Chapter 6
I headed out without watching the TARDISes departing. Loxy followed, catching up easy enough, and so we shared a lift.
“What’s about to happen?” Loxy asked.
“Well, if I were in my quarters, you would be proposing to me,” I said. Loxy laughed. “Fat chance,” she said.
That’s twice she laughed at me! She was genuinely amused if I proposed or if I suggested she would propose, but at exactly 16:22, if I were in my quarters, she would pop in to tell me she’s unhappy that I canceled my schedule shift, and sideways ask me to marry her, and then find over a dozen reasons why she doesn’t think I really want to marry her. If I am on the Bridge, she arrives just in time to witness the next event, and so whatever it was she came to tell me doesn’t happen. And now I know what she had come to tell me, but couldn’t, and maybe that’s why marriage keeps coming up.
“Computer, hold the lift,” I said. “Tell me about your day.”
“It seems irrelevant compared to what you seem to be going through,” Loxy said.
“No, Loxy. Lower your shields, open hailing frequencies, and share,” I said.
“This is important. What’s your day been like?
“Last week I went to the world in the dome,” Loxy said. She seemed focus.
“I went to apply at the academy, Starlight University. They accepted me.”
“That’s great,” I said.
“No, it was too easy. I don’t have any formal education, John. It shouldn’t be that easy. Anyway, the guy that helped me with the application process was aggressively flirting with me,” Loxy said.
“How did you feel about that?” I asked.
“Flattered. Angry. And then it occurred to me, he accepted my application expecting favors,” Loxy said. “So, I asked to see his supervisor, and he said no, and I made such a public fuss, that others got involved. And then it was explained that my application was accepted because all ship personnel get to attend the University, and apparently I blew this small thing out of proportion.”
“Is it possible it wasn’t small? Maybe you interpreted it correctly?” I asked.
“I’ve been talking about that with my counselor, and Uhura,” Loxy said.
“And apparently, getting hit on and experiencing flirting is something that’s going to happen to me. It happens to all women. Even when I was in your head, I have seen how you respond to others, and how flirtatious you can be, but I also know, how far you will take flirting and if the other is receptive, you’re all in, and so, I am afraid if I flirt back with others, it will get out of hand, and so I shut it all down, because I don’t really want that. I want to be respected as a full person, who is capable and smart, not just getting things because I am beautiful or because I am your friend. The crew has been rather good, not too much flirting per say, except maybe one officer, but everywhere I go people are staring at me, and strangers are approaching me and I am feeling overwhelmed. And, I am not sure I am fitting in well with the crew, because, I don’t know, I am frequently surprised by the things they say and do, and sometimes I wonder if they don’t take me seriously, and I wonder if it’s because I am a ‘tulpa’ and they don’t see me as a real person, or maybe it’s because I am so young and inexperienced I just don’t know how to be. Things came to me so much easier when I was in your head. Maybe because I could draw directly on your strength and experiences. I find myself locking my hands behind my back just to hide the fact I am shaking and scared all the time.”
“Wow,” I said. “You’re feeling overwhelmed, trying to find how you fit, and you haven’t even learned to be you yet and now you discovered you’re pregnant.”
Loxy began to cry. I drew her into an embrace and allowed her to cry. I held her till she stopped on her own, no interrupting with my own wanting to comfort her, to soothe her with kind words, because, in truth, what could I say that she didn’t already know on an intellectual level? She now had to realize all of that for herself on an emotional level. She needed to come about it on her on. And she did, she pulled herself together, separated from me, drying her face on my sleeves. I gave her a pass, even when she wiped her nose on my sleeve. Brilliant.
“I am sorry,” Loxy said.
For wiping your nose on my sleeve I nearly asked. “Don’t ever apologize for being human,” I said.
“Am I?” Loxy asked. “Am I human?”
A call came across my Badge, calling me to the Bridge. “On my way,” I half lied, without releasing the lift. “What else would you imagine yourself?”
“I don’t know,” Loxy said. “You created me. What am I to you?”
