by Serena Vale
That was not the case here. There were rivers running through the land, water turned white as it poured from over high waterfalls, or crashed through raging rapids below. There was a gentle mist forming in the world outside and she could almost feel the moisture on her body. She relished it. The only free-flowing water she had ever seen had been during her brief tenure in a water-treatment facility that had replaced the Earth’s natural water cycle. The two were hardly interchangeable experiences she thought.
She saw birds – or at least she assumed that’s what they were – flying about here and there. They looked more reptilian than anything that Earth had, like they could actually have been dinosaurs, like Earth had at one point. Their wings looked bat-like, their beaks were pointed and hooked at the tip, but their skin was scaly and their bodies tipped at the end with prehensile tails.
Other creatures walked about on the ground below. She saw a pack of them, at least a dozen or so as they grazed on some of the plant life that was within their reach. They were bulbous in their shape, reminding her of a cross between a bulldog and a hippo – both of which she had also only seen images of in museums. The creatures looked as scaly as the birds, their mouths were octagonal in shape and they seemed to have no eyes, but they did not seem threatening as other animals simply walked by, ignoring them.
Wondrous as these sights were, they were as nothing to the city in which she had landed. Her eyes combed over the landscape to take in the system of living that she found here.
The city, like so many back on Earth, was built on stilts. That was indicative of culture, she thought. On Earth, the higher one lived off the ground the richer they were – wealth making one automatically closer to God and therefore the higher one could go, the more powerful they were. Though unlike on Earth, the stilts that kept this city upright were the very trees she had been marveling at. The work of hands guided by more than instinct had clearly built this place.
In the trees, where she now stood, a series of platforms had been built that were interconnected from one tree to the next. They were connected by a series of… streets? No, she decided that they were too narrow to be streets or roads, or at least what she thought of as streets or roads. They looked more like aqueduct pipes as she could see water surging through them. Those pipes, however, were transparent from what she could see. They looked as flimsy as a canvas firehose but appeared to be made of some material – possibly some organic membrane – that looked too thin to be glass, yet it shimmered and moved as if alive… it was as thin as the film of a soap bubble, but it stood up to what looked like tremendous pressure. More than that, she saw something flowing inside those strange waterways… some kind of oval-shaped pods, she thought they were.
Must be some kind of a delivery system, she thought.
The platforms themselves stretched out across the landscape. Not every tree in sight had just a platform upon it; some were too small and others simply looked unnecessary to build upon. But each was suspended and supported by the high and thick boughs of these massive trees. The platforms, which ranged in size from just a few dozen meters or so to perhaps a hundred meters – depending on how far out the branches stretched – were covered in some kind of dwellings.
They were all made by non-human hands. She could tell that right off and thought that the idea of being around such would take some getting used to. It wouldn’t be anything terrible… she knew that and was looking forward to something new and exciting. The unknown was what attracted her to this place. It had been part of the reason she had wanted to come here.
Part of the reason.
The other part brought a sly grin to her face. But there would be time for that later. For the moment, she was pleased simply to be here. Largely because it wasn’t Earth and so far as she knew, there were no other humans on the planet. And that was a thing that filled her with excitement that she couldn’t quite describe.
This world had been on her short list, one of her top five, and she was more than a little excited to have been chosen to come here. Though the residents of this planet had been in trade with Earth for years, she’d never heard that someone had been chosen to actually come here for the very reason she had hoped.
Never.
Chapter 2
“Excuse me, Ms. Durra?” asked a voice from behind her.
She turned and saw one of the residents of the planet standing there. She recognized the native creature – person, she corrected herself – standing there. The Ursans – again, what humans called them – were a people that were near enough to a human’s height, being just under two meters tall. But unlike humans that had no hair, nor had they ever. Their skin was pasty in color, but lightly scaled and when the sun hit them at just the right angle it almost looked as if their very skin contained rainbows.
Their overall shape was humanoid; bipeds with two hands and two arms, two eyes and a mouth. They possessed no noses, however. Their eyes were black in color and looked vacant, almost lifeless, but definitely alien. Their mouths were also slim and without lips – or so it looked – but she could see a small collection of squared and almost human-like teeth behind the speaking orifice. Their heads were flat, but for two flaps that took the place of their scalp that lightly twitched as this strange person stood there. Lyssa recalled from her studies that those flaps, which looked more like some kind of a hat to her eyes, was how that the Ursans actually breathed.
She wasn’t sure why, but there was something… beautiful about such a creature. It was a stark contrast to herself. Lyssa never thought of herself as being anything other than well formed. She could see her reflection in the nearby window. She had chocolate skin, jet black hair that reached down to the small of her back, and though she was husky where other women were svelte, she had always been pleased with her body.
“Yes?” she replied.
“I’m Nava,” the creature – person – replied. “Welcome to our world.” The one greeting her extended her hand forward and Lyssa saw that the arm was capped in only two digits that extended as long as her hand.
