Cognobal Freeman of the Delta Sector

Space and time is like a slightly curved piece of notebook paper, college ruled. If you gaze at the edge, you can’t see very much. If you look at it straight on, you can still only see half of it.

But you also will not lose your directions and start to wander, unless you are one of the unfortunate brings from Delta Sector who can’t perceive the color blue.

Cognobal Freeman was just such a being.

Most of the inhabitants of the delta sector were Migrassi. They were surly, dark creatures, with thick, leathery skin and coarse hair. Their head was at the top of their seven foot frame, generally adhering to the almost universal theory of “in” at one end, “out” at the other. That made them fairly uniform in their appearance thought there were a few differences from planet to planet.

The Migrassi inhabited seven planets in the delta sector. How that happened is not clear but is the object of some theories. The Migrassi were generally poor of communication and quick to anger. When they were not fighting, they at least quarreled. Wars abounded throughout their history, which is probably the actual reason for their being on several different planets. If they could ever move in the same direction or for the same purpose, they would be a formidable force.

Cognobal squinted as he looked closely at his neck tags. He was trying to sit in the shade as much as he could. The delta sector was blessed with five sun/stars in its entirety from which there was little escape. There was no night. There was little shade. It was easy for navigation, but rough on the body, even the body of a Migrassi. The ambient temperature where he was was about 120. Could be more pleasant.

If someone wanted to talk to Cognobal, they would generally use a primitive form of telepathy, although it wasn’t exactly perfect, over the years, they found it to be a much safer form of communication than to be face to face with another migrassi. Cog had the distinct impression that someone was trying to tell him something. It infuriated him, but there was no one there to be mad at.

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Cognobal Freeman held up his dog tags in front of his face as far away as the chain would allow and squinted his eyes at them as though he were making sure who he was. Yep, he was still who he thought he was.

Space and time are like a slightly curved piece of notebook paper, college ruled. If you gaze at the edge, you can’t see very much. If you look at it straight on, you can still only see half of it.

But you also will not be likely to lose your directions and start to wander, unless you are one of the unfortunate beings from Delta Sector who can’t perceive the color blue.

Cognobal Freeman was just such a being.

Most of the inhabitants of the delta sector were Migrassi. They were surly, dark creatures, with thick, leathery skin and coarse hair. Their head was atop their seven-foot frame, generally adhering to the almost universal theory of “in” at one end, “out” at the other. That made them fairly uniform in their appearance though there were a few differences from planet to planet.

The Migrassi inhabited seven planets in the delta sector. How that happened is not clear, but is the object of some theories. The Migrassi were generally poor communicators and quick to anger. When they were not fighting, they at least quarreled. Wars abounded throughout their history, which is probably the actual reason for their being on several different planets. If they could ever move in the same direction or for the same purpose, they would be a formidable force.

Cognobal had to squint as he looked closely at his neck tags. He was trying to sit in the shade as much as he could. The delta sector was blessed with five sun/stars in its entirety from which there was little escape. There was no night. There was little shade. It was easy for navigation but rough on the body, even the body of a Migrassi. The ambient temperature where he was was about 120. Could be more pleasant, but…

If someone wanted to talk to Cognobal, they would generally use a primitive form of telepathy, although it wasn’t exactly perfect, over the years, they found it to be a much safer form of communication than to be face to face with another Migrassi. Cog had a distinct impression that someone was trying to tell him something. It kind of infuriated him, but there was no one there to be mad at.

The Break is Over

Since he was who he thought, and he obviously was where he was, he realized he had rested long enough. It was time for Cognobal to get back to work. He was working today in one of the new tunnels being built in the old Complex 109 region. It had really just gotten started, had this one and there was much excavation to be done. In fact, there was as much excavation as would continue to be profitable

Tunnel excavation was profitable in two ways on the planet. First, there were rich veins of molybdenum running throughout the whole area. The molybdenum was used in the ion propulsion system many star cruisers used today.

