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Jul 20, 2019

The Quaben Intervention

space elevator
On this page: Part 3 of the science fiction story called "Earth: Day 1"
             return to      Part 1    Part 2

Betty and Parthney arrived back at Parthey Mansion and went immediately to the kitchen. For a time, Parthney watched Betty cook then she set him to work shelling some peas. Parthney could not stop himself from thinking about the man who Betty had been living with for the past 25 years. He asked a question about his predecessor, "Why was George so upset about the rapid development of artificial intelligence on Earth?"

Betty explained, "The intelligent machines on Earth have started making their own technological discoveries and advances. The problem of making a material strong enough to support a space elevator was solved by an artificial intelligence. A dozen space elevators are now under construction."

"Why is that a problem?"

Betty asked, "You saw all the wood smoke at the sugarhouse today?" Parthney nodded in reply. Betty continued, "Before the Fru'wu arrived, Earth was well on its way to having too much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. The planet started heating up, glaciers were melting, the oceans were rising. Cities like New Amsterdam and New York are using walls to hold back the sea. But now Fru'wu technology is being used to send torrents of solar energy from outer space to Earth, enough to meet all demand for energy. Fossil fuel use has plummeted. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are now dropping fast. Some are worried that Earth's climate might soon swing too far in the ice direction. The way things are going now, we could end up in a new ice age."

Parthney asked, "What does that have to do with space elevators?"

Space Energy Missions
"The worry is that space elevators will catapult the huge human population off of Earth and into near-orbital space stations. Gigantic orbital habitats are now being designed. If space elevators allow billions of people to migrate into orbit, a thick swarm of orbital structures could be built, enough to screen Earth and interfere with the techniques now being used to beam solar energy to this world from the huge array of solar energy collectors that the Fru'wu built for us on Mercury."

Parthney had never imagined such a sequence of events. "Really?"

"According to George, that is still a low probability future, one that could still be avoided. However, he did an experiment. He published an article describing that danger and nobody on Earth seemed to notice. Or care. The Earthlings all believe that the Fru'wu can solve any technological challenge. Everyone seems to believe that the sedron power source for the Fru'wu space-drive can supply Earth with energy, if needed. If so, solar power will no longer be needed. Conclusion: nobody on Earth sees the danger of space elevators."

Parthney was only vaguely aware of hierions and sedrons as fundamental particles. He asked Betty, "Can it? Can space-drive technology be used as a source of energy on Earth?"

"I don't know. George went back to the galactic core to try to find out."

Parthney brought the peas (most of them; some had slipped away from him and rolled away, now hidden somewhere under the big kitchen table.) to Betty and she put them to boil. "Dinner in five minutes."

Parthney put his arms around Betty. "I've had a fun first day on Earth. I feel very lucky to have found you here, Betty. You do remind me of Syon."

It was easy for Betty to imagine that these were the arms of her George Parthey now wrapped around her rather than those of Parthney. She asked, "Do you miss her?"

"Of course. We lived together for two years. She bore my child."

Betty shouted, "Your child?" That just wasn't done.

Parthney asked, "Does that surprise you?"

"Well, yes. You know, Syon is an artificial life form."

"That did not stop her from having our child after the decision was made that no more Interventionists would be sent from Oib to Earth."

Betty set their dinner on the table. "As artificial lifeforms, Syon and I don't actually need to eat, but I'll always eat with you, to fulfill a social obligation. As an artificial life form, Syon should not be having babies, particularly not the child of an agent being sent off to Earth!"

Parthney nodded, "Syon always seemed to enjoy eating and pretending to be a biological creature. I believe she tries to transcend her nature as an artificial life form. She enjoys life."

Betty continued her line of thought, "After taking you away from Hemmal, I suppose Syon felt she was obligated to create a family with you and-"

Parthney cut Betty off. "Don't say that! We were in love. We were both upset when word came that there was an emergency and I would be sent to Earth after-all."

They had their meal in the fancy dining room, at an even longer and more massive wooden table than the one in the kitchen. Betty ate quietly for a while and Parthney critiqued the food. Then Betty said, "So, Mr. family man, tell me... do you simply want to grab Hana and get yourself back to Oib as quickly as you can?"

"Yes, I do. Young children grow up so fast. I don't want to miss out on that experience with my own child."

Betty asked, "Maybe you can explain a message that Syon sent to me in her infites?"

"What message?"

"Syon told me to not restrain myself from... being your partner."

"You mean sexual partner."

"I think that is what Syon meant. That's part of my job, part of being the assistant for an Interventionist agent on Earth. I've been the concubine for dozens and dozens of Thomas clones and as many others... all who were assigned to me. But none of them ever arrived on Earth after having left a family behind on Oib." Still, something in the general tone of the infites that Betty had received from Syon seemed to suggest that Parthney would not be on Earth for only the duration of a quick mission. Her thoughts turned to the idea of using teleportation technology to make copies of people.
How to hide an Interventionist base of operations. The Koly star system.

Parthney gazed across the table at Betty and said, "You are so very much like Syon. You seem very comfortable with me when you are not worrying. And when I look at you, I can't help thinking that you are my dear Syon, or some alternate version of her. I'd very much enjoy becoming your next lover. If we do become lovers, that does not mean that I'll love Syon any less than I do. In fact, since I'm going to be the last interventionist agent on Earth, you really should go back to Oib with me after we complete this mission."

Betty laughed, "Don't be silly. After five thousand years, I am an honorary Earthling. No, there is much work for me to do here on this world, even if no more Thomas clones are sent to Earth in the future."

Parthney shrugged. "Well, maybe you are a just machine. I don't want to boink you if you have no feelings for me. I guess I misjudged you... I suppose you can't really feel jealous." He said sulkily, "Maybe you just boink each and every Interventionist agent as a matter of routine duty."

Betty laughed. Through the day she had slowly become aware of the fact that she had been carefully programmed over the course of recent decades to feel a deep attachment to George/Parthemy/Thomas/Parthney. Now she realized that her role in Parthney's mission on Earth included the task of making him want to stay on Earth rather than quickly return to Oib. Betty pushed away her dinner plate and got up from her chair and walked around to Parthney's side of the table. She pushed the big table away with a forceful swing of her hips and sat down on his lap, taking hold of his shoulders. "Don't get yourself into a bad mood, Parthney... I adore your cheerfulness. I may not be human, but I fell in love with George. I know you are not the George Parthey that I've lived with for decades, but... yes, maybe I did get just a little jealous when I saw you flirting with Tatum."

Parthney grinned. "I knew it!"

Betty asked, "How old are you, in Earth years?"

Parthney tried to estimate the number, "About Twenty-five."

"Just a kid. During the past two decades I've allowed my appearance to shift, so that I would appear to age some along with George. How old do I look to you?"

"About thirty five."

"Is that too old for your tastes? Are you one of those guys that measures a woman by the number of wrinkles on her face and size of her breasts? Are you only attracted to cute girls like Wyonna and Tatum?"

"Not at all.... I don't enjoy the sight of big breasts. Besides, you don't have wrinkles and you don't act old." He tugged at her collar and tried to take a peak inside her shirt at her torso. "Based on what I've seen so far, I'm guessing you and Syon have the same model of perky breasts. To my eye, you are just as sexy as Syon and your apparent age is not significantly greater than Syon's."

"I wonder how long it will take you to learn not to stare at the breasts of women." She kissed the tip of his nose and then gently tugged on both his ears. "I can understand if you are obsessed with breasts since you grew up on Hemmal among Buld, but the people you meet on this world will know nothing about your odd childhood."

Parthney on Hemmal (image credits)
"Yes, when I was a musician on Hemmal, for years I sang classical songs from Earth about the breasts of women... breasts like fawns, and so on. I had to imagine what all the fuss was about. As the only human on Oib -surrounded by flat-chested hermaphrodites- I could only fantasize about Earth women. In any case, I've decided that I don't really enjoy large breasts. That lady at the sugarhouse, Wyonna... her breasts were far to big to be practical... although, I guess farm girls have strong backs and can get away with it. However, I'm still undecided about the value of large tongues."

Betty kissed him and ran her tongue around inside his mouth. She then asked, "How was that? Still need more data?"

Parthney was impressed. He asked, "Was that... a trick... using your nanites too... ?" Words failed him.

Betty enjoyed the look of surprise on his face. She replied, "Parthney, I've had a couple of thousand years on this planet learning all kinds of tricks."

Parthney said, "Too bad I wont be here long enough to learn them all." He tried kissing Betty again.

After a time, Betty rested her head on Parthney's shoulder. She spoke softly into his ear, "So, have we covered every angle? I remind you of Syon and you remind me of George.... a sweet, exciting new variant of George. To help keep your mind on your mission, you might as well relieve your sexual tensions by boinking me, not drooling over teenagers."

Parthney laughed. "Fine. I agree; I don't understand these Earth kids and their music... far easier for me to be with you... and even occasionally forget that you are not my precious Syon. Don't get upset if I sometimes slip and call you Syon! But I have two points to make." He held up a hand with the index finger extended, "First, remember Betty, this is our mission, not my mission. I need your help." He tightened his arms around Betty and kissed her gently on the cheek.

Betty still could not stop herself from wondering if she really needed Parthney's help. She suggested, "Given your problem with motion sickness, maybe you should stay here... I can go down to Quaben and collect Hana... bring her back here to you."

Parthney shook his head and said emphatically, "No, Syon explained this to me carefully. Hana moved to New Amsterdam to seek medical care for her daughter. That allowed Thomas to meet Hana and now she knows him well and trusts him. Since I'm a clone of Thomas, I'll be able to impersonate him. Hana will think that I'm Thomas."

Betty asked, "Thomas is living in New Amsterdam now?"

"Yes. He's been there for the past ten years."

Finally Betty understood why Parthney had come to Earth. He had not been trained to be George Parthey, he had been taught how to play the role of Thomas Iwedon. And Betty now understood why she had, over so many centuries, been allowed to systematically develop her own infatuation with Thomas, her odd craving to meet him.... that was her training for this mission. Betty asked, "Do you think that you can show up at Betty's door and just grab her and Hilde? Remember, they are probably under constant Observation."

Parthney suggested, "The special nanites that I received on Klyz should protect us."

Betty was still worried about putting her trust in some untested Fru'wu technology, but maybe it was she, herself who was being tested. Parthney had told her to stop worrying so much. Somehow her mood had shifted and she was now willing to put her uncertain future into the hands of the Fates. She sighed contentedly and relaxed against Parthney and then asked, "And what was your second point?"

Parthney replied, whispering into her ear, feeling her soft and warm in his arms and allowing himself to think of Syon, "Well, my dear, you are sitting on it, and I think we'd both be more comfortable with it upstairs in George's big soft bed."

______________________________

That wasn't quite the end of Parthney's first day on Earth in the Ekcolir Reality, but in an effort to keep this blog post's PG rating, I'll end the story there, near the long dining table of Parthey Mansion. They did make it back upstairs to the big bed, eventually.

The above account of Parthney's first day on Earth is actually only a fragment of a larger novel-length story that Georgy White found in the library of the Writers Block. The full version includes an account of Parthney's training on the planet Oib and the events on planet Tar'tron upon the arrival of George Parthey on that world, following his 25-year-long mission on Earth.
recent Realities

Of course, it was not the biobody of George that was teleported from Earth to Tar'tron, but rather a collection of nanites that was lifted from the endosymbiont inside George's body. A "parthey" was one of the receptacles for infites that had been used by Lili in the Ekcolir Reality in order to facilitate the secret insertion of her Interventionist agents into the population of Earth.

We have to ask the question: was Gustav Parthey or an earlier member of his family living in Europe an actual clone of Thomas? Zeta suggests that the Parthey clan was artificially created by genome engineering. According to her theory, a Grendel Interventionist stationed on Earth (possibly Betty) manufactured the genome of Gustav Parthey and inserted that artificial genome into an oocyte obtained from his mother. Zeta suspects that a parthey had physical features that were quite similar to the "original Thomas body structure", but modified so as to match a normal body structure for an Earth human. In the case of Thomas himself and clones like Parthney, their bodies had to be carefully shaped by developmental control nanites during fetal development in order to "edit out" several distinctive Asterothrope phenotypic properties. That special editing step was not required for a parthey.

The Interventionist agent who worked with Betty before the arrival of Parthney was named "Parthemy". He was the 13th such agent in the parthey sequence during the Vermont Intervention. When the Parthemy infites were teleported to Tar'tron, they were inserted into another receptacle, one that had never been modified so as to hide the Asterothrope features of Thomas. Upon his arrival on Tar'tron, Parthemy met with Lili and reported his findings concerning the deteriorating situation on Earth. Earthly problems arising from the introduction of advanced Fru'wu technology on Earth necessitated the Reality Change that converted the Ekcolir Reality into the Buld Reality. Until he reached Tar'tron, Parthemy was not aware that Earth was very close to completing its complex transition from the Ekcolir Reality to the Buld Reality.

yT'Teb
Also present on Tar'tron at the time of Parthemy's arrival there, was yT'Teb, the sedronic equivalent of a replicoid, an artificial life form who was telepathically linked to Betty on Earth by way of the Sedronic Domain. It is clear from the Writers Block account of Parthemy, Lili and yT'Teb on Tar'tron that yT'Teb had complete access to the mind of Betty and was aware of everything she experienced on Earth. The question of yT'Teb's ability to control Betty's behavior was not addressed in the story read by Georgy at the Library of the Writers Block. Upon his arrival on Tar'tron, Lili debriefed Parthemy and then Lili and yT'Teb discussed the contents of his report...

____________________________

After she had spoken to Parthemy, Lili expressed her disappointment to yT'Teb, "That was a waste of time."

yT'Teb agreed, but it had been useful to let Lili convince herself of that fact. "Sadly, Parthemy has no idea that we here on Tar'tron continuously receive a complete copy of everything experienced by Betty on Earth. Had he known, he would have remained on post in Vermont rather than feel compelled to visit us here."

