Chapter 3

An ice cold beer was just what I needed to shock my system back to life. I flipped through my notes, refreshing myself as to where we left off.

“You had just reached the part where you realized that you were all alone.”

“The first thing I did the next morning was to build a funeral pyre in a small clearing next to the house. I couldn’t just bury the bodies, suppose someone came looking for those people and they found three freshly dug graves. They would have discovered two things; one, they would have found Adam; I didn’t know how advanced your planet was medically, but I was pretty sure that they could have figured out that he was not human and two; someone had buried the bodies and they would have begun a search for that someone. I stood in front of that fire, mourning for Adam and cursing him for destroying our civilization’s last chance at starting over.” “I had spent much of the previous night listening to the recording that Adam had found, so I knew that the A.I. had discovered our plans. I knew that from that point on we would be systematically destroyed by the very machines that we had built. The other thing I did that night was to read over and over again the only book that I could find in the house; the Holy Bible.”

“Why did you do that?”

“If I was going to survive on this planet I knew I would have to be able to communicate. I had only been able to pick up a rudimentary understanding of the language from the mind of the man that I had killed. I needed to learn more, so I read and re-read the book until I had picked up a lot more of a vocabulary. I’m sure I must have sounded strange when I first began talking to others, but at least it was a start. It was also how I got my name and why I gave Adam his name. We were going to be the first of our species on this planet and from us would come all of our civilization. Just like the story of Adam and Eve.”

“That’s what I don’t understand, how were your scientists planning on creating a new civilization here with only twenty four individuals.”

“We were eighteen females and six males. It was the male’s primary function to keep each of the females pregnant. Remember we had all the time in the world. A female on our planet is fertile for over half of her life. They figured that on earth that would be four to five hundred years. Even allowing for carrying a fetus the normal way; an average female could become pregnant over five hundred times in her life time. Multiply that by eighteen and that gives you an idea as to how many children could be born just to the original landing party. Now imagine that on average at least half of those children would be female and that they each could have five hundred kids. Our population would grow geometrically and with our superior intellect and advanced technological knowledge we would soon be able to take over the earth either peaceably or, if necessary, by force.”

“What about inter-species relationships? Wouldn’t that contaminate your gene pool?”

“Although it is possible that a male of my species could impregnate a human female, you’ve already heard how that joining would most likely work out. As for the females, I’m afraid we have a different problem. You see the human sperm is very fragile; it can only survive in a specific range of pH. My specie’s pH is too acidic for your sperm to survive in; and if in the unlikelihood of one or more of those little guys making its way up to one of our eggs, our scientists said there’s almost no chance that it could penetrate its outer shell. I’m living proof that their theory is correct, I’ve been here for hundreds of years and have been sexually active that entire time and I’ve never gotten pregnant.”

“Ok, so you can’t get pregnant. What did you do next?”

“I took whatever clothes and supplies I could carry and began walking. Luckily I chose the correct direction because after several days I came to a large river. Assuming that it would lead eventually to a port city, I followed it downstream. After several weeks I was standing on a cliff overlooking what I would later find out was the city of New York. It was 1762, the city was made up of mostly immigrants from England, but there were also many black slaves and other nationalities all trying to make a living. Most were farmers or merchants. I took up the oldest profession. I became a prostitute. It was what I was bred for; to have and enjoy sex; what better way to make a living.”

“What was it like in New York at that time?”

“When I first got there, I thought it was a dump. It was dirty and smelly. Most of the streets were just dirt roads. It was crowded and noisy. Remember I came from an ultra-advanced society, everything was modern and clean; and when things started getting old they tore them down and built anew. It took a lot of getting used to, but I finally was able to make lower Manhattan my home. The house I worked for was situated above a tavern at the corner of Pearl and Broad Streets. When I first started, the clientele was often drunk and rowdy; but over time the Madame was able to weed out the undesirables and soon we were one of the best whore houses in the city.”

“Weren’t you afraid of getting arrested?”

“No, of course not; we always took extra good care of the New York’s Finest. A blow job or a quickie was all it took to keep the police away. Besides the last thing they wanted to do was raid our place. They never knew who they might find. Occasionally we would have to get the police because a customer was causing trouble. “I had one really bad problem about two years after I started. I was entertaining an English sailor. He was a big guy, even bigger than me. We were having a good time. I was on my back and he was kneeling between my legs, really sticking it to me, when suddenly he starts slapping me and calling me all sorts of vulgar names. I tried to calm him down but when he tried to punch me I had had enough. I caught his right fist in my hand and began squeezing. The look on his face was priceless as the bones in his hand began to break. He must have been a really tough guy because instead of backing down he hit me with his left. It was only a glancing blow but it got me angry and I responded by hitting him with my free right fist. I’m afraid I hit him a lot harder than I would have liked because his head spun sharply to the side and hung at a weird angle.