The Color of Distance (44 page)

Sitting there, monitoring the transmission, she realized how much she had learned in her nine months among the Tendu. She had catalogued hundreds of species. Moki and Anito had shown her details of the plants and animals’ natural history that would have taken years for a Survey research team to gather. The report on Johito’s atwa was an impressive piece of scholarship, the kind of thing that would be the high point of anyone’s career in xenobiology, and probably in alien studies as well. Several other reports were almost as good. When she got home, she could have any job she wanted, even if the Survey disciplined her severely. Universities and research institutions would be clamoring for her to come work with them.

Juna didn’t really care. Her life with the Survey felt like a dream. Soon she would push her way back through the brush to where Moki and Ukatonen waited, and they would continue on to Lyanan. The thought disturbed her. She was human. She had friends, a family, people she loved back home. Someday she would carry on a conversation aloud, take a hot bath, eat a hot meal, touch someone whose skin was warm and dry. But it felt so distant, so unreal, here in this alien world.

Warm tears stung her face, and she altered her skin so that the salt from her tears wouldn’t irritate it. Activating her spare computer, she had it play one of her favorite songs. Juna tried to sing along, but her voice was rough and husky from disuse. She was forgetting who she was. She needed to spend more time alone with the computer, seeing plays, listening to music, reading books and old letters from friends and family, reminding herself of who she was and what she would be returning to.

The shadows were long when she finally finished transmitting her notes to the waiting satellites. She sighed, crumpled up the computers, and tossed them into her pack. Leaving the beacon behind was like leaving the grave of a close friend. She could feel the ties between her and humanity fraying and growing weak. She remembered Alison, and how worried she’d been by Juna’s transformation. By now Alison was beginning her retirement, after forty-five years in the Survey. How was she dealing with the changes in her life?

They arrived at Lyanan just after sunset, and were welcomed by La-lito, the chief elder, who seemed genuinely pleased to see them. The village seemed more tranquil, settled into itself. It felt more like Narmolom. Juna mentioned that to Ukatonen.

“Healing the jungle has made a big difference to the villagers. When we were here before, they were like ants whose nest has been disturbed, running around, attacking anything that moved. You will be treated better now.”

Ukatonen’s prediction was accurate. The villagers seemed genuinely glad to see her. The tinka clustered around Moki, ears wide in surprise. Moki ignored them with regal grace and disdain. It surprised Juna. He treated the tinka of Narmolom much more kindly.

“You were rather unkind to those tinka, Moki. Don’t you remember what it was like?” Juna remarked when they were alone in their room.

“Of course I remember,” he replied. “It was awful.”

“Then why don’t you treat them like the tinka back home?”

“Because I remember how they drove me out of the village just before you left.”

“Oh,” Juna said, realizing just how desperate Moki’s plight must have been. No wonder sending him back to the village hadn’t worked. He no longer had a place there.

“When I gave you the firewing butterfly, you thanked me. I thought maybe you were interested in me. I didn’t have any place else to go. So I followed you. I knew you were different, but I didn’t understand.” He paused, looking away, suddenly clouded over with sadness and shame.

Juna touched his shoulder. “What is it, Moki? What’s the matter?”

“You didn’t want me. I forced you to take me.”

“No, Moki! It’s true I didn’t want to adopt a bami, but you were so brave and determined that I couldn’t let you die. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but now—” Juna paused, searching for the right words. “Now I’m glad it happened. You’ve taught me so much. You’re my bami, and I want you,” she said, her skin intense with pride and love.

Moki looked relieved. Clearly this was a fear he had been holding in for a long time. Juna reached out and held him tightly, glad that they’d had this discussion.

“Next time something like this bothers you, you come talk to me about it. Understand?” she said, holding him out at arm’s length so that he could see her words.

He nodded solemnly. They reached out to link, but just then Ukato-nen came in with Lalito and several of the village council.

“Greetings, kene,” Juna said to Lalito. “The village seems to be recovering.”

“We are more in harmony than before,” Lalito admitted, “but it will be a long time before the jungle is healed. It is good that you are helping to heal it. There is much to do, but we will worry about that tomorrow. Tonight you are our guests. I understand that you have adopted a bami, and that he was a tinka from our village.”

Juna glanced at Ukatonen and caught a flicker of alarm. Best to be tactful, she decided. “Yes, Moki is from here,” she replied. “He’s a fine bami, very intelligent and attentive. I am grateful to Lyanan for the opportunity to adopt him.” It was tactful, if not entirely honest.

Ukatonen gave a small flicker of relief. Juna smiled ironically, grateful that these strangers couldn’t read her face. By Tendu standards, nothing wrong had been done, but Juna still felt angry at the incredible cruelty they had shown to Moki. She had lived long enough among the Tendu to accept the way they treated the tