Uplift (3 page)

Demeaning? See…Already changing your vocabulary.

Okay. Again I ask why? Tell me…Corey…a bit about yourself, and why you waited a ‘long’ time. What should I eat to help us the most? I thought as I sat down at a table in the back.

Order two meals heavy on proteins, and carbohydrates. You should be getting a download of nutritional data …about now.

I felt like I knew everything about nutrition known plus a lot more. Wow…this is heady stuff as I reviewed all the information. Won’t this fill up my brain quickly though – this is a lot of information, I thought as I assayed the topics available.

The waitress came over to the table. “What’ll it be?” she asked. “Do you need a couple more minutes?”

“No. No,” I said. “I’ll have two orders of number seven – rare with blue cheese. Couple of dark beers too.”

“Two orders?” she asked.

“I should have a friend showing up pretty soon,” I said as an explanation.

She raised her eyebrows, but shrugged, smiled a… ‘I’m pleasant, and happy to wait on you’ restaurant smile, and trundled off to place the order.

Go on, I thought at ‘Corey’.

Corey? Really? That’s cute.

Glad you like it, I thought.

I didn’t say I liked the name. I just said it was cute.

See. Sufficiently demeaning…a perfect nickname.

I came here – to Earth – almost 80,000 years ago, and placed myself to be discovered by a group of hominids… inquisitive bunch, but they handled me with gloves – really …gloves. It was cold. They never touched me, and kept me mostly in that damn cave, where I was found by Professor Schneider – your friend.

Why here? Why me? …80,000 years ago, and not from Earth?

Should be obvious I exist far beyond the capabilities of Earth science. I am in you now, and have done things for you that are far beyond Earth’s capabilities. Your friend the professor explained to you how he found me, and why he sent the stone to you.

Okay. I kind of get most of that. How do you know so much about earth society, and our language, and such?

I was stuck in that cave with no way to access the goings on until I was removed from the cave. Once away from there I was almost overwhelmed by the richness of the information I experienced.

…From the professor?

No. Well yes…some from him, but mainly over Wi-Fi, and other electromagnetic transmissions. I was awash in them. It was a heady feeling after so long.

Feeling? You aren’t just a computer?

No. I am an entity with a personality imprint from my creators. I have feelings…but you want to know more…right?

“Ah food. Thank you,” I said to the waitress as she brought the food.

“Will your friend be joining you soon? I can keep this warm in the back?” the waitress asked.

“No thank you. It’s fine. If he doesn’t show I won’t let it go to waste,” I said. When she looked incredulous, I said, “Thank you miss. I’m fine.” She didn’t leave. “Thank you.”

The waitress walked away just shaking her head.

This is going to be a problem.

No doubt, I thought, and dug into the food, which disappeared rapidly, as did the second order of food, and drink. I flagged down the waitress, and asked for my check.

The waitress came back to the table, looked at the two empty plates, and said, “I guess you won’t need a ‘to-go’ box, will you? Would you like to look at the dessert menu?”

“No thank you. I’m trying to watch my weight,” I said.

She laughed, and handed me the check, and a couple of mints. She laughed again, and handed me two more mints. “You might want these too,” she said, and genuinely smiled.

I paid the tab plus a good tip in cash, and headed out the door.

You need to go to the grocery…for dinner tonight with your neighbor, Carole …remember?

Ah. Right. Will do. You were explaining the 80,000-year delay in your plans?

Yes. It wasn’t ‘til your friend the Professor recovered me from the cave, and touched me that I found out how long I had been out of commission. You see…I was sent back in time on a particular mission…I mean we were sent back in time.

What is it?
You
, or
we
were sent back…in time? How is that possible? …By whom? …for what reason?

That’s complicated. My mission is to prepare outlying areas of this galaxy…any that harbor intelligent species. …copies of me.

Prepare us for what? How do you define intelligent species? The hominids were intelligent. Why didn’t you help them?

I came from an advanced species near the center of the galaxy. There was another species that was taking over the worlds near the center of the galaxy. Whenever they took over an area – we would never hear from those races again. Many have allied together to fight them, but the Horde ships were more powerful. Their ships had impenetrable fields with weapons that tore through our ships. We called them the Horde because there were so many of them. They tortured other races to improve their technology for them.

We learned to traverse spacetime with what you call wormholes, but could not send organic life through them – just personality cores like me. We targeted solar systems that showed probability of producing intelligent life, and seeded the outer planets. They never have learned how to do this yet so they are limited in transport speed. We did learn they detect interstellar transport fields from great distances though.

How will you ‘help these races’? Why didn’t you help our early hominids?

The cavemen? Really? I never was able to contact them like I contacted you. There was never physical contact to their bodies…they always wore thick gloves, and kept me in a special pouch of animal hide. There were no electromagnetic messages to receive, and interpret. Their language was simplistic with no concepts to bridge the knowledge gaps – your species, at least, has the minimal understanding of science, and most of the concepts I can uplift.

Uplift?

My mission is to make it so your species can defend itself from this spreading menace.

Using me? How long do we have before this menace reaches Earth?

One has to settle for the material one has access to. How long? Give, or take a century?

Settle – thanks. How long?

