Being Alien (29 page)

“This is a crazy place to raise a human child.”

“Sam and Yangchenla want one. We have priority on the child Warren’s not having.” She then said in English,
“God, Tom,”
sat down on my bed and wept. Her tears unsettled me. What bothered her most: Molly with Rhyodolite, Warren, me, having to get a permit for a baby? I sat down beside her and stroked her long hair. An eternity later…no, about five minutes… she went to the bathroom, ran cold water on her eyes, then came out and sat down in front of my terminal.

“You can’t key in on mine,” I said. “And the files on Earth aren’t accessible.”

“Ask Chalk and Agate if we can come visit." She got up and walked the floor while I sent them a message. The sun caught her face; she blinked and said, “It is morning, isn’t it? I’ve got to go to a seminar.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. You’ve got work of your own to do. Are Chalk and Agate going to reply now or what?”

“I sent it to his office.” The computer beeped, and I pushed the button for my mail. “Chalk says he has a few others the next slack days but we could come if it’s just to get away. Is it?”

“Yes,” she said, “yes, just to get away.” She scratched her back and stared out the window.

I typed that in. Chalk typed back,
COME, GOOD
.

Rhyodolite or Molly left a broken glass vial in the kitchen sink. Cadmium came in just after I did and said, “Please get rid of it before…” He fled to the hall.

I got rid of it, furious with the runty Gwyng and his human bitch, then sprayed the kitchen with Gwyng heat pheromone disrupter. Cadmium came back and sprayed the pheromone disrupter on his hand, sniffed deeply. I asked him, “Why did you come here?”

“I’ve been busy working on new contact procedures for Karriaagzh (don’t tell Black Amber). Wanted to talk to you (get sex if possible, subsidiary reason).” He sniffed the room again and sat down in one of our kitchen chairs, turned it to face the atrium. “I’m tamed with Rector bird now.”

“How’s Rhyodolite?”

Cadmium’s shoulder hair bristled a bit, then he said, “Sorry. Rhyodolite. The Linguist should be careful around him. He’s loyal to Black Amber (more than I).” He folded his arms around himself, hooking his thumbs together behind his neck. The curved, long armbones fitted in against his sides, the webs stretched across his chest.

As I scrambled some eggs for my supper, I tried to remember when I’d seen him like that—not as often as the other Gwyngs. We didn’t speak. Finally, I heard the elevator stop at our floor. I went to the front room.

A knock. Neither Molly nor Reeann would knock to come in. Sam had practically moved out. I said, “Who is it?”

Sam answered, “Sam and Yangchenla. Who’s home?”

“I’m the only human. Cadmium’s with me.”

I heard them talking but couldn’t make out what they were saying, other than Yangchenla’s “wrinkle faces.” I said, “He’s in the kitchen. Come on in.”

They opened the elevator door and swayed toward each other a microsecond as if uncertain as to whether they really should come in or not. Both wore grey, tunics, and, their dark faces looked like formal tribal masks, rigid, unreadable. “Cadmium and the upset about Molly and Rhyodolite,” I said.

“We didn’t come to discuss that,” Chenla said, “We need to work on being humans together.” Had her lips been that full when we were living together? I felt possessive and stupidly jealous.

“Humans other than you and Marianne live under pass law here. Like South Africa,” Sam said. They both kept standing in the elevator, not coming out. “We don’t like it.”

“Humans are xenophobic.”

“That’s bullshit. Look at Molly. Look at you. Some of Yangchenla’s people are as sophisticated as any other Free Traders,” Sam said.

I heard the door to my room close and knew Cadmium had gone in there, to let us go to the kitchen if we wanted. Chenla’s face darkened. Sam looked at her and reached over to squeeze her hand.

“Sam, are you managing well? I feel responsible for bringing you here.”

“Don’t worry. Chenla’s teaching me.”

Chenla added, “Tom, stop being alien asskisser and be a real
human being.”
She said that “human being” in English, Sam’s English.

