The Eternal Duty Ch 03

Chapter 03 -- Onwards and Upwards

In the end she got the distinct feeling her again rambling thoughts weren't getting her anywhere, so she might as well go looking for her 'guide'.

She actually had a nervous laugh at that, imagining a tourist agency offering all inclusive space vacations on ancient, hidden mega star base complete with tour guides and a spa complex on top of a mountain that you had to climb after arriving. Of course that spa had the nicest of views on the planet busting cannon sticking out of the very mountain top, a cannon coincidentally pointing directly towards Earth.

She was interrupted in these morbid fantasies when she turned around towards her backpack in order to retrieve it. There was a small bird sitting on it, watching her intently. It was a tit she thought, blue on top and yellow along its belly.

Her curiosity peaked, she slowly bend down towards it and it still didn't fly away, just hopping around a bit, moving its head from here to there. Her feet were less then thirty centimeters away and still no sign of flight, which was really strange for a wild bird -- or any bird.

So she slowly stretched her hand towards it expecting it to leave at any moment. It never did until finally her forefinger rested against the soft feathers at its underbelly. At that moment it looked at her in what she interpreted as an irritated manner and chirped once. The spell was then broken as it spread its wings and took off in a convincingly birdlike manner.

No bird would trust a stranger like that. Did she luck out on the one suicidal bird in all the forest or did it have some strange parasitic worm in its brain that influenced its behavior? It was like everything conspired against her to freak her out as much a possible and if she hadn't already tested if she was dreaming, she would do it now. Actually a second time couldn't hurt she thought and no sooner a slap could be heard across the clearing. Yeah, definitely not dreaming.

She was still trying to wrap her head around it when she heard that specific chirp again. Looking around in a half panic as if she expected those robbers to suddenly materialize she found the tit sitting on a rock beside the trail. 'Great' she thought, another tour guide urging her to hurry the fuck up.

It looked the part too, staring directly at her in that nervously annoyed fashion from earlier. So she did as she was chirped, collected her backpack and axe and began walking.

My, that bird was really annoying.

It always stayed in front of her and as soon as she got close would search for another perch up ahead, land, chirp once and continue to stare at her. It didn't seem concerned watching out for any possible predators that might be in search of a snack either.

This was definitively unnatural behavior and far too targeted on her specifically. Did her guide double as bird trainer? How did one train a freaking tit? Its brain must be minuscule and she never heard about that type of bird being in any way smart. That didn't change the facts chirping before her though.

At one point as she was beginning to wonder just how far behind she had fallen, when the bird changed its strategy. In front of her the path was forking and differently from before it was a fork with both trails going upward. One trail looked just like the one she was hiking on the whole time, the other one far narrower.

Naturally she was inclined to follow the wider path cursing her guide for both not stopping here as well as insisting that there only would be ever one path going uphill. The problem was that the annoying tit was chirping at her from well within the narrow trail. It didn't take long for her to decide on what to do, both options were stupid as was her whole situation, so she might as well go all in on the Alice in Wonderland theme and follow the bird.

In the end it didn't matter as the trail ended after two hundred or so meters at a small creek. Here her little guide was busy first drinking and then washing herself. She decided already that it was a ladybird, well or ladytit to be especially lame.

Following the example she filled up her canteen and drank her fill but opted out of the bathing fun. As soon as she was finished with that an insisting chirping from behind reminded her to hurry up back towards the main trail.

Their routine after that continued for at least half an hour and while nothing more out of the ordinary happened she noticed the slope getting steeper and the forest changing slowly from Californian redwood to a more alpine setting.

Finally as she walked around a bend in the trail she saw a figure sitting cross-legged like some Buddhist monk on a big rock some way in front of her. Her companion seemed exited at that and flew towards him chirping.

She landed -- of course -- on the sphere on top of a ramrod straight cane standing freely on the same slab of stone he was sitting on with closed eyes, seemingly dozing. She wouldn't have been surprised if a wolf walked out of the forest now and sat down complacently at his feet like a lap dog. Perhaps Bambi too while we are at it.

What happened next did surprise her though, because he opened his eyes and instead of a gray iris surrounded by white sclera there was just black. That cheap horror movie trick turned less cheap though within a second, because this black color seemed to flow away like tar towards the inner corners of his eyes, where it seemed to disappear. While that wasn't spooky at all her tit turning into the same black sludge certainly was. The resulting puddle of scary then flowed around the orb towards the shaft and ... fused with it.

It bothered her from the start that this shaft had a surface with a distinctly fluid appearance as it tended to change around in small fractal ways. Combining that apprehension with what she just observed made her really reluctant to come anywhere near it.

As the bird was made out of the stuff ... she had touched that bird she thought with a shudder... and showed signs of intelligence that only left one option and that option actually made quite a bit of sense. He was in control of it and therefor also of the black sludge, just like if it was some sort of remote controlled drone. Her fear of getting near the stuff on his cane such certainly extended towards him too now.

She didn't really know what to say or if she should say something at all or heck if this was the moment to turn around and run, but he beat her to any reaction.

