The Color of Distance

Chapter 17

A quiet ripple of amusement flowed over Anito at the new creature’s surprise when the lyali-Tendu spoke.

“What kind of creature is that?” Eerin asked as Ninto greeted the sea person, giving him a generous chunk of honeycomb.

“He’s a lyali-Tendu, a sea person,” Anito explained. “They are Tendu who live in the sea.”

“But he looks so different!”

Anito studied the lyali-Tendu. True, Munato had prominent gill flaps and short arms with long, heavily webbed fingers and wide, flipper-like feet, but he had the red stinging stripes of a Tendu. His face was elongated, streamlined for swimming, but his eyes were the same as hers. His blood tasted saltier, but the life-rhythms were the same. He sang aloud to communicate with the other lyali-Tendu far off in the sea, but he also spoke skin speech. How could Eerin doubt that he was another Tendu?

Munato glanced curiously at Eerin. “Who is that?” he asked.

“This is Eerin,” Anito told her. “She is a new creature. Her people live far away. They left her behind by mistake.”

A compassionate cloud of dark ochre passed over Munato’s skin. “It’s hard to be away from your people.”

“They’ll come back for her,” Anito reassured him.

“There have been a lot of strange things happening lately. The sea people saw a great stone strike the water. It rose up and floated like a giant piece of driftwood. Then it moved through the water with a lot of noise. I heard that it beached near Lyanan, and the creatures inside it caused a lot of damage.”

Eerin darkened with shame. “Those were my people,” she said. “They didn’t know that the forest belonged to somebody. They’ll repair the damage.”

“Eerin is already helping the people of Lyanan replant the forest,” Anito added, feeling a bit defensive and worried. She had enough problems without hostility from the sea people.

“I heard that there was some kind of digging race,” Munato said. “Were you there when it happened?”

“Eerin was in the race. She won it.”

Munato’s ears lifted and he flushed pink in surprise. “Can you swim as well as you dig?”

Eerin darkened again*. “I doubt that I can swim as well as you can.”

“She can swim well enough,” Anito told him.

A ripple of amusement danced across Munato’s chest. “It’s easy for you ruwe-Tendu to say that. You spend all your time in the trees. Come swim with me, five-fingers,” he said to Eerin. He dove cleanly into the water. Eerin looked inquisitively at Anito.

“Go ahead,” she said. “It’s safe.”

Eerin dove in after Munato. He swam in playful circles around her, then dove deep. Eerin plunged in after him, but popped back up to the surface much sooner than the lyali-Tendu. Munato surfaced, looking disappointed.

“She’s not much of a diver, but she can swim well enough,” he admitted, lying on his back in the water so they could see his words. “I’ll go get the rest of my people.”

He dove again. A few minutes later, six other sea people joined him. Ninto, Baha, and Anito threw tow ropes over the side. Then they picked up their oars and began rowing while the lyali-Tendu pulled the raft through the water.

It was well past sunset when they reached the island, a black bulk against the deep blue, star-studded night sky. Anito heard the crash of the waves well before she saw the white gleam of the beach and the faint phosphorescence of the breakers. They shipped their oars, and allowed the sea people to pull them ashore, riding a big wave that pushed them high up onto the beach, where several other rafts already waited.

Trading started early the next morning. Anito laid her trade goods out on the beach with the other villagers. The lyali-Tendu squatted in the sand and haggled. Anito drove the hardest bargains she could, but they had arrived late this year, and it was difficult to make a decent trade.

Ukatonen came by late in the day, and squatted beside her as she argued over the worth of a fishnet. She finally let it go for sixteen sheets of yarram and a string of dried fish. She gave the lyali-Tendu the net and he gave her a stack of tallies.

“You traded well,” the enkar told her when the sea person left. “I saw Miato trade a net like that for only twelve sheets and a small container of preserved fish eggs.”

“Yes, but it’s not enough!” Anito said. “Even with all the honey I brought, I’ve only got a hundred and sixty sheets of yarram, two cakes of dried su ink, a string of dried fish, two gourds of salt, and a hollow reed full of guano. Last year Ilto brought home five hundred sheets of yarram, five bladders full of fish paste, eight strings of dried fish, and ten gourds of salt. And we could have brought even more if we had found a way to carry it.”

“The others aren’t doing much better,” Ukatonen soothed.

Anito looked away, deep brown with shame. “I know. It’s my fault. If they hadn’t waited for me to come back from the coast, then they would have arrived earlier and made better trades.”

