Journey to Year 1,000,000,000 Ch. 14

The woman spoke slowly. "Kockk."

"What?" said Taylor.

"Kockk," said the woman. "You do not kockk?"

"I... I don't...." Taylor looked confused.

The woman gave him an odd look. "I have appeared in the form of one known to you. One who you have devoted a considerable amount of thought to."

"Pam. Her name was Pam."

"Pam," said the woman. "You may call me that, if it will help you kockk."

Taylor frowned. "Who... what are you?"

"What are you?" the woman who looked like Pam asked.

"My name is- Lieutenant Commander Michael Taylor "

"Of something called the United Survey Service," said Pam. "This United Survey Service. This is your... group?"

"Yes, my group," said Taylor. "Let's start again. Is this really the year one billion?"

Pam paused a moment and probed into his mind. "No. By your reckoning, this is approximately the year 1,002,074,182."

"The year-"

"1,002,074,182."

It was a hard thing to grasp. He had come farther into the future than any human being. "Are you... human?" he asked.

"You mean a finiteral, like yourself?"

"Finiteral. You mean, finite?"

"Yes," said Pam, and she smiled for the first time. "You kockk. Very good. No, in answer to your question, I am not a finiteral. I am a research and development tool created by Us."

"A tool? You are not alive?"

"I do not kockk. I do not know precisely what you mean by 'alive'. I am constructed of matter, like you, and at times can be composed of organic matter."

"At times?" said Taylor. "You can change your composition?"

"Of course."

Taylor wet his lips. "In the last place I visited, in the year 500,000,000, we met a race of beings called the United. They claimed to be composed of self-aware cells which could change shape. Are you like them?"

"No, not like them," said Pam. "I kockk the beings you speak of. We are the... evolutionary descendents of them. In their time only the cells of their body were self-aware. We have evolved beyond that."

"Beyond self-aware cells? What is beyond that?" Taylor asked.

"We have evolved into self-aware atoms."

"Self aware atoms?" said Taylor.

"Yes," said Pam. "We can be self aware in any form: what you call carbon, sodium, helium, iron, radium, selenium, or any of the 912 basic elements. Essentially, we are self-aware matter."

Taylor's jaw dropped. "You are self-aware matter of the universe... which can change into or be any form?"

"Correct," said Pam. "You kockk."

"I kockk," Taylor agreed. "But... that's incredible!"

"For a finiteral, I imagine it would be," said Pam pleasantly.

"And so if you're descended from the United, who in turn are descended from humanity, then... you are humanity's ultimate descendents."

Pam got a slightly pained look. "Over a very, very distant period of time."

Taylor paused. "The... the United, when we met them, were in crisis. They had screaned the true nature of the universe and had nothing left to discover. They had evolved to a point where they had nothing to live for, not even motivations. Did you ever solve that problem?"

Pam gave a small smile. "What you refer to as screaning refers only to a very, very basic understanding of Tisson Crae. There are many components far beyond screaning, notably trista, shursta, Formos, and especially expra. We can expra and vesper far beyond the primitive standards of half a billion of your years ago."

"So... your species is not in crisis? You're perfectly happy?"

Pam frowned again. "I do not fully kockk what you mean by 'happy'. But we do have purpose."

"And what is that?"

"To expra the universe, and to vesper new ones, of course."

As Taylor tried to absorb that, Pam looked pointedly at him. "And now, if your questions have been answered, may I begin my examination?"

"Examination?"

"Yes, I have been sent to examine you," said Pam.

"Who sent you?"

"We did."

"Who are we?"

"We are Us," said Pam.

"No kockk," said Taylor. "What is Us?"

"Us is who We are. As I have already said, I am a research and diagnostic tool created by Us," said Pam. "I was the 1018th member of Us. Currently there are 1024."

"You call yourself a tool. Are you self-aware? Sentient?"

"Yes, of course. I am a life form, much more sophisticated than you," said Pam. "Though of course, you see me in my abbreviated form, when I am not part of Us."

"You... you're like the United, then? You merge together into one, big lifeform?"

