THE BAJA GATE
Blaine C. Readler
CHAPTER 17
Winn stood at Prudence's wheel. The sliver of the new crescent moon had already set, but it would grow each night, and become an evening companion to them as they made their way north to San Diego. For now, though, the stars burned above unchallenged. On a planet circling one of them, Pierce was probably starting his language lesson all over again with another Scavenger and translation loaf. Winn imagined that the anthropologist was happy. His old college roommate never really seemed to care about other people's company anyway; he was always content in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.
He'd brought Toki out to keep him company. The Maker toy didn't need sleep, and never tired of conversation; he was the perfect watch companion. Well, he'd have to admit: from his own perspective, Ginny was the perfect anything companion, but he couldn't expect to have her by his side all the time, even if she seemed content there. "Why do you think Ginny insisted on going with Pierce to the gate at first, then bailed at the last minute?" he asked Toki.
"I believe, Winn, that she initially went along out of a sense of duty, that she felt somehow responsible. Once she faced the reality, though, I think her true priorities became clear to her. Her affections lie clearly with you."
"You think so?" he asked, feeling himself blushing.
"It's pretty obvious, Winn."
"Since when did you become an expert on human psychology?"
"I was designed as an expert on Maker psychology; it is simply a process of mapping and extrapolating the mind's operation from one paradigm to another."
"Where the hell did you learn the word paradigm?"
"Ginny. She suggested that you'd be impressed if I used it."
"She's playing a joke on you. That is one of the most reviled words in the English language."
"By you, Winn?"
"Yes, but I can't in good conscience allow a naive alien entity to be corrupted by it."
"I will be careful with it."
"It's one thing to extrapolate the Maker mind to another race, but how could you do that with anatomy?"
"I assume you're talking about my knowledge of Scavenger organs?"
"Yeah."
"That knowledge is built in to me."
"There seems to be a whole lot of knowledge built in to you. You're a toy, for God's sake. Why would you need it all?"
"I am actually a good bit more than just a toy, Winn. At first, I didn't have the language skills to explain completely. A better description might be tutor, or mate."
"Mate? That sounds like you get married."
"In a sense I do get married to my host Maker child. At some point in the child's life, a time of transition from child to adult, we merge."
"What do you mean, you 'merge?' That seems scary."
"That was another reason I didn't try to explain at first. The Maker child undergoes a sort of operation where he absorbs the part of me that contains the knowledge and the evolved co-empathy -- the information part. You might call the result a cyborg, but that would be too simple; implanted brain function might be better. It is very difficult to explain, as the concept is totally foreign to your culture and technology."
"I think I get the idea. You crawl inside the kid's head."
"Winn, I would sigh now if I had lungs."
"Aha! Humans are superior in at least one way."
"There is another word that I didn't get quite right at first. When the young Scavenger described herself, I assumed that 'learner' meant she was learning the way of their military. She corrected me. The problem is that her role is completely new since her language was programmed into me. A better title for her would be scientist."
"You're kidding."
"No, I'm not. The Scavengers finally realized that their ultimate survival could not depend only on parasitic use of other races' technology. The young Scavenger has a gene mutation that for centuries has been suppressed. She lacks aggressiveness and competitiveness, but makes up for it in inquisitiveness. Where once she would have been killed as soon as these traits were recognized, her kind are now fostered as students of science and technology."
"She was the science officer -- the Mr. Spock."
"I do not know this Spock."
"You'd get along with him just fine."
"It was her idea to use the bags of rice as cushioning against the gate's implosion. She covered Ginny, and then tried to cover herself, but was not finished when the explosion came."
"Does Ginny know this?"
"I don't think so. She was covered in bags at the time."
"You haven't told her?"
"No. I thought it best to leave her ignorant for the time being."
"Your human psychology is coming along just fine."
Winn let the sounds of the sea and the contemplative calm of the clear night sky ease into his pores -- a sensation his ancestors had relished for untold thousands of years. This was another advantage of a Toki companion: the blob was able to not talk as well.
The lights of the massive Navy frigate hovered just on the horizon. It would be their companion, along with the waxing moon, all the way home. He didn't mind. These were his kindred. Had the Scavengers managed to come through the gate in force, it would have been these men who would have fought with their lives to save mankind.
Under the liberating influence of the stars, Winn's mind floated off into untethered fantasy. What if Toki someday learned how to merge with his own human child? What would the world be like when Derrick was the smartest human on the planet? Derrick, president of the United States. Derrick, Chairman of the World Council of Governments. His first acts would be legalization of pot and disbanding all government agencies whose charter includes National Security.
The world could do worse.
THE END