Claws and Curls

Claws 12 - Water-Mind-Hands

“Hah, see Special, I told you he would be interested once over his shock, nyeah nyeah!”

“Nyeah nyeah?” Macca asked bewildered.

Alli turned to him, “yes that sound human kids make when they are right, nyeah nyeah. It’s a great word and sounds just like a word in my language that means, ‘put your head in your pouch.’” Macca burst out laughing and began to hold his stomach he was laughing so hard.

“I fear madam that your humour has caused a diaphragmatic spasm in our guest,” said Special in a very droll tone. “Are you sure he is appropriate.”

“Oh stop being so stuffy Special you know as well as I do how suitable he is.”

“Can you two aliens stop talking about me and talk to me,” Macca asked through the last of the tears from his laughing. “Now tell me what is going on and why me?”

“You’re just lucky sir, that Alli liked you the first time she saw you, and that often she pays scant regard to my opinion.” “Oh you poor dear Special. Pay Special no heed Macca, this AI is over six hundred years old and is dispersed across an orbiter, this shuttle and my house ...”

“Whose house,” broke in Special. “Ours dear, my apologies dear.”

Macca burst out laughing again, “you sound just like an old married couple. How long have you been carrying on together?”

“Carrying on sir, we do not, carry on! The occasional repartee perhaps, but we are an integrated civilisation, we do not just carry on!" Specials’ tone was quite defensive and Macca frowned.

“Sorry mate, didn't mean to offend, but I’m up shit creek here and haven’t the foggiest what you’re on about. You have to fill me before we go any further.”

“Too right Macca,” came a lighter more energetic voice, “would this rock yah socks Macca?”

“Ah, yeah, no. Nuh not all Special, Im kinda used to your formal voice.” Macca paused exhausted, “I just need to know.”

“Excuse me then, Madam, sir; but I believe it is time we moved on to more salubrious surroundings.” Special had a tone to his butlers voice that sounded more, what, damn. Macca just couldn't twig to it, but sarcasm was close. They started to lift out of the lava lake  and soon we were hovering within the caldera as Special altered the skin of the hull to shed any adheded lava.

“I shall have to reverse our inbound course so that I may slough off the stonecrete shielding back into the ash cloud.” With that they were off and nothing could be seen through the ash cloud until they were well over the ocean and were suborbital again. It was night below now and the blackness of space above.

Alli had her couch transform back into a flight seat and she turned, “Right then! We call our species Twitter chirp growl, which translates as Water-mind-hands and we have been a Level Three civilisation for about a thousand years. We are a bit slower than average but we have more fun generally than other species. Special, is a third generation Water-mind-hands artificial intelligence and is six hundred and ...”

“Thirty years old, Madam always gets it wrong sir.”

“We were given to each other at my birth and I’m now 124 of your years old. I should see the same again before I am too old to keep regenerating a physical body and chose to uplift to a silicon titanium one.” Alli paused to observe Macca’s face, he appeared to be taking it all in his stride, but one could always misread an aliens countenance. “At which time Special may decide to companion to another baby Water-mind-hands or may elect to integrate into my new machine body to form a Metamorphosis being with me.”

Macca opened his mouth to ask something then thought better of it, then opened it again. 

“Spit it out lover, Alli said, “it’s nearly your bed time,” and she giggled her old giggle again.

“So you have integrated AI into your species, and you become a new species when you metamorphose?”

“Close lover, very good. Some Water-mind-hands chose not to, but only to uplift, perhaps to reconsider later. We live on a number of planets in the galaxy because even though life is everywhere intelligence isn’t.”

“Really,” Macca blurted out, “I thought it would be everywhere by the way you were talking about different levels of civilisations.”

“Ah, no, sorry there, that mislead you. I know of only, what, two or three civilisations in each level, but of course there are often three or four species in each of those. Just as you will probably have four of five in yours by the time you become a Level Three.”

“Hang on, back track a bit there, what other species are you talking about, surely you don’t mean dolphins and such.” Alli just nodded.

“Really, noohh,” said Macca sceptically, “come on you’re jerking me, surely not.” Macca raised his eyebrows and smiled, “wow, fuck me, really.”

“Yep,” said Alli. “If you succeed and get your AI ethics sorted in time you will have AI, Dolphins, Orcas, and perhaps some of the other whales. Maybe Chimps, Orangs, Canis, Elephants, Parrots and possibly Octopus, but you will have to choose to feed them up on DHA for a few generations to build brain size and complexity and the ability to pass on information to offspring. Oh and of course you will need to work out common languages.”

Macca just sat there with his mouth open.