The Final Nexus
by David Clarke
Chapter 1
The summer of 2010 was a lot of fun. This time we'd arrived at the Résidence at the beginning of the holidays, and so we made the most of it, going out exploring the local area, riding out into the Forest to continue our search for miradors, having massive games out there, and generally behaving like kids for once.
I still had nightmares sometimes, dreams in which I saw Harlan shot over and over again, except that in the dreams he didn't die straight away: instead he stared at me reproachfully and asked why I had got him killed. And sometimes I dreamed about the others who had died, too, Marlo and Verdess in particular, though since I hadn't actually witnessed the moment of their death - Verdess hadn't been in my line of sight when the bullet hit him and I'd been unconscious when Marlo died - I didn't have those dreams quite so often. But it helped immensely that Stefan was a fairly light sleeper, because he generally woke up if I started thrashing about in my sleep, and when that happened he was able to wake me up gently and then calm me down. I was lucky that he loved me so much, because it must have been intensely irritating for him, getting woken up like that so often.
But as summer went on the dreams came less and less frequently, and by the middle of August I was starting to think that maybe I would be able to put it all behind me. As long as I was just able to go to school with my friends and settle into a normal existence I was confident that everything would be fine.
And then, one afternoon in mid-August, after Stefan and I had spent an afternoon out in the forest looking for miradors (and doing a few unrelated other things), we got back to find a note on our door summoning me to the director's office. As far as I was aware I hadn't done anything wrong, so I wasn't too worried as I made my way down to the ground floor. And as I walked into the office the first people I saw were Dr Schmitt and Dr Szabo.
"No!" I said, before either of them could speak. "No, absolutely not, there's no way I'm going through any more portals for you, no matter how many times you ask!"
"We don't want you to go through any portals," said Dr Schmitt.
"Huh?" That took the wind completely out of my sails - I'd been convinced they wanted to drag me back into the insane world of inter-reality exploration. "Well, what do you want, then?"
"We've got an agreement with the Kerpians to use their language-implanting technology, and we're setting up the first four chairs at the Institute. Obviously it has enormous potential - it'll free up large amounts of school time that can be used to teach other subjects, for a start. Instead of having to learn English and French over a period of many years, kids will be able to learn the language in less than a week. And foreign languages will be equally quick. As you know, our economy isn't quite what you were used to in your original world, but there's still a great deal of commercial use for a system like that.
"Anyway, you know that it works, and so do some of your friends, so you know it's nothing to worry about. And we were hoping that you could persuade some of your friends here to help us test it - after all, the Kerpians only used it to implant their own language and that of the reptiles, whereas we'll want to be able to implant lots of other languages. So it's a question of fine-tuning the implantation system and writing the programs for each language - we've done English and French already - and then we'll want some guinea pigs. As it's initially intended for use in schools we'd prefer to use kids, and since we know you and your friends we were hoping you'd be prepared to help us. And of course it'll be particularly helpful for two of the boys who came back with you this time around, because I understand that neither of them can speak either French or English."
"Well... okay, that sounds fine, as long as the Kerpians are helping set everything up. And you're right about it being useful for all of our friends who weren't born in English or French-speaking worlds... I'm not sure it would work on Killian, though - his physiology is a little different, and I'm not certain his brain is the same as yours or mine. Still, if he wants to try I won't try to talk him out of it."
"Good. I don't think there's any risk of damage even if it doesn't work, though - after all, we've both been through the system, too, and I'm confident it's harmless. So if you'd like to find me four or five boys who need to learn English, and about the same number who would like to learn French, we can make a start. Later we'll be looking to try other languages, too, but obviously it would be best to start with the two we'll need most."
"I'm sure I can do that," I said. "Personally I'd be interested in learning German, or maybe Elsassisch - and if you want to try it out using something a bit more unusual, I wouldn't mind trying to learn one of the languages from the Arvelan world. It might make it easier for me to talk to Killian, just in case you can't use it to teach him English."
"We don't have programs for those yet, and it would probably take a while to write one - though it would be an interesting project. Anyway, see what you can find us, and then get them to report to the Institute on Wednesday morning at eleven o'clock. Take a number 27 tram from the station and get off at Four Poplars. The ones who were there last month will recognise it from there."
"How long do you think the sessions will last?" I asked. "I seem to remember that I was in the chair for about four days when I was being implanted with Kerpian. So should I tell them to expect to be away for that long?"
"Good point... as we've only got four chairs at the moment we'll only want two candidates for each language to start with. Can I leave it to you to select four candidates for us and send them to us for Wednesday morning? Once they've been implanted we'll evaluate the results and then call the director here and get him to ask you to send us four more, and so on until everyone who wants to learn English and French has been done. And if everything works out we'll move on to some other languages after that."
