Human by Choice Read online

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  Human by Choice

  by Darrell Bain, Travis S. Taylor

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  Science Fiction/Suspense/Thriller

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  Twilight Times Books

  www.twilighttimes.com

  Copyright ©

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  Human by Choice

  Dedication

  PROLOG

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Darrell Bain

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  Human by Choice

  By

  Travis S. Taylor, Ph.D., and Darrell Bain

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  Human by Choice

  This is a work of fiction. All concepts, characters and events portrayed in this book are used fictitiously and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 Travis S. Taylor and Darrell Bain

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without written permission of the publisher and the copyright owner.

  Twilight Times Books

  POB 3340

  Kingsport TN 37664

  twilighttimesbooks.com/

  Credits

  Managing Editor—Ardy M. Scott

  Publisher: Lida E. Quillen

  Cover design by Kurt Ozinga

  Photo credit NASA: Hubble V838. Public Domain Material.

  Electronically published in the United States of America.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

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  Dedication

  To all the science fiction writers, past and present,

  who helped us dream.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

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  PROLOG

  The vagaries of chance could have gone for another billion years before such an occurrence happened again, indeed if it ever did. The Cresperian species were cautious in thought, and deliberate in handling the huge exploration ship. They were almost always alert to even the slightest changes in the timeless unreality encapsulating their ship while traversing untold distances at many times the speed of light. Had a rare, almost unheard-of controversy not been taking place that captured the perceptive senses of the two senior navigators at the time, all would have been well. Unfortunately, a long, tenacious debate among differing groups of explorers became extremely interesting at just the wrong moment. Both navigators were using their perception to follow it, amused at how even merging perceptions of the pro and con and status quo contingents could still come to no agreement.

  A tiny spark of contained plasma leaped a gap from one instrument to another, warning of an approaching reality region in the path of the present dimensionless, timeless containment enclosing the ship, a reality where none should have been possible. It was such a rare phenomenon that for long, uncaptured seconds the navigators let it go unnoticed while they followed the debate in another part of the ship. By the time they realized how derelict they had been in their duty, it was too late. They knew such an event was theoretically possible but not in their wildest waking dreams had they ever thought to encounter one.

  The ship shuddered as the navigators frantically caused it to reach out with tentacles of the space-time harnessed in its bowels, trying to deflect the piece of reality and sideslip into a dimension where they might possibly save the ship. It was too late. Reality tore at the fabric of controlled nothingness and began ripping it apart, exposing the body of matter necessary for life itself.

  A silent scream of alarm penetrated the perception of every being aboard, warning of imminent disaster. Another, greater convulsion shook the ship as the navigators made a valiant effort to change their direction toward the only possible salvation, whatever planet might be near enough to support life, for they already knew the ship was beyond saving. Their very lives were forfeit as they remained in place while the rest of the crew scrambled for emergency escape pods. Some made it to the dubious safety of the lifeboats before the last rumbling spasm tore through the ship, breaking it into pieces against the sudden barrier of reality. Most couldn't find a lifeboat in time and the navigators didn't even make an attempt, holding true to their profession as they sacrificed their lives in a desperate attempt to save some of the others.

  A dozen small craft of the hundreds that emerged from the wreckage were still intact and escaped the explosions, collisions and punctures that doomed the other lifeboats. Two of this dozen failed to reach the green and blue and brown globe of the planet where they might possibly survive, and at least one more broke up upon entering the atmosphere. Some of them were scattered across the star system, due to the uncertain nature of the unreality drives. The hibernation systems might function for a while, keeping the crews alive, but it was unlikely that another ship would pass that way before the systems finally failed. It would be unlikely that those craft stranded orbiting the yellow star or crashing into the more harsh planets of the system would survive. Very unlikely.

  Of those which reached the earth, some contained only one passenger and none held more than three. Even then, one more ran into a problem which might have killed its inhabitant had it not been for where it came to rest, just before its pilot slipped into a non-perceptive state from the hard impact of landing. A crucial component damaged during the breakup of the mother ship failed while the boat was still fifty feet in the air. The small lifeboat careened through the canopy of the tall slender green vegetation of the planet with thunderous claps of sound. Systems within the craft continued to fail as the extreme impact forces of reality relentlessly pounded on it until it slammed into the surface. The occupant was more than dazed by the impact, and the reality-unreality generators still tore at each other and at the very fabric of spacetime on the outside of the lifeboat. Finally, the reality generator failed, causing a collapsing rift into unreality. The ship slowly began to disintegrate into the nothingness of the void.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

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  Chapter One

  What the hell was that? I looked up from my book, out the window and across the pine thicket in the direction of the loud thud and then reached over to the end table, gripping my glass of iced tea carefully. The condensation on the glass drooled down, forming a pool in a perfect ring at the base of the cup. I took a couple swigs of the cool drink, careful not to let it drip on the pag
e, before setting my book down and rising from my chair. Might as well go see, I thought. I winced from the old battle wounds as I stood up. Anyone watching would think I was an old man instead of in my thirties.

