The Sky Doth Fall. Part 3.

Tarka:
 
Two weeks passed and Allan got use too the ears and the tail as he looked at 
his working enthropy engine. All around him other projects had started to 
take off and they kept him around just to give advice on where to plug there 
stuff into his engin. "Look my boy... you have a lifetime job with us... even 
if you hit the bar and stay there for the rest of your life." The monkey 
chewed on his cigar.. "You've got it made."
 
There was still one strange question though. Why. Why were people working so 
hard for something unseen. He watched the base commander more now. Her 
comings and goings. She seemed to know far more about what was going on then 
anyone else.
 
Terry:
 
"Do you know what all this is about?" he asked, deciding that a little 
curiosity wouldn't seem out of place. He wasn't sure he trusted the monkey, 
but it probably couldn't hurt to just ask. It's not like they'd think he 
didn't care.
 
"Eh, yeah, kinda," the macaque replied, looking uncomfortable. "But I'm under 
NDA. So to speak. Don't worry, though, you'll be fine."
 
"Oh come on, you can tell me more than that," Allan said sitting down at his 
computer to play around with the specs. There were still a few instabilities 
he needed to work out -- changing the setting didn't quite transform anyone, 
but it sure made his skin crawl, and he had no idea what out of anything he'd 
done would be causing such a nonsensical effect. "Can you at least tell me 
what's up with the..." he wiggled his ears, and pointed at them.
 
Vassily:
 
"I don't suppose you'd beleive me if I went off into a long contradictory 
explanation about quantuum instability and the Heisenberg Principle." The 
macaque gnawed on his omnipresent cigar thoughtfully. "No."
 
"I don't know that you're ready for the truth. I'm not that sure of it 
myself. What do you know about information?" Allan settled back into the 
folding canvas chair in his office. 
 
Buddy scratched his neck and swiveled the cigar around again. "Just the whole 
money-power-time thing." Allan sipped from his chipped coffee mug. "The whole 
thing works because of something that doesn't exist, OK? The hidden variable 
in the whole Maxwell's Demon thing is Information. Usually information about 
where particles are and how faste they're moving ... The Heisenberg thing. 
But it can use any dense source of information as a sort of sink. Changing 
the entropy in the system by adding something to that information."
 
Buddy's lip curled. "I don't get it." Allan moved his hands, talking more 
rapidly. "The densest source of information out here, damn near anywhere is 
DNA. Somehow, the engine modifies our DNA. Which makes some people explode. 
I'm not sure why."
 
WalksFar:
 
"Well, that does explain some things . . . ears, tails . . . what next?  I 
can hardly wait."  His sarcasm exploded.  The fact some people exploded did 
not make him confident.  His entropy engine played God with DNA, mutating, 
changing it whimsically. "Damn!  What good is it?  I-I thought it would be 
used to drive a space ship.  This is . . . this is plain bizzare!  A crew 
would never return.  How could they?  By the time they got back, they would 
not even be the same species.  What could such a thing be used for except to 
drive other things we have been working on?
 
 Buddy grinned and took a draw on his cigar, blowing smoke into the air.  
"Well . . . that information I am not at liberty to divulge.  Later on, yes.  
I can.  Ya haven't been here long enough.  The truth is there.  However, you 
ain't ready.  Ya can't handle the truth even if we couched it fer ya."
 
 Allan mulled it over.  What were they doing here?  What was such a device to 
be used?  He needed to know more.
 
Tarka:
 
"God Damn it! That fucking hurt!" Allen looked up from his work and lifted a 
brow.... that didn't sound at all like his asistent. He didn't go over to the 
bathroom to find out what was going on though... he just wasn't something he 
wanted to know.
 
"Wots wrong?"
 
His assitent came out looking a little less then please with her own ears and 
tail. "Look at this!" She pointed at her face... where a nice group of 
whiskers seemed to be forming.
 
Allan had to suppress a giggle... "Actually... they are kind of cute.
 