Well, that sounded fine to me, and it would make it a lot easier for those of my friends whose English was still a bit lacking. Nicky and I were both more or less fluent in English and French - Nicky's French wasn't as good as his English, but it was good enough - but everyone else would no doubt benefit from implanted English, and as long as we lived here the French would also be useful. I put Markus down for the first French session because that would make it far easier for him to communicate with his girlfriend Sylvie, and I reluctantly sent Stefan to take the second French chair. As for English, I chose Alain first, because he was going to have to find a job before much longer and it would be far easier for him if he was fluent in both French (which he already spoke) and English. And that of course meant that Oli was the obvious candidate for the second chair. So I sent them off on the Wednesday morning, hoping that nothing would go wrong. There was no reason why it should - the Kerpians had been using this technology for a long time - but the way my luck worked I wasn't completely sure about it.
I hadn't actually wanted Stefan to go first, but he had insisted that it wouldn't be fair to ask anyone else to do something he wasn't prepared to do himself, and since I didn't need to be implanted with either language it was up to him to set an example. And I couldn't talk him out of it, and so off he went, leaving me worrying for the next four days.
He came back at the end of the week, in perfect health and speaking excellent French, so obviously I needn't have worried.
"They'd like you to go with the next batch," he said. "And take Killian and Caradoc - they want to try creating a program from scratch, and they think that your idea of using a language that doesn't even exist in this world would be a perfect way to try the system out."
So early on Monday morning I took the train to Strossburi, taking Radu and Tommi to learn English, Hansi and Tibor to learn French, and Killian and Caradoc to help the scientists try to set up the system to use with a hitherto-unknown language.
I hadn't been to the Institute since the day we had returned from Kerpia, and I found that it had grown a bit: there were some new buildings there now, and one of these held some quite nice living quarters. Of course, the four being implanted wouldn't need rooms because they would be in the chairs throughout the four days, but the rest of us got a room each. They weren't quite up to the standard of the hotel we had used in Hintraten, but they weren't bad.
First of all the scientists tested Killian and came to the conclusion that their equipment would work on him, and so after that he and Caradoc were installed in two of the chairs to be implanted with English. Obviously it made sense to do this first, since after that it would be a lot easier to communicate with them while the program for Arvelan was being created, but it left me wondering why I was there: I'd assumed I would be translating for them. But it turned out that the scientists had something else planned for me.
That afternoon I heard a noise outside the window, and when I looked to see what it was I saw a small flying machine of some sort land in the yard outside the laboratory. It was triangular in shape, but I couldn't immediately tell which point was the front because it was landing vertically and there was no sign of engines.
It settled onto the ground and a hatch opened on the side nearest to me, and I saw what looked like three boxes on caterpillar tracks emerge and trundle across the yard towards the entrance to the building. And a minute or so later Dr Szabo appeared and asked me to come down to the ground floor, where I found the boxes lined up in a row.
They were each a little over a metre long, a metre high and about seventy centimetres wide. They seemed to be made of some sort of plastic, coloured a dull grey, and each one had a small dome on the top about ten centimetres across.
"Jake, I'd like to introduce you to our visitors," said Dr Szabo. "These are Bob, Pat and Tom."
I wondered if he was joking, or if these were some sort of robot, but all the same I said "Hello" politely. And the box on the left promptly answered me.
"Hello, Jake," it said. "We have heard a lot about you. You are an interesting person."
The voice was obviously artificial, though it was of a very high standard: it left Stephen Hawking's voice synthesizer a long way behind it.
"Well," I said, nonplussed, "that's very kind of you... er..."
"I do not think that he knows who we are," said 'Bob'. "Has he not met our kind previously?"
"I suppose not," said Dr Szabo. "Jake, these are Tammids. You do know about the Tammids, I hope?"
"Yes," I said. "Well, a bit, anyway. But I've never met one before, or seen a picture."
"If you had seen a picture, you would not recognise us," said 'Bob'. "What you see is our travel machine. We could not survive in your atmosphere without it, just as you have to wear a space suit if you leave this planet. We find the matter of parallel interchanges a fascinating one and are hoping that you will tell us of your travels."
So that explained what I was doing there: I was going to be keeping the foreign diplomats entertained. And over the next two or three days I did exactly that, although these three were clearly scientists rather than diplomats, because they seemed interested in the exact operation of the portals. I told them I couldn't really tell them much about that and that they would do better to speak with someone from the Kerpian side of the portal, such as Mr Narj. And they said that they knew about him, and that they were scheduled to meet him the following week.
Obviously their names weren't really Bob, Pat and Tom, but their language was impossible for humans because we had totally different vocal systems, and so each had adopted a 'human' name that bore some resemblance to the first syllable of his actual name. They had a language assimilation program of their own and had come to the Institute to find out about the Kerpian system.
Anyway, I told them some of what had happened to us beyond the portals, and gave them as good a picture as I could of the various societies that we had encountered. They were particularly interested to hear about the Greys, since they were a completely unrelated but nonetheless intelligent species, and they seemed disappointed that it would not be possible for them to meet one. Personally I never wanted to meet another Grey for the rest of my life, but I suppose that point of view was rather down to my previous experiences.
Talking to them was like talking to machines, both because of their outward appearance and because of their artificial voices, and on the third day after their arrival they seemed to realise that I was finding it hard to relate to them as living creatures, because they proposed a change of venue.