"It is my specialty and I am quite proud of it too. From your physiology, accent and the place we met I guess you were raised in Europe, so I selected an Eurasian blue tit for this occasion. I have eighty-five other species in my portfolio though, from all over the world. I would like to have even more on offer, but it takes time to get one right as I am a stickler for the small details and I am too often too busy for it."

He then stood up and got into a stretching routine. "I presume you have thought things through and have some questions yes? But please let us continue first." At that he took hold of his cane, hoped from the rock and continued walking. She let him get ahead some and then started after him.

She pondered how to ask him about where they actually were, whether or not this planet above them truly was Earth or where exactly they were heading and for what purpose. She considered asking about the cane, the black sludge and the bird or any of the strange things she was witness to.

In the end though all of that didn't move her inner core quite as much as another question that was forming in herself since the beginning. That was the wrong word though, that question wasn't forming as much as it was raging, pleading, whining or just plain crying out like a caged animal kept in check until now only by her fear and the strange circumstances. Not anymore though, this animal wanted out and it wanted out now.

"Why? Why me? Why not just let me die in peace?" She threw at him accusingly, actually crying again she noticed as if standing outside of herself there for just a bit.

"Hmm. I would prefer you to ask just one question at the time, it will be hard enough even then, for you and me both. To give you some insufficient answers: first off because it is easier for us -- the mission as a whole I mean -- and because there is a very fine line as to how much we are allowed to meddle into human affairs. A line that is more easily crossed with dead or almost dead people like yourself."

"As to you personally I have no idea really, as I have no access to your file ... and we do have files for each and every human on that planet of yours, believe me. Of course over time I cannot help but notice some similarities between the people I escort which leads me to conclusions by comparison but still, the whole of my experience of you will consist out of roughly eight hours of questions and answers while we hike plus some extra for rests as well as one final decision you have to make once we have arrived. Not really much to take the measure of a person, but also more then nothing. As for you dying in peace that is still an option."

She was frozen by that last bit of info -- again -- her brain resetting shortly thereafter. "What do you mean by that?" she stuttered, not really knowing how to feel about such a revelation.

"What I mean my dear -- if you allow the familiarity -- is that the decision is up to you in the end of whether or not you accept our offer or continue where you left off, which is dying in a rather cold and lonely lake."

"Before you ask, our offer and your decision on it is the final thing you will have to do at the end of our little journey -- I strongly advise you to take it very serious but also to refrain from more questions about it until we reach the plateau. It will be much easier and clearer to do my explaining on that topic there."

Well she could live with that, she supposed. He really had a way of scrambling her line of thinking and even feeling with just a few words she thought, but that heavy weight was still very much on her chest nonetheless.

"How did you find me?" She asked, finding it really hard to walk while talking about this.

"I didn't find you. I was send to a specific place at a specific time by a specific person in order to retrieve you before your body was beyond saving." He made a short pause, looked at her for a moment and then kept going.

"Before you have to ask everything yourself I will explain it a bit on my own. You see usually my job entails studying people, a whole lot of them, to search for specific candidates that qualify for what you go through right now. I am not alone at this though and sometimes I might get assigned to a candidate someone else found, mostly because you can seldom predict very well when a chance for extraction may appear."

"Many if not most candidates die without us being able to do so. Still: in a normal case I will have some time before or after extraction to read through a persons file and get a preliminary reading on them before they wake up in front of me. We also leave each other notes and conclusions to that end."

"In your rather special case though, this is not so. I am actually forbidden from accessing your file, something I find quite a novel thing to have with a recruit. That is what you are by the way and the answer to your certainly next question about the why of it."

From everything that happened she wasn't actually all that keen to get to the bottom of what kind of 'recruit' she was and what she would be recruited for. That she had to be basically dead -- beside other also likely disturbing things -- in order to be considered eligible for whatever was in store for her inclined her to kick that particular can down the road for as far as it would go.

Two more pressing things were sticking out of the ocean of strange for her though, the minor one being that talk about a file she (and anyone else) was supposed to have and the major one being that 'specific person' he mentioned. Thus her priorities were set.

"Who chose me? Who sent you?" It sounded a bit accusing as well as demanding, well it was meant to.

He grimaced slightly and answered "As much as it pains me I am not at liberty to disclose that. Your benefactor or -- depending on the perspective -- the person that forced you here, prefers to stay private. One thing I can assure you though: you are by far better off with me then with him."

Bugger, she thought, but not a total one. "Why is that?"

He seemed to search a bit on how to proceed before answering her "Lets just say he tends to attract the wrong kind of attention and by being near you that attention would certainly fall on you too. A fate I would urge you to avoid if at all possible. It is better to leave it at that."

"Knowing him you will get to know him sooner or later anyway. When you do though, be a dear and remember what I just said and tread carefully. It might cost you more then you could even imagine paying right now if you didn't. Certainly your life but that is the least of it by quite a margin." Well that was totally not ominous she thought, what a relaxing little hiking trip.

"You mentioned a file you were forbidden to view. What is that exactly?" He seemed to dislike that question also.

"It would be easiest to show you but that is not possible at the moment, you are neither allowed to study it nor would you be able to. Let me do a little demonstration first."

