And so they went, doing this and that, learning the pattern, learning the rhythm, repeating sequences faster and longer each time. Her students laughed, Ouloo clapped her forepaws to the beat, and Pei blossomed in sparkling green. The vibrations made by alien feet felt so strange as they travelled through the dirt to the soles of her feet, but it was an oddness that delighted her. She’d danced Green Blue White Spots at parties more times than she could count, but always with her own kind, never with other species.
Wait, she thought as she continued to lead. That’s not true. She’d taught Ashby to dance, once, during one of their trysts on Port Coriol. They’d shared a snapfruit tart in bed. She’d laughed the brightest shades at stories about his techs, and he’d listened with such softness as she told him about where she’d been. He’d touched her colours as they moved. She’d played with the curls on his head. And after all of that and so much more, she’d taught him to dance. Not this dance, though. She’d taught him – well, she’d taught him Deep Blue Light Grey Soft Blue Black, a dance for lovers. Neither of them had needed to take off their shoes then. They’d gotten rid of those hours before, along with their clothes.
‘Am I doing it right?’ Tupo said. Xyr neck was bent way down so xe could watch xyr own feet as they stomped.
Pei snapped back from the memory and cheered the kid on. ‘Ha, yeah! You’ve got it! And now from here, we do this.’
She fell back into the rhythm, and her thoughts drifted once more to memory – not to Ashby, but to her creche. To when she’d learned to dance. Not that it had happened in one day. Dance lessons were a constant part of her childhood, both in school and at home. The whole family had taken part at the creche, but Father Gilen had been the best dancer, by far, and she fondly recalled a time when he’d picked her up, put her feet on top of his feet, held her steady by her shoulders, and danced so that she could feel the rhythm done properly. She couldn’t see his face, but she could see her father Le watching her across the circle, swirling blue with love and pride. You’re going to be a great dancer, Pei, he’d said. You’ll turn everybody’s head at Shimmerquick. I bet you’ll—
Pei missed a step as Father Le’s words landed in her head, heavy as the slam of a foot. She froze in place. The others were still dancing, demonstrably, but to her, they seemed to freeze as well. Her implant buzzed with their chatter, but she didn’t parse the sounds. Words and noise became one and the same.
No, she thought. That can’t be it.
Her heart thudded in her chest, and it had nothing to do with the dancing.
‘Are you all right?’ It was Speaker, her suit standing still, her tiny head cocked to the side.
Roveg and Tupo looked at Speaker, then to Pei. They stopped as well. ‘Did we do it wrong?’ Tupo asked.
Pei shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I, um …’ Her cheeks swam hot and fast, and her thoughts raced along with them. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not – I’m not feeling well.’
Ouloo stepped forward, fur fluffing with concern. ‘Do you need help?’
‘No, I’m fine. I just, um … I’m so sorry, I need to … go get something.’ She did not leave room for questions. She did not care if they thought her strange. She picked up her boots, turned around, and walked barefoot back toward her shuttle, trying not to run.
SPEAKER
‘Do you think she’s all right?’ Ouloo asked, taking a seat as she watched Captain Tem walk back toward the shuttlepad.
‘She strikes me as someone who can take care of herself,’ Speaker said. She flicked through band names on her scrib as if perusing a cupboard full of spices. There was Orange Fizz, Five on Five, Augment – Ah, she thought. There we go. ‘Tupo, I want to keep seeing those cool moves of yours,’ she called as she conjured the song.
Grinding beats and the soaring wail of strings poured forth, sparking an instant fire in Speaker’s belly. Roveg let out a loud series of escalating clicks – the lungless version of a cheer. ‘Yes!’ he cried, flexing his abdominal plates in time with the music. ‘Oh, Speaker, excellent. You have excellent taste.’
She swelled with pride at this. ‘You know Augment?’
‘Oh, of course. I saw them play live at a sim launch two standards ago.’
‘Ugh,’ Speaker said enviously. ‘I’d love to have seen that.’
