Illegal Alien

*34*

The camera had been shut off. Frank floated in the starship’s sickbay, looking at Kelkad. They were more alone than any two people in the solar system right now; even Mir currently had more people aboard, as well as constant contact with the ground crew in Kaliningrad.

“We should return to the planet,” said Kelkad.

The planet. Not “to Earth.” Not “home.” The planet. The gulf between them was gigantic.

And yet Frank knew he would never have another chance like this one—away from the other Tosoks, away from the media, away from the rest of the scientific entourage, away from the court.

“Kelkad,” said Frank, “privately, just between you and me, do you think Hask killed Clete?”

Kelkad did not hesitate. “Yes.”

The word surprised Frank. He’d expected a denial—but perhaps denial was a human failing.

“But why? Why would he commit murder? Is he—is he crazy?”

Kelkad’s tuft moved backward in negation. “No more than any of us.”

“Then why would he do it?”

Kelkad pushed gently off the wall. “We should leave.”

“No, please. Just between you and me. I have to know.”

“You would not understand.”

Frank thought about that. It had always been a possibility—that the aliens’ psychology would prove so different, so bizarre, that none of their actions would ever make sense to a human. “Try me,” he said simply.

Kelkad had reached the far side of the room. He stuck out his front hand to brake himself. Once he’d touched the wall, he began to drift slowly back in the other direction. He seemed to be thinking, as if deciding how to possibly put the idea into words the human might understand. “Like you,” he said at last, “we believed we were created in God’s own image—and that meant we must be perfect beings, divinely designed and flawlessly executed. It gave us great comfort knowing this—how much easier the problems of life are to bear when you know you are a child of God!”

Frank thought about his own Catholic upbringing. He nodded slightly.

“But then,” said Kelkad, “like you, we discovered the principles of evolution.” He had reached the near wall again. This time he grabbed onto one of the storage-unit handles to anchor himself.

“In our case, it was different,” continued Kelkad. “You humans have a world that is mostly water, with landmasses isolated one from the other, creating discrete habitats in which evolution can proceed separately. Indeed, it astounds us that your race has only so recently learned of evolution, for it should have been obvious many hundreds of years ago.

“We Tosoks may be forgiven, I think, for taking longer to puzzle it out. Our world is about twenty percent water, and there are no isolated landmasses. Many species roam the entire globe. Still, there is the fossil record—again, on a drier world, such as ours, sedimentation and therefore fossilization take place less rapidly; our fossil record is spotty, although it is supplemented to a degree by naturally mummified remains. But its analysis nonetheless hinted at a sequence of steps between ancient lifeforms and modern ones.

“Still, the proof of evolution came not, as it did on your world, from observing isolated populations showing specialized adaptations, but later in our intellectual development through biochemistry, through analyzing the divergence in genetic material between related species.”

“We do similar things here,” said Frank. “Although the fossil record of primate evolution is scanty, we know, for instance, that apes and humans split five million years ago, based on analyses of the degree of difference between our DNA and theirs.”

“Exactly: what for you has been a subsequent corroborating proof of evolution was for us its principal evidence. But no matter which route one takes to that knowledge, the conclusion is inescapable: both you and I are the products of natural selection, not divine engineering.”

“I suspect that’s as universal a truth as the law of gravity,” said Frank.

“You speak sacrilege!” said Kelkad, angry enough to let go of the handle. He was now floating freely a meter from the human.

“I— I beg your pardon?” said Frank.

“To our everlasting shame, it is true that the Tosoks, and all life on our world, evolved. And, as we have learned, it is true that life here on Earth evolved, too. But somewhere—somewhere—in this vast universe, there must be true children of God, created in her perfect image.”

The words were out before Frank realized how impolitic they were: “Really, Kelkad, you can’t believe that.”

“I believe it with every fiber of my being,” said Kelkad. His tuft was moving excitedly. “God must exist, or the universe is without meaning and purpose. Since the latter premise is unacceptable, the former—the existence of a divine being—must be true.”

Frank was struggling to understand. “And so having discovered that you weren’t the products of divine engineering, you came to Earth looking to see if we were the products of it?”

“That was part of our mission, yes.”

“And what makes you think we’re not?” asked Frank.

