by Sue Burke
We were about to take a physical step toward the unknown. I realized I had stopped breathing. Pollux was breathing fast. I was winning.
“Come out now,” he sent. “Leave the planes and come with me.”
On board, they cheered, even though they must have noticed that I was not in charge. They should have been glum.
One by one, mission members jumped out of both planes with delighted shrieks. Some spun in glee, hugged each other, or waved wildly at the Pax natives, who smiled and laughed and waved in return. Arthur and the other natives peppered Karola with questions. Mirlo landed, looked down, and stepped aside to make space for the next person before kneeling to study the grass, stroking it as if it were a beloved animal’s fur. All of them were recording and sending in enraptured frenzy.
Pollux glowered, eyes fixed on feeds but appearing to stare at the ground. How much more disruptive would he become? Someone sent him questions about technical issues. Other questions followed fast. They knew the answers, so this was malice at work.
Of course, he knew even less than they did. “Oh, just do what you’re supposed to do!”
Hosay—or Jose, according to what Karola sent—advised us to secure the planes against curious animals. He, Haus, and the pilots inspected the undersides of the planes, communicating by gestures and simple words. Jose seemed relaxed. Haus sent that his advice seemed earnest, honest, and helpful.
The pack animals, beckoned forward by the natives, approached the new humans slowly, uttering reassuring cries to each other, ready to help us carry our gear. They seemed intensely curious.
We are greeted with preindustrial joy and welcomed with apparent trust hiding understandable suspicion. Yet they know their environment and immediately start to share its secrets.
I was not about to record anything about Pollux’s coup. It would be brief.
With that unceremonious start, we trekked up a dirt road toward what they called the city, and I still felt disappointed that the entire population hadn’t come running. I scanned the feeds of the rest of my team, and their eyes and equipment were taking in everything—the state of the soil, the clouds scattered in the blue sky, and all the wonders large and small that lay in between. They chatted among themselves, eagerly sharing observations.
Pollux marched a step ahead of me, stiff and grim. The animal Scratsher followed us at a discreet distance. It would be hard for Pollux to reconstruct his surroundings from that flurry of visions. Yet he sent, “What dangers do you see? Report.” He received a kaleidoscope of sights and thoughts that even I found impossible to interpret.
“Everyone stay together!” he sent. But our people were still in close formation.
Haus continued to speak with Jose, or rather, they gestured at each other cheerfully. The tattooed girl, Honey, talked nonstop with Karola, who walked a step behind me, two steps behind Pollux. Honey’s hand was bandaged. She seemed to have lost part of a finger—to what? I pointed it out to Pollux, scanning for whatever else fearful I could find. But I worried, too. So many things could take a finger: accident, illness, interpersonal malice …
The farmer Blas paused to snatch a small green animal like a cat or rabbit from the side of the road, and the zoologists rushed to examine it. Arthur remained talkative and tried to speak slowly, but it did little good for me, nothing for Pollux.
“Here we grow something, and there something, and those trees something something, but it’s winter, so we something something something. And today, we will something something, something. I hope you something. Here are more people something something welcome.”
A limited vocabulary reduces our discussion to childishness, which will no doubt make the growth toward mature, mutual understanding all the more satisfying.
“He’s describing their farming practices,” I said to Pollux. “But I don’t know why he wears that claw necklace.”
He did not respond, and as Arthur glanced from me to him, his eyes narrowed a bit. Pollux looked flushed and breathed fast and shallow, yet he barely responded to anything.
I nudged him. “Look, more natives!” Surely that would push him over the edge.
Two dozen people with quite a few insect-animals had been waiting for us alongside a dirt road between more fields. The animals brayed, and the people waved and cheered. I looked for weapons and saw only farming tools, but those could do harm, so I sent that thought to Pollux. I noticed more men than women, but no children. I sent that to Pollux: the situation might be too dangerous for children. And there were lots of those insects. I glanced back. Our group had begun to split up, perhaps out of spite for him. As we approached the second welcoming group, I smelled flowers, though I didn’t see any.
But I did see what looked like small pterodactyls in the sky that swooped low and hooted at us, and some of the natives hooted back. A giant many-legged spider ran from one bush to another. Far across the field, several crabs the size of a man paused, apparently looking at us, but no one seemed concerned. Green tatters hung from trees, and a couple of bluish balloons with spines—creatures?—floated on the wind. I pointed to them and Arthur told me their names, carefully pronounced for my benefit: bat, spider, deer crab, ribbon plant, cactus.
Unsettlingly familiar, even the names, but beguilingly strange and not always beautiful to us …
One of the zoologists knelt to investigate the spider, but a native quickly tugged him back—obviously dangerous.
… but to the natives, each creature carries the weight of lifetimes of direct experience.
I added the names to the feed, more noise to deafen as well as blind Pollux. He could not walk easily unless someone looked at what lay before us at our feet. So I looked up, out …
We arrived at a crest of the hill, and below us lay a riverbed with a walled city on the bluff on the other side, surrounded by tidy fields and orchards. Despite the season, green fronds rose gracefully above the city, and its roofs sparkled in the sunlight with the hues of a rainbow. The wall around the city was crowned by colorful glazed bricks and with a well-decorated gate. Civilization in full bloom! Unlike the case with J. P. Rashid, who saw it in decline and fall. Our videographer rushed to capture the scene.
