Through Alien Eyes

Seven

Ukatonen stood looking out a hospital window at the garden below, letting the small patch of green refresh his eyes and his spirit. This was their last day at Snyder Hospital. They were meeting with the doctors on their team to discuss the best therapies for the people he and Moki had been healing.

He had learned a great deal in this place, but little of it was what he’d expected. A grey cloud of sadness passed over his skin as he turned away from the window. He could do so much good here, but now was not the time to do it. Later, perhaps, when humans and Tendu were more in harmony.

“Our security escort is waiting,” Eerin said. “Are you ready to go?”

Ukatonen nodded and turned to follow her down the long hallway.

Suddenly a man darted out of one of the rooms and pulled Eerin inside. He pressed a scalpel against her throat.

“That’s my daughter in the bed there,” he said, “and you’re going to heal her, or”—he pulled Eerin’s head a little further back—“I’ll slit her throat.”

“I don’t understand,” Ukatonen said, puzzled and frightened. “Why are you doing this?”

“My daughter’s dying.”

“I see,” he said. “You want me to heal her. And if I do not?”

“Then I kill the woman.”

Ukatonen glanced over at Moki, whose skin was a roiling turmoil of red and orange. He reached out and touched the bami. “It’s going to be all right, Moki,” he said aloud. Meanwhile, in skin speech he was saying, “I’m going to try to get you close to the man. If you get a chance, grab his knife hand and pull it away, and sting him unconscious.” Ukatonen saw Eerin’s eyes widen fractionally as he said this, and knew that she would be ready when the chance came.

“Moki’s very scared,” he told the man. “I’m afraid of what he might do. It would be best if you let him stand near Dr. Saari. She’s his adopted mother, and he will be calmer when he’s near her.”

“Please, sir, don’t hurt my mother,” Moki said, in a frightened child’s voice. Ukatonen flickered approval; clearly Moki knew what he was doing.

“He’s only a child,” Ukatonen said. “It will make it easier for me to heal your daughter if he’s kept out of the way.”

“Ukatonen, what’s happening? Why is that man scaring my mommy?” Moki asked, an almost human quaver in his voice.

The man’s eyes traveled from Ukatonen to Moki to the security escorts clustered around the door, weapons bristling, and then back to Moki again.

“All right,” he said, after a long, dangerous silence. “He can come and stand between me and the door. That way if the security people try shooting me, the bullet will have to go through him and his mother first.”

“Perhaps we would all feel calmer if the guards backed away from the door,” Ukatonen suggested.

The man nodded. “Do what he says. Get away from the door.”

The security guards backed away, and Ukatonen was relieved when the man instantly became calmer. This was like taming an animal. The more cornered the animal felt, the harder it was to get him to calm down.

“What’s wrong with your daughter?”

“Leukemia. Like that little boy you healed. Carlo.”

It had been Moki who healed the little boy, Ukatonen recalled, but that was all right. It meant that the man was underestimating Moki.

“I remember that,” Ukatonen said. “I’ll need to touch your daughter in order to heal her.”

The man hesitated for a moment. “All right, but if anything happens to her, the woman dies.”

“I will not hurt your daughter,” the enkar promised.

He stepped over to the bed. The little girl lying there was pale, and there were dark shadows under her eyes. Her eyes darted between her father and the door, quick nervous glances that were the only sign of her fear. “Hello, my name is Ukatonen. What’s yours?”

She looked over at her father for a second. He nodded.

“I’m Sarah. Are they going to hurt my father?”

“I don’t know, Sarah,” Ukatonen said. “He must love you very much to do this. Are you scared?”

She hesitated a moment, then nodded.

“So am I, a little bit, but right now I’m going to try to make you better. Do you want to get better, Sarah?”

Sarah’s eyes went to her father and then back to Ukatonen. “Yes, please,” she replied in a voice barely above a whisper.

“All right, then,” he said. “I’m going to hold your arm like this,” he said, taking her arm. “It will sting a little, like a shot, and then you’ll go to sleep. I’ll be inside you then, and I’ll find out where you’re sick and make it better. All right?”

Sarah nodded. “What about my dad?”

Ukatonen glanced over at the child’s father. He was watching them intently, Moki was apparently forgotten.

“We’ll worry about that later.”

Ukatonen linked with the child. He could feel the wrongness inside her as soon as he linked. The cancer was very bad. He cleared out what he could of the immediate damage, and left killer cells behind to eliminate the rest of the[[ i ]]cancer. He paused, looking over his work. It was good. The girl would seem to go into a gradual spontaneous remission.

Finished, Ukatonen pulled out of the link, leaving his[[ i]]eyes hooded and his body relaxed, as though he were still linked. He glanced sidelong at the child’s father. He was completely ignoring Moki, and his arm had relaxed a little. The sharp blade had fallen slightly away from Eerin’s throat.

“Now, Moki!” Ukatonen signed in skin speech.

Moki moved with reflexes honed by a lifetime of being both predator and prey. He pulled the knife away from Eerin’s neck, and stung him asleep almost before the man knew what had happened.

Security came rushing in, taking the man into custody.

“Wait!” Ukatonen commanded as they started to haul the sleeping man away.

To his surprise, the security people halted.

“Let me wake him up so he can say good-bye to his daughter.”

They looked at Eerin, who nodded, and they let Ukatonen sting him awake.

He looked blearily up at Ukatonen. “How is she?” he asked.

“Your daughter was very sick,” Ukatonen told him. “I’ve done what I could, but”—he paused. “I don’t know if it was enough. I can wake her so that you can say goodbye, if you’d like.”

“No,” the man said, shaking his head. “I don’t want her to see me like this. Tell her I love her, and that I’m proud of her.” He looked at Eerin, “I-I’m sorry to have scared you, but”—he glanced at his daughter sleeping in the bed—“she’s all we have. I couldn’t let her die.”

“I understand,” Eerin said. “But if Moki or Ukatonen had gotten hurt— ” She turned away, anger on her face.

The man looked down, “I’m sorry,” he said. He looked up at the security guards and nodded. They led him away.

“What will happen to him?” Moki asked.

“He’ll be put in jail, like I was,” Eerin told him. “But he’ll have to stay there for a long, long time. His daughter Sarah will be an adult before they let him out.” She looked away for a moment. “He gave up the chance to watch her grow up, in order to know that she would.”

“Why doesn’t he kill himself?” Ukatonen asked.

“That’s a difficult question to answer, Ukatonen,” Eerin replied. “In some cultures he might. In others, he would be tried and killed. Here, he will be expected to serve a long prison sentence at a penal colony far from his family. Eventually, he will be released and be free again. We think of that as punishment enough.”

“Doesn’t he have any honor?” Ukatonen asked, thinking of his own painful decision to keep living. He wished he could link with the man, and understand why he had done this. Perhaps he would never understand humans; perhaps harmony with them was impossible. He turned away from the thought. His spirit was already weighed down by despair. He couldn’t deal with any more of it.

“It is not so simple as that, Ukatonen. Even if he wanted to commit suicide, he would be stopped by the prison guards. Many of our religions prohibit suicide.”

“Every time I think I understand you humans, you surprise me,” Ukatonen said, purple with puzzlement.

Eerin grinned at him. “That’s okay. We surprise ourselves all the time, too. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Juna stood at the window of her bedroom, looking out over the rows of vines, their gnarled trunks obscured by tangles of last season’s canes. Midwinter was a quiet time on the farm. Most of the work went on in the vast vaulted cellars, racking and aging the wine in huge oak barrels, bottling the mature vintages. Juna felt like one of those barrels, waiting here with the baby maturing inside her. It was good to come home again and rest after their demanding work at the hospital.

Just then the baby stirred inside her. She smiled and put her hand on her abdomen. She had first felt the baby move the day before, when they were descending in the elevator from the shuttle dock to the terminal. At first she thought it was some internal shifting caused by the increasing gravity. But the little flutters and sudden shifts had continued at odd times ever since. The movement of the baby thrilled her, but it also reminded her of how little time she had before the baby arrived. She was starting to show. In another month, it would be time for maternity clothes. And she had done nothing about getting married since her visit to the Xavieras. She dreaded the task of looking for a family to marry into, but she was going to have to face it soon.

There was a knock on the door.

It was Toivo. “Hei, Juna, look! I walked all the way over here!”

“Oh, Toivo, that’s great! I’m so pleased!”

He flopped into a chair with a tired sigh. “Dr. Engle says that if I keep improving at this pace, I’ll be able to help with spring planting.”

“That’s good,” she said. “I’ll be so pregnant by then that I won’t be any use at all.”

“You can be our fertility goddess,” he said, teasing her.

Juna looked down at a pale square of wintry sunlight on the floor. “Oh, Toivo, what am I going to do?”

“I thought you were planning to go to Earth with the Tendu.”

“Yes,” Juna said, not taking her eyes off the carpet, “we are. But that’s not what I’m worried about. If I don’t get married, they’ll take the baby away. I should be looking, but frankly, I haven’t a clue about how or where to start.”

The patch of sunlight blurred as tears clouded her vision.

“That’s what I came over here to talk to you about,” Toivo said, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’ve talked it over with the rest of the Fortunatis, and we were hoping that you would marry us. I know it’s not a romantic match, but we all love and care about you, and we’re fond of the Tendu, too.”

Juna stared at him for a long moment, blinking in surprise. Then she burst out laughing.

“It’s not a joke, Juna,” Toivo said. “We’re serious.”

She got control of herself. “I know you are,” she said, wiping tears of hysterical laughter out of her eyes. “It’s just— Well, it isn’t every day that I get proposed to by my own brother.”

“Come on, Juna, it isn’t like that.”

“I know, Toivo, but it is funny.”

“I guess so, but it’s not that unusual. There are lots of group marriages with sibs in them.”

“What about Isi and Netta-7ati? Have you talked to them about this?”

“Isi thinks it’s a good idea. He said that if you would marry into the Fortunati group, he will too. That way the vineyard would stay in the family.”

“And Netta?”

“Well, she isn’t as keen on it as Isi, but she understands. Anetta wants you to be happy, Juna. If this solution brings you happiness, then she approves.”

“I need to talk this over with the Tendu.”

Toivo nodded.

“How does the family feel about them?”

“The kids are all excited about having Moki around, and Selena practically worships the ground that Ukatonen walks on. The rest are fond of Moki and impressed by Ukatonen. The important thing is that they all want you, Juna. They trust you, and they’re willing to trust the Tendu.”

“Can you give us a day or two to think about it?”

