Chapter 12

I awoke to find myself lying in a foxhole. Alodar was laying there, his leg still broken. There was another person in the foxhole with us, appearing unconscious. Rockets burst overhead, and as I leaned in to search the neck for a pulse, I could see in the fire light this was a female. Missile fire continued to whistle in the back ground, along with random gunfire, occasional explosions, and sounds I couldn’t account for.

“Where did you go?” Alodar asked.

“Nowhere,” I said. “Why?”

“Because right before we crashed landed, you disappeared,” Alodar said.

“That’s interesting,” I said, which was because I didn’t remember going anywhere. I think I remembered all the other places I went, but could there be more, like so many morning of waking up from dreams without memory of any?

I reached in my bag searching for smelling salt.

“What, you’re going to help her, too?” Alodar asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“You can’t,” he said. Light flashed over our foxholes, and dirt rained in.

“Why not? She might be a fellow student,” I said.

“Of course she’s a student! Who else would be in here?” Alodar asked. “But look at her clothing. She’s been here so long, she has become part of the landscape.”

I found smelling salts in my bag and tried rousing her. She responded, coming awake with a start, going for a gun.

“Hold up,” I said. “We’re friends.”

“You’re a yank?” she asked.

“Yeah, and I am not armed. Look, I am helping my friend with the broken leg. We inadvertently fell in your foxhole,” I said.

She seemed skeptical. I don’t think she believed in ‘inadvertently’ either because she was a senior class magician, or the war had made her paranoid.

“What’s your name, sweetheart,” Alodar asked.

She backed up, putting her back to the foxhole and pointing the gun at him. “Oh, that’s how it starts. You think you can work your way into my brain by calling me baby, or sweetheart, or darling.”

“Forgive my friend, but he’s an idiot,” I said.

“And you want me to believe you’re smarter? You parachuted in without weapons,” she asked. “You didn’t even bring more ammo? We’re in a war. We’re losing. You were supposed to bring more bullets!”

“We’re not part of a war or its relief efforts,” I said. “And neither are you.”

“Jon, don’t try to break her illusion,” Alodar said.

Nearby bombs went off.

“You call that an illusion?” she asked.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She took a moment, as if deciding if I were going to kill her, or she me, and then, as if she was tired of it all and would rather just die, she surrendered to me, lowering her weapon. “I’m Darlene.”

A mortar whistled overhead, and I swear, I could see it coming straight at us, and I did what I do best; shields up! And, suddenly, the three of us were not on a battle field, but in a grassy plain, next to a Star Gate, and we were all three wearing SG1 uniforms. Alodar was leaning into Darlene. Aliens were descending from the Gateway, quickly surrounding us. They were Grays, very similar to what you might expect from Earth media, with some variations. These were more shapely, almost more human in terms of muscle tone, suggesting these had been born on a planet with gravity, and perhaps the ones visiting earth had been born in space, or on the moon. They were also more shapely, like highly feminized, hour glass figures, as the ones from the earth movies tend to look like children.

“Don’t meet their eyes,” I instructed. “Look down at your feet, or close your eyes.”

My instruction was impulsive, as if I was remembering something from my past, or perhaps my interactions with Terk, the guerilla, my Guardian of Doors, had taught me this. For most species, making eye contact was a challenge, or an invitation to mate. I was not interested in fighting or mating with the Grays. Quite frankly, ever since the book Communion hit the shelves, the Grays have scared the crap out of me. SG1’s version made me like them a little better, but still, they scared the crap out of me. I looked down not just to follow my own advice, but because I felt compelled to. I was tempted to fall to my knees, but I didn’t, I held my space, but didn’t meet the eyes of the Grays. Part of me wanted to, but I intentionally imagined my face would burn off like the soldiers in Raiders of the Lost Ark who looked at the face of God, and I swear, I heard Harrison saying, “Don’t look, Marion.” But Marion was telling me to go ahead and look.

One of them approached me. “I have been chosen to speak to you, Slut-mind,” the Gray said. I heard this in my head, not out loud.

“Now, hold on just a minute,” Alodar said. “I am a senior and I am in charge here.”

Another voice said, “kill them all,” and the Gray army that surrounded us brought weapons to bare.

“Did I say I was in charge? Jon is in charge,” Alodar said, back peddling.

“Oh, fuck you,” I thought.

“I have been authorized to speak to Slut-mind,” the Gray said.

“My name is Jon,” I corrected her, still not meeting her eyes. I don’t think I could look at her if I tried, and though I knew it was a Gray and most likely an androgynous drone, I got the sense that she was a female, tall, lean, blond, and blue eyes, but it was too difficult to know for sure, as if I were squinting into the sun, even though I was still looking at my feet.

“Slut-mind,” she said. The voice was definitely feminine. “You will explain your incursion into our space.”

“Your space?” Alodar began.

“Al?!” I snapped. I held my hands out, semi ‘I surrendered,’ but the gray that was speaking motioned her companions to lower their weapons. “Do you have a name?”

“You chastise me for asking Darlene for a name, and you’re leading with the same question?” Alodar asked, amazed.

“Al, I didn’t call her ‘sweetheart,’and, different context here, I am trying to be civilized,” I said, looking at him sideways.

“Why are you yelling?” the lead Gray asked.

