by Amy Thomson
“Congratulations, Ukatonen,” Dr. Lindberl said. “You’ve rrought back another species.” He was a short, squat man, with a wide mouth and a couple of moles on his chin.
Ukatonen shrugged. “The DNA was old, but there was i lot of it,” he said. “Once I’d gotten a big enough sample, the rest was easy. What I don’t understand is why you wanted to resurrect this particular creature.”
Dr. Lindberl’s wide-mouthed grin stretched across his face. “They sure are ugly, ain’t they?” he drawled.
Ukatonen nodded.
“And clumsy and stupid on top of that. But they’re a symbol, Ukatonen, a very powerful symbol. We can use these birds to raise money to help restore thousands of acres of habitat. Hell, we might even manage to wipe out all of the exotics on Reunion, and put them back where they belong. The rats’ll be the hardest to get rid of.” Dr. Lindberl shook his head. “Rats’ve killed almost as many species as we have. But we helped them get where they could do the damage. Frankly, I wouldn’t miss ol’ Rattus norvegicus one bit if it was wiped off the face of the Earth tomorrow.”
“Surely they must have an ecological niche,” Ukatonen said.
“Course they do. They’re vermin. They killed half of the people in Europe during the Black Plague, and a goodly number more during the Slump. Actually, it was the disease that did them in, but the plague was carried in the fleas on the rats.” He paused. “Technically you’re right. They’re a major food source for a lot of predators. Even so, I wouldn’t miss rats much at all. Not many people would.”
“There are animals my people would not miss either, but we keep them in the world.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Dr. Lindberl conceded. “After all, the rattlesnake is the symbol of the Republic of Texas, sort of the state bird, but there ain’t no one in Texas that would want one living under his house, even if they do eat rats. That’s about the only useful thing a rattlesnake does.”
“Why is a snake the state bird?” Ukatonen asked. “Does it have feathers?”
Dr. Lindberl grinned broadly. “That was by way of bein’ a joke, son.”
“Ah.”
They stood silent for a while, watching the chick preening its feathers under the brooder.
“So what’re you gonna do next?” Lindberl asked. “This’s a pretty difficult thing to follow up on, you know.”
“I’m going to travel for the next few months. I want to see some more of the world, at least as much of it as my security escort will let me.”
“Where’re you goin’?”
“I’m not sure yet. I want to see some more of the ecological restoration projects, actually spend time there, and see what people are doing. I’ve tried doing book research, but it’s better for me to go and see places. The books are too static to hold my attention. I’m used to words that move.”
“What are you tryin’ to find out?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Ukatonen confessed. “I’m trying to learn more about how humans think. I want to see the world through your eyes.”
“That’s a mighty big project,” Dr. Lindberl said.
“I know,” Ukatonen agreed.
“Well, in order to further your research, I propose that we go on out and get sloppy drunk.”
“Why is it that your people drink so much alcohol?” Ukatonen inquired. “Surely you must have better eu-phorics.”
’Tradition, I suppose. What do the Tendu do to get mgh?”
There are a number of substances we use. Most would -ot be compatible with your physiology.”
“You miss them much?”
“Sometimes. But if I want to, I can synthesize their ef-r:ts through my allu.”
Lindberl’s sandy eyebrows shot up. “You can do that?[[ ’;n. you all are pretty cheap drunks. Why take drugs at . then?”
It’s less work,” Ukatonen explained. “You cannot get
nigh, because it takes a certain focus to synthesize the]]
“Well then, why don’t we go celebrate? I can get drunk and you can get– What do you call it?”
“Gun-a.”
“Well, then, let’s go out and get good and gun-a. It isn’t every day we resurrect the dodo.”
Ukatonen leaned back in his chair and admired the rainbow halos surrounding the lights. The halos pulsed in time to the music, which was too loud, but complex enough to be good anyway. Ignoring his security escort’s obvious dismay, Ukatonen got up and started dancing to it, skin speech and pictures cascading over his skin in time to the music. The humans drew back to watch him.
