Becoming Alien (23 page)

And Granite Grit’s mirror had arrived. He took one look at his quill tips and hung a sheet over the mirror, “until I look pretty, with full feathers.”

Gypsum stopped teasing us about kin and mirror long enough to bitch about the laser discs that had come with the music machine.

Old Shrew seemed to look down at his distant cousin with anxious wonder.

The next morning, I made a video for Warren to let him know I was alive and okay, so he could see it once he was out of the crazy house or prison.

After I made the tape, Black Amber sent a message to me over the terminal:
No public apology for you or for Rhyodolite. You will go to Yauntra as a linguistics team observer/trainee. Not Immediately. You need more polish. Black Amber, Sub-Rector, Academy and Institutes.

Yauntra—damn Yauntra again. Being a cadet or officer was real serious, I realized, not a game. I began to read Federation history, trying to figure out those wars that left melted wall stumps.

One morning several weeks later, Black Amber grumbled at me over the computer phone about my academic progress. I lay in bed, half listening, checking out the plants in the courtyard—especially the bush with narrow prickly leaves, like a dieting holly, and the pillow shrub. From week to week, they grew at each other as though they were going to duel under the alien sun.

Terribly lonely,
alienated,
you might say in English, I became a cosmic book buster, but it was a harder school than Earth’s. No class lasted longer than a week, and some were condensed agony, diurnal cadets going sleepless lest we miss some fantastic conceit blazing through a crepuscular alien brain at four in the morning. But I hardly saw anyone again after a class.

“Rhyodolite and Cadmium now have the same rank, since the Yauntry complained,” Black Amber said through the computer speaker. “They went off into space.”

Not into it precisely. The gate system avoided the tedious empty spaces and cosmic rays by hopping right from Karst to other gravity nets—instant alien, in no time at all. “The computer
tried
to show me gate math, once when I asked,” I told her sleepily.

But I was good at comparative anatomy…I found out that Gwyngs have disgusting sex lives. They go into season—like Black Amber at the party, only she was tamed down by some Barcon counter-pheromones—like cats or dogs. And the females like being pregnant as much as they can get, because for a Gwyng, delivery is like coming.

“Red Clay? Are you listening?” Black Amber said.

“How did the thing with Wy’um work out?” I asked. The babies, smaller than kittens, just head and arms and a tadpole-like tail, crawl hand over tiny hand up the sensitive stomach hairs. After a pouch host has had its own litter, the Gwyngs take out some of the pouch host babies. Mother Gwyngs make their little Gwyngs, crawling and dying, go up into that cow-rhino beast.

“We were merely trying out your morality.”

And the female goes into heat until she’s pregnant again. Gwyngs.

The senior instructor had said, “If they were successful with every parturition we’d be outnumbered by Gwyngs in a hundred years, all of us.”

Barcons, on the other hand, mate for life and tend the babies together, both parents giving milk. One instructor was a Barcon.

Weird stuff.

“Work harder in chemistry,” Black Amber said again and signed off. She never came to see me, just bugged me over the terminal.

Three times a week, I worked out in the gym as the Barcons prescribed—mostly with free weights since designing machines for over a hundred different species would be impossible—all the different ranges of motion, tendon insertions.

The gym was a long hall with mirrors and video displays on the walls. Some Karst II species used ultrasonic feedback, but I just watched the mirror and the monitor and tried to move as I should.

Furry and remote, Barcon instructors prowled around. Once or twice a week, one would come up and move my joints through their range of motion.

The hall was cold, about 50 degrees American. Some species had no sweat glands. Other aliens, even if they did, exercised all bundled up.

Sometimes the barbell collars were wet, and the whole gym rank with un-Earthly odors.

We all watched each other, but nobody was friendly.

Granite Grit took the cover off his terminal, filing down a rod to fit the screws like Warren did.

“Is there any information not available to your computer?” Granite Grit asked me.

“Can’t get anything on Earth on my terminal,” I said, not paying much attention as I tried to figure out why Amber’d scheduled a Gwyng ceremonial game session for me.

“Could you ask some questions of your terminal and I’ll ask mine of Earth?” Granite said, moving his bed down to floor level.