But secondly, and more importantly, the Migrassi discovered that, when dug right, the tunnels could provide shelter for the Migrassi themselves. At first, they were used as occasional shelter but slowly became home to some and then became entire cities, home to many. The area near the openings of the tunnels became larger and larger until they were at least a place to raise food. The sun could be tempered to some extent and was not direct all day, a factor that kept the planet’s surface as a desert. A little farther into the tunnel light augmentation shafts brought in needed light for crops but would temper the heat and duration of daylight if drilled just right.

Cognobal ran a drill which he steered into the rock according to computer-determined directions to provide another light augmenting shaft at a strategic location. His job was two-fold. He operated the drill at the appropriate speed watching for any abnormalities that could foretell a problem. The actual direction was predetermined and couldn’t really be steered in other directions. His second job was to keep the dust out of his eyes.

The dust did fly around the rock drilling and his eyes were already stinging from the few minutes break he took when he went out onto the planet’s surface. Cognobal always found the intense heat on the surface to be uncomfortable, and the light to make his eyes sting and tear up after he had been on the surface even a short period of time.

He grimaced as he thought about it.

A Social Loner

But Cognobal was a strange bird in some ways in that he was also not totally comfortable underground in the cities the Migrassi built. He sometimes felt imprisoned, way too confined. Sometimes, it got hard for him to breathe. So at those times, as soon as he could get off work, or get to a work break, he was up and out.

It was on such a break three days ago that he ran into Dianna, a Migrassi female a few years younger than he. She was on a slow-moving terrestrial caravan coming from one distant cave and heading to another, stopping briefly at his city. She was quite attractive by Cog’s standards with hair that was less coarse and nice eyes that were not red and squinty. She seemed to be able to carry on a conversation in a civil manner without shouting and becoming enraged. That was impressive.

“Hello,” said Cog “ I am from Complex 109, and I just came out here to take a quick break. I’ll call receiving for you, and they will pick up whatever you brought us.”

“The amount I brought for you seems pretty small,” said Dianna. “How many are there of you?”

“We number but in the dozens because we just began this tunnel complex three years ago.”

Cognobal felt very comfortable talking with her. He rarely felt comfortable talking to anybody. In speaking with another guy, he felt aggressive, threatened, and argumentative. In speaking with a female, he also felt self-conscious, threatened, and therefore argumentative.

Close interpersonal relationships are rare among the Migrassi. Even though there are two sexes, there are few children and even fewer marriages. Migrassi are workers. They are loners by some genealogical quirk.

That quirk may have been caused by the fact that life is so hard on planet Aridia. Food was scarce. Comfort was nonexistent. Most eventually died. As a population, they were not scientifically advanced enough to leave the planet. They were probably brought here by some other more advanced people. Now, whenever there is a chance to get on a transport, they do so by the hundreds. And since they are such good workers, they are always welcome.

But to Cog, Dianna seemed a bit more refined that the few other girls in his group. In fact, if he had not met every one of the females in his group by now he probably had met most of them. Dianna was different.

The first thing he noticed about her was that she spoke. She talked. She communicated out loud without telepathy. This seemed so pleasantly old-fashioned to Cog. As he thought about her, he imagined being friends with her. He imagined he could sit and talk for hours with her and hear every word with his ears.

And her voice was smooth and soft, not raspy like so many of the Migrassi whose voices had become coarse like their hair and skin through lifetimes of exposure to the brutally hot suns in the area. She would speak in sweet phrases, not profanity-laced tirades as did the Migrassi women when they did speak out loud.

When is your caravan scheduled to pass back through here? Everything done with the transport system was done by schedule and on schedule. He knew she probably knew exactly when her group would be here at Complex 109 next. The odds were that it was printed on her spreadsheet to the minute.

She said, “in about two weeks and she told him the date.”

Even though he felt ill at ease, Cog asked her if she would have enough time to share a meal with him at that time. She agreed that that would be acceptable.