Lili shrugged. Parthemy had reached the point where he could accomplish nothing useful on Earth. With each passing year he became more upset over the social trends on Earth. Lili said, "It is for the best, because with Parthemy out of the way, we can now use Betty and Parthney to deal with the Hana problem. How is that going?"

yT'Teb quickly provided Lili with a summary of Parthney's first day on Earth then said, "As expected, Parthney is not the smoothest operator on Earth. His brain was originally crafted so as to allow him to carry out his special mission on Hemmal. When we were forced to change plans and send him to Oib, my hope was that Syon could back-adapt his brain structure in preparation for him serving as an agent on Earth, but then she discovered a devious alternative fork in the Reality Chain. We took that fork and now Betty must deal with annoying problems like Parthney's motion sickness. Fortunately, Betty is versatile and so far she has been able to handle Parthney and deal with his quirks." yT'Teb could not keep a sly grin from spreading across her face.

Lili noticed that yT'Teb was amused and asked, "What?"

yT'Teb replied, "I'm sure you recall that after his child was born on Oib, I had to trick Parthney into going to Earth. He was allowed to believe that he would only be on Earth for a few days. Betty is dismayed by the unusual style of Parthney's training and his behavioral idiosyncrasies."

"Is Betty going to be able to adjust to her new programming?"

yT'Teb gave a delicate shrug and replied, "Time will tell."

Lili observed, "I see that you have recently been forced to stay in almost constant telepathic contact with Betty. Is that interfering with your other duties and, most importantly, has she begun to notice your presence in her mind?"

yT'Teb replied, "She senses that something unusual has happened, but the new infites that were provided to Betty by Syon seem to be working well. Betty has almost completely forgotten about the way that our minds are linked by way of the Sedronic Domain."

Lili smiled and said, "I'll have to congratulate Syon on another job well done." Lili nervously drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair and asked, "How are you progressing with preparations for the Hana extraction?

yT'Teb explained, "Betty and Parthney have devised their plan. Tomorrow they will meet Hana in New Amsterdam. Betty will pretend to also be the mother of a developmentally abnormal child. That will allow for quick establishment of rapport between Betty and Hana. Betty can position herself so as to take Hana's place as the care-giver for Hilde. Over the next fifteen years, Betty will help prepare Hilde for her special role on Earth as part of the research effort aimed at making use of sedrons as an energy source."

Lili nodded. "Yes, we must try to find a replacement for Earth's solar energy supply, but I'm not optimistic that our efforts will lead to success."

yT'Teb said, "Sadly, we have no good reason to hope that Earth will somehow avoid a global warming catastrophe. However, I am prepared to throw everything we have into the battle against that looming problem."

Lili asked, "Will Betty construct a new parthey in order to facilitate your work?"

blue sedronite source
yT'Teb replied, "She has already done so. We need to decide how to augment the default program of the new parthey. I will then teleport the needed control infites to Earth. Betty and Parthney will depart for New Amsterdam in a few hours, but she has positioned the new parthey on the teleporter pad, expecting that we will program it."

Lili suggested, "Go ahead and take care of that." She tried to imagine some complication that might exist, requiring a more nuanced strategy. "Isn't this kind of job exactly right for your skills and experience?"

yT'Teb nodded. "My plan was to send a teleportation duplicate of myself to Earth, but the copy of me on Earth will have to live in a mental health care institution, as an orphan."

Lili commented, "Not fun for your duplicate, but necessary."

yT'Teb added, "Hana and her daughter are under constant Observation. Hilde will receive particular close scrutiny after her mother suddenly dies... possibly a visit from an Overseer. If so, I'll deal with the Overseer, but it will be challenging for me to impersonate a young cognitively impaired child without revealing hints of my true nature. If my actions attract attention of the higher-ups, the pek might get involved and I may be captured. Under the terms of the Pact, I should not be going to Earth."

Lili blandly said, "Being captured by Overseers is a risk faced by all my agents on Earth, yT'Teb."

"And I accept that risk." yT'Teb bowed to Lili and continued, "But I must remind you, Lili, I have detailed knowledge of your entire spy network. If I am captured and interrogated by the pek, there is danger... you might suffer another major dismantling of your organization here in the Core, as has happened in the past."

Lili asked, "What alternative do we have?"

yT'Teb replied, "I've been considering the possibility of only sending part of my mind to Earth. For example, our teleportation data bank contains an old backup copy of my mind from about 4,000 years ago. That version of me has no knowledge of the new Interventionist network that we have gradually built up during the past few centuries."

Lili was intrigued by the idea of sending an alternate version of yT'Teb to Earth. "Is there enough time to prepare that old backup copy for this mission?"

"Possibly. I've been experimenting with a limited transfer of my current memories into that old copy of my mind. I need to make sure that 'the old me' understands this mission, the power of Fru'wu nanites and is properly prepared to work in tandem with Betty, Parthney and Thomas."

"How much time do you need to be sure that this scheme will work?"

yT'Teb laughed. "You tell me. You are the one with access to Viewing technology."

Lili groaned, "I'll try a Viewing session, but as you know this current Reality is starting to fragment. It is now almost impossible to find high probability paths into the future while Viewing. Current conditions for Viewing the future are almost as bad as they were back when the Time War was still raging. Too many over-lapping time travel events and conflicting Reality Changes are in play."

"Yes, I understand your limitations." yT'Teb suggested, "Do the best you can. Let's meet gain in an hour and make our final decision at that time. If I must, I'll go to Earth myself, as I am... the current me. If I do, then you must be prepared to deal with another visit by the pek."

________________________

According to Rylla, there is an obvious discontinuity in the story at this point, almost as if someone edited the version of the story that Georgy read in the Writers Block archive. Zeta suggests that the pek removed some information that might implicate them as having participated in an illegal intervention into the course of events on Earth.

In the end, it was a hybrid version of yT'Teb that was sent to Earth: a quickly assembled infite hybrid lacking most of the recent memories of yT'Teb. Those infites were teleported into the waiting parthey in the teleportation chamber at Parthey Mansion on Earth, sometime in the middle of Parthney's first night on Earth. The yT'Teb infites animated the base-model parthey that Betty had prepared and formed into what appeared to be the body of a young boy.

After their first night together, Parthney and Betty awoke and shared breakfast in bed. Betty decided that she could have a lot of fun feeding Parthney's large appetites for both food and sexual frolics. Then Betty went to the teleportation chamber and met the artificial construct that would pretend to be her son.

Soon, Betty and Parthney were being driven to New Amsterdam, taking along "their child": the newly created parthey shell that was being animated by the newly arrived yT'Teb infites. During the drive south, Betty and Parthney discussed strategy, with particular emphasis on how to respond if an Overseer appeared while they tried to capture Hana. During the car ride, "their child" mostly behaved like a toddler and for a time nursed at Betty's breast.

Towards the end of the drive and approaching New Amsterdam, yT'Teb slipped out of character and entered into adult conversation with Betty and Parthney. yT'Teb was pretending to be a developmentally delayed child, but when he began to speak, he started explaining to Betty exactly how Hana would be removed from Earth. He had within himself a set of special Fru'wu nanites that would facilitate getting Hana sent off to the Galactic Core. Suddenly, Betty understood why Parthney had suggested performing a field teleportation. The special nanites carried by her "son" might make that possible.

Betty was uncomfortable with yT'Teb's plan to attempt a "field teleportation" of Hana from Quaben. She complained, "I don't like being in a position where my life depends on Fru'wu nanotechnology."

yT'Teb, speaking in the voice of a small child, confidently explained, "I've tested these Fru'wu nanites on Tar'tron. They generate the large pulse of energy needed to open a teleportation portal in the field, but then they efficiently re-capture almost every erg, shunting it into the Sedronic Domain. We are quite hopeful that Earth Overseers can't successfully monitor for such a power surge in that Domain."

Betty asked, "And what about the pek?"

yT'Teb replied, "By the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact, the pek were to have withdrawn from Earth."

linked to the Hierion Domain
Betty said, "They may have done so, but they are known to be linked into the Sedronic Domain." She nervously took hold of Parthney's hand and asked, "What if they notice when we duplicate Hana?"

yT'Teb gave a tittering, little boy giggle. "I've warned Lili to be prepared for a visit by the pek, if our actions here on Earth are detected by Overseers."

After arriving in New Amsterdam and reaching the site of the Clinical Neuroscience meeting, Parthney insisted that it was Betty who should go inside the convention center and find Thomas. Parthney and yT'Teb went to a nearby park where they played with balloons while waiting for Betty to return.

Thomas
Betty got to fulfill her centuries long dream of meeting Thomas Iwedon. She went into the convention center, wondering how she would find Thomas among the thousands of people present. Betty was looking for someone who looked like Parthney, but a message from Syon whispered: Relax, Thomas is waiting for you.

Just inside the main entrance was large man with a big fuzzy beard and bald head. He confidently approached Betty and said, "Welcome to Quaben, Betty."

Betty would have walked right by Thomas, but now she could see that his body structure matched that of Parthney. Thomas had been working as a technician for the research lab at New Amsterdam University in Manhattan that collaborated with Tatum's mother and other neuroscience researchers around the world to study the brains of developmentally delayed children.

Betty and Thomas stepped outside and went for a walk along the river. It was a bright spring say, and the trees were starting to flower. While they walked, they discussed how Hana would be duplicated. Thomas seemed to already know about the plan to substitute yT'Teb for Hilde.

They passed the cart of a sidewalk peddler and Thomas paused to buy a colorful broad-billed hat. He plopped the hat on top of Betty's head. Thomas seemed very well informed about Interventionist methods, and Betty suspected that Thomas must know her identity as an artificial life form, but she simply thanked him for the hat, thinking that with his bald head it was he that needed it. He told her enigmatically, "You'll find this hat useful."

The Arlesheim Elf
Betty was able to exchange nanites with Thomas, establishing a technology-assisted telepathic linkage which would from that point on, allow them to stay in communication by means of hierion signals going to and from the Hierion Domain with the assistance of the Bimanoid Interface. Their walk brought them back to the convention center, and Betty pointed towards Parthney. She told Thomas, 'There is your clone, Parthney."

Thomas nodded. "I'll go now. No sense in me standing close to Parthney... someone might notice how similar we are." With no further discussion, Thomas turned and walked away. Betty stared after Thomas, wishing that she could spend more time with him, but somehow certain that in the future their paths would cross again. She was still uncertain how to make contact with Hana. She sent a message to Thomas: How should I approach Hana?

Thomas replied to Betty: Let Parthney initiate contact. Thomas went back to the lab where he worked at New Amsterdam University and he did not attend the rest of the conference at the convention center. Back in the lab, he began packing up his few personal belongings. He would soon quit his job and depart, his work in New Amsterdam complete.

After watching Thomas walk away, Betty went over to Parthney. He asked, "How did things go with Thomas?"

Before Betty could reply, yT'Teb handed her one of his balloons and asked Betty for her hat. Betty took the hat off of her head and handed it to yT'Teb who then held it out towards Parthney and said, "Put on the hat, Pathney. We need to get you into your Thomas disguise."

Parthney asked, "I have to wear this silly hat?"

yT'Teb said, "Parthney, just put the hat on your head. You'll be able to get rid of it soon, if it annoys you." Along with the hat, yT'Teb was handing Parthney a swarm of nanites. Working under the hat, those nanites quickly removed the hair from Parthney's head, leaving him bald. yT'Teb said, "We can't risk anyone seeing you suddenly go bald."

Betty told Parthney, "Thomas and I spoke about the mission, but he will not be further involved in making contact with Hana today. I now understand that you must pretend to be Thomas... that will allow us to approach Hana. Thomas looks exactly like you, except he is bald and wears a beard."

Having cut away Parthney's hair, the nanites now began to construct a beard on his face. yT'Teb said, "While your beard grows out, let's get lunch. Then we can go inside and attend Lori's talk." They purchased food from some street vendors and ate outside under the warm Spring sun. By the time Parthney was done eating his lunch, the nanites had shaped microscopic fragments of his hair into a fine beard.
Dr. Lori Kidwell

In the afternoon, Betty and Parthney (now he was impersonating Thomas, complete with bald head and bushy beard) sat together with "Betty's son" in the back row of a meeting hall and listened to the presentation titled, 'Cognitive Delay Syndrome: an Extreme Case'. Parthney became distracted during the talk and he turned his eyes away from the screen where the data analysis from Dr. Kidwell's research team was being displayed: various measures of the development of Hilde's brain circuits and behavior. Parthney's special Fru'wu nanite implant, obtained at Klyz, had automatically detected an Observer Probe in the room. That Probe was designed and programed by the Earth Overseers to be invisible yet constantly monitor Hana's movements and record images of everyone who she interacted with.

As soon as Lori's presentation ended, Parthney got up from his seat in the family section at the back of the meeting room and approached Hana. The speaker, Tatum's mother, was still answering questions from the audience. Now fairly close to Lori, for a moment, Parthney gazed appreciatively upon her svelte body, which she seemed to be proudly showing off with her rather revealing clothing. While Parthney ogled Dr. Kidwell's beautiful body, a swarm of Fru'wu nanites shot out of Parthney's body and entered into the nanoscopic Observer Probe that hovered above Hana. The Probe was quickly reprogrammed so as to assure that unedited images of Parthney/Thomas and Betty would not be transmitted to Observer Base.

Hana noticed Parthney approach and when the question and answer period ended, she stood up and said, "Hello, Thomas." They stepped out of the conference hall and Parthney introduced Betty to Hana. Hana was intrigued by the way Betty had been successfully raising her own developmentally delayed child (who Betty introduced to Hana as 'Tory') and how Betty even dared to bring her young son to the meeting. Hana commented, "Tory seems so content! My little Hilde would never remain quiet for so long... she needs constant attention and play." For half an hour the two women discussed the challenges of raising children who failed to learn to use language in the way that children usually did. Eventually, Hana and Betty arranged for a play date the next day, during which Tory would get a chance to play with Hilde at a park near Hana's home in a suburb of New Amsterdam.

Hana and Hilde at Landsend Park.
Betty said, "I'm sure my car's guidance system can find Landsend Park."

