Being Alien (13 page)

S’um spoke before I could. “We have a job offer. You can play music any way you want to with us.’’

‘‘They’re friends of John Amber’s,” Marianne said.

Sam raised a single eyebrow again. Jackie flexed her jaw joints. Sam asked, “Illegal aliens?”

“Not humans,” S’um said.

‘‘You’re not from outer space. We both know that’s impossible. You’re CIA."

“We travel through space folds. That’s the simplest explanation.”

“Yeah? You can’t let us walk around Berkeley saying, ‘We’ve been privately contacted by aliens and they’ve offered me a job playing harpsichord for them.’”

“Yes, we can,” Jackie, the female Barcon, said. “Authorities will think you’re insane, which is convenient for us if you’re not willing to accompany Tom and Marianne back to the base planet.”

S’um took the gun out from under the harpsichord strings and said, “Too small a caliber.”

Molly, two huge bundles of fibers in her arms, came in the door about this time and stared from Sam to the Barcon Sum. The differences seemed utterly vast now—scars where the sixth fingers on both of them were removed, funny muscles in the face. She turned to me and said, “Why are you here?”

Jackie looked at Molly’s skirt and said, “We’re looking for some volunteers in an exploration. You could earn the equivalent of $40,000 a year spinning and weaving.”

“For aliens?” Sam said, almost choking. “Aliens wear handspun?”

“It’s a luxury item with them,” I said.

Marianne heard the teakettle whistle and went back to turn it off. Molly shuddered and followed her back.

Sam said, “What do you want us for?”

‘‘To increase the human gene pool on our planet. Representatives were here about 500 years ago,” S’um said, not mentioning the space wars.

“For a zoo?”

‘‘No, ask Tom.’’

“I’ve been trained in diplomacy, making contact with new species, coordinating trade exchange.”

“Yeah, and I’ve been trained in classical music.”

“They let me use what I’ve learned.”

For some reason that stung him. Sam began picking out jazz riffs on the harpsichord. His hands trembled.

“May I play with you?” S’um asked.

“Better not break down my bench.”

S’um knelt down at the bass keys, huge fuzz showing down his collar as he bent his head. His body proportions were different than human—his legs shorter, torso longer. He spread his big fingers and laid them carefully on the keys, seeing if the tips would sprawl over more than one key. They fit, but barely. He wiggled his nose at Sam. The human, sweating now, arched both eyebrows and began to play with his right hand, his left curled up against his groin.

The Barcon played the same melody but in a lower range, then reversed it.

Sam shifted his lip corners slightly and brought his left hand up to the keyboard. He played and left the music dangling. S’um reached up the keyboard and completed the phrase, reduced the tension, musical and otherwise.

Then he played a skittery piece, missed one note. His jaw wiggled and he corrected himself.

Sam played something tentative; S’um transposed bits of it into something faster. They both began playing together.

Arguing, the women came out of the kitchen, Jackie holding four teacups. Molly stared at the two males playing the harpsichord and said to me, “And are you alien, too?”

“No, I’m from Virginia.”

“You humans were wasting him,” Jackie said, setting the teacups down on a banged-up redwood burl coffee table. “This is okay for the cups?”

“Sure.”

Sum quickly ran his dark index finger along Sam’s sweaty jaw and sniffed his fingertip. “You’re still tense. Would beer help?”

“You drink beer?” Sam got up and began to pace.

Molly looked at Marianne.

“Tom, go get beer,” S’um stood up and fished out a wallet. He handed me a twenty. “Olympia.”

“God, they drink Oly,” Molly said, her voice harsh and wavery.

I left, feeling weird, like a teenager who watches parents discipline children, knowing too much, identifying with neither. If I’d gotten involved with the counterculture in Floyd, I could have learned to live in an integral urban house, moved to Berkeley, lived a simple life among my own species. Too late for that now. Past Milvia and onto Shattuck, I went into the Co-op, the fluorescents cold overhead, the shadows harsh. As I fished four six-packs of Olympia out of the beer cooler, an image of Black Amber kicking a worshipful Molly off her knees rose to my mind. My kind, but I couldn’t blame them for being nervous. The checkout clerk put the six-packs in a box so I could carry them easier.

