FSF, March-April 2010 (34 page)

Fourth Cyclers (
unésta'te
) or Fourthers are calm, focused, controlled grown-ups (except for Borm, whom Pink cannot imagine ever becoming calm, focused, controlled, or for that matter grown up, no matter how old co gets). Many develop specialized body-shapes suited to their biologically and spiritually ordained roles in the D'/fü community. Fifth Cyclers (
shórya'te
) or Fifthers are semiaquatic, eyeless, web-digited, phociform hermits who spend most of their time on Station in the marine habitat on Ring Seven surfing the D'/fü Dreamtime or chatting with the porpoises and giant octopi. Sixth Cyclers (
tümüta'te
) or Sixthers are healer-leaders, devoted to identifying and setting right problems that disturb the harmony of the
fü
. Pink once heard one of the oldsters on Station refer to Sixth Cyclers as “yodas,” which resulted in her spending the better part of three workshifts scarfing popcorn with Grandpa Andy, giggling at old flatscreen vids.

The seventh morphological stage (
ürye'te
) is the biggest Change of all, and it is so weird Pink doesn't like to think about it. At the time of our story, even after a hundred years of Human-D'/fü contact, still very little was known about Seventh Cyclers, partly because there are very few Awake on Shiphome at any one time, and those who are, seldom communicate with anybody but Shiphome and Sixthers. It was only a year or so prior to the events of this story that Humans learned that an
ürye
is in fact a composite individual made up of the six merged members of a matured
ték
.

What would it be like to have an
ürye
as a workpartner
? thinks Pink, watching her mother butter toast.
Safer than having a Firster, probably.
Because Firsters are the largest of the D'/fü, Firsters can do a lot of damage without meaning to. So
lilyó'te
are drilled from crêchehood in D'/fü etiquette, which consists of 374,360 Expressions of Emotional Commerce, most of them apologies.

Co will crush me like a fly,
thinks Pink sadly,
and weep bitter tears over my corpse. And then, of course, co will eat me,
because that is what D'/fü do for one another when one of
them
dies, an exceedingly rare event. They do this not only as an act of spiritual homage to the deceased, but also to ingest and assimilate cos memories and experience. Not that Pink imagines she has much experience to assimilate. The image of Sven, the artist from Orientation Class, swims fetchingly into her mind, and she shoves it out of sight hurriedly.

When she does, another thought pops up in its place, one so dreadful that she has not permitted herself to entertain it until now:
What if I get to Shiphome and nobody wants me
? And it is this thought that causes Pink to exclaim to her toast-buttering mother something that will make Pink writhe in embarrassment for months afterwards recalling it. “But I don't have anything to wear!"

Her mother smiles. “Shall I order you a pressure suit from La Pleiáde? They are all the rage in the Lunar Republic these days, I understand.” Her daughter glowers. “Come, come, now,
chérie
, no need to put on such a face. We shall find you something colorful. Firsters adore color. Besides, it is high time you graduated from the
gamine
look.” Pink brightens, only to lapse back into sourness when her mother adds, “No implants."

In the Tangles, Pink crawls wearily through a landscape that shifts at every susurrus of her thoughts. Her makeup is smeared and she has long ago lost her shoes, wig, hat, and bulbils. Every once in a while, when she stops and yells, “Borm?” the word flies out of her mouth and manifests as three-dimensional Roman alphabetic characters, which immediately shift to Cyrillic, then Ogham rune script, and Vévrelljójodstan, then pop like soap bubbles in the blue green chartreuse yellow gold brown orange red burgundy purple violet turquoise air.

She tries to remember the precise sequence of events that has led her into this pickle, but everything seems jumbled up. She remembers talking to Sister Skylark about it all, but surely that cannot have happened yet. She remembers the children teasing her about being a clone, on the playground of the French school she attended before her mother moved them to Canada, though why that memory should come to her, here, in this place, is beyond her comprehension. She remembers walking upon the surface of a planet where the plants sing her a welcome, though she has never been anywhere but Earth and here. She remembers the Shiphome airlock opening to welcome the
Bifurcated Androgyne.
She remembers some sort of explosion, although (as far as she knows) she has never witnessed an explosion in her entire life. She remembers coming out of the incubator into a cold, fuzzy world peopled with careful giants. She remembers lovers, none of them Sven; playground fights; taking a bath with a bunch of gigantic Firsters; being so old she cannot lift her head. Then? Nothing; only many stars; and Borm saying, “Dorothy! Dorothy! There's no place like home,” in an obscure language not unlike Finnish.