We tried, but the computer got very coy:
Accesses to all computers in this area are cross-restricted.

Lifting his hocks high, Granite went to his cubicle for components. He tried to fit them in my terminal, cursing in bird with his nictitating membrane half covering his eyes.

“Stop,” I told him. “I need my terminal for study.”

I got back up in the biology program and hammered on.

“Does studying and work all the time bother you?” Granite asked.

“Sure,” I said. “But…” He’d come over to the central area, and when I looked at him, he sank down on his hocks and twisted his hands together.

He looked so concerned. Shit, I was lonely. But tomorrow I had hateful remedial chemistry, a whole lab of it with three instructors, so I switched programs, studied while Granite Grit tried to fit a scanning wand system to his terminal. Finally, I went to sleep tangled in valences, bonds, weights, and coils and coils of carbonaceous matter.

The next day, I came back to find camera units fixed to all our computers.

Gypsum said, “You sneaking shits,” pivoted on his heel, and thereafter only came to the room to sleep.

As I watched some weird Gwyng exchange of small pebbles in patterns I couldn’t follow, I wondered what Black Amber would do if one day I didn’t go through the schedule. Just stop for a day, fool around. What did they do here for playing hooky? Maybe they’d throw me out on the primitive range?
Yeah, and maybe I don’t give a shit.
I never saw Black Amber or Tesseract after the party—weeks, months maybe, had gone, by.

So the next day, I ran the track, ate the alien breakfast, and went down to the lake where we’d swum stoned, alien differences obliterated. Great drug, I thought, they need to improve it so we can dose out every day. I’d seen a fish jump then, so now brought a pin and string. Grubbing under some rocks, I found a live alien thing—like an earthworm but with a crown of Cilia. Reddish brown. I threaded it on the bent pin.

The bass-sort-of-fish came up with a bulging belly. As I grabbed it, I felt squirming. Silver babies fell out the belly and swam away, or flapped on the bank.

God, even the fish are alien!
I threw the mama back and trembled.

Under trees with tiny silver-bottomed leaves, I sat, then lay back and napped restlessly, as though I
could dream my way back to Earth’s familiar jails.

After my nap, I wandered over to the memorial walls and found a new name added. Looking at the names, I stood, trying futilely to put my hands in non-existent pockets. A cool alien wind tapped my face and shuffled plate-size leaves until they squirmed on their almost muscular stems arid rolled up. Damn alien tree didn’t want to shade me.

Mica’s name wobbled as my eyes filled with tears—not crying for him. He wasn’t getting teased for being hick. Same bullshit as before, for what? The chance to let aliens shoot at me? Some glory for less than five dollars’ worth of gold on a granite wall.

Maybe, I thought, I should volunteer for some really impressive mission—go down in altered face and foul the horrid plots of some truly offensive alien.

And live.

But I didn’t heal fast enough, I’d been told after my medical evaluations here.

Goddamn stuck here, hungry, with all the hassles.
I thought about going for lunch, but I’d be back on the computer. They might catch me before I ate. I had a few vending machine tokens in my tunic pocket, so I walked hunched down to a building with snack machines, watching so I could turn if an alien I recognized came by.

All the weirdest aliens were out today—one bird, then several pug-faced ones like the hospital receiving clerk, pairs of Barcons who walked like the secret lords of us all. A Gwyng female strutted by, trailed by three Gwyng males with nostril slits clapping open and shut.

And here I was, eating alien crackers filled with unsweetened jelly that was maybe poisonous to me.

All afternoon, I walked from one courtyard to another, up by the Rector’s glass and stone lodge, down by the main gate where I saw alien peddlers out beyond it, over by each of the main towers, stopping to sit on stumps of fried ancient walls.

Even with all the towers, I finally got lost, but found the lake around sunset, planet roll-around time.
I surrender!
I went back to my eating hall.

I was so hungry. The crackers hadn’t been enough for all my walking. “Where have you been?” a tablemate asked.

“Out,” I said, punching in my choices.

Code flashed across the table display. A Barcon came out of the kitchen area, headed straight for our table, “Cadet Red Clay, I will walk you back to your dorm.”