“Every village has bad years,” Ukatonen told her. “Your village is very prosperous. One bad year won’t hurt.”

“But it’s my fault,” Anito insisted.

“You could arrange a mating with the lyali-Tendu.”

“A mating? But it’s not mating season!”

“So? Other villages do it all the time, and you’ll get a lot of trade goods,” Ukatonen pointed out. “You hold the eggs inside you until the time is right. You’re young, low status, and Narmolom is short on males. You’ll have a better choice of mates here. Besides, it will bring new genes into your area. It’s good to mate with the lyali-Tendu. It keeps the sea people and the land people from drifting too far apart.”

“What do I lose?” Anito asked.

“You won’t be able to mate during the usual mating season.”

“How much would I be able to get in trade goods for a mating?”

“If you act quickly, and drive a hard bargain, you could bring back at least another four hundred sheets of yarram plus other trade goods. With both Eerin and Moki, you can carry back more than Ilto did, enough to repay Ninto and the other villagers for waiting for you.”

“Why are you encouraging me to do this?” Anito asked suspiciously.

“There are many reasons,” Ukatonen said. “You are going to be an enkar. I want you to take this opportunity to learn more about the lyali-Tendu. A mating will give you a connection with this band, one that you can use when you are an enkar. Also, I don’t want you deeply indebted to the other villagers. It will be easier when it’s time to leave Narmolom.”

Anito looked away. Ukatonen brushed her shoulder with his knuckles.

“You would have had to leave, even if you hadn’t asked for that judgment for Moki. The new creatures are very important, Anito. When Eer-in’s people return, things will change. We must be ready for that. You must be ready for it.” A cloud of regret misted his skin. “I wish there was more time. I wish you could stay longer with your village. It would be better if you could be more experienced as an elder before you become an enkar, but that won’t be possible. I promise that I won’t take you away from Narmolom until I have to.”

“How long will I have?”

“A year, perhaps two. I want to take you away this year during mating season to meet other enkar. If you mate now, you won’t miss your chance this year. It’s your first year as an elder, and I don’t want to deprive you of a first mating, even if it isn’t with your own villagers.” He touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Anito.”

Anito looked away for a long moment. Her skin was deep grey with grief. She had looked forward to mating with others in her village. It was one of the few things that made becoming an elder acceptable. Now Ukatonen was taking even that away. She could tell, by the gentle, soft edges of his words, that he truly regretted what he was asking her to do. A sudden surge of anger rose in her. Her life was being taken away from her, and she was helpless to stop it.

She looked over at Eerin, who sat with Moki among a crowd of inquisitive lyali-Tendu. This was all her fault. If Ilto hadn’t found Eerin, then none of this would have happened. She might still be Ilto’s bami, preparing to take her place as an elder of Narmolom. How far away and remote her life as a bami seemed now.

Ukatonen must have followed her gaze, and seen her flare of anger and resentment. He touched her on the shoulder. “I had as much to do with your becoming an enkar as she did,” he told her. “It’s not such a bad life, really.”

Anito looked away from Eerin. “I’ll arrange a mating with the lyali-Tendu, en,” she said, shifting the conversation back to safer ground, “but I ask that you not take me away from Narmolom until I have a chance to mate with my own people.”

“I’ll try, kene,” Ukatonen told her, “but I can’t promise anything.”

Anito went to the chief of the band of lyali-Tendu and negotiated with her for a mating. She bargained shrewdly, receiving four hundred twenty sheets of yarram, six large bladders of fish paste, three gourds of salt, four strings of dried fish, and a pouch full of fish hooks made from the spines of a deep sea fish.

Once the arrangements for the mating were concluded, the rest of Anito’s trading went much better. Not surprisingly, most of her trades were concluded with males, who almost gave away their goods in hopes that she might favor them during the mating. Anito enjoyed the attention but promised nothing.

They would travel home with heavy packs. Fortunately Eerin could carry more than a Tendu. Anito planned on giving a lot of what she had gotten to the other villagers, canceling most of the obligations acquired on this trip.

The villagers and the lyali-Tendu finished their trading by mid-afternoon of the next day, and began preparing a huge feast of celebration. They gathered in a semicircle on the beach. Large flat shells were piled high with traditional dishes, symbolizing the unity of the land and sea Tendu. There was fish and seaweed, flavored with honey thinned and seasoned with seawater, and soaked grain mixed with salty fish roe. In addition to the traditional dishes, there were baskets brimming with live crustaceans, platters of sliced fruit from trees on the island, and a huge female intasti, neatly butchered and arranged in its large shell, with its freshly laid eggs heaped around the meat.

