"I do not know so much about babies," I told her, "for I have only learned about them from the teaching-machines in my village. However, it should not be necessary to cause the child pain — just to frighten her to the point where she cries out."
"Oar," Festina said, "can we think about this a minute?"
"Of course," I replied. "We must think very hard how to produce an appropriate amount of terror. My own suggestion would be to create a large fire and drop the child into the middle… for it turns out Zaretts fear blazing infernos but are not at all harmed by the heat. If we are lucky, the flames will actually bestow Starbiter with excellent invigorating energies, so her cries will carry farther. Is that not a clever scheme?"
I looked around proudly, believing I would receive heartfelt congratulations from those assembled… but I did not see the expected expressions of approval. Indeed, the Vachead crew members appeared horrorstruck. Meanwhile, Lajoolie had covered her face with her hands and Uclod wore a scowl so fierce, one might think he wished to punch somebody.
"What is it?" I asked. "What?"
Festina took me by the arm and led me from the room.
I Am Ignominiously Berated
It seems humans have a foolish taboo against setting infants on fire. Festina took me down the hall and explained this to me in low but intense tones. It does not even matter whether the flames actually hurt the child; this is simply a thing which must not be done.
I tried to tell her the situation was different on Melaquin. Immersing oneself in fire is actually a pleasant experience: it causes no harm or pain, and surrounds one with tasty toasty light. Moreover, it burns off the dirt and stains one inevitably acquires from daily activities. One can have too much of a good thing — flames tend to dry out the skin — but to anyone of my species, a session of self-immolation combines the virtues of a hot bath with a good meal.
Was it not the same for Starbiter? Who was also a Shaddill creation, and who was also nourished by flame? Though she might initially fear to be immersed in fire, was that not just the fussiness of a baby who did not like to try new foods?
Festina said this might all be true, but there were Lines One Does Not Cross. Therefore I must not suggest my plan again, for fear that persons who did not know me would think me a horrible monster.
I almost said, I do not care what others think. But that would not be true. I did not want Festina to consider me a bad person, nor did I wish to be despised by Uclod or Lajoolie. I especially did not want Nimbus believing I intended to harm his child… for if he and I were siblings in Shaddillhood, I did not wish to alienate his affections.
In my youth, I had often contemplated how much I would like to have a brother — even when I did not always like having a sister. A brother would be different and interesting: a comrade rife with maleness, but with no lustful urges to complicate the friendship and ultimately make one sad. I would, of course, have to persuade the cloud man to view me as a sister… but were we not partway there already? Back in Starbiter he had tried to boss me around, and I had responded with instant resentment; therefore we were practically family, and all that remained was for him to acknowledge it.
Besides, if Nimbus was my brother, that would make me young Starbiter’s Auntie. The thought of that pleased me most greatly.
Auntie Oar. It had an excellent ring.
My Induction
"I shall do as you wish, Festina," I said. "In future, I shall not suggest putting babies into fire — not even a little fire that would make the child stronger and healthier than before. However, we still need Starbiter to cry, do we not? So we must find another method of inducement. What would be more palatable to Earthling tastes? Shaking her fiercely? Jabbing her with pins? Piling weighty objects on top of her?"
Festina glared at me a moment, then broke into a grudging laugh. "All right, Oar, I see your point. I’ve been letting my human prejudices get in the way of figuring out how to treat an alien. And I should know better — I run around pretending to be a hard-headed Explorer, but you’re the one who’s unflinchingly practical."
"I am excellent at unflinching practicality," I told her. "I would also be excellent as an Explorer."
As evidence for this statement, I held up the coattails of my jacket. Perhaps there is more to being an Explorer than wearing black clothes, but I have never noticed anything else. And the jacket fit very well.
"You’re right," Festina said, "you would make a good Explorer. If nothing else, you’re bulletproof." She took a deep breath. "By the power vested in me as a duly appointed admiral of the Outward Fleet, I hereby grant you the rank of cadet in the Technocracy Explorer Corps. That is, if you accept the position."
