Choices of the Soul
by Patrick Spatz
Copyright 2017 Patrick Spatz
Choices of the Soul
Wearing a gravity shirt made Hadtec look like a dolphin covered in oil, at least so he had been told. He had seen pictures of dolphin's caught in oil-slicks from pre-space flight days. They'd always looked very unhappy and weighted down, but a gravity shirt made him feel wonderful. He was free to move easily in the human sector of the space station. Hadtec looked a lot like a wild dolphin--only a larger cranium gave him away. Despite this there was a world of differences between the two species. He was glad he was a gene enhanced dolphin, not one of those ignorant wild things. They had no human or alien friends, while Hadtec had both.
The space station's bar and coffee shop was about half full. As always there were hundreds of things for Hadtec to hear, taste, and see. However, today he was on a personal mission. He was going to find his friend Carter Raymees and share his happiness for him.
It was always hard for Hadtec to find one human in a group of humans. Particularly Carter, he looked so normal even for a human--medium build and height with dark skin and light hair, but oh what a nice voice. If he would only say something, Hadtec could pick him out of any group.
Hadtec hung in the doorway, oblivious to the people squeezing by him. He tilted his body back and forth, letting out sound whistles and trying to focus on faces. Quite a number of faces turned his way, but none of them were Carter.
At last he saw his friend. Carter Raymees hadn't even noticed Hadtec come into the Port View Bar. He was too busy trying to find the answer to his troubles, hidden somewhere under the creamy clouds inside his coffee cup.
Since Carter sat alone at a table big enough for a dozen humans, Hadtec decided to just fly over and greet him. He whistled a command that adjusted his gravity shirt so he had relative mass of about one kilo and let himself settle to the floor. One sharp push of his powerful tail got him air borne again. Hadtec was an excellent flyer. He easily missed colliding with the bar's other customers. Using his flippers as air brakes, he came in silently about four inches over Carter's cup.
"Sweet Jesus!" shouted Carter spilling some of his coffee.
Hadtec landed on the table top, then slipped to one side and came to rest with his tail holding him against the back of a chair. "I heard you're getting married!"
"Yes... I mean, No. I mean, -oh Hell I don't know. You scared me, Hadtec."
For a time the two friends sat in awkward silence. Hadtec cocked his head to one side and watched the gas giant Parsius, through the Cafe's main window. As usual Parsius was in the grips of a night-time electrical storm. Hadtec thought it a most beautiful view, whenever he could get his eyes to focus on it. Reluctantly, he gave up, returning his attention to Carter.
Carter was staring mournfully into his coffee cup. Hadtec thought about his friend's last comment, "'Yes', I can understand," he said, "'No', also seems to make sense, sort of. But, how can you not know if you're getting married?"
"Easy," groaned Carter. "You just have to have the strangest luck in the known universe!"
Hadtec let a little more of his true mass bleed through the gravity shirt, seating himself more firmly on the table as he pondered this answer. It didn't seem to make much sense to him. Hadtec tasted the air near Carter's coffee. No, there was nothing in the coffee, but cream and sugar so that wasn't it. He did, however, taste the presence of a human-cat gene-cut somewhere very nearby.
Hadtec focused his eyes on the seven foot fur covered humanoid figure slipping up quietly behind Carter's chair. He wondered if maybe he should say something, but it was too late. With one move the half-human swept her arms around Carter in a great furry hug. "Congratulations lover boy, you managed to get yourself caught at last!"
"Jesus, Karecat!" Carter said while trying to get his breath back. "Why am I worried about my future? My friends are going to give me a heart attack before I see another birthday!"
Karecat's answer was a half laugh, half roar as she sat Carter back in his chair. "I have to get my hugs and gropes in now before two wives stamp the 'Stay Off' sign on you."
"Janet and Marseena would never get jealous of you, Karecat," Hadtec chirped in, "Besides, Carter's not sure he's getting married."
