by Rebecca Ore
“We can fake it,” she said. “I’ll get eggs downstairs. A Gwyng sells food on the ground floor.”
“I’ll stay here.” I planned to stay inside until I was too embarrassed to stay inside. Do other uh’yalla have attacks like this after years of living on Karst, I wondered, or am I just a xenophobe? Or am I just afraid of getting killed by human or ech, not being allowed to fight back. I’d explain the Federation until some vr’ech didn’t like what they heard. They’d kill me and another explainer would take my place, millions, billions of us. Here we are and we won’t go away.
The Sharwan had said, So what if we shoot and you won’t defend anyone.
I went prowling around. Molly’s looms were in her room; Marianne’s room was full of books; Sam’s room looked ridiculously neat, a fitted green corduroy bedspread over a twin-sized mattress, shelves full of music, his piano and harpsichord both with keyboard lids down, a big plant in the bay window, a glass case of strange musical instruments against the left-hand wall. I recognized a dulcimer, then a fiddle. The others were strange to me, but somehow I recognized them to be human instruments.
When I heard the elevator in the shaft, I came back around to the common room.
“Twing’s going to be closing for a few days,” Marianne said, “but if we need anything, one of her pouch kin will be with her on the second floor and could open for us.”
“That’s her name?”
“That’s what she recognizes as being close to a configuration of it. She seemed restless.”
“She’s going into heat, I bet,” I said. Great, the building would be infested with pheromone-dazed Gwyngs, koo’ing and screaming on the elevator.
Marianne frowned at me for being an embarrassing xenoflip and said, “She had a freezer blender for sale. It should do the trick.”
It did. We rigged the computer to print us behavioral illustration narratives as if they were news items, headlines and dot-matrix photos on big sheets of paper, and lay around on our bellies eating ice cream and reading about Barcon brain worm operations, bird-mating battles, and nervous system response to tonal patterns—music—in sequential and patterning system-brained creatures.
Marianne got the giggles when she read, about an ape-type species represented by two refugee cultural groups that claimed to have both permanent and temporary pair-bonding. I felt even more depressed—our mating habits, our xenophobia, our other behaviors, and our literature, all common gossip. And the Federation couldn’t stop one bomb against Isa.
The next morning I didn’t want to go out yet, but as I drank my coffee, I heard the elevator coming up the shaft. Marianne got up and unlocked the door to our flat. The cab stopped, the door slid down, and there stood Karriaagzh, his head slightly cocked, body and legs slouched, a non-uniform tunic covering his body feathers. “Tom, I heard you were a little tired of us non-humans?”
I didn’t say anything.
Karriaagzh came in, looked at Marianne, then stepped, hocks flexing very high, around the main room. Then he sat down beside my chair, head lower than my shoulder.
“‘What bothers you the most?’
“Losing Isa, being half glad of it. Waiting years and making only two first contacts, one of them a failure, the other nearly lethal.”
“We’re going to expand station operations. Black Amber protested, but we must protect other species against the Sharwan.”
I drained my coffee cup, then said, “So we’ll be busier?”
“Yes. Marianne will go on station watches with you.” Marianne nodded; I realized they’d arranged this earlier. Karriaagzh touched my wrist, rubbed the protruding wrist bone with his thumb. “We’ll listen to music for a moment.”
I realized Sam and Molly hadn’t come back in the night before. “Where did Sam and Molly go?”
As Karriaagzh padded over to the player and looked through our human and alien digital discs, Marianne said, “Sam’s playing for Tibetans who can’t come into Karst City.”
“Sam told me about this group,” Karriaagzh said as he put on a Grateful Dead album. The Dead played about “Vitamin C and cocaine” as Karriaagzh twisted his head to catch the sounds with one ear, then the other. The Grateful Dead always reminded me of Warren, but I kept quiet.
I got three days more leave. Marianne and I went wandering about in Karst City—fourteen million aliens of 103 different species spread out over what Reeann figured was equal in land area to from Sausalito halfway to Sacramento then down to San Jose. Big city, dense in patches.
