LST-72841653a

"But you have all but held me here under this apparatus, behind what I assume is some kind of force field. And you've made it clear about my mood light blinking on the silver canister you've conspicuously placed in my line of sight, that it, the light, is a wan yellow--is that supposed to mean something? You should be aware that I am a busy man with many things to do."

"..."

"But it's already been two hours. You said you only had a few questions to ask and that it would only take a minute. I have to get back to work at the computer peripherals factory, and I'm late for a meeting already with Sally, who is my supervisor."

"..."

"Yes, I suppose that's true, that this is a rare event. Not every day does someone from planet LST-72841653a come to visit. You want to continue with our, as you put it, off-the-cuff discussion? Fine, I suppose. Where did we leave off?"

"..."

"Yes. My wife. A-m-p-o-r-a. Her medical problems allow her brief visits outdoors for fresh air when the light is enough to see, but not too bright as it aggravates her genetic skin condition. Her mobility and speech issues stem from the mining accident, what every day she receives help for from her loving and doting husband."

"..."

"I have often said to her in our little bungalow that we must play the hand we are dealt. When she is feeling well enough she will make affirming noises vis-à-vis her handheld electrolarynx, which is necessary because of the near-paralyzed muscles of the voicebox. She learned to play the piano at the age of twelve, and she can produce some really beautiful music. My son has learned to play the bongos and I will always cherish the many happy evenings our family has spent in front of the fireplace in the living room, all three of us performing musical renditions of bygone TV show themes. My son has inherited only the skin condition, and is otherwise a very healthy and hale seven-and-a-half-year-old."

"..."

"Yes, as I've said, I do feel lucky--May I scratch my arm? I have to say the device around me is a little unfamiliar and I don't really understand why I have to stand so near it. I also don't understand how you are really 'hearing' me at all. Your 'ethernet' is in fact very different from ours. You had me wear dark goggles before and had me hold my breath, and I have to admit that was quite unpleasant for a minute or two because it got very warm. You had me recalling memories of my sick wife and son, to establish, as you put it, baselines. I think the warmth may have come from something in your device. However, I do appreciate your opening the door a little to let some fresh air in. Now I can see if I move my eyeballs without messing up your signals the little sliver of daylight and the street outside and signs of life, with people lining up at the FroYo stand, and near the front window of my dry cleaner's. I have to say, a strip mall seems an unlikely place--"

"..."

"Politics again. Fine. Yes, it is largely democratic here as I've said, or by the people. But surely this is in your databases, surely you have already gleaned this off our very open and easyto-access information portals?"

"..."

"Yes, I understand the value of a first-person account. But I can't say I understand your system of laws you call 29-17-D7214, which as you say you only sketched, but it sounded so complicated and frankly alien that I don't think even a full treatment would allow me to grasp it. So comparing and contrasting would be difficult. But of the gist, you spoke of inevitable conflicts, and the challenges of resolution, something I think may well be universal."

"..."

"Yes, our back and forth does get loud here, and even hostile, but you have to be careful not to confuse the healthy and somewhat boisterous exchanges that we here are enthusiastic for with something more serious."

"..."

"But do I think it's more serious?"

"..."

"The barfight? Yes. What I meant was--that is what we on earth call an analogy--what I meant was you see there are typically three groups in a bar fight. There are of course the two groups in the fight, let's say side A and side B, and then there is a third group. This third group amounts to the people who are in the bar and just want to drink their drinks and maybe have a bit of conversation about their hard-to-please bosses, or their love lives. Around them the barfighters are running and throwing punches and yelling things, and you have this guy running past you while you're sitting there nursing your Michelob or gin and tonic and he's got a bloody nose and is carrying a broken bottle for the purpose of sticking someone in the gut or neck with, and you notice as he momentarily locks gazes with you a look of what might be called desperate bewilderment. The look is momentary but speaks volumes. He is wondering as he runs past why you are not involved in the barfight yourself? why are you sitting there like a bump on a log when you could be joining his team and punching and kicking and stabbing your way to glorious victory, arm in arm like brothers, after which you will sing of joyously, tankards aloft?"

"..."

"I know you are trying to understand, but that wouldn't necessarily be a fair characterization of us humans, and none of us are really obligated to give you a 'mind dump' as you claim you tried with your last interviewee--and frankly I'm glad you failed--a mind dump of what they're actually thinking, however concrete or nebulous that thinking may be, thinking in light of their stances and personal stakes which may well be substantial with respect to any given issue. Their mood lights, as you might say, would be fully saturated, but that in and of itself is not a cause for belittlement, as the substructure may be highly relevant and personal beneath."

"..."

"The whole thing is a kind of obverse-reverse knotty tangle which doesn't yield to your frankly pathetic attempts at analysis. What was the word you used? specimen? I really have to object. I don't think that word is a good choice at all--"

"..."

