Chapter 16
Hali woke to find Jon awake, laying on his side staring at her. Apparently she had taken the covers from him while sleeping, and he hadn’t protested or pulled them back. She snuggled into him, smiling into a kiss, bringing him back under the sheet with her.
“You okay?” Hali asked.
“Yeah, just thinking,” Jon said. He loved how warm she was. He could be easily motivated back into more play.
“Umm,” Hali said. “Want to share?” “You’re happy here,” Jon said.
Hali shifted back so she could see his face. “Yes,” she said.
“Do you ever think about family, or having kids?” Jon asked.
“I consider you family,” Hali said. “And, I have kids.”
“You have kids?” Jon asked. “Like adult kids?” “Twins. I think they’re fifteen,” Hali said.
“You think?” Jon said.
“I don’t really track the anniversaries and holidays of my world of origin, including their dates,” Hali said. “I didn’t want children. I didn’t want to get married. This was something I was certain about even before I reached puberty. I knew I would live out amongst the stars and I would tell my parents that I would contract out and be a part of the push. Most people don’t want to leave origin. Being out here changes you. If you are off world long enough, you can’t return to origin. My planet is a super earth. The gravity is twice of your world of origin. I can’t go back there. I don’t want to go back there.”
“You didn’t want children, but you had them anyway?” Jon asked. “Like they made you?”
“Actually, yes,” Hali said. “Part of my obligation to my society was to donate a portion of my eggs to a bank, and I had to give my parents two grandchildren. Biocorp helped me in this by supplying me a surrogate mother.”
“A surrogate mother?” Jon asked. “A person who agreed to carry a baby for you?”
“Oh, that’s one option. I chose the android option. It’s like a sex-bot, only it’s a mobile womb, a surrogate. It was made to look like me. A copy of my personality was downloaded into it. The children will get to experience me as I was at that time. The husband gets what he wanted, the version of me that wanted to stay with him. So, yes, the personality was modified slightly to accommodate him and staying and the children. And it’s adaptable. It grows and changes with environmental demands. About once a year I get updates, the surrogate uploads memories and mails them. I can assimilate the memories as direct experiences or dreams.” “And it’s all good?” Jon asked.
“No, Jon,” Hali said. “There’s good, there’s bad. Sometimes I cry because I see this stranger who is me that isn’t me guiding a young person I know but have never met. Sometimes she gives the advice I would give and I hate that and then sometimes I wonder, would I have done that? It’s too easy to get stuck in circular thought patterns, so you got to practice letting go. Sometimes I cry just because the memory I receive is so full of joy that I get overwhelmed. And sometimes I think, oh, I am missed something incredible. Sometimes I even wonder, what am I doing out here.”
“What are you doing out here?” Jon asked.
“What are you doing out here?’ Hali asked.
“I asked you first,” Jon said.
“Jon, we’re doing the same thing, just different aspects of the same thing,” Hali said.
“You’re exploring for new worlds. We are looking for new homes. We are looking for new life. Not to destroy it or box it, but to share in the wonders of the Universe in all its diversity, and to join with it, and spread it further. If you only live on a planet, you will eventually go extinct. There is no way around that. When you get off planet, you have to come to terms with two things. One, you are not alone in the Universe. Two, you will change. Every planet that holds a colony, within a thousand years they are not same as their worlds of origin. You can’t be born on a world and not change to fit its needs. Indigo has a meta-purpose of sustaining and spreading life to regions that presently don’t harbor life. Most worlds reach a plateau in their development where life is so comfortable that the only discernable evolution is social fabric of society as they chase trends of art, fashion, and politics. And that’s fine for them. I personally think that is a very shallow life. I want to be out here where I extend life. Life is delicate. Even on your own planet, all life was nearly wiped out on several occasions. We find worlds on the precarious brink of nonexistence and we help it, we nurture it, and sometimes, we have to transplant it. This brings me joy because it is meaningful.”
Jon chewed on a lip. “I am a part of this?”