Transportation on the planet consisted primarily of terrestrial vehicles, but because of the extreme conditions and the great lonely distances between cities, they would often join together into caravans rather than to take off on a trip alone. Such a caravan always had an inertia of its own, so stops usually consisted of only enough time to onload or offload whatever the purpose of the stop. Sometimes there was nothing to drop and the caravan would not stop at all.

The sharing of a meal and some conversation would have to be a length determined by the purpose of the caravan stop. It may be an hour. It may be ten minutes. The important thing was that she had said yes.

Cog said to her, but more for himself, “it’s a date then!”

“A date”

Cog had never had a date before. He had never thought about having a date. It was a word in his vocabulary that was not used in conjunction with a female usually but rather with a calendar.

The Date of the Date Arrives

“This is not going to be a big deal,” Cog kept repeating to himself as if trying to be convincing.

“It’s just a meal- just a conversation. I’ll get to know a little bit more about her and she will learn more about me. It will all probably be a huge disappointment.”

He took a little extra time today getting ready. Why, he didn’t know exactly. There would be hours of hard work drilling that had to pass before the caravan was due in the area. He would be pretty hot and sweaty by then. He had to make do with what he had to work with.

The Restaurant/market

Where do you eat when there’s not much food? You certainly don’t just visit your pantry. There are no pantries on Aridia.

In this city-complex there are three eateries. They are a cross between fast-food joints and supermarkets. Actually, there was one near the entrance where Cog was working. It was a lucrative place to be since it could also serve passing caravans if they were low on their own supplies.

The Migrassi were primarily vegetarians. This was not actually by choice, but by the fact that the extreme temperatures just didn’t wear well on livestock or chickens. Occasionally someone would find an insect or two under a rock. These delicacies were too unpredictable to be on a menu. No one had discovered a way to domesticate or organize them enough to have a consistent supply on a ranch somewhere, but they were occasional lip-smackers on a salad.

The little ones with a hundred legs and no shell were always the tastiest. The problem is they are best eaten fresh upon discovery, but if they must be served on a salad and still be tasty, they must be stunned in some manner either by freezing or by dashing them onto a hard surface. These needed to be tasty for any favorable results of the coming conversation and lunch. Cognobal Freeman finagled some extra time off his job this morning doing food prep.

A Difference in Diet

Dianna was from the far region of Delphi, where they did not speak as coarsely as the people of Complex 109, didn’t act so belligerently, and did NOT eat things found under rocks.

When the caravan arrived on that day, Dianna took care of her business making sure her people were offloading the proper supplies, and then she went to join Cog at a small table where they had previously decided to meet.

They smiled at each other and exchanged pleasantries and opened the meal that Cog had obtained and helped prepare. He was as proud of it as a being could be who did something that was completely out of his element. He had helped prepare a meal.

In Complex 109, eating was regarded as a necessity rather than event. Sustenance was served to workers on a regular schedule to maximize their output and performance. It was dietary. It was caloric. And it was anything but lovely. So this was strange to old Cog. But he did it, and he hoped to impress his interesting newly-found lady.

As they unwrapped the meal, the heat had started to cause some of the delicacies to begin to come back to animation and wiggle their legs. Combined with the pungent aroma of the sauce he had used on the dish, this seemed deliriously wonderful to Cog.

Less so to Dianna.

She picked at the dish with her fork twice or three times, possibly looking for the least offensive place to dig in. No place was really less offensive than any other to Dianna.

Now when a person for whom another person had high possible hopes takes a gift given her and turns it down, it is pretty crushing to the person having the hopes. So it was with Cog. Either his hopes or his cuisine or both were misguided.

“Yes I’m not really that hungry either,” he said, pushing aside his meal, giving Dianna implied permission to do the same. Cog hoped that would let her preserve her dignity. Maybe it would let him preserve his.

A Lull in the Conversation

“So where are you from?” Cog asked Dianna in that trite manner that a hundred thousand guys had asked a hundred thousand girls trying to start some sort of conversation.