“Take all the time you need, Juna. There’s no rush. As far as the Fortunati are concerned, the wedding is just a formality. You’re already part of the family.”

“It seems like a good solution for everyone,” Ukatonen said, after Juna told him about the proposal. “You would be marrying into a family that cares about you. The family likes Moki, and you’ve said that they trust me. What other problems are there?”

“I’m marrying into my brother’s family, for one.”

“I thought you said that sibs often married into the same group marriage.”

“Yes, but it’s usually a pair of brothers, or a pair of sisters. It’s much less common for a brother and a sister to enter into the same group marriage.” She shook her head. “If we weren’t well known, then it wouldn’t matter much. A few of the neighbors might gossip, but that would be it. Because we’re famous, it’ll make the top screen on Net News.”

“I don’t understand,” Moki said. “What’s wrong with brothers and sisters marrying?”

“A taboo against close relatiyes marrying is how we have traditionally prevented inbreeding.”

“I wondered how humans prevented this. Our offspring are so widely scattered that inbreeding is highly unlikely.

“Let others talk. This is what is good for you and your daughter, and you should do it,” Ukatonen advised. “As an enkar, I cannot be formally joined to your brother’s family, but I am honored that they trust me enough to let me live with you.”

“Moki?” Juna asked. “How do you feel about it?”

“It will be great to live with Danan and Toivo, and everyone else!” he said enthusiastically. “But won’t Anetta and Teuvo be lonely?”

“We’ll see them all the time,” Juna assured him. “They’ll be all right. Isi is going to marry into the Fortunati family also. And Aunt Anetta understands.”

“If it’s all right with them, then I want to do it,” Moki said.

’Then it’s settled. Let’s go over to the Fortunati’s and tell them that we’ll marry them,” Juna said. She felt an immense sense of relief wash over her with these words. She was going to be able to keep her daughter.

“I don’t know, the lavender is too washed out, and the red is just a little too bright for a wedding gown,” Juna remarked to Selena as they looked through a slate full of wedding catalogs. They had been looking through the catalogs for over a week, and still hadn’t settled on a dress.

Just then the comm chimed. Juna recognized the ring. It was for her. She set the reading slate down and got up to answer it.

It was Abeo Xaviera. “It’s good to see you again, Juna,” she said. “I have good news. Raoul tells me that the Survey has arranged for you and the Tendu to go to Earth.”

Juna’s throat tightened in sudden excitement. Somehow the Xavieras had done it! They were going to Earth!

“That’s wonderful news! When?”

“In about six weeks.”

“Urn,” Juna said, glancing over at Selena on the couch. She had hoped for a longer honeymoon. “I’m getting married in about a month.”

“So I hear,” Abeo said. “I wanted to congratulate you and wish you every happiness.”

Juna blushed. She kept forgetting that her life was headline news. “Thank you,” she said.

Abeo shrugged. “It was not only my doing. Ukatonen and Mold’s work at Snyder Hospital made the diplomats realize what they had. It didn’t take much leverage to get the door open after that. It was merely a matter of speeding up what was already in the works.”

“Well, thank you for whatever you did, and please thank Raoul for me as well. I wish the Tendu were here so that they could thank you too.”

“You are most welcome, Juna. I was glad to have so easily paid the debt my family owed you.”

“Easy for you, not for us,” Juna said.

“Ah, yes. That is the seed from which commerce grows, is it not?”

Juna nodded.

“I was glad to have been of service. Please pass our family’s greetings on to the Tendu.”

“I will, and please pass ours along to your family. We would be honored if you came to our wedding.”

Abeo inclined her head graciously. “Thank you, Juna. I shall see if Quang and I can make it. Your new family is fortunate indeed to be acquiring such a gifted new wife,” she said. “I will leave you to your wedding plans. You have a great deal to do in a very short time.”

“Good-bye, Abeo, and thank you,” Juna said. She was coming to like Abeo, she realized, though she was grateful that she was not one of her co-wives.

The screen went blank, and Juna looked up. Selena was staring at her openly.

“Was that— ?” she asked.

“Abeo Xaviera,” Juna finished for her. “Yes, it was. She owed me a favor.”

“She owed you a favor. Abeo Xaviera owed you a favor.” Selena sounded stunned.

“The Xavieras courted me, very*briefly,” Juna explained. “It didn’t work out. They felt that they owed me a favor because of it.”

“You were courted by the Xavieras,” Selena repeated incredulously.

“Didn’t Toivo tell you? That’s where we went after the news of the Tendu’s healings broke.”

“You turned them down?” Selena said, still amazed.

“Selena, the Xavieras wanted access to the Tendu. So I turned them down. It wouldn’t have been good for either the Tendu or me. I know I’ll be happier here with you. You’ve always been family, and that’s what I want.”

Selena lifted her chin toward the comm unit. “She sounded disappointed that you didn’t marry them, and I don’t blame her. I don’t think I’ve told you how glad I am that you’re joining our family. I’ve always admired you, Juna. You’re so strong-willed and determined.”

Juna let out a short, derisive laugh. “That’s what ended my first marriage. I didn’t want to stay home and mind the children.”

“They were fools,” Selena said. “They didn’t know what they had. You would have come home when it was time and you were ready. Meanwhile, you were learning things that were worth passing on. You’d have come home with wonderful things to teach the children. Well, their loss is our gain. I’m looking forward to having you as a co-wife.”

“And the Tendu?” Juna asked.

“Them too,” she said. “Mold’s taught Danan a lot, and Ukatonen— ” She paused and smiled. “He’s got a lot to teach all of us. I like him.”

“I used to be jealous of the Fortunati,” Juna said, “especially after my first marriage didn’t work out. I wanted to belong to a marriage as happy as yours. Now— ” She shrugged. “Suddenly I’ve gotten what I wished for, and I’m scared, a little bit. I’m afraid it won’t work out, or I’ll bring trouble to your house.” She blinked away the unshed tears pricking at the back of her eyelids. “I love you all so much, Selena. I don’t want that to happen.”

Selena hugged her, “Oh, Juna, trouble comes to everyone— we know that. We’re willing to share in your troubles every bit as much as we will share in your joys. That’s what family is all about. Besides,” she continued as Juna started to interrupt, “it’s not like we don’t know you. This marriage formalizes a relationship that’s been there for years. You’ve been family since Toivo married us. We know what we’re getting into, Juna.”

“You’re sure?” Juna asked.

Selena laughed. “We’re sure.” She picked up the reading slate and pressed the wake-up switch. “Now we’ve settled that, let’s get back to picking out a dress for the wedding.”

Moki waited with Danan and the other Fortunati children for the ceremony to begin. They were supposed to walk down the aisles, strewing fragrant flowers and herbs for their elders to walk on, in order to make their elders’ passage through life sweet. Today they were joining the Fortunati family. It was like becoming part of a village. The whole thing puzzled Moki. One did not become part of a village; one simply was part of a village. The village, through its elders, chose the bami. Tinka, when they came to a village, were merely looking for a place where they could be safe. One either fought for and won a place among the village tinka, or one stayed in the forest and was eaten. There was no choice there.

Humans had so many choices to make. What kind of marriage to have, who to marry, where to live, what kind of work to do, whether to have children, and how to marry. The list went on and on. He wondered how they managed with all those choices. On Tiangi, obligation and tradition replaced choice. It made life much simpler.

The music started, and Moki followed Danan down the aisle, strewing herbs. Quang, Abeo, and Yang Xaviera nodded at him as he passed their chairs. He nodded back, and they smiled at him as he passed. Dr. Engle caught his eye and winked at him.

Then they reached the center of the circle of chairs. Moki followed the other children* as they strewed herbs in the circle. The smell of the pungent herbs crushed underfoot made his eyes water, but it didn’t bother the humans at all. At last the music stopped and he sat down, quickly flicking his nictitating membranes across his eyes to clear them.

Then a new tune, slower, and more solemn began, and everyone stood as Niccolo Fortunati, the family Eldest, came out on the arm of the priest. They walked slowly to a small raised dais in the center of the circle and waited as the rest of the family strode down the four aisles leading to the center and stood in a semicircle behind Niccolo and the priest.

The music changed again, becoming louder and more triumphant. Toivo and Eerin walked down the aisle, followed by Selena and Teuvo, with Anetta bringing up the rear. Eerin looked beautiful in her dark green gown. She glanced at Moki nervously as she entered the central ring with Toivo, and Moki turned dark blue in reassurance. She smiled at him, and her nervousness seemed to vanish.

They stood before the Eldest and the priest. The music stopped and there was a moment of stillness.

“Welcome, friends and family, to this celebration of joining,” the priest said. “Today, we witness not just the joining of one person to a new family, but the merging of two families. Today we come to join the Saari family and the Fortunati family. You, their friends and their neighbors, are here to witness this joining. You have watched these two families strive and struggle to build new lives here on Berry Station. You’ve watched their triumphs and their tragedies as they have done so. You’ve welcomed their children into the world, and comforted them when a beloved one has died. Now you are here to see them begin a new stage in their lives together. Thank you for coming to support their joining.

“Juna Saari, do you come to this joining of your own free will, without coercion?” the priest asked.

“Yes, I do,” Eerin replied.

“Toivo Saari Fortunati and Selena Anderson Fortunati, do you represent your family in this joining?”

“Yes, we do,” Selena and Toivo said.

“And you and your family come to this joining of your own free will?”

“We do.”

“Juna Saari, do you join yourself to this family to give aid and comfort in times of trouble, to share your joys, and to strive for peace and harmony within your family and in the world at large?”

“I do,” Eerin replied.

“And will you raise your children in common with theirs?”

Eerin glanced over at Moki, eyebrows raised in a silent question. They had discussed this before the wedding. The other adults in the Fortunati family would be able to tell him what to do. It was like any Tendu village, and was what he had expected. He nodded.

Eerin looked back at the priest. “I do,” she said.

Juna watched as her father repeated the wedding vows, relieved that her part was over. She looked over at Moki and Ukatonen. Happiness and approval danced across their skins. The baby shifted gently within her, as though it approved too. Her father said the last of the vows. The priest touched Teuvo’s forehead with scented oil, and then she took both their hands and placed them in the hands of the Eldest.

“I now pronounce you joined,” the priest said.

Niccolo Fortunati kissed Teuvo formally on each cheek, and then kissed Juna on the forehead.

“Welcome to the family,” he said, beaming happily at them.

There was a ripple of applause from the wedding guests.

The priest held her hands up for silence. “This ceremony is more than the joining of two families. As you know, Dr. Saari Fortunati is the adviser to the two Tendu envoys, Ukatonen and Moki. Moki is her adopted son, and as such, will become a part of the Fortunati family. Would Moki and Ukatonen please come forward now?”