Who in hell is Dorothy
? thinks Pink. Suddenly it is all too much. She lies down on a surface that has abruptly assumed the characteristics of deep fluffy moss, if you can imagine moss composed of trillions of nose hairs.
I guess this is it,
she thinks. She has not eaten in a while, and you could go crazy in a place like this. Little things run over her on their way to somewhen else. She does not stir, and after a while (if you can call it that) she sleeps.

She is still sleeping when Slídhadhrup/Jéjno'Lílyo/fü, blundering blindly through the madness of the Tangles, nearly decapitates her with cos tail.

In the bathroom of the Concord Station apt she shares with her mother, Pink stares at her chest in the mirror, silently willing something, anything, to happen thereupon. Pink's chest is flat, like her mother's. Pink's hair is red, that is to say, orange, as her mother's was before it went gray. Pink's nose, like her mother's, is snubby. Pink's face, like the maternal face, is freckled, and pale (except when it is sunburnt or excited or embarrassed). Like her mother's, Pink's limbs are slender (though well-muscled), and Pink's feet, like her mother's, are immense. “I look like an elf crossed with a stork,” Pink complains to her friend Borm.

"Elf,” muses Bormwéthu/Havévno'Unésta/fü in cos three voices. “A powerful mythological creature, frequently portrayed as possessing diminutive size. Ah, just so seemed Humans to us when we first encountered you! Stork. A large wading bird of the zoological family Ciconiidae, possessing long legs and a stiff gait. I should like to see a stork one day. I experienced no storks when I visited Ohio, but of course I was only a Thirder then.” Borm has only recently gone through cos Change and consequently has been putting on airs.

"Maybe I should get implants,” says Pink.

"Forgive me for saying so, as I am merely a Nongendered Outer Space Alien with no direct experience of such matters, but it seems to me that having storks implanted upon your person would create an effect more
outré
than
décoratif
."

"Ha, ha,” says Pink. They have been trying on makeup together in Pink's bathroom. It has been a tight squeeze, even given the liberal dimensions granted by the Concord Station architects to the Human Habitat apts. Pink stands a little over one and three-quarters of a meter tall, but Borm stands over two and a third meters, with shoulders triple the average Human width, and massive, haunchlike, goddess hips. These characteristics, along with the somewhat prancing gait caused by the fact that D'/fü knees flex fully in both directions, have earned Borm and cos kin the nickname of “centaurs” among some Humans. Australians, rather unkindly, prefer to call them “'roos."

So for Pink, sharing a bathroom with Borm is a bit like sharing a bathroom with a Shetland pony, or with a big-eyed, silver-furred gamboling lamb that just happens to weigh one hundred eighty-seven and one-third kilos and in cos case smells (thanks to the D'/fü sematophores) like a very rich blend of roasting coffee beans. “More blusher?” inquires Borm. Pink eyes co critically.

"I shouldn't,” she says. “
Maman
always says that less is more."

"How very D'/fü of her!” exclaims the centaur, patting the girl massively on the head with cos long nailless six-fingered hand. Borm has a high fluting tenor voice, and—like all D'/fü from Seconders on up—whenever co speaks, two other voices seem to be speaking softly in unison with cos main one. “From my study of your kind I gather that there is a grammar to mammaries, and your journey—small and powerful though you may be—has barely begun. Have patience. You know not what delicious secrets your DNA may reveal in its due time."

"Yes, I do,” says Pink. “I'm a clone. I'm doomed to look just like my mother.” The one time she has mentioned this fact, casually, in her mother's hearing, Doctor Sévigny did not even look up from her cell-slide as she replied, “Consider it a blessing,
chérie
. Men will never be distracted from the beauty of your eyes."

Borm says, “In any case, your new
fwet'héttaha
will not care what size your bassoons are. Fortunate Pinklet, to be traveling to our dear Ámash/Bórmwu! I cannot wait to show you the place. Watch out for your new partner's tail,” the linguist adds, taking a powderpuff from the dresser and dusting cos harsh-planed gray face with fluorescent powder (all the rage last year on Luna). “Firsters are notoriously clumsy. Which reminds me, I have a going-to-Shiphome gift for you."

