Becoming Alien

by Rebecca Ore

Another headline came to mind: “Wild Space Beast Fed by Local Dignitary.” He watched while I tasted the curd stuff, feeling blood rush up under my beard stubble.

  “Tom,” he said. I looked at him.

  The press aliens went absolutely flat-out wild, the guards tried to chain my hands again; but I said “huh-na” and hung on to my cheese. A curve-jawed devil stuck a microphone in my face, holding his body as far away as possible.

  Speaking in respectfully toned Karst, I said, “You are a stupid bunch of shitheads, shooting down an innocent diplomatic ship that picked up your cannibalistic fucking decoy satellite. Rhyodolite should piss in your cheese.”

  Aliens with microphones asked gibberish questions, but I just said “huh-na,” like no comment, and started crying. If Rhyo dies…, I kept thinking, imagining Black Amber’s face, needle teeth bared. Someone set us up because she was nasty to the Rector.

  Edwir Hargun watched me so closely I wanted to hide. When the guards chained me again and hustled me into the back of an armored vehicle, he sat just in front of the steel mesh and stared at me.

  What shits, I thought, trying to prop up anger against rolling panic, but then I raised my eyes to that weird alien face, round green eyes and round jaw, an otherwise almost Oriental head. Short blobby nose. Edwir Hargun flinched back as though I was coming at him through the mesh.

  No beard, although he had wrinkles around the eyes enough to look to be about forty. And the head hair didn’t look cut. And his jaw was wrong, damn wrong.

  We pulled down a car tunnel. Hargun watched as the troops unloaded me, then disappeared down one corridor as I was led, again, to another cell. Jail, forever, whether I was on Earth or among aliens.

  Panic, no point to panic. If I pulled my hands down against the waist chain, I didn’t shake. Horribly embarrassing panic. Shoving my hands down, I grew light-headed and stayed on the verge of fainting for what seemed hours, in a cell with neither windows nor bars, just dull gray concrete walls lit by lights shielded by milky plastic.

  The floor had a smelly slit in one comer—the toilet. I hobbled to it and managed to get the cloth they diapered me with away enough.

  Finally, Edwir Hargun and several guards brought in parts of the computer and navigation instruments, still showing the digits from the satellite trajectory calculations. “Computer?” he said, pointing to it. Then he held up another instrument—the space-holes topology generator. I didn’t know what to call it in English, even though I knew in Karst.

  Then he noticed that all I had on was their stupid loincloth, and sent me out with two guards to shower. As I stepped out, they handed me a pair of my pants and a towel.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Hargun said, “T’nks,” and led me to an office with a table. Still no windows.

  An alien guard brought food while Hargun drew a grid of blocks, eight across, eight down. He drew three little squares above the grid and put a single figure beside them, then drew nine squares and put down two digits. Then he passed me the pad.

  Base eight, I realized. They never learned to count with their thumbs. I began sketching for dear life and Rhyodolite. These creeps couldn’t push us around; we represented over a hundred planets. Ten squared, ten down, ten across.

  The pencil tip broke, flew off the pad. One of the guards started as though I’d tried to assassinate Hargun with a pencil tip, but Hargun said something and put his hand on my shoulder. Steady, boy. But his fingers squirmed to be actually touching this thing that I was.

  I jerked my shoulder. Hargun leaned back and beckoned for another pencil. Jesus, Tom, I thought to myself in English, maybe he’s trying to be nice.

  After I wiped the sweat off my hands, I roughed out schematics of a sun and planets, then pointed from the schematic to the blocks of ten down, ten across. A hundred systems, don’t you understand?

  My hand was hot and cramped from the fierce drawing I’d just done so I swung my fingers to cool them. My eyes started tearing up again. Hargun smiled stiffly. “Don’t smile at me,” I said in English. He held out a packet of amino acids and minerals Rhyo had mixed with oil and water for space rations.

  “Rhyodolite, hum,” I said. “Tom, huh-na.” I pantomimed water, pouring in the crystals, then said, “For Rhyodolite.”

  I gestured drawing and Hargun gave me the pad. My hand shaking, I drew a ship with bowl-jawed people on it, Yauntries, then different kinds of aliens greeting them. All the aliens smiled, whatever their real happy facial gestures. Hargun slowly reached for the drawings and left.

