Memoirs of a Timelord (2 page)

       "I can't wait two hundred years to see my daughter.  No way in hell. Tell ya what, you bring here here, and I'll do this job of yours, whatever in the hell it is." I tried to negotiate. 

       "As I said earlier, she has to live out her life, and experience her own natural death, just as you did.  It is the DuNai way.  To rob her of her own death experience would be contra to our ideals.  This is one of our core philosophies." He paused briefly, as if to segregate his thoughts.  "Finding your way home is considered to be a rite of passage among Temporal Editors.  It is essentially your final exam.  Yes, there will be many other challenges along the path of your training, but a Timelord truly proves they have made the grade by finding home.  How fast you get there is entirely up to you."

       "And if I don't take the job?" I had a feeling I knew the answer already.

       "You were harvested from your death bed, and that is where I would return you." His smile had faded, leaving only a dour look.  It was easy to see that he was not kidding; if he had the power to revive me from the dead then he prolly had the power to put me back, and that sweat-soaked bed was the last place I ever wanted to be again.

         "So I don't really have a choice in the matter, do I?" My voice had a sour tone to it as I felt a little boxed in.

       "Actually you have two choices, but only one of them makes any sense at all.  The idea of passing up an opportunity like this would be beyond ludicrous.  Jenna, what I am offering you here now is the most fascinating work imaginable.  Regardless of what you have done for a living in the past, everything you know will pale in comparison to what awaits you behind door number one." As if to illustrate his point, the old guy gracefully opened the nearest portal.

       Stepping through the door, I was amazed to find myself standing on the surface of a rocky little moon.  There were micro-craters and great big craters everywhere I looked.  But the really amazing thing was above me: the solar system illuminated by the emission nebula in the distance.  It felt like my breath had been taken away from me, which it actually had.  At the time I didn't know it, but the Boss had changed me to an anaerobic physiology so I could survive in this airless environment.  I was so green that I didn't even notice the morphic change wash over me.  I just thought it was a chilly breeze as I passed through the door.  It never even occurred to me that he had altered me right down to my molucules.   

       The longer I stood there, the more I began to notice.  It was much more than six odd planets orbiting a main-sequence star.  There were massive structures and ships going about their business.  I was looking at a mature, spaceborne race.  The more I watched, the more I wanted to know every last detail of the scene.  I wanted to see it all closeup, touch it with my hands, and experience it all first hand.  

       "If I sign up, do I get to do all this stuff?" I gestured to the ships that thundered overhead, then towards the speckle of lights that littered the sky.

       "All of that and much more." He nodded with a smile.  "These are the Veroot, you see them at the twilight of their plebian stage."

       "Plebian? They're totally high tech and advanced." I was amazed that he would hang such a title on them.  I watched one ship so big it cast a shadow over the whole moon.  

       "The first indication that they are a primitive race is that they still travel in ships." Giving me a wink, he took my hands in his.  "Allow me to demonstrate how mature civilizations travel."

       Just like that I felt the world slide to one side.  It was as if I'd blinked my eyes for a second, and when I opened them we were somewhere new.  Three times I blinked and the world around us changed.  Even more fascinating than the worlds that awaited us was the fact that each of the locations was thousands of light years apart.  I suddenly understood what he meant when he said that only stupid races travel in ships.  At the time I had no idea how the old man did it, jumping us all around the galaxy like that, but I sure as hell wanted to learn how.

       "You'll teach me to do that?" I asked breathlessly.

       "Oh yeah.  That and more." Placing his hand on the back of my neck, I could see so much more about the world.  I could look at a rock and tell what base elements it was composed from, or identify an insect down to its DNA molecules.  I could see the x-ray jets from singularities; examine the sky in a thousand different spectrums, or zoom in on far away objects. I actually felt a pang of disappointment when he took his hand away and I had to go back to my regular human eyes.

       "And I get a set of those eyes too?" I wanted to make sure it was part of the deal.

       "That and more." He started to answer before I finished his sentence for him.

         "So," He gave me that smug grin of his again. "Shall I sign you up for an exciting subscription to Timelord Monthly for three painless payments of nine ninety-nine each?" 

       "Hmmm" I pretended to consider my vast array of options.  "I dunno, the uniform is kinda drab."

       "Jenna, I had you three worlds ago, didn't I." Folding his arms, DorLek eyed me.

       "Oh hells yeah, but I wasn't gonna say anything as long as the ride was in progress still." Shrugging innocently, I had to admit that my mind had been made up for a while now.  "Sign me up, then show me my space ship."

       "That's the attitude, but let's put a pin in that idea. You have a wee bit of learning before you will even be qualified to stand on the deck of a ship, let alone pilot one.  But in time you will come to master a great many craft." 

       "Awww, c'mon, I wanna space ship.  I'll join your damned club already." I kept my begging playful as I pointed to one of the massive ships that passed overhead.  

       "Fine." He pretended to be exasperated. "I'll take you for a spin around the solar system, then it's straight off to do your homework, young lady." Pointing a stern finger at me, he finally let a smile break on his face just a second before I felt that familiar slide to the side.  A split second later we were gone.

 

       

       

       Initially, one of the hardest things about adapting to my new life amongst the DuNai was all the little things.  See, in movies they always have this totally cool technology with lights and lasers and such.  But with the DuNai, their technology was so sufficiently advanced as to be seamless in its integration.  In fact, their hi-tech tended to look extremely low tech until you realized what you were looking at.  An ordinary stucco wall could be chocked full of devices that operated on an atomic scale.  There would be no outward controls or displays because the users interacted directly with the device.  Why waste your time absorbing data through your eyes, a relatively slow process, when you could just pump it directly into your brain?   In most cases the very material the walls were composed of was morphic and subject to change just by asking it to.  A table could be a chair, could be a pizza, could be a pair of boots.  The DuNai used polymorphic material to build entire houses, skyscrapers, and space stations out of the stuff.  You're talking about an entire structure that can change its form at will.  

       There is an old saying that any sufficiently advanced race would appear to be magical to a less technological species.  The DuNai went way beyond that.  You have to understand that these were beings that lived as long as they chose.  Food, work, breathing, sleeping, these were all optional things to them.  Being morphic themselves, they could be any species, gender, or configuration.  Imagine a life where you really don't even need a home.  Morphic beings can adjust their internal systems to survive in any conditions, even the harsh environment of space. In fact, that very trick was required learning, right after Devices Training.  But I'll talk about Polymorphic Studies in another chapter.

       See, being from such a backwards planet on the outskirts of a minor galaxy, before I could even begin the real learning for my new profession, I had to be brought up to speed on the types of basic technology I would be dealing with in my new life.  While the DuNai tech was seamless and preposterously easy to use, the same could not be said for all of the lesser races I would encounter.  You had to know how use their stuff, and in some cases I had to be taught what the damned thing even did in the first place.  Think of Devices Training as remedial technology class.  Every day I would go to this room that was chock full of little gadgets and gismos and be schooled in the proper use of new devices for hours on end.  Everything from handheld atomic exciters, to projection devices that could extend life support over a large area.  There were molecular scalpels, and propulsion systems, and sensor equipment of a thousand different designs.  By the end of the day my head would feel like it was ready to pop.  

       Actually that's a little bit of a fib.  My new brain could handle a ton of data; the limiting factor was my puny human mind.  Y'see the first thing they did was to upgrade me as soon as I became an apprentice.  Just two drops of clear fluid, one in each palm, and my entire body was transformed into a polymorphic platform with thousands of abilities.  The problem was that at this point in my development I didn't know how to use most of these new powers.  The Boss told me that was normal, the Onkx takes centuries to fully master.  So even though I had a supercomputer installed in my head, I was still fumbling with the on-switch.  Now I know how my Mom felt all those times I tried to teach her how to open email attachments.

       I'd been in Devices Training for about two years [Terran years] before I realized that that whole room full of devices where I trained was really just an illusion.  The tools and gizmos were composed of morphic matter that would change into the next day's lessons as soon as I left the room.  The whole thing was done that way to ease me into my new world gently.  Truth be known, I could have just downloaded the instructions to every single device in a picoseconds.  But there are limitations to downloads; namely that they do not teach concepts well.  You could have masses of data in your head, but without the technological and philosophical understanding of what that data is for, it's just a lotta felgerkarb between your ears.  What good is the user manual when you don't even understand what the frack the device does in the first place?  A lot of what I was doing was learning entirely new concepts in technology.  Some of this stuff you can't even imagine.  

       Lemme put it into perspective for you; in a human school kids learn to make a potato battery.  DuNai children create cold fusion in a cup.  Fifty years ago no one could even fathom the idea of a smart phone with sixty gigs of music.  Try imagining the toys humans will be playing with in a millennia.  Some of this stuff was thousands of years more advanced than anything on Earth.

       Eventually I came to realize that there was no practical reason to be on my old Earth calendar.  There was really no need for a 24 hour day anymore, not since my enhancements were installed.  It was just habit to turn in after a sixteen hour day, even if I didn't need to sleep anymore.  It was about this point that I began to shatter a lotta paradigms from my old life.  Along with not needing to sleep came such features as not needing to eat or crap or shower or change clothes.  All I had to do was refresh my morphic appearance and I was brand new again.  Granted, these tricks took some learning to master, but it gave me something to work towards.  That is, assuming that my trusty school teacher Didra didn't already have a full lesson plan waiting for me.

       I guess I should stop and tell you about Didra before I get any farther.  See, as it turns out, the old man was actually a pretty important guy.  He was one of these Temporal Editors like I was gonna be someday, and he managed an advanced galaxy that was in the final stages of ascension.  Master DorLek had thousands of people working for him directly.  There were Korpahs who managed entire planetary systems, stellar engineers, and thousands of agents who worked invisibly to guide a society according to DorLek's orders.   The guy had a lot more important things to worry about than teaching remedial technology to some tailless monkey like me.  So he had Didra do most of my early training.

       Now, there's no way to explain Didra without explaining the house first.  Try this: Imagine the biggest building you have ever been in, the most opulent mansion or castle or whatever.  Now imagine that same place even bigger and with a thousand times the treasures, and rooms that go on forever.  And the doors...so many doors.  Some that led you to other rooms, and some that lead you to other worlds entirely.   I got lost so many times when I first got there.  It was prolly six months before I realized that the house, and everything in it, was morphic.  The place was changing all the time. Funnier yet, I was the one causing the changes.  See, the house did what you asked it to.  I guess deep down I needed to do some exploring, and the house was just obeying my orders.

       Didra was an extension of the house, sort of a built in housekeeper/nanny/tutor.  She was there to provide a visible interface for backwards visitors like me who were still trying to wrap our head around the whole idea of negotiating directly with the house.  She also took care of all the early training for the apprentices.  Yes, as I eventually learned, I was not the Boss' first student, not by a longshot.  The old man had taught thousands of apprentices before me.  So you can understand his preference for having Didra handle the mundane stuff.  It'd bore you to tears to have to teach people how to use an electric razor, over and over again, for thousands of years.  So my cybernetic nanny handled the scut work.

       Didra was like a Catholic school nun, but without the habit.  She had no sense of humor whatsoever, and it was difficult to sidetrack her from a lesson plan.  Basically, Didra was a robotic task master wrapped up in an old lady's morphic skin.  If you called for her, the house would assemble her right there in front of you.  In a sense, she was really just smart furniture.  

       But she drove me hard every day.  Sometimes I think that those early days when I was wandering the mansion and getting lost, I was really just trying to escape from her.  Not that she was mean or wacked my knuckles with a ruler or anything, she was just relentless in her teachings.  Didra wasn't exactly friendly either.  In fact, she was really sort of a blank.

       So after slaving under her for a few years it finally occurred to me that if the house was morphic and obeyed my commands, then why not Didra?  

       So I started poking around under her hood and I was surprised what I found there.  After years of technical training that equated to three engineering degrees back home, I was able to recognize much of what I saw there.  Sure, it was all much faster and streamlined than the relatively crude tech I had been mastering.  The elegance of design was clearly DuNai.  But still, with a little work I was able to figure out how to make some basic changes.