Roveg began to sink into the music, moving each pair of legs along his torso in a different yet complementary pattern. ‘Well, if you’re ever in the neighbourhood of Chalice, let me know. We could summon a few bands, invite some interesting people, have a proper little soiree.’ The legs along his abdomen joined the party, marching in place in a mathematical fashion.
Speaker didn’t know what to say to that. She wondered if it was the fancy kind of thing Roveg said to everybody. It would be in character for a person with a home big enough for parties with live bands to throw empty invitations around, for the sake of politeness and posturing. But extravagant though Roveg might be, she also couldn’t help but feel that he was genuine, and that his offer was as well. Perhaps it wasn’t posturing. Perhaps he was simply a man who knew he had much, and enjoyed sharing it with others. ‘I might just do that,’ she said. Her reply wasn’t empty, either. If he meant it, so did she.
‘Turn it up!’ Tupo cried raucously. Xe stomped xyr feet in a furious pitter-pat, as though trying to put out a fire.
‘Yes!’ Roveg agreed.
‘Not too loud,’ Ouloo pleaded Speaker. The request was good-natured, but delivered with the weight of someone who spent all day wrangling an already loud child.
Speaker gave Ouloo an understanding look, and nudged the music up just a bit more. She laughed as both paws and shelled legs responded accordingly, intensifying their movements. The Quelin and the Laru’s dancing styles were discordant as could be, and yet, somehow, the sight of them together made a strange sort of sense.
Ouloo did not get up to dance, but she bobbed both head and neck from where she sat, watching her child’s goofy moves with unmistakable adoration. ‘Stars, I love that kid,’ she sighed.
‘You two are an interesting pair,’ Speaker said, ‘if you don’t mind my saying.’
‘How so?’ Ouloo asked.
‘Well, you are just a pair, right?’
‘Yep,’ Ouloo said happily. ‘It’s just us.’
‘May I ask why?’ Speaker hadn’t spent much time with Ouloo’s species, but she had seen their homes in spaceports: large, communal buildings that belonged to no one and served all Laru in the neighbourhood (an arrangement Speaker could easily understand). And yet, here were Ouloo and Tupo, tucked away in a literal bubble that belonged only to them. It reminded Speaker in some ways of Tracker and herself, but she was sure the context could not be more different.
Ouloo thought for a moment. ‘You don’t speak any of our languages, right?’ she asked.
‘No, unfortunately,’ Speaker said. ‘All I know about them is they’ve got a lot of vowels.’
Ouloo laughed heartily. ‘That they do,’ she said. ‘They don’t have much in common, but there’s one thing true for all of them: we don’t have a word for family. We have lots of words for groups – sizes of groups, people who hang out together often …’ She trailed off.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know how to translate this type of … of word. I’m not sure it has a translation in Klip.’
Speaker was immediately interested; these were her favourite kinds of words. ‘What’s the gist?’
‘Moh. It’s a specific kind of noun, and it means … um …’ Ouloo frowned. ‘Gathering mood, I guess? Mood isn’t quite right. Gathering sense. Or … mmm!’ She bobbed her neck definitively as a connection was made. ‘Gathering flavour. That works.’
‘Gathering flavour,’ Speaker said, savouring the new concept. ‘Give me an example.’
‘Well, like … an energetic crowd, we have a moh for that. Like a crowd at a big party. Or a small group of good friends. A group of young people who do foolish things. A group that l
ikes to have sex with each other. A group of people all keeping to themselves within a shared space. These are all types of moh. Is this making sense?’
‘Yes. I love it.’
‘Do you have anything like it in Ihreet?’
‘No, we don’t.’
‘I didn’t think so,’ Ouloo said. ‘I haven’t met anybody else who has moh. But see, there is no moh for family, because we don’t … have that concept. I know the rest of you draw those lines in many different ways, but we don’t. The only concept Laru have of family, among ourselves, is other Laru. Our species is a family. On that level, we understand, but anything smaller than that is not something we traditionally do.’
‘I see,’ Speaker said. She turned that idea over and around. ‘That’s … that feels somewhat overwhelming to me. Not in a bad way.’
