While, for the rest of the mid-season testing period, Killanaus has done mostly well, Lokath’s words ring in his mind. About the concerns Lokath harbor about him going into next season. How am I going to ensure that I won’t steal from the abductees?

  He's in the middle of reading the regulations about abduction licensure. Up to this point, he only had a rough idea of abduction licenses requiring a graduate degree in biology or in a related field to get, but no more than that. But while reading the key legal definitions of what constitutes an alien, an abduction as well as a sentient being, his dad yells at him:

  “Dinner’s ready!”

  “Not now, dad! I’m doing my bioethics season paper!” he retorts, making up some excuse that he believes his parents would accept, based on what he’s currently doing.

  “Your season paper can wait!”

  “No, it can’t! There are times when you know you can get the good things done, and you have no control over when this is going to end!”

  “There’s a time to eat and there’s a time for doing other work!”

  “You want me to fail bioethics? Just let me choose when to eat in the future, and you’ll see what difference it makes! One of the main things that set apart the best from merely good students is the ability to choose when to eat, do chores and errands, and the best have it! It’s even more important when working the jobs I can get with a biology degree!”

  “If I let you eat later, you need to reheat the meal, and it will cost more in energy!”

  “I’m even willing to pay the utilities bill until graduation, if you let me choose when to eat! I’ll still eat what you make, though”

  My dad might think I’m ungrateful, but often societal and technological progress are borne out of the ungratefulness of the people who make it happen! Dad doesn’t realize that! The student’s face turns purple.

  “That’s not going to work!”

  “What I want is choice! CHOICE!” A visibly startled Killanaus yells back. “As much as you want me to stick to a fixed schedule, the best jobs I might be able to get in the end are all-or-nothing jobs! These jobs are jobs where tasks must be done in full or not at all! You’re a prison guard, your work day follows a strict schedule and isn’t all-or-nothing like being even a police agent on patrol!”

  Or, more accurately, let my tasks decide when to eat, sleep, do chores and errands. It would be the happiest day of my life when I’ll finally get the level of choice I need! Just how important being able to make that choice is was made clear when I worked as an emergency department orderly last year, when I couldn’t get a research internship, Killanaus reflects on what the choice he desires means to him. Especially when the best practice, in the ER, is, from an emergency physician’s standpoint, to take care of a patient in full before moving to the next one. But there’s only one way that makes sense for me to obtain what I need most, given that my career goals require getting an abduction license: leaving home for graduate school.

  “Bottom line is, I can’t take for granted how long a task takes to complete! Your priorities are misplaced, dad!”

  “Time to eat, son!”

  “Later, dad! I have other things to do for school!”

  “If you don’t come when it’s ready, then don’t eat!”

  I hope that he finds skipping a meal worth it to work on his... season paper. From the looks of it, abduction regulations are central to it, his father then puts what was supposed to be Killanaus’ serving into the food conservator, while his son is busy grappling with the ethics of the abduction regulations and procedures.

  However, any attempt to do so requires understanding the various classes of abduction licenses. So class 1 licenses allow its holders to abduct sentient aliens, and do everything classes 2 and 3 allow their respective holders to do. A class 2 license allows its holders to abduct abused or orphaned children of our own kind, hold criminals in custody or rescue endangered people. And also do everything a class 3 licensee can do, which only allows to relocate non-sentient beings who either pose a threat to an area or to themselves.

  “Whew... While knowledge of biology is definitely useful in these functions of law enforcement, wouldn’t a biology specialist degree intended specifically to train class-two abductors focus more on either criminal justice or developmental biology? I’m not even sure what class of abduction license I even need anymore...” he sobs while he has yet to read about legally mandated abduction procedures by license class.

  He already seems to have a lot to think about. Namely that sentient abductees would likely be traumatized by the abduction itself, so he might be wondering when is inflicting such trauma justifiable. He vaguely recalls something called the doctrine of necessity from earlier in the bioethics course, as well as its most common two formulations: “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” or “the choice of the lesser evil”

  However, what abductors can and can’t do to abductees gives him pause. And the punishments that can be meted out against abductors who break the law. Unlawful abduction carries a minimum of five years in prison... And may even go all the way to life in prison. It seems like abducting people you’re not authorized to by your license class, or not supervised by someone who holds the requisite license class, is the same, legally speaking, as doing it without a license, and your license is suspended for the duration of the sentence. And this goes for any crime committed on the abductees even when the abduction itself was lawful.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Which makes him question what’s in it for the university to even be in the abduction licensing game. So he emails Lokath about what the benefits of even running graduate programs leading to abduction licensing are from a university standpoint. And even laments about an issue he raises about the whole system of abduction licensing by himself.

  “License, oh license, I can kinda see the point in classes two and three on public safety grounds, but I don’t understand why class one should be able to do what the other two classes could, even if they have the skills to do all three. Class one licenses allow their holders to do vastly different things to abductees, but abductees not covered by the other classes can only be held for a period not to exceed a certain timeframe, and must be made to forget the abductors prior to release”

  And, while he waits for his would-be advisor to respond, that makes him think about the application of the doctrine of necessity to abductions. About how proper training of abductors might make abductions savorier to the eyes of the public. About the potential for class 1 abductors to impact the abductees’ races the way classes 2 and 3 might not. There’s so much I still need to learn about abductions that I feel would make me understand what I really want out of a career requiring an abduction license.

