Alien Nation #4 - The Change

by Barry B. Longyear

  Sikes shook his head. “Forty-four victims, and you have all their dates of death memorized? Not only that, you worked out this pattern just in your head so that when the Hairy Child out there shot off his mouth, suddenly you know all and see all within the next five minutes?”

  Francisco frowned and rubbed his chin as he stared through the open door to the street. “That was rather clever of me, wasn’t it?” He shook his head and looked at his partner as the sirens and tire squeals of the backup units filled the street. The sounds seemed to drive raging pains through George’s head. “Not nearly clever enough, perhaps.” George looked at Matt. “I should call Susan again. Then we go to the autopsy.”

  C H A P T E R 1 0

  BUCK SAT AT a table in a dark corner of the university student union, his eyes picking out the features, shades, manners, postures, and modes of dress exhibited by the students there. His sharp hearing picked out the word choices, grammars, pronunciations, and emphases. Life is the experiment taking place before our eyes, the Hila had said that first day at the vo. Buck was suspecting that what he had originally wanted from the vo—some sense of cultural and racial identity and pride—was exactly what Aman Iri was determined to extract from him.

  “Isn’t it true,” he had asked the Hila, “that there is a difference between racial pride and racism?”

  “It is true, Buck.” Aman Iri had pushed his raggedy straw cowboy hat back on his head and gathered his words. When he was ready, he said, “Racism is the result of the destruction caused by a horrible machine. The machine is the concept—the idea—of races among the race of men and women. The machine does its destruction powered by the fuel of racial pride: the fiction that one may draw personal worth from the accomplishments of others, even imaginary divisions among the race of men and women. Everyone who furnishes his or her mind with the idea of races, everyone who has so-called ‘racial pride,’ is a racist, most of them doing their destructions from the noblest of motives, foremost of which is the end of racism.”

  It gave a whole new meaning to “who’s who.” Buck looked to another table, around which several students were standing and talking to four who were seated. One of the students who was standing was Randy Cook. “Observe the specimen in life’s experiment,” Buck muttered to himself.

  Specimen Randy dressed “black,” walked “smart,” and spoke jive like he was laying it on with a trowel. Randy called himself “Afro-American,” and most of the persons in the huge dining room would, if asked, refer to Randy as either black, Afro-American, or something more inflammatory. Yet his skin was lighter than many of the “whites” in the room. It was certainly lighter than Todd Kimball’s skin.

  Todd also dressed “black,” walked “smart,” and spoke fluent jive. After all, it was not only politically correct, it was cool, two more terms that needed a meaning check. In addition to being correct and cool, Todd’s skin was rather dark. Yet Todd would probably refer to himself as white or Caucasian, while most of those in the student union would use terms of a more incendiary ilk.

  Approaching a table carrying a tray were two engineering students: Ravi Kothari and Tammy Kuro. Ravi was from India and Tammy was from L.A. Tammy’s ancestors, however, had come from Japan. Recalling his library notes, Buck suspected that it must be very confusing to have origins in India or Japan. In Los Angeles, Ravi was “white” and Tammy was “Asian” or “Oriental.” In South Africa, however, Ravi was “colored” and Tammy was “honorary white.” The old “honorary white” status of the Japanese in South Africa was due to the fact that at one time the South African whites needed business relations with the Japanese, and the Japanese weren’t about to put up with the restrictions placed upon blacks, or coloreds, in South Africa. Thus they became honorary whites, which gave rise to an even more bizarre concept: economic race.

  The more Buck poked at the concept of races among the race of men and women, the sillier the idea became. He looked down at the pile of paint chips on the table before him. He had put in his morning at the library fruitlessly trying to find referents for the racial labels used by humans and Tenctonese alike. There really were black cats and white cats, but there were no black men, no white men. The existence of real black cats and real white cats was not sufficient reason for science to attempt to divide up cats into black and white cat races, yet imaginary black humans and imaginary white humans had been all the reason necessary to come up with black and white human races. What, then, were the real colors?

  After leaving the library, Buck had gone to the paint store and had selected one sample each of every color. He sorted through the samples until he found one that came very close to matching Randy Cook’s actual color. According to the paint sample, Randy was not black, he was mocha cream. Todd Kimball was not white, he was cocoa. Ravi Kothari was mocha cream, as well, and Tammy Kuro was pale orchid. He sorted among the chips until he came close to his own color, and read the name: peach mimosa. Thus spake Marden Paints, Inc.

  It sounded bad, strong, empowering, to make a fist and shout “Black power!” or “White power!” In certain breasts the sounds struck fear; in others, joy; in still others, pride. What would Randy Cook get for a reaction should he raise his fist and shout, “Mocha cream power!” Then Todd would shake his fist and scream back, “Cocoa power!” What would they get?

  Puzzled looks? Giggles?

  Buck had an almost irresistible urge to stand, raise his fist, and shout “Peach mimosa power!” He tossed the chip on the table and let his gaze wander. Colors filled the room: rose, gardenia, Tahitian blush, pebble, misty dawn, caramel, desert sunset, sugar ’n’ spice, coffee lite, rawhide, sand, tutti-frutti. He pulled out his original four chips. He had found many colors, but he had yet to find a black, red, yellow, or white man, woman, or child.

