Excerpt: Not Your Savior

Javi took a seat again, the little metal chair creaking with his weight. "What are we going to do with Reyon?"

"Who, me?" the little alien said.

"Yeah," I said, considering him. "Do you have a home to get back to? A job somewhere?"

"No."

I frowned. "Any plans at all? Do you need to be somewhere?"

"No."

I will never be sure how Fritzer picks these people up. "So what were you doing when Fritzer picked you up?"

"Lying down."

I stared, trying to come up with a context in which he could be lying down when he came into Fritzer's company, and couldn't think of anything that I wanted to dwell on. "But where were you and what would you have been doing if he never showed up?"

"Oh, I was on Waystation," Reyon said, as if suddenly everything made sense to him. Where was his brain today? He acted out of it sometimes, but right now he was acting like he wasn't even here. "Fixing a ship."

"The one that Fritzer stole."

"That's the one."

"So is that all you do, you fix ships?" I asked. Somehow in all our random conversations in a posh parlour this past two weeks, I hadn't managed to learn a thing about Reyon. His methods were annoying, but effective. He could keep a person in the dark for ages. Information left his lips only when he wanted it to. Most people are easier than that.

"It's not all I do," Reyon said.

"Oh?" I asked, genuinely interested.

"I write songs."

I think I managed to keep my face admirably blank. "Do you sing them too?"

"Sometimes."

"That's very nice, Reyon," I said, even though inside I was laughing at the thought of his monotone, mousy voice singing anything.

"Well, Waystation is obviously on our way home," Javi said, scratching his head and giving me a look. Maybe I wasn't masking my laughter as well as I thought I was. "If you want to come with us."

"Sure."

"Well, go on and help find us a ship out of here," I said, shooing him with my hand. I didn't want to be alone with him while Javi found transport. I didn't like the way he'd looked at me earlier, especially now that he was acting more absentminded than Fritzer on a bad day.

Javi stood up and covered my hand with his. "I don't know when I'll be back, this place is pretty confusing," he said.

"It's all right," I said. "But getting out of here sometime in the next month is preferable."

Javi smiled, a sideways grin. I think he picked that up from Fritzer at some point. I was relieved the two of them were back on good terms, at least. The fight in Asia Bengalia made me mad at both of them. "I'm sure I can do better than that," he said. "You try and sleep."

"Ha, don't worry about that."

He smiled again and gave my hand a small squeeze. "Come on, Reyon," he said. The little alien hopped off his stool and followed, tail dusting the floor behind him.

I sank into my pillow and sighed. Alone in a human infirmary. I didn't mind being alone, in fact, it's what I prefer. But I tended to be an attention-hogging baby when I was sick. Having a psychotic older brother does that to me. And something about being alone at any time on Earth made me uneasy. Even after learning that mind reading wasn't a universal human trait, these people still made me nervous.

I closed my eyes, glad that Fritzer was on his way and Zinni wouldn't be following to haul him away somewhere, and glad that I would be leaving Earth soon.

I must have drifted off to sleep, but I opened my eyes, hearing voices in an unfamiliar language from somewhere close by. It reminded me of a creole of Llakal, Mezski, and recordings I've heard of various carniverous birds wheeling above their prey. It certainly wasn't human...but then again, I'd only been to two regions of Earth. They probably had more languages than I'd heard so far; we have ten or so languages on Mucirtyn besides Mezski. Still, I couldn't think of a species with complicated enough vocal cords to produce that noise.

I sat up in my bed, listening. As soon as I tried to concentrate on the sounds, they disappeared. I shook my head. This happened every so often, but I'd never been able to hear anything distinct before.

Because there's nothing there, I told myself. I sat up further, crossing my legs underneath the crisp sheets, and held my head in my hands. This was why I'd gone to get tested for the same thing Fritzer has. They said I was negative, but I couldn't believe it. Now these things were happening more often. I didn't know if I should be tested again when I got home or if I should ignore it. I've seen what happened to Fritzer when the known worlds found out about him. But then, I don't have a purpose like he has. Fritzer always wanted to go into space propulsion, and here I am in my fifth year of post-secondary school without a clue. I guess I didn't have as much at stake if I'm to be labeled crazy. Or would I? Would everything I do be more difficult, from shopping to getting a job? Probably.