"Your right. This is just to very very strange. So that monkey told you what 
is powering everything around here? That kind of fits in with what I have 
learned. I don't think they people running this thing are from this world."
 
Terry:
 
"Can't you read their mind?" he asked, "Don't you know everything?"
 
Buddy laughed. "*I* don't even let her read my mind, boy."
 
"I could read your mind any time I wanted, I just don't... *brrrr!* Do you 
think about your mother with that mind?"
 
The monkey grinned. "Hey, we all got our own methods."
 
"But she doesn't. The administrator, I mean." Allan's assistant looked very 
serious. "I can't even feel a mind there, her or a few of the others who seem 
to be in charge. I don't think they work on the same wavelength as the rest 
of us. Also... well, I talked to some of the people who were here from the 
beginning, and got one of them to drop his guard enough to tell me about the 
old times. And before the transformations started, she already looked like 
that."
 
Allan narrowed his eyes. "I wonder if she's doing it on purpose, then? Or 
setting us up to do it. As camoflauge?"
 
Vassily:
 
"Think about the transformations. If they were truly random they'd kill 
everyone they affected, most of the time. But they don't. So something must 
be guiding the changes. The ones running the show don't change either."
 
Allan's mouth moved a few times before the words came out. "So there's 
some*thing*, somewhere that wants us to change like this? That's insane, ot 
at least it is. What does it gain?"
 
Buddy lit another cigar. Bluish smoke curled past his flat nose. "Try to 
think about it this way" he said "What advantage do you personally gain from 
the change? What are you being adapted for? Maybe it's just some crazy thing 
like the administrator, maybe they're just messing with our heads. Gives you 
something to do, doesn't it?"
 
WalksFar:
 
"What were you before the changes, Buddy?  Huh?"  Allan smirked.  Ideas 
crowded his head.  He thought back over the past months.  A lot had gone by.  
What was it she had said when he first contacted her?  He nodded.  Things 
began to fall into place in his mind.  One, everyone seemed to change in the 
same exact way.  If the engine fed on information, the changes would be 
random, not uniform.
 
 Buddy took a drag and snickered.  "Wouldn't ya like ta know.
 
"I get the feeling all of this . . . we're being groomed!  I don't mean made 
over, I mean groomed to take roles . . . roles I have not found yet, but . . 
." he nodded.  It made sense.  She said travel . . . lots!  It made sense.
 
Tarka:
 
The PA system sounded off.. "Allan... please report to the commanders office. 
Please report to ethe commanders office.
 
Allan sighed. "See you guys... her magisty wants to meet with me." He got up 
and headed out to the office... trying to think of why they would want to see 
him here... he had the engine fixed up.
 
"Ah... welcome Allen.. I would like you to meet my superior. Come in!." She 
was standing by her desk nad next to her was another ver of something like 
her. His fur seemed gray though... and old around the eyes. The smile seemed 
a little forced.
 
"Ah... so this is the wizard that actually built the engine. What a fine 
young mand... a fine young man."
 
Allan looked between the two... then blurted out what was on his mind. "What 
is really going on here? I thought we were going to build a starship... but 
the changes in everyone..."
 
She held up her hand.... "You couldn't understand yet..."
 
The old strange man interupted. "Maybe a little of the truth.... you will 
know what is going on... and it will be wonderous. You will meet many many 
different people.... so will all here."
 
Terry:
 
"But be warned, young one. There are consequences for knowing too much. Our 
secrets are not to be learned lightly." His eyes seemed to bore into Allan's 
chest.
 
"I'll have to sign an NDA, right?" Allan replied, trying to sound confident.
 
"That too," the woman said, "And your assistant as well. But... you've gotten 
a lot stronger, Allan, since you first came here, but remember how badly you 
reacted just to seeing me? Are you sure you're ready for this?"
 
"If you don't show me, I'll find out on my own," he snapped back.
 
