Angry Young Spaceman (34 page)

“Yes, I love it!” he said. “On Montavia, we have...” he pointed to the rice and the seaweed, “But not this. It is illegal.”

“Illegal means against the law,” I corrected.

“I know,” he said, nodding. “Illegal. Because it is not plant. It is an animal.”

I stopped eating. “Animal. Like us?” I asked.

The father nodded. Jinya laughed. “Not like us. It is more... simple.”

I took a forkful of rice, shaking it so the bit of coral fell off. I was seized by the urge to scrape the red and purple and yellow nubs onto the bright white table, but instead I poised my bowl over the father’s. He nodded happily and I pushed the sad little things over the rim, where they floated down onto his rice.

“It is illegal to eat animals on Montavia?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Because of trading status with Earth.”

“Octavia trades with Earth,” I said. “Saucers.”

“It has cultural-protection,” he said. He used the words easily — they were phrases he used a lot, it sounded like. Maybe in his work. Jinya was looking a little lost, as was the son.

“Do you think cultural-protection is good?”

He shrugged, but he seemed to consider it. He translated to his son. He sucked on his pample a little, and then stood up — we were face to face.

“For me... my job, it is to make things easier between Earth and Montavia. We make a lot of money — is good. But there is a lot of Earthling things — like movies, and news — is very big, you know? Is everywhere...”

He sort of seemed frustrated, but I didn’t know if it was by the complexity of the subject or by English. He tapped his pample against his knuckles thoughtfully.

The bowls came around again and I had more rice. I still had the taste of coral in my mouth. Everyone else, of course, helped themselves to another serving of the gruesome delicacy.

“Is difficult subject,” said Jinya. “Protection helps this place. It gets money from the Earth Council because Octavia is unique.”

“Earth’s influence is bad,” I said. I looked at the kid, and wanted to tell him that learning English was bad, too, but couldn’t go that far.

“Sometimes...” the father said. “Maybe the young Montavians are angry, I think. But I like Earth.”

There was a sudden click as I thought about how a planet full of young men must feel about being the munchkins of the universe. I thought about the look in the eye of the guy who disassembled 9/3. Were they even conscious of their smallness before the giants came? I wanted to ask him, but again, I couldn’t.

“I like Earth,” he said, reassuringly. “I love Earth.”

“Do you go to Earth?” said Jinya, and the envy in her voice was heartbreakingly apparent.

***

Not long after dinner, the Montavians took their leave. I had been quiet for quite a while, so I made my good-byes especially heartfelt. The older Montavian had given me a lot, even if it was bitter medicine.

“I am upset that I cannot see the Lovemaking,” he said.

Jinya put her tentacle to her lips. “Is a secret!” she said.

Their rented saucer bubbled away and I looked at Jinya with a neutral feeling that had more in common with indifference than lust. “Lovemaking?”

“Let’s go,” she said with a smile. “Is interesting!”

I followed her back into the Living Garden and into the tunnels. I was thinking about how awful it would be if she actually did want to have sex now, finally, when all she inspired in me was despair.

But what the hell did I want, anyway? A militant Earth-resister? Of course she thought Earth was great — it was like her hobby. Was she supposed to look at the loss of a few traditions that were probably really boring to her as some kind of crime? When it brought with it new, modern, liberating ideas? When it made her as a female — and as a female who spoke English — a lot more powerful?

“He is a very nice Montavian,” Jinya said.

“Yeah.”

“Or... you say... munchkin?” she said, giggling.

Sigh. Infecting her with the English virus
and
xenophobic slurs. I deserved to be left alone with a vicious Montavian with a set of sharpened tools and time on his hands. Fuck.

Not even the sight of the basin below improved my mood, stunning though it was. The basin was dominated by a single massive donut of coral reef. There was a bridge across to its centre, where a few hundred people were congregated.

“What’re they waiting for?” I asked.

She just started over the bridge. I followed, stepping carefully — there were wide gaps in the metal floor not intended for bipeds. Bright green coral pulsed a few inches from my feet. I thought that a glass structure would have been more effectively minimal, but perhaps that was too Squidollian.

