Salamander 2

            Along with a lot of important information about the assignment, we’d been told that the trip would be in ‘real time’, but I didn’t know exactly what that meant. But once I understood that we were going to a place 25 light years away, it turned out to be very important, and one of the biggest Valian secrets that I encountered. What it meant was that we’d be gone a total of 44 days from our perspective, and relative to Earth. Perhaps wormholes were involved, or we went to another dimension entirely.

            I joined my ‘class’ at a terminal at Midway airport, after picking up my ticket at a kiosk. ‘Valian Airways, Flight 272’. The flight was announced, and we boarded small jet on the tarmac. There was an aisle along the side of the jet, and we each went to one of five assigned pods which were down the center of the fuselage. Each pod had a large seat, with a screen on the wall in front of it. When the plane ‘took off’, I felt myself being sucked into that seat. There was a moment of panic as I realized that I was being surroundedwith something thick, but whatever it was, it was breathable. I watched what was on the screen, and was entertained by most that was there, and, at one point, the pod I was in spun 180 degrees. That was when the ‘jet’ decelerated. Then I was walking out of the ship, onto what seemed to be Earth.

            The light was different, though. As we left the ship, all five of us heard a safety announcement, like one you would hear as you got on and off a moving sidewalk.

            “Mind your knees. Keep your weight above your knees, and don’t take chances as you walk.”

            But I couldn’t see the speaker from which it came. Just a stick-vac that looked abandoned on the top deck of the passenger loading stairs. Wherever it came from, it was good advice. On Earth, I weighed 160, and here, I weighed two hundred pounds. Camillia was there to greet us, along with a bearded man who I assumed was from Earth.

            “What movie did you watch?” he asked.

            “Huh?”

            “The movie on the flight over.”

            “Oh!” I said, and remembering, “Gigli. But I pretty much fell asleep after fifteen minutes.”

            “If you made it past the opening credits, you’re a better man than I.”

            Jonathan was from Earth.

            He wore a wrinkly-thick linen shirt with embroidered seams, and black Wranglers. There had to be a dark raincoat in the closet somewhere with a volume of Metamorphoses in the pocket. Jonathan seemed like a man who got things done professionally, but with the personal aspects of his life in some tatters. I followed him to his office, where his android assistant waited. She was more like a Valian. At first, I thought she was. Soon, though, I got an android vibe.

            “It’s just helping, according to the work-order, and not making waves,” Jonathan told me.

            “Ok.”

            “It’s better to seem like you’ve got something up your ass than to put your foot in it.”

            His android assistant harrumphed.

            “You should sit down,” he told her. She looked at me and smiled.

            “I never sit down.”

            “Having said that,” Jonathan interrupted her, “If you are doing something bad here, they will taze you.”

            “Oh,” I said.

            “And, if you do something very bad, they have something similar to bug-zapping.”

            “I see…”

            “You won’t feel a thing.”

            “I have a question…” I said. The android nodded, generally, and Jonathan said that he didn’t doubt it. I asked what ‘very bad’ entailed.

            “What is very bad on Earth is very bad here,” he said. “No worries. But stick to authorized areas. Zapping applies to desertion.”

            “Ok.” I took a breath.

            “You’re scaring him,” the android said.

            “I’m not the one doing the scaring,” he told her, then to me, “You have to know. There are rules here like there are on Earth. Physical relations with the Valians is frowned upon…”

            “…It rarely happens…” the android said.

            “Someone like you probably has someone waiting for you back home,” Jonathan sighed and leaned forward.

            “Connie.”

            And the android said- “Yes?”

            His head fell softly to the desk.

            “The other Connie.”

            Then, he began humming and scatting snatches of what I found out later was Todd Rundgren’s “Can We Still Be Friends.” (One’s personal android can be a trove of information!) During this demonstration, Connie quickly lifted his long locks and applied something to his head. I was shocked, thinking that she was putting him out of his misery, but then realized that she was dabbing up blood that was leaking from his ear. He mumbled, with his head lying on the desk, that it was the easiest job in the world. He chuckled at that.