Karecat was in the process of sitting next to Carter when Hadtec made this announcement. She stopped, turned, took Carter by both shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "How can this be? Janet was just now in Vid-Ops telling everyone you said yes!"
"I did!" moaned Carter, letting his gaze fall back to his coffee.
Karecat let go of Carter and turned slowly to look out the port. "I don't know, Janet is all human like you are, and full humans do funny things. Jilt her and maybe she'll just go off and die of a broken heart, or write epic novels about what a heel you are. That's the kinds of things humans do. But Marseena now, she's got cat blood like me. She's apt to take out her claws and redesign your face. You just don't look that dumb."
"Marseena got her gene cuts from a snow leopard," said Carter. "Where did you get yours?" He looked at her cat eyes and then the small mane around her face. "African lion?"
"Lion, Gorilla, even some Human giant, there were some human types considered endangered species once, you know. My grandparents were poor. The more endangered genes they stored in their children, the higher government subsidy they received. You would not believe my family reunions!"
"I know Janet and Marseena." Hadtec turned enough on the table to eye both Carter and Karecat. "I don't think they would do anything like what Karecat said." He turned again so that he was fully facing Karecat and asked accusingly, "I thought you were their friend?"
"She's being sarcastic, Hadtec." Carter answered for Karecat because she was busy giving Hadtec a tooth filled grin.
Hadtec whistled something in his native tongue that he'd never been able to find a translation for. Then just to make his point, he gave Karecat a dolphin raspberry.
Turning back to Carter he said, "When I was growing up all the humans I worked with were so careful not to confuse us with slang or sarcasm. Now I wish they hadn't been. Maybe I could be of more help with this problem of yours. If you have a good reason for changing your mind, I'm sure Janet and Marseena will understand."
"Don't bet on it, Whistles." Karecat said, turning back to Carter. "The fin has a point there, handsome. You tell Janet and the Mark family, 'Yes I will'; then get cold feet less than an hour later. If you have a good reason, I, for one, would love to hear it."
Carter let out a deep sigh. Hadtec had often seen humans do this before starting some hard job. He wondered what job Carter was about to start, hoping it would not interfere with him telling the rest of his story.
"Karecat, you remember me when I first came to the station four years ago? Hadtec, this was a little before your time." Hadtec gave a nod and whistle and Karecat just grunted. Carter went on, "I was hell bent to get myself a deep space mission--one of those long things with glory and your place in history in it."
"Just like all the rest of us," said Karecat, "Myself included."
"My grades were good in school," said Carter. "But not that good. I found out you had to be in the top one percent to get one of those assignments right off the bat. So like everybody else here, I dove into the idea of getting the right experience and connections to be in the right place at the right time. I wrote a couple thousand resumes and letters. I went to seminars, receptions, and the right parties."
"And then you fell in love!" Hadtec jumped in, showing his own strong romantic streak.
"No. That came later. I found out that there were thing
s I wanted to do with my life other than deep space. A lot of them right here in this system. This is the most diverse system on the frontier. If I were to stay in one place, a family became possible. Then, as you said, I fell in love."
"Ok. So this brings us up to date," Karecat said. "So where's the Devil in the mix?"
"The Devil in the mix, as you put it," Carter answered, "came by com-mail about thirty minutes ago." He pushed a button on his wrist link and tapped it against the glass table top. The flat surface took up the image of a formal business letter. "Here, read it for yourself."
Hadtec shot up into the air turning his gravity shirt up to its maximum. He then flipped himself nose down with his tail bent to clear the ceiling, while his nose was almost on Carter's letter. It was all necessary to do the difficult job of getting dolphin eyes to focus on print. Karecat just rested her elbows on the table with her chin on her fists. There was not that much to read. It was from the deep space ship Darwin. The captain remembered Carter from a resume he had sent twenty-one months before. If he was still interested in an assignment, please report for an interview with Captain Blackwell and his first officer at zero eight hundred tomorrow morning.
Hadtec flipped around again, increasing his weight, to settle back in his