“I am from the Delphi region,” replied Dianna. “My family has not been here very long, and I guess I am still just learning the area. I figured working with the caravan would be a great way to see the world. I must confess, now that I am seeing the world, I am pretty depressed,” she revealed.

“On the whole, I haven’t met many interesting people, and the scenery is all fairly desolate. Now that I am older and on my own, I am giving some thought to leaving. This caravan is based in the Delphi region where WBX makes its deep deliveries twice a week, and I am thinking about going with the next WBX transport to a more comfortable world,” she continued.

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet,” he said, trying desperately to get a foot in the door to more of this conversation or another one during the next caravan stop.

“Yes, maybe that’s it,” she said, fixing her gaze past Cognobal to a distant mountain, which is the international, interplanetary language for “I find you to be boring.”

“If you’ll give me some idea of a meal you would enjoy, I’ll try to have it next time the caravan comes through,” Cog said, realizing like it probably sounded more like a whimper than a statement. It was the sound of an able-bodied Migrassi turning in his man card.

Beneath his coarse exterior, Cog thought, for a minute, he could feel his entire being begin to soften, perhaps to morph into something foreign to the Migrassi way. For a moment he could almost imagine spending more time with Dianna, perhaps a lot more time.

Death by Date

Cog began trying to pack the remnants (or all) of the lunch away to be out of sight, but he managed to spill some of the pungent sauce on his shirt, so he, too, might smell pungent the rest of the day. He cut himself trying to pack up the eating utensils he had brought, and it bled. It wasn’t arterial spray, but it was enough blood to attract the wrong kind of attention from someone he was still, in a way, hoping to impress.

You might say that in this event, a simple lunch, the pressure was such that when the Cog’s wheels went off the road, he could not seem to get them back on the road gracefully, and trying to shook everybody all over the car and into the path of an oncoming semi-trailer land transport.

“Next Tuesday, at 17.5 hundred hours,” she replied.

Cognobal had been so deep in thought that her reply made him jump a bit.

“Even if that is late for a mid-day meal, I will make it happen,” said Cog, already planning an excuse to use to take the morning off from work to prepare the feast.

“I’ll see you then,” said Dianna.

The day of the re-do meal came, so Cog went on his way, busily making excuses to his boss to be off work, and preparing a lunch that would hopefully endear him to Dianna.

“To be honest with you, I do kind of enjoy your company,” she had said at their last attempt at lunch. Cog kept turning that phrase over and over in his mind, for whatever reasons that were foreign to him. He had never anticipated anything like he did this next meeting.

On the appropriate day, when the caravan did arrive, and the usual unload had begun, Cognobal was approached by a stranger.

“Are you Cognobal Freeman?” he asked.

“Well, yes, yes I am.”

“This note is for you.”

Cog unfolded it and read a short note from Dianna.

“Dear, Cog. I enjoyed our brief time together, but I cannot get this out of my mind. By the time you read this, I will have started my employment with WMX on deep deliveries, trying to see if a more comfortable world even exists. I hope to be back next year, and I will try to find you.”

It was signed by Dianna.

They say you can’t miss what you don’t have, but you can miss what you think you are trying to achieve when you don’t achieve it. In this universe, a best friend/mate is worth more than gold to those few who realize it. To most it is an acquired taste.

In a utilitarian society, there is a job for every individual. There is a purpose for each person. That insures there is no individual but only the group, the society, the culture. For a fleeting moment Cognobal Freeman saw an alternative, a way out.

Cog Freeman squinted at his dog tags in the bright light of five suns. He wanted to check again to see exactly whom he was. In a world where everyone lives a predetermined life, sometimes a girl jumps a freight and leaves town. Sometimes a loner guy gives serious thought to having friends. Cog guesses if you’re the type to almost let it happen once, you are most likely the type of person to let it happen again.

You don’t have to set out to make it happen. But you could.

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