Parthney, now playing the role of Thomas, said, "I've been to Landsend with Hana and Hilde. I'll drive you over. I can watch the children play together and collect some update observations on Hilde for the study."

Hana said to 'Thomas', "Fine. Let's meet at 1:00 PM."

Betty, Parthney and Tory stayed in a big hotel in New Amsterdam that night then the next day they drove to the nearby suburb where Hana and Hilde lived. Some of yT'Teb's nanites were special advanced nanites that had been provided by the Fru'wu to Lili. These nanites, now inside Tory, were able to assemble into a portable teleportation target node that worked together efficiently with the teleportation equipment in Parthey Mansion. Using this advanced Fru'wu technology, it would be possible to perform a "field teleportation" without a huge energy surge, making it possible to avoid attracting Overseer attention.

Betty, Parthney and Tory arrived at the little park and found that Hana and Hilde were already there, with the Observer Probe hovering above them. While the two children started playing together, Betty sat down on a bench beside Hana.

Parthney did not sit down. He was carefully scanning the area, but nobody else was there in the park with them. He felt confident that the Observer Probe was under control and would not transmit unedited images of Betty or himself on to Observer Base. While pretending to take notes on Hilde's play behavior, he wandered over to Hana's car and placed a packet of signal nanites on the roof of the car.

After ten minutes of playing with Hilde, Tory suddenly ran towards the bench, moved close to Hana and activated the teleporter system that he carried in his body. Instantly, upon the portable teleportation equipment being activated, a copy of Hana was sent across the galaxy to Tar'tron. At the same instant, a teleportation duplicate of Hana was placed into her nearby car. However, that copy of Hana was dead, with a ruptured cerebral artery. Parthney quickly placed Tory inside Hana's car, collected the signal nanites that he had placed there and watched as the little child-sized parthey quickly morphed from the form of a small boy into a precise copy of Hilde.
in the Ekcolir Reality
Original cover art by Hans Wessolowski

When Hana was teleported away, Betty shifted her facial nanites so as to take on the appearance of Hana, then taking the real Hilde by the hand, Betty led the child to her car. A minute later Parthney, Betty and Hilde were on their way to a new home, their mission in Quaben accomplished. More importantly than only matching the appearance and voice pattern of Hana, Betty took care to precisely mimic the body odors of Hana and she effortlessly took over the job of caring for Hilde, including the task of breast feeding her. Hilde's cognitive impairments prevented her from noticing that anything unusual was happening.

Parthney, Betty and Hilde did not immediately return to Vermont. At Parthey Mansion, workers from the power company arrived and disconnected the Mansion from the electric power grid. The mansion's repair nanites continued their invisible work tending to the house and the grounds, but no Interventionist agents would be in residence for several years.

Parthney and Betty had taken Hilde into hiding at a new location, a new Interventionist "safe house" on the west coast of the continent. The exact location of that Interventionist base of operations was not revealed in the novel that Georgy read in the archives of the Writers Block, but there was mention of the fact that they resided somewhere in Alaska.
The "Viking Empire": Skangana (northern Asia and Europe, it includes Scotland and reaches the Black Sea),
the Skallan provinces of Alaska, Norseland and Pantago (southern tip of Skallan) and Snælan {in the Ekcolir Reality}.

During that time in exile from New England, Hilde quickly adjusted to her new home and her new parents. Hilde did not notice when "Hana" was, over the course of a year, able to slowly morph her face and voice back towards the Betty pattern. Hilde was a highly active child who required constant physical interaction with others and she thrived on being physically active and constantly engaging in entertaining play. Although she was over two years of age when her mother "died", Hilde still could not speak even single words, but she was clever and demanding.

In the first few days after leaving New England and while watching Hilde, Parthney quickly decided that he was needed on Earth to help Betty raise Hilde. His decision to stay on Earth would have been less stressful had he known that he was a teleportation duplicate and the original copy of Parthney was still on Oib, living happily with Syon and their child.
Hilde (Edith) in Alaska

During his first few weeks living in Alaska, Parthney also altered his appearance. Betty had received word from Thomas that soon after Hana's "death", he had come to the attention of the Earth Overseer, Belinda Tement. His work in New Amsterdam completed, Thomas was ready to move out of his Manhattan apartment and to return to New York when he was interviewed by Overseer Tement. He advised Betty that Parthney should alter his appearance. By transferring some of her facial nanites into Parthney, she was able to significantly alter the appearance of the biological George Parthey. Changing his name, Parthney began calling himself Henry Montpellier.

In the small hill towns near Parthey Mansion, there was disappointment that the annual winter light shows no longer took place. Rumors gradually spread that George Parthey had died from pneumonia after a flu virus infection.

A few years later, Betty returned and took up residence at Parthey Mansion with her husband Henry Montpellier. Upon returning to Vermont, Betty and Parthney spent most of their time with Hilde, inside Parthey Mansion. There was nothing seriously wrong with Hilde's brain; it was simply progressing through the normally slow early developmental stages characteristic of Asterothropes. Soon enough, Hilde began to catch up to the typical human developmental sequence and she began to use language. In particular, she learned to use her new name, Edith, and in her later life she would not remember ever having been called Hilde by her mother. In the government-maintained databases of Vermont, Edith Parthey was listed as the legal heir of George Parthey.

Hilde was home schooled by Betty and Parthney until age 8, then she started attending the local schools. With her aptitude for science, Hilde also participated in science enrichment programs at the Scientarium. Hilde grew up to become one of the large cadre of scientists who began working on development a sedron-based energy source for Earth. Eventually, many years later, the Overseers took note of the fact that Edith was genetically identical to Hilde, and the Overseers strongly suspected that Edith was the grown-up Hilde. However, by then, Betty and Parthney had both returned to the Galactic Core and the teleportation equipment had been removed from Parthey Mansion. Edith again came under constant Observation, but by this point in the Ekcolir Reality timeline, even the Overseers were hoping that a functional prototype for a Sedronic Power Generator might be built on Earth. Hilde was allowed to continue her sedron research and live out the first part of her life on Earth. Eventually, when she gave up all hope of understanding sedronic physics, Edith/Hilde departed from Earth.

The yT'Teb Intervention
The fate and artificial life of the yT'Teb-animated parthey was somewhat more complicated than the life of Edith. To help care for Hilde, Hana had employed a live-in nanny. After the police were called to the scene of Hana's "death", they temporarily returned Hilde home and placed her in the care of the nanny. That nanny was actually a robotic Observer who had been positioned on Earth in an attempt to solve the mystery of Hilde's unusual genetic makeup. Earth's Overseers were trying to identify and capture the Interventionists who had placed Hilde on Earth. As a child with alien genes, Hilde was technically on Earth in violation of the restrictions imposed by the Pact. The Overseers had quickly determined by genome analysis that Hana was not Hilde's genetic parent, but they had not been able to trace the the source Hilde's unusual genome.
Overseer Tement

The nanny reported Hana's death to Observer Base. Two days later, when an Overseer arrived on Earth to investigate Hana's death, Hilde had already been transferred from her home into a government-run care facility. The Overseer arrived at the care facility and presented documents identifying herself as Dr. Belinda Tement. She portrayed herself as a member of the New Amsterdam University team that was studying Hilde's cognitive development. Dr. Tement spent some time with Hilde during which she used her nanite probes to re-check Hilde's genome sequence.

Satisfied that the newly measured DNA pattern matched that previously recorded for Hilde and stored in the archives at Observer Base, Overseer Tement decided to over-look Hilde's behavior. Since arriving at the government-run care facility, Hilde had been quite well behaved. Tement wondered: Maybe the stress of losing her mother has been good for the poor child, pushing her out of her old habits. Overseer Tement departed from the care facility and set off to do some detective work. According to automated probe data, Hana had interacted with several as-yet unidentified people in the day before her death and Belinda would not be able to rest until she could rule out the involvement of Interventionist agents in Hana's death. Dr. Kidwell and Thomas were among the many people interviewed by Overseer Tement, but the Overseer made no progress in accounting for Hana's abrupt death.

Why should a healthy young woman in her early 20s suddenly die from a stroke? Overseer Tement found that Hana had none of the usual risk factors for stroke. However, nanite probe data indicated bilaterally symmetrical structural defects in Hana's internal carotid arteries. The left internal carotid had ruptured and that was the official cause of death. Overseer Tement could never explain the origin of the deformities in Hana's arteries.

Within six months, it was decided that Hilde no longer had to be institutionalized. Hilde (the yT'Teb-animated parthey), was by then beginning to produce short sentences. She was adopted into a new family and continued to make dramatic cognitive advances during the next few years. Hilde seemed like a precocious and gifted child to her new parents, who were never aware of the Observer Probe that constantly followed their Hilde. The artificial Hilde began formal schooling at age six and was a successful student. Then, a week after Hilde turned 15 years old, she left home and was never seen again by her adoptive parents.

The field teleportation of Hana,
in the Ekcolir Reality.
original cover art by Vincent Di Fate
Once more, Overseer Tement came to Earth, but she had no more success locating Hilde than she had previously had investigating possible involvement to Interventionists in the death of Hana. The odd case of Hilde, the Earth girl with the Asterothrope genes, was never closed, but the Overseers never learned how she had first appeared on Earth with such an unusual genome.

To escape from being constantly under Observation, the simulated Hilde had used nanites to attack and inactivated the Observer Probe that always followed her. Then she changed her body form and moved to Europe and began a new Interventionist mission, the first of several during which she worked to keep Earth from slipping into a global warming catastrophe. In the end, all Interventionist actions along those lines only seemed to make matters worse and the Ekcolir Reality was ultimately replaced by the Buld Reality.

Related Reading: Part 1 and Part 2 of "Earth: Day 1"

Next: linking to Tar'tron in the Final Reality

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Betty and Parthney

Below on this page is Part 2 of the science fiction story "Earth: Day1" Return to Part 1.
on Oib

Betty stood stiffly within the circle of George's arms. She waited patiently for him to relax his hold and look at her face again. While waiting for the bear-hug to end, Betty felt a wave of new infites slip inside her and start adjusting her mind for a new mission. Betty quickly adjusted her facial pattern nanites so as to shift her appearance slightly... away from the facial structure pattern that was favored by Syon. Her new infites informed Betty that this newly-arrived agent used the code name "Parthney": "Parthey" with an "n" added in.

Betty learned from the new infites that Parthney had lived for just a short time on the planet Oib. While there, he received special training provided by the artificial life copy of Trysta who during her second life used the name 'Syon'. None of that was according the the usual protocol for training new Interventionist agents and now it had led to Parthney mis-identifying Betty as Syon. Had Betty been warned, she would have altered her appearance before the teleportation beam activated and thus avoided the confusion that Parthney had experienced upon his arrival. I'm always the last to know.

A message encoded in her new infites whispered to Betty and struck fear into her: Parthney is no ordinary agent. Betty told Parthney, "I am not Syon."

Releasing his hold on her, Parthney now could see small, yet clear, differences between Betty and Syon. During his training on Oib, Parthney had been told that he would work with a robotic assistant while on Earth, but he had not imagined the possibility of a close physical resemblance between this robot and his beloved Syon.

LaCy
In a sense, Betty and Syon were sisters, their artificial bodies having been built around the same basic replicoid core that had first, long ago, known "life" within Genesaunt culture as LaCy. In another age, an artificial life form like Betty might have been called a Grendel, but the best Earthly name was the inadequate term 'robot'.

Gazing intently upon Betty's lovely face, Parthney nodded slowly. "Right. Of course. Silly of me to think that I'd find Syon on Earth." He thought: Still, this robot had felt exactly like the magical Syon, soft and warm in his arms.

Betty watched as Parthney's eyes shifted to her chest and lingered upon the bulges where her breasts pushed forward against her thin frock. Betty looked down and regretted not having shut off her automated program for making her nipples become erect when she was embraced by George. Betty had used many different body patterns while on Earth, each one selected as was appropriate for the demands of every new mission. Betty tried to recall why she had adopted the Syon body pattern back twenty five years ago when she made the transition from being Marie to being Betty, but that memory seemed to have been taken from her. Betty wondered: Might Syon herself soon arrive from Oib and begin living on Earth, using my body?

Parthney finally pulled his eyes away from the pretty sight of the two bumps caused by Betty's erect nipples and looked around the small teleportation chamber. He felt a sense of claustrophobia. With uncertainty in his voice, he asked Betty, "We are on Earth? Where exactly are we?" He had been told that he would materialize inside a large house on Earth, so he was surprised to find himself in a tiny box-like room.

Betty found in her new infites a message from Syon explaining why Parthney had not been well-prepared for his mission on Earth. Syon had taken pains to explicitly warn Betty: Don't expect very much from Parthney... his mission is simple and he did not need much training.

An Earth Overseer
Looking upon the fresh and smiling face of this version of George, Betty felt a sense of doom. She noticed that the teleporter had slightly adjusted George's apparent age, giving him a more youthful appearance than had been in use by the recently departed Parthemy. A message leaked into Betty's consciousness from her new infites: For this mission, George must match the physical appearance of Thomas. This sudden shift in George's appearance worried Betty and smacked of hurried and clumsy improvisation. Occasionally a new agent was sent to Earth so poorly trained that he did not fit naturally into the flow of life on Earth. Too often, such agents were soon captured by Overseers and imprisoned at Observer Base on the Moon.

Betty said, "Yes, you are on Earth." She asked, "Why did you arrive here from Klyz?"

Parthney explained, "I just spent a month on Klyz learning about Fru'wu advanced technologies. I was equipped with some special Fru'wu nanites and then sent on here."

Betty did not care to take the risk that Parthney might not fully understand basic facts about the situation on Earth and the dangers that all Interventionists faced. She carefully explained to Parthney the concept that any teleportation equipment on Earth had to be well-hidden from the natives. Only after providing him with that mini-lecture did Betty send the "door open" signal, take hold of Parthney's hand and lead him out of the teleportation chamber. Then, while she carefully sealed up the chamber once again, she explained, "The Earthlings must never enter this hidden room. If one does, the teleportation equipment will self-destruct and we will be trapped here on this world, unable to return to the Core."

