I Am an Executioner

by Rajesh Parameswaran

  I hovered my craft in the parking-sky over the commercial center and descended. By the time I finished transacting and had loaded the ice into my craft, I was exhausted and badly in need of a nectar. Unwilling to wait until I returned home, I resigned myself to visiting an overpriced café at one of the resorts.

  I settled on the Lodge Grand Royale, a relatively modest glass-and-adobe structure. Leaving my craft with the valet, I descended to the human concierge, who walked me through the main building toward the café. I stepped carefully to avoid leaving sticky footmarks on the floor’s polished terra cotta. At the café, the female offered me a nice table on a balcony overlooking the river, pulling back a chair for me to sit in. A chair! I glanced about to see that the two or three other local beings were also sitting in chairs like Earthlings, so I, too, forced myself awkwardly backward into the angular wooden contraption.

  From the balcony, I looked out at the wide, glassy river: the suns were at their fierce peak. Few swimmers had braved the heat, if even for a dip, and the river’s edge was quiet. As I sipped my nectar, I opened a book I had brought with me—I have been making a study of the classics of human-English literature: Conrad; the Bible; Amy Tan. When I looked up from my reading, I saw walking through the café’s entrance a very striking couple: a young, broad-shouldered alien male in cloth pants and shirt, sunglasses. He had not bothered with a bubble helmet or bodysuit, which could have meant he had been here long enough to have developed resistances, or merely that he possessed the eager fearlessness of the young. The local female accompanying him wore a light flowing skirt. As poorly suited as clothes are for our bodies (I myself felt a buffoon in my six-legged pants, reserved exclusively for these outings into town), looking at this tall local female, for a moment, I understood their appeal. I admired the way the white skirt set off crisply the red-orange-blue of her abdomen, the captivating flutter of the soft fabric among her several limbs, how it veiled and revealed the form of her long legs. I admired her as any aging being enjoys an image of distant youth. The young female was staring away from me; she seemed to be laughing and chatting amiably with the handsome alien, the two of them thoroughly carefree.

  I wondered, when I was young, why did I not take nectar with such females? Why was I never at my ease? Why didn’t I dress in a bold manner and enjoy life at expensive alien hotels? It would have been nearly unthinkable at that time, yet I regret it. Instead, I stayed dutifully in my burrow, helping my parent to prepare corpses, until I met my mate, who would be my first and only female.

  It was several moments before the young being near the entrance turned three-quarters in my direction, and I realized that I was staring with longing at my own Nippima! How disconcerting for a parent, when he begins to see his child as a stranger. I observed the couple quietly for a moment, now with a parent’s pride and a parent’s panic, to see his beloved as she is seen by others, as just another being in the world. I was gratified to note at least that Nippima was comporting herself as a decent young being, standing her ground impressively among the Earthlings. Still, I was anxious that she should not make any mistakes. I noted her every move almost as if it were myself there, my presence in her body.

  Nippima and the Earthling were waiting to be seated. Now she turned in my direction; our eyes met; her smiling, happy face went slack, her feelers unfurled to the ground, her mouth fell open in utter dismay. Allow me to say, it is not a nice feeling to be greeted by one’s child with such a look. In any case, I raised my feeler in greeting, but she shook her head to discourage me from communicating further.

  I realized that I had been mistaken: she was not charming and confident and at her ease. Instead, she was hanging on by the barest of threads, just maintaining the plausible appearance of comfortable dignity in front of the handsome Earthling. But now the human himself had also turned and detected the transaction of glances between my daughter and myself. Some whispered words passed between them, and then his own mouth fell open, widening to a grin. Meanwhile, Nippima’s behavior had altered so completely; she could not meet the eyes of the boy with whom she had just now been having free conversation.

  “Mr. Thoren!” called the human.

  I smiled, nodded in modest acknowledgment. He took Nippima’s feeler and guided her in my direction. I rose in welcome. When they drew close, I touched them both, effortfully maintaining a warm smile.

