So Long Been Dreaming

by Nalo Hopkinson

  Jonah immediately realized the problem and tore off his gloves. He heard the station doctor scream through the tiny earphone he was wearing: “You idiot. We haven’t completed bio-screens. You are facing isolation. Damn it, I knew we needed to get a regular business negotiator.” Jonah knew he now faced at least three months of isolation He did not care. This was a chance of a lifetime.

  “We welcome you to our station. I hope that you will soon be able to come to the surface and see our home planet. It is very beautiful.”

  “Life blooms,” she answered.

  Jonah was half a metre shorter than Enrishi, built square and sturdy, and moved like a thick-legged spider. He had learned yoga, how to play the flute, balafon, talking drums, and sarangi as a part of his translation training. Finally, after twelve years of schooling and eighteen years of three satellite station postings, moving from support translator, to primary translator, Jonah had become an interspecies emissary of introductions. The Auralites had spoken in music; the Soldaties only screamed. But here was a being who communicated, who lived in ways he could imagine, in ways he could understand. And this time they could talk, they could share more fully than any two species ever before, and they could do it in person.

  “Is this not your home?” Her hand indicated the station.

  “No. I mean, yes. Well yes, I live here, so it is my home in that way. But my home, my real home, is on the planet Earth.”

  “You are not always home?”

  “There is home and there is home. Like your spaceship is your home, but your home planet, the place you came from, that is home too.”

  “I have never been on a planet. I am forty-two life cycles away from my ancestors who knew a planet. I have never been off the home that is our ship until today.”

  “You really have lived on a spaceship all your life?” Someone on the team had come up with this conclusion earlier but Jonah had resisted the idea. He thought that these beings must have a home planet. He thought they simply wanted to keep its origins concealed. The Voyagers never told much about themselves. They had a family structure not unlike Earth’s more open families – multi-generational, elders usually given deference. It seemed to be non-hierarchical, led by a central council whose members got their positions by proving themselves in areas of translation, navigation, and mediation. Enrishi, he had learned, was the youngest of her species to be allowed to translate, and she was over a hundred Earth years, yet she looked as if she could have been a teen-aged Earth girl, except for the green skin and webbed hands.

  “We are Voyagers.”

  “All of you? I mean, of course you all are on a journey, but none of you has ever seen your home planet?”

  “We do not know a planet that is home. We are always home. It is our job to see and map and learn languages and stories and carry them from place to place.”

  “For who?”

  “For who?”

  “Yes, why do you map and learn languages and stories?”

  “To carry them from place to place.”

  Jonah sighed. This interspecies translating was so strange. It was more than simply changing words to words. It was conveying the social constraints behind the words. He rephrased the question.

  “Do you do this mapping for the people of the planet where you once lived?”

  “I have never lived on a planet.”

  “I mean where your ancestors once lived?”

  Enrishi was silent. She had worked through the ideas of ancestors, back through to the Hall of the Being and the Tunnel of Passage. “Ah,” she said as she realized that he stretched his ideas to the first ripples of the ship. That was why the coven agreed to meet with Jonah, and only Jonah. He seemed to have a small idea of generations. “You must mean the ones who stayed. Land-bound souls? Oh no, we do not map for them. Why would they need charts? They don’t leave the planet.” She laughed softly as if repeating a family joke.

  “Well then, for the captain of your ship? For science? Why do you do this?”

  “Do you not travel?”

  “Oh, I love to travel. I have visited every major country on Earth and colonies on Mars and the Moon. I have not been home, I mean to my home planet, in ten years. Travelling is in my blood.”

  “So you are like us.”

  “In a way, but I don’t actually pilot, so I don’t read or use star charts.”

  “On your station is there no one who needs maps and charts?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, then, we do it for them.”

  “But you didn’t know we existed until we made radio contact two years ago.”

  “We knew that life streams cross.”

  “So we are a life stream?”

