A Woman of the Iron People

by Eleanor Arnason

  The person looked me over. At last the person spread his or her hands, duplicating my gesture.

  Now what? Let the native decide. I waited. He or she took off a necklace and offered it to me. I took it. The beads were copper, little cylinders. There was a pendant: a piece of shell carved in the shape of a fish.

  This was almost certainly a friendly act.

  “Thank you.” I put the necklace on. Now I would have to reciprocate. I let my pack slide off my shoulders, then bent and opened it.

  “Here.” I straightened, holding out a necklace made of shell. This particular kind of shell—dark blue and lustrous—was found in the planet’s northern ocean, around a little archipelago we named the Empty Islands. Harrison Yee and I had gathered the shells and carved them, using techniques that Harrison had learned at Beijing University, in the School of Anthropology.

  The person took my gift, then gestured to me, turned, and walked away. I followed. We went past a crowd of people who stared. My shirt was wet with sweat.

  We reached a house. The person gestured again. I walked in and found myself in a large long room. A fire burned in the center. By its ruddy light I saw log walls and log rafters. The floor was dirt or clay.

  I looked around. No furniture. But there were piles of fur in the corners. Along the walls I saw pots. Some were a meter tall. Black and highly polished, they gleamed in the firelight. The air smelled of wood smoke and something else: a spicy aroma. I looked up. Bunches of plants hung from the rafters. Herbs, I thought. Were they wild or cultivated? Did these people farm? Did they have the potter’s wheel? What metals did they work, other than copper?

  My host followed me in. I looked at him or her. Now, in the firelight, I saw bent shoulders, bony hands, and graying fur. This was an old person, I was almost certain. Orange eyes regarded me. The lids were heavy. The pupils were vertical slits.

  After a moment the person spoke.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know your language.”

  My host reached out and very gently touched my face. There was no fur on the inside of the hand. His or her skin felt hard and dry.

  “Hu!”

  I had my hair pulled back and fastened at the nape of my neck. The person touched the side of my head, feeling the hair there, then touched the hair that flowed down between my shoulder blades.

  “Tsa!”

  I reached back and took the clip off my hair, shaking my head. The hair flew out.

  My host started. He or she took hold of several strands and tugged.

  For a moment I stood the pain, then I said, “Hey,” and touched—very lightly—the furry hand.

  The person let go. He or she spoke again—was it an apology?—and waved me toward the fire.

  Other people appeared, wearing kilts or tunics. I saw more necklaces made of copper and belts with metal buckles. The metal was yellow, either brass or bronze.

  The new people spread furs on the floor. My host and I sat down. Someone brought a bowl full of liquid. My host drank, then offered the bowl to me. It was fired clay, black like the pots and polished. A geometric pattern was incised on the outside, below the rim. The liquid within looked dark and smelled pungent.

  I remembered what the biochemists told me. I could probably eat what the natives ate.

  “There’s a lot you won’t be able to metabolize, of course, even with the bugs we’ve given you. If you stay there any period of time, you will develop a lot of deficiencies. But we don’t think you’ll be poisoned.”

  I raised the bowl and drank.

  The liquid was sour as well as pungent. Rather tasty. I’d consumed things that were a lot worse, in New Jersey.

  I said, “Thank you,” and handed the bowl to my host.

  He or she moved one hand quickly and definitely. The gesture meant something. The other people said “ya” and “hu.” It seemed to me that they were more relaxed than before.

  In any case, they spread more furs. More people sat down till I was surrounded. The air was full of their dusty, furry aroma.

  Food came. I wasn’t sure what anything was. I ate slowly and carefully and as little as possible. But I did eat. In most of the societies I knew about, it was rude to refuse food. An anthropologist had to have the digestion of a goat.

  The people around me began to talk softly. Often they glanced at me. Only my host kept quiet. He or she kept handing me new dishes, watching to make sure I ate.

  One dish was made of fish, I was almost certain. Another reminded me of pickled green tomatoes. A third had the texture of kasha and no taste that I could distinguish.