They ate until their stomachs bulged. Then baskets of glows were laid out in a circle on the sand. Drums, flutes, and shell horns were taken out. The performers strapped on rattles made from gourds and seashells, and donned headdresses and masks. When the bustle of preparation was over, there was a moment of silence; then Ukatonen blew a long, deep, haunting note on a shell horn. It made the red stinging stripes tighten on Anito’s back.

The performers from the village of Narmolom shuffled in and began a rhythmic high-pitched chattering, backed up by the shimmer of the rattles on their ankles and arms. Anito glanced, over at Miato. He was watching the dancers intently. Usually he led them, but this year his injury prevented him from dancing. Miato’s leg was healing well—already his ankle and foot had grown long enough to reach the ground—but he still needed a crutch. It would be half a month before the bones and tendons were strong enough for normal use.

The dancers began slapping their hands against their thighs, welcoming the lyali-Tendu performers as they waddled in. They knelt in the sand, their wet skin gleaming in the faint light of the glows. A wash of brilliant blue flared on their bodies in perfect unison. The Narmolom performers turned completely black. Green splashes exploded all over their bodies as they chattered and rocked back and forth, nearly invisible except for the splashes of color. The lyali-Tendu performers responded with green and pink flares of approval and excitement. The dancers from Narmolom picked up the sea people’s patterns and echoed them. This began a long improvisational call and response between the two groups which built slowly into a crescendo of movement, music, and color. The performance glided slowly to a gentle rising and falling flare accompanied only by the mournful piping of shell horns. Then it faded away to silent stillness.

The watching audience rippled wildly azure and deep green in approval. “The story, the story, tell us the story,” they said over and over again, in big bold patterns. Ukatonen stood up and walked to the center of the ring formed by the performers and the audience. Narito, the chief of the lyali-Tendu, waddled up to join him. The assembled land and sea people exploded in applause.

Anito looked away, overcome by memories. Almost as long as she had been coming here, her sitik had played the part of the ruwe-Tendu in this quarbirri. Even after all this time, it was hard to see someone else in Ilto’s place.

Ukatonen blew another long, mournful note on the shell horn, and Narito responded with a run of notes on her flute. The drummer beat out a deep thundering rumble on the log-drum, and the quarbirri was formally begun. The familiar story unfolded again, in music, dance, and pattern. The first land Tendu’s attempts to live in the sea were simultaneously acted out and narrated in stylized skin speech by Ukatonen. His style was very old, very traditional, in keeping with his status as enkar, but within the ancient framework Anito could see movements, patterns, and turns of phrase that were startlingly new and original. Clearly Ukatonen was a master of the quarbirri.

Narito responded to the challenge of Ukatonen’s impressive performance with grace and power. She acted out the role of the sea and its creatures, testing the Tendu’s ability to live in the sea. Anito glanced at Eerin and Moki. They were completely absorbed in the quarbirri. Eerin had her talking stone out and was making a picture of the entire performance.

She had seen Eerin do this before, making pictures of conversations, and then watching them over and over again. Eerin claimed that this helped her learn the language, and that these recordings would help her people understand what the Tendu were saying. What would her people make of this quarbirri? How much of this stylized skin speech did Eerin understand?

A ripple of regret ran down Anito’s back. She felt sorry for the new creature. She was blind to the nuances of style and technique that made this quarbirri so wonderful.

The performance reached its conclusion, the establishment of trading between the lyali-Tendu and the ruwe-Tendu. Ukatonen and Narito grasped each other’s arms and danced in a circle, a movement symbolic of linking and harmony. Then each of them drew someone else into their dance. The circle grew until everyone on the beach was a part of it, even Eerin. They drew together, crooning rhythmically, and knelt in the sand. Dancing merged into a giant linking. Anito could taste the saltier blood of the lyali-Tendu merging with the sweet familiarity of Narmolom.

Juna watched in amazement as the dancers exploded with color and motion. She fumbled for her computer, configuring it into a video recorder. The Alien Contact people were going to love this. Once the recorder was set up, she sat back and enjoyed the show. It seemed to be a meaningless display of color and motion. Occasionally she saw a wordlike pattern, but by and large this appeared to be the visual equivalent of scat singing, largely improvisational and abstract. The performance faded slowly to an end, and the Tendu audience exploded in ripples of visual applause that was nearly as beautiful as the performance they had just witnessed. The applause became a rhythmic pattern of words. They were asking for a story.

