Through Alien Eyes

by Amy Thomson

  Moki turned purple in puzzlement. “I don’t understand.”

  Astrid, who had been listening to this conversation laughed gently. “Go easy on him, Danan. Moki just got here, and it’s going to take him some time to figure it all out.” She picked up the reins, shook them, and made a clicking sound with her tongue. Dusty and Herman started to move, and Moki realized that the horses were pulling the wagon forward. His ears lifted and he turned deep fuchsia in amazement.

  “What is it, Moki?” Astrid asked.

  “The wagon! The horses are moving it!”

  Astrid smiled. “That’s one of the things that horses do for us, Moki. They pull loads for us, and carry us around on their backs, and they’re good company. Before Juna found you, humanity’s only other friends were animals.”

  Moki’s ears widened again in surprise. Animals as friends. Danan had talked to Dusty as though he were a friend, even though the horse couldn’t understand him. He shook his head in puzzlement. There had been tame animals in Narmolom and Lyanan, but they weren’t friends. Humans had some strange ideas.

  “But you eat animals,” Moki said, confused. “How can you eat them if they’re your friends?”

  “It’s kind of complicated,” Astrid said. “Maybe you should ask Juna to explain it to you.”

  Danan pulled a cluster of grapes from one of the flats piled in the back of the wagon, and handed it to him. The grapes were warm from the sun and richly fragrant.

  “Here, Moki, try some grapes,” he said.

  Moki put one in his mouth. The skin was tart and astringent on his tongue, until he bit into it, and then sweet juice burst into his mouth. There was a hard seed in the middle that tasted bitter, and he spit it into his hand.

  “Oh! It’s good! It’s wonderful!” Moki exclaimed, turning turquoise. He ate another one.

  “I think he likes them,” Astrid said with an amused grin.

  “Why do you make wine out of something that tastes this good? Why not just eat the grapes?”

  Astrid smiled. “We like the taste of the wine, and we like getting a little drunk off the alcohol in the wine. And the wine will keep for years. The grapes last for only a few days.”

  “What is ‘drunk’?”

  “The alcohol in the wine relaxes us, and reduces our inhibitions,” Astrid explained. “In moderation, the sensation can be pleasurable.”

  “But the alcohol is a poison,” Moki said. “One of the reasons I don’t like wine is that it’s so much work to filter out the alcohol.”

  “Juna lets you drink wine?” Danan asked.

  “I didn’t ask her. I just saw everyone else with some, and tried it. It didn’t taste very good,” he said, going beige with distaste.

  Astrid laughed. “Oh Moki, I’m glad you’re here. I like you.”

  Moki turned blue with pleasure. “Thank you,” he replied. “I like you, too.”

  Moki ate grapes all the way back to the barn. Danan kept hopping off the wagon and picking new and different varieties for him to sample. They were all grapes, but each variety had startlingly different flavors.

  “So many flavors from just one kind of plant,” Moki observed wonderingly. “So different, yet all the same.”

  “Those vines are the product of thousands of years of careful breeding,” Astrid explained.

  Mold’s ears lifted wide. They had accomplished remarkable things in such a short time. And they did it without spurs to sample the genetic taste of a plant. “That’s amazing,” he said.

  Astrid drove the wagon through the broad doors of the barn and into the cool dimness of the winery, where other workers began unloading pallets of grapes.

  Moki was very thirsty, and his skin felt tight and dry after so much time out in the hot, dry vineyard. A long, shallow tub full of water stood just outside the door. He climbed into it, sending a cascade of water flooding over the sides. He closed his eyes and savored the moist coolness of the water on his skin.

  “Moki, what are you doing?”

  He opened his eyes. Danan and Astrid were looking down at him, their faces puzzled.

  “My skin was drying out,” he told them.

  “But that’s the horse trough,” Danan said. “The water isn’t very clean, and besides, it isn’t good for the goldfish.” He held out his hand. Cupped in his palm was a small, plump fish, bright orange in color. “He was pushed out with all the water.”

  Moki got out of the trough and helped Danan rescue the rest of the struggling fishes and return them to the water.

