by Sue Burke
“Yes, thank you,” I said. “Your welcome has already been more than we had hoped.” If I spoke briefly, Pollux would arrive too late. Yet I felt aghast at the poverty, and felt my prejudices rise against a female leader—I knew better, but I was a child of my time and place, alas. No one needed to know that but me, however. I would respect her fully.
She and the other woman hastened to their places. Karola hurried back to Honey, who waited closer to the river.
Pollux shrieked, “Everyone back to the planes. Now! We’re not safe. This is our funeral. That’s the plan. They can interfere with our feeds! Back to the planes, to the ship!” He knelt to grab a rock as a weapon. “Everyone come with me!”
My moment had come.
“It’s under control,” I sent to the mission members. “Stay with your guides and join the funeral.” Haus and Jose were running toward us. Karola edged closer. Scratsher ran up to Arthur, who told it something, and it whistled and buzzed, and others of its kind answered.
Pollux held the rock above his head. “Who’s here!” He turned around and around.
Behind him, two large glass makers, apparently called by Scratsher, crept closer. Jose and Haus murmured to each other, then Jose moved his hands in a complicated series of gestures.
“They say they’ll take care of this,” Haus sent. “Disarm him, I mean.”
All at once, the glass makers and natives jumped in synchronization. The men grabbed Pollux’s arms as the glass makers leapt high and snatched away the rock. Haus stepped forward, talking to him, and gently pushed him to sit down, although Pollux struggled against his grip. The physician arrived, fumbled in a bag, then held out a pill and a bottle of water. “Take this. It will relax you.”
“Are we going back to the planes?”
“We’ll take care of things.” The physician knelt down and kept talking and put an arm around his shoulders, although Pollux struggled against him. With sleight of hand, the physician put a patch on the back of his neck, unnoticed.
The mission members chattered.
“Pollux snapped.”
“Did he hurt anyone?”
“He joined the mission too late. He didn’t even want to. That’s what he told me.”
“Can we block his feed? I don’t want to hear from him.”
“I guess Om is back in charge.”
“He always was, this was just theater to get rid of Pollux. Om knew what he was doing.”
I had triumphed and won respect!
Honey had run off and came back with a gray-haired native man, a medic, she announced, with a glass maker. “‘We have a clinic, and we can help,’” Karola began to translate between the medic and the physician. They could give him a bed and care. Sweat beaded on her face and she looked exhausted, but she kept working hard. Our day’s success would be owed to her, although I was the one who had brought about the coup.
Pollux began to slump into unconsciousness, and the physician gestured at Haus.
“Let’s carry him to the clinic,” I said. “It sounds like a good place.”
The medic’s glass maker had brought a stretcher. I sent Karola to the funeral, and Haus and I carried Pollux. His weight felt massive, but my suit became a sort of exoskeleton to help somewhat. I tried to look concerned, even sad, not jubilant. I had retaken leadership! Scratsher followed for some reason.
Haus, at the front of the stretcher, looked back toward me. “They moved too well together. And those glass makers, too fast. These people know how to fight. If they want, they could wipe us out.”
“Even with your weapons?”
“There’s one of me. A few of us—five, I think—have some military or security training, and they could help. But five against hundreds? No. We’re at their mercy. We’d better be able to trust them.”
But J. P. Rashid had been welcomed in most places. Humanity longed for company.
We entered the magnificent glazed-brick gate, and I saw the city for the first time. Tall plants somewhat like bamboo had rainbow stripes on their stems, and a large stand lined both sides of the entry and arched over it, still green in winter, like a ceremonial passageway. A road led on between domed houses with circles of colored glass bricks arranged in rainbows on their roofs. The gardens alongside them, despite the season’s bleakness, showed indisputable signs of beauty.
It is like Eden in winter.…
These people did far more than merely subsist. They had prospered. And yet they wore rags.
Someday I would say so much more about that in my book, but about Pollux? Not a word. I also felt enormously calm and considered turning off the anxiety feed. I had been brave. I might be more of a man of action than I had ever thought.
Yet I would have preferred a less destructive course. I had been taught malice on Earth shamefully well.
The feeds showed what was going on in the funeral. The flowers exuded an overwhelming smell, oddly of anise. Several people complained of feeling tired, achy, and dizzy from the gravity and the fragrance.
The cost of discovery.…
The procession moved on alongside the river, then up into a forest. Soon, the road opened into a wide sloping field, and at the low end, a circular pit yawned far too big for one body. As the music continued and people and glass makers filled the field, the pallbearers descended into the pit and deposited the basket-coffin in the center.
Arthur, Karola, and Honey found a space toward the front on the far side from the path where we had entered. The crowd was subdued, almost silent. Our videographer stood in the front off to the side, respectfully.
Back in the city, we arrived at the clinic, a large rectangular building with an entrance that seemed very much like an emergency room in our own Earth hospitals, and on both sides were wards with wide windows, the most Earthlike architecture I had seen so far. We transferred Pollux to a narrow bed in front of a window, and the medic and his glass maker and our physician began to remove his shoes and overclothes with practiced efficiency. The bed boasted finely manufactured linens and blankets. The medical team could handle Pollux. We had to get to the funeral.