We took a maglev train in a clear tube to the Upper Preserve Gate, then took a bus through in-city agricultural lands: odd farms with mechanical tractors, multi-story greenhouses, sewage sludge processing plants, Gwyng herds that included Earth cows among the bigger alien beasts, plastic reprocessing factories.
“The species run together. Some I can’t tell whether they’re weird Barcons or fat people of our shiny black neighbor’s land,” Marianne said.
“Federation over species. Rude to draw distinctions that might be alienating.” The last word was in English “Like Alex?” After she said that, Marianne got up and, asked the bus driver, a pug-faced creature, if we could tour one of the plastic reprocessing factories.
Without looking back, the bus driver told her, “I know one where the manager shows Academy and Institute curiosity seekers around, for a bit of credit. Get out when I say, but you’ll have a two-hour wait between buses.”
The reprocessing factory was in a huge concrete and plastic building in a field of bone thistles all white stems and green spines. A boardwalk went up over them to the front entrance. Behind the building ran a maglev track, not enclosed. The building seemed ominous—white in a field of bone thistles.
We walked over the bone thistles to the front door and went in. Three Gwyngs sat in front of a bank of switches, diodes, and analog gauges. I said, “We’re curious about touring the facility.”
A male said, “Boring/need break, so come for fifteen basic hour units.”
“Can’t afford that,” Marianne said. “I’m still an apprentice.”
The Gwyngs chatted in Karst Two, “questionably poor apprentice greed herself,” as if we weren’t there, then the male told Marianne, “Doubt/boredom (my greed) (sorry about greed) For ten units?”
“Say five for both of us,” I said.
The Gwyng stared at his panels, then rolled his shoulders.
“Acceptance/bored too much.” He nodded slightly at the two females—bored with them, too, I bet.
We, followed him up on a catwalk above machines grinding plastic into chips as fine as sawdust, then walked over conveyers that carried the plastic dust to vats. The hot air rising from the vats stank of yeast and rotten plastic.
Fine screen skimmers dipped and twisted through the culture surface, then rose and whirled the yeast globs onto a moving trough. The trough, lined with leaky membranes, carried away the yeast in huge clots. The noise rose with the hot smelly air.
“Who eats that?” Marianne shouted at our guide.
“Creatures who fail their examinations,” the Gwyng said, “or Gwyng host animals.”
Marianne looked down, gripping both catwalk rails.
“Yeast cake,” she said. “Plastic recycling.”
“Very high in proteins, hydrocarbon chains re-arranged by the bacteria and yeasts,” the Gwyng said. “Automatic factory except for breakdowns (rare and, dangerous/machines rule).”
“Very interesting,” I said. “Gwyngs go out to mine hydrocarbons in space?”
“Make structural plastics, then eat plastics when bored with buildings and toys,” the Gwyng said.
Marianne said, in English, “The store downstairs doesn’t even sell yeast cake. We’re pretty far from the bottom of the social heap, Tom, refugees or not.”
“Processed further for Gwyng artificial food,” the Gwyng added, “but not here. Barcon checkers necessary.”
I said, “But Gwyngs make their own artificial food on Gwyng Home.”
>
“Gwyng Home is a myth.”
“But I’ve been to Gwyng Home with Black Amber.”
“For Karst-born, Gwyng Home is not attainable.”
I asked, “You don’t know Gwyng languages?”
He didn’t answer, just took us back to the office. We walked over the bone thistles to the bus stop and began to wait, in silence. Then Marianne said, “The Federation certainly isn’t perfect.”
“Something has to eat yeasts grown on plastic.”
“What was he saying about Gwyng Home being a myth?”
“Rhyodolite and Cadmium told me that if a Gwyng doesn’t learn Gwyng, not Karst Two, but a Gwyng language, at a fairly early age, then the mind doesn’t develop properly. For a Gwyng.”
“Gwyng languages aren’t like Karst Two?”
“Karst Two is like a code for them, not as much information as the trained Gwyng mind can perceive.”
“And so those Gwyngs are developmentally deprived and get to run a yeast factory.”
“Yeah. That’s why Black Amber makes her children learn Gwyng languages.“ We waited. Across the road was a seven-story greenhouse like a giant helix, with each long rectangular story at a slightly different angle from the others. I wondered what they grew in those, watched water spray inside one story. Small figures, too small at this distance to determine the species, walked through the fifth level pushing carts, harvesting the crop, which grew in waist-high trays.