  “They’re awfully small,” he observed as Danan turned on the water tap to refill the trough. “Are they good to eat?”

  “We don’t eat goldfish, Moki. We put them in the trough because they eat the algae, and they look pretty. Look at that one,” he said, pointing to a particularly plump and awkward-looking fish with long trailing fins and huge, bubblelike cheek pouches. “Isn’t he weird? The Uenos gave that one to us. They raise goldfish and ornamental carp. I helped clean out their ponds last summer. They gave us a bunch of different goldfish for our horse troughs.”

  “Don’t those cheek pouches kind of slow him down?” Moki asked, wondering how such an awkward creature could survive.

  “Yes, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing here that could eat him. He’s a pet. It’s his job to swim around in a tank and look pretty.” Danan reached up and turned off the water.

  “Come on, let’s go back to the house and get something to drink. Netta Tdti made some lemonade this morning. You’ll like lemonade!”

  Ukatonen watched Moki drive off with Danan. He felt a twinge of envy at the bami’s ability to win the humans over. It was partly due to the humans’ perception of Moki as a child, but the bami was naturally curious and outgoing. After centuries as an enkar, Ukatonen’s reserve was an ingrained part of his personality. Besides, the constantly shifting gravity on the trip over had left him feeling disoriented, which only increased his habitual reticence.

  A tall blond woman approached him. “This must be a lot for you to get used to,” she said with a graceful gesture that took in the people sitting and chatting, as well as the arc of the space station. “I’m Selena, Danan’s mother.”

  “You are married to Toivo?” Ukatonen inquired.

  “Yes. We’re a dyad in the same group marriage, a branch of the Fortunati family. Danan is my biological son.”

  “I see,” Ukatonen said. “What is a dyad?”

  “We’re a monogamous couple within the larger family of our group marriage. My primary relationship is with Toivo; he’s Danan’s father.”

  “So a group marriage is like a village?”

  Selena shrugged. “I don’t know. What is a Tendu village like?”

  “A village is a group of Tendu who share the same territory, and live in the same tree or school in the same waters. They are rarely genetically “related.”

  “We’re more closely linked than a village, then. Our branch of the family has twenty-two adults and eight children. We share child care and household chores and pool our child-rights in order to have more children.”

  “I’m afraid that I still don’t understand how the child-right system works. Could you explain it to me?”

  “The regulations are complicated, but basically, we’re trying to reduce the population on Earth, keep it stable on the stations, and allow it to grow slowly on the Moon, Mars, and eventually, on Terra Nova. So, on Earth and the stations, each person has three-fourths of a child-right. On the Moon and Mars, where there’s room to expand, you get a bigger child-right, one full child-right per person on the Moon, and one and one-half of a child-right on Mars. When you get married, you pool your child-rights, which enables you to have one child. You can either sell the remaining fractional child-right, or purchase half a child-right in order to have a second child. If you’re part of a group marriage, you can pool the family’s child-rights. For example, a group marriage of four people can have three children without having to buy any extra child-righ
ts.”

  “How do you decide who gets the third child?”

  “That depends,” Selena said. “There are all kinds of group marriages, and each one has different ways of assigning children.” She looked over at Eerin and Toivo talking earnestly in one corner of the yard, and her smile disappeared. “Toivo and I were planning to have a second child. But then he got hurt, and he can’t– ” Her voice caught for a moment. “We can’t have any more children,” she finished quietly. Ukatonen realized that she was on the edge of tears.

  “I’m sorry. Is there something I can do to help?” Ukatonen asked. Humans were so fragile. They lived their lives on the edge of disaster. The Tendu were vulnerable to accident and injury too, but they either chose to die or recovered in a matter of days. There was nothing like this lifelong helplessness among his people. How could the humans stand such misery?

  He looked over at Eerin’s brother, surrounded by his family. He was laughing at something someone said. His life had been torn apart, and yet, he could still laugh. Humans, for all their physical weakness, could be very strong. He had seen that strength in Eerin. Where did it come from?

  Selena touched his hand. “Ukatonen, I– ”

  But she was interrupted by Eerin’s aunt Anetta, who wanted to introduce Ukatonen to some neighbors, and the moment passed.

