Through Alien Eyes tcod-2

by Amy Thomson

  Three

  Ukatonen stood with Moki and Eerin as the doors of the airlock swung open. A man in an ensign’s uniform led a group of six other humans wearing privates’ uniforms through the airlock. Ukatonen found uniforms oddly comforting. They carried meaning, like skin speech. It was easy to tell the status of the people wearing them. If all humans wore uniforms, his life would be a great deal easier.

  ’The airlock is ready for departure, Commander.”

  “Thank you, Ensign, the crew is ready to disembark,” Commander Sussman replied. Though she was trying to hide it behind a mask of formality, Sussman’s joy at their release from quarantine was obvious. Watching her, Ukatonen understood that Commander Sussman was as constrained by her rank as an enkar. He wished he had understood that earlier, he could have learned so much from her.

  The ensign turned to Eerin and the Tendu. “Dr. Saari, the press is waiting to speak to you. If you and the Tendu will come with me?”

  Eerin nodded. “Thank you, Ensign.”

  Ukatonen picked up his small duffle bag. The crew of the Homa Darabi Maru cheered as the security escort ushered the three of them off the ship. They went down the long, brightly lit tunnel of the airlock and then onto a metal walkway that overlooked an enormous room with high ceilings and bright lights. Huge machines moved immense metal boxes around. The air rang with the whine of machinery and the heavy clang of metal. The smell of metal and hot oil was strong enough to taste.

  “It’s the cargo bay,” Eerin shouted over the noisy machines. “This is where the ships are loaded and unloaded.”

  Moki stared down in fascination at the enormous machines, his skin roiling with excitement and awe. Ukato-nen felt small and exposed, like a tinka in a clearing.

  He was relieved when they passed through another airlock, then down a long corridor, -and out into a wide, brilliantly lit atrium. It was a huge room, full of humans. Towering over the crowd was an enormous tree. Long streamers of vines and aerial roots trailed from its branches down to the ground. Ukatonen stopped dead, all pretense at nonchalance forgotten. Under the wet-bird smell of the assembled humans, Ukatonen could smell the rich green aliveness of the tree. The rest of the room ceased to exist for him as he headed for the tree, aching to feel bark beneath his hands and feet again.

  Analin stood by a pillar off to the side of the room, watching the surging press corps jockey for good camera angles on the riser under the tree. It was nice, for once, not to have to be part of that milling scrum. Instead, she kept her eyes and her head-mounted video camera trained on the double doors where Dr. Saari and the Tendu would enter the room. Analin was more interested in the aliens’ entrance than the press interview. She would have her own exclusive interview with the three of them later.

  So she was one of the first to see Juna and the aliens as they came in the door, flanked by their security escort. The group stopped as they came in, giving Analin a moment to look at them.

  What surprised her most was how small they were. The Tendu were tiny, barely coming up to the chest of their brawny escort. Their long, gangly limbs looked spidery and fragile. Juna, despite her humanity, seemed to partake of that same fine-boned fragility. She was small, barely five feet tall, but she carried herself with the pride and poise of a queen. Her features were striking, delicate yet determined. She had the narrow, straight nose, wide solemn eyes, and arching eyebrows of an Ethiopian, but her skin was lighter, coffee with a hint of cream.

  The Tendu’s skins flared a sudden surprising hot pink as the lights of the assembled cameras flickered explosively over them, recording their images for the NetNews teams. The noise of the crowd swelled as reporters spoke into microphones. But the aliens were looking beyond the reporters.

  Analin followed their gaze with her eyes. They were looking at the giant tree behind the riser. In that moment, the Tendu ran for the tree. The security escort moved to stop them, but the aliens were already beyond their reach, racing up into the tree’s massive branches with the quick fluidity of squirrels. The Tendu reached the upper branches and paused a moment, their skins turning the clear, startling blue of a summer sky, and then began leaping and swinging from branch to branch, hot-pink lightning flickering over their brilliant blue bodies.

  The still pictures and her comm conversations with the Tendu had not prepared her for their nonhuman grace and agility. In the trees, their awkward gangliness vanished. They were beautiful in motion. She could have watched them for hours.

