes.

  “You can sit up now, Jonah. It’s time to discuss your options. Don’t concern yourself with your state of arousal. If you hadn’t reacted to that stimulus it would only mean you were deficient in testosterone. And I assure you that’s not the case.”

  Jonah turned his head to see her grinning.

  “Good, though honestly, I suspect it mostly gets me into trouble.” He crossed his legs into a relaxed half-lotus and rested one hand on his knee, running the other over his legs, now hairless and smooth.

  Tiana mirrored his position, facing him. “Your physical training? From my examination, I’m guessing yoga and a climbing regimen?” She paused, raising an eyebrow.

  He nodded. “I work out at a local climbing gym, and I do yoga for flexibility and balance. It helps my climbing.”

  She smiled. “It’s given you a good base of flexibility and strength. Your diet is well regulated. Compared to the population I am familiar with, you are a man in his early forties, but you are, in fact, fifty-four years old. You have old injuries in your left ankle from when you sprained it in your late teens. Your right shoulder sustained a rotator-cuff tear in your early twenties that still hinders your mobility. You suffer from occasional back problems. Your ankle and back injuries are actually a connected pair, a system. The damage to your ankle, though it doesn’t cause localized pain, aggravates your back. Any questions or doubts about my diagnosis so far?”

  “No, everything you say is true or plausible from what I know,” Jonah said, shaking his head in wonder.

  “Very well then I suggest repairs to your injuries as item the first. This will include repair to connecting tissues, spinal disks and joints throughout your body. It will also halt the onset of arthritis in your fingers. Without these repairs, the opportunity to increase your muscle
efficiency—suggested item the second—would only make you injure yourself more and offset the benefits of added strength. Suggested item the third—enhancing your mental powers, is difficult to explain; human psychology did not have a standard system for measuring mental abilities in 1896. Are you familiar with the math of statistical measuring, Jonah?”

  “I am,” Jonah said with a smile.

  “I estimate that your intelligence would only be surpassed among your kind only by one half of one percent of the population. Does that sound about right to you?”

  “Yes, it confirms the results of the intelligence tests of today.”

  “I can give you a boost in your ability to calculate and remember with an enhanced facility to see connections. This would increase your ability to reason through logical problems.”

  “Would that include improving the connections between the right and left hemispheres? Or, a greater understanding of my subconscious mind?”

  Tiana considered. “I don’t know how much detail you want from those two questions, but the quick answers are yes to the first and with practice to the second.”

  “Okay,” Jonah said, “Let’s do a simple comparison with something we both know to get a closer read on IQ enhancement. Let’s say that on a reliable intelligence measuring test, the average human scores 100 at the center of a normal bell curve. My score is 150, which would be about three standard deviations above average and Leonhard Euler is 200 or higher. Where would your… boost put me? Rough guess.”

  “Somewhere around 180,” Tiana said. “Remember, wisdom does not come with that.”

  “Pity. Always needing, but seldom finding. You also mentioned reversing aging as a possibility. What about that?”

  “Your body would return to a mid—twenties state without changing your current physique then you would age at half the usual rate. You might reach a healthy 230 year lifespan if you don’t die from an accident or violence.”

  “Okay,” Jonah said. “Strength I can work on myself, especially with that much time, but raw intelligence won’t increase without help. My other concern is sickness. Some diseases might destroy all the benefits you offer; dementia or cancer for example. What can you do about those?”

  “Good questions,” Tiana said. “I’d deal with genetic problems as part of the repairs, so the repair on the arthritis in your fingers would insure it doesn’t return. I can’t guarantee you won’t contract an illness that’s not genetically based though.”

  “Okay, can you think of other options I should consider?”

  “No, I believe you’ve chosen well,” replied Tiana. “Do you need to make arrangements or cancel any appointments over the next six days?”

  “If you can give me thirty minutes, I can handle all that now. When were you planning on starting this… procedure?”

  “We can start when you are ready, but the procedures require specific materials for the repairs, which would mean making a few purchases.”

  “What kind of materials?”

  “Mostly food and minerals...,” She paused, a thoughtful expression on her face. “It would help if your consent to enhance your body were general so I needn’t stop and explain when I do something new. I can try to keep you informed, but it may not always be practical in the middle of a procedure. Is that agreeable to you?”

  Jonah nodded. “I understand. I have similar issues with my work.”

  “Thank you. Also, while I am waiting for you to arrange your schedule, I would love to examine your books,” she said, turning to his shelves. “Can you recommend a book to reintroduce me to the world?” She noticed in the reflecting glass that it took him a few fascinated seconds before he tore his attention away from her tail to walk to the shelf.

  Jonah cleared his throat and reached past her. “I suggest this introduction to computer science. It’s only two years old and the first part covers the basic history of the computer age, starting in 1900 with David Hilbert’s work. Are you familiar with him?”

  “Oh yes,” replied Tiana. “David and I had a lovely discussion about number theory. So much driving purpose to him… captivating.” She took the book from Jonah.

  Jonah made a low whistle. “I’m impressed. You traveled in classy circles.” He bent his head over a small glass-front case the size of a wallet, tapping on it with his thumbs. Light flickered from its glass.

