Wherever You Go

D’ar Viin was in a good mood when he arrived in orbit around Earth. The trip hadn’t been particularly taxing, and he was just a few hours’ work away from heading back to his home world. At least, if all went well – but even the worst case scenario had him here for no more than a week. Of course, there was no such thing as an hour or a week on his home world. The nearest thing to an hour was not only unpronounceable, but it was the equivalent of seventy-one minutes and thirty-two seconds, and there were twenty such periods in a typical day. But all that was immaterial. The point was that this assignment was supposed to be almost shockingly short. There was only one target to hit. It was one of the easiest jobs he had ever been assigned, and he suspected that The Agency might be of the mind that he was starting to get a little past his prime. D’ar appeared basically human, which would prove to be both a convenience and the symptom of a much larger problem in just a few minutes. There were differences, though; he was slightly taller than the average, and was of a very pale complexion – less of a peach color and more of an eggshell white – that created a stunning contrast with his dark black hair and eyes that were a vibrant enough color as to nearly appear red. These were things he cared little about at the moment. There was no need to consider his appearance in relation to the people of Earth, at least not so far as he knew. He simply expected to do his job and be on his way. D’ar Viin was an assassin for The Agency. And unlike the conversion between hours and his own planet’s timekeeping intervals, an assassin was exactly the same thing where he came from as it was here on Earth. Of course, The Agency had only recently found a need for people to do such unsavory work in the galaxy. Only since the cult had stopped their full offensive and gone underground had this become an issue. Two years ago this kind of operation was unthinkable, because two years ago The Agency and the cult were embroiled in a massive war on every front conceivable. The cult were a radical religious group that advocated violence, murder, and suicide, somehow all in the name of making the universe a safer place. Of course, what the cultists called “safer” meant to the rest of the galaxy, “eugenically cleansed.” Since there were those in The Agency who felt like they weren’t quite done with their lives yet, whether some cult members said that they were promoting discord amongst the stars or not, and were therefore not willing to lay down their lives and let themselves be exterminated, a massive war had ensued. The cult fought valiantly but ultimately, they had to succumb to the problem of sheer numbers. The army of The Agency, composed of hundreds of planets, outweighed the number of cult members at least a thousand times. If the cultists had continued to fight the unwinnable fight and just lost the way they were supposed to, then none of the assassins would have been needed. But the cult had seen defeat coming, and so they found a way to use their small numbers to their own advantage. With defeat imminent, the thirty Bishops of the cult each split up and headed in different directions. They vanished without a trace into the galaxy at large, and essentially took it hostage. Outside of The Agency are several unexplored, uncharted planets that remain completely unaware that there is anyone else out there in the galaxy. These people have no space travel (or if they do have any, it’s very rudimentary) and nobody to turn to when a group of cult members from a radically violent group they’ve never heard of shows up with claims that unless the Galactic Government (which they haven’t heard of either) bows to their demands they intend to destroy the planet. After the fourth planet was destroyed, covered with absolutely innocent but confused bystanders, the decision was made that these thirty could no longer be ignored. So, The Agency devised a new plan. There were thirty cult leaders to destroy, usually arriving at a planet in a group of five, and six assassins. The Agency’s assassins had eliminated twenty-one of the thirty leaders remaining, and so the remaining ten had gone further into hiding. Now they moved alone, in groups of one, meaning they were almost completely impossible to find. Of course, it also meant that when a cultist finally was found, it was a relatively simple affair to take him out. Find the one alien life sign on the planet, land near it, and then a single shot from the long-range rifle would take care of one more radical cultist once and for all. On the very off chance that something went wrong, an assassin could call in the beta team, who would come assist in a larger operation where the cultist had security measures or even native followers assisting him in his work. But even in those rare exceptional circumstances, it only took three days for the beta team to arrive, one day to make the plan, one day to carry it out, and three days to get back home. Between five hours and eight days. That was a reasonable enough window. It meant that he’d be home soon, and he was looking forward to being home. This was his last run as an assassin. Now he could go home and retire on the rather hefty salary and pension that The Agency was offering their hardest working employees. So with all these thoughts racing through his head, D’ar was feeling pretty good about the mission when he arrived. But those feelings quickly started to evaporate. The first thing he noticed was the grid of satellites above the planet. This was a more advanced planet than the cultists normally set up operations on, and it posed a problem. A quick analysis found a few blind spots in the network that he could safely hide the ship in. He didn’t want any nosy politicians trying to make contact with an alien race and usher mankind on to its destiny in the stars on his schedule, thank you very much.

