10: Unexpected Allies

She felt like a chess player who,
by the clever handling of his pieces,
sees the game taking the course intended.
Her eyes were bright and tender
with a smile as they glanced up into his;
and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.

Kate Chopin

Al opened the door of their quarters, motioning Captain Yitzl inside. “I’m glad you could join us. It’s nice getting to know people when they’re off-duty.”

“Yes, it’s something you don’t often get to do as a commanding officer of a ship in deep space. It’s not viewed as helpful allowing your junior officers to witness your personal failings. But in your case, you’re so ... unique, I couldn’t resist.”

“Trust us,” Betty said, leading him to a nearby seat, “we don’t bite.”

“Would you care for a drink?” Xi inquired, displaying a bottle of Tandorian alcohol they’d procured from Commander Lillslik before boarding.

“No, I’d better not. The initial days of a long voyage are typically problematic until everyone and everything settles into a predictable routine.”

“So how’s the trip so far?” Betty asked, as they settled into their seats.

“Well, the entire staff is continually amazed by your whole group. I don’t know whether all humans are this capable, but you’re certainly making a significant difference on this mission.”

“Trust me,” Xi offered, “it’s not all humans. We were forced to flee our home, as there were several organizations hunting us.”

Yitzl tilted his head, intrigued.

“It’s not as exciting as it sounds,” Al said. “Word spread about our increased capabilities due to what we now know were our Tandorian aids. Our government was intent on tracking us down and uncovering the technology behind it so they could use it for their own purposes.”

“Yes, such powerful tech can certainly upset the local balance of power. We’ve encountered that many times when we first established contact with new worlds—back when we were expanding our empire.”

“It put us in a delicate position, though,” Al continued. “Chased from our home, we had nowhere to go but Tandor, who weren’t terribly welcoming when we finally arrived.”

“It explains a lot: classical overcompensation.”

“Not really,” Betty countered. “Al has always been like that, and we’ve all adopted his attitudes about a number of things. Since we were all loners—aside from our bond-mates—we concentrated on our work, rather than social encounters. Al’s influence merely intensified our natural tendencies.”

“While on Tandor, we mostly focus on day to day survival,” Yitzl said. “That’s why the military is such an attraction. Not only do we get steady meals, but long trips from home removes us from the daily worries. Only, we never know quite what to expect when we return home—not that there’s anyone to return to, most times.”

“It sounds like we share more similarities than differences,” Al said.

“I suspect so, but they’re more the similarities of interstellar space travelers, who say goodbye to families, knowing they’ll be incredibly old by the time they return. But let’s get away from focusing on such negative memories. Tell me some of these pet theories you have concerning Tandor.”

“You may need that drink after all,” Xi suggested. “He tends to get talkative whenever the subject comes up.”

“It’s simple,” Al said, ignoring the teasing. “The Tandorian security concerns—especially their monitoring of every individual for treasonous thoughts—has produced a culture-wide malaise. Everyone is so preoccupied with not thinking the wrong thing they’ve essentially shut down and are afraid to entertain any new idea. They’re not about to suggest any new approaches to old problems. As a result, you’ve lost the ability to innovate.”

“Yeah, I’ll concede, it’s been some time since they’ve allowed us much choice in what we do, or which options we take. The high command assigns their own experts to strategic concerns. They’re afraid to trust anyone else with the information because of the fear the Zssizliq will uncover it before we can implement it.”

“Except, the very people assigned to think strategically were raised in the very culture which teaches them never to try new ideas. That means they keep trying different versions of the same techniques which have failed multiple times.”

“You ... mentioned something about ... breaking that cycle of fear?” Yitzl ventured, not comfortable with broaching the topic directly.

“Yeah, but it’ll take a long time to retrain everyone. Once you’ve learned to never take chances, your intellectual muscles atrophy.”

“We had some tremendous successes with some down and out types on Tandor.” Xi said, “They were making great strides, trying a lot of new things.”