Parthney was surprised that such an irreversible reaction might be triggered so easily. He asked, "Would an Earthling even be able to activate the teleportation equipment?"

Betty answered his question with a question, "Who knows?" Betty knew that while it was her job to control the teleportation equipment, it was possible to provide a human with a set of the control nanites that could activate the teleportation sequence. Feeling a wave of sickly horror at the idea of someone as ignorant as Parthney having the power to run a teleporter, she muttered quietly, "Strange things can happen when nanites are involved."

Together, they slowly strolled a distance down the Grand Hallway, the walls of which were covered by dozens of paintings and photographs of the Parthey clan, including the many Interventionists who had lived in the Mansion. Parthney stopped in front of a picture of George Parthey that had been taken by Betty twenty years previously. Betty gestured towards the image, "There you are George, as you looked when you were a young man. Of course, that was when your predecessor was stationed here... the previous agent who worked here with me."

Betty shifted her gaze to another nearby photograph, this one showing a young woman who George had once courted and even brought into the Mansion to live for several years. Betty said, "Sometimes, what appears to be an innocent Earthling turns out to be a meddling Overseer in disguise." Betty tipped her head in the direction of the woman's photograph on the wall and asked, "Do you think you could recognize an Overseer if you encountered one?"

Parthney pulled his eyes away from the photographic image of George Parthney and he glanced at Betty and shrugged. He could see that she was staring intently at one of the pictures on the wall.
on Klyz

Parthney followed Betty's gaze to a picture on the wall and looked with interest at that image of the young woman and felt a tingling sensation, a partial recognition. He thought of Hai'zek, the Fru'wu. Parthney had just spent a month on Klyz, interacting with the alien Fru'wu who lived on that planet of the Galactic Core. Strangely, Hai'zek, who Parthney had worked closely with while he was learning about nanotechnology, was somehow now brought to his mind. Parthney wondered: How could a pretty Earth girl remind me of the hideous Fru'wu? Parthney thought about the wings and snake-like orange skin of Hai'zek... thons spidery fingers... He told himself: Actually, Hai'zek spent more time arguing about the correct way to pronounce English words than teaching me about nanites. Hai'zek had been the one Fru'wu on Klyz who could speak English at all well.

Parthney pushed away the disturbing memories of Hai'zek's alien body, turned his head and gazed upon the refreshingly human face of Betty, so like that of his beloved Syon. He replied to her question, "During my training I was equipped with special nanites that scan the environment and that can detect Overseers and automatically inactivate their movements."

Betty was amused by Parthney's confidence and naiveté. She laughed at him and then said, "And after thousands of years battling us, don't you imagine that the Overseers have learned to evade our detector probes and protect themselves from our paralysis-inducing femtobots?"

Hearing Betty's laughter ring out, sounding so similar to Syon's own musical laugh, Parthney started to wonder if he could fully trust everything he had learned from Syon. Having served for so long on Earth, Betty was the true expert on Earthly affairs. While at the Lendhalen training center on Oib, he'd developed a high level of confidence that his mission to Earth would be quickly and easily accomplished, but what if conditions had changed on this world in ways that Syon could not even imagine? Nervously he asked Betty, "Do you mean we could be captured by Overseers at any time, unable to defend ourselves?" He pointed at the photograph that Betty had indicated and asked, "She was an Overseer who infiltrated this base of operations?"
Leymaygn and Vozgrow at the Lendhalen training center on Oib.

Betty felt silly having to explain fundamental concepts to a fellow Interventionist Agent. Parthney had a confused look on his face. She took a deep breath and produced a another long, loud sigh. Betty pointed to the image of the woman and replied, "No, she was an ordinary Earthling, but how can you recognize an Overseer? Overseers can morph their bodies into human form. Of course, we do all we can to protect ourselves. We hope that we can defend ourselves against Overseers, but it is not uncommon for Interventionist agents to be captured and imprisoned by the Overseers... held in captivity at Observer Base." Betty felt a wave of terror sweep through her as she thought about the possibility of being captured and imprisoned. "Our defenses have never been perfect. The destruct protocol built into this house exists just in case an Overseer becomes aware of the teleporter's existence. An Overseer could use our own teleporter system to trace back to Lendhalen and compromise our entire operation on Oib. Now that you beamed in from Klyz, our own teleportation records could link us to the Fru'wu. Of course, an additional goal of the self-destruct sequence, beyond destroying the teleporter itself, would be an attempt to also destroy the Overseer."

Parthney shook his head. "I hope you need not be so worried about the Overseers. Syon told me that she had arranged to get help from the Fru'wu: advanced nanite technology that will help us deal with the dangers posed by Earth's Overseers."

Betty searched through her new batch of infites, but found no message from Syon with information about the Fru'wu. She asked Parthney, "Exactly what kind of help?"

He replied, "I gladly accepted Syon's statement that I would be safe on Earth. I did not ask for details."

Betty complained, "Well, that does me no good. How can I take care of you if I'm not kept informed?" Betty started wondering if Parthney carried a new kind of nanite prosthetic in his body... a new defense system that could efficiently shield him from Overseers. Betty asked herself: Would Syon have sent such a poorly trained and incompetent agent as this to Earth without some kind of special protection?
In the Ekcolir Reality.
original cover art by Howard Brown

Parthney shrugged and spoke with confidence, "Listen, Betty, I don't expect to be here long enough to meet any Overseers. All I need to do is locate one girl, Hana, then she and I can both return to Oib."

Betty quickly found the dossier on Hana that was contained within her new set of infites. She saw that Parthney's mission was to teleport Hana off of Earth. Poor Hana, an innocent Earthling, had become entangled in a bizarre genetic experiment and her knowledge of the alien presence on Earth represented a new threat to Lili's plans for Earth's future.

Betty and Parthney had reached the Central Rotunda at the heart of the Mansion. Betty asked, "Would you like a tour of the house?"

Parthney nodded. "Yes, but let's start with the kitchen. Things have been so hectic today that I have not yet really had a chance to sit down and eat. Before leaving Klyz, I was too nervous and excited to eat much." He patted his abdomen. "I feel like my new body has also not eaten today."

Betty led Parthney to the kitchen and he commented on the furnishings of the house, "So these are the Earthly 'antiques' that I have heard so much about." His finger tips rested upon the smooth and glossy surface of an antique porcelain pitcher that sat on a little side table, but his eyes were fixed upon Betty's body.

Betty rapped her knuckles on the big kitchen table. "Real wood, hand-carved. This table has been here in this room for over a hundred and fifty years." She gestured towards the modern kitchen appliances that were set into the wall within brick-framed nooks. "The original kitchen had giant brick ovens, so not everything has survived the renovations." She pulled open the door to the large walk-in pantry. Betty glanced at Parthney and feeling his eyes following her movements, she said, "I, myself have served here at this station for over a century, so yes, you can call me an antique, too, if you are rude." Parthney smiled and turned to look at the big kitchen sink.

Betty entered the pantry and took a bottle of cooking oil off of a shelf and called to Parthney, "What would you like for breakfast, George?"

Parthney was looking around the kitchen and was distracted by the many new sights and smells. He failed to respond to Betty's question. He reached into a bowl of fruit on the counter and picked up a large blackberry. Never having seen a blackberry before, he sniffed it and then popped it into his mouth. The flavors of the berry exploded on his tongue.

Betty said, "If you are hungry, George, I'll be happy to prepare a meal, but I don't care to guess what you want to eat." Trying to attract his attention, she repeated his name, "George?"

Parthney knew that he was now playing the role of George Parthey, but it would take some time for him to grow accustomed to being addressed by his new name. Parthney was reaching out to grab another blackberry, but he turned to look into the pantry. Betty tossed the little bottle of oil to him. He caught the plastic bottle and shrugged. Parthney said, "I can eat anything. Do you have a favorite meal that you like to prepare?" He patted the firm and flat surface of his abdomen and wondered how long it would take to put on some pounds and modify this new body towards the more rotund shape that he was used to. He set the oil on the counter and grabbed a handful of the berries.

Viewing the future: Parthney meets Thomas.
Betty saw in her new collection of infites that Parthney had grown fat and lazy during his early life on Hemmal before being sent to Oib for training in advance of an emergency mission to Earth. In essence, Betty had been warned by her new mission infites that it was Parthney's natural tendency to over-eat and put on weight. Betty could easily set some nanites to the task of loading up his meals with indigestible molecules.

Betty had lived for decades with the previous version of George, a man who took pride in keeping his borrowed body in good shape. Well, so be it. Not every Interventionist can be a responsible individual. She told Parthney, "Since you are now in Vermont, I think you should have a hearty breakfast of pancakes with maple syrup." She carried a big jar of flour out of the pantry.

While Betty cooked, she explained to Parthney about maple trees and how to process tree sap into syrup. "There is an old fashioned sugarhouse nearby, on the Bragg farm. We can head over there today... a visit to the farm would be a great way to introduce you to Earth and to Earthlings and start getting you familiar with the area."

Betty and Parthney sat across from each other at the big kitchen table. Betty sipped a cup of tea while Parthney worked his way towards the bottom of a stack of pancakes, smothering them in an ocean of syrup which he poured from an antique pitcher. Betty had cooked some berries into the pancakes and Parthney enjoyed his meal. Responding to a question from Parthney, Betty described the origins of the fine silver and hand-painted dishware that they were using. She mentioned the names of several now dead members of the Parthey clan, but Parthney apparently did not recognize their names. In Betty's experience, new agents were trained to be able to discuss their ancestors... but Parthney seemed to be an emergency patch being put on an unforeseen problem.

Parthney was not close to emptying his plate, but he found himself feeling overly full. He set down his fork, having eaten only about half of the giant stack of pancakes that Betty had set before him. He drained his glass of milk and said, "I'm ready to head out, if you are. I'm eager to explore Earth!"

Betty put the pitcher of milk back into the cold box and loaded his dishes into the dishwasher. Turning away from the dish-washing machine and back towards Parthney, she said, "The only other thing on your calendar for today is your job." For a moment, Betty enjoyed the look of dismay on Parthney's face.

In a hollow voice Parthney asked, "Job?"

Betty explained, "Your predecessor has worked for many years as a volunteer at a local science education facility."

Parthney tried to imagine how such volunteer work fit into an Interventionist mission. He asked, "Whatever for?"

Betty took hold of Parthney's hand and led him upstairs to the room that would now be his bedroom. Betty had her own bedroom down the hall, but she had not used it for more than a decade, not since the Master had invited her to live with him like an honored concubine, sleeping each night in the Master's bed. It had taken them almost fifteen years to slowly mature their working relationship into a passionate and loving relationship. When they finally reached that point, it was a mutual decision that they both wanted to live together more like a married couple than Master and assistant. Betty looked upon the big old bed, stacked high with feather-stuffed layers of mattress.

Comfortable thoughts of the past bubbled up in Betty's mind. She pushed away the sweet memories of the many years spent in this bed with George and she finally replied to Parthney's question, "The volunteer work of your predecessor was a good opportunity for him to have a place within the local community. Your predecessor worked hard to monitor the changing attitudes of Earthlings. Much has changed, in a few short years, ever since the gift of advanced Fru'wu technology arrived on Earth." By such monitoring, George had become aware of unanticipated changes in human attitudes following the recent revolution in artificial intelligence technology on Earth. So alarming were these changes that he had teleported back to the Galactic Core to give a complete report on the problem to Lili.

Even if his time on Oib had been brief, Parthney had been warned by Syon to avoid attracting Overseer attention. Parthney told Betty, "It seems like the safest strategy for an Interventionist agent is to avoid unnecessary contact with Earthlings whenever possible." Parthney picked up a small framed picture from the little table beside the bed.

Betty watched as Parthney looked intently at the photograph. It was the same girl he had seen in the picture below, in the photo-gallery of the downstairs hallway: the girl who had become George's first Earthling lover, so many years ago. Betty had never been able to convince George to discard that photo or at least move it out of their shared bedroom.

Betty told Parthney, "In times past, this was a very busy house, full of children, with many visits from cousins, aunts and uncles... Then the decision was made to phase out Interventionist operations on Earth. In recent decades, this house has been almost empty. Your predecessor invited a couple of outsiders to live here for short periods."

Parthney suggested, "With the arrival of the Fru'wu, Earthlings are now free to learn about aliens and they will eventually understand how beings from other worlds have long shaped the history of Earth. According to Syon, the old struggle between Interventionists and Overseers is gradually coming to an end, or shifting into some new system of cooperative checks and balances. Maybe we really don't need to worry about Overseers anymore. Maybe my predecessor knew this, so he began mingling more freely with Earthlings."

Judging from Parthney's words and the content of her new infites, Betty suspected that Parthney had never been told about one of the usual functions of Interventionist agents: inserting useful gene combinations into Earth's gene pool. However, there was this interesting warning from Syon to Betty in the new infites: My prediction is that within 24 hours Parthney will try to drag you into his bed. He has three interests in life... music, eating, and screwing, not necessarily in that order of priority.

Parthney set down the first photograph and picked up the second one from the table. This was a picture of Betty. Parthney asked slyly, "Does this mean that George enjoys threesomes?"

George and Keziah at Parthey Mansion
Betty shrugged and pointed towards the picture of the other woman. "That is Keziah. She lived here for a few years, then went off to Reahand, the Klyz home-world. George never stopped loving her, even decades after her departure from Earth. I believe that George never stopped hoping that Keziah would return to Earth, even after she had been away for many years." A new idea occurred to Betty: Maybe Keziah was pregnant when she went off to Reahand. Might her child some day come to Earth?

Parthney grinned. "You did not answer my question."

Betty sighed. "Parthney, please don't concern yourself with the sexual activities and preferences of your predecessor. If you want to engage in sexplay with multiple partners, that is your choice. The people of Earth enjoy a wide range of sexual practices and they like to experiment with the joys of love. In the long run, most people eventually learn that monogamy has some clear advantages."