The second problem was far more disturbing than the first. Once he had achieved stable orbit, he switched on the life signs detector. A wireframe image of the Earth appeared on his screen. The lifesigns detector was supposed to display one red dot, which would be the cultist hiding amongst the people on the planet. The entire earth lit up, glowing red. In all his years, he’d never seen a planet before where the life signs detector didn’t work. Humans from earth have exactly twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, and it was now becoming painfully obvious that this was the same number of chromosomes that people from D’ar’s planet had. That meant that every single person on Earth read as a member of the cult. That, in turn, meant that the entire planet would need to be swept to find the cult member. And that meant that it was time for the beta team to be called in. The time delay between Agency Headquarters and his own ship made it almost impossible to carry on a conversation. He signaled Headquarters and reported in with his clearance code, and had fully enough time to move his small ship to the dark side of the moon before anyone responded. When someone finally did respond, it was Administrator Illam. That, at least, was good news. Illam was a good man, and not one to get caught up in the political tides. “D’ar!” he said. “So good to see you again! How’s that retirement working out?” “It appears that it will be a few cycles away at least,” he replied. “The life signs detector cannot distinguish between the native inhabitants of this world and our own people.” “Oh dear,” Illam said, suddenly becoming serious. “You’re sure?” D’ar nodded. “I have checked both the shipboard unit and the portable unit. Both show the entire planet to be filled with the same species. There is no malfunction. The cult members are simply genetically indistinguishable to the detector.” “Well, I’m sure that with… well, never mind. It’s a non-issue anyway. I suppose you’ll want me to dispatch a beta team?” “Please. In fact, unconventional though it would be, perhaps it would be best to call for two. There are over six and a half billion life signs on the planet.” “Six and a half billion?! My, they must be crowded down there. That’s twice the galactic average. Alright. Under these exceptional circumstances I’m sure the council will agree with you. They’ll be dispatched as quickly as possible. Expect their arrival within three days.” “Thank you, Administrator.” “Certainly. And now, if there is nothing else, there is a meeting of the Administrators that is about to begin.” “Certainly. Good day, Administrator.” And with that, the conversation was closed. That left nothing to do but wait for the beta team. Of course, three days – Earth days or otherwise – was a long time to wait for anything, doubly so if you were confined to a small, single occupancy craft with nothing more than a seat, a few screens, and a cot in the back to sleep on. There are radical differences in races and cultures across the galaxy – physical differences, psychological differences, genetic differences, and cultural differences – but boredom is a universal constant. D’ar, therefore, spent most of his time sleeping. When he had slept so much that he couldn’t force himself to remain unconscious any longer, he started to read. Only in science fiction do advanced cultures equip their most utility-based vehicles with every literary work ever produced on their planet along with every piece of music. They would no more feel the need to do such a thing than you would feel the need to carry a copy of the records of the Library of Congress with you in your minivan. And having failed to bring any of his world’s literature with him, he was left with very little to do but stare out the cockpit window at the stars, waiting for the arrival of the beta team. Spending so much time asleep caused something of a disruption to his body’s established schedule, and so it was several hours after the beta team should have arrived that he realized that they were late. The Earth rotated on its axis a second time far below him, and still the beta team did not arrive. Now fully a day late, they warranted checking up on. He sent a message to Agency headquarters to see what had happened, and received no reply. This was a completely unheard of situation. The Agency never failed to respond to their operatives. The Agency never failed to respond to anyone for that matter. The Agency was a collection of 274 planets organized under a common rule that had been established so long ago that none of the planets kept individual names anymore. D’ar, even if pressed, could not tell you the name of his home world – only that it was a part of The Agency and the coordinates at which it was located. A collection of two hundred and seventy-four planets is never closed. It never goes off the air, it never fails to transmit, and the entire population of two hundred and seventy-four planets does not pop off to lunch and let people leave a message until they return. He strongly considered turning back and going home to see what had happened, but that would have meant abandoning the mission. It also meant taking what amounted to nothing more than a flying bedroom into a potentially hostile situation, which was not an idea he relished either.