"Come see our base," they invited me. "We have a breathing suit that will be of the correct size."
I wasn't sure about this: some of the places I had been to beyond the portals had been dangerous, but all of them had a breathable atmosphere, and the idea of trusting myself to an alien spacesuit wasn't at all attractive. But when I voiced this concern to Dr Szabo he said that the Tammid suits were perfectly safe, and that a couple of the scientists here had already visited the main Tammid base near Kiruna in Sweden and found the suits to be perfectly efficient.
"Besides," he added, "this is a great honour - I don't think they've invited any civilians to visit them, except for the Swedish king and his immediate advisers."
The last time anyone had wanted to pay me a great honour it had ended with me and my friends stranded in a Grey world at war. But I supposed that if I tried to back out I might cause a diplomatic incident, or something - and maybe it would be interesting, provided that nothing went wrong... But then, if the Tammids were capable of flying halfway across the galaxy I didn't think that too much was likely to go wrong on a short trip like this.
One of the scientists who had been to Kiruna, Dr Moser, came and helped me with the suit the Tammids provided. I'd had visions of the sort of thing Neil Armstrong wore on the moon, a large, solid, heavy-looking arrangement that made moving difficult, but instead it turned out to be lightweight and completely flexible, with only the helmet being hard - and even that weighed very little. It was perfectly comfortable to wear, and would apparently be warm even if I was surrounded by a vacuum. The only slightly embarrassing thing was a sort of tube arrangement which was designed to go over my penis and take care of things if I needed a pee while wearing the suit.
"There's a solids system, too, but you won't need to bother about that," Dr Moser assured me. "They have facilities for us at their base, and you won't be in the ship long enough to have to worry about it."
Once he'd shown me how to activate the various seals and where to connect the air tanks (these were small cylinders on each thigh) he stood back and let me try putting it on alone, and apparently I managed it perfectly - well, he said I wouldn't be likely to die because of the way I'd put it on, anyway.
Before I left I went and found Radu and Tommi, who were waiting for a chair to become available, and told them where I was going, because if anything went wrong I wanted my friends to know about it. And Radu seemed to share my doubts.
"Is it safe?" he asked. "And can you trust them?"
"Well, they've been here for thirty years, or something like that, so if they were evil aliens I think we'd probably know by now. And I suppose they've got a lot more experience with space travel than we have - and in any case they only want to take me to Sweden, not Aldebaran Five or somewhere. I'm a bit nervous, but I suppose it should be safe enough. It's just... well, if anything does go wrong....well, I need you to tell Stefan... you know, that..."
"Stefan already knows," he assured me. "And if anything goes wrong I imagine he'll be ready to declare war on the Tammids. Don't worry, Jake - if anything did happen I'll certainly talk to Stefan."
"Nothing's going to go wrong," said Tommi, who seemed to have spent too long talking to Oli, because the unquenchable Oli optimism seemed to have infected him. "You're indestructible - isn't that what Mr Narj said about you? You're going to have a really interesting time, and you'll come back here safely afterwards, because the idea of a world with no Jake is impossible. I just wish I was going with you."
"I bet that's because you want to find out if sex with Tammids is as interesting as sex with Greys," I said, grinning at him.
"No, it isn't!" he replied, indignantly. "I don't even know if you could have sex with a Tammid - maybe they don't even have sex. I wish I was coming with you because it would be less scary for you if there's someone with you."
"Thanks, Tommi," I said, seriously. "But, like you say, I'm sure I'll be all right. And by the time I get back you should both be speaking English perfectly, too. I bet Marc will be pleased about that."
"Oh, we manage," said Radu. "We speak a sort of mix of lots of languages. But you're probably right about it being easier if I could speak English properly."
Marc and Radu were still together: Marc's parents had been a bit reluctant to let him keep spending time with us at first, but once we had promised that he wouldn't be leaving this world again - at least, not without their permission - they had relented, and now Radu and Marc were once again spending most of their spare time together. And I was glad about that, because I liked Marc a lot, and not just because his medical knowledge had been vital to us on our last journey.
When I went back to the laboratory after talking to Radu and Tommi I found the Tammids waiting for me. I'm not sure if they were afraid I'd change my mind about going with them, but in any case I didn't get a chance to do so: I was in my space suit and walking up the ramp into their ship five minutes later. They installed me in a human-shaped seat at one side of the cockpit, plugged my suit into both a computer and an air supply, pressed some buttons which gave rise to a lot of hissing - I assumed the air in the cockpit was being pumped out and replaced with whatever it was that Tammids breathed - and then 'Pat' manoeuvred his box into a sort of console in the centre of the cabin, various cables appeared from it and plugged themselves into the console, and - with scarcely any noise at all - the ship rose vertically into the air.
They had put me next to a window or viewing panel, and watching the Earth fall away beneath us was a weird experience. It wasn't like being in a high-speed lift because there was no physical sensation - clearly they had overcome the problem of inertia. We seemed to go up a very long way, though once we were above the clouds I couldn't tell where we were any longer.