Sam squeezed her hand again, this time hard, like he might have called me an alien asskisser when they were in bed, but he didn’t want her repeating it. I shouldn’t be jealous; I kicked her out. I had Marianne. “I’ll discuss it with Marianne,” I told them. “She isn’t home yet.”

“I don’t want to run into Molly,” Sam said. “I didn’t marry her because she was white. If I was…” He shut up and his eyes rolled down. He looked suddenly more vulnerable, then he looked, up at me, the whites of his eyes yellowish and almost bloodshot, not the cool urban black guy. “You’re the human in power there, so…” He wanted to insult me, but knew it wasn’t politically a good idea.

“Does Cadmium…” Yangchenla began to ask. They came out of the elevator together, practically in step.

“No,” I said. “He’s an honorable Gwyng male;”

Her lips twitched back as she looked around the living room. In Tibetan, she said,
“Nicer than what you gave me.”

I said in Karst One, “Marianne is also with Academy and Institutes. And the apartment was also for Sam and Molly and Warren.”

She looked at Sam as she sat down in one of my leather chairs and ran her fingers through the carpet. Then she turned to me and said, “It’s not real animal fiber.”

“So we don’t have high rank.”

Sam slumped down on a sofa and huffed, his legs straight out in front of him. Then he asked, “Do they say that humans always fight among themselves?”

“They say we aren’t honest about our mating patterns.”

“Tom, you told us Karst has a high minimum wage? 
But that doesn’t work for musicians. We gig.” He used a Karst slang equivalent for
gig,
I had to figure it out. “If I didn’t have Yangchenla, I’d be poorer than I was in Berkeley. Really Oakland flats poor. It’s been no improvement for me with pass laws, being a refugee.” He shifted on the couch, straightened up and started talking in Black English
. “You happy hear that, white boy?”

“No,” I said. “Yangchenla, tell him it’s worse for people in the Primitive Reserve, the Waste.”

She said, “So what if it’s worse there?
Vr’ech brought
us here. You helped…”

I interrupted.
“Say uhyalla.
I have friends who aren’t my species.”
Uhyalla, as in human uhyalla, fellow sapients.

Chenla finished, “…
vr’ech
kidnap Sam and Molly.”
N
ot us, those fellow sapients.

Yeah, I guess I did. We sat with our eyeballs roaming in our skulls, not able to look at each other. Marianne came in then, looked around at us, and said, “Glad to see you, Sam.”

“Did Tom tell you about Yangchenla?” Sam asked her.

Reeann suddenly looked very wary. She went to the table and put down the printout she was carrying. “You were Tom’s former mate?”

“I’m now Sam’s mate for a child.” She showed Reeann the scar where the birth-control implant had been. “We are sophisticated humans here, and maligned by the other sapient
uhyalla.
Perhaps the terms refugee and primitive don’t affect you as they do us?”

“I don’t like it, either,” Marianne said. “Karriaagzh said to work with the History Committee. Closest way for us is through Black Amber.”

Yangchenla frowned, “The top-rank wrinkled face.”

“Cadmium is in my room,” I told Marianne. “He’s not utterly Black Amber’s tool.”

“We’re going to Chalk and Agate’s next break days,” Marianne said. “Maybe you both should come. They’re good people to discuss these sorts of things with.”

“They have a Jerek sterile daughter,” Yangchenla said.

“
You discuss it, then come back and meet more of us.”

Marianne murmured, in English,
“Community Action. I love it.”

Sam laughed, then said to me; “A thousand light-years from Earth and she’s still a red diaper baby.”

“We need to get Molly…” Marianne began

“Leave Molly to Rhyodolite,” Sam said”

Reeann’s head jerked back and she blinked, then said to Yangchenla, “How did you get a breeding permit?”

“DNA readings on both of us, pelvic exam, exam for him. From the Barcons. But your rank permits you to bear a child without anyone else’s permit.”

“Oh,” Marianne said, almost breathing it. She wanted a baby, now. I could imagine her ovaries dying to shed live eggs, female, despite maybe being smarter than me.