“And there were no ... repercussions from such free-wheeling behaviors?”

“If you’re asking whether the authorities tried to arrest anyone, no,” Al stated. “Though they did bug our rooms, and pressured those we associated with to spy on us.”

“Yet they allowed you to continue.”

“Yeah, well, we have something they need. Not only do we consider new ideas, but we’re also not restricted by the traditional Tandorian constraints on our thoughts and actions.”

“And yet you seemed to have countered it with your ... associates.”

“We did. It seems our abilities aren’t limited to us, though we’re still learning our way around the variety of different species we’re encountering. We’re making headway, but it’s slow.”

“You speak of a couple months as being slow, while we measure progress made over hundreds of years. I’d say you’ve made some significant advances.”

“You say that without knowing whether we’ve actually accomplished anything,” Betty countered.

“You were allowed to continue with your actions, and your ‘friends’ with theirs. As you noted, that’s exceptional in our culture.”

“Not really,” Al said, leaning back. “The authorities have granted us great latitude, but our associates never gave them reason to worry. Although their actions were sometimes ... odd, they never crossed any forbidden lines.”

“Given what we’re discussing, I find that ... difficult to reconcile.”

“Go ahead and ask what you came for,” Al suggested.

“Can you ... protect me from the risk of these types of discussions?” he asked. “I mean, it wouldn’t help anyone if everyone you talked to was arrested, while you’re still allowed to do whatever you want.”

“Connect the dots, Commander. Go ahead and ask what you’re looking for.”

Yitzl swallowed with some difficulty. “Can you protect me from entertaining concepts which might get me jailed, or killed?”

“We can’t protect you from thinking for yourself, as that’s what we’re trying to promote, but we can prevent the Tandorian authorities from learning what you’re contemplating. Your thoughts can be yours, until you’re willing to try them out in the field, where hopefully you’ll achieve successes which will grant you the same leeway we’ve received.”

Yitzl paused, considering the three humans. “And what do you expect in return for such ... largesse?”

Al waved his hand dismissively. “Nothing at all. In fact, it’s already done. You don’t think we’d broach the subject if it would put you at risk, do you?”

Yitzl leaned forward, his multiple eyes opening wide. “When? How could you ... it doesn’t take a ... procedure of some kind?”

“Nah, we’ve gotten fairly adept at it.”

“You did it on the deck, while directing the ship’s flight?”

“No, we’re not that skilled, though we did do it once you entered our quarters. If anything, the authorities know we’re venturing some audacious ideas, but when it doesn’t produce any troublesome behavior, they’re unlikely to complain.”

“What about when they examine my aids? Wouldn’t there be a record of specific thoughts?”

“Nope. We shut off only that aspect of your aids. Keep in mind, though, if you actively begin trying to start a rebellion, you will get in trouble. But you’re now free to entertain new ideas without fear of where those thoughts might lead.”

Yitzl was silent, and then glanced up, his eyes bright, though his brows were knotted and his eyes squinting. “I must say, just that little extra freedom is ... invigorating. I’m ... considering options I’ve never allowed myself to entertain before.”

“That’s part of the creative process, and why extreme security measures rarely produce added security. Instead, they lead to dissatisfaction, poor performance, and outright anger which erupt at the worst times.”

“Trust me, I understand. We’ve lost many battles when individuals decided they have nothing left to lose, and sacrifice their entire crew rather than return home and face a tribunal.”

“Exactly. Why would anyone try anything new with those threats hanging over their heads? Because we didn’t fall into the typical pattern, and seem immune to the Inquisitors mind-reading capabilities, they gave us the leeway to try our own ideas in the hopes it would produce successes. That faith has paid off in spades, as there’s now an underclass of Tandorian officials excelling at any number of actions. They’ll notice the results—and the lack of any dangerous alerts—and they’ll continue rewarding the results, if not the thoughts which produce them.”

“How many people have you done this for on this ship? How many individuals can I ... trust?”

