Mindkeeper - two excerpts

Biology altered by the light from the red dwarf sun, the colonists from Gliese 581g or Zarmina nevertheless return to Earth on a mission of diplomacy.

-

 

Aaron Wayside

 

Noel Ogden is a liar. All Earthlings are liars.

The suction of Hope's mind separating from mine has long since become routine and always occurs with easy transition like the joining and separating of two puzzle pieces. While the thoughts from the volt still remain, we have become so comfortable with the bridge that sometimes I do not know which brain a single thought has originated from. For example, "Noel Ogden is a liar" is a truth that has been passed through the volt from Bart, the Teacher, then finally to Hope who shared it with me. When I recall this thought, I can hear each of their mind-echoes distinct.

Because of the general consensus of its validity, I am now comfortable classifying “Noel Ogden is a liar" as a common truth.

The Zarmina Peace Delegation’s arrival to Earth, the cradle of life, has provided an excess of new experiences for our Gliesian minds: a blinding, yellow sun, green plants that grow under the blue sky, and the blatant presence of wholly unnecessary technology at ever turn. Hope’s recent dance with the Earthling Lieutenant Nathan Ogden has provided yet another new experience. After sharing Hope’s memory of this interaction through our volt, I can only say that the experience was as unexpected as it was disturbing.

It’s the touch. Hands placed into other human hands, skin connecting to skin only there is no volt with Earthlings.

Like picking up a leather jacket, it is familiar and smooth but not identifiably human. The only humans on Zarmina that don’t volt are the very young, the very sick or the dead. I have never touched a dead body, but I have volted the experience with Teacher--a memory that had in turn been passed to her from anothe--and the feeling is terrifying. Where normally you could touch a fellow human, volt, and expand your mindscape to join with another’s, instead there is nothing. Like the ground dropping out from under you, fumbling in the dark. It is like approaching someone on the street to ask for help and discovering that person replaced by a mannequin like some sort of cruel magician’s trick. For how can these Earth people speak intelligible words or act on its own without the shared knowledge of others? How can they survive in the island of their own consciousness? What is to stop any Earthling from believing that all other human-shaped figures are images in a dream and that they alone are the only dreamer? There is no way to prove that anyone else exists on the same plane and is not a mere meaty replica that’s learned how to walk and talk. This is what being on Earth is like for a Gliesian, like walking through the underworld.

Unpleasant as it is, Hope and I follow the path that Noel Ogden the Liar makes for us through the United Earth Nations Headquarters. Keeping pace with her is easy because the atmosphere on this planet is so thin and my body is used to twice the gravitational pull. I marvel at the ease at which I can swing my feet and how far I can lift myself off the ground with a single step. I wonder if Alcohol is something that Earthlings are not able to handle well because of the poor supply of oxygen in the air.

Noel Ogden's brother, Nathan Ogden, and the Earth diplomat, Brion Ross, follow her out of the hallway to the elevator. I am conscious of the small space--on Zarmina, the stairways would never have been built to be so cramped as it was too easy too accidentally volt with a stranger. The Earthlings in complete disregard however pile in.

When Hope and I don't immediately follow, Nathan Ogden stretches out a hand over the door. "All aboard?" He addresses Hope when he should be asking both of us.

"I know we have our differences," Noel Ogden says. Everything about her is heavy, her clunking feet when she walks, the soft flesh of her face, her eyes, even the words that drop out of her mouth. Her voice is always in the same gruff, unyielding tone, as though she must fight with her own tongue to produce words. "But I need your help if both our planets are going to be able to come to a resolution."

"What are you going to do?" Hope asks, lingering before the edge of the elevator.

"Stand clear of the elevator doors! Thank you!" an electronic voice booms from the lift.

"Jesus." Nathan smacks the contraption. "Hold on for one damn second."

Noel Ogden’s gaze grasps at my own. "I am going to reveal to you why I was asked by the Chairman to join the Argo’s voyage to Zarmina."

I turn to Hope and find she is already facing me. She takes my hand, and we volt. The transition like water bursting in our brains.

We think that this is a mistake.

There is no way that Noel Ogden will tell the truth. Noel Ogden is a liar, she is probably lying to us now.