  “Buck!”

  He turned his head and looked up to see Theo White, his best friend at the university, waving at him. Theo was a White, but he wasn’t white. He was black, but he wasn’t black either. Buck picked up the appropriate chip and read the names of the shades. Theo was somewhere between devil’s food and chocolate mousse.

  “Buck, where’ve you been? Professor Lee’s been trying to track you down for days. He wants to put your name in for that language scholarship, but he can’t do it unless you sign the application. Gainer’s been looking for you too. You have three papers due, man, and can academic dismissal be far behind?” Theo frowned at Buck, glanced at the paint samples, and looked back at his friend. “You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said. Where’ve you been?” He pulled out a chair facing Buck and dropped into it. “Buck, my man. What is it? We’re friends, and friends talk. Talk to me, friend.”

  Still looking at his paint chips, Buck said, “Theo, I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, is there a difference between my friend and my black friend.” He looked up at Theo.

  Theo White frowned, leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “Is this a trick question?”

  “I’m not certain. Aren’t all questions trick questions, depending on who asks and who tries to answer?”

  “What was the question again? The difference? Is there any difference between my friend and my black friend?”

  “That’s right.”

  Theo thought upon the question for a long time. He shrugged, raised his eyebrows and held out his hands. “Okay, I say no. There is no difference.”

  “If there is no difference,” Buck continued, “will my friend still be my friend if I refuse to call him black? And what happens if I refuse to pretend to understand what he’s talking about should he call himself black, because I don’t?”

  Theo’s eyebrows went up as he leaned his elbows on the edge of the table. “I can see you haven’t been wasting your day.” He pointed at the paint chips. “What’s all this?”

  Buck picked up the original four paint chips. “Theo, for the last three weeks I’ve been under instruction at a special kind of school called a Rama V
o. A Hila there, one of the Elders, gave me an assignment.” Buck snorted out a laugh. “Actually, he threw me out of the vo until I can do two things. First I must look for and find one of each: a black man, a white man, a red man, and a yellow man.” He pushed out the four paint samples.

  “Man, that is a red red.”

  “That’s a black black too, Theo. I am expected to fail in this assignment, of course. I must attempt it, nonetheless, and in so doing have revealed to me the mystery of the flower and the weed. Once I can report the mystery solved, I may return to the vo.”

  “Flower and weed? This is why you haven’t been to any classes for three weeks?”

  Buck nodded slowly. “Yes.”

  Theo picked up the yellow paint chip. “I don’t get it. What’re you learning in that place?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m unlearning. I think I’m learning that I don’t think. I simply react to bad programming.” He looked at Theo and smiled sadly. “Labels in my head have me and everyone on earth living by and in fictions. What I’m talking about, I guess, is that I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up, Buck.”

  “Any time.”

  “You know, I have a cousin who was hit by lightning who talks just like you.”

  Buck snorted out a laugh, slumped back in his chair and looked again at the faces in the room. “What do you call ‘them’ if there is no ‘them’? And if there is no ‘them,’ what are ‘they’? What are we? What are you? What am I?” He faced Theo and pointed at the yellow chip in his hand. “Have you ever seen a yellow man?”

  Theo tossed the chip into the center of the table. “Sure,” he answered. “Homer Simpson. You know, Bart Simpson’s old man?”

  Buck laughed. “Yeah. And for a white man, how about the Pillsbury doughboy?”

  Theo held up a hand. “What about Woody Woodpecker for a red man?”

  “He’s a bird. Besides, he’s not red. He’s just got red hair.”

  “Red hair, Buck? On a woodpecker?”

  “Okay, red feathers. He’s still a bird.”

  Theo leaned forward, folded his arms, and leaned his elbows on the edge of the table. “Okay, what about Spider-Man?”

  “That’s only a suit, like the Flash.”

  Theo shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “Okay, what about a black man?”

  “How about Daffy Duck? If you’d go for Woody Woodpecker, Theo, you have to go for Daffy Duck for a black.”

  “Actually I was thinking of Marvin the Martian from the Bugs Bunny cartoons. He’s black and he wants to blow up Earth.” After a mutual stare, they both burst out laughing. “So, now that you’ve got them, you can go back to the vo.”

  “The trouble is, none of them are real, Theo. They’re animated fantasies. They don’t exist. Neither do red men, white men, yellow men, and black men, but I already knew that. What’s the Hila trying to teach me?” He grimaced as he looked down at the paint chips. “I knew they didn’t exist, but I treated them as though they did exist. I used the words. Everyone uses the words. Everyone knows that they don’t exist, yet treats them as though they do exist. Maybe I still do.”

  “We’re not still talking about Daffy Duck, are we?”

  Buck lifted his gaze until he was looking at the faces in the room. “Theo, have you ever seen one of those optical illusion patterns where the steps seem to be going up, then they’re going down, then up again?”