The Tendu got up and came tcrthe dais. Juna took Moki’s hand, enfolding it in both of hers.

“Moki, do you agree to accept the Fortunati as your family, to love and obey them as you do Juna?” the priest asked.

“Yes,” Moki said, aloud and in formal skin speech.

The priest turned to Toivo. “Does your family agree to accept Moki as their child?”

Toivo smiled at Moki, and took his other hand. “We do.”

The priest turned to Ukatonen. “Your position as enkar forbids you from entering into any ties that we would recognize as the ties of marriage, but you are one of Moki’s guardians. Do you accept Moki’s adoption into the Fortunati family?”

“I do.”

“Do you agree to work with them to raise Moki to understand both human and Tendu cultures, and to attempt to achieve harmony with them should any conflict between the needs of these two cultures arise?”

“I will,” Ukatonen said aloud and in formal skin speech. The elaborate black border around his words indicated that his words had the weight of a formal judgment. Juna raised her eyebrows in surprise.

The priest repeated these vows to the Fortunati family and they agreed to abide by them.

Then Danan and the other children rose. The priest smiled.

“Anetta Rovainen, the Fortunati children have asked to adopt you as an honorary grandmother. Do you accept this?”

Anetta looked at the children, her eyes glittering with tears. “Yes, I do.”

The priest pronounced a final blessing and the music began. The children bent and picked up the thick garland of ti leaves and flowers that encircled the central dias, and held it up. Each member of the Fortunati family took hold of it, in order, from Eldest to youngest. The music started, and Eldest led the rest in a complex, stately wedding dance. Juna glanced up to see Ukatonen watching them, ears spread wide. She smiled at him, then turned back to the dance, lowering the garland to let Eldest’s end of the braid pass over hers. Soon she was lost in the careful, complex weaving of the wedding garland. At the end, the braid was so tight that the dancers had to squeeze past each other, amid much laughter and joking. Then the music ended and the dance was done. The garland was woven around each member of the family, tying them together in a single, unifying knot.

“Go now, as a united whole,” the priest said.

Carefully, gently, the family set the garland down and stepped out of the complex knot they had woven. Some of the leaves were crushed and broken, but it formed a tangible picture of a family’s unity.

The honeymoon was all too brief. After only a week spent settling in with her family, Juna and the Tendu boarded the shuttle bound for Copernicus City on Luna, where they would meet the diplomatic corps and begin a week-long series of briefings to prepare them for their visit to Earth. Juna laid her head against the seat back and closed her eyes. If only there had been more time. Leaving this soon after the marriage worried her. It reminded her too much of her first marriage. She didn’t want to destroy this marriage by spending too much time away.

She cradled her burgeoning belly with one hand. She was five months along. It was now or never. If she waited, it would be too late. Two months, and then she would be home again. Then nothing was going to pry her loose from home until the baby was weaned.

Moki touched her arm. “Look, siti, you can see the station through the viewport.”

Juna looked out the window. Berry Station gleamed against the empty black night, its red and green warning lights blinking against the rough stone exterior. Berry looked like one of last year’s potatoes from the outside, but it was home. She looked back at Moki and smiled.

“I miss it already,” she said.

“We’ll be back soon,” he told her.

Juna held out her arms, and the three of them linked. Ukatonen’s presence thrummed with excitement, belying his apparently calm exterior. Moki, too, was excited, but Juna felt a concern for her threading through his excitement. Juna soothed his concern and let the Tendu’s excitement buoy her up into exhilaration. Then she turned and reached for the tightly coiled presence of the baby, a flicker of sensation inside her, aware only of warmth and movement. She felt the familiar salty spark of neurons firing in the baby’s brain. The baby responded to her presence with a warm surge of curiosity. It moved its arm, and she felt the movement inside her womb. It was a strange and wondrous thing to feel the baby and its movement simultaneously. Gently she enfolded the baby in her presence for a few moments, then let Ukatonen, and then Moki enfold the baby within her.

Then they slid out of the link. Juna rested her hand on her belly, smiled, and slid into sleep.

Ukatonen left the briefing session, his brain heavy with a thick sludge of facts. There was so much to remember, so many countries, and each country was different! In some ways it was even harder than his enkar training had been. His self-confidence had been badly shaken by his inability to see the consequences of their work at the hospital. Was he really up to this task? He felt overwhelmed and alone. This was more than he could do by himself. If only there were another enkar here to share this burden.

A yellow flicker of irritation forked down one leg. Enough of these doubts. He was here, and he would do what needed to be done. And soon he would get to see an actual Earth rain forest. The Xavieras’ jungle had been small and incomplete, but it was enough to show him that the rain forests of Earth, for all the alienness of their life forms, had much the same ecology as those on Tiangi. He had viewed some of the humans’ tapes and laboriously plowed through several books on the subject. He had learned much more from Eerin and from Jacques Quanh Xaviera, the ecologist in charge of the Xavieras’ rain forest, than he had from the tapes and books. He could not ask questions of the books and tapes.

“That was a tough briefing,” Eerin remarked. “I’m looking forward to lunch. It’ll be nice to spend an hour stuffing my body instead of stuffing my brain.”

“You found it hard too?” Ukatonen asked, spreading his ears in surprise.

“Of course I did. They shoved an awful lot of stuff at us today.”

“But you know what a President is already. You understand human governments.”

Eerin smiled and shook her head. “I may know what a President is, but I can’t claim to understand government.”

She was making a joke, Ukatonen realized.

“There’s just so much to remember,” Ukatonen said, fighting to keep his words slow and calm. “I don’t want to make any mistakes.”

“Ukatonen,” Eerin said, “no one expects you to remember it all perfectly, and even if you did, someone else might forget. This is just to help prevent misunderstandings. The presidents and royalty you’ll be meeting are as worried about making mistakes as you are, and they know much less about your people than you know about us. Don’t worry, there will be people there to help remind us of what to do.”

“But I’m an enkar,” he insisted. “I should know what to do.”

“Ukatonen, this isn’t Tiangi. Everything here is new for you. In a situation like this even an enkar can make a mistake or two. Personally, I think you’ll do better than I will.”

“Really?” he said, surprised.

“En, I’ve never done anything like this before,” she told him. “You’ve spent hundreds of years visiting the chiefs of different villages. This isn’t really all that much different. There are different titles and ceremonies, but it’s the same basic situation. We’re just trying to make sure that you don’t do anything that wiil cause you or the leaders to lose face. That’s why they’re teaching us all this protocol. But we’re not visiting every single government on Earth. We’ve had to choose the ones that are the most important. So just by visiting them, you’ll be giving them status.”

“I see,” Ukatonen said. “Then why are we learning all of this?”

“Because these are the things that human diplomats must know. If the people you’re going to meet have a familiar framework in which to place you, they’ll feel more at ease.”

“But I’m not a human diplomat,” he pointed out.

Eerin nodded. “That’s why you don’t have to do everything perfectly.”

Ukatonen shook his head, more confused than ever. “I don’t understand.”

“Look, en,” Eerin said, “you’re an alien. They expect you to be different. They expect there to be misunderstandings and mistakes. There are misunderstandings and mistakes enough between humans from different cultures. That’s why we have all of this protocol in the first place. To prevent misunderstandings. Just do the best you can, and rely on me and the other members of the team to help out if you get confused. Trust us, okay?”

“All right,” he said. But I’m an enkar, he thought, and I’m not supposed to make mistakes. All of the truths that made up his world seemed to be crumbling away to nothing while he put on a brave front.

Moki sat through another long meeting with some famous human, trying not to look bored. They had been on Earth for over a week and all they had done was have meetings with important people. He had tried telling himself that it was just like being a bami for the chief elder of a village, but it wasn’t. A chief elder would have kept him busy waiting on the needs of his visitors. Here he had to sit still and watch, and pretend to listen. He wasn’t really learning anything, not after the first week of this. They spent all their time in buildings and trains and cars. There had been a few nice gardens, but they were all clipped and tame. When were they going to see the real Earth, the jungles and the forests? He hadn’t climbed a tree since they left Berry Station.

Moki glanced over at Ukatonen, who sat leaning forward, ears spread wide, apparently listening intently to everything this current leader, President of a country called the Re-United States, had to say. It wasn’t anything that they hadn’t heard a dozen times before. His country welcomed the Tendu, and wished for better relations with them. They were eager to trade with the Tendu when the opportunity arose. Glapetty, glap, glap, glah … It went on and on, and was apparently meaningless.

Finally the meeting broke up, and they went for a walk in a garden behind the big white house that the President lived in. It was full of huge old rosebushes, their blossoms filling the air with scent. He liked roses. Waiting until the others were farther ahead, he tore off a handful of pale pink rose petals, and popped them into his mouth, savoring their subtle, flowery taste. He glanced up and saw one of the silent security men in dark suits smiling at him behind his sunglasses.

Moki turned a deep, embarrassed brown, and hurried to catch up to the rest of the group. Ukatonen gave him a brownish yellow flicker of reproof for lagging behind.

That evening, when they returned to their hotel room, there was a large bouquet of roses from the head gardener of the rose garden waiting for Moki, and a small tin of candied rose petals from the security people. Eerin and Analin laughed out loud when he told them the story. Ukatonen, however, turned a disapproving shade of yellowish brown.

“This embarrasses us all, Moki. I thought you knew how to behave well.”

“Oh, come on, Ukatonen,” Eerin said. “So he sneaks a few rose petals. It doesn’t matter. They think he’s just a kid.”

“If anything,” Analin added, “it will make people like him even more.”

“It does matter, Eerin. He is a bami, and he represents our people here. I will not have him behaving in a way that makes us lose face.”

“But I cannot be a bami here,” Moki complained. “At home, I would be helping to serve my sitik through these meetings. Here I can only sit and watch and try to listen. And all the meetings are the same.”

“Yes, they are, Moki, but they are all equally important as well,” Ukatonen lectured. “These people we are meeting are the chiefs of their countries. If we are to achieve harmony with humans, we must know and understand their leaders. You serve your sitik here by watching and listening. You must watch these humans closely, study them, find out what is in their hearts. If you understand the leaders, you will begin to understand their people.”

Eerin touched the enkar’s shoulder. “You are right, Ukatonen, but I think, for now, it would be wise if the humans underestimated Moki. They will speak less guardedly around him because they believe he is a child and doesn’t understand them. He will learn more, and through him we will learn more.”

