The Endless Dance Card : 6 / 7

A Kingdom Ship Story
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

Donaldson’s eyes flashed fire. “We’ll see about that!” he said in a tense tone. “We’ll see about that!” He grabbed his tablet and abruptly left the room, followed by the woman I didn’t know.

The doctor, the psych and I looked at Qurakas. He looked into my eyes and said, “We need to move. Thank God I’m awake.” He put his hand on my shoulder and said with more urgency, “Now. We need to move NOW. Let’s go.” The two women looked at each other, and in unplanned unison said, “Anything we can do, let us know.”

“Thanks,” he replied. He pulled me out of my chair and into the hall. Once we were out of anyone’s earshot, he said in a low voice, “We need to seize that chamber, now.”

“Chamber?” I asked. “What chamber?”

“The one with the fucking Idlewild machine,” he growled, and started walking briskly down the hall. I trotted behind, trying to keep up. As he walked, Qurakas gave orders into his wrist device. He directed Jimson, who was in virtual mode, to project into the Idlewild Chamber, and once there, to disable projected access.

“Should I disable projected access to the Security team as well?” Jimson asked.

“Absolutely,” Qurakas. “Disable it for everyone. Then seal the room physically to everyone but me and Fergusdottor. Once the two of us arrive, no one gets in except for my engineering team, and they must be unaccompanied to enter.”

Goosebumps ran over my entire body. Qurakas wasn’t fooling around. “Projected access” is when your avatar moves instantly from one ship location to another. Its use was pretty much limited to meetings and emergencies, and it's a tool that allows Security cover a lot of ground quickly.

“Once we get to the chamber,” Qurakas told me, “I’m going to wake up half the team so we can physically hold the location while you work.”

“Are you expecting a fight?” I asked.

Qurakas smiled. “Back on Earth, I was a Boy Scout. Do you know the Boy Scout motto?”

I thought for a moment. Motto was already an ancient word, but Boy Scout? It sounded vaguely medieval, like the word “chamber.” In spite of that strangeness, his musty call to the past echoed somewhere in my deep memories, and in response a phrase came floating up from the depths of memory. ”Be Prepared?” I ventured.

Qurakas nodded. “Be Fucking-Well Prepared. If Donaldson tries to use force on you, he better bring a goddamn army, because we will be--” He looked at me to finish the sentence.

“Prepared?”

He laughed. “Good girl!” he said, and he socked me playfully on the arm.

“You’re getting off on this, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Hell, yeah, I am!” he replied.

It took another 15 minutes for us to arrive at the “chamber.” Jimson opened the door by the barest crack to let us enter, and swiftly closed and locked it behind us. Jimson was clearly anxious. I could almost hear his nerves jangling. “So…,” he asked. “What’s going on?” His hands couldn’t stop moving -- they way one hand worked the other, it looked like he was trying to crack every knuckle from wrist to finger tip.

“The game is afoot!” Qurakas cackled. “The GAME is AFOOT!”

Jimson's face showed even more confusion, as he glanced first at Qurakas’ feet, then at mine.

 

---

 

Given the size of the ship, the number of engineers in avatar mode, and the various duties they were currently performing, it was an hour before all the engineers were assembled in the chamber. Half our number was awake and physically present. The other half arrived as avatars. Everyone knew that something was “afoot,” and the nervous, excited tension was palpable.

Qurakas scanned the room. All eyes were on him. Every faced showed full attention. He paused for a dramatic moment, then spoke:

“Welcome to the Idlewild Chamber. The existence and location of this room were classified until ninety minutes ago. It was a secret only the higher-ups were privy to. I only learned of it today -- I was automatically given access when the Idlewild Protocol was declassified.”

Jimson raised his hand to ask a question. Qurakas shook his head. “Questions later. First, I’m going to explain. Second, we’re going to prepare for war. After that, you can ask your questions.

“You all know Fergusdottor. You all knew her when she was Fergus, and you all know about the accident that changed her gender. You also know that for the past five years, while we were all asleep, she was making major efforts, every day, to find a way back to being Fergus. Her efforts, while they didn’t succeed in changing her back to who she once was, have resulted in several scientific and technological breakthroughs and innovations. She’s expanded our understanding of the profile system, the rejuvenation beds, the plastic-surgery module, and several other devices.