“Not many yet. We’re still learning who to entrust these freedoms to. We’re not sure who even has the potential to think creatively. But, for those who do, it’s like breaking a dam holding back a mighty stream-fed lake. The pressure, once released, can produce a torrent, which washes away barriers and obstructions. Soon, you’ll notice a multitude of people offering radical suggestions.”

“So I can’t trust anyone, aside from you humans?”

“Take it slow. This kind of freedom takes time to adjust to. You don’t want to do anything too quickly when you’re still unsure of the process. Do like we have. Don’t say too much, just watch people whenever you suggest something new. Start off with something subtle and see who’s receptive. When they respond positively—thinking more creatively rather than trying to entrap you—then trust them with more.”

“But before you decide to trust anyone entirely, make sure you talk to us, first,” Betty suggested.

“Ah, you came,” Mryzzl said, opening her door wide and motioning them in. As Al and the others strolled in, they realized the ‘party’ was bigger than they’d anticipated. If these war-widows led restricted lives, they certainly had a large area for parties. This wasn’t a private quarters, it was a sizable communal space, packing with a wide variety of different creatures. The humans entered, and the widows swarmed around them, everyone edging near to hear what they might say. “Sorry for the crowd, but once word spread, we couldn’t really refuse anyone. We had to book this lecture hall, but we made it a little more ‘homey’ so it wouldn’t feel so formal.”

“Well, I’m not sure we have much of a presentation,” Al said. “All we have is our individual experience with adopting a single person into our pair-bond. There’s really nothing more to present than that.”

“Believe me, that’s more than anyone else has accomplished across the millennia the Empire has been in existence. There are reports, dating back many hundreds of years, of various influential people trying to bond with someone beside their bond-mate, but there aren’t any reports of their succeeding.”

“I hate to ask, but why hasn’t anyone rejected the whole pair-bonding process if it’s so difficult to counter?” Xi asked. “If the practice isn’t working for so many, then why not abandon or at least refine it. We come from a culture where no one pair-bonds. Everyone finds their mates by trial and error, searching for someone close to their nature and accepting whoever best fits. It’s worked fine for millions of years.”

“Alas, the benefits are too positive to ignore,” Mryzzl said, leading them in so they had more space and more people could hear. “It takes the guesswork out of it, and the matches are undeniable.”

“That may be, but we adopted Xi because she lost her bond-mate before they ever met. For all we know, he never made it past infancy. In cases like that, and like yours, the problems clearly outweigh the benefits.”

“Those are real concerns, as we can all attest, but there’s never been a large enough, or widely organized, protest over it. Knowing you can’t bond with anyone else prevents most from trying, so they put it out of mind and get on with their lives. Even in our case, where we’re largely shunted aside by those still with their bond-mates, it’s easier continuing on without, since the idea of finding someone as ideal is so remote.”

“But it seems like an artificial comparison. We’re not talking about natural feelings for someone, we’re discussing machinery manipulating our emotional response by the selective release of endorphins. In our case, Xi was an ideal fit, despite the lack of those external triggers.”

“Pardon me, but what are these ‘endorphins’ you mention?”

“Sorry,” Al explained, “those are the chemicals human bodies release into our bloodstream to get our blood pumping when we’re doing something we enjoy. It’s how our aids manipulate us into accepting our pre-chosen bond-mates. Only in our case, they were selected from an extremely small group of candidates, no more than a dozen at the most, so the matches seem completely arbitrary, at best.”

Everyone’s faces fell at the news, though the widely disparate expressions were too complex for them to identify.

“How can they possibly find the ideal mate from so few candidates?”

“Simple, through chemical manipulation,” Betty stated. “Instead of finding the best candidate, they artificially manipulated our personalities so we’d match, making us less than human in the process. All it did is make us feel like outsiders in our own culture, rather than bringing us any peace of mind. Even when we found our bond-mates, we still felt like strangers—united with each other, but alone among millions of people who couldn’t relate to what we felt.”