Ukatonen and one of the sea Tendu moved to the center of the circle. The audience and performers rippled with approval. Juna was struck by their silence. The only sounds were the faint noises of wind and surf, and the occasional click of a rattle as a dancer shifted position. She could hear the faint whirring of her computer’s recording lenses as they adjusted their focus.

Ukatonen blew a long, haunting note on a horn made from a spiraled shell. There was a deep rumbling from the big hollow log that served as a drum. One of the sea Tendu joined him. Then they began to dance, a stiff, stylized dance emphasizing the complex formal skin-speech patterns of the story.

The formal skin speech was hard for Juna to understand, but she recognized certain recurring words. They were echoed by the sea Tendu. The thread of the narrative passed back and forth between them in a visual call and response. The story was about the sea and the Tendu. Juna leaned forward, watching intently as the story unfolded. Was this some kind of origin myth? If this was about how the Tendu came out of the sea, it was being told backwards. As the narrative progressed, she realized that it was a story of the Tendu learning about the sea.

The story concluded with Ukatonen and the sea Tendu linking arms and dancing together. They began drawing others into the dance, forming a huge circle. Cool, moist hands swept her and Moki into the dance. It felt good to move after sitting for so long. Juna shrugged her shoulders, loosening her spine, and imitated their movements, crooning rhythmically. They knelt in the sand, swaying from side to side. Juna knelt with them, feeling their cool, clammy bodies brushing against hers. She felt a pinprick, and was swept into a link before she could do more than feel startled. She struggled in sudden panic. Then Moki was there with her, shielding her from the others in the link, giving her time to adjust. Once she was composed, Moki Jet more of the link filter through his shields, stopping as soon as Juna began to be concerned. She felt Ukatonen’s presence alongside Moki’s, guiding him and reassuring her.

Gradually, she began to feel the presence of the others outside Moki and Ukatonen. The spiky, salty taste of curiosity dominated the link. They wanted Juna to open herself to the villagers and the sea people.

Juna cringed against Moki and Ukatonen, terrified at the thought of strangers climbing through her most intimate feelings. They folded protectively around her. When she was calm they lifted their shields a bit, letting some of the group link filter through. When Juna began to panic, they tightened their shields again. Gradually, she relaxed into the link, letting more and more of it seep through the protective presences enfolding her. The link surrounded her like a warm sea. Moki, Anito, and Ukatonen buoyed her up, helping her learn to float in it. The link dissolved and she awoke on the beach, feeling tranquil and at peace with the world around her.

She got up and walked into the sea to wash away the sand sticking to her skin. The sea was phosphorescent tonight, glowing green as it washed around her. A green streak flashed by her. Juna drew her breath in, preparing to scream, when a lyali-Tendu surfaced beside her. She let out a shaky laugh as the sea Tendu flickered a greeting. She acknowledged its greeting and it dove beneath the surface with a flicker of amusement and swam away, leaving a glowing green streak of disturbed luminous plankton in its wake.

She took a deep breath, dove under the waves, and opened her eyes to a veil of luminous green. She drifted in the night sea, letting the green fire of the sea bum coldly on her skin. The link hadn’t been that bad, not with Moki and the others protecting her. It had felt good, once she had managed to relax. The allu-a had made her feel like a part of something larger, as endless and alive as the sea or the forest. It hadn’t been a violation at all. She uncurled and reached for the surface, breathing in the sweet air. It wasn’t her world, and these were not her people, but still, the link had felt like coming home.

Juna swam back to shore, and rose from the sea, dripping green fire. She washed the salt and the phosphorescence from her body in a nearby stream of sweet water. Then she curled up beside Anito and the others and fell asleep.

Anito woke early the next morning. She drank and bathed in the stream, then stood on the beach looking out at the ocean, waves washing past her ankles. Today was her first mating. She was grateful for last night’s group linking, but although the lyali-Tendu were familiar to her as a group, they remained strangers as individuals. Mating season had always frightened her. Ilto became preoccupied and short-tempered. Once, when she was very young, Ilto mistook her for a competing male and snapped at her. He had immediately apologized, but memories of that moment still hurt. Would she be like that? She remembered the intensity of her accidental arousal and her failure to control herself.

She heard splashing footsteps behind her. It was Ukatonen. He brushed her shoulder with his knuckles.

“You are worried?” he asked her.

She flickered agreement.