"Our merging is much more thoroughly and qualitatively complete than the beings you refer to as the United," said Pam. "We merge on the molecular level. When I return to Us, the being you are talking to now will no longer exist as you see it."

"No longer exist?"

"Unless We decide to call on this being to act independently again."

"So, when you are part of your group, you do not exist?"

"Of course I exist. As a segment of the whole."

"But as you are now... you make decisions on your own now. When you are part of Us-"

"The group makes all the decisions. My consciousness, for want of a better term, is submerged into the whole."

Taylor gave her an odd look. "Don't you wish to exist on your own?"

"Why would I, unless I am needed?"

Taylor realized that Pam, whatever she was, had sentience... but no desire to exist. Victor would have found her fascinating.

"And now, may we begin?" Pam asked.

"Begin what?"

"I have been sent to study the way of your finiterals. I have accessed your memories, but still have many questions."

"And if I answer your questions, what will you do then?"

"Why, then I will end you, of course," said Pam.

"End me. You mean... kill me?"

Pam bit her lip. "Your language is so limited. It is hard to find the precise meaning I seek. But I think... kill..." She appeared to weigh the word. "Kill... kill... kill...." She looked at Taylor. "Yes, that word will do as good as any. The answer to your question is yes, I will kill you when we are done." She frowned. "You seemed disturbed by this. Is there a problem?"

********

"Would it surprise you to learn that I don't want to be killed?" Taylor asked.

Pam shrugged. "You are a finiteral. Does it really matter?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, your existence is going to end at some finite point, is it not?"

"Yes," said Taylor. "But that doesn't mean I want it to end sooner, rather than later."

"Why?"

"I have things to do, places to go, people to see."

"But your existence is already so short! A few of your years more, or less, is barely the blink of an eye."

"To you, perhaps. But not to us."

Pam frowned. "Will you cooperate?"

"And what if I don't?"

Pam shrugged. "Then I will... kill... you now and return to Us for reassignment."

That was his choice. To die now, or to die later. Taylor knew which one he would choose.

"I'd love to answer some questions," said Taylor. "The longer the better."

"None of my questions will be truly long," said Pam.

"That was a joke," said Taylor.

"I do not kockk," said Pam.

"More's the pity," said Taylor.

********

"Let us begin," said Pam. "What is this?"

Suddenly, Taylor was looking at a giant penis, thrusting inside a woman's nether lips. From this angle he could see how her labial lips were stretched and strained; it was a large organ, filling her fully.

"This is... the sexual act," said Taylor. He heard a woman's voice moaning.

"I am aware of that," said Pam. "But what is its significance to you?"

The woman who was moaning was starting to get louder. "Oh, oh, oh Edwin!"

Edwin?

Suddenly, Pam and Taylor were in the room with the two people performing the sex act.

A tall, dark haired man was mounting a shorter, blonde haired woman. Pam and Taylor watched as he pumped his ass cheeks, in and out, in and out.

Taylor looked over at their faces. They seemed totally unaware that he and Pam were in the room.

They looked like... younger versions of his parents.

His parents???

His father's face was a mask of concentration and effort, so focused was he on completing the act of reproduction. His mother had intense need and desire written on hers. She so badly wanted to be inseminated, to be filled with a child.

"Edwin, I'm almost there! Are you-"

"Yes!" his father cried. "Oh, oh oh-"

"Oooooh!" his mother cried.

His father crew stiff, and arched his head and back upwards, like a spoon being bent backwards. His ass cheeks were rock hard, and he didn't move a muscle. Ever so softly, Taylor's father gasped, "ah, ah, ah, ahhhhh."

Taylor looked at Pam. "My conception?"

"Yes," said Pam. "I have many questions. You were created by these two finiterals, correct?"

"Correct," said Taylor, staring uncomfortably at the act which created him.

"What purpose were you created for?" Pam asked.

"What purpose?"

"I was created as a research and diagnostic tool. What purpose were you created for?"

Taylor made a face. "I wasn't created for any particular purpose... other than that my parents wanted to have a child."

"Aimless reproduction?" said Pam.

"Not aimless," said Taylor. "My parents wanted to have a child."

"Mindless reproduction without a purpose," Pam marveled. "How chaotic. I do not kockk."

"Which is probably why you don't have kids," said Taylor.

The image abruptly shifted to the head of a penis, presumably his father's, moving about inside his mother's vagina. Suddenly the head twitched and erupted, spewing forth a thick, viscous liquid down the shaft, splattering the cervix, and blasting past it, into his mother's unprotected uterus.

"How did your father select which genes to imbue to you during this process?" Pam asked.

"He didn't. It was totally random," said Taylor, watching the white goo seep deeper into his mother's reproductive tract. Did he really start from that?

"Random." Pam almost seemed to gasp when she said the word. "And the female?"

"My mother, you mean. She didn't pick what genes to offer either. That was random too," said Taylor.

"The creation of a totally random being," said Pam.

"Well, maybe not totally random," said Taylor. "My mother, she always said she liked my father's smile and her sense of humor. And my father, he said he fell in love with my mother's big-" suddenly, aware of the way she was staring at him, he broke off. "All right, it was pretty random, I suppose."

"And out of this randomness... came you," said Pam. "I still do not kockk. Why did your parents create you?"

"For the pleasure of having a child."

"A child with no purpose?"

"It is hard to explain," said Taylor. He took one of Pam's hands. "Human beings have feelings for their children, just like some humans have feelings for each other." He squeezed her hand. "When I held Pam's hand like this, she felt something."

Pam looked down. "The pressure of your hand on hers?"

"No," said Taylor. "More than that. A feeling of attraction, of happiness."

Pam frowned, looking down at her hand, and at him. She pulled her hand away. "I do not kockk. I must expra this further."

********

"You were evolving."

Taylor saw himself as a baby, then an older infant, than as a five year old, and then as a ten year old.

"Your appearance kept changing rapidly," said Pam. "Were your mental abilities the same?"

"No," said Taylor. "My mental abilities were quite limited as a child."

"So you are not what you were when you were created?"

"No, not at all," said Taylor.

"How does that make you feel?" Pam asked. "You were created with a certain identity, and then you lost it. You became something else. Do you not feel a sense of loss for what you originally were?"

"My loss of being a child? I... it's just a part of growing up, I suppose," said Taylor.

"And was this a part of growing up as well?"

The image changed, and suddenly they were watching an 18 year old version of Michael Taylor, sitting in his air car at the lookout point on Pork Chop Hill, watching the stars with Marissa Levenbrook.

"There's Vega. And there's Alpha Centauri. And there's Proxima," said Taylor, pointing out the stars. "Some day I'll be a Survey Service Captain, and I'll visit all of them."

"You're a big talker, Michael Taylor," said Marissa. "But you can't even compute your way out of intermediate spatial geometry."

"I'll have an attractive ensign who will handle all my geometry needs," said Taylor cockily. He pressed his lips against hers.

"Did you like that?" he asked, a moment later.

"Ummm," said Marissa appreciatively.

The scene jumped to a few minutes later, when Taylor's hand was inside her shirt. "I don't know if we should be doing this, Michael," said Marissa, a bit uncomfortably.

"Trust me, we should," said Michael, trying to reassure her.

And then the scene jumped to a different night, when Michael was naked in the back seat on top of Marissa, and pumping avidly into her. "Oh oh oh oh," he cried. And then he gasped, and collapsed on top of her.

"Are you done, Michael?" said Marissa.

"Did you like it?" Taylor asked.

Marissa made a face. "Sort of. It was kind of nice, but Tommy Robinson's is thicker, and he grunts less."

"You changed," said Pam. The image of a penis entering a vagina appeared in front of them. "The act of reproduction never interested you when you were five years of age."

"No."

"Nor when you were ten," said Pam. "But at a certain age, you received new programming. Was it from your mother or father?"

"Not exactly," said Taylor, watching the mystery penis go in and out. Was that his? It looked a little too meaty to be his. For some reason it seemed important for him to know. "It is called puberty. Genetic programming kicks in at a certain age, giving us the urge to have sex."

"So you were reprogrammed to want to put yourself inside of a female and spray her with your reproductive fluids. Like an automaton."

"No... not like an automaton."

