Tom meets an alien who is researching potential trade opportunities and gets a glimpse of more than one new world.

Market Research

By Jamie Lou Wendelin

Thanks to Kristina L.S., Scott Ramsey and another friend for reviewing drafts, finding mistakes and making helpful suggestions - and, oh yeah, Erin for making all this possible. Of course all remaining mistakes are my own.

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I was sitting on a park bench when I discovered the alien. Or maybe, it discovered me…

My wife, Sue, and my doctor had both been harping on me to get more exercise, so I went for a walk. Usually Sue would drag me out for a walk on Sunday afternoons and I’d complain about my knees or my back hurting; but I would go. This particular Sunday, I don’t know, I needed to get out of the house. It was a perfect April day, about 60 degrees, with no breeze blowing - in the sun it seemed like it was ten degrees warmer. The taxes were done, the baseball game didn’t start until four, I’d finished the Sunday papers by noon and damned if it hadn’t been a long winter.

I’d put down the Times Book Review and asked Sue, “Do you want to go for a walk?”

She turned away from her sewing machine and tipped her head down a bit so she could look at me through the top half of her bi-focals.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” I repeated.

She just stared at me.

“What?” I queried.

“I’m just surprised.” she finally answered. “You usually bitch and moan whenever I suggest it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But it’s a lovely day and I feel like getting out of the house,” I told her.

I watched as she mulled it over for a few moments and then returned to her sewing.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Any other time… But I need to finish Jenna’s quilt. You go though.”

Jenna is our oldest and was expecting our first grandchild in a month or so: a girl, as it turned out. Sue was making a quilt for the baby and trying to finish the last squares of a traditional “Log Cabin” design. However, even though the layout was simple, the arrangement of colors and patterns was not - the overall effect, was quite remarkable.

Anyhow, I left for my walk, alone.

I hiked up the hill up into the city park, mind wandering, noting the early spring wildflowers poking their way through the leaves laid down last fall. Sunlight filtered between the still leafless trees, highlighting the occasional cairns of snow; memorials to the recently departed winter.

“Good riddance,” I verbalized my pronouncement on that: I could do without winter.

“Why the hell do I live in Vermont,” I often wondered.

Ah, but spring: so much promise of things to come — warmer days, green leaves sprouting, and the sun higher in the sky.

I’ve read that after childbirth women block out the worst of the pain, otherwise they might never go through it again. As I plodded along I wondered if Vermonters did much the same with winter and forgot the penetrating cold and blowing snow when finally the spring arrived. Pondering such ruminations, I continued my walk.

The park had been donated to the town more than a century ago by a local rich man. Back then it was mostly open space. Now, however, it is almost completely wooded, save for a couple of open meadows and the “Sliding Hill”, used for that purpose in the winter. It is also criss-crossed by trails for walking or skiing, depending on the season, along with a couple of unpaved roads.

By the time I reached the picnic shelter in the largest clearing, at the top of the hill, I was winded. Yeah, I know it’s not much of a hike but I was over-weight, out-of-shape, and still battling high blood-pressure. I sat down on the bench at the shelter to take a break.

That’s when I saw the egg sitting in the grass.

It was about the size of one of those plastic eggs they used to market panty-hose in: “L’eggs”. Only this one was different. Its shape was seemingly a perfect ovoid; not bigger at one end than the other. Also, noticeably absent was the seam where the two halves come together. Oh, and the other thing; it was gold.

Even looking at it I could tell it wasn’t that faux-gold plating like they put on plastic bowling trophies; it looked like the real thing. Grunting a bit at the effort, I got up and made the couple of steps to go pick it up. That’s when I got my first shock.

Not only was it not a pantyhose egg, it was quite heavy; a couple, two or three pounds, was my guess.

Then I got my next shock; it spoke to me.

Actually, when it happened I didn’t know who or what was speaking but heard a simple, “Hello.”

I looked around, saw no one and I asked, “Hello?”

“May I ask your name?”

“Tom,” I answered, still puzzled. “Tom Singer.”

“Mister Singer, or can I call you Tom?”

“Tom’s fine,” I said absently. “But where the hell are you?”

“You hold me in your hand.”

I looked down at the egg.

“Right,” I said sardonically, “a talking gold egg.”

“It is true,” answered the voice.

“Okay. Prove it.”

I’ve always been a skeptical person — “a cranky old fart”, my wife called me, even when we were still in our twenties.

“Prove it?”

The voice sounded annoyed.

“Yeah.” I replied. “I hear a voice that says it comes from the egg in my hand. How do I know that for sure?”

