1 - Lee's Tale

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And God said, Let there be light ...she

-- The Bible, Genesis: 1

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Pat’s was pretty busy. Lots of off worlders. Quite a few earthers. A couple of high grav guys the corner, a bunch of wogs chewing the fat. The talent was out in force. Blondes, brunettes, redheads tall, short and anything in between, male and female and some where you weren't sure -- anything you wanted. Pat's was pretty much an "anything goes" sort of place, as long as you didn't pester anybody. In Pat’s, go away meant go away.

The barkeep saw me coming and had my brew ready and waiting. Kelly is chief cook and bottle washer here, older than dirt, been here forever seems like. He's gruff, but he's got a kind heart and will help out anybody in a pinch. Just don't tell him I said so.

I recall one time when one of those tall, spindly guys came in from a low grav world ... I digress, that's another story.

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I like to come to Pat's. It was a chance to just and thank, be alone with my thoughts while I enjoyed the pleasure of watching the interplay of humanity. It was better than a holo. Fiction just can't beat real life.

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I got out my comm to take notes. I'd thumb-type, the old-fashioned way, because the soothing background hum of the humanity in Pat's, while relaxing, made it too loud to dictate. Besides, I always thought that someone sitting at a table with a drink in hand, talking to himself, looked a little odd.

The sound level in Pat's noticeably dropped. "Look...at...that," said an unfamiliar male voice at the next table, just above a whisper. You could tell that most, if not all newcomer male, and more than a few female eyes were cast in that direction... some showing jealousy, some showing less than innocent interest.

"Damn, that tomboy's hot," said a voice from the next table, as his gaze wandered to the leggy strawberry blonde whos electric-blue eyes scanned Pat's. You could tell she was leaving a pheromone trail behind as she walked past the tables.

"Come sit on my lap, baby," joked a friend of mine a couple of tables over as she came close. "I would," she purred, "but I think my guy would be jealous." She batted her long eyelashes at him. "Just tell him his doc is tutoring a slow student," he said. She laughed, and kissed him on the cheek before moving on.

"Hey, baby," she said. "Chloe! Surprised you're here," I said. "I thought you were tied up tonight. Let me grab you a chair." I reached over to pull one from the empty table behind. "Don't bother, I can't stay," she said, perching herself on my knee instead. "I was next door for a minute, and knew you were here. I thought I'd come in and say hi. I'll be late tonight, love. I've got to check the progress of those lab tests. My grad student is working late but I want to see the results myself. No need to rush home on my account." We chatted a few more minutes. She finished my drink, rose from my knee, and gave me a big, long, wet kiss. She blew me another kiss as she headed out the door.

I settled back to my thumb typing.

###

Genesis, Sort of.

In the beginning we didn’t have the equipment or the knowledge that we have today. There was no Institute; no Outfitter; no infrastructure. Jumpers were like the rough-and-tumble prospectors back on earth in the 1800s. They were a gruff bunch, unsuited to polite society. They weren't exactly the ''afternoon tea and finger sandwiches'' crowd. At least most of them. They generally kept to themselves, working in teams of two or three. Working hard and playing harder.

Sprains and broken bones were common. Some jumped and never came back. We fantasized that they found some great new world and didn't want to. We knew better. We didn’t talk about that much. Jinx you know.

Today, there are destinations for vacationers. Then, there are the research worlds. Industrial production isn’t usually practical. There’s just no way to move the volume of grain or lumber or widgets through a portal to make it economically feasible. It's just too much physical volume in too little time for the portal to stay stable.

There's always money in strange or unusual artifacts. Rare heavy metals like gold or compact and valuable products like diamonds or other rare gemstones, exotic spices and the like are good. Size matters. First of all, portal entrances are only so big. Some things just won't fit through the space. You can only go one way at a time. Once something is inside the portal, it just doesn't work again, in either direction, until whenever it is in transit exits. Also, portals are a little bit like batteries which work for a while, then need to be charged. Portals work for a predictable period of time before they must "recharge." Recharging time is relatively insignificant, minimal if one pays attention and keeps to the schedule. Move too much stuff through a portal into short a time, however, and the portal essentially shuts itself down -- for a long time.

Back then, the equipment for jumping was rudimentary. The jumpsuit was standard issue. It reminded me of a scuba diver's wet suit. It was skin tight and made out of a synthetic, foam rubber like fabric that was very pliable most of the time, but became as hard as titanium in milliseconds if something dinged it at high speed.

The jumpsuit had a position indicating transponder on the front.

The helmet was photo-sensitive plasteel and locked into the collar.

The air supply was a re-breather with auxiliary compressed air that fit into a canister about the size of your forearm.

The jumper's most expensive and most prized possession was the jolly and was standard issue. Jollies were named for Jolly Jumpers, a child's swing dating back to the 20th century that let babies, who weren't old enough to walk yet, stand up and bounce around in a doorway suspended by an elastic cord. Jollies were adaptations of the counter grav gear used by stevedores to haul pallets of cargo aboard freighters. They could easily lift a person and about 300 or 400 pounds of stuff -- or two people in an emergency. Counter gravity wasn't practical for really massive objects, like vehicles, but was practical and efficient for the mass of a person.