I was nervous, too. I’d never seen a Barcon be personable. As I walked back down Cedar, I saw Alex’s car in my parking lot. He came out from the entranceway and waved for me to come over.

When we could hear each other, I said, “We’re all down at the Schweigman sisters'."

“All?” Alex asked, a pseudo pocket radio in his hand. He fiddled with the dial and answered himself, “Yes, all.’’

“Come on down,” I said. “It’s getting weird.”

‘‘A party might be premature," Alex said. “Carstairs had his security clearance revoked.”

“What does that mean?”

“Let’s go down and talk about it." Alex took the box from me and began striding off with it. I had to jog to keep up.

When we knocked on the door, Alex stood by the hinges, away from the peephole, then came in when the door opened.

“It’s the bigot from the bar,” Marianne said.

“I’m not a bigot,” Alex said in English, then in Karst One,
“This meeting is not a good idea. Carstairs lost his security clearance.
”

The two Barcons looked at each other, then at Sam, Molly, and Marianne, who’d moved together toward the kitchen. Jackie said, “We need your cooperation, please.”

Marianne asked, “What about Carstairs?”

“He was a Lawrence Lab weapons designer,” Alex said. He opened a beer and drained it. I noticed he had no Adams apple in his throat.

“KGB-manipulated DNA recombinant creatures, then,” Molly said. “Fake aliens.”

“No,” Alex said. “Can’t you believe we’re aliens? And we don’t need your piddling weapons. Jerry Carstairs is my friend. I…”

“You weren’t trying to help him,” Sum said, folding his arms across his chest which was too rounded for human.

Marianne’s eyes darted to me, to Alex, then to the door.

S’um went to the phone, called a number, and put the receiver against his skull computer, then said, “Check.’’

The phone whined, then went dead, and S’um hung it up. “Nothing on Carstairs that involves us. They probably revoked his clearance because he resigned from the weapons project.”

“If Carstairs is your friend, bigot,” Marianne said, “I’d like to meet him.”

“My name is Alex.”

“Okay, Alex.”

The Barcons picked up two six-packs. Jackie asked, “Is there a bedroom upstairs?’’

“Yeah, I’ll show you,” Molly said.

As they disappeared upstairs, Alex grinned and said, “They have to get away from us to get drunk.”

Molly came back shortly, clumping down the stairs, and said, “They closed the door on me.”

“Leave them alone for a while,” I said “Being around us is a strain.”

“We need more beer,” Alex announced, taking another can. “I can get it.”

Sam said, “No, I’ll go.”

“Can I go, too?” Molly asked, getting up and standing close to her husband.

Alex said, “We’ll still be here when you get back.” He got up and played what I recognized as an Ahram music motif on the harpsichord, but the notes were slightly skewed, as though the harpsichord wasn’t tuned for Ahram music.

Molly and Sam hugged each other. Alex turned his head slightly toward them, then looked away fast. He said, as they opened the door, “Take your time.”

“I’ll stay here with them,” Marianne said. Molly said, “Oh, Marianne, do you have to?”

“I’d appreciate it,” Alex said. He sat down on a green velvet loveseat, sprawled out over the whole thing.

Molly looked at all of us as Sam went out, then she practically jumped through the doorway after him. The front door banged closed, keys whizzing in the locks.

Alex sighed. He told Reeann, “I’m not a bigot to human blacks."

She said, “I like those two…”

“Barcons,” Alex said. “The male is their top wild sapient tamer, brilliant.”

“Don’t be nasty,” I said.

“But he is and both institutes trained him. Don’t worry, this house isn’t bugged. Yet.”

“Who trained you?”

“Analytics. I watch a lot of late-night television, waiting for you to stop playing alien space horror movies.” He sighed. “And you think I’m a bigot.”

