by J. L. Hilton
“You know they don’t have junk?” He saw the look on her face. “Yeah, I read the doc’s med files.”
“They do too, but it’s internal most of the time.”
“And you know this from personal experience or you taking the frog’s word for it?”
She ignored the question. It was stupid. “I’ve got the chance to interview someone from another world. Do you realize how important this is? My blog is in the Top 200.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I get it. Blog, money, memes, fifteen seconds of fame.”
“It’s more than that.” A knot formed in her throat. “They need our help. The Glin are dying. Duin’s world is dying. The Tikati are destroying everything. And I’ve got a chance to make a difference.”
“And you think anybody gives a crap?”
“I give a crap.”
“You’re the only one.” He took another drink.
“Maybe I can convince other people to care. I have to try. Duin needs me.”
Seth put down his glass and squinted at her, as if he were seeing something for the first time. “You’re wet for the frog.”
“I’m—? I am not.” But warmth flushed her cheeks. His words made several suggestive images cross her mind, and they all involved someone with webbed hands.
“Aha,” he said, pointing at her. “I knew it.”
“Shut up.”
“You keep spending time with that thing, Genny, I can’t protect you.”
“Protect me from what? Duin wouldn’t hurt me.”
“People, Genny. Protect you from people. Space aliens are fine as science fiction. But they’re scary as shit in real life. It would be like waking up to find a centaur taking a steaming dump in your living room. People don’t like him—Mr. Doo-Win—and they won’t like you being around him.”
“How much have you had to drink tonight?”
“You’re looking at it,” he said, lifting his half-empty glass. “I’m not drunk.”
“I guess you don’t have to be drunk to be an asshole.”
“An asshole?” He stared at her. For a moment, she thought he might start crying. He blinked and shook his head. “I told you not to come to Asteria. But you ignored me and came anyway. I thought maybe you came here for me, not just for your blog, that you came here because you missed me. But that was bullshit. You don’t miss me, that’s pretty fucking obvious.”
“I called you, Seth. I texted and emailed. You ignored me.”
“I’ve been working!” His raised voice turned heads. “Meanwhile you’re busy holding hands and having drinks with the creature from the black lagoon.”
“Seth, damn it, stop talking about him like he’s some kind of monster.”
He stood up and emptied his glass. “Good luck helping him get his water back, or find his junk, or make money, or wh’ever the hell it is you’re trying to do. I’m done.” He kicked the chair he’d been sitting in, and more heads turned. She wondered how many of them would be l’upping the pub archives as Seth stormed out.
Tears stinging her eyes, she ran her fingers over her bracer and typed, I’m NOT seeing Seth any more, then hit enter.
Comments began appearing from her local followers on the Asternet. Followers elsewhere in the Stellarnet would show up after the lag.
WTF?
ur 2 gud 4 teh basturd NEwayz
wut hapend??!?
See <
I <3 U, Genny
Where’s Duin?
Tapping her bracer, she closed all of the apps and went to find that bottle of whiskey that Aileen was saving for her.
Chapter Five
As ferocious as Duin was about freedom and independence, he was also a creature of habit. Cycles were important to his people. Patterns meant being able to make predictions. Their survival depended on understanding rain seasons, the migration of water creatures, tides and the growth cycles of wild plants.
Even new patterns were important to him. He’d grown accustomed to seeing J’ni every morning and was distressed when she wasn’t there to meet him. Duin regretted, yet again, the lack of one of those useful bracers.
In the thoroughfare below J’ni’s block, he asked a passing colonist to contact her on his behalf. The woman told him to go to hell, but refused to tell him how to get there. So, he was studying a map on one of the walls of a public thoroughfare when Sadiq found him.
“’Sup, Duin?” The child took his hand. Not much older than a nursling, Sadiq lived with several other children on Level One near the compost and recycling blocks, subsisting on the refuse of the colony. Mose was trying to track down their extended families through Earth’s genetic database, but no one would return her emails.
Duin didn’t understand what sort of people cared so little for their young that no one helped the children before Mose came. On Glin, a child without a family was your child. Regardless of whether that child’s family was gone foraging or had gone beyond the Last Wave.
“J’ni didn’t let me in.” He picked Sadiq up.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It is a mystery. Puzzle. Enigma. I am worried about her.”
The child patted him. “We’ll ask Mama Mose.”
Child. Boy, Duin reminded himself. Male. Duin still had a little difficulty with the terms “boy” and “girl.” On Glin, all children were hala. They did not differentiate until adulthood, when one half of the species discovered that a certain internal organ could, when necessary, become external. Human males, he’d discovered on the net, were born with external genitalia which remained so all their lives. That would be a serious problem while hunting, or swimming through sliss. Duin shuddered at the thought.
He carried Sadiq up to J’ni’s block. There, the child ran its fingers over the thoroughfare wall outside Mose’s classroom. Within a few moments, Mose appeared and let them into the hallway.
“We’ll l’up her locator,” she said as Duin banged on J’ni’s door. She demonstrated how to look up someone’s location through the wall of the hallway, without need of a tabletop or bracer.
