Alien Caller (74 page)

Often he missed
the small parts of daily life he’d come to expect. The coffee for
breakfast, the trip down to the town on a Friday for fish and
chips. Their own fish tasted somewhat strange and gave him the runs
though their sausages, now they were something else. Fishing,
hiking or just mucking around on the lake were also absent, but
then he was living in a city and Cyrea had promised to take him out
to the country soon.

He missed his
house and his lake, and even his neighbours. He’d hardly ever seen
them when he lived there, but just knowing they were there was
something that had slowly sunk into even his jaded soul over the
years. Now of course if they returned he would have new neighbours,
as the Leinians had already built fifty apartments on his thirty
eight acres, so that the embassy staff, especially those with
families, could enjoy a proper home by the lake. He quite liked
that. Even if he never returned.

The Leinian
equivalent of the TV was beyond his understanding, something to do
with having over four hundred channels, and no decent viewer guide.
But on the positive side their new apartment had a nice view, a
major swimming pool on the roof, pleasant neighbours who nearly all
now spoke English, and a whole new city to explore. He didn’t
really need to watch the idiot box.

The reactions
of the locals were a shock as well. On Earth he had been a nobody
for his whole life. Intentionally so. That was no longer true. Here
he occasionally felt like a rock star. Everyone, and it actually
was everyone, knew him. They knew his life story, had witnessed the
most intimate details of his love life, which still made him turn
red, had cheered as he fought by their side, and celebrated the
birth of Hope with him.

Every day he
was met by people who wanted to shake his hand. It appeared that
they were adapting to that particular Earth custom quite well. And
the children; from time to time they just mobbed him, clamouring
for his gene print. It was strange and embarrassing, especially for
an agent, but it was also warm and welcoming. Sooner or later he
knew, or at least hoped, it would ease off and he would return to
some sort of normal life, whatever that might be. But for now it
was quite pleasant and also useful as he found himself never short
of guides to his new world.

He was
adapting.

In truth his
greatest problem wasn’t trying to understand the larger features of
their society. Many of them were similar enough to those at home.
It was the little things that kept tripping him up. Finding doors
and door handles on buildings, working out how to use their
gadgets, catching the right floating bus, even reading street
signs. The language tapes were still a long way from ready to be
tested on humans, and his linguistic abilities were constantly
being tested. In fact when they were finally developed he
understood it would be his linguistic knowledge that would form
much of the basis of them.

Sometimes it
all became too much for him, and he needed to take a little time
out, just sitting on a park bench or staring out over the city from
the balcony of their apartment. But that was only occasionally.
More often he felt much as the great explorers must have when they
first found their new lands. Overawed and nearly stunned with
wonder as he kept making discovery after discovery. New people, new
food, art, music, in fact an entire world. He was like a travel
drunk tourist.

He wasn’t alone
in that though. Doctor Hayes was having a blast as he put it. Sarel
was taking him around the planet on a sightseeing expedition, which
unsurprisingly included the various hospitals. Apparently the
Leinians had over a hundred different types of hospital. They kept
getting reports back from them most evenings. Being only seven or
eight months along, she could still go out for a day trip and as a
result they were also enjoying the local night life. Another
strangely human activity which the Leinians had their own family
friendly version of.

The same was
true for Heather and Dafi, and Rebecca and Ayer. All were quickly
finding their feet in this new world and he suspected none would
want to return in a hurry. And who could blame them? The world was
strange but still a paradise.

“What would you
do? I mean on Earth you’re rich, or independently secure, or
whatever you call it. Here there’s no such thing. You’re as poor as
the rest of us. Your money is useless. We don’t use it. We don’t
have stocks and shares you can invest in. We don’t even have a
stock market.” Which had taken some getting used to. They had
money, sort of, but no real concept of interest, finance,
companies, or any of the other economic realities of Earth. It was
a nice world to live in, but not one where you could become rich.
They didn’t know what rich was. But neither did they have poor.
Instead they had an allowance which everyone got no matter what
they did. David himself was receiving it, as were the other
humans.

“And you’re too
young to be retired. At least seventy years too young, so you’d
have to find a job. We wouldn’t want you to do nothing. Everyone is
expected to work until they’re no longer able. Besides you’re at
least as fit now as you were ten years ago, and you’ll stay healthy
for a long time. You’d be bored doing nothing.” She probably had a
point, but he figured he could keep himself occupied in this
strange and wondrous land for at least a few more months at
least.

“I know. So
what sort of work could I do?” The funny thing was he wasn’t even
upset at the thought of no longer being a man of leisure. Cyrea was
right. He did feel fitter than he had in years, and was appalled at
the thought of being a lotus eater. Besides, he didn’t want to be
the only unemployed human on the planet. He’d be letting the side
down.

The others had
all quite quickly found their places. John was updating his medical
training with Sarel while they waited for their daughter to arrive.
He planned on returning to Earth in a year or so, and spreading the
new knowledge, or as much as he was allowed to. Rebecca had
returned to her studies and despite her coming from a less advanced
culture, was doing well. In three years, give or take, she’d be
qualified with a local degree in comparative history. Even now with
only a single year of college behind her, she was being asked for
her opinions on a wide range of historical arguments. Meanwhile
Heather had gone bush with Dafi, in preparation for starting her
advanced training in ecology. Who knew she’d already had a PhD in
zoology? Not David. Either way, she too was carving out a new life
for herself. It was only him, who was stuck in no man’s land.
Unable to do the only thing he’d ever been trained to do.