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If I’m honest, in the early days, it was almost as easy to get rich jumping as it was to get killed. We just didn’t talk much about death. No need to be morbid! I know I don't look it, but I've been around a long time and know, first hand, what the early juncture like. Once in a while, one of the jumpers just and did up a grease spot on some foreign landscape.

We were thrill seekers with more guts than brains. Jumping was hazardous to your health. We’d find a fog bank that was visible only from one side, and jump off into the unknown. Generally we landed on solid ground instead of an ocean or the top of a cliff. There were certainly hazards. It didn't take too many people turning into grease spots for someone to figure out that they needed to attach a grav meter to the jolly so the jumper didn't become a pancake on a Jupiter mass world.

It was risky, some would say foolhardy. But the rush is incredible, addictive and the rewards called to us like a siren song.

###

Overall, I was a pretty lucky Jumper. Mostly, I ended up on solid ground somewhere. The atmosphere was usually breathable. The bumps and ruses of portal travel were mostly minor. The gravity was close to Earth -- normal, and no big bad monsters showed up to eat me (not that big bad monsters are all that common). I found a few odds and ends that made me a living.

It was my 21st or 22nd jump that set me up. There is some industry on nexus worlds. It has to be compact and easy to ship. You have to be able to fit it within the portal weight and, more importantly, volume limits. Portal disturbance cost money after all. So, heavy metals such as gold or platinum , and minerals such as diamond or uraniumwere still economically viable.

I ended up on a planet now known as DL 2046. It was earthlike – well, earthlike a billion years ago. The atmosphere was breathable but smelled worse than rotten eggs. You had to wear your rebreather, not because of the oxygen content, but because the stench was too much to bear. The average human could spend a day or two there but not much more.

There was still some occasional volcanic activity. Where I landed was a gold mine. Well, actually, a diamond mine. The surface was strewn with black industrial diamonds which are usually tiny. But these were enormous ... the size of ping pong balls. And they were nearly flawless. When the mining companies were done bidding for the mineral rights, and the Crown took his cut, it was still enough to keep be comfortable for long, long ... long time.

###

A jump can take 1 or 2 seconds of transit time, or as much as two or three hours. But it always seems nearly instantaneous to the jumper. Needless to say, jumping and be disorienting. People that jump always work in pairs or trios.

On the first jump, one jumps and one stays behind as a spotter. On first down, usually, I jumped and Chloe spotted. Being a spotter was the perfect job for a research professor like her. She could use the wait time to dictate her archaeological articles, review the work of her post-doctoral grad student assistants, or occasionally soak up one of those steamy, trashy Harlequin Romance novels that she loved.

It's another jump I want to talk about. It was quite a while after the Black Diamond jump.

The beeping told Chloe the first hour was up. I should be back in half an hour or less.

Another half hour passed. I still wasn’t back. I’d like to say, “Time to sound the alarm.” But, there was no alarm, and nobody to hear it anyhow. And, if I didn’t come back, there wasn’t much anyone could do anyhow. At least not back then. All Chloe could do was tell the next of kin, reported to the crown and have a drink in remembrance.

###

I suffered the usual 30 seconds or so of post-jump disorientation. Then I checked my gear and gauges. Everything was nominal. The air quality indicator on my wrist glowed green so I knew it was breathable. I tested it out by opening my helmet vents. It was musty smelling.

I was standing on some sort of artificial structure that might have been a building or something similar. I knew it was artificial because nature abhors right angles. There appeared to be a doorway of some sort ahead and I started moving towards it. as I got closer, I could see carvings that looked like a combination of ancient earth Egyptian hieroglyphics and oriental ideographs on either side. I took another step closer. Then the lights went out.

I didn't know how long I was out. I was groggy, lying down with a strange buzzing in my ears. Other than that, I appeared to be okay. Then I checked my suit's chrono. I was late, very late. Chloe would've been worried sick. I had to get back ASAP. There was no time to explore.

###

I returned, to Chloe's relief. I pulled off the helmet and passed it to her. The first thing she said was, "What's wrong with you?" She could see the dilated pupils and the greenish pallor to my skin. I explained it to her as I removed the rest of my jumpsuit. As I was talking, Chloe began fidgeting with something in the crevasses of my helmet.

"How odd" she noted, rather distractedly. In some of the cracks and creases she had found a very fine, grayish sand-like substance. The grains were tiny, almost microscopic and nearly individually invisible to the naked eye. What really bother her was that she had found it inside the helmet's air filtration. "You undoubtedly inhaled some of this stuff," she said. "The grains are so small it's no surprise you didn't see it. And isn't it peculiar that none of your suit's sensors detected it?" She swept the grains into a sample bag for later analysis.

Symphony of Dreams

Since that last jump, I had been handing very vivid dreams, every night. Sometimes they even woke me up. I always started to remember them.

