A television monitor on the wall played the President’s public address. “And lastly,” Cadence continued, “for today, I want to express my sincere admiration to everyone for keeping their calm through these major changes. Together, if we use our heads, together, if we think, we can survive and achieve anything.” Cadence put her arms back and wide, to embrace everyone on the balcony. “In this, ladies and gentlemen, we Trek together.”
The crowd on T.V. cheered, and the feed watched as the group on the balcony went back inside.
“How long?” Mel asked a tech behind a desk.
“It’s only been ten minutes,” the man said, smiling.
“How long does it usually take?” Mel asked.
The tech shook his head. “Maybe ten or fifteen minutes.”
“Is everybody antsy like this?” Mel asked.
The tech smiled a bit and nodded. “Pretty much.”
The door opened and a man and a woman exited.
Mel looked past them into the T-room. “Nick?”
“Nicki,” the 20-year-old woman said, looking at Mel.
“Nick? What the hell?” Mel gawked at her. “You’re a girl?”
“What the hell,” Nicki said.
“But you’re a guy!”
“Really?” Nicki dropped her robe.
CHAPTER
16
A 20-year-old Bernie Katz walked with Lori through one of their “manufacturing” facilities, where transmuters were making transmuters. Robotic arms worked with cranes to move equipment. People supervised and adjusted.
“We’ve made 106,610 transmiuters so far, and counting,” Bernie said, “rounded off to the nearest ten, because they’re making them all the time. We have sixteen manufacturing facilities all over the world, and quite a few other companies have gotten their own variations online, beginning to share the load. I mean, there are nearly 8 billion people in the world.”
“Have any of the other companies expanded on our design, yet? Doing things with transmuters we tried to limit?”
Bernie shook his head. “Nope. It’s the same product. No one’s found a way around you, yet.”
“It’s not that I don’t want them to scoop us, but as liberal as I am with the use of this thing, recently, even I don’t want them to get the whole thing. Not too fast.”
“I agree. What else will it do?”
“You’ve done very well,” Lori said to him, ending that line of discussion. “And you, too,” she said to Margaret behind them.
“WE have done very well,” Bernie said. He stopped walking. “I want you to know, you saved my wife’s life, and also mine, to the extent I’m young again.”
Lori nodded.
“You’ve done so much good. Alien from outer space—God, who would have thought. And you’re as human as the rest of us.”
“Life is life,” Lori said. “I was in that form before; I’m in this form now—”
“We’re all trans,” Bernie said.
Lori continued. “—I live, I think, feel. This planet is suited to this form.”
“What did you used to look like?” Bernie asked.
“Not something you’d care to see.”
“Well,” Bernie said, “I don’t even care. Whatever it is, you were one of them, and I can’t believe there’s anything bad about it.”
“I have to go, you guys,” Lori said to them. “Gadin is coming over, taking Marie out on her first date, and I’m as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof.”
Bernie made hand motions for things all mixed up. “She’s 20, but she’s blended with you, and you’re 20,000, human for 12,000. She used to be canine, which she says feels like a childhood long ago, and this is her first date.”
“I know,” Lori said. “What would we he done without a hundred and fifty years of science fiction?”
“Did you guys,” Bernie made a motion toward her to indicate her whole person, “do some of that scifi to prep us?”
Lori rolled her eyes.
“See you later,” she said, then turning to Margaret behind. “Bye, love.”
Marie scurried around her room getting ready.
Lori stood in the doorway, watching her.
“How does this look?” Marie asked Lori.
“Fine,” Lori said.
“Or this?”
“Fine.”
“Aren’t you going to help me?” Marie asked.
“Lwaxana,” Lori said to the air. “Do you want to explain it to her?”
“Gadin will not care what you wear,” Lwaxana said.
“But some look better than others!” Marie insisted. “This one,” she pulled a slinky dress out of the closet, “accents my legs. This one,” she pulled out another, “accents my waist—”
“Gadin is not that superficial,” Lwaxana said.
“Thank you, Lwaxana. And you shouldn’t be, either,” Lori said to Marie. She stepped toward Marie to help, but stopped herself, seeing the wisdom of inaction. Let her decide for herself.
“You’ve got some of me in you,” Lori said. “You know the answer to this.”
“The answer is,” Marie said slowly, “that a look from me into his eyes will mean more than anything else.”
Lori nodded.
“I can’t nod, as I don’t have a head,” Lwaxana said. “But consider me nodding, too.”
Lori nodded again.
“Where are you two going?” Lori asked.
“I don’t know. He said something about a seaside restaurant in Santa Barbara, maybe. I don’t know what all.”
“Be sure and use condiments,” Lwaxana said.
Lori cracke a smile at that joke.
“I think it’s going to be a little chilly tonight on the beach.”
“Oh, he’ll like that,” Lwaxana said.
“Why?” Marie asked.
“Because your nipples will—” Lwaxana said.
Lori laughed at Lwaxana.
“You think I don’t know because I’m new?” Marie asked.