One more day. He would give them one more day, and then, if he got neither a reply to any of his messages nor any word from the beta team, he would attempt to reach a friendly planet on the edges of The Agency’s space and look for more information about what had happened to them. But a full eleven hours before he was about to turn the ship around and return home, a light began to flash on the control panel at the front of the ship. Keying up the incoming message, he was shocked to see the nearlydestroyed remains of Administrator Illam’s office. The Administrator himself also looked surprisingly bad. His clothes were torn and burnt, he has a significant gash on his forehead, and his office was filled with smoke and sported flickering lights. “Administrator? What has happened?” “The cult struck at us again.” “The cult is less than ten members strong,” D’ar said, though the evidence staring at him from the screen seemed to indicate that someone, somewhere, had made a grave miscalculation. “The visible cult members were ten strong,” Illam replied. “It turns out that their reach extends much further than we had originally thought.” “How much farther?” “Twenty-nine planets have started a civil war with ‘unbelievers’ on their own planet as well as with The Agency at large. More are pledging their allegiance to the cult as well.” “This cannot be, Administrator! It is impossible!” “Not only is it impossible, but it is occurring at an accelerated rate. The thirtieth planet has just switched sides.” “So small a number of people could not – simply could not – convince this many planets to join them. Certainly not without The Agency and Administrators noticing.” “It is possible that cult members have worked themselves deeply into the chains of command in some of these planets, and are acting without the consent of the general population. Or they may be billing themselves as powerful beings in order to gain allegiance from the population at large.” “My services will be more useful there,” D’ar said. “I shall return home immediately.” “No!” Illam said passionately, though its effectiveness was marginalized by the ten minute delay. “That planet is in danger, now more than ever before, and it is up to you to save it.” “Administrator, it is impossible for one assassin to track down a single, genetically indistinguishable individual on a planet of this size. If your desire is for me to carry out my assignment, I will do so, but I cannot act until the beta team arrives.” “There isn’t going to be a beta team, D’ar! Don’t you understand? This is not a minor disturbance. Not only has civil war broken out amongst the worlds in The Agency, but several planets’ populations are also fighting amongst themselves internally. Our society, in the short span of two and a half cycles, has fallen into ruin.” D’ar swallowed heavily and cleared his throat. “What are your orders, Administrator?” “Proceed to the planet and begin your search for the cultist. Destroy your ship immediately upon landing, and assimilate into the local culture. If you are detecting any of our technology on the planet, that would be an appropriate place to begin.” “I have found no such thing so far, Administrator. I will therefore begin where I have the cover of darkness to assist me.” He paused. “Pardon me, Administrator, for continuing to raise this point, but even if I am successful in blending in with the people of the planet, how am I to find the lone member of the cult amongst six billion inhabitants?” “I may be able to help. If you can get a sample of the natives’ tissue – blood, hair, anything – and send it to me, then I may be able to fine tune the life signs detector and key it to the differences between species. That would make your job relatively simple.” D’ar nodded. “Yes, Administrator. I will see to it immediately.” “Good. Keep only the equipment that you need – the portable life signs detector, your communication device, and the rifle. Everything else must be destroyed. Do not allow our technology to fall into native hands. I will await your transmission of the genetic sample.” And with that, the Administrator closed the transmission. D’ar Viin was in a very bad mood when he moved back into orbit around Earth. He searched for an acceptable landing point, somewhere away from people and preferably where it was already dark to make it easier to avoid being spotted. And so, unbeknownst to him because he was unaware of the delineations between states, he set his ship down in rural Kansas, in a clearing between some trees. It was hard not to feel some sense that thing had taken a very bad turn as he stood next to his ship and watched as it disintegrated millimeter by millimeter, as the high energy pulse emitted from the self destruct mechanism and excited the bonds between atoms causing their bonds to fly apart. Things had to go right now. They simply had to, because if they didn’t, he was marooned here.

