A Sky Without Zeppelins: Chapter Twenty-Five

[amberfocus]

                                                                       Chapter Twenty-Five

“Rose, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jonathon says as Martha goes to get the contract for Rose to sign.

“What? Signing the contract?” she asks in surprise.

“No. Getting out of bed this soon.”

“You'd keep me in bed forever if I let you," she says with a flirtatious smirk, but when he doesn't laugh she adds, "Dr. Milligan says it’s okay. Look, you can see that the other patients have been released.” She gestures to the window where they can see that the last of the Caligo victims are being ushered out of the infirmary and into the lifts. “I think you need to trust what the doctor says.”

“She’s awfully young.”

Rose rolls her eyes at him. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what she’s doing,” she replies. “And she’s not that much older than I am. Does that mean I’m too young, too?”

His attention is only half on her. “Too young for what?” he asks absently as his eyes track the young doctor across the infirmary where she is digging in a filing cabinet.

“Too young to be with you,” she says acerbically.

His eyes focus on her sharply. “No!” he says adamantly. “I just want to keep you safe, Rose.”

She tries to keep the irritation out of her voice. “I’ve been taking care of myself for the last six years. I’m perfectly capable, you know! You’re being awfully overprotective when you and I haven’t even been together that long,” she tells him.

“I can’t help it. When you’ve lost as much as I have in this life you do everything you can to hold onto what you have left. You are the one thing in this life that I cannot bear to lose.”

She softens at the earnestness in his voice and rises, walking over to the window to embrace him. “You’re not going to lose me,” she tells him. His fingers fist in the back of her shirt as he pulls her even closer. “But you’re not going to keep me from living my life, either. I’m not a porcelain doll. I won’t break.”

“You nearly did!”

“But I didn’t. Do I need to remind you that I saved your life and the lives of a lot of other people?” she asks.

“Nearly at the cost of your own,” he chokes out.

“But it wasn’t. I’m fine now. I saved the day and then you saved me. Sounds like a good partnership to me,” she says soothingly. “And that’s what we’re going to have to be, Jonathon. Partners. Or this won’t work.”

He nods against her shoulder. “I know that. Just promise me you’ll never almost die again.”

“I’ll do my best,” she tells him. “Believe me, I like this body. It’s not like I get another one if I screw this life up.” Jonathon’s body suddenly goes rigid against her. “What? What is it?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” he says sounding puzzled and confused. He shakes it off and strokes his hands up and down her back. “I like this body, too,” he informs her in a low, sensual voice. “Very much.”

The door to the infirmary opens and they jump apart as if they are doing something far more intimate than just hugging. Martha gives them an amused half smile and holds the contract and a pen out to Rose. Rose takes the papers to the bed and sits down on it, reading through them carefully before signing it.

She returns it to Martha when she’s done. Martha puts it in a vacuum tube and sends it down to the first floor for processing. “Welcome to Illuminate,” she tells Rose holding out her hand for a formal handshake. “Now, are you ready to see the aliens?”



“Mermaids?” asks Rose as they walk away from the creatures swimming behind the glass.

Martha shakes her head no. “They’re Nereidian. The mermaid legend comes from them, but they are most definitely not of this Earth.”

“What else is hidden away in here?” she asks curiously. Martha leads them down the corridor and around the corner. The entire wing is taken up with an indoor meadow.

“You’ll see.” Martha is grinning. Rose is gripping Jonathon’s hand tightly in her excitement. Martha sticks her fingers in her mouth and lets out a piercing whistle for such a tiny woman. The faint echo of hoof beats can be heard in the distance.

“Horses?” Jonathon asks at the same time that Rose guesses, “Unicorns?”

Martha shakes her head with a laugh. “Wait and see.”

The creatures that appear are smaller than horses; their lower bodies the size and appearance of Shetland ponies. Their upper bodies resemble a human child of about eight or nine years old. “Centaurs!” Jonathon says in amazement.

“Yes. That’s what we call them, too, since their real species name is unpronounceable to the human tongue.

