Being Alien (28 page)

“Something has to eat yeasts grown on plastic.”

“What was he saying about Gwyng Home being a myth?”

“Rhyodolite and Cadmium told me that if a Gwyng doesn’t learn Gwyng, not Karst Two, but a Gwyng language, at a fairly early age, then the mind doesn’t develop properly. For a Gwyng.”

“Gwyng languages aren’t like Karst Two?”

“Karst Two is like a code for them, not as much information as the trained Gwyng mind can perceive.”

“And so those Gwyngs are developmentally deprived and get to run a yeast factory.”

“Yeah. That’s why Black Amber makes her children learn Gwyng languages.“ We waited. Across the road was a seven-story greenhouse like a giant helix, with each long rectangular story at a slightly different angle from the others. I wondered what they grew in those, watched water spray inside one story. Small figures, too small at this distance to determine the species, walked through the fifth level pushing carts, harvesting the crop, which grew in waist-high trays.

“At least,” Marianne said, watching the same greenhouse, “there’s no stoop labor there.”

The Gwyng downstairs went into heat. Having a store, she knew lots of other Gwyngs; being a merchant, not inviting regular customers to her heat would have been rude.

At night, in bed, Marianne and I would hold each other but not having sex, listening, sniffing, as though we on the fifth floor could smell the second. Sam and Molly kept very odd hours, seemed to sleep in separate rooms. All of us non-Gwyngs in the building, if we were in the elevator together, would stop speaking when we passed the second floor landing, turning away from even our own mates. The elevator vibrated ultrasonics, oozed sex molecules. Black Amber called the third night of the heat. “Cadmium and Rhyodolite (pheromones forced/driven)… if you can, help.”

“Who called?” Marianne asked. She was reading some Institute study guide off the terminal.

“Black Amber. It’s not important.”

“She and Karriaagzh…” Marianne didn’t finish, just trailed off and began to scroll through the material on her terminal, muttering, “I’ve worked with these semiotic concepts before. Signifier/signified drift, so that’s why the linguists who devised Karst Two didn’t work out a code, but rather an arbitrary signal-shifting system. Karst Two changes like a natural language. If the computers translated Karst Two directly into Karst One, then we wouldn’t be able to adapt to the shifts in Karst Two.”

“And vice versa, somehow,” I said.

“I don’t quite understand how the shift works. I suspect the distinctive pairs…not pairs, I bet, in Karst Two…” She stopped talking and pulled a couple of pages of hard copy, then began scribbling on them, one hank of her hair looped over a breast, the rest going down her shoulders.

We went to bed shortly after Black Amber called. Marianne lay in bed, almost rigid, then asked, “Do the males hurt the female Gwyngs?”

“Everyone gets scratches and bruises. Reeann, you’re tense. Want some warm milk or a backrub?”

“Sorry.” She snuggled up against me, and we drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, I wiggled around under the covers, only half awake. Marianne had left a warm spot in the bed, just got up minutes before. Whichever of us got up first started coffee, so I figured she was in the kitchen and pulled myself out of bed, used the toilet, and began dressing. I just had my pants on when she called from the living room, “Tom, quick.” Barefooted and shirtless, I ran up to the front of the apartment.

Two Gwyngs lay together face down in a sleeping bag on the floor. Cadmium, by the blond streaks, so the other one had to be Rhyodolite.

“Black Amber told me to take care of them,” I said. “Didn’t you lock up?”

Rhyodolite squirmed around in the bag. His face was bruised, the wrinkles looser than usual as though he hadn’t eaten in days. Probably hadn’t. “Weaver’s pouch kin,” he murmured, reaching up to Marianne with one hand. “Be nice to a little Gwyng.” The nail on his thumb was torn.

Cadmium punched Rhyo under the bag cover. “Red Clay, heat is over (exhausting/exhausted of energy) the one downstairs likes me (but many males, Rhyodolite too small).”

Rhyodolite looked over at Cadmium and clapped his nostrils open and shut a few times. Cadmium freed an arm and stroked Rhyodolite’s face, Rhyodolite asked, “Can we stay here a few days, through the party?”