The whole journey took less than an hour, and when we emerged below the clouds once more I saw a landscape of lakes and forests spread out beneath me. We fell towards it at a frightening speed - I was convinced we were going to smash into the ground - but at the last moment we slowed almost to a stop - again with no physical discomfort - flew horizontally for a few seconds and were then swallowed up inside a large building. The ship settled to the ground and I was escorted out into what I suppose was a hanger, and then through some doors and into the base proper. Finally we reached a small room equipped with some human-type chairs and some other furniture that made no sense to me at all. I was shown to a chair and my suit was again plugged into an air supply and a computer.
"Welcome to Hus Tam," said 'Bob'. "That is not our name, naturally: it is what the humans here call it. Here we have no need to remain in our travel machines, though you should be warned that our appearance is not as yours."
Obviously at this point my imagination ran riot: visions of things with tentacles, formless blue slime or the alien from those Sigourney Weaver films burst into my head, and I was wondering how fast I could run in this suit, and how long the breathable air in it would last when I pulled it away from the air connection on the wall... and then the top of Bob's machine split in half with a hiss and folded away and the real Bob appeared, and I decided I had been overreacting a bit.
My immediate thought was 'insect', because he had a segmented body like an ant, though instead of a hard chitinous covering the body looked soft. There were also twin knobbly ridges on opposite sides of his back that hinted at a pair of backbones, which made him closer to us than an insect would have been. And he was considerably larger than any insect - I'd guess he was about half my size. The head was far more insect than human, though: the eyes were compound eyes of some sort, the mouth was mandibles rather than teeth, and there were even three short antennae on the top of the head. There were four legs with more joints than any insect I had ever seen, and two shorter ones - I suppose they were really arms, rather than legs - each equipped with three claws which seemed to be adapted for grasping.
He climbed easily out of the machine and onto one of the strangely-shaped pieces of furniture, arranging himself on the top of it, his body neatly fitting its contours. Of course, I told myself: it's a chair for an outsize, soft, intelligent ant. How could I have missed that?
The other two emerged as well, and I'd guess that they were talking to each other, though I didn't understand a blind word of it - even assuming there were any actual words. To me it was a series of clicks and hisses. And while they were speaking their skin (if it was skin) changed colour: patches of different colours appeared on what had previously been a uniform beige-coloured surface. After a minute or so of this they all faced me and the one in the middle - I'd lost track of which was which - clicked something which I assumed was addressed to me.
"Sorry," I said. "I don't think the translator is turned on."
The one on the left scuttled back into its travel machine and crossed the room to a metal panel containing slots and bumps. The machine blocked my view, so I couldn't see what he was doing, but after a few seconds later I heard one of them say, "Is that better?"
"That's perfect," I replied.
"Sorry - we failed to activate the translation device. You may now speak normally and we will understand. Do you think you will find it easier to relate to us in this way?"
"Yes - though it wasn't that big a problem," I said. "It is interesting to see you as you really are, though."
"Then you may continue your story. Tell us again of the mind-readers."
So I repeated what I had told them about our time at the Central Konjäauml;ssi Academy. They found the idea of humans with at least rudimentary telepathy fascinating.
"We have such a system," I was told, "because we are a hive culture, like many of the insect species of your own world, though we have considerably more independence than any of those creatures. But we are able to transmit and receive messages from a distance. It is a system that has considerable advantages, and frequently renders face to face communication unnecessary. Though it does not carry the nuances or shades of meaning of face to face communication... it would be interesting for us to examine one of these mind-reading humans."
"Well, you could talk to Killian, though I don't think he's really typical. As for the rest of them, personally I hope they never come anywhere near our world, because ordinary people like me can't handle them at all," I said. "It's the same with the Greys - I never want to meet another one of them, either."
"I do not think either type would trouble us. We would not be susceptible to mind control from another species, and we are considerably more advanced technologically than your race or any other of a similar stage of development - and it would seem from your description that the reptile race is at a similar stage of development to your own people. We understand that Narj Larzel of Kerpia is in charge of the reopening of the parallel interchanges in his own land, and we are hoping he will permit us to travel to his land and learn more of the interchanges from him, and perhaps to travel beyond one or two to see for ourselves."
"Will that be possible for you?" I asked. "I mean, you said you were a hive culture: if you went through a portal you'd be cut off from the rest of the hive. Could you survive that?"
"That would not be a problem in the short term. We are able to survive independently for long periods... at least, such is our theory. Since we have never encountered a parallel interchange before, we have not had occasion to test the theory. This is another reason why we wish to attempt it: it will permit us to discover our own limitations. But frequently small parties have been alone on a planet - though naturally the circumstances are different because the hive remained in the same dimension."
"Wow! Do you mean you remain in contact with the hive even if it's not on the same planet as you?"
"A measure of contact remains. It is insufficient for full communication but adequate for us to maintain our... I think you would talk of a sense of belonging."
"And do you just have one huge hive based on your home planet or smaller ones all over the place?"