Rose realizes she’s standing there with her mouth gaping open. She’d been kidding when she’d guessed unicorns, but these creatures, as well, were right out of myths and legends.

“Are they children?” she asks.

“Yes,” replies Martha. Their gallops come to a stop just shy of the young doctor.

“Hello, Ms. Martha,” the boy says politely. “Did you come to play with us?”

“I wanted you to meet some people,” Martha says, “but I promise I’ll be in later on to play.”

The curious children turn their eyes on Jonathon and Rose and Martha introduces them. “This is Hipparion,” Martha says indicating the little girl, “and Phillipos,” she says pointing to the boy.

“I’m Rose,” Rose says with a smile. “And this is Jonathon.”

“Hello,” says Jonathon with a small wave.

“Hello,” responds Phillipos with a shake and twist of his legs that sets his golden brown haunches dancing.

Hipparion doesn’t bother with niceties. She takes a deep breath and her rich brown hair and mane ripple as she does so. She’s wearing a cute designer top from Abercrombie and Fitch. She looks Rose straight in the eyes. “You’ve been close to death,” she says. She frowns and takes a deeper breath then her face becomes puzzled. “And you’ve been mating. You shouldn’t be mating when you’re sick. It’s bad for the breeding. Any foal knows that.”

“Hush,” says the slightly older boy. “Humans don’t follow our rules.”

Rose blushes at the comments and Hipparion looks at her. “Oh, do that again,” she begs. “I like the way you turn your skin red.”

Rose wants to bury her face in Jonathon’s shirt, but reminds herself they are only children, and curious ones. “She can’t,” says Jonathon quickly. “It’s an involuntary response.”

The girl frowns again and breathes deeper. “You’re her mate.  I can smell you on each other. You really shouldn’t make her breed when she’s been ill.”

“Hipparion, let it be,” snaps Phillipos. “You know humans aren't open about mating.  Krattippe approaches and you know how she is about rude behavior.”

“I’m not being rude, I’m being--.”

“Enough! Speaking to humans about their mating habits is rude.” He looks over at Jonathon and Rose. “I must apologize for my sister. She’s not met many humans.”

“I’ve met just as many as you have!” she wails. “Just because you’re five and I’m only three you think that you’re so great, but you’re not!” She stomps one hoof in irritation. “You’re just a…a…boy!” She throws the word at him like it’s the worst thing she can think of to say and then gallops off in a huff.

“She’s only three years old?” Rose asks Martha in consternation.

“Yes. They mature much faster than human children, comparatively she’s about ten and Phillipos is around sixteen emotionally. Ah, here’s Krattippe now. She’s thirty. She’s the children’s grandmother. They are the only survivors of a crash two years ago.

Krattippe looks far too young by human standards to be a grandmother. She isn’t much bigger than the children, but it is obvious she is a fully mature female. She wears a well-fitted blazer on her human torso with slits in the back for her rich chestnut mane to tumble through. She is stately and elegant, her face very beautiful, and her brown eyes quite worried as she watches her granddaughter race off.

Martha makes introductions and the woman looks at them. “I hope Hipparion wasn’t being rude. She has a tendency to speak without thinking as most young children do.”

“She talked about mating,” says Phillipos. Krattippe’s mouth twisted.

“I apologize for my descendent. She is not used to the behavioral nuances of polite society.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rose says.

“Ah, but I do. Every day we are away from our people is one more day she draws further away from our teachings and our heritage.” She sighs and glances at Martha. “Have there been any updates on the status of the rescue ship?”

“The rate of approach is still holding steady. They will arrive in just under two Earth years.”

“I fear that may be too late for Hipparion to ever recover what she has lost.”

“Can’t she be schooled here?” asks Jonathon. “Can’t you do it yourself?”

“To a certain extent, I can. But I do not have the materials to be an adequate tutor and I’m afraid the portion of my brain that controls the knowledge of the arts was severely damaged in the accident. Lumin helps with them as he can but he is a very busy man,” she explains.