There was a knock on my door. I looked up and saw Dr. Smith peering in. "How are you feeling now, Miss-" He had a brave go with my name, but I guess humans have a hard time with it. "Breathing okay?"

"Yeah, I'm better," I said, and he walked inside, slipping his stethoscope into his ears.

"Let's have a listen," he said, sitting down in the chair next to the bed. I tried not to recoil when he put his hand up the back of my shirt, placing the cold circle of metal against my back. My new tolerance for humans only went so far. I breathed normally for a few seconds, then deeply when he told me to, inhaling and exhaling.

"Your people can hold a lot of air in your lungs!" he said, withdrawing his hand and letting the scope fall around his neck.

"Yeah, we evolved from some ocean mammal," I said.

He shook his head, a smile on his pink face. "Amazing, isn't it? We're all so similar with such different backgrounds."

I nodded, not feeling too amazed. There were plenty of differences between us, after all. And even though it made almost no sense, I agreed with the hypothesis that life started on one planet and somehow spread around. "Yeah, it is pretty cool."

"It reminds me that god created us all, and we're all part of his plan," he added. I really wish he hadn't. I wouldn't say that I hate religion, but I've always had a problem with most religious followers. I found them incapable of thinking through tough moral problems for themselves, guided only by books that don't apply in today's complex world and the word of their preacher, who didn't go to a real school but only to religious school. It's a recipe for ignorance and intolerance. And religion seemed widespread on Earth. It certainly explained why we don't see many of them on other worlds.

"I don't believe in a personified being guiding the universe," I said. I shouldn't have, this conversation never ended well, but I couldn't help myself.

The doctor nodded slowly, the smile gone. "You don't believe in anything?"

"I didn't say that," I said. "I just don't think that if there is something divine, we can give it our face, our faults, and our perceptions."

"So on your planet, people believe in a god that looks like them?"

"Some people believe in gods that look like all of us," I corrected. "There are two intelligent species on Mucirtyn. Our theologians could hardly say that the divine only looked like half of the people. And when space travel started, it wasn't hard to add more gods for every species. That's the main religion on my planet, anyway."

"I see. That must be a different environment indeed, two separate species native to the same place. I can't imagine that here." He smiled again. I gave him some credit for appearing interested in my planet. "And how did we all come to the conclusion that god looks like us?"

"Because our conceit is without bounds."

"If you say so," he said. He clapped his hands to his knees and stood. "Let's see if you can walk yet."

I flipped the sheets to one side and shifted to the edge of the bed, legs dangling over, bare and unshaven. They weren't nearly as hairy as some humans I'd seen around London, though, so I wasn't too self-conscious in the doctor's presence.

Dr. Smith pulled a small computer from his pocket and tapped away at the screen. He was probably looking up details of my physiology. I couldn't blame him for not learning about other species in his medicine school. Humans didn't seem to care about the rest of the universe.

"I'm just looking up what a healthy colour for your skin should be," he explained. I was right.

I looked down, wriggling my toes. Grey and blue, nothing out of the ordinary. They were paler than my face, but that was normal. That was probably what confused him. "I don't get much sun," I explained. "I'm a student."

"Oh, okay," he said, pocketing the handheld. "Well, try and walk."

I got to my feet. Nothing hurt this time, and standing didn't seem to be a problem. Dr. Smith moved out of my way, and I circled the room a few times, my feet cold on the tiled floor. Nothing happened.

"I think I'm fine, doctor," I said.

"Great!" he said. "I don't know what else we can do for you, then. These things just go away after a while, and you don't have symptoms anymore. Just wear a mask when you go outside. Go ahead an invest in a small oxygen tank backpack if you're going to stay on Earth long."

