Symbiosis

By Paul David Robinson

Jwrl (Earth name: Albert) is an Anarchist who escaped execution on his planet. Now he is hiding inside the body of Rajah Sinclair with Rajah's consent so that Jwrl’s natural signal will be hidden by Rajah's human animal body.

Kqbt (Earth name: Lenore) can be invisible or change into the shape of any human animal that she touches. She is assigned to capture Jwrl or kill him but she also wants her usual R&R on Earth. On her planet the penalty for having sex with an animal is instant death. But she can't help herself. She falls in love with Rajah, a human animal.
What is a girl to do?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul David Robinson
• Release date: Dec 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311539717

Paul David Robinson

Dear Reader,I've been writing stories and poems for sixty years. I have a closet full of rejections and this year I decided to e-pub.The first novel I chose for this is dedicated to my wife, Carolyn. I wrote it in 1998. It is entitled: Summer. It is about pain and suffering, the difficult choices people face, and how love can overcome anything.As a pastor and theologian, I do not separate the sacred and the profane. The difference is in the human mind and not in life itself, just as evil is in the human mind and comes out of the choices people make and not from the devil who made me do it. The devil has nothing to do with it. We are the ones who choose to do evil or good. The whole world is in our hands. Enjoy the books.Paul David RobinsonReverend Paul David Robinson,BA, MDiv, Pastor, Retiredhttps://www.pauldavidrobinson.comhttps://www.pauldavidrobinson.com/blog/

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SYMBIOSIS

By

Paul David Robinson

(38,284 words)

Cover Design by Katrina Joyner

Copyright 1962, 2015

DEDICATION

This novel is dedicated to

all the science fiction fans out there

who love a good joke.

PROLOGUE

(From the back cover)

Jwrl (Earth name: Albert) is an Anarchist who escaped execution on his planet. Now he is hiding inside the body of Rajah Sinclair with Rajah's consent so that Jwrl’s natural signal will be hidden by Rajah's human animal body.

Kqbt (Earth name: Lenore) can be invisible or change into the shape of any human animal that she touches. She is assigned to capture Jwrl or kill him but she also wants her usual R&R on Earth. On her planet the penalty for having sex with an animal is instant death. But she can't help herself. She falls in love with Rajah, a human animal.

What is a girl to do?

SYMBIOSIS

CHAPTER ONE:

"Call Me, Albert"

Rajah Sinclair sat in the loveseat with his legs resting on the coffee table. He was smoking his tenth cigarette for the hour. His brown eyes stared at the distorted face in a copy of a Picasso painting. The painting hung cock-eyed on the far wall. There were fragments of a broken vase on the floor below the picture frame.

Rajah slowly drew his feet off of the coffee table and placed them solidly on the floor. He crushed out his cigarette butt in one of the four overflowing ashtrays on the coffee table. He stood up and angrily placed his foot beneath the coffee table ready to kick it with all his might against the farthest wall to smash that fiendish face into oblivion.

His leg tensed and he spilled the ashtrays and their contents on the floor before he finally relaxed. He turned away from the coffee table and strode toward the patio. He felt the urge to fling back the glass sliding door, but restrained himself. He slid it open slowly, very slowly, tormenting himself by rejecting his desire to slam it open as fast and as hard as he could. He wanted to be somewhere he wasn’t as quickly as possible: anywhere but here.

When the door was open wide enough to permit his exit, he did not exit. Instead, he tormented himself more by slowly opening it all the way. Eventually he stepped through the doorway and made his leisurely way to the edge of the patio.

He looked down. He could see the traffic moving in gray shapes far below him. Lights like eyes blinked on and off as cars turned corners. The glare of headlights caught pedestrians in their beam almost staggering the passers-by with their brilliancy.

Rajah lit a cigarette and stared down at the many lights as he smoked. After a minute or so of slow smoking, he tossed his cigarette over the edge and watched its glowing end tumble down and down, blinking on and off as the cigarette turned over in the air until it finally was lost among the lights of the streets below.

Rajah sat down on the patio wall and swung his legs over the edge. He tried to analyze critically any feelings he might have before smashing against the pavement below. He couldn’t. He kept thinking of splashing against the sidewalk rather than smashing.

He laughed aloud for a long time, so long that his laughter nearly reached hysterical proportions. And then he stopped laughing abruptly and reached into his left hip pocket for his billfold.

The few green bills within brought no luster to his eyes. He looked again at the street below as he remembered the bankroll he’d brought with him to Las Vegas, the fifty grand he had won at Monte Carlo.

He counted the money in the billfold. He had seventeen dollars and eighty-seven cents.

Rajah smiled ruefully at the coins in his hand. He placed them one at a time in the little coin section of his billfold.

Seventeen dollars and eighty-seven cents! he whispered. His lips twisted into a half-smile. And my hotel bill is at least three grand. He shoved his wallet back into his pocket. I never thought I could lose so much money in only two weeks! he said, thinking of the one thousand fifty dollar bills that had passed through his fingers.

Rajah left the patio and entered the hotel suite. He closed the sliding glass door behind him.

He looked at the painting hanging crookedly against the wall. He went to it and straightened it. He picked up the ashtrays and as much of the debris as he could.