“And art is very important in your culture?” Jonathon asks.

“For females, yes. Our brains are wired for the creative pursuits. The males are wired for the analytical pursuits. Not that some of us don’t crosswire. I, myself, was quite capable of both until the accident. Now I can only access the masculine pursuits. They’ll be able to fix me when they come. Lumin could not. He didn’t get to me in time. He can’t regrow dead cells, only heal dying ones.”

“And what can your people do?” Rose asks curious.

“They can introduce an implant which causes mass brain stimulation that creates new brain cells and it will lay down a fresh matrix onto which those cells can be programmed, so to speak, with all of the knowledge that was lost. I will be whole inside my head again.”

“You can really do that? Cure brain damage?” Jonathon says.

“In a way. It’s replacing it more than curing it, but I will function as I used to when they fix me.” She glances over her shoulder in the direction the little girl had gone off in. “I really should go check on Hipparion. It was lovely to meet you.”

They make their good-byes and the adult and boy centaurs speed off in search of the girl. “That was interesting,” Rose says.

“They are a unique lot,” Martha says. “Good people but somewhat superior in attitude. At least the adult is. The children are pretty typical for children of most species I’ve run across.”

“How do they speak English so well?” Jonathon asks.

“They’ve universal translators wired into their brains. It’s done at birth along with their locator beacons and extraneous memory implants. They are quite the well-travelled species so language is important and so is being able to find their citizens should something go wrong like it did with Krattippe’s family craft. Their rescue ship is coming; it’s just a long way away still. The western spiral arm of this galaxy is considered to be a bit of a backwater,” Martha explains.

“Unless they want to study what they consider an emerging sentient species, or they’re slumming, or it’s an extreme emergency, the alien species out there tend to avoid us. They consider us either beneath them or more trouble than we’re worth. Despite that, we still get an amazing number of visitors,” Martha continues.

“I don’t know whether to feel relieved or insulted,” Jonathon comments as Martha leads them away from the indoor meadow enclosure.

“Mr. Lumin said there were seven alien creatures that lived here, not including himself or…” Rose trails off.

“Or me?” Martha asks with a small smile.  “I don’t live here. And I don’t really consider myself to be alien. I’ve only got a little alien blood in me,” Martha says. “I live as a human, same way as I’ve done my whole life.”

“I didn’t mean that,” says Rose. “I just wanted to know about the others.”

“Yes, where are the other two?” Jonathon asks.

“Well, there is one creature kept under lock and key. I’ve not even met it. It’s quite ill, recovering from a devastating injury. Lumin doesn’t talk about it much, says only that it must be protected at all costs. But you can meet Frank. He’s this way.”

“Frank?” Rose queries.

“He picked it himself,” says Martha with a grin. “You may find him unsettling, but he’s very sweet.”

They walked for several minutes, Martha explaining exactly what Illuminate did with the information they received from those in Sanctuary and how they used the technology that was shared. “Did the learning chips come from alien tech?” Rose asks.

“The original one was reverse engineered from a damaged cerebral implant that came from a dead Santragian. But every advancement since that time has come from the workers here at Illuminate, usually human but sometimes alien. Frank has done quite a bit of the work in that category. He’s got…dexterous appendages.”

Finally they arrive at their destination and Martha opens an ordinary door that leads into an ordinary laboratory. The creature floating over the lab table with a soldering iron in one tentacle and a scalpel in another is decidedly not ordinary. “Frank?” Martha calls out softly. The creature slowly raises its belly and two brilliant orange eyes focus on the trio.

Rose stares at it in wonder. Except in its coloring it looks to her much like a standard ocean jellyfish, its main body mass the same. It is translucent yellow, its insides visible in strange and intricate pulsing lights that may or may not be a circulatory system. It is unsettling but beautiful at the same time. Thin translucent blue and green wings stretch from its back. Long violet appendages, twenty or so if she has to make a guess, trail from its body.

