On the next day I was consigned to a group of five females who worked together, accompanied by seven or eight children. The kids ran and played, and sometimes helped out. The female tupa were noticeably smaller than the male, and more slightly built, but other than that I could not tell them apart. The adolescent males were distinguishable from the females only due to the brighter blue of their coats. I wondered at first why I was placed with the women, but a theory presented itself early on: the females tended the young children, teaching them and speaking to them in short, simple phrases, with lots of repetition. I was there because I had less than a child’s command of the language.
I presumed to join some of the tasks the females engaged in, and was not rebuffed. One task that took up a good piece of the morning was stripping the puffy orange corn off wiry bushes bristling with forked leaves, where it grew in buds scattered around the stems. We sat around a large, flat, earthenware bowl, dropping the finished product into the bowl and discarding the plant into the side of the cottage.
Soon I was processing the pseudo-grain as fast as any of them, drawing the attention of my neighbors. One reached out and gently took my wrist, turning my hand over and looking at it, gingerly touching my fingers and thumb with her clunky thick fingers.
“Uman asa povum serta cha,” she said to her neighbor. The others looked on and seemed to agree. I looked at her, puzzled. She held my hand and tapped it. “Povum.” I repeated it, then tapped her hand. “Povum na?” I asked. She replied, “Vom.” She tapped my hand, “Povum serta,” then her own. “Povum kaha o serta,” Okay, so I figured out that povum was hand. The rest entirely eluded me.
By late morning we had amassed a sizable batch of arate, as it was called. We took a break and played with the little ones. I quickly discovered that despite their similarity to Earthly mammals, the tupa, unlike nearly an animal I could think of, did not like their ears or cheeks scratched. At all. Tupa play consisted largely of games of chasing, leaping, and mock kicking contests. All but the smallest of them could beat me at any of them. Every time I would trip or fall, my antics would be met with loud chuffing noises from adults and children alike. I began to suspect the noise was tupa laughter.
Around noon, everyone gathered outside to eat the lunch the females and I had prepared: a bowl of vegetables and some sort of meat that looked a bit like prawns but tasted more like cabbage. There was also an assortment of vegetables I was not offered, though I did not understand their explanation. There were about twenty adults on the farm, and nearly as many juveniles. Lunch was a talkative and lively affair, with adults talking and chuffing, and little ones dashing about and getting into trouble, just like human kids.
Everyone helped gather the bowls and utensils, the males returned to the fields, and the females and I washed up. Children were put down to nap in the warm afternoon. After cleaning, there was more food preparation and then a task I didn’t understand at all, but consisted of boiling large masses of weeds and mashing them with a wooden paddle. After several hours of this, they were taken out of the pot and set out on fences to dry. Later the plants were beaten with paddles, then laid on the ground and we took turns rolling a heavy round log over them. Then they were boiled again. They were left out to dry while we ate dinner.
Life slowed down in the evening. Everyone helped wash up after dinner, then the occupants of the farm milled about talking with each other and playing with the children. Tupa from the village came by and talked, trying to include me in the conversation. I appreciated the effort.
I sat awake that night while my companions slept. What am I doing? I thought. The tupa were kind and generous. They had accepted me and taken me in. But who was I to them? A stranger, unbeknownst to them, from another world. Was I a pet? A curiosity? An honorary member of the tribe?
I pondered my future. I did not know, and because of the language barrier, could not know, how long the tupa expected or wanted me to stay. Was this my life—an alien living as a curiosity amongst a primitive, albeit kindly, people? It was a better life than eking out a meager existence, half-starving, alone in the wilderness of Augie Field. Better by far. Don’t think I wasn’t grateful for the improvement. Spending time with the families of the tupa, watching them working, playing, talking, was fun and fascinating, yet strangely saddening at the same time. I was still awake when the tupa woke for their midnight meal. I fell asleep shortly thereafter.
I woke the next morning with my back stiff and sore from bending over my work yesterday. Again I was assigned to work with the females. After food preparation, we returned to our work with the weeds. I saw by now that we were slowly rendering out a yellow fibrous inner core of the stems, now scraping and picking the remaining teal outer layer away. Again my small fingers proved useful and productive, prompting more remarks about my povum serta.
