Samantha's Talent (47 page)

"We're getting there, I believe," Juan assured her. "However, I think you can expect to be tested occasionally right up until the alien returns, if it does."

"Maybe we'll have a breakthrough and discover how I got my talent and maybe even how to teach it to others."

He shook his head. "If and when that discovery, or breakthrough if you prefer that term occurs, I have my doubts about you being able to teach it to very many others."

"Do you have a reason for saying that?"

"Yes. You're too far removed from the norm for girls your age. As Lynn keeps saying, you're not normal. You're too mature and too intelligent and possess too many other positive abnormalities that hardly anyone else does, teenager or not. I'm beginning to believe your talent is dependent on one of those factors or more likely, many of them. That's the little bell in my mind I told you about that's been trying to ring. I believe it just did." He grinned affectionately at her.

"Maybe I could teach you, Juan. You're not normal either."

"True, I'm not normal, but I'm abnormal in a different way than you."

Samantha didn't answer. Her mind had suddenly become very active. She was comparing Juan to the guy she had met at Palomar. She had accepted an invitation to attend a party with him. It didn't go well. He talked incessantly about himself and what a tough course of study he was taking.

"I'm into engineering math right now. We're doing matrix algebra right now. Damn, that's a bitch."

Samantha frowned. "It's not much more than manipulating a lot of numbers in a grid. What's hard about it?"

"You just don't know."

"I don't? I studied engineering algebra on my own when I was fourteen. It was a cinch."

He paid less attention to her at the party after that. He drank too much and she refused to ride with him when she told him she needed to go.

"You're so smart, find your own damn way home," he slurred.

She immediately called Gene, who had followed them to the rented home. Her drunk date followed her outside and attempted to challenge Gene. He wound up with his face in the dirt and immediately vomited.

On the way back, Gene commented, "I take it your date didn't go well?"

"That's putting it mildly. Gene, do you know what makes guys talk so incessantly about themselves?"

"Mostly they're trying to impress a girl or woman and think that's the way to do it. Sometimes they just don't know much else. Sad, huh?"

"Yes."

Twice more she had gone out with college students. One of the guys she thought had possibilities at first but he apparently thought a date automatically meant sex. He didn't even say good night when he dropped her off early.

She hadn't gone out after that. For a while she wondered if it was her setting standards too high but she decided that lowering her standards meant lowering herself and she refused to do that.

***

Both Samantha and Juan were kept busy reading and studying the encyclopedic variations of all the procedures and integrating them into a cohesive whole. Or trying to. It was proving well-nigh impossible until Liadra Asha, their computer sciences expert managed to sort the majority of it into a summary that nevertheless comprised pages and pages of data that required more study to understand completely.

Samantha was nearing her sixteenth birthday when she rebelled. She was at the weekly meeting of the inner circle, the ones with access and knowledge of the alien videos.

"This is becoming kind of ridiculous," she said mildly. "We've been at this for almost six months and I really can't see that much progress has been made toward understanding my talent. Not only that, so much of my time is being taken up that I can't study the subjects I want to or need to and most importantly, I can't practice my talent the way I want to. I believe that is a necessity. It's like any other second language: if you don't use it you begin forgetting some of it."

"What do you suggest?" Elaine asked. She was beginning to feel protective as she had noticed the increasing strain her daughter was under.

"I'm not suggesting anything, Mom. I'm just going to take some time off to do what I want to for a change. Can anyone really blame me?"

From across the room she saw Juan wink at her. She already knew he would support her because they had talked about it for a few minutes the day before.

"But, Sammie, we now have only a year or so before the alien arrives. We have to be ready by then," Anton said from his dominant position behind his desk.

"We're never going to get ready this way," she said. "I'm leaving. Juan and I are going for a walk in the woods and I'm going to talk to some of my animal friends. After that I'm going to relax and do what I want to for a few weeks. Mom, Dad, is that alright with you?"

"I believe she's right," Elaine said. "I certainly have no objections."