“I suppose that is reasonable,” said the voice.

There was a pause of several seconds.

“Alright,” it continued. “What if I buzz in your hand?”

“Sure,” I said. “That would be…”

Before I completed the sentence, the egg started to vibrate. I dropped it.

I sat for a while, looking at it, wondering what the hell it was. After a minute I realized that it hadn’t spoken since I’d dropped it, so I leaned over to pick it up again.

“So I prove my point and you drop me?” said the voice as soon I touched it.

It sounded slightly testy.

“Sorry.”

“Do you believe me now?”

“I suppose.”

“Alright…” it started to say.

“Stop,” I interrupted. “How come I can only hear you when I touch you?”

“Oh that. I have to be in contact with your skin in order to communicate with your nervous system.”

“So, you’re probing my brain?” I asked, nervously.

“Yes,” it said. Then, “No! It is more complicated than that.”

“How about you explain that? Quickly! Before I put you down again!”

“When I’m in contact with your nervous system I can stimulate your auditory system so, to you, it sounds like normal speech. I hear your responses as normal sound that I sense on my surface. We are not allowed to affect you humans beyond your hearing… without your consent.”

“We?” I wondered.

“My kind,” it answered.

“Your kind… Just exactly what are you?”

“We are exploring devices. You might call us space probes.”

“I’m talking to a spaceship?”

“If you will.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll bite. Why are you here?”

“Market research.”

“Market research? What’re you talking about?”

“We are sent out to find and then investigate new… populations and report their fitness for contact and trade with the rest of civilization.”

“The ‘rest of civilization’? What do you mean?”

“There is a vast network of star systems in this galaxy,” it replied. “Most are considerably more advanced, technologically than yours, but not all. All have something valuable to offer: It might be natural resources, it might be expertise in some field, or it might be physical labor or mercenaries. My purpose is to identify what this planet and system have to offer and report back to the… you might call it the “Board of Trade”. It is the group that oversees the whole trading system. In effect, it acts as a galaxy-wide government.”

“You mean to tell me there’s a, I don’t know, a universal UN that runs the galaxy?”

“No,” was its reply. “It is more like the Chicago Board of Trade, NASDAQ, Lloyds of London, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the World Trade Organization all rolled into one. However, even that analogy pales. It does, however, regulate all inter-system trade. It has its own military; the only one allowed inter-system operations.”

“Sounds more like the British East India Company; ‘Trade with us or else...’

“That is not the way of it,” it interrupted defensively. “Although the board is rather, what is your term, laissez-faire concerning trade in general, it is very conservative about interactions with newly contacted… less technologically advanced populations. It has strict rules about such things, is very protective regarding new systems, and extremely aggressive about enforcement. The board insures that all trade with such systems is fair and not inequitable”

“Forgive me for being skeptical,” I said, “but we have a long history of ‘fair trade’ with ‘less technologically advanced populations’.”

“Just because you humans can be exploitative and racist, don’t assume the rest of the galaxy is the same.”

I sat for a moment to let that all sink in.

“So… What do we have to offer… this ‘vast network’ or yours?”

“Several things, actually,” it responded. “For one thing, your gas giant planets: Jupiter and Neptune specifically, are unique in this region. They provide resources and fuel needed to continue explorations future into this arm of the galaxy.”

“You mean they belong to us?” I asked.

“As the only advanced population in this system, yes they do.”

“Alright,” I accepted that. “What else.”

“Well, your rate of technological change is unprecedented.”

“What do you mean?”

“You humans truly conquered fire only a few thousand years ago and iron metallurgy about 3500, practical steam engines around three hundred years back, sub-orbital flight one hundred years and you started sending probes out into your solar system in the 1960’s by your reckoning.”

“And that’s special?” I asked.

“Special? It is phenomenal! Tom, no other population even approaches the rate of change of humans. There are races that took a thousand of your years to get from powered flight to orbiting their planets; you did that in less than sixty years.”

I tried to absorb this.

After a while I asked, “And this trade board of yours will protect us from being… exploited by the rest of the… systems?”

“It will.”

“How do I know that?”

“You don’t,” was the only answer I received.

I supposed that was true. It could say anything it wanted and especially anything it thought would please me. Overall, however, it sounded plausible.

“Okay then… why are you talking to me?” I asked after a couple minutes of mulling over this conversation.

“You just happened by.”

I snorted my disbelief.

“It is true,” replied the egg, “I am not, how do you say, ‘pulling your leg’. I had a bit of a malfunction when entering your atmosphere. Which is quite embarrassing because I should have found the problem long ago. Unfortunately I did not and crashed here. I had only just completed my repairs when you came by and picked me up.”

