PROTOTYPE - epilogue
By Heck



Comments to heck@beadyeye.me.uk

EPILOGUE - ONE

Jennifer Lydon herself gave the eulogy.

By modern tradition, as an ex-astronaut, Lucy was entitled to burial with full
honours at Arlington Cemetery. Her aged cousin had attended, and even shed a
tear for the relative she had never met, but deferred to me as the closest
person to Lucy's heart. I had declined the honour, in my pain seeing it as an
affront to Lucy's dignity to be interred in a military/government grave when
she had suffered so much at their hands.

She was cremated at a small, intimate service conducted at a private funeral
parlour with just the cousin, Rob, President Lydon [plus security entourage]
and me present.

It was almost unprecedented for the President of the USA to attend such a
small ceremony, let alone speak at one. I saw it as a fitting honour to the
dignity of such an outstanding woman as Lucy, and I welcomed the gesture.
Jennifer Lydon, at least, had never tried to exploit Lucy in any way, and had
showed her nothing but support right from their first telephonic meeting. It
was only right that she should speak.

Lucy had been an example to us all, the President told us. She had been moved
by her quiet dignity and gritty determination, and had been impressed by
Lucy's adamant refusal to exploit her tremendous physical and mental gifts, or
allow them to be exploited by the unscrupulousness of others. Even in death
she had made an enormous contribution, not only by giving her life in defence
of Lydon and me, but since, in that medical science had been able to learn
much from her.

Shortly after her death, even before all the hoohah had died down, Jennifer
Lydon called on me in person. It had been Lucy's intention, she said, to allow
medical research into her enhancements in the hope that benefit could be
gained for people less fortunate, and wanted to ask me if I would permit an
autopsy and detailed research to be carried out.

I protested that it wasn't my call to make, that there were living relatives
that should be consulted. The President said that, if anyone knew what Lucy's
wishes were, it would be me.

Then I flat out refused. The thought of masked and gowned figures slicing into
that magnificent body was too much for me to bear. I broke down into a fresh
flood of grief, shaking my head and repeating the word 'no' over and over.

To her credit, Lydon didn't push it. She simply stood up and patted my
shoulder, saying she would give me time to think about it.

A few days later, in a rare lucid moment, it dawned on me that this was what
Lucy had wanted. In life, the only way should allow her abilities to be used
was for the benefit of her fellow humans. In death, she would have wanted no
less. As a result, significant progress had already been made, especially in
the areas of cancer research and autoimmune pathology.

That had been six months ago. It had taken them that long to gather all the
tissue samples and measurements they needed. What we cremated this morning was
not Lucy. It was what was left after the medics and scientists had got through
with her.

I didn't break down at the service. After my initial grief, I lapsed into a
numbed, dazed state. It takes me all my time to get out of bed in the mornings
these days, and I don't seem to be able to concentrate on anything for more
than a few minutes at a time. President Lydon has pulled some strings and I'm
back on staff at SETI, drawing full pay, but I haven't been back to work, yet.

After the funeral, after I had said my private goodbyes and the President and
her staff had gone, Rob had dragged the cousin and me to a bar. To drink a
toast, he said, to the memory of Lucy. He had talked non-stop, filling the
cousin in on all the details of Lucy's brief life from her arrival, comatose,
at our labs right up until we left him, injured, at Miriam Cooper's farmhouse.
His cast was long gone, but he still had a very slight limp.

"I remember the first time she realised her strength, man", he had said. "I,
like, toss her this hard-assed ol' apple, right, and I tell her to sque- e-eze
it. She looks at me like I'm this, like, you know, crazy person, but I'm like,
'no, go on, squeeze it'. She does, and wham! It, like, you know, explodes,
man, all over the place. She's, like, 'wow!', and I'm, like, 'I know!', and
she's all, 'cool', and I'm all, 'yeah, I know, way cool'. Incredible, man, and
she was, like, so stoked about it. It was like all her birthdays at once, you
know? Right, Sean? Sean?"

I was in one of my daydreams. I get like that a lot, these days.

"Sean? You with us, Dude?"

"Hmm? Oh, aye".

Rob stared at me for a long while, concern on his acne-pocked features.

