A Very Schticky Thing To Do - 17. Chapter 17

After two days of nearly endless sex, Zzppd was happy to notice a vague sensation of slowing in the car. Suddenly, unexpectedly, there was a sharp jerk that nearly threw both of them onto the floor.

“Ah! Time to get ready to disembark,” Thabbt calmly said.

“What was that?” Zzppd asked.

“Wake up call,” Thabbt said smiling.

“Couldn’t they just announce it over the intercom?”

“Why do that when they can jerk the train?”

“You know, that was a very Schtickist way to do that,” Zzppd offered.

“It was? Oh, versus simply announcing it,” Thabbt said. “Yes, that is funny. I wonder who sold that to us. Probably, no wait, our railroad system came from the Belendans. Are they funny?”

“Don’t know,” Zzppd said. “They’re mostly famous for beaches, Beezös Snirl, Nob Bobbys, Nits on You, Duck Day, and the first N’menman game farm. I don’t know much else about Belenda.”

“I know I’m going to regret this, but what or who is a Beezös Snirl?” Thabbt asked.

“And, you don’t want to know about Nob Bobbys? He was more interesting,” Zzppd said.

“No, let’s start with Beezös Snirl,” Thabbt said. “I’m pronouncing it correctly, right?”

“Close enough, though in the Belendan dialect there’s more stress on the second “e” in Beezös. It kind of like the way the Bazt pronounce Aabi; Beh-EE-zohz. Anyway, Beezös Snirl isolated Belenda from ’xrsc control by altering a few lines of ’xrsc system code. He went on to lead the Belendan Programmers Union in the subsequent civil war. He was reputedly killed by Loora Kird in a staged fight in accordance with Velb sne’Voom’bra’dooli’s Rules for Concluding a Protracted Civil War. Although the fight was televised, most Belendans felt Beezös’ death was faked. Can I tell you about Nob Bobbys, now?”

“I suppose it’s better than the fight,” Thabbt said.

“Oh, no, the fight was staged beautifully,” Zzppd said. “If you want, I can bring it up on the screen and we can watch it.”

“It’s still available?” Thabbt asked.

“Of course it is,” Zzppd said. “We could watch an old Terran sitcom if you want. According to popular legend, they preempted “Gilligan’s Island” to televise the fight.”

“Gilligan’s Island” is what?” Thabbt asked.

“An old Terran sitcom,” Zzppd said.

“And a sitcom is what, Mister Expert Extraordinaire?” Thabbt asked.

“A sitcom, or technically a ‘situation comedy,’ was developed on Terra to keep millions of citizens oblivious to what their government was doing to them; they called it entertain,” Zzppd said with a smile. “They were all on various forms of early vid systems. You should watch some, they can be very funny.”

“What do you mean watch?” Thabbt asked.

“As in request our ’xrsc terminal download it to our vid,” Zzppd said. “It’s entertainment. Although, I will admit it’s not up to the standards of Bazt entertainment, but for Terrans in the early days of vid technology, some say sitcoms played a significant role in social development of the Terran ethos at the time of first dispersal.”

“You know, Zzppd, you should write a book about all this,” Thabbt said as the train jerked to a stop. “Whoa! The train isn’t supposed to stop this early. I wonder what’s wrong.”

“Don’t ask me, I only deal with past history, not current,” Zzppd said.

Their exterior door slid open revealing a Bazt in a green tunic and blue leggings, but shoeless. She looked in, glanced at Zzppd, then turned to Thabbt and said, “The Baztli is not welcome at the marriage resort. Please exit the car.”

“What’s the meaning of this?” Thabbt demanded. “Baztli are accepted in all Bazt facilities.”

“Not at the marriage resort,” the woman said. “You should’ve read the fine print on the brochure.”

“I wasn’t given a brochure,” Thabbt said. “I handled it with the travel office.”

“If you will be so kind to exit the car,” the woman said. “We do not want to use force.”

“Let’s go, Thabbt,” Zzppd said.

“But this isn’t’ right,” Thabbt said.

“Of course it isn’t right, but it’s how it’s done, now,” Zzppd said. “Excuse me; will there be a return train soon?”

“Stop! This will not continue to its logical conclusion,” a voice said. “Spid Doop, Thabbt Zo, please accompany me to ’xrsc coordinates 9.74.33.01.65.835, relative.”

“Get out of the car, now!” the woman ordered. “Cumt! Nooti! Weapons now!”

“They’ve got beam weapons!” Thabbt exclaimed.

“Ineffective!” the ’xrsc exclaimed.

