Chapter 14 Robby Goes a Courting
It was quite unlike her but Sheila placed her elbows on the small cafeteria style table, dropped her chin on her hands and stared at Alta. Alta could sense she was being measured in some way by her aunt. Alta's discomfort did not go unnoticed. Sheila was not apathetic though her words were not sympathetic. “You have told us much but we know so little about you.” The remark puzzled Alta and it showed in her eyes, a look that was not wasted on Sheila.
“I don't mean to upset you Alta,” Sheila continued, “but most people I know, I can associate with on an unspoken level. I know they had parents, they went to school, they had boyfriends, they watched movies and they had a past I could associate with, not that I knew everything, or understood everything. I knew enough to, well, get by. I knew what built them up, what let them down, what made them smile and what made them cry. You are different.” Sheila was near tears thinking about the life her niece had lived, completely alone with her father and isolated from all other human contact. The tears had fallen and there was no taking them back. “You didn't even know your mother, my best friend and a wonderful woman. What you missed and what kind of emptiness that must leave inside you!”
For the most part, Alta was dumbfounded. No one had ever talked to her like this before, trying to crawl into her feelings, her experiences and her reasoning. While she would not allow herself to fall into self-pity, she did grasp that was not her aunt's intent. All of the psycho-babble words invented to describe human relations simply didn't work in how she felt about her aunt and how Sheila felt about her. Sheila was in pain for a niece she had just met and accepted as a blood relative of her husband. Alta was now the child she wanted but couldn't have.
Alta reached for Sheila's hands, clutched them tightly, drew them down to the table and with a barely audible and greatly choked voice said “Thank you.” Their predicament was never far from Alta's thoughts but this moment was an entrenchment on common ground for two people trying to solve a problem. Know thyself, including those close to yourself first, then solve your problem. The relationship between Alta and Sheila had leaped forward. It was solid, unbreakable, unshakable and determined.
“I know why they want you here.” Alta said, almost apologetically but pushing out the words. “I can speak Krell at the level of three year old, maybe a little higher now. That comes from dreaming since the age of three and having the Krell in my dreams speaking a language I had no facility to learn. It was like telling a baby no, the baby only understanding the tone, hearing the sound, but not understanding the word no beyond stop what you are doing. That is how the Krell spoke to me in my dreams. That jolt from the educator in the Krell lab forced a breakthrough.” Sheila looked intently at Alta, nodding her head gently to indicate she understood. It made a great deal of sense now that Alta was regarded as a child, but was there more to it?
Alta tightened her grip on Sheila's hands, put her head forward and spoke softly but deliberately saying “The Krell robots accept you as my mother.” It all made sense to Sheila as she let it sink in, leaning back in the chair with her eyes fixed on Alta. Alta, the three year old Krell, needed her mother to provide what the Krell robots could not. If her father were alive, they would have demanded his presence as well but they knew from Alta's thoughts he was dead.
Alta had more to say but needed some sign from Sheila to continue. “Go on” Sheila said.
“The Krell robots are treating me like a three year old. They are not questioning your ability but they are following their programming. Three year olds, even the magnificent Krell, do not run around unsupervised or risk exposure to aliens. That is not a judgment, just hard coding and for some reason, they exempt you from being treated as an alien threat.” Alta was positive about her analysis because her Krell friends in her dreams had been telling her this for nearly 17 years.
It made sense to Sheila now as she spoke out loud what she was thinking. “Yes, they regard you as a child that needs protective custody. They probably consider me deficient since I am not Krell but nonetheless accept me as your mother. Is that in their programming?”
“We must talk to Robby” Alta continued, “he knows so much and I must find the proper way