"I'm not sure when I'll be able to leave," I said, leaning against my bed. "Are all areas of Earth this bad? I went to Asia Bengalia last week, I could breathe a lot better there."

He nodded, thinking. "This is a bad storm season in the north. The southern hemisphere isn't as bad, but somewhere in Pacifica would be better than Bengalia. Try and stay there while you wait, if you can."

"Okay," I said. We could probably arrange that. "Thanks!"

"Not a problem," Dr. Smith said. He pointed to the chair in the corner, farthest from the door. "Your clothes are over there. You can wait in the sitting room until your friends get back."

"Cool," I said, and I headed over to the chair. My clothes had once been neatly folded, but they'd been shoved to the side and wrinkled in odd places. Someone must have sat on them. I leaned down to pick up my shirt, but shrieked in surprise when a black mass rose out of the chair in front of me. I skidded backwards, hitting my head on the farthest wall.

"What? What's going on?" Dr. Smith ran into the room, eyes wide. When he saw me against the wall facing the bipedal formation by my clothes, he laughed.

"What the foth jalla is so funny?" I half screamed, running to the door.

"It's just Betty," he said. I stared, then looked back to the chair. The black misty thing faded away. "That's her chair, and you just reached into it like she wasn't there. That'll upset anybody."

"Betty." I had recovered from the toxic air here, but I was lightheaded all over again. What the hell had I just seen? How was he so calm about this?

"Her son died in this room, minutes after she died in the next one," he said, shaking his head. "She's been here for two years."

"You mean," I said slowly, not sure I was getting this, "that was a ghost?"

"Just the ghost of a mom," he said, looking at me funny. "I didn't know other species could see ghosts. Not even all humans can."

"Ghosts aren't real," I said flatly.

He laughed. "You just saw one! Refusing to believe in an unobservable god is one thing, but denying the existance of something you stuck your hand into is silly."

My mouth opened and closed a few times as I thought of anything intelligent to say. I couldn't. "So how do I get my clothes?"

"Betty," Dr. Smith called softly. "Why don't you come into the waiting room for a few minutes while our young guest gets dressed?"

My heart started racing again as I looked around for that black mass to form somewhere else. Nothing happened.

"Sometimes they let you see them, sometimes they don't," Dr. Smith said after a few seconds. "I'm sure she'll let you get your things now."

I nodded dumbly. Words didn't come to mind. Dr. Smith clapped me on the shoulder and left the room. After a few moments I remembered to breathe. Breathing is good. So are clothes. I stepped slowly around the bed and reached toward my crumpled pile of dirty clothes, staying as far away as my arm could reach. I felt as if I were fishing for a ring in the garbage disposal. But nothing happened this time as I snatched up my shirt. I held it close, holding my breath and staring at the motionless chair. Nothing.

Swallowing, I collected my other articles of clothing and dumped them on the bed before closing the door. After I changed out of the hospital gown, I looked around for anything else of ours there might be in the room, and was glad I did. Javi's and my bags were underneath the bed. I picked them up and headed to the sitting room of the office. When I got there I made a face. "Betty" was probably in here, so I stood awkwardly by the reception desk so I didn't I disturb her in her chair again.

I would have thought it was a trick of some kind, but it didn't make sense that a small infirmary in a mall would have holoemitters in the rooms. But it was a mall. Maybe this place used to be an arcade of some kind. I shook my head; no, it was definitely intended to be utility space from construction. We were in a hallway behind heavy doors, quiet and away from the attractions.

But that didn't change the fact that ghosts aren't real. So what did I see, and why would the doctor lie to me like that? Earth's atmosphere was unlike any other I'd encountered. Ghost nuts on Mucirtyn often claimed to see "orbs," or "floating collections of energy," but these were really dust particles that showed up larger on camera when the air was humid. Maybe there were extremely localized atmospheric anomalies here on Earth. That looked a lot like a three dimensional shadow of a human sitting in a chair. I covered my eyes with a hand and hoped Javi would be back soon.