“It’s always a little frightening before you become aroused. Once you’re in heat though, nothing else matters. You’ll be fine.” He held out a basket full of freshly caught fish. “A gift from one of your admirers. You need to eat well this morning. Mating is exhausting, and you won’t get a chance to eat later.”

Anito followed Ukatonen back to the nest. Eerin and Moki were busy helping Ninto prepare a huge breakfast.

“You have a lot of admirers, it seems,” Ukatonen told her. “All of this came from lyali-Tendu males.”

Anito ate until her stomach was stretched and tight. Ninto bundled up the least perishable leftovers in leaf wrappers and put them in a bag for Anito. She slung it over her shoulder with a flicker of thanks. The others escorted her to the beach, where Narito waited for the Narmolom females who were going to mate with the lyali-Tendu males.

Ninto gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze as Anito joined the others. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll enjoy it.”

Anito flickered acknowledgment. She swallowed; her throat was dry with nervousness. Ukatonen stepped forward and touched her shoulder.

“Since Narmolom does not yet have a chief elder, I will oversee the mating on behalf of the village,” he said.

Anito relaxed. Ukatonen would be there to look after her. It wouldn’t be so bad.

The lyali-Tendu males came out onto the beach and sat in a clump around Narito. The Narmolom females sat with Ukatonen. Each group linked. Anito could feel Ukatonen’s powerful presence among them, initiating their heat. She felt a sudden warmth flaring in her reproductive organs. It radiated outward to her skin as Ukatonen released them from the link.

Anito looked down. Her skin was a dull bronze, becoming brighter and more golden on her lower belly, flanks, and back. She glanced around her. The other females were the same color. The males were still caught up in their linking. There were at least three males for every female.

“We should invite them upriver to visit during mating season. Then we wouldn’t have to fight over the good males,” one of the other females remarked. It was Hanto. She had mated with IIto last season.

The other females flickered agreement.

“It’s too bad that the sea is so far away,” Yanito said. “It must be nice, having enough males to go around.”

“Then you should choose more male tinka for your bami,” Ukatonen told her.

“But female bami are so much more useful,” Barito remarked. “Their infertile eggs are such good food for the narey.”

“Besides,” Hanto put in, “it wouldn’t help us much. By the time any new bami are mature enough to mate, I’ll be long gone.”

“We always need enkar,” Ukatonen said. “Perhaps some of your elders with older male bami might consider leaving the village to become enkar.”

The others looked away, disturbed by the thought of leaving Narmolom, but unwilling to say anything that might upset the enkar. Anito brushed Ukatonen’s shoulder in sympathy. He was right, there were too few males in the village. It was something that the new chief elder would have to address.

“The lyali-Tendu are out of their link,” Hanto said.

The males had turned bronze too. Anito found her gaze resting on the golden patches on their lower belly and backs. The warmth inside her spread and intensified. She felt a sudden urge to get closer to the males. The intensity of it was a little frightening. She wanted to run, dive into the sea, feel it surround her as she plunged deep…

Narito beckoned them into the ocean. Anito restrained herself from running ahead, and followed Ukatonen and the others into the waves. The cool water felt good on her skin. Yellow and black fish scattered before her like a flock of frightened birds as she drove herself through the water. She dove deep, down to the rippled sandy bottom. Two sleek, powerful forms dove before her, displaying their brilliant gold patches. Anito shot toward the surface, emerging in a high, spectacular leap. The males flanked her. Two more joined them, and she found herself surrounded by brilliantly glowing males. She could taste their arousal on the water, sweet and peppery. It made her skin tingle. She looked down. Her skin was almost entirely gold now. Soon her eggs would be ready, and it would be time to mate. She sped up, diving deep, drawing the males down with her, feeling the water pressure against her ears, glorying in her strength and speed. Ripples of blue coursed briefly across her golden skin as she outdistanced*them. She exhaled and followed the silvery bubbles up, letting the males overtake her, teasing them with the nearness of her presence. The males twined around her. They leaped high out of the water, celebrating their excitement in a silvery shower of spray.

The males were all gold, and her skin tingled in response. One of them brushed up against her body. She dove again, a mating croon issuing from her throat. The water vibrated with the males’ response, and her arousal became a sudden flood of sexual heat. It overwhelmed her; she was helpless to stop it. She crooned again, glowing with the intensity of her desire. For a moment she understood the fear Eerin had felt about linking. Another body brushed hers, making her skin tighten at the base of her spine. She headed for the surface again. The males leaped around her, their golden skins brilliant in the sunlight. Her fear was drowned by a sudden eagerness. She let herself drift, back arched in readiness.