Ukatonen looked thoughtful for a moment. “You’re right. I will teach Moki the art of ang-ar-gora, invisible listening. Normally we teach this skill only to enkar-in-train-ing, but this is not a normal situation, and you are not a normal bami, Moki.”

Moki’s ears spread wide, and his skin turned blue with delight. “I am honored, en.”

Ukatonen’s skin took on a faint ochre tinge of concern. “It is a hard discipline, Moki. I hope that I am not wrong to teach you this. Ang ar-gora must be used wisely and responsibly. Please do not demonstrate that I was wrong in my judgment of you.”

Moki’s ears drooped. “Yes, en,” he promised. “I will try not to disappoint you.”

Ukatonen looked suddenly tired. “I don’t think you will, Moki, but I want you to understand what I am trusting you with.” He stood. “It is time for me to sleep,” he said. “Good night.”

Concern was written across his sitik’s face as she watched Ukatonen leave. She opened her mouth to say something, but the door swung closed behind the enkar and it was too late.

“He looks tired,” she said to Moki. “I hope it’s not the greensickness returning.”

“I think he is as tired of these meetings as I am, siti,” Moki admitted. “But he is an enkar and may not say so.”

Juna woke up, went to the bathroom, and then came back to bed. It was early yet. She should get more sleep, but her body’s clock was still somewhere out over the Atlantic. She adjusted the pillow that supported her growing belly. Ukatonen had been unusually short-tempered with Moki last night. The heavy schedule and Earth’s higher gravity combined to wear them down into exhaustion. She barely got through the day, and she was worried about what their demanding schedule was doing to the baby.

She rolled over onto her back and then shifted back onto her side again with a sigh. It was getting harder to find a comfortable position. She felt a sudden longing for home. She wanted to be surrounded by women who understood being pregnant and who could help her through this increasingly awkward and uncomfortable time. Instead, she was far from home, surrounded by people who expected her to function at peak efficiency, despite the demands of her pregnancy. She felt sudden tears of self-pity leaking from the corners of her eyes, and decided that it was time to get up before she dissolved into a soggy victim of pregnancy hormones.

Juna and Analin prevailed firmly upon the protocol minister to rework their schedule to allow for a free day in Costa Rica, where they would tour the cloud forests of Monteverde. There were still state visits to the leaders of Canada, Texas, and Mexico, but it gave them something to look forward to.

When they got off the plane in ^ian Jose, Ukatonen was almost vibrating with excitement. Moki, who had begun to shrink quietly into the background, in order to practice the art of invisible listening, was a blue and yellow blaze of anticipation. Juna smiled. She, too, longed for a day off in the shady depths of the jungle.

At last they were loaded into a military helicopter with the Minister of the Environment, who pointed out the various environmental reclamation projects the government had undertaken. After an hour of flying over scattered farms and plantations, they swung out over the bay and then up toward the forested peaks of the Monteverde cloud forest.

Below them, a broad green ribbon of jungle stretched from the mountains to the sea, most of which was part of the Monteverde restoration project. Moki and Ukatonen’s ears fanned wide, despite the roar of the helicopter engines. They had never seen a jungle from above before.

The helicopter landed at the edge of the airstrip and their party was escorted to a string of jeeps that took them past patches of lush pasture where cows and horses grazed placidly, then along slopes covered with coffee trees, and then into fruit trees which faded almost imperceptibly into jungle, though Juna could still detect rows of trees. A cacao plantation, Ministro Gomez explained. Then they rattled over another cattle guard and the landscape changed to true jungle. The road ended in a gravel parking lot. Their entourage rumbled to a stop, and the noisy silence of the jungle settled around them.

Juna closed her eyes and inhaled. Almost, she thought, almost she could believe she was back on Tiangi, but there were subtle differences in the scent of the forest, sweet fruitiness where there should have been musk, and the underlying scent of vegetable decay was less pungent. But these were tiny differences. She heard a buzzing noise whiz past her head, and then back again, and opened her eyes to see a shimmering green and purple hummingbird hovering in front of her, clearly puzzled by the red flowers on her shirt. She laughed and the hummingbird zoomed off into the forest. Moki and Ukatonen laughed with her, their skins a riot of blue and green. It was good to be back in a jungle, any jungle.

The director of the park guided them through the visitors’ center. The Tendu followed dutifully, though it was clear that their minds were elsewhere. After a torturous half-hour of being guided, centimeter by centimeter through the exhibits at the visitors’ center, Juna finally laid a hand on the director’s arm.

“Seiior O’Brian, your visitors’ center is amazing, but perhaps we would learn more from it after we have seen the forest,” Juna suggested tactfully.

“Oh, of course, Profesora,” he said, and showed them out of the over air-conditioned visitors’ center, and down a path into the forest. Moki and Ukatonen’s ears were fanned wide and quivering, their nostrils dilated. The park director began droning statistics at them again. They heard none of it. There was a rustling in the treetops and a patter of falling leaves. It was the last straw. Moki was up the tree in a twinkling, vanishing into the canopy. A minute later, something whirled down out of the branches onto the path. It was Moki’s shorts. Juna fought back a peal of laughter. She picked up the shorts, and looked at Ukatonen, who was quivering in his eagerness to follow Moki, held back only by the iron discipline of the enkar.

“I suppose,” she said dryly, “that you should go after him, en. I’m a bit too pregnant for clambering about in the trees.”

Ukatonen nodded, and vanished up into the trees like a green shadow. Juna smiled wistfully up at him, wishing that she could follow the Tendu. But her body was growing ungainly, and someone needed to keep the officials off their backs for as long as it took for the Tendu to come back. She turned to the director, who was staring up into the trees, a horrified expression on his face. She fought back a sudden surge of laughter.

“Shall we continue with the tour, Senor O’Brian?” she said.

“But the aliens— ” he began.

“The Tendu will be fine, Senof O’Brian. They live in a rain forest. This one is different, yes, but they will be careful.”

“What if they get lost?” one of his aides said.

Juna shook her head. “It would be like getting lost inside your own house. We will see them when they are ready to return.”

“But— ” the director began.

“It will be all right,” Juna assured him. “The Tendu won’t hurt anything, and I very much doubt that anything in this forest could hurt the Tendu.”

Ukatonen swung through the trees, feeling the branches swing and sway under his weight. They were heavier here than on Tiangi, and the canopy was lower to the ground. He was as blue with joy as a clear morning sky, and so was Moki. At last, panting, he swung to a halt. On Tiangi, he could have moved at this pace from dawn to dark, but here on Earth the heavier gravity and months of inactivity made him tire more quickly. But it was enough to be here, in a forest on another world. It was worth all the months of deprivation and waiting to be here.

Moki swung up beside him on the branch, pink flickers of excitement forking across his body and down his arms and legs.

“What shall we do first?” Moki asked.

“Sit for a while and listen. You may practice your ang-ar-gora here, where it was meant to be practiced.”

So they sat, still as the branches they sat on, as the afternoon progressed around them, bringing them a parade of animals, small and large. Lizards crawled over them, tongues flickering at their strange scent, birds flew past, and a slow-moving, furry animal munched on leaves only a few feet away, oblivious of their presence. They seemed like friends, strangely transformed, yet familiar in their roles in the forest.

As the afternoon light became golden and slanting, hunger drove them to move. Moki found a tree ripe with fruit, and they ate till their stomachs bulged. Then they found a suitable tree and built a nest.

Neither of them spoke of going back. Ukatonen knew Eerin would understand. They had waited so long for this, and the humans were only allowing them a few scant hours. It wasn’t enough, and Eerin knew it as well as they did. Moki would begin hungering for his sitik in a day or two. They would go back then. It would throw the humans’ precious schedule off, but this was more important. How could he know a world without living in its wild places?

A deep burgundy ripple of irony coursed over Ukato-nen’s skin. Before he’d come here he would never have thought of such a thing as wild places. On Tiangi, everything was wild. Here, there seemed to be almost no wilderness. How could the humans stand to be so cut off from the wild places of their world? He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of the richly scented air, so different, yet so soothing. He felt more at home here than he had since he left Tiangi. The weight of these months of isolation fell away, and he slid into a deep, relaxed sleep.

He woke an hour or two after dawn, feeling as frisky as a courting tillara. Moki had already gone out and gotten breakfast. There was fresh fruit, some young fern shoots, and one of the slow-moving mammals they had seen the day before, neatly butchered and lying on the inside of its coarse, greenish-furred skin.

“I didn’t know what was protected here,” Moki said, “so I tried to take a little of several different things that seemed plentiful.”

Ukatonen flickered acknowledgement. “We will only be here a few days. I don’t think that we can alter the balance very much in that time. Still,” he added, “we should try to eat as little meat as possible.” He helped himself to a piece of fruit, swallowing it with evident delight.

Juna, meanwhile, was busy trying to calm diplomats horrified by the crumbling of their carefully planned schedules, and appease government ministers certain that the aliens were dying from snakebites or were slaughtering endangered species by the score.

Juna patiently stood her groutTd. She explained to the diplomats that the nature of her bond with Moki meant that the roaming Tendu would return in a day or two, and reassured the government ministers that the Tendu knew how to survive in the forest, and that they would avoid poisonous snakes, and would not wantonly destroy the forest. On the third day, she went out with the search party. They spent all day exploring the forest, using dogs to try to track the Tendu, with no luck at all. When they returned to camp at sunset, Moki and Ukatonen were waiting for her in her tent. They had slipped into camp several hours before, in a test of Moki’s skill at ang-ar-gora.

Juna briefed them about what had been happening at camp. Then they slipped like shadows through the dusk, back into the jungle. Juna finished freshening up and went to meet with Seiior O’Brian, to discuss what to do next. As she sat down, there was a loud crashing in the trees overhead. Moki and Ukatonen scrabbled down the trunk of a tree. Juna smiled inwardly at the racket they were making.

“Siti?” Moki called loudly, a very convincing note of fear in his voice, “Siti, are you there?”

“Moki!” Juna called. “I’m right here!” She ran to embrace him, and he clung to her as though he had not seen her for months. Ukatonen came up behind him. Juna reached out to embrace the enkar. Altogether it was a most touching and convincing homecoming.

“Is there any food left?” Moki asked. “I’m hungry. We’ve had nothing but fruit and greens for the last three days.”

Juna saw Seiior O’Brian and Ministro Gomez visibly relax at Mold’s words. It was another cleverly planned deception. It was easier than proving to the ministers that the Tendu would kill sparingly and only at need.

“Perhaps we should continue this discussion in the mess lent,” Juna suggested. “That way Moki and Ukatonen can get something to eat while we discuss rearranging our schedules.”