  The people around me belched and made little cooing noises. “Hu” and “ya.” I did the same.

  The meal continued. I began to feel light-headed. Something I had ingested was having a narcotic effect. The people around me grew noisier. Several reached over and touched my clothes or hands or face.

  Someone got out an instrument like a flute. Someone else began to beat two hollow sticks together. Tock-whistle, tock-whistle, the music went. I leaned back on one elbow and watched the flute player. He or she wore a yellow tunic and a pair of wide copper bracelets. The bracelets flashed as the flute player swayed, keeping time with the music. I had no trouble hearing the beat. It was almost always regular: a heart with a slight arrhythmia.

  The music stopped. My host stood up, and I glanced around.

  There was a new person in the room, just inside the open door. Like my host, this one wore a robe. A sign of importance? Or age? Gender or occupation? The person wore a hat, the first one I’d seen. It was tall and pointed, decorated with shells.

  I got up, swaying a little. It took me a moment to focus my eyes.

  The new person looked grim. I saw trouble in the stiff, upright posture, in the shoulders held back and up, in the narrow, almost-shut eyes that stared at me directly. He or she carried a staff. Feathers hung from the top of it and fluttered—but not in the wind. The person was shaking. I could not tell if the motion was deliberate.

  The person said something. It sounded angry.

  My host replied curtly.

  The people around me began to rise and move back. This was some kind of power conflict. I had a feeling that I was in the middle of it.

  The person with the staff spoke some more. My host clenched one hand into a fist and waved it, then pointed at the door. That was clear enough. “You so-and-so, get out!”

  The person with the staff glared and departed. One by one the other people followed until there were only three left: my host, the flute player, and a person with red-brown fur that gleamed like copper in the firelight.

  “Hu!” my host said.

  The others made gestures that probably meant agreement.

  I felt tired and dizzy. I’d had too much of something, most likely the liquid. I would have to be careful about drinking it in the future. I rubbed my face.

  My host looked at me, then gestured. I picked up my pack. He or she led me to one end of the room. There was a pile of furs there. My host gestured again. I lay down.

  “Nice party. Good night.”

  My host left. I moved my pack so it was between me and the wall, and went to sleep.

  I woke with a headache and a feeling of disorientation, sat up and looked around and found I was in a large interior space. Light came through a hole above me and through an open door. It was yellow, the color of sunlight in the late afternoon. But I was almost positive that it was morning.

  A voice spoke nearby. I looked toward the sound. It was the old person, my host. He or she wore a dark orange robe and wide belt made of copper. One hand held a staff of wood inlaid with pieces of shell. The other hand was held out to me, palm up. I decided this was a greeting. By this time I had remembered my current location.

  The old person came closer and sat down. He or she spoke again, softly and courteously.

  I laid one hand on my chest and said my name. “Lixia.”

  After a moment my host said, “Li-sa,” and pointed at me. />
  “Lixia,” I repeated.

  My host laid a bony hand on his or her chest. “Nahusai.”

  I pointed. “Nahusai.”

  The answer was a gesture, a quick flick of one hand. On a hunch it meant “yes.”

  Well, then. I knew a word. It referred to my host. But what did it mean? Was it a name or a title or a generic term such as “human being”?

  Time would tell.

  A person came in: the flute player. He or she wore the same tunic as the night before and the same copper bracelets.

  “Yohai,” my host said and pointed.

  The flute player looked at us.

  It was a name. I was almost certain.

  Yohai made breakfast: a gray-brown mush. It had a sour flavor. I learned the name of it: atsua. When we were done eating, Yohai went to the door and gestured. I got my pack, following him or her around the house. There was an open space in back, where vegetation grew. Most of it was blue with a few white or yellow flowers.

  Was it a garden? I didn’t think so. The plants grew helter-skelter, and they had a ragged look. This was a patch of weeds.

  In the middle of the open space was a building about the size of a walk-in closet. As soon as I got close to it, I knew what it was. A privy. It stank to high heaven. I considered for a moment. Then I used the thing. Afterward I asked what it was called.

