Campaign 2100 by Larry Hodges

Author:Larry Hodges [Hodges, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, alien, politics, first contact, election, political campaign, political intrigue, future
Publisher: World Weaver Press
Published: 2016-03-08T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-One: A Visit from Twenty-two

As they walked up the steps to Toby’s house in Germantown, Maryland, Bruce explained the paparazzi to Twenty-two. She’d had some experience with it when she first landed, but the idea that humans would chase famous people around to take pictures and then sell them was a foreign idea. The very act of doing so seemed to her an admission by the photographers that they were inferior to whoever’s picture they were taking. Other than One—who was considered superior to all others—no grod would accept such an idea.

She was grateful when Tyler opened the door to let them in. Olivia invited Twenty-two and Bruce into their living room. “Have a seat,” she said, motioning toward the cushioned sofa and chairs.

Twenty-two wasn’t sure at first if she was actually giving away one of the items of furniture. They would be useless for her; grods didn’t have the physical flexibility in their mid-sections to sit down even if they wanted to. Twenty-two didn’t really understand why humans sat at all. Why not just stand? Only older or injured grods needed to sometimes lower themselves to the ground to rest their legs. While the others sat, Twenty-two shuffled over and stood next to the sofa, and listened as the humans did what Bruce explained as “small talk.” Grods did the same thing, but not nearly to the extent of humans, who could spend hours talking about nothing.

Twenty-two recognized Tyler and Olivia from pictures Toby had shown her. Though she still had problems telling humans apart, their bright orange hair made them stand out, and Tyler was the obviously younger one. Strangely, Toby had said they had red hair, but it was clearly orange. When Twenty-two pointed this out, Bruce had explained that orange hair on a human was called red, just as brown-skinned people were historically called black or ebony, and yellow-haired people were called blond if they were men, blonde with an “e” if they were women. It seemed a complicated and unnecessary code.

But humans were a complicated species. They were intelligent, and yet, when they became emotional, they lost the ability to think rationally. From an evolutionary standpoint, it made no sense; rational thought was most needed in deeply emotional situations, such as when a predator was trying to eat you or a rival was competing for your mate.

They also had weak short-term memories. She’d noted that they often wrote things down, or called up things on their TCs that they’d seen before, as if they truly couldn’t keep these items in their memory. Even Bruce, who was teaching her to play chess and apparently was very good, had difficulty keeping track of the pieces if the board wasn’t in front of him. Grods had games similar to chess, but the entire games were played in their minds; a board with small sculptures wasn’t needed to keep track of the pieces. Humans were as intelligent as grods—more so, in the case of Bruce—but their weak memory skills often made them seem stupid.

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