A. K. A. The Alien: series 3

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  A. K. A. The Alien

  series 3

  Lindsay Tomlinson

  Copyright 2014 Lindsay Tomlinson

  License Notes

  The right of Lindsay Tomlinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988

  cover copyright: ermess - Fotolia.com

  DIAMOND FLOOR

  13

 

  Table of Contents

  3.1. Mr Smith the alien

  3.2. Fingerprints for pleasure and profit

  3.3. Fish-feeder-in-chief

  3.4. Twenty-four pubs

  3.5. The Ben-body

  3.6. How to tell when your alien entity is dead

  3.7. Even bosses have bosses

  3.8. The quibble

  3.9. The use of umbrellas in space

  3.10. Talking in tongues

  3.11. The entertainment value of the common cold

  3.12. An emergency is announced

  3.13. The forever fish

  3.14. Blasphemer

  3.15. The fishes’ story

  3.16. Economic Policy in France

  3.17. The day of the Defiance

  3.18. The table lamp

  3.19. The fish-killer

  3.20. Concentrating on the creases

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  3.1. Mr Smith the alien

  Within two days of arriving at Camp Munro, a group of high officials from Min-XR came up to the Bonaventure to greet me on behalf of the entire human race. They told me how honoured they were that I had made contact with them and they predicted a long and fruitful association between our two people. They said a lot more besides, but by then I’d stopped listening. I remained polite and responded to all their platitudes, although I may have done so entirely in Japanese.

  Lieutenant Belgatti was not used to being in the presence of officials of such high status and was visibly nervous throughout the meeting. He was also annoyed that I ignored all his requests to change languages, but not half as annoyed as the Very Important People, who had reached a position in their careers when they were not used to having underlings ignore their commands. But I was an Alien, and a powerful Alien at that, and I was not under their command, so there was nothing they could do about it.

  Their irritation with me resulted in an extra large flurry of communications between themselves and the even bigger bosses back at HQ. Lieutenant Shue had told them he was convinced I had access to all forms of electronic and slip communications, a fact I knew mainly because they discussed his assessment with each other, apparently under the assumption that the ‘all’ somehow did not refer to their own secure encrypted command communications, and they continued to talk about me freely. They made it even easier for me to monitor their chat about me when they gave me a code-name all of my own. Mr Smith.

  One of the officials decided, on the basis of the twenty minutes he had spent in my company - ignoring the combined evidence of the entire crew of the Bonaventure to the contrary - that I was not an alien at all but a human out to con the company. Others worried about any possible allegiance I might have, past or present, to their arch-enemy Fleur, and about what I planned to do to Camp Munro, to them and/or to their company. The two camps gathered their supporters, and the third camp, those who thought I was probably an alien who had unexpectedly stumbled on some humans for the first time, just as all the evidence suggested, was generally ignored.

  Lieutenant Belgatti felt that, as liaison officer, he was somehow responsible for my conduct, and had been deeply embarrassed by my behaviour at the meeting. Not even letting him win six times in a row at chess cheered him up. I drew the line at letting him win a seventh time. It was just too difficult to lose convincingly.

  3.2. Fingerprints for pleasure and profit

  The name of the official who felt sure I was human was Gregory Atkinson. He was an Executive Officer with the power to insist that my humanness be demonstrated before he gave permission for the Bonaventure to go anywhere ever again. Proving my non-humanness was apparently not on the agenda.

  Atkinson ordered Lieutenant Belgatti to collect some biometric data from me so it could be checked against company records and thus my true identity be revealed. This I discovered when I happened to catch Lietenant Belgatti picking up a glass I had been drinking from by its rim using only his thumb and first finger, peering closely at it and putting it in a bag. I guessed he was after my DNA or fingerprints, or both.

  I looked at my fingertips. Did I even have fingerprints? Had I gone to that much detail? It appeared that I had, although as the framework of my body was based on that of Technician Smith’s brother, they were likely to be his.

  The next day I reviewed the history of the use of fingerprints for identification and learnt all about double loop whorls, tented arches and central pocket loops. When I went down to Camp Munro I left my Haroon-body for a while and nipped into a police station, where I studied their fingerprint scanner so that I could make a copy of one for myself. I then set about assembling a research collection of fingerprints by printing everyone who came on board on the Bonaventure, having found that if I went up to them and said ‘I need to print you’ with enough authority they usually obeyed without question.

  It did not take long for this activity to get back to Lieutenant Belgatti.

  “Why are you fingerprinting people?” he asked that evening while we sat in the bar. For once we were not playing board games, but just drinking. The alcohol did not affect me, but watching me down two bottles of vodka certainly affected Lieutenant Belgatti.

  “It’s my new hobby.”

  “That’s interesting,” Lieutenant Belgatti said, and meant it. He was much more encouraging about my hobbies than Lieutenant Shue had been. “Um ... what are you doing with the fingerprints when you have them?”

  “I’m looking for the pretty ones.”

  Atkinson was so pleased to be vindicated when the fingerprints of the ‘alien’ came back as a human called Goodwill Smith he released the news to one or two of his more favoured reporters before bothering to do any further checking. Some-one swiftly pointed out that there had been a crewman called Goodwill Smith on the Invincible, and a quick check with the John of Dublin revealed that they in fact had a corpse of that name on board. One who actually looked like the photo of Smith.

  Lieutenant Belgatti got the blame for ‘messing up’ the fingerprints. Because it had not actually been his fault, I agreed to let him take my fingerprints using a scanner, and once again they were checked against company records. And once again the prints turned up in the records, although from their point of view this was not as good as they had hoped, since all ten belonged to different people. I had chosen the designs I liked best from my collection and changed my prints.

  Atkinson again blamed Lieutenant Belgatti, although it was never very clear just how it could be his fault. This time they sent up an experienced police officer armed with a different scanner, and again I agreed to let them take my prints. The police officer came back with the same set of ten prints.

  Atkinson promptly decided that these results were further proof that I was a human hiding my true identity and demanded I submit to full biometric readings and DNA testing. I refused. Atkinson was not at all happy, but I was not a Min-XR employee and I didn’t care less.

  As a result Atkinson ordered me off the Bonaventure, so I promptly said I would transfer to the Artemis Explorer. Atkinson’s bosses even more promptly ordered me to stay put on the Bonaventure.

  As Atkinson was acutely embarrassed at having been countermanded by his bosses, and was still unhappy that he could not prove I was human, he
was determined to make as much trouble as he could for me instead. Which was fine by me, as I intended to make just as much trouble for him.

  3.3. Fish-feeder-in-chief

  Atkinson next decided that a physical examination would soon prove I was human and that psychiatric tests would prove I was delusional. The psychiatric study was easier to arrange so they sent up a psychiatrist to pose as a friend of Lieutenant Belgatti and join us in an evening of chat. The apparent plan was that after rapport had been made between the two of us over the course of three hours she would persuade me to take part in the tests. Belgatti was noticeably embarrassed pretending the middle-aged woman was a family friend who just happened to have made the long trip up to the orbiting ship to visit him, but he did his very best. To be on the safe side they had also taken the precaution of sending up a psychiatrist who spoke Japanese.

  So I spoke Finnish to her all evening.

  After that they returned to the idea of the physical examination. As they knew I would refuse to submit to one they ambushed me as I was on