  “Mr. Thoren, it’s so nice to finally meet you. Nippima keeps mentioning you. I’m Alessandro Peng.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said, pretending to recognize the name. When he removed his sunglasses, there were bright white patches of skin around his little egglike eyes, where the lenses had saved him from the intensity of the suns. “How nice to meet you.”

  He showed me a row of broad white teeth, edged with brown-pink mouth flesh. Just as the image of my daughter was deflated moments ago, something about this young human up close seemed suddenly distasteful to me.

  I thought, Ah, the little Alessandros of our planet, with their weird eyes and doughy skin, their blunted features, full-grown but unformed as maggots, attractive in that strangely queasy-making way. The Alessandros running about in boisterous packs during the tourist season, with skin of mud and cream and ochre, beating each other’s backs and guffawing in their broad accents, chasing after their balloon-breasted Jennifers and Prageethas, loudly calling to each other, stripping off their protective suits and roasting themselves like barbecued jungle-weasels along the river. Slumping drunkenly onto each other’s shoulders in the taxis that buzz about our town after dark, just for them, just for all these little Alessandros. My daughter is affectionate for an Alessandro.

  I had hardly opportunity to ask, “Why don’t you sit?” when the boy glanced to Nippima for permission—but my poor child was staring at her feet, about to die. So Alessandro forthrightly seated himself, and Nippima followed suit. What blithe and carefree creatures these aliens are!

  “Are you here on spring holiday with your friends?” I asked him.

  “Oh, no. I’m here by myself, on a research fellowship. I’m earning a degree in entomology.”

  “How wonderful.”

  “Back home I did a thesis on the digestive systems of larval hunting wasps. Here, I’m developing a research project at the Higher Academy, on the chemical transmitters that supplement verbal communication among beings, and how it compares with Earth’s insects.”

  “Earth’s insects? I should hope the comparison works to our favor!”

  “Oh definitely, yeah. In some ways. I’m looking at sort of the intersection of behavioral entomology and biochemistry and linguistics.”

  “My, my.”

  I found it a relief at least that the boy talked so much without any prompting, sparing me from having to demonstrate my awkward conversing skills. Aliens often make me nervous.

  “I like to climb, though. I met Nippima on my day off, hanging out at the gorge. Right, Nip?” He grinned again, in that fearsome human way, at my nonresponsive child. “Hanging out. Ha. I was suspended from a rappelling line, and she landed on the cliff wall next to me.”

  The more and more he talked, I found—to my surprise—I was beginning to see something endearing in his liveliness, his easy familiarity. For all his Earthling obliviousness, there was a distinctive quality to this Alessandro, earnest and quickly delighted, some hapless charm. Perhaps my suspicion of him was just a protective burst of xenophobia. I must acknowledge that he was quite a handsome alien, taller than most, with hair of wavy copper, wearing a string of brown river beads around his ruddy neck. I felt—what I felt was surprise, and a touch of pride, that my daughter had done so well as to befriend such a cheerful, good-looking human.

  “Well, how wonderful.”

  He reached over and held Nippima by the feeler, right in front of me—what local male would be so bold? And as I observed his five-pronged claw gripping my child’s elegant limb, I began to feel something vaguely shameful—I began to feel relief. A human: Was this the creature who wou
ld finally protect Nippima when she was no longer in the shelter of my burrow; who would shower her with resources, whose nature would never cause harm to her? There was something reassuring in his boldness, in the strength of his grip. I noticed now, peeking above the cloth of his shirt was some coloring he had dabbed on his chest. He had painted his skin pink, yellow, green—I’ve noticed it in more than one tourist at the resorts—in imitation of our own abdomens. The server finally returned, and I requested two more nectars.

  “But I’ve been dying to talk to you,” said Alessandro. Oh, no. “Nippima has told me all about what you do.”

  I turned, surprised, to Nippima, who was staring at the table in sheerest agony. “She has?”

  “Yeah, I sometimes think being a doctor—or, I mean, a healer—must be more gratifying than pure research.”

