The Terrans

by Jean Johnson

  (It’s okay. Telepathy tends to lend itself to blurting out honest responses simply because there is literally no barrier of translating thoughts into actual, physically produced words. And . . . I’m flattered you noticed,) she added carefully. (I think you’re handsome, too. A little odd-looking with those red stripes, but handsome nonetheless.)

  (We shouldn’t pursue that line of thought, however. You’re an Ambassador, and I’m a prince. We both have to represent our people.) Squaring his shoulders, he checked his face, then realized he hadn’t shaved. Rolling his eyes, he stripped off his shirt and hung it on a nearby bar, then splashed his face with a little water and used the foam from a canister in the mirror cabinet.

  Shaving was another trait Terrans and V’Dan shared, but it wasn’t one that provoked shared images, telepathically. She was female, and did not need to shave her face, though she did shave her leg—dammit, stop that. Li’eth paused to breathe deep and practice his grounding, centering, and shielding visualizations, rather than any inappropriate visualizations. Do not invade her thoughts, nor her memories. You will gain control over your ability to read others’ thoughts. It is rude to do so in both societies without an invitation.

  He resumed shaving, trying to keep his thoughts tucked inside his own head. When he felt calm again, when his face was halfway-shaved, he reached out to her. (Ja’ki, how do I open up the message cache for all these missed calls?)

  (Want me to come visit your quarters and show you how to work the thing? I could do it telepathically, but it’s . . . We should limit how closely we interact, mentally. I’m beginning to feel curious about things I shouldn’t be thinking about.)

  (As am I. Unless you want me to be curious about how you shave your legs,) he returned. (For that matter, why do women shave their legs in Terran society? Everyone knows it’s something only hairy men do.)

  (It’s to project an illusion of youth, of the age when your legs don’t grow much in the way of hair, and are instead still smooth and young-looking.)

  (That’s . . . very perverted,) Li’eth finally said, firmly censoring several unflattering thoughts before they could surface. (That’s pedophilia. In V’Dan society, maturity is valued. Everyone shaves their armpits to cut down on odiferous bacteria since hairs give them extra surface area to occupy, and men usually prefer shaving their beards to look neatly groomed, but you don’t shave the rest of your body unless you’re so hairy, it looks bestial. Which is something usually only the men do.)

  She chuckled in the back of his mind. (A refreshing outlook. We share something in common, though. Shaved armpits. About half of the men don’t do it, but . . . they stink when they don’t. And I can’t stand the way how the hair tickles and itches in my ’pit, yecch!) Ja’ki sent him a picture of herself making a face with that thought. In person, physically, she was already exiting her quarters and heading for his, just a few doors down in the tight confines of quarantine. He could sense her approach. (But in the military, all men shave their faces so they can apply face masks in case of bad air. Most women don’t have to shave their faces until old age and hormone imbalances cause problems . . . May I come in? I think you’re still shaving, yes?)

  (Yes to both. I’ll be out there in a few more moments,) he added, stroking the strange but effective disposable razor along his jaw.

  Through the bathroom and bedroom doors, which were both standing open since they weren’t sector seals, he could hear the hiss of the front door of his little suite open and shut. It felt odd to not have the end of his jungen stripe on his right cheek covered up with the concealer. His proper face, and yet not the face he had grown used to seeing over the last couple years. Just as well he didn’t need to hide it; the concealer could last for many weeks without maintenance but not forever.

  Nothing lasted forever. (So many things are changing . . . So many more are about to change . . .)

  ( . . . ?) Ja’ki sent in an inquiry.

  (Nothing.)

  He was just finishing the last needed stroke when he heard the door hiss open again, and a strident, familiar voice snap, “How dare you enter His Highness’ quarters without his permission! I thought you said you were an adult, but this is exactly the kind of childish, juvenile, disrespectful behavior I’d expect from a child!”

  (Damn her!) Whipping the hand towel off the rod with one hand and tossing the razor into the sink basin with the other, he wiped awkwardly at his face even as he hurried out of the bathroom and around the corner of the bedroom into the front cabin. “Shi’ol! You do not have permission to be in here. She does.”

