“Morning. You ever known me when I wasn’t hungry?”
“How’d you sleep?”
“Like I’d never sinned in my life.”
“Me too. I was up late reading all those brochures, though.” Alongside the kiosk in the motel lobby that offered the usual tourist information, there was another labeled “Opportunities Abound in Nevada!” She’d taken one of each of the two dozen or so.
Theo turned off the TV and opened the curtains. Outside the kids were already splashing in the motel’s pool. Surgeon sat on the side and dangled his legs, teasing the others.
“It’s great to see them so happy, isn’t it?” Jennifer said.
“Yeah.”
They sat down to dig in. “I was talking to Moira, Theo, and she thinks Gino would be willing to put up collateral for a loan for a farm for me.”
“Really? That’s great.”
“They’re irrigating the canyon up and down from Las Vegas now, and offering low-interest loans to anyone who can farm it. I think I could do it, Theo. There’s a little town twenty miles out, they’ve got a pretty good school system . . .”
The kids had all wanted to stay with Jennifer, work on her farm. She’d informed them that they would not be farmers, they’d be students. Theo had stayed out of the conversation.
“She says the National University of Nevada Las Vegas is building a terrific rep for its new medical school. They’re always looking for promising students. The country is in desperate need of doctors. I know Surgeon could do it.”
“No question.”
She studied his face for a moment. “Theo, what are you going to do?”
His eyes followed Joseph chasing Sissy around the pool. “I don’t know. Go to Vegas, go to work for a hotel or restaurant or something I guess.”
“Is that what you really want to do?”
“I don’t know what I want to do.” He stirred unhappily. “That’s a lie. I do know. I just don’t want to say it.”
“Why?”
He looked at her sadly. “Oh, I don’t want to say that either.”
“Haven’t we been through enough together to talk honestly? I’d trust you with my life, Theo.”
He tapped his fork in an awkward rhythm. “Well, you think you could use a farm hand on your place?”
Her face brightened. “You’d come and work on my farm?”
“Sure. You’re a pretty good boss.”
She got serious. “You don’t have to do farm labor. They need teachers, too, and their rules are different. You have to pass a test—you could teach English, with your knowledge of books.”
“You think so?” His expression changed. She saw hope germinate. “Teaching . . . I’d like that, I think. And—maybe it’d leave me some time to try writing.” He glanced outside at the kids in the pool. “Somebody should tell their story.” His eyes were fierce. “Somebody should tell it all, what the New U.S.A.is doing. Think I could do it?”
“I know you could. You can’t waste yourself digging dirt. Besides, Theo . . . I don’t want to hire you.”
“Oh.”
“I want to marry you.”
He boggled at her. “I thought you didn’t want to get married.”
She appealed to the ceiling for help. “God, why did you give them such great eyelashes and such weak eyes! I didn’t want anybody else telling me who to marry! Men are like pumpkins,” she added, smiling sidelong. “I want to pick my own.” She doodled with her finger on the table. “So, what do you say?
The Wedding Present
“. . . sank to the bottom of that awful green sea, my dears, the very bottom. All I saved were five nalshas, fortunately the best one among them,” the speaker concluded, retracting its siphon from the communal tea bowl with a sigh to gesture at the survivor. It was a little, fat, clear glass bowl with an iridescent green film limning its inner surface. The molecules of the film were patterned to resonate with its maker’s spirit.
This Waiting Party for the tale-teller Pasha Sands, as it was known on Earth, enjoyed the most sanctified and spectacular hilltop on their home planet. High above them the leaves of the orange-fly trees pattered together with a music like chimes. The bald knob of hill crowned by the Attendance Pavilion looked over a vast valley of purple, red and orange vegetation, woven through with flights of arrow-birds, alive with the calls of myriad plants and animals.
A path wound from the open-air, marble pavilion, down the hill and around a curve. Past their view, the path ended in a clump of blue fur trees. There nestled Geilsharah’s Temple where traditionally Geilsharah would receive the emppakka offering and pass judgment upon it.