  “Hana,” Yohai said. Or maybe hna. I wasn’t certain I was hearing a vowel in the first syllable.

  He or she gestured again. I followed. We went through the village. The streets were full of children. We met only a few adults. The children stopped playing and stared at me. The adults pretended I wasn’t there. I had a feeling that Yohai was uneasy. I felt a little uneasy, too. But the day was lovely, sunny and mild. A light erratic wind blew. It carried the smell of the forest and—very faintly—of the ocean. This wasn’t a day to worry. I tried not to.

  We reached the edge of the village. There were gardens there: long, narrow, rectangular plots that lay between the houses and the forest. Each was surrounded by a fence made of wood, low enough to see over. Inside the fences people worked, one or two in each garden. They moved between rows of plants. Some weeded. Some picked. Some poured water out of jugs that looked like amphorae.

  That answered one of my questions. The society was—to some extent, at least—agricultural.

  We entered a garden. At one end was a tree. Yohai led me into the shade and pointed at the ground. I sat down.

  My companion began to work. I glanced around. Off to the east were ragged cumuli. A storm tonight. In the next garden over was a baby, tiny and furry, sitting under a plant. As I watched, it reached up, trying to grab hold of one of the leaves. But the leaf was too high.

  A short distance away an adult was pouring water. He or she emptied the pot, then set it down, straightened, and turned. Under her tunic I saw the bulge of breasts. Two breasts. She was the first person I had seen who wasn’t flat-chested. Clearly she was a nursing mother.

  The woman looked at me, then made a gesture: a vertical slash. I had a feeling it was hostile. I looked away.

  At noon Yohai came over to me. We sat together and ate bread. The bread was flat and sour. Afterward Yohai taught me several words: “bread,” “sky,” “tree.”

  We went back to the house. My host was there. Yohai left. I sat down and learned more words. Late in the afternoon I heard the roll of thunder. Rain began to fall—first a sprinkle, then a downpour. My host and I ate dinner. It was the same as breakfast: atsua. Gray mush. I didn’t eat a lot.

  Afterward we sat without talking. The sun was down. The rain glistened, lit by firelight, a silver curtain at the door. I leaned against a post. My host was by the fire. He or she was hunched over, huddled in the orange robe. One hand moved now or then. It twisted a bracelet or tapped on the ground. This was a person with a serious problem, and I had a feeling the problem was me. Yohai had given me the impression of nervous valor, of someone making a point that he or she did not want to make. “See what we have here. See our guest. See the person we are not ashamed of.” That had been the message given when he or she took me to the garden. What exactly was going on? I decided not to speculate. I had too little information, and I could not be sure that I understood anything about these people.

  There was more rain the next day. My host and I worked on vocabulary: household objects mostly and some common verbs. In the afternoon Yohai got down a small loom that had been hanging on the wall. He or she began to weave a strip of cloth. The yarn was white and blue. I watched. Yohai worked quickly. Soon I made out a pattern. It was geometric, full of sharp angles. It looked hostile to me and far too intricate. What did it mean? Was this culture byzantine? Or was I paranoid?

  I stood and began to do yoga exercises. My host looked at me, eyes opened wide.

  I stopped. “This is nothing harmful or malevolent,” I said gently. “I do this to keep my back from hurting and to keep my mind reasonably tranquil.”

  I continued my exercises. My host watched. The rain lightened. It was a drizzle now.

  “Excuse me.” I took my pack and went to the privy. It smelled as bad as ever. I went in and sat down, then got out my radio and called the ship.

  “Yeah?” the radio said. The voice was deep and a little hoarse. I was talking to Edward Antoine Whirlwind, Ph.D., author of Native American Society on the Reservation andPatterns of Survival in the Late Twentieth Century, formerly the Bellecourt Distinguished Professor at the University of Duluth—he resigned the position when he left Earth—and for many years my colleague in the Department of Cross-cultural Studies.

  “This is Lixia,” I told him. “I’m calling from an outhouse, so I’m going to be quick.”