This would be the place to begin my direct attack on Pollux.
“Karola,” Haus called, “come here. I need to ask about the wall. What’s so dangerous?”
The second group of natives introduced themselves to our members one by one, and it seemed each of us had at least one native as a guide. Karola had already taught the central control for our feeds some basic pronunciation and names to aid in communication.
“It’s a plan!” Pollux said. “Those guides, they’re part of their plan. Don’t do it!”
He was panicking. Finally.
“They want to welcome us,” I said innocently. “They saw us in the sky. They knew we were coming, so they prepared to greet us.”
He sent: “Everyone, stick together! That’s an order. How many times do I have to tell you?”
I glanced around and I felt sure I saw a few of our people deliberately take a few steps away from each other.
I took several steps away from Pollux to study those fine walls and buildings. I kept my feed of what I saw and heard open, recorded, as an alibi. I was merely doing my job. And the sight reminded me of the great Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon and the domed roof of Rome’s Pantheon. Humanity had carried its magnificence to the stars! I recorded that: I am reminded …
“Wild animals,” Haus said. He, Jose, Karola, and Honey had returned. He switched to Globish. “Big ones, small ones, all dangerous. Many kinds. Always wear shoes.” The two men laughed. They had bonded quickly. Haus’s archetype had met its kind: both he and Jose were men of action.
“The natives carry weapons, though,” I sent to Pollux.
“Something else,” Karola said, taking a step back. “There is some sort of funeral for what they’re calling a queen. A glass maker, they say, and I’m not sure what that is, I suppose an artisan. Th
ey seem extremely distraught. The entire city is taking part in the ceremony.”
I turned to Pollux. “Excellent. We’ll get to see an important aspect of their culture immediately. You should have Karola inform the others, especially the anthropologists, about the funeral. She should also inform everyone about the wild animals.”
“Uh … do that.” Had he become incapable?
Karola squinted and was lost in thought, sending.
Pollux shook his head desperately as if to clear it. “Are the feeds failing?”
“Mine works fine.” Perhaps his were being interrupted by strong emotion. Occasionally an overwhelmed brain could reject feeds. I might have been in luck.
He shook his head again and stumbled, trembling head to toe. “It’s back.” He still trembled. I was succeeding.
“Then let’s keep going.” I led him down the bluff to the river, which was flanked with long docks for a dozen different boats and rafts. Above the banks and the flood line were dense hedges. Our members became even more spread out, and the level of chatter seemed to increase, impossible to follow. We passed empty, closed workshops as we descended, and Arthur described the tasks undertaken in each. At the riverbank, he paused in front of a gloriously colorful flower garden surrounding a strange half-man half-animal stone statue, a work clearly worthy of a scholarly book by itself.
“Oh! It bit me!”
I turned back. A biologist next to a small palmlike shrub held his finger, too far away for me to see why, though I could guess. The physician and Scratsher rushed over, and the braying animal seemed as interested in examining the wound as our task force member was. A native approached and talked to them, and soon the physician announced, “It’s fine. Nothing serious.”
But Pollux stared at them, or at something. If he tried hard, could he recover? Leadership consisted largely of playacting, a false front. He didn’t need courage, just a posture, a simulation, and his natural aggression could supply that if he was smart enough. I kept my anxiety inhibitor set high.
Karola followed a couple of meters behind, deeply lost in thought. She even stumbled once from the mix of unfamiliar gravity and diligence in her duties.
Drums sounded faintly from the city. Arthur turned, suddenly more somber, and called over Karola to explain something.
“It’s the funeral,” she said, then asked him a question before continuing. “We should join it when it leaves the city. They’ll be taking the queen with her family to be buried. The queen is a kind of … the companion aliens they have with them.”
Pollux did not respond, his face stiff. When was he going to do something that I could capitalize on?
“Should we go?” I asked him.
He raised his arms as if to protect himself from something. “How far are we from the planes?”
“About a kilometer. Should I take you back?” He was slow to answer. “Or we can cross the river and join the procession,” I said. “It’s for a funeral for one of those insects. A queen insect.” He still didn’t answer. “Or I can take you back.” No response.
Finally, he said, “No, let’s go. But stay with me.”
I took several steps ahead. Arthur led us to the bridge. Even from the sky we had noticed the bridge seemed narrow. Up close, it amounted to some ropes and a few planks of wood. We would have to walk across it in single file.
“Why is the bridge so small?” I said.
“It’s for safety.” I listened to my feed, which was translating Arthur well now, thanks to Karola. “If a big, dangerous animal comes, we can destroy it fast.”
“Is it dangerous here?”
He thought a moment and shrugged. “Well, yes and no. There are dangers, but we have a lot of experience.”
I sent that to Pollux: dangers.
“We could die here,” Pollux answered, his voice catching as if from a sob. “We won’t get back to Earth.”
“We knew the risks,” I told him, imitating Arthur’s shrug.