  I stared again at my child, who was studying the table’s ceramic pot of mammal milk with increasing focus. She turned to offer me the briefest of pained glances. Oh, Nippima! I was moved beyond words with hurt, with pity for my child, so eager in life, so desperate to move beyond herself. I would do literally anything to see her advance, but naturally it distressed me deeply that she was so ashamed of our profession that she had lied about it.

  But I would rather die a thousand deaths myself than hurt her. So I straightened in my chair and conceded to the humiliating lie: “It is a fascinating profession. Very gratifying.”

  The human’s face lit up. I did not know how much more to say, for fear of contradicting something Nippima had already told him.

  “What kind of patients do you treat?”

  Now here was an uncomfortable silence. I would have to venture over the brink.

  “Well, at the moment I am treating a middle-aged being. Suffered terribly in a craft collision. But we are using some, ah, traditional measures. And we hope to make her reasonably whole.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see,” he responded with grave interest, struggling to make sense of my words. “That’s so fascinating.”

  I feared that I had said something wrong, because Nippima wouldn’t look at either of us. Her feelers were winding around each other with increasing constriction, and I was keen to put her out of her misery as soon as possible.

  I turned to my child and rubbed her abdomen affectionately with my feeler, only to see her flinch. “But with that, Alessandro, I am afraid I must be going. Duty calls. Enjoy your nectar.” I got up abruptly, leaving a large piece of foil on the table, over the youth’s protests. As I rose, at last Nippima looked up at me with an anxious smile, embarrassed, apologetic, but still grateful for my departure.

  That evening, Nippima and I at first made no mention of the afternoon’s awkward encounter. Together, we tidied the kitchen in a strange silence. Then my imager lit up: it was Orlip. He was weeping saline furiously. “I have no foil to pay for a display,” he wailed. In a long, tortured soliloquy, he confessed to me—as if seeking my forgiveness—that he had surreptitiously squandered his parent’s savings on games of chance at the resorts.

  I tried to reassure him. “I am sorry about your savings, Orlip. But try not to worry about the leave-taking. Simple funerals are increasingly popular these days. They can be equally beautiful.”

  “How will you do it?” he begged me. “How will you conduct the leave-taking, if not a display?”

  “We can cover her with a coffin.”

  “A what?”

  “A box of calthus wood.”

  “A box!” Orlip howled in horror. “My ka, covered in a box.”

  “It is perfectly dignified.” I struggled to calm him. “It is what the humans use. It is not bad at all, really. A very pleasing covering.” I didn’t dare repeat the word that had so upset him. “I could inlay a little foil at no extra charge.”

  After the call was over, I turned to Nippima. “Lost his parent’s savings on games of chance! Can you believe it?”

  “Of course I can believe it,” she answered.

  “Why do you say that? Do you play games of chance?”

  She became suddenly preoccupied in assembling the dishes against the wall and did not respond.

  “It is too bad. I would have liked to do a display for Eth, but the strings and the armatures and so on are so expensive. Not to mention the time involved. In any case, a coffin will be fine.”

  She remained silent.

  “By the way,” I said—now that I was talking, I decided to continue on to the subject that was sure to make us both uncomfortable. “I enjoyed the company of that Earthling. Of course, it bothered me that you lied to him about us. You ought to take pride in our work.”

  “Sorry, Ka.”

  “But he seems a good human.”

  She shrugged her feelers.

  “I wouldn’t mind if you mated with one of them.”

  “Ka, for crying out loud!”

  “I suppose it is safer, in many ways, than with a local being,” I called to her, as she scuttled off, embarrassed, into her room. What should I have said? It occurred to me once again that my mate might have been better equipped for such conversations, would have more fruitfully been able to talk with our child.

  I worry so much about Nippima. Young beings like her and Orlip are adrift in this new world of ours. I feel I have done my best to guide her, but we grown beings scarcely know the way ourselves. Each month in the city passes like a year in the interior—so fast are we leaving behind our old ways. Perhaps even my own profession will soon become obsolete; we will begin stuffing our dead into ovens, compressing the ashes into vacuum-packed tubes, as so many Earthlings choose to do.

