The Jumper (SF Mystery)

The Jumper 15: Rachel's Story

She fixed them both drinks, then she sat next to him on the seat. He somehow found this young woman had managed to get under his arm, so his arm was about her shoulders, as she snuggled up to him. As he looked sharply at her, she said, "I'm cold!"

He got up with a snort, and said, "So put on some more clothes, Mr. CRANE."

She just laughed, and got up and adjusted the thermostat, but she didn't put her hoodie back on. When she turned back, she said, "I've actually spent much more time as a woman than as a man. Shall I tell my story? That is what you came for, isn't it?"

"Very well," he grumbled. His brain and his hormones were getting him very confused, and it was making him grumpy.

"First of all, Jeff, are you married? No? No kids? Okay, thanks. That's a good thing."

She gazed at his face for several more seconds, before she said, "Maybe a very good thing," softly.

Then she started, shook herself, and continued. "Let's see. As I said, I came here about sixty thousand years ago. I never could pronounce my name as a human, but if I had to, the closest I could come would be Gerleesh. My people, and our world, was called something that sounded roughly like Tarshen."

"An alien invasion," he said, grinning in spite of himself.

She smiled sadly back. "Actually, I may be the very last of my kind. I was exploring, looking for a home, and I ran into primitive humans. Before I realized how dangerous they were, I was dying."

"So, what happened?"

"My species exists as a combination of corporeal and non-corporeal essences. We are born into biological bodies, just as you, and we grow to maturity in them, just as you do, but at some point–usually much older than I was, after we've had time to reproduce–most of us develop the ability to live outside of our bodies, for a brief time, and even to live in the body of another corporeal being."

"You mean, you're a ghost?"

"Not in the sense humans mean, no, but it's pretty close. It's more like what you think of as the spirit inhabiting a body, although that's a concept I've never really been able to define, either. It is possible for me to live in another being's body, but I can't live without a body at all. I can manage it, but only for a little bit."

He frowned. "How long is a little bit?"

"A few seconds. Maybe a minute; maybe even two. The energy of a living body is necessary to maintain the energy of my essence."

"So, what would happen if you left the body you are in?"

"I would die, she would die."

"Why would she die?"

"A body cannot live without a spirit," she said. "If I leave it, this body will have no spirit. It can continue to live, but as a vegetable. The process of leaving destroys much of what is used in the brain to hold and process information. What is left isn't even alive in any measurable sense. It isn't pretty. Pretty soon, it will just stop functioning."

"That's why you arrange to have your previous hosts die?"

"Yes," she said, sadly. "That's part of it. The other part is that it is too painful for the family members of the old body. I tried not to have anyone too close to me, by the time my body died, but it was still very hard for them.

"It was hard for me, too, to see my own children and grandchildren, grieving over my drooling, empty body. I haven't let that happen for a very long time, now."

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