Mose, like J’ni, was always kind to him. Mose had the self-assurance not to feel threatened by things that were different or unusual. And, at the moment, she cared for fourteen children, so Duin had great respect for Mose.
“I wanted to thank you again, Duin, for the extra water you brought us. We needed it. Some of these children, I don’t think they’ve bathed their entire lives. And more keep turning up. It puts a strain on our water recycling system.”
“I am delighted to help.” Duin missed his own descendants. He’d been half finished with a new suit for Jel—the child of his oldest son Wrill and Wrill’s second wife Epit—when the Tikati attacked Willup W’Kuay. Duin had completed that suit a thousand times in his mind, though Jel would be much too big for it now.
“And all the money we receive because of you,” said Mose. “I thought I might use it to buy out Taya and Wyatt’s contract. There are more children than I expected. They are going to need the garden share and the living space.”
“Certainly.” He typed GENEVIEVE O’RIORDAN. The map on the wall indicated that she was still at the pub.
“I’ve been trying to get the children to stay with me all the time, but it’s going to take awhile for them to be comfortable here.”
“Understandable. Mose, did J’ni remain at Aileen’s all night?”
“I don’t know. Check her history.” Mose showed him how to l’up an individual’s movements within a given time range. It appeared that J’ni had not gone anywhere else.
Duin thanked Mose and returned to the pub. J’ni was right where he left her.
“I was worried when I didn’t see you this morning.” He sat beside her in the seat that had been Seth’s. “Did you not need sleep?”
Without answering his question, she pushed a bottle toward him. “You know what this is?”
“Glass recyclable.”
“It’s the ‘Water of Life.’”
“So t
here is more than one type of water on Earth.”
“Sure. We’ve got freshwater, saltwater and firewater.”
“Firewater?”
“Alcohol.”
“Al-co-hol.” He repeated the word slowly. “It sounds like something being poured out.”
“It sure is.” She poured some in a very small glass for him. Lifting her own very small glass, she clinked his and said, “Slan cha.”
He watched her drink the firewater, this J’ni who bore the name of the sacred flower of Glin. A flower which was dying all over the planet because of the destruction wrought by Tikat. He’d not told her about the flower, though. Duin still struggled to put the great significance of it into human terms. One day, perhaps, he would find the words. And then he would tell her how very special it was that she shared its name.
She grimaced and coughed, and her eyes watered.
“I can see why it’s called firewater. It looks painful.”
“It’s fantastic,” she gasped in a strained voice.
Duin lifted his glass and examined it. “I have no idea what effect it might have on me.”
“You’ll get sloshed.”
“Sloshed? That’s an aqueous word. What does it mean?” He pulled out his translator.
“Drunk. Hammered. Stocious. Do Glin use intoxicants?”
“Yes. For recreational and spiritual reasons.”
“There. You. Go.” She poked him in the arm to emphasize each word.
“So, is this a holy beverage?”
“Yes. It sure is.”
“Thus, the name. Water of Life. Profound.”
She poured another for herself and drank it. “C’mon, Duin, keep up.”
He sipped, swishing the whiskey around his mouth, swallowing, then waiting for some reaction. Glin had developed a number of acids and enzymes in order to digest their food wild and raw. He also had, according to Dr. Geber, an “amazing microbiome”—whatever that meant. As far as Duin knew, though some tasted better to him than others, there was no human ingestible that would harm him.
“Well?” She poured herself another.
“Well, I’m not dead yet.”
“Good. Here’s to not being dead yet.” She clinked his glass and drank again.
“Is it supposed to taste like kreel piss?”
“I dunno,” she said, slouching over the table. “What’s kreel?” She stared across the room.
Following her gaze, he saw Aileen and others cleaning up or bringing in bottles from the storeroom. He swirled his hand in front of J’ni’s face and she didn’t seem to notice. “I think your sacred potable is having an effect on you,” he said, which gave her a fit of giggles.
He took another sip of the piss water. While he preferred tea, it might be interesting to share this spiritual experience with her. Unfortunately, he felt nothing at all. She, however, seemed to feel everything. She threatened to break the empty glass recyclable over someone’s head, laughed at nothing at all, argued with people who weren’t there, then cried while singing a song about a place called Carrickfergus.
“She needs to sleep it off,” Aileen said, and he wondered how the woman knew J’ni’s trance was ending. Perhaps Aileen was a Truth-Teller. “And you make sure she gets home all in one piece. The state she’s in, she’ll fall and break her neck, or get lost, or worse.”
“Of course.” With the utmost reverence for J’ni’s transcendent state, he guided her out of the pub.
Walking to her compartment, J’ni sang “The Rising of the Moon” with incredible force, her voice echoing up and down the thoroughfare though she couldn’t remember the words. “Come tell me Sean O’Farrell where the o’gatherin’ is to o’be? In the old spot by…something something…whistle out the marching tune, with your, um…what’s the next verse?”
He’d only heard the song the night before, but it had moved him so that he’d looked it up on the Asternet when he returned to his compartment. He’d already begun translating it into Glinnish for his people.