“At least,” Marianne said, watching the same greenhouse, “there’s no stoop labor there.”
The Gwyng downstairs went into heat. Having a store, she knew lots of other Gwyngs; being a merchant, not inviting regular customers to her heat would have been rude.
At night, in bed, Marianne and I would hold each other but not having sex, listening, sniffing, as though we on the fifth floor could smell the second. Sam and Molly kept very odd hours, seemed to sleep in separate rooms. All of us non-Gwyngs in the building, if we were in the elevator together, would stop speaking when we passed the second floor landing, turning away from even our own mates. The elevator vibrated ultrasonics, oozed sex molecules. Black Amber called the third night of the heat. “Cadmium and Rhyodolite (pheromones forced/driven)… if you can, help.”
“Who called?” Marianne asked. She was reading some Institute study guide off the terminal.
“Black Amber. It’s not important.”
“She and Karriaagzh…” Marianne didn’t finish, just trailed off and began to scroll through the material on her terminal, muttering, “I’ve worked with these semiotic concepts before. Signifier/signified drift, so that’s why the linguists who devised Karst Two didn’t work out a code, but rather an arbitrary signal-shifting system. Karst Two changes like a natural language. If the computers translated Karst Two directly into Karst One, then we wouldn’t be able to adapt to the shifts in Karst Two.”
“And vice versa, somehow,” I said.
“I don’t quite understand how the shift works. I suspect the distinctive pairs…not pairs, I bet, in Karst Two…” She stopped talking and pulled a couple of pages of hard copy, then began scribbling on them, one hank of her hair looped over a breast, the rest going down her shoulders.
We went to bed shortly after Black Amber called. Marianne lay in bed, almost rigid, then asked, “Do the males hurt the female Gwyngs?”
“Everyone gets scratches and bruises. Reeann, you’re tense. Want some warm milk or a backrub?”
“Sorry.” She snuggled up against me, and we drifted off to sleep.
In the morning, I wiggled around under the covers, only half awake. Marianne had left a warm spot in the bed, just got up minutes before. Whichever of us got up first started coffee, so I figured she was in the kitchen and pulled myself out of bed, used the toilet, and began dressing. I just had my pants on when she called from the living room, “Tom, quick.” Barefooted and shirtless, I ran up to the front of the apartment.
Two Gwyngs lay together face down in a sleeping bag on the floor. Cadmium, by the blond streaks, so the other one had to be Rhyodolite.
“Black Amber told me to take care of them,” I said. “Didn’t you lock up?”
Rhyodolite squirmed around in the bag. His face was bruised, the wrinkles looser than usual as though he hadn’t eaten in days. Probably hadn’t. “Weaver’s pouch kin,” he murmured, reaching up to Marianne with one hand. “Be nice to a little Gwyng.” The nail on his thumb was torn.
Cadmium punched Rhyo under the bag cover. “Red Clay, heat is over (exhausting/exhausted of energy) the one downstairs likes me (but many males, Rhyodolite too small).”
Rhyodolite looked over at Cadmium and clapped his nostrils open and shut a few times. Cadmium freed an arm and stroked Rhyodolite’s face, Rhyodolite asked, “Can we stay here a few days, through the party?”
I looked at Reeann. She said in English, “Yangchenla told me about Gwyng teases. Only if they leave us alone, is it okay.”
“No fair talking primitive jargon to discuss,” Rhyodolite said.
“She says you can stay, if you don’t tease us when we’re in bed,” I said, not looking at Marianne.
“Spoilsport, fun rupturer,” Rhyodolite began, but Cadmium Gwyng-talked to him, and he settled down. Then Cadmium pulled himself out of the sleeping bag. He went knuckles and knees down on the floor for a second, naked, then he unsteadily stood up, one hand cupped over his groin. He looked dried up. “Can one of you get our clothes and food?”
I said, coming up to steady him, “We’ve got milk and cream in the kitchen.”
“I’ll get it,” Marianne said. She stared down at Rhyodolite— challenge eyes— and he looked away first.
