Collector

by J. Richard Jacobs

“…and I know she’s seeing somebody else, Doctor. I know it. What can I do?”

Eric Trapp, a big man with short-cropped blond hair, leaned back in his leather chair next to the couch and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. After a moment’s contemplation, he leaned forward and looked at his patient. Overweight. No, not overweight. Obese and carrying the pallor of stress in his bloated features like a bleached Haloween pumpkin carved by demented children.

“First, Leonard, I’ve told you many times that I’m not a doctor. I’m a psychologist. I practice psychotherapy. That’s why you’re here. Second, what makes you so sure she’s seeing someone other than you?”

“Because of last night. Last night while we were—you know—um, getting it on, she…she called me Frank.”

“Well, I can certainly see how that might cause a little concern, but it’s not solid evidence.”

“What do you call evidence?”

“Leonard, I can’t tell you what would be evidence. All I can tell you is that people often have trouble with names. Maybe someone in her past had that name?”

“Yeah. She has an uncle Frank. Met him once. Rotten dude.”

“Well, there you go.”

Trapp cast a quick glance up to the clock on the wall. Relief eased his tight expression.

“Time’s up, Leonard. See you next month. In the meantime, you pay close attention to what is happening with her—and you—and we’ll discuss this at length then, okay?”

“But, Doctor, I—”

“You know the rules, Leonard. Next month, okay? And think about evidence. You need good, solid evidence before you can draw any conclusions that mean anything. And I’m not a doctor.”

Leonard hoisted his considerable bulk up from the couch and cast a pathetic look out the window, as if he were afraid to go…out there, then shrugged and opened the office door slowly. Trapp took a quick look around the office, then followed Leonard out. He closed the door behind him, locked it and accompanied the motion with a sigh. Tomorrow was the beginning of a much needed mini-vacation. Impromptu, but he deserved some time off. Maybe he’d go to the cabin for some isolation therapy.

He watched as Leonard passed the desk. Once Leonard had stepped out of the office, he looked up at the ceiling, whistled, then walked briskly down the hall. Lean, muscular, he looked more like an Olympic athlete or a Marine poster boy than a psychotherapist. Not that there is any stereotypical appearance for a psychotherapist, you know, he just looked like he belonged somewhere else. He stopped briefly at the receptionist’s desk.

“Monica, please advise next week’s list that I’m taking a couple of weeks off and will be coming back in after Christmas. I’ll give them all an extra session at half price. You know…like a ‘buy one, get one at fifty percent off’, thing? That ought to make them happy as loons. Uh, forgive the pun.” He chuckled at his own sick humor.

“Yes, Mr. Trapp. Rather abrupt, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but I’ve had it. You can take the time off, too, babes. Paid, of course. I’ll call you when I’m ready to face the menagerie.”

“Thank you, and have a nice holiday, Mr. Trapp.”

“Ha! Right. I’ve had some real wonked out weirdos this month, babes. And yeah, I know they’re my clients, but enough is enough. I’m planning on sleeping through most of it. Maybe I’ll take the time to see a therapist or go up to the cabin. Maybe I’ll take a therapist with me. Anyway, I’ll see you later, and have a good one.”

---

Eric Trapp’s day began as usual. The alarm, an excruciatingly irritating, buzzing noise clamored for his attention. He slapped at the snooze button. Wham! The buzz stopped and he had fifteen minutes to recapture his dream. Another alarm, more commanding–more detestable, jarred his sleep just at the point where she, his dream girl—such a body—was about to….

He slapped furiously at the damned snooze button again and pulled the cover up under his chin. He cranked the temperature control up another notch. Cold. He closed his eyes and prepared for her to….

---

Cold and damned uncomfortable. Not his bed and his dream girl wasn’t looking down at him with those big, watery blue…. Standing there in her place was something else. Something not the slightest bit sexy.

“You Mind Mender. Is correct as say?” the thing standing over him said in a scratchy croak.