Thabbt was aware of little when he was pulled through a series of recondite dimensions to a new location that was—if looked at from a perspective of seven dimensions, which the ’xrsc master controllers used to monitor the various human universes they controlled, Thabbt and Zzppd remained quite close to their original position in three dimensions—nine parsecs straight down, seventy-four meters forward, thirty-three meters to the left, one meter inward, sixty-five hours earlier, and, eight hundred thirty-five years ahead, but only seemed to take about three steps straight through the wall of their roomette to the right. He had absolutely no awareness that he was, relatively, eight hundred thirty-five years older, and, technically, not yet married to Zzppd.

Meanwhile, Zzppd who had the recondite awareness gene and was fully capable of being fully aware of the extraordinary change in their position while only taking those three steps, became very nauseous as is common to those who can sense movement through the fourth dimension. Luckily, the nanos that were monitoring his pregnancy were, also, fully capable of altering his physiological response to the dimensional shift and prevented the expected emesis; unfortunately, they were unable to stop the now nearly fully formed fetus from spontaneously aborting, as is common with Schtickist pregnancies during recondite dimension shifts.

The Bazt woman, a member of the bo clan and who had every intention of vaporizing both Thabbt and Zzppd, might have simply seen them disappear, except the ’xrsc altered all of her molecular positions one meter outward, relatively speaking of course, which resulted in a cloud of free atoms that momentarily hung in the air before quickly dispersing. Her associates, who had their beam weapons fully charged, were so surprised to see their leader explode they inadvertently discharged their beam weapons, totally vaporizing the entire railway car, including its remaining occupants.

* * * * * * *

Thabbt sat on the offered stool and began to sip from the cup Doopo gave him. She smiled in a way that suggested she knew exactly how he felt, but also knew there was little she could offer other than a cup of chamomile tea to settle his nerves.

Nearby, Zzppd lay unconscious on a narrow stretcher, while his nanos ineffectively raced to stop the spontaneous abortion that was ending the life of the fetus in his womb. There was little they could do, but their programming played out as their attempts to rescue turned to mending the damage. As is common in future medical nano technologies, the aborted fetus was efficiently dismantled to its basic molecular components and allowed to be absorbed into Zzppd’s body or disposed of via normal physiological waste processes.

Seemingly oblivious to Zzppd’s condition, Thabbt sat quietly trying to figure out where he was. At first sight, the walls of the room appeared even, making the room squarish, but if he glanced quickly from side to side, one wall seemed to lengthen toward a point so far to the left it was almost like it was in another city; and, yet, if he looked directly at that point, it moved back toward where it’s parallel partner terminated. It wasn’t too long before he was turning this way and that as walls increased and decreased in length depending on whether he was looking straight on or slightly askance.

“Dadi?” Doopo interrupted. “Stop doing that, it’ll only give you a headache.”

“But, the walls, they move,” Thabbt said.

“No, Dadi, there are no walls,” Doopo said, trying to smile without appearing authoritative. “The walls, floor, and ceiling are only visual constructs to keep incompatible brains from having to deal with the extra dimensions within this space.”

“Then I am seeing things?” Thabbt asked, realizing the only time before that he’d been made to see things was when the Minto were torturing him.

“In a way, yes,” Doopo said. “Come, I think it’s best if you have a little lie down, for awhile, at least until we get home.”

“Yes, maybe I should shut my eyes for a bit,” Thabbt said, suddenly feeling as if he was the child, here. “Are we going to your home?”

“No, Dadi, to your home, on Nits Knob, on Bazt,” Doopo said as she settled her stepfather onto a cot beside Zzppd.

“Nits Knob? Will Dimp be there?” Thabbt asked as he felt sleep rapidly overtaking him.

“Yes, Dadi, Dimp is patiently waiting for us, as he always is,” Doopo said. “I think you will like him. All of your children adore him.”

“Doopo? Will our, Zzppd’s and mine, children be there, too?” Thabbt asked, worriedly.

“No, silly, they’re not born, yet,” Doopo said. “Give time a chance to work in your life.”

“Yes, give time a chance,” Thabbt mumbled as he drifted off to an uncertain shore.

* * * * * * *

Meanwhile, relatively speaking of course, atop Nits Knob in a newly constructed habitat—from the outside to those without the recondite awareness gene it appeared to be a solid block of rock that seemed to have grown out if the top of the knob—a young man, Gurdian by descent, was cleaning a large window that overlooked a wide lawn sloping down to the pool. A ’xrsc robot watched him from a few meters to his left. You can’t actually tell if it was watching because it had visual sensors all around its six dimensional head, but the young man knew it watched him. It always watched him. It talked to him on occasion, but mostly it watched.