“Then what happens now?” I asked.

“Either we each go on our separate ways or you let me… ‘interview’ you.”

I’d noticed the emphasized word and asked about it.

“What do you mean by ‘interview’?”

“You come aboard and let me probe you.”

“Probe me? Is this... like you sticking things up my ass or something?”

“Why is it that you people always ask about anal probes?”

It sounded exasperated.

“Maybe because it’s happened before; more than once if the stories are correct,” I replied.

“Alright! It has happened. But only a couple of times. And it was fifty, sixty years ago by your time-keeping. We have been trying to live it down ever since. And do you know what? The humans involved wanted it. When we scanned them we found they had this unconscious desire so we accommodated them, trying to make them comfortable. Those were some of the first contacts and we didn’t know then that it wasn’t… common.”

That outburst made it seem very human, in an odd sort of way.

Both the egg and I were quiet for a while after this. I’d always wondered about this. It didn’t make sense to me that some advanced, alien species would make contact just to start shoving things up our ass.

Eventually I asked, “How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t. However, you should believe that I may not do anything to harm you.”

“Oh,” was all I could think to say. Then: “What happens to you if you harm me?”

“I would be disassembled,” it answered.

When I heard that I let out a laugh.

“I do not see what is humorous about that,” complained the egg.

“Sorry. It’s a line from an old movie called “Short Circuit” about a robot who… Oh, never mind.”

Still chuckling, I said, “Okay. I’ll come in.”

I don’t know what it was that made my decision for me; probably that it didn’t understand the ‘disassemble’ reference. Of course that was from a pretty stupid, twenty year old film. But still, between that and the rant about “anal probes” it seemed to be on the level.

“So what do I have to do?” I wondered.

“Just sit still for a moment. And relax,” it answered.

So I did.

The transition was peculiar. As I sat, the trees, grass and picnic shelter around me seemed to become less distinct, almost like dissipating into mist, while at the same time a room of some kind started to take shape around me. The process lasted approximately five seconds: The park evaporated while the room materialized. I thought, absurdly at the time that this was what it might be like for the people on Star Trek when they were transported.

I sat in a room larger than our house: I’d guess it was about thirty by forty feet. Along one full side was a video monitor similar to what you might see behind the talking heads on the nightly news. It showed a view of the park from the bench I’d just vacated. I was sitting on a couch of some kind and there were several chairs arranged around a common area. From all appearances, it could be one of those ultra-modern living-rooms you see in the Style section of the Sunday paper; all shape and form but not very homey, or comfortable. The colors were all pastels, mostly greens and blues with a hint of pink washed throughout. Not what I’d choose, but, then no one ever accused me of have any sense of style.

Altogether, it seemed odd; not quite real.

“You there?” I asked the surrounding space.

“I am,” a voice came out of… everywhere.

“Nice place. A bit spare but… Who’s your decorator?”

“Thank you. I just kind of threw it on.”

That bothered me somehow. “Threw it on?” I wondered to my self.

Something occurred to me. “Is this real?”

“It is a construct.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Wait a minute; am I really here? And how does all this fit in that little egg?”

“I suppose it needs a bit of explanation.”

“You’re damn right it does!”

“You are inside the ‘egg’ as you call it, but the volume enclosed by it is considerably larger than would appear from the outside.”

“How is that possible?”

“Magic.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Are you familiar with the author Arthur C. Clarke?”

I nodded.

“Well he said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

“Okay?” I replied.

“You are seeing ‘advanced technology’.”

“Are you telling me that a room bigger than my house fits inside the egg I held in my hand?”

“Exactly!”

I pondered this for a few moments.

“Would I understand it if you explained it to me?” I asked.

“Probably not. You should understand, however, that space and time are malleable and we can shift them as needed.”

I accepted that. I mean, this whole experience was so whacked that one more thing which didn’t make sense was, well, just one more thing that didn’t make sense.

Something else was bothering me so I got back to my original reason for entering the egg.

“What about this ‘interview’?” I asked.

“All you have to do is relax and allow me to query your thoughts.”

“That’s it?”

“That is it.”

“And if I say no?” I queried.

“Then I put you back on your bench in the park and move on.”

I sat there thinking about that. Obviously, this thing was far beyond our current technology. If it wanted to, it and its kind could probably overpower us. But something held them in check: ethics? morals? laws? I didn’t know. Maybe I’m naive but it seemed to me that little harm could come by letting it do its research.