“Do you have an implant?” Yangchenla asked her.

“No, they let me stock up on birth-control pills.”

Yangchenla’s eyes went as round as Oriental eyes could go. “You voluntarily avoid babies?”

Reeann said, “Yes, I take a pill every day,”

Yangchenla began in Tibetan
“What kind of stupid…”
then remembered I understood Tibetan. She leaned back and stared at Marianne as if Marianne had pulled off her human face to reveal Gwyng wrinkles.

Reeann said, as if apologizing, “I want to have a baby eventually. What’s day care like?"

“Day care,” didn’t quite work translated into Karst One equivalences for day and care. Yangchenla continued to stare at her. I explained, “How are, the children cared for when the parents are working?”

“Get a bear to tend you all. They love sapient pets,” Yangchenla said, “but they eat pure meats and must be petted themselves.”

Marianne said, “I don’t believe in having servants.”

“Bears,” Yangchenla said, “take care of you. Out in the waste, some humans have human servants. One town human family is taken care of by two bears. The emotional difference is considerable.” She spoke formal Karst One, but Yangchenla’s human vocal apparatus made her sound weird, a pedantic primitive.

“Introduce me to that family,” Reeann said. “If the relationship isn’t exploitive, I might enjoy it.”

“You’ll have to see,” Yangchenla said. “We must be going, but I’m glad to have seen you, Marianne.”

“And you, too, Yangchenla.” Reeann stood when they did. When they got in the elevator, Reeann turned to me and said, “Would it bother you if I got to know her better?”

“Does it bother you that she’s sleeping with your sister’s husband?”

“Molly wasn’t faithful on Earth. I bet Chenla is faithful.”

I felt shrunken as though the women had poured alum over me. “As far as I know. But I feel more comfortable with you, Reeann. Please.”

“It bothers you?”

“If you ever are going to be pregnant, then I guess you want to be close to other human women in the same situation. The kids should be friends. But you and I…”

“Tom, if I’d been just another Berkeley PhD and not radical, I’d have probably snubbed you.”

“I’m not proud of my feelings about the Tibetans.”

Cadmium came out and said, “Can this wrinkled face make you (both) some tea?”

Reeann said, “Sure, Cadmium.”

“I am not Rhyodolite. You are not Molly. Good that we both understand.” Then he turned and headed toward the kitchen.

After he’d gone, I said, “He doesn’t tease as much as the other male Gwyngs.”

The teakettles on Karst boil fast. Cadmium came back with three cups full, one for him, and sat cross-legged on the carpet, sipping through his tongue curled into a tube, not saying anything until he finished his tea. Then he said, “I have to leave now. I won’t bed (not sexually or even just unconscious with them) with Rhyodolite and the Weaver. I know you wouldn’t/don’t want to embarrass us by asking/I’m lonely (need comfortable sleeping companions).”

He climbed to his feet using his long arms for leverage and balance, then felt his wrinkles. “Dry,” he muttered. I remembered seeing him oil his skin—just him, not the other Gwyngs.

“Cadmium, thanks for bringing us tea” Reeann said. “I don’t know what that means for you.”

He went over and brushed his knuckles against her upper arm. “A kindness, same as with you. We share an embarrassment.” Reeann looked at me, then touched her elbow gently to his. He said, “Take care of Red Clay. Red Clay, be as Barcons with her.”

Be mated for life.

He got his sleeping bag and left.

What work was I doing during this time? I was learning how to supervise cadets, among other things. My memory divided my human family life from my Yauntry negotiations and worries about cadets I supervised as the Institute of Control began training everyone in basic defense. We sapients continued studying one another and our histories, made behavioralist gossip, actually.

To take a break from both memory tracks, Marianne and I flew to the north toward our Rector’s People. As the plane, took off, Marianne said, “I’m going to pay more attention to the terrain this time. I was in shock before.”

“They’ve tried to please everyone.”