"I don't either," Ronald agreed. He had stopped worrying that there might be some sort of romantic interest between her and Juan.

"Good. Come on, Juan, Shufus, let's go."

Outside, she blew out a big breath of air and grinned at him. "Did I come on too heavy, Juan?"

"Not at all. Everyone had that coming, Sammie. The whole study of your talent was slipping out of control. That's what happens when there get to be too many fingers in the pie."

"Like too many cooks spoil the broth?"

"Uh huh. Now I've got a suggestion. Let's you and I gather up all the data on you, then find us a nice quiet place to relax and go over them at our leisure. But for a half day only and the weekends off. For the rest of each day and the weekend, take walks, talk to your animals friends, go have pizza, do some studying of the courses you're taking and in general, do whatever suits you. If you want me to tag along with you during any of your leisure time, I'm available. How does that sound?"

"Wonderful, and of course you're included. After that last date I could certainly use some pleasant company! Where's the quiet place you mentioned?"

"My apartment if your parents don't object."

"Why should they?"

"No reason, really. Just an idle thought."

"Okay, but we're going to take the summaries of the tests done on you, too."

"Any reason why?"

She shrugged. "Comparing them might tell us something."

Juan frowned momentarily then relaxed. Brain scans, EECGs, and other of the same studies that had been done on her had also included him. Lynn had told both of them she wanted Juan as a high intelligence control to go with the numerous normal controls of average and somewhat above average subjects she already had records for. Samantha thought there might possibly be more to it than that, even if Lynn didn't realize it herself.

***

Despite her vow to read and study at all the reports that had been generated about her, Samantha hadn't managed the feat. She read them all but that was a far cry from
understanding
many of them. A large portion of the studies had required hard study to thoroughly understand, and despite her exceedingly high intelligence she simply hadn't had adequate time to accomplish that for all of them. The best she could manage for the present had been a superficial comprehension.

She had the freedom to get deeper into those she hadn't had enough time for now and a superlative tutor to help her through the rough spots. Juan had mastered the essence of almost all the studies. Her intentions didn't include more than several hours of study a day, though, and that was usually done in the evenings before going to sleep. She wanted to have fun and explore some of the places in the area she hadn't been to yet; the zoo for one and pet shops for another. She needed to practice her talent and talk to a more varied group of animals, if possible. That was something she had been promised but hadn't been delivered.

At one pet shop she purchased an African Grey Parrot, often claimed to be the most intelligent of all avian species. She and Juan had both commented on the vague resemblance of the alien in the videos to a species of bird. She wanted to refresh her understanding of the basics of avian language even though different species communicated with her in a wider variety of ways than mammals. She knew this particular species of bird could also learn many words itself. The African Grey was friendly and interacted well with humans.

She took it home and in only one day taught it to ask to go outside to eliminate its wastes and to remain outside its cage but not fly away. It spent a lot of its time thereafter riding on her shoulder and talking to her and Juan or alternately, riding contentedly along on Shufus' back. It didn't take long after the purchase to revive her fluency with the avian way of speaking and to catch up on how they spoke to her. It was similar in some aspects to that of mammals but different in that birds lived in a three dimensional environment while other animals, with the exception of bats, lived in only two.

One late morning on a rainy day on the final week she had decided to absent herself from the stultifying studies of her talent, Samantha headed to Juan's apartment. She dressed casually in dark slacks and a simple cream-colored pullover blouse. As usual, she wore a minimum of makeup, all of it suggested at one time or another by her mother. She was pretty enough, her told her, that an excess of makeup would distract from her good looks rather than enhance them.

Once at Juan's apartment and with the inevitable cup of coffee in hand, she was ruminating on how birds communicated. "I'd like to talk to a bat sometime just to see how they would speak to me," she remarked to him. It was a more than a week after buying the parrot, who had been tagged with the name of Sheik for an unknown reason. She saw no real reason to change it.