Lyssa recognized the greeting and extended her hand, shaking the other person’s long and slender fingers. She felt the skin beneath her palm was rough and scaly… but somehow, it was warm and her skin tingled at the touch of it.
“Thank you,” she replied, feeling the underlying strength in the digits of the… man? Woman? She wasn’t sure… the books she’d downloaded didn’t really cover how to differentiate between the genders of this world. She chose to focus on something else. “You speak English very well.”
“Thank you,” Nava said, taking back his – her? – Hand. Her, she decided, in lieu of knowing her greeter’s actual gender. She wasn’t entirely sure why but this creature struck her as feminine. Her gut instinct told her that this person before her was female and it comforted her to think so. “I have been studying your language for several years now.”
Nava smiled at her, or at least Lyssa imagined that it was supposed to be a smile. Several of the other departing passengers looked nervously at the expression as they walked by. Lyssa pretended not to notice them.
“I have arranged for your luggage to be picked up,” Nava said. “It will be taken to our lodgings right away. My other is waiting to see you,” she said, gesturing for her to follow.
“Your other?” Lyssa asked curiously.
“Yes,” Nava said happily. “I have seen the texts that your people have written of my species.” She put her hands together nervously. “I apologize, but your scribes did not bother to study my race in depth. There was very little that they accurately described.”
“I suspected as much,” Lyssa said with a confirming nod as they walked.
“Yes… I believe that there is much that I will have to advise you on before we begin the proceedings. Oh! And my other asked me to convey his thanks for your accepting of this honor on his behalf.”
She smiled at the Ursan. “The honor is mine. And I look forward to learning what you have to teach me
.”
“Very good,” the strange alien said approvingly.
“So… why don’t we start with your other? What does that mean?”
Nava’s eyes pulsed lightly, as if it was about to start crying, but no tears came. Lyssa thought that might be the equivalent of the Ursan’s rolling or blinking their eyes. “Well, I suppose the simplest explanation would be: my spouse.”
Lyssa nodded at that. “Ah… I see. On Earth that is what we would call your other half. Is that what you mean then?”
“Half?” Nava said and a small guttural – but almost melodious – sound left the creature. Lyssa suspected that that was some kind of a laugh or giggle. “No… that is one of the things your researchers fell short on. We are not as you are on Earth… we do not require merely two organisms to create progeny. We require four.”
“Four?!” Lyssa exclaimed.
“Yes… well, five in your case. There is still much that we are uncertain on how to proceed with. It will be a new experience for us all.”
“Us?” Lyssa asked, feeling a twitch of excitement. “You mean… you’ll be… joining in on this…uh… experiment?”
Nava gave her a short look that was almost incredulous. “Well, yes. Of course I will.” She turned her head sideways, a curious expression, Lyssa thought. “Do you not also have group bonding sessions on your world?”
Lyssa felt her lips tremble a moment, uncertain how to answer properly and with clarity, but all that managed to come out of her mouth was, “Yes, we do.”
“Excellent,” Nava said with relish. “Then this will not be so strange to you then. I’ll discuss it with you at length as we make our way to the tree. You’re going to enjoy your new living arrangements, I’m sure.”
Lyssa felt her legs shuddering underneath her. She had never heard of this before and she began to understand why some scholars may have left out certain bits in their books. Some of this may not have made sense to them at all.
Well, I knew that this would be interesting.
Lyssa was surprised to find that the journey to her new accommodation actually involved riding a river. Well, not a river exactly… but one of those strange aqueduct pipes that she had seen upon her arrival. Nava explained that such things were the natural rapid transit system of Ursa, and they would require the use of one to get to their tree.
She and Nava had climbed into one of the strange pods that she had seen swimming through the bubble-like pipes earlier. It was the size of an old fashioned automobile – back when Earth still used such things – and they were seated comfortably inside of it, though there was room for at least three more people to sit. The pod was then lowered into a waiting tube of water – which according to Nava – ran under a mountain through a series of naturally occurring, yet harnessed, tunnels that would lead them home.
The pod was completely submerged and was carried off at such a speed that Lyssa felt nausea brewing with excitement at the sensation of it in the pit of her stomach. It reminded her partly of a roller coaster she had ridden as a child.
“This is amazing!” she said as the sound of rushing water could be heard outside and yet it felt as if they were being guided along as if being pushed inside of some kind of a child’s stroller. “Is this how everyone travels?”
Nava shook her head. “No… not everyone. Many places on this world can be reached simply by walking, as is usually the case. But the veins of water that course through the planet in naturally occurring tubes – like this one – are the preferred method when traveling more than a few dozen kilometers or to places that are isolated for persons like my spouse.”
Lyssa noted the pointed words and smiled. “You mean for the culturally elite?”
Nava’s eyes pulsed and bared her teeth in her strange smile. “I see that your scribes understand the cultural systems of rich and poor well enough. At least they got that much right.”