  Dr. Saari strode up to the riser, and with a thunderous clatter plucked the microphone from its stand. She turned off the microphone, and stuck it in her pocket. Then she swung up into the crotch of the giant tree with the same fluid skill as the Tendu, except that her movements had a familiar human quality. She pulled the microphone out of her pocket, switched it on, and tapped it to get the attention of the rapt and wondering press corps.

  “Hello,” she said, then waited until most of the cameras and microphones were trained on her. “Hello, I’m Dr. Juna Saari,” she began, “and these are the Tendu. It’s been a long time since Moki and Ukatonen have seen a tree big enough to climb in, so you’ll have to excuse them if they’re a bit distracted.”

  At the sound of her voice, Moki and Ukatonen turned a darker, more somber shade of blue, and swung down to settle next to her on a branch, bright pink flickers of lightning still coursing down their bodies. Juna introduced the Tendu, then thanked the crew of the Homa Darabi Maru, Mark Manning, the union, and the Survey for their help in expediting their release from quarantine. Then she handed the microphone to Ukatonen.

  “Hello,” he said, then paused in surprise at hearing his own voice magnified by the* public address speakers. “Hello, my name is Ukatonen. I am an enkar of the Three Rivers Council from the planet of Tiangi. I have come to learn more about your people so that we can learn to be in harmony with each other. I hope you will be patient and kind teachers. Thank you.” He spoke simultaneously in human Standard and in the Tendu visual language. How beautiful and strange their language was! The camera lenses whirred and spun as they focused in on him.

  He handed the microphone back to Juna. Analin saw him cast a longing look up at the treetops.

  Juna shook her head, and handed the microphone to Moki.

  “Hello,” he said, clearly repeating what he had heard Juna and Ukatonen say. “I am Moki. Dr. Saari is my sitik. You would say that I am her adopted son. Thank you for letting us out of quarantine and giving us a chance to climb this wonderful tree.”

  The reporters began shouting their names. Juna looked momentarily a little overwhelmed and frightened at the sudden clamor. Analin wondered where the Survey’s press flacks were. They should be up there, helping Juna out.

  “You,” Juna said, pointing to a woman in purple down near the front. Analin winced as she recognized the enormous trademark beehive of Fay Tsui from one of the Asian music Tri-D channels. Recognizing Tsui first was an insult to all the serious journalists from the major networks. Why the hell wasn’t anybody up there with Juna?

  “Dr. Saari, do you have any comment to make about your long stay in quarantine?”

  Analin relaxed. At least Tsui asked an intelligent question. Maybe there really was a brain under all that hair.

  “Yes, we’re glad to be out.”

  Analin smiled. Juna had given them a good response.

  “What’s it like being back on Earth?” another reporter shouted.

  “I don’t know. I’ll tell you when we get there.” It was an old joke, but it got a laugh.

  The press corps shouted more questions at Juna. She fielded them as well as she could, occasionally handing one off to the Tendu. She was handling herself well. If someone had sent her out here alone to make her look like a fool, they had failed. Although Juna was new to this, she had a great deal of grace and poise, and an instinctive ability to dodge difficult questions. None of the reporters managed to bulldoze her into answering a question that she wanted to avoid.

 
While Juna and Ukatonen were preoccupied with the reporters, the little one, Moki, climbed into the higher branches of the tree, and began swinging from branch to branch. The questions stopped as the cameras started tracking him. Analin smothered a grin. Moki was stealing the show.

  Juna used the distraction to bring the press conference to a close. Moki and Ukatonen followed her out of the large hall with many longing looks back at the tree. Their escort fended off the reporters who tried to follow them as they led Juna and the Tendu into a security elevator. At least the security people were doing their jobs. As the doors slid closed, the reporters pulled out their comm units and began filing stories.

  Analin got herself a cup of coffee and a pastry at a corridor-side cafe. She watched the reporters hustling by, their comm units pressed to their ears, and smiled. How nice not to have to rush to a deadline, she reflected. She sipped her coffee, savoring the moment. When enough time had passed for Juna to have gotten settled, Analin picked up her comm and dialed her number.