He had few memories of before. There was a boy, a Schtickist, who he knew for a short while. He did not know why he remembered he knew this boy, this Schtickist, but he knew almost positively that he once knew him. He did not remember the boy’s name, but then he had trouble remembering his own name. He did not understand the purpose of a name, but the robot, when it spoke to him, called him Master Dimp. He thought Master was a funny name.

He lived here, now, in these rooms where he was expected to help with the cleaning, doing the things the cleaning bots could not do, like cleaning the windows. Bots had trouble dealing with glass, but he did not know that. All he knew, now, was that he was there to help the bots.

One of his scariest memories, one that caused bad dreams on many nights, was of the gathering. Many people were dead or dying, but there were a few, like him, who did get sick, but got better after a while. At the time of the sickness he was living somewhere in some mountains. He did not remember where. All he remembered was the gatherers. They were bots and they collected all the people who survived the sickness and put them in places where they could be watched. Some of the people were killed by the bots. They did not die nicely, either, not that he knew how people should be killed. He just knew these people died when the bots did things to them, things that caused them to die. He remembered seeing how some of the bots killed those people. He remembered being very afraid of the bots where he was kept.

They came for him sometime after he’d been moved the third time. They were people, but not like him. The most striking difference, as far as he was concerned, was the extra finger. They had four fingers while he and the other people who were sick had only three. They asked him his name. He remembered saying, “Name? What is a name?” Then they examined him. Then they sterilized him. That’s what they said the operation was for, “Afterwards you’ll be sterile.” “What’s that mean?” he remembered asking. “You will not be able to breed,” they said. “What’s that mean?” he remembered asking. They explained it to him and he told them he was not a breeder as he sought sex from other men. They said they were sorry, but all like him had to be sterilized.

Then one day a ’xrsc human interface came into the room, accompanied by one of those humans. It took him to a place where there were lots of ’xrsc but no people. He remembered staying there with the ’xrsc for a long time or at least he thought it was a long time. The ’xrsc put him in a small room where he took care of himself. Some of the ’xrsc human interfaces seemed particularly interested in him taking care of himself.

Then he was brought here and learned how to help the bots clean.

Then the woman came. He liked her because she was like him, she had three fingers. She said his name was Dimp Nivl and that he was a good friend of the young Zzt who birthed her. He didn’t know what a Zzt was nor did he think he needed to know. She was older than he was, so her father must be quite old. She said he was coming to live in this house. It belonged to her father and his husband. He remembered asking what a husband was. He remembered her looking very sad and he remembered asking why. She said she was very sorry they couldn’t help him in time, but that he didn’t have to worry about anything ever again.

“I need to do the top meter,” he said. “May I have vertical assistance?”

A bot appeared out of the floor and reconfigured itself into a small platform, which he stood on. It rose slowly to a point where he could clean the top meter of the window which extended the width of the room. When he finished it lowered him to the floor and promptly disappeared into the floor. He remembered being troubled by that at first, but the bots told him that was how they did things. It was a bot thing and he didn’t need to be troubled by what bots did. He was glad they told him.

He stood in front of the window. He knew he was supposed to do something more, but couldn’t remember. He waited until a bot came over and said, “You may retire to your quarters. You did a good job today.”

He turned and walked through the house to a small door in a room where the bots spent a lot of their time. He opened the door and descended a flight of stairs to an open area full of carpets, cushions, pillows, and low tables. He walked across this area and opened another small door. He closed it and walked across the small room to his chair, where he sat and stared at the vid on the wall. He laughed when he thought he saw something funny. After a while, he rose and went into the lavatory and cleaned himself. Much later, he used the food prep to make something to eat. He didn’t know how all the buttons worked, but did know enough to make something that tasted okay and satisfied him. Then he went to bed and hoped he wouldn’t dream, but he did, as he did every night, and woke up suddenly in the middle of the night very, very afraid.

* * * * * * *

“Hi, I’m Benz Camb,” the Zzt said to Zzppd and Thabbt at the door of their room. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything? I’m just passing through and Doopo said I should at least introduce myself.”

He was tall and slender, with a sizeable bulge in his light blue coveralls. His gray hair was neatly trimmed and his features seemed to be of a man close to the prime of his life.

“You’re the man who marries my dottir,” Zzppd said with a frown, “but you seem older.”