At the arch of the bridge I let my eyes run over the colours blending into each other, running over the loop two times before my eyes were sated and content to rest in the centre. I noticed that many of the people were Gardeners. They seemed excited, chatting amongst each other and stopping people from touching the coral.

Lovemaking.
What could it be? Would there be some sort of a ritual? Would the Gardeners suddenly form a lusty oogma chain? They certainly seemed to be ready for something. Would Jinya slip onto my lap?

“What is it!” I said, when we got into the centre. From here, the colours completely filled our field of vision. She grinned mischievously and spun around. Her silver eyes flashed with the coral’s colours.

A young gardener, attracted by her enthusiasm, sidled up to Jinya bursting with his own.

“
Is this your first time?
” he said. He seemed to not register that I was there, which was a refreshing change. He was rubbing something on a chain around his neck, but I couldn’t see it.

“
Yes. I have only read about it before
,” she said, with an immediate open enthusiasm.

“
Me too
,” he said. “
I have only been a Gardener for half a year.
” He proffered the pendant he’d been rubbing, seemingly as proof. It was a grey dolphin.

I glanced around at the other Gardeners, and noticed they were all wearing dolphin pendants in varied hues. But why were they wearing their enemies’ image? I was about to ask when his eyes fluttered and he went limp and floated backwards.

Jinya made a concerned noise and leaned over him, touching his forehead with her tentacle, and I made a mental note:
when conversation lags, faint.
But he stayed out, and I began to look around for help, thinking about the Earth cure of splashing water in his face. I just wagged my hand in front of his face, pushing the atmosphere at him.

When I gave up, he came to.

“
Oh!
” he said, seeing me. He got up and bowed twice. “
I’m sorry. I’ve been fasting for ten days
.” He looked at me with such surprise that I began to wonder if, in his half-starved state, he had seen me at all before that.

“
It’s too small to apologize for
,” I insisted, his wild eyes unnerving me.

An older gardener came over, one wearing a blue dolphin, and took him gently by the tentacle. He bowed to us and drew him away.

“Why do they wear dolphins?” I asked her.

“He is too hungry, I think!” said Jinya, concerned.

“He is trying to make you feel sorry for him.”

She watched after him, and he disappeared into the throng.

An old but clear-eyed Gardener passed by, and I stepped into his path. I bowed and introduced myself. “
Why do you wear a silver dolphin?
” I asked. I was determined to get to the bottom of it.

“
I am old
,” he said, turning away abruptly to pull a child away from the coral. He stared at the parents, who looked down and entangled their squirmy spawn in a bramble of tentacles. Then he left.

“Why is it shaped like your enemies?” I asked Jinya, frustration creeping into my voice.

“
This place is the old border. That’s why the garden is so fresh. Beyond here the dolphins used to live.
” She said it absently, a childhood school lesson.

“
It is for remembering the war,
” I said.

“
Before, the people who lived here were soldiers. Now they are gardeners.
”

No more enemies to fight. I imagined these slim men in combat with the dolphins — flailing arms versus battering ram heads? Or did they have weapons? These were things every Octavian knew, things they never thought to mention because it was like telling someone that Earth once had seas and forests. Everyone knew that, everyone had seen the old pictures of ancient Earth as a blue-green marble.

It was twilight now, and some people had settled down — some old grannies had brought their own disks to sit on, collapsible ones. They took grandchildren in their laps and cooed to them, the smaller smooth and larger wrinkled tentacles twining and moving familiarly.

When Jinya and I were in bed together, she would hug me with one or two tentacles in a simulation of a human embrace. In the middle of the night, though, I awoke to find myself truly held: encircled by eight arms.

I sat down and leaned back on the palms of my hands

“When are we going back to our hotel room?” I wanted to know.

“
Relax. After the Lovemaking.
”

“I don’t understand,” I said, painting my face perplexed. “You want to go back to the hotel for Lovemaking?”

She poked me under the arm. “No!”

“You want to do Lovemaking here?” I said, pointing to the ground.