Marianne squeezed her arms around herself and said, “I’m not a bigot. I’m not having hysterics, being in my house with aliens, outnumbered, huge.” She heard herself, laughed, then forced her arms to dangle.

Alex pointed to the beer at his feet and said, “Drink.” I twisted two cans away from the six-pack, popped them, and gave one to Marianne. We both sat down, me on the floor, Marianne on the harpsichord bench. I asked Alex, “Can you get drunk?”

Alex looked down at the whole six-pack and two cans remaining at his feet. “Yes. I’ll stay at your apartment tonight.”

“I’ve met other people who know you, Alex,” Marianne said. “You’re odd enough to be memorable. What do you find out from fringe academics?”

“Affinity. Plus I need humans. You’re close to us, closer than Barcons, Gwyngs, the others who’ve been here. I grew up on Karst. Tom thinks that did something to me. It made me need others, not just Ahrams.”

Marianne said, “Alex, do you know that the FBI does a termination check when someone’s security clearance is pulled?”

“Yes, they’ve talked to me already. I’m just a druggie.” He pulled out his user/grower badge and showed it to her. “See."

“I don’t know what your species is supposed to be like,” she said, “but I think you’re genuinely fucked up. The Barcons are aliens. You, there’s something wrong.”

“But humans are so good for me.” He smiled at her, finished his beer. “Lifted me out of my lethargy.’’

Marianne said, “I think you want to get caught, get it over with.”

I wanted to get all of us off Earth, safely away to Karst, get Marianne what she wanted. “Marianne wants to be Institute of Linguistics,” I told Alex.

“They’ll have a bit of trouble arranging that,” he said, already into his third can of beer.

She hissed, almost like a Gwyng.

Alex said, “Normally, you’d be Support, under Academy and Institutes.” He yawned, exposing huge flat teeth, then asked me in Karst One, “
And what’s Black Amber
going to say to your woman’s ambitions?”

I said in English, “Black Amber likes Marianne.”

“Black Amber was a hysterical ninny,” Alex replied.

“I want to work in nonhuman linguistics,” Marianne said. “Those are my terms.”

Alex got up out of the loveseat, went up to her, and took both of her hands in one of his, squeezed gently once. As she began to cry, he ambled back to the loveseat.

He asked, “Have you read Kayakawa?”

Tears in her eyes, she nodded.

“Fear is not just one thing. I don’t want to terrorize you—easy to do with humans and Gwyngs—but do you think your sister and brother-in-law will come back without trying to convince the authorities that we’re here?”

“They haven’t had time to get back yet,” I said. “Marianne, I’ll do my best to see that you get an Institute position.”

Marianne’s tongue moved inside her mouth, her lips parted slightly, then she swallowed. The room became so silent, I heard her teeth shift against one another.

Then the Barcons began lurching down the stairs. Marianne raised both eyebrows and said, “You couldn’t really promise me anything could you? We’re just going to be kidnapped.” She went pale, face rigid with nostrils tight.

“What did Alex tell you?” Jackie said.

“That I’d be a Support person.”

“We promise otherwise,” S’um said. They both smelled weird, like skunk cabbage or broken stink tree.

Alex began to jabber at them in Barq. Marianne said to me, “Can’t they agree?”

“It’s not a monolithic federation,” I told her, “But we don’t kill one another.”

“That’s so reassuring,” she said, dragging out the “so.” But then she said, “Well, I guess actually that it is." She wrinkled her nose. But tell them to go shower.” S’um stopped talking to Alex and pulled out a spray can, puffed himself and Jackie with it. The odor vanished.

“Pheromone disruptors,” I said to Marianne.

Molly and Sam came back then, with beer and food. Sam said, “You were holding my harpsichord hostage.”

“See any grey cars on Milvia?” Alex asked. “No,” Molly said, “no FBI.”

“Your parents were Weather, weren’t they?” Alex said. He looked almost boneless on the loveseat, drunk.