“I don’t understand, how can your aids find your ideal mates if they had so few to choose from? In our case, we have thousands of different worlds, each with billions of potential candidates. True, most matches are with our own kind, but that’s merely to ensure we’re sexually compatible.”

“This looks like it’s going to be a prolonged discussion, before we even get to our own experiences wrestling with the issue. Let me introduce ourselves first.” Al turned to Betty and Xi, introducing them to everyone. Unfortunately, with several dozen unbounded individuals, the others in the room couldn’t easily introduce themselves.

“A little background would help here,” Betty said. “A lost Tandorian ship landed on our planet, extensively damaged. They managed to find a few humans to learn the local languages from, and began learning about Earth cultures. They then set out to pick enough of us to build a minimal crew, and by crew, I mean one consisting of only thirteen crewmen.” Once again, there was a collective gasp—expressed through a variety of sounds and expressions. “The limiting factor is it took over a hundred of our years for them to select one which survived to adulthood, and they only had a limited supply of aids.”

“Technically,” Al interrupted, mansplaining the details, “they could easily produce the aids, the limitation was the lack of quantum entanglements.”

“The point is,” Betty insisted, “that the same factors are at play within Tandorian culture. Instead of selecting the perfect mates for everyone, your aids manipulate you into desiring who they select, rather than picking the ideal partner based on your personalities, your strengths, needs and experiences. Since your mates are chosen before your personalities have developed, the aids mold your personalities to fit your selected match. Your bonds aren’t as precise as you like to believe.

“In essence, your aids have only created a legion of automatons. You never searched for new mates, because your aids forced you not to care about no longer having one.”

“Believe me, we cared. It’s just that it’s difficult finding anyone who matches your bondmate.”

“So that’s why your people developed the ability to turn off your aids?”

“No,” Al hedged, not ready to dive into a risky discussion among such a large group of unknown individuals. “Those abilities are common to humans as a whole, it wasn’t programmed into us. It’s innate in our genetic composition.”

“Okay, it’s clear we’re getting sidetracked here,” Mryzzl said, hoping to avoid discussing Tandorian cultural faults. “In your case, how did you manage to pair-bond with someone else, when you had your mate by your side the entire time? Did you completely disable your aids—which is something we’re not capable of—or were there techniques you used the rest of us might be able to incorporate in our own lives?”

“First,” Betty started, “we never assumed it would be easy. We knew it would be difficult. But we envisioned what it would be like if we lost our partner. When you first find your bond-mate—especially if you face losing them—it’s easy to relate to someone who already has, so you work hard to include them.”

“A quick technical detail here,” Al interjected. “While the pair-bonding makes you not want to find anyone, the aids behind it also ease the process. As long as the new person in the relationship feels equally strongly for both parties, it’s easy to translate the feelings for the primary partners to the new alternate relationship. It becomes ‘a friend of my friend is my friend too’. Or in this case, ‘the new lover of my lover loves me too’.”

“Or, more precisely,” Xi clarified. “The girlfriend of my spouse is my spouse, too.”

“What’s more,” Al continued along the same track, “once you associate the one with the other, the aids take over, establishing a subordinate pair-bond.”

“It’s never quite as strong as the primary bond,” Betty warned.

“But you really don’t want it to be,” Xi insisted. “The primary pair-bond is the glue that holds the whole relationship together, so you use that glue to fasten a new partner onto the existing relationship.”

“You’re making it sound damn easy,” Bisectl said. “Yet no one has managed to accomplish it. At least no non-human has.”

“Again, that’s the effect of the aids in the original pair-bond,” Al added. “They convince you it’s not worth fighting, because you don’t want to diminish the original relationship.”

“But you push through the blockade for the benefit of the person without a pair-bond of their own,” Betty stressed. “You use the strength of the thing preventing you from trying, to convince you of just how essential it is that you continue.”

“And once you cross that threshold,” Xi concluded, “the combined pair-bonds which originally keep you from trying are what cement the relationship.”

