A. R. Morlan - Robin Williams, Speaking Spanish

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Robin Williams, Speaking Spanish by A. R. Morlan

* * * *

“Amazing ... that’s amazing. He should work for NASA or something like that.”

...

“So much for NASA...”

Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow,

Rain Man, 1988

* * * *

Case # 290727DD/I-R

03-01-58/T. Kenward, caseworker

Day 1: Contact

“The Jones’ cabin’s down past Storage Module Four ... don’t bother to

knock. Ain’t like he’s gonna get up to greet ya—”

“Throw some cheese balls in first, he’ll never notice you’re in there—”

Sabriah put one hand on my shoulder and pressed her dark fingers into the

soft hollow between my collarbone and the top of my upper arm, as she told the two

asteroid engineers, “Dalton wouldn’t appreciate that ... he’s lactose intolerant.”

Turning her scarf-wrapped head my way, as she steered me down the diffusely-lit

corridor, away from Broga Hastings and Moire Payne, Sabriah continued, her voice

loud enough for the man and woman behind us to hear easily, “I also have Dalton on

a yeast and gluten-free diet. I’m not all that sure that it’s helping him, but between

that and his meds, he does seem to be content.”

I guessed that the last part was strictly for my benefit: every ship’s nutritionist

on every asteroid-tracking or asteroid mining vessel I’d visited in the last eighteen

months inevitably managed to toss off some sort of comment about how “happy” or

“content” or “integrated” his or her Savvy happened to be. Even when the rest of the

crew was attacking their Savvy, taunting him, teasing him, or calling him names like

“Rain Man” or “Equipment” or (on the last vessel I’d been on before boarding the

Isen-Rodor a few hours ago) “Ballast.”

Nodding my own head, I said, “That is the goal here ... although I have to

admit—” twisting my neck as far to the left as it would go comfortably, I made sure

that the pair of engineers were out of hearing range “—it doesn’t look like the rest of

the crew is all that content with Mr. Durwin’s presence on this ship. Not that that’s

uncommon,” I added quickly, when I saw what seemed to be a moue of

consternation pucker the nutritionist’s mouth. “The presence of a Savant-Contingent

usually does create some interpersonal difficulties ... which is why I’m here—”

“Listen, Ms. Kenward. You can cut the socio-worker babble with me. You’re

here for pretty much the same reason Dalton’s here ... there’s a big damn glut of

social workers running around on Earth and the Moon, tending to all the

Savvy-babies who’ve grown up to be a bigger damn burden on the economy than

anyone could’ve guessed when they were all born some thirty-odd years ago. Only

thing is, at least someone got creative when it came time to find all those Savvies

jobs ... I don’t see much of anything creative or useful in your job. Especially when

it comes to the Savvies.”

“Well, I do think what I’m doing is ‘useful’ when it comes to

Savant-Contingents. Have you been on some of those other ships—”

“Do you think things actually change once you’ve been on any of those

‘other ships’? I doubt anything you can do will make asteroid monkeys like Moire

and Broga change when it comes to how ‘content’ they are with a Savvy like Dalton.

As long as all he does all day and all night is sit around, doing however little he does,

while they’re floating around a damned asteroid out in the middle of nothing, with

just a few cables attached to glorified harpoons keeping them from really floating

away for good and—” here she deliberately stared at me, her dark hazel eyes boring

into mine “—they’re getting paid the same as he is, I’d say that it isn’t too likely that

they’ll ever be ‘content’ with a Savvy taking up space on their ship.”

“If by ‘space’ you mean room, I don’t think that’s the problem ... this vessel

was assembled over the moon, so keeping it streamlined or even small wasn’t a

consideration. There’s plenty of room for—”

“Do they have a course in Obtuse down in Social Worker School?”

“No, there’s no course in—”

The nutritionist let out an open-mouthed sigh and backed away from me, until

the top of her scarf-wrapped head was resting on the slightly curved corridor wall

behind her. Finally looking my way after letting her chin sink low against her neck,

she said, “I was being facetious. I’m sorry, I know you were sent here, and I know I

should co-operate. Dalton’s room is just ahead. One with the picture of a cat pasted

on the door. Not that he did that ... I don’t know if it was Moire or Broga who’s

responsible for that. But the guys in navigation and astrometrics aren’t into Alien

movies, and I know the Captain’s strictly a reader. Go on ... Broga was right about

the knocking part. Dalton won’t notice, and I don’t think he’ll care.”

As I watched the woman walk away from me, back toward those “asteroid

monkeys” who’d been so quick to ingratiate themselves with me from almost the

minute I’d boarded the Isen-Rodor, I finally made the connection between Hastings’

“Jones” reference and the typical Savvy nicknames—Jones, that “ship’s cat” from

the first two Aliens films. The orange tabby who was ultimately the only survivor of

that mining ship’s original crew, since that woman (Ripley?) left him back on Earth

before heading back to the Alien’s planet. I’d have to make a note of that one in my

report—calling a Savvy a “Jones” would have to be added to the official list of

non-PC phrases included in asteroid-mining training classes. Not that it had helped

so far when it came to the words “Rain Man.”