  Tiana turned to the book and paged through it rapidly. A few minutes later she asked, “So is that a smart phone? Are you sending emails?”

  Jonah jerked his head up. “Good lord! You finished the book?”

  “Not yet. My memory is eidetic, so I can read without having it in front of me, but smart phones are on page eighty-seven.”

  “You, my dear, are scary. Yes, it’s a smart phone. I’d let you see it, but it’s not mine. It’s a company phone, and I signed a promise not to let anyone else have access. I’ve cleared my calendar for eight days; to be sure we have enough time.”

  “Thank you. Do you own any other computing devices yourself?”

  “I do… two computers. I’ll be glad to let you play with them, but I expect you’ll want your own soon—now that you are a computer scientist. Wait. You probably were a computer scientist already weren’t you? Did 200 years on earth take the edge off your skills?”

  “Not a computer scientist by most standards; your people might even surpass mine in that branch of math. We’ve always neglected number theory. Odd to think it’s because of how fascinated your mathematicians are with it that you’ve come so far in computer science.”

  Jonah chuckled. “This isn’t a polite question to ask a woman, but since you know my age, can you tell me how old you are?”

  “Hard to answer. Space travel is confusing. I didn’t bother to keep track.”

  “Ha! An easy out on that one.”

  “But it’s true. If I ever did try to calculate my age, it would certainly be more trouble than it’s worth, and what about hibernating years? If I told you the moment I was born using a galactic constant, you’d have a linear number, but that doesn’t cover everything. The math is complicated.”

  “Well, I can see how relativistic time effects might confuse things if you traveled near the speed of light.”

  Tiana froze. “What?”

  “You know. Local time slows? Energy equals mass times the constant of the velocity of light to the power of two?”

  “God, Jonah. Now you are scaring me. The computer science book might not have been the place to start.”

  “I told you, we’ve been busy. But, we can’t travel at relativistic speeds; we just have the math to calculate what would happen. Albert Einstein, look his name up when you get on the internet.”

  Tiana shook her head. “Any other bombs to drop on me?”

  “Uhm. Fermat’s last theorem solved in 1995, thanks to computer science. Oh! I should go back. Two world wars, both with Germany and their allies. Space flight, man on the moon in 1969. I watched on television, and—oh yeah, speaking of bombs—we ended the second world war by dropping two nuclear fission bombs on Japan in 1945. Now, with everybody knowing how to make nukes, people are too scared to repeat that horror. So far.”

  Tiana’s reaction to his casual narrative startled him. She wrapped her arms around her torso and rocked back and forth shivering. She murmured, “Death and radiation; blinding light; clouds of ash.” Her eyes went dim and bleak.

  Jonah’s reaction was instinctive. He wrapped his arms around her and held her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t think. When you live with the fears every day, year after year, even grow up with them…. If we didn’t treat them as something impossible, we would all go crazy. I’m sorry I dumped that on you.”

  “I understand,” Tiana said, still subdued. “We were the same way once, and then… when it was too late, we weren’t.”

  Jonah nodded, “I can imagine it was awful for your people, for you.”

  “Jonah? I’m not ready to work on the first stage. Can we wait? I need t
o rest. Would you mind if I stay here tonight?” She paused, “In your bed, with you? It wouldn’t be sexual.”

  “Of course,” Jonah said. “Again, I’m sorry.”

  “Yes,” Tiana said quietly. “I’m sorry too, for both of our peoples.”

  And, though she was as tall as he was, probably stronger and sure-as-hell smarter, Jonah picked her up in his arms, and carried her upstairs. He tucked her under the covers of his bed and crawled in next to her. Tiana put her head on his chest, and he put his arm around her, cradling her neck in the crook of his arm. Her tail wrapped around his leg. An hour later a sudden thought made his body jerk.

  I’m in bed with a bare-nekked alien hottie.

  As if she'd heard him. Tiana raised her head and looked him in the eyes. “Can I help you sleep?”

  Jonah nodded, “Sure, I guess.”

  She kissed him. Her tongue sliding between his lips was the last thing he remembered.

  Note: The original versions of the next chapters (3-5) include descriptions of physical interactions that are explicit and detailed.

  The uncut versions can be reached by clicking HERE

  When you finish the chapters, another link will bring you back to the next chapter. (Chapter 6)

  On the Hot Peppers scale, Chapters 3-5 (here) are still a about 3.5 out of 5 peppers, and the chapters in the appendix are @ 4.5 peppers

  Chapter 3 (Brave New World)

  Tiana released the compound into Jonah’s mouth that would put him into a deep sleep. He would need rest for tomorrow. She put her head back on his chest and listened to his heart beating slow and strong. He seemed to have a good heart. Somehow, he had sensed how to comfort her when shock had awakened the ancient horrors. The question was, would he be worth committing to?

  She reached up to his face where an age-spot dotted a high cheekbone and gently erased it. Her fingers drifted to his neck and the throb of his jugular; she sent her filaments into the bloodstream, drawing off a drop and analyzing the components. His cholesterol level needed adjusting. Tiana smiled, anticipating the taste, and decided to go ahead while he slept. It wasn’t taxing work, and she too needed energy for the upcoming repair work.