The Planetary Tourism Agency’s only concern is the high risk of the “human” factor in their investment. The psychological stability of hybrids is abnormally low. Despite all efforts to the contrary, it appears that the predisposition of mestizos toward depression, neurosis, and other psychic complaints remains very high, though the relevant statistics are kept secret.
Some social psychologists hypothesize that the very sense of non-integration, of uprootedness, of having one foot in each camp, of not belonging, the very identity crisis that makes hybrids seek a solitary refuge in art, is also responsible for the fact that they have the highest suicide rate and the lowest life expectancy of any known “human” group.
Nevertheless, the Planetary Tourism Agency is conducting encouraging studies on the subcortical implantation of suicide blockers, similar to the blockers that xenoids implant in all humans who travel beyond Earth to prevent them from revealing what they’ve seen when they return.
Some behavioral specialists doubt the effectiveness of this method and suggest that depriving mestizos of the “relative escape” of suicide could result not only in the total collapse of their own psyches, but might also place their masters or purchasers in great danger. Unable to take their own lives, they might become highly aggressive toward others, seeking death by any means.
Despite these objections, which really come from a few isolated voices, the Agency is confident that this new technology will eliminate that deplorable problem forever and that it will no longer have to face claims for damages from xenoids who have seen the mestizos they paid so much for destroy themselves, without their being able to do anything about it…
Performing Death
“Being on top of game today. There being much audience,” Ettubrute said on entering the tent, speaking in the hoarse rattle that was his voice. Then he added, standing next to Moy, who was adjusting the equipment for the umpteenth time, “Not needing more checking… Me having done it two times already.”
“I’ll be on the top of my game, don’t you worry. And let me make one thing clear: I’ll check it a thousand times if I feel like it; it’s my life on the line—not yours, Bruiser,” Moy grumbled without looking up.
The Colossaur growled, more out of habit than because he was actually offended. And it was a matter of habit: from the first, it had bothered him a lot every time the human called him Bruiser.
By the standards of his race, Ettubrute was small and weak. That’s why he’d become an art agent. Like all professions that don’t call for physical strength, dexterity, or aggression, the art business was held in low esteem by the natives of Colossa. The only honorable, ideal jobs for a “normal” Colossaur were bodyguard, law enforcement officer, or soldier. Ettubrute was a poor oddball, to his fellows.
The funny part was that Moy didn’t call him Bruiser to mock him. The “weak” Colossaur who was his agent had a natural armor of bony reddish plates that few weapons could penetrate, and he stood nearly ten feet tall by five wide. Maybe he was a yard short and a hundred pounds too light to be normal-sized for his race… but he was way more than strong enough to beat any human into a pulp with a single blow from his arm, as thick as Moy’s thigh.
“Being better if all turning out better today than ever. If you failing, contract ending.” The Colossaur made a threatening gesture with his enormous tridactyl hand. “Not even earning returning ticket.” He turned and stalked out so violently that the tent’s thin, tough walls of synplast vibrated and nearly shattered.
“Idiot,” Moy muttered, but only after the xenoid’s heavy footsteps had faded away outside. Colossaurs had a keen sense of hearing, and they could be very spiteful.
What he was afraid of wasn’t Ettubrute’s armored fists and huge muscles—the Colossaur would never dare smash him. He was the goose that laid the golden egg, the Colossaur’s best investment.
What truly terrified him was what his agent could do with his earnings, according to that one-sided contract he’d been forced to sign as a sine qua non for that ticket off Earth. Some of its clauses would literally make him Ettubrute’s slave if the xenoid ever decided to put them into effect. And the worst of it was that, since Moy had voluntarily signed it with his fingerprints, voice print, and retinal ID, he had no legal standing to lodge a complaint.
Luckily, you might say that something like a… friendship had developed between him and his agent. Though that was too grand a word to describe any relationship between a xenoid and a human.
Even so, if Ettubrute ever wanted to hurt him…
Better not even go there.
“I’m trapped, trapped, trap-trap-trapped,” he hummed, a habit he’d picked up through months of relative isolation. How long had it been since he’d laid eyes on another human face? Months. Since Kandria, on Colossa. And not even all human; she’d been half Centaurian…
His own face had even started looking weird to him in the mirror. Well, naturally, after seeing so many mugs covered with hair, or scales, or feathers, or stuff that was just indescribable, all up and down the galaxy.
“Didn’t you want to see other worlds, kid? Be careful what you wish for. Tell ’em you don’t want soup, they’ll give you three bowls; tell ’em you do, they’ll give you three hundred. To make you to stop wanting it,” he thought sarcastically. “Only pity is, I’ll never be able to tell anybody about it. I’ve seen so many things…”
His tour with Ettubrute had put him in contact with beings and places you never heard anybody mention on Earth. Some amazing, some terrifying. Beings any biologist or sociologist on Earth would have given ten years of their lives just to meet.
The morlacks of Betelgeuse, with their phosphorescent hides. The two-headed birds of Arcturus. The marsupials of Algol, with that natural teleportation. A hundred other races. The cosmos was a lot bigger than they ever supposed on Earth, and it held more beings that they’d ever imagined.
Beings he could never talk about: the laws of the galaxy kept strict control of the flow of scientific and technological information that was permitted to the “backward” races. For instance, Homo sapiens. And when he signed his contract, Moy knew that his memory would be blocked before he could return to Earth. To preserve the anonymity of races that didn’t want Homo sapiens to know about them. To keep him from telling anyone about his experiences. A basic precaution to keep Earthlings from getting their hands on information and technologies that they weren’t capable of using “rationally” yet.
“The important thing is what I’ve experienced and what I can remember, even if I can’t talk about it,” he muttered. “Lucky thing I never went to Auya…”
He stopped recalibrating the nanomanipulators for a moment and glanced outside the tent, over his shoulder. The blue, red, and black triple-diamond hologram rotated slowly, floating over the tallest buildings on the plaza. The Auyar symbol.
The wealthiest race in the galaxy. And the most protective of its privacy. Nobody knew what they really looked like. Nobody knew the location of their worlds. Those who visited them always got their memories completely erased….
Or they got death.
He stared at the triple diamond for several seconds, like a defenseless bird peering into the hypnotic eyes of a cobra. The Auyars paid really well. Better than anyone. A contract from them could make him rich forever. But at a price: being left with a mind as blank as a newborn child’s. Stripped of the only true wealth he had managed to amass in his not-very-long life: his memory.