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  PSYCHIC HEALERS OF THE PLEIADES
    by Richard Flood
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    Some people stay in cryo until after a landing and have the 
  airlines haul their meat to medical and thaw it. I prefer to 
  thaw a day or two before arrival and tough out the deceleration 
  and landing. It's not pleasant, but if you go the other route, 
  you're orthogonal for days.
    
    This trip is for my Mom. She's in bad shape, thanks to some 
  sadistic hacker. Back in gentler days they crashed systems for 
  fun, trashed disk drives, stole telephone time. Now they crash 
  humans. Some jerk with a spray-bottle of hacked-up disease and a
  biomask ran through the supermarket dosing everyone. It was a 
  pulmonary virus, the doctors said. In their eyes, she's terminal, 
  but I'm not giving up yet. 
    
    I first heard about the Pleiadean healers from my friend 
  Jeffrey. One of his aunts had neo-anthrax and was cured in the 
  Pleiades.  Then I saw their pitch on the tube. They said they 
  could cure street-viruses. They mentioned plague variants, 
  retroviruses, and lots of other diseases. The commercials are 
  impressive. They aliens live a long time, thousand of years, I
  think, and spend most of their lives practicing something called 
  Kaiza, which seems like a mixture of religion, martial arts, and 
  magic. In the middle of the pitch, you see this human-like figure 
  with bright blue skin go at a bar of titanium steel with his bare
  hands. After standing with his eyes closed in concentration, he 
  makes a couple of moves, then slips his hand through the bar like 
  it's a holo or something. For a moment, nothing happens, then you 
  see the two pieces of metal crash to the ground. Later on, they use 
  the same technique to extract a brain, scan it for viruses, destroy 
  them, and put it back. Once you've seen it, you never forget it.
  
    Some of them are frauds, no doubt. I spoke with Agent John 
  Crimmins of the local FBI office, and he tried to talk me out of 
  the trip. He showed me half a dozen cases where people felt they had 
  been cheated out there. I thanked him, but told him that some of the
  healers were for real, and had helped people. And anyway, it was my 
  mom's only chance.
    
    The trip is no picnic. They're not really in the Pleiades, the 
  healers, that'd be too damn far. Their planet orbits 39 Tauri, 
  which is only about 14 parsecs from earth. Everyone's heard of the 
  Pleiades, of course, and nobody's heard of 39 Tauri, so they're the
  Psychic Healers of the Pleiades. Advertising is like major gravity, 
  it bends spacetime.
    
    On 39.4 Tau, which is what the pilots call the planet, 
  healing is a major industry, and it is run professionally. An alien 
  hostess with solid green eyes came to meet me at the dock. She had 
  a couple of alien porters with her, and they wheeled my Mom's 
  cryo-unit to our room.
    
    The next morning, room service brought me breakfast, plankton 
  and eggs, just like on earth, then the lady with the green eyes 
  returned and took us right to the operating room. The doctor looked 
  like Desi Arnaz, if you've ever watched those holoized old flicks
  they run in the middle of the night. Except of course he had those 
  monocolor eyes. His were sky blue, and it seemed like he was wearing 
  a black, curly wig. His assistant had red hair and lipstick and 
  looked like -- well, if you watch the late night screen, you can
  guess. They made themselves up this way, I suppose, to make us humans 
  feel at home. Most humans are funny about being modified by aliens.
  Anyway, his name, according to the hostess, was Ek, and he got right 
  to business. 
    
    As they wheeled my Mom's thawed body in, he raised his 
  hands up high and spoke a few words in the alien tongue. His 
  fingers were light gray, like the skin of all the aliens, and 
  they began to glow. He motioned me to move closer. I wanted to 
  watch everything carefully. He plunged them into her abdomen in a
  spiralling motion, pulled out her liver and held it high -- sort 
  of a flourish, I guess. His assistant held a wand that shone with 
  a strange violet light, and she passed it over and under the organ, 
  then he put it back. He did the same with my Mom's kidneys, gall
  bladder, and other organs. The hostess, translating, said that they 
  were full of crystalline impurities that had to be removed. Ek was 
  repairing them. He even removed her heart and lungs the same way. 
  It was amazing how little blood there was. Then he passed his hands 
  slowly over her body, head to feet, the glow from his hands 
  illuminating her. This, the hostess said, would destroy the 
  remaining viruses. Within fifteen minutes, Ek had pronounced her 
  healed, and we were both sent on our way. 
  
    You might think me gullible, but I walked out of there 
  confident that she was cured. There is nothing more convincing 
  than standing there, nose to abdomen, as some creature operates 
  on your mother with its bare hands. I felt good, and I looked 
  forward to talking to my Mon soon after we got back. So, we were 
  both prepped for cryo by the airline, and in no time we were back 
  on earth.
       