“You didn’t think you were just a cog in a wheel making a profit for a corporation, did you?” Hali asked.
“Sort of,” Jon said. “So, the Republic holds ideals similar to Star Fleet, with a prime directive.”
“Yes,” Hali said.
“You know that reference?” Jon asked.
“Where do you think Gene got it from?” Hali said. She rolled over and pulled an item out of a drawer and brought it back to show him. It was a crystal, and if you turned it a rainbow fluoresced in it. He had seen it before. A memory crystal! He had bought several and hadn’t even used them. Maybe he would when he was old and bored... “This is you. I have been studying you.”
“This is me?” Jon asked.
“Everything about you, from cradle to grave, is contained in this crystal,” Hali said.
“Seriously? My future is contained in there?” Jon asked.
“Jon, there is no future. There is no past. All of that is an illusions. The Universe just is. The Multiverse is much more fantastic than the linear tracking of space-time. It’s just we get caught up in it and we forget how wondrous we really are. This crystal channeled you during the flash cloning process, and it became resonant locked with you. This is entanglement. This is spooky action at a distance. It doesn’t contain your spirit, it reflects and refracts it. It’s a mirror. I hold this and I can tune into moments of your lives. Future stuff is harder to get at, but not impossible. Your present life, all of Jon Harister, is the easiest to access. I have had glimpses into your past lives. Some of them are interesting enough they held my attention, but I have forced myself to this present incarnation because you’re a part of my life and I want to know all of you.”
“I bought crystals like that,” Jon said.
“I know,” Hali said. “I have all the receipts of all the things you have purchased at Indigo.”
“I have not used either” Jon said. “I don’t even know who they are. And now, I am not sure I want to know.”
“They would not have made the crystals if they didn’t want you to know,” Hali said. “It’s kind of therapeutic to know that someone in the Universe knows you, all of you, no secrets.
Close your eyes.”
Hali took his hands in hers and together they held ‘his’ crystal. She smiled as his brow furrowed. “Relax” she whispered. She traveled with him. This was not a seeing from outside of self, but from normal, personal point of view. There were no assumptions of where he was or he was. He was in a bed. He was surrounded by love ones, peers his age, old people, and young people, and lots of children. He lifted his hand and stared at it. Old, age spots, it seemed like it was all bones and veins, and a bruise. He heard himself speaking: “I think there are others here.”
He heard, “We’re all here, Papa. You are never alone.”
And then he was abruptly back. He was shaking. “Is that real? Is that me in the future?” “Probably,” Hali said.
“Probably?!” Jon asked.
“We know that these things tend to be very accurate, but we know, you also have choice.
So, if you went and killed yourself right now, clearly that moment won’t come to be,” Hali said. “I don’t think it was a past life. That felt like present you. I think I saw an artifact of Biocorp in the background. I could be remembering that wrong. Here’s the truth about brains. They don’t see well. They see through personality filters. Brains make shortcuts to arrive at best guesses about what they are experiences. We don’t experience reality as it really is. Even through the lens of a crystal, I will never know what it fully means to have been you. I get insight. I have increased empathy. I have more love. If you haven’t figure this out, I love you, Jon Harister,” Hali said.
Hali put the crystal back in the drawer, in a cradle made just for it. She rolled back into Jon and kissed on him.
“Oh, I am sorry. You led this conversation about children. That scene, you were surrounded by children and grandchildren. One of them was tall. Wait! You want children with me?” Hali asked.
“Um, no, no, I am fine,” Jon said.
“No! You are just saying that because I told you I didn’t want children,” Hali said. “You want to have children with me. I don’t want to raise children on Indigo. I don’t want children. But if you want children with me, we have to choose a planet, preferably a colony world, and I will buy a surrogate. We can make a husband surrogate for you so the child will grow knowing us, and when they’re old enough to understand we are more complicated, they will discover the truth of us.”
“It’s okay, Hali,” Jon said.
