Minus the sex.
In the few moments in which he was not consumed with the giant toy store that was the Temple and all its wonders, Jaidev tried to prepare himself for a celibate life among the Houston-Bangalores.
Now, basic demographics suggested that a group of 180 or so humans, all but a few of them adults, would have at least three dozen gays, if you believed the information so widely believed in the community. Other studies might drop that number to ten or so.
That was hardly a dating pool, at least by Jaidev’s standards. Especially when you had to allow for the fact that some or half of those in the community might be women.
Of course, Jaidev was well aware that he might not be facing old age—or a life span that stretched more than a few days or weeks.
Thank God he had the work. Having Nayar and the other leaders kissing his ass, having Daksha to boss around—priceless additions.
And not only were they making real progress in learning how to operate the Temple’s marvelous 3-D printing system, they were branching out into other areas. “These bugs,” as Daksha called them.
“What about them?” Jaidev said, snapping. He was midway through a tricky assembly sequence, hoping to replicate the functions if not the design of a Slate or cell phone battery, something that would have almost as much value as food or water, and much like trying to rearrange a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded. In short, he was unhappy about the interruption.
“They’re intelligent, I think,” he said.
“They’re not much bigger than mold!”
“Intelligence is not related to physical size.”
“Let me know when you find an intelligent molecule.” He turned away. It was fun having a serf; less fun having to pretend to care what he had to say.
“Assemble a few molecules in the right sequence, and you have an entity capable of processing information and duplicating itself. Aren’t those the definitions of life?”
“Life, not intelligence. Can’t you be precise?”
“Whatever,” Daksha said, throwing up his hands. “They’re trying to communicate with us.”
“Fine,” Jaidev said. “I’ll allow the speculation; how do you know?”
And, to his surprise, Daksha related a whole series of not entirely unintelligent tests he had conducted on the Woggle-Bugs, from changing their environment (covering the habitat, for example) to bombarding them with sound at a variety of frequencies, and basic imagery.
“I got responses for almost half the methods.”
“Which actually undercuts your argument,” Jaidev said. “Couldn’t they just be responding autonomously? Like machines.”
“Look,” he said, clearly beginning to lose patience, “they actually rearranged themselves when I started putting pieces of paper up against the habitat walls. They put themselves in little fucking shapes! They were in the process of reproducing…I bet if you repeated the experiment, they’d line up like soldiers on parade!”
This was more interesting, possibly useful, and, theoretically, dangerous. “Good job,” Jaidev said, unable to stifle the compliment.
Which somehow caused Daksha to give him a hug. And for one horrible pair of seconds, Jaidev wondered if Daksha’s pre-Object hostility, not to mention the eager punch to his face, was the result of some complicated, sublimated, unhappy homoerotic attraction. Daksha to Jaidev.
He hoped not. Jaidev’s range of sexual partners was, as one of them had once sneered, broad, but shallow; he was attracted to a certain physical type, and Daksha was pretty thoroughly not that.
The hug ended when Vikram Nayar passed through the work area, making his usual queen-of-England-style pause to ask after the latest developments (“How are we doing now, hmmm?”), which allowed Jaidev to say, “The Woggle-Bugs are communicating.”
“Who says?”
And here Jaidev made himself happy. “I do,” he said, and gave a quick recap of the information Daksha had just shared with him.
Nayar got as excited as Jaidev had ever seen him, telling Jaidev and Daksha to follow him downstairs—and not waiting for them.
“So now we’re even?” Daksha said. “You steal my idea, payment for punching you?”
“Not even close,” Jaidev said. “But it’s a start.”
GABRIEL
Noisy in the Temple…why? Gabriel Jones wanted everyone to shut up; can’t you see a man’s trying to sleep here?
He said something, grunted, maybe. Rolled over and felt better now. Really needed his rest, needed to be strong for tomorrow, for all the days to come.
Wondered how long he had been lying here…What time was it?
Not too long, he was sure. He’d been busy talking with Harley and Nayar and Weldon and the two Hindi guys and the Blaine woman…something about Wiggle-Bugs or Woggle-Things, whatever. There was one, now two, maybe four or sixteen or, hell, five hundred, some big number.
Trying to say something, supposedly. God damn, he wished they would move the Woggling Thing somewhere else…felt as though it were close enough to touch!
Those things saying something…what? How? They were bugs! Tiny little things you could squish if you wanted.
Maybe they rearranged themselves to spell out words! That was it! The Woggle-Bugs had spelled out Help! or Let us out! That was why everybody seemed to be in such an uproar.
That idea was so funny, he laughed out loud, though that hurt and made him cough.
“Gabriel, how are you doing, man?”
Who kept bothering him!?! Oh, Harley. Good man. Suffered a lot. Got to be patient with Harley Drake. “Resting.”
“Sit up so you can get something to eat and drink.”
“Not hungry.”
“I don’t care. Doctor’s orders.” All Gabriel saw was a wheel from Harley’s chair half a meter in front of his nose. Careful! Close enough to run over him! “Come on, help him sit up.”
Hands on him…he didn’t like that, struggled. “Hey!” he said.
Weldon and Sasha Blaine. Sasha put a cup to his lips, made him drink. Water. Gulped some, started choking. He tried to push her away, damn woman, bothering him like this.
Then she put a spoon to his mouth, something on that…tasty, like cold stew. Treating him like a baby, though. Wanted to tell them it wasn’t nice, he was a grown man with two doctorates and director of the Johnson Space Center! They all worked for him—!
“What can we do for him?” Weldon said.
“He’s sick, not deaf,” Harley said.
“Hiding a man’s physical condition is too old-school for these circumstances,” Weldon said. He turned to Gabriel. “You’re a grown-up, Gabe. You’re in bad shape, renal failure or close enough it doesn’t make any difference. Nayar and his team have just started to get the hang of programming items from the Temple. You’re drinking some water and eating some of the food. But it’s going to take time. You can’t just lie down and die; we won’t let you.”
He took the stew from Sasha, sat Indian style in front of Gabriel, and began feeding him rather more forcefully. Gabriel wanted to fight, but no strength! And…well, the food tasted good, best he’d had in the longest time! Maybe that was all he needed—a decent meal! None of this alien fruit stuff or leftover junk from a cooler!
“Mr. Drake!”
More noise suddenly, all around. Harley wrenched his chair away. Gabriel was too tired and too busy eating to pay much attention. Delegate! He’d learned that lesson. Can’t do everyone’s job. He was the director of the Johnson Space Center…he had a lot on his plate. Bring me the big decisions—!
Then Shane Weldon stopped feeding him and said, “Holy shit…” He stood up.
Slumped over, unable to raise his head, it was tough to see, much less understand what was going on. But Gabriel knew the voice of that Katrina kid, Xavier. He was all excited and upset about something.
And there was a woman crying. Gabriel heard the name Chitran. Indian name. Bangalores, yes, one of them. So what was the big deal?