2 The Incident
Tompa’s group rode light-craft LC-407V down from the Vance’s orbit. That terrified and thrilled her at the same time.
For one thing, she’d never actually ridden in one of the fast-but-tiny shuttles she was learning to maintain. To reach the Vance’s orbit around earth, she’d taken a huge craft that held a hundred people. On that shuttle, you didn’t feel in your bones every jolt or shift of direction, you didn’t smell machinery straining, you didn’t grow heavy and sweaty as the shuttle burned through the atmosphere. Light-craft were built for speed and efficiency, not comfort.
For another thing, last month she’d helped replace one of this craft’s Pulsed Detonation Engines, needed for atmospheric flight. Trusting her life to her own inexperienced work was scary. Isolated in her mummy case, she wondered if Paolo McShallin was afraid. Probably not.
The light-craft landed on a graveled roof in the city of Oah-Shode. The moment the door of the shuttle whined open, letting in alien light and air, excitement drove fear from her mind. Anticipation made her clumsy with the switches and straps of her mummy case; Umberto Lopez, a round-faced young man from her group, had to help her get out.
Lopez and two of the other men descended the light-craft’s stairs to the rooftop. Then it was her turn. Tompa watched her foot as she stepped onto an alien planet for the first time, almost expecting it to glow like the special effects in a show. Looking up, she was vaguely aware of green hills surrounding a sea of rooftops all the same height; but mostly, she concentrated on the dozen Shon-Wod-Zees clustered around the light-craft. They were bald, which made them seem old, but at the same time their eyes, twice the size of a human’s, made them look like children. They were small, too, barely reaching her shoulder—and she was so short that they’d almost disqualified her from the Ship’s Ward program even though it wasn’t her flickin’ fault she’d suffered from poor nutrition.
The Shons all looked exactly the same to her.
A Shon stepped forward. When it spoke in a voice that combined the squawks of a parrot with the trilling bleats of a lamb, she jumped, then giggled. McShallin, who had the group’s only translator, responded—something about not having weapons—and Tompa realized that her mind was so swamped by strangeness that details didn’t stick. Everything was a delightful blur.
She grinned as she walked across the gravel to a hole in the roof where a narrow ladder with closely spaced steps led down into the building. They went through a maze of tunnel-like halls with low ceilings that forced the men to walk hunched over. They were polite and watched that she kept with them, but spoke little to her—which was just how she wanted it.
Eventually, they emerged onto a dark, crowded pedestrian walkway that was roofed by a road traveled by infrequent but noisy vehicles. As the group plunged into the crowds on the walkway, Tompa studied the Shons, struggling to grasp more about them. They had pear-shaped bodies with wide hips and heads that tapered from the shoulders without pausing for a neck; folds of skin marked the neck joint. Their lack of hair, along with the freckled, greenish tinge to their skin, reinforced the resemblance to pears. Talking pears, that is, whose supple faces displayed a confusing array of expressions that were almost, but not quite, comprehensible.
Once Tompa made the comparison to pears, the aliens seemed to click into place for her. She began noticing that they didn’t all look the same. For one thing, the Shons on the streets were clothed in a wide variety of colors and styles. Some were fatter than others and some were taller—though none were as tall as she was. How marvelous to be able to see over a crowd!
After a while, she realized that only one of the Shons accompanying the humans had a translator in its ear. The other Shons, stern and silent, acted more like guards than guides. McShallin repeated to the group what the guide told him, but the translator machine didn’t seem to render the Shon language very well. He often reverted in frustration to Portuguese laced with English, and when he did that, Tompa understood almost nothing. Even when he stuck to English, his explanations were halting and, all too often, not very enlightening.
For example, as they walked through a small, dark clump of trees, McShallin announced that this was the Shon equivalent of a city park. When he started to repeat the names and origins of the trees and dense shrubbery, however, he quickly gave up.
All the while, from behind lacy, musty fronds, Shons stood motionless and silent, peering at them with their huge, grey eyes.
