Otherness (19 page)

What a fluke of timing! Consider. Had we on Earth been slower, and the Irdizu faster by a millennium—a mere flicker as time goes by in this vast galaxy—it might have been
they
who discovered
us
.

Let this realization teach us humility as we seek to learn from our new neighbors.

She stepped down the lander's ramp with a grace much like the way she flew machines across the sky, somehow both demure and erotic at the same time. Minoru's heart was pounding; nevertheless, he kept his greeting properly reserved. They exchanged bows. To his delight he saw she carried an overnight bag.

"So what is this surprise you promised me?" Yukiko asked. Did something in her voice imply possibilities?

Ah, but what are possibilities? To become real, they must be earned.

"You'll see," he told her, and gestured toward the village, where smoke curled up from smoldering cook fires. "This way. Unless you want to freshen up first?"

She laughed. "Wriggling out of this suit so soon after I put it on? No, I 'freshened' in the lander. Come on, I'm hungry."

So, she's guessed what this is about
. Minoru was only slightly disappointed. After all, her insight showed an aspect of compatibility. They thought alike.

Or at least we share one obsession
.

It hardly seemed intimate, walking slowly side by side in clunking, ground-hugging steps, carefully maintaining balance on the sloping path. Gravity was like a treacherous octopus, always waiting to grab you. Swaddled inside their suits—even with their arms and lower legs now free by decree of Okuma Base doctors—it felt as if they were performing a long, slow promenade.

"Where is Emile?" she asked as they approached the plateau where the village center lay.

"He's observing an Irdizu folk moot, over in the civic arena." Minoru gestured toward where several close hills formed a bowl, from which the low hum of several hundred voices could be heard, rising and falling in a moaning melody. Minoru had witnessed moots before, though none this large. They struck him as somewhat like a Greek play—with chorus, actors, and all—crossed with Nõ theater, and interrupted at odd moments by bouts of activity reminiscent of sumo wrestling.

"Emile persuaded the Village Mothers to hold a special event for the transients, to relieve tensions and maybe give them a stake in the community."

"Sounds pretty daring, an alien making suggestions like that."

Minoru shrugged. "Well, we had to try something. The poor kid was racked with guilt, even though the situation isn't really our fault. Anyway, it seems to be working. I'd have been expected to attend also, as an honored guest, only I'm one of the cooks for the feast afterward, so I'm excused."

"Ah, so." She said it calmly. But had he picked up just a trace of excitement in her voice?

Phs'n'kah had been tending to the preliminaries for Minoru, carefully removing the external carapaces of thirty recently snared, inch-long
zu'unutsus
, and one by one laying the nude insectoids on a wooden cutting board near the cooking fire. Before being cut up, the
zu'unutsus
looked like Earth caterpillars and fit a similar niche in this ecosystem, though nowadays they were very rare.

"Thank you," he told his assistant, then explained to Yukiko, "In my routine bio assay I finally struck it rich. Two plants and this insectoid, all of whom practice chemical segregation of just the kind we need."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that in all three cases, every chemical that might be toxic to humans happens to be segregated—isolated—to specific parts or organs. A lot better than those berries the Purple Cliffs team fed you—"

Yukiko frowned. "I was ill for a week."

"—which were considered 'edible' only because the poison levels were 'tolerable.' In this case all you have to do is carefully remove the bad parts. . . ." With a dissecting scalpel he deftly excised portions that served functions similar to kidneys and livers for the
zu'unutsus
, flicking them in high arcs to sizzle on the coals. "You might say it's like preparing fugu back home—"

"Really?" She gasped, grabbing his arm tightly through the suit fabric. "You devil, you!" Yukiko seemed impressed, thrilled, when he compared his delicacy to Oriental blowfish, considered one of Japan's paramount delicacies. Fugu chefs were respected more than surgeons, although mistakes still killed scores of customers each year. Indeed, risk seemed to be part of the excitement. Minoru had been about to assure her with his precautions, but Yukiko's expression stopped him. From the look in her eyes, either she had great faith in him, or this was a girl who relished a thrill.
Both, I hope
.