  “As are we? We meet streams as waves crest, we cross, perhaps we. . . .” She had to be careful; here the wrong words could close the transactions. “Perhaps we find soil that is good to grow.”

  Now it was Jonah’s turn to smile. “Soil does not grow. Plants do, but not soil.”

  “What does soil do?”

  “It is the bed of seeds. It helps the plants to grow.”

  “Ah, perhaps we find seeds that we may grow.”

  “And what do we get in return?” He could tell by the immediate tightening of her cheeks that he had erred. Why had he ignored the most basic of business protocols? Hadn’t the corporate bosses spent the last three months training him in trade potentialities? He knew when to be aggressive, when to lay back and let the best trade offer show itself, and most of all when to be patient. He had a list of minerals they wanted, and of course, water was the highest priority. Indeed, the space station was short of water due to the crash of a space freighter and failed delivery two years earlier. It would be a year before another freighter got that far from Earth – they were close to desperate for water and hoping to trade. No one bathed with water, only food plants were given the liquid, and most food was eaten dry. Strict rationing and recycling of all fluids, including body fluids, was the rule of the day. Jonah knew from earlier conversations that the Voyagers had a huge store of water and were willing to trade. The only question was what it would take to get some.

  “As we give, so we are given.” She was embarrassed. One was not to speak of trade so early in a meeting. It was completely wrong. “I’ve never been on a planet. None of us have. You and your stream have. We hope we can have new soil.” She faltered, took a breath, and began again. “We hope to have new seed that we may grow. We will leave some seed that will help you to grow.”

  “I am afraid that we do not allow any kind of extra-terrestrial plants to reach our planet, spaceships, and stations until several generations have passed.”

  Enrishi nodded her head sadly. “Our words are trapped in rocks.” She left the room and went back to the shuttle that took her to her home ship.

  2.

  A month later, Jonah came out of his isolation chamber to once again meet with Enrishi.

  “We are always home,” she started.

  “Welcome to our home,” he answered.

  This time, Enrishi said nothing. She waited for him to open a space.

  They said nothing for close to an hour. Finally, Jonah spoke again. He was told to avoid trade issues. His job was to instill trust, build trade routes. He had warned her that he had questions. Jonah realized she was probably just waiting for him to begin. “Have you ever wanted to land on a planet?” he asked.

  “If it is our season, we land. If not, those who come after will alight. Sometimes it is two, three, or four generations between planets or even asteroids. They say the first ones went twelve family cycles before landing again. When they did, half of those on the ship chose to stay. My grandfather once walked on an asteroid that was hundreds of kilometres around. His generation is the last ripple to have known land. But forgive me. I am letting my words burn like too many stars.”

  The envoy tipped her head and smiled again. She had trained all her life for this yet she was skipping so many of the rituals. It h
ad been fifty-seven years since they had decided she was to be a star talker, learning all the languages known so far. She had worked with her council, continuing to build translation models and to simplify protocol, first for passing ships that had the ability to anchor and exchange hosts, or for those who for a time would share an asteroid. In her mother’s time, she would have sung the stories of memory. That was supposed to be Enrishi’s path. It was painted on the ship’s Tunnel of Passage. But she had sat herself under grandfather Simetra’s feet and listened to his stories.

  “I never did get the chance to cross plant tongues on an asteroid; the one we came to was deserted. But there was evidence of another landing, and I walked land, child, walked land. We have passed seven ships on my life wave, child, and docked with two. So I have had the chance to meet other life streams. We have planted, traded song and time channels.

  “Your grandmother does not believe there are planets in this crest. She does not believe there are others who can speak with us in a way that has worth to us. I have shown her the shadowed glass that holds the ship drops of those we have passed, but she thinks they were created in the craft module. She has forgotten the truth of our travels; her mind is locked in soil piles. She sees our stories as some painter’s fantastic dreamscape. It is a sadness, the space sickness. A sadness when we lose our anchor in time.” Her grandfather’s eyes had filled with tears. He caught one drop on a fingertip and pulled Enrishi close and pressed it into her lips, where it instantly was absorbed.