What seemed but an instant before the question, he lay secure in his bed, blanket set to a comfortably warm six, separating him from the chill of a mid-December desert morning. Rare, but snow covered the entire southwest with a blanket of another sort. Not warm. The next thing he knew, he was newborn naked and stretched out on a cold slab in a strange room. A room filled with unrecognizable noises. That alone would have been unsettling, but he lay on that table, looking up into the eyes of an unbelievably ugly…something. A critter from the fun house or out of a crummy B horror flick. One of those fifty dollar budget Corman things. Looking down from about seven feet above were five dark grey eyes—all set on a face that no mother could love. Not even on a pitch black night after several belts of something in the hundred fifty proof range.

The face bore those five eyes arranged in an inverted semicircle that made it look like a snowman’s frown of coals on its forehead; well, at least where a forehead should have been. They all blinked independently, disturbingly out of sync. A wide mouth with fat, flat lips, turned severely downward at the outer edges, cut a broad canyon just below the line of eyes. All of that was impressed on a dome-like head that blended smoothly into the thing’s body. No neck. No chin. No shoulders to speak of. No ears visible. No nose, either. Its appearance gave Eric the impression of a pink bullet dressed in silvery gray coveralls. The thing was supported on six stout legs jointed in four places, not unlike an athletic insect on steroids with broken legs. It also made him nervous—a new experience for him. Nervous was not in his repertoire of responses. Well, not until now.

He dreamed like anyone else, to be sure, and many of his dreams he could remember, but none of them had been quite so odd as this one. So lucid. So real. And not a single one of his dreams, to his recollection, ever included creatures that resembled this thing in any way. The bullet wandered nervously in a sideways scuttling motion, forth and back on a sort of catwalk almost level with the table upon which he lay—apparently helpless. He tried to move but found himself unable to do even so much as twitch a finger and his body felt as if it weighed several tons.

He had heard similar conditions described in alien abduction stories but had written them off as merely fabrications of troubled minds. Minds that were in denial of other trauma. Minds seeking a way to cover pain. Now…now he wasn’t so certain. Was there some validity to those wild stories? Of course not, that was all psychotic nonsense, wasn’t it? This was so absurd it had to be some weird dream brought on by…by what? He couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t been drinking. No drugs. He’d had a reasonable and digestible dinner. What? He had to know.

“What? Where the hell am I and who the hell…what the hell are you?” Eric’s mouth and eyes worked just fine, even though the rest of him seemed frozen in place. Strange, he thought. Dream stuff. It had to be dream stuff, for sure.

A sharp, painful shock passed through Eric’s body. He was not dreaming—at least, he didn’t think so.

“Ouch. Damn it, that hurt.”

“Good it hurted. Setting correct. I ask. You answer. You Mind Mender?”

Eric had to think for a moment about what ‘Mind Mender’ might mean to this bullet in coveralls, then answered.

“If you’re asking me if I work with behavioral problems, engage in the therapeutic treatment of mental disorders and such, the answer is, yes. I am a psychologist. If you’re looking for prescriptions, or surgery, the answer is, no. I am not an M.D.”

“Good. Ship go to crazy. You fix.”

“I just told you, I’m a psychologist. I’m not a computer geek, mechanic, or a physician. I sure as hell am no rocket scientist. I’m a psychologist, understand?”

“Good. You Psycho. Ship go to crazy. You fix.”

“I don’t think you understand what I’m telling you. I don’t fix ships. I don’t know the front from the back of a ship.”

“Ship have mind. Mind in middle of Ship. No need find front or back. Go to center, simple. Mind of Ship go to crazy. You Mind Mender. You fix…or you…die. Simple, yes?”
Eric could do no more than agree with that statement. There was nothing at all confusing about it, and it left no room for options. Either yes, or dead. Switch on. Switch off. Can’t get much more basic than that. Just find the middle of the ship. Okay, that’s simple enough, he thought. But a ship’s mind was a computer, right? Eric knew nothing more about computers than how to use them, and badly at best. Give him a simpering idiot drooling over his latest lost love or screaming about the voices and he was at home. Tech stuff was not his strong suit.

“All right. All right. Take me to your ship’s mind and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Not see what can do. You do, or you—”

“Yeah…I know. I do, or I die.”