  Juna answered the call. “Analin! It’s good to see you! Where are you?”

  “I’m here on Broumas station. Are you up for that interview?”

  “Of course,” Juna said. “We were just about to find a quiet spot with some trees to climb.”

  “Why don’t you meet me in the West Atrium Park? It has some lovely big trees, and it’s just a couple of blocks from the shuttle stop. It’ll be nice and quiet at this time of day. Can you be there in twenty minutes?”

  “Sure!” Juna said. “We’ll see you there.”

  Analin slid a healthy tip under her coffee cup, shrugged on her backpack, and headed for the elevators.

  She got off the shuttle at the West Atrium station, with its colorful tile murals, and wandered into the park. Big banyan trees arched over her, their fibrous roots dangling down. Some of them had grown all the way to the ground, thickening into muscular-looking mottled grey pillars. She wandered between them, wondering where Juna and the aliens were.

  There was a rustling in the branches overhead. Dead leaves pattered to the floor around her. She looked up but saw nothing. Then one of the Tendu leaped to the ground, startling her.

  “Hello, Analin!”

  “Moki?” Analin asked uncertainly.

  He nodded. “Juna and Ukatonen are this way.”

  She followed him through the grey pillars of the banyan trees to the enormous central trunk.

  “Juna said this would be the easiest route up,” Moki told her.

  Analin stared up into the branches. “Um, I’m not much of a climber, Moki.”

  “It’s a really easy climb. I’ll carry your equipment for you,” he offered.

  “I see,” Analin said, resigning herself to the ordeal.

  Moki slung her heavy satchel of recording and video gear over his shoulder as though it weighed almost nothing. Then he helped Analin up into the tree.

  As long as you didn’t look down, it was an easy climb. The branches were broad, and sloped upward at a gentle incline. Moki had to steady her a time or two, but otherwise she was fine. Juna and Ukatonen were settled in a spot where the tree branched and rebranched, splitting into several large, level branches that offered a number of comfortable places to sit.

  Moki sat next to Juna. Several brilliant patterns kalei-doscoped across his skin. Juna smiled, and brushed his shoulder with the backs of her fingers, the strange gesture clearly conveying her fondness for the alien youngster. Moki’s skin flared blue, and then settled to a cool shade of celadon.

  Juna greeted Analin warmly. “Thank you for climbing up here. It’s been such a long time since the Tendu have had the chance to climb a tree. Besides, we won’t be disturbed here. People never think to look up.”

  Analin settled herself against an upright branch. “It was a good idea,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “I was surprised when you called. I didn’t see you at the press conference.”

  “I was watching from the back. I knew I was going to get an exclusive interview with you, so I let the others ask the questions.”

  Juna made a rueful grimace.“That press conference was a disaster,” she said. “It was completely out of control.”

  “I thought you handled a difficult situation rather well,” Analin said. “Didn’t the Survey send anyone along to help out?”

  “Just the security escort,” Juna said.

  Analin shook her head. “Either they’re really disorganized, or someone was hoping you’d make a fool of yourself. Don’t worry, you were fine,” she reassured Juna. “Was this your first press conference?”

  Juna nodded. “I hope I never have to do another one,” Juna admitted.

  “You’re famous, yes?” Analin said. “You must get used to them. It will get easier.”

  Juna shook her head. “I don’t know the first thing about dealing with reporters.”

  “Juna, you need a press secretary, a professional who knows how to handle the press.”

  “Would you do it?”

  “Me?” Analin said, amazed. “B-but I’m just a journalist. I don’t have any experience as a press secretary.”

  “You know the ropes,” Juna said, “and you like the Tendu without being silly about it. It would mean spending a lot of time traveling, though. And you’d have to work with Ukatonen and Moki, to teach them how to behave in front of the cameras.”

  “I’ll think it over,” Analin said, hiding her excitement at the opportunity she was being offered. “But I promised the editor of the Times NetNews an exclusive interview with you and the Tendu. I need to do that before I consider any job offers.” She took out her video cameras and recorder, and started to set them up.

