She sighed. "I don't know. I'm trying, but I just can't remember."
"So you can't get back, then. *We* can't get back." It looked angry.
"I'm sorry. It's just...gone. The harder I try, the harder it gets, and every time I think I've got it, it goes away again. Please don't be mad at me. I didn't mean it."
Chalon thought for a moment. "Don't try," it said. "We don't know about humans " - it looked at her - "one of the very few things we don't know much about. But we can enter into a state of suspended animation wherein the functions of our brains shut down and our sub-consciousnessess takes over. But some of us can control that. Use it to explain things we didn't know we didn't know." It laughed, a sound like millions of hands clapping.
"It sounds like dreaming." She said. "The trouble is, even if the answer does come out while I dream, I'd probably forget it when I woke up." She paused, a thought slowly forming in her brain. "Can you get into the sub-conscious of someone else?"
Chalon paused. Then: ~Like this?~ A thought echoed in her mind, through her bone.
"Yes" she said. Then, ~yes.~ "If you can explore a little, maybe you can find it. Just be careful, there are things back there I don't want anyone else to see, and things I don't think anyone else *wants* to see." She smiled, feeling that a solution was at hand.
"It is draining," it said. "Is there a time when you - dream - most?" Chalon looked at her again. Stared, even. She would have found it offensive had it had eyes. "What do you mean, you do not want others to know?"
"In answer to your first question, yes, when I'm sleeping. Other than that, I don't know- I'm not awake to keep track of when I dream the most. Although, I've heard that if a person's eyes are moving under their eyelids it means that they're dreaming." She sounded a little amused. "In answer to your second question- I have thoughts, feelings, plans, memories, that are private, that belong to me alone. Some of them are painful, and some of them might make someone think less of me. Don't you have stuff like that?"
"'You'?" It smiled again. "'Private'? We've no conception of these feelings. What belongs to what you might call 'one' of us belongs to all. There are hundreds of others of us here...you cannot see them, they are not here physically, but they may be listening."
"Well, 'we' humans are different. We cannot listen without being physically present, or using a machine. The only things we know about others are those which they tell us, and we only share what we want others to know. We have individual secrets, thoughts. We can think one thing and say another. We lie all the time. We deny, we invent, because the truth is locked safely in our minds." She paused, sick of explaining the idea of individual secrets to a creature that probably could not conceive of individuality among a species. "But that's not important. I'm tired, I'm going to go to bed. While I'm sleeping, see if you can find what we're looking for." With that, she went off to her chambers to get ready for bed.
Chalon shrugged as best it could. "Secrets," it muttered to the now-empty room. "How terribly confusing."
After she had changed her clothes and finished doing all that annoying stuff human females do before they go to sleep, she climbed into bed and tried to fall asleep. It was particularly difficult to do: as soon as she got close to sleep, she remembered that someone was going to be wandering around freely in her subconscious. The thought gave her an eeiry feeling like someone was watching her, and the feeling jolted her awake.
Eventually, fatigue overtook her and she drifted off to sleep.
Chalon watched, and waited.
Her breathing, heartbeat, and other functions eventually went down to acceptable levels, and she began to - /what was it she had called it? - ah, yes./ Dream.
It hoped she would not wake up when it was still in her thoughs. That would be complicated, at the best. And messy, at the worst.
It burrowed down through her subconsicous. First the top layers. The dream, something fuzzy and muddy involving an eatery selling hyperizing drinks. The 'normal' functions of the human brain. Respiration. Circulation. Other, more complicated things.
Then, into the memories. /This,/ thought Chalon to themselves, /is bound to be interesting./
Interesting, it found, was not the half of it.
The memories came at it in a rush - sights, sounds, emotions, colors, and - the most interesting of all - smells, a sensation Chalon had never before experienced. They made a mental note that human's brain functions were somewhat transferrable. A potentially useful property.
The memories had to be sorted. First, the early ones...rather fuzzy, like the dream. A mother, and a father, and a brother. Those were easily discarded with. It had never understood the importance of the strange thing the humans called 'family', anyway.
More recent ones. A fight. An exodus, from - somewhere. A brief encounter with a human male named 'Han.' The happy purchase of a dilapadated old spaceport ship - this one, he realized with a shock. Encounters with many, many more males - but there were feelings of obligation and, even, sometimes, sadness and fear associated with these. Chalon skipped over these memories quickly, also. Perhaps, it reflected, this was what she had meant by private.