  The guards brought in cloth tape and pantomimed that I should measure my legs, wrists, and waist, and mark each measure with chalk. I pantomimed bathing. “Hum; hum, one said as though I stunk. Other than my stubble, I got freshened up and dressed in clean alien clothes.

  Then Hargun came back and led me to where they’d stashed Rhyodolite.

  Cool, taking his occasional breath, Rhyodolite lay on a thin mattress, his arms chained. As Hargun and I stood over him, the guards brought in his uniform, ration packets, and water. I touched the chains and said “huh-na” vigorously. One of the guards looked at Hargun, who must have signaled in some way, because the guard took off the cuffs. Rhyo’s arms dropped stiffly back to the bed as though the juices in his joints had congealed.

  The aliens backed off. Rhyodolite didn’t move. Hargun said, “Tom, Rhyodolite, weskiyo, hum,” and gestured to wake him. Weskiyo must be “get him up” or “wake him,” I decided.

  If and when Rhyodolite woke up, I figured he’d want to get warm, so I got the drawing pad back and drew a pan of water over fire. Hargun said something to a guard, who brought back a two-inch-thick metal rectangle about eight inches square and a pan. Kneeling on the floor, I poured water into the pan. Hargun reached over my shoulder and pushed a green square on the metal rectangle. These people were more sophisticated than Earth people, I realized with some dread as the metal warmed up on top. “Thanks,” I said in English.

  Hargun smiled. I smiled back and put the water on to heat.

  Then I rocked Rhyodolite gently from side to side without lifting him, calling his name. Hargun watched for a while, then motioned to the guards. When they moved in, I grabbed the mattress and said, “Huh-na, huh-na.”

  The guards stepped back and I drew a little picture of Rhyo under heavy covers. A guard sighed and went out for a blanket. Hargun pointed from the blanket to the hot plate.

  Ah ha, an electric blanket. He wanted me to put it over Rhyo right away.

  I found the pressure switch, thinking I could use their things even if they were more sophisticated than Earth stuff. I bet these individuals didn’t invent this either. Before I put the blanket on Rhyodolite, I wanted to see how hot it’d get.

  “Go out,” I said in English, waving them back with my palm. Edwir Hargun smiled and, after much alien jabber, the guards went out and watched us through an armored window in the door. Hargun put the palm of his hand toward me.

  Play it by eye, I thought as I raised my own hand tentatively toward his. Our palms touched—the skin felt just like human skin. Hargun looked away from me at Rhyodolite, then back to me, staring at my face. Slowly, he raised his hand and touched my beard stubble. They don’t grow beards, I realized.

  Finally, Hargun left me with Rhyodolite. Metal bolts slid from door to doorframe while I sat by the unconscious Gwyng, talking softly to him in Karst I. I wanted his company so badly.

  Finally, he shuddered and rolled to his side, shivering. I stood up to block the window in the door. One of his long-fingered hands flopped over the side of the mattress.

  “Rhyodolite, I tried to tell them we’re part of a hundred-planet federation and that we want to meet them. If you understand, move your little finger.”

  “Red-Clay-idiot,” he mumbled. “Fingers cold/stiff.”

  “Rhyo, Rhyo.” I sat down beside him. He turned his head, looked at me out of one big eye, then shuddered again. Floundering, he tried to sit up.

  “We’re still
captives, aren’t we?” he said as I propped him up against the wall. Hargun and the guards came in. “Yes, I can see,” Rhyodolite said, then, “Red Clay, I need something hot.” I mixed his ration mix with the water and brought it to him.

  Rhyodolite sipped some, then diluted it. “Next time,” he said harshly, “leave me asleep until the rescue team arrives. Where are we?”

  “On their main planet, I think.”

  Another blue-suited alien joined the crowd standing around us, back at least three feet. Then he and Hargun stepped up to us, hands extended.

  “What do they mean by that?” Rhyodolite said.

  “Sort of like touching elbows,” I said, “maybe. Hargun didn’t act upset when I touched palms with him.”

  “Hurgoon, a name already. They are your kind.” Rhyodolite oo’ed a bit and gave them ten like a black girl.

  The alien officials looked a bit startled.

  Rhyo slumped, breathing fast. “Hold me, Red Clay, but don’t pin my arms down. Causes panic in situations like this.”