“Why is she so touchy? What happened when she was learning Gwyng at Black Amber’s?” I asked them.
“Rhyodolite and the Weaver,” Cadmium said. “‘I’d like to sit in that chair.” He pointed.
“Rhyodolite and Molly? Molly’s the Weaver, right?”
“Nice placental female,” Rhyodolite said. He closed his eyes and turned his head submissively.
Oh, shit.
Molly herself came out, sleepy-eyed in a long cotton nightgown, and said, “Rhyodolite, what happened to you?”
“Where’s Sam?” I asked her.
“Out, playing”
“I was bullied,” Rhyodolite said, “ruthlessly/kept from sexual pleasures. Even Cadmium set me back.”
Cadmium snorted. I’d never heard a Gwyng make that sound before, but they’ve got the flexible nostrils for it. I handed them towels just as Marianne was bringing out hot butter. Cadmium stood up, wrapped the towel around his waist, tucked the end in, and sat down. Rhyodolite stayed in the sleeping bag, his nostrils twitching.
“Molly,” Reeann asked, “where is Sam?”
“Out. I don’t know,” Molly said. She knelt down beside Rhyodolite in the bag, held the cup for him. He wiggled his fingers at her; she wiggled hers back at him.
Gwyng-sign, for people who can’t get the second language operation. Reeann handed the second cup of hot butter to Cadmium who said, “We also need/would like formula. Storekeeper has it. Sorry to inconvenience you.”
“I’ll get it,” Reeann said. “I’d rather not watch that.”
She kicked out a foot toward Molly and Rhyodolite and punched the elevator call button. Rhyodolite leaned on Molly’s breasts, sipping painfully at the melted butter, stroking her jaw with his long furry knuckles.
Cadmium got up and paced, three steps away from Marianne and three steps back to the chair. He said again, “If the Weaver wants, she can stop him. He’s little (and my pouch kin).”
Marianne went “errhh.” The elevator door slid down; she got in and left. Molly looked up— not understanding what Cadmium said.
“No loyalty between sisters?” Rhyodolite asked me.
Cadmium said, “Don’t be nasty.”
Molly looked at me and pulled away from Rhyodolite, her face flushed slightly. I had missed over a month of their lives together. Poo
r Sam, I thought, married to a woman who goes for the most exotic available male. Cadmium said, “Would like shower. Pheromone disrupter would be better but don’t have.”
“Should we give him a shower, too?”
Cadmium looked down at Rhyodolite. His lips pursed slightly, then he said, “Your famous cold one?”
Rhyodolite brushed his knuckle fur against Molly’s lips. She took his hand and pushed it away, but held it, eyes averted from mine.
Cadmium said, “Why don’t we talk while I shower?” He walked over to the stranger’s bath, put his head in and said, “This stinks of bird. I know the Linguist Aspirant doesn’t want me in back, but…”
While Cadmium showered, he yelled over pulses of water, “He won’t/can’t hurt her. His sexual organ is shorter than human.”
“It’s more emotional with us.”
“I don’t know if Rhyodolite explained glass pheromone vials and their sexual significance to the Weaver before the Musician mated the Free Trader.”
Sam and Yangchenla. “The Musician and the Weaver were pair-bonded.”
Cadmium stuck his soapy head out and looked at me, wrinkles draining foam off his face, nostrils closed. Her wiped off his muzzle and said, “Sure.”
I said, “The Weaver’s a female sex organ.” Cunt, in English, but Karst One doesn’t insult by sex organs.
“Come on/seriously, Red Clay, she’s hands and brain, too. And other significant parts, like an asshole.” Humans have them; Gwyngs don’t.
“I’ve only slept with my own species.”
“Never came close?” He pulsed the water so loudly I couldn’t have answered immediately. If, if, if… yeah, any species that sleeps with rubber Yokamama dolls and plastic vibrators can have a good time with any warm orifices or protuberances, intelligently manipulate. I’d been scared off the times I’d missed.
“Close isn’t doing it.”
“Your crazy brother also prefers (the bigot) his own.”
“A Tibetan girl?”
“Yes, but the Barcons won’t give him a breeding permit. Sam and Yangchenla received one. When will you apply?” He sounded sexually preoccupied still.