One of the musicians spotted him on the dance floor, and his eyes widened. He motioned to the other humans in the band, and they all turned to watch the enkar dance, shifting the music in response to his pictures. Then one of the musicians set aside his instrument, came down, and invited Ukatonen onto the stage. Half-blinded by the lights, Ukatonen performed the bird chant in time to the music. The song ended, and the audience went wild.
The lead musician picked up a golden, curved instrument with a complex mechanism on the front.
“Let’s jam,” he said, and started to play something sweet and slow and haunting on his mellow, rich instrument. Puzzled, Ukatonen stood watching. Under the red lights the man’s dark sweat-sheened skin shone like the surface of a vat of deep purple grape juice.
“He wants you to do the picture thing along with the music, man,” one of the other musicians whispered to him.
Ukatonen nodded, drew himself up as for a quarbirri, closed his eyes, and listened. Slowly, he let his skin change to a dark and bruised purple, like the night sky over a large city. Red and blue patches of color flared on his skin, sliding over his body like the blaring notes sliding out of the gleaming musical instrument.
Point by point, brilliant lights appeared on his skin, moving in time to the hot, slow music. Sometimes his skin became the night sky seen through leaves. Then it shifted through the glowing phosphorescence of the warm seas of Tiangi, and then the harsh, static brilliance of stars in space, writ large on his skin.
The music drew to a close, and Ukatonen’s skin flared and died with the sound of the final note.
There was silence for a moment; then the audience cut loose with cheers and whistles, and shouts of “More! More!”
The musicians waited until the applause died down. Then the horn player stepped up to the microphone.
“Do you want us to do one more?” he asked.
The audience’s response was so loud that for a moment Ukatonen thought the roof was falling in.
“You ready?” the musician asked.
Ukatonen nodded.
“It’s your turn, then. You lead, we’ll follow.”
“I’ll do a piece from one of our quarbirri, then. It tells the story of a bami who was separated from her sitik on a trading voyage, and how she found him again,” he told me waiting audience.
He turned away from the mike, “Watch my back,” he told the musicians, “I’ll mirror what I’m doing on the front of my body.” It was an old quarbirri technique, but it should work just as well with these human musicians and their alien instruments.
Ukatonen walked to the front of the stage, feeling the heat of the lights on his skin. The synthesized drugs had •vorn off, the lights had lost their halos. Through the glare, le could dimly make out the audience sitting at their tables with their drinks, waiting for him to begin. Looking :ut at the crowd, he felt suddenly afraid.
Pushing the feeling aside, he drew himself up and began. He started slowly, testing the musician’s ability to follow. He speeded up as the players found the trail of the music. They built a musical structure on his skin speech that was different and more complex than anything a Tendu would io. It was disquietingly beautiful, and he loved it. The complex interplay between the musicians made him feel ›trangely at home. The music was alien, but the togetherness of it, the ruwar-a, was very Tendu. It was too bad that Moki and Eerin were not here. He would have liked to share this experience with th
em.
The quarbirri and the music ended with a bright crescendo of joy as the bami and her sitik were reunited. The audience went wild again.
“Man, you’re really solar,” one of the musicians said.
“Thank you,” Ukatonen said. “Can we do one more?”
The musician laughed. “I don’t think they’re going to let you go without an encore,” he said, gesturing at the audience with his chin. “What do you want to do?”
“I was thinking something slow, something quiet,” Ukatonen said. “Something to calm the audience down.”
“Good idea,” the musician agreed.
“Could we lower the lights?”
When they were ready, Ukatonen stepped forward, wishing he had brought his flute. It would have been nice to play along with the other musicians, but the quarbirri would have to do for tonight.
He drew himself up a third time, and in the hushed darkness began to tell about everything he missed on his home world: the smell of the forest after rain; swimming with the Lyali-Tendu; the familiarity and comfort of village life, and the reassurance of allu-a. As fond as he was of Moki, he ached to link with a different Tendu.