Bisectl indicated the three for Mryzzl. “Do you notice how they fall into the same finishing-each-other’s-thoughts process that other pair-bonded mates do?”

Mryzzl nodded, grinning at them. “That’s convincing evidence the process works.”

“How long did it take for you to figure all this out?” someone else asked.

Al laughed. “It took a little while to get it to work, however we only figured it out while speaking with you now. Just as we naturally fall into the same speech patterns, our ideas seem to mesh with one another.”

“The benefit to that,” Xi clutched her two spouses, “is with three people pair-bonded, even if the pair-bonds aren’t equal, you merge three separate minds, generating more creative ideas.”

“You’re right, their ‘finishing each other’s thoughts’ is more pronounced than it is for most bonded pairs.”

“I suspect our aids are actually communicating with each other,” Al continued. “They signal what the other is thinking, while their synapses link to their own memories, creating their own associations which you share with the others.”

Mryzzl grinned, elbowing Bisectl. “It’s fascinating watching it unfold. It seems like a seamless process. It brings to mind our own pair-bondings of years ago, but as you say, the intellectual leaps it allows you to make seem stronger.”

“The key is you can’t allow the aids to dictate your actions. Instead, you need to direct them. Insist on what you consider a priority—in this case, helping someone in a similar strait—and if you stick to it, they’ll come around and work with, rather than against you.”

“We never would have considered such an approach,” someone else said, shaking their head.

“While that was fascinating,” Bisectl said, “it provokes another question: since you’ve mastered the process, have you considered trying it with someone else?”

The three humans paused, glancing at one another for several long moments. Seeing their hesitation, the others pounced, pushing the trio’s thoughts toward their interests.

“We’re not pressuring you to decide just to benefit us—though we’re all obviously interested,” Mryzzl emphasized. “But, if you did, it would have an incredible impact on everyone else on the ship. While the pair-bonded couples may not act on it, it might convince the un-bonded widows and widowers to try.”

“It would also help demonstrate to everyone else that it’s possible, so they won’t resist it as much,” Bisectl continued. “If they think their existing pair-bonds aren’t exclusive, they won’t sideline those without partners. That would allow us all to become much more productive members of both the crew and society.”

Al, Betty and Xi glanced at each other again, thoughts seemingly percolating between them. “It’s an ... intriguing idea,” Al said, “but we need to discuss it before we can commit.”

“We’ll also talk it over with the rest of our team and see whether they’re interested in opening their relationships like we’ve done,” Betty said.

“The important thing, though, is that it’s a tricky operation, even in the best of times,” Xi said. “There are compatibility issues, not just if we think the same things, but there are also the sexual compatibility between different species. I’m not sure we’d convince anyone if we added another human to our marriage. So the complications explode exponentially!”

“We’re only asking you to consider it,” Mryzzl said. “A single successful test case could substantially sway opinion, and make your relationships that much stronger by joining the thoughts and memories of another species with your own.”

“We’ll consider it, but this is going to take some consideration and a serious discussion. We’ll let you know our decision.”

“Just in case you decide to go through with it,” Mryzzl said, grinning like a banshee, “we’ll set up another meeting, as well as discussing the idea with the widowers, too.”

“We may have bitten off more than we intended,” Betty mumbled to her spouses.

“You agreed to what?” Theo demanded.

“We didn’t agree to anything,” Betty said, backing up slightly against the onslaught from the group. “We simply said we’d discuss it among ourselves.”

“You honestly think we’d trade in our partners?” Gary asked.

“We’re not asking you to give up on anyone, just as Betty and I never gave up on each other,” Al pointed out. “We were simply asked whether any of us would consider adding another bond-mate to our existing relationships.” He paused before continuing. “They made some pretty convincing arguments. It could change a lot of people’s minds. So far, everyone thinks everything we’ve achieved is because of some magical human ability to manipulate our aids. If we can demonstrate that anyone has the potential to do this, it would sway a lot of skeptics.”