Kelkad’s topknot split in a shrug. “At first we thought you might indeed be—you were so different from us! Evolution produced the Tosok form, and we had assumed it was a sort of generalized product of random chance—not perfect, you understand, but we felt that the basic fourfold symmetry, with arms front and back and legs left and right, would be a model that evolution would tend toward. But your form—twofold symmetry, arms above and legs below—was so bizarre that we thought perhaps we might be staring at a miniature form of God, that in you we saw the true form of the creator. But then…”

“Then?”

Kelkad seemed reluctant to go on, but after a moment he did. “Once we discovered the biochemical fact of evolution, we could not help but look at ourselves, and the other forms of life on our world, in a different light. Far from being the optimized form we had always assumed, we began to realize that there were many basic flaws in the Tosok body plan. Our hearts, for instance, allow oxygenated and unoxygenated blood to mix.”

“Reptilian hearts here on Earth do that,” said Frank. “They have three-chambered hearts; humans have four-chambered ones that keep used blood separate from freshly oxygenated blood.”

“A fine design,” said Kelkad.

“Well, it’s better than the reptilian one,” agreed Frank. “But, then, reptiles are cold-blooded. They don’t have to support a high level of metabolism. But the warm-blooded forms on Earth—mammals and birds—each independently evolved a more efficient four-chamber heart.”

“They are fortunate,” said Kelkad. “We do not have such things. Oh, we manage a high level of metabolism, but that is attributable in part to having four hearts working in unison, rather than to a basic efficiency of the Tosok cardiac design. Such flaws prove our lack of divine origin—just as such flaws prove the same about yourselves.”

“What flaws?” said Frank.

“Your throats, for instance. Food can block your own air passageway, and—”

“And—my God!” said Frank, heart pounding. “My God! And our eyes—our eyes are wired backward. And our guts contain an appendix that does nothing useful at all. When Hask dissected Calhoun, he was looking for design flaws, for things that would prove we had not been created from an intelligently designed blueprint.”

“In fact,” said Kelkad, “I suspect he was looking for the opposite—for proof that you were divine, that we had found God’s true children in our own backyard. His disappointment must have been profound at discovering that you, too, had evolved inefficiently through trial and error.”

“Wait a minute,” said Frank. “If Hask thought we were God’s children, what would move him to kill one of us in the first place? Surely he must have thought that God would frown on murdering one of his creations?”

“Hask did not intend to kill Calhoun.”

“Oh, come on! I don’t care where it evolved, no lifeform could have survived that kind of dissection.”

“The dissection was done after Calhoun was dead, of course.”

“But to sever a limb!”

“Hask cut off Calhoun’s leg,” the alien captain said in agreement. “Doubtless to Hask’s astonishment, Calhoun bled to death.”

“A clean cut like that, right through the femoral artery? Of course he bled to death!”

“That was likely Hask’s first clue that the human design was inefficient.”

“Well, what the hell would happen if I cut off your leg?”

“I would be unable to walk, until the leg regenerated or was reattached.”

“What about blood loss? We’ve seen Tosoks bleed.”

“A small amount of blood would escape, but valves in our arteries would close, preventing any significant loss.”

“We don’t have valves in our arteries,” said Frank.

“Imagine Hask’s shock when he discovered that.”

“Christ,” said Frank. “Jesus Christ.” He closed his eyes. Humans do have valves in their veins—which carry used blood back to the heart—but not in their arteries, which carry freshly oxygenated blood away from the heart.

When venous valves fail to function properly, the result is varicose veins.

“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” said Frank, getting it. “The human heart is located near the top of the body; fresh blood going down into the legs needs no help—gravity causes it to flow down anyway. It’s only blood coming back up, climbing four, five, or even six feet from our feet to our heart that’s in danger of slipping backward; that’s why we have valves that close when it does so. But the four Tosok hearts—Stant testified in court that they’re located near the bottom of the torso. So, in you, blood going from the heart up to the head is also prone to slipping back. Of course you’d have valves in both your arteries and in your veins.” He shook his head, angry with himself for not having seen it earlier. “But why would Hask cut off Clete’s leg in the first place?”

“Leg amputation is a standard method of prisoner restraint on our world.”

“Prisoner!” said Frank.

“Yes. Clearly Hask needed to keep Calhoun from getting away while he went to do something—presumably summoning me, his commanding officer. He had no bonding equipment with him, but he did have his monofilament cutting tool.”

“But why would he need to restrain Calhoun?”

“Of that,” said Kelkad, “I have no idea.”