"Really?” says Pink, suspiciously. Co passes back the powderpuff, reaches into a duffle, and pulls out a lurid orange tangle. “Um, wow, Borm. Um, it isn't alive, is it?"

"
Non, non, ma petite blagueuse
. Behold!” Co shakes the tangle and it resolves itself into a heavy-looking henna-red dreadlocks wig. “Do not soil your knees with prostrations of thanks. Try it on!"

Pink puts on the wig, which settles down over her forehead, engulfing her head, shoulders, upper chest, and most of her back. “I can't see,” she complains.

"No matter,” says Borm gaily. Cos own silver mane, which is interlaced today with writhing turquoise ribbons, has expanded in Fourtherhood and now reaches to cos waist, a fact of which co is inordinately proud. “You will make a glorious first impression upon your poor maneless Firster. How envious co will be! Take my advice: whenever possible, let co carry you. That way, you'll run much less risk of getting stepped on."

Pink is lying on the greensward in the Human Habitat Area of Ring Four with the rest of the Orientation Class, listening to various Station workpartners talk about their experiences of meeting one another. It is nearly a month before the class is scheduled to leave for Shiphome. She is slightly bored, because little of this is new to her; and she is trying very hard not to watch the pseudosunbeams from the fake Ring Four sky glitter through the hairs on the forearms of veiny blond sculptor Sven Larssen.

A stern voice in her head reminds her that she is living on the biggest space station ever built, interacting daily with extraterrestrials; she should have better things to do with her time than mooning over some Scandinavian mesomorph. Mort XXXIX, her pet fandy, zizzes past on cos rotary wings, twurpling to beat the band. This makes Pink sad, because she knows that soon Mort, like all
fánd'te
, will enter cos parthenogenetic birthing stage, and be eaten up (like an Earth spider-mommy) by cos hatchlings. “And then co got so drunk, co tried to eat my chest,” someone says.

Everyone laughs, and Pink's attention perks. The speaker is a short, plump, merry, large-chested, saried Indian woman, Pooja Niruja by name, who has been serving as Concord Station's Chief Human Sociologist for some years. Her D'/fü partner, a long-maned, green-eyed Fourther named Vúdrir/Háttra'Unésta/fü, protests good-naturedly over the laughter.

"
Kek, kek, kek,
she is very wrong in her words to you all,” co exclaims in cos chorused tenor. “One was not attempting to consume said mammaries, but to determine whether or not they were part of ü'Pooja's person, a symbiont, a parasite of some kind, or a decorative adjunct to her clothing. And for such determinations my
fü
employ the tongue.” At which point all the centaurs listening ‘round about stick out their very, very, very long, bright cerulean blue tongues, which makes everybody in the class laugh even harder.

Other stories follow. Mimmi Navarrete, a Chilean cryogenicist, describes how long it took her to become used to the D'/fü's strong body odors. “When I first met Údhi,” she says, referring to her centaur partner, “I kept smelling strawberry jam all the time. ‘What is this strawberry jam?’ I thought. ‘Who is making strawberry jam?’ It turned out to be Údhi sweating.” He Pengfei, a gray-haired Chinese botanist, says that when he first met his partner, Üra, the centaur's scent put him in mind of the aroma arising from the freshly shaven root of
Angelica archangelica.
Aeltje Claes, a Flemish woman assigned to Station Traffic Control, pipes up that her partner, Dhórhen, made her think of smoked eel. “And that was
before
co showed me cos tongue,” she adds, which makes everybody laugh again.

"Pardon me.” One member of the Orientation Class, a scholarly-looking older Englishwoman named Gwendolyn Rice-Chakrabarty, who displays keen interest in everything but seldom speaks, turns heads. “Would it be an effrontery for me to ask our D'/fü friends here what Humans smelled like to you when you first met us? Of course we must each possess a distinct, er, pong or range of scents, varying with our body chemistries. But I mean in general? Did you find our scents distasteful? Reminiscent of something from your own culture? Surprising in some way? Or simply alien? I hope that my question does not offend."

All Human eyes turn to the centaurs gathered ‘round about. Quiet settles over the group. A couple of the students cough. Then long-maned, green-eyed Vúdrir/Háttra'Unésta/fü rises onto cos massive haunches. Cos partner, the Indian sociologist, smiles tenderly at co and places a hand on cos broad silver shoulder.