There were some taller buildings, if no megascrapers, and plenty of ground cars with a few aircars zipping around wildly. Some Nari hurried along the streets as well, gripping ropes that were stung from heavy metal lampposts. The street he was looking at was four lanes wide, flanked on either side by wide gutters down which water flowed. Well, ice at the moment. Dirty ice at that, with bits of rind from some fruit, bones and other debris sticking up from it.
The biggest single impression was one of untidy mess. The small yards around the buildings were mostly dirt with some scrubby lichenlike substance growing in places and they were all littered with trash. Trash joined the snow and dust in the wind, blowing down the streets, piling up in the drifts and being lifted up in the occasional dust devil that flickered through the air.
It was an altogether unprepossessing sight. And he was going to be living here for at least two more years.
Dad was gone already. The project he was working on was near the Basadab Spaceport, which was on the other side of the planet. Since there weren't very many facilities for human dependents in Basadab, Dad was going to be working there for three weeks out of the month and then would shuttle back to Heteran for a week. Leaving Josh and his mom alone for the rest of the time.
"Josh, I'm going out to look at a house," Jala said, standing by the room iris. "Order lunch while I'm gone but don't leave the room, okay?"
"Okay," Josh said. He didn't think he was going to be running outside to play any time soon.
He read and memed for a while, checking out the very limited local infonet. Mom had put the usual filter on it and there wasn't much that was interesting. Finally, getting hungry, he tried to access a room service menu, a skill he'd developed to a high art, but couldn't find one.
Prowling around the room he discovered a menu in one of the drawers. It was printed on plascrip and didn't have any link codes at all. He was, apparently, supposed to use the device by the bed called a phone. It didn't even have a vidlink. Odd.
He perused the menu unhappily. There were little flat-pics by each dish with a Galacta name. There was far more writing in Nari, blocks and dots that he couldn't read and which the plant wasn't programmed to translate.
There was a drink he recognized called shaloop. He'd had it a couple of times before and it was okay. After looking at the food on the menu he settled on something that looked like a strip of meat and a side of some yellowish-white things that looked like rice grains. He really hoped they weren't maggots or something. With the still-pic there was no way to tell. The Galacta next to it just said: "Chelo." There were at least a couple of sentences of Nari in addition, presumably explaining what it was to people that would already know.
He walked to the phone with the menu in his hand and considered it carefully. There was a note on it in Galacta.
Eating in the room to dial 315
Physical Service to dial 316
Bed Service to dial 317
Calling Out to dial 1
Calling in to dial 2
Every Other Thing to dial 0
There was a handset with the phone and large speaker. The handset was too big for his hand and the button that had to be pushed was on the wrong side for him. Finally he got the pieces arranged and dialed 315.
"Hello?" he said.
"S'GLOR RESH POOT!" a voice screamed back at him.
"HELLO!" Josh shouted in the phone. "IS THERE ANYONE WHO SPEAKS GALACTA?"
"S'BLOG NEBBUT . . ." the voice went on for some time as Josh set the speaker down where it wasn't causing his ears to ring.
"GALACTA!" Josh shouted. "FOOD, I NEED FOOD!"
"S'GLOR RESH POOT, MORUPT G'G'LOROAT!"
"CHELO!" Josh shouted. "CHELO, SHALOOP! ROOM 748!"
"CHELO, SHALOOP, S'BLOG EBDET B'B'MOROOP!"
"I guess," Josh said, then thought about his manners. "THANK YOU!"
But the phone was dead.
He tapped his fingers together, wondering worriedly about what he was going to get to eat, then prowled around the room some more.
He'd taken a shower the night before, before his dad left and he could get some explanations of the controls. But there were more things in that room than just human settings. He fiddled with the buttons and taps for a while, carefully. The shower was on a flexible hose that you had to hold up. Right now it was sitting in the bottom of the bathtub, which was huge. Josh pressed the button he'd been shown to get water, then kept going. There was a brown viscous liquid, another yellow viscous one and then one that looked like water but when it hit the material that hadn't drained from the others flashed into steam and gave off a sulphurous smell.
