TWO WORLDS (first half)

 

  Tilva exited birthing one year before and already had a three-year-old body. Unfortunately, her emotions still lagged. The mind viewers tried to speed up her sharing ability also. That proved impossible to accomplish. Even at her age, she abhorred forced sharing.

  In the ceiling of the playroom, the spy eye glowed from a dark corner. It had noticed her counting her toes. It fed this information into the universal computer along with its notation of her ecru skin, strawberry curls and lazuli eyes. Tilva scowled. What right had it to view these without her say so?

  She sat there because the console bored her. Perhaps that had peaked the spy eye's attention. To escape the eye, she jumped into her mind like a fledgling and there played the games that would evolve her future.

  She nestled in this haven, but comfort evaded her. Danger threatened – Stead trying to reach for her between mind and material. Her keepers had mollified Stead so that he had ignored her until today when keeper-one and keeper-two traveled to the clinic. So, here scuffed Stead at the edge of her consciousness. Trembling at his ennui, she still had spunk enough to stick her tongue out at him.

  No doubt, Stead sensed her. He pounded on her mind and impinged on her world. To handle his threat, she would fool him by rushing back into their shared world. He would not expect that.

  Pumping her roadrunners, she blasted through imagery of the unit where she, Stead, keeper-one and keeper-two lived. Ten meters short of the safety of her room, she leapt into the shared world. She would lock the door on him.

  Going too fast, her feet flushed like swallows, and she crashed hard onto the floor. Dazed, she scanned up to her sibling, half again her size, standing in the doorway, puffing out his chest like a masher. She screamed. "Asshole!"

  Laughing under his teeth, Stead dragged his sister down the hall by her jumper into the training room. He hooked her to the emote. Then cavorting about her like a spastic, he chanted, "Your first hour, Tilva. You'll adore the vibrations."

  Tilva smacked pictures into him. In one, a harlequin flayed him with a cleaver. She imagined even more carnage, but she had to take care not to irk him, so bad upon bad, she lathered him with tears.

  Piercing through her emotion, Stead stared wolf-like while prancing around the machine that gripped her. The tears smeared her sclera, obscuring the shared world. In the corner, a spy eye examined her expanse.

  Once when she had confided in keeper-two her suspicions about the spy eyes, the keeper had grabbed Tilva and hurled her onto a table. Then she had activated the device for meaning-absorption and explained that mind viewers had devised spy eyes to record deviance. The viewers had kept notes for years, finally isolating love, pity and sympathy as the emotions that led to war. Tilva could not fathom the reasoning. Why do children need those feelings drilled out? We only play at war.

  Stead began the machine to pulse. When its waves quickened in Tilva's body, she sucked air up her tear ducts. She lasted fifty-five minutes before the vibrations overwhelmed her. Bending her head toward her lap, she let go a cup of tears. Terrified, she kept her head down. When Stead’s shoes clanged together behind her, she pissed her pants too.

  The odor of pee seized her. She held her tears in check. When they started to dribble out, she squeezed her eyelids so tight they hurt. Why wouldn't the machine stop? It must have broken, or the timer had malfunctioned.

  Stead grabbed her around the neck. The warmth of his body and the wringing of his hands on her throat drove in terror. He smelled like peanuts. The emote stopped. "Show me your cheeks.” He tromped around in front of her and bugged out his eyes. The grimace left his face when he smelled her urine and noticed her lap. Jumping up and crouching down, he yelled, "Baby, baby Tilva cried and wet her pants. I'm going to tell keeper-two on you."

  Tilva’s only option? Escape. She grabbed for her privacy. However, the shared world held her in its vise, and she faltered at the gate.

 

  Tilva hated even the idea of manipulation. However, she recalled times when she had tampered with the sorrows of others. The spy eyes had reported these as deviations, which led to gene mod. Although painless compared to the emotes, she still sobbed over them.

  Tonight, she cried secretly, letting the tears out in a dribble. If she cried in the presence of others she would draw the attention of the viewers, and they would modify her genes. Like her, Stead had enhanced hearing, so she took care as he played nearby. She knew he had open ears. So, she switched her tears to the inside, and poison built up. She detoxified by drinking liters of water and urinating every twenty minutes to wash it out.

  Sympathy reserved itself for the special, not done away with altogether. The Book of Burdens stated that one could and should sympathize with the viewers who had suffered in purging earth of war and pestilence. An experience in primary had made the maxim clear. She and her classmates cried about the viewers who had saved humanity from the ravages of self-deception centuries before. She had sat in her chair and happily sobbed.

  The next day keeper-two flew her to the clinic for her semi-annual. A mind viewer showed Tilva pages from the Book of Burdens about the trauma suffered by viewers. Tilva's cheeks had dappled. When the viewer showed her pictures of kittens and puppies tortured, however, Tilva examined the images coolly while turning her sympathy into pity. Behind her eyes, she washed those babies free of pain.

  Later when keeper-one and keeper-two returned for consultation, the viewer showed them Tilva's graph. Poison had increased while she looked at the suffering of kittens and puppies. "Here's proof of the success of enhancement. When she stresses, she knows when to flow tears and when to restrain them. However (and you must never tell her), this ability is often accompanied by over sensitiveness."

  Upon learning of her ability to flow and restrain tears, Tilva discovered she could cry inside because the viewers said so. This put the cap on. She bubbled satisfaction, and her future stood enabled to shed any turmoil.

  During her checkup, the viewers had discovered a gene necessary for guiding spaceships. When her capability became certain, her friends and keepers, even Stead, congratulated her. "How blessed you are, Tilva, to be able to guide mankind to the stars."

So great hung the need for clairvoyants that the viewers aged her from 9 years old to 14 over the year. She entered the service as a trainee. After graduation as a class-one, she found herself placed on a colonist ship.

  She endured her voyage on the Excelsior for three years before experiencing pity for another like herself. The clairvoyant in place in the ship's quantum failed to precognite the Galactic Staging Center, throwing the ship off course 3.3216 degrees. The officers removed the discorporate, whereupon she suffered the "short death," the time spent outside the quantum before reincorporation of body constituents. Tilva indulged in pity and drank 12 liters of water to wash out the poison.

  As a class-one, she stood next in line for monitorship. "Oh, no," she told her friends, "I'm supposed to have a viewing from Sigfried M7J." Her circle-mate bragged how each session from the apprentice brought her to a catharsis.

  Her keepers encouraged Tilva toward her opportunity. "You'll visualize Galactic Base and the Lewellen Warp Barrier." said keeper-one. "Imagine, Tilva, you'll precognite the drift years before we arrive."

  Tilva said, "Well, the black hole holds in place the drift that touches the far side of the Galactic Staging Center. The drift circumscribes the hole, and once through it, gravity takes over, making it necessary, to precognite, but I would rather meld with Sigfried M7J. That would help me troll the laws that operate to keep the near side open for vessels. Don’t you agree?"

Keeper-one frowned. "No. You are the expert. No one's knowledge or experience supersedes the precognition of a class-one. You will thrill at what no corporate would imagine. You'll rapture."

  "We'll see.” Noting Tilva's emotion, the spy eyes in the ceiling glossed.

  She feared the discorporation necessary to place her in the ship’s quantum. Learned the theory of course: Store her body disassembled in a chamber on the outside of the spaceship alongside the fragments of the three million colonists. The near absolute zero would sustain her body's separations for reincorporation ‒ atoms, molecules, fields and programming. Only her essence, which some called personhood or personality, would interface with the quantum. She could not imagine that. Classes in discorporation and guidance did not help. Subjectively and emotionally, she understood nothing about it.

 

  When placed in the quantum, along trundled her desires and emotions.

  Dissembly had broken her body into parts for ease in reassembly. Technicians stored them in container 2,838,592 on the outside of the ship. Meanwhile, Tilva hung in a magnetic field, her flux adapting to quantum entry. When her flux fizzed in sync with program step one, she rocketed to her position in terablock 1574.

  It took all her will to adapt. Sensing the environment proved most difficult. For instance, smell and taste, absent taste buds and olfactory receptors, depended on static discharges. Took a full day to master. Vibrations of the microwave background substituted for hearing. She had just gotten used to the mode when something in the terabyte block over quavered. "What a presence you have."

  The obscenity of journeying bodiless with another shocked and disorientated her. Could she appear more naked? To further the outrage, the entity dared show her its image: A he!

  Tilva had just sorted her response when security began its scan, She anticipated the entity found and placed elsewhere. But as the scan passed, it did not pause, so she snapped the line to him. That will put him off. 

  Attracted by her vibrations, security reversed the scan. As it mapped the pathways between blocks, the entity touched her mind and acknowledged her status. Tilva calmed down, and the scanners moved on.

  When all the blocks passed, the all-clear sped through her on its way to the thousands of sirens throughout the ship. Her mind shrieked. As she took charge from her center, two million corporates shivered, three million discorporates moaned from the sting.

  The entity expressed his bliss. "Tilva. What a name for a servo-mechanism." She ignored this jibe by casting back disinterest. He continued, "I'm going to Center because I maintain a semblance there and a bit of a launch."

  He's as handsome as cedar, Tilva conceded, but I bet he can't view. But that image. Almost laughable with his visage – unclouded eyes, rayed skin, straight back. And his nose. Maybe I could talk to him a little. 

  She focused his image. "We've got over three million colonists discorporate in the quantum. Right now, I'm the monitor and, at Staging Center, I'll plant each into the proper destination."

  The entity grimaced. "My last partner was a handler. The beauty of her mind fell short of yours though. Still, she helped me navigate." Tilva flashed red. The entity showed laughter. "Hitching up with a partner lacks my desire right now. Doesn't fit in with a life in the drift." Tilva flashed blue.

  Wow, he's a drifter. Why doesn't he like me?

  The entity suggested, "Let's blank out together."

  Disgruntled at his snub, Tilva put off the suggestion, "My programming demands I rest in increments until the ship has sailed well away from Earth Central's dominance."

  His circuits quivered. "Well, till then." He turned off, but he imaged again before he had disappeared 19%. "Let's see your image. Not fair for you to deny me yours after permeating mine."

  She shared an image from three days before when her body had oozed nubility.

  The entity's smile implied, lovely. His nose grabbed her notice as he chuckled.

  A minute passed before Tilva dared talk to him again. "What do you do during your blank-outs?"

  "No sense talking about them. The next to come seems the one."

  "Let's see. What shall I do during mine? I believe I will find a delicious meal. Now, what shall I have? Hmm."

  "Your first trip out of Earth Central. How do you know what people feast on at Xenia or Calderon? I've been to half the planets. I've blanked out with aliens even. Just leave this to me. We'll phase in at the Alsone Radio Star ... um ... its far planet ... feed on puffs. Been years since I've had a puff. No one turns them down. They adapt to each individual's need for protein, minerals and vitamins. How they do it fails me. Also, they enhance affection. After eaten, they regenerate in one’s bowels so to ply again. You know, my friend, the puffs even consume themselves, so powerful their pleasure."

  "You eat them live? I couldn't."

  "Of course, you could. You couldn't turn them down. What's more, when you've eaten your share, such peace comes over you that ... well, you'll see."

  "I think I should become a vegetarian first."

  He laughed. "You are a fine monitor, not knowing anymore about the future than that."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, my little one. Drifters like myself enjoy making the ephemeral actual for a mind such as yours. Some day you shall love a puff and much more."

  Tilva teased from her image a smile. "Okay, we'll blank out together once we've passed out of Earth Central's dominance."

  As the ship neared midway, static interrupted the flow of testing through her mind. The entity said, "When the static fades, we'll be out of dominance. Keep the puffs in mind for later. We'll blank-out at that restaurant on the Mark at Quarterpoint Center instead. Get ready."

  "Okay," Tilva murmured. Nevertheless, unsure she had decided right, she rumbled on in her mind, I should query the leader. She refused her inclination and made up her own mind like she had done since a child. Despite what anyone said or implied, come earth or sky, Tilva glorified self decision.

  Dominance passed. A gentle pull, then she found herself floating above the ship. The quantum sensed her blank-out and yanked her back. As she crashed into its field, a keepsake anchored her.

  The probes touched her, measured her responses, tested her precognition, and recorded her states. Tilva could do nothing but submit to this rape. The admiral and lead clairvoyant concurred that they should pull her out of the quantum for alloying her clairvoyance with emotion. The lives of five million beings could not risk any lack of discipline.

  As she departed the circuits, she did not realize that the memories she had made there would become obscure. During the "short death,” something she had possessed vanished like a cloud in an arid sky. Her mind circled her as if it resided elsewhere.

In the hospital, the med techs hooked the capsule containing her constituents to reassembly. Her cells sped through the 3D printer at one million items per second. A few days later when she had stabilized, Tilva's friends helped her sort through the images of her monitorship. Her friend Zephra asked, "Tilva, what's this image?"

  "What image?"

  "You had buried it so deep that the stripper took three imprints to pull out a copy. It looks like a nose from a man, or maybe a boy."

  Touching her breasts, Tilva studied the screen. "Oh, that image. Well, it's nothing really. Just a keepsake."

 

  A party? Festooned with ribbons and balloons, the footbridge seemed to say so. Confetti floating in the water muffled the laughter bubbling through the air. Her keepsake shivered in her mind as she skipped across.

  Fate of another kind met her. The celebration had turned into a Group meeting aboard ship. Sigfried M7J stood in front. "We have been waiting for you. I have decided to give you viewing."

  A hundred breaths nearly deprived Tilva of air. She fell trembling to the deck. Viewing! Sigfried taking me into his view. Her eyes clouded. Her mouth fell open, and she swooned.

  A med tech revived her. Sigfried bent over holding out the document. Tilva read the script: "By the dicta of viewing, I promise to view you for your benefit." The document would contain her memoir. She flowed sympathy at it for a second before she caught her mistake and yanked the emotion back. Grabbed for the document, missed by a centimeter and swooned again.

When she came to, she lay in her chamber with Sigfried poised near. He injected her using a needle from his kit. As she disassociated from herself, the impression fuddled her mind. For 7 straight hours, Tilva remained in the chamber. Sigfried injected her every other hour. For certain, they would delve forever, corporate and discorporate.