His singing, like his speaking voice, was rich and resonant. “All along that singing river that black mass of men was seen, high above their shining weapons flew their own beloved green. Death to every foe and traitor, whistle out the marching tune. And hurrah my boys for freedom; ’tis the rising of the moon.”
Grabbing him by the arm, she whirled him in circles, singing the chorus and laughing until he couldn’t help laughing with her. When she stumbled, he caught her.
“I feel dizzy.”
Duin could hear the strong, rhythmic thumping of her heartbeat, like heavy rain dripping down the wide, waxy leaves of the pitat. Glin could hear sounds not only through their ear slits, but all of their bones were sensitive to vibration. He heard her heartbeat in his hands upon her back, in his skull where her forehead touched his cheek.
Her hair brushed his skin, an alluring sensation. It had been a long time since he’d held anyone, and at that moment he felt the lack severely. As if in response to his unspoken urge, she eased closer. He felt her against his thighs, his abdomen, his chest. How receptive might she be to the idea of mating with him? The thought sent a wave of longing through his body.
But she pulled away. “I can’t…” she shook her head, and struggled to find the words. “You aren’t…you don’t… I shouldn’t…”
“You shouldn’t what, J’ni?”
“Your world is fucked up. I’m distrapping—discracking–—” She stumbled into the wall of the thoroughfare and slid to the ground, sitting on the floor with her head in her hands. “I distract you.”
“You are not a distraction.” He knelt beside her. “All things must be in balance. My anger fuels my uncompromising opposition to oppression. But joy prevents my soul from being utterly consumed by fury.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “You always sound so epic.”
“Thank you.” Duin scooped her up as if she weighed no more than Sadiq and carried her down the hall. She rested her head on his shoulder.
“You’re very strong.” She sighed.
“I hope my strength flows from both my physical capacity and my indomitable will.”
“And you have lots of buttons.” Her hands fiddled with the row of small closures sewn down the side of his neck, along his shoulder, and across the front of his suit. The thought of her undoing those buttons made it impossible for Duin to get mating out of his mind. He was aware of her bare legs hanging over his arm, and the curves of her body, with each step he took. She smelled succulent, damp and salty, like the Great Ocean.
When they reached the top of the stairwell outside her private hallway, he set her on her feet. “Do you have your key?”
Her arms still hung around his neck and she pulled him close. “You’ll have to help me find it.”
Was that a tantalizing suggestion or a statement of fact? Duin took his time deciding, then answered with an equally ambiguous, yet suggestive, statement. “It might have to be a very long, very thorough search.”
“That sounds good.” He felt a little shiver ripple through her.
“Truly, J’ni?”
“In vino veritas.”
“What does that mean?”
“In wine there’s truth.”
“You drank whiskey.”
“Wh’ever.”
“And what is your truth tonight?” he asked. “What did the Water of Life reveal to you?”
As he always did, he marveled at the colors he saw in her eyes—blues, grays and greens. He felt as if he was swimming in them. Which reminded him of home, before the Tikati came.
“I think I’m in love,” she said.
Of course. The very fortunate Seth, who Duin gave the “heebs.” Seth probably shared the Water of Life with her after Duin’s departure. If she had a spiritual connection with the human male, she would have little interest in mating with anyone else. Duin’s disappointment was physically painful.
“You will need to locate your key, J’ni.” He stepped away from her.
It took her several minutes, in spite of the limited number of locations where it might have been, but he resisted the urge to assist. When she found the data key, he used it to open her hallway door then helped her to her compartment and into bed. A vid of Earth’s starry night sky covered her ceiling, and by this dim light he found a blanket and covered her.
Then he sat in his usual chair and watched her sleep. He paced and he thought. After awhile, he put her key on the table and left.
Several hours later, she called his compartment. She called five more times before he finally answered. Her persistence was admirable.
He switched on his netcam. “Did you sleep well?”
“I think so. Are you the one who brought me back?”
“I am.”
“Good.” She sounded relieved.
“You don’t recall?”
“I remember you being in the pub, but I got a little confused about you being there last night or this morning. Were you there this morning?”
“I was.”
“Duin, did I do something stupid?”
“I don’t think so.”
“See, that’s why I don’t usually drink. I always end up doing something asinine. Foolish. Silly. Absurd.” She moaned and rubbed her head.
“Why don’t you check the archives of the colony netcams and put your mind at ease. We came through the square around 0900 and I brought you straight down the 80s.” He referred to the thoroughfare that ran along all blocks numbered 81-90 in sectors L and K.
“I’m afraid to look,” she said.
“We should be easy to find. You were singing loudly.”
“Shit.” She looked at something on her wall. “Here it is.” She sent him links which opened new windows on his own wall. In one, he saw her singing. In another, himself carrying her up the stairwell.
“Did I throw up on you?”
“Throw what?”
“Regurgitate. Barf. Get sick.”
“Oh. No.”
“Did I get naked?”
“No.” His mind swam to the memory of her dress sliding up her thighs as he carried her.
“I mean, not in the stairwell, I can see that, but in my room maybe? Taken my clothes off and run through the garden?”