One of them clasped her, and she felt her back arch further in response. She everted her cloaca, felt the male’s cloaca touch hers, and the sudden warmth of his sperm flooding into her, clouding the water around them with a chalky, bitter, musky flavor, heightening her excitement. Strange new muscles she had never felt before began to contract, drawing the sperm further inside her, toward the cluster of waiting eggs. The male released her and she felt another one clasp her. Thought deserted her; she was consumed by instinct and arousal.

She mated again and again, not knowing how many males grasped her. It was dark when she emerged from the ocean, drained, hungry, and exhausted. Her back was sore from arching it. Her belly felt heavy, full of eggs and sperm. Her cloaca throbbed with a pleasurable ache. Some part of her still wanted to arch, and be clasped again, but the feeling receded as the cool night air chilled her darkening skin.

Ninto was waiting for her on the beach. She put her arm around Anito as she emerged from the ocean, supporting her all the way to the nest.

“I’m sorry I left your food behind,” Anito said as they passed the patch of churned sand where the females had waited.

Ninto rippled in amusement. “It would have only gotten in the way,” she said, “but you looked like you needed something to hold onto this morning.”

“Where are Ukatonen and the others?” Anito asked.

“They’re sleeping somewhere else tonight. I thought you might like some time alone.”

Anito flickered her thanks. She did want to be alone to let the last remnants of her heat dissipate in sleep. So much had happened. She wasn’t ready for company, not until she had slept. Ninto unwrapped a package of fish eggs and seaweed and handed it to her. Anito took a huge bite.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Ninto asked.

“Ask me tomorrow,” Anito said, chewing her food. “I’m too tired and hungry now to think straight.”

Laughter rippled across Ninto’s chest. “I know how you feel,” she said. “I once did a sea-mating, when I was young. It’s much more tiring than mating among the villagers, but it is a lot more intense.” Blue-grey nostalgia rippled briefly over her. “I enjoyed it, but I like mating with my own people better.”

A mist of regret clouded Anito’s skin. “I wish that I could have mated at Narmolom this time.”

Ninto brushed Anito’s shoulder with her knuckles. “Don’t worry, you’ll have many years to do that.”

Anito looked away, grey with sadness.

“What is it?” Ninto asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have that much time left in Narmolom. Ukatonen is going to take me away to become an enkar. I’ll have to leave Narmolom in a year or two.”

Ninto laid a hand on Anito’s arm. Her skin was still for a long moment, dulled with sadness.

“Would he— Would Ukatonen take me in your place?” she asked at last.

“No, Ninto,” Anito said, deeply moved by her tareena’s offer. “I couldn’t ask that of you. Besides, he wants me.”

“Why?” Ninto asked. “Is it the new creature?”

Anito flickered agreement. She looked away, overcome with sorrow and anger at her fate. “He thinks the new creatures are too important for me to remain in the village,” she said, turning back to Ninto.

“But it isn’t right. You’ve only just become an elder. If he took me, it would make more sense. Baha is ready to become an elder. Let me as! Ukatonen to take me instead.”

“No,” Anito said. “I promised myself in exchange for a judgment or whether Eerin could adopt Moki. Besides, I think he’s right. The new creatures are important. If you could have seen what they did at Lya-nan—” Anito shook her head and looked away. “They need someone tc bring them into harmony, before they cause more harm. No one else knows Eerin like I do, like Ukatonen does. But—” she added, looking back at Ninto, “I don’t want to. I want to stay in Narmolom. If I had a choice, that’s what I would do, but it would be a selfish choice.”

Ninto turned away for a long moment. “I admire your courage,” she said at last, “and your devotion to duty. If there’s ever anything that I can do to help you with this, just ask me.”

Anito flickered acknowledgment and thanks. They clasped hands and Ninto slipped off into the darkness. Anito settled herself in the nest, piling leaves over her tired, aching body and fell asleep thinking of her tareena.

Juna watched Ukatonen lead a small group of land-Tendu males down to the ocean to mate with the females of the sea people. Yesterday Anito had mated with the sea people for trade goods. Today she lay in exhausted slumber. This sudden flowering of alien sexuality disconcerted Juna. They had seemed so sexless. Now they were suddenly bartering sex for trade goods.