Even after all of his careful chemical examinations and the joyful discovery of something edible out of the countless field samples, it had still taken considerable trial and error to reach this point. The recipe had come about after many trials, of which the last involved both himself and Emile as guinea pigs. Nevertheless, the culmination had been saved for tonight. It was to be the first complete, all-Genjian meal ever served for humans. That is, if all went as planned.

Carefully he slit open several
yer'tari
roots and slipped the flayed filets of
zu'unutsus
inside, along with chopped
qui'n'mathi
.

They should bake for an hour," he said, wrapping each combination in funnel-weed fronds and putting them directly on the coals. "Why don't we go for a walk in the meantime?"

The other cooks, most of them males with infants riding on their tails, hissed amiably as Minoru led Yukiko through the press toward a steep embankment overlooking the tidal basins. There the two humans sat down, dangling their legs over a stone wall, looking up as clouds parted to show the desert-brown face of Chujo. It was eerie to realize that up there, right now, some of their crewmates were attempting to make contact with aliens even more enigmatic than the Irdizu.

"You know, your latest report almost got you recalled to Okuma Base," she told him as she watched sparse clouds lay shadows across the sister world.

"I know. How is Dr. Sato taking it?"

"He's hopping mad. And Dr. O'Leary feels hurt you made these revelations without consulting him first."

"That might have gotten my report buried in the database. This is something that must be known by all, before we decide how we are going to make our homes on this world."

"Our principal purpose is study."

"Indeed. But we'll also live as men and women. Have homes. Perhaps children. We should know the implications and not take steps unconsidered, like animals."

She looked at him, obviously feeling his intensity. Minoru sensed somehow that she approved. "Tell me about the cycles, then," she asked.

Minoru sighed. He had gone through it all so many times, first over and over in his head and in the database, then in his report, and finally in interviews for the Team
Yamato
News. But this audience could be refused nothing.

"There is no coincidence," he began. "Or at least it's not as great a coincidence as Dr. Sato thought. It's still surprising that two stars as near each other as Sol and Murasaki developed technological cultures so close in time. But we did not just happen on Genji's solitary industrial revolution. It's occurred on this planet before, at least six or seven times." From a pouch he drew a corroded lump of metal. "This coin or medallion was found locally, only a little ways down, but no native can identify the writing. I doubt they'll be able to on the mainland, either.

"The present culture settled this island eighty generations ago. Before that it was deserted. But earlier still, other Irdizu lived here. Those occupations came in multiple waves. And several times they had metallurgy."

"Did they . . . was each fall because of war?" Yukiko asked in a hushed voice.

"Who can say? Oh, there's no sign of nuclear combat, if that's what you mean. No war-induced endless winter. You might think there was such a holocaust, though, from the way species died out in waves, then recovered after Irdizu receded again. And every decline seemed to occur at the same pace as environmental degradation."

"No wonder Dr. Sato's mad at you! You agree with the Americans and Spacers—that technology can harm a world!"

Minoru shrugged. "There was a time when that was the main dogma of ecology. Perhaps we abandoned such a view too quickly, for reasons more political than scientific."

"I don't know what you mean."

"No matter." He shook his head. "Anyway, the Genjians appear to have been lucky; one of the limitations of their race actually led to its survival. Since they were—and are—constrained to living near the shore, none of their past civilizations did much harm to the
interiors
of the continents. Those and the great oceans served as genetic reservoirs, so that each time Irdizu civilization fell, and the natives' numbers plummeted, there were lots of species that could drift into the emptied niches and fill them again. In fact, it's rather startling how quick some recovery times were. As little as a thousand years in one case."

Yukiko frowned. "I'm beginning to see what you mean. Back at Okuma Base engineers talk about advantages we can offer the Irdizu. With the right tools they could exploit much more territory—" Then she blinked. "Oh . . . and we humans will make our homes in the highlands where we can breathe without machines. But anything we do up there will affect whole watersheds. . . ."