“Scratsher will take you,” the medic said.
Scratsher moved toward the entrance to the building and waved for Haus and me to follow. We exited through a rear gate in the walls and walked down a path almost Earthlike except for such surprises as blue bushes with leaves that looked like butterfly wings and animals that looked like a bundle of sticks and chattered like birds as they ran past. Haus watched everything, silent and alert.
We were being led by an alien—a small, sentient, intelligent, arthropod-like alien. I had thoroughly misjudged the glass makers. How many more surprises did they hold? Were they equal to humans?
Our feeds showed Ladybird climbing onto a mound of fresh earth excavated from the pit, decorated with flowers and foliage. The music stopped and she began to speak.
“Numbers are something, and we are something now, something something.” I understood “queen” now and then, and a few other random words. The feed provided a bit more translation. She was speaking about population.
Then one of the glass maker queens came to the stage, and she spoke. The anthropologists had by then agreed that they had their own language, impossible for humans to speak, although apparently glass makers understood Classic English and humans understood glass maker language. The smell of anise, anthropologists said, was the glass maker scent-word for sorrow.
Our mission’s members were elated by the quantity of surprises they had already learned. They would have work for months. Discoveries await.…
A very old woman with face paint spoke with great emotion. A shaman, perhaps? We had seen no one else with face paint. And a few people in the crowd began to weep. Another queen spoke, then a man with a shaved head. Some men and women had shaved heads, and yet some other natives looked as if they had never cut their hair or beards in their lifetimes. One man, but only one, wore clothing with long fringe. Several more people came onstage, and a child wi
th a wide red belt declared something.
Karola sent to everyone: “She said she will remember the queen, who is named Rust.”
About a dozen—no, eleven (an anthropologist counted) glass makers came forward, some large and some small. Every speaker greeted each one with tender hugs and words. Perhaps they were the deceased queen’s immediate family.
By then I had reached the edge of the gathering, but the feed showed better what was happening.
Arthur took a step forward and announced something. One of the grieving glass makers responded. Arthur walked toward it. The insect—arthropod—held a red fur in its hand and seemed about to throw it into the pit. Arthur approached and took the fur. The two seemed to argue over it. Karola asked Honey what was happening. She responded with a look of surprise and uncertainty.
Two more natives came to speak to specific glass makers, though with affection rather than debate, and led them away. Arthur and his glass maker seemed to have reached an agreement, and they walked back to the crowd with his arm over its shoulders, and it clutched the fur.
A native came forward carrying a large basket and paused in front of each of the remaining eight family members. Each took what seemed to be a piece of fruit and ate it. I heard the wind beginning to blow, though I felt nothing and the trees around us did not stir.
The wind became louder, then resolved itself into a whispered chant. Everyone was whispering it, natives and glass makers, in the language of the aliens, with buzzes and whistles.
The song grew louder, and different parts of the crowd sang different harmonies with marvelous beauty. The odd voices of the glass makers only made it richer. The eight members of the dead queen’s family filed into the pit. With a bit of a jostle, everyone else moved back, and in the pit, the members arranged themselves around the casket. The native with the basket of fruit followed and gave them more to eat. A final shared meal?
Children and dozens of those little green cat-rabbits moved into the area now open in front of the crowd. The song dropped to a whisper and the children lay down with the cat-rabbits in the same pose as the glass makers in the pit, though only briefly, yet the gesture could not be misinterpreted, and they rose up. Beauty and symbolism.…
Then a new song started with drums and flutes, slow and solemn, and the children and the cat-rabbits began to dance together in astounding synchronization. The children paired up, holding hands and stepping from side to side, back and forth. The animals hopped the same way in facing pairs like the children.
The little green animals could dance. The large insects—glass makers—could sing.
At the end of a verse in the song, the children switched partners. A few began to dance with some glass makers plucked from the observers alongside the field. Honey turned to Karola and showed her the dance steps. Soon Karola was singing along, at least to the chorus. Arthur and his animal were dancing together as they sang. The air was choking with that sad sweet anise smell.
I felt a hand on my arm and it was Ladybird. She had found me. She took my hands and began to dance, wordlessly inviting me to do the same.
Acceptance comes quickly, for after all these years alone, they are lonely for their species. We are not visitors here, but brothers.…
The steps were simple, and she led me into the crowd of dancers. When the verse changed, she turned me over to an old man in striped clothing. After him, I danced with a young woman with a shaved head who was weeping. After her, a boy. I gazed into his serious eyes. He knew what was happening and I didn’t, but the singing, the movement, the smell, and the music were hypnotic with solemn grief. I glanced around, and most mission members seemed to have joined in. A few others were recording the event.
On Earth, our rituals leave us as passive spectators, and here in their odd poverty, sorrow becomes movement.…
The boy was singing, though I understood few words. My next partner was one of those glass makers, a small one that wore a necklace of beads. Its fingers had a ridge of tough keratin all along the back, ending in a claw, and it danced gracefully. By then I had learned how to change partners, and I did so many times. For a while four cat-rabbits danced with me, leaping high. I was tiring but did not dare stop.