“No. This would be another binding of us. Pilot, agent, father, mother, participating in burgeoning world,” Hali said. Her growing excitement seemed uncontainable and was quickly reaching flashpoint. “Yes. I want this. I know just the planet that could use our personality types.
Let’s send surrogates and a child to a world that needs us.” “Ummm, are you sure?” Jon asked.
“I am very sure. We are very compatible, Jon,” Hali said. “Of course, with the medical procedure it will select the best combination of germ cells to make the best viable option…” “Um, Hali, hypothetically, if I were already genetically entangled with a burgeoning colony, that’s was technically off the grid, would that be something you would be interested in being a part of?” Jon asked.
Hali gave him a look. “Well, that would explain something I experienced holding your crystal,” she sighed. “Yes, Jon, I think I should be a part of that.” Hali got up from bed and began to dress.
“Well, come on,” Hali said.
Onuka was fitted with a specialized tether that went from its harness to a large crate, compliments of Hali, not Biocorp. Inside the crate were power stations for androids. Inside each station were androids, fully functioning surrogates, twelve females and twelve males. Each of the females were impregnated via in vitro procedures. Loxy and Lilith were not surprised, as they had been updated to the addendum to the ‘situation.’ Accompanying them back to Lanza’s world was Ditri, who intended to assess the situation and establish a contract, and Kiash, who was taking a bit of a vacation to see if she might like the world for her retirement place.
Onuka jumped to their last known location, connected with Onuk, and then jumped back to Lanza’s Planet. They parked Onuk in orbit, and Onuka took hold of the package and descended towards the planet. Due to carrying the package, Onuka didn’t land in the ocean, but slowed to normal flight speed, and basically hovered as buoyant as a dirigible. It set the package on the top of the butte, and then maneuvered in a way that would allow Jon, Ditri, and Kiash to walk straight out on top. Tory was there to meet them. There was no hiding she was pregnant.
She greeted Jon with a hug, and then he introduced the new people.
“I would like to negotiate a contract that allows us to meet the needs of this population,” Ditri said. “We can arrange for the details to be finalized once your colony has been fully established, of course.”
“We do need some more organisms,” Tory said. “You will have access to all my work. I followed all the procedures for documenting life forms so we can chose the appropriate candidates for species introductions. We need more herbivores, for sure.”
“Tory, this is Kiash,” Jon said. “She is in need of a home. She can’t be with her species.”
“We would welcome any species, especially if they were a friend of yours, husband,” Tory said.
“Husband?” Jon asked.
“That is your official title,” Tory said. “We all agreed to that.”
“Um, well, speaking of that, Um, we have twelve more babies on the way,” Jon said. “I have brought surrogates, and they carry my offspring with an off world partner who wants to be invested in this endeavor. I was assured this would be a good thing. Both the male and female personalities, based on my and my partner’s personality, are contained within the Android containers. They may be shared by the community, of course. I think it gives people some other options; they won’t be leaders, just servers. I might be able to bring more male surrogates in the future, if you want, but more than likely, once the colony is established and there is traffic, there will be no shortage of males applying for citizenship.”
“We appreciate you working with us,” Tory said.
Jon opened the crate and the androids went to work on installing two charging station in the lab one floor down. Two of the androids would remain here, at the first site established by Lanza; Lilith called this place, Onuk Landing. It was fitting, and it was adopted by the group that lived in this area. Once the two charging stations were operational, connected to the local power source, Jon repeated this exercise at other select bio-stations until his droids were all assigned Tory had communicated the purpose and intent of the androids, and that the twelve females carried future citizens, and the committee chose which sites would receive the surrogates, based on need for more ‘hands.’ Having the androids was a serious improvement because of strength, agility, and endurance. Though the female android looked very much like Hali, Jon had insisted the android males not look like him. All twelve android males were identical to each other, but they did not look like him. They did carry his personality, per Hali’s insistence.