“She also uncovered an insidious sabotage plot -- a plot whose goal was to kill every one of us through a cyber-virus. We all owe her our lives.

“In spite of all that, in spite of everything that Fergus endured, in spite of all the efforts Fergusdottor has made, I am offended, disgusted, furious, and sick at heart, because I have to tell you that -- during all that time, unbeknownst to Fergusdottor, unbeknownst to everyone on board -- except for a precious few -- there was a machine sitting right here -- a machine whose sole function and purpose is to change a person’s gender. That’s the one: that ugly-looking metal box back there.” He gestured to the device.

“There are a few people on board, all men, who have been designated Idlewild Candidates, and this machine is supposedly able to convert those men into women -- women capable of bearing children.”

“Why?” Jimson asked.

“Questions later,” Qurakas repeated. “As I told you, today, roughly ninety minutes ago, the Idlewild Protocol was declassified. Obviously, no one’s going to try to turn Fergusdottor into a woman -- she’s already there. And there’s clearly no reason to round up the handful of Idlewild Candidates and turn them into women.

“We can only speculate about what’s coming and what it has to do with Fergusdottor, but I have a very bad feeling about it and I want to make sure that Fergusdottor has the space, the time, and the support to look into this machine and see if it could help her solve her problem. I’m afraid that someone might be trying to close a door before she steps through it.”

Jimson asked, “Is someone actually trying to stop her?”

Qurakas nodded. “It sure looks that way. Lt Donaldson, specifically, tried to prevent her from even seeing the machine, let alone studying or using it. Now, I propose that we commandeer this room and make it our command center, and we will do whatever it takes to allow Fergusdottor -- who is one of us -- to use this place in peace and security, for as long as she needs.” He looked around the room, reading the faces. “Anyone who doesn’t want a part of this, just let me know. I’ll let you get out of this room and I’ll keep you out of it.” He looked around the room and was met with expectant silence. “Otherwise…” Then, just like in a movie, he abruptly shouted, “WHO’S WITH ME?” and the room erupted in cheers.

Jeez, I said to myself, Could we really go a thousand years with nothing happening?

 

---

 

While I walked around the Idlewild device, Qurakas prepared for siege. He brought in autonomous food-fabs, water and air purifiers, and power supplies. He wheeled in a portable lavatory, and set it up in the corner. In the little space that was left, he installed engineering workstations, so our team could keep up with our duties. Lastly, he brought in stun weapons and shields. “Just in case,” he said, with a smile.

“I forgot that you were Army before you joined the ships,” I said.

“That is correct,” he replied. “And now that WE are ready, is there anything else that YOU need?”

“I just need a console, so I can plug into the device.”

Qurakas had to send one of his guys out to grab me one. I could see he was a little miffed that he hadn’t thought of that one tiny detail. He sat at my side as I turned on the Idlewild device and attached my console. “I hope you don’t mind if I watch,” he said. “It’ll give me a chance to learn something.”

One extremely helpful thing I found while studying the rejuvenation bed and the plastic-surgery module, was that, among the folders containing the operating system, program files, and utilities, there was a folder marked DOCUMENTS. As you’d expect, there was quite of bit of useful information there, although the quality varied. Some of the documents were well-written and complete. Others were obviously dashed off quickly, like the sketchiest of field notes. In any case -- and exactly as I hoped and expected -- the Idlewild device had just such a collection.

Before I began to dig into that treasure trove of information, I took a quick look around the system, and (among other things) I found the names of the Idlewild Candidates onboard. There were three of them. Three men who -- unbeknownst to them -- could apparently be converted to women if the occasion demanded.

“Shit,” Qurakas exclaimed.

“Do you know any of them?” I asked. “I don’t.”

“I know they’re on the ship, but for sure they aren’t in our crew. They’re all asleep right now.”

“Should we tell them? We could leave each one a message.”

“No,” Qurakas said. “It’s doubtful this protocol will ever be invoked. Why give them something to worry about? Something that will never happen?”

“It’s already been invoked,” I replied.

“No,” he said in a pedantic tone, “It’s been declassified, and only to a limited extent.”