  Moki and Danan came back, and the three of them sat in the shade and drank big glasses of tart, sweet lemonade as the light grew more mellow, then began to dim. The light had the warm golden color of late afternoon, and sunset, but the strange double shadows cast by the trees and the people never grew any longer. It was eerie. As the light reddened and dimmed toward sunset, the guests left, one by one, until only the family was left.

  Juna said good-bye to the last group of guests, and then sat down on a stone bench near Tbivo.

  “Toivo, why don’t you keep your sister company while we finish clearing up?” Anetta suggested.

  “Sure, Netta,” Toivo replied. A quick, resentful frown passed across his face almost too quickly to be seen.

  “Is it hard being stuck in that chair?” Juna asked in Amharic.

  Toivo looked grim. “It’s been more than a year since the accident, and I still can’t get used to it. Even in zero-gee it was hard, dragging all this useless flesh around.”

  “Toivo– ” Juna began, then paused, uncertain how he would react to what she wanted to tell him. “You know that Ukatonen is one of the Tendu’s finest healers. Please, let him look at you. He may be able to help you walk again.”

  Toivo took one of her hands, and enfolded it in both of his. “Big sister, I know that you mean well, but the best doctors in the system have done everything they can. My spinal cord wasn’t just severed; they could have fixed that. Six inches of my spine was crushed by the impact. My pelvis was shattered, and my legs were broken in half-a-dozen places. They haven’t healed right. Even if my spine was repaired, I couldn’t walk again. I’m in this chair for the rest of my life.”

  “Toivo,” Juna persisted, “I’ve seen the Tendu do amazing things. You’ve seen the pictures of how they transformed me. Please, Toivo, let him look at you.”

  “Juna, it hurts too much to hope anymore.”

  “Toivo, don’t turn your back on this. It will only take a few minutes. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t believe it was going to work.” She grasped his hands and gazed directly into his eyes. “Please, Toivo. We’ve come all this long way because we wanted to help you walk again. At least let him try.”

  Ukatonen and Moki had come up while they were speaking. Ukatonen touched Toivo on the shoulder. “Your sister is right. What we do is different than what human doctors do. I believe that we can help you, if you’ll let us, but I won’t know until I look.”

  Toivo was silent for a long time, his face carefully expressionless, his eyes guarded. Juna waited, afraid to hope.

  “All right,” he said, looking up at them. “I guess it’s worth a try. What do I do?” Ukatonen sat down next to Eerin on the rough cool stone bench.

  “Come closer,” Ukatonen told Toivo. “Put your arms out like this,” he said, showing Toivo how to place his arms for linking. He pierced Toivo’s skin with his spurs, and entered the link.

  Toivo’s body was so much like that of his sister’s that for a brief, confusing moment, Ukatonen thought he had somehow entered Eerin’s body. If he had seen a group of villagers this closely related, he would have taken drastic action, possibly even resettling the villagers. But this close genetic relatedness was normal for humans, though he recoiled at the idea.

  Although they resembled each other physically, the emotional flavor of Toivo’s presence was very different. Toivo’s injury had wounded him emotionally as well as physically. Everything was flavored with the bitter astrin-gency of deep depression. Where there should have been hope, there was only a slow, pungent fear. What sustained Toivo in the face of such profound despair?

  Such deep, pervading sadness could easily drag the healer down into the same emotional morass as the patient. He gently adjusted Toivo’s emotional chemistry to lighten his despair. Toivo, enfolded in the deep reassurance of Ukatonen’s presence, didn’t seem to notice the shift in his mood.

  Ukatonen turned his attention to Toivo’s injuries, tracing the healed breaks on his shoulder, collarbone, an arm, and several ribs. Most had healed cleanly, but there were a couple of breaks that needed work. Then he moved down Toivo’s back, tracing the spinal column. There was a severed nerve just above the break. Ukatonen teased the frayed fibers together, feeling the bright, tart taste as nerve impulses began to spark across the healed break. He encouraged the nerves to branch and grow toward each other again. There was a sharp upward spike of sweet hope as Toivo sensed the new nerve connection. The intensity of it made even Ukatonen’s rock-solid control waver for a moment.

