To Serve Man: Revolution

Ephraim Johnson awoke slowly, enjoying the luxury of naturally floating up out of sleep to consciousness, the jolting scream of the alarm left in the distant past. A smile curled his lips and bewhiskered cheeks as he stretched and his eyes fluttered open.
The morning sunlight was painting the white walls of the farmhouse bedroom with yellowish light sliding slowly to brighter white as full day broke again over his part of the earth. He was amazed at how good and positive he felt lately, and laughed as he flipped back the covers from the big bed and swung his feet to the warm floor boards.
He stood and walked the two paces to the bedroom window and twitched the shear curtain away to look out the window over the green fields beyond. The automated irrigation system had once again worked flawlessly and the healthy green bean stalks, broccoli plants, and carrot tops gave the effect of a green, textured carpet being rolled out across the land. There was very little for him to do at his point on the farm, just waiting for the harvest now. It was strange to think that forty years ago these fields he could see beyond his modest home had struggled to grow garlic and hay, considering that now he could grow anything he decided he wanted to grow. Of course his choices were restricted to the list of needed crops given out at planting time by the Kalumets that run the Ministry of Agriculture.
Ephraim stretched again and went to the bathroom.
In less than an hour he was seated at the table in his kitchen enjoying a plate full of scrambled eggs, toast and a hot cup of coffee. What luxury.
He was just finished with his meal, had poured himself another cup of coffee and was just settling in to read the headlines from the morning paper when a heavy knock came to the wooden frame on the screen door opening on the back porch.
“Come in,” Ephraim called not looking up from his newspaper. The door creaked open then swung shut with a bang into its jam. He heard heavy foot steps cross the vinyl tiled floor and looked up to see the familiar face of his old friend Jesse Walker.
“Hey Jess! What have you been up to? Have some coffee!” Ephraim gestured with his own cup at the pot resting in front of him and returned his attention to his news paper.
“Thanks Eph,” Jessie said, took a cup from the cupboard and sat down in one of the chairs by the table. He doled himself a large amount of non-dairy creamer, and sugar, and then poured the nearly black coffee from the insulated container resting in the center of the farm table into the cup. While he stirred the mixture, he cleared his throat.
“You been watching the news Eph?” Jessie asked.
Ephraim rattled the paper he was holding. “Does this look like a comic book?”
Jessie shook his head and took a swallow of the now light brown concoction in his mug. “No, I didn’t say reading the news, I said watching the news. You know the real news.”
Ephraim turned his head and looked over at his old friend, with a half smile on his stubble covered face. “The real news, eh?”
Jessie met his eyes, his face all seriousness. “Yeah, the real news. You know the government is lying to us through the regular news media,” for emphasis he reached across and rattled the grey paper in Ephraim's hands.
Ephraim snorted and twitched the sheet away from Jessie's grasp. “Look, I’m not saying the stuff in here is always right or completely accurate.  But the stuff you’re talking about is too fantastic.”
Jessie took another sip of his coffee and set his cup down. “Well think about people as you know them. No one ever wants to do something for no return, right?”
Ephraim folded the paper, and laid it on the table. He relaxed in his chair knowing that he was going to have to let his friend vent for awhile before he was going to be allowed to continue his reading. He poured more coffee in his cup and turned to face Jesse.
“I suppose that’s right, for us at least.”
Jessie nodded. “Well, for the sake of argument, let’s assume it’s true for all sentient beings. I can make a long argument for that stand if you need me to …”
Ephraim raised one hand and shook his head, “No, no, it’s alright, I will accept the premise for the sake of argument.”
He had heard this position from his eloquent friend before and could see that there were salient points within it. He still wasn’t certain he accepted the whole argument.
Jessie continued, “Okay, so if everyone does everything for payoff, to get something back for it, then why did they do it? And why do they keep having such influence here? And why do they keep coming and going on their ships? And where have all the people gone?” Jessie's face was very intent, his questioning almost frightened eyes locked on his old friends face.
