Chapter 1: What Am I?

It was a normal summons: Conference Room Four, naked except for Starbright. She is an albino cobra and she was wrapped around my torso and draped over my shoulder, her head beside my left ear. The conference room had already been set up when I arrived. Marc—the concubine assigned as an equipment tech to Ensign Williams’ Corsairs—dismissed two other concubines.

Conference Room Four is adjustable. What I mean is that the room can be different sizes and different shapes. No, I don’t know how that’s possible. Right now the room was dome shaped. I estimated that the room was about 30 meters in diameter—or 100 feet if you will. The ceiling’s apex was about 15 meters or 50 feet. Yes, there was that “wasted space” around the walls where I’d bump my head, but subtle cues helped me avoid that. The entryway was a transportation pad set in the wall and the silvery half-disk was at an odd, curved angle—but I didn’t let that bother me.

Tess entered next, followed by Georgia and Mary. And then Governor Lilith arrived. When Colonel Johnny Dorman arrived, that made seven of us and Starbright—and the AI, of course. Dorman made for the coffee replicator and drew his Number 9 brew in a steaming half-liter mug. Black, no sugar. Strong. Comfort.

“Take your places,” Lilith directed. The conference table was round and there were seven well-stuffed captain’s chairs surrounding it. Lilith took one. She pointed to the chair on her left and then to me—I perched myself on the edge of the chair so that I didn’t squash Starbright. Mary was to Lilith’s right, and Georgia was to Mary’s right. Marc sat on my left and to his left was Tess. Between Tess and Georgia was Johnny Dorman. He was in uniform—the only one wearing clothes if you didn’t count my wearing Starbright. Dorman was also the only one with refreshments despite the laden Kraft table a few steps from the round table. “The first meeting of the Qua will commence.”

“Qua?” Dorman asked.

“This is an action and planning committee,” Georgia said. “As you know, we aren’t all that we appear to be here on Arc Dios. Lilith is a goddess. It gets more complicated after that.”

“I suppose that the damned snake is a deity, too!” Dorman huffed.

“Were you aware of Tom’s autism?” Lilith asked.

Autism? Me?

“I knew there was something wrong with him,” Dorman snorted. “Wait a minute—what’s the conk doing here?”

“Marc is no longer a concubine,” Mary announced. “Sergeant Shepard is the Fleet Auxiliary representative. You, Johnny, are the Central Command representative. Tess is the Civil Service Representative. Georgia is our DECO representative. I’m the captain of the Arc Dios. Lilith is our colonial governor and of course she IS a goddess. Poor Tom here is our battle captain.”

“Battle captain?” Dorman sneered. “What sort of shit is that?”

“When Arc Dios enters space combat,” Mary explained, “Tom will join with Arc Dios and control the ship as if it were his body. He’s been training to do that. When Tom becomes Arc Dios, he becomes the most powerful combat ship in the fleet.”

“Only an autistic human could do that,” Lilith continued the lecture. “Autism is the normal human state. Autistic people are hyper-aware. That’s a good thing in the wild but a bad thing when autistic humans have to live in cities. Most humans—you would call yourselves ‘normal, ‘ Johnny—ignore most of the environmental cues bombarding your senses. You can’t even remember these cues. You might as well be asleep, and that is what it takes to survive in a civilized world—you have to be numb or you’d go crazy. Most humans are autistic but learn to ignore. The acute cases cannot ignore sensory saturation. Some even remember their dreams. That’s the bad. What you find boring is overstimulating to an autistic.

“The good,” Lilith beamed at me, “is that autistic people are aware. They see things you cannot. They are always aware of their environment. Tom-cat can focus his attention and that is why he can function in human society—that and he’s also far more intelligent than the rest of humanity. It’s also why he can interact with animals. All animals send signals, but civilized humans don’t receive those signals and therefore fail to respond when other species send inquiry and friendship messages. You haven’t met any non-human Confederacy citizens so you don’t know that the human domination behavior scares them on a deep level. We won’t let Tom meet any non-human Confederacy citizens directly for a while, but his interaction with other non-human species will serve well when Tom gets to meet the other Confederacy races face-to-face. You thought Tom was psychic?”

“Psycho!” Dorman growled.

Starbright growled, too. Yes, some cobra species vocalize. I stroked the snake’s coils around my chest and she rubbed her head against my cheek as we comforted each other.

“The Qua meets to discuss upcoming projects,” Lilith said. “You have two important functions, Johnny. You are the designated pessimist. Your job is to ensure negative input.”

“Ma’am,” I interrupted, “won’t Colonel Dorman’s role as the wet blanket cause us to ignore him?”

Lilith laughed.

“You can focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else, Tom-cat,” Lilith lilted, “but you can’t ignore. Johnny will be good for us—good for you. Johnny doesn’t know it, but with Starbright wrapped around you, you’re not going to cause trouble. Starbright feeds off your emotional state. You are deliberately calming yourself and that keeps Starbright calm. Every meeting you’ll have one of the other species with you so that you focus on remaining calm, nonjudgmental and receptive.”

“Let’s get our roles straight,” Georgia stated. “This is a round table and here there is no rank. We’re all equal here. Assignments will be handed to us through the chain of command and this committee will interpret and carry out our orders. Normal staffs have G-3 for operations—that’s Mary’s job. G-2 Intel is my job. Johnny is our G-2 security guy. G-4 is Marc, and you’re staying just an E-5 sergeant outside of this committee until you’ve trained your replacement concubines. Tess is G-1 personnel.”

“If you’ve run out of fingers, that leaves Tomcat and myself,” Lilith added. “I want Tom to be the mission. That means he can’t take sides. Tom, you look into the orders and determine what must be done—you put the mission first. And I’ll run the meetings. Call me the secretary.