  He waited until Toivo’s emotional storm subsided. Then the enkar moved into the strange, subdued world below the break in Toivo’s spinal column. It was like swimming down into dark, stagnant water. It was strange to feel the cells doing their work and the blood moving through the veins without the bright aliveness of the nerves. It was hard to navigate; even the solid mineral presence of the bones was uncertain. Toivo’s pelvis was like a broken gourd. Ukatonen groped his way down past the distorted pelvis to the crookedly healed femurs, and the shattered knees. Past that, there was one cleanly healed break on the left tibia, and a couple of rougher breaks on the other leg. Several broken bones in Toivo’s right foot completed the catalog of damage. Ukatonen made his way back up to where the nerves were functioning, then broke the link, emerging from Toivo’s damaged body with a feeling of profound relief.

  It would take an incredible amount of work to bring Eerin’s brother back into harmony. The work would be disquieting, and difficult, but he had never repaired anyone this badly damaged. The challenge pulled at him. He might never have another chance to perform a healing like this. Would Eerin’s brother let him try?

  “I can feel my back again!” Toivo said as he awoke from the link. “I actually felt you bring it back to life!”

  “Yes, I repaired a severed nerve,” Ukatonen explained.

  “Can you heal him?” Eerin asked. Toivo’s jubilant face became a still, impassive mask as he waited for Ukato-nen’s answer.

  “It will be difficult,” Ukatonen said. “And we may not be able to fully restore you, Toivo, but I think you will be able to walk again.”

  “Really?” Toivo asked. He looked doubtful, as though he was afraid to trust this good news.

  “The damage is extensive,” Ukatonen cautioned. “It will take some time.”

  “Will I be in much pain?” Toivo asked.

  Ukatonen turned purple and spread his ears wide in amazement. “Why would you be in pain?” he asked.

  “Toivo, it will be just like what he did today, only more so,” Eerin explained. “You may feel an occasional twinge, but nothing more. Ukatonen is very good at this. It will not hurt.”<
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  “When can we start?”

  “I’m a bit tired, and in need of a bath and a meal. Would it be possible to wait until after dinner?”

  Toivo laughed, his brown face creasing around the eyes. “I wasn’t expecting to start so soon!”

  “Why wait?” Ukatonen said.

  “Come on, let’s go tell Isi and Netta-Tati!” Eerin said, standing. “They’ll be ecstatic at the news.”

  The days quickly fell into a pattern. Ukatonen woke, ate a big breakfast with Moki, Eerin, and her family. Then he went back to Toivo’s room with Moki and Eerin to work on healing Toivo. Toivo was staying with them while the Tendu healed him. They worked from the bottom up, straightening and strengthening Toivo’s poorly knitted foot and leg bones, then rebuilding the shattered pelvis and vertebrae.

  Toivo remained in a coma during much of this work, allowing most of his metabolic energy to be channeled into healing. Ukatonen and Moki nourished him through their spurs, and filtered out the wastes from his body. Members of the Fortunati family took turns watching over him, though there was little to do except watch him breathe. Ukatonen found himself strangely moved by their patience, and the depth of their solicitude.

  After the healing session, the enkar, Moki, and Eerin ate another quick meal. Then they donned shirts and wide-brimmed straw hats, and joined the family in the vineyard. The three of them picked grapes until the sun became too intense for them to bear. Then Moki and Ukatonen retreated to the cool shade of the forest. In the evening there was dinner, and afterwards they would check on Toivo to see how he was doing. After that, they would sit up with the family, reading, talking, or watching Tri-V.

  Anetta, overhearing a discussion about Toivo’s progress at breakfast one morning, suggested that the Tendu take mineral supplements to help out. Ukatonen tried some, and found, to his delight, that the increased availability of bone-building minerals would speed up the work considerably. He and Moki began taking them by the handful at meals, and passing them along to Toivo through their allu. It was an idea that the enkar would have to take back to Tiangi. Surely there was some way they could make their own supplements to help speed healing.