After lunch I saw that the division of labor was not always so gender-specific. The females and I joined the males in the fields, pulling weeds and picking fruits. The tupa used short hoes, but my back hurt too much to bend down to use them. I fastened a hoe to a longer stick using some idle pieces of rope. The tupa stowed their harvests in bags slung over their backs and fastened to their harnesses. I could not compete with them in terms of carrying, but for the fine work my povum serta allowed me to hold my own, at least in my own opinion. We were picking lozenge-shaped purple fruit with shiny smooth skin like a tomato, growing on a dark blue bush. I was instructed not to eat them, assuming that’s what “Uman ka napa” meant.
A few workers were apparently in charge of keeping the youngest children from trampling crops and getting in the way, but for the most part the children (or lifi) were with us, helping. A heavy rain set in early that evening. We retired indoors for a somewhat cramped dinner, and went to bed early.
This was my life for several days. Usually I spent the day with the females and children, but not always. The work requiring the greatest strength was reserved for the males, but with anything else it was a toss up. My nimble hands were often sought out for the finest work. My language lesson continued, and in time, I discerned that serta was smart, or wise. Apparently I had “smart hands”.
The plant fibers were being fashioned into rope and twine. We harvested and prepared more arate. In some of my spare time I went fishing south of the village where the brook approached. I found and caught a few fan-fin eels. I found no lousters. I speared a new type of fish (or at least fish-like thing), a foot or so long, bright mottled colors, four fleshy flippers or fins, and multiple feelers or tentacles surrounding its mouth that I saw it use to pick up its food from the bed of the creek. Children accompanied me on most of my trips, and Shuvo or Chuicha on some. The fish were well-received and added to various dishes.
My bangs were hanging in my eyes. One day I retrieved my med-kit scissors and, working blindly for want of a mirror, snipped my bangs above my eyebrows. Shuvo saw and showed great interest in the process and remarked “Gumu shokone”. He and another tupa prattled on about shokone, but I could not follow a tenth of it.
Wuheka made a point of speaking with me at mealtime, but mostly he was busy throughout the day. As I learned the language a little more, I found out that Shuvo and Chuicha were his sons, and Atipa was either his son-in-law, or soon to be so. Wuheka’s wife was Fisogo. Everyone on the farm, or very nearly, were family. I gathered that Wuheka was a prominent member of the community, though not on par with Shomekota.
The farm was a family. I was not. I often mused about this. Marriage and kids had never really been on my radar, but I had always assumed someday that would change. Now it couldn’t. I would never know that life. The science fiction shows I had watched with my dad always had very humanoid aliens, with the women shapely and alluring. Humans and aliens married, even had kids. That was impossible here and not appealing. No marriage to xeno-llamas for me, thank you.
I began learning to weave mats with flattened fibers from the rope-weed. My smart hands were tested by a tupa potter. I had no talent for the cra
ft, but I was still able to put in some finishing details. Over the next week I found my nimble fingers somewhat in demand. I helped out with several task such as painting pots: I could produce finer lines than they could. In return, I received food, a length of cloth I used as a kilt, replacing my badly shredded pants, and a few bone knives that, while crudely fashioned, was still far superior to my makeshift spearhead of augie scraps.
One afternoon, Atipa came trotting up to Wuheka and announced “shokone elevim homi!” and immediately Wuheka and Chuicha handed their tasks over to others and exited the farm via the front gate. Wuheka paused and waved for me to join them.
“Uman chui ia shokone na?”—(Human talk with shokone?)
Shrugging (a gesture that meant nothing to the tupa ), I answered “Vom.” I accompanied them to the village center, where I fully expected to meet some emissary from a distant tupa village, or perhaps a returning member of this one. I heard the creaking of wooden wagon wheels and saw approaching the two enormous beasts that drew it. They looked like four-legged relatives of the pagemot, much smaller and longer—legged, tails and necks shorter, and tusks absent. I noticed them only for a moment, for then my attention was captured by the apes.