"At one point in your life, you had no interest in this. Then suddenly, you did. You were reprogrammed. I can see from your mind that you are a champion of what you call free will. How can you champion free will when you are suddenly reprogrammed against your will to perform different tasks?"

"I... I... I never thought of it that way," said Taylor, watching the large penis go in and out.

"Obviously not," said Pam. "You are reprogrammed for utilitarian purposes, then. To reproduce, to spread your race."

"Not exactly to reproduce," said Taylor. "To have sex. Whether it results in reproduction or not is irrelevant."

"Then what purpose does it serve?"

"It gives us pleasure," said Taylor.

Pam looked at the rampaging penis, and then at Taylor. "Pleasure without purpose. I do not kockk," she said, staring again at the thrusting penis. "I must expra still further."

********

Pam returned him to the Judicator. "I sense your body is in need of rest. Do so, and we shall resume later," she said.

Taylor looked around. The ship was empty. "What happened to my crew?"

"The beings who accompanied you? When you first arrived, your ship fell into a transdimensional rift. You went partially out of phase."

"That's when some of us fell out of the ship?"

"Actually, to be precise, your ship fell out of you," said Pam. "When we realized this, we stabilized the dimensional integrity around your ship."

"I suppose I should thank you for that," said Taylor.

Pam looked at him expectantly.

"What?" Taylor asked.

"You said you should thank me, but you did not," said Pam. "Have you changed your mind?"

Was she flirting with him? Her face was set in stone. He couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"Thank you for that," said Taylor. "I wouldn't have enjoyed floating outside my ship without a spacesuit."

Pam looked at him with green eyes. "And now, according to your custom, I am supposed to say that you are welcome. But what purpose would that serve?"

"In my culture, it makes one feel good to express thanks, and even better to know that the thanks have been appreciated."

Pam shrugged. "It is irrelevant. We acted to preserve specimens for further analysis. Does that make you 'feel better'?"

"Not exactly," said Taylor. She looked like Pam, and sounded like Pam, but she was cold inside. Cold, and maybe... something else.

A new thought occurred to him. "Six of us left the ship, in spacesuits. Five of us were hit by energy bolts and vanished."

"That was I," said Pam. "I vespered them."

"Vespered?"

Pam's expression clouded. "Killed. Yes, I believe that is the word, I killed them."

Elizabeth. McCrae. Vincent. Victor. Daniel Wood. Killed by this alien. And she seemed almost proud of it.

"Is something wrong?" Pam asked.

"Yes, there is," said Taylor, his voice choked with emotion. "It is wrong to kill."

"But you are finiteral. What does it matter if you are killed a few seconds earlier or later than your inevitable end?"

"They are not seconds, they are years," said Taylor.

"They are years to you," said Pam. "They are the equivalent of a blink of an eye for us."

Taylor paused, looking at her. "You're going to kill me too, aren't you?" Taylor asked.

"Of course," said Pam. "But do not worry, I will not kill you before I have the information I require."

"I cannot tell you how happy that makes me feel," said Taylor.

"Good," said Pam, and she actually smiled! "I will return after you have rested."

And she was gone, leaving Taylor alone in a large, empty starship.

********

Taylor couldn't sleep. He forced himself to eat, and he had tried going to his quarters and lying down, but he couldn't sleep.

He knew how this process was going to end. Pam had been remarkably open about it. She was going to kill him once she was done.

Kill. The word evoked the image of being stabbed, or shot, or blasted. But it was much more likely that he would simply be winked out of existence. He would not feel a thing.

That didn't comfort him. Technically, his mission had been a success. The Earth appeared to have been saved. Or had it? He would have to be sure to ask Pam. But even if the Earth's future was secure, it was of small comfort to Michael Taylor. To die here, a billion years in the future... it was the loneliest kind of end he could ever imagine for himself.

Taylor thought of all the crew he had lost. He thought of Victor, and Elizabeth, and Suki and even Jennifer. Right now he even found himself missing Jennifer. He gave a small laugh.

And then finally he got tired of roaming the corridors, and slumped down against a wall, and closed his eyes, and let nature take its course.