“I’m so hungry,” I said, almost whining.”

As my tablemates looked from him to me, the Barcon replied, “You may finish your meal.”

I almost choked on the food when the little bear brought it.

The Barcon stood, waiting. As I got up, the Barcon moved in close behind.

“No trouble,” I said. “I’m heading back for my dorm.”

I walked across campus, trying to pretend I wasn’t aware of the furry giant following me. The Rector’s Man Tesseract and a hugely angry Black Amber were waiting at my room.

“He appears anxious, but not excessively so,” the Barcon said. Tesseract looked relieved, but Amber re-grouped her face muscles toward disgust. Tesseract sat down in one of my chairs, looked from her to me, and smiled faintly.

“Did you have fun?” he asked.

“No.” I sat down on my bed and began to finger the controls.

“One shouldn’t throw out schedules unless one is going to have fun, Cadet Red Clay,” he said.

“Yes, Rector’s Man Tesseract,” I said, not trusting to smile myself. We all paused there a moment. “I want a pass for Red Clay tonight, so we can see what happens to those who can’t/won’t cope with our system,” Black Amber finally said.

“Black Amber, I read that you tried to introduce him to the primitives,” Tesseract said. “Red Clay, we seem to have similar ancestors, if that’s kin of yours.” He looked at the Old Tree Shrew poster on my wall. “Males of your species find it hard to fit in with a new group?”

“Yes, Rector’s Man Tesseract.” I looked at Amber, whose face twitched toward an oo, very slightly. “I’m sorry I ignored my schedule today, but I was so tired. I just keep studying into the night. I don’t know how I’m
doing—no report cards.
I feel stupid in chemistry. People make fun of me, my planet, my species. I don’t have friends.”

Black Amber sat down. Tesseract began, “Red Clay, you’ve picked up the necessary basics of comparative sapient behavior. Considering that you’ve had to learn all new terms and you lack the chemistry, you’re doing reasonably well in biology. The gym observers have made no complaints. Your reading shows an interesting curiosity. Unfortunately, the computer shows you do nothing but study. No dances, gallery visits, casual discussion groups…”

“I’m a
goddamn
refugee.”

Black Amber looked from the Tree Shrew poster to me, then said, “Tesseract, I
do
monitor my cadet’s progress. Cadet, are these studies too difficult/demanding for you? We’ll bring back more of your species if you are a successful cadet here. I met several prospects for your breeding/social group when I was on your planet.”

“What do I need the
dumbshit
chemistry for?”

“You need the chemistry to understand weapons classes, astronomy, biological and medical systems.” Black Amber was bloody implacable.

“Yes, chemistry, then. But what kind of English do I need to know anyway?”

“My dear Red Clay,” Tesseract said, “how will your people like to have their species represented by a
hick
when they finally come to space? Your English has improved.”

“I speak with an alien accent, thanks to all the surgery. You’re alienizing my English even more.”

“Red Clay,” Black Amber said smoothly, “a slightly alien accent would be more desirable (sexually/socially) than a backward one.”

“Oh-fucking-kay,”
I said.

“But your reading is a trifle disorganized,” Black Amber continued. “Thank you, Tesseract, Quad-duty Barcon, I’ll deal with him now.”

“He has done well for an isolate” the Barcon rumbled as it turned to leave. Tesseract winked at me and followed the Barcon out.

“If you have my future Earth friends picked out, then I suppose you have some fucking aliens to shove down my throat, too,”
I said to Black Amber in English.

“I can easily get a translation of that,” she said, drawing back from me a little. “I have an excellent memory for random-pattern sounds. If you have my future E’th frientz pigged out, then I suppose you h’ve some fuckin aliens to shove down my throat, too. You should tell me what that means.”

“You have my Earth friends picked out? Who do you plan to have as friends for me here?” I asked more calmly.

She looked thoughtful for a Gwyng. “Cadmium should be back fairly soon. Rhyodolite had a rough time and isn’t on Karst now.”

“I’m not a Gwyng, you know.”

“Yes, you’ve made that clear/plain with traces of obnoxious behavior. But I want you to be perfect of your kind. I will take you to see something tonight. Academy failures live there if they can’t get passage home.”