"I'd like to learn to talk to any of them," he replied. "I still have that little nudging in my mind that tells me I'm missing something that matters."

"We've been over most of the reports by now. Nothing jumps out at you?

"Not really."

"I was looking at them again last night when I didn't feel like studying and it struck me again how much alike our minds are."

"We've been over that, though."

"Why not run through it again? We're not doing anything else today."

He shrugged. "May as well. Where do you want to start?"

Her brow creased in a furrow. "Do you remember much about the Orch theory of consciousness?"

He chuckled. "I remember almost all of what I read, although I wish I could forget some of it. But, yes. It's the most prevalent theory right now, although another is making some inroads. Some physicists are beginning to think of consciousness as another state of matter. It's still being looked at in detail but it's extremely interesting."

"I made a note about an article describing that approach but I haven't looked at it yet. Do you think it might have a bearing on my talent?"

"I read some about it but haven't had time to really study it so I can't answer that question. I'll try to make time to get into it soon."

"Okay, do that, but back to the Orch theory. I still have only a superficial understanding of it because I haven't studied enough of some of the fields involved. There was one part of it that struck me, though."

"And... ?" He raised only one brow, a trick she was trying to learn.

"Let me see if I remember it. Consciousness is a result of quantum vibrations. That means quantum bits, or "qubits," as helical pathways in microtubule lattices, in the microtubules inside neurons and their vibrations are what enables consciousness."

"Right," he agreed. "Vibrations in microtubules, along with protein polymers also inside the brain neurons, both govern neuronal and synaptic function. They connect brain processes to very tiny organization processes and they in turn give us the quantum structure of reality, resulting in consciousness. Does that cover it?"

"Better than how I told it," Samantha said with a chuckle. "It's still a theory though, and until I get deeper into quantum math it's not much more than words to me. I have no really deep understanding of it yet."

"Right. Keep it in mind, though, because it's the best theory we have so far."

"Okay. Now let's look at our similarities again."

They were sitting together on a couch in his small living room with the printed summaries. They had found that it was easier to work with them rather than having to refer to the computer all the time, although both their notebook tablets were kept handy in case they needed to get deeper into a particular subject.

Samantha picked out the paper covering the summaries of their brain patterns. "Okay, one more time," she began. "First point. Both of us have very high intelligence scores. Second point. Most adolescents lose up to fifty percent of their neurons and synapses in a sort of pruning process, supposedly making room for better ones. I kind of question that thought."

"What, the pruning?"

"No, the reason that's given for it. You have noticed that it apparently hasn't happened that way with us? Or not to the extent of most people, I should say. We've only lost about ten or fifteen percent of our synapses and neurons. Right?"

"Yes. I couldn't find any significance to the fact, though."

"Bear with me, sweetheart," she said, not even noticing what she'd called him as an edifying idea formed in her mind again, the same one she had been contemplating off and on for some time. "Besides those two major similarities there's another one. We both have a higher number of synapses per cubic micron in the same small area of the left hemisphere than most people. That's the side that's dominant for language ability, of course, and our aptitude testing showed we both scored extremely high in language aptitude and the ability to learn foreign languages. Still following me?"

"So far. I think I know where you're going but I haven't reached any conclusions yet."

"I haven't either but I'm getting there, I think." She paused for a moment as if musing then turned to face him. "Another striking similarity is that on both our EECGs that were done with the advanced instruments, they found the same kind of micro brain waves that are very uncommon, or perhaps just not looked for that often. In any case, those kind of waves appear to be associated with the microtubules of neurons. Ours both showed some other unusual microwaves that haven't been seen before. They were at the very limits of detectability, according to Lynn. Also, one of those new experimental instruments showed that we both have higher activity than other people at the quantum level of the microtubules in our neurons, at the very same location as the origin of the micro brain waves and the high concentration of synapses. My activity is more than yours, but yours is still much higher than the controls were. That fits the fact that I've been talking to animals for a long time, but it also gives an indication that you may have had the potential all along but didn't know it.