Seflor O’Brian agreed.

After Moki and Ukatonen had filled their plates full of meat and beans and rice, and before they began to eat, Ukatonen made Moki apologize to their delegation and to the governmental ministers. It was another face-saving gesture that Juna and the two Tendu had cooked up. Moki, as a “child” and an alien one at that, could not be expected to understand the importance of their schedule. Ukatonen claimed to have been looking for him until late the[[ ziy ]]before, and that it had taken them all day to find their way back.

Moki looked up forlornly at the officials and ministers. “It’s just been such a long time since I’ve been in a real rain forest. I was just so homesick,” he said, his ears drooping so miserably that Juna had to fight to keep from laughing.

Moki was a very good actor. Juna heard a murmur of apathy from members of their entourage. Good. Perhaps the diplomats would not push them so hard after this.

“Moki, it was very bad of you to run away like that,” she said. “You realize that I’m going to have to punish you. You’re not allowed to eat any sweets for a solid [[th.]] I expect you to help wash all the dishes here until leave. And you’re to pour tea and serve the ministers [[_. -il]] our next meetings. Is that clear?”

“Yes, siti,” Moki said, looking mournfully down at the ground.

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit hard on the boy?” Sefior O’ Brian said.

Juna fought back a smile. Dishwashing was the only real punishment, and it was a mild one. Moki only craved sweets when he was healing people, and he would be glad to be able to actually do something useful during those long, boring meetings.

After dinner, Juna met with the diplomats to repair their battered schedule. Actually, they had only missed a couple of meetings with the heads of state of Guyana and Suri-name, and a “day off” that included a military review, which she was frankly relieved to have avoided. She didn’t know how to explain war to the Tendu. The concept wasn’t part of their universe.

“Look,” she said, after the diplomats had debated the issue for several minutes. “These meetings and briefings are very hard on the Tendu. The whole situation is completely foreign to them, and very stressful. They need time off in wild places like this park. Otherwise we’re going to have more embarrassments like this last one. You’ve been expecting the Tendu to accommodate to human ways, and it’s strained them to their limits. It’s time we humans accommodated ourselves to the Tendu. After all, they’ve come a long way to see us.”

“Dr. Saari, we don’t have a lot of control over what the various governments choose to show to the Tendu,” one of the diplomats replied.

“But the Tendu can refuse to see the things that don’t interest them, can’t they?”

’To a certain extent, yes,” the diplomat replied. “But some things are unavoidable.”

“I see. But perhaps we can negotiate a few more visits to national parks and reclamation sites, and a few less displays of military might. And a couple more days off that really are days off. It isn’t just the Tendu I’m concerned about. There’s the baby as well. I’m exhausted, and I’m afraid that it might harm the baby if I continue to overwork myself like this.”

“We’ll do what we can, Dr. Saari.”

And to Juna’s surprise, they accomplished quite a lot. Part of their success was due to Moki’s running away, which had gotten into the papers. Analin’s spin on the incident underlined the extent of Moki’s (and by implication, Ukatonen’s) homesickness.

Suddenly their meetings took place outside, in gardens. Instead of parades and teeming crowds of people, Moki and Ukatonen were led through vast reclamation projects, forests of replanted saplings growing over the scars of old strip mines and industrial sites. In Brazil they were taken through the restoration of the great coastal forests. The members of the Central African Federation of Countries showed them the Green Sahel project, where they were slowly, painfully, pushing back the desert. The Chinese took them through the Huang He project, where they saw the vast factories devoted to rebuilding the long-vanished topsoil, and acres where that topsoil had been painstakingly laid down and held in place by plantations of clover and grasses, from which forests of bamboo, poplar, pine, and ginkgo were rising. Ukatonen and Moki conferred with the environmental engineers, and often were able to make useful suggestions. More importantly, the Tendu’s interest in these projects focused human interest on them as well. The last three weeks of their trip were much more fun. Ukatonen seemed reinvigorated; he listened to the people he met with a new intensity and focus.

Ukatonen sat in the hot, dusty bus, looking out the window at the ravaged land around him. This was their tenth tour of an environmental reclamation site in the last eight days. Every country seemed to have several. Some countries seemed to be nothing but reclamation zones.

The tours were always the same. First they would be shown the ravaged land, barren, eroded, sick with chemicals. Then they would be shown the repair efforts under way— decontamination, replacement of topsoil, and replanting. Then finally they would be shown the most advanced stage of regrowth— forest, prairie, desert, whatever. It always felt empty and incomplete. There weren’t enough birds or small animals rustling in the undergrowth. The plants weren’t quite right, too far apart, or growing in neat rows. It all felt subtly wrong, and there was never enough time to figure out what was the matter. And he never got to compare the reclamation site with a real forest or prairie or whatever. It left him feeling as incomplete and unharmonious as the sites he visited.

What made humans do this to their world? How could they foul their nest this way?

He began listening to the leaders more closely, asking probing, difficult questions that made the diplomats and even Eerin squirm uncomfortably. He knew he was being difficult, but he was an enkar, and understanding this conundrum was what he needed to do. With Eerin’s encouragement and help, he began watching videos and laboriously reading through history texts. It was hard work, as dry and dusty and dead as the reclaimed lands he had visited.

Gradually, a picture began to emerge. It was an ugly picture of greed and devastation on a scale so vast that he still had trouble believing it had really happened.

Within the space of two centuries these otherwise intelligent, thoughtful people had cut down their forests, mined their hills and poisoned their land, water, and air. Ukatonen found it painful to try to come to grips with this fact. Eerin had tried to explain the complicated tangle of greed, prejudice, narrow-mindedness, and shortsightedness that led to this, but he found it hard to wrap his mind around the necessary concepts.

The humans had paid a heavy price before they realized their mistake. Billions of humans had lived short, harsh, and painful lives, dying of the diseases inherent in starvation and overcrowding. Now, millions still lived hard lives, but at least they were getting enough to eat. The population on Earth had been shrinking for the last century. It was falling more slowly than Ukatonen would have [[_*ed]], but it was declining. They would reach a [[sustain-Kr4e]] level in another century or two. But it would take rven longer before every human’s life would be a com-ortable one.

Eventually Ukatonen gave up trying to understand why :r how humans had done this to their world. It was easier for him to help humanity restore their battered planet’s ecosystem than it was for him to understand why they had destroyed it. At least restoring the ecology felt familiar. It would take him out into the forest, where he was at home. And he would see to it that there were as few schedules jod meetings and little boxy rooms full of people as possible. He woke up the computer and began doing a little research, while the bus ground its way slowly uphill.

Juna shook hands with the team of diplomats who had helped them, thanking them and bidding them good-bye. Oddly enough, she was going to miss working with them, though she wasn’t going to miss the demanding schedules and the punctilious attention to protocol that went with this work. She was glad the diplomatic portion of their trip was over.

She watched Moki making his final farewells. As usual, he had made a lot of friends. She saw M. Pichot slip Moki a small round tin of the candied rose petals that he had become so fond of. Ukatonen, moving at a slower, more dignified pace, brought up the rear. People’s faces changed as they turned from Moki to Ukatonen, becoming serious and respectful. He might not generate the bubbly popularity that Moki did, but the diplomats and their staff clearly honored and admired the alien elder. Despite all the difficulties, the two Tendu had managed to accomplish an incredible amount of valuable face-to-face diplomacy on this trip.

Moki and Ukatonen finished their good-byes, and the three of them boarded the zeppelin.

Juna watched as Analin stowed her gear and strapped herself into one of the seats by the window of the cabin they would be sharing for the three-day flight to Darwin, Australia. Analin had performed one miracle of public relations after another for them. Her deft handling of the Tendu’s disappearance into the forest had turned the whole trip around. She was the one who made the world aware of how homesick the Tendu were for the forest, gently shaming the leaders of the world into accommodating the Tendu’s interests and needs.

“I wanted to thank you again for all your hard work. I’m afraid we made things pretty hard for you sometimes,” Juna told her press secretary when they were settled. “But you made us look good despite all our mistakes.”

Analin shook her head. “It wasn’t that bad. The three of you are fun to work with. And you tried to make my job easy whenever you could.”

“I guess we make a great team, then,” Juna said with a smile. “You made our work easier too. We’ll miss you. Are you looking forward to seeing your relatives in Indonesia?”

“I’ve never met them. They’re my grandmother’s family. Second cousins several times removed. My grandmother kept in touch with them, and my mother sent them cards at New Year’s and visited a few times.” She shrugged. “We may not have all that much in common.”

The zeppelin lifted off then. They watched the ground move away from them with a barely perceptible shudder of the engines. Juna had never traveled on a zeppelin before. She had never had the time or the money for such a slow, luxurious method of travel. But there had been enough money left over in their travel budget, and they were ready for a little pampering after all their hard work.

“You know,” Juna offered as a bank of clouds obscured their view of the ground. “We’d love it if you could visit us at the reserve. It would be nice to spend some time with you when we weren’t in the middle of a crisis.”

“I’d like that too,” Analin said with a smile. “I’ll try to come up and spend a few days with you and the Tendu. I’ve never really seen them in the jungle,” she said wistfully. “I was too busy in Costa Rica, and I think they didn’t really want to be seen.”

Juna nodded. “I wish I could climb with them, but this belly throws my balance off. And if I fell it wouldn’t just be me falling.” She sighed and then added, “but I’ll miss the treetops. It’s like another world up in the canopy. It’s wonderful.” Juna yawned. “I think this trip is catching up with me,” she said. “I’m going to take a nap.”

Juna napped her way across most of Australia, getting up only to eat and to pee, and to look down at the scenery or up past the bellying bag of the zeppelin at the incredible array of Southern stars. The distant drone of the zeppelin motors wove in and out of her dreams, becoming a small plane soaring by overhead in a bright summer sky, or the distant drone of a tractor on a long, hot summer’s day.

Shortly after they landed at Alice Springs, Ukatonen heard Eerin being paged over the zeppelin’s comm system. A few minutes later she tapped on his door. There were some Australian Aboriginal elders who wished to meet with him and Moki. Clearly Eerin seemed to think this was something special, so he agreed to meet with them.

They were shown to a small private lounge. As soon as they were settled, the doors opened to admit a pair of ancient elders escorted by respectful grandchildren. They wore nothing but their loincloths and their dignity, but they carried themselves with more majesty than most of the rulers the Tendu had met. The Aboriginals were the first people he had met on Earth who reminded him of Tendu. He longed to link with them.