Then a message came on the feed from the videographer: “They’re dying. The ones in the pit, they’re dying. Look!” The glass makers in the pit seemed to be sleeping, and a team of humans and other glass makers were draping worn old blankets over them, covering them completely, even their heads. The humans seemed to be sobbing. I had thought the glass makers there would rise again, like the child dancers.
“This is ritual murder.”
“We don’t know that,” an anthropologist answered.
“When a queen dies,” a zoologist sent, “the family dies, too. But not right away, not like this. On Earth, anyway.”
“Is it murder if there’s no malice?”
“Maybe they were sick.”
“What about the ones that the natives took?”
“Can you get a better angle to see what’s happening?”
“Look at how everyone is crying. And all the flowers.”
“The glass makers are aliens. They could be very different from us.”
“Even if it is, it’s too late to do anything about it.”
“They went in there willingly.”
“We can’t know that.”
“Are we safe here?”
“Yes, are we safe?”
I had stopped dancing, as had some other members of our mission. We were disrupting the ceremony.
“Yes,” I sent. “We’ve been welcomed. We haven’t been threatened, in fact we’re invited to participate. Everyone, continue with what you are doing.”
“Participating in murder. We can’t do that. I—”
“We’re here to observe,” I sent. I resumed dancing, hoping I was right. The natives had a beautiful city with a fine clinic. They were civilized. Yet on the Mississippi, J. P. Rashid’s crew was trapped fully three times, with personnel losses each time. The river always lay close by for escape, more accessible than our heli-planes.
The music changed back to the first song, and everyone stopped where they were. A line spontaneously formed to go past the pit. The little green cat-rabbits were kicking dirt into the pit from the piles around it. One by one, people came to the edge to add their own handful. I came forward to look inside, adding my handful of soil so as not to cause a scene. The insects lay half-buried and motionless. Yes, they had died, or been killed, in an elaborate, sad ritual. I didn’t understand, and everyone on the mission kept discussing it. Was this something done just to show us?
Arthur and the glass maker he took came up to me. Both carried spears. “This is my son now,” he said, patting the alien.
“I am happy for you,” I said, but I didn’t really know what to say. He had rescued it from death, but at the cost of an argument. About what?
Karola sent, “Ladybird is coming to talk to you. We’re with her.”
We are welcomed immediately, and if our first few hours led to more questions than answers, they also led to a deep feeling of security, as if we were coming home, too.
If that wasn’t true, it was what ought to be true and ought to be told—not that the natives had just killed eight sentient beings, and Haus said they could easily kill us all. Or that their environment was so treacherous that they had walled their city and persisted in maintaining a fragile bridge as a defensive measure. The natives had a plan for us, a welcome that had yet to be fully defined.
I still was breathing hard, although I had stopped dancing for long enough to have recovered.
If we made another mistake … if we broke another taboo … if I was wrong … if the environmental dangers overcame native preparation … I sought an anxiety inhibitor. If the feed broke for me, how could I remain calm?
The story I had been recording told lies—beautiful, wishful lies. Pollux, in his madness, had stumbled upon a truth. We were in danger.
&n
bsp; We might not return to Earth.
Up until that moment, I had not believed it.
4
QUEEN THUNDERCLAP—20 DAYS LATER
Ladybird knocked on my door early, trouble on her fleshy face—trouble, that was all we had these days. Could I meet with her and Stevland in his little greenhouse? She held her face tense, her mouth tight. Of course, the meeting would be secret. Everything involving Stevland was secret, but I would learn about another undeclared battle between Humans and Earthlings, and they would want me to get involved again.
“I must feed my baby, then I will come,” and I caught myself scenting this is wrongness and stopped. Then I almost said no. No. No more lies and secrets. I could have said that. Like Mother Rust, I could have done anything I wanted, anything madness provoked, but that had brought her death. I had always been a good mother: I was responsible, I listened, I weighed alternatives. I was sane. And that must not change no matter what else did.
She nodded. “We need to act. Come soon. Thank you.” She hurried off in the drizzle, so much to do, none of it agreeable.
And I was tired, worn by pointless conflict. They could ask, and I would listen, and maybe I would say no. Finally. Unless it was about health.
I turned back to my baby, Rattle. An irresponsible thought: I would not feed her! I would throw her out of my house already! But everyone, most of all my other children, would know I had done so. And that would be madness. I had to stay rational. Reasonable. Even happy. I used to be happy.
Within a half hour I had Rattle bundled into a basket on the back of my worker Chirp, and we left. Humans feared the Earthlings. Did they know one of the Earthlings wanted me to hate the Humans?
The rain had stopped, leaving the city’s gardens filled with cold spring mud and the welcome scent of germinating seeds. Rattle reached out and grabbed a low, wet branch of Stevland and shook it, deliberately splashing Chirp. How had I borne such a vile baby? What kind of a mother would she grow up to be? She laughed, and he whined with a bit of playacting.