Each set of charging station took eight hours to install. Kiash traveled with Jon, Loxy, and Lilith as they moved to each location. She explored on her own, meeting the people who were very curious about her, and very welcoming. Jon was overwhelmed with partnering options. He was auctioned off at one of the sites, as opposed to a raffle, and he was compelled to participate to keep fairness, and to avoid establishing petty rivalries or exaggerating the tendency towards jealousy. Being polyamory meant a commitment to fairness. There were several he simply wasn’t attracted to, but he extended the same level of kindness and affection that he did to the ones he found the most attractive. It wasn’t just physical attractiveness. Some of the personalities were simply not compatible with his, and likely, had the world been more balanced with partners, the matching would never have taken. Some needs when unmet make people do things they would not otherwise do. Some genuinely cared about him and the situation. A few only wanted sex and they made that abundantly clear in how they came at him. Eight hours of road construction was less exhausting than what he was being asked to do.
Lanzarians were humans. Lanza carried within her sufficient genetic heritage that when she had sorted out her eggs through selection, she had teased out a spectrum of races. The same tech had been used to sort Jon’s germ cells, finding the best matches for the germ cells from the mothers. Most of Jon’ heritage was European, but there was an African and Arabic line. He was amazed by all the influences of him. There was even genetic evidence in him of a pre-human species, and there was evidence for alien DNA, which was recognizable in the expression of hazel eyes. The matching part was long since done, and everyone on Lanza was pregnant. Libido were already abnormally high due to insufficient opportunities, but further exaggerated by pregnancy influencing libido. It didn’t matter that he was exhausted, each partner came at him with the fierce vigorousness of youth, coupled with need exaggerated by scarcity. His last two didn’t even talk, they simply ravished him the entire visit.
Jon woke from a nap to find a stranger looking over him. She was sitting on the bed, Indian style. She had short, dark hair, brushed and pulled back away from her forehead. She resembled the ethnic group Jon knew as Lezgins. He had no way of knowing if she truly shared origins, or just carried that look. Maybe it was the colors in her dress. It was a simple, full body dress, pulled up to accommodate her lotus position, her knees and feet exposed. She smiled, dimples creased her cheeks. The smile touched her eyes. Her eyebrows were upside down check marks that clearly communicated her emotions.
“Hello, Jon. I’m Enya.”
“Enya,” Jon said. “Like…”
“The musician you like, yes,” Enya said.
“You know…” Jon had long since surrendered to this idea that he was dreaming.
Everything here was so surreal. The smells of fresh gardens pervaded the air.
“Everything about you. Well, not everything. I am still studying you. It is my intent to go through your life from birth till this moment of meeting and know the entirety of you,” Enya said.
“OMG, I am so sorry,” Jon said. “Surely your life is not that boring.”
“My life here is wonderful. Up until now, it has just been me and my sister, and dreams of faceless men. Now, all my dreams have faces. I see you from every age of you and I feel complete,” Enya touched her belly. “I have the twins, and I have access to you, and I am happy.”
“I am… happy for you,” Jon said, forcing himself to avoid saying sorry. He, like probably a thousand other males, had fantasies of being alone with a world of only females; the imagination never approaches the reality of it. Here on this planet, he was more than celebrity. And, now that he had made his bed and was having to lie in it, he was realizing the complexity of it was beyond his ability to think sanely; he found himself having to simply shut off his thoughts and go with the flow. All of ladies he had met held an idea about him. The ideas weren’t wrong, but they were clearly not complete. “How long have you been watching me?”
“Maybe twenty minutes,” Enya said.
“I am sorry,” Jon found himself saying.
“Don’t be,” Enya said. “I am enjoying watching you sleep. I hope you will forgive me. I don’t want to be intimate.”
“You don’t?” Jon asked, sitting up in bed, and then drawing the covers up.
“I do,” Enya said. “I love you. And I will accommodate you if you desire it to complete the social agreement, but if it’s okay with you, I would like to just talk. I think you need to rest.”
“Umm, okay,” Jon said. “This is your time.”
“No, this is our time,” Enya said. “And, I don’t wish to compel this part, but I would like this to be our secret. If the others knew, they would be mad at me for wasting your time, and depriving someone else who would actually engage you the way we are expected to engage.”