‘How so?’
‘To me, family is the group within your ship, but there are … tiers of a sort within that. Siblings are paramount. Twins, specifically – the person you hatched alongside. That’s …’ That’s the other half of yourself, she intended to say, but the words evaporated as the worry she’d worked so hard to distract herself from took the opportunity to return to the forefront.
Ouloo reached out a paw and placed it on Speaker’s suit. A detached gesture of reassurance, given that she wasn’t actually touching Speaker, but the intent was appreciated all the same. ‘Roveg told me about the sib tower,’ Ouloo said kindly. ‘I put an alert on my scrib that’ll let me know the second signal’s restored. You’ll be the first to know. I know that’s not much, but—’
‘No, it helps,’ Speaker said. It really did. Ouloo seemed the type to wake someone in the middle of the night over something like that, which was exactly what Speaker wanted.
Ouloo bobbed her neck in acknowledgement. ‘So. Siblings first, for you. And then …’
‘Then your mother. You always, always honour and respect your mother, even if you don’t like her.’
‘Hmm!’ Ouloo said. ‘I like that. You should tell Tupo.’
Speaker laughed. ‘Beyond that, everyone you share a ship with is family on an equal level. What you’re describing about your people – about your notion of family – feels like the same thing I feel toward the shipmates I grew up with, but on a scale of millions. Billions. However many of you there are.’
‘I have no idea how many of us there are. We’ve spread so much, there’s no way of knowing. But yes, that’s the idea. Laru are family.’ She swung her head around to watch her child. ‘And that’s why I don’t live with them.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Speaker said.
Ouloo tipped her face upward, staring at nothing in particular as she spoke. ‘The closest concept we have to family is this saying: Laru are bone, and Laru are blood, and bone and blood are one. It really doesn’t have the same punch in Klip, but I think you get it. The way it comes across in Piloom, it paints this image of Laru as distinct from all others. That idea made sense when we were one sapient species alone on one single planet. It means that we must take care of each other, and learn from each other, and love everyone we encounter the same as anyone else we meet – even if we don’t, as you said, like them much. But … oh, stars, how to explain this … there’s something in the nuance that makes it feel … insular.’
‘I don’t think of your species as insular,’ Speaker said. Every Laru she’d ever encountered had been embedded in the thick of multispecies life. She saw them as enthusiastic immigrants, wherever they went.
‘I know what you’re saying, but … ah, I have it.’ She stamped a paw with confirmation. ‘Laru are bone and blood and so on, but you’d never use that phrase toward other species. You just … wouldn’t say that. It’d sound wrong. And we don’t use the term species toward ourselves. There are Laru, and Laru are just … Laru. Species are … all the rest of you. You, versus us.’
‘So … Laru are family, other species are friends?’ Speaker said.
‘Yes! Exactly. And I think that’s wrong. It’s completely wrong! If we are out here to benefit from all the rest of you, to learn everything we can and become part of your lives and follow your example, then you must be blood and bone, too. You must also be family. I wanted Tupo to understand that – to truly understand that. I thought the best way to do that would be to remove other Laru from the equation entirely, give xyr a childhood full of nothing but other species. What could be a better education than that?’
‘I suppose,’ Speaker said slowly. She wasn’t on board with this idea, but wasn’t about to insult Ouloo over a mere difference in principle. ‘But then, the trade-off is xe’ll never know Laru ways of doing things.’
Ouloo scoffed at this, batting it away as though it were a troublesome bug she’d seen before. ‘Of course xe will. Or xe can, if xe wants to. Xe’ll grow up one day, and wherever xe wants to go, xe’ll go. If xe wants to embed xyrself in a Laru neighbourhood, xe absolutely can. But until then, xe’s going to learn all there is to learn about you. I mean, look!’ She gestured proudly toward Tupo, dancing xyrself breathless in the blue-shelled company of a laughing Quelin. ‘What would xe learn sitting in a stuffy interspecies-relations class that xe isn’t learning ten times better here?’