Ephraim smiled and reached across the table, patting Jessie on the shoulder. “Look at how worked up you are man. You’re really letting this stuff get to you.”
Jessie shook his head and sat back so Ephraim’s hand fell from his shoulder. “I’ve seen it man. I just drove over to the Pine Mountain space port outside of Bend and watched what’s going on there. Its real man, it’s all real.”
“What did you see that makes you say that Jessie?” 
Jessie shook his head again, “Well, there were the busses. Hundreds of busses came in during the afternoon and night I was there watching.”
Ephraim smiled again. “It’s just the tours of their home world man. You know people fall all over themselves to go there. They’ve been doing that since the beginning.”
“Yeah, but listen to this; the busses all left before the ship took off. Then at sunrise, the ship that had been there all night took off, and about fifteen minutes later one landed. I waited; no busses ever came in or left. Don’t you think that if they were doing tours, the people that went would come back at some point, at least some of them?”
Ephraim stood and looked out the kitchen window. Gazing through the glass he watched the weather change, just as the Weather Service had reported they were going to do. He considered the implications of what he was hearing as he watched the bright sunlight that filled the High Desert of Central Oregon had changed as the first clouds of the next rain cycle began to slide across the sky; it wasn’t that the light had faded much, it was just changing.

In a Victorian style home resting in the midst of the green leafed trees that covered much of the Willamette Valley of Oregon, Virginia Callahan stood at her own window watching the weather changing as well. She shivered a little, a chill running the course of her spine as she watched the clouds began to break up and the sun began to dapple the grass in the yard. A small groan escaped her tense lips.
“What’s wrong Ginny?” Michael Callahan enquired from across the room behind her.
“Oh, this programmed weather gives me the creeps.”
She turned around to look at her husband. He was seated in a high backed chair upholstered in burgundy colored leather with brass button tufting. It rested on the honey colored polished wood floor near the stone wrapped fireplace that dominated the far wall of the living room. The man seated with his legs crossed a green covered hard back book lying open in his lap, made her think of the photos she saw in the glossy paged magazines that resided in the myriad waiting rooms across the country. The ornate space occupied half the front side and corner of the house on the ground floor. It was across the foyer from the dining room which occupied the rest of the space spread behind the bay windows where she was now standing.
He smiled at her. “I know, and I don’t understand why it bothers you so much. It’s been like this our whole lives …”
She nodded her head and looked down at the shiny floor at her feet in slight embarrassment.
“I know Mike, but for some reason it just reminds me of ‘them’, you know?”
His smile disappeared and he shook his head in turn. “That’s another thing Ginny, what is it about them that gives you such a problem?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t even answer that myself. I just know that no one does something, especially something as large as transform a planet, for nothing.”
He smiled again and turned back to his book. “Yeah, it’s hard to believe that there might be a species in the universe that is wholly benevolent and just wants to help.”
She knew there was no point in trying to continue the discussion when he had said that. So she went to the kitchen to fix herself a cup of tea and contemplate why she would hate the programmed weather.


An efficient sounding male voice spoke from the crackling background of the shortwave radio setting on the work bench of Jesse Newsome’s garage in the little town of Terrebonne in Central Oregon.
“ … these issues are being contemplated by a growing number of people around the world. They are asking questions about the easy life we have been provided, and about the programmed existence brought to earth by the visitors forty years ago. One must admit that empirically the world is a nice place to live in compared to what I remember as well as from the stories I heard from my parents about the way things used to be; droughts, floods, disease, plagues etc. These things no longer exist. There are no wars any more, and even if some despot decides he wants to attack another country, or even those within his own country, the shielding set up over each country and the police services provided by the Kanamit squash such things before they can get started.”
Jesse was forced to agree with the radio voice from his position under the wide truck. He was pulling hard on a long wrench, working to remove a large rusted bolt from a hover generator he was changing. Even so, most of his concentration was on the static filled radio voice.
“Crops are good,” continued the disembodied voice. “Food is plentiful over the entire globe, no one has to work too hard or at all for that matter and many don’t. They are content relying on the systems the visitors put in place forty years ago. People are getting soft and complacent … and disappearing.”