He set his last pack of cigarettes on the coffee table and refused to look at them again. He sighed as he remembered the vase that used to sit on the coffee table. He shrugged his shoulders and ignored the presence of its fragments.

Rajah removed his shoes and lay down on the couch. He tried to think of a way to gain two grand or more from a working capital of only seventeen dollars and eighty-seven cents. He recalled the time in Chicago when he started a game with only a twenty-dollar bill and left the game with over eight hundred dollars. He could try something of that sort again. But Lady Luck was never so kind twice in one’s lifetime.

Rajah chuckled and whispered, I might have to go to a bank and borrow the money I need by putting my clothes up as collateral.

He left the couch and began to pace the floor. After thirty minutes of pacing, he could stand no more. He went to the phone and asked for two bottles of Champaign and two glasses.

Rajah chuckled to himself after the phone was down, If I had asked for only one glass, they would have gotten suspicious. After all, it is four o’clock in the morning.

When the server from the hotel restaurant brought the Champaign to the door on a serving cart, Rajah would not let him in. Rajah tipped the man five dollars and sent him on his way.

The waiter left with that certain knowing grin spread all over his face.

After the Champaign was in the room and the door closed, Rajah laughed so hard that he collapsed onto the couch exhausted.

The next thing Rajah was aware of was a faint knocking at his door. He looked at his watch. It was then six-thirty in the morning. The sun was just beginning to rise. Rajah slowly got up from the couch and went to the door.

Without opening the door, he said, Hello!

The soft knocking stopped. There was silence, an uncomfortable silence.

May I come in, Mr. Sinclair? a gentle, nearly feminine voice asked.

Rajah knew instinctively that the voice was the voice of a man. There was not the electrified atmosphere around Rajah as he heard the voice that there would have been had the voice been feminine. Because the quality of the voice was somehow assuring, Rajah hesitated. He hated to be a patsy. Finally, against his better judgment, he opened the door.

In the hall stood a mirror. Rajah was opening the door to his own reflection. The image opened its mouth and spoke.

Mr. Sinclair, the reflection said, I have some business that might interest you.

The voice was not his voice, but Rajah needed to touch his jaw to make positively sure that he was not speaking.

Won’t you come in? Rajah offered lamely to his guest.

Thank you, said the image and it stepped out of the mirror and into the sitting room of his hotel suite.

Rajah closed the door and locked it. Then he turned to face this effeminate-voiced man.

The visitor smiled and suggested, You don’t like me this way. Do you, Mr. Sinclair?

Rajah just looked at himself standing embodied, without any glass partition between him and his reflection. It was uncanny. It was too weird.

Maybe you aren’t as vain as I thought you were, Mr. Sinclair, the voice continued, I could easily change to another form, if you wish.

No! No! Rajah said, shaking his head, I don’t quite understand you, but you may stay as you are.

His reflection said, Fine.

Rajah stared at his guest.

After many moments of silence, the visitor moved. He walked to the serving cart, popped the cork on one of the Champaign bottles, poured himself a drink, and seated himself comfortably on the couch.

Rajah suggested, Uh, you mentioned you had some business to discuss with me?

Yes, said the man as he moved his feet up and rested them on a settee. Then he added, You’re name is Ralph Roger Sinclair, correct?

Yes. I am Ralph Rajah Sinclair, as he spoke, Rajah corrected the pronunciation of his middle name.

I know you need money, the stranger said, Well, I have money or I can get if for you. And, in return, you can help me. He looked at Rajah and waited for a response.

Rajah shrugged his shoulders and said, I’ll have nothing to say until I hear everything.

All right, the stranger began, I am being hunted by the police of my country. One could say I am a Russian scientist hiding from the Gestapo. But I will not lie. I am a criminal by the standards of all countries. I am an anarchist. In my homeland I gained so many political followers, that we were nearly handed the reins of the government. We lacked only two votes of having a majority in our legislature: One man on the floor and the presiding chairperson. That was when the Committee on Unpatriotic Affairs, the only committee we did not control, began its investigation. Much like the McCarthy era in your own country, the investigation was well publicized. There were no grounds for any of their accusations against our party.

His mirror-image face became sad and his voice gentler as he talked. They did not accuse any members of the legislature. They only investigated the many, many national party men and party women. The trials were the worst cases of railroaded verdicts in our nation. I defended most of the victims. But more often than not, my defense would never be publicized. Telecasts of the trial proceedings would always stop when I questioned prosecution witnesses. Of course, with all of the bad publicity, the next election lost us all but five seats in the legislature. Four weeks after the new legislature was seated, I was investigated, tried, and convicted. Just before my public execution, I was asked if I wished to say a few last words. Of course, television and radio couldn’t possibly bring in commercials at a crucial event such as a public execution. For the first time in two years and four weeks, I was given a chance to say what I felt before a nation-wide audience without any twisting of my words.

He paused, smiled serenely at Rajah, and then continued, Or course, Mr. Sinclair, you know what I said.

Rajah looked at his guest, shook his head, and muttered, I haven’t the slightest idea.

The stranger lost his smile and only the look of sadness was visible on his face. "I said, as I looked out toward the Universe, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ After I said that, there