Chapter 3: A New Job

When I woke up again, Eric and Shelly were standing beside the coffin. Eric was wearing different clothes, and, well, Shelly was wearing clothes.

He asked me “How do you feel?”

I thought about it some. “I feel great! Probably better than I have in a long time.”

“Better than even before the accident?”

“I think so. Probably better than since I joined the Navy.”

“You’ve put a lot of miles on that car since it was new, and you just got a comprehensive overhaul. They didn’t fix anything that was flat-out broken, like a cavity filling, but everything that was run down has been tuned up. Did you ever have your tonsils or appendix out?”

“My tonsils, yes, when I was a kid. I still have my appendix.”

“That’s a shame. You’re better off without that thing. Anyway, if your tonsils were missing they should still be missing. Everything else should work better, though. You should no longer have weak joints. Your shoulder, elbow, and knee should all be in perfect condition. When we get back to Earth you’ll still have to wear your knee brace for a while because everyone expects it, but you can gradually get used to living without it and before long no one will question your recovery.”

I climbed out of the chamber and said “I feel great!”

“Do you feel up to an adventure?”

“Is this an adventure like climbing Mount Everest, or an adventure like pacifying a mountain valley in Afghanistan?”

“About halfway between, I’d say. Or maybe climbing a mountain and then pacifying the valley below. Come, sit down and eat. You need a complete briefing.”

They started with an overview of the situation. Apparently there were at least four worlds with humans on it, although the place we were at, Crossroads, may or may not be a world as we knew it. All we knew of Crossroads was these few rooms and a belief that there were several other sets of rooms for other people like us. For all we knew Crossroads was just a cave under Kansas City. The big three, the three that mattered, were Earth, Cassandra, and Chaos. I knew all about Earth. Cassandra and Chaos had both been originally populated from Earth, so flora, fauna, and people were all subsets of Earth life. With additions from the original alien life, of course.

Cassandra was much like Earth was, except that they’d had a devastating war several hundred years earlier that had ended with bio-weapons. The survivors were all mutated and the population was slowly dying out. To us, the points that mattered were: A) The males were physiologically capable of procreation but had no drive to do so, B) Their genes were so screwed up that they were effectively sterile even if they could get it up, C) The females were outwardly unaffected by the virus, but internally they now had chemistry issues with the Cassandran males’ functional sperm so that even if they did get laid it usually wouldn’t help, and D) They had responded to the male disability by ramping up their own drive to procreate and would go to absurd lengths to get the attention of any man who could give them children. Or even just sex.

It was safe to say that any Cassandran female we ever met would be universally beautiful, perpetually horny, and driven -to the point of madness- to have sex with any male capable of giving them children. At this point in the discussion Eric flourished his hands at Shelly and said “Your Honor, allow me to present ‘Exhibit A’.

“You’re from Cassandra?”

“Yes, and I am ever so grateful for this opportunity to be with Eric.”

Unfortunately, the Cassandran males, on the other hand, had responded to their disability and their females’ resultant behavior by becoming even more closed-in sexually. They were like Valley Girls, but without the underlying ability to have children. At least a Valley Girl could, if she wanted.

Then there was Chaos. Think of Europe in the 1400s, but without the Church and also, apparently, without any initiative. For whatever reason, there seemed to be little curiosity about how things worked. There were several different societies from hunter-gatherer tribes all the way up to nation-states. There were poor farmers, middle-class workers, and rich nobles. On the other hand, there were few to no inventors, and there would be no Renaissance. Unless your family was rich and powerful, life on Chaos was likely to be Hobbsian: brutal, nasty, and short.

Somehow, there had arisen a situation that allowed Cassandran women to spend time on Chaos. While Chaosian men and Cassandran women appeared to not be interfertile, Earth men and Cassandran women were. But, how to get the two together?

It had become a lottery of sorts. Cassandran women who passed a series of qualification tests were taken to Chaos and allowed to wander around freely. Given that they were invariably beautiful and didn’t have the skills and attitudes needed to get along in a medieval society, they almost always got in trouble. That gave an Earthman, if he wanted to act heroic, a chance to be a hero and rescue her. As part of the process he got the traditional reward for rescuing a beautiful woman, and she got to experience satisfying sex with a man who appreciated her. Above all, she got a child who would be healthy and grow up to raise his or her own family.

That last was the key to the whole thing. Yes, it was dangerous, it was miserable, and sometimes the rescue came too late or even never happened. Sometimes the Hero died trying to rescue her. However, for those Damsels in Distress who did get rescued, they were allowed to stay on Crossroads with their Hero until they were pregnant. Since by definition the Heros were all men who liked beautiful women, if the rescue succeeded then everybody won.

A system had evolved to manage the whole affair. At least, a system had evolved on Cassandra and Crossroads. Neither Earth nor Chaos, aside from a very few people, knew anything about it. Those women with the best chance of getting a child if rescued were allowed to go to Chaos and get in trouble, get rescued, and get pregnant. These suites on Crossroads were set up for one Cassandran woman for each Hero, called his Caretaker, to live in.

The Hero would come here to Crossroads to spend time with his Caretaker, then discuss various missions before choosing one and setting out to accomplish it. One of the Caretaker’s tasks was to gather information on the different missions so that the Hero could make an informed decision, and then gather all possible information on that mission to give her Hero the best chance to succeed. The intelligence available for each stranded Damsel was of a sort that could only be gathered by an advanced society with satellite surveillance, but it was presented in the form of hand-drawn maps and verbal reports.