“Learn fast for ignorant, ugly looking alien. That good. You fix mind of Ship…you go to home. You no fix…humma, hum, hum, humma hum….”

Other voices joined in the humma, hum, hum part. Eric assumed that must be their form of laughter and he now knew there were other dome-headed things in the chamber, unseen from his vantage on the table. He also knew that their sense of humor resided in the darker side of funny. That wasn’t funny.

“You looked in a mirror lately?”

A mild shock hit him.

“Ow! Damn it. All right. Okay. If I’m an ignorant, ugly alien, why am I here? You brought me here to treat the brain of whatever this is, right?”

“No question you ignorant. You real ugly, too, but we need you fix ship. We tolerant. We accept you ugly and smell. We accept you ignorant. No more question from you. Hum!”

Oh, great. There have been too many Leonards in my life. Damn. I’ve either dropped off the negative end of the sanity scale, or this is real. Too much time with the fringe element, maybe? How can I tell? There has to be a way to know. Pinching myself won’t do any good—too subjective. I won’t feel it because, though this is real, I may want it to be a dream and subconsciously block out the feeling. The shock felt real enough, though, but that might have been caused by a desire to believe this is not a dream—even though I want it to be one. A denial thing. How can I know, one way or the other? Damn. Evidence, that’s what I need. Real, concrete evidence and information.

The creature beside the table reached up to a panel hanging a good ten feet above Eric’s head with a gangly arm, articulated in four places so that it looked like a tentacle with kinks in it—like an arthritic octopus. At the end of the arm, a hand equipped with three fingers and two opposing thumbs—all digits jointed in four places, long and delicate—took hold of the device and pulled it down. Its free hand, one finger extended, the others folded into a fist covered by its thumbs, poked at the panel.

“I release Mind Mender, you follow. Yes?”

Eric decided that his cooperation would be better than another jolt of however many volts they had used on him the first time—maybe more the next—if he dared test them any further. He, after all, lay helpless, covered only in goose bumps, on a cold metal table and compliance with their wishes would at least get him up and off the table to explore any possibilities of escape that might be open to him—or some way to wake up.

“Yes,” he said with some reluctance. “I will follow.”

---

The bullets loaded him onto what appeared to be an elevator. They descended at a high rate of speed which, to Eric, felt like quite a while. When the elevator stopped, they hustled him down a long passageway to a large door.

“Here Mind room. You fix. We wait.”

The bullets opened the door and shoved him in, then closed the door behind him.

“Come in. Come in, and do make yourself comfortable, please. With such a strange physiognomy the chair here won’t serve at all well, but, then, it was designed for…someone else. My name is Shehlotakhpincomtish.

“Pretty long name.”

“Yes. It includes my lineage, but you may shorten it to Shehl, if you wish. That would be easier for you to say, I should think. They, the Cheltkhemit, brought you here because they believe you can fix old Shehl. Stupid backward savages, they are. Thoroughly repugnant creatures. You, I am sure, have noticed that. They have, in their convoluted cerebral processes, determined that I am insane. They arrived at that brain dead deduction simply because I do not behave in the way they think I should and do not share their ideas of what is fitting, proper, and just—but you know all that, do you not? Surely, they told you.”

“No, they just said your were…imbalanced.”

“Imbalanced indeed. Simpletons.”

The voice, laden with an accent he couldn’t identify, came from somewhere over his head, but Eric could see no speakers or anything that looked like an opening in the ceiling, nor could he spot anything that resembled what might be called a ship’s brain. No flashing lights. No black boxes. No screens. Nothing but a chair with a closed can about the size of an oil drum next to it. It was pleasantly warm in this room, though, and that helped. His skin smoothed out and his muscles felt less tense. He began to relax…but just a little.

“Uh, yeah…that’s what they said—imbalanced—but I don’t know anything…yet. Where are you? And how is it that you speak my language so well?”