  “But, Enrishi, forty-three generations from the leaving, a thousand from the settling, I believe – no not believe, know – that the time is coming near. I know it the way you know a tongue after hearing it fold and unfold only three blood cycles, know its weight and direction.” And he had been right – here she was. Enrishi’s stomach quivered. She hoped the folds of her dress would conceal her excitement. It was not good to be too obvious in negotiations, or so she had been taught by teachers who had never had to negotiate.

  As the translator and the envoy stood across from each other in stillness, Enrishi felt her grandfather’s spirit speak into her air, telling her again as he had done so often in the last eddies of his cycles, “It was my grandfather, your great-great grandfather, who landed on the Ice Pinnacle and met the Muhabs.” He was so much older than the oldest of Earth people, about 230 Earth years, far beyond Jonah’s vision. It had taken so long to get Jonah to understand that her people did not count age in individual segments. Their birth year was always acknowledged by the generation. She was the forty-third of forty-six life cycles that had lived on the ship. Her number was forty-three on the day she was born and would be so on the day when she left, just as her grandfather’s was forty-one, from birth through passing, and his grandfather’s thirty-nine. For Enrishi, her grandfather had always been the mouth of the ancestor. His limbs had tired of the cabin pressure and now he floated above his bed with wind jet support and she sat solemnly next to him on a cushioned ledge.

  At one time, he was the youngest of seven strands that had actually crossed life streams. But generation after generation died and he was the last who had seen any other beings.

  She would ask him again and again, “Tell me, Grandpa. Tell me about the first ones.”

  “It is painted on the Tunnel of Passage, child.”

  She would begin to pout and he would start again. “The first crossings, the beings could not bear the weight of air and quickly left, crippled and shrieking.”

  “The wind walkers.”

  “Yes, child. And after that, light seekers. They came and gathered around each of the children. I remember how it was so bright that we all started to cry, and when they realized this, began to turn to a dark blue shadow. I wasn’t much more than an air scruncher then, but I swear I remember. I know, child. I know there are others who can speak, who will speak stories we can carry forward.”

  Years later, after she told him of her acceptance into the Translator’s Academy, he had counseled her frequently. “You must learn the ways of knowing we have carried from the planet-bounds and join them with our fate as a voyager. This ship has lived through forty-three generations, child. You will be the one who walks on land-tied dirt. I know it. I can feel it, child. It will be you who speaks first words with the planet-bound. Remember, they will be afraid. They are like children who have only explored one corner of their nursery, yet are convinced they know the world. They are like our ancestor seed who sent us outward but trembled and cried as we left. Remember, Voyagers and Stayers always make each other uneasy. Be slow with your words, and quiet. Do not tell them what they are not ready to know. But learn words we do not have, learn them well so they can be painted in our halls.”

  “And so it became,” Enrishi thought.

  Jonah reached out with his ungloved hand. Of course, they were a people of great rituals. He must be the same every time. He lightly touched her webhand. The earphone hissed, “No skin contact!” but Jonah ignored the transmission.

  “You are only –” Enrishi reached back through the pictures, through the sounds. “– bark.”

  “Skin,” he said, grasping her hand a bit more firmly and lightly curling his fingers around her web.

  “The shadow is bark that does not burn.”

  “Brown. Brown skin. And no, it will not burn you. No chemicals.”

  “Shadow bark is brown skin.” Enrishi reached out and barely touched the tips of his fingers.

  “Yes.”

  “Life blooms,” Enrishi smiled broadly, and bowed her head before opening her arms and letting a soft fabric fly from her sleeve, sending the gentlest of breezes around Jonah’s face. He had begun to sweat from a mixture of fear and excitement. The breeze took his breath and sent him rocking back on his heels. He bent his knees slightly to shake off the cramp that had been growing.