"There are many hives, though there is contact between the queen of each and the central hive on the home planet. Our hive is here, divided between this ground station and our orbiting ship. Now, continue your story: how did you escape from the mind-readers?"
So I continued with the story. I still found it hard to talk about the death of Harlan, and when I reached that point my voice faltered and I stopped speaking.
"You appear distressed," said the one in the middle. "Yet this boy was preventing you from returning to your own world. Explain."
"He was my friend," I said. "And... wait - do you know what friendship is? Can you understand the idea of a bond between two people, or are you like the Greys? They never really got friendship at all, I don't think - except maybe Torth did, right at the end..."
"We understand. We also have friendships - we are not exactly as the hive creatures of your world. As I stated previously, we have a greater degree of independence of thought and action than they do. We frequently form attachments of that nature. It seems strange to us, however, that you should have formed such a bond with one who had enslaved you."
"It's hard to explain," I said. "Harlan never really treated me like a slave - at least, not compared to the way some of the others did. I liked him, and he liked me, too - I'm pretty sure that's true, because sometimes his feelings sort of leaked out even when he wasn't intending them to. And I was really sorry when he died... okay, it meant that we were able to get back home, but I never wanted it to happen. And because I was the one who took him there even though I knew the Greys had guns... well, Stefan has spent a long time telling me that I didn't have any choice if we were all going to escape, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it...
"Anyway, it's happened, and there's nothing I can do about it now... unless you know how to travel in time, of course?"
"That is impossible unless we have failed to grasp the nature of time in some way. And we do not believe that we have failed to do so."
"I thought not. Then it's done, and that should be the end of it." But it wasn't, of course: it didn't matter what Stefan said - I didn't think I'd ever stop blaming myself.
I went on with the story, continuing until we got back to Kerpia (and I skated over the deaths of Verdess and Marlo, too - that was another place I didn't want to have to revisit). And afterwards one of the Tammids escorted me further into the base until we came to what was clearly an airlock.
"Once you are through this lock you can switch off your bottled air supply and remove your helmet," he told me. "A room has been prepared for you - it is through the second door on the right. If you require anything you will find a radio link beside the door. The atmosphere in the area beyond the lock is that of your world, so you will not require protective clothing until you return to this side. Sleep well - we will come for you in the morning."
So I went into the airlock, which closed and hissed and beeped, and then on through the second door into what looked a bit like the accommodation at the Institute back in Strossburi. The second door on the right led to a similar hotel-type room, with a single bed, a desk and chair, an armchair, and a large window looking out at a view of an apparently endless forest. I disconnected the small air bottle strapped to my left thigh, somewhat gingerly removed the helmet - after all, maybe the Tammids' idea of humour would be to make me remove my suit in an atmosphere I couldn't breathe - found that it was safe and quickly stripped off the rest of the suit. In the corner of the room was a shower and toilet, and once I'd made use of the facilities I felt a bit more comfortable - I simply hadn't been able to bring myself to use the undignified hose connection inside the suit.
I sat at the desk and looked out of the window. It was still quite bright out, but when I looked at my watch I saw that it was already ten o'clock at night. Then I realised that I was far enough north to be in midnight sun territory. I wondered if the Tammids' home planet had similar long days, and if so, how they coped with the dark of the Arctic winter here.
There was a microwave at one side of the room with a stack of ready meals beside it. Well, I supposed it was unlikely that there would be a restaurant in this hotel, so I had a look at the offerings. It didn't help that the boxes were labelled in a language I couldn't understand - Swedish, presumably - but there were helpful pictures on the boxes, and so I settled for something that appeared to be meatballs with small boiled potatoes. I have to say that I've had better meals, and I wondered how the King of Sweden had enjoyed his stay here if this had been the cuisine on offer... but then again, nobody had asked me to eat Tammid food, so I supposed I couldn't complain.
Once I'd eaten I had a quick shower and went to bed, and even though this was the first time I had slept alone for a very long time I managed to drop off in the end.
Next morning I was up and dressed and ready to go long before they came to fetch me. I found some orange juice in a small fridge under the microwave and had a glass of it for breakfast, and then I just sat and looked out of the window, hoping they wouldn't keep me here too long: interesting though this was, I was hoping to get back to Elsass today, because I was definitely missing Stefan by now. And, after all, I'd already told them everything I knew about the portals.
Eventually there was a click from the radio beside the door and a voice told me to get my suit on and come back to the airlock, and I did that enthusiastically: at this rate I'd be back at the Institute in time for lunch. But I found I'd been counting my chickens.
Back in the same room that I had been in the previous afternoon I found myself clearing up a few points and fielding a number of follow-up questions - and then the three Tammids all seemed to freeze and their antennae moved for a couple of seconds.
"We have visitors," Bob told me. "A ship will be landing shortly. We would like you to help with their induction to this world."
"How?"