"Of course I accept the position. I have been oppressed and exploited by so many Explorers, it is high time I was empowered to do the same to others. When do I receive my stun-pistol?"
"Uh, later," Festina replied. "Much later. It’s time we got back to the others."
So that is what we did.
The Compactification Of A Cloud
When we returned to Nimbus’s cabin, the cloud man had shrunk to a shadow of his former self… which is to say, he had compressed his little flying bits into a much tighter ball around the baby Starbiter. Father and child combined were now just the size of my fists pressed together; the outer Nimbus-y shell looked as hard and dense as quartz.
"Why is he like that?" I demanded. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," Captain Kapoor replied. "He just suddenly clumped down around the kid as solid as a rock. Maybe to protect his daughter from getting thrown in a bonfire." The frowzy captain gave me an accusatory glare.
"No one is getting thrown into a bonfire," Festina said. "If that’s what you’re worried about, Nimbus, you can let the little girl go."
We all stared at the rock, waiting for some response. Humans must have slower metabolisms than I, for they were still waiting patiently when I cried, "He is just doing this to vex me! He is acting obnoxiously as a blatant plea for attention!"
"Well, he’s got my attention," Festina said. "He looks like an egg."
She smiled to show she was joking, then knelt beside the chair that held both Nimbus and Starbiter. "Hey," she said to the condensed cloud man, "we won’t hurt your daughter, I promise. But we’d like her to send a distress call, if that’s physically possible. The call doesn’t have to be loud — the Cashlings on Jalmut have some of the best communications technology in our sector, so they’ll hear the tiniest peep."
Festina paused; there was no sign that Nimbus was listening. "You know our situation," she said, still using a soft persuasive voice. "At this second, the Shaddill are out of commission, and unfriendly elements of the navy are far away… so we’ve got a window of opportunity to call for help from someone else. If we leave it too long, though, the Shaddill might get themselves repaired; and you can be damned sure the Admiralty has already dispatched one of their dirty-trick ships to track us down. Then there’s the added complication that we’ll soon use up all of our oxygen. Baby Starbiter may not care, since she’s designed to survive in space, but the rest of us are air-breathing. Including you, Nimbus. Sooner or later, you’re going to get woozy… which means you’ll pass out when your daughter needs you most, unless we call for help now."
To me, this was excellent logic; but Nimbus remained stony in the face of Festina’s arguments. I wanted to poke him (quite gently, with a finger), but did not know how others would view such an action. Anyway, I doubted if prodding would have much effect — the cloud man appeared to be as unresponsive as granite. At last, Festina grimaced and stepped away from him.
"All right," she said, "we aren’t accomplishing much here. Captain, any ideas to propose?"
The captain man, Mr. Kapoor, ran a hand through his almost nonexistent hair. "Just to go through the motions," he said, "we should check ship’s stores, in case some spare parts didn’t get zapped. There’s a minuscule chance we can throw together a makeshift communicator — at least something
good enough to send a public SOS."
"Very well," Festina told him, "let’s hope we’re lucky. And while you’re doing that, I’ll make a quick run around the ship and gather the rest of the crew. Where’s the best place for them to assemble? Down near the storerooms?"
Kapoor nodded. "That’s as good as any."
"Fine, Captain, carry on. Oh, and please send two people to Dr. Havel in the main computer room. He’s got a casualty who’ll need to be transported someplace safe."
"Aye-aye, Admiral."
The captain moved his hand in a manner reminiscent of a salute (provided one had a high capacity for reminiscing). As he and his collection of crew members moved off down the hallway, Festina turned to Uclod, Lajoolie, and me. "One of us should stay with Nimbus," she said. "To talk to him if he decides to come out of his shell."
"I shall do that," I said. As his somewhat-sister, it was my obligation to attend to the cloud man’s needs; and of course, to berate him for his churlish behavior as soon as non-family persons had departed the room.