  My first notion was that a rather large limb must have fallen off one of the tall pines in the thicket surrounding the small home, up in the mountains of northern Arkansas, I had bought a few weeks earlier. Some of the trees were huge and the older ones often had dead limbs on them thicker than my thigh, and sticking out like some ghastly appendage. They dropped every now and then and caused quite a ruckus when they did. I'd made a point to keep my things out from under the trees that had them, but sometimes the wind would toss them into the most inopportune directions.

  “The book wasn't that captivating, anyway,” I half-heartedly hmmphed, and frowned. Come to think of it, the noise had sounded peculiar. I hoped it hadn't hit the Hummer. Or worse, the hybrid car. It was flimsier.

  I went to the door and opened it, then peered through the screen where a nice breeze chilled the light sheen of sweat on my face. Time to close the doors and windows and turn on the air conditioning, but first I wanted to see what had fallen. I frowned when nothing appeared out of the ordinary from where I stood. I opened the screen door and stepped outside. I walked a few feet forward and then noticed several limbs that had been thrown asunder from high up in the pine tree canopy. There was a gouge through it that tracked at a slight angle downward to the ground. Then, I saw it.

  A shimmering light blue egg-shaped apparition a dozen feet long lay before me in a short furrow a couple feet deep in the pine straw covered earth just beyond the old Hummer. The egg glimmered faintly with a red glow near its point and I could feel heat washing over my face as the glow quickly faded. For a moment I stood frozen, with only my mind moving, but it was racing like a jet on afterburner. The thing resembled nothing I'd ever seen. At first I thought it must be an errant weather balloon, then I reexamined the upturned earth where it hit. No balloon was that heavy or that hard! Was it some kind of amateur built aircraft? But that didn't match any of my preconceptions, either. All I could come up with was that the light blue color suggested it must be one of those government drones so prevalent now, perhaps an experimental type.

  “You must've been booking to have heated up like that,” I said to nobody in particular. “I didn't know we had hypersonic drones.” But even as I formed that thought, the thing began dissolving right before my eyes the way Styrofoam does when you pour acetone on it, or more like ice melting when doused with hot water.

  I thought it was just becoming transparent at first, perhaps part of a stealthy design, until I looked closer and saw that the material was disintegrating into smaller and smaller fragments until they were tiny enough to be blown away by the breeze. I watched the course of a portion of them and saw even those bits fade into nothingness, as if the material was breaking into even smaller bits, down to its constituent molecules and atoms.

  “So much for the drone hypothesis,” I mumbled to myself, scratching my head as the shell continued to fade and the interior was revealed, looking like nothing so much as the pilot's compartment of an aircraft. And then ... “Holy shit!”

  There was someone inside, wrapped in a translucent cocoon that crumbled into nothingness even as I stood there like a dummy, trying to make sense of what was happening. That lasted only the few seconds it took for the last tiny bits of the cocoon to blow away on the breeze. What I saw then finally impelled me into action, for the being inside the still-disintegrating shell of its craft resembled nothing human. Well, it was vaguely humanoid, if four upper appendages and an upper portion that was more like a rounded pyramid attached to the body than a head and neck were taken into account. I don't remember feeling any fear. I was still too stunned to feel much of anything other than an overwhelming sense of unreality, like an extraordinarily vivid dream. My first really coherent thought was concern for the being once I saw it was in trouble. Its two lower appendages disappeared into a crumbled tangle of unfamiliar, varicolored material, where that end of the egg shell shape had impacted the earth. The being trembled, then twitched, as if attempting to free itself. Anyone with a lick of sense could see that the thing was hurt and needed help. I stepped forward, then climbed over two featureless suitcase-sized bundles that had remained after the shell disappeared. As I passed the upper portion of the being I glanced down and took in the wide, bifurcated mouth set in a lumpy sort of face with two very large round green eyes. A thin vertical line bisected each of them. Even as I looked, a nictitating kind of membrane slowly descended over the eyes. Was it dying? I had no way of telling. I continued on to where I could get a closer look at where its feet were caught in a tangle of thick fibers and crushed portions of the shell. I bent down, but for some reason hesitated. The shell had completely vanished all the way to the end and now the wreckage was beginning to crumble and blow away, including where the fibers disappeared into the bowels of the morass. I decided to wait until it was all gone, then I should be able to either lift or drag the being into the house and see what I could do for it there.

