Meeting of Minds

Month 9 Day 30

1759 Hours

Smitty

Smitty was sitting quietly at the far end of the table when Wilson entered Meeting room 4C. He almost didn’t recognize her, since she wore civies and not her uniform. She smiled at him as she started laying the drawings out on the table. “It’s not just the 3 of us, Mr Smythe. Mac also invited Abdulla and Takor.”

“I can understand Abdulla, but why-“ He stopped talking when the door opened and the other 3 attendees came in.

“-but I never realized just how complicated the subject matter is,” Colleen was saying. “Seems like I just get started on it, and poof! My time is up, and I need to get to my station. Or go to bed.”

“I bet I know what you’ll be doing tonight,” Abdulla stated with a grin.

“You know it. Just like I did last night. Hi, Ivy! You beat us here! I knew I was dawdling over my dessert too long.”

“You should not take responsibility when it is not yours,” Takor told the redhead. “I had 2 desserts and had to stop by sick bay for medication.”

“But you’re okay, right?” Ivy asked it.

“I feel well, thank you,” the Scissan replied.

Meanwhile, the redhead had picked up one of the schematic drawings. “These are fantastic. So much detail. Let me get them in the right order.” She spent a few minutes rearranging the papers, placing 3 down each side of the table and then one at right angles, straddling the end of the lines.

“Where shall we begin with this... explanation?” Abdulla wondered.

Colleen opened her mouth and then stopped for a long moment. “Wow,” she finally stated. “This is not going to be easy. I mean, we used pieces of our - human - technology. We had to, it was all we had available. But the changes we made to them were so drastic, it really ceased being human technology. Yet it really wasn’t Yukosk technology, either.”

She started pointing at different items on the papers as she went on. “Look, we had 3 B units, 4 C units, 5 E units, a couple Hs and 1 X. And an R. And yet the 8 of them all had to work together to get the job done. And none of them really did the job the same way Yukosk technology would have done it.”

“That’s 16 units, not 8,” Wilson stated.

“Oh, sorry. The units worked in pairs. So, 8 pairs of units.”

“Okay, so they aren’t or weren’t any longer normal human technology,” Abdulla summed up. “Nor were they really Yukosk. What were they supposed to do? And obviously did, since you aren’t still 2 people in one body.”

“They were meant to coax the electrical charge that represented Kolla’s body out of the console and direct it to... to coalesce into her body inside the circle of wires. If we could manage that, Kolla was absolutely certain that her... Yeniqesh - her mind, soul, I’m not sure which, exactly - would leave my body to inhabit her own.”

“That seems quite a... happenstance hope,” Takor stated.

“They have a saying,” Colleen stated, and recited several words of Yukosk. “Roughly, it means the mind and body belong together. Or recognize each other. It didn’t make sense to me at the time, but they apparently had some accidents in the early stages of development where the mind and body did not arrive at the same place at the same time. Sometimes it meant death, but other times, they were able to reunite them, supposedly because they got the 2 pieces of a person in the same place. Once they achieved that, the 2 pieces bonded together.”

“That sounds very similar to what you and Kolla managed,” Wilson said.

“It was the end result we were hoping for. What we built is like half of the receiving end of their transportation beam, but built of scraps of technology that never was intended for that. She said she needed these units - pairs of units - to disburse the electrical charge into the air in a certain way. I tried, I found units that could be cannibalized, rebuilt to do that. But to actually explain what we did and why it worked... Frankly, I think it would be easier to take the manual I translated for Smit and try to build the complete transportation beam machine from scratch.”

Colleen had said it as if she wasn’t aware of Smitty’s presence in the room. Moving nothing but her eyes, Wilson gave him a side-long glance, and he gave her a tiny nod of agreement. “Do you want to?” Wilson asked the redhead.

“Do I want to what?”

“Build a - what did you call it? - a transportation beam machine from scratch.”

Colleen abruptly sat down, her face white. “Absolutely. But I’m not qualified.”

“You translated the manual,” Abdulla pointed out. “You built this contraption, and it worked.”

“I definitely had help.”

“You wouldn’t be doing it alone,” Abdulla stated.

The girl seemed torn in 2 directions. “Umm, I should learn my energeering.”

“Pick up the pace with your studies,” Wilson told her. “Meanwhile, I’ll see about getting permission, find a place for us to work and borrow that manual.”

“I have a copy of the manual,” Colleen stated.

“Good. But it was a gift to Smythe, so I should still ask.”

“If you need help with your studies, let me know,” Abdulla volunteered.

“Do you think the captain would let me study on duty? Again?”

“Can’t hurt to ask. Anyway, this looks like a long-term project,” Abdulla stated. “I can’t see burning ourselves out on it. But we should work on it as consistently as possible. So... next Monday evening?”

“Sounds good to me,” Wilson stated with a grin.

“Me too,” Colleen agreed.

“I would like to consult on this endeavor,” Takor decided.

“Great,” Abdulla exclaimed. “Then until further notice, let’s plan to continue meeting on Monday evenings, okay?”

They all agreed to that. Wilson began gathering the hand-drawn schematics and rolling them together.

“Abie, if you are volunteering to help me learn engineering, what do you think I should study first? Ivy suggested grav units.”

“That’s as good a place as any. Don’t try spreading yourself too thin, Mac. Too many subjects at the same time can lead to confusion. I’m surprised you didn’t have that happen when you studied so many languages at the Academy.”

“Aren’t you already working on several projects? Still?” Wilson asked. “You finished translating a technical manual, but you’ve taken up studying grav units and now, helping to build a piece of alien technology from scratch.”

“But now I can sleep, and that makes all the difference! Anyway... I’m so far behind.”

“Nonsense,” Abdulla returned. “You’ve taken a different path than most of us took to prove ourselves, but yours was a tougher path. Give yourself credit for what you’ve accomplished.”

As a group, they all headed for the doorway. As they left the room, the redhead quietly said, “Good night, Smit.”

Stunned, Smitty sat unmoving for a moment. She knew I was here. And her mind wasn’t a complete blank, despite my presence. That realization filled him with warmth, until, That excuse for staying away from her won’t work anymore. The pit of his stomach suddenly went very cold.