But remember. The draft and sticky residue left on the walls of our empty food containers. The beds stacked side by side in the clinics so close the nurses can hardly walk between them. The hundreds suffering from the most rudimentary of infections simply because Zarmina’s equipment is not able to replicate the medical supplies fast enough. We remember the water rations because of the break down of one too many Earth-made high-volume filters.  Zarmina needs new trade contracts, legal binding ones that will leave no Earth lawyer the wiggle room to shorthand us. The only constant in these negotiations is that Zarmina needs Earth or else the human race’s first interstellar colony will not survive.

The decision made, we decide to separate from the volt and enter the elevator.

We reach main lobby of the United Earth Nations Headquarters, the main entrance amplifies everything conceited and grandiose about the Earthling life. Great columns stone ribbed with gold, hard polished stone floors and ceiling, every surface is shiny, and heaps of flowers pour their cloying scent into the air, too colorful even under the muted yellow lights. Our shoes slam into that pristine floor and the sound bounces back on us as our pace quickens when the front entrance coming into view.

"Where are you staying?" Noel Ogden asks us.

"The Ritz on 3rd," Brion the diplomat responds before Hope or I.

We fly passed the security check points, the security officers in blue uniforms-- the Earthlings favorite color. The front doors open as we approach and again another prerecorded voice sings: "Thank you for visiting! We hope you had a pleasant visit to the United Earth Nations..."

Nathan and his huge legs reach the street first and by throwing both giant arms into the street summons our transportation in a few seconds. We are then subjected to an argument between the two males Nathan and Brion because our party will have to take two vehicles. It is an unnecessary confrontation that results in Noel Ogden and Brion Ross in a cab together and Lieutenant Nathan Ogden taking the cab with Hope and I. Not that Hope or I want the behemoth in our cramped vehicle. With all the cosmetic advancements and genetic treatments of this age, why would any human allow themselves to grow so large? It’s a horrible inconvenience to oneself and everyone else.

As a further insult, Nathan Ogden opens the cab door ushering Hope inside then once she enters the man jumps into the middle seat. Stunned at this audacity I find myself standing on the sidewalk, waiting for him to get out back out. He doesn't.

"Ready to go?" Nathan asks and he stretches his mouth so his cheeks rise and expose his teeth to me.

In Earthling fashion, I perform a similar action back at him and tell myself that this is it a small matter and is not worth a confrontation when certainly there will be only too many opportunities for conflict to come. I sit, swinging shut the vehicle’s door which nudges me and the gargantuan Earthling closer together. Even crossing my arms over my chest does not create enough room for there to be space between us. I don’t think I’ve never felt so separated from Hope.

The giant, not at all concerned with the amount of space, relaxes back into his seat having giving the driver directions. “You know.” Nathan Ogden inclines toward me to speak and there is heat where his body presses against mine. The man is like a furnace. He points a long finger at the vehicle. “The doors are designed to close automatically.” 

Automatic doors, automatic sinks, cups that will not only keep a cup of coffee warm but will continuously stir the beverage for the drinker as well. I am surprised all Earthlings aren’t physically decrepit.

Twisting round in his seat, Nathan looks back to confirm his sister and Brion Ross have entered the vehicle behind us and then he raps his fist on the ceiling and cries, “Alright, step on it!”

The driver might not have heard or it might not have made a difference; it was impossible to tell. The moment the taxi pulled out of the United Earth Nations loading area, the floor of the vehicle shivers with a clunk as it attaches itself into the Gear-Lock road system, hooked into the flow of traffic.

“Shouldn’t be too long,” Nathan hisses, “I splurged for the above ground Skyway. Only the best for Earth’s guests!”

“What is she going to say?” I would look at the Earthling when I speak to him if only there was more space.

The Earthling tries anyway to rotate his body around to see me, the blades of his shoulders barely missing my head. “How should I know?”

I wish Hope was next to me instead of this Earthling brute, we could volt our amazement of his tactlessness. “You must know.”

Nathan tilts his huge head towards me so I can see the fine blond whiskers around his face. “What makes you say that?”

“You volted.”

Nathan twists, and I must crouch forward to see Hope squished against the opposite side of the taxi.

“Ah, now I’m not the expert,” Nathan says, scooting forward in his seat so I have to lean even farther forward to see Hope, “But I’m pretty sure my sister, the good doctor, disproved the Terran-Gliesian volt possibility at the welcome ceremony.” As if he needed to demonstrate, he claps his two palms together. “Doesn’t work.”

 Hope’s face scrunched against the unpleasantness of our ride like mine, she adds, “Not in strict Gliesian terms, no. But on the balcony, you and Noel Ogden shared a nonverbal thought. You knew she wanted to speak to our delegation tonight without her having to say it. Wouldn’t you call that the Terran version of volting?” 