"Ah," Josh said to himself, nodding sagely. "That'd be for Sjoglun. . . ."
****
His mother came back just as he was finishing the second dish of chelo, the one he'd accidently ordered. The meat was something chopped up and pressed with spices and not bad at all and the yellowish things had turned out to be some sort of grain or at least they looked, and tasted, like. He just wasn't going to ask. It was something to survive on.
"What's that?" Jala said as she walked in the room.
"Chelo," Josh replied. "I don't know what it is and I don't want to; it's good."
"Well, we've found a house," Jala said. "There's a Nari family that lives there but they rent out the lower floor as its own apartment. And they have a sort of small, indoor, pool."
"Great!" Josh said.
"And I found a school," Jala continued, smiling at his grimace. "It caters to . . . sort of interplanetary middle management and some of the same among the Nari. Mostly Nari but lots of children of diplomats and that sort of thing; you should be able to fit in just fine."
"I don't speak Nari, Mom," Josh pointed out.
"All instruction is in Galacta," Jala replied. "And they meme instead of writing; I checked."
****
The house was one of dozens of identical domes set along a side street. The door was some sort of heavy wood and there was a pull rope by it. When Jala pulled on the rope a Nari answered the door quickly. Josh wasn't sure if it was a he or a she but it waved its claws for the two humans to enter. Josh watched the claws and thought about the vids he'd shown his class. Suddenly they weren't nearly as funny as they had been.
"This is Dr. Reenig," his mother said, gesturing to the Nari. "He owns the house."
"
"To be pleased to have you in our nest," the Nari said, whistling the words through a breathing slit set over his mandibles. "Come, come."
Behind the door was a small room with high tunnels sloping off to the left and down. Just beyond the room the tunnels split, one curving sharply inward and sloping down at the same rate and the other continuing in the previous curve but sloping more sharply. Both were closed by irises. The Nari took the left-hand corridor, whistling the iris open, and led them down a tunnel lit dimly by irregular globes that glowed with a faint, greenish light.
The walls and ceiling of the curved tunnel weren't dirt but something that looked like plastic or maybe wood with faint, irregular ribbing and occasional oval or circular patterns. The floor was set in tile that seemed to be marble or something similar. The walls were a deep purplish-red but the tile was white turned slightly pink and green by reflection. Josh felt like he was walking down a marble-floored intestine.
The tunnel finally flattened out at a landing with another iris. This gave onto a large room that was more regularly shaped to human eyes. The floor, again, was made of marble tiles, larger ones, each nearly a meter on a side, but the walls were plaster or something similar. The corners of the room were faintly curved instead of being sharply angular but the room was decorated with humans or Oolteck in mind. Instead of the faint glow-bulbs there was sun-paint on the ceiling, currently set to mimic an earthly tone.
Josh poked around the apartment in curiosity as the doctor showed it to his mother again. There were several rooms: two bedrooms, a sitting room or parlor, a very large entry room that connected to a di
ning room, a living room, a kitchen with mostly human-style fixtures and a fresher room. The apartment was comfortably furnished in human-style float chairs and couches. But he noticed that all the doors were double doors and very high. And beyond the living room was another room containing what looked to be a very large oval jacuzzi or small pool. It was currently dry but there were controls to fill it.
"See, Josh," his mother said, pointing to it as he was contemplating the device. "It's not much of a pool but you can splash around in it. The doctor called it a . . . conera or something."
"Kunerac!" Josh said, startled.
"Yes," Jala replied. "He showed me how to fill it . . ." she continued in a distracted tone, frowning at the controls and then pushing a blue button.
Liquid began to fill the bowl from inlets on the bottom and she knelt to feel the temperature.
"Mom!" Josh shouted. "Don't do that!"
"Why not?" Jala said, pausing.
"Uhmmm . . ." Josh said, trying to figure out how to explain gently. "Uhm . . . you have any of those rayel things? A small one that's not worth much real money?"
"I think so," Jala said, standing up and pulling around her pouch. She frowned dubiously at the metal pieces and then handed one to him.