Ukatonen struggled to follow their heavily accented Standard as they told him about their history, how their land had been taken and their people killed like animals, the imported illnesses that swept through their people, how their children were taken away from them and raised to be white. It was a fearful and frightening story.

“So far you’ve only talked to the people who won their struggles,” the male elder, Stan Akuka told him. “You’ve been talking to the wrong people, mate. Talk to the losers. They’ll tell you a thing or two. Be careful the whites don’t come to your place and steal your land.”

“It is very far away,” Ukatonen said.

“So was Australia,” the female elder said. “Once.”

“Tell us about your place,” Stan said. He sounded hungry, eager to hear about Tiangi.

Ukatonen stood. “There are no words for my world. I will perform a quarbirri for you, instead.” He pulled a small flute from his gathering bag, and began to play the melody for the quarbirri he had been working on. His skin flared and died as the music rose and fell. Then his skin and the music shifted into the main portion of the quarbirri. The main section of the quarbirri began by depicting the dawn as the sun rose from the sea over the Outer Islands on Tiangi. His skin speech gradually brightened as the sun rose, flaring big and brilliant as the first rays lit up the treetops of the island. Then he told them of swimming with the lyali-Tendu, the people of the sea, his words shimmering like schools of brightly colored fish against the blue depths of his skin. He depicted the coastal forests, singing and dancing their green mystery. He told them of rivers, wide and slow, and fast and treacherous; and of the ancient inland forests, sloping up into the bunched foothills. He sang the rugged rocky outline of the mountains, with their cool, misty slopes.

Then he showed them sunset on the shoulders of the mountain passes overlooking the dry savannas and deserts where vast herds of animals roamed. The savannas were lands of mystery and legend to the Tendu. They were visited only rarely by adventurous hermits and enkar. In the distance, further mountains loomed black against the red sunset. No Tendu had ever been there. As night fell, Ukatonen sang of the soft glow inside a village tree, and the sounds and sights of the villagers as they settled in for the evening. He ended with darkness and the distant sounds of the night forest.

The Aboriginal elders watched intently as he performed for them, their faces calm, like a wide river where the water runs smooth and deep. They had the patience and deliberation of boulders, as though they had existed for centuries, despite their short-lived humanity.

Ukatonen stood silent and still for a moment after the quarbirri ended. Then he held out his arms, offering to link with them. The two elders reached out and grasped his arms as he instructed them. Moki joined them, holding out one hand to Eerin, who joined the link.

Ukatonen felt a moment of panic from the man. He reached out and enfolded the elder in calmness, steadying him until he could get his balance in the rush of sensation. There was an internal complexity to the woman that belied her stolid outward appearance. Her presence reminded him of a stretch of bright, rippling water. The man felt dark and solid all the way through, a good, well-worn darkness like the wooden handle of a tool, polished and stained from years of use. The human’s sense of patient craftsmanship reminded Ukatonen of Domatonen, the enkar who had trained him in healing and allu-a.

The memory of Domatonen triggered a sudden, explosive upwelling of longing and loneliness. As he struggled io control himself, he felt the sudden sharpness of surprise from Moki, Eerin, and the two elders. Moki and Eerin moved first, enfolding Ukatonen in reassurance. Slowly and uncertainly, the Aboriginal elders opened themselves :o him, exposing the depths that lay under the bright rippling thoughts and the core of dark wood to comfort him.

Ukatonen struggled against their help, but the pressure of loneliness was too much. He gave up and opened himself to them. He had not realized how much loneliness and homesickness had poisoned his spirit. He let go of his oneliness and pain, allowing the others to wash it away, antil the link dissolved. He felt light, almost hollow, like iie shed skin of a snake, empty of all the pain that had rilled him.

’You have been too long in the cities of the ghosts,” -.he man told him. “You need to go walkabout in the bush : or a while.”

Ukatonen nodded. They were right. He needed to lose himself in the familiarity of the forest.

Stan Akuka stood. “Thank you,” he said. “Come visit us. There’s a lot of good jungle up around the north end of Queensland. We’ll share songs, and dance and eat and talk, and do this new thing you have shown us.” He took a battered card out of his waist pouch. “Here’s my comm number. Let me know when you’re coming, and I’ll get everybody together. We’ll have a right big party.”

“You and the little one should come too,” the woman told Eerin.

Eerin nodded, and then the Aboriginals filed out of the room, leaving the ship as unceremoniously and quietly as they had come.

Ukatonen looked out the window of the lounge and saw them heading, not for the airdrome, but across the hot tarmac and into the grey-green bush.

Juna touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry, en,” she said. “I should have gotten you down here sooner. I didn’t know how bad it was.”

“You did the best you could, Eerin,” Ukatonen reassured her. “We are here now, and we will be in the forest in two days’ time.”

“I can hardly wait,” she said, yawning sleepily.

Ukatonen nodded absently. He was thinking about the Aboriginals, and their warnings. He would have to go to Darwin and talk to them someday soon.

A day and a half later, the zeppelin touched down at Darwin. When they reached the arrival lounge, Juna looked around. Selena had arranged for one of the family’s older sons, Marcus Fortunati, to meet her here. He would look after her and the Tendu until she went back up to the station.

A tall, dark-haired man came up to them. “Dr. Saari?” “Marcus?” Juna inquired. Juna had remembered him as a solemn-eyed toddler when she was a teenager. He had become a handsome adolescent while she was in the Survey Academy. She hadn’t seen him for years, and the image of him as a handsome teen had remained in her mind’s eye. He must be in his early thirties by now.

“Marcus? Is that you?”

“Hello, Aunt Juna.”

“For some reason, I thought you were younger.”

He blushed, looking suddenly a lot more like the teenager Juna remembered. “It’s been a long time, Aunt Juna.”

It was Juna’s turn to be embarrassed. “I know,” she said. “I was expecting a twenty-year-old. Selena told me you were in college.”

“I’m in graduate school now,” he told her. “I wanted to go to the Survey Academy, but they’ve cut back on admissions.”

Juna touched his arm sympathetically. “I’m sorry, Marcus.”

He shrugged. “It’s all right, Aunt Juna.”

“Please, Marcus, don’t make me feel any more of an old lady than I already do. Just call me Juna.”

“All right,” he said with a grin. “You look too young to be my auntie, anyway.”

Juna blushed at the compliment. Then she introduced him to Analin, the Tendu, and their squad of security escorts.

“If we had an elephant and a tent, we could call ourselves a circus,” she quipped.

Moki got their luggage while Marcus arranged for a shuttle to take them to the airport for their flight to Jakarta.

“What are you studying?” she asked him, when they were settled in the shuttle.

“I’m getting my Ph.D. in Anthropology,” he said. “I thought about doing Alien Contact studies, but since I couldn’t get into the Academy, anthropology seemed like a more practical goal.

“It’s just as well,” Juna said. “The A-C people are all theory and no practice. You’ll learn more in Anthropology. Where are you doing your fieldwork?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t decided yet. I was hoping I’d find something interesting in Indonesia.”

“I’m sure you will,” Juna told him. “It’s an interesting part of the world.”

Ukatonen and the others said goodbye to Analin in Palang, then flew on to Medan. They got to their hotel, ate a quick meal and collapsed into bed. The next day, a ranger from Gunung Leuser Park collected them in a van, glancing sidelong at the Tendu. Her name was Nesa, and she let Moki help load the bags, which endeared her to him immediately.

An hour out of the city, trees closed over their heads, and they were in the forest. Ukatonen had to fight the urge to leap out of the truck and head for the treetops. They stopped at a village market to pick up supplies. He and Moki were immediately surrounded by eager, staring children, chattering at them in their native language and broken Standard. Their security guards shifted nervously, but Eerin shook her head.

“Let them go,” she said.

Ukatonen bought two beautifully made mesh bags that looked rather like Tendu gathering bags except for their longer straps and their weaving pattern. He and Moki filled the bags with ripe fruit. They found a quiet corner of the market and spread the fruit out to eat, sharing it with the curious crowd of children, who darted in to take pieces from the aliens’ hands then darted back again, exclaiming at their own bravery. By that time, a crowd of adults had gathered and stood watching. When the fruit was all eaten, Ukatonen stepped onto a packing crate, and, drawing himself up, performed the bird chant.

The villagers clapped excitedly, and then one old man, clad in a faded sarong, his face a mass of wrinkles, brought out a gong and started to play. Other people came running with their musical instruments. Soon the air rang with complex rhythms and plaintive chants. People started dancing, drawing the Tendu and Juna and the park ranger into the performance. Ukatonen wove snatches of quarbirri into the dance. Moki simply improvised.

The villagers were absolutely delighted, and it was several hours before they got out of the village and back on the road, laden with gifts of fruit, cloth, and a couple of small flutes. Ukatonen felt more lighthearted than he had in months, and Moki was so excited that he could hardly sit still.

Nesa, the park ranger, was grinning from ear to ear as they pulled out of the village.

“We’ll have to arrange a show for you some evening,” she said. “The rangers and some of the villagers have put together an orchestra, and we can have some dancing and puppets.”

“I’d like that,” Ukatonen said. “I would be happy to perform a quarbirri for them, if you think they would be interested.”

“What you did in the village was incredible,” Nesa told him. “I’m sure they’d be eager to see you perform again.”

They reached the research station just before dark. Juna and the Tendu piled out of the van, and followed Nesa to their rooms in a traditional high-roofed adat house with its beautifully carved and painted roof gables. Ukatonen threw his suitcase in the corner, picked up one of the gathering bags, swung down off their balcony, and walked into the forest. Juna didn’t try to stop him. She knew how much he needed the peace and familiarity of the jungle. Moki put Juna’s suitcase on the bed and looked at her pleadingly.

“Go ahead, Moki. Come back when you need me.”

He [[Mowed Ukatonen in(6 Cfe 6mt JBSt Si MSfddS ]] stepped onto the balcony of Juna’s room.

“Are they going to be all right?”

Juna smiled. “They’re going to be happier than they’ve been since they left Tiangi. It’s as close to home as they can come on Earth. They’ll be back in a couple of days, full of questions.”

“But aren’t you worried about Moki?”

“Moki can survive anything this rain forest can throw at him, Marcus.”

“I— ” Marcus began. He looked terribly crestfallen, like some wet baby bird.

“You wanted to spend some time with them, is that it?” Juna said. “Don’t worry, you will, but they’ve been through so much in the last few weeks. It’s time to let them be who they are without humans around.”

Her stomach growled loudly. “The baby says it’s time to eat,” she said, patting her swelling belly. “Come on, let’s go find out what’s for dinner. We’ll see the Tendu when they’re ready for our company and not before.”