    It didn't take long to realize I'd been had. I was waiting in 
  the cryo room as they prepped my mother when one of the technicians 
  came over.
    
    "I've got some bad news," said the tech.
    
    Damn, I thought, the cryo unit broke down on the way and now 
  she's a 100-year old mummy. These things happened from time to time. 
  "What's the trouble?"
    
    "Nothing in the cryo," he said, defensive about his line of work. 
  "But we just scanned her and she has no vital organs.  
    
    "What?"
    
    "The chest cavity is almost empty," he said. "There's now 
  way we can thaw her."
    
    "Keep her frozen," I said, thinking that damn Ek. "I'll let 
  you know what to do next."
    
    I went to a phone. I was still pretty loopy from the flight, 
  so I intended to call Agent John Crimmins. The number, of course, 
  had been changed. In fact, all the numbers had been changed. The 
  phones still looked something like I remembered them, so for a few 
  minutes I stood there, staring at the hexadecimal keypad, confused. 
  I didn't know how to type in a "compacted hexadecimal number." 
  Also, I finally realized that, unless he had taken a long cryogenic 
  vacation, Inspector John Crimmins had probably been dead for 70 
  years. I started to sweat, and a profound feeling of dislocation 
  and fear came over me. Then I read the rest of the instructions on 
  the phone.
    
    "FBI, local," I said. It connected me.
    
    I explained my problems to the agent at the other end, and told 
  her that, no matter what it took, I was going to get my mother's 
  organs back.
  
    The agent said that my mother's organs would be close to 
  two hundred years old by the time I got back to 39.4 Tau, and 
  not very useful to anyone, particularly my mother. I had to 
  agree on this point.  But, I said, it was entirely possible that 
  clone-descendants of those organs were still available on 39.4 Tau, 
  and I would demand that the closest facsimile of my mother's organs 
  be returned to her.
    
    The agent seemed to think this reasonable. She added that the 
  FBI had been aware of such scams on 39.4 Tau for well over a hundred 
  years now, and they and the Interstellar Trade Commission could use 
  my help in putting an end to them. She asked if I could come over to 
  the office.
    
    I went outside to hail a cab. They were all computer controlled 
  and I couldn't figure out how to program the route. The FBI office 
  was close to the airport, anyway, so I decided to walk.
    
    When I reached her office, Agent Radha Jairam explained their 
  plan to me and, on the phone, to the airline. She quickly showed 
  me how to use a micrcocorder, and gave it to me with several memory 
  wafers. She wished me luck.
  
                              *  *  *
  
    This time, I left mom on ice back on earth and went alone, 
  more or less. I left the ship in disguise, escorting a cryo unit 
  that held a clone of one of Radha's relatives. The same hostess, or 
  at least one that looked identical, met us, and we followed the same
  procedure as on the previous visit.
    
    This time the doctor and his assistant had longish black hair, 
  slicked back, and large sideburns. He wore a white rhinestone 
  jumpsuit. I guess  Desi Arnaz was no longer popular. I had not been 
  on earth long enough to notice. Certain rock-and-roll figures kept 
  coming back in holo or clone forms, and I think this look was 
  modeled on one of them.
    
    Once more, the operation appeared to be a great success, but 
  this time I got it all down in silicon. I might not be able to save 
  my mother, but these guys would at least do some time.
    
    I stowed the recorder and the relative with airline security, 
  then found the hostess again. I told her that I wanted to speak to 
  the management.
  
    The complex is something like a large honeycomb, with hundreds 
  of octagonal rooms, and multi-vector elevators to reach them. We 
  entered one and traveled toward the middle of the building and 
  down, popping into a small office with a golden rug and walls. A
  short alien with tousled gray hair stepped from behind his desk and 
  offered a clammy handshake. He had a bushy mustache and a nice 
  smile, grandfatherly. I liked him immediately, then I realized it 
  was because he resembled a famous physicist that almost everyone
  liked. These guys played every angle.
    
    "Listen," I said, firmly. "I have a complaint."
    
    "You must speak to me," said the hostess. "He does not 
  understand your language."
    
    "Tell him that on my last trip, my mother's organs were stolen."
    
    She relayed the message, translating it into a rapid stream 
  of clicks and slide-whistle noises. He answered, and she turned to 
  me again. "What organs were they?"
    
    "All of them," I said. "What does it matter?"
    
    "And what happened to them?"
    
    "They were stolen, during they surgery. Your healer Ek took them."
    
    "Ek?" said the phony Einstein, without translation. He 
  shrugged his shoulders. I got the feeling that this guy had dealt 
  with humans before. And that maybe he understood everything I was 
  saying. e certainly had to know who Ek was. 
    
    "Repeat, please?" said the hostess.
    
    "Stolen. The organs were taken during surgery and not returned. 
  Theft."
    