"I’ll stay too," Lajoolie piped up hastily, speaking with uncharacteristic urgency. She must have believed I might do the cloud man an injury if left alone with him… which just goes to show what unjust suspicions arise when one conducts oneself in a Forthright Manner.
Festina turned to Uclod. "What about you? Do you want to stay here or come with me for a once-around-the-ship?"
The little man threw a glance at Lajoolie, then turned back to Festina. "I’ll go with you. Uncle Oh-God would rip off my ears if I let you go wandering with no one to watch your back."
He reached out quickly, grabbed Lajoolie’s hand, and gave it a quick squeeze. Then he and Festina vanished out the door, leaving the rest of us on our own.
17: WHEREIN I AM SWALLOWED BY DARKNESS
Alone In The Dark
If you have been paying attention — and for your sake, I hope you have, so when persons of High Social Standing accost you in the street, saying, "Have you read Oar’s book?" you will be able to answer, "Yes, especially the part where she and Lajoolie were left alone with Nimbus" — if you have been paying attention, you will realize our party had only possessed two glow-wands. One belonged to the captain, the other to my friend Festina; therefore, when the captain departed in one direction and Festina went the other, Lajoolie and I were left with a conspicuous absence of light. Also a conspicuous absence of food. I still had not eaten a bite in the past four years, and being in the dark always makes me famished. Quite literally. Especially an enclosed darkness without even the tiny sustenance of starshine. If I did not get food or light soon, I would lapse into the torpid state that befalls my species when deprived of the necessities of life. It had only happened to me once, when I drowned in a great river and remained stuporous under dark water until the current washed me ashore… but I did not enjoy the experience, and was keen not to repeat it.
Therefore, to conserve energy I settled myself onto the floor and attempted to relax every muscle. Lajoolie must have heard me moving, for she asked, "What are you doing?"
"Saving my strength," I said.
"For what?"
"To avoid enforced hibernation. I do not suppose you have any foodstuffs with you? It could even be opaque if that was all you had."
"Sorry," Lajoolie said. "When the captain or admiral gets back, you can ask them for something. The ship’s food synthesizers won’t be working, but I understand there’s a hydroponics facility; that’s a place that grows fresh produce."
"I know what a hydroponics is," I told her untruthfully. "I was taught such things in school. Also the elevenses table."
"You went to school?" Lajoolie asked. "I always thought your planet was… well…"
"Filled with ignorant savages who knew absolutely nothing?"
"Sorry," Lajoolie said.
It was the second time she had said, "Sorry," in the past minute… and she had a most abject manner of saying it. I could not see her in the dark, but the way she spoke, I imagined her dropping her head in a posture of crushed self-esteem. Of course, Lajoolie might actually be making rude gestures at me in the blackness; but I did not think so.
I am not such a one as beats around the bush when a person’s behavior puzzles me. "Is there something wrong with you, Lajoolie?" I asked. "Are you psychologically damaged in some way, or do you simply act submissive to put others off their guard? I think it most strange that a muscular woman should constantly quail before the eyes of others, or feign an aura of fragility when she is clearly not fragile at all. Was your spirit broken somehow or is this simply a sham, wherein you pretend to be dainty for some foolish alien reason?"
Off in the darkness, Lajoolie began to cry.
Lajoolie’s Tears
I had never imagined I would make her weep. Though I am clever and warm and most well-intentioned, it turns out I am not always adept at saying the right things to people. As you must know by now, I have not had a great deal of experience in social circumstances; I spent much of my early life with no one to talk with but my sister, and she never burst into tears. At least not until the Explorers came.
So perhaps there are times when my words have an adverse effect. I do not mean to be upsetting; but sometimes it happens, and then I am upset too. It is quite most dismaying to find you have accidentally hurt someone’s feelings. I never intend that ever. And it is just too bad that some people (especially alien people) are so unexpectedly vulnerable.
I never intend to be cruel.
Though I had wanted to conserve my remaining energy, I rose immediately and let myself be guided by the sound of Lajoolie’s whimpers: shuffling blindly through the darkness until I could wrap her in my arms. When I did, the big woman did not push me away. She was seated on the cabin’s unused bed, so I sat beside her and let her sob into my jacket.