"One of them - a juvenile of your own stage of development - will remain with you for two or three days when you return to your normal environment. He will learn from you and transmit his findings to the remainder of the new group. This will prepare them for interaction with your species. We will naturally be able to transmit our own knowledge to them, but such a continuous observation of a member of the dominant native species will be most helpful."
Great, I thought: I'm going to have a mobile box on my tail for the rest of the week. But I didn't think I could really say no - the diplomatic incident was still a possibility, and I supposed the Tammids had contributed to the happy state of the world I was living in, so...
"Okay," I said. "I suppose I can do that."
"We are grateful," said Bob. "Remain here while we make the arrangements."
They left me for a few minutes. While they were gone I heard nothing at all, but that must have been due either to extremely efficient insulation in the base, or to Tammid ships having near-silent engines, because when Bob came back he had my shadow with him. At first I thought that he'd explained things to the newcomer very quickly - he'd barely been gone five minutes - but then I realised that the bulk of it had probably been transmitted telepathically, probably before the ship even landed.
The newcomer's box looked exactly the same as Bob's - no doubt they were mass-produced somewhere - but when the box opened and the Tammid inside climbed up onto one of their chairs I saw that it was smaller than Bob and was a darker colour.
"This is Jake," Bob told him. "He will show you how he lives and help you to understand his kind. Jake, this is..."
The name was like a stick running along a set of railings, and I couldn't begin to reproduce it.
"Humans cannot speak our language," Bob said, "So we take a name that they can pronounce. Jake, what do you think this name sounds like?"
And he repeated it, and it sounded, literally, like nothing on earth. I tried hard to imitate it, but it's hard to hiss at the same time as you click your mandibles - at least, it is if you haven't got any mandibles - and my attempt was nowhere near Bob's. Even I could hear that.
"Okay, that wasn't very good," I admitted. "But that first bit... could you live with 'Kirk'?"
"That would seem adequate," agreed Bob. "Now I will go and prepare the ship to return us to your Institute. You may get acquainted while I am gone."
I had no idea how to make small talk with an alien, but there was one thing I wanted to say.
"I'm sorry for mangling your name," I said. "When I was at school in England people used to forget my name, and that used to annoy me, so I know what it's like. Are you sure you don't mind being called 'Kirk'?"
"I do not understand some of the words you use," he said, "but you should not concern yourself about my name. I am sure that if the translator machine were not activated I could not utter your name, even though it is very short."
"The machine seems to work very well from your language to mine," I said. "I understand you perfectly. I hope you can understand me equally well."
"I can now. There was an error when I arrived, and my box was programmed with a different human language, the one spoken by those who live near this base. When we first came here it was believed that all humans spoke one language, and so we programmed our machines to speak this language. Only later did we find that the language of this region is spoken only locally. We had to reprogram with the language that you are hearing now, which is more widely used. It seems strange to have a means of communication that is not universally understood. Does this not cause difficulties?"
"It used to. Now it's less of a problem, and once the Kerpian technology is available, languages shouldn't be a problem at all. You'll be able to see that later today."
I thought that space aliens learning Swedish was sort of funny: it's not the standard language of deep space exploration, and I thought it would sound weird coming from one of their machines. But before I could ask him to demonstrate his antennae twitched.
"We must go," he said. "The ship is ready."
I unplugged my suit from the wall and turned on the little air bottle and then followed Kirk out of the room. For a moment I was surprised that he knew the way, given that he had only just arrived on Earth, but then I realised he'd be getting telepathic directions.
The return trip took no longer than the outward one, and soon I was able to remove the suit for what I hoped would be the last time - okay, it wasn't all that uncomfortable, but if you got an itch wearing it you couldn't scratch. I returned to the laboratory and found that nothing had changed: Killian and Caradoc were still in the English chairs, Hansi and Tibor were in the French ones and Radu and Tommi were still waiting for their turn.
"What's in the box?" asked Tommi - Kirk had followed me in, of course.
"This is Kirk," I told him. "Kirk, this is Tommi."
"Hello, Tommi," said Kirk, making Tommi jump.
"He's a Tammid," I said. "He's going to be with me for a couple of days, finding out about us. And... I think you'd be unlucky with what we talked about earlier, Tommi: I don't think you'd be able to, er, play with a Tammid the way you did with Sarleth. We can't breathe the same air, for a start."
"Oh. Well, that doesn't matter, because now I've got Caradoc, and he's even more fun than Sarleth was."
I'd assumed I was going to be staying here at the Institute while Kirk was with me, but it turned out that they wanted him to see where I usually lived and what I did in an average day. I pointed out that the school holidays weren't really average, and that normally I would be at school for eight hours a day, but they said it didn't matter: even if I wasn't at school I would still be eating and sleeping and so on, and that would be enough.
So shortly after that Kirk and I were on our way back to Milhüsa. His box wasn't a lot larger than a human wheelchair, so he was able to get it onto the train and the trams without too much difficulty, and the dome on top of the box, which contained the camera that functioned as his eyes while he was inside the box, was high enough to be able to look out of the window, so I was able to give him a commentary during the journey. I would have to suppose that most of the other passengers knew what a Tammid's travel machine looked like, because nobody seemed to think I was weird because I was talking to a box.