Hum…about 80,000 year from when I got to Earth. I was sent back in time to make sure your species had the lead-time to prepare. We thought it might take your species a long time to uplift so they could even have interstellar travel. They spend hundreds of years of normal time for every year they travel at interstellar speeds…even your Einstein, predicted that time slows down. They never go back home because everyone they knew would be dead. They are always expanding.
 
When they detect a large body of ships – they always come.

That didn’t work out so well did it? Wait a minute. If you are in such a rush – why didn’t you just help Professor Schneider?

Simple. He didn’t have the appropriate qualities. His mind was not as open to new ideas as yours. Your mind has potential, and didn’t have as much to unlearn.

Unlearn? You mean a clean slate…funny, but I get that. I’ve trained people with weapons. New people are easy to train because they don’t know everything already. Wait…but wouldn’t having these ships cause them to come.

They will come to your area of the galaxy soon anyway. You are open to new ideas. You don’t think everything is impossible. Schneider knows everything. It is hard to fill a full cup.

So I’m an empty cup?

A very intelligent cup…

Thank you for that – groceries? We’re at the supermarket. You can teach me to save the world another day.

As you say – another day…think of this as …the calm before the storm.

****

Carole knocked precisely at seven. I had seared some salmon because I was already starving again. Guess the transition to my body was still going on. She wore a short blue dress, and had her hair pulled back. She looked adorable, and much too young for me, but I felt fine – mentally a bit too old for her, but physically I was strongly attracted.

“Hi Carole. You look great. Glad you came over.”

“Thanks Richard… You look good too. You look a lot better than you did this afternoon,” she said, and touched my arm. “Really…a LOT better.”

“You hungry?” I asked uncorking a nice, unoaked Chardonnay. Wine?

“Famished? I’d love some,” she said, and touched my back as I poured. “What’s for dinner? It smells divine.”

“Some seared salmon with a bourbon glaze, potatoes au gratin, with seared asparagus…fresh strawberries, ice cream with amaretto for dessert. Okay?”

“God yes,” Carole said. “Sounds divine.”

****

Dinner was over quickly, and Carole, and I moved to the small balcony to enjoy the last dregs of the lovely sunset. Air pollution made the sunsets in this part of North Carolina glorious.

“Richard. You’re a lot different close-up. Everyone talked about you being an old man – I don’t think you’re old at all. I think you’re pretty hot,” she said, and
let her hand linger on my   arm.

I stood up, and stood in front of her chair, and held out both arms to help her stand up. She put her wine glass down, tilted her head to the side with an amused smile, and stood up. I pulled her to me, and gave her, my best, non-crushing kiss. She inhaled strongly, shivered a little, relaxed, and looked up into my eyes.

“Yum. Not an old man at all. Wow. Care to go somewhere less public?” she asked already dragging me by the hand to the bedroom.

I just smiled, and went along. What could a man say who had thought he was dying a day before, and hadn’t had any real female companionship in…ten years? Let’s just say I didn’t put up a struggle.

Carole spent a long night without much sleep, but we woke up late morning. She was curled up against me with her head on my chest. My right arm was going to sleep. She murmured as I slid my arm out, and opened sleepy eyes, and stretched the most beautiful stretch imaginable since she wasn’t wearing anything.

“Yum,” she said smiling, and running her hand in what little chest hair I had. “You were fantastic.” She started rubbing the inside of my thigh, raised her eyebrows, and smiled.

We got out of bed an hour later, showered together, and that took another 45 minutes. I had gotten some fresh orange juice, and champagne at Corey’s suggestion – little had I known. I made a nice hollandaise sauce, and made eggs benedict – didn’t even realize I knew how. The mimosas went well with it – even looked appetizing.

“Wow,” Carole said. “And to think you’ve lived next to me for a year. Good grief,” she said.

“Tell me more about you,” I asked. We had skirted the issue earlier in the evening. She had said she was a caregiver, but hadn’t gone into more detail. Turns out she worked for a granddaughter of one of the barons. The woman she worked for looked about seventy-five, but was probably double that with the money she had for medical care. Carole said it paid decently, and she was treated fairly well. She was a registered nurse with a degree from a decent college, but had gone the caregiver route for the money.

She asked me what I intended to do, and I said I was thinking about starting a business, or something with my computer skills. I told her a little of what I had done with my life, and she hung on every word. She said it sounded very exciting, and I explained that excitement for her was simply extreme frustration, and pain interspersed with moments of sheer terror for me. We ended the morning on a pleasant note, and she gave me a great kiss, and squeeze as she left. She said, too bad, she had to work the next day, and asked if I wanted to see her again. I told her of course I did, and we made a loose commitment for the next weekend. I felt fantastic.

MAKING MONEY

I was still glowing from my weekend with Carole, and my new bod…

How about a thank you?

What for?

Do you think you could have had any kind of chance for this weekend without your improvements? Really?

I think I did really well.

You were adequate. If it hadn’t been for my projecting attractive pheromones, handling your recipes, telling you what to buy – not to mention reversing your aging – you would have been toast. I did suggest you do a few things differently than you ever had before.

Yeah. Guess those suggestions did help. Carole sure liked what I did. I’ve never felt so good. Oh – speaking of liking my dinner – that little lunch, and dinner jaunt spent my whole food budget for the month. I get free water, but big whup. How am I supposed to make it on the money I pull in? By the way – thanks. I’d be pushing up daisies, but me doing all this stuff is going to get me noticed. How will I learn how to use all these pheromones?