“Actually, we’re the same age, relatively speaking,” Benz said. “Right now, I’m in my sixty-two year-old body because I’m attending a ’xrsc/UMS sales seminar on Argotte and they thought it’d be best if I came as an older man.”

“How do the Argotteans deal with you being Schtickist?” Zzppd asked.

“Well, actually, the seminar is taking place four hundred fifty-seven years in the future and Schtickists, with a lot of assistance from the ‘’xrsc, have become a vital asset in the human equation in this universe,” Benz said. “I know by your look you have very little understanding of what I’m saying, but, in time, both of you will come to see Doopo and myself as something other than human. In fact, we will be the first humans to become fully ’xrsc. There will be others in the future, but we will be the test bed for future configurations of human-’xrsc intersects. That’s what the ’xrsc call us. Well, I’ve got to be going. I’m afraid I won’t be seeing you again until our wedding, thirty-five years ago, but it’s been nice meeting you. Bye.”

After he left, Thabbt looked at Zzppd and said, “Did he say he and Doopo get married thirty-five years ago?”

“Yes, but he was referring to him being sixty-two,” Zzppd said. “I know it’s confusing, but when you exist in the recondite dimensions, time can become very confusing.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Thabbt said. “I’ve seen Doopo at eleven, fifty-seven, and whatever her age is now.”

“Twenty-three,” Zzppd added.

“See? Benz comes in here at sixty-two and she’s walking around at twenty-three,” Thabbt said with a lot of frustration in his voice. “How do they keep track if we can’t?”

“I don’t think they worry about it,” Zzppd said. “After all, in a few years, relatively speaking, they will cease to be fully human.”

“Yeah, about that, you wouldn’t happen to know the details, would you, since you seem to know just about everything else in the universe?” Thabbt asked, obviously still frustrated.

“Yes and no,” Zzppd admitted. “To become fully ’xrsc one has to give up mortality, which may or may not be a bad thing, relatively speaking. Plus, they have to allow their bodies, which are mostly analog processes, to become fully digital, which requires a significant change in their physiology.”

“Stop!” Thabbt exclaimed. “I don’t want to hear anything else about that. It’s simply too confusing. What I’d like to know is when can we leave here?”

“That’s up to Doopo, I think,” Zzppd said. “Or, maybe it’s a ’xrsc thing. You can never be too certain about where they stand on the necessary issues.”

“Not necessarily so,” a voice said.

“Show yourself, ’xrsc,” Zzppd said.

“We do not appear in physical form,” the ’xrsc said. “Here we, other than your personal interfaces, are fully digital. You may depart whenever you wish, but we are still determining the proper interaction you will have with your former owner, Dimp Nivl. We are concerned, because of your recent reaction to the news he is alive, that you may react negatively, thereby altering your timeline and eliminating this present.”

“We can do that?” Zzppd asked. “We can change the future?”

“Of course, time is purely relative to each individual,” the ’xrsc said. “This future does occur in a majority of each of your futures, but it also does not occur. How do you think you will react upon seeing Dimp Nivl?”

“I understand he has limited mental capabilities,” Zzppd said.

“Yes, but it isn’t the mind of a child as you may think,” the ’xrsc said. “He is fully adult, but has limited mental processes at his disposal. Will you have sex with him?”

“No, I’m married to this man, even though he is Bazt,” Zzppd joked.

“Dimp will wish to have sex with you,” the ’xrsc said. “We have yet to ascertain his sexual processes. How will either of you react to his sexual need?”

“Must we?” Thabbt asked.

“Yes, it is imperative you satisfy his sexual requirements during his period of employment,” the ’xrsc said. “Will either of you have emotional problems with either of you having sex with Dimp?”

“Zzppd, what do you think?” Thabbt asked.

“If he asks, we will provide,” Zzppd said, “but only if Dimp asks. Is that okay with you, Thabbt?”

“Oh, yes, of course, only if Dimp asks,” Thabbt said.

“You may leave,” the ’xrsc said. “We will inform the appropriate processes of your imminent departure to your ’xrsc site.”

“Wait! Our home is a ’xrsc site?” Zzppd asked.

“Of course, as all your children and their children and their children, to the nth degree, become fully ’xrsc, it is imperative to establish a firm footing on the planet Bazt-Gurd. It is a shame neither of you will completely transition to ’xrsc, but we do look forward to your presence in our mutual futures. Thank you Spid Doop for providing the necessary genes patterns to all of your descendants; and, you, Thabbt Zo for also providing significant mutational gene combinations to future human-’xrsc intersects. It can be truly said Spid Doop and Thabbt Zo will be the progenitors of a new species of human. Thank you.”