"The case of Ampora's country is different, no matter how much you might insist it isn't. She has very nobly in my view taken up the cause of her homeland, and as I've said will blog about it almost constantly when she is not playing the piano or undertaking her many self-care routines. She is especially active at night when because of the skin condition she has trouble sleeping. Her father worked in one of the many Mikróterran lead and zinc mines, and rose to prominence defending the natural resources of their humble Mediterranean island country against shakey land claims and the threat of sales of mining rights to foreign contractors. After the discovery of the mineral wealth, it wasn't long before the mainlanders decided they wanted their island back. With the repeated threats and small invasions, the Mikróterrans now consider themselves in the middle of a full-scale colonialization war. In spite of the blockades, it has made for some messy fighting. The mainlanders and their agents are tip-toeing around the landscape of lavender and strip mines, generally beating the bushes in aim of stirring up conflict. They have also launched a major social media geofencing campaign. They have troll farms and spin arms devoted to their cause. The ringleaders appear regularly in videos both formal and informal to bolster support and make them look less culpable and invasive, Ampora writes. She is not there physically, of course, but in spirit. She has made the most of the mining accident's effects, what has taken the nerves of her legs, and her throat and lower face, but left her willfulness intact.”

"..."

"It is a form of media influence. Did I not make that clear? or am I going too fast? Is it OK if I adjust the skullcap? What? You want me to adjust the skullcap and look more into the overhead light? OK. But I will do so only because you promised me with all your technological advances that you knew of a treatment my wife might find useful, though you have to admit you weren't very specific in its methods or effects."

"..."

"My wife had taken up the cause from the getgo, not often seen around our little bungalow without her laptop or the ergonomic wireless split keyboard, a gift from her loving husband, who received a discount. She also enjoys listening to the folksongs and lyric poetry of the region through specially designed earpieces that fit over her unusually delicate ears."

"..."

"Yes, she has accomplished all of this from afar. You have already said that if anyone can do it, then it would seem all of this is pretty prone to manipulation. You seem a little stuck on that point, frankly, and I have to ask why."

"..."

"That doesn't answer my question. Again, you seem to think that you and only you can ask questions. A good discussion usually involves some give and take."

"..."

"And, well, now I'm somewhat concerned you are interviewing me for that very reason! For the very reason you just seemingly went out of your way to bring up and then deny. You might understand why someone in my position would be leery, and want to question the questioner, so to speak, but the bright light and the apparatus you've put me in have made it almost impossible for me to do so comfortably."

"..."

"Yes, I can see my mood light is turquoise. You've made that very clear, positioning that device and the bulb in plain sight, in a very obvious manner in fact! How can I not see it? You seem to enjoy bringing it up, as if your ability to translate my general mood into the colors of a bulb somehow makes you better than I. Well, I can tell you, we humans are pretty good at reading one another's emotions anyway. So you have bupkis there, really. And now you see how I might suspect you are going to attempt a mind dump on me, just as you say you tried on your last subject, who by now I am assuming is that man standing motionless and drooling in the corner, as one of the sheets covering him has partly slipped off?"

"..."

"Fine. I will try to calm down. As you say to retain some level of authenticity, she had insisted on the trip back to Mikróteros a month or so before the holiday festivities began, this over my many strenuous objections.

"As I expected the visit was difficult, that because of her intrepid blog work some Mikróterran officials were there to greet us and they hailed her, my sick wife, as something of a heroine, but which made movement around the island difficult because disguised foreign officials and their liaisons tended to be everywhere, and there was always the possibility my wife might appeal to them as a valuable hostage, or to simply be silenced. We had to cut our visit quite short. Believe me there is nothing worse than having to wheel your infirm wife out of a Mediterranean hotel at 3 a.m., hiding her in a steamer trunk on a bellhop's trolley while the staff looks on at your sweating self trying to navigate the non-standard handicap-accessible wheelchair ramp, thinking you might be leaving with half the room's stuff, and maybe not coming back to pay your bill."

"..."

"They actually made me open up the steamer trunk when I was out on the porte-cochère securing the trolley. And because of her general fatigue at that hour, deep in her theta state and a victim of the general toll of running from mainlanders real or imaginary, and because of the sedative I had taken the liberty of dosing her with in her nighttime mineral water in anticipation of our escape, she came spilling out, and because of her natural muscular slackness and somewhat deformed resting expression she appeared dead."

"..."

"Yes, as you say, we were lucky not to get arrested. And we were also fortunate to get out at the time because the mainland had by then added more troops and spies and had generally tightened its grip. By now it would be very unsafe for her to go back, especially with the more robust blockade. She can still spread her influence from foreign shores, however, and she is sure to write about her most recent travails in the country, her visit bolstering her credibility and insight into the situation over there."

"..."

"Yes, I suppose. That's rather a flattering way of putting it, but she may in fact be something of a key opinion leader when it comes to matters of Mikróterran independence."

"..."

"What do you mean, can someone from another planet become a key opinion leader? There you go again. You see why I get suspicious when you ask questions like that?"

"..."

"It doesn't work that way. You seem fixated on the possibility of one of them quitting or dying, at which point you think you can replace them with someone from your own planet!?"