  She decided to bless the future by donating her mind for blending with Sigfried’s view. Nearly swooning again, she surmised, What an honor to forward his knowledge. Her guts twitched as she shot out a burst of sympathy. That lapse took four liters of water to purge.

  By the next day, she had forgotten her error. Sigfried still stunned her mind. Now, her eyes focused straight ahead at him, cutting through the gaze of everyone in Group. I will treat Sigfried as if he wielded a chief-mind-viewer's wand. I admire him so. 

  During the next two years, Sigfried became so adept at viewing her that he did it every day. What more proof could she ask that he found her fascinating? People noticed, too. They would lean toward her just to sample her shine. She watched happily whenever notes appeared in her file. They would bolster her hopes, making her future secure.

  Each month, she downloaded the regurgitations revealed in viewing. She would watch these mingle in Sigfried’s mind. However, they turned out sterile. Pity for him squashed her. Choking on this news, but needing succor, she told him. He said, "Well my dear, simple ‒ we’ll use someone else."

  "You're so understanding, Sigfried," She sucked in a tear that threatened to slide down her left cheek.

  One day when she returned to their cubicle, Sigfried surprised her by announcing that he had given up his candidacy for becoming an acolyte in Group. Tilva created an empathy cocoon for him that day. He viewed her 3 times.

  As Tilva purred, Sigfried said, "I think maybe I should mess around some. I need a little spice to keep me focused. I'm expanding your duties. In addition to viewing you for your development, you will procure others for me. You decide whom, just not any of those snivelers from Group."

  Tilva stretched. If Sigfried didn't need me, why would he assign me such an important task?

  After trying others Tilva had procured for him, Sigfried decided to view Tilva for the first time in a month. "I'm tired of those ignoramuses. I think I'll try you again. Perch on the cushions, and we'll get started." He opened his injection kit. As he viewed her, she gave back to him all she could. He needed it so. When he had had his fill of her, he said, "Well, that was okay, but tomorrow you need to find me another to view."

  Oh, to be needed for admiration. It humbled her. With heart overflowing, she turned to him, but he snored to all she said. In the dark, she cried for him. Poor Sigfried, so concerned that I feel needed. What a good man. What more can I do for him? Hoping to dredge up some ideas, she wrote in her scriber all the ways she had failed him. She decided, Just performing the opposite of my failures should improve my service. 

  When she finished with all the failures she could imagine, she lost herself in the first notes she had begun when she, Stead and her keepers lived together. Near the beginning of the notes she spotted a section that had crushed her hope: the note on death class. At the end of that she read, "Guaranteed operable after 15 years and not before." Affixed to the bottom of the page laid her death strip.

  On the last page, her note said she had placed her death strip in a pouch. She had considered her death rarely since, but now it impaled her future. She recalled what she had learned from the Book of Burdens. So many of the early viewers had killed themselves for their failures that the rulers had ordered a class, also a strip to make death less traumatic for the people. Their deaths would mimic those of viewers who had taken their lives. Tilva gloried in an idea: My failures could be wiped clean in one stroke.

  Her fingers shook as she opened the pouch and slipped out the two-centimeter-long strip of plastic. She drove her eyes along its sentences and imagined the poison that could only activate if she chewed the strip voluntarily. She realized anew ‒ My termination, coded to my own telomeres. To die, just die. I wouldn't have to discorporate in the quantum and be an embarrassment to Sigfried. If I ate the strip, he would be free of me for good. My failures to him would end. Tears of sympathy fell as she held the strip in the dark out of sight of the spy eyes. She kissed it, then put it back in its pouch.

  She prepared her fluid-exchange tank. When she sank down into the luminescent fluid, she opened her mind to Sigfried’s vibrations. The termination strip would save him from her, so she went to sleep peacefully. Her dreams centered around her corpus ‒ flitting about it, Sigfried ran free, laughing, having fun, studying anyone he wanted.

  For days, snatches of her death class would come back to her. Guided evolution had supplanted strip death with discorporation in the quantum, which offered more options for ending life. The strips rarely found use, for most people had faith in a quantum heaven where they could control their vibrations. Tilva decided. Each day I remain alive deprives Sigfried of his right to life. Pity for him grew, and her body bloated with poison much of the time.

  One day she said to Sigfried, "I've been thinking about my failures. I'm so sorry."

  Sigfried closed his tablet. "Not a problem. Yes, you have a lot to atone for, but we can simply use others until you're fixed."

  "Fine you say. I can hardly bear my failures."

  "Humph." Sigfried reopened his tablet. Tilva crashed to her knees and raised her hands toward him as tears flashed over her cheeks and pooled on the floor.

 

  The second half of this story from the book Eve of Valor will post on or about 1 Jul.

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   To get the book Eve of Valor: click here.