This last statement made Jesse drop his long wrench and slip his hover creeper out from under the lifted machine he was working on. When he had first started listening to the scratchy voice on the unauthorized little radio device, he thought it funny that he felt the need to see the thing, though there was no picture generated by it. Now he gave the idea that it might be weird no thought as he crossed his slightly cluttered shop to get near the radio and stare intently at the speaker.
“That’s right, I am claiming that people have disappeared, due primarily to the benevolent Kanamits.” The voice of the program’s host was dripping with sarcasm. “I remember from when I was a kid the way things were before the aliens came, and I remember the way things changed.”
“Hey Jesse, what’s up?” Ephraim's voice came from the open garage door. Quickly Jesse raised a hand, “shhh!” he said emphatically then waved his friend over to the small radio.
Ephraim walked in, a puzzled look coming to his rugged features. But when he heard what the radio voice was saying, his puzzlement became a smirk. He sidled up to the bench facing Jesse, who was still staring at the little radio.
“Ah, catching more of the ‘real’ news eh?”
“Shhh!” Jesse said and again gestured mightily for Ephraim to be quiet and listen.
Ephraim snorted, but fell silent out of respect for his friend and listened to the radio.
“I was in the military when the Kanamits arrived; I remember that it was like God himself had sent emissaries from afar to fix us and all of our problems. But then they started doing what they said they would. I remember my father’s comments as the changes happened. He kept saying it wasn’t right. Now that I am an adult and have grown to adulthood in the world modified by the Kanamits, I find that I agree with him; it’s not right. It’s not right to keep people in jars. It’s not right to make them act a certain way, and interfere if any other sort of behavior is seen. And, it’s not right to take people away from their home and never return them.”
Jesse’s eyes sparkled and he turned to look at Ephraim who remained silent now, his attention focused now on the speaker in the radio.
“You know this show gets reports from all over the world and you know that your illustrious host and the crack staff of researchers here spend hours both on the air and off verifying the world wide reports we get here.” They could hear paper rustling in the static. “This stack here has at least one hundred reports from around the world all saying the same thing; humans are leaving and not returning. I have one report here from Hawaii where the census has been adjusted three times in the last two years. How accurate is that?
“My staff have done a live count through operatives on the ground, compared it to census information taken forty five years ago, and then they did the math. It turns out that there are actually fewer people living on the islands than there were forty years ago. Lets let that sink in for just a second; there are fewer people living in that small state than there were forty five years ago.”
The announcer paused for one, two, three heart beats. Jesse’s eyebrows were up as he understood the implication of the radio personality, but Ephraim stared in puzzlement at the little radio.
“Don’t you think that after over forty plus years of care from the benevolent Kanamits, which includes unlimited food, top flight medical care and genetic engineering to eliminate all but the most ancient from dying of natural causes, and even the elimination of much accidental death, as well as the planet wide elimination of pollution and war, here is my question. Why aren’t those islands crawling with people?”
The radio voice paused again and Jesse punched Ephraim lightly in the shoulder as if to communicate ‘see?’ Ephraim nodded slightly as the implication of what he was hearing began to sink in.
“And for that matter, why isn’t every land mass absolutely teaming with people, if these same conditions are being met world wide, and they are. So why is the population of earth down from its levels of forty five years ago? I am certain that if we did the same work for every country on earth we would find the same thing, instead of humans standing on top of each other. I know what the Kanamit reply to this analysis is; they are helping us by controlling the size of the population. When we come back, we’ll talk about that. Now we are going to take a break, and when we come back we’ll review that and I’m going to fill you in on more details about what is wrong in this world of the Kanamits.”
Jesse slapped Ephraim on the arm and led the way to his office. “See? That’s what I was talking about.”
Ephraim didn’t reply as he followed his friend, lost in thought.

In a doctor’s office in Bend Oregon, Loraine Newsome sat nervously waiting for the physician to come talk to her about the tests she had run. She sat passively looking out the window at the bright day shining on the snow capped Cascade Mountains while her thoughts ran far away.
Why do they always make you wait? She asked herself again, you come into the big room, fill out forms and read old magazines, then they bring you back to a smaller room where you wait some more and in the end you only see the damn doctor for a few minutes … just then there was a knock on the door and it swung open to admit the OB/GYN, Doctor Vandicar.
The Kanamit was dressed in a typical doctor’s white coat covering stylish, expensive cloths made oversized for the alien’s huge body. She (though Lorain had to admit she was not good at telling the women from the men among the Kanamit, but was more comfortable with the idea that she was being examined by a woman) was carrying a covered chart board in her huge three fingered hand. Lorain assumed the papers inside it held the results of the battery of tests she had endured last week. Doctor Vandicar smiled, the large teeth showing starkly white behind the spreading purple tinted lips, the large eyes disconcerting in the large bald head. She closed the door and walked quickly toward her cluttered desk.
“Hi Lorain, sorry you had to wait so long; I had to do a procedure on another patient that got – well – complicated. Anyway, I have your test results here,” she held up the clip board as evidence.
The doctor sat down in the large office chair and flipped the cover on the chart open.
“Let’s see what we’ve got.”
She began reading and Lorain could make out a hint of a reflection in her glasses as she scanned the white sheet. Then she looked up at her patient.
“Well, it appears that there are some issues with you getting pregnant. Or this is with your physical ability to get pregnant. These results indicate that you have only one working ovary. Its only working about half as often as it should be and your body is not producing the hormones needed to support implantation. Even if we gave you supplemental hormones and tried to boost the output of your one ovary, there is only a one in ten thousand chance you will ever conceive.” The doctor looked up from the paper and laid the clip board down on the cluttered surface.
“I’m sorry Loraine, but remember we speculated that something like this might be the truth considering your erratic periods and the other symptoms.”
She fell silent, letting the information settle into the young woman’s mind.
Loraine simply stared for some time at the surface of the desk in front of her, the doctor leaned back in the large chair letting her take the time she needed.
“You know, its funny, but a word I remember my grandmother using keeps running through my mind, ‘barren’. And worse than that, I remember people referring to deserts and the moon with that same word. Barren.”
She raised her eyes to the doctor’s face. “Does that mean nothing will grow in me?”
The doctor frowned, and made a steeple of her fingers in front of her. “Well, speaking scientifically, that’s true. Scientifically, it is not likely a baby will be conceived within your uterus, even implanting an embryo would not likely work. That’s scientifically though. Philosophically there are a plethora of things that can grow within you; there are artistic pursuits, there is caring or care giving like your work at the National Labs, who can say really? The choices are up to you at this point.”

Lorain walked slowly out the wide glass doors that fronted the Kanamit clinic. Without looking up or around at the various people she passed in the plaza she crossed to the light-rail station on the far side of the plaza to catch the train home.
She was in a daze, knowing that the one thing she had wanted most in her life was something she would never be able to do. Having a baby was the most basic function of a woman wasn’t it? Why was she to be denied? She had no answer and her mind filled with a gray fog that clouded all other thoughts.
Lorain rode all the way to the station near her home in the pine forested town of Sisters, not realizing she had boarded the train. She started cooking dinner without comprehending she had traveled from the train station and entered her apartment. She bathed and crawled in bed, not knowing what tomorrow might bring, and for the first time in her life, not caring.

The communication console beeped its small chirp into the bright morning sunlight.
But there was no response.
Again an electronic chirp broke the silence.
Still nothing moved in the stylish condominium.
Another chirp, and the blanket on the bed stirred as Lorain climbed out of her depressed sleep into the world of now. She looked around, slightly confused, as if she couldn’t tell what had woken her, and then the chirp came once again. Lorain threw the covers back and swung her feet to the floor. She crossed the polished hardwood floor to the communication console, or commcon, on the desk. She tapped the “answer” button at the base of the 10 inch square screen.
“Yeah.”