Once we got back to the Résidence I introduced him to the director and then took him up to my room. Stefan wasn't there, so that gave me a while to think up a way to tell him that we were going to have a house guest for a couple of days.
"Can you sleep in your box?" I asked.
"We do not sleep for long periods compared to you, but I can sleep in the machine if necessary. But it will not be necessary."
As I watched, what looked like a colourless liquid emerged from the top of the box and flowed down the sides of it, and then it seemed to set and to expand, until the box was sitting in the middle of a transparent igloo. A minute or so later the top of the box folded away and Kirk emerged, climbing to the floor, connecting a cable to the wall of the igloo, and then opening a panel at the back of the box and taking out a small version of a Tammid chair. He pressed a button on the side of this and it expanded until it fitted him perfectly.
"I can sleep here," he said. "Also you may find it easier if we talk while I am outside the machine: it seems you had a problem with addressing the machines earlier."
"Okay." I sat down cross-legged on the floor and asked him about his eating habits, and he said the box was equipped with sufficient nutrients to last him for several days. And at that point the door opened and Stefan came in.
I got to my feet and embraced him. "We've got a guest," I said. "I want you to meet Kirk. Kirk, this is Stefan - he's my boyfriend."
Stefan stared, first at Kirk, then at me.
"He's a Tammid," I explained. "He's just arrived on Earth, and he wants to find out about us as a species, so he's going to stay with us for a day or two."
"Really? Is he going to be here all night?"
"Well, yes, but I don't think it's really a problem. They seem friendly."
"Some of the boys at my school were friendly, but I wouldn't have wanted them to watch you and me... you know."
"True, but we did do stuff in front of Harlan and Terry, didn't we?"
"Not by choice! On the other hand, you've been away for a bit and I was away before that and I don't see why we should wait any longer, so provided he isn't easily shocked, I don't suppose him being here will matter."
"What might shock me?" asked Kirk, and Stefan stared again.
"They can speak English?" he asked.
"Not really. There's a translator machine in his box. But we can understand each other."
"Oh." Stefan still didn't look particularly happy.
"He's talking about sex," I explained to Kirk. "Our species isn't generally too happy about having sex with an audience."
"I understand." There was a pause. "I had been told that your species procreated on a two-gender basis, but you are both male. Explain."
"There is more to sex than procreation," I said, aware that I was blushing. "Sometimes people have sex because it feels good, or because it's a way to share things with someone you love. You don't have to be of opposite sexes to do that."
"I can understand that this might be true. But from my understanding two males would not be equipped to copulate."
"Don't worry about it," said Stefan. "I promise we can 'copulate', if you want to use that term, but we'd prefer not to do it publicly."
"I find this fascinating. You must understand that our species does not experience sex as yours does. For us, sex is a function of certain specialist males who service our queen. It plays no part in the lives of the rest of us. So I would be interested to learn how it is for you."
"Perhaps later," I said, firmly. "Right now we're going outside for a bit, and after that we'll have supper, and after that... maybe we'll want to do some fooling around before we go to sleep. So, can you leave that bubble you're in, or do you have to collapse it and rebuild it when we come back?"
"I can pass through it," he said, and he climbed back into his machine, closed the lid and then seemed to drive through the side of the bubble, which clung to the side of the box as it passed through it and sealed itself once the box had cleared it.
We went outside and parked up at the side of the five-a-side football pitch, where a few of our fellow residents were kicking a ball about. I gave Kirk a brief explanation of the rules and he watched with interest for a while.
"What is the purpose of this activity?" he asked.
"We play for fun," I said. "And to get some exercise, I suppose."
"I do not understand the concept of 'fun'."
"Well..." I couldn't think of a way to explain this in a way he might understand, so instead I said, "Maybe you should try it for yourself. Let's play."
I called the players over - most of them were younger than me - and asked if they'd mind letting Kirk have a go in goal for a bit, and they liked the idea of playing football with a Tammid. So I told Kirk to play in goal, explained that he had to stop the ball going into the goal but that he was not allowed to leave the semi-circle painted on the pitch around the goal, and then settled back to see what would happen. At first he tried staying on the goal line, parked sideways on, but that left enough of the goal visible on either side of him for the players to score without too much difficulty. But then he hit on the concept of making it more difficult by advancing and narrowing the angle available to the opposing forwards, and after that he did a lot better. And that box of his could shift when he wanted it to.
Stefan and I joined in for a bit, one on either side (and the side that got Stefan got the best of the deal) and we carried on playing until it was time for supper, by which point the kids on Kirk's team were talking to him as easily as to each other.
"I understand the principle of 'fun'" he told me as we headed for the dining room. "It is a pointless activity performed for entertainment. Is that correct?"
"Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that, but I suppose the principle is right," I agreed.
He sat and watched us eat without comment, and afterwards followed us back to our room.
"You seem to eat much," he observed. "How frequently do you eat?"
"Three times a day, usually."
"Why must you eat so much?"