On the far side of the park, they visited a building with loud machinery that stank of sulfur; according to McShallin, it was a factory that produced something he couldn’t describe. After that, they went to a building filled with massive statues of strange animals interspersed with Shons crowded around low tables. It was neither a museum nor a school, McShallin said, but the word for the place didn’t translate at all. And everywhere they walked, crowds of Shons watched them.
The newness and variety was overwhelming. As the tour continued at a dizzying pace, it reminded Tompa more and more of the light-craft—designed for speed and efficiency rather than comfort. It didn’t matter, though. She was actually walking on an alien planet!
After several hours, they ended one of their building tours with a washroom break. McShallin and the men balked when the guide tried to usher all of them together into a dark, strongly aromatic restroom that was narrow but at least fifty feet deep. On one side were what seemed to be shower stalls. On the other side was a metal trough that ran the length of the room. A communal toilet, Tompa guessed. She wished she’d thought to bring toilet paper.
“We can’t go in together because she”—McShallin said to the guide as he pointed to Tompa—“is female and we’re male. It’s unseemly to use your facilities together.”
The guide conferred with the guards in low trills, then said something to McShallin.
“Yes,” he responded. “Like you we have two sexes, male and female. But privacy is morally imperative between the sexes.”
The guide spoke for several seconds.
McShallin glanced at Tompa. His ears, she noticed, had become red. “No, absolutely not. Such behaviors are sins amongst humans. According to the rigid tenets of my religion, the two sexes should use separate washrooms to avoid such temptations.”
Tompa stifled a laugh. Separate washrooms were part of his religion? Perhaps even the guide was surprised at that one, because the Shon asked a question.
“Sin and temptation,” McShallin responded, “are related concepts at the core of our religion. They mean—”
“Excuse me.” Tompa tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m going inside. By the time you’ve finished explaining sex and religion, I’ll be done and you guys can take your turn.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but nodded instead. “Yes, that’s probably the quickest way.” He glanced into the doorless washroom. “We’ll move out of sight, and I’ll expect you to do the same for us.”
When she returned a few minutes later, McShallin held his palm out to her. In it was a small blue device that looked like an old-fashioned hearing aid. “The guide wants you to have the translator while you wait. You will be careful with it, Ship’s Ward?”
She couldn’t help herself; she grinned at the prospect of talking to an alien. “Of course.”
McShallin put the device in her left ear and tapped it. Its soft sides expanded to fit snugly in her ear. As he and the other men went into the washroom, Tompa turned eagerly toward the guide. “Hello. My name is Tompa Lee.”
The Shon spoke in a fluttery bleat. A split second later, the translator whispered in Tompa’s ear in a neutral voice, “That one exists procreatively as adult female?”
“Huh?”
The guide pointed at her with all six fingers of one hand. “Female?”
Tompa nodded. When the other didn’t react, she said, “Yeah. What about it?”
Now it was the guide’s turn to make a gesture that Tompa didn’t understand, a short, sideways chop with one hand. “T
his one exists also as female,” the guide explained. “That one”—she pointed at Tompa—”desires orgy with the male humans?”
“No goddamned way in a cockroach’s hell!” Startled both by the question and her own response, Tompa stared at the Shon. “I mean . . .” Her voice trailed off as she realized she’d sworn at the alien. Maggoty ratshit! This wouldn’t cause an interplanetary incident, would it?
“The resistance to orgy blossoms as an opportuneness.” The guide blinked her huge eyes, and Tompa had the feeling the gesture carried some significance. “For resistance, drink negatively wine, exit insistently this one’s aid.”
Tompa replayed the words in her mind, then shook her head. “I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re getting at.”
The Shon chopped her hand sideways. “This one comprehends negatively the short human’s words.”
The two of them were staring at each other, frustrated, when Paolo McShallin emerged from the washroom.
“Drink negatively wine,” the guide repeated.
“Have a nice conversation?” McShallin asked Tompa.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand what she’s saying.”
“Indeed, Ship’s Ward, indeed. It’s not easy. And now I take up my cross once more. Hold still.” When he tapped the translator in her ear, it deflated so he could remove it. He wiped it with his handkerchief—Tompa frowned, because he hadn’t done that before sticking it in her ear—and put it in his own ear.