  The blonde countess spoke even as she turned. “She didn’t even knock, let alone press the door buzzer! I . . . you . . . Highness.” Shi’ol stared at his half-clad body, at his chest, streaked with burgundy lightning stripes. Blushing, she partly turned away, but her gaze lingered a little until she blinked and rounded on the dark-haired Terran, who was eyeing Li’eth with an equally bemused look. “She shouldn’t be in here!”

  “She asked for permission before entering,” Li’eth stated flatly. He had forgotten he had removed his shirt. Face hot, he ignored his half-undressed state. “You are the only person who barged in here without asking for my permission, first.”

  “I . . . I was protecting your sanctity,” Shi’ol protested. She not quite looked over her shoulder at him, then glared at Ja’ki, and hissed, “Stop ogling him, you little Charuta!”

  Li’eth’s eyes snapped wide at the insult. The story of Charuta was an old one, but it extolled the dangers of letting someone who was underage try to ensnare adults in sexual activities. It was not a compliment, and beyond acceptable when applied to their hostess. Their politically powerful hostess. Heat burned not only in his face but in his palms.

  “Apologize!” he snarled at the countess.

  “She’s a child, and she—”

  “Wrong answer!” He lifted his hands on instinct, heat bursting from his palms along with his roar—and Ja’ki yelped, flinging up her left arm. At the same moment, alarms started blaring. The holy fire—pyrokinesis—skittered across a wall of nothing, extinguishing itself, and her other hand slashed up—and so did he, thumping into the flat, white ceiling hard enough to provoke a grunt. It shocked him out of his burning-hot rage. Blinking, Li’eth felt the conflicting forces of rotational gravity versus the blanketing pressure of her telekinesis. Three seconds after he thumped into the ceiling, the fire alarm signal shut off.

  “Congratulations, Shi’ol,” Ja’ki snapped, rounding on the woman while he stayed pressed to the ceiling of his sitting room. “You have just created our first diplomatic incident!”

  “All I did w—”

  “Shut it!” the Ambassador ordered, thrusting a finger at the spotted woman’s face. “You are confined to quarters until further notice. Your meals will be delivered if you have to wait that long, but you will have no contact with anyone until your captain and I have figured out what to do with you—do not argue with me, you mannerless child,” she added in V’Dan, her back to Li’eth, but her tone conveying her anger without needing to see how it twisted her face. “You may have spots on your face, but you acted with all the self-control and social awareness of a toddler!”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Shi’ol protested, flinging up her hands.

  Li’eth knew who was at fault even before Ja’ki replied. He watched, pinned and helpless, while Ja’ki Maq’en-zi explained in their own tongue just how bad things had gotten.

  “You provoked His Highness into nearly killing you with his psychic—holy!—abilities,” the Terran asserted, jabbing her finger again at the V’Dan standing in front of her. “If he had kept going, the fire-suppression systems would have choked all of us with carbon dioxide gas. This is a diplomatic incident of the highest order, and you caused it because you did not think about anything but yourself and your own viewpoints.

  “Thanks to you, now I have to figure out how to avoid your precious prince’s being charged under Terran law with attempted m
urder by psychic abilities, which is a very serious crime—I may look like a child, but you act like a child. Thoughtless, irresponsible, and untrustworthy. Had I the power, I would strip you of both your rank and your civilian title, for your actions are not worthy of either of them.

  “Luckily for you, you aren’t my problem. You are the Empress’ problem, and I will be certain she hears in detail every act of thoughtless stupidity you have inflicted upon my people while a guest in our star system. Now, get to your quarters. I suggest you spend all of your time actually thinking about the consequences of your attitude problem, though I won’t hold my breath over you,” she ordered in Terranglo. “If I find you have deviated by so much as an arm’s length in heading there, you will be punished further. Go!”

  Shi’ol took a step back, toward the door, but then paused and looked up. “His Highness—”

  “Not. Your. Problem. Not when all you do is make things worse. Do not worsen things any further, Shi’ol. Not today. Go.”

  Backing up another step, Shi’ol looked up at Li’eth one last time with her mouth pinched tight, then turned and left. Ja’ki stayed stiff and tense until the door shut, then her shoulders slumped. Her palms came up to rub at her tanned, spotless face, letting out a weary-sounding sigh.