She poked me in the kidney. “Shut up!” she laughed.

“I don’t understand Octavian, I think,” I said innocently, and the Gardeners began to chant.

The people that weren’t already sitting sat down, and turned their attention outwards. The Gardeners remained upright, making sounds that may have been Octavian, but I didn’t recognize them.

The coral was really starting to move, and at first I thought it was in response to the chanting, but it started to pulse faster and the Gardeners sped up in response to that. It was a little bit bewildering, and Jinya gave my questioning looks nothing more than a sly smile.

The whole circle pulsed even faster — the colours almost blurring with the speed, the shouts of the children, the Gardeners lifting their tentacles — and then a huge wash of haze came over the whole coral reef.

A white, milky, almost silken substance emanated out from the coral and spread into the atmosphere.

“What the hell?” I said. Jinya just giggled.

Next to us, a grandmother pointed to the coral. “
Sperm,
” she said to her grandchild. She pointed to another spot. “
Eggs
.”

The Lovemaking. Ah.

I looked around at the crowd, who were watching the juices flow out of the hot and ready coral. Pointing at the shapes it made. It was floating down to the ground, and no one seemed like they were going to move.

Were we going to sit here and let the spunk settle on us?

One of the Gardeners started to leap into the air, impatiently. Even at this distance I recognized the wild eyes of the young man who had talked to us earlier. His leaps were pretty good, actually, aided by his waving tentacles.

Eventually, he reached the descending cloud, and started inhaling it. I winced and hoped the old man who had helped him before was nearby and would stop him. Then the other Gardeners started leaping.

The white gossamer whooshed into their mouths like spaghetti strands.

I looked at Jinya.

“It is good for stamina,” she said. “High in protein.”

Some of the kids were already sitting on their parent’s shoulders. I watched the cloud descend and wondered how long I could hold my breath.

***

Ever since that family trip to the Ice Fair on Pluto I’d always sworn I’d never go into stasis. But ten hours after leaving Octavia, the jelly was beginning to look pretty damn good.

The three of us lined the walls of the Pleasureworld-bound rocketship. 9/3 was offline, his perfectly circular eyes grey as the rest of him. True to his word, he had not brought his android body.

Matthew had the sensemask pulled on, his grin curving so often that I was sure it was porn. I glanced down at his trousers and decided the lack of tenting suggested a comedy instead.

On the other hand, I had been dealing with a boner like Neb pig iron for the past ten hours. Most of the people across from me were wearing sensemasks, luckily, except for an old Octavian who was more worried about 9/3. I couldn’t wear a sensemask. Soon as I pulled it on I was back in the hotel room with Jinya, her writhing around in a way only a creature with flexible bones could, her tentacles slipping over my ears...

I turned around in my harness. Oh why did I drink that coffee? When I knew? I looked at 9/3 enviously. I leaned over and flicked the side of his head, and it donged comically. His eyes lit green.

“What?”

“Teach me how to turn off like that,” I said sullenly.

9/3 paused. “Watch very carefully,” he said, and his eyes went dead.

The harness was pressing against my crotch in a terribly deliriously nice way.

Jinya had let me touch her there. It was insane the way we had rubbed each other up and down, how the sounds we made and ways we moved let our bodies find each other’s spots. We weren’t even the same species, but we
knew
.

I was literally dizzy with lust. I punched the button for water and sucked at the hose until my mouth went numb with the cold, my own tongue reminding me of Jinya’s thin sharp one. I noticed a stewardess climbing down the rows.

“Can you put me in the jelly?” I asked her.

She looked confused. She had a half dozen pillows under her tentacles. She was very attractive, had the same colour of eyes as Jinya, the same sympathetic smile. I wanted to take her somewhere private and fuck her brains out.

My face must have looked pained. “Are you sick?” she asked.

“Um, no. Can you put me in stasis?”

“Sorry sir, only when ship is docked.” She offered me a pillow.

I accepted it, resigned to my fate, and she pulled my straps tight. The one south of my hips had been particularly loose. “Mmph!”