Every time I closed my eyes and nodded off I heard it, a singing, alto voice with a sound that reminded me of Gregorian chants. But, it was something just out of range of my comprehension. It was rhythmic, entrancing, even beautiful. It was like taking a mind altering drug, a trip. Sometimes the dreams would wake me up. But, I always remembered the cadence, the tone, the music. Always.

Chloe was off at a conference on Xenobiology. I think she was giving a paper on something or other. I was fending for myself, which is a truly novel experience, and looks a lot like a fish out of water.

I began to have some flulike symptoms. My bones ached. My nose dripped like a leaky faucet. I had a sore throat. I took some aspirin, and spent the day in bed. After a few days, the symptoms passed, Chloe came home, but the dreams continued.

Fast Forward.

The dreaming was getting worse, waking me up at night at strange hours. It seemed like I could hardly sleep. The cacophony in my head was mentally deafening. I dreaded when morning came round. Why was I plagued with this sleeplessness? It was driving me insane.

But then, almost like a whisper, the singsong tones began to take form, to be recognizable.

Great. Now I was hearing voices. I was beginning to question my sanity.

"I am [unpronounceable]. We must [unpronounceable] before much longer. I cannot maintain the self's separateness indefinitely. I must share before I can no longer communicate." I heard the voice say in those lilting, singsong tones. I didn't know quite to make of it. I was momentarily mute. The message repeated itself mysteriously, as though the disembodied voice knew that I was listening. I remember thinking to myself, ''This is crazy.'' Amazingly, the voice answered, "Why is that so?"

I gave up. I might as well have a conversation with the disembodied voice. I was already beginning to question my sanity.

"[unpronounceable]. It has been difficult. I have tried many times to communicate. You do not speak or understand the language of my kind. That is very strange. Your experiences, your selfness is unfamiliar to us. But you are host self, and I must follow you," it said. "You are the last host. I was lucky to find you. There will be no more new hosts. It is with much sadness. But you will, you must, carry on our kind."

I had no idea what the voice meant.

With that, I heard a cacophony of sounds punctuated with bright lights, images in rapid succession, things I understood and things for which I had no reference. It seemed to go on for ever. But, in the end, it was only a few minutes. Silence descended, my head hurt, and my eyes felt filled with sand. At that moment, I wasn't quite sure what happened.

"Your selfness is not familiar. You are structurally different. I have decoded. It will take some time, possibly several passings. You will understand. I must go. I cannot hold integrity much longer."

With that, there was a deafening silence. The voice in my head was quiet. The music in my dreams was gone. It was silent, I realized, for the first time in a year. Suddenly, I felt utterly alone, like on a barren rock world at sunset.

The morning after

Chloe was back and ordered up breakfast. I wasn't moving very quickly. The sleepless, dreamfilled night had taken its toll on me. I felt like hell. I wasn't sure whether I was a. going crazy, b. having bad dreams, or c. really hearing alien voices in my head. I'm not sure which alternative is worse.

Chloe sensed something. She was good like that. She had the good grace to commit us to nothing more than small talk. She knew I would get around to telling her what was up, in time. A mug of kava, a couple poached eggs and some toast, and I felt much more human, although I was beginning to sense that feeling was less and less accurate.

Another cup of kava and I decided to tell Chloe. She listened, punctuating my narrative with insightful questions. At least she didn't say she thought I was crazy. Although, I've seen that quizzical look on her face before.

###

Chloe was totally engrossed in what she was reading. She didn't notice me walk into the room. I sat down. No response. I cleared my throat. No response. "Chloe," I said. That got a response. She jumped. "Oh good," she exclaimed, "get your com and read what I just sent you. The lab results are back. Fascinating."

The lab report was indeed fascinating! Tecnically, the substance was a sand -- or at least a silicate. But under magnification, those tiny grains were actually very complex. In some respects parts of their structure were reminiscent of the double helix structure of DNA. However, the molecular structure, among other differences, seemed to substitute silicon for carbon. Then there were other microscopic structures. It resembles a cross between a nanomachine and a one celled organism. Whatever it was, it baffled both the computers and the lab techs.

There was more. On a hunch, Chloe had sent a recent strand of hair or my hairbrush with a request for a DNA analysis. That is pretty standard and took only seconds. Then she also had her graduate assistant do a comparison of the new DNA sample with my existing DNA profile. They should have matched. My jaw dropped. They didn't! They were similar, but not exact. "How many times you run the tests?" I inquired. "A lot," she said "and on more than one machine. The results are conclusive accurate to about five decimal places." I was both stunned, and frankly, a little queasy.

I had morphed into a chymera! My DNA was now, apparently, a combination of two organisms.

There was more, revealed by subsequent tests. I seemed to produce a new type of component to my blood which functions similarly to a white cell. More accurately, it resemble a blood born virus that repairs naturally occurring DNA damage. It stopped me from aging physically.

Think about it. One celled animals, protozoa like the amoeba, are essentially immortal. They reproduce by mitosis, splitting in half, and then half again, over and over. As long as there is food and oxygen, the process continues indefinitely. The little critters eat, breathe, split in half forever. Every amoeba you see in a drop of pond water is billions of years old, the direct result of the continual splitting of some primordial cell, swimming around in pond scum billions of years ago.

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