When all of the men had come out of the washroom, McShallin gathered them and Tompa around him. “Our next stop, it seems, is a pub where we will get food and liquid refreshments.” He looked straight into Tompa’s eyes as he spoke his next words. “Remember to conduct yourselves with faultless behavior. We are goodwill ambassadors for the human race.”
Tompa gave McShallin her most innocent look, though a smile of comprehension fluttered around the edges of the bland expression. “Drink negatively wine.” The smile bloomed as she repeated, “Drink negatively wine.”
McShallin frowned, making the tattooed cross on his face wiggle. She tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help herself.
The pub had the feel of a bordello, with Shons wandering together into private rooms and floor-to-ceiling television screens showing naked Shons in groups of two through twelve. Tompa couldn’t tell if the Shons on TV were actually having sex, but there sure was a lot of rubbing of various body parts. The six men studiously avoided looking at the televisions, even though the screens showed nothing that was even vaguely erotic for a human.
When the human party had entered, a couple dozen Shons immediately left, but most of the customers stayed and stared. The guide ordered wine and food, then sat with the guards at a table near the door. The drinking part of the pub was much like a slightly miniaturized version of a human bar. The round tables and rough benches were uncomfortably small by human standards, but the dim light and alcohol smells were the same. This was the most familiar place they’d visited.
Tompa drank no wine, and not just because of the guide’s warning; alcohol rendered you vulnerable, so she avoided it. The men, however, each had some wine while they waited for their food, drinking from small, handmade ceramic cups that flared out at the bottom like Shons’ hips. They had another cup when the food arrived—yellow sauce over beige wafers that looked like soy dollars someone had peed on. She decided to wait until the others had tried them.
McShallin was the first to take a bite. He chewed without expression, then took a swallow of wine. “Not good,” he said, “but not terrible, either.”
Tompa picked up a wafer and turned it skeptically in her hand. It felt sticky.
The man sitting next to her, Scott Remland, asked, “Ship’s Ward Lee, has your soul been saved?”
Instead of answering, she avoided his gaze and quickly stuffed the wafer in her mouth. It was tough, with a bitter taste that was vaguely fruity. It made her thirsty.
“Jesus loves you.” Remland took her hand and stared into her face. “Even though you are street meat, he loves you.”
“No,” Tompa said with a shake of her head. “I’m not street meat any longer.”
“Then he loves you even more.”
Was it her imagination, or was Remland holding her hand with too much fervor?
“Vivas,” McShallin said as he raised his cup to his comrades. He was sitting on the other side of her. “Have some wine, Tompa. It is excellent.”
She pulled her hand away from Remland. “No, thank you.”
“Excellent wine,” Umberto Lopez said. He held up his cup and sniffed its contents. “It seems a trifle strong, however. Is anyone else feeling lightheaded?”
“More wine, bartender,” said the man seated next to Lopez, even though the bartender couldn’t possibly understand him. “I think there’ll be a market on earth for this delightful vintage.”
Tompa glanced toward the guide. She and the guards were eating the same yellow wafers, but no wine bottles perched on their table. Tompa frowned. At the briefing, they’d been warned to eat or drink only what their guides did. Should she point this out to the men?
McShallin nodded gravely. “The wine goes down well and warms the soul better than most earthly wines.”
“The soul,” Remland said in a dreamy voice. “It warms and saves the soul. Your beautiful soul, Tompa Lee.”
He put his hand on her breast.
Shocked, Tompa went rigid. When he pinched her nipple, she came to life and smacked his hand away. “Stop that!” She scooted a few inches down the bench toward McShallin. “That’s not my soul, you poco-brained gordo!”
“Beautiful, warm soul,” Remland said. “So firm.”
Tompa crossed her arms over her chest and glanced around the table. The men were all staring at her with an intensity that was sickeningly familiar.