“Our secret,” Jon said.
“Thank you,” Enya said.
“So, you know Enya?” Jon asked.
“I have spent a great deal of time with the virtual you at the bio-station,” Enya said. “It amazes me the things it knows. My understanding is that a holographic copy of your brain was made, which means all the memories of you from conception to the time the copy was made is available. There are things available that even your personality is not aware of. My sister, Bell, she has been exploring that aspect of your life, walking in your shadows. It is her intent to write a thesis on things unseen. I favor the music. I have sat with you in dark spaces, listening to your songs, holding your hand as you cried alone. I sit alone in the closet with you, sharing your pain, praying with you, praying for you, and encouraging you to hang on because I know this future time is coming when you and I will meet and you will know happiness like you have never known before. It is my belief, and I am not alone in this, the more we know about you, the more we experience of you, and the more we send our love, the more solid this reality of us becomes. You need us as much as we need you. And I wonder, is there a future self where maybe others from another reality look in on me and share in my own joys and disappointments, encouraging me to hang on, always in the shadows telling me softly, everything will be alright. OMG, Jon, I feel so much love for you. You overcame so much to be here. I am sorry. You must think I am just a silly girl…”
“Please, if you do one thing for me, don’t allow ‘silly girl’ to be a catch phrase on this planet. You are not silly. You words to me just now are probably the greatest gift anyone on this planet has yet given me,” Jon said. “I wish I were giving you more.”
“You have given me your whole life,” Enya said. “And we will have children. Perhaps, you will help me decide on names? Fraternal twins. A boy and a girl.”
“I am partial to two names,” Jon said. “Enya, make that their last name. Make that a custom here, the mother’s first name becomes the child’s last name.”
“I like that,” Enya said. “Tell me these names you like.”
“I had a dream that I had a son named Eston Gerik. Eston is the most easterly town in a faraway land. Gerik is Hebrew for spear warrior of God,” Jon said. “But I always imagined, if I had a daughter, I would name her Elizabeth Grace.”
“Then know, in several months, Eston and Elizabeth will be born into a world of such great love that they will bring joy to everyone who knows them,” Enya said. “May I ask for something?”
“Please,” Jon asked.
“I would like to watch you shower and shave,” Enya said. “If that’s not too weird.”
“It’s not weird,” Jon said.
The lavatory and shower at the bio-station was fairly sterile, hardly used, and was part of the guest quarters that had been become Jon’s bedroom of entertaining. Enya was fascinated by the lathering and the pattern of Jon shaving and asked many questions, including “does it hurt?”
“Don’t you shave?” Jon asked.
“Oh, no,” Enya said. “Mother is neurotic and has genetically eliminated all body hair.
The only hair we have is on our heads.”
“Oh, well, that explains that,” Jon said. He handed her the razor and allowed her to shave him.
Enya held the razor, studying Jon’s face. “Jon,” Enya said, quietly, seriously. “There are things I don’t quite understand. Deeper things I have not reached. One particular thing is your solitude. Even after you became an adult, you continued to isolate. You had an occasional hook up, but you never made any permanent bonds. You didn’t create a family on earth. Why did you wait so long to start engaging?”
“Fear, mostly,” Jon said. “I didn’t want to recreate my family. I also needed to heal. Some wounds are really difficult to overcome. My type of wounds, abuse, trauma, they can hyper accentuate the need for nurture, and usually tends to present as borderline personality disorder. I am seriously on the verge of that, and so if you watch me long enough, you will see me teetering towards being clingy then falling back to distant. I abandon so I won’t be abandoned. I learned enough to know that is a psychological artifact and not true reality, but until
I created Loxy tulpa, I didn’t know how to overcome and sustain a friendship. Another part of that is that I didn’t feel worthy, because I knew I was all kinds of broken, and my world has all sorts of broken people. I didn’t want to cause more pain by engaging someone knowing I have all of this inner conflict.”
“Jon, I know you have heard this. I le