  Li’eth cleared his throat faintly and risked a tap on her mind-shields. ( . . . I am calm now,) he offered when she opened them to him. (I can be set down safely.)

  (I’m tempted to leave you up there,) she muttered mentally, but lowered him anyway, swinging his feet down to touch the floor even as she turned to face him. She didn’t look at him, though. Rubbing at her forehead, Ja’ki shared the thoughts roiling through her head. (I don’t know if charges are going to be pressed by the oversight committee, or not. They’ll have visible proof of you attacking Shi’ol pyrokinetically on the cabin monitors—which they will look at, because the fire alarm went off; they are obligated by law to look at those video feeds because the alarm went off—but I don’t know if anyone would charge you with attempted murder, or merely with assault . . . which can be anywhere from a misdemeanor up to a felony, a very serious crime.

  (Because you used your pyrokinesis, Li’eth,) she explained, turning to pace a little, her palms having slid down so that only her fingers pressed against her mouth, (this could be construed a case of aggravated assault, possibly even assault and battery, though technically you didn’t touch her. But you did touch my shields. Psi law is . . . We’ve had a couple hundred years to work on it, but each case could be taken in so many different directions . . . And I am not a lawyer. I’m a translator. I’ve worked on legal cases before as a linguistics and cultural facilitator, but . . .)

  Watching her pace, Li’eth felt the urge to take her in his arms, to hold her and comfort her, to tell her everything would be alright. But it wouldn’t be, even if this issue was resolved. And touching her? Holding her? Diplomatic suicide. Which led to a thought. (At the moment, because my crew and I are inadvertent diplomatic representatives . . . do we have any immunity from prosecution?)

  (Nebulous gray area,) she replied, lowering her hands and shaking her head. (Internally, there is no diplomatic immunity anymore. Such things only led to abuse and corruption. But you aren’t a part of the Terran system. And your people are so blindly ignorant of our customs and culture and expectations, we almost have to give you immunity just because you’re going to continue to trip and stumble over all the differences, no matter what we do—we need to discuss this out loud,) Ja’ki amended. (The others will examine this recording, and I cannot be accused of brokering a backroom deal. I only did so earlier because your people were blindly uninformed of how things work with my people, and Shi’ol would have offended the whole Council, putting your people in a very bad bargaining position. You’ve had enough time to start learning, though.)

  She gestured at his sofa, as if this were her quarters, not his. Li’eth tipped his chin behind him. “I need to put on a shirt, then we can discuss what happened. If that is acceptable?”

  “Yes, please.” Moving to the couch, she lowered herself onto it. He forced himself to turn away.

  It didn’t take long for him to check his face to make sure he had gotten the last of the shaving done, nor to rinse away the last bits of crème residue he had missed in his haste. Donning the abandoned gray shirt, he paused long enough to slip his feet into simple, canvas-sided shoes, then returned to the front cabin. A choice of seats lay before him. He could isolate himself in a chair—she could choose to move and isolate herself, too—but instinct said take the sofa next to her. It might be a bit intimate, a bit physically close . . . but they were in this together.

  The Empire needed Terran technology to try to win a war they were on the verge of losing. The Terran United Planets needed V’Dan technology to get itself geared and ready for a Salik attack. Only by working together, by getting past all the differences between their two subspecies, would everything work out right for all. Moving to the sofa, he seated himself to her right and leaned his elbow on the armrest, chin on his palm.

  It wasn’t the most princely of postures, but if he had learned anything in the last few days, he knew there were a lot of very common gestures between their two peoples. Body language like his would be read as worried, pondering, and open in its emotional honesty. No, it wasn’t the most royal posture, but it was honest. Switching to rubbing at his brow, he asked aloud in Terranglo, “What is the range of possible legal accusations I could face?”