“You want me to come up with words to designate your significance in my life, but all words will fail to capture that,” I said. “Who are you? What are you? Hell, who am I? You know there are aliens on this ship and they are more human than most the humans I know? Am I human? I occupy a human body but my personality is contrived set of algorithms based on external and internal events. Had I been born in Russia, my world map would be different, and I might not have ever read about tulpas, much less made you. I have been caught up in this time loop for ages and you would think I would know everything, but every day if I really look hard enough, beyond the surface of things, I keep finding surprises. You keep surprising me and I made you! Maybe when I have learned all that I can in this moment and know the ins and outs of everyone on the crew and can predict the responses it won’t be because I am psychic or special, it will just be because I lived so damn long that it will appear that way, and no one is going to see me as human or fallible again, because, well I am going to be monster. And human doesn’t even begin to describe what I am evolving into, or what we’re about to meet out there. There are people on this ship that didn’t exist in real life. Are they human? If we cut them open, we will find flesh and bone and not androids? Are they aliens? Maybe we need a new word to call people, because human is really obsolete in a world of Others. Maybe we’re transhuman. Maybe we need to drop human all together from our vocabulary. I really liked your idea of calling us all tulpas, because that explains everything here. We’re all thought-forms made manifest. There are no 2 dimensional characters here. There are no bit players. We’re all contributing to something incredible and right now we are all struggling and fumbling, but we’re going to get it.”
“You really do ramble on a bit long,” Loxy said.
“Yeah, well, this was impromptu, first rendition speech,” I said. “If you like, I could quote Kirk?”
“No, that’s okay,” Loxy said. “I think you’re wanted on the Bridge?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You ready to return to the real world?”
“Okay,” Loxy said. “Okay, resume lift,” I said.
Loxy took my hand. I accepted.
“What are your thoughts about being pregnant?” I asked. “I figure if I ignore it, it’ll work itself out,” Loxy said.
Interesting way of putting it, I thought. We arrived on the Bridge and she dropped my hand as the door was opening, and put her hands in the small of her back. The Bridge was a flurry of activity and I pretended I knew nothing about what was going on. I have become a rather good actor, as it become crucial to others for me to seem engaged. If I am too bored, they get upset and it changes the interactions patterns and slows things down. If I am too enthusiastic, they don’t think I am taking them serious. It takes a great deal of skill to convince them I am human and present and everything is going along normally.
“Captain,” Uhura said. “One of our probes received a message. It was destroyed shortly after transmitting it to us.”
“Put it on screen,” I said.
Uhura put the message on the screen. It was image of a totem pole. “What does it mean?” Loxy asked.
“The computer doesn’t have a translation,” Uhura said. “I like it. Kind of tribal.”
“It’s a totem,” Sacagawea said.
“Do you recognize, Lt?” I asked my navigator.
“Well, it’s an older dialect, but I am confident that it basically says, beware of dog, no trespassing, trespassers will be shot. It’s kind of vague, if you ask me,” Sacagawea said.
“Destroying the probe wasn’t vague,” I said. “I would say, message received, loud and clear.”
“Maybe they would respond differently if we showed up in person,” Loxy said. “I could take a shuttlecraft.”
“Oh, I call pilot!” Sacagawea said. “They just killed our probe!” I said.
“It’s just a tribal greeting to impress us they’re in charge,” Sacagawea said. “It doesn’t mean they aren’t open to trade or friendship, with the right people.”
“Oh, come on, John,” Loxy said. “It’s a mystery. We can’t just leave a mystery unsolved and go forwards, because if we don’t understand it, someone else is going to probe it and they might not be as kind or generous as we, and so, let’s map it out and have clarity.”
I was silent. This was a huge command decision. Even the first time around my gut said leave it alone, because I had learned long ago if you find a hornet’s nest in a tree, pitching rocks at it isn’t a good thing. I also knew, I couldn’t ignore this. The crew would investigate on their own if I did nothing.
“Staff meeting, 20 minutes,” I said. “Uhrua, see if Marwa is free to take the chair early. And I want you at the meeting.”
My senior staff, plus a variety of appointed experts, and Midori were present. Uhura presented all the information we knew. The 2nd planet from the sun was enclosed in a force field, and sensors couldn’t penetrate it. In orbit around the planet was a space station. A magical space station. Not really magic. But it wasn’t all there. Tesla explained it was likely a fourth and fifth dimensional artifact, and so as it rotated, parts of it disappeared and new parts reappeared, and so, the visible face of the artifact, no matter which perspective you held, was always changing.