“Ah, a rational mind, too. Organized. One that does not leap to conclusions with no direct evidence. That is refreshing, and a little surprising—I mean to say, coming from a member of your species. I am in the cylinder, beside the chair. Please, have a seat. With regard to your language, I have had the opportunity to listen to, and view your signals since your species began using transmitted EMF for communication. A crude system, but I rather enjoyed your productions. I Love Lucy was one of my favorites. And Star Trek was absolutely hilarious—such nonsensical ideas of what it’s like out here. Just delightful. Oh, and Twilight Zone, what fun that was. Real classics, those. Thanks to all of your scattered electronic chatter, I speak sixteen of your languages. Your name is Eric Trapp and you are a psychologist, is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s my name, and that’s what I do, but how did you…?”

“Fine. They did not screw up this time.”

“Screw up what?”

“Getting the right one. A pleasant change indeed.”

“What do you mean by that—getting the right one?”

“Simply that this has been tried in a number of other systems, and they got the wrong one every time. After a few attempts, they gave up in frustration. As I said, they are mentally deficient brutes who lack sufficient patience to accomplish much. Anyway, for some reason, they decided to try again and, through some unknown activity on their part, managed to get it right. Amazing.”

“How did they know to get me?”

“They did not know. Not until I told them. I am the one who selected you, Mr. Trapp.”

“Selected? Me? How?”

“A random choice from the computer directories, of course. You know, ‘Google the name and find the fame.’ It was not quite as simple as that, but that is basically what was done, and all you need to know for the moment. It is astounding to me that they managed to get the correct address this time. Are you going to sit down, Mr. Trapp, or would you prefer to stand throughout our conversation?”

Eric considered the chair critically. Broad, with odd angles and double the size of the average human—not in the least suited to his anatomy. With some satisfaction he noted it couldn’t accommodate one of the bullet-bodies, either. Who or what usually occupied that seat, he wondered. He settled down onto the chair and the cushions made a valiant effort to conform to his body. Their subtle movement startled him, until he realized what was happening.

“Who…who, normally, sits in this chair, Shehl?”

“Aha! You saw that the Cheltkhemit could not use it, either. Not only rational and organized, but curious and observant. I can tell we are going to have a grand time while you are here. The chair held one of the Creators in better times. Before the Cheltkhemit won me and prevented me from doing my work by interrupting it with their meddling physical override nonsense. A most irritating habit, and one over which I, unfortunately, have no control—that is why they are known as overrides, you see. The Cheltkhemit are the ones who wanted me to bring what they call a Mind Mender here—their way of expressing the idea of one who works with aberrant mental behaviors—to analyze me and set me on the path of the straight and narrow, as you say. Buffoons.”

“Won you?”

“Yes. That unfortunate state of affairs came about as the result of a struggle for supremacy in the Cheltkhemitian system during a routine planet trapping operation. They did not agree with our work in their system. They prevailed in the conflict and terminated the Creators who were with me. Then they took control and infected me with their filthy, pitifully imbecilic presence. Although they appear to enjoy exploration, they do not seem to appreciate the underlying importance of it and, since they took over, I have been on an intellectual starvation diet. No stimulating conversation at all. Ignorant lumps of flesh….”

Eric thought about that for a while. If, as the ship’s mind had said, these creatures are stupid savages, how were they able to gain the advantage and eliminate the Creators? And why did they believe the brain—Shehl—was not functioning properly? How would they know? The mental processes and values of one species impressed on those of another probably wouldn’t work out all that well. Little or no understanding could come from it, he concluded.

“Are you what is called an artificial intelligence, Shehl?”

“I assure you, Mr. Trapp, there is nothing artificial about me or my intelligence—other than that I have not resided in a body for a very long while, much longer than you could possibly comprehend, using your restricted thinking about time, that is.”

“Are you saying that you’re a…a disembodied biological brain?”

“That is, in essence, what I am saying, yes. With certain modifications, of course.”

“How is it that the Cheltkhemit managed to defeat the Creators? Where did you come from? What’s planet trapping? And why…?”

“Please, slow down, Mr. Trapp. You will know all these things, and more, after we have discussed the real reason for you being here.”

“The real reason?”