Betty pulled a set of clothing out of the closet and said, "You better wear these warmer clothes to the farm. It is a bit chilly outside today. This is good weather for getting the sap flowing, so it should be the perfect day for us to visit the sugarhouse." Parthney began pulling off the light-weight garments he had worn while on Klyz and Betty hurried out the door. She went downstairs and used the comunit to send a signal to the garage, ordering out the car.

Parthney came down the stairs, almost dressed and complaining to Betty. "How do Earthlings get through life wearing such scratchy and binding clothing?"

Betty showed him how to use the belt and the zipper of his pants. "You'll get used to it. Your predecessor even learned how to shave." Betty had to quickly unbutton Parthney's shirt and re-button it in order to get the buttons correctly aligned with their holes.

Parthney asked, "Shave what?"

Betty handed Parthney a jacket and led him by the hand out the front door. "Most Earth men shave their facial hair. If you don't want to be bothered shaving, this house is equipped with nanites that will automatically cut your hair, just like you are used to."

Parthney was vaguely aware of the fact that Earthlings did not have access to basic technologies such as personal care nanites. He knew several songs from Earth that mentioned shaving, but he'd never really thought about the implications of using metal blades to cut hair. It was true: on every world where Parthney had lived before coming to Earth (Hemmal, Oib and Klyz) there had been automated nanites that had removed the hair from his face.

West side entrance for Parthey Mansion.
Stepping outside, he found that the cool Spring air was refreshing and it reminded Parthney of Hemmal, but Betty seemed to be in a hurry. She tugged on his hand and they went quickly down the walkway and into the heated car before he had a chance to pull on the jacket.

As they settled into their seats, Betty asked, "How do you plan to approach Hana?"

The car automatically started moving and Parthney looked out the window and watched the gray forested hills for a minute, noting the presence of some remaining patches of snow. When they reached high speed on a steep hill, Parthney reflexively grabbed for support and found himself holding onto Betty's arm. Betty asked, "Have you ever ridden in a car before?"

"No."

Betty patted his hand. After a moment, Parthney relaxed his grip and Betty repeated the question that she had asked before, "What is your plan for making contact with Hana and getting her off this planet?"

Parthney had assume that his assistant would take care of all the pesky little details during his mission on Earth. He suggested to Betty, "Maybe we do not have to go visit Hana. Can't you just program the teleporter to pull Hana out of her house, bring her directly here?"

Betty was disappointed, but not surprised, that Parthney had apparently given no serious thought to the problem of how to accomplish his mission. She replied, "Due to the unusual nature of her child, it seems likely that Hana has already come to the attention of the Overseers. It is now a race: will the Overseers take her off of Earth before we do? Apparently the Overseers are still trying to account for Hilde and her alien genes, so they have not acted yet. Depending on Overseer plans, we may or may not need to hurry, but we are certainly going to be careful. At a minimum we need to devise and implement a believable cause of death for Hana and also have a plan in place to deal with her orphaned daughter, Hilde."

Parthney thought briefly about his own newborn child back on Oib. He said, "Yes, her daughter... Hilde. The obvious solution to that problem is for you to adopt Hilde."

Betty gasped. "What?"

Parthney explained, "You are going to have to take care of the little girl after I take Hana back to Oib. Syon suggested that you move to Alaska and take on a new identity as Hilde's adoptive mother."

Betty repeated, "Suggested." That simply was not how to run an Interventionist mission. She quickly scanned deeper down into the new infites that outlined Parthney's mission. She reviewed the details that were provided concerning Hilde, discovering that she was a clone, the result of an experiment carried out by one of Lili's descendants on Earth, Peter. For an Earthling, Hilde had an unusual brain and she had been diagnosed as being severely delayed in her cognitive development. However, that was a misdiagnosis. With her high concentration of Asterothrope and Kac'hin genes, Hilde simply would not progress through the usual human childhood stages of cognitive development. Betty noticed that Parthney was pale and was sweating. She adjusted the heating system and asked Parthney, "On what pretext could I arrange to adopt Hilde?"

Parthney suggested, "Well, I'm thinking more in terms of a kidnapping. Why should we involve the authorities?"

Betty thought about it: Why not make it appear that both Hana and Hilde died in some horrible accident? And why Alaska? Might it be possible to raise Hilde at the Parthey Mansion without attracting attention? Betty wondered: Why was it so important to keep this child on Earth? Why not send her to the galactic core where she could be properly raised and avoid endless harassment by Overseers? Her infites told her nothing about Hilde's future on Earth.

Betty said, "We don't want to attract Overseer attention. Using point-to-point teleportation with a free end here on Earth takes much energy, is tricky to control and it is easy for Overseers to detect such high energy teleportation events. It is only really safe for us to use the teleportation equipment in Parthey Mansion for low energy transmissions of hierions from one teleportation pad to another pad. Rather than try to use free-end teleportation, we'll need to travel down to Quaben by conventional means and bring Hana back here so that she can be teleported to the Galactic Core using the fixed-end teleportation equipment at the house. Sending a hadronic biobody through to Oib will be a relatively high energy transmission, but we can risk it, particularly if the conditions are right." During solar storms, it became impossible for the Overseers to trace teleportation signals to their source. Betty began to imagine that it would become necessary to hold Hana as a prisoner at Parthey Mansion until there was a solar storm strong enough to hide her teleportation to the Core.
map shown on Betty's D-ket display

As they wound their way through the hills, Parthney began asking questions about the layout of the local towns and the highways. Betty tried to explain to him the meaning of Earthly concepts like "city road" and "state highway". "According to the infites that you passed on to me, Hana lives in Quaben, in a suburb of New Amsterdam. We'll drive down the Interstate... it will not take long to go that far." Betty activated her D-ket display and showed Parthney a map of Vermont and Quaben.

Parthney glanced at the map and said, "I see... we take highway 123 south."

Betty corrected him, "That's Interstate Highway 23, I23."

Parthney closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window for a minute. Without bothering to open his eyes, in a pained voice he complained, "I thought a state was a nation. Are you saying that New England is several states?"

Betty was still trying to provide Parthney with an understanding of the word "state" when the self-driving car parked them in the visitors lot at Bragg farm. Betty was concerned by Parthney's odd appearance and his sweating. She turned off the heating system in the car and sent medical nanite probes into Parthney. Betty pointed to the smoke rising from the sugarhouse, "See the smoke? They have the evaporation trays running." The medical probes returned a diagnosis to Betty indicating that he was suffering from motion sickness.

They got out of the car and Parthney promptly vomited up his pancakes, splattering some on the side of the car. Betty assigned some of her nanites to the task of quickly cleaning up the mess. She grabbed his arm and asked him, "Do you need to sit down?"

Parthney pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his mouth. He smiled and shook his head. "I feel much better now."

Betty explained, "You are very susceptible to motion sickness. Now that I know that, I can have my medical nanites blunt that response of your nervous system." The medical nanites gave Betty another report: the indigestible molecules that she had put in Parthney's food had also aggravated the problem by disrupting his digestive system.

Parthney said brightly, "Now, show me these marvelous maple trees that produce the syrup."

Out of the car and on his feet, Parthney had no further trouble with his motion sickness. Together they spent a couple of hours hiking the hills of the farm where the maple trees were now gushing out enough sap to keep the sugarhouse running at peak production. The tree sap ran through plastic tubes downhill to the sugarhouse which was strategically located in a valley.

Betty and Parthney wandered together through the maple forest. When they reached the highest hilltop of the farm, they could see Lake Champlain glistening in the distance, off to the north. They were standing together on top of a granite boulder when Parthney pointed and asked, "Syon, is that the ocean?"

The wind was gusting and when he swayed, his foot dislodged a clump of moss from the top of the boulder. He almost tumbled off the boulder and would have fallen down the steep slope below, but Betty instantly put an arm around Parthney's waist to steady him and said, "That's a lake. We can't see the ocean from here."

He squeezed her tight with his own arm and gazed into her face, smiling.

Betty added, "And remember, I'm Betty."

Parthney chuckled. "Sorry. When I look at you, when I hear your voice, I think 'Syon'."

Betty said, "I know Parthney... and I'm still getting used to it being you inside George Parthey's body." Seeing nobody nearby, she used some of her nanites to make a small telescope and handed it to Parthney. "Look far to the north: that's Lake Champlain. With the telescope you should be able to see the skyscrapers of Burlington."

While looking through the telescope, Parthney asked, "Champlain is a French name, isn't it?"

Betty nodded. "When this part of the continent was settled by Europeans, nobody much cared about the border. French and English settlers alike mostly adopted the ways of the natives and the land was treated like a community resource. Everything changed during the Civil War. France sided with the Southern States, so the North declared war on New France. Lake Champlain was captured from New France, expanding the size of Vermont. After the war, there was an effort to change the name of the lake to 'Tekonta', but I suppose it will always be Lake Champlain. After that horrible war ended, things began to return to normal. The border with New France is now an almost meaningless line on maps; there are no boarder crossing checkpoints anymore. These days, the people of Earth have more important things to do than bicker over borders."

When he was done using the telescope, Parthney handed it to Betty. The nanite components of the telescope dissolved and merged back into Betty's body. They climbed off the boulder and made their way back down the hill.

Parthney said, "I was told that Interventionists are forbidden to use nanites on Earth."

Betty laughed. "We Interventionists are in the business of breaking laws. My body is composed of nanites, and I've managed to live on Earth and avoid the Overseers for thousands of years. The trick is not doing anything silly with nanites... nothing that would attract the attention of Overseers."

After a tour through the Bragg sugarhouse, Betty stepped into the little Bragg farm shop in the corner of the sugarhouse and bought a supply of syrup. The woman who had given them their tour, wore a name tag that said "Wyonna". She was still chatting with George while Betty dealt with the automated cashier in the shop. Parthney asked, "So, your name is Wyonna Bragg? You grew up here on this farm?"

Wyonna said, "Yes, and I suppose I'll stay here and keep the farm under family ownership. I'm the only child and I'll inherit... if I can convince daddy that I'm worthy. Otherwise, me old mucker will sell out to one of the bouncy cooperatives."

Betty completed her payment and started putting her purchased items into two bags so that the bottles of syrup would be easier to carry.

As he had during the entire tour of the sugarhouse, Parthney was still raking Wyonna's curvy body up and down with his eyes and he said, "So, you are a farmer's daughter."

Wyonna laughed, "I hope you are not going to tell me one of those silly old jokes!"

Parthney innocently asked, "What jokes?"

Wyonna replied with a giggle, "Racy farmer's daughter jokes."

Parthney said, "Have you heard the one about the whiskey salesman who stopped by a farmhouse on a hot summer day?"

Before Wyonna could reply, Betty brought her bags over and handed one to George. She said, "Hold on, George, I've got a better joke..." Betty asked Wyonna, "Why couldn't the sugar farmer go to church with his two daughters?"

Wyonna smiled at Betty. She had heard the joke before. She replied, "Because they were always raising cane."

Betty took hold of George's arm and quickly guided him out of the sugarhouse before he could tell his joke. Passing through the front door, Parthney glanced over his shoulder and said to Wyonna, "Thank you for the tour."

They crossed the little gravel parking lot and returned to their car. Parthney asked, "Can you explain that joke? I don't get it."
In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art by Robert Jones

Betty shrugged and loaded the bags into the car. "There was a minor Persian cult figure named 'Cain', a kind of devil figure. That Cain is spelled 'c', 'a', 'i', 'n'. If a youngster gets into mischief, people say that is 'raising Cain'. In the joke, cane sugar and 'Cain' are mixed up."

Parthney said, "I've never understood what a church is. On Hemmal, I grew up singing several classic songs about churches, but I don't understand what they are."

Betty sighed. "That's okay. A church is a kind of temple that is found in western Persia."

Parthney said, "That joke of yours is not the kind of farmer's daughter joke that I heard from Syon." They got into the car.

Betty nodded. "I met Syon before I came to Earth... back then she was quite a hell raiser... not afraid to raise Cain or get up the hackles of the Overseers." The car began navigating itself out of the parking lot.

Glancing back at the sugarhouse, Parthney said, "Quaint, but the whole operation seems very inefficient." His feet were hurting, so he took off his shoes. "And these shoes don't fit my feet!"

Betty explained, "Some things on Earth exist only by momentum and tradition. These days, there are a few Earthlings who are not happy with the effects of rapid technology changes... they cling to the old ways of doing things." She pulled off Parthney's socks, which he had not put on correctly. Now he had a blister on each foot. She sent some medical nanites into the blisters and then pulled his socks back onto his feet. "Look, George. Do you see how to correctly orient them? They are knitted with a heel." Betty then had to explain to Parthney what "knitting" was.

Parthney said, "I've sung songs that mention knitting, but I never knew what they were talking about." He sang:

      Sweet harmony I sought
        and attained it with his key.
      We knit our truelove knot
        then named her Abbilee.

He put his shoes back on and complained, "I suppose these are made of leather. Dead animal skin!"

Betty shook her head, "These shoes are part plastic and the soles are some sort of composite material."

Parthney lamented the loss of his easy way of life in the Galactic Core, "Less than one day, and already I miss clothing nanites." He had lived his entire life in the presence of special nanites with the ability to automatically produced clothing that grew around its wearer as needed.

Betty expressed no sympathy. "You have been spoiled by nanites. You are going to have to learn to live like an Earthling."

Parthney looked out the window at the passing forest and muttered, "I won't be around here long enough for that."

For a time they rode in silence, then Parthney picked up one of the jugs of syrup and began looking at the printed label. He started to chuckle.

Betty asked, "What's so funny?"

Parthney glanced at Betty then looked back at the label. He replied quietly, "I was just thinking about a joke that Syon told me." He remained silent, with a grin on his face.

Betty asked, "The whiskey salesman joke? So, tell it to me. I've not heard it. Syon must have learned it in..." Betty did not finish her sentence. She was about to say 'in some past Reality', but she decided not to speak about time travel. Parthney remained silent. She jabbed an elbow into his side. "Tell me the joke. It can't be that bad."

Parthney shook his head. "It took Syon ten minutes to explain it to me and I'm not sure I can really remember it now. It was about a farmer's daughter who worked as a potter. It involved a tired salesman who came to the farm and asked to stay the night, but I still don't really understand money and the idea of selling things. And who knows what 'whiskey' is?"