Or something like apes. They were vaguely humanoid, as much as a gorilla would be, and larger than me, but smaller than a tupa. They were thinner, more gangly, more angular, than gorillas, their legs longer in proportion, their joints knobbier. Their hair was brown and shaggy, and their faces hairless and bright red, and reminded me strongly of pigs, rather than apes. Some loped along on all fours, others on two. Unlike the tupa, they wore clothes—kilts or loincloths. I stood there and let it sank in. Wayworld was home to more than one intelligent species. These, Wuheka told me, were the shokone.
The shokone and tupa greeted each other and Shomekota introduced me to the foremost pig-monkey, calling him Tashini, though the creature referred to himself as Thashingi—different species, different mouth shapes. Thashingi and Wuheka spoke more, but I understood none of it.
Up close, I saw that the shokone had a bony-looking ridge that ran down the center of their head, ending about the top of the forehead. Their ears were round and small, and close enough to the skulls that at first I thought they had none. Their hands had two long, thick fingers and an actual thumb (not a kinda-sorta thumb like the tupa), all clawed, and one shorter thinner finger pinky-side. Their feet were bare, and had three large toes and a thumb.
In short order the town center was buzzing with activity. The five shokhung (as they pronounced it) unpacked their two wagons and set up a variety of goods: cloth in various colors, jars and bottles, tools, food. Tupa thronged about carrying their own wares.
I strolled about, trying to stay close to Wuheka or Chuicha, but as well as I knew them, it was hard to pick them out in an ocean of mottled blue and grey. Metal tools were among the goods sold by the shokhung, Their workmanship was finer than the tupa, but not particularly advanced. The trading continued in earnest for some time.
The following morning, the shokhung arrived at Wuheka’s farm with large bags. The tupa came in groups to the front yard. Several shokhung produced large shears, and to my amusement, began trimming the tupa’s long fur. The other shokhung gathered up the fallen fur and placed it into bags. Were they really harvesting tupa wool? When it was Shuvo’s turn, he prattled on to the barber about the uman and his povum serta. The barber looked at me, beckoned me over, and handed me the scissors.
I stood looking back and forth at them. He wanted me to trim Shuvo’s fur? He motioned at the scissors, then at Shuvo. I shrugged, and began clipping away. The shokhung watched with interest, swatting my hand away from Shuvo’s head when I got too close. Apparently the trimming did not proceed past the neck. My mentor seemed pleased with my work. Now I was an assistant barber. The others would do most of the trimming, and I would clean up the spots their larger hands had trouble navigating. I spent the rest of the morning helping out.
At lunch the shokhung dined with Shomekota, Wuheka, a few other tupa, and myself. Thashingi tried to engage me in conversation, but I understood him even less than the tupa, as the shokhung pronunciation differed greatly.
The tupa prodded me to tell the story of the battle with the telak, impressing the pig monkeys nearly as much as it had the llamoids. I saw that the telak was a well-known terror, and I had gotten even luckier than I had realized. Thashingi agreed that umang was (in his dialect), an ortha sha. Shuvo spoke to me, gesturing at one of his teeth and saying something about the telak, then waving toward my bag of belongings. I retrieved the bag and fished through it to find the tooth, which the shokhung passed around with great interest. One of them began pawing through my other belongings. I fought back a wave of indignation, knowing that the cultural differences were immense.
He snatched up my helmet, which had gone unused since I had fallen in with the tupa. He immediately held in up, fingered and examined it in great detail, then tried putting it on his head. It didn’t fit.
Thashingi turned to me. “I umang vikhipa nga?”
I did not understand and tried to say so. “Vikhipa vikhipa na? Vohe vohe vikhipa na?”(What is vikhipa?) At least, that’s what I thought I said. Wuheka responded.
“Vikipa e homi vimon.” (“Vikipa is ‘go here’.)
I uman vikipa na (One human go here?) I guess the tupa hadn’t told him I was alone.
“Vom. I uman homi.” (Yes, one human here.)
After lunch I was invited to continue working with the shokhung. We went to several places in the village, trimming and clipping. Tupa would line up to be trimmed. More attempts to converse followed, but the shokhung were not as chatty as the tupa. We barbered till evening, even after dinner. The trimming work went throughout the next day. By the end we had a wagon’s worth of tupa wool, stacked high in bags.