Everything on Crossroads was run by something that answered to “Computer”, but only if the Caretaker was asking. If I or even Eric asked for something like a cup of coffee, nothing happened. If Shelly, though, simply said “Three cups of coffee, please” then three cups of coffee, on saucers, and already prepared the way all three of us preferred, would instantly pop into existence on the table in front of each person. Mine would have some milk in it, Eric’s would be black, and Shelly’s would have her preferred amount of cream and sugar in it.

The disparity in technology levels was enough to give me whiplash. Crossroads had computers which followed vague verbal instructions and controlled matter-creators and teleporters that they called portals, but no metal was allowed to be transported. Oh, there were two exceptions: A special ring which Eric wore was passed, as well as metal which had been integrated with your body like an amalgam or gold filling in a tooth cavity or a pin in a broken leg. I couldn’t help but wonder how the Six Million Dollar Man would fare.

That ring was what triggered the portal from Earth to Crossroads, and from Crossroads to Chaos. For all Heros and potential Heros, you had to be wearing that ring or the portal didn’t work. Anyone else had to be in physical contact with the ring’s wearer, which was why Eric had grabbed my hand. Apparently there was also a code of conduct and violation of that code could disable the ring, trapping the Hero with his irate victims.

Society in all three of these worlds, Crossroads, Chaos, and Cassandra, seemed to equate someone’s job with who they were. On Chaos, you weren’t just Jim, or even Jim Jones. You were Jim the Baker. Here on Crossroads, Shelly was Shelly Caretaker, and she seemed to have no other last name. Was the surviving population on Cassandra so low that last names weren’t necessary?

To me, this “Hero” business seemed to be an absurdly complicated, Rube Goldbergish scheme for repopulating a world. How many Heros were there? If there were 10 active at any one time, and they did a rescue once a month, that was no more than 120 babies per year. Plus twins and triplets, I guess. How low was Cassandra’s population, that that was considered a significant addition? Sure, all those male Hero-Damsel children could maybe father more children of their own with Cassandrans, but even if they were put to stud at 15, was that enough? Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ ta do!

Why not just do what all the science fiction stories had, and kidnap men who were about to die anyway? The Titanic would get you a lot of healthy men with good character. Every war gave you sailors who disappeared when their ships sank, airmen who disappeared when their plane was shot down. All the men who died in jungle ambushes in Vietnam? There had to be more rational ways to do this.

No, Cassandra couldn’t possibly be in such bad shape as they said. If they were, they’d fix the problem. This sounded more like a status symbol thing to me, a sort of one-upmanship contest or game show where the winners gained rewards far beyond the actual value of their work, like our professional sports figures. Was hitting a little white ball really worth all the prize money that the professional golfers got from a major tournament?

Similarly, any Damsel we might rescue would be identified as Jenny Bookkeeper or Rachel Florist. Eric was a Hero, of course. The only question was who or what I was.

There were two choices. The traditional one was Companion, someone who went with a Hero and helped him out dealing with just general day-to-day life, but the Companion wasn’t supposed to be fighting except in dire self-defense. This was a well-respected role, but Eric and Shelly didn’t seem to think that I fit it.

There was another role I could fill, that of Assistant Hero or Apprentice Hero. If I claimed one of those two titles, I could go with Eric on his next mission and help him with the fighting. Which would I prefer?

“Okay, you people seem to be big on Rules. I can hear the capital letter when you mention them. Maybe I should find out what all the Rules are, first? There are probably some official Rules that must always be followed, some more official Rules that no one follows, and even some traditional Rules that aren’t written down but everyone follows anyway. What are the Rules for each role, and how do they differ?”

Shelly asked “May we have the Rulebooks for Heros, Assistant Heros, Apprentice Heros, and Companions please?”

Immediately there were four small pamphlets stacked up on the table between our coffee cups.

Shelly picked each one up in turn. “The Hero is the reason we are all here. A Hero must be a man from Earth who is healthy in both body and spirit. He must have personal values such that he willingly undertakes to risk his own life so that a Damsel in Distress might live, and so living creates new life from their bodies.”

“The Hero is in charge of the mission, and anyone who accompanies him must obey him. Please note that it is not allowed for two Heros to work together, as one would have to be in command and the other would have to submit to his authority. The Great Slave War demonstrated that it is possible for several Heros to get together to plan, and then separate to each do their own parts of the plan, but they cannot work together.”

“Next, each Hero is allowed up to two Assistant Heros, who can be anyone from Earth who he trusts enough to travel with on Chaos. The Assistant MUST obey his Hero. Further, each Hero is allowed one Apprentice Hero, who is basically an Assistant who -we believe- will soon be able to become a Hero in his own right. In either case, their behavior reflects upon their Hero. They cannot do anything that would be prohibited for a Hero to do.”

“Can you give me some examples of things a Hero isn’t allowed to do?”

“A Hero is not allowed to injure, kill, or even attack anyone who has not at least offered violence to him, his party, or his Damsel. He can’t waylay an innocent traveler to get a good horse. He can buy a horse, or he can take a horse from someone who attacks him, but he cannot attack someone who hasn’t threatened him or his party. Oh, and Heros are not allowed to injure protected species like dragons and pixies.”