  The interview went well. It was easy to draw Juna out. Soon she was entwined in reminiscences of her time among the Tendu. Ukatonen and especially Moki, helped fill in her account with explanations and details of village life, and life among the enkar. Analin forgot she was doing an interview, and listened raptly, until her computer chimed, signaling that its memory was full. She checked the clock on the computer and realized that they’d been talking for over two hours. Her behind had grown numb from prolonged contact with the unyielding tree limb. Only then did she remember that this was not a lengthy chat with an old friend.

  “Well, I hope I said something useful amid all that chatter,” Juna said, suddenly awkward.

  Analin smiled. “Juna, I could write a book from what the three of you told me tonight.”

  “Oh,” Juna said, with a fleeting look of concern. Analin could tell that she was worrying that she’d said too much.

  “But I won’t,” Analin reassured her. “I only have time to edit this interview for the net. Then I’ll be too busy being your press secretary.”

  She looked up, eyes wide. “Really? You’ll do it?”

  She nodded. “Juna, you’re offering me the chance of a lifetime.” She shook her head ruefully. “I hope I’m up to the job. You’re a very hot property.” Analin crumpled her comp up and tossed it in her knapsack. “Of course,” she added mischievously, “I do have to get down from this tree without breaking my leg before I can take the job.”

  It was good to be off the ship, Ukatonen reflected, though this place was not that much of an improvement. At least there were trees to climb, and new things to do. There were many people, each of them as full of questions as a river is full of water. They all wanted to know about the Tendu and about Tiangi. After a while, the river of questions seemed to flow back into itself, repeating and repeating the same questions over and over. He lost interest in the endless questions.

  But General Burnham’s hostility continued to puzzle him. Why had she fought so hard to keep them on the ship? According to Juna and Analin, she represented a group of humans who were afraid of the Tendu. The idea seemed ludicrous. Their world was far away across an ocean of nothingness and stars. The Tendu could not come here without the humans and their sky rafts. He shook his head, deeply purple in his puzzlement.

  “A
nalin,” he said, at the end of yet another long day of interviews, “I want to talk to General Burnham. Is that possible?”

  Analin looked at him, her brows raised in what Ukatonen was coming to recognize as surprise.

  “Why?”

  “I do not want her to be afraid. And I want to understand her. Is it possible to speak with her?”

  “It is, but I am not sure that it is wise.”

  “Perhaps not,” Ukatonen admitted, “but it does seem to be necessary.”

  “Ukatonen, she does not mean you well,” Eerin warned him.

  “I understand. She kept us prisoner on board ship. She is afraid of us. But perhaps if she knew us, she would not be afraid.”

  “But if she is your enemy, Ukatonen, the more she knows about you, the more opportunity she has to hurt you,” Analin pointed out.

  “Perhaps, Analin, but I must try to reach harmony with her.”

  “That will be hard, en,” Eerin put in. “And you must be cautious. First we must know more about her.”

  “That, at least, is easy,” Analin said. She unzipped her backpack, and took out a thick envelope. “This is a dossier on General Burnham that I had prepared when I was working on the quarantine story. It is quite thorough.”

  “I see,” Eerin said. “Thank you, Analin. It will be a big help.”

  Eerin went over the general’s file with Ukatonen, but almost everything in it seemed incomprehensible to the enkar. It only reminded him of how much he had to learn about humans.

  At last, after most of an evening spent in explanations that clarified nothing, Ukatonen looked up at Eerin. “I think it’s time I called the general up and talked to her. There is nothing more I can learn from this file.”

  “Are you sure, en?”

  Ukatonen nodded.

  “Then we will call her tomorrow morning, before our first interview.”

  The next morning, Ukatonen sat down at the computer, the comm number for General Burnham emblazoned on one arm in Standard skin speech. He closed his eyes for a minute, thinking over what he was about to do. Burn-ham’s background was a confusing blur to him, but he could tell that the humans were scared of her. She held the responsibility for many humans in her hands, but not kindly. Best to think of the general as the leader of a pack of predators, he decided. He had to try and reassure her that he and his people were not a threat to humans or their territory. It would be hard— she was already afraid of the Tendu— but he had to try to understand her, to make her less afraid of him, to reach harmony with her.