“You think I don’t know because I’m a machine?” Lwaxana said playfully.
“You think I don’t know because I was spayed?”
“You think I don’t—”
Lori sat on Marie’s bed. Her smile was warm. “Come here,” she said to Marie.
Marie did, and Lori gave her a big hug. “You’re one of my favorite girls, you know that?”
“You always used to say that to me,” Marie said remembering.
“That’s because we also had a cat, and she was a girl, too. But what I just meant was, ‘I love you.’”
“I know. I alwaiys did!” Marie hugged Lori again and kissed her on the ear.
“I’m going with the sexy leg dress, cut a little low up top and a little high down below.”
“She’s being eager,” Lwaxana said.
“That’s true,” Marie said. She stipped off her jeans and top to put on the dress. “I’ve got some of your memories,” she said to Lori, “and I was spayed, but I’m me, now, and memories are not as good as the real thing.”
“It’s your first time,” Lori said. “Take it slow and savor it.”
“This,” Marie said, “has been maranading for a long time.”
“You’re young—”
“I’m all grown up, now, Mom!”
“It’s true, Lori,” Lwaxana said.
“Gadin is now entering through the main gate of the compound and is proceeding toward the house.”
“Let him in when he gets here?” Lori asked Lwaxana.
“Sure.”
“We’ll meet him in the family room.”
Adrien’s Gulfstream jet flew west over the Atlantic at flight level three four oh, 34,000 feet. A private flight attendant brought him a drink, a vegetable and fruit puree.
“I added a little more strawberry, this time, Mr. Archambeau.”
Adrien tasted it. “Lovely, Carmen. Thank you.”
“Anything else?” she asked.
“Is Salvaor up in
Charleston, yet?”
“Yes, sir,” Carmen said. “He’s been there for about an hour.” She reached into a bag in another seat and withdrew Adrien’s MacBook Pro. “Wifi is up, as always.”
Gadin and Marie got out of his Ford Focus, at the Boathouse restaurant at Hendry’s Beach, Santa Barbara. The sun was still a couple of hours from setting, and people were milling about in the pleasant evening.
“We can go in in a minute,” Gadin suggested. “It’s awfully nice out here this evening.”
“Yes—”
They walked toward the beach, fifty yards to the south.
“You nervous to be here?” Gadin asked.
Marie reached over and took his hand in hers.
“I’m nervous, too.”
“But you’re 33?”
“I’m only about 30 on the outside, now, 20 on the inside. I did the machine once when I was testing it. When we were making new ones.”
“Oh. I didn’t even notice your T.”
“But I’m a computer science nerd from Stanford, so that right there means I’m probably a virgin.”
“At 33?”
Gadin laughed at her.
They rounded some outside tables and chairs to stroll on the sand. It was mushy beneath their feet, through their shoes.
“I’m not a virgin,” he said. “But I thought for a long time I would be. Even someone like me gets lucky sometimes.”
“Someone like you? There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“I agree,” Gadin said. “It’s just that I’m not good at the kinds of things that woo women. I’m not flashy, macho. I don’t know what to say half the time.”
“You’re doing fine,” Marie said. “I’m the newbie, here.”
“You remember having sex how many thousands of times?”
“You know what I mean. Those aren’t my memories.”
“How do you know you’re into men?”
Marie looked at him as if surprised. “Are you a man?”
“Barely,” he said.
Marie laughed at him. “It’s hard to tell, these days. I mean Mom is a woman, but she’s also male down here—”
“I know,” Gadin said in agreement. “It’s a whole new world. So who you are and who you’re into, are simply things that can change. No longer do we need to work with what we have; now, we can become what we want to be, for the most part. The sciences change the world.”
“Yes,” Marie said. “But so do the arts. Look at what Shakespeare did to millions of us? Billions? I was there— Momma was there at the time. She doesn’t think Shakespeare was just one person. And Star Trek, even Star Wars— Look at how stories we’ve told over the millennia have changed the direction of scientific inquiry?”
“You ought to know,” Gadin said.
“I’m not Mom.”
“Yeah, but you know. It’s in your head.”
“True.”
They stopped to stare at the sun approaching the hills above the beach to the west. There were boats scattered in the ocean south and southwest of them.
“Are you into men?” Gadin asked her. “How do you know?”
“How do you know you’re into women?” She asked him, leaning up to kiss him warmly on the mouth.
Gadin kissed her back, but put his hands on her shoulders to move her back a bit. “Not here,” he said to her.
“Why?”
“There are people about.”
“So?”
“You don’t understand that part, maybe?”
Gadin took her hand and lead her back toward the restaurant. He explained it to her clinically, with his charming accent. “If you get me going here, I could get an erection and be embarrassed in front of the other people.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” she said. “So I can kiss you when we get back to the car?”
Gadin glanced at his own crotch. “Oh, God,” he said. They broke into a run for the car.
CHAPTER
17
“This is World Network News,” the young lady said. “I’m Janet Heinz.”