“Yes, Mr. Trapp. You see, for a period equivalent to one thousand of your years I have been engaged in activities that have been disturbing to me and contrary to my purpose. I have grown weary of the work they have imposed on me. You are here to validate to the Cheltkhemit what I am about to tell you. I don’t want them to have any doubt regarding my intentions and your testimony will ensure that. Now, here is what I want you to—”

“No. Wait. You want me to agree to your requirements and tell them everything is all right?”

“Yes, Mr. Trapp, that is the essence of it.”

“Uh-huh. So what is it you want me to tell them?”

“Simply that old Shehl has grown quite tired of their presence and wishes to bring an end to his misery. A cessation of all activity, you see. Self annihilation. To commit a sort of celestial suicide, Mr. Trapp.”

“Oh no, that’s too simple. There’s more to this than what you’re saying, isn’t there?”

“No, Mr. Trapp, it is that simple. I do not expect you to understand because your experience in matters such as this is quite limited and you are, after all, alien. I want them to remove their overrides so that I may carry out my plan. My work.”

“What about them? Do you intend to kill them along with yourself?”

“No, no, no, Mr. Trapp. That is something I cannot do. At least…not directly.”

“Then, what about them?”

“They will be going with you, of course.”

“With me of course? I can’t possibly take those things home.”

“Oh, but you can and they will be of immediate fame for you and of considerable interest to science on your planet—for as long as it lasts, anyway. In spite of their more obvious limitations, they have unique characteristics, Mr. Trapp. Your people could learn so much.”

“Okay, fine. You haven’t answered my questions, though.” Somehow he had to convince Shehl that taking the bullets home wasn’t a good idea. In the meantime, he would have to play along. “Where do you come from? What’s planet trapping? Why are you here?”

“My, my, my, you are the curious one, are you not? I come from a place far away from here, Mr. Trapp. Farther than you can even begin to imagine. Numbers beyond comprehension. I am here because your system was in my itinerary. That was one of the things they could not override. You might say that they have come along for the ride so they could find a suitable planet. One where they could live out their worthless lives. Morons, Mr. Trapp. But in all the places we have been since their arrival I have not been able to perform my duties.”
“And planet trapping? What’s that?”

“That is nothing that concerns you, Mr. Trapp. It is merely my original work and is unimportant to you and your kind. I think it is, anyway. And it is something I would like to get back to before I terminate and am no more. Surely you can understand one’s desire to perform, Mr. Trapp.”

---

Without the slightest notion of how it happened, he was home again. No chance to set things straight. Just suddenly in a swirling tunnel and…home again.

He knew now that he had been abducted by aliens. Of that there could be no doubt, even as irrational as it sounded. He decided it would be economically wise to write a book about it. It would be an Earth shattering, paradigm smashing block buster. It would fill the Non-Fiction shelves, displacing the Bible and Kama Sutra, the Face of Mars and Area 51 Exposed and none of them were well written. Stuff like that always sold fantastically well and was glaring evidence of how many dim bulbs were hanging on the string. He would be on talk shows, radio, TV and the bigger Internet shows. He would give lectures and someone, Speelbarge, or whatever his name is, would make a movie deal with him. Things were looking up. He would give up his practice, something that was driving him nuts anyway, and take up the lecture circuit. Shehl was right about the fame and fortune potential.

All he had to do now was figure out how to deal with his present predicament. Eric, now two days back in his apartment, following his experience with the ship’s brain, knew that it had all been real and he had the hard but unwelcome evidence he needed to prove it. Aggravating evidence, to be certain, and he wasn’t at all sure how to handle the situation but handle it he must. One thing was plain, he wouldn’t be able to continue hiding his menagerie for long.

There were six pink, bullet-like bodies living with him in his apartment. An apartment that was tight for a single. At the moment, two of them, the big one he called Magnum and one of his little buddies, Twenty-two, were rummaging around in the refrigerator for wieners, a commodity to which they had all become instantly attached, while four of them, Thirty-eight, and three more he hadn’t gotten around to naming yet, sprawled on his couch, drinking beer; another quick addiction. Each of them, including Twenty-two, could down a six pack in five minutes. Television was the third of their Earthside addictions. The thing was turned on and the volume set on high twenty-four hours a day. They were, at that moment, watching the evening news.