"Back up," Josh said, fitting action to words, and then flicked the small piece of metal into the "water."
There was a fizzing and popping sound and when they stepped back to the pool the remnants of the rayel had settled to the bottom where it was quickly being dissolved.
"Acid?" Jala asked, sniffing. "Sulphuric acid?!"
"Yeah," Josh replied. "It's a kunerac. They fixed this place so Sjoglun could use it, too." He looked at the plate set in the wall and nodded. "Yep. Blefrib 2000. No expense spared; that's one top-of-the-line kunerac."
"And what is a kunerac?" Jala asked, horrified.
Josh took a few minutes to explain.
After contemplating the explanation for a moment Jala shook her head.
"I'm glad we just use the flusher. . . ."
[7: Remember, One Seventh Of Your Life Is Mondays]
Josh stood in the cold, waiting for the airbus, rubbing his hands together and wishing he had a hat. He'd been warned that if he wasn't standing out front the airbus wouldn't even drop. So he had to stand out here, freezing and contemplating his first day at the Central Heteran Combined School. His mom had picked it out but he'd never been there. It was somewhere in downtown Heteran and that was about all he knew about it.
A blue and white bus dropped out of the air just as he was considering dashing back in to warm up and the Nari driving it dropped the force-screen over the door and gobbled something at him. Josh hurried to board and looked around at the students in the bus.
They were mostly Nari, young ones ranging from dog sized to bigger than he was. There were a couple of Tooleck, a Nalo male that looked like he was older than Josh, a Sjoglun that must have been pretty young because he was not much larger than a human adult and three or four Terrans. One of them, sitting right at the back of the bus, was a really pretty blonde girl about his own age.
He took the first available seat, sitting next to one of the smaller Nari, and looked out the window as the bus lifted rapidly into the air.
Josh decided, immediately, that the driver was insane. The airbus, its engine screaming, lifted up to about six hundred meters, stood on its side and banked to the north, then dropped just as fast and grounded in front of another house. A Nari got on, took a seat, and the bus took off again.
They picked up three more young Nari, Josh straining not to throw up at each climb and drop, then lifted up one more time and, the engines clearly redlined, headed southward.
There were other vehicles in the air but, apparently, no concept of air-control. The bus dodged and weaved, once narrowly missing an airtruck that was being towed by some large flying creatures as the driver kept up a continuous, loud, stream of what was either a running commentary or, more likely, profanity.
Josh held on to the seat, there was not so much as a lap belt, and swore that he was going to find another way to get to school. The flight, however, was short and before he knew it they were dropping through a narrow opening in a force-screen.
The bus dropped to the ground with a crunch and the students began picking themselves up and getting off.
The school was completely shielded by the force-screen, which Josh found odd, and covered about three hectares. Most of what was visible were the low entry mounds of Nari nests but there were two large above-ground buildings. He had no idea where he should be going.
"Uhm . . ." Josh said, hesitantly, to one of the humans, a teenage male. "I'm in Miss Kakousis' homeroom."
"That building over there." The boy pointed to one of the mounds that was on the east side of the compound, right on the edge by the force-screen. "Take your first left on the tunnel, should be the third iris on the right iirc."
"Thanks," Josh said. "I'm . . . I'm Josh Parker."
"Jeno Szuchs," the boy said. "See you this afternoon, Josh. Isn't Homal the driver a bastard? He does it on purpose, you know. . . ."
Josh went to the indicated mound. There were a number of sophonts around his age, as far as he could tell, going into the same mound. He took the first left and found the third iris. This building, he noticed, had the weird plastic–wood on floor and ceiling. The iris wasn't a regular iris, either; it looked sort of wet, like it was an organism or something. But it opened as he stepped up to it.
The room within was crowded with beings. Most of them were Nari sitting on something that looked like a canted saddle or running around whistling and gobbling at each other. There were some Tooleck and two humans, one boy and one girl. The pretty girl from the bus wasn't in the room, which disappointed him.