He started in silence, the musicians watching his words; then slowly a single horn began to play. Then came a silvery rush of sound, like the wind in the trees, and a quiet thunder and hush from the drummer. From that the structure built to muffled horns and then the sweetness of voices in harmony, no words, just sound. Bit by bit, it died away, leaving him alone with his silent skin speech and the slow full notes of the horn. When that died away, he let the last words appear and reappear, fading slowly. He held out his hands, spurs upward, and bowed his head as the last words faded. No one here understood a word he had said, and yet the music had followed his meaning, sweet and sad. He saw a woman sitting close to the front of the stage wipe away a tear. Across all the distance between his world and theirs, he had managed a sharing.
After the applause ended, he found Dr. Lindberl waiting for him at the edge of the stage. Manuel, Ukatonen’s security escort, was standing behind him.
“Your security guy’s about to have kittens,” he drawled, “but everyone else loved it. What other talents have you got hidden up your sleeve?”
Ukatonen shrugged. “I’m an enkar. We are expected to have a wide range of skills.”
“Hey, you guys want to come with us and jam?” the horn player asked. “I know a quiet spot where we won’t get bothered.”
“I would like that, but– ” Ukatonen gestured toward Dr. Lindberl and Manuel. “What about my companions?”
“They can come too,” the musician said. “Either of you two play anything?”
“I’ve been known to blow blues on a harmonica,” Dr. Lindberl said.
“I play the guitar,” Manuel said, “but unfortunately, I am on duty.” He turned to Ukatonen. “Excuse me, en, but you must be more careful. I cannot protect you when you’re on stage. If someone had wanted to kill you while you were up there, you would be dead now.”
“I’ll try to be more careful in the future, Manuel,” Ukatonen reassured him blandly.
“It would reflect badly on me if I allowed you to get nurt,” Manuel pointed out.
“I understand,” the enkar said. “But I need to take chances sometimes.”
It was an old disagreement between them. Each tried to respect the other’s needs, but inevitably, they were in conflict with each other. It bothered Ukatonen that he could aot achieve harmony with Manuel, but that was not going :: stop him from doing his duty as an enkar, even if it -leant risking his life. He risked his life every time he ~ade a formal judgment. Performing on a stage seemed ofe by comparison.
So, despite Manuel’s disapproval, he agreed to go, and the three of them set off in the company of the musicians.
Juna sighed as she read Manuel’s latest e-mail. It was yet another attempt to get her to convince Ukatonen to be more careful. If it continued, Manuel wrote, he would be forced to resign. Juna sighed heavily. She wasn’t any more likely to change Ukatonen’s mind than Manuel was.
She smiled as she read of Ukatonen’s latest adventures. He was hanging out with jazz and improv junk musicians. He had actually gotten up and performed in public several times, exposing himself to the possibility of an assassination attempt. Juna scrolled through the letter, hoping that Manuel would provide a few details about Ukatonen’s performances, but the security man only complained about how difficult it was to guard the enkar.
Mariam began to fuss, and Juna got up and lifted her out of the crib. She was crawling now, and didn’t like to be cooped up in her crib. Mariam was growing up fast. At five and a half months, she was already ahead of most babies her age in terms of physical coordination. She and Moki linked with Mariam, helping her learn to reach and grab and crawl.
Part of Juna worried that her little amber-skinned girl was growing up too fast, but the linking sessions brought her so close to Mariam. It was good, but it was a little scary, too. She remembered Bruce’s fear that Mariam would grow up to be alien. Was he right?
Mariam began pulling the buttons on Juna’s shirt, trying to unbutton it. She hadn’t quite figured out how to open it, but her plump golden fingers handled the small buttons with the deftness of an older child.
“Are you hungry, pumpkin?” Juna asked, unbuttoning the nursing flaps of her shirt. Although Mariam was starting to show an interest in solid food, she still clamped onto the nipple and nursed strongly and eagerly. Juna smiled down at her daughter. The chief joy and the chief sorrow in raising children was watching them grow and change. Linking with Mariam only helped her enjoy her baby’s all-too-brief infancy more intensely.