            “…any world, would be my guess… But, no world is as heavy as this! Wait! I forgot something…”

            …he said, but didn’t lift his head from the desk. Connie applied something to the ear she’d dabbed, looked up and told me,

            “He’s been here three months. What he forgot to tell you is that you should make sure context is established if you laugh in public. When you laugh, to us, you look like you’re dying. There have been instances where Terrans have been unnecessarily defibrillated.”

            His android began to wipe up the desk around Jonathan’s head, and announced the interview over. I wondered if it was something I did.

            “No it isn’t!” Jonathan shouted, but his head remained.

            “It is over,” the android told me. “He won’t mind later if you leave now.”

            I made a shocked exit, but heard, as I made my way out:

            “You’re not Connie.”

            And, softly-

            “Only in name…”

            I had no complaints about my room. It was small, but I would only be in it for six weeks. But, someone had left a cordless stick-vac in the middle of it. How could I have known? I put the vac in a wardrobe, there was a nice little place for it, and fell onto the bed without pulling the covers over myself. Into a dreamless sleep. There were a few rattles and knocks, and, as the sun rose, I realized that they were coming from the wardrobe.

            I sidled quietly out of bed, and standing as far away from the wardrobe, opened the door.

            Now there was a red light lit on the handle of the stick-vac, and it said:

            “It’s about time! Never do that again. That door locks from the outside!”

            I apologized to the stick-vac, and it rolled out and asked me:

            “What is my name?”

            I sat on the rumpled bed, with my head in my hands.

            “I don’t know.”

            “Too long,” he said.

            “Oh!” I said. “Winthrop?”

            “My name is Winthrop.”

            “Got it in two!” I said, but Winthrop wasn’t listening. He hopped out of the closet, and rolled into the kitchen nook.

            “What are the odds!” I said, to which Winthrop responded,

            “I think you might like some cereal. Many from your planet say that this is just like Grape Nuts.”

            “That sounds good,” I told him.

            Out of earshot, we referred to the service androids as ‘stick vacs’. Because that’s what they looked like. But more! They were skinny, and about four feet tall. I recall Winthrop with fondness. He had a bulbous handle on top, perhaps for manual use as, well, a ‘stick vac’, with a tiny red light which would blink, depending. The light was nearly always lit. That was atop a tube, which, I discovered quickly, the arms folded into. His base was wide, and could be used to access the floor, for cleaning. I saw later that rudimentary feet could separate from the base for more fine ambulation. Winthrop kinda had a Muppet Prawn look, but he was more mechanical. He was a machine. With some of the maneuvers he carried out, I could see that he was more dexterous than he looked. I’m certain that he had some kind of gyro.

            I thought it might be quite a task for a stick-vac to put cereal in a bowl and pour milk on it, but Winthrop was a tall stick-vac, and he had slim, sturdy arms made from umbrella ribs that came out from his, well... stick.

            I thanked him for the cereal, and he told me that people don’t thank service androids. I told him that I did. Winthrop answered that with a buzz that I thought meant that he was starting up with the vacuuming. But he hadn’t started up yet, at least not with that. He asked me if the Valian Grape Nuts were similar to ours. I said that they were, and then he asked me why I wasn’t eating them. If I didn’t like them.

            “I do like them,” I told him, but I realized that I hadn’t eaten much. “These are just like the Grape Nuts we’re used to. I’m just letting them soften a little.”

            “How do Grape Nuts taste?”

            “Oh. Good!” I took a bite.

            “Expound.”

            “Uh, rich. Nutty, even though they’re not made with nuts.” I paused in my munching. “What are they called on Vale?”

            “Well,” The stick-vac thought. “Something equivalent to 'Blossom Berries.'”

            “Oh!” I said. “That’s good!”

            He placed himself before me.

            “Are you being facetious?”

            “Oh, no!” I told him, now enjoying the Blossom Berries. “It’s a great name. And they taste great.”

            “Hm,” he said. “When I vacuum them up, they just taste dusty. Plus, they aren’t berries. I don’t get that.”

            He began to roll around on the studio carpet. I finished my breakfast.