The old man smiled, and leaned forwards to push a button on his phone. The 
entire room started to rumble and shake, as it began to descend into the 
earth. "As I said, we'll show you a little. If you break from it, well, you'd 
never have survived the journey."
 
Vassily:
 
"You understand, of course that once we show you this small bit more, you can 
never go back. Not that you'd have an easy time going back with your new 
additions anyway. I suppose you could claim you got your head caught in a 
mechanical rice picker."
 
The room descended for a few minutes, the three of them in silence that 
pervades elevators. Finally the room stopped with a heavy clank and a jolt 
that nearly took Allan off his feet. The air was warmer and he began to sweat 
under his heavy clothing. The door opened and a pale bluish light shone 
through. 
 
"Here's our stop Allan, are you sure you want to go through with this?" Allan 
squared his shoulders and followed the grey-furred supervisors through the 
rectangle of light. His eyes had a hard time adjusting. Blurry forms moved 
around just out of his field of vision.
 
Tarka:
 
The room was large... and all around floated pods of light blue liquid... 
more people like the commanders of the base were floating inside... and at 
the far end... a light with little tendrels slipping from it to the pods... 
each of them glowing softly in the room. The glow from the pods and tenderals 
were the only lights in the room.
 
He looked around himself if half awe... there were thousands of people 
here... all of them sleeping... and all of them attatched to the pods. He 
looked over at the female and old man. "Your invading our world?"
 
She laughed. "Oh hardly Allan. This is just the diplomatic mission here. When 
your world learns of us there will be many more... but our kind require a 
group to live. so this is the minimume amount we need to be whole. Your 
people on the other hand can be very lonely indeed. Tht is one of the reasons 
we want to recrurte your people."
 
The old man spoke this time... but softly. "There are billions of worlds. All 
of them here... and billions more in each universe. Our race could never hope 
of making contact with them all... But your race could.
 
Allen looked around at all the strange creatures and it finally meshed... the 
engin feeding on his DNA... wasn't just feeding on it... but pulling DNA from 
other worlds into his own. Maybe he even looked like people froma far off 
place... and others looked like people from even stranger places. The human 
mind was very maluable and expansive. Not at all really fixed in one place... 
and even he got used to seeing people from a demention other then his own.
 
"but... when I first saw you..."
 
She stopped him... "You fell down and started to wibble and twitch... your 
the first race we have come into contact with that diddn't just fall over 
dead."
 
"Dead?"
 
"Very Dead."
 
Terry:
 
"You thought you were going to KILL ME?!"
 
"Don't be silly, we'd hired hundreds of humans before we got to you. Most of 
them survived, in some fashion or other. Some of them needed more extensive 
editing than others. It's quite impressive that you seem to have stabilized 
with only ears and a tail."
 
"We've been using the reality engine to adjust the people who work for us, so 
that they can comprehend our technology," the old man continued, taking over. 
"We ask it to make the adjustments necessary for survival, and hope that 
you'll still be yourself enough to serve our purposes. Sometimes, things go 
badly wrong, usually with the entropy-device, and people are insufficiently 
adjusted, and explode... it's sad, but we have no choice but to take these 
risks."
 
"Your engine seems remarkably reliable, considering what it does," the woman 
said, reassuringly. "We should be able to use it to convert the rest of the 
staff. Then, we'll do a few tests exposing you to the general public, to make 
sure you're still acceptable to unmodified aliens, and... well, we can start 
on the next stage."
 
"Which is what?" Allan asked, feeling cold.
 
"We'll tell you THAT when your device survives being set to full power," the 
old man replied, "If it can't, then we can't move forwards at any rate." He 
smiled at Allan. "Are you happy now, that you know this much?"
 
Allan said something noncommital, and signed the papers they set in front of 
him, even though they were glowing odd colors and the quill pen pricked his 
finger, and seemed to sign it in his own blood. He dreamed about being sent 
to other worlds... to talk to strange alien races, see sights human eyes were 
never meant to gaze upon... and hoped that that was what the aliens had in 
store for him.