Naturally, Hope and I had come to the same conclusion.

Nathan leaned back against the seat of the vehicle, lifting his shoulders up and down in a gesture that must have meant something but not to a Gliesian. Why did Earthlings have to move so much? “Damn, I never thought about it like that. I guess I’d say that because we’re siblings, we’ve been together for so long that it’s like Stockholm, you know. Now I can guess what she’s thinking but Noles’ always been better with words.  I’ll let her do her own talking.”

His reply does not contain the answer to Hope’s question, only more unnecessary information that we did not ask for. I look to Hope, she meets my eye, and I know we are of the same mind. For the moment, I must take what comfort I can in that truth for a moment later Hope points her attention out the window, relinquishing any future inquiries until later. I follow her lead and our vehicle is silent for the rest of the ride.

-

Noel Ogden

Waking to sharp pains of my food spike knocking against the sub-dermis anchor is only as unpleasant as it is every morning. Even more so when it is accompanied by a loud, relentless knock on my door. There is a hard sharp pinch, like a joint twisted too far the wrong way, where the spike is anchored to my arm. I must have been moving too much in my sleep. I should adjust the calcium levels.

Luckily, the rapping on the door does not stop.

Unsticking my face from the pillow, choking on the hair in my mouth, I roll over. Who the hell knocks on a door this early in the--

I spot the clock. It was 3pm.

Damn, food spike.

“W-wait!” I choke, wiping the hair from my mouth and the grime from my eyes. I claw my way out of the blankets.

The foodspike is still in my arm. I must have set the time wrong the night before. It should have been washing my system with nutrients as well as potassium and chemicals to promote sleep for six hours only before switching to a flow of saline in order to gently wake me up; a process to prep my body for DeepSleep hibernation in space during the drops on the way to Zarmina. If a wake up time is not set, the machine is supposed to default to six hours of nutrients and two hours of saline after you start the drip. I must have entered the wrong time before I crashed last night.  

“Hold on--” I curse back at the door, which is still knocking viciously against its frame--bam-bam-ba-bam! There’s only one cretin in all of SpaceTime that could possibly be so obnoxious.

“Stop the drip,” I tell the machine, which acts and looks like an oversized ChemBox, shiny with brushed silver; the side closest to the bed is taken up by a display that is too bright and too colorful for any person whose just woken from a DeepSleep cycle, a crude design flaw I keep meaning to report to the manufacturer.

“Good Afternoon, Ms. Ogden! You are awake! You have twenty-two hours and sixteen minutes left of--”

“Twenty-two hours?” How long had the machine been set for? “Stop the drip! I’m getting up,” I snap at the machine.  

The circle that represents the AI spins, then the voice chirps in reply, “OK, I understand you want to stop the drip. However, I do not advise stopping the drip without at least a ten minute CoolDown. Please--”

I stand and rubbing my eyes and scanning the mess of my room for my robe. “Do you want to answer the door?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that. Interrupting the drip can cause nausea, headaches, dry mouth, constipation--”

I flip the manual switch on the anchor and twist the foodspike until I feel it click, then extract the flexible needle from my skin. It still has liquid, dripping out the end of it when I throw it down on the bed and tell the machine, “I was trying to be nice.”

I wipe the excess yellowish DeepSleep liquid from my arm, shake out my hair and grab a shirt from the floor. I’m wearing a cami and boxers already but more clothing between my brother and I certainly couldn’t hurt.

Bam-bam-bam-

“Jesus Christ!” I trip over the MarsLand takeout food containers and grab the door handle to keep myself from falling. Before I turn it, I breathe and throw back my hair one more time.

As I expected, Nathan and his stupidness is my visitor. I just didn’t expect he would bring guests, Gliesian guests, His and Her Excellency’s.

“Good afternoon!” Nathan cries. Full spirits, he opens his arms wide to showoff his warm weather outfit, shorts, collared shirt with short sleeves, all in pale pastel colors. I have a strong feeling that outside of his SpaceCorps uniform, Nathan does not know how to dress himself. It pains me to see that the two Gliesians next to him are dressed in long sleeves and trousers, all neutral dyes of muted shades of brown and red. “DeepSleep machine won again, did it?”

I want to punch him, but I don’t think my arm could muster enough velocity. “Did I miss the ship?”