"You gotta give this up, man".

"What? I'm OK", I lied through my teeth.

"Self pity, man. Look, she's, like, gone, you know? You gotta let her go. I'm
hurting too, man, but we gotta let her go. You have to have closure".

"I have closure. Sumner and Bouvier have gone to prison. Santana's dead.
That's closure".

"Yeah, maybe, but you gotta let go too, man. It's, like, you still expect her
to come walking in, big as life, and you want to stay in this blue funk until
she does. But wake up, Dude. It ain't gonna happen. Lucy's dead, man. Deal
with it".

"Easy for you to say".

"No, man, it isn't. I loved her too, you know? Maybe not like you did, but I
loved her all the same. I feel the pain, you know? But just think what she'd
say if she did walk in and saw you like this? She wouldn't want you to be this
way, man. She'd, like, want you to be taking care of business, man. Not to
forget her, you never will, but to get on with things. Make your life count,
man".

Those last five words were the ones that did it. 'Make your life count, man'.
That was when I knew he was right, when I knew that Lucy would want me to get
back on the horse, back to the world of the living, and make my life count.

So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going back to SETI and do something more
positive than just listen for signs of extra-terrestrial life. I'm going to
find the aliens that rescued Lucy, and make contact if I can. They must have so
much to teach us, so much to contribute.

I'm going to make my life count and, in doing so, I'm going to make Lucy's
count, too.

EPILOGUE-TWO

The monstrous dark triangle of the Pagtanaruu ship Quashnim hung silently in
space like a gross black bat. Small but powerful station-keeping thrusters
fired intermittently, showing as occasional hot yellow bursts, but otherwise
the craft showed no signs of life. Cloaked, it remained undetected by the
inhabitants of the blue-green planet below.

On the bridge, overseer Yyzell stared at his screens in silence, the
flickering images reflected in his enormous eye. The cilia on his back stood
erect and phased from deep red to angry black, signifying his intense
irritation. None of his staff dared to approach him while he was in this mood,
and he squatted on his command bench as a dark, brooding presence. Eventually,
he extended a pseudopod and shut the offending images off.

Just behind him, Healer Mryma heaved a deep sigh and reached out to touch the
Overseer gently, comfortingly.

"I don't understand it", Yyzell complained. "Our initial studies indicated
that these were a fairly advanced species. One would have expected reason,
compassion, empathy, but they behaved barbarically".

"You have to give them some latitude", Mryma reasoned. "They are a young
species. They have made some remarkable advances, in their limited way, but
have yet to mature. Do not forget, Overseer, they have only been in existence
in their current form for a few hundred thousand of their sun- cycles. At that
stage, our own civilisation was still living in rock pools and making basic
tools. They have a long way to go".

"Yes, but even so, I had high hopes of them. I thought, when we returned the
female to them, there would be great rejoicing and they would treat her
kindly, using her enhanced abilities for the greater good of all. Instead,
they kept her in secret and were intending to use her for violence and war.
These are not the actions of an enlightened people".

"True, but there were some who tried to help her. The three males for
instance".

"Three males out of seven billion. And one of them was brutally killed, trying
to help her escape. The other two suffered much through their association with
her. They were hunted and betrayed at every turn. I swear, at one stage, I was
sorely tempted to destroy the whole zhalk planet. It is a good thing that our
species, at least, has foresworn violence on that scale".

Yyzell slid off his bench and turned to face the healer. He saw the pain in
her eye; she had been affected as much as he. She pursed her oral vacuole and
flushed blue in an analogue of a smile.

"There is hope for them, yet", she said. "Their leader, the female they call
Prez-den". Her vocal apparatus struggled with the unfamiliar sounds. "She was
supportive, once she understood the situation".

"Yes, but ... " The Overseer faded to green, resigned to the failure of his
pet project. "We made them a gift of the most perfect specimen of their
species that has ever existed, to show them what they could become. To help
them realise their potential. And what did they do? They tried to turn her
into a weapon". He moved toward a portal, ready to leave the command deck.
"Helm, lay in a course and take us home.

"I am very disappointed in this species".

THE END

Copyright "Heck" 2003