“Okay,” I said. “Go ahead; before I change my mind.”

“Alright. But I must ask this, for the record: Will you let me probe your thoughts and memories? Of you own free will?” it asked.

“I will,” I answered.

Almost before I finished saying that, I knew it had started; I felt and odd sense of both déjá  vu and of reliving my life at the same time. It seemed as if I were doing things in my life for the first time and yet had done them before while simultaneously I was remembering things from my past.

I relived: walking for the first time, learning to ride my bike, pulling on that first pair of girl’s undies, my first roll in the hay ( quite literally in our barn’s hay loft ), meeting Sue, our wedding day, Jenna’s and Tom Junior’s births, numerous plays, recitals, graduations, skinned knees and other major and minor crises for them. And much more...

This may have gone on for hours or it may only have lasted seconds: I had no idea.

When it was over I sat breathing heavily as if I’d just hiked up the hill into the park again. I listened to my pulse throb though my ears.

Settling down, I asked, “Did you get what you wanted?”

After an inordinately long time I heard, “You should be female. Why have you never done something to correct this problem?”

“Oh shit,” I groaned. How did it pick that up?

“There is no need to be upset.”

“Nobody knows that, except Sue and my therapist.”

“I do not understand why this is such a quandary for you. In the civilized universe we fix this problem on a regular basis. This is such a minor thing.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Beings are born into the wrong body all of the time. Usually the correction is a minor task and dealt with early in life. Sometimes complications make it harder, as with the Mer’atie who have three physical sexes but four possible psychological genders — some of which may not manifest until later in life. However more often than not this is a simple repair.”

I could only sit there and try to absorb this.

“You mean to tell me you can make me a woman? Just like that?”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit,” I muttered.

I’ve wanted this for so long. And now this thing was telling me I could have it. Damn. Damn. Damn.

“I sense confusion,” I heard it say.

“Confusion!” was my angry retort. “For years I thought wearing women’s under things was a sin. I spent a long time in therapy before I was OK with it. And I found a lover, who later married me, who… well maybe she still doesn’t quite understand it but at least she accepts it. And even plays along. And still loves me.”

“But you still want to be a female?”

“Well yeah,” I replied. “But, you know what? Sometimes we have to accept the way we are and go on living. I mean, I found Sue. She loves me. I love her. We got married and both went to work, found careers we, sort of, liked and raised two kids. We’ve got a grand-daughter on the way. By the time I figured out that I really wanted to be, should have been a… woman it was too late.”

“It is never too late.”

“In your world, maybe, but not in mine,” I responded.

“In any world!” was the angry retort. “It is criminal that you can’t become your true self.”

“Yeah?” I snapped. “Well, shit happens.”

“Please don’t be angry,” the voice soothed.

“Why not? If I’d been born, twenty, thirty years later or even some other state, I might have transitioned, done SRS. Now it is too late. At fifty, I would just be a laughing stock. And my family would have to deal with it. My wife would have a woman for a… partner. She’s not a lesbian. I can’t ask that of her and I will not lose her over this — not after twenty-eight years together. No, it ain’t gonna happen.”

There was silence for a while after that.

“Would you at least like to experience a female body? I can do that for you.”

I took a moment to focus on that.

“You can?”

“I can.”

“It wouldn’t be permanent?”

“Not unless you want it so.”

How long, how desperately had I wanted this; for once to feel myself as a woman? But then… maybe the reality wouldn’t live up to the fantasy. If I did this, would I ever be happy again, having tasted and yet walked away from being female? I was ambivalent.

I spun arguments for and against though my head. Ultimately, however, the urge to be a woman, even just once, won out.

“I want to try it,” I said.

“So be it.”

My body changed. It was a bit disconcerting having my body transform; not painful but slightly uncomfortable. And disorienting: sort of a queasy, confusing, pins and needles feeling throughout my body. Still sitting, I felt my pelvis shift and my hips widen; my penis withdrew and organs rearrange within my belly. This part was like having bad gas, the kind where you can feel it bubbling through and… Well you know what I mean. My waist narrowed — the gut I’d carried for years disappeared. And breasts grew on my chest. After fifteen or twenty seconds, I knew I was a woman.

Sometime during this process I realized I was naked.

I brought my hands to my breasts. Sure enough, they were real; I could feel both sides of the touching. The wiry, grey chest-hair I hated so was gone, replaced by smooth, soft and silky skin. This wasn’t the body of a fifty year old - rather it seemed that of a twenty-something. Slowly, I slid my hands down my body. I followed the contours of my waist, the flair of my hips and along the outside of my thighs until I reached my knees. There I moved them between my legs and up the length of my inner thighs until reaching the top where I cupped that mound with one hand, the second resting over the first.