Nathan laughs pityingly “Oh, dear baby sister--”

“I’m older than you,” I say with my cheek crushed against the doorframe. “By like, many months.”

“You know the Argo wouldn’t leave without you!” Impossible cheery, Nathan says. “How would we… talk about our feelings--or whatever else you do--without you?”

“Hmhf,” is my answer as I unpeel my face from the doorframe, touching the impression on my skin. “Wishful thinking.”

“Do you wish the Argo would leave without you?” Ambassador Hope Bae-Rook says in her voice unaccented by intention.

“No.” I have to shake my head to gain some sort of composure, hard to do while standing in your underwear. “No, I’m sorry. Earth-humor. I am groggy from the DeepSleep Chem.”

“A joke,” Ambassador Aaron Wayside adds, “Is tragedy plus distance. Do you believe one night is enough distance to be drawing amusement of the tensions of yesterday?”

“No, which is why I apologized. Look,” I wave my arms, “Please, I don’t listen to anything I’m saying right now. Why are you here?”

Wayside’s brow wrinkles under the caramel-color of his flat hair. “If we don’t listen to you, why should we answer?”

“Ha!” Nathan points one of his meaty fingers at Wayside. “We got a mouth on this one!”

“Please, I’m a little at a disadvantage. Seeing as I just woke and am wearing,” I look down, “A Magic Pony shirt.” My mood drops one degree further as I am fairly certain this is Brion’s shirt.

“Come on, Noles. It is Saturday, the sun is shining, and the Central Park Dome is only five blocks away from your apartment…”

My expression holds. “No.”

“But I brought a ball!” I hadn’t noticed until this moment, under Nathan’s arm was a bright pink soccer ball. The color is offensive to me.

“I would but according to my DeepSleep machine AI, I am at risk of exploding from both ends if I participate in too much physical activity,” I explain.

Nathan pouts, and since he does not immediately crack up at this joke, the Gliesians do not understand the hyperbole.

“We should go,” Hope says, eyes wide. “Leave Noel Ogden to recover.”

Nathan waves a hand at the Gliesian. “Oh no, she’s joking again. Noles.” Nathan takes a stance in the hallway before my door. “Noles, you are going to be on a spaceship for near a year starting Monday, you aren’t going to feel our native sun for at least three, trust me. Even if you don’t want to now, you’ll wish you had.”

In truth, I don’t. I don’t want to do anything except drink a gallon of water right now, and eat a steak. The sun, yes, that I would miss but red meat? I didn’t know if I would be able to survive if I didn’t have biscuits and gravy just one last time. Or bacon.  For the next year, three quarters of my diet would enter my body via the DeepSleep tube in my arm. And that was sad enough. Damn the sun.

Nathan sees the resolve in my face, for he groans, “If you don’t care about our native land, you should at the very least care about cultivating the Earth-Zarmina relations that you are squashing by giving up this opportunity to tour these delightful visitors around our planet.”

Delightful? The faces of the two Gliesians were equally waxy as though they too had just been dragged out of bed by Nathan. More and more this seemed like an activity that Nathan had orchestrated for his own amusement and less for the concern of his fellow soon-to-be shipmates. Still, I couldn’t deny his logic. There would still be an opportunity to buy one last carnivorous, Earth-side meal before tomorrow’s launch. Besides, if Nathan hadn’t forced me awake, I would still be hooked into the DeepSleep machine for another twenty-two hours.

“I need to put clothes on,” I say.

A grin bursts onto Nathan’s face, transforming it into the exuberant monster I had been hoping to avoid. “You know, Zantac Orange will clear up your symptoms from the DeepSleep.”

“I know the ChemBox spectrum,” I snap and grab the door handle. “I think I’ll hydrate the old fashion way. With water.” I pause before shutting the door and look to the Gliesian diplomats one and two. “I would invite you in, but I’m afraid my house it is a little inhospitable at the moment.”

“Is that a slight at the extreme weather conditions on our planet?” Ambassador Bae-Rook says, eyes directed at me.

I am frozen with the door in my hands. “No, not at all. My apartment is just a mess.”

“This,” Her Excellency says with a turn to Nathan, “Is me joking with you.”

I swallow. “Ah, good one.”

Nathan claps the palms of his hands politely. “Excellent gusto, my friend.”

Author's Note

This is an excerpt of the science fiction novel, Mindkeeper, yet to be completed. It is my first so feedback is encouraged (Fun fact: also my first attempt at present tense). Thank you!