by Robin Roseau
"Both," I said. "While here, I am subject to all your laws."
"What about when our laws are different?"
"Then I follow first your laws, and then mine, but your laws are not difficult to follow."
"And your laws?"
"They can be very difficult to follow. Sometimes there are two laws that..." I didn't have the words I wanted. "I'm sorry. I am still learning your words. Two laws that fight each other. One says to do things one way; one says to do it another way. No matter what you do, you break the law."
"That seems like a poor system."
"The people who make laws like to make more laws. Sometimes, those people pay little attention to the laws that already exist. When you make enough laws, you promise to make laws that fight."
"Can they not unmake laws?"
"They can, but that would involve paying enough attention to the existing laws. The people who make laws aren't always so careful."
She shook her head. "Here, at least in this, it is better to be on Talmon."
I laughed and had to agree.
We talked for a while, then her eyes dropped to my tablet again. "What else can it do?"
"I can take your picture," I said.
"You would take something from me?"
"Will you allow me to show you?"
She paused before nodding. I held the tablet up and took her image, then showed it to her. "We call this a picture. It is like a painting."
"So easily." She stared at herself, then she tapped the screen, and it moved to another photo. "I don't understand. I didn't begin to move."
"I took only a single image," I said. "It doesn't move. But I can take video, too." I took it from her, held it up, started it, and then said, "Tell me a secret."
She laughed. "You wish me to tell you a secret so you can show it to everyone else?"
"I wish to save it to see it myself, later."
She smiled. "Well then, my secret is this. I secretly wish to kiss you goodnight. And now it is not a secret."
I stared for a moment before ending the video. I said nothing, but I turned it around and hit the play button. She watched the entire thing, and then when it was finished, she looked up at me.
"What do you think of my secret?"
"I am left wondering why we have to wait until it is goodnight."
It turns out, we didn't, and she needed no more encouragement. She moved closer then reached up with a hand and pulled me down to her. Our lips met, and as far as I was concerned, this was the real magic.
Sartine controlled the kiss, start to finish, and if she was just a child to me, she clearly wasn't such a child, and ours was not her first kiss.
It was a warm kiss, a sweet kiss, a kiss full of promises. But I didn't part for her, and she didn't ask me to. And then she ended it, gently, and we sat there with our mouths a few centimeters apart before slowly she relaxed her grip on the back of my head. When I opened my eyes, she was already watching me.
"You have kissed before," she said.
"So have you."
She looked at me for another few moments before she said, "It would be easy to be lost in kissing you, but we would squander the night."
"It would be no squander."
But she laughed. "Perhaps there will be more kisses, but I wish to know more about you. I have given you a secret, and now you must give one to me."
I laughed. "We gave each other a shared secret, perhaps, and so perhaps we will both share a different secret."
"I agree to your offer to trade more secrets," she said. "But I believe it is your turn to go first."
"All right. Do you want a funny secret, a deep, dark secret, or an embarrassing secret?"
She laughed. "And if I ask for an embarrassing secret, am I obligated to return one in kind?"
"Of course you are."
"Well then, we shall see whether you blush more readily than I do."
It took me a minute to decide what to tell her, but eventually I relayed a story involving myself, several of my university friends, and a case of deep, deep mistaken identity. I had to explain the concept of university first, but by the end of the story, she couldn't stop laughing.
"The worst part was," I said, "all night long people came saying, 'Hi, Mare' to her, and she only told me it was a term of..." I wracked my brains for the Talmonese word for endearment, but could only think of "love". "That isn't the right word, but you know what I mean?"
"Yes," she said. "But I think you have cheated in telling me a secret. This is clearly not a secret as practically everyone from your university knows."
I smiled. "Ah, but here on Talmon, now only you and I know, and so it is still a secret to everyone else. Do you feel cheated?"
"No," she said. She caressed my cheek, and I leaned my head into her hand. She held me like that for a moment. "Perhaps it is time to see you home."
"Perhaps it is time for you to share your embarrassing secret."
"Perhaps if I kiss you again, you will forget I promised one."
"And here, you already begin to break your promises to me, so new to our relationship?"
"I suppose that will not do," she said. "I should not break my promises on the first night."
"You must wait until the second."
"Exactly so," she agreed. "Well then." She launched into her own story, speaking carefully, about a hunting expedition gone awry. As I had to explain about university, she had to explain about the animals and places involved, but by the end, I was laughing nearly as hard as she had at my story.
"Do you have paintings of your university?" she asked with a gesture to my tablet.
I did, but I didn't want to show them. "I have an image of Mare," I said. "Would you like to see?" Sartine nodded, and so then I lifted the tablet, found the image I needed, and showed it to her. Sartine took the tablet and studied the image carefully.
"She is very pretty. I can see why you wished to spend the night with her. Why are you not still with her?"
"I was, for a while," I said, "but I am hard to live with, and eventually she left."
Sartine cocked her head. "I believe you salt the truth with your story."