Each of Pasha’s three friends sensed the pleasure it felt at their loyalty, its distress at having no offering, and deeper still in its vibrations, a puzzling excitement and joy.
The guest to the left swirled a tendril around in the bowl and waved a cynical eye-stalk at the tale-teller. “But you lost the emppakka offering.”
Pasha Sands beamed at them, avoiding the somber interruption. “It took no time to adjust my buoyancy to the water,” it continued smugly, patting its bulbous middle with affection.
“Yes, yes, we all know you keep yourself in shape—”
“And surprisingly little time for the waves to wash me and my nalshas ashore. And you’ll never guess! The sea was lined with silicon!”
“No.” Bald astonishment.
“Silicon?” Suspicious. “What form?”
“Granules. Acres and acres. A wide, lush, undulating ribbon, and deep to the core of the planet. Well,” Pasha Sands amended, “Many spans deep, anyway. I could have lived out my entire life right there and never known a moment of hunger.”
“Well,” the skeptical one cut in. “But what of quality? Not very good, I’ll bet.”
“Almost as good as the dunes of Alkassimbri,” Pasha Sands averred. When no one challenged this astounding statement, it went on. “But, aside from that, the best thing was—it was a living planet! Not only vegetated—oh, no; not only alive with creatures large and small—but there was an intelligent native species!”
Gasps all around, and eager prodding.
“What are the odds of that?” one guest wondered.
“Infinitesimal. But it was so. And the really strange thing was, all of the life forms are—carbon-based!”
“Carbon? And intelligent?”
The communal tea bowl was forgotten. Pasha Sands had them in its bululla once again. It smiled both inside and outside, and the nalsha gave off a sympathetic hum.
“The side of the planet I’d crashed on was turned away from the sun at the time. No one observed my arrival. I took my nalshas and hid them, and concealed myself in some thick vegetation immediately, not knowing what kind of creatures or phenomena I might be confronted with. But all was quiet as the planet turned, until the sun lit the sky again.
“Quite soon, then, I heard noises. I peeped—ever so carefully—through the branches, and there they were—a dozen bipeds, sliding right off the nauseous green water onto and across the silicon, as though they had no interest in or regard for such delicious bounty. As indeed, they didn’t, for as soon as they had climbed out of the bowl they’ d ridden across the water, they just marched across the silicon like it was nothing.”
“Bowl?”
“Well, not anything like our nalshas, dear,” Pasha Sands said condescendingly. “Not lovely smooth silicon. Some other material. I found out later it was made from some of the largest vegetative life forms: named trees. Sliced and molded to make a bowl shape. Almost. They call them boats. Anyway, they walked across all that lovely silicon and up over a little hill, and disappeared. I followed them, very discreetly, of course. Really I was quite amazed at the lushness of the vegetation. Apparently our scientists are mistaken about the vigor of carbon-based vegetation.”
“Pooh on the scientists! Did you catch up to them?”
“Oh, no. I wasn’t attempting to. I just wanted to observe and to listen to them. Their
speech is quite as primitive as their bowl. It’s entirely physical! I couldn’t believe it at first, but there were absolutely no theta-harmonics at all. Once I realized that, it was simple to learn their language, such as it was.
“After a night of walking along a densely-vegetated river, we came to a largish concentration of the creatures, a town of fine buildings constructed of blocks of lesser-grade silicon. Contaminated with a great deal of clay, presumably that’s the only way they know to get the granules to stick together. It was a pleasant place, though, with the morning sun shining sideways on it. All rose and purple and coral, and blue shadows stretching across the little dirt streets. Laid out in regular squares.”
“Regular?” the skeptical one asked sharply.
“Not so regular,” Pasha Sands amended. “It wasn’t a hive. I tell you these are intelligent creatures. You’ll see.”
“Yes, but what do they look like?” Fat One had its tendril in the tea again.