She shook her head. The theoretical xeno-anthropology text on her computer had told her that alien contact was a continual process of discovery and reevaluation, but she hadn’t realized how often she would be reevaluating everything. She was tired of surprises. She picked up her gathering basket and digger and motioned to Moki. They needed breakfast, and there was no one but themselves to gather it. Fresh seafood was a pleasant change from raw fowl and reptile, but she missed the fruit, honey, and greens that made up so much of the land-Tendu diet. Their honey had been traded away for seaweed, salt, and other trade goods. Fruit was scarce on this small island. They could only have one piece a day.

They reached the beach, and walked along, the waves washing past their ankles. Moki was watching the sand intently. Finally he nodded. Juna set the basket down, and followed his gaze.

He touched her hand and she turned to look at him. “See all the bubbles coming up from the sand?” he said. “That’s where the shellfish are.” He stood over a cluster of small holes in the sand. “They can hear you coming. You have to stand very still and wait for them to forget about you.”

They waited while several waves came and went. At last he said, “Get the sieve ready.” Juna nodded and held the sieve out.

When the next wave began to recede, Moki exploded into motion, digging furiously, throwing sand into Juna’s high-walled sieve until the next wave came flooding in. Juna submerged the sieve in the wave and shook it, letting the sand wash out, leaving behind a collection of small beach stones, and whatever was living in the sand. Moki came over and helped her sort through the contents of the strainer.

“Good,” he said, hording up an odd-looking shell segmented into eight parts. “This one’s delicious, and we got four or five of them. Do you want to show it to your talking stone?”

“That’s all right, Moki. I think it’s seen that kind already. I found a dead one on the beach the day after we got here. Thanks, though.”

It took only five digging sessions to gather enough shellfish for a decent breakfast. They gathered and washed some seaweed, and carried their food back to the nest, where Anito was still sleeping.

They had the food all ready when she woke. She stretched slowly and painfully. Moki handed her a gourd full of fresh, clear water. Anito poured it over herself with a slow, vivid flush of intense turquoise.

“Thank you. That feels wonderful!”

“We got breakfast for you,” Juna said, holding out a leaf piled high with shellfish and seaweed.

Anito flickered thanks. “You’re a good teacher, Moki,” she said.

Moki looked away, darkening with embarrassed pride.

Anito touched Juna’s hand. “And you learn quickly. Thank you.”

Juna looked down, pleased and surprised by the compliment.

“Thank you, kene. Eat. You must be hungry after all you did yesterday.”

Amused agreement flickered over Anito’s skin as she popped a tenta-cled sand-squid into her mouth, sucking in the squirming tentacles. Juna smiled at the sight.

They finished breakfast in companionable stillness. Then Anito sent Juna and Moki off, instructing them to enjoy themselves for the rest of the day.

“Tomorrow the hard work begins. We have to process all of the seaweed that the lyali-Tendu harvest for us.”

Juna and Moki spent the morning exploring the small, rocky island. They sat in the trees and watched the mating Tendu leap and dive, explored the sea caves where the sea Tendu stored their trade goods, and went swimming in a freshwater inland pool.

In the afternoon, Juna recorded some of the endemic island wildlife and updated her linguistic and ecological notes. There was so much to write about. The two or three free hours she had each day were not enough to adequately document everything. Now she was going to have to help dry seaweed. She sighed, wishing there were more hours in the day.

“What’s wrong?” Moki asked.

“Nothing. There’s just so much to do, and never enough time to get it all done.”

“Let me help,” Moki offered.

Juna shook her head, brushing her knuckles affectionately across his shoulder. “Thank you, Moki, but there’s nothing more you can do. I have to teach these talking rocks so that they can remember what I learn and tell it to my people.”

“Show me how to teach them. I’ll help you,” Moki said, blazing with eagerness.

Juna shook her head, thinking of the Contact Protocols. “There’s so much to learn. It could take years.”

“But I’ll be your bami for many years. Teach me,” he urged “You need help. The Tendu need help. Teach me. I am your bami. I learn from you and help both our people.”

Juna stared at Moki. Time and again he surprised her with the depth of his understanding. Her bami was not a child. Furthermore, he was right. The Tendu were facing a major change, and they needed all the help they could get. Moki could be extremely useful as a translator. Still, it would involve a further breach of protocol, but— She looked at Moki. She had already broken and bent so many of the rules, adopting him. What would one more matter?

“All right, Moki. I’ll teach you.”

Moki sat in front of her, ears wide and ready to learn. Juna realized that she didn’t know where to start.

“We’ll start tomorrow. I need to think about how to teach you.”

Moki nodded, and took her hand. Juna wadded up her computer, and the two of them went swimming.