The screen brightened and an image snapped into focus on it. Unsurprisingly a huge Kanamit’s face was looking out at her, the large teeth showing in one of their affected grins. Legend had it that when they first arrived they never smiled and taught themselves to do it thinking it would help them fit in with the humans better. Lorain thought that their investment in some good wigs and toupees might help more.
“Lorain Newsome?”
“Yes, did you want something?” Lorain answered her voice testy.
“Of course Lorain,” the deceptively pleasant voice said. “My name is Churchill; I work for the Personnel Procurement Board of our Home World. I am contacting you to offer you work a position on our Home World.”
Lorain shook her head, trying to get rid of some the sleep that insisted on clinging to the inside of her skull.
Home World, which is what the Kanamits always call the place they come from. They never used a name, nor even made an attempt at using a name, always just ‘our Home World.’
The Kanamit gave themselves names as a rule, and often they were weirdly incongruous, like the person on the commcon screen now. He (or she) had probably read about Winston Churchill in some history book or other record, liked something about him and so designated himself that. They say their real names are impossible for humans to pronounce, which is why they choose earth names and only refer to the planet they come from as their Home World. One of the scientists Lorain worked with at the lab went by Jack Russell she remembered.
This random thought carried the last of her sleepiness away.
“A position? What kind of a position?”
“Well, as a section supervisor in one of the largest research laboratories on our world. You would handle the research on different projects sent to you by the science directorate. You would be over 25 research technicians; the job comes with its own apartment, a handsome salary …”
The large being trailed off, watching as Lorain crumpled into a chair.
“Are you alright Lorain? Do you need me to contact medical support for you?”
She raised her hand to wave off the good intentions. “No, no. I’m alright. I’ve just been experiencing some life changing things in the last 24 hours and this is another big one, that’s all.”
She sat silently for a few seconds, looking at the floor, her right foot pulled up onto the chair seat and her arms wrapped around below the knee.
This Kanamit was offering her the chance of a lifetime. The usual life affirming event for a woman was stolen from her. This was the life affirming event for Lorain at least; the conception and birth of a child. The only other of her life goals, one she had secretly held but never really was certain she would achieve, was now presented to her in the body of a few words. Come to the Kanamit Home World.
A slight smile, the first since she had been given the news by the Kanamit doctor, pulled the corners of her mouth up. Without looking at the screen, she spoke.
“Yes, I’ll do it.” She turned her head then to look at the Kanamit. “I will take the job.”
The wide face on the commcon screen smiled, the large white teeth shining almost luminescent on the LCD screen.
“Are you sure Lorain? Don’t you need to think it over?”
Lorain shook her head, her smile broadening. “No. I don’t need to think it over. I know what I want to do. I’ll take the job.”
“Excellent Lorain, I hoped you would. We have such need of your kind of talent. I’ll forward the packet about the job, the Lab and the trip to our Home World. If you need to contact me for anything, here is my information.” A card rolled out of a slot in the base of the commcon
Lorain took it and read the printing on the surface. Without looking up she said, “Okay, thanks.”
She reached out and touched the ‘connect’ button which broke the connection between her commcon and the Kanamit. Lorain stood and paced the carpet of her bedroom, staring at the card, but not really seeing it. To go into to space, to another world, the home of the benevolent beings that had come from there to her own earth before she was born.
There was so much they had to teach humanity.
There was so much she had to learn from them.
The possibilities, the ramifications of this opportunity began to dawn on her. It truly was the fulfillment of a dream. She was certain that it was going to be wonderful. She had to tell her family.
Lorain reread the card, and then reached to the commcon again. She tapped the connect button, one of the speed connect buttons, and the button on the trans scrambler her brother had installed on the device, designed to thwart the tracking he was certain the Kanamits did to human communications. Soon the device was emitting the small beeps that indicated it had connected with another commcon and was waiting for it to be activated.
Suddenly her screen showed her brother-in-law, Michael, looking a bit rumpled and realized that she had woken him, but found that she didn’t care particularly as he was a bit of a dork.