"This will take a while, so please try to relax. Also please do not let what I am about to do scare you too much, it is quite harmless." As she walked behind him she couldn't see what he was doing but he seemed in need to stop walking at least in order to do it.

It, it turned out, was her little bird making a reappearance. It flew around her a few times and then settled on her shoulder of all places, happily chirping. Knowing what it was made of, or more correctly having no fucking clue what scary shit it was made of, made her quite uncomfortable.

She tried not to show it too much at first but then reconsidered for being upfront about it. "Can you please get that black sludge bird of me? It gives me the Heeby-Jeebies."

Just then he turned around, his eyes a normal coloration. "It is in a passive mode now and will stay in place doing nothing from now on dear, you may very well relax."

She tried to, really tried, but it just wasn't possible. Passive or no, that thing was freaking her out, period.

"Ah well..." he started saying, sounding somewhat disappointed. "... I had hoped you two could be friends. Nothing to it though. Rest assured it is totally harmless and under my absolute control. I want to demonstrate you something and I fear this is therefor necessary and not my way of trying to scare you for amusement or some such thing."

"Now girl, what I want you to do is imagine that bird sitting there, seeing everything you see, hearing everything you hear and even smell everything you smell. You with me?" She just nodded at that, not liking where this was going.

"Now imagine further this little bird to be invisible. You cannot see it, hear it, smell it, you cannot even touch it." She nervously looked at her shoulder at this but the bird was still there.

"I cannot do that to that bird of course, its form and surface makeup make that quite impossible. Ehm please keep watching it closely and don't be alarmed. If I do something to it though ..."

The bird suddenly changed on her shoulder. Gone were beak, wings and feathers and anything else birdlike about it. It shrank and morphed into a little black pearl the size of her earlobe and then, suddenly began to hover above her shoulder. From there it flew towards him, first slowly, then faster. It made all kind of movements like if it was performing for an aviation show until it finally stood still about half a meter in front of her face.

"Now watch closely." As if she would be able to tell her spellbound legs, head or eyes to move even a millimeter.

The sphere, small, totally black and perfectly round suddenly blinked out of existence. Just like that, it was gone. And just like that, suddenly, it reappeared.

"Touch it." he said. She felt like a doll with strings controlling her arms as her right hand got closer and closer until her finger finally made contact. It felt a bit metallic to the touch, only that she didn't know a metal her finger could actually sink in.

Well strike that there was mercury, but she never touched the stuff and so couldn't say if the experience was similar. It was not as cold as she expected though, quite warm actually, like if it was wood.

"I will turn it a bit more solid now so please take your finger back a bit." She did just that.

"Now touch it again." This time it felt like a smooth wooden marble.

"Make a fist and encircle it please." She did that also and felt the marble in her hand, not daring to move it in any way. "Try to move it please, but slowly."

Not thinking much of that task she tried to move her fist with the marble inside towards her ... but it didn't work. The marble wanted to stay where it was, just hovering in the air.

"You can use all your strength if you wish." So she pulled. And pulled again. She actually took her other hand towards her wrist and turned her full strength and body weight into it until she was ready to fall over without the pearl holding her. Other then the pressure in her hand holding the pearl there was no perceivable reaction at all.

"You could use a pair of oxen and it wouldn't make a difference. Now to something else. Keep the sphere in your fist without pulling but make sure it is totally enclosed. Hmm better use both hands to encircle it completely without touching it." Again she did as she was told, noticing finally that this was an experiment for her benefit, supposedly teaching her what that pearl was capable off.

"I will turn the sphere untraceable now ... and done. Now move your hands towards you without changing your way of holding the sphere enclosed." She did that slowly expecting the pearl to touch her palm at any moment ... but that moment never came and where the pearl was supposed to hover, there was nothing.

"I have not moved it dear, it is still where you left it." She was bewildered at that, looking at him.

"How is that possible?" He shrugged at that.

"I am a Shaper, not a physicist in quantum mechanics. In layman's terms it flowed through your palm, entering on one side and leaving at the other. No atom in your hand ever came in contact with what it is made of, at least that is the way it works in its current configuration. When I change it back into its solid form though, that is a different matter altogether."

He seemed to have done just that as the pearl suddenly and without a sound reappeared where she had left it. "The reason why I showed you this, is that such a demonstration helps you to understand how that file you asked about came to be. Let us continue to walk and I give you a small rundown of it." She nodded once but wanted to get something else out of the way first. He was just starting on his way when her voice stopped him.

"Before you do there is something else I want to talk about." He stopped at that and she waited for him to turn around before continuing, which he did with a raised eyebrow.

"You see I would prefer you not to call me 'dear' or 'girl' or anything else like that. No matter how old you think yourself to be I am a grown woman and more then that, I actually have a name too. So ..."

She continued to walk a small distance until she stood directly in front of him at roundabout arms length. There, looking him directly in the eye and stretching out her right hand in a way of formal greeting she continued.

"Sofia Perlmutter, 35 years of age, nice to meet you." He smiled a bit at that and took her hand for a shake while talking.