  I held him; he still quivered. “You’re not warm enough,” he complained.

  “They brought an electrically heated blanket,” I said, reaching slowly for it. Lots of aliens subject to panic here, including me.

  “No, could be too hot.”

  “Huh-na is local for no.”

  “High-nu blanket. You know I’ll mess up their local if I try to speak it.” He tried to sit up, still shaking. “More hot water.”

  After I poured it for him, the guards tried to move me out, but Rhyodolite fell back as if he was going to hibernate again. Hargun, looking very nervous, sent the guards and the other blue suit out. When the door closed, he stared at the window, then looked at us as if wondering what weird and unearthly attack we’d launch. I suddenly felt hurt that he didn’t trust us more.

  “You must have been his first alien,” Rhyodolite said. He pursed his lips and watched Hargun through barely parted lashes as the second alien official returned with an organizational chart.

  Hargun pointed from himself to the chart, from his companion to a niche above that, and finally from the window full of guards’ eyes to a lower level. Then he pointed from me to the chart and circled various sections with his finger.

  “Red-Clay-crawling-with-aliens, the asshole planet’s mono-governmental, probably military,” Rhyodolite said. “Someone surely knew that. Military planets are…”

  I could imagine. So I pointed from me to the same level Hargun indicated was his own, then from Rhyo to a higher level.

  Rhyodolite’s mouth got weirdly contracted, and all his wrinkles got deeper. He drank more hot water, wrapped the electric blanket around his shoulder, played with the controls, and said, “Red-Clay-asshole, get me something to draw with.” I gestured drawing to Hargun.

  Eyes averted from the aliens, Rhyodolite took the pen and pad gently from Hargun and drew some fantastic high pyramid of an organizational chart, with the hundred planets, drawing it from the bottom, in full detail, like a TV scanning in a picture. Then he drew in a huge fleet of ships.

  After he handed the drawing to Hargun, Rhyodolite lay back and tried to hide his mouth in the electric blanket. The second blue suit left with the drawing and Hargun leaned against the wall near the door and stared at us.

  Rhyo bit the mattress, then turned over and spread his arms, koo’ing. Hargun jumped for the door. Rhyodolite saw him and shuddered. Slowly, Rhyo got up and pissed his thick stuff down the corner slit, then he climbed back on the mattress, pulled the electric blanket around himself, and went to sleep. Both Hargun and I checked his pulse and watched his breathing. Just asleep.

  The guards came back in and escorted me out.

  Back in my cell, bolts still went into the lock sockets. An hour or so later, the guards wound the bolts back and brought more food from the ship, mine and the bird’s. I shuddered, remembering the bird’s blood and guts hanging out, and set that food aside.

  Edwir Hargun also brought in other things from the ship and asked me my words for them. I picked up my electric shaver and turned it on. Hargun called for the guards while I began shaving my stubble. They realized I wasn’t hurting anyone and watched.

  After I finished, Hargun touched my chin, feeling for the jawbones, and slowly reached for the razor, took it back, and quickly handed it to the guards.

  They didn’t let me too close to the rest of the gear after that, but morning and night for the next few days, the guards handed me the shaver and pantomimed shaving, urging me to keep that face hair off. Perhaps, then, I looked more “normal.”

  Hargun took me for walks inside the prison grounds, but otherwise, I was left alone for several days while they worked with Rhyodolite, communicating through drawings.

  Sometimes Hargun was angry when he came to my cell, and I wondered what Rhyodolite had done.

  Finally, guards led me into an office where Hargun sat behind a desk. He rose up from his chair slightly and reached across the desk to offer me his palm, which I touched gingerly with mine. When the aliens brought Rhyodolite in, Hargun twisted his lips, but still extended his palm to that.

  The Gwyng clenched his fist before laying out his skinny palm. The base of the thumb glistened.

  Hargun blew out from his nose, sneezed, and my own nose twitched: Rhyo’s lips stayed flat and tight, wrapped firmly around his little muzzle. Hargun frowned and reached for Rhyodolite’s hand, but the Gwyng tucked it in his armpit web.

  Hargun looked at the strange flap of skin and fleered his lips off his teeth: I shrugged an apology. Smiling back at me grimly, Hargun opened two files and began looking from one to the other.