  Eddie laughed.

  “I needed someplace private.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said.

  I rested the radio on my knees, then took my medallion off its chain and put it in a slot in the radio.

  The little computer in the medallion spoke to the slightly larger computer in the radio. That computer spoke to a computer onboard the ship. It only took a minute. The radio beeped and I pulled the medallion out. Everything the medallion had recorded—everything that had happened to me in the past two days—was now in the information system on the ship.

  Directory: First Interstellar Expedition

  Subdirectory: Sigma Draconis II

  Sub-subdirectory: Field Reports—Soc. Sci.

  File Name: Li Lixia

  The radio asked. “Is there anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Three other people have made contact. No trouble so far. But take care and call again as soon as possible. I ought to have some real information in a couple of days.”

  I shut off the radio, packed it, and went out. The rain was coming down hard. I ran to the house.

  The next day was clear. Yohai and I went to the garden. The ground was still wet. Drops of water sparkled on the leaves. Yohai taught me to weed. We worked all morning. At noon we rested under the tree. In the other gardens people moved around, talking to one another. But no one came to visit us. Interesting. Once again I had a sense that a point was being made, and Yohai did not want to make it. I bit into a yellow vegetable. It was juicy and bittersweet.

  In the evening I sat with Nahusai. Yohai went out, I didn’t know where. I learned more verbs and a lot of prepositions: the curse of every language, but they held all information together. To. From. At. Of. Between.

  The next day was my fifth on the planet. The sky was clear again. Yohai and I worked in the garden. I learned the names of various plants. Yohai told me that she was a woman. She wasn’t a mother, though. When she told me this, she seemed unhappy.

  “Nahusai?” I asked.

  She made the gesture that meant “yes.” “Mother,” she said, then put her hand on her chest. “Mother me.”

  Aha. A kinship relationship. My first one. I began to feel I was getting somewhere.

  The day after that Yohai too
k me to the river. It ran between the gardens and the forest. This time of year—midsummer—it was low. The water ran around yellow stones. Yohai waded in and turned over a stone, then grabbed something. “Tsa!”

  She handed the thing to me. It was maybe ten centimeters long, green and hard, with eight legs. I held it gingerly. The legs moved. At one end were two long stalks. Were they eyes? Or antennae? They flicked back and forth.

  “We eat,” said Yohai.

  “Oh, yeah?” I made the gesture that meant uncertainty or confusion.

  “You see.” Yohai took the creature and tossed it into a pot. “You here.” She beckoned.

  I took off my boots, rolled up my pants, and waded in. She had another creature. It went into the pot. “You.”

  I reached into the water and rolled over a rock. Something scurried past my fingertips. I grabbed and missed.

  “Damnation.” I found another rock and tried again.

  We spent all morning in the river. Yohai caught twenty or so of the creatures. I caught two.

  At last she waded out of the river. She stared at me, looking puzzled.

  “What am I good for?” I said in English. “An interesting question. I’m very good at learning languages and pretty good at figuring out how other people think. Though I can’t always explain how I know what I know. Is that any help?”

  Yohai picked up the pot. The green things were still alive. They crawled over one another, trying to get out.

  “Come.” She beckoned.

  I picked up my boots. We walked downstream. After a few minutes the gardens were gone, and there were trees all around us. The air smelled of whatever-it-was: the forest aroma, sharp and distinctive, for which I had no name.

  There were rapids in the river. Nothing important. The water rippled down over a series of little drops. Here and there I saw a little foam. At the bottom of the last drop was a pool. The water was quiet, deep, and green.

  My companion put down the pot she carried. She kicked off her sandals and pulled her tunic over her head. Her body was lovely, dark and sleek. It reminded me of otters and bears and of my own species as well. She was remarkably humanoid. The only striking difference was the fur. The eyes were a bit unusual, of course. The pupils were vertical slits. The irises, which were pale yellow, filled the eyes. I could see no white. Her hands had three fingers and a thumb. Her feet had four toes. Except for this and her flat chest, she looked like our senior pilot, Ivanova.