  When Lokath’s answer arrives at midnight, a hungry Killanaus brings his communicator to the sonic shower so that he could take the time to read the answers about what difference it makes for a university to get AAA accreditation, along with the internship contract. And, of course, an appointment with him to discuss the matters in the early morning.

  In Lokath’s office, which is lined with posters from past students and interns, and his framed diplomas, he first goes over the internship contract, which is actually mostly boilerplate. And the most important differences are highlighted right in front of him.

  “While I understand the need for all abduction licensees to minimize disruption on duty, I might be wondering why should a class one licensee be able to do the other classes’ work. Research is fundamentally different from law enforcement, wildlife or child protection, and I can already feel like some reform is needed in the licensing system”

  “I guess you know nothing about the history of abduction, in which case I invite you, for the season after the internship, to take the Abduction and Society course. However, please be advised that, since it’s a graduate-level course, you can’t take more than one grad course per season as an undergraduate”

  I hate how he talks in riddles. He raised concerns about potential criminal behavior that night, while not giving much, if any, indication of how I should go around addressing these! And now he told me there are historical reasons for why research abductors can somehow take part in law enforcement abductions? I might have understood relocating dangerous animals to some scientific preserve... Killanaus laments Lokath’s lack of clarity.

  “Does taking it as an undergraduate mean I could get credit in graduate school for it?” a perplex student asks his future advisor.

  “Yes. The AAA imposes a certain curriculum and certain topics to be covered in courses required of all license-track students, so that, if you take a license-track course from an AAA-accredited university, and later enroll in a different AAA-accredited, license-track grad program, you don’t need to retake it in grad school”

  “License-track?”

  Lokath shows him a comparative chart of what a non-license-track degree scholar degree would look like next to a class-1-track one, and there’s a lot more courses required in the first year of grad school. Here’s my plan: take both Abduction and Society as well as Abduction and the Law in undergrad.

  “If I had to choose between Abduction and Society, and Abduction and the Law, which one should I take first?”

  “They both feed back into each other. I teach Abduction and the Law after the internship season ends, but instructors will want to see near-perfect grades in bioethics if you want to take either one in undergrad” Lokath tries to answer him. “But I’d say Abduction and Society”

  “I emailed you about what’s in it for a university to get AAA accreditation. From what I can make out, it takes significant resources to get and maintain...”

  “For better or for worse, funding, enrollment and, usually, better employment outcomes for a biology department. And, to a lesser extent, AAA accreditation brings prestige to an institution, much like a law or med school for the institutions big enough to support them”

  Or even offer advanced degree-granting programs for smaller institutions, because then an institution can get university status, with the same kind of perks, albeit on a smaller scale, Lokath muses while reviewing Killanaus’ records in bioethics. He then shoots his Parthian shot at the student while emailing the Abduction and Society instructor for the next course season to ask permission on Killanaus’ behalf to take it.

  “I’d say there’s a good chance for you to get into Abduction and Society in the first season of your third year. Don’t fool yourself, though: just because grading is more lenient to compensate for the additional difficulty, doesn’t mean you can slack off! Oh and one last thing: you might want to meet with Aqqar, my graduate student. She’s in the class-one-track scholar program, and you may as well get to know her because you’ll spend a third of a year together working on a daily basis”

  A disappointed Killanaus tries to find Aqqar’s office after leaving Lokath’s. Lokath makes me feel like he’s more of a bureaucrat than a researcher or teacher. I never had a course with him, but two seasons from now, he’ll teach two courses. I really hope that, as an UFO captain, he'll act differently with me than he does as a college professor. And also nicer towards me than my dad.

  When he arrives at Aqqar’s office, not far from her advisor’s, he finds her alone in a space that’s normally shared with other graduate students. When she finally notices him:

  “You are?” Aqqar asks him as if he was an intruder.

  “Killanaus. Your advisor took me on as an intern for next season…”

  “Oh? My advisor talked about you a little bit, about how passionate you were about an aspect of the day-to-day life in research, rather than being passionate about the subject matter. I hope you’re prepared to spend some time away from home, from your family because the life of an abductor involves voyages of varying lengths…”

  A starry-eyed Killanaus jubilates upon hearing about another key aspect of life as an abductor, about how his future will play out. “Yes! Finally, a chance to get out of this stifling environment at home! And, hopefully, go to an institution away from the greater Croethe for grad school!”

  “Oh sure, I heard this all the time when I was in your shoes as an undergrad: if you harbor any research dreams, be prepared to change institutions for grad school…”

  “Would the same hold if I realize, at the end of next season, that what I really need is either a class two or three license? I apologize if it’s inappropriate, the world of abduction licensure is new to me…”

  “In that situation, I’d say, it depends, and the most important three factors are finances, academics and then whether a change in scenery would help you on some level”

  Sure, leaving town might be a good thing a year down the road, but I guess… even spending an entire season with her onboard an UFO would be preferrable to enduring dad for the same period, Killanaus muses while trying to know more about Aqqar’s research topic.