Betty gave a small groan. "Okay, I get the idea. Parthney, here are some words of free advice: if you are chatting with a cute woman and your mind goes blank, don't start telling her the first crude joke that pops into your head."

"I won't."

Betty said, "You will. You are like a small boy who can't control his impulses. Look, George, I like stupid jokes, but some people are quick to take offense, so until you better understand Earth and people's sensitivities, just let your attempts at humor go unspoken."

Parthney shrugged. "Okay, I'll try not to embarrass you in public."

Betty shook her head in dismay. "Don't embarrass yourself. You were going to tell Wyonna your stupid jug joke while ogling her breasts. Not cool."

Parthney chuckled. "I suspect she would have been amused, but you cut in with your joke." He changed the subject. "Anyhow, I had some difficulty understanding Wyonna. She does not speak like you."

Betty explained, "Wyonna speaks with a very exaggerated Green Mountain accent."

Parthney asked, "What did she mean by 'mucker' and 'bouncy' cooperative?"

"In mountain speak, 'old mucker' means her father, Mr. Bragg. A 'bouncy' person is obsessed with money and profit... someone like Wyonna uses the term in a derogatory way to refer to a 'city slicker'." Betty had to explain the meaning of 'city slicker' to Parthney.

"People travel to Vermont from big cities like New Amsterdam and they want to be entertained. Wyonna's accent is part of the show that she puts on for the tourists, just like her fake breasts." Betty then had to tell Parthney about breast implants.

Still reading the fine print in the maple syrup label, Parthney started asking questions such as "What is GMO?" Finally, when all his questions had been answered, he set down the jug and looked out the window of the car. Parthney's stomach let out a serious growl and he asked, "So, what is the plan? More pancakes for lunch?"

Betty had been expecting Parthney to get hungry again. They had walked five or six miles over the hills and through the forest, enjoying glimpses of dear, turkeys and an occasional lady slipper. In addition to that exertion, Parthney had not been able to keep his breakfast down. She had already ordered the car to take them to a nearby restaurant. She warned Parthney, "You will be recognized at the restaurant I'm taking you to. Remember, you are now George Parthey, long-time resident of Vermont."

Parthney said, "Right. You better do most of the talking. I'm not sure that my nanite voice prosthetic is actually creating a convincing New England accent. When I was on Klyz, Hai'zek did nothing but criticize my English skills."

Betty asked, "Hayzeck?"

"A Fru'wu named Hai'zek. My alien trainer for this mission."

Betty suggested, "I think your voice is fine... you sound just like George. However, speak with a gruff voice. I'll tell people that you have a sore throat."

Parthney knew nothing about diseases. He asked Betty, "Sore throat?"

Betty unsuccessfully tried to explain the idea of a virus to Parthney. She wondered: why wasn't he properly trained? At the very least he should have been warned about the danger of viral diseases. It makes no sense to send someone this ignorant to Earth.

The car turned off the highway and into a parking lot next to a building. Parthney saw a sign on the building that said: Jeena's Etruscan Reconceptualizations. Betty took Parthney by the hand, led him inside and to a dimly lit booth in a corner of the diner, but they were not ignored.

Things went as expected inside the restaurant. They had to speak to half a dozen people who recognized Betty and George by sight. Betty did most of the talking and they were greeted by Jeena as soon as they sat down. After an exchange of greetings, Jeena asked Betty, "Is your Book Club meeting this afternoon?"

Betty explained, "No, the club meeting is scheduled for next week."

"That's right!" Jeena gave Parthney long puzzled stare. "Good to see you, George."

Parthney spoke in a gravely voice, "I'm glad to be here."

Betty explained to Jeena, "George has been under the weather."

Jenna placed her hand on Parthney's forehead then ran her fingers through his hair. "You sound terrible, but you look nice, George, as usual." She leaned over and kissed Betty on the cheek. "You always smell so wonderful, Betty! Today you seem smokey and mysterious." Jenna turned then walked away, but then turned her head to take another look back at Parthney. She said, "Enjoy your meal!" and went back to her work in the kitchen.

Betty muttered to Parthney, "She noticed your altered appearance. The teleporter routine modified the program of your facial nanites, making you appear younger. Jeena could see that your appearance as George is altered. I suppose she will assume that you got a facelift."

Parthney commented, "She was acting strangely."

"Jeena has long suspected that we are living together as man and wife." Betty gave one of her deep sighs. "She can't restrain herself from poking around in everyone's private affairs. When she first came to town, I suspected that Jeena might be an Observer, stationed here to spy on George."

Several patrons of the restaurant came over to say hello and speak with Betty and George.

Mostly there was small talk and brief greetings, but George was asked, "I thought you were leaving town... going on vacation?"

Betty replied for Parthney, "When he came down with this nasty cold, George delayed the trip."

"Well, if you are so sick, you should be at home!"

Finally they were left alone and they had time to order lunch. The table top functioned as a menu. Parthney looked at the images of the various foods that were available and did not recognize most of them. He asked Betty, "What do you usually eat here?"

Jeena's Etruscan Reconceptualizations
Betty shrugged, "I'm here once a month with the Book Club. Most of the club members order the house specialty: what Jeena calls and 'etrurioid', a kind of sandwich... one of the Etruscan-American hybrid foods that she invented."

Parthney said, "Very well, I'd like to try the etrurioid."

"There are many sub-types of etrurioid, with different breads, sauces, fillings and so on... and they come in different sizes. Most of my Book Club friends order a six inch etrurioid, but if you are willing to allow me to order for you then we can do what George and I have done in the past when we are here together: get a foot-long etrurioid and share it." Betty placed their order and knowing that Parthney was hungry, she ordered a standard and popular type of etrurioid that would quickly reach their table.

Parthney was vaguely aware of the meaning of 'vacation', but he asked Betty, "Are we going on vacation?"

Betty chuckled. "Of course not. We have work to do. The Overseers might be getting ready to take Hana to Observer Base, so we can't delay our trip to Quaben for too long. When we are out of town, what harm would be done if your friends think that you are on vacation?"

"I see." Betty had seated herself next to Parthney on one of the bench seats of their booth. Under the table, Parthney took hold of Betty's hand and asked, "Is this a date?"

Betty laughed. "The locals have long been puzzled by my relationship with George. We've always refrained from public displays of affection."

Parthney squeezed her hand affectionately, "I see. We need to get to know each other. So far, you seem like Syon's sister, her twin. It is easy for me to like you, but it seems like you are constantly annoyed with me."

"I'm not comfortable working with a poorly trained agent. It seems like you were rushed to Earth without good preparation and now we are going to be forced to improvise." Betty added, "That talk about going on vacation was just something George made up... trying to prepare the locals for his planned exit from Earth. We had no idea that you would arrive until shortly before you teleported in. I was preparing to terminate all Interventionist operations at Parthney Mansion."

Their giant etrurioid arrived at the table, brought by one of the serving boys. Betty used a knife to cut the long sandwich and she set half on a plate in front of Parthney. He hungrily began to eat, but Betty simply watched him and talked about Earthly foods. "Jeena borrows food from cultures that are scattered all over the planet and pretends that she is giving them an Etruscan interpretation. Really, I think that just means that she adapts them into a form that she enjoys and hopes that her customers approve. This place is always busy, so she is doing something right."

Eventually, Parthney ate the entire sandwich, after which he said, "I hope you don't think I'm rude. I was very hungry."

Betty signaled a serving boy to clear away their plates. "This worked out perfectly. I figured you would be extra hungry and expected you to eat more than half the sandwich. You're a big man with a big appetite."

They left the restaurant and returned to the car. Betty pressed a button on the control panel that was pre-set for their next destination.

Now out of the restaurant, and out of possible hearing range of Earthlings, Parthney was eager to talk some more about their Interventionist mission. He asked, "So, you got no warning that I was coming? When I was training on Oib, as soon as the decision was made to send me here, they should have warned you that I was on my way to Earth. Syon told me that everything would be ready for me here when I arrived."
Viewing the future

What could she say? Betty wondered: Could this all have been foreseen? She was vaguely aware that a technology existed for Viewing the future. She'd learned that from stray comments made by several of the Interventionist agents that she had assisted. But who had access to the technology for Viewing future events? Apparently Syon and the other Interventionists at Oib were not among those who could look into the future. It seemed like they had been caught by surprise and were now scrambling to make corrections to the timeline, using Parthney as their tool. Betty lamely said, "There always seems to be a reason for the way missions are conducted. I usually don't ask questions... I just do my job."

Parthney laughed loudly. "But you are annoyed: you don't understand how you can do your job under current conditions."

Betty was glad that he recognized the source of her annoyance. She shrugged. "I know that sometimes an agent like me must be kept ignorant. If I knew too much, I might create a problem and cause the mission to fail."

"I understand your predicament. How can you do your job when you are stumbling around in the dark?"

She smiled and took hold of his hand, "Well, wait and see, George. I do some of my best work in the dark."

Parthney smiled back at Betty and squeezed her hand, "I hope I don't have to wait too long for a hands-on demonstration."

Betty wondered what she should say to Parthney. Almost a year earlier she had received a Priority Message from the Core saying that the Interventionist agents such the Thomas clones who had long been deployed were going to be phased out. Under the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact, secret alien-derived technologies like Betty herself were no longer going to be tolerated on Earth. She had been expecting orders to depart from Earth, and hoping to get the chance to meet Thomas before she had to return to the Core. But now, unexpectedly, here was Parthney, the poorest trained agent that Betty had ever known. Was he even aware of the existence of time travel technology and Reality Changes? Betty was still searching through the set of infites that Syon had sent to her with information about Parthney and their shared mission. What Betty feared most was the possibility that she was being kept ignorant because she would soon be imprisoned at Observer Base and interrogated by Overseers. Before she could figure out what to say to him, Parthney asked, "Where are we going now... back to our base?"

Betty advised him, "Don't let anyone hear you talking about our base of operations. We all call it Parthey Mansion." She let go of his hand and used her nanites to again assemble a D-ket display. "I'm taking you to the Scientarium campus. We'll get there a little early. Maybe we can get you a few minutes to prepare for your job before the swarm of children descends upon you." Betty handed him the D-ket display and let him read about the Scientarium.

Parthney read from the little flexible display device for a while. He muttered, "I was not told anything about this aspect of our mission." He read about the science enrichment program for children at the Scientarium then he asked Betty, "What am I expected to do?"

Civil War in the Ekcolir Reality.
Betty replied, "You escort children back home at the end of their school day. You drive a bus." She wondered where to begin her explanation. Had Syon even intended Parthney to visit the Scientarium? She shook her head. "It seems strange that you were not trained by Syon to become George Parthey." Betty asked herself: Why had Syon bothered sending Parthney to Earth? And why put him into the body of George Parthey if he had not been trained to play that role? Betty suspected that, acting by herself, she could efficiently locate Hana and subtract her from Earth. The easiest method would be a simple assassination. The infites that Parthney had delivered to Betty provided her with background information on Hana, including her precise location. Betty speculated: Maybe delivering these new infites to me was the only reason that Parthney has been sent to Earth. Maybe he will have no other role in this mission.

Parthney shrugged. "Well, look now... I'm not going to be here very long. Do I actually have to become George? What does driving a bus have to do with Hana and my mission?"

Betty rather impatiently snapped, "You are George Parthey!" She asked herself: Why am I getting upset with this dufus? Betty squeezed Parthney's hand and in a more gentle voice she continued, "It is not very complicated. George has become locally famous by writing some popular science articles about new Fru'wu technologies and how they have impacted human culture. The local school children who are interested in science appreciate his -your- enthusiasm for new technology."

"I see. Well, you can't expect me to be explaining Fru'wu technology to the people of Earth, even children. I never studied science... I take nanotechnology for granted, like air to breath."

Betty had never previously worked with an agent who seemed to wallow in ignorance. She snapped, "I don't expect you to explain anything!"

Parthney said, "I'm sorry that I don't meet your expectations, Betty. I suppose my predecessor was a scientific wizard. Well, that is not who I am. You can't expect me to be the old George."

Betty patted his hand. "Just be nice to the kids and everything will go fine this afternoon. I'm feeling a bit irked because with your sudden arrival on Earth, I was not able to be adequately prepared. I could have easily avoided wasting your time at the Scientarium." Betty regretted having agreed to help at the Scientarium and now it might amplify her error if she allowed Parthney to interact with dozens of Earthlings who he was not prepared to be with. Was it a mistake to think that Parthney could do this simple job? Something in the misty recesses of her mind whispered: Maybe there is a perfectly good reason for Parthney to take this bus ride today. Betty tapped the side of his head, "I'll be linked to you through our comsystem, so listen to the advice I give you." She tested her ability to send messages directly into Parthney's mind by technology-assisted telepathy. Do you hear me now?

Parthney had been trained in the use of technology-assisted telepathic links. He replied, "Yes, we are connected... I hear you just fine." He squeezed Betty's hand and glanced at her speculatively from the corner of his eyes.

Betty tapped the side of his head with her finger tip. "Send me a message. No speaking!"

Parthney sent her: You are cute when you nag me.

Betty grinned. She recognized that there was a kind of raw sensuality that hung about Parthney like a cloud. He reminded her of a clumsy puppy. She pulled her hand back, away from Parthney. Betty said rather nervously, "I should warn you about something, Parthney. Some of the kids who will soon be getting on the bus with you are rather infatuated with George."

"What do you mean?"
source

"I'm not human, so don't ask me to explain the psychology of it. However, I see in the infites that I received from Syon... well, apparently as a musician on Hemmal you have experience dealing with groupies."

Parthney's grin widened. "That is one of the perks of being in a band."

Betty warned him, "Well, you are no longer in a band. Your job is to drive a bus and escort school children back to their homes from the Scientarium. George has a rule: no personal relationships with the locals until after they go off to college, but some of the local school girls don't like to be told to wait."

Parthney asked, "College?"