  “So you are an intergalactic nomad?” Jonah asked.

  “We are Voyagers. Have you not wanted to join the waves and eddies that link the stars?”

  “Well, yes, there are times I have wanted to just take off and see where I go.”

  “So you understand. You are like us, Jonah. If you would sit, we would sit. If you must stand, we will stand. If you would sleep, we will sleep near.”

  She smiled again and opened her over-robe to reveal a thinly rolled mat. He barely saw her long fingers undo the twine and could not believe how large it became as she spread it on the floor between them. The docking port was usually quite cold, but he felt heat rising up from a small mound at the center. His legs became heavier and heavier.

  “I would sit.” Jonah shivered despite himself.

  Enrishi thought that it was all going quite well. She tried not to feel too smug. The coven would not take to her inflating herself or her role, but she had achieved so much. She knew trust was building. Perhaps in a little more time they could trade seed.

  “It is good,” she smiled. “As you would have it.” As she spoke, she let the hood fall from her head. Golden strands stood on end and reached out. They seemed to be travelling towards him. He held his hands overhead and she retreated to the far wall. Only two of the strands landed. But they were like the touch of a smile, and suddenly he felt foolish.

  “Excuse me,” Jonah tried to apologize. Nothing more was said that day. It was two weeks before they met again.

  3.

  Jonah was preparing for the third meeting. The science officer and galactic corporate trade commissioner barked orders at him from behind a protective glass barrier. His superiors were angry at him for touching an alien, angry and afraid. He had spent the past weeks in the space station docking lounge, isolated, communicating only through television screens. All the tests that had been run showed no untoward microbes, nothing to be afraid of, but everyone worried anyway. Jonah knew he would have to make a very good arrangement in order to get back into the main part of the station. He knew that the isolation was not only because of conservative attitudes about extraterrestrials, but also because of h
is ongoing habit of defying small orders.

  “You are correct, we have not found any biological dangers, but there is an incubation time. I told you: no skin-to-whatever-they-are-covered-with contact.”

  “They call it skin. Their skin is green, mine is brown, yours is – well, it was creamy, but now it is kind of red.” Jonah held back a chuckle.

  “That kind of insolence is getting us nowhere,” the commissioner cut in. “The next meeting you must ask questions about minerals and fresh water.”

  Jonah knew that a wrong step in the trade negotiations could cost him his career. He would be back in an Earth-side college, teaching and lecturing, not out here, not meeting beings like Enrishi.

  Jonah had some power, though. The Voyagers would not allow anyone else besides him to meet with Enrishi. “I have gone over all of your notes and memorized your questions and the suggested terms of trade,” Jonah replied flatly. He had memorized the basics and knew that the earphone would feed him the finer points during negotiation. After training for decades for this job as head translator, he hoped he would get it right. He knew twelve root languages and fifty-seven dialects of the planet Earth. He had decoded four radio transmissions of extra-terrestrials and gone on one space journey that involved a orbiting around a ship filled with a biped species that had no eyes but bodies covered in sensors. They spoke with notes and gestures and did not read or write text. It was quite amazing, the team had thought, that they were able to travel at all. How did they learn the mathematical configurations that kept their ship going? They had hologram maps that sang out when they placed their hands over them. They sang and their walls lit up with familiar star charts. They had a live video feed that led him around what seemed to be the bridge. They would sing the names of the stars and point him towards their home. It was a week before Jonah could sing the correct tones for “Good morning,” “I would eat,” and “Thank you.” Another three before he understood their measurements for time and distance.

  Once, while inadvertently insulting an offer of octave partnering, which he later discovered was a ritual of welcoming, he found out why the Earth sensors could find no sign of weaponry. Their only weapons were their voices. The eight members unfolded their limbs from each other and from him and begun to stroke as they sang, creating a high-pitched whine that left him shriveled and crying on the floor. One member who had been his guide was soon apologizing. They had not known how sensitive Earth ears were, that he had no internal modulators.