    A whistling, clicking palaver ensued, with them going back 
  and forth several times. Finally, she turned to me again. "The 
  overseer," she said. "Does not understand. Your conceptual structure 
  does not translate to Krenge." 
    
    "What is there to understand?" I shouted. "What is there to 
  translate? Organ theft. Stealing."
    
    "I am sorry," she said. "There is no such concept in Krenge."
    
    Yeah, right, I thought, and I'm the King of Siam. The overseer 
  smiled and shrugged, holding his empty hands out in an annoyingly 
  human fashion. It was a complete scam, and I wasn't going to get 
  anywhere with them. But I did have the evidence.
  
                              *  *  *
  
    The return flight suffered problems with the stellar drive 
  around Pi3 Orionis. There was a major delay, and we got back to 
  earth around a century later than schedule. When I came down the 
  ramp with the other passengers, we faced an audience, clustering
  behind a white plastic rail. Most of them looked like kids, 
  teenagers. Two in the front wore clothes that looked like orange 
  plastic spaghetti wrapped around their bodies, their hair molded 
  into shiny platters above their heads.
    
    "Meta-groot!" said the one on the left, whose hair was chromed. 
  "Ho ho, what now, neek?" He laughed, at my jacket and pants, 
  apparently.
    
    His friend, whose hair-thing was more copper colored, was 
  laughing at the ship. "Spa-fon! Space Zamboni!" he shouted, 
  tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks.
    
    "Same to you, gnomes," I said as I passed.
    
    "Sameayou, gnomes!" they chimed behind me as I entered the 
  terminal.
    
    Inside, I went right to the phones, but they weren't phones 
  anymore. They appeared to be some kind of psionic devices, with 
  chromed filaments where there used to be a keypad. I had not a 
  prayer of figuring out how to use one. I decided once more on the 
  short walk to the FBI office.
    
    I was dismayed to see that the office building had been 
  torn down and replaced by a large temple of some sort. It looked 
  Southeast Asian in design, but seemed to be constructed of yellow 
  and green plastic. I walked on, depressed, wondering what to do 
  next. Luckily, the new FBI building was a small distance down the 
  street, and they still used the same acronym.
    
    I entered Agent Donald Kveck's office on the fourth floor, 
  and he was flying around the room on a metal disk of some sort. When 
  he noticed me, he touched down on his desk. He wore semi-gloss gray 
  hair plates, which I assumed was a respectable business hairstyle. 
  I summarized the history of the case. 
    
    "Chthonic," he said, meaning "good", I guess.
    
    "But," I said, "I've got the goods on them." I held up my 
  memory wafers. 
    
    "So," he said, "what are those?"
    
    "The data," I told him. "I've got voice and sound on the whole 
  operation, including the sleight-of-hand where they steal the 
  organs. The clone's organs."
    
    He laughed. "Son, if you asked anybody to read those, they'd 
  think you were a maximum oaf, or worse. They haven't been used for 
  over a century. We don't even use computers anymore they way you 
  did. There's just one system, in Colorado Springs, and we're all
  linked by pinealNet."
    
    My heart sank.
    
    "And you better get some new clothes," he added. "Before 
  everyone thinks you're a neek"
    
    I looked for a chair, but there was only one of those hover-
  things, and I wasn't ready for it. "Geez," I said, "I did all 
  this to save my Mom, and now she's just frozen meat."
    
    "Ho ho, not so," said Agent Kveck. "They grow replacement 
  organs like hypervine nowadays. All we need is a gene sample, and 
  we can rehab your Mom in no time.
  
                              *  *  *
  
    So now I am on my way to Mom's cube, wrapped in plastic 
  spaghetti. At least it is not bright orange. And my hair disc is 
  kind of muted and conservative, so I don't feel like a total neek. 
  I don't see the psychic healer commercials anymore. I understand 
  from Agent Kveck that they made their millions are took off for 
  deeper parts of space, probably to scam some other races that 
  haven't heard of them. 
    
    Mom, she came out of her rehab like a zif-rocket, and hasn't 
  stopped since. She accuses me of being a troglo-neek, of not 
  "surfing the ether", of having "no zinc." I don't know if I'll 
  ever get used to being a human nowadays. There's just too much 
  polymer in it. But, anyway, she's insisting that I find a girl-biont
  (which is just a regular girl, by the way), and is going to teach me 
  how to dance the 'spirochete'. It's "chthonic," she tells me.
  
                                 (DREAM)     
  
  Copyright 1996 Richard Flood, All Rights Reserved.
  -------------------------------------------------------------------                             
  In real life Richard does programming for a Wall Street firm, he's 
  studied Comp Sci and writing in college, writing studies under 
  Ishmael Reed, Leonard Michaels, Peter Collier. He's had several 
  stories published in literary magazines; recently writing only
  SF, and has a story appearing in an upcoming Writers of the Future 
  anthology. Email:  rhf@crayola.sbi.com
  ===================================================================
  