“Whoever built this is light years ahead of us,” Tesla said.
Midori scoffed. “No they’re not. Our ship is bigger on the inside,” she argued.
“It’s the same tech.”
“It reminds me of the Guardian of Edo,” I said. “Could you spell that?” Jung asked.
“OMG, tell me someone here knows that reference,” I said.
“Isn’t that the episode the aliens want to kill Wesley?” Loxy asked.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, Uhura, make sure everyone has ‘watch Star Trek’ on their to- do list.”
“Aye, Sir,” Uhura said.
“That’s a bit unreasonable.” She was Lt First Class Lorna Bucket. “I mean, we can’t assume everything is going to have a connection to Trek. What if we come across a world where the principle players are from Pride and Prejudice?”
“Oh, what a hellish thought,” I said.
“John,” Loxy said, reminding me to be civil.
“No, really,” I said. She didn’t know that I have spent several whole days with Lorna trying to get to know her. I mean, if I am sending people to their deaths, I sure as hell don’t want them to be the bit character that got cut out of the final copy, or worse, the ‘cliché’ red shirt who dies at the beginning of the episode. “I mean, if you throw some Zombies in there, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, and then we’d have an explanation for why the army was digging up graves.”
“It was for metal,” Jung said. “What?” I asked.
“They needed metal to make musket balls,” Jung said. “It was quite common in the days for armies to dig up graves for metals and precious items that could be sold to support the cause.”
Next he would be telling me how the phrase “raining cats and dogs’ came about. “I meant no disrespect, Lt.”
“None taken, Sir,” Bucket said. “My point, though is perhaps it would be better to diversify by interest. I am much more a Whovian than a Treker. I also prefer Wars to Trek.”
I am always surprised by how many like one or the other, but can’t do both. It’s clearly the same thing!
“We’re on a ship called Enterprise, you don’t suppose knowing something about Trek would be helpful,” I asked.
“Not in this Universe,” Bucket said.
“We’re really getting off topic,” Loxy said.
“Wait a moment. You’re enjoying this bit?
You’ve done this before, too?”
“What does that mean, done this before, too?” Jung asked. “Where’s Isis?” I asked.
“As a cat, she could be sleeping anywhere,” Tesla said. “She’s a spirit, she could be everywhere,” Sacagawea said. “Does she even have quarters?” Chan asked.
“I find it interesting that we have a potential mystery that she may help with, and she’s not present,” I said. In fact, I hadn’t seen her since this morning meeting.
“I am okay with that,” Uhura said. “I mean, if we’re here to learn how to walk, we don’t need helicopter parents.”
“She is so not our parent,” Loxy said. “She is a God,” Sacagawea said.
“No, she is a time traveling alien,” I said. “But, even if she was a parent, Goddess, time traveling alien who knows more than we, it’s not helicoptering, it’s nurturing. It’s what more sophisticated folks do. Just like anyone of us would be different around children and adults with Down Syndrome, we should expect them to work with us as if we were children or retarded.”
“I don’t like that analogy,” Midori said. “We’re adults. Come at us like adults.”
“I think Midori and Uhura are right, my dear boy,” Jung said. OMG, of course you do, I thought, wondering many times has he said that. “The crib is broken and we are venturing forth.”
“Yeah, yeah, into uncharted territories,” I said.
“I wouldn’t say uncharted. Uncharted is not even in my paradigm,” Jung said. “If you want to hold true to this metaphor of yours, we are out of the crib, but we are safely in our room, a place built by adults, designed to keep us safe.”
“And the room will seem bigger than it is,” Uhura said, playing off the good doctor. “And the doorknob is just out of reach and so we still have to ask for help on some things, but there are fun things to do in the room. Some toys, some books, and that mobile thing that plays music. Oh, I so love Bach and the mobile of stars!”
It’s so difficult to stay perturbed around my friends. I was amused by their banter and the way they play off each other. Still, some habits die hard. “What about wall sockets?”
“What about them?” Jung asked.
