“I wonder whether I can seduce you again, already.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
“Aliena, I’m amenable. But I am slowly coming to know you. Is there other reason?”
“I am nervous about the coming examinations, and need comfort.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“That would not have been subtle.”
He laughed, and she laughed with him, enjoying the art of mirth. Then she set about seducing him again, as the train continued its charge toward the desert space station.
In due course they rejoined Sam and Martha, who were watching erotic play. Sam turned if off as Brom and Aliena approached.
“No, let me see that,” Aliena said.
“Doll, it’s pornography,” Sam said. “Not your kind of thing.”
Aliena took the remote and turned it on. “This is interesting,” she said. “I have not been moaning with pleasure when I perform.”
“It’s fake,” Sam said. “The sex is real, but for them it’s business rather than pleasure. It’s to turn men on. Real woman don’t act like that.”
Aliena continued to watch, evidently making mental notes. “It is for men? Why were you watching, Martha?”
Martha hesitated momentarily, then answered. “This is a long dull ride, with no need of our alertness, as the train is secure. We’ve been on duty a long time. The porn is dreary for me, but if it turns Sam on, things might get interesting for a while. Is that sufficiently candid?”
“I’ll be damned,” Sam said. “I thought you were just tolerating it.”
“I was. Play acting is a poor shadow of the real thing.”
“True. But when on duty, that is all that is available.”
She merely looked at him.
“We are through with the bedroom, for now,” Aliena said, her eyes still on the video.
Sam smiled. “Madame?” he said to Martha.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
They departed. “Maybe she was a shade too subtle,” Brom said.
“She likes him, but it’s a business association.”
“You are learning to read people.”
“I am trying, but they can be devious and not always logical.”
He returned to what she had diverted him from. “Why are you nervous about what’s coming, Aliena? I am in the dark about this whole thing.”
“I will have my first examinations since I came to the house. If anything is wrong with me, this will reveal it.”
“Oh, your brain transplant? What problem could there be?”
“My brain is alien not merely to this body, but to your species. To this world. They use strenuous medications to suppress the body’s immune response, but these were interrupted during the snafu. There might be mischief.”
He put his arms around her. “Oh, Aliena! I hope not!”
“Your comfort sustains me. I am reassured.”
That was good. But now it gnawed at Brom. Her body had rejected its own brain; what of hers? It was a real and present danger.
They had a catered meal from the dining car, then slept as the journey continued. The whole of it was underground; there was no scenery to be seen. Brom was amazed by the expense this tunnel must have incurred. All to conceal the access to the space station? All for Aliena? So it seemed.
Eventually the train slowed and halted. They were at the station. Brom’s watch indicated it was early evening. What now?
They exited the train and followed a lighted passage to a pleasant room. Two Chinese men stood there awaiting them.
“Dr. Ching!” Aliena exclaimed, and ran to the older one. She hugged him, to his evident surprise.
“Aliena,” he said. Evidently that had become her name throughout. “It is good to see you so active.”
She let him go and turned to the others. “This is Doctor Ching, who did my transplant.”
“Under the supervision of the Starfish Machine,” Dr. Ching said. “I could not have done it alone. That brain is truly alien.”
“Dr. Ching,” Martha murmured, impressed. “World’s foremost neurosurgeon.”
Aliena indicated her companions. “These are my husband Brom, and my associates Sam and Martha.”
Ching stepped forward to shake Sam’s hand. “I see they got the best, to protect her.”
Sam shrugged. “Whatever.”
So the world’s foremost neural surgeon knew Sam by reputation.
Ching turned to Aliena. “My associate and I must examine you before you board the shuttle, to be sure you are in health for the trip. You understand.”
“Yes. My husband will remain with me.”
Ching looked as if he were about to protest, but Aliena gave him a look and he stifled it. The two doctors showed them into an examination room, where Aliena obliging stripped naked and lay on the table, unconcerned about modesty. The associate poked and prodded her and took her blood pressure while Ching examined her head, evidently taking brain wave readings.
“All looks good. We will need blood and urine,” the associate said.
Aliena held out her arm for the needle, then held a flanged vial to her cleft and urinated. They took the offerings and fed them into machine orifices, while Aliena dressed. The associate quickly checked Brom in a far more cursory manner.
In moments they had results; this was evidently a top notch facility.
“My dear, you are in excellent health,” Ching announced. “With a single complication: you are pregnant.”
Aliena clapped her hands like a joyous child, then hugged Brom. “Already!” That echoed Brom’s surprise. There had been plenty of sex, yes, but hardly enough time following her period. Could it have been that first time, in the surf?
“The machine may not approve,” Ching said.
“I will deal with the machine,” Aliena said. “Oh, I am so happy!” She kissed Brom. “You mated me!”
They exited the chamber and rejoined Sam and Martha. They knew immediately that something was up.
“What is it?” Martha asked.
“I’m pregnant!” Aliena said joyously.
Sam and Martha exchanged a glance. “Congratulations,” Sam said cautiously.