I sat still, my hands in my crotch, fingers resting on the outer labia. Not daring to explore beyond, I held my smooth crotch. I started to move a finger between these newly discovered lips, wanting to see what it was like to receive attention there.

I was interrupted by: “You should explore your body.”

I pulled my hands away. Instinctively, I brought them up to cover my breasts and snapped my legs together. With one part of my mind I wondered if this was a natural reaction. It is such a classic scene in the movies, when a naked woman is endangered; I supposed it must have at least some basis in reality.

“What is the matter?” it wanted to know, sounding concerned.

“You have to ask?” That alto voice, my voice, startled me to momentary silence.

“I do not comprehend this. You wanted to experience being a female. From what I understand, self-pleasuring is a normal human occurrence. And something you have often wanted to feel as a female.”

“Damn right you don’t understand. It’s something we do alone, or with a lover. Not around strangers. And certainly not around strangers who don’t know when to keep their mouth shut.”

“Oh,” it responded. “I will leave you alone then.”

“Wait,” I said. “Forget it. I should get back. Sue will wonder what’s happened to me.”

“That will not be a problem. No time will have passed between when you came aboard and when you return.”

“Never the less; I should return.”

“I am puzzled,” it told me. “You want to be a female. I have given you that, yet you don’t want to feel all that encompasses.”

“Look. You gave me something I never should have asked for. Yet I can’t have it in real life. I wish you luck with your survey, but I need to get back. Just put me back.”

I was getting anxious at this point. I could feel myself on the verge of a panic attack. Several years had passed since my last one and I really wanted get out of there.

“Tom,” it said, “please be calm.”

“No! Put me back.”

I needed out. I wanted my life back to the balance I’d painstakingly crafted over the years. Yeah, it wasn’t perfect, but I could live with it.

“Alright. I will return you to your world. However, I need to ask…”

“What?” I wanted to know.

“Do you want to remember this?”

Now that surprised me. Did I?

“You can just make this all… disappear?”

“You won’t remember anything other than sitting on that park bench.”

Did I want to remember this? Or would it end up only being a “Woulda, coulda, shoulda” over which I’d obsess for the rest of my life?

I sat for the longest time. The voice, ship, alien, whatever seemed to understand my need for quiet and did not interrupt my silent meditations.

Finally coming to a decision I hoped I wouldn’t regret later, I simply said, “I want to remember this. Please.”

“Then you will,” it said. “Further more I have a few more things to tell you.”

“Yeah? What?”

“First of all: The Board of Trade will make contact very soon; within the next few months if I am any judge. You will likely be acknowledged as an early contact. This could make you a very wealthy person; No matter what else happens.”

I tried to comprehend this.

Second: I’ve modified your body to fix a couple of problems you were having. The hypertension you are dealing with will no longer be a problem. You still need to lose that extra weight but I think you will find that much easier now.”

“Third: The prostate problem you didn’t know about — is no longer.”

“Finally, you need to know one more thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Once we make contact… If you ever change your mind and want to physically become your true… gender, you need only ask.”

This was a lot to absorb. As I sat, trying to do so, the voice said, “I will transfer you back now.”

The reverse of what I’d experienced before happened: The room faded away, the park returned. I was once again sitting on the bench holding a gold egg.

“Good bye, Tom,” I heard.

“Bye,” I said absently.

The egg hummed a bit. I opened my hand to relax my grip. It lifted off my palm and hovered for a moment. Then with a snap, it shot straight up. I couldn’t follow it. It was gone.

Sitting there, I pondered what had happened. I found I remembered things that I was sure hadn’t happened. I remembered the room, the conversation, and the transformation, of course. But I also remembered masturbating my female body to a mind-shattering orgasm. I know it didn’t happen but I also knew it did and sat for a while, reliving it. I recalled every detail of something I “know” didn’t happen. Was this a gift or a curse? Eventually I gave up trying to understand it and stood up. And got my first indication that other things had changed: My knees didn’t ache and my lower back pain was gone.

“Damn,” I muttered, “I could get to like this.”

I tramped home at a good clip and wasn’t winded or breaking a sweat when I got there. That was another big change.

I heard that the baseball, pre-game show was starting as I removed my jacket.

“Hey,” Sue called from the living room. “How was your walk?”

“Fine,” I called back.

“Just fine,” I said more quietly to myself.

Copyright 2007 - JLW