The television studio in New York was busy with people quietly moving behind the cameras. Lights flooded the stage, and a young woman sat behind a desk on camera. The image of Times Square was visible through the windows behind her.
It appeared as if the studio was on the third floor of a building.
“Since Lorelai Faraday revealed herself to us three months and one week ago, and gave copies of her transmuter to the world, well over 200,000,000 people across the world have been through a transmuter, that’s almost 3% of the world’s population, starting with the sick and elderly, and key personnel working to promote the system. The remarkable machines—as you can see by looking at me—have been working steadily, without interruption, as described by Dr. Henry Gonzalez, professor at M.I.T. in physics.”
The scene cut to Dr. Gonzalez in a book-lined office. “We’ll be studying it for centuries, at this rate—which, to my delight, I may be able to do along with everyone else. The redundancy is worthy. The reliability of the system is amazing. And if these units were used in Ahleth societies, it is easy to see why they’d put so much into them. And on expeditions, such as came here to Earth, as Lori says, over the last hundred thousand years, they would be the main source of healthcare and longevity. You can cure just about anything with them, going back to a healthy, 20-year-old template.”
The scene cut back to Janet Heinz. “Yet, it is that longevity which has sparked debate around the planet. At the International Symposium on Planetary Resources, last week in Zurich, Switzerland, scientists and world leaders were discussing ways of making sure our new longevity doesn’t, itself, cause its own problems.
The scene cut to soundbites from several attendees at the Symposium.
“World birth rate continues because of pregnancies that were already in event,” one man said. “We think pregnancies around the globe have dramatically reduced in some areas—”
“Yes,” a man beside him said. “
“—yet,” the man continued, “in some places, they continue as people do not seem to be willing to express the fundamental restraint necessary to curtail the need to have children.”
“That’s because it’s primal,” said the second man. “People with less sophisticated thought processes have more difficulty separating today’s urges from tomorrow’s needs.”
“Crude,” said a third, joining the camera.
“Maybe crude, but realistic,” said the first.
The feed but back to Janet Heinz.
“Yet, the United Nations reports overall favorable reactions around the globe. There have been some military conflicts, but not as many as I’d thought. Riots have broken out over this issue, but they’ve been put down—not so much by outsiders intruding, but by members of their own ranks who assert reason to them.”
The feed cut to a group of picketers in front of the White House, Washington, D.C.
“How can they tell my husband and me not to have children!”
“It’s just temporary until we can expand into space, learn to make replicators—which the transmuters won’t do.”
“You can’t tell me not to have children!”
A calm lady spoke to her, her hand motions indicating both of them. “We can all live, if we take it slowly, is all. If our life-span is to become thousands of years, then waiting a hundred years to have children is not so much—so that your parents don’t die. So that your husband doesn’t die. So that you don’t die. So that current children don’t die.”
“But—it’s just children. They won’t use much!”
“I guess the question is,” someone else asked, “are we smart enough, at this time in our evolution, to survive if given the chance?”
The lady looked as if she was considering what she’d been told.
The feed cut back to Janet in the studio.
“And the question of should we die is also being argued around the globe.”
The feed cut to people
in the streets of a middle-eastern city. “God has made us all so we die!”
“But god also made it so we get sick and need health care.”
“If God wants to take my child, then that is to his glory!”
“You can refuse to use a transmuter. But what if someone else wants to survive!”
“They kill my children who aren’t even born yet!”
The feed cut to people in the sanctuary of a church in south Florida. The pastor addressed the congregation. “God made us all. But God also made it possible for us to drink when we are thirsty, to eat when we are hungry, to care for the sick and dying. That is what we must do as compassionate Christians. That is what we can do with transmuters.”
The feed cut to a Jewish synagogue. The Rabbi addressed the congregation. “Kids are the main focus of Judaism?” she said. “So we wait a hundred years and then have them. It’s not stopping; it’s just a delay while we learn. You want to die? Or you want to adjust? I vote we adjust. Jews have always survived by adjusting, and we do it again now. And, hey! To stay young? Have sex for a few more thousand years?” Her smile brought happy laughter from everyone.
Cut to Janet Heinz. “And then there are these.”
Cut to two men at a Star Trek convention:
“So how fast are we going?” one of them asked a reporter with a camera on them.
“Dude,” his friend said beside him. “We spin on this planet at a thousand miles an hour.”
“And orbit the sun at 66,000 miles per hour,” said the first.
“43,000 miles per hour toward Vega.”
The reporter looked confused.
“And orbit the Milky Way at 483,000 miles per hour. Probably a black hole at the center.”
“Dark matter, too,” said the first, explaining to the reporter. “Matter without the light on.”
“And we’re moving at 1,300,000 miles per hour—that’s one point three million—through the Cosmic Background Radiation toward the Great Attractor.”
The reporter looked confused.
“Wow, man,” the 2nd man said. “That’s an area of space by Leo or Virgo.”
“So what is there?” asked the worried reporter.
“Probably the Borg.”
His friend smiled at him.
“So what—?” The reporter rephrased. “How does that relate to transmuters?”