“That doesn’t change anything for these three men.”

“If you tell them, you’re going to give them a problem that they won’t be able to do anything about. The only thing you’ll do is raise their anxiety level, permanently. There is no point in telling them.”

“I feel I have an obligation to tell them,” I said. “If something this momentous was hanging over my head, I’d rather know.”

“Hmm,” he mused. “Don’t project your preferences on them. You don’t know what they want. And like I said, chances are, this will never happen. AND, one more thing, one big thing: it’s not your place to tell. This information, which we found by accident, is still classified. If you go telling anyone -- even these three men -- you’ll be subject to disciplinary measures.” We looked at each other for several seconds, trying to read each other’s thoughts in our faces. In the end, I figured that, even if I decided to warn the three men, I wasn’t obliged to inform Qurakas. It was also pointless to argue with him about it right now. If I convinced him that I was going to warn the three men, he could take steps to block me from doing it.

So I just said, “You’re right,” and turned back to my console.

The smallest document was labelled 00-OVERVIEW -- it was clearly the place to start.

According to the overview, Dr Idlewild and his team accidentally discovered a physical condition that they called Dormant Protandrous Dichogamy. In plain English, a man with Dormant Protandrous Dichogamy has a female reproductive system inside him. This dormant system is so small, and so minimally active, that it can only be found if you’re specifically looking for it. There are no external signs of the condition, which explains why those tests were so excruciating -- I mean, the tests we all underwent to determine whether we were Idlewild Candidates. They were painful and invasive. You could even describe them as harrowing.

It took me fifty minutes to get through the overview. The document wasn’t long, but I had to keep stopping to get over my horror and shock. Then I sat in silence for another thirty minutes, until Qurakas came over to see how I was doing.

“Donaldson was right,” I told him. “This has nothing at all to do with me. It’s a one-way process, and it’s only for men with a certain physical condition.”

“There’s nothing you can take, or use, or adapt for what you need?” he asked.

“No,” I said. Then, after a long pause, I added in a slow, quiet voice, “This is creepy as hell.”

“What is creepy as hell?”

“The whole thing: the idea, the testing, setting those men up for this… you know, Idlewild must have tested this on real people, back on Earth. He must have cut people open to see... “ I shuddered. “It’s all so… unethical... and wrong… and... just disgusting.”

Qurakas wasn’t sure what to say, so he rubbed his beard, making a light scritching noise.

“And this machine--” the words began to stick in my throat “--this machine is so fucking barbaric! I’d like to blow if off the face of the Earth.” Qurakas glanced at my face, bemused by my choice of phrase. So I added, “You know what I mean. This fucking horror ought to be destroyed.”

“What exactly does it do?” he asked.

“Well, the man is restrained in that chair,” I told him, pointing. “He is closed inside and knocked out. Then, through a combination of various injections and radiation pulses, his dormant female organs are forced to grow. In the beginning, all the changes are internal. They pump him full of hormones and other shit, including euphoriants. Once his vagina is developed enough inside of him, they chop off his male genitals and form a female set. If they left his bat and balls intact, they’d atrophy anyway, and his newly developed organs would have no outlet. At that point, the genital reconstruction is a medical necessity.”

Qurakas gaped at me, then shook and shuddered. “This is like something out of the middle ages,” he said.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It’s brutal. It’s ingenious, I have to say, but in a totally sick and twisted way. It makes what happened to me seem like a walk in the park. Anyway, the final step--”

“The FINAL step?” Qurakas interrupted. “You mean there’s more?”

“Oh yes,” I said, with a heavy sigh. “The final step is a massive conglomeration of cosmetic surgeries, meant to make the newly minted woman as visually desirable as possible.”

“Let me guess,” Qurakas said. “She gets turned into a bimbo.”

“Maximum bimbo, yeah,” I nodded. “Then, after recovery -- which can be accelerated, if they feel it’s necessary -- she is put into service, making babies.”

Qurakas shook his head. “It’s nuts. It’s not as though we don’t have enough women. Half the ship is female, and statistically most of the embryos are going to be girls. As some kind of insurance, or redundancy, this doesn’t seem very effective, or even necessary.”