Then again,
when he thought about returning to the work force, he discovered
that an emotion long since departed from him had returned without
his noticing; hope. Then again maybe it wasn’t really hope. Maybe
it was faith that had returned. Faith in the Leinians. Faith that
they were people he could work for. Perhaps even trust. He didn’t
know exactly where or when it had returned. Probably it had been
gradual. But still something deep within him had changed. For the
first time in years he felt as though he wanted to do something for
Cyrea and her people. To contribute. Without the fear of his work
being perverted. Of doing wrong.

These people
simply didn’t have any concept of subterfuge, and their vices and
crimes were for the most part kindergarten type mistakes. They had
alcohol and some basic stimulants, but thanks to their medical
knowledge, no actual chance of addiction. Their nightlife had a
complete lack of the sleaze he was used to from the large cities,
but then when they almost exclusively mated for life, a concept he
was still coming to terms with, there was no value in pornography,
and prostitution was an unknown crime. And of course with only a
simplistic concept of money and no chance of extreme wealth or
poverty, gambling and theft were petty crimes at best, while
blackmail and extortion were unheard of.

Theirs was a
society where police were almost unnecessary, though of course they
did occasionally have other problems. People still failed to get on
with one another occasionally, and there were sometimes fights,
especially when egos were on the line. Just like humans many
Leinians did have surprisingly fragile senses of self-worth, though
usually it was around who’s latest book or play was the best, a
critique of a sculpture or a piece of music. With half the planet
devoted to various artistic endeavours, perhaps that wasn’t so
surprising. What was surprising was how generally simple such
disputes were. These people had never developed the concept of a
feud or a really good act of revenge, and punching someone in the
face was about as complicated as they got.

This was a
world where a man like himself wasn’t just obsolete, he was
irrelevant, and he loved that. This was a world where when people
said something, they actually meant it. Where there were no hidden
agendas, no secrets and no agents.

This was a
world where a man like him could dream of working again. If he
could find a job.

For the longest
time he’d done nothing, not truly because of the injury, or the
things he had seen and done, nor even because he had the money to
live comfortably. It had been because everything he’d done before
had been twisted. Polluted by politics and evil. Contaminated by
secrecy and fear. Or it had been done for the wrong reasons or for
the wrong people. Even when they had told him it was right, even
when he knew he’d saved lives, it had all been tainted. But now
Cyrea and her people could give him the one thing he’d been
missing; a feeling of righteousness.

He discovered
he was looking forward to doing something again; anything. He was
looking forward to doing his duty as he hadn’t done since his first
days when he had joined the army. But there was a problem too. It
was simply the reality of what he was actually qualified to do. Not
only was Leinian society a totally alien world, it was centuries
more advanced, and he was completely out of date. There was nothing
he could actually do. He shared his doubts with her as he had
before, and got the same answer.

“I don’t know,
actually Love, I really don’t. Ayn Lar would love to have you
advising the Earth mission about security. He’s said so any number
of times. But you won’t go against your people, a view which we
respect though it is silly. Your training in languages and culture
is redundant here. We have only one language, one culture, and we
learn new ones through machines. Your genius for unarmed combat is
unparalleled, but something we simply don’t want. It’s just too
dangerous, and we don’t want our people to be that deadly.”

Yet whenever
David trained these days, enjoying his new found fitness, he had an
audience in the billions. They might not want it, but her people
were still fascinated by the concept of full contact combat. And he
was getting better, having now beaten every version of a ten made.
Not that it was easy, but with preparation and study, they could no
longer surprise him. He knew their moves, their strengths and
weaknesses, and with two good legs, plenty of practice, and full
fitness he could take them. Moreover his own skills, his style and
moves were being built into a new form of android, which naturally
enough was already one of the most anticipated models in years. He
carefully didn’t remind her of that however. Cyrea disapproved both
of his taking such risks and the extent to which he was still
training in killing. For him it was simply a challenge. For her it
crossed the pale.

“Nor are we
interested in undercover work. We act openly or not at all. You
could move into security in non-Earth related areas, but you’ll
need years of training to understand our technology or that of the
peoples you’d be dealing with. Though the same is true for every
other occupation. But at least security is something you have a
background in.” Which about agreed with his own analysis. Cyrea was
trying to be as gentle as she could, but he still knew he was
redundant here. A dinosaur. Worse, a carnosaur. A primitive killing
machine. And everyone knew it.

The Leinians
were still far from happy about the way he’d dealt with Dimock, and
there’d been a large number of calls for him to face justice. Some
still considered his acts as murder. Trellin was one of them as he
repeatedly called for him to face trial from his punishment cell.
That was one alien who would never like him. Most though simply
viewed them as far too violent. But holding them back was the
knowledge that had he failed, millions, even billions of people,
perhaps including them as well, could have been killed, the fact
that he had warned them of what would happen when they refused to
let him kill him, and the fact that they had failed to restrain
Dimock, leading to the nightmare in the first place. Then of course
there was the fact that at the time he was an Earthman. As had been
Dimock. And on Earth, he was a free man.

The US
government had immediately sanctified the killing, at least for the
moment, because they didn’t want the stench of their involvement in
Dimock’s past crimes now being displayed to the entire universe as
having anything to do with the current administration. Heads were
going to roll and they didn't want them to be theirs. So they had
to show their public support for Dimock’s death. He guessed that
hundreds of other secret projects were probably also being quickly
and quietly shelved as well, while those responsible for any of
them were surely being retired, even sent out of the country. The
US was washing its hands of them, blindly unaware that the Leinians
knew many of the details of them anyway.