McShallin chuckled. He picked up the maroon wine bottle from the table and studied it, as though trying to read its label. “You call us gordos,” he said without looking at her. “I would think this means ‘fat guy,’ but none of us are overweight. Is it a bad thing in your street slang for you to call us gordos?”
“It isn’t a swear word, if that’s what you mean. It means, well, someone with money, someone from outside of Manhattan.”
“Good.” He let go of the wine bottle and put his arm around her shoulder. “I’m glad my little Ship’s Ward isn’t swearing at her superior officer.” His hand moved down her shoulder to wander over her back. As if he’d been given permission, Remland reached over and put his palm on her thigh.
Tompa stared fiercely at the dark wood of the table, feeling anger swell in her chest. Ratshit like this wasn’t supposed to happen in the Navy. Sailors guarded each others’ backs, helped each other.
McShallin helped himself to a handful of her buttocks.
If she could reach the wine bottle, she’d break it against the table and use the jagged end to destroy the hypocritical tattoos on their faces—except that the roach-damned bottle was made of what looked like ceramics, not glass. And besides, they’d kick her out of the Navy if she caused another incident like with Jim Zhang. But what in the flickin’ ratshit was she supposed to do?
She took a deep breath and tried to talk normally despite wrestling with Remland’s hand. “Tell me more about your religion, Paolo. You all share the same faith, don’t you?”
McShallin squinted as though trying to remember something. He dropped his hand from her backside.
Across the table, Lopez rose to his feet and started to walk around the table. For a moment she thought he was coming to help. Then she saw his eyes.
“No!” She rocked forward, then threw herself straight back, off the bench. Curling into a ball, she reached back to land on her hands rather than her head and did a backward somersault. She then sprang to her feet, knocking over an empty bench in the process. Crouching, she faced the six surprised men. Over the years she’d practiced a number of these sudden, unexpected escape moves, but hadn’
t thought she’d ever need them again. Tears of anger and disappointment blurred her vision. “No, damn it!”
Behind her, a Shon spoke. Tompa risked a glance in that direction. The guide stood near the door of the pub, bobbing her head. Exit insistently this one’s aid. Now Tompa understood. Sort of.
“I’m getting the hell out of here,” she said to the men as she backed toward the door. “Don’t you flickin’ hypocrites follow me!”
“Hypocrites?” McShallin shot to his feet, then stopped as though realizing that all of the hundred Shons in the pub were staring at him. He ran a hand over his forehead.
“Gotta save her soul,” Remland said. He stood, wobbling slightly, and stared at Tompa.
“It’s the wine.” McShallin put out his hand to stop Remland. “Scott, it isn’t you speaking, it’s the wine of the devil. Can’t you feel the strangeness coursing through you? They’re all devils, every one of these accursed Shons, trying to trick us into disgracing our God.”
Remland tried to push McShallin aside. The two scuffled while Tompa turned and dashed up the wide, shallow stairs that led to the door. The guide opened the door for her, then followed. From behind came the noise of a fist striking flesh and a bench crashing to the floor. Without looking back, Tompa darted into the gloom of the outside corridor and slammed the door behind her. Her heart was pounding.
The guide said something. Tompa stopped, turned. “I can’t understand you.”
The guide started pushing Tompa down the L-shaped, narrow tunnel that led to the street. Hell of an unfriendly entrance way. When she reached the end of the spooky passageway, she stopped even though the guide still pushed at her. A silent crowd of Shons, eight or nine deep, was pressed close to the pub’s long windows, trying to glimpse the strange creatures from outer space. In such numbers, the Shon’s odor was noticeable—faint but tangy, like tomato juice so watered down the taste was almost lost.
Tompa reached behind her to thrust away the guide’s hand that was pushing her. With the throng blocking her exit, she needed to think.
A vehicle clattered along the overhead roadway. From inside the pub came muted conversations, but the struggle between McShallin and Remland hadn’t degenerated into a full-scale brawl. She was under orders not to get separated from her group. Maybe it would safe to go back inside soon, provided she stayed well away from the men.
And risk being gang-raped. Yeah, right.