After a time, when her tears began to ease, I murmured, "Why are you crying, foolish one? Tell me, and I shall try to make it better."
"It’s just…" Lajoolie whispered. "It’s just…" She succumbed to more sniffles.
"Come," I said, "let us talk about this. I inquired whether you were mentally disturbed, and then you began all this fuss. Does that mean you are emotionally damaged? You have been tormented and abused?"
"No," she answered in a small voice. "I was never abused." Sniffle, sniffle. "By anyone." Sniffle, sniffle. "But you thought… you said I was putting on an act, pretending to be… something I’m not. And I am putting on an act, but I must be terrible at it if I can’t fool some alien who’s only known me a few hours."
"Ah, but I am more perceptive than most of the universe. Especially the parts of the universe that are vacuum." I paused. "What precise type of act are you putting on?"
She did not answer right away. I was beginning to realize Lajoolie never did anything right away; she preferred to ruminate at length before committing herself to action. At last, however, she said in a low voice, "Have you heard of arranged marriages?"
"Of course," I told her. "They are a narrative device found in works of fiction — designed to explain why persons who lust after each other cannot consummate their passion until the end of the book."[10]
[10] — I hope you are not surprised that I was familiar with Tales of Romantic Longing. Under the tutelage of the teaching machines in my village, I learned much more than arithmetic and the social graces. Indeed, there was a time when my planet had a thriving literature, rife with tales of Star-Crossed Lovers Separated By Fate… who either pined in stoic silence their whole lives or else threw caution to the winds and thereby precipitated great social upheavals, but either way ended tragically there inches from each other in the same Ancestral Tower, with their brains too Tired to realize they were together at last.
"Arranged marriages aren’t just fictitious, Oar. They’re quite popular in some cultures."
"Popular with whom?" I asked. "Those who rent rooms for illicit affairs?"
Lajoolie tried to pull away from me, but I held on. She stopped st
ruggling after a moment, but said mostangrily, "This isn’t about affairs, Oar! It’s not about sex at all."
"Then what is it about?"
"It’s about… oh, you’ll never understand."
"Do you believe me stupid or deficient in some way? Or is it that you think an alien can never comprehend your niceties of emotion?"
"I don’t mean that. I just…"
"Tell me," I said. "Tell me everything, and I shall be a sympathetic listener. Or if I am not a sympathetic listener, you can say to yourself, I was right that Oar cannot understand. Then you will feel better for being correct all along, and you will find you have stopped crying."
Her next sniffle sounded slightly like a laugh… and in time, with many Lajoolie-like pauses, she explained her Dire Position.
On Being A Wide Woman
According to Lajoolie, all Divian men (including Tye-Tyes, Freeps, and myriad other sub-breeds) are attracted to females with broad shoulders. There is an evolutionary reason for this liking — in ancient days, muscular bodies indicated good health and breeding potential — but that is not what Divian men think about when they slaver over the width of a woman; they simply think how fine it would be to nuzzle such luxuriant flesh.
Therefore, Tye-Tye women are much in demand on Divian worlds. Tye-Tyes were originally engineered to live on a planet with high gravitation, so they had to be inordinately strong just to keep moving; but after Tye-Tyes were created, Divian men from other breeds took one look at the muscular Tye-Tye women and went most thoroughly goggle-eyed.
Though slavery had been outlawed for centuries, non-Tye-Tye males of wealth and privilege found ways to purchase desirable Tye-Tye girls for purposes of matrimony. Or simply for sex. This practice became a major component of the Tye-Tye economy… which led to a thriving industry wherein young girls were put through Diverse Regimens Of Training in order to make them more salable. This meant, for example, that brides produced for the off-world market were educated in useful skills: they learned many languages; they became adept at social graces such as music, witty conversation, and how to berate servants; and of course they lifted heavy weights in all directions so as to increase their natural charms.
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