“Bipedal, as I said. Close in mass to us. Flattened dorsal-ventrally. Bilaterally symmetrical—two legs, two ‘ arms’ , one head on a thick stalk, top center. Funny filaments thick on top, mostly, where it grows very long on some. But this ‘ hair’ grows all over them, I saw later—you’ll see. Be patient.” They felt its interior smile again.
“I watched the town for several passings of the sun, watched the people. Gradually I fashioned quite a good morph, if I do say so myself. They cover much of their bodies with vegetative and animal fibers—I didn’t realize the coverings were separate at first, I thought it was normal variations in their integument. And wasn’t it interesting, the day I discovered that!
“In watching the town I came to understand that it was going to take a great deal of work to rebuild myself a nalsha-cradle to get off the planet again. When my disguise was sufficient, and my mastery of the language became adequate, I ventured into the streets at night, when few people were about. They keep a goodly number of inferior animals around their dwellings, one kind in particular with four legs and far too good a nose, tended to be very curious about me, but they proved friendly and most of the time I made my night-time investigations with a regular troop of wag-tail comrades. I was able to flit about unseen and I soon learned that their technology was exceedingly primitive.
“When I had seen enough I went back to the edge of the sea where I’d first arrived. With such an abundance of silicon granules, and having learned by observing that the vegetative matter could be burned to a temperature nearly equal to our varrs, I had a plan already. I set to work making bowls, using an open fire near the deserted beach where I’d swam ashore.
“I was completely correct: These natives had never seen the like of my bowls. Oh, they were crude and unharmonious and unlovely but, my dears! The fuss! In no time I had obtained enough of what they use for currency—funny little discs of base metals, nothing to get excited about, Greedies—to exchange them for a dwelling right in the town.”
“A dwelling! You actually went inside it?”
“Of course. It was the custom there. I was told it was one of the most admired dwellings on Merchant Street. Very spacious. The windows were mere holes, no glass of course, or covering of any kind. I found I had to cover them, because the people were so curious about my activities, always peeping in.
“The walls were very thick—a span or more—so it was always cool inside, and I expended much energy just staying warm when inside. I had made my morph heavy, with wide folds falling to the ground from the arms, and that helped keep me warm. I had great fun incorporating our familiar colors and icons into its patterns.
“It made me less homesick,” Pasha Sands added, and the narrative faltered for a moment. “Ah, my friends, there were times in those early days when I despaired of ever seeing our fair world again.
“I’d left my morph naked-headed; those thick growths of hair would have been very difficult to create and maintain. I must say I think I cut an elegant figure. My neighbors were quite in awe of me. Very curious of course, but I cultivated a mysterious reticence. During the day I tended my shop; at night I went back to the beach and gathered silicon in little bags, and began storing it in one of the three ‘sleeping chambers’. And I watched my neighbors, looking for the subtleties of their communication, and for clues as to how I could accomplish the tremendous amount of work I had to do to get off the planet.
“It’s the custom there for the merchants to display and sell their wares outside their dwellings. They have colorful awnings overhanging, for shade. So I did the same, setting out the crude bowls I could create in the (really inadequate) fireplace of my home. I’d sit outside my door under the awning, and visit with the passers-by, and perhaps,” it added airily, “sell a bowl now and then.”
The theta-vibrations became serious. “It was from my neighbors across the street that I finally learned how I could get my work done.
“It was a pair of them. One tall, with limbs all knobby and a round protruding belly, bristly pate and a broken beak of a nose, my dears, you can’t imagine how unattractive! Its mate was equally repugnant, though its opposite. Where the tall knobby one had a voice like the wind through the caves of Fidiremitt, you know, low and scraping, its partner sounded like glass breaking.”
Dismayed shudders.
“It was much shorter, too, and wider. A vast stretchy mouth lined all round with hideous red—I found out later this is not natural—and the laziest creature you’ll ever meet.