I followed Arthur across the bridge, repeating Arthur’s instructions to leave space between each of us. As I stepped onto solid ground again, the first members of a procession left the city, marked now by flutes as well as drums. I moved to the side for a better look, rather than turn back and watch Pollux and share my feed with him to help him cross. There would be other feeds of people watching him, or he could loop my recording. I would not seem negligent.
Behind me, Pollux shouted, “It’s gone! It’s completely gone!”
I turned to look. He was halfway across the river, stumbling and grabbing a rope. He was about to fall into whatever danger lurked in the river. I hoped he would, and instantly forgave myself for the thought.
“Oh!” he said. “There it is!” He stood a little straighter, steadier, and raised his foot to step onto thin air, as if the bridge had made a sort of turn over the water. I held my breath, held my expectations, held a vision of our own funeral for him—all within a single second of time that passed with intense dilation.
But Scratsher dashed up behind him, crouched, leaned out, and guided his dangling foot to a plank and safe footing. It had moved with extraordinary speed and grace. And intelligence. Did it understand speech?
Pollux recovered his balance but not his composure. “I can’t see again! Help me!”
A native woman came forward, her hand outstretched.
“There’s an insect right in back of me,” he said, and shuffled forward as fast as he could. As he finally reached the end, he lurched and fell. Scratsher remained in the middle of the bridge. Karola stood on the far bank, sweat glistening on her forehead. Had she been helping him with her feed? I had thought she was loyal to me. But then I saw that her eyes were closed.
The physician ran toward the bridge and crossed it, slow and clumsy. Pollux thrashed and stood up.
“Pollux, come here,” I said. I could hold him until the physician arrived. A medical intervention would prove him unfit.
He ran toward me a few steps, then shouted, “It’s back.”
“Your feed?” I said. I put out a hand to steady him, but he stood outside of reach.
Meanwhile our mission members chattered in their feeds: “Glass makers are those animals, the insects, but don’t use that word.”
“There’s probably a story behind that name, glass maker.”
“A queen is a breeding female.”
“Like an ant colony?”
“That would be interesting.”
“If a queen dies, the colony dies, too, right?”
“It weakens until it’s killed by enemy ants, at least on Earth.”
“How smart are they?”
The physician arrived and put an arm around Pollux’s shoulder and talked to him quietly, privately, and urgently. Pollux shook him off. The physician kept talking.
The procession descended on the road from the city down the river bluff toward us. I tried to study it despite the distractions; this would make a moving passage for my book. The procession was led by five humans and five large glass makers, all carrying spears—an honor guard? They were followed by eight or ten humans and a half dozen very large glass makers, longer than the humans were tall—queens? I sent the question to the biologists, interrupting their babble.
“It’s a big funeral,” an anthropologist sent, “so it might have consequences.”
“Why have such a big deal for an animal?”
“Is that why they didn’t all come to see us?”
“There’s something we’re not getting, something we don’t understand.”
“Are they animals? They seem pretty smart.”
“Record everything. We can figure this out later.”
They kept chattering. Karola and Honey crossed the bridge and came toward us, squinting, listening.
Pollux grabbed my arm. “The feed! Where is the feed?”
“I have mine. It’s just fine. Karola, do you have your feed?”
“Mine’s normal.” Hair clung to her wet forehead, testament to her la
bors.
Honey asked her a question, and she began to explain, pointing at her head and our heads and gesturing.
Pollux stood with his head in his hands. The physician and I exchanged looks. I should order an intervention, but not too soon. I needed a full-blown crisis to justify myself.
I turned back to the procession, which had neared. Behind the queens, if that’s what they were, more humans carried a large basket on their shoulders—a casket? About a dozen glass makers of all sizes followed that, then drummers and flutists, and finally what had to be the entire population of the city, including children. Everyone walked in solemn silence. Many carried flowers, and a strong, sweet, aniselike scent preceded them.
Humanity’s love for ceremony has also come to the stars, strangely expressed and yet again familiar.…
Everyone wore tattered clothing, some veritable rags, and threadbare blankets were draped over the animals. But clothing styles varied, from simple skirts and loose trousers to Greek-style chitons. The near savages Rashid encountered on his trip had remained well dressed by looting stores and homes, but these people were hardly savage. Poverty does not preclude humanity.…
They were all looking at us. Arthur stood at attention, so I followed his lead, suddenly aware that a pivotal moment approached. Pollux backed away, moving his feet carefully, apparently still feedless. Perhaps there was something wrong with his chip. What would he do?
As the procession passed, two women following the honor guard stepped out to speak to me—not to Pollux. Karola joined us.
“Welcome,” one said. She wore perhaps the worst clothing of all, a tattered skirt, a leather vest that seemed half-decomposed, and battered wooden jewelry. A blanket full of holes was wrapped around her shoulders. “I am Ladybird, and I am the moderator.” Then she said more too fast for me or the feed to catch.
“I’m connected again,” Pollux sent. “Everyone stay together. And let me talk to her.” He began to approach, but slowly.…
“‘I’m sorry that we cannot greet you formally now,’” Karola interpreted her words. “‘But I invite you to join with us. We can speak later. We’re very pleased to have you here.’”