My female gray shrugged. “You’re making unnecessary sound, more than sub vocalization,” the Gray said. “Is this part of your mating ritual?”

“Um. Me and Alodar? No, we’re just friends, hell, we’re not even friends, I was just giving him aid, and we’re communicating. Poorly, but, oh, wait. You do know, Alodar and I are not telepathic. We speak using our voices,” I said.

“All species are telepathic,” the Gray insisted. “Your mind is too filled with noise and slut to discern when someone is speaking to you without getting in your face.”

“Maybe so,” I said. That actually made a lot of sense. Hell, a girl could be in my face and talking to me and I still not hear her because I am thinking she might be fun in bed. What would I hear if I could quiet my mind? “Do you have a name?”

“We accept your attempt at civility. Slut-mind may call me Daughter Judy,” she said. “You will now explain the incursion.”

“I am really not sure I understand, can you tell me more about what you perceive is happening?” I asked.

“Every four years, your kind attempt an invasion. Each cycle, we have been kind, and allowed a certain few to pass, but we grow weary of your attempts to dominate the landscape,” Judy said.

I was still at a loss. “Are you Grays?”

Judy considered a moment. “I, too, need more information,” she sighed. “I must enter your mind, further. I am authorized to indulge in intimacy.”

And suddenly, I was back at home, in my bed. It was dark outside, but the window was open, and the curtain was sucked out. There was a blond hovering over my bed, sort of like a Nordic ghost, and her nighty and long flowing hair moved with a breeze from the window. And if I looked at her just right, she was a Gray, and I would move my head back to see the blond. The scene advanced, descending in skipped frames, and then she was on top of me, ‘mating’ with me. It was less love making and more mating, as if it were simply a biological requirement. It was very robotic. There was no joy on her part, just something she did, something she submitted to. It was in this merger that our minds shared information. It was two ways, and as inevitable the exchange of bodily fluids after relentless grinding. Apparently, if you torture me, you won’t get shit out of me, but if you fuck me or blow me, I will tell you whatever you want to know.

“We, my hive, are a fourth generation colony,” Judy explained. This required deeper knowledge, and it came to me as I tried to understand, like a book adding pages to fill in the blanks. They considered themselves the first intelligent species. They created technology allowing them to colonize their galaxy traveling at less than one tenth the speed of light. This was accomplished by launching intelligent spaceships, guided by sentient computers. The ships were not only capable of self-repair, but on arriving at a new solar system it would find a planet, and either terraform the planet, or build large enclosed cities using material available on the planet. The ship also carried embryos, and once the city was capable of sustaining a population, the first embryos were allowed to develop and were raised by machines. After a certain time, the robotic ship would build more ships, and more embryos were collected, and the ships were launched to repeat the process. Daughter Judy was four colonies removed from her species world of origin. She had the histories of the four first worlds, and knowledge that there were many other colonies, each doing the same. Every new planet allowed for divergence from the original genetic design, something unavoidable due to changes in environment and gravity interacting with genes and consciousness. Consciousness also changed. How could it not? By now, they were likely to have so many colonies that there was a good chance that species differentiation would be severe enough that some of the grays may not even be considered the same species. Indeed, she believed the Grays that were visiting Earth would not be recognized by the original species, because the original declaration was to wipe out any competing life in favor of their own, and it was apparent to her that Earth wasn’t being wipe out, but rather the Grays were trying to save it. That was especially interesting to her.

“Some of us chose virtual lives, downloading our personalities into the matrix of interstellar computer networks,” Judy went on. “I am a hybrid, capable of crossing both physical and subliminal realms, and may one day be the mind that controls an interstellar ship for a new startup colony. This virtual world you have invaded is the place we created. We established a base here so that there may be communion in spirit, in consciousness, between our sister worlds. Telepathy is not limited to space/time, but connecting over interstellar distances has proven to be problematic. We have not solved the riddle, yet. We suspect the presence of ‘others’ interferes with the process. When here, expectations changes the landscapes. Most of the bubble universes implode and are short lived. We have watch you, slut-mind, always engaged in romance and intrigue. The story lines are contrived and cliché, and still, you engage.”

“Is our presence here causing harm?” I asked.

“You are not killing us,” Daughter Judy admitted. “But you are a distraction, Slut-mind. Some of us are afraid of you, the same way most of your kind is freaked out by a roach. Some of us are interested. Some of us, like myself, can be aroused by the intensity of your urges, which is one of the reasons why I was chosen to interact with you. The land you entered is multilayered, and so some of you sneak past our defenses, encapsulating us into your own manifestations. Some of you run right up to us firing lasers and setting off bombs, and blowing up our bases. We tag you to follow your movements in the multilayers that you travel, hoping to anticipate you and prevent the interruption of our communications. Your species is so young, I don’t think you understand your own complexity, and yet, as I engage you physically, I sense that you know more than you even allow yourself to know.”

“If I were to be permitted to leave, with my friends, is there something I might do to help diminish future conflict?” I asked.

“Walk more softly on the Earth,” Daughter Judy said. “Stop throwing psychic missiles! Be kind.”

“I am okay delivering that message,” I said.

“Return,” Judy said.

And then I was back in the foxhole, my shield fading, bleeding off the impact of the missile by radiating glow.