“Are they covered with those little plastic thingies, because when I was kid, I remember sticking coat hangers in them just to see what would happen, and I am probably lucky I wasn’t killed outright or that I didn’t burned down the house,” I said. Of course, it was really worse than that. My cousin, brother, and I thought it might be fun to hit bullets with hammers, like in the cartoons, just to hear them go off, and even in that, we got incredibly lucky not to have injure ourselves, and maybe a little helicoptering would have been in our best interest. Of course, my parent would have purposely shot us if they had caught us hitting bullets with hammers. When we were caught playing with matches they burned us with matches and cigarettes to teach us not to do that again. When we played with cigarettes, we had to smoke a whole pack one cigarette after the other until we were so sick we never wanted to smoke again. If we drank alcohol, we were forced to drink until we were sick, which cured me, but turned my brother and cousin into alcoholics before they were twelve. My maternal great grandmother used dip and would spit it into a coke can and leave the cans around, which cured me of drinking from unattended soda cans and from dipping. Other than that, ‘Come home when the streetlights come on,’ was one of the only hard rules. Everything else was kind of randomly enforced, which usually resulted in us having to go pull a ‘switch’ from the tree in the front yard, and if we didn’t bring the right size, it was much worse.
“We can handle this,” Uhura said. “We can send a shuttlecraft. A simple survey run. We don’t have to land. Just execute a flyby.”
I leaned into the desk with elbows, my hands clasped, pushing my lips flat against my own knuckles, considering. Sacagawea was going to intrude on the silent, but Loxy motioned for her to give me a moment. There was no wrong decision. I had not yet had to remind them “I’m the Captain, do as I say,” except on the days I was really being bitchy and that still didn’t get me what I wanted.
If I play it like last time, it went light hearted enough: “Loxy, take an Away Team,” I said.
“Try to make contact.”
“Aye,” Loxy said. She seemed happy. Sacagawea was looking at her, expectantly.
“Come along, then. You’re with me.
“Yeah!” Sacagawea said.
“You, too, Tesla,” Loxy said. “And Bucket.”
Loxy stopped, looking back at me expectantly. “You were going to say something?” she asked.
“Nope,” I said. “Really?” Loxy asked.
“You want me to say something?” I asked.
“How about let’s be careful out there?” Loxy asked. “Oh, that’s so Hill Street Blues,” I said.
“You are fond of ‘have fun storming the castle,’” Loxy said. “No storming,” I said. “Ring the doorbell, see who answers.”
“Travel Light?” Loxy asked.
Considering what the shuttlecraft was made of, that seemed quite appropriate. “Travel Light,” I said.
“Always,” Loxy said. And then she, Sacagawea, Bucket, and Tesla were gone, the door closing behind them.
An hour and half after the shuttle departed, we received our second message. The shuttle was destroyed, all souls lost. And now that I knew Loxy was pregnant. I was definitely not going to send her ever again. I wondered if a different arrangement of crew would result in different outcomes, and though I actually care about people, I did try a different combinations, even including myself, and it always go south, and we get blown up, and I finally decided sending people purposely to their deaths was not okay, even though it was all better the moment I reset. They rest, I didn’t. I remembered and I had feelings about it.
Reset, fast forward to the meeting, and they discuss sending an Away Team. I closed my eyes and listened to the discussion, if I did nothing different, it proceeded without change. So much for chaos theory.
“You okay?” Uhura asked.
“I can’t do it,” I said. I felt tears behind my eyelids, one of them flowed. “I can’t send you to die.”
“You’re imagining they die?” Jung asked.
“No, I am not imagining it. I lived it. Multiple times. No combination of Away Team makes a difference. I have lived it a dozen times now and it’s always the same and we don’t get any knowledge or benefits,” I said. “I followed it up with taking the Enterprise there directly, and the confrontation still happens and do you know what happens with this Enterprise gets blown up? A neutron star explodes out of nowhere and this whole solar system gets wiped out. And now you’re going to look at me as if I am crazy, but I am not, and I am going to make it an order that no one goes near that planet.”
There was silence. Loxy reached over to me and took my hand. “John, I believe you. But it can’t be a coincidence. This is a huge mystery and they’re going to get visitors, whether it’s us or someone else, and so we need to solve this now.”