“It’s a universal theme,” Lyssa replied. “And believe me, on Earth… the difference between the rich and the poor is as wide as the distance between a planet and a star. It’s hard not to realize it when one sees it.”
Nava nodded. “A crude, but accurate analogy. And in this case, yes, these tunnels will lead us to the Grove of Elite.”
“Sounds like a nice place,” she said approvingly. But there was one thing that taunted the edge of her thoughts. “So… tell me about him.”
“You mean my other?”
“Yes… he’s… well… he’s a he, right?”
Nava gave her strange guttural chuckle again. “Yes… he is definitively male, though the rest of us in the bond are not.”
“The bond?”
Nava tilted its head curiously. “Yes… you do not know what I am speaking of?”
Lyssa shook her head. “But I’m guessing it has something to do with females?”
“It does. You see, a bond by our reckoning is a marriage group,” Nava explained. “My other, I suppose you might call him my husband… is the head of the group. And the other three in it are all females and we service him biologically.”
Lyssa had heard of some crude descriptions of sex before, but that one sounded very strange; it was cold and detached somehow. It sounded more like a labor than anything else, a thing to do in order to get by, like a job. She decided to switch topics. “So, you’re female?” Lyssa ventured, hoping she didn’t sound offensive. “The books I read didn’t tell how to tell your genders apart.”
“I am… although not as you understand it.”
Lyssa was confused by the statement and it must have showed.
“In our species,” Nava explained, “we are all born the same gender. That is to say, we are born genderless, neither male nor female. But as we mature, depending on how we socialize and on the collective needs of our people we eventually develop the required sexes that are needed for communal survival. In fact, there are as many as eight genders on our planet.”
“Eight?” Lyssa asked, recalling that she had not read anything of that nature in her studies. “That’s… incredible!” She paused. “So… in your bond… are you all…?” she asked tentatively.
“Completely female or male?” Nava asked, her voice sounding amused. “No… not at all. My husband is the only definitive male. The rest of are female, though my two sisters and I all have certain attributes that one could call masculine. That is to say we have heightened physical strength, greater lung capacity, stronger bones, and one of them has an above average sex drive.”
Lyssa didn’t have the words to respond. “So… your husband?”
“He is one the elite. By the standards of your world he is… what is that expression? ‘Richer than deity’ I think it is?”
Lyssa chuckled. “Close, it’s actually ‘Richer than God’, but please go on.”
“Well,” Nava continued, “he owns the largest parcel of mountain range on the planet. He owns nearly twenty thousand trees.”
Lyssa paused at that. Maybe it was simply because she had grown up in another kind of system, but she sensed that such a thing had a more specific meaning here. “That doesn’t really sound like much.”
“By the standards to which you might measure wealth on Earth, perhaps it is not. But here, things are different; another failing of your scholars, I’m afraid. You see, trees here are not just objects that grow from the land that you might fell for timber. Here, owning a tree is not just owning material, it’s like owning a community. It’s like owning resources, people, and whatever ideas, discoveries, or inventions that that might come up with. And if you own those trees, you own the people living within them.”
“Sounds like slavery,” Lyssa said.
“No, not slavery, not at all,” Nava said, sounding quite alarmed by the implication. “The people who populate those trees are in fact progeny. They’re not strangers, not in the least of ways.”
Lyssa froze at that. “Wait… progeny? You mean… the people that live in these trees that your husband owns are his children?”
&nb
sp; “Well, yes,” Nava said rather uncertainly. “Such is the method or life for our people.”
Lyssa’s throat suddenly felt as if it had gone very dry. “And… uh… how many people live in these trees… once he’s populated them?”
Nava’s eyes pulsed a moment. “Well, it depends. Many of them hold no more than three or four dozen. Some of them hold only two or three souls at most. Two of them hold nearly fifty. It depends on the needs that my husband believes our clan requires.”
“A clan?” Lyssa said, her voice teetering on the edge of disbelief that her new benefactor had nearly 20,000 children. “That’s not a clan, it’s a swarm.”
Nava gave her strange chuckle again. “Well, our race is insect based originally… before we developed more humanoid traits, of course.”
Lyssa shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around this new – and slightly frightening concept. “So… your husband… he owns trees and he populates them with his own children? How does that make him rich? How does it make him one of the elite?”
“As I said, he is the patriarch of our clan and everything that is developed in those trees is his property. Owning a single tree would be the equivalent of being the elected official of a small city. The discoveries and advancements that are made would be small and insignificant in such a case. But because my husband is keenly intellectual, he is rewarded by dispensing that intellect to his descendants. Owning as many as five trees would be as if he were the leader of a small country. Owning a dozen trees would be as if he were ruling a small country. But twenty thousand…?”
“I think I get it,” Lyssa said, thinking that the man she was about to sign herself over to was by the standards of the planet, a god. Not only that, he was a god of intellect. Small wonder they don’t look kindly on apathy here. She could have done worse. “So, tell me about this bond?”