Ukatonen sat on a high branch, feeling a welcome warm rain running down his skin. He had a rain forest around him, this time for more than a few days. He could actually get to know this forest, and compare it to those on Tiangi. He took a deep breath, breathing in the warm, sweet scent of this forest. It was different from the forest in Monteverde; the underlying scents were spicier and more pungent here.

Somewhere nearby, a bird honked loudly. Ukatonen sat still, waiting, and soon an ungainly black bird with an enormous bill fluttered onto a nearby branch. He watched as it gazed suspiciously around for a few moments, then settled into the serious business of stripping fruit off the branch it was perched on.

Watching the bird, so reminiscent of the poo-eet bird of Tiangi, yet so different, Ukatonen felt a weight lift from his heart. He was home and not-home simultaneously. He was surrounded by the familiarity of a rain forest that was different from anything on Tiangi. Here was what he had traveled so long and so far to see.

Moki swung up beside him, startling the bird, which flew off, honking sonorously.

“I wish we could stay longer,” Moki said in skin speech, “It’s nice being back.”

Ukatonen flickered agreement, but looked away. Sadness clouded his skin at the thought of going back to Berry Station. Interesting as it was, it didn’t feel like home.

“I’m sorry, en.” Moki said. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“Let’s just enjoy the time we have here,” Ukatonen told him. “We can think about going home when the time comes.” But as he said this, he knew he couldn’t go back with Eerin and Moki. It would be hard on Moki, but he was clever and adaptable. He would be all right. Perhaps Moki would learn more about humans without another Tendu around to distract him.

For Juna, the green and golden days passed swiftly. Moki and Ukatonen emerged from the forest a couple of days later, their bags bulging with freshly gathered fruit. Ukatonen spent several days conferring with the researchers, while Moki spent time lounging on the riverbank with her. Then the Tendu vanished into the forest again. Each time they emerged from the green gloom they seemed happier and more relaxed, but also more alien. Moki and Ukatonen spoke more in skin speech and less in Standard. It was as though they were shedding the part of themselves that had learned to live in the human world.

Marcus hung around Ukatonen whenever the enkar was in camp. Ukatonen seemed to enjoy his company. He took Marcus along on walks through the forest, and started teaching him how to climb trees.

When he was not exploring with Marcus, Ukatonen spent most of his time talking with the researchers, listening to their plans for restoring the original ecology. Moki and Juna spent most of their time swimming in the river or resting on the shore, watching flocks of brilliant butterflies alight on the sandy bank to drink and sun themselves. Sometimes Juna closed her eyes and let herself imagine that they were all still on Tiangi.

A few days before they were due to leave, Ukatonen came down and sat beside Juna, on the bank of the river. There was a serious, thoughtful cast to his skin.

“What is it, en?”

“Dr. Sivagnam has invited me to work with the restoration team. I want to stay here.”

Juna felt a welling of sadness within her, like blood from a wound, but she wasn’t surprised by the enkar’s decision. She propped herself up on her arms to see him better. “What about Moki?” she asked.

“He’ll be all right. He’s happy to be wherever you are, you know that. But I— ” He hesitated. “I need this, Eerin. I can’t go back to Berry, not yet. I’ll be there to help you have the baby, but then I’ll come back here. I need to be here.”

“Who’ll look after you?”

“Marcus has offered. He wants to study me, and how I interact with humans.” He shrugged, looking away. “I’ll get a comm account, so that we can talk.”

“We’ll miss you,” she said, squinting up at him.

Ukatonen brushed her shoulder affectionately with his knuckles. “I’ll miss you too.”

They sat there for a long time, watching the sun dance on the river and the butterflies and birds come and go. Then Ukatonen got up, ducked into the river, and came out again, gleaming in the sun. He touched her shoulder again and walked into the forest.

The last few days were very subdued. The three of them spent a lot of time together. They linked as often as they could, bringing themselves into a strange, almost prescient state where each knew what the other was going to do almost as soon as the other thought of it. They spoke very little, there was no need.

At last it was time to go. Ukatonen went with them to the airport in Medan. They clasped hands in a last brief link and then Moki and Juna turned and got on the plane.

Ukatonen spent most of the next month alone in the forest. It felt good to have cast off his connections again, to be free of obligations, free to study this strange and tattered ecosystem. He had seen enough restoration projects to appreciate how much the humans had done to repair this badly damaged ecosystem. Still there were holes, places where species were missing. He brooded over his observations, trying to create a pattern out of the remnants of the whole.

Finally he returned to the research station.

“The forest is too broken,” he said, defeated. “I cannot repair it without samples from the creatures that are dead now,” he told them. “Without samples, I cannot re-create the species that the forest needs in order to be whole again.”

“How big a sample do you need?” Dr. Fardhi, the head biologist, asked hesitantly.

“Just a few cells.” He looked up in surprise. “You mean you’ve got some? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Here,” he said, and led him to a computer.

“We have a database containing all preserved samples of extinct species. If a sample exists, we can find it for you.”

Ukatonen watched columns of names and code numbers scroll by. “I don’t know the names of the animals we’re looking for. I know what they do, though.”

“We’ll help you,” Dr. Fardhi said eagerly.

Several hours later, they had come up with several possibilities.

“How about this one?” Dr. Karim suggested, pointing at the listing for a bird. “We have a lot of samples of that one.”

Ukatonen shook his head. “It would be better to start with something small and simple. An insect, perhaps.”

“Let’s use this butterfly, then,” said Dr. Nugroho, the entomologist. “We have samples on site.”

“Yes,” Ukatonen replied. “It would pollinate several important species. I’ll need some supplies, though,” he said, picking up a pencil and some paper to make a list.

Three weeks later, Ukatonen peered into the cracked aquarium that held the pupating butterflies.

’They’re hatching,” he said.

Dr. Nugroho leaned forward, his breath fogging the glass, as a wet-winged butterfly emerged from its smooth brown pupa, and slowly flapped its wings to dry them.

“Look at it! Look at it!” he whispered, as excited as a child. “I can’t believe it’s real!” He remembered himself long enough to stick his head out of the door to the lab and shout that the butterflies were hatching, before he returned to watching them emerge. The room filled with people. Ukatonen waited until the initial excitement had died down, then picked up the aquarium.

“What are you doing!” Dr. Nugroho cried.

“I was going to set them free,” Ukatonen said.

“But— ”

“There are three more tanks full of butterflies, if you want to study them,” Ukatonen said, a flicker of amusement running down his back.

Dr. Nugroho nodded grudgingly. “All right,” he said. “We’ll let these go.”

They trooped out into the forest. Ukatonen set the tank of butterflies down in the middle of a sunbreak near the trees they pollinated. He put his arms into the cage, drops of nectar beading up from his spurs. Soon his forearms were covered with butterflies, eagerly drinking nectar from his spurs. He lifted his arms up into a shaft of sunlight, waited a few moments while the sun warmed the insects, then gently shook his arms. The startled butterflies fluttered up into the air like colored pieces of paper caught in an updraft. The humans watched quietly, their faces alight with awe. One or two of them had tears running down their cheeks.

Ukatonen felt suddenly light inside, as though he could soar like one of the butterflies he had just released. It had been a very long time since he had felt such pure joy. He had found the right work to do.

The call woke Juna in the middle of the night. She struggled to sit up, aware that her bladder was full again. “Comm on!” she called. “Hello, who is it?” “Juna, it’s Analin. Ukatonen’s done it again! He’s revived an extinct species!” “Oh,” Juna said, struggling to wrap her tired brain around the news. “It’s the middle of the night here. Can you call me back in about four hours, when I’m awake?”

“I’m sorry, Juna, but the press has gone crazy. I need a statement now.”

Juna sighed. “Give me a couple of minutes, okay? I’ll call you back.”

When the comm winked off, Juna rolled out of bed and waddled down the hall to the bathroom. There was a month to go now, and the increasingly tyrannical demands the baby was putting on her body were getting tedious. She was tired of getting up several times a night to pee.

She stood up and rearranged her voluminous nightgown over the bulk of her belly, then waddled back to her room.

She turned on the light and sat down in front of the comm unit, trying to think through a fog of sleepiness. Ukatonen had brought back an extinct species. She smiled. It sounded like something he would do. She hoped that he wouldn’t get so involved in this project that he would forget to come up and help her have the baby. She and Moki both missed him a great deal, and she wanted his reassuring presence in the link when she went into labor.

She reached out to activate the comm. The sooner I deal with this problem, the sooner I can get back to bed, she thought, and punched the activation button.

“Comm on. Return last call.”

I’ve wet the bed, Juna thought as she awoke. Then realization dawned on her. Thank god Ukatonen got here on Tuesday, she thought with a sudden sense of relief.

“Moki, wake up,” she called. “My water’s broken. It’s time. Get Ukatonen and Selena, call Dr. Engle.” As she was getting out of bed, she had a contraction. She propped herself up and tried to breathe through it, then got up, grabbed a clean, dry nightgown, and headed for the bath-oom.

Ukatonen met her as she was emerging from the bathroom. “Moki said the baby is coming.”

“Yes, my water has broken.”

“Shouldn’t you be lying down?”

“It’s all right, Ukatonen,” Selena told him as she came down the hallway with Moki. “The baby won’t be coming for a while yet.”

“Here,” Juna said, holding out her arms. “Let’s go into my room and link. That’ll help you understand what’s happening.”

They sat in a circle on the floor.

Selena touched her shoulder as they were reaching out to link. “Juna?”

“Yes?” Juna said, concerned that Selena was going to try to stop the link.

“Can I join this link? If I’m to be your midwife, it might help me see how things are going.”

“A-are you sure?” Juna asked, surprised.

Selena gave her a long, serious look. “I think it will help.”

’Thank you,” Juna said.

While Moki and Ukatonen were showing Selena how to link, another contraction rippled through Juna’s abdomen. They waited until it passed, and then the four of them linked.

Juna could feel her daughter’s cloudy, unfocused fear and confusion. She enfolded the baby with love and reassurance. Cradled in her mother’s familiar presence, the baby relaxed. Moki and the others surrounded the child with their love and comfort. Juna felt Selena’s quiet, joyful presence watching over her and the baby, and her own worry was eased.

Another contraction went through her like some internal earthquake. The baby’s fear surged and Moki and Ukatonen soothed the frightened child. There was a stretching pain as Juna’s womb squeezed the baby downward, and she remembered to pant hard. Ukatonen blocked her pain, and helped her relax and breathe. When the contraction was over, they gently eased out of the link.