  The fact that there would be no display for Eth would save me a great deal of labor, but there was still much work ahead. The next day I rode to the commercial center to transact for the wood to use on Eth’s coffin. On my way home, the suns were low and warm in my face through the windows of my craft. Where the via runs flush with the river, I looked out across the flawless pink water, studded with small black figures—swimmers and air-surfers—dark, sun-sharpened silhouettes. The air was still; they floated and bobbed on the water, the suns setting behind them, clinging to their turbined contraptions. Occasionally, one of the surfers would catch a slight breeze and skim along, tickling the blushing glass of the surface.

  Was my child there? At this distance, I could scarcely distinguish the aliens from the beings. Was Nippima one of the swimmers? I hoped not. In fact, I worried for all these youths in the water, their bodies rising and falling with the gradual swell, subjecting themselves to the whims of the current. Which of them were neophytes, not conditioned for the hard work of staying afloat in the deceptively thick, mineral-rich water; who would sputter and slip and need to be rescued by someone more skilled than they? Who would be pulled down by one of the suction tides, and wear themselves out by trying to swim up against it, instead of abiding the surge, and swimming transversely? I thought of the bodies who come back from drowning, blue and wave-battered, rock-bruised, saturated. The suction tides are unsparing, and so many are lost.

  Nippima had a romance once—a very innocent romance—before the Earthling. This youth was a being, a poor swimmer. They were eating and drinking on the grassy portion of the riverbank late one night, virtually alone at that hour. I have always told her not to stay out late, but my advice is frequently unheeded. The male insisted on going into the water, although she warned him not to, and he disappeared beneath the surface. Nippima swam after him, going down and down for an hour, endangering herself. Finally she caught hold of him, swam him to shore. It was nearly dawn when she brought him home to me directly, having flown with him over her back, all the way down the via. I told her she should have left him at the beach, called the authorities. That poor, distraught, confused child.

  I dressed the poor being myself; I did not ask my child to help me. It was a terrible thing. My poor Nippima—she has not had an easy life.

  Beneath my craft, a few barefoot aliens were walking along the bottom of the via—the thrifty ones, b
ackpackers, who economize by renting simple burrows away from the city center, by not bothering with craft. They neglect to wear protective suits, and dine on aphids and weasels to save foil. Predictably, they are frequently laid low with dysentery.

  All these inexperienced, vulnerable youth living on our planet, and we must look after them. Level with my vehicle, some local beings flapped by their own wings along the trees that border the via. I passed by them one by one, their softly floating forms, until I came to see one long, familiar body: it was Nippima, on her way back to the burrow. I was so pleased to see her. She was flying slowly, by herself.

  I snapped open my window and called to her, smiling. She didn’t hear me, so I sounded my alert, leaned out of the window. I was upon her now; but still she did not turn to face me.

  “Hey, Nippima!”

  Now, finally, she looked at me. Her eyes were huge and burning orange, her proboscis pouring forth saline.

  “What happened, Nippima? My child! Are you okay?”

  She shook her head.

  “Get in the craft.” I was hovering now. A large cargo craft waited patiently behind me.

  “Go away,” she spat.

  “Something is wrong. Get in the craft.”

  The cargo vehicle sounded its alert. There were several more craft hovered behind it.

  “Please,” I pleaded. She was making me impatient, drawing a scene. But I forced myself to talk gently. Nippima is a stubborn being, but she has taught me to be the same. My advantage over her is that I am not susceptible to shame, as she is. The alerts behind us multiplied. I crept forward just enough to stay abreast of the child. Then she suddenly turned and in a sort of fury opened the craft’s portal while it was still moving, and flew inside, slamming the portal behind her.

  I gazed toward her now, as I pulled forcefully on the accelerator. She was panting and heaving, her face twisted into a rage, getting saline all over the craft. Whence this anger? I had not done anything to her. She seemed to me confused and seething, somehow monstrous. There are moments when my child becomes so unfathomable; I cannot imagine a creature more alien to me.