“They had only recently cemented their partnership, a subject of much interest to the fat one, for it spoke of it incessantly to all its equally repulsive friends who came daily to hang about and drink its tea and gossip under the awning. The knobby one was quite wealthy, I soon learned, and that above all seemed to be its main attraction. I was glad to hear it had something to its favor.
“The beginning of such a partnership evidently is made socially acceptable by a ceremony attended by as many people as can wangle an invitation. They call it a ‘wedding’, and everyone is expected to bless the new partners with gifts. These, too, were endlessly discussed by the fat partner. But the present that interested me most was the third person in that household—another of their own species. Ownership of one another, it turns out, is one of the symbols of status in that society.”
Skeptical One’s disgust overcame for a moment its usual skepticism. “You mean this so-called intelligent species of yours practices ownership of individuals of their own kind? Ownership?”
“They call it slavery. This pair had been given a slave for the wedding, and from where I sat each day I was able to learn a great deal about its advantages for the owners. And,” Pasha Sands added, “its disadvantages for the slave.
“The knobby one’s name was Kalda, its partner’s name was Kriessa. Kalda kept fairly busy buying and selling its goods—it specialized in herbs and spices from all over the continent. Kriessa kept busy mainly by talking and eating and pouring tea. The slave, whose name I eventually heard was Anna, they kept toiling nearly all the day and night. It was a little, thin thing, black hair like a cap and dark eyes, skin tan like Goraby marble. Kalda had it carrying barrels of spices for the customers out of the store to their carts, cleaning, unloading new merchandise from the large wooden wagons that rolled up to the back of the establishment nearly every day, tending the customers weighing out the spices, scrubbing down the board patio in front of the place, all manner of taxing and lowly work, while Kriessa either ignored it or castigated it in that nerve-shattering voice.
“I never saw the creature stop and rest once, from dawn till long after the sun had gone down and all the stars were out and the whole town had settled down to sleep. For, after the business day was over, it would go inside and soon the smells of their strange carbonaceous foods would reach my door, and I could see Anna through the windows, serving Kalda and Kriessa their dinners. After, it would do the cleaning from the meal. I don’t know when, where, or what they let it eat.
“Kalda every evening w
ent back downstairs into the shop for more work, and it would bring Anna out to the front door and chain it there to sleep on the boards. I asked, once, why it slept out there, and Kalda said its duties included guarding the shop at night. So they got their full value out of that gift.
“But I realized that this might be a way for me to get my glass-blowing workroom built. I couldn’t do the labor myself, my morph was far too frail in that tiresome gravity. By then I knew that I’d need to keep my work from prying eyes, so I planned to dig a workshop chamber, under the floor, and that’s heavy work. Building the kiln, also. And hauling the necessary amounts of silicon from the sea-side would be more than I could do, as well. I needed someone strong, someone whose steady work I could ensure, and who would keep quiet about what I was doing. Kalda’s and Kriessa’s treatment of Anna, and Anna’s utter subjugation by them, told me that a slave would fit the bill.”
Fat One was so outraged that it forgot the taboo against uttering one’s given name in a group. It spluttered Pasha Sand’s name out loud, and spat accusingly: “And you decided, did you, that your unusual circumstances would justify such immoral behavior?”
Pasha Sands faced the insult and stared Fat One down. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Besides, you know me, I have the softest frombur of anyone we all know. It wasn’t required that one treat a slave so poorly, and I never intended to. Just listen, my fat friend, let me tell the whole story before you judge me.
“I inquired of Kalda how one obtained ownership of a slave, and once it believed that I was honestly asking—it seemed inconceivable to Kalda that anyone could be unaware of this custom—I was informed that it required only a quantity of their crude coinage, and attendance at a slave market, conducted near the wharves every fifth day. One could survey the available merchandise and haggle with the auctioneers and go home with as many slaves, as few, as skilled or as brutish as one liked—and could afford. A new shipment came in every few days, brought in from inland regions or from over the sea. Kalda advised me to insist on an inland slave, as the language from across the waters might cause me, a non-native speaker, difficulties.
The Strangers of Kindness Page 7