Dr. Engle was watching with Toivo, Astrid, and several other women in the family.

“It’s all right. They were just checking the baby,” Juna reassured them.

“And how is she?” Dr. Engle asked.

Juna smiled. “Scared but strong.”

“And Mom?” he asked.

Selena nodded. “She just had a nice strong contraction. Her cervix is dilating. She’s not in a lot of pain, and she’s relaxed. The baby’s head is exactly where it needs to be. It should be an easy labor.”

“Good. Next time, let me in the link. I want to see what’s going on.”

After that, it was just a matter of time, walking up and down the long hallway to the common room, pausing to breathe through the contractions. They linked every few contractions, reassuring the baby, and helping Juna relax, easing her cervix open.

Juna and the baby rode out the labor and delivery cushioned on the love and support of the women of the For-tunati family, assisted by Dr. Engle and the Tendu. The older children tiptoed in and out of the delivery room, fetching and carrying, or just watching quietly in a corner. The youngest watched with their mothers. When the baby crowned, every child old enough to understand was there to watch the delivery.

In a corner of her mind, in between the waves of contractions, Juna smiled. The public nature of this delivery reminded her of the village of Narmolom, on Tiangi, where the idea of a closed door was an unknown concept. She could feel Dr. Engle’s hidden irritation at this small audience when they linked.

“It’s all right, Doctor, they aren’t distracting me. I like saving them here,” she murmured.

Then there was one last push, and the baby was out. The link between them remained, a little fainter now, but still there as Dr. Engle cleaned out the baby’s mouth and mrned her upside down to drain any remaining fluid from iw lungs. The infant, confused by the sudden transition arom the womb to the outside world, cried out, a lusty, Wealthy squall that brought tears of happiness to Juna’s eyes. Selena took the baby and laid her on Juna’s chest. Moki moved closer so that she could bring her linked arm up to hold the child.

Juna looked down at her daughter, enfolding her in love and happiness through the fading link. It was strange, seeing this baby she knew so well for the very first time. The infant grew still, her unfocused eyes wide with surprise and wonder.

“Hello, little one. Welcome. Welcome and love. Your name is Mariam. That was your grandmother’s name.” Juna remembered her mother holding Toivo out for her to see, how his small brown fingers had held her finger. If only her mother had lived to see her namesake. Tears of mingled joy and sorrow came at the thought.

Ukatonen gently eased them out of the link. Dr. Engle stripped the blood out of the umbilical cord and cut it. Confused, Mariam began to cry again. Juna held her until the crying stopped. Then she handed the baby to Selena, who washed her off and swaddled her warmly, while Moki watched.

“Here’s your sister, Moki,” Selena said, handing him the baby. “Why don’t you take her out into the common room and show her to the rest of the family?”

Moki took the infant, cradling her carefully. This was his sister, something no Tendu had ever had before. He proudly carried Mariam out to show to the rest of the family, handing her first to the family’s Eldest, Niccolo. Mariam stared muzzily up at his beaming, wrinkled face and white beard. Niccolo’s eyes shone with happiness as he held his new great-grandchild, gently bouncing her up and down for a few moments.

Niccolo passed the baby to Teuvo. “Congratulations, on your new granddaughter,” he said. Their eyes met over the newborn baby. Niccolo patted him on the shoulder. “It never gets old, does it?”

Teuvo shook his head as he smiled down at his new granddaughter, a look of wonder and awe on his face. Then he gently passed her along to Anetta.

“Welcome, Mariam,” Anetta said. “It’s good to finally meet you!”

Mariam began to fuss and Moki took her back. He slipped a spur into her skin to find out what was bothering her. She was hungry and frightened by the noise and the bright lights. He calmed her down and fed her a little through his spurs, then took her back to Selena.

“My sister, Mariam, wants to be some place quiet and dark,” he told her. “She’s hungry too.”

“Poor thing,” Selena said. “It’ll be a few hours before Juna’s milk comes in. I’ll give her a little water, but it’s better if she’s really hungry when she starts to nurse. We’ll put her down for a bit, and let her get used to being born.”

Selena laid her in the crib. “Isn’t she wonderful, Moki?”

“She’s so helpless,” Moki said. “She’d die without us to protect her.” He felt a sudden fierce protectiveness for this tiny mite. It surprised him to feel like this. It was not a particularly Tendu sort of feeling.

“But we are here,” Selena said, “and we’ll do our best to keep her safe and happy, won’t we?”

Moki nodded, and stuck his finger into the baby’s waving hand. Her fingers closed around his fist with surprising strength. She was not as helpless as he had first thought. Blue and green laughter rippled over his skin. “She’s strong,” he said. He looked up at Selena. “I’m glad she’s my sister.”

Selena touched Madam’s soft tan cheek. “It’s going to be wonderful watching her grow up.”

Mold’s skin flared a clear, strong blue. “Yes,” he replied. “Yes, it will be.”

Ukatonen excused himself and went to the kitchen, where he downed two apples, three slices of bread, and a cup of the humans’ honey, so much like that on Tiangi. Then he arranged a platter of food for Moki and the others. After helping Eerin through her daughter’s birth, he was profoundly glad that the Tendu laid eggs, and small ones, at that. He pushed open the door to the delivery room with his foot, and set his tray on a counter. While Moki, Selena, and Dr. Engle were eating, he sat beside Eerin.

“How are you feeling?”

She smiled down at the baby, and then back up at him. “Happy, but sore.”

“Shall I— ” Ukatonen began.

Eerin shook her head. “No. With all you and Moki did to ease my labor, I feel a lot better than most women do after giving birth.” She shifted cautiously on the bed. “Right now, I want to feel like I just had a baby.”

Ukatonen was puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

Eerin smiled again. “Having a baby is an important passage, Ukatonen. It seems right to be a little sore.” She yawned. “What I really need is some sleep. Would you take Mariam, and put her in her’crib for me?”

Ukatonen gently picked the infant up, cradling its warm, soft, fragrant head in one slender, long-fingered hand. She was such a fragile little creature, and so helpless. She would be entirely dependent on those around her for food, shelter, and protection for years to come. Suddenly, much of the humans’ strange behavior made sense. Without a fierce sense of love and protectiveness, how could they raise such demanding offspring?

He looked at Selena. She set down her cup, and came over.

“Here, let me help you,” she said. He laid Mariam carefully in her crib, then stepped back while Selena made sure the baby was comfortable.

“It’s all about this, isn’t it?” Ukatonen said to Selena as she smoothed the blanket over the baby. “It’s all about children.”

She glanced up at him, her face thoughtful and perhaps a little puzzled, and said gravely, “Yes, I suppose it is.” They stood watching as Mariam fussed experimentally for a while, then slid into sleep.

Over the next several weeks Ukatonen watched Eerin and her family and their children. For the first week Eerin had nothing to do except nurse the baby and rest. This was harder than it sounded, because Mariam woke every few hours to eat.

“Would it help if I taught her to fall asleep?” Ukato-nen offered.

Eerin looked startled. “I hadn’t thought of that. Can you do that?”

“Easily.”

So he and Eerin began linking with Mariam when she was put down in her crib, gently easing her into the rhythms of sleep. In about ten days the baby slept soundly, waking only once in the night for a feeding.

“Thank you,” Eerin told him, as they stood over the sleeping baby’s crib. “It’s been wonderful, watching you work with Mariam. Her brain is so crowded with possibilities. There are so many neural pathways. No wonder babies have such a hard time finding their way into sleep.”

Ukatonen looked up at her, ears spread wide. “Watching you and Mariam together, I understand humans much better.” He shook his head. “Your children are so helpless. No wonder you fight. You have to defend your children from a hostile world. Our young ones come to us able to survive on their own. From there, it is only a matter of teaching them to be Tendu. You must give them nearly everything.”

“That’s true, en. And if they do not get enough from us, especially now, when they need us most, they grow up incomplete and broken. Sometimes, despite the best a family can do, humans grow up broken anyway.” She looked iown at Mariam, and smiled a fond, maternal smile. “It’s in enormous responsibility, Ukatonen.”

“I think you’re capable of dealing with that responsibility,” he said, “if you will forgive an inexpert opinion.”

Eerin touched his shoulder fondly. “Thank you, en,” she said. “I have a lot of good help.”

“I am, however, concerned about Moki,” Ukatonen went

[[fi. “A bami is not used to having sisters to compete for

— us sitik’s attention. Right now, it is new and interesting,

— ax that will wear off, and then there may be trouble. I

*ill not be here to help you when that happens."]]

“Don’t worry,” Eerin assured him. “I’ll keep an eye on Moki. I wish you could stay, but I understand. You’ve seemed happier than I’ve seen you since we left Tiangi. Come back when you can. I don’t think it is good for you to be away from Moki for too long. He is the only other of your kind here.”

“Yes, but I am an enkar,” he reminded her. “I am used to being alone.”

“You are also far away from your people,” she reminded him. “It is hard, even for you. And Moki is not an enkar. He needs you too. Visit us often, en. In half a year, when Mariam is old enough to do without me for a couple of weeks, we will come and visit you on Earth.” She smiled. “I can hardly wait to see all the interesting things that you’re doing.”

Ukatonen watched Berry Station dwindle behind him, and thought about the insights he had gained from watching Eerin and Mariam. Observing them, he suddenly understood an essential piece of human nature. He had come much closer to knowing humans in their wholeness.

But there were huge gaps in his understanding. He needed to understand humans completely, so that they could be brought into harmony with the Tendu. It had to be done quickly. Humans posed too much of a danger to his people and to their own world.

Still, they had managed to step back off the rotting branch of disaster before. But could they keep on doing it? How long before they made a fatal misstep?

He shook his head. It wasn’t just the promise he had made to abide by the Contact Protocols that held him back. The truth was that he liked humans the way they were. They were suspicious and quarrelsome, true, but they had a vitality and a curiosity about the universe that the Tendu lacked. But their curiosity and aggressiveness were woven together as tightly as a weedah’s nest. Pulling out even one strand would make the whole thing fall apart.

He settled back in his seat, closed his eyes, and repeated the verbal portion of the Hitchee quarbirri to himself. The Hitchee quarbirri told the story of a foolish hermit who tried to empty the forests of everything that could possibly harm him. On Tiangi, the quarbirri was regarded as hugely funny, but here among the humans, faced with the kinds of decisions that he was expected to make, the story became deadly serious.

After the foolish hermit had finished making the forest safe, everything was in chaos. Would the same thing happen here? It was clearly not yet time to decide. He needed to know more. That would take time, and study. He took out his computer and told it to wake up.