The teacher was a human female, a pretty blonde lady. He was surprised by that but pleased; he wasn't sure he was ready for a Nari teacher.
He walked up to her and raised a hand.
"I'm Josh Parker," he said.
"And I'm Miss Alethea Kakousis, Josh," the woman said, smiling. She had long blonde hair that was braided and then wrapped in a bun behind her head and was wearing a flowered dress. "I want you to sit over there behind Doosam," she added, pointing at a Nari. The seat behind him was a rock, but Josh just shrugged that off. There was an empty desk behind the rock but probably one of the humans or Tooleck running around the room used it.
"Thank you," he said, walking to the rock and sitting down.
"Excuse me!" the rock said in gutturally accented Galacta. It shifted under Josh's rump and he jumped up quickly.
"Sorry," Josh said. "She told me to sit behind Doosam," he added, pointing at the Nari.
"I am Doosam," the rock answered. The top of it formed into a human face that looked something like Josh. "Doosam Padro. You're supposed to sit at the desk, bag-of-water."
"Sorry," Josh said again, sitting down at the desk. "I'm new here."
"Yeah, I know," Doosam said. "Terrys always make the same mistake." The face had rotated around to where it was facing Josh and the mouth moved like it was talking but the voice seemed to be coming from somewhere on the side of the rock.
"What are you?" Josh asked, fascinated.
"I'm a Tr'k'k'ikil," the rock answered in a series of clicks. "Humans usually just call us Trekkies."
"Class!" Miss Kakousis said loudly, pinging over the net for order and shutting down several toolies that were being played. "Take your seats, please."
Josh did a quick ping for the datanet and was surprised and pleased that most of the class seemed to have plants or something similar.
The school net pinged for the start as a few more young beings scurried into the room and took their seats. Miss Kakousis did a general ping to take roll and then brought up a hologram.
"We'll continue today with our study of the rise of the early Laek. . . ."
Josh was sweating by the end of class. He'd heard of the Laek before he came to Nari. They were an em
pire that stretched over most of the local galactic region prior to the Yemnor. They would have spread over the region the Yemnor came from if they hadn't had a big war with the early Sjoglun. It had been a sub-light war; this was before the invention of hyperdrive, way back in antiquity. They were early Nari and all the worlds in the area that had similar inhabitants, like the Atyl, had descended from them. But he'd never even heard of the Sdree, non-Narioids and apparently extinct, that had been an important part of the Laek Empire or Sdreas, Segjerx or Suilak, all of them Laek emperors that Miss Kakousis had mentioned in passing as if everyone in the room knew what she was talking about.
"Your memeports on the Laek Empire's second war with the Sjoglun is due on Julsey," Miss Kakousis ended as the ping for change of class sounded. "I expect not just text but full audio-tridee. . . ."
"Come on," Doosam said, rolling towards the exit. "It's Galacta next."
They didn't even enter the corridor, just went through another of those wet looking irises into the room next to theirs. The teacher there was a Tooleck.
"Josh," the Tooleck said, skittering through the crowd of young beings. "I'm Mr. Mistoki. Good, you've met Doosam. You'll be sitting right in front of him. . . ."
****
Josh thought that Galacta would be easy but the class was way in advance of anything he'd ever taken on Terra. They were reading something called Sharnash' Adventures on Norham. That was okay; it was about a Tooleck that goes to visit her aunt who lives on some jungle world. But the the spelling they were learning was . . . wrong. A bunch of the Galacta words were spelled differently than he was used to. Finally, he pinged the teacher hesitantly.
"Yes, Josh?" Mr. Mistoki said.
"Sir," Josh said. "Medakalbol. It's not spelled the way—"
"Ah, a Terran," Mr. Mistoki said, waving all five eyes. "Well, Mr. Parker, this is how it is supposed to be spelled, the Queen's Galacta, don't you know, not Terran."
"But Terrans do speak Galacta!" Josh replied. "And write it!"
"Not properly," Mr. Mistoki said with a sniff. "I am aware that you've been improperly taught up until now, young Terran, but try to keep up. . . ."
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