  “Yeah.”

  Buck held out his hands, indicating the other students in the union. “That’s what’s happening to my head right now. One second I see blacks, whites, Orientals, and so on, and the next all I see are humans and Tenctonese, and the next all I see are students, persons. Then I hear someone make a crack and suddenly the place is filled with blacks and whites again.” Buck looked at Theo. “Are you a black man?”

  Theo took a breath, used it to puff out his cheeks, then let it rush out in a sigh. “Man, I only cut class to come in here for a cup of coffee and to cram for my organic quiz next period.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Buck, this school you’re going to, how come you just disappeared? You didn’t say anything to me or Roger or Tammy. I know you didn’t say anything to any of your instructors. I’ve checked.”

  “It’s okay, Theo. I didn’t tell my family either. Guess I’m feeling pretty guilty about it. I suppose I didn’t tell anyone about it because I didn’t want to be talked out of it. The Hila wants me to tell my father.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Theo, my father is like just about every other Tenctonese parent his age. Fit in, adapt, copy, do anything to join up and become an invisible part of things. Human kids my age go to high school; then I should go to high school too, even though I’d finished every course my school had to offer by the time I was fifteen. You don’t know what a fight I had getting my parents to allow me to go to college, even though I’m paying my own way, and even though there are numbers of human kids under the age of eighteen in college. The Rama Vo would really get him. It’s run by a bunch of old Tenctonese who don’t fit into anything anywhere and don’t even care to try. They are who they are, and they find that just fine. On top of that, the vo isn’t accredited and they don’t award a diploma or have a football team.”

  Theo shrugged and held out his hands. “You still look like you feel guilty.”

  “My dad, he’s going through some kind of weird physical thing. Aman Iri, the Hila, he thinks he can help my dad.”

  Theo simply sat there, his lips pursed, his eyebrows arched.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll tell him. I don’t expect I’ll figure out the flower and the weed thing any time soon, anyway.”

  There was a different tone to the room, a hush replaced by anxious words and glances. Two students rushed from the union, quickly followed by a third and a fourth. “Hey,” Theo shouted to a passing female student. “What’s going on?”

  “A student over in Professor Gainer’s two o’clock. Someone shot him just a few minutes ago. Killed him dead. There’s an army of cops over at the Learning Center. Somebody said that one of the police officers was killed too.”

  “Jesus,” Theo said, his face blanketed with shock.

  “They were both just rubberheads. The student in Gainer’s class—” The girl stopped in the middle of her comment when she noticed Buck sitting there, staring at her. Her cheeks flushed and she muttered “Sorry” as she held her books to her breast and rushed away.

  Theo stared after her for a moment, then shook his head. “If your Hila wants to add a genuine asshole to his black and white collection, I know where he can find a slightly bent specimen. Sorry, man.”

  “Who’re you apologizing for?”

  “I don’t know. The human race, maybe.” Theo eyes widened as he checked his watch. “Gainer’s two o’clock? That’s our class!” He reached across the corner of the table and grabbed Buck’s arm. “Did you hear me? The dead kid? That had to be Roger! You and he were the only two Tencts in the class.” Theo frowned and looked down at the table, seeing nothing. “Man!”

  “What is it?”

  Theo raised his gaze until his frown was centered on Buck. “Last week Roger moved from the back of the room and took your old place. You hadn’t been to class for weeks. He had to be sitting in your seat when—”

  “It can’t be Roger,” Buck said, his words almost a prayer. “Theo, maybe some other Newcomer was monitoring the class. That has to be it.” Buck shot to his feet. “We better get over there and see if we can find out what happened. Oh, hell.”

  “What?”

  “I should call my mother too. If she hears this on the news before I reach her, she’ll freak.”

  As Theo raced from the union, Buck began to gather up his paint chips, but stopped when he felt a strange itching sensation between his shoulders. He turned around slowly, examining the faces in the room. Threats seemed to lurk in every expression, every shadow, every corner. It was the ultimate �
��them,” and he was a very small, lonely “us.” He glanced down, grabbed the original four paint color samples, and ran from the building.

  C H A P T E R 1 1

  “I’M DETECTIVE MARK Diaz. I’m here to see Susan Francisco.”

  Rita Jessup looked up to see a LAPD badge dangling in front of her. Above the badge was a human face wearing a kind smile, thick black moustache, sunglasses, and a gray suit. “I’m sorry, but Mrs. Francisco had to leave this morning,” Rita answered. “Is this about the escape of those two convicts from China Lake?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not at liberty to say,” he said as he replaced the badge inside his coat pocket. “We’ve tried her home, but she isn’t there. Do you know where she went? It’s really very important.”

  “She hasn’t been in since this morning, not since that call from her husband. She went to pick up her children from school. She couldn’t locate her son, Buck.”

  “He’s been located, and we know she’s picked up her two daughters. Since we couldn’t find her at home, we thought she might’ve come back here.”

  “No, she hasn’t. I certainly hope nothing’s happened. We’re all so fond of the Franciscos here.”