At the end of the work, I tried asking a shokhung named Khufir to trim my own hair and beard. As you could imagine, this involved a great deal of gesturing and near-meaningless repetition. Finally, he gestured for me to sit and he went about the job of clipping my hair. He cut it very short. I didn’t mind, as I didn’t need to impress anyone with my fashion sense. Clumps of dirty, wavy brown hair fell about me. Khufir fingered the hair and discarded it rather than bagging it.
He stepped back when he was done and eyed me for an uncomfortably long time. Another shokhung saw his attention to me and added his own, both of them speaking. All they said to me was “Shami ngava fofish umang”, telling me exactly nothing.
In return for my work, the shokhung presented me with my choice from among a handful of tools. I choose some sewing needles made from bone, some thread on a wooden spool, and sturdy-looking leather belt. I was not sure how much they felt my work was worth, but after my selection of the belt they began putting things away, so I interpreted that as meaning our deal was complete. We finished the day at dinner with Wuheka.
I understood little of the conversation, but I was the subject. Khufir pointed at me, gesturing about his own face, as he spoke. The shokhung asked many questions, and often the tupa answered that they did not know. Thashingi turned to me.
“”Umang vikhipa khomi khomi nga?” he said (Where did human come?). I wasn’t sure if he meant where did I come from, or where did I come to. He continued, “Umang shangamo khomi khomi nga?”
“Ka bori shangamo”, I stuttered (Not know shangamo.)
“Umang gebi kwe khomi khomi nga.” I understood the words, but not the meaning: “human high wagon where?”
“Ka bori chui,”, I repeated: “Not know talk.”
After a brief discussion amongst the others, the shokhung and a few of the tupa went outside, Thashingi snatching up my helmet and motioning for me to come. Once outside, he took a small pouch from his belt, held it up high, then dropped it.
“Shangamo,” he said. He picked it back up, dropped it again, and repeated, “shangamo.” He picked up a stick, dropped it. “Shangamo.” He picked up another, dropped it. Each time, sayin
g “shangamo.” It must mean ‘drop’. Maybe ‘fall’.
“Umang shangamo homi homi nga?” If I had followed his lesson, he was saying “Where human fall?” Was he assuming some feature of mine was a scar or injury from a fall?
“Pa ka shangamo,” I said. He titled his head and looked at me a long time.
“Umang shangamo,” he said.
“Ka bori chui.” (Not know speech.)
He lead me over to the nearby tupa wagon. He pointed at it. “Gebi,” he said (wagon). “Vom,” I replied, “gebi.” He pointed up. “Kwe,” he said. High, or maybe up. I forgot, exactly.
“Vom. Kwe.” (Yes, up.)
He pointed at the wagon again, then upward. “Gebi kwe.” He’d lost me. Wagon up? He must have detected my confusion. He plopped my helmet on my head and stated loudly. “Umang gebi kwe.” Was he saying I was a high wagon? Clearly, something was lost in translation. I removed the helmet and looked at him.
Thashingi puffed out his cheeks and snorted. He spoke to Wuheka a moment. Shuvo went back inside, and returned a moment later with a stoppered bottle that he handed to Thashingi. The shokhung took the bottle and bent to the ground, searching a moment, then picking up a small rock. He held up the rock to me.
“Umang,” he said. He held up the bottle. “Gebi kwe”. He unstopped the bottle, placed the rock inside, then stoppered it again. He held it up. “Umang wa gebi kwe”. (Human at up wagon.) He held the bottle over his head. “Uman ia gebi kwe wa kwe”. (Human and up wagon at up?) Thashingi looked at me, said “Umang ia gebi kwe shangamo,” and promptly tossed the bottle onto the ground, breaking it. He looked at me a moment, bent to retrieve the rock, held it up, saying “Umang,”. He bent back down, made hopping motions with the rock, picked up another rock, saying “Thupa” (how he pronounced tupa), brought the rocks together, and said “Umang ia thupa.” (Human and tupa.)
Diggory's World (Wayworld Book 1) Page 10