“Frank of the Talamanga, meet Miss Rose Tyler and Dr. Jonathon Smith.”

Frank puts down his equipment and rises further above the table. A few flaps of his beautiful wings carry him closer to them and he extends one exploratory tentacle towards Martha. She stands still, allowing Frank to lightly stroke her face. A series of colors ripples through the alien. “I’m quite fine, thank you,” Martha says in response.

The light pattern changes as Frank turns to Jonathon and Rose. “He wants to know if it’s okay for him to greet you. That involves him touching your face softly with one of his appendages. It will not hurt you, but if you don’t want him to touch you, say so.”

“It’s fine,” they chorus. Frank moves closer and one violet tentacle brushes against Rose’s cheek while another touches Jonathon’s temple. They both break out in enormous smiles as a greeting of great welcome and curiosity is extended in their direction.

The contact is limited to little bursts of curious emotions. “Frank’s primary method of communication is the color bursts. It doesn’t take long to learn initial concept patterns, but the more complicated form of his language can be as difficult as learning a non-Latin based language like Chinese. He also can initiate some empathic connections. You should have felt something like welcome and who are you?” Martha explains.

She then turns to Frank. “Dr. Smith is an inventor and Miss Tyler is a robotics student at the university who has just signed on for a job here after graduation.” She looks back to Rose and Jonathon again. “Frank’s job here is working on a translation circuit that can be installed either in A.I’s when we get there or in a simpler computer that will be able to scan brain waves and send out a signal that automatically translates other languages into the user’s primary language. At the moment he’s still compiling the database. Krattippe is helping with the hardware.”

Frank wiggles and his body changes from yellow to red and then back to yellow. “Yes, of course.” Martha turns back to her companions. “Frank says it was lovely to meet you but he really needs to get back to work now.”

They say their good-byes and Martha leads them up to the thirteenth floor. She knocks on the door to Mr. Lumin’s office and Donna answers the door. “Yes?” A bright green glow emanates from the room behind her.

“He’s still in light form then?” Martha asks.

“Yes. He wants to stay that way for several more hours,” Donna says.

“Healing must have really depleted him,” says Martha. “I’ve shown these two the aliens and Rose has signed a contract to work here after graduation.”

Donna smiles. “Welcome, Rose. Martha, why don’t you check on James and I’ll talk to Rose about when she wants to start.”

The two women exchange places and Donna says, “So, Rose, it’s really up to you when you want to start. I know you work full time at Temmel’s and you’ll be finishing up school, but we can bring you in here. You can quit your job and work the hours you need to part-time here. If you want. Or you can wait until after graduation to work here at all.”

“I’d need to give Temmel’s two weeks’ notice,” Rose replies. “And I have no idea how much I’d need to work here to meet my family’s bills.”

Donna names the number her starting salary will be for working just twenty hours a week and Rose blinks very hard and tries not to fall over. She has known all along what a job with Illuminate means for her future but to hear it laid out in hard numbers is something else entirely.

“You know, you don’t actually need to give Temmel’s notice,” Donna says.

Rose frowns. “Of course, I do. I can’t just leave them in the lurch.”

“Actually, you can. Temmel’s is owned by Illuminate. It’s the simple matter of a phone call and an immediate XI transfer request,” she explains.

“I’ve heard of those. That’s Illuminate?” she asks.

“That’s us.”

“But…just like that? One phone call and I’m working here?”

“Just like that. Honestly, Mr. Lumin needs your skills. He needs you to finish building your cat for school. And then he’s going to need you to make one for him with some modifications.”

“My cat? What’s she got to do with anything?” Rose wants to know.

“All in due course. So, will you start tomorrow?” Donna asks.

“All right then,” she responds slightly dazed at the whirlwind of what has just occurred. She looks at Jonathon who gives her a happy grin. She knows he’s thinking about being able to see her more often if they are working in the same building. She can’t help but think it as well. But mostly she’s just overwhelmed with the idea that the next step she takes will be firmly into a future she has always wanted.

Ch. 26:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/174619.html