       The first thing I did was turn her into a shirtless Hugh Jackman.  Mmmmm Hugh.  Now this may sound like a coarse consideration for a lady to make, but first off; I'm no lady.  That was my mom.  Secondly, you gotta remember that when the old man harvested me I got a brand new nineteen year old body, complete with all the hormonal urges and desires of the age.  But I was still a few years away from polymorphic training where I would learn how to do things like disable my libido.  At that point in time I could change clothes, recycle poo into atomic elements, and see in the dark.  Hell, I still ate three times a day because I had not mastered matter induction at that point.  So really I was just like any other girl my age; a lonely slave to my hormones.  And I emphasize lonely.  It was a big 'ol house, and the old man wasn't much better company than Didra.

       Besides, what comic book fan wouldn't wanna hang with the Wolverine?  Sometimes I'd dress like Wonder Woman and we'd spend a night mixing genres, if you know what I mean.  The big guy took some work, but I eventually got him trained my way good 'n proper.

       I had gotten pretty good at modifying Didra's program before I ran into her first limitation.  We were exploring the house on a day off, I was dressed like Supergirl, and Didra was a very fetching Superman with buns of steel, literally.  Big square jaw, and that single lock of wavy black hair that was always falling down on his forehead...he was a magnificent specimen. Mmmm, Kryptonian men.

       Sorry, got a little sidetracked in the memory. Happens when you have absolute recall, you don't just see memories, you experience them.  Sometimes it can be a little distracting.  Anyhow, we're exploring the house by asking it to show us rooms from the existing database of previous residents.  This was a big hobby of mine for a few years.  You gotta remember that there were thousands of apprentices before me, from galaxies all over the known universe, and the house created environments that would make each of us feel at home.  Some of these places were breathtaking, others were downright frightening.  I swear; a few looked like swamps with critters swimming in lakes of acid.  Apparently one man's cesspool is another man's living room.

       But we get to this door and it opens out into a garden...I guess I'd describe it.  I start to go thru and notice Superhunk isn't following.

       "I cannot leave the house." He said as if the threshold was made outta Kryptonite.

       I was pretty surprised; this was the first time I had been out of the house in years.  As soon as I looked up at the sky I knew that I wasn't in Kansas anymore.  Y'see, back on Earth you are used to a single sun and moon.  But in a globular cluster you have so many stars packed into such a small area that there are suns everywhere you look.  Back home the nearest star to Sol was over 4 light years away.  But here, the nearest stars were barely more than a light-month away.  With a steady parade of nearby stars crossing their skies, this planet would experience endless daylight.  

       As if the sight of five suns in the sky weren't enough to convince me I wasn't in DorLek's house anymore, the whispers in the back of my mind were totally different, but with a suspicious flavor to them.  Where they normally darted out to talk to me, suddenly they were withdrawn and apprehensive towards me.  The last time the voices had changed this way had been when I first woke up in DorLek's house.  The way they acted made me almost wonder if I'd done something wrong.  But that worry lasted all of ten seconds; I had an alien planet to explore!

       As much as I was surprised, I was scared too.  My internal systems were telling me that I was being blasted with tremendous amounts of solar radiation, but the portal that I had passed thru had adapted my body for the environment.  This wasn't DorLek's House with its safely simulated morphic environments, no, this was a real alien world with living plants and creatures and things that could kill me.  At least at that point in my development I thought they could.  

       So I ditch Didra and head down the Yellow Brick road.  Actually, it's really more of a yellow footpath in the grass.  My enhanced eyes tell me the stalks are made of silica.  Imagine that; glass grass.  Even more incredible was the layer of ferrite substrate along the underside of the leaves.  Essentially the blades of grass were solar powered.  

       "So would that make them a power plant?"   I gave a laugh at my own joke right before the grass shocked the living crap outta me.  It felt like I'd touched an electric fence. 

       Note to self: Stay the hell off the electrified lawn.

       I was amazed by the amount of data I could get just from looking at an object.  I'd spent years in school learning to use my enhanced eyes, but the mass of information visually available was still a little overwhelming.  Hell, I didn't even understand half of it yet.  Still, I took my time to scan everything.  It was all so fascinating; the bugs and foliage and airborne amoebas.  The entire planet was teeming with life.  

       I walk the path, avoiding the grass until I come to a cave.  No warnings of danger in my head, so I just barge right in.  The walls of the cave give off a natural luminescence so it's not completely dark inside.  Besides, with my fancy DuNai eyes I can see in the dark.  Pretty cool, eh?