  Rhyo hopped up on the desk to see for himself. Hargun firmly sat Rhyodolite down in a chair, holding the little Gwyng as far from his body as he could.

  Then in Karst I, so garbled I could barely understand, Hargun said, “Your people we contact. They teach language.”

  “My computer can’t deal with that,” Rhyodolite said, eyeing Hargun sourly, “but I get the idea he might think he’s speaking a Karst language.”

  “He said they contacted our people, or that our people contacted them, and they taught them some Karst.”

  Hargun showed us a photo, taken inside a space station like the one I’d seen near Earth. Yauntries and various Federation types—mostly Gwyngs and Barcons—sat in front of terminals.

  “Holy from space,” Rhyodolite said, “The Federation got the bird-killing apes to meet with a Federation linguistics team.”

  Then Hargun smiled more broadly and showed me a more official Federation rank chart than the one Rhyodolite and I’d cooked up. I shrugged.

  I got paper and pen off Hargun’s desk, slowly because Hargun seemed quite nervous. And I drew Xenon’s body the way I’d last seen it.

  Hargun sighed deeply and couldn’t look us in the eyes. He fumbled for Karst words, but his vocabulary didn’t cover what he wanted to say. “Karst has…body…now,” he finally said. “We are made to be sorry. You go back.”

  Rhyo got out of his chair, walked his rolling walk up to the desk, stared at the drawing and at me, lips tight over his muzzle. Hargun pressed his head with his fingertips, then patted Rhyodolite and smiled slightly.

  How did the Federation get the Yauntries into that space station? I wondered. Threats?

  Hargun walked us back to the cell block himself. I gestured that I wanted to be with Rhyodolite, and he allowed me to stay.

  “The bird,” Rhyodolite said faintly. “I… (not satisfactory) my attitude to/with birds, but…”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, leaning against Rhyodolite. He turned and stared at me, then his eyelids relaxed, and he curled up in a ball against my shins, staring away from me at the prison’s gray concrete walls.

  “We’ll get out soon,” he said.

  Late that night, with Rhyo curled up against me and asleep, I lay awake in the Yauntry jail cell, feeling the Gwyng’s breathing, eerie, eerie, all of it.

  In the morning, H
argun came in with guards who gave us clothes. Uniforms, Karst uniforms!

  I dressed, watching Hargun. His face seemed drawn, tired, the thin ring of eye whites faintly bloodshot around those weird green irises.

  Rhyodolite finally pulled himself out of sleep and relieved himself in the toilet slot. Then he stripped off the prison pants and washed what he could with the drinking water before putting on his blue uniform.

  Hargun stared. I’d seen Rhyodolite’s cock before, but wondered if he was being insulting to strip in front of us.

  “Now you go to Karst,” Hargun said as soon as Rhyodolite was dressed.

  I was surprised at how relieved I felt. We went with Hargun to a blue Yauntry car, paint like polished enamel, which took us to the airfield where we were first brought down. This time, the airfield was almost deserted except for a Federation transport on a gate net. Two Barcons leaned against it.

  As we got out of the car, one Barcon came up and looked Rhyodolite and me over, as though we might have been changed in Yauntry hands, infected by some weird sapient brain parasites.

  Hargun, in his own language, said something to the Barcons. One translated for us, “He asked us to tell you that he was as kind as he could be.”

  Hargun looked at me and said, “Hum, Tom?”

  I remembered the bird dying, the chains, then an image of Mica and Warren rose to mind, shotgun and pistol, and I said, “Hum, Edwir Hargun,” holding out my palm toward him. He took my hand and put it on his shoulder. The transport opened, and a Gwyng looked out nervously, then koo’ed when he saw Rhyodolite. We stood there a moment while Rhyo fell babbling into Gwyng arms.

  “They said the shooting of the bird cadet Xenon was an accident,” one of the Barcons said.

  “No,” I said, “it wasn’t.”

  “Well, they get forgiven for it, either way,” the Barcon said, “since we were in their planetary system.”

  We climbed into the transport, Rhyodolite and his Gwyngs and me without any of my own kind. A Barcon brought me a cold beer. I sucked on it, then continued describing the attack, over again, how the squad of men fired on the bird.

  Rhyodolite freed himself from the other Gwyngs and came over. He said, “The bird jumped. Then they fired. Red Clay, they were scared.”