Minoru shrugged. "Just so."

They sat in silence. Minoru regretted having spoiled the mood, and was at a loss how to recover their previous high spirits.
Idiot
, he thought.
Can't you ever leave business at the shop
?

But he shouldn't have worried. Yukiko nudged him. "Well, we humans haven't done any harm
yet
, have we? Never borrow karma from next week, I always say."

He grinned in response. "A wise woman is a treasure beyond price."

"And it's a wise man who realizes what outlasts beauty." She answered his smile. "So it should be almost time now, yes? Let's eat!"

The moot was still in its last phases when they returned to the cook area. But stragglers were already slithering into the clearing to line up in winding queues with clay and wicker utensils. Newcomer females mixed with the locals in apparent conviviality, and Minoru could tell Emile's plan must have worked. For now, at least, all thought of strife had been put aside.

He fished the
zu'unutsus
from the coals and gingerly unwrapped the steaming leaves. Balancing their meals on native crockery, he and Yukiko claimed jars of a yeasty native brew that had been deemed only marginally poisonous by Okuma Base doctors . . . no more dangerous than some of the concoctions whipped up aboard the
Yamato
during the long voyage out.

When Yukiko inhaled the aroma, then bit into her first roll, the expression on her face was Minoru's reward. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and he heard a soft sob of joy. The ridiculousness of such emotion—to be spent on a mere meal—did not escape her, and she burst out laughing, demurely hiding her mouth behind one hand. Minoru, too, alternately laughed and cried as he savored the rich, delicious flavors.

Together, silently, they ate and watched Murasaki's Star settle toward the horizon, igniting the western cloud banks with streamers of golden fire.

At last, wiping his mouth through his helmet's chow-baffle, Minoru commented. "Stupid Spacers. They hurried home with a few chemical samples to patent and sell. So what? If they'd stayed another few months, we could have sent
zu'unutsus
home with them, and we'd all be rich, Spacer and
Yamato
crew alike."

"I'm just as glad that never happened." Yukiko sighed. "For the first time . . . I think I can picture
this
as my home. I don't even want to share this with Earthlings."

Then she grinned at the irony of her remark. It felt good, stretched out in the twilight, laughing together and sharing the very first moment two humans drew a full measure of sustenance from Genji and only Genji. "Of course we'll have to plant Earth crops on the highlands, and make orbital farms, and do lots of other things. But it's good to know we can partake of this world, too, if we just search long and hard enough."

She agreed in silence, but set his heart beating fester by slipping her hand into his.

The noisy clamor of Irdizu banqueting rose behind them, followed by a round of their strange, atonal singing. Minoru and Yukiko lay contentedly, watching Chujo head slowly from crescent to quarter phase. They barely turned to look when Phs'n'kah waddled up to ask if there was anything more Minoru needed. It seemed several of the newcomer females wanted to serenade Phs'n'kah, tonight, and he had gotten a babysitter for the kids. . . .

"No, I don't need anything more. You've already earned a bonus today," Minoru assured Phs'n'kah. "Tomorrow, though, I want to get together some of our best foragers and go after some more
zu'unutsus
! We must learn how to breed them in captivity. Send samples to Okuma Base. . . ."

Minoru was already thinking how well this might serve as a peace offering to Dr. Sato, and so he rambled on for a while before noticing the stance of the Irdizu male, whose snorkel drooped disconsolately.

"What's the matter?" Minoru asked through the translator.

"
No more
zu'unutsus.
All ***. This was the
***."

Yukiko gasped. But Minoru squeezed her hand and laughed, a little nervously.

"Oh, come on, I know they weren't plentiful. But surely there must be some hives left in the hills. Or on other islands . . .," he asked hoarsely.

His voice trailed off as he wished he did not know this Genjian so well. Or that Phs'n'kah weren't so well-known for utter reliability and truthfulness.

"
That is where we had to go to find these
," Phs'n'kah answered simply.