The last part of the engine assembly disappeared, and the self destruct device – a sphere the size of a grapefruit – unable to direct its destructive beam at itself, fell to the ground. D’ar picked it up and pocketed it. He stood up and looked around the dark forest where he had landed. It was remote and secluded, and the life signs detector showed that nobody was around for a mile, except a small house next to what appeared to be a farm. He would make his way there and begin his attempt to find a sample of native DNA. Fortunately the language had been easy enough to learn. English was not a particularly difficult language compared to his own, because it had half the number of consonants and a verb structure that was not reliant upon knowing the other person’s rank and social status in relation to your own in order to understand what was being said to you. Before any of this nasty cult business had begun, survey teams had checked out several of the planets that were now being held captive against their own knowledge, and so several languages were on file. Assassins were selected party because of their ability to learn and adapt quickly, with the hopes that blending in would not be difficult for someone who was highly observant and quick on the uptake. English had taken only seventeen cycles to learn, and it seemed to be a simple enough language. He anticipated no trouble fitting in. The road was not far from his landing site, and he found it and began walking towards the farm house. Now the only question was how receptive they would be to a visitor arriving at their door several hours after sunset. “Probably not very,” he thought to himself, considering his strange appearance. He wasn’t wearing a silver one piece jumpsuit, as one might expect from space travelers, but it was nearly as bad. The black shirt and pants that he wore were bulky, and they were trimmed in a yellowish sort of green colored piping. It turned out that he didn’t need this personal climate adjustment system on Earth, but there had been several worlds where a good deep breath would either freeze his lungs or cause them to spontaneously combust. He was likely very comfortable because his own genetic makeup was apparently so similar to that of the people here, and so their own definitions of “habitable” were probably also similar. As if the clothes hadn’t looked odd enough, he had also sustained some damage to them. Landing had been rough on his ship, and before landing he’d been sleeping in the same clothes for nearly ten days. They were badly wrinkled, and where they weren’t wrinkled they were stained, and where they weren’t stained they were torn, and where they weren’t torn they had a bad smell about them, and where they didn’t smell they were burned. There was not a single clean spot anywhere on them. Some of the green tubes along the front had even ruptured, leaking the heatable/coolable insulating liquid all over his front. He looked like he’d been through a war, and so he couldn’t help but wonder if the people in the house would think he was insane. He climbed the steps to the front door of the house and took a moment to regain his composure and run through the English he had been taught. Speaking to a native was entirely different from speaking to the administrator of a test back on his home world in The Agency. Confident in his ability to do well, he rapped sharply on the door. After a few moments, a woman wearing a red sweater opened the door just enough to poke her head out. “Yeah?” she asked. “Good evening, ma’am!” He said as cheerfully as he could. “Wouldst thou direct me to thy local centre of population? It is my fond wish to become acquainted with thou and thine humble village.” She looked at him bewilderedly, then leaned back into the house and called out, “Hey Earl! There’s some weirdo out here on the porch!” “Dost thou wishest that I should leave thee? If my presence perturbs…” “Look, sir, I don’t even know what you’re saying to me. Is this one of those hidden camera shows? Because if so you’re not as funny as you think…” She finally began to look him over and see the poor condition of the clothes he was wearing, and she suddenly opened the door wide and pulled him in. “Why, you poor dear! Why didn’t you say you’d been in a car accident? No wonder you’re so disoriented. Probably whacked your head somethin’ fierce as well.” She all but pushed him into a chair in the kitchen and went to the other room. “Earl! Get in here! Another one’s run his car off the road and into that ditch!” She turned to him again. “I keep sayin’ there ought to be a sign about that turn but of course Earl never listens to me. Maybe he will now.” D’ar merely nodded, trying not to speak, because it was becoming plainly obvious that the language had changed since the survey team had been here several centuries ago. Still, he was impressed. So many changes in the mode of speech in a short time indicated a civilization that was progressing quickly and adapting to new needs with almost every generation. Earl had not come into the kitchen, so the woman had gone to look for him. There was some kind of argument brewing in the other room, but D’ar couldn’t hear it well enough to understand what was happening. Finally the woman came back into the kitchen. “Earl reckons if you’re not feelin’ right that it’s best if you go on up to bed. He says he’ll go out in the truck tomorrow and help you pull your car up outta that ditch.” D’ar opened his mouth to say something but she cut him off. “Don’t try to talk, dearie,” she said as she led him up the stairs and opened the door into a guest room. “You just get a good night of sleep and we’ll get you fixed up come morning.” And with that, she closed the door and was gone.