“No,” I agreed. “It’s not as though you can expect one woman to be the mother to a whole new human race.”

Qurakas mused, “It’s hard to imagine a circumstance where a machine like this would ever be needed.”

“Actually… there was something about that in the doc,” I told him. “Apparently there were software glitches in the sleep pods on some of the first-generation ships. Those, uh, glitches ended up killing all the women onboard.”

“What the--” Qurakas swore. “All the women?”

I shrugged. “That’s what it says.”

“How?”

“It doesn’t say how. There isn’t any description of the glitch; it just says there was one. Even so, I can’t believe that this was supposed to be the remedy for that.”

Qurakas thought for a moment, then asked me, “So when did these things first go into service? Can you tell?”

“Yes,” I replied. “According to the docs, this was one of the features that defined the second-generation ships.”

“It was pretty clever, the way they hid this chamber from us, the engineering crew,” he mused.

“Yeah, I guess so.” I looked around. The room had high ceilings, typical of Kingdom ships, and it was a lot bigger than it probably needed to be. The machine was big, but it only took up a fifth of the room. What was all the extra space for? Spectators? I shuddered.

“We can go now,” I told Qurakas. “That’s for letting me do this.”

“Wait -- what?” he asked, startled. “You want to leave? If you leave, Security might not let you come back.”

“I don’t want to come back. I never want to see this room ever again. We can leave now, and seal the damn place up again.”

Qurakas seemed baffled. “But -- Fergusdottor, we’ve only been here a couple of hours. You can’t possibly be finished. You can’t tell me that you’ve really studied this machine.”

“No, I haven’t, but I’ve seen enough. I’m done. This machine isn’t going to help me, and frankly I’d like to get the hell away from it.”

“You can’t take a few more days to study this machine… to get to know it, all the way down to its casing?”

“No, there’s no point.”

“You can’t methodically work your way through every document and file in its memory? In the hopes of some hidden revelation that could unlock who knows how many secrets?”

“I don’t want to. It isn’t worth the time or the energy.”

He looked stumped. Was it because he wanted more time to play soldier? Why didn’t this place freak him out? Did he know more than he’d let on? How much had Donaldson told him? How much had he known already?

In soft, quiet voice, I ventured a question: “Qurakas, what’s going on?”

Qurakas didn’t respond. Instead, he leaned back in his chair so it was resting on its back legs. He leaned back so far, I expected him to fall over. He stared up at the far corner of the ceiling, then set his heels, with great deliberation, one at a time, on the edge of the table. With agonizing slowness, he linked his fingers together behind his head and spread his elbows wide. After all that, without looking at me, he said, “When I miss Earth, do you know what I miss the most, Fergusdottor?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, more than a little irritated by his manner. “The stinky air? The foul water? Sunburn?”

“No,” he said, in a slow drawl. “Smoking.”

“What?” I snapped. “Smoking? Smoking what? Smoking piles of--”

“No,” he replied, cutting me off. “Smoking cigarettes.”

“What are you even talking about?” I asked him. “On Earth, you can’t even find a cigarette in a museum, let alone smoke one. And aside from that, what the hell? What the hell, Qurakas? I just told you that I want to get out of here! We can all get out of here! Thank you -- seriously, thank you. I appreciate your giving me the time and opportunity for this, but now it’s enough. It’s over. I’m done. I want to get out of this creepy chamber!”

He held two fingers to his lips, and inhaled, as if he were drawing on an invisible cigarette. He held his breath for two beats, then blew it out gently, as if it were tobacco smoke. “I bet I would be a mad genius for blowing smoke rings,” he said.

“Fuck the smoke rings!” I said. “What is with you? I’m sincerely grateful that you did all this for me, Qurakas, but I want out of this chamber of horrors! Now!”

“What if I told you that there was a bigger chamber of horrors outside?” he asked in a very quiet voice.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, Fergusdottor, Fergusdottor,” he said. “Do you remember how you said that if something momentous was hanging over your head, you’d want to know?”

My breath stopped. My heart stood still. “Yes?”

He took his feet off the table and lowered all four chair legs to the floor. He leaned closer, so his face looked directly into mine. In a voice that only I could hear, Qurakas whispered, “Something momentous is hanging over your head.”