I didn't understand the expression, which I admitted.
"You have parted, but I do not believe your reason for this parting."
"Ah," I said. "It is entirely true, although Chaladine also believes I lie when I say I am an unpleasant partner."
"I would not say you lie," she replied. "I would say you do not tell the entire story."
I thought about it. "That is true. The entire story is much longer in the telling."
We talked for another hour, and I showed her several more videos, but then my tablet died in the middle of a video. She poked it with her finger several times before she said, "It is broken."
I took it from her and saw the dark screen. "It is not broken. The batteries died." I had to use the English word for batteries.
"It died?"
"It is hard to explain." I thought about it. "I have seen clocks here. They have an arm that swings back and forth." I gestured with my own arm. "And inside, there are weights attached to chains. The weights drive the clock."
"Yes."
"But when the weights arrive at the bottom, you must open the clock and lift the weights back to the top, or the clock stops."
"And the weights in your tablet have reached the bottom."
"Yes."
"Then lift them again, and you can play more of your music." She poked a finger at the tablet.
"I'm sorry. I can't do it here. They aren't weights, but it is similar. I'm sorry. There are too many words I don't know to explain better."
"So no more of your videos?" she asked. The English word sounded strange on her tongue.
"Not until tomorrow," I said. I apologized again, but she smiled.
"Your magic does not last forever."
"No."
"Well then," she said, "you have shown me much tonight. Perhaps you have questions about Tal
mon."
I thought about it, but I didn't ask right away. She smiled again. "Perhaps you have questions, but you are afraid to ask."
"Some of your customs are very strange to me."
"Like galatzi."
"That was the one I was most considering."
"Ask. I will not grow offended."
"Are all exclusive relationships arranged in this way?"
"Oh, no," she said. "Very few."
"I could not understand when you spoke to Baardorid; you spoke so rapidly, and I barely understand the accent everyone here speaks. And I only understood that Baardorid was unhappy with your offer. Chaladine tried to explain, but then we were rude, and you grew angry."
"I should not have grown angry," she said. "I was frustrated, and I misdirected my frustration."
"Why were you frustrated?"
"We came a very long way, and I thought we would go home with no galatzi. I wanted to take Chaladine, you see, but Baardorid would not allow me to do so unless I offered myself in exchange."
"And you didn't want to do that."
"No."
"But you would offer your younger sister or brother."
"It was an uneven exchange I offered, which is why we also offered our quint fur. Did Chaladine explain?"
"She mentioned the fur," I said. "I don't understand. I thought you were offering a trade, but now it sounds like the trade is second."
"The galatzi is a trade," she said.
"Yes, a trade of your fur for things that Sudden has you wish. And you also trade your younger sibling to strengthen the deal."
"No, no," she said. "It is the other way. I trade my brother or sister and I take a brother or sister. This trade makes both clans stronger. The fur was only to offset the imbalance I offered."
"I still don't understand. Why would you trade your own sister away?"
"It is necessary," she said. "For-" and then she used a word I didn't know. I admitted that. She frowned. "Indartha is far away," she said. "Far from Sudden. Far from everywhere. If we do not have galatzi trades, then soon everyone is related to everyone, and then we would grow unhealthy."
"Oh," I said. "You're trading DNA!"
"I do not know this dee-en..."
"We call it inbreeding," I said, again using the English word. "If two strangers have a child, then the child probably has some strength from the father, some from the mother. But if a brother and sister have a child, they probably have similar strengths, but they also have similar weaknesses, and if you do that enough, the weaknesses grow."
"Yes," she said. "Exactly. So you see? No one from Indartha is a brother to anyone from Sudden. Or a cousin."
I nodded understanding. This had been a problem on a number of worlds. Many planets were colonized by transport ship after transport ship, tens or even hundreds of thousands of people providing a significant gene pool. But some of the planets had received only a single, small advance ship before being lost in the turmoil of the times. And so their gene pool had been too small. On some of those colonies, the shortcomings had eventually bred themselves back out again, but some colonies hadn't survived, and the evidence suggested sickness from inbreeding.
I was pleased that Talmon had a solution, although I thought the solution odd.
We talked a while longer, but the hour grew late, and finally I apologized. "I am having a lovely time, but I must seek my bed. I wonder if there is a carriage that can take me."
"I will take you," she said. "And then I will have my good night kiss."
* * * *
She commanded a small buggy pulled by a single horse, and I sat on the seat next to Sartine. The night had grown cool, and when she saw me wrap my arms around myself, she took off her cloak and wrapped it around me.
"But you will grow cold," I said.
"I am more accustomed to this weather," she said. "And perhaps you do not fear the cold, but you are not dressed for it in this lovely, but very thin gown."
And so I accepted the cloak. I guided her towards the embassy, and it wasn't long before we pulled into our compound. I directed her straight to the drive past my front door. She called the horse to a stop and set the brake before turning to me. We smiled to each other in the dim light.