D’ar had been asleep only two hours ago, and so was not anywhere near ready to sleep any more. He smiled, though, thinking of the kindness that the woman had shown. Of course, sending a disoriented person that you thought might be concussed to bed was the worst thing one could do in such a case, but it was clear that she was well meaning. He turned away from the door and looked at the room he had been placed in. It was very rustic, decorated with country colors and unfinished woods, but the bed at least appeared to be softer and more comfortable than the cot he had slept on for the last few days. The cot, the atoms of which were now sweeping away on the wind, he thought. He still could not shake the feeling that the orders the Administrator had given him were ill-conceived. There was a small desk facing the window, so he pulled out the chair and set up the communication device and the life signs detector. The communicator was dual purpose, allowing for the transmission of audio and video or, with the flicking of a switch, transmitting and receiving typed characters and data. He interfaced the life signs detector and the communicator, and then set about searching the room for tissue samples. He checked under the bed, ran his hands along the pillow, picked pieces of fuzz up from the corner of the room, and wiped the inside of the sink in the half bath attached to the room with a piece of clean white cloth that he had in a sealed case in his pocket. When he had five samples all assembled, he sat in the chair and slid open a compartment in the front of the life signs detector. He placed each of the samples, one at a time, into the detector until he found one that had the right number of chromosomes and read – falsely – as a member of his own species. That was the DNA he was looking for, and so he sent it through the connection made by the communicator to Administrator Illam. Ten minutes later, he received a message confirming Illam’s receipt of the data from the sample, and a promise to have it analyzed and the resultant tweaks to the life signs detector sent back to him as soon as it was possible to do so, under the circumstances. He still was not fatigued, so he began to look around the room for something to occupy his mind until he could be on his way again in the morning. There was a bookshelf in the room, but it contained only two volumes. They were neatly aligned on the top shelf, as if someone had intended to put more books on the shelf later but never quite got around to doing so. He took the two books off the shelf and looked at them bewilderedly. Both bore the same title: Holy Bible. How peculiar, he thought, to have two copies of one text. How redundant it seemed. He put one of them back on the shelf and opened the other to a random page. “All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.” Sacrificeth? Feareth? This seemed more like the English he had learned. He closed the book and looked at the subtitle engraved on the front of the faux leather cover. “King James Version,” it read. He looked at the other volume. Its subtitle was different – “New International Version.” A quick scan through some of the rest of the book revealed that it was a religious work, apparently one that had at least two translations. It took some time to figure out the notation system, but he managed to find the same section. The book seemed to be divided into chapter titles – this chapter being called Ecclesiastes – which was further divided into numbered subsections, and then divided even further into numbered sentences. It was an inefficient method dividing a work, simply because the level of detail was too high, but he was able to find the corresponding section in the second book. “All share a common destiny,” it said. “the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. As it is with the good man, so with the sinner; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them.” D’ar smiled. While he was not particularly interested in the deistic beliefs of a primitive culture, he now had everything he needed in order to create a translation matrix. He set both of the books up on the desk and opened them to their first pages. Working one sentence at a time, he began to construct a framework in his own mind, translating the mode of speech he had been taught to match the more modern usage that seemed to be common now. After two hours of reading, however, even he had grown weary, and so he decided that the best thing to do was to get some sleep. Even with all the sleep he had taken over the last two days the allure of the properly supportive and warm bed in the room was more than he could stand the thought of passing up. He made sure to put the books back onto the shelf where he had found them, and placed the technology he had brought with him back inside his pocket before taking off the shirt and pants and getting into bed. There was no guarantee who would, or would not, be coming in during the night to check on him and make sure he was alright. He felt much better than he looked and wasn’t concerned about any of the bumps and bruises he had sustained during the landing, but the lady of the house had expressed a deep level of concern about his physical and mental health, and there was therefore no telling what actions she might take in order to get him the help that she perceived him to be in need of. He certainly didn’t want her to see anything that he had brought from the ship and start asking curious questions about an object or its functionality.