Betty spent some time explaining the education system of Earth, but with no formal schooling past the age of seven, Parthney got confused over all the various levels of education and school types on Earth. Finally Betty said, "Just get the kids safely home to their parents. I'll be monitoring remotely and following behind your bus in the car, just in case you get into any trouble. You are supposed to be a comforting adult presence for the children... entertain the kids during their boring bus ride then we'll go back home. Tell them about clothing nanites if you like... pretend they are a new Fru'wu technology that will soon be available on Earth."

They had reached the Scientarium and the car parked itself in front of the administration and support staff wing of the main building. Betty led Parthney to the office of Dr. Semina.
Dr. Semina

As soon as Dr. Semina saw George she sprang forward and threw her arms around his shoulders. She kissed him and said, "Thank goodness."

Betty explained to the chief administrator, "George had a sudden cancellation in his schedule, so he is available this afternoon."

Mika gushed, "Wonderful! We really missed having you with us yesterday, George. It is crazy how hard it has become for us to attract employees and volunteers. We are terribly under-staffed... as are most schools these days." Batting her long eye lashes at George, she added, "Of course, we would never really be able to replace you." Mika finally let go of Parthney and nodded to Betty.

He said, "I'm happy to serve in any way I can... as long as I have time."

Through the years that Dr. Semina had worked with George, he'd grown increasingly gloomy about the course of technological change, but now he seemed brighter and was smiling happily for a change. Mika reached out and laid a hand on George's cheek. "My, you look well rested and..." She shifted her hand and touched her own face, "Men are so lucky... growing more handsome with age. All I get with the passage of years are more students to educate and deepening crows feet."

Mika was the first actual Earth woman who had touched Parthney and he was intrigued by her stately beauty. He was tempted to quote an ancient poem about the Etruscan goddess of beauty, but Parthney simply laughed and gave a half bow towards Mika. "Like Turan, you are the embodiment of womanly beauty, Dr. Semina."

Charmed by being compared to the love goddess, Mika began flirting with Parthney and Betty was forced to rudely clear her throat. "Dr. Semina, we do have a busy schedule. Perhaps....

Mika gave Betty a scathing glance to express her pique, but she turned away from George and picked an object up off of her desk. The administrator handed Parthney an electronic key fob. "Your route is now up to 26 students, so I've got you using the old 650XK."

Betty and Parthney went out to the parking lot that was behind the Scientarium. Betty told Parthney, "Really, you don't have to start making goo-goo eyes at every woman you meet."

"Sorry, but I was caught off guard. She looked familiar somehow."

Betty explained, "In a way, she's related to you, as are several people who live in this part of Vermont. You were probably feeling a subconscious telepathic linkage to Dr. Semina. Don't let such distractions make you look silly. Both of you should be mindful of maintaining a professional working relationship, particularly with young children nearby."

Parthney laughed and was about to suggest to Betty that she seemed jealous, but instead he said, "Maybe I don't understand the standards of professionalism that exist on Earth. It seemed to me that Dr. Semina was dressed to draw attention to her body, particularly her breasts."

Betty explained, "In this culture, women in positions of authority are expected to publicly celebrate their womanhood. Did you notice the picture of her boss there in Mika's office?"

Parthney grinned broadly, "Yes, the lady with her nipples showing. Even the abstract painting on the wall was constructed around a big breast."

"That woman in the picture is the president of the Scientarium Cooperative, a world-wide operation with thousands of branches. There is a saying: the higher the salary the lower the neckline. A CEO is expected to be something of an exhibitionist in this culture."

They had reached the 650XK bus and Betty activated the door. Parthney got in and started up the artificial intelligence control system by placing his hands on the dataspaq. Betty said, "Remember, I'll be nearby." She returned to the car. The self-driving bus went around to the front of the building and joined the line of waiting buses and vans.

Waiting inside the bus, Parthney was startled when music started to play through the speaker system. It was an abstract jangling type of music that had become popular with kids since the arrival of alien Fru'wu on Earth. Betty could sense Parthney's confusion. She sent him a message via their technology assisted telepathy link: If you don't like the music, just try to ignore it. You can order the bus to turn down the volume.

Parthney tried to make sense of the complex and seemingly random patterns in the music. Using the display screen of the bus, he reviewed the route that would be taken to deliver the 26 students to their homes. Ten minutes later the children started streaming out of the Scientarium and getting into the assembled cars, vans and buses. Some parents were there with family cars to collect their own children and a few kids walked to their nearby homes. A few of they oldest children got into cars and drove themselves home.

Parthney found that the children of the Scientarium ranged in age from age 8 to 18 and those who got into the old 650XK were happy to see that George was back with them as their "driver". Cries of "We missed you!" and "Don't leave us!" and "Tell us a story!" rang out. Several of the students threw their arms around Parthney's neck and kissed his cheek before going to sit down.

When all were aboard, the robotic bus closed its door and set off down the road. The children started singing a song:

Power up the Fru'wu drive,
see the red sun set.
Leaving Earth's fair shore,
let me go home!

Let me go home!
I want to go home.
Why don't you let me go home?
I feel so Fru'wu
I call Reahand my home.

The two stanzas were repeated again and then one of the older students shouted out, "Tell us a Fru'wu story, George."

Parthney told the children a story about clothing nanites and how they would soon revolutionize the wearing of clothes. He made up some nonsense about Fru'wu nanite technology, Parthney himself being totally ignorant of how the Fru'wu actually programmed nanites and turned them into useful forms of nanotechnology. At the end of the story he was asked several questions by the curious students. Again, Parthney creatively answered with whatever popped into his head, which was a garbled account of what he had managed to learn about nanites while in training on Oib and Klyz.

From the archives of the Writers Block.
When Parthney accidentally mentioned the name of his home world, Hemmal, Betty sent him a warning: Don't mention the names of planets where we have Interventionist bases. Remember, Earth is constantly under Observation. You don't want to attract an Overseer. Parthney decided he had better stop talking to the children.

After that, the kids quieted down and the music coming from the speakers was the loudest thing on the bus. One of the older students had seated herself right behind Parthney and now she said, "I can't believe you are abandoning us." There was only a low guard rail separating her seat from the driver's compartment at the front of the bus. She asked, "Where are you moving to?"

Parthney turned in his seat and looked at the girl. As "driver" there was really nothing for him to do; the bus drove itself quite well. He asked, "Moving?"

With its heating system now running, the bus was warming up and the girl slowly unzipped her jacket, glancing up quickly to see if Parthney was looking at her chest. "That's what Dr. Semina told us... that you are going out of town."

"Well, yes, I may go away some day, but 'going' does not always mean 'moving away for ever'. The girl stretched out one of her long graceful legs and rubbed the toe of her shoe against the back of Parthney's right calf. He explained, "Right now I'm just trying to get out of town for a little vacation."

The girl said, "Fun!" She'd kicked off her shoe and was now wiggling her big toe up Parthney's pant leg from the cuff.

Looking at the girl's short pointy nose and her large sparkling eyes, Parthney was reminded of the hermaphroditic Buld who he had grown up among on Hemmal. He wondered: Could there be Buld gene combinations here on Earth?

She asked, "Where to?"

Parthney was intrigued and distracted by the way that the girl was pushing her toe into his pants and he found it a bit of a challenge to pay attention to her words. After his many years of fantasizing about Earth women, he discovered that he was quite sensitive to being touched by them. He could not stop himself from thinking about the anatomical differences that made human women distinct from Buld hermaphrodites.

A vacation? He knew quite a few Earthly place names from old songs, but he had lived for so long in Hemmal's replica of the Sierras that he automatically replied, "Kings Canyon."

The girl said, "California? How nice! I'll be there next fall... at Berkley studying particle physics and hierions." She sat up straight, opened her backpack and pulled out the printed letter of acceptance she had recently received from Berkley. She handed Parthney the letter. "I've been awarded a full scholarship!"

Parthney glanced at the letter. He had no idea what the girl meant by 'full scholarship'. He muttered in a rather bland voice, "That's wonderful." Parthney rubbed his sweaty forehead: he was again starting to feel some motion sickness. Or was physical contact with this cute Earth girl making him feel warm?

Ignoring his seeming lack of interest in the news of her scholarship award, she gushed, "Are you planning to move to California, George? You can tell me. I won't tell anyone else!"

The bus slowed to a stop and let off a passenger; a blonde girl who hugged Parthney on her way off. She told him, "Good night, George!" She turned back to blow him a kiss off of her hand as she stepped out of the bus.

After the blonde turned and waved to Parthney, the other girl who had been playing footsies with Parthney complained, "Ignore Mary. She's such an immature freshman."

Parthney had no idea what a 'freshman' was. He replied to the older girl's question, "I like the mountains of California, but I would not be happy living in a large city..., ah..."

Betty told Parthney the girl's name: Her name is Tatum.

Parthney said, "Tatum."

Tatum said, "George, you know I like it when you call me Tay."

Parthney grinned and said, "Oh-Tay."

Tatum giggled, "I never hear you pun before, George." She took back her letter and tucked it away. She undid the top two buttons of her blouse and said, "It really got warm today. I love heat. I can't wait for summer. And I can't wait until those clothing nanites become available. Just think, they could be programmed to just fade away whenever you start getting too warm." She fluttered her hand in front of her chest, pretending to fan herself, but actually she was trying to make Parthney look at her body.

Betty told Parthney: Stop undressing her with you eyes. She's just a little girl

Parthney objected: Little? Her breasts are just as cute as yours, Betty.

Parthney told Tatum a funny story about some malfunctioning clothing nanites he had seen on Hemmal (he didn't make the mistake of mentioning the name 'Hemmal' again). Part way through the story he began to describe the unique anatomy of the Buld, but Betty sent him another warning: Don't go there. Earthlings don't know anything about the Buld. Parthney cut the story short.

Tatum laughed at the story and said, "I suppose all new technologies have bugs, but I bet you could trick people by creatively programming the nanites to do weird things."

The bus slowed again and a group of three students came forward. One said to Parthney, "Good to have you back with us, Mr. Parthey."

The bus stopped and two students jumped off. The third said to Parthney, "Good night. See you tomorrow!"

Parthney said, "Don't count on me being here. I'm trying to get out of town for a vacation."

Tatum said, "Move along, Pamela, you are holding things up."

Pamela told Tatum, "Yes, Mrs. Kidwell." She waved to Parthney, turned and with a provocative swing of her hips slowly stepped off the bus.

The bus again moved off down the street. Parthney asked, "Did she just call you 'Mrs.'?

Tatum shrugged, "Yesterday, with you gone, I was in charge. When I start bossing the kids around they tease me by calling me Mrs. Kidwell. I don't mind. I'd love to become as accomplished and respected as mom."

Tatum prattled for the rest of the bus ride, talking about her plans for the future and the science courses she planed to enroll in when at Berkley. The very last stop on the bus route was at Tatum's house, a big colonial style house at the end of a long driveway. The bus slowed, turned off the street and passed a large mailbox with "Kidwell" painted on its side. When the bus stopped in front of her house, Tay undid her shoulder restraint, got up from her seat and threw Parthney's jacket over the camera lens that recorded events inside of the bus. She plopped down in Parthney's lap, put her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. When Parthney just sat there rather woodenly, Tatum pulled back, looked into his eyes and asked, "What's wrong, dear?"

Betty told Parthney: Send her in the house to her parents.

Parthney asked Tay, "You aren't worried that your mother will see you kissing me?"

Tatum giggled and replied, "Don't worry; Mom's a fan of yours, too. In fact, I think she really likes you. But my parents are out of town... at a conference in New Amsterdam. And I'm excited about getting a full scholarship. You and I should do something special to celebrate! I only applied to Berkley because you suggested that I do so. Now I'm very grateful for your good advice. Without it, I'd probably be freezing in Montreal for the next four years."

Parthney suggested, "Best you go, now." Tatum seemed not to hear his words and began nibbling on his ear lobe. Parthney said, "Tell me, Tay, did your parents ask you to behave like a responsible adult while they were away?"

Tatum rested her head on his shoulder and whispered in Parthney's ear, "When I'm with you I feel very adult. We have a special connection, George. I know you feel it too!"

Parthney took hold of her delicate waist with both of his large hands, lifted her off his lap and stood her on her feet. "I do feel attracted to you, Tay, but I drove you home and now you need to go... maybe you should celebrate by taking a cold shower."

Tatum pouted her lips and asked, "Why are you suddenly being mean? I thought you liked me! Have you forgotten your promise?"

Parthney sent a telepathic request for information to Betty: What promise?

Betty sent another message to Parthney: Get rid of her now or I'll come throw her off the bus. She's being silly.

Parthney replied to Tatum's question indirectly, "Please don't forget, Tay, I'm old enough to be your father. You really should be chasing boys who are your age." He got up out of his seat, grabbed her jacket and bag off her seat then pulled her by the hand off of the bus. Parthney led Tatum along the walkway towards the front door of her house. "I do like you, Tay, but I have important travel commitments in the near future and as much as we might like to, I really can't be exploring a relationship with you. If you are really going to grow up, then you have to finish high school and get yourself off to college, not be fooling around with an old man like me."

Tatum signaled her front door open and pulled Parthney inside. She put her arms around him and said, "Kings Canyon! That sounds wonderful! I could meet you there and we can share a vacation together." She locked her lips onto his once again.

They heard someone coming up the front steps to the door. It was Betty. Parthney pulled himself away from Tatum, caught his breath and said, "I have to go, Tay. Good night." Parthney nodded to Betty, stepped through the doorway and walked back to the bus.

Now close to Tatum, Betty looked at the girl's pretty and somewhat flushed face and was reminded of another Earthling named Abigail and events from the past when Betty had worked out of Parthey Mansion as the assistant of a past Interventionist agent known locally as William Parthey. Back then, Betty had a different identity and physical appearance and called herself Marie. In her various guises, Betty had known Tatum's family for almost a hundred years. Tatum was the grand-daughter of William Parthey and Betty knew that Tatum carried a large dose of alien genes inherited from William. Of course, at that time when William impregnated Tatum's grandmother (Abigail), the Thomas clone who had been code named 'Partheky' was on Earth, using the body of William. Partheky's infites had used their sophisticated genecrafting capabilities to make sure that Abigail's daughter, Lori, had a genome packed with some special Asterothrope genes.