Moki squatted by the back corner of the barn, watching the chickens peck and scratch at their grain. He was bored, and he itched to work on something. On Tiangi, he had watched other bami catch small animals and transform them through allu-a, then change them back again, learning how to use their spurs to transform and heal. Helping Eerin and Ukatonen at the hospital had been fun, but now mere was nothing to use his spurs on.
He went to the feed bin and grabbed a handful of grain. It was easy to lure the tame, hungry chickens close to him. With a quick grab, one of the peeping chicks was his.
A prick from his spurs silenced the small yellow ball of fluff’s piercing cheeps of alarm. Moki squatted there, and pondered what to do next. He could try growing an extra leg, but that was too easy. Perhaps a second heart, or another liver– they were complex organs requiring a great deal of precision to duplicate. Or he could change ±e chick’s sex. That required delicate systemic changes, and wasn’t particularly noticeable. It seemed like a good jnd challenging choice. And it wouldn’t upset Eerin’s family.
He went into the hayloft, where he wouldn’t be dis-inrbed, and began to work. He decided to begin on the easiest level, transforming the sex organs from female to male. On such a small, immature animal, the process was very easy. Later, he would work on a deeper level, chang-mz the brain chemistry and the endocrine system to be Mly in harmony with the changed organs. Then, eventually, he would work on the cellular level, changing each .el so that its genetic complement matched its sex. He rrierged, blinking, from the hayloft an hour later, slipping [[:*‹e]] chick in amongst its siblings, marked now with a distinctive brown patch on its chest and one darkened toe.
He felt better than he had in weeks.
* * *
Selena tiptoed out of the toddlers’ room. The childern were finally asleep, and she didn’t want to wake them. At last she could put her feet up for a few minutes, before beginning to think about getting dinner ready. A cup of coffee sounded good about now. She spooned the fragrant coffee into the filter. They ate well here on Berry, where they could barter apples and wine for coffee, tea, chocolate, and bananas from the plantations in the tropical sectors.
She leaned against the counter, listening to the breathy gurgle and splash of the coffeemaker. Looking out the window, she saw Moki, head down,
cut across the barnyard, and back out to the fields. There was a furtive air about him, as though he had been doing something he knew was wrong. He was spending a lot of time lurking in corners alone, or watching Juna and the baby. If he had been a human child, Selena would have suspected him of being jealous of the new baby. But he seemed so self-sufficient, and besides, Juna had told her that Moki was nearly as old as she was.
She could hear, faintly, Juna talking on her comm unit. Juna’s daughter was getting stranger every day. The other morning she had come in and found the baby sitting in the front hall, methodically tying and untying the laces on Toivo’s work boots! Mariam couldn’t even walk yet, but she could do things that much older toddlers had trouble with. And the way that child looked at you! It was like she was seeing your thoughts projected on the back of your skull!
A couple of days ago Selena had found Juna and Moki linking with the baby. She understood using the alien’s strange linking for urgent situations like labor, but this casual linking with the baby bothered her.
With a final wheeze and a soggy chuckle, the coffeemaker finished its work. Selena poured herself a cup, and then, with a sudden resolve, poured another cup, and set it on a tray with some cookies. It was time to talk to Juna about her concerns.
* * *
Toivo was putting some tools back in the barn when he saw the chicken with three legs and four eyes. He watched it limping awkwardly along for a moment, then picked it up and wrung its neck with one swift movement. He reached to pick up the shovel he had just set down, when he saw Moki.
“I was going to fix it after lunch,” the little alien said. Toivo was startled by Moki’s sullen and resentful tone.
With an effort, Toivo swallowed his anger. “Come with me,” he said, gripping Moki’s shoulder. “We need to talk to your mother.”
He strode into the house, not even bothering to remove his shoes. Juna was talking to Selena in the family room, the baby asleep beside her. He tossed the dead chicken into Juna’s lap.