Sabriah was right about the picture pasted on the door. An old shot of the cat

food spokescat, Morris, crudely clipped from a calendar. Orange cats—anything

orange, for that matter—mostly look alike to me, but there was a bit of lettering from

the calendar cover slanting across this cat’s front paws. Wondering if Dalton was a

redhead (and hoping he wasn’t—bad enough Moire had dark red hair, so

dark-yet-bright it hurt my eyes), I nonetheless did knock first, before pressing the

palm-pad to the left of the sliding pocket-style door, and letting myself into the

Savant-Contingent’s room. As the door slid into the bifid sidewall, the cut-out of

Morris rasped against the narrow opening, and tore a bit more along the cat’s right

side. A few more trips back and forth, and that picture would be decapitated. I’d

have to remember to rip it off the door before that happened.

For a second, I was mentally torn—shut the door behind me, risking a

possible panic attack on the Savvy’s part, or allow those asteroid monkeys to listen

in, in case they happened to follow me down the corridor? While my eyes

acclimated to the darkness, I slid my hand along the smooth surface of the interior

wall until I found the palm-pad, then reflexively pushed it in. As the door emerged

from the recesses of the bifid wall, I turned around, taking in the Savvy’s quarters.

Personal quarters on asteroid ships tended to be large by Terran or Lunar

standards, thanks to the vessels being constructed in space—the need to streamline

was gone, since the ship wasn’t designed to land, let alone move through an

atmosphere. The design of the Isen-Rodor was common to all the other asteroid

miner/trackers I’d visited. Navigation, astrometrics/ main computers/locking springs

for asteroid-landings and launches were lumped on one end, with a short, thick axial

connector (giving each ship its gravitational spin) between, surrounded by a series of

smaller, well-shielded walkways which allowed the crew to enter the assemblage of

prefabricated units which made up the other end of the “dumbbell,” including

storage units, crew cabins, and reserve air/fuel/food/water units. From the outside,

the Isen-Rodor was lumpy, asymmetrical, and studded with solar panels and

undeployed space-sails (another contingency measure, this one less subject to

crew-member ire than the Savvies). But on the inside ... there was an astonishing

amount of personal space.

Personality clashes might have been inevitable, but every crew member could

retreat to a twelve by fourteen private room, complete with a personal bathroom—no

shower, but their own sink and toilet—whatever sound/movie system he or she

desired (within reason; each person could consume a limited amount of power for

their own entertainment devices), plus enough space for whatever tchockies each

crew member deemed necessary for his or her continued sanity while trapped in

what some miners called intergalactic trailer parks. (The “intergalactic” part made no

sense to me, since none of the asteroid ships ever left this galaxy, but the “trailer

park” part made sense, especially since the assembled units which made up each end

of the rotating “dumb-bell” did tend to be rectangular in shape.)

Dalton Durwin’s cabin—once my eyes grew acclimated to the dim

interior—seemed little different than that of any of the Savvy cabins I’d seen so far

during this assignment. Lots of MDVD’s, tall thin stacks of them like upended

packages of soda crackers. And just as big as a square cracker—they looked like

the old DVD’s but held more information per disk, for less mass. Virtually all the

Savvies watched movies; while they’d been unlucky enough to be born during such

a severe economic recession that even the Individuals with Disabilities Education

Act—not to mention the already failing SSI benefits—couldn’t guarantee the

children of the Savant-Syndrome catastrophe previously standard treatments like

music therapy, Lovass-type behavior programs, augmentation devices, facilitated

communication, sensory integration, social skills programming, or auditory training,

it was soon discovered that selecting the proper movies for these children could be

of limited (i.e., cheap) benefit. At the very least, it kept them occupied while their

parents and educators tried to figure out what to do with a second baby boom

comprised largely of severely autistic, mathematically inclined savants. That this

Savant-Syndrome was the result of a drug company foul-up of the highest order was

of little help to either the children or their parents. After the manufacturer realized that

a mix-up between what was supposed to be several batches of a common antacid

and a newly-designated over-the-counter testosterone supplement for men was what

had triggered an epidemic of autism, said drug company promptly filed for Chapter

One bankruptcy. So even the lawyers were shafted some thirty years ago.

Before the Savant-Syndrome mess, perhaps one in ten autistic persons (most

commonly a boy) was also a savant, but within a single generation, over 100

thousand expensive-to-educate savants were born. All of these children had no

left/right brain division, but instead had one combined brain which was a full one

third larger than the average human brain. The Social Security safety net was frayed

to breaking by an ever-diminishing birth rate, and the whole SSI system was virtually

cleaned out. True, the old system of reimbursing companies to hire the handicapped

was still in place, but how many companies actually needed a worker whose lone

talent is remembering long strings of numbers, or calculating square roots?

As I slowly looked around the cabin, with its stalagmite-like deposits of

MDVD’s sprouting from every horizontal surface, I tried to find Dalton amid the

clutter. I had to smile when I remembered how the bulk of the Savant-Syndrome

babies managed to find their way into the astro-mining sector ... The phrase “Rain

Man” was now considered to be both unPC and possible grounds for job

termination after at least five written complaints within one year for any miner or

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