The next day, the sea Tendu began hauling nets full of seaweed up to the beach. The land Tendu washed the seaweed first in salt water, then fresh water. Then they ground the seaweed coarsely between two flat rocks and tossed it into a pool of fresh water. They screened the ground seaweed out of the pool with special sieves that left a paperlike sheet of seaweed behind. The damp sheets were laid out on drying racks made from raft poles and mats. It was a long, laborious process, interrupted by frequent afternoon rains. When rain threatened, the villagers gathered the drying sheets of seaweed and carried them into the sea caves. As soon as the weather cleared, they brought the seaweed back out again.

Moki sat with Juna during the mid-afternoon break. While the rain poured down around them, Juna tried to teach him Standard. It quickly became apparent that Moki couldn’t make most of the necessary sounds. Juna wiped the rain from her face and climbed out to the end of the branch, staring out at the steady hard drizzle.

“It’s no use, Moki. It’s*just not possible. I can’t teach you my language. Your mouth won’t make the right sounds.”

“You show me words,” Moki insisted. “I learn.”

“I’ve been trying, Moki,” Juna said. “It doesn’t work.”

“I see you look at words on your talking stone. Show me those words. I learn them.”

“Reading,” Juna said aloud. “Of course!”

“All right, Moki,” she said in skin speech. “Make this shape.”

Moki learned the alphabet before the rain stopped. As they carried out the mats of drying seaweed, he practiced making the letters over and over again. The other bami stopped and stared at him in puzzlement.

“I’m learning new-creature talk,” he told them proudly.

“What does it mean?” one of them asked. It was Pani, one of the youngest bami in the village.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“How can you learn something if you don’t know what it means?” Pani wondered.

“I’m just beginning,” Moki said. “Eerin will teach me more tomorrow.”

The next day, several bami sat and watched Juna’s lessons with Moki. Today she was teaching him numbers. He quickly grasped numbers, and simple addition and subtraction, though he had trouble with the base 10 numerical system used by ten-fingered humans instead of the Tendu’s eight-fingered counting. The bami looking on learned almost as quickly. When the lesson was over, they ran off, numbers coursing over their bodies like moving tattoos. Eerin smiled at them as she returned to work.

The next day Ukatonen watched as she began showing Moki and the other bami how to take letters and combine them into words.

“What are you teaching them?” Ukatonen asked, after she sent her pupils back to work.

“I’m teaching them the skin speech of the new creatures.”

“But you don’t have skin speech,” Ukatonen said. “I thought you talked with your voice.”

“We have a way of putting our words down so that we can see them. Moki wanted to learn how to speak like a new creature. He can’t learn to talk the way we talk, with sounds, but he can learn this. He wanted to learn, so I am teaching him.”

“Anito and I should learn this too. Will you teach us?”

So Ukatonen and Anito joined the lessons as well. Then other elders joined. Soon all the Narmolom villagers began flashing simple phrases in written Standard back and forth at each other.

At first Juna became concerned that her teaching might be harmful to the aliens. Then she realized that it was a game for the Tendu. They were delighted by the shapes of the letters, and the alien grammar. Even the lyali-Tendu came up out of the ocean and sat on the beach, learning written Standard from the villagers. By the time the seaweed harvest was completed, a full-blown pidgin of Tendu skin speech and written Standard was developing. The lyali-Tendu leaped and swam alongside the rafts on the journey back to the coast, their skin a brilliant jumble of letters, words, and phrases, chosen for the Tendu’s delight in their appearance rather than their meaning.

They reached the coast, landing their rafts on a shelving beach in a calm bay. The lyali-Tendu waddled ashore and bid the village a formal farewell. Then they slipped into the water, and towed the rafts back to their island. The lyali-Tendu who were not busy towing rafts leaped high. Brilliant, distorted letters appeared on their chests, like something out of a typographer’s nightmare.

“Goodbye!” “Farewell!” “Eat fish” “Jump high” appeared on the sea Tendu’s bodies in a sudden burst of coherence. Then the letters became abstract word-salad again.

Juna waved farewell to them, saying goodbye in both skin speech and written Standard. The lyali-Tendu disappeared beneath the waves, the empty rafts moving like a ghost fleet through the gloom of a gathering rainstorm.

Anito hefted her pack onto her shoulders, tying the waist straps that kept her pack from slipping off her back as they climbed. Juna picked up her own pack. Heaving it onto her shoulders, she followed the villagers into the familiar gloom of the jungle.