  I jerked upright as a cry issued from the alien. That's right, alien, I told myself. What the hell else could it have been? It would have been plain enough in any language that it was making a sound of distress, and a second later I saw why. The thick fibers holding the lower part of its feet, or what served as feet, were dissolving and taking them with it in the process! A portion of one leg was already partially gone. I could see that the other would follow it in seconds if I didn't do something. I backed up, then reached down and grabbed two of its upper appendages and jerked forcefully once, twice, then gave a harder pull. It came free of the wreckage. I drug the creature farther away, then watched as the last of what had obviously been a spacecraft of some kind finished disintegrating and its particles wafted away like clouds of dust. All that remained were the two rectangular bundles, looking almost like luggage except for being featureless. I ignored them and stooped to get a better grip on the being, sliding my hands in under the two upper appendages and lifting. It was surprisingly light for its size, bigger than me, but slippery. At first I thought it had skin like a reptile but then saw it was more of a pelt, an exceedingly fine one, so sleek it felt almost like satin. I wondered vaguely why the thing wasn't bleeding from its injured legs. If it was built anything like us it should have been spurting blood, or whatever it used for blood, all over the place.

  Wonder about it later, I told myself, and then “Aren't you a freaky looking sucker?” I grinned crazily at the alien and realigned my handhold.

  “Ersquaaack.” The thing made a squawking sound, but who the hell knew if it was grunting at me, in pain, or just generally spitting some alien curse about getting itself into a pickle of a predicament.

  “Right, whatever you say pal. Just don't eat me or give me some form of alien pox that I can't get rid of. And this don't mean we're dating.” It's amazing some of the stupid things a person will say in a situation never encountered before. And I'm certainly no exception.

  Once I found that I could probably lift the creature into my arms, I did so, grunting a bit and ignoring the pain it caused in my bum hip. I carried it back to the house. One of its arms folded against my chest in the process, as if it were either boneless or broken. It dangled almost limp, like a wet spaghetti noodle.

  My first attempt at getting inside ended with a breeze slamming the screen door against one of the alien's damaged legs. I guessed they were legs. The thing eeked with a shrill noise that was most likely its way of calling me a dumbass.

  “Sorry.”

  I had to stop and prop the screen door open to maneuver my way inside. I took the creature over to the big couch and deposited it as gently as possible. Seeing it there gave me a better perspective on its size. My length fit the couch easily when I grabbed a quick nap on it, but I had to cant the alien's lower legs, what was left of them, off to the side. The membrane still covered its eyes and it still squawked in
low tones every now and then. I doubted if it was trying to talk; the noises it was making were probably involuntary, since its eyes were still closed. I scanned the length of its body more closely now that it was out of danger. Or was it?

  “Think I should call 911?” I asked it and shrugged. “I doubt they'd believe me if I did.”

  One end of a leg was still missing and a small portion of the other. Yet it was making a semblance of breathing, its middle portion moving in on each side then back out, an inch or so at a time.

  “Hmm, looks like you breathe our air.”

  It wore no clothing that I could see, though its four arms and waist were adorned with what looked to be metallic bands, the one about the waist wider than the others. They were a darker green than the pale lime color of its pelt, but like the bundles still outside, featureless. The damned things could've been anything from an alien doomsday explosive to a ray-gun to a Zippo cigarette lighter. There was just no way of knowing what the little featureless boxes were.

  Suddenly I felt a presence behind me, perhaps a movement of air that alerted my senses. I turned and saw both the rectangular blocks I had left outside floating toward me—or rather toward the alien; I was just in the way. I stepped hurriedly aside, while making a mental note that I had to find out how that was done!

  “Is that superpowers or tech?” I asked and continued to observe closely.

  One of the cases passed me and came to rest precariously on the end of the couch beside the alien's injured lower legs while the other settled gently to the floor. I slid the coffee table in under the overhanging part of the one on the couch just in case. Survival packs? Medical apparatus? I had no way of knowing and was fearful of prying into what I didn't understand. I waited to see what would happen next, while a million questions raced through my mind, none of them particularly original. For someone who gobbles up science fiction novels like rednecks going after free beer, you'd think I would've done something more than stand there like a statue, or at least thought of doing or saying something useful, but I didn't. I had done my part by pulling the thing from its dissolving ship. A moment later the pack on the couch divided along an invisible seam. The top half flipped back and separated, leaving two smaller, but still featureless rectangular cartons. From the one nearest the alien, a bulge appeared at one end. It grew into a tentacle that in turn grew a cluster of smaller tentacles at its terminal end. The part growing from the box stretched like taffy even as the little snake-like ends of it began exploring the body of the alien.