The most recent, the most vivid ones were from just a few days ago. It lingered on the moment when it had met her, searching for someone, anyone, to repair her space-junker. It was interesting to see themselves through a human's eyes - though, they had to admit, the vaguely blue, blobby outline looked nothing like it. The repair. The journey through space, through the asteroid field, around an orange planet - /wait,/ it thought to itself, and looked again. /Aha. We should have made a left swing at 90 degrees./
It surfaced from her brain through seconds-old dream memories, and conserved its energy until she woke. Chalon had never understood sleep, either - though, it reflected, if all humans had this many memories in their brains already, perhaps it was a good thing.
Lola awoke the next morning feeling refreshed and happy. The dream she had had in the moments before she awoke had been a pleasant one, and she was still basking in its pleasantness. Then she remebered that Chalon was supposed to go into her mind last night, and the pleasant feeling was replaced with an anxious one. Had it seen her dreams? That might be embarrassing. Or even more worrisome, how clearly had it seen all her memories, including those she herself didn't want to see. And had it found what they were looking for? She hoped so. Flying around in space with a semi-corporeal collective being looking for an out-of-the-way planet was not her idea of fun. Then again, stripping in a sleezy bar to make the money to fix her ship hadn't been much fun either. At least this way she got to fly.
Chalon drifted into the foyer outside her room and waited patiently until Lola came out. "Hello," it said. "We have found what you were looking for. You were supposed to turn right around the orange planet yesterday, which we have identified as Fulrox-66B. You took a left. Perhaps we should turn back."
Lola was quite happy to know that she wouldn't be stuck in this dead-end part of the galaxy. Now that she had her ship fixed, she longed to do some real flying, which was nearly impossible without cops to outrun, asteroids to dodge, or blockade systems to thwart. "Good." She walked into the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's chair, which was quite possibly her favorite place in the world. She fired up the engines and swung the ship around in the direction they had come from, eyes open for the orange planet. She briefly considered asking Chalon why It needed to get to such a desolate planet, but then thought better of it. She had always hated it when people asked the purpose behind her travels, and she didin't think that Chalon would understand the concept of small talk. So she kept her mouth shut and focused on the flying, which made her quite happy.
"I didn't tell you?" It said, slowly. "We need to be - dropped off there. To continue our mission."
She looked over at Chalon, startled. "What?"
"You were wondering why we are going to our destination."
"I was, but how did you know that?"
Cha'lon thought for a moment. "We simply do. Is this a problem?"
"It's not a problem. It's just weird. I'm not used to having people read my mind."
/So,/ Chalon thought to itself, /it *is* a problem. Why do humans just not say what they think?/ It shrugged as best they could. "We could stop, if you preferred."
"I think I would. Even if you have been inside before, I'd prefer if you didn't consider the invitation permanent. I don't enjoy sharing secrets with strangers."
"As you wish." It blocked a part of their minds from itself for the time being, and ignored the thoughts they wanted to filter through to it. "How long will it take us to get to our destination?"
"A couple more hours. This ship can go pretty darn fast, especially with me at the helm." Lola smiled to herself, remebering a race where she had proved that her ship was just as good as any other, and that she was as good a pilot as any man. Then she sighed and returned her attention to the work of flying.
"Ah." Chalon settled back as best it could, and looked out the window for a moment, trying to remember what constituted small talk among humans. It doubted that superstring theory was. After a while, it settled on the most prosaic subject it could think of.
"How did you acquire this ship? It is quite - historic. That kind of gasket panel has not been availible in the commerical marketplace since the late 2030's. Do you fly it for recreational purposes only? I have heard that other humans on some planets - I think the word is 'drive' - even older vehicles for that purpose, and take great pride in their upkeep."
Lola blanched at his words. She took great pride in her ship, even if it was old, and parts difficult to come by. It was still one of the best she'd ever flown. "I bought it at an auction. It used to belong to a smuggler or something. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's worthless. And I don't fly it for recreational purposes only, or you wouldn't be here. This ship is my livliehood." Well, when it's working, she thought, shuddering at the memory of the other ways she'd had to support herself.
Chalon noted the way in which Lola reacted to its statement with puzzlement. "I am sorry," it said at last, after figuring out they must have offended her in some way. "I did not mean to imply it was a bad ship. It is quite fast."
After a few more moments of silence interrupted only by the whirring of the ship's computers, it said, "Where do you plan on going after we leave?" It hurridely added, "please take no offense. We are merely curious."
"I don't know yet. I don't have any plans. I usually don't: I fly around looking for things to do, doing whatever strikes me. I've been without a ship for some time, it'll be good to be mobile again." She smiled, thinking how good it would be to simply fly, visiting friends, going wherever she pleased, without worrying about shipments or clients, or cops.
"Ah." Chalon was silent until something drew its attention. He moved forward and looked out the large window. "There," it said. "We need to stop there." He was amazed at the flying speed of the ship.
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