Betty pushed away her old memories, put an arm around the girl's shoulders and asked, "Tell me Tay-tay, exactly what was it that George promised you... about the future?"

Tatum asked, "Did he tell you about that?" A dozen emotions flickered across Tatum's face and illuminated her sparkling eyes. Betty waited patiently and Tatum replied sheepishly, "He said that he'll try to find time to visit me after I get to Berkley."

Betty nodded. "I'm glad you remember that. All he said was that he would try. I'm sure you are clever enough to realize that he was just being polite in returning your affection. Really girl, you might be happiest if you just forget about George. Think about all the interesting people you will meet when you start college... and I mean young exciting people, not old geezers like George." Betty patted Tatum's shoulder, turned away and stepped outside.

Tatum said, "There was something different about George today... he looked more alive and he looked more at me. I got excited when mention his trip to California... I imagined that he might be making plans... giving me an invitation."

Betty turned back towards the girl and said, "Listen, Tay, George sometimes does not think, particularly when a pretty girl is smiling at him. You put him on the spot with your question about his vacation destination and he gave you an answer. Then it blew up in his face!" Betty reached out and took hold of Tatum's hand. "In my experience, love is like science: we all must try not to jump to unwarranted conclusions... the one you love might not be able to return your love... for all sorts of reasons. Okay? Now, here is the situation... George and I will be going out of town soon, on business. George's business... which you need not stick your pretty little nose into." Betty gently kissed the tip of Tatum's nose.

Tatum said, "You're spooky, Betty." She now looked at Betty with curiosity, wondering how she knew what had happened on the bus and why Betty had followed the bus to her house. Tatum asked, "What's up... do you spy on George all the time?"

Tatum nodded. "I'm his assistant and I watch out for George's interests. Let this be a lesson to you. Even Dr. Semina could have been listening in on your conversation with George. You were sitting right in front of the surveillance camera inside the bus while you flirted with him. Think, and take care."

Tatum hugged Betty. "Thanks for the advice." She waved to Parthney who was waiting near the bus. "Anyhow, I don't think I miss-read George when we were on the bus. He was sweating and undressing me with his eyes. I'd never seen him like that before."

Betty didn't have to patience to tell Tatum about Parthney's motion sickness. Betty looked into the house and wondered if one of Tatum's parents was nearby. She buttoned up the top two buttons of Tatum's shirt and said, "You have a beautiful body, Tay-tay, and you were doing your best to get George to look at you. If you are going to play with fire, be prepared to see a few men go up in flames."

Tatum giggled, "I was feeling rather proud of myself for getting him all hot and bothered."

Betty shook her head and said, "Say hello to your parents for me. Oh, and tell your mom that I might miss the next meeting of the Book Club. George and I may be out of town then."

Tatum said, "Okay, I'll let her know, but she won't be back in town for another couple of days," and added, "Sorry I made you jealous," and she closed the front door of her house.

Betty stared briefly at the closed door: Jealous? I'm not jealous! She turned and walked slowly down the walkway towards the bus. She asked herself: So what if Parthney is sweet like a puppy? That does not mean I'd fall in love with him his first day on Earth! She reached the bus and told Parthney, "We can let it return by itself to the Scientarium. We'll take the car home." She pulled her jacket off of the hood of the bus where she had placed it, covering the lens of the external television camera that was aimed towards Tatum's house. Parthney stepped into the bus and grabbed his jacket then he went to the car and climbed in. Betty sent the bus away and joined Parthney inside the car.

As the car drove them up the driveway and back to the street, Betty spoke quietly to Parthney, "Sorry I freaked out." A moment later she asked, "What did you think you were doing, going inside with her?"

Parthney shrugged, "Sorry I got carried away, but I thought you wanted me to explain things to the girl's parents." He chuckled and added, "Anyhow, I felt certain that she wanted me inside."

Betty gave a loud sigh. "Think, Parthney, think. This is Earth. You are here for a reason; you are on a mission. Don't mess things up by rushing inside the first woman who smiles at you."

"She did more than smile... Tay was aggressively flirting with me during the whole bus ride. And somehow, I felt like there was an instant connection between Tatum and I."

Betty nodded. "That is something you have to expect on Earth. Tatum has a big load of alien genes and almost certainly you two share a strong telepathic link via subconscious twitino-mediated telepathy. That could give the two of you an almost instantaneous rapport. That kind of connection is probably why Tatum became infatuated with George in the first place. With her genome, she'd feel an attraction to any Thomas clone."

Parthney reflected on his training at Oib with Syon. He ran a finger over his lips. "I was startled by her kisses... that was the first time I had a woman's tongue in my mouth. Now I understand why Syon warned me about the Earthly obsession with kissing. And now that I think about it, Syon did mention that human tongues are larger than Buld tongues."

Betty tried to explain, "Like the Prelands, the Buld were designed as a human subspecies that does not eat solid food, so the size of their tongue is reduced, making it almost impossible for a Buld to insert its tongue into someone else's mouth. Parthney, you'll learn that in this culture there are many reasons for people to kiss each other. Unlike on Hemmal, on Earth many kisses are innocent social gestures, not an invitation to slip into bed and start rubbing genitalia together."

Parthney shrugged, "Well, maybe I miss-read the signals from Tatum."

Betty suggested, "Don't take anything that Tatum does too seriously. For her it is a game."

Parthney asked quietly, "Game?"

Betty nodded. "The alpha female game."

Parthney had never heard the term "alpha female". He asked, "What is that?"

Betty explained more, "Tatum was the oldest girl on the bus and the one assigned by Dr. Semina to be the bus monitor. So she sat in the front passenger seat, right behind you, and played the game."

"I still don't know what you mean by 'game'."

"As the oldest girl there, Tatum was trying to make sure that you talked to her and that she monopolized your time and attentions. She has played this game with George for the past six months. She would have lost face if you had paid attention to one of the younger girls."

Parthney observed, "That's a silly game."

"Yes, it is, but it is deeply ingrained into Western civilization. It goes back at least to the Etruscans, thousands of years ago. Society here in Vermont, and New England as a whole, is particularly matriarchal and little girls like Tatum are supposed to show off their skill for captivating men and getting them to do anything that she asks them to do."

Parthney asked, "She was just acting? Playing a role in a game?" He thought back to his own acting roles on Hemmal, playing parts in the classical epics. Parthney said, "I'm sure things are different on Earth than they are on Hemmal, but it sure seemed like she was ready to-"

Betty interrupted him. "Even if she was, that does not mean that you..." Betty paused and tried to think of something she could say that would be meaningful to Parthney. "I know you grew up on a world where the Buld freely share their bodies and live to have fun, but you are not here on Earth to have fun and boink every hot little tater tot who rubs tongues with you. Little girls think they are being adult and sophisticated when they sneak their tongue into someone's mouth. Usually they are content to practice that on each-other, but Tatum is technically an adult within this society and she's in a hurry to grow up even more. She's caught in the awkward period of transitioning out of her parent's home into her adult life living on her own. It does not help that she's had a crush on George for years."

Parthney asked, "Boink?"

Betty made a fist and hit Parthney on the head. "Boink. You don't need to hit on every girl who flirts with you."

Parthney grinned. "Syon told me many stories about Earth. She warned me that Earth women get jealous. Don't be jealous, Betty."

Betty crossed her arms and laughed. She said, "First of all, Parthney, I'm not an Earthling. Second, I'm not a woman."

Parthney said, "I understand that you are not a biological creature... you're artificial, just like Syon."

"I'm not exactly like Syon. Remember, she was born... she lived for hundreds of years as a woman before her mind was shifted into an artificial body. I was manufactured; I'm a device, a machine... I only pretend to be human."

"I call 'em the way I see 'em." Parthney offered his considered opinion, "Your body may be artificial, but I still think you got jealous."

"I'm not jealous. I don't care if you and Tatum were..." She paused. "Look, Parthney, I suppose I have long been jealous of the fact that George took seriously his duty to spread useful new gene combinations into the gene pool of this world. Anyhow, that wasn't unique to George. All of your clone brothers have seemed to delight in screwing Earth women during their time on this world."

"Well, then what's the problem?" Parthney wondered what it was like for Betty to be equipped with a telepathic link into the minds of all the agents that she worked with, allowing her -no, forcing her- to watch every time that they flirted with an Earth woman. But wasn't she programmed to do that? Hadn't Betty been living through that sort of thing for thousands of years? Parthney remembered the infites that Betty was to have received from Syon. He asked, "Did Syon send you a personal message, did she promise you that you'd be the first Earthling who I boink?"

Betty giggled. "Don't be ridiculous, Parthney. I'm sure you long ago taught Syon that she can't control where you stick your penis. That's what she tried to warn me about: that you enjoy sex and don't restrain yourself from playing love games with any woman who smiles at you."

Parthney nodded, "Well, I grew up on Hemmal, where erotic play is even taught to kids in school. Here, on Earth, the school kids learn math and science and it is not surprising that they boil over with sexual desires." He thought for a moment about Tatum's aggressiveness. He looked into Betty's eyes and speculated about the size of her tongue. "So, Betty... I suppose you've been boinking George Parthey for years. Does that make you too good for Parthney?"

"You're being silly. This has nothing to do with who boinks who or in what order. If this is confusing you then get it over with and boink me right now."

Parthney laughed. "I'd be happy to!" He reached out and started unbuttoning her blouse. Then he stopped. "But don't you think we'd be more comfortable back at Parthey Mansion, in that big soft bed?" He looked out the window into the gathering darkness of evening. "Let's eat first. I'm ready for dinner."

Betty laughed. "Syon warned me that all you care about is food, sex and music."

Parthney observed, "As far as I can tell, many Earthlings are not any different. Several of the kids on the bus were flirting with me, not just Tatum. It seemed like there was a party atmosphere on the bus. Although, I can't begin to understand the music here, I think it even effected my mood. Somehow, the kids on the bus seemed to enjoy the music... maybe a little too much."

Betty explained, "Literature, painting, music... many aspects of Western culture have been systematically sexualized for centuries. Girls on Earth, well, at least in Western society, are taught to be assertive. If they like a guy, they tell him. If the guy smiles back, then the flirting begins. That can go on for years before things get very serious and they become lovers. As I told you, it is a social game. Don't interpret an Earth-girl's flirtation as an invitation to sex."

For a minute Parthney watched the colored sky of his first Earthly sunset, comparing it to sunsets on his home world of Hemmal. He asked Betty, "Why can't I talk about worlds like Hemmal? It is my understanding that some writers on Earth have started publishing books about how aliens have guided human evolution and the development of human society."

Betty giggled. "Sadly, most of those books about aliens have been laughed at and treated as if they were science fiction stories. Almost all Earthlings only care about the Fru'wu, for the very good reason that it is the Fru'wu who are openly here on Earth. Most Earthlings have never heard of Hemmal and other aliens such as the pek and Nereids. If you tell people here in Vermont about Hemmal then it is likely that only listening Observers and the Overseers would be interested and take you seriously. Believe me, you don't want to put yourself in the position of explaining to an Overseer why you know so much about Hemmal."

Parthney asked, "Did you hear that song the kids were singing? About the Fru'wu?"

Betty nodded, "There is now a special program for taking Earthlings to Reahand, the Fru'wu home planet. Millions of kids have applied for the program. Only a few are selected to go; there just is not much room for passengers an the Fru'wu spaceships."

Parthney recalled his own unease at the prospect of leaving Hemmal. "It seems odd that so many would want to go. To leave their homes on Earth. Are they not happy at home?"

Betty replied. "It is the happy, well educated and confident kids who want to visit Reahand. The science fiction genre has done a great job of depicting space travel as an exciting adventure." Betty buttoned up her shirt. "That girl Keziah, the pretty one that lived with George in the Mansion for a time... she was selected to go to Reahand. She was an extremely talented science student, intrigued by alien technology. She wanted nothing more than to see the Fru'wu home world."

For the rest of the car ride home, they had enchanting glimpses of the red sunset through the trees. A half-moon was already in the sky. Betty activated the car's sound system and played some music by Nadine Young.

There's a full moon rising
Hear the star music playing
I've watched you from afar
I love you with all my heart

Betty said, "This is the good music, from two decades ago."

Parthney commented, "Yes, before the Fru'wu arrived. I like this music better than the new stuff."

While they rode home through the gathering darkness, Betty described one of the most popular science fiction movies and its fictionalized depictions of other worlds like Reahand.

Parthney asked, "Are Tatum's parents scientists? She mentioned that they are at a conference."

Betty replied, "They are neuroscientists." She performed a quick internet search and told Parthney, "The world Congress of Clinical Neuroscience is meeting in New Amsterdam this week." She searched through the list of speakers. "Tatum's mom is giving a talk tomorrow, the title is 'Cognitive Delay Syndrome: an Extreme Case'. She handed Parthney her D-ket display. "George, look at the listed authors on the abstract!"

Tatum and Dr. Semina.
Parthney saw that Dr. Lori Kidwell (apparently Tatum's mom) had been designated as the speaker who would present the team's data to an audience at the meeting and one of the listed co-authors was Thomas Iwedon. Parthney quickly read the abstract for 'Cognitive Delay Syndrome: an Extreme Case'. Parthney told Betty, "This is it! That case... it is a description of Hilde and her unusual brain and her delayed behavior developmental sequence. I bet both Hana and Thomas will be there at the conference to hear this talk tomorrow."

Betty added, "And we'll be there, too. We can drive to New Amsterdam in the morning." She said softly, "I've always wanted to meet Thomas." Betty realized that there had been a reason for Parthney to drive the bus. Betty sometimes wondered if she was a puppet, her nanite-powered mind linked into the sedronic domain and her behavior guided and controlled by unseen puppeteers. At many times during her artificial life, everything at the end of a complex sequence of seemingly random events seemed to suddenly fall into place, meshing together with perfection. Now, even Tatum's silly flirtation with Parthney seemed to have a purpose and appeared to be part of a plan.

Continue to Part 3 of "Earth: Day 1"


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