"We burn a lot of energy, especially if we play football and stuff like that. Besides, we like eating, especially if the food is well-prepared. I would like to be a chef one day."
"We eat just as much as we need to function. To eat more would cause problems for our internal systems."
"Food can be a great source of pleasure," I said. "If you can't enjoy food, you're missing something. Now we're going to have a shower. You can wait here if you like."
I thought there was little chance of that, and I was right: Kirk trundled down the corridor with us to the shower room.
"Won't it damage your systems if you get water on your box?" I tried, but was less than surprised to receive the answer "No." So Stefan and I got undressed and showered with rather more decorum than usual - even when there were other people in the shower we generally washed each other's hair and scrubbed each other's backs and so on, but today we made sure we didn't do anything to get each other aroused. And then we wrapped our towels around our waists, picked up our clothes and walked back along the corridor to our room.
"I understand that coverings - clothes - are normal in your world but I do not understand why," was the next question. "Explain."
"Well, partly it's for warmth," I said. "It's sometimes very cold here, and we would be very uncomfortable without clothes. In the north of Sweden, where your base is, we could not survive without clothing during the winter months. And in most human cultures it's normal to cover certain parts of your body - people get uncomfortable with nudity. And, before you ask, I don't know why. It doesn't bother us, anyway, does it, Stefi?"
"Not usually," he said, glowering at Kirk.
"Then I would like to see you without your clothes," said Kirk.
Well, I thought, perhaps if we got it over and done with he'd be satisfied and go to sleep or something. So I dropped my towel and stood up, and Stefan unenthusiastically came and stood next to me.
"So are those your reproductive organs?" Kirk asked.
"Yes. We carry ours externally, unlike the Greys - they keep theirs inside the body most of the time."
"And how do you use them?"
Stefan opened his mouth, but I got in first.
"Usually this is a very private activity," I said. "We'll let you watch on one condition: that you keep quiet and save any questions for tomorrow. Agreed?"
"I accept."
"Good. Then back off a bit and keep quiet."
It took a little while for us to get in the mood, because at first we were both very much aware of the audience, but Kirk remained both motionless and silent and gradually we were able to ignore his presence. We went through the full range of activities, manual and oral, and concluded with the copulation he hadn't thought possible for two males but which was, thankfully, not only possible but wonderful, too. Afterwards we lay quietly until we'd got our breath back and then got up, cleaned up using the washbasin in the corner of the room, and then climbed into bed together.
"Thanks for keeping quiet, Kirk," I said. "Now we're going to sleep. Goodnight."
"I wish you a good night also," he said, trundling back to and inside his bubble. Once he was back on his chair I turned the lights off and we settled down.
Next morning he had a number of questions about what he had witnessed the previous evening, but lying comfortably in bed with our arms round each other we felt a bit more relaxed about it and did our best to answer him properly.
Over the next couple of days he trundled about the place, speaking to several other residents as well as to us, watching our various activities, examining our computers, and generally learning about the way we lived. On the second day Stefan and I rode out to the forest on a couple of the Résidence bikes and Kirk followed us, keeping up effortlessly - apparently his box was driven by a type of very long-lasting battery, though he could power it using his own strength in an emergency if the battery failed. We showed him some of the wildlife and he was able to examine and take samples of various trees and shrubs. And then on the third day he said that he was ready to go back to the Institute.
I took him there myself, wanting to see how the scientists were getting on with their attempts to prepare a program for the learning of Arvelan, and discovered that it was still in its very early stages, though by now Killian and Caradoc were out of the chairs and at work with the team. In fact Arvelan wasn't the native language for either of them, though both had been taught it from an early age, and that did give rise to some arguments about vocabulary and even grammar. I was quite happy just to say "Hello" and then leave them to it.
Before I went back to the Résidence Kirk took me to one side.
"I know that it was not easy for you to have me always with you asking questions," he said. "Particularly about private issues such as digestion, elimination and sex. I am most grateful to you, and to your partner, for allowing me such open access to your lives. As has been explained to you, we recognise the concept of friendship, and I would now consider you to be my friend. And for us friendship brings obligations. Take this."
A small panel on the front of his box swung open, and inside I found a solid bracelet of some sort of silvery-white metal.
"You will find a small panel on the inside that you can slide back," he told me. "There is a button beneath the panel. If you press that button it will send a signal to our ship that will indicate your location and inform us that you require assistance. I will respond and come to your aid, or if I am unavailable one of my colleagues will do so. Naturally you may never have need of it, but should you do so at any time in the future we will respond."
"Thanks, Kirk," I replied. "I don't expect to have to use it - after all, from now on I'm just going to be living a nice, normal, boring life. But I'm grateful, all the same, and I'll wear it anyway."
And that was it: Kirk rolled off to rejoin his colleagues and I went back to the Résidence to get on with enjoying what was left of the summer holidays. I did start wearing Kirk's present, but I'd meant what I said to him: I had no intention of doing anything or going anywhere that would put me in danger. I was convinced that part of my life was over.
I really should have known better...
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