The guide tried to pass her, but the tunnel was too narrow and her hips jammed against Tompa’s thigh. She stepped into the open to let the Shon woman pass.
As soon as she did so, the Shons outside the pub began to move, their ranks folding backward like a door swinging open, giving her room to pass. It was damnedest thing. Humans could never manage such a precisely executed maneuver. It was either a gesture of profound politeness or a sucker’s invitation to let herself be surrounded.
Suspicion had kept her alive on the streets of New York, and now suspicion made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. The gloom of the wide yet claustrophobic street, shielded from the sky by a concrete roadway, reminded her of some of the worst streets near the docks back home, where overhead roads turned day into night and doorways into ambushes. But the smells, reminding her of nothing, were more ominous for their emptiness.
Movement caught her eye. A baby, naked in its mother’s arms, gleefully flapped its little hands toward Tompa. Its mother stifled the baby’s movements, then looked up. For a moment, wide grey eyes met human browns. The mother’s face showed curiosity, Tompa thought, and perhaps distrust. No hatred, though. The baby made a gurgling noise that sounded a lot like a human baby, and the mother’s gaze shifted to it.
No mother would risk her baby if she expected violence. Tompa didn’t remember her own mother, yet she knew that it was true—and surely it must be true of Shon mothers, too. Feeling safer, she stepped into the crowd with the guide at her side. As one, the Shons stepped back the same distance. Another step forward; another mass step backward. It was eerie.
Suddenly, she heard loud alto and tenor voices. A handful of Shons in flame-patterned vests had spotted her. They raised umbrella-shaped electric signs and spread out, shouting and screaming. Their words were incomprehensible but angry. She turned to the guide, but the Shon was gone. The spectators had closed ranks behind her, blocking her return to the pub. But no one made any threatening moves.
Across the wide street and down a couple of doorways, an ornate brick shelf at chair height adorned the front of a windowless building. She’d wait there until the maggoty, hypocritical sailors came out. The longer that took the better, as far as she was concerned, giving more time for the wine to wear off.
One of the protesters stepped in front of Tompa, waving a sign with different-colored lettering on each of its three sides. She angled away. The Shon scampered until it was in front of her again. It looked much older than the others she’d seen, with wider hips and skin so deeply wrinkled that it hung in folds around the neck. Kidney-shaped patches of sparse, reddish-brown hair marked where a human’s ears would be. Unlike the other protesters, the geezer wore a plain blue tunic rather than a flame-patterned vest.
Tompa dodged to the left. Twittering as though in consternation, the Shon followed and again waved the sign in her face. If the whole situation weren’t so upsetting, Tompa would have laughed at its antics.
And in fact, the situation no longer felt threatening. None of the men had come out of the pub and only the geezer was following her. The other protesters had vanished, although the crowd remained in front of the pub. The street was quiet except for the rumble of overhead traffic and some burbling from the Shon baby.
But as she reached the other side of the covered boulevard, the Shons near the pub suddenly screamed a chorus of bleats. Fear! Danger! She understood them perfectly.
Tompa spun into a defensive crouch. She saw the object of fear bouncing along the concrete pavement toward the pub windows.
A grenade. Navy model A-140. The most destructive grenade in the arsenal.
“Get down!” she shouted.
The geezer hopped in front of her and again waved the sign. She reached out and flung the Shon sideways into the tunnel-like entrance of a shop. When it tried to get up, snorting, she ran to throw herself on top of it. She almost got there, too.
The blast was so loud she felt it rather than heard it.
As though her entire remaining life was compressed into the moment, things happened in slow motion. Wide-hipped bodies tumbled like dust motes against bright summer sun—bright, because massive chunks of the overhead roadway were falling onto the crowd of Shons. A long, snake-like vehicle fell and exploded in a cascade of sparks and flame.
A severed, six-fingered hand shot from the inferno toward Tompa’s head. Inexplicably sitting on the Shon in the shop doorway, she tried to duck. Her body hadn’t begun to respond when the gory hand slammed into her with the force of a brick.
The Trial of Tompa Lee Page 3