As it turned out, she didn’t disturb him during the night or in the morning. He wasn’t sure what the appropriate time to arise was on a farm on Earth, so he sat by the door waiting to hear the sound of people up and about downstairs. Forty five minutes after sunrise, he was certain that they had begun their daily routine. He opened the door ready to go downstairs, but found a bundle of clothes folded neatly and placed outside his door, presumably for him to change into. He took them into the room and changed quickly before heading downstairs. “Oh, good! I was worried Earl’s clothes wouldn’t fit you,” the woman said, turning from the cooking surface she was standing in front of, where a curious yellow substance and small brown cylinders were sizzling. She noticed where he was staring. “I hope you like scrambled eggs and sausage.” “Indeed,” he replied, smiling. He had no idea what scrambled eggs and sausage were but lying about your familiarity with things was part of blending in. “Well, go on, have a seat,” she said, gesturing towards the kitchen table. D’ar pulled out a chair and sat across from Earl, who was deeply engrossed in reading a large piece of paper with images and text of wildly varying sizes. “More troops, money necessary to ensure success in Iraq, Bush says,” read one of the large text towards the bottom of the page that was facing D’ar across the table. “Chiefs lost again,” Earl said, and it was clear from his tone that this was not something that he considered acceptable. “Packers wiped the floor with ‘em. I keep sayin’ it’s their defense needs improving, but nobody agrees with me.” There was a good chance that Earl expected some form of response now. It was difficult to know how to respond without knowing what game Earl was referring to, but if the Chiefs had been bested by the Packers, then it was not outside the realm of possibility that they did indeed need to better fortify their position. And wherever there were defensive maneuvers, there were also offensive ones. “If the Chiefs have been defeated yet again, I would say that they probably should reconsider their strategies both defensively and offensively. Even the greatest defense only allows one to become besieged by the enemy without the ability to attack them with equal force.” “Hm.” Earl said, probably trying not to give away the fact that he didn’t understand everything D’ar had said. That, of course, was the objective. As D’ar had hoped, Earl changed the subject. “So, you ran your car off the road into that ditch?” If Earl offered to take him out and help retrieve the car and found nothing, it would be very suspicious. “No,” D’ar said. “In fact I was out hiking yesterday when I fell down an embankment, hitting my head several times. I wandered aimlessly for quite some time before I found your home. I thank you for your kindness.” “It was the least we could do… uh… I don’t believe we got your name last night.” “I am called D’ar Viin,” he said. “Might want to get that stutter look at by a doctor, son,” Earl said. “Did you say your name was Darvin?” “Indeed,” he said, covering quickly. Darvin was close enough, and it did seem to be more pronounceable by the human tongue. “That’s a strange name for a fellow,” the woman said. “Indeed. My parents were… unique. I also do not have your name, ma’am,” he said. “Oh my! How rude of me! My name is Annie.” “I thank you for your hospitality, Annie.” “It was no trouble at all.” She took the frying pans off of the heat and put some eggs and sausage on each of the plates, placing one of them in front of each of their places at the table. Annie and Earl each bowed their heads and closed their eyes, presumably saying a prayer to their deity – D’ar had not read far enough in the texts to find out the god’s name. “If I had my pocketbook with me, I would offer to compensate you for the use of your resources,” D’ar said when they had finished. He took a bite of the food, and discovered that he very much liked scrambled eggs. “Bah, I wouldn’t hear of it,” Earl said, making a waving gesture with his right hand that was, presumably, meant to indicate that the matter of discussion was not even worth consideration. “And now I don’t even need to pull a car out of the ditch… probably twenty people have come off the road on doing that sharp a turn at 45, and I’ve pulled them all out. And not a one of them has offered me so much as a red cent. The cost of a couple of eggs is pretty minimal compared to the time I’d lose towing another car.” “Do you have a phone number where you can call someone to come for you?” Annie asked. “They must be worrying after you something terrible by now.” “You’ll get better cell reception on the front porch,” she said. He stared at her blankly. “I’m assuming you do have a cell phone, don’t you? I don’t know many young people without one anymore.” “Of course,” he said, feeling in his pockets for a device he knew was not there. “We must have become separated after my injury.” “Shall we go look for it?” “No need. I shall simply replace it upon my return.”