Writer's Journal

(This is kind of a rough sketch of something I want to write later on, a sort of deconstruction of the “Lensman” books which is the root of all Space Opera–most directly Star Wars, Mass Effect, Babylon 5 and the like; Less so Firefly or Star Trek, though there’s some influence, there.  I might fit a short version of it between Cicatriz seasons 2 & 3.  Don’t worry, though, it’ll be better written than AM was.)

“Going into Inertialess in three…two…one…” the Navigator said, flipping a switch.

Immediately, every crewman aboard suffered a brief wave of vertigo as their worlds shifted from Newtonian to Aristotelian physics. The whine of the engine increased in volume, and the front windows locked down with anti-radiation shutters, as the light in front of them blue-shifted into hard x-rays and that behind them red-shifted into radio.

The auto-pilot engaged, the Navigator sank back into his acceleration couch, and sighed. To his left sat the only other technician in the cockpit, a LIDAR tech. Behind the two of them stood the Watchman, whose expressionless gaze didn’t seem to focus on any particular aspect of the cockpit, but neither did he seem to miss any detail. The lens of crystalline material set into his forehead reflected a dark, blue sheen, which was strange, due to there being no overhead lights.

The LIDAR tech switched over to passive scanning, to prevent the emissions from the sensors from pushing too much against the interstellar medium.

“What’s our ETA?” the Watchman asked. His surgical modifications were evident; the vertical slits to either side of his eyes puckered slightly, and the “Third Eye” in the middle of his forehead was surrounded by a faint patch of irritated skin. The “gifts” he’d received from the Benefactors, those unimaginably ancient beings in the heart of the galaxy, were not agreeing with his human flesh.

“Well, we’ll get to Eridanus in three days, refill our capacitors and dump heat, then get going out into the direction of Antares. I give it two weeks, if we don’t have any problems.”

Two weeks with this creep staring over my shoulder, the Navigator thought to himself, wonder if they took anything out when they cut him open.

“If you need me,” the Watchman said, “I’ll be in my bunk.”

“Right. Yes, sir,” the Navigator said, not looking up from his displays.

After the Watchman left, the LIDAR tech glanced over at the Navigator.

“Something on your mind?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Are you telling me that someone whose had surgery performed on them by ancient astronauts doesn’t creep you out?”

“What’s your point?” the LIDAR tech said, glancing around and producing a pack of smokes, he reached up and adjusted the air scrubber above him, setting it on high.

“Look, those aliens–”

“Benefactors,” the tech muttered around his cigarette.

“–yeah, whatever. They’ve been around since…when? Middle of the Precambrian? If they’re to be believed? What do they need us for?”

The LIDAR tech nodded, and offered the pack to the Navigator, who declined.

“Who knows, maybe they’ve just got a need to build civilization when they see raw material?”

“Yeah? Then why do they look so much like us? Hell, why does every alien look so much like us?”

“They don’t look that much like us.”

The Navigator sputtered.

“What? Of course they do; name one species that lacks more than two of the following: DNA. Levo-Proteins. Animal. Two sexes, with some degree of sexual dimorphism. Billateral symmetry. Central nervous system. Vertebrate. Upright posture. Opposable thumbs. Binocular vision. And, finally, a functional larynx in roughly the same place and with the same purpose as ours.”

The LIDAR tech thought a moment, and then asked.

“Why is all that such an issue?”

“Man, we’re more closely related to lichen and a goddamned moss can’t bum a cigarette off of you. Think about that.”

The tech nodded.

“Alright, but the Watchman is human.”

“Ostensibly.”

“Dude, what?”

“Who knows, maybe they hollowed him out with an ice-cream scoop or something. We don’t know. He could be all alien under that delicious human shell.”

“Dude,” the LIDAR tech made a cutting motion across his throat.

“What?”

“They can read minds. You haven’t been thinking this stuff with him around, have you?”

“What? Oh, shit.”