  “The worst would be attempted murder via aggravated assault with a psychic weapon,” Ja’ki stated. She added aloud—no doubt for the recordings—what she had stated mentally earlier. “I’m not a lawyer, but I have served on legal cases in a linguistic and cultural translation capacity, including a couple incidents of psychic lawbreaking. At the absolute worst . . . it’s attempted murder via aggravated assault with psi. And as psychic abilities are a form of weapon that cannot be removed from you without destroying parts of your brain . . . and even after two hundred years, we’re still not sure which parts can be safely destroyed . . . you’re lucky it was only attempted murder.

  “But we don’t want to invoke that end of the spectrum,” she stated, cutting a hand through the air. “Particularly if word gets out about this incident. Right now, the only ones watching us are those who will check the recording to see what set off the fire alarms for a few seconds . . . and then their superiors, including Admiral Nayak . . . and the Admiral-General, who is the head of the Space Force . . . and probably the Premiere, maybe the Secondaire. The only ones who could speak of it are those watching, you, Shi’ol, and me; the midlevels are bound by their oaths not to discuss anything once they’ve passed something like this up the line, and the higher-ups will realize as I do that invoking the worst accusations would not help this First Contact situation between our peoples.

  “At the other end of the spectrum, you could try to invoke diplomatic immunity . . . but technically by Terran law, there is no such thing anymore.” She looked at him, and waited.

  “. . . There isn’t?” he asked, a bit belatedly when he realized this was something that had to be discussed aloud.

  “We haven’t needed it since there are no foreign powers legally acknowledged by the Terran United Planets and haven’t been for decades, if not centuries,” she stated openly for the recordings. “We’ve abolished it within our own jurisdiction because it is believed that having it only leads to abusing it, and that leads to corruption over time . . . except obviously there are foreign powers now, powers strong enough that they have to be acknowledged. But your people are so blindly ignorant of our laws, you could break them all too easily without even realizing it—and there are too many laws, too many customs, which you haven’t grown up knowing, so it would take years to explain them all under each and every context, in ways which we understand instinctually—not to mention things which the true aliens might not understand because, biologically and psychologically, they aren’t Human.”

/>   “Well, there are common laws. Theft, murder . . . assault,” Li’eth acknowledged honestly, wryly, knowing that it could damn him. But these people needed to understand why he reacted as he had, so he tried to explain in Terranglo the V’Dan viewpoint on such things. “What Shi’ol said was very, very insulting. Particularly to our hostess, and triply so to an adult woman of very high political standing. At the very least, she should be stripped of her rank as a Leftenant Superior, bumped down to Leftenant, even to Ensign rank . . . and if this causes harm to our future diplomatic maneuverings, I would advise the Empress to strip Nanu’oc of her civilian title in punishment for it, handing it off to one of her other relatives . . . but in our culture . . . Your people do look like children, Ja’ki.”

  “Children, children, children,” she muttered, voice rising and hands flinging up. “I don’t get this, Li’eth. We got rid of our appearance-based prejudices over a century ago! How can you be a technologically advanced, interstellar-traveling—interstellar-colonizing!—culture, and still lean upon something so stupid and . . . and juvenile as judging people solely upon their appearance? We have an age limit for achieving adulthood, yes, because the age of eighteen years is considered long enough for our children to have learned some basic grasp of maturity and common sense, but mostly, we judge each other upon our words and our actions. What kind they are and how well they mirror each other.

  “And don’t ask me to paint my face in spots or stripes just to satisfy Shi’ol’s warped view of the world,” Ja’ki added tartly. “If I had to paint myself just to get across the fact that I am mature, then you’d just go on to demand that the billions of people scattered across the entire Terran United Planets have to do that. I will not inflict the xenocultural prejudices of an entirely separate branch of Humans upon my own people. We may be Humans, but we are not V’Dan.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to,” Li’eth told her. “We don’t demand that the Gatsugi paint their skin, or the K’Katta . . . but because you look V’Dan to us, we react to you like you’re V’Dan. Spotless, stripeless, markless V’Dan, who look juvenile to us. Underage. Not yet fully mature in a physical sense . . . which Shi’ol assumes means immature. I know that it does not, but I also know very few are going to take that first look at you and feel the urge to treat you as a fully grown-and-marked adult . . . and this is getting off the topic of what to do about what I did. We cannot fix a cultural problem in a single day. This, maybe we can figure out how to handle diplomatically.”