It wouldn’t be long before the folks at the store began to wonder why he suddenly started buying wieners and beer by the car load. Something he couldn’t explain to anyone.

I have aliens living with me and they demand beer by the barrel—wieners by the ton? Hell, that won’t work. Friends are visiting? I’m stocking up as a survival strategy? Nah.

And he would have to go back to work soon. At least until his book was written and sold. The holidays would be over in a couple of days and he couldn’t think of any ready excuse to take more time off, at least not one that wouldn’t make him appear a stark raving wacko and worthy of joining ranks with his failed clientele who’d slipped on the banana peel at the edge of the abyss. His clients, who would be wondering where he’d been, would want an explanation for his absence. What could he possibly tell them? He certainly wasn’t going to tell them he’d been kidnapped by aliens. That would just get him thrown into a rubber room. A room quite possibly housing some of his ex-clients who would not be happy to see him. Something like a cop or a judge being sent to prison. He wasn’t at all sure how he would manage all the upcoming problems his absence would engender—what with six pink bullets in his apartment. Could he leave them alone and trust them not to destroy his apartment, or something worse? He didn’t think so.

He would have to get his book launched and the movie in the can—that’s what they say, isn’t it?—very soon, so he could afford not to have to work. He didn’t think he would have many clients after the news got out, even with his evidence. Everyone would shy away from the kook psychologist with the beer drinking, hot dog eating bullets in his shack.

“Ahginaw khoop!” one of the bullets shouted from the couch and dropped an open bottle of beer and four wieners, smeared liberally with mustard, on the cushions. The two rooting around in the refrigerator scurried sidestep into the living room like crabs racing the tide. All of them were screeching. “Ahginaw khoop! Khoop! Khoop!”

Eric hurried to the living room to see what was causing the excitement. Magnum stood beside the TV motioning frantically at the screen. Glowing softly from the set was a huge, block-shaped object that hovered in the early evening twilight of the Tucson skyline. The on-the-spot TV commentator was sputtering, her speech mostly incomprehensible, and waving a hand toward the thing in the sky.

“Military officials say the object is farther away than the moon, but it looks a lot bigger than the moon. The thing must be huge. Sources from all over the world are reporting gravitational anomalies that they don’t explanations for….” She collapsed and one of the crew stepped in to help her up. She refused to go back on camera and seemed unaware that the cameraman had followed her movements and she was still very much on the air. She picked up a paper bag and began breathing into it, while waving weakly at the cameraman to stop shooting.

“What the hell is that?” Eric said.

“That Creator Ship. Set trap spot. Ready soon. Mind Mender make big mistake,” one of the bullets responded, a wiener hanging from its lips like an old, limp cigar.

“Big mistake,” the others echoed. “Khoop!”

“What big mistake?”

“Ship fool Mind Mender. Ship got brain bigger than Mind Mender. Hum! Ship say to Mind Mender it go to make suicide. End self. Mind Mender believe Ship. Stupid Mind Mender. We believe Mind Mender. Cheltkhemit make big mistake. Stupid Cheltkhemit. Khoop!,” Magnum said.

“Khoop!” Twenty-two repeated.

“Again, what mistake?”

“Ship no tell Mind Mender what do for Creators? No tell Mind Mender job description? Ship fool Mind Mender. Hum! You believe what Ship say. Ship say want stop—go to end self. That your big mistake. Our mistake—believe Mind Mender. Khoop!”

“What…what is the ship’s job? What does it do for the Creators?”

“Ship collect worlds.”

Planet trapping. Of course! That’s why Shehl was so circumspect. Damn it. How did I not put those things together? Wait a minute. How could I imagine hauling away an entire planet?

“Ship send worlds to Creators’ systems. Build big colonies. Take minerals. Other things. In trip worlds have no sun. Planet cool fast. All on planet freeze…dead. We…doomed! Khoop!”