“Is the shuttle wise?” Martha asked.
“She is fit for that,” Ching said without other expression. Brom could tell he had a reservation, but clearly Aliena had none.
They went to the shuttle, which seemed to be another chamber. Brom and Aliena strapped down, and Sam and Martha joined them.
“There may be a flicker,” Sam said. “It is routine.”
There was a small jerk, as of something connecting to their door. Then it opened and they unstrapped and stepped out.
Onto a space station. Brom could tell by the trace gravity. Actually it had become trace at the time of the jerk, he realized belatedly.
“We’ll recover normal weight when we enter the Wheel,” Sam said.
“The Wheel turns, generating centrifugal force,” Martha explained.
Sure enough, the passage led downward, and as they went, gravity increased. They were coming into the rim of the Wheel.
“No space personnel?” Brom asked.
“No human personnel,” Sam said. “The Wheel is alien.”
“We didn’t build this?”
“It is an outlier of the starfish vessel, placed as an interface.”
“How did we get here so suddenly? There was no blast of jets, no acceleration, no multi-gee.”
“There was, but we were in stasis. That makes it easier.”
“How did that happen? There was no warning.”
“It is a field,” Sam said patiently. “It encloses the whole residential section of the rocket. We strapped down only as an archaic precaution.”
“I told you about stasis, dear,” Aliena said.
“That was you on the voyage from your home planet. I had no idea we had anything like that.”
“We didn’t, until recently,” Sam
said. “It is starfish science that they are bequeathing to us. One of many significant gifts, such as star travel and antigravity.”
“It is not antigravity, technically,” Aliena said. “What you call gravity is actually a deformation of space in the vicinity of mass. That can’t be nulled, only countered.”
“Countered?”
“A moon in orbit about a planet is in the spacial deformation surrounding the planet, but the diversion from its state of rest generates the seeming centrifugal force that exactly balances its fall toward the planet, so it remains in free fall. Thus the deformation is countered.”
“Seeming centrifugal force?” Sam asked. “We use it all the time.”
“There is no such force, merely resistance to diversion from rest.”
“This is too technical for me,” Sam said.
“How do you seem to counter gravity when it is not a moon in orbit?” Brom asked, interested though he did not understand it any better than Sam did.
“Magnetic repulsion, mainly, when on the surface of a planet. Higgs field modification when accelerating in space.”
“Modification?”
“Mass is an effect of passage through the Higgs field. Some objects interact more strongly than others, as with your lead versus feathers. We put an object, such as a spaceship, into stasis, then shift its substance to something that impinges on the field less, in effect diminishing its mass. That makes it easier to accelerate.”
Brom exchanged a glance with Sam. Both of them were baffled. “Is it okay if we just call it antigravity?” Sam asked.
“Perhaps I am not phrasing it well.”
“You’re doing fine. We simply are not physicists.”
“I apologize for forgetting,” she said contritely.
“Why are the starfish so generous?” Brom asked.
That one Sam could answer. “They believe, and we agree, that there is more profit in trade than in war.”
“What are they getting from us?”
“Biology,” Aliena said. “Earth is robustly diverse, far more so than Starfish world, and the intricacy of life is a magnitude more complicated than that of any machine. We will make better machines when we better understand the diversity of life. We are studying your viruses and bacteria, and will progress to plants and animals and fungi. It is marvelous information.”
“But they could make a virus to destroy all life on Earth!”
“They could,” Sam agreed soberly. “But they won’t, because that would ruin the prospect of mutually profitable trade.”
“You’re very trusting!”
“Please, beloved, you must trust me,” Aliena said. “I would never try to harm you.”
“You I trust. But not necessarily your species. We need more reassurance than just their word.”
“He echoes the paranoia of the masses,” Martha told Aliena. “This is why your presentation must be perfect. We don’t want to stir latent hostility.”
“I see,” Aliena agreed, disturbed. “I thought that when he accepted me, he accepted my role.”
Brom saw that he was caught on the wrong side of the issue. “I will take your word, Aliena. If you tell me the starfish mean us no harm, I will accept it.”
“We mean you no harm,” she said immediately.
“Then that is that.” He was simply unable to believe that she would deceive him in any such manner.
They reached the base of the descent. They were now in the full-gravity rim of the wheel, standing before a lighted panel. “I am here,” Aliena said simply. “With my husband, caretaker, and guardian. I am now called Aliena.”
“Acknowledgment, all,” a speaker said as a light played briefly over them. “Enter, Aliena.” A panel slid aside to reveal a person-sized chamber.
Aliena stepped nervously into it. Brom knew this was not from any fear of the machine, but of what its examination might reveal. The panel closed behind her.
“That is the Machine that supervised Dr. Ching,” Martha said. “It informed him of the necessary connections.”
In a moment the panel slid aside again, and Aliena stepped out. “You are in health,” the Machine said. “You are with child. Female, early in gestation. That must end.”
And there it was: the negative verdict. Brom was amazed that the Machine was even able to tell the gender of a fetus that must have formed only days before.