I looked at Reeann. She said in English,
“Yangchenla told me about Gwyng teases. Only if they leave us alone, is it okay.”

“No fair talking primitive jargon to discuss,” Rhyodolite said.

“She says you can stay, if you don’t tease us when we’re in bed,” I said, not looking at Marianne.

“Spoilsport, fun rupturer,” Rhyodolite began, but Cadmium Gwyng-talked to him, and he settled down. Then Cadmium pulled himself out of the sleeping bag. He went knuckles and knees down on the floor for a second, naked, then he unsteadily stood up, one hand cupped over his groin. He looked dried up. “Can one of you get our clothes and food?”

I said, coming up to steady him, “We’ve got milk and cream in the kitchen.”

“I’ll get it,” Marianne said. She stared down at Rhyodolite— challenge eyes— and he looked away first.

“Why is she so touchy? What happened when she was learning Gwyng at Black Amber’s?” I asked them.

“Rhyodolite and the Weaver,” Cadmium said. “‘I’d like to sit in that chair.” He pointed.

“Rhyodolite and Molly? Molly’s the Weaver, right?”

“Nice
placental female,” Rhyodolite said. He closed his eyes and turned his head submissively.

Oh, shit.

Molly herself came out, sleepy-eyed in a long cotton nightgown, and said, “Rhyodolite, what happened to you?”

“Where’s Sam?” I asked her.

“Out, playing”

“I was bullied,” Rhyodolite said, “ruthlessly/kept from sexual pleasures. Even Cadmium set me back.”

Cadmium snorted. I’d never heard a Gwyng make that sound before, but they’ve got the flexible nostrils for it. I handed them towels just as Marianne was bringing out hot butter. Cadmium stood up, wrapped the towel around his waist, tucked the end in, and sat down. Rhyodolite stayed in the sleeping bag, his nostrils twitching.

“Molly,” Reeann asked, “where is Sam?”

“Out. I don’t know,” Molly said. She knelt down beside Rhyodolite in the bag, held the cup for him. He wiggled his fingers at her; she wiggled hers back at him.

Gwyng-sign, for people who can’t get the second language operation. Reeann handed the second cup of hot butter to Cadmium who said, “We also need/would like formula. Storekeeper has it. Sorry to inconvenience you.”

“I’ll get it,” Reeann said. “I’d rather not watch that.”

She kicked out a foot toward Molly and Rhyodolite and punched the elevator call button. Rhyodolite leaned on Molly’s breasts, sipping painfully at the melted butter, stroking her jaw with his long furry knuckles.

Cadmium got up and paced, three steps away from Marianne and three steps back to the chair. He said again, “If the Weaver wants, she can stop him. He’s little (and my pouch kin).”

Marianne went “errhh.” The elevator door slid down; she got in and left. Molly looked up— not understanding what Cadmium said.

“No loyalty between sisters?” Rhyodolite asked me.

Cadmium said, “Don’t be nasty.”

Molly looked at me and pulled away from Rhyodolite, her face flushed slightly. I had missed over a month of their lives together. Poor Sam, I thought, married to a woman who goes for the most exotic available male. Cadmium said, “Would like shower. Pheromone disrupter would be better but don’t have.”

“Should we give him a shower, too?”

Cadmium looked down at Rhyodolite. His lips pursed slightly, then he said, “Your famous cold one?”

Rhyodolite brushed his knuckle fur against Molly’s lips. She took his hand and pushed it away, but held it, eyes averted from mine.

Cadmium said, “Why don’t we talk while I shower?” He walked over to the stranger’s bath, put his head in and said, “This stinks of bird. I know the Linguist Aspirant doesn’t want me in back, but…”

While Cadmium showered, he yelled over pulses of water, “He won’t/can’t hurt her. His sexual organ is shorter than human.”

“It’s more emotional with us.”

“I don’t know if Rhyodolite explained glass pheromone vials and their sexual significance to the Weaver before the Musician mated the Free Trader.”

Sam and Yangchenla. “The Musician and the Weaver were pair-bonded.”