“Why? Some mysteries are unsolvable,” I said. “Where did we come from where are going, this is just one of those things.”
“No, it’s not,” Loxy said. “Oh.”
“What?” I said.
“You’re going at it alone, as if you’re the only one in play that can save the day or the world or the Universe, but you’re not,” Loxy said. “We’re here for a purpose and that’s to support you, to support each other, so it’s time you start being very frank and clear with us on what you know and how we’re going to come at this. And maybe when we clear up this mystery, your mystery gets solved, too. It’s got to be linked.”
“What are you proposing?” I asked.
“Well, to start with, we need proof that you’re cycling,” Loxy said.
“I can prove it to each of you individually, and I have a million times over,” I said. I left out the details that proving it often leads to getting laid. “I now know everyone on the crew by name, and I know intimate, personal details, but there is very little I can give you which isn’t on the ship’s database. Uhura’s and I can play a duet that she taught me. Chan has improved my fighting skill to the point I’ve got a black belt in ‘Channess.’ Tesla has got me so up to date with Engineering I could work in Engineering as a tech. I still suck ass at math, but I have some pretty nifty formulas memorized. Tesla, Uhura and I have built subspace-ham radio arrays. Thanks to Jung, I suspect I can now pass the triple P test and get my doctorate in psychology. I could even get a doctorate in parapsychology. Did you know we have psychics on board? There is a whole department devoted to remote viewing. Sacagawea has taught me how to fly and throw a knife and we spent time on Summer’s planet, being chased by dinosaurs. Mostly because I kept crashing the shuttle and we had to walk back to the wall we’re building. And, that’s how I learned when you transport me up to the ship, I get reset. I have checked out and roamed the world below, and flown over to the third planet and spent some time with Irish Druids, which was really a great vacation, and explored the Inner City around Star Fleet Head Quarters. I know the city so well I can tell you all the ends and out of our Star Fleet headquarters, and the surrounding campus that is churning out the next generation of doctors and cadets, and where all the quaint little hole in the wall restaurants are. Technically, there are no bad restaurants, because everyone who owns a shop is an expert in what they do. Did you know a Doctorate is now the new high school equivalent? With few exceptions, no one get into Star Fleet Academy with less than a Doctorate. I’ve sat in on a variety of classes. I could rattle on for hours until I bore you into accepting this is really happening to me.”
“Maybe you should try the envelope technique,” House said. “I always liked it when I had people open an envelope to find I had predicted what they would say.”
“Feel under your desk,” I said.
House pulled out an enveloped that had been taped under the desk. He opened it and read it back. He read to everyone what he had just recommended.
“Now, that’s impressive,” Chan said.
“Okay, so, we need to maximize your time,” Loxy said.
“What’s the fastest way to get us all up to speed?”
“The envelope game,” House said.
“As soon as he resets, he creates enough envelopes with hard events to convince the command staff there is something here worth exploring.”
“Can you take something back with you?” Uhura asked.
“Like a pre-recorded message.”
“Only what I carry in my head,” I said.
“You should wear a halo, so we can record your brain at the time of reset,” Midori said.
“Done that, not helpful,” I said.
“Unless, that version of me goes on in your down line stream, I don’t think it would be useful. Maybe I need to master mediation, next.”
“You want to end up on a mountain like the Doctor’s Guru?” Loxy asked.
“Maybe if I become enlightened and I can sit there without ever sleeping again, the people could come to me and tell me their things, and if I ever hear a cause worthy enough I could reset myself and send the Universe an appropriate message that helps that person.”
“Which would mean they didn’t come to you and so it didn’t happen?” Loxy said. “Yeah, kind of like every other day of my life hasn’t happened,” I said. “At least, I hope.
I have done some really awful things.”
“Who hasn’t,” House said. “We all do things we regret.”
“Not all of us,” Uhura said.
“So, tell us your reset list again,” Loxy said. “Death, distance, sleep, transporter, phasers set to stun and orgasms?
“Yep,” I confirmed.
“That sucks,” Bucket said.
“Yep,” I agreed. Believe me, if I could just have a full day of sex, I would so sign up,” I said.
“What about hypnosis?” Jung asked.