“No,” Aliena said firmly. “She will grow and be birthed in the normal human manner.”
“It is necessary. That condition is hazardous to the balance of your body that protects your brain.”
Aliena pursed her lips and whistled a note. Then she sang another note. There was something imperative about the sounds.
“Copulate distantly,” Sam murmured with a straight face.
“I am overruled,” the Machine said. “I record my objection for the home world authority.” It was clearly a threat.
“Now we go home,” Aliena said, and led the way back up the slope to the shuttle. It seemed their business here was done.
They returned to the shuttle, and immediately (it seemed, thanks to the stasis field) were back on Earth. They exited and rejoined Dr. Ching and his assistant.
“The machine objected,” Aliena told them. “I overruled it.”
“Your word is law,” Ching agreed, though he did not seem enthusiastic. “We will meet again in a month.”
“True,” she said.
“They treat you as if you are a queen,” Brom said as they returned to the waiting train.
“She is queen of queens,” Sam said. “Everything hinges on her.”
Aliena was silent. They entered the train, and it got in motion.
Brom realized that Aliena had not spoken to him directly since the issue with the alien machine. “Are you all right?” he asked her, concerned.
“I am well.” But her coolness was manifest. Brom was out of sorts.
“Brom, couples can fight, over even trivial things,” Martha said. “It is very painful because of the intensity of their feelings; they are super-sensitive to each other. But it is normal, and they usually make up soon.”
“Did we fight?” Brom asked, baffled. Aliena sat beside him, ignoring the dialogue.
“Oh, yes,” Martha said. “You doubted her. You hurt her feelings.”
“But I told her I accepted her word.”
“That is not enough. You should not have required her to give it. You are so focused on her being alien that you forget she is a woman.”
Evidently so. “How do I make it up?”
“Apologize. Profusely.”
Brom glanced at Sam. “Utter abject capitulation,” Sam said.
Brom turned to Aliena. “I am sorry I was insensitive. I just wasn’t thinking. I would never hurt you deliberately by word or deed, and I know you feel the same about me. I blundered. I was so wrong.” He felt unmanly tears welling. “Aliena, I beg your forgiveness. Please, please.”
Now she looked at him. “It is not just that. It is that I fear I have done the wrong thing in saving the baby. The Machine Doctor has reason.”
“But that’s proof of your commitment! You would not bear a human baby if you knew it was doomed by alien malice.” Then he froze, afraid that he had said the wrong thing, blundering again.
Aliena looked at Martha. Her shirt had managed to fall open to his view, and her skirt had ridden up on her thigh. Neither could have been by accident; she hardly ever had clothing malfunctions any more.“Is sex permissible once pregnancy is established?”
“It is,” Martha reassured her. “Provided it is gentle. But watch it in sea water.”
“Beds only,” she agreed with seeming regret.
Aliena took Brom’s hand and led him to the bedroom chamber. He accompanied her gladly. She had forgiven him.
Later, back with the others, Aliena was thoughtful. “This child—she will need a family. It is the human way.”
“She will have us,” Brom said.
“Grandparents
also. I have not asked about your parents. We must contact them.”
“We can’t,” Brom said. Then, seeing that she wanted more, he explained. “They got religion when I was in college. They joined a minor Christian sect called the Holy Order of Vision, went to Uganda as missionaries, and disappeared.” He paused, then forced himself to continue. “It was a repressive regime hostile to any suggestion of reform. I think they didn’t trust do-gooders from America, and quietly disappeared them.”
Aliena looked perplexed.
“Secret arrest and execution,” Sam said. “Used by rogue governments to get rid of troublemakers.”
“Oh. But this is merely supposition.”
“Efforts to track them met with resistance,” Brom concluded. “That is the way of such things. Such governments never admit what they do. I fear they are dead.”
“This is painful for you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then I apologize to you for reminding you. I did not mean to bring you pain.”
“Not your fault,” he said quickly. “You didn’t know. I would have had to tell you sometime.”
“Then I must approach the other side,” she decided. “The parents of this body.”
“That’s not wise,” Martha said. “The body is a donated host, as you know. The parents do not want to be reminded.”
“They will reconsider if I explain to them.”
“The record forbids us from contacting them. We don’t even know who they are, officially.”
“Then we must find them,” Aliena said firmly. “How may this be accomplished?”
“Well, there’s the Internet,” Sam said. “The big search engines can locate almost anything, if properly used.”
She eyed him cannily. “You know how to use them.”
“It’s my business. But it would be an abuse of my position to use them for this purpose.”
“But not of mine.”
“Technically, no.”
“Teach me how to use them.”
Sam glanced at Martha, “Is this legitimate?”
Martha laughed. “Have you tried telling Aliena no recently?”
Now Sam glanced at Aliena. She was leaning forward, shirt loose, eyes focused on him. He shrugged. “Less cleavage. More eye. I’m your bodyguard, not a boyfriend or credulous bystander. Look eager for knowledge.”