Cadmium stuck his soapy head out and looked at me, wrinkles draining foam off his face, nostrils closed. Her wiped off his muzzle and said, “Sure.”

I said, “The Weaver’s a female sex organ.” Cunt, in English, but Karst One doesn’t insult by sex organs.

“Come on/seriously, Red Clay, she’s hands and brain, too. And other significant parts, like an asshole.” Humans have them; Gwyngs don’t.

“I’ve only slept with my own species.”

“Never came close?” He pulsed the water so loudly I couldn’t have answered immediately. If, if, if… yeah, any species that sleeps with rubber Yokamama dolls and plastic vibrators can have a good time with any warm orifices or protuberances, intelligently manipulate. I’d been scared off the times I’d missed.

“Close isn’t doing it.”

“Your crazy brother also prefers (the bigot) his own.”

“A Tibetan girl?”

“Yes, but the Barcons won’t give him a breeding permit. Sam and Yangchenla received one. When will you apply?” He sounded sexually preoccupied still.

“I haven’t talked to Marianne.”

“I understand noise for the Linguist in context.”

“I think she’d be more interested in linguistics than a baby, anyhow,” I said, feeling rather doleful about it. Should we have a child here, raise it among aliens?

We heard the elevator rising in the shaft. Cadmium said, “Back to the front room now, so the Linguist Aspirant won’t be angry. Grouchy like most Red Clay species females.”

He took a second towel from the rack and dried off somewhat, considering how his body hair held water, then wrapped it around his waist. He explained, “First towel was smelly. Exhausted from that smell. Smell soap now.”

“Rhyodolite definitely needs a shower,” I said. We met Marianne at the elevator. She didn’t say anything, just handed Cadmium a bottle of blood. Molly and Rhyodolite weren’t in the living room now. They giggled and koo’ed from her room. “He really needs rest,” Cadmium said, slumping down on the floor with his bottle, “and food.”

“You tell him,” Reeann said.

Cadmium sipped at the bottle, looked at it, and muttered, “Stabilized, not whipped.” Then he looked at Marianne and said, “Your sister is corrupting him.”

Cadmium was loyal to his kin. And whatever Marianne did, I ought to be loyal to her. But the little runt Gwyng was my first friend here, perverse as he was. I said, “I’ll take his food in.” Marianne handed me the bottle.

They’d left the door open. Rhyodolite was in Molly’s bed, covers up to his little pointed chin. She murmured to him in Karst One—he could understand her—then met me in the middle of the room.

“Tom, you’re a Bible Belt hick,”
she told me in English. 
“
Sex isn’t just reproduction. It relieves tensions, makes us all one body.”

“How does Sam feel?” 
I asked.

“He needed a business manager. I couldn’t help him.”

She took the bottle from me and went back to help Rhyodolite sit up, held him while he sipped it.

“Yangchenla always was more interested in business.”

“And they’re both primitive types to you, aren’t they, you racist, yes,”
Molly said fiercely, still in English.
“You threw her out.”

“She left me.”

“I don’t know why Ree puts up with you. You hicked up her name, Reeann. Sounds like someone on Hee Haw.’”

Rhyodolite reached for her lips with his fingers and said, “Red Clay, she’s angry?”

“Yes, at me.”

He signed to her. She fleered back her lips and slid her incisors over each other, then looked out the window.

Rhyodolite took the bottle from her, drained it, and said to me, “I told her you were my friend.”

I felt guilty. Maybe, we all should embrace aliens with our genitals, be one flesh. I said, “Molly, he needs rest.”

“Were we fucking when you came in?” she replied. I left, closing the door on them.

“Marianne,” I asked when I came back into the living room, “do you mind me calling you Reeann?”

“No. I feel like a Reeann here.”

“I didn’t mean it to be a hick name.”

“An innocent name.”

Cadmium gulped, tongue muscle between his jawbones bouncing way up, and went toward the stranger’s bathroom.

Reeann asked, “Are you sick?”

He said, “No,” and closed the door.

“He thinks we want to be alone,” I said.

“Let’s go back to your room,” she said, “so he doesn’t have to stay in there.” We did. “Do you want to apply for a breeding permit now?” she asked.