Speaker considered this. ‘I have to say, Ouloo,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect you to be such a radical.’
Ouloo beamed. ‘Ha!’ she said. ‘Oh, I like that. I’m keeping that.’ She sat glowing for a moment, then got to her feet and hurried over to the others, doing a waving dance as she went. Roveg let out a clicking cheer, Tupo laughed, and the three of them danced all the harder, an uncountable number of limbs trampling the formerly pristine lawn.
Speaker smiled, turned up the music, and joined them.
PEI
Pei rushed into her shuttle the moment the hatch opened, beelining to the med room. She switched on the patch scanner, sat down on the eelim, rolled her sleeve, pushed up her wristwrap, and …
… hesitated.
There’s no way, she thought. The only colour in her cheeks was anxious red.
With a breath and a quick swipe, she pressed the scanner against her wristpatch. The scanner flashed successful contact, then cycled lights back and forth as it processed the information transmitted by the imubots patrolling her bloodstream.
The scanner’s screen flashed colours in question:
What kind of assessment do you require?
–Basic check-up
–Illness diagnosis
–Injury assessment
–Reproductive check-up
–Other/custom (warning: only use this option if you are a medical professional or have medical field training)
Pei swallowed, then selected Reproductive check-up.
The lights cycled. The scanner hummed against her palm. She could feel her heart, beating harder and harder and—
The screen flashed completion.
Pei read the results.
She reset the device.
She ran the scan again.
She read the results.
She ran a diagnostic on the device.
The device was fine.
She reset the device.
She ran the scan again.
She read the results.
Spoken languages had words for moments like this, and Pei knew a great many of them. There was bosh in Klip, hska in Reskitkish, fok in Ensk. But Aeluons did not have profanities in their native language, for the concept simply didn’t translate. For her, frustration existed beside her nostrils, debates blossomed near her jawline, insults roared from two spots straight down from her eyes. Spoken words were something separate from the speaker, something loosed into the air. When your words were embedded in your flesh, when they existed as an intrinsic piece of you, how could any of them be considered profane?
So instead of barking something cathartic and crass, Pei’s cheeks erupted in red and yellow – a reflexive display, at first, but she indulgently held the chromatophores in place, venting with a da
sh of purple.
Her skin didn’t look good because of the fucking scale scrub. She was shimmering.
She lay down and let the eelim decide what shape she needed to be held by. Nervously, she pushed up her shirt and lay her palm against her skin. She ran her fingers over the familiar scales and scars, and nothing felt different at all. But somewhere within her, the scanner had said there was – for the first time ever – a fully formed egg, and that egg was making her body pump out hormones that were screwing with her abdominal muscles and the shine of her skin. How had it not even occurred to her? The symptoms of shimmer had been drilled into her as a kid, and there’d been a time in her late adolescence when every random cramp or odd angle of light had made her go oh stars, is it happening? But she’d been too young for it then, and was on the cusp of too old now, and she’d long figured, over the decades of nothing happening, that she was one of the many who wouldn’t.
Why the fuck was it happening now? Here? On top of everything else? Was this really the best time her body could come up with?
Her head swam. She felt like the shuttle was upside down, or that the gravity had been switched off. It’s a lot to take in, her father Gilen told her and her siblings in an old, old memory. Your shimmer doesn’t care about your job or your travels or whatever plans you had. It’s a wonderful thing, but shifting gears like that is stressful, and that’s why it’s so important for us to make all the mothers who come here feel like this is their home for a little bit.
Pei remembered them, the women who’d come to the creche. Some had been nervous. Some had been shy, or quiet, or in a hurry. But most, she remembered, were really happy. They seemed it, anyway. It was hard not to be happy when you were on six tendays of culturally mandated vacation that every job in existence bent itself backward to accommodate. Six tendays of sex and pampering until it was time for you to lay your egg and get back to your life. Six tendays of knowing that you were doing something vital for the species, something you were so privileged to do, something your friends would throw a party for once you were back home. Pei had thrown a lot of parties like that for crewmates over the years.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Page 15