"..."

"Just as easily as before, of course I can see my mood light. It now appears to be cyan. What does that mean? You see, again I suspect you're no better at reading me with all your devices and your 'carbon ethernet' link than another earthling would be without them. And further, I think you're just guessing at the appropriate hue and saturation. Guessing or maybe trying to lead me to an emotion you want me to feel in a shameless reversal of cause and effect. A very clever trick. But you haven't got me fooled, not one bit."

"..."

"What? If I agree, then do I have it in writing you'll help fix my wife--and I object to the use of that particular term for she is not an automobile or a computer peripheral but a very warmblooded and fleshy human being, whom I love?"

"..."

"While we're on the subject of dealmaking and fair exchanges, let me ask you a question. What are they then, your motives? When you 'understand' us, what do you plan to do with that information? Will you return to your home planet and utilize your understanding for your betterment, as you claim? or will you use this information for purposes harmful to us? I am putting it directly to you now, and I don't want any funny business."

"..."

"Let's suppose I believed you. You volé back through molespace and carry the lessons you have learned and apply them to your own people. Do you see how someone like me could get the impression you're leaving us high and dry? With all your technology, you could maybe spread some of it around, share the plans for some of your gizmos? or tell us what happened to your planet that made you so miserable, so that we may in turn learn from your mistakes?"

"..."

"Again you deflect. You see, when you evade my questions like that, I think your story might not be true at all. What if I frankly don't believe your stories about your home planet being such a big mess? And now I realize that when I answer not knowing your truth puts me in quite a bind. If I'm cooperative, you promised to help Ampora, but if you're lying, then you can take that information and use it against us as you have abundantly hinted at earlier ."

"..."

"More electrodes? I want to see the contract first. On earth, we have contracts, and while you are here you have to follow our related laws."

"..."

"Yes, I see the mood light. Call it chartreuse. You see, when you 'say'--if 'said' is the right word--when you say you have 'studied us,' and then as you ask, as you claim only hypothetically, if it would be possible to 'pump the playground swing even higher,' as you put it. I am inferring that to mean to the point of a child on the swing being flung to some horrible apex, and if he's lucky dropping down the other side unscathed, and if not, plunging downward to strike the crossbar, or perhaps flying past the midpoint altogether and smacking into the ground after the chain breaks, and be left with some life-altering injury of head, neck, or spine."

"..."

"I'm sorry to hear your homeworld is blemished. But when you say blemished, I do not fully understand. Maybe there is a word meaning I am losing in translation. Stained or blighted, or corrupt. The words here on our planet often have overlaps with other words, a consequence of as you put it our communication bottlenecks, clumsy voice apparatuses that lie at the root of our languages and the limitations they put on the transference of thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

"And I have to wonder, after all you've told me, if it is truly weakness spawning weakness, or if there is, as you have expressed hope for your turbulent homeworld, new paradigms just around the corner."

"..."

"You're saying directly to me now that the only way you will help Ampora is if you can strap me in and inject me with a serum that you say will produce an 'altered and perhaps irreversible state,' while your machines go to work? So if I agree to the deal--"

"..."

"Now the wrist and ankle clamps? I don't see why those are necessary. How am I supposed to--there. Now are you happy? I feel the skull cap tightening. Is that normal? Keep in mind that I have not yet agreed to sign your lousy 'silicon binary documents.' Yikes! that's cold."

"..."

"You have asked me what motivates me. I will tell you that I am motivated by the humanest motive of all, that of love. Let me tell you about love. To have your significant other in her wheelchair out even for a brief sojourn on the edge of evening when the air is cool and the light is luminous, the sky somewhere between the sun and the moon, and when she articulates her thoughts with her stylish vocoder that she would like not to go in just yet in spite of the burning sensations on her skin, to spend just one more minute being wheeled around on the sidewalk next to the neighbor's feral cat sculpture, to drink in the air coming off the lawns and wonder aloud if the light that is coming on as if for the first time from the stars might be the lights of some higher power, looking down, and to think that you might think that it is you, I would not have the heart to tell her otherwise. As things as they are right now, I can tell that that is not as you would have it. You have come to earth for help and the help is there, in the levering of her fine pianists' fingers to wring a smile from her own face, or the food crumbs that gather there whenever she eats my best attempts at recreating the island pastries of her youth, what I volunteer to wipe away with a paper napkin at the end of every meal."

"..."

"You say you want to feel it too, but I am skeptical. That it is not as you have it but as you want it, and it is nearly impossible to explain."

"..."

"The only way."

"..."

"Wiping off a stain?"

"..."

"Will it hurt?"

"..."

"You want me to what? The phone? And--"

"..."

"OK. But that's just one more thing for me to have to do."

Trevor Wine lives and works in northern New Jersey. He has worked as a math teacher and a commuter airline pilot, and is currently a freelance writer and mathematical researcher. In addition to growing up in New Jersey, he has lived in Charlottesville, VA; Vero Beach, FL; Atlanta, GA; and Boston, MA.

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