"Sartine," I said in a soft voice. "I do not know all your customs." Then I reached up and caressed her cheek. "You are so lovely."
She smiled and clasped my hand to her cheek. "Were you going to lift the weights of your tablet?"
"Would you like to see?"
She nodded.
She climbed from the carriage first before turning to help me. Her leather clothing was far more suitable for life on Talmon than my gown. But then she placed her hand on my back, her fingers splayed through the lacing, caressing my bare skin, and I thought perhaps my clothing held certain advantages as well.
"You could never wear this in Indartha," she observed. "But I am glad you wore it tonight."
Together, we stepped to the door. I palmed the lock, and the door clicked open.
"Who else lives here?" she asked as we stepped inside.
"In this house, only me," I said. "The other houses hold the rest of my staff."
And then I didn't even think about it. I spoke in English, "Lights, medium," and they came on.
Sartine let out a small screech, then spun in a circle, looking for who knows what. I stepped back to her and set my hand on her arm.
"It is okay. It is only more of my magic."
"How does it work?" she asked after a moment.
"I'm sorry, Sartine, but that would take a very, very long time to explain, and I'm not sure I even understand. You should talk to Aston or Blaine about it."
"They know because they are men?"
"They know because they built it. I know many things, but not everything."
"So it is with all of us," she said.
My home on Talmon was not extensive. I had a much, much nicer home on Centos Four, even though I was rarely there. I gave Sartine the tour, ending in my bedroom. I took her hand and stepped towards her, but she placed her hands against my chest, holding me at a certain distance.
"Oh," I said. "I'm sorry. I misunderstood." I immediately began stepping away, embarrassed, but she captured my hands.
"You only misunderstand a little," she said. "I came inside to see you lift the weights and to share a good night kiss."
"You could stay," I said. "I know this is done here on Talmon."
"It is," she said. "And I would like that a great deal. But I cannot share your bed when I am here for galatzi."
"Oh," I said. "I didn't know. I'm sorry." When I stepped away the second time, she let me go.
I was disappointed, but it would only have been for the night. It had been a long time for me, and I'd spent the evening growing accustomed to the concept that a half-decade-long dry period was about to end, but it wasn't the end of the world.
"There is little to see when I lift the weights," I said. "But I will show you." I turned away and headed back for the kitchen. There was a small charging station for the tablet, and I pulled it from my purse and slipped it into the charger.
"This device lifts the weights, but it must do so slowly," I said. "You understand, they are not weights, but it is another explanation that would take a great deal of time."
She studied everything carefully, including the power cord plugged into the wall. "Why does it have a leash? Would it run away?"
I smiled. "No." I paused. "You have seen lightning during a storm." They had lightning storms on Talmon. They could be very fierce.
"Of course."
"There are many forms of energy," I said. I had to use the English word. "Um. A weight hanging from a chain is one form. As the chain falls, it can move a clock. I have also seen water wheels here. As water from the river flows over the wheel, the wheel turns, and inside, the flour is ground. You see?"
"Yes."
"Well, lightning is another form of energy, a great, great amount of energy, all of it being
spent at once in a great flash. Well, my tablet works off lightning, but very, very small lightning."
"You put a collar on lightning?"
"Sort of."
"But what is this leash?" she tapped the cord.
"That is where the lightning travels. We create lightning from sunlight, and we store it."
Her eyes bugged out.
"I know," I said. "I told you, there is so much."
"We have lost so much," she said. "You speak so casually about this, like it is nothing. And my people used to know all these things, too, didn't we?"
"Yes," I said. "But everything wears out, and your planet does not have the right metals to make more."
"Even if you taught us, we could not leash the lightning."
"Not unless we gave you the tools to do so. You couldn't make them here. I am sorry, Sartine."
"It is not your fault," she said. "You did not choose this planet."
"Do not blame your settlers," I said. "Talmon is a lovely, beautiful planet, and you have made a good home here. This-" I gestured to the tablet. "This is a convenience. It is not necessary to a good life. None of this is necessary."
"But would you part with it if you didn't have to?"
"No. I wouldn't know how to do anything without it."
"What would you miss most?"
"Hot showers." I didn't even hesitate.
"Hot showers?"
"I'll show you," I said. I took her hand and led her to my bathroom. These controls were not automated, so I turned the water on and then said, "It takes a minute."
"This is where you bathe?" she asked with a gesture. "Not here." I had a tub as well.
"I do both," I said. "It can feel good to soak." I reached my hand in, then adjusted the temperature. "Here. Feel the water."
I stepped out of the way, and she reached in.
"It's hot!"
"I told you. Hot showers."
"I-" she looked back and forth between the shower and the tub. "I could give you hot baths, but I do not know how I could give you hot showers."
"And that is why I would miss it," I said. I stepped past her to turn off the water. "A luxury, not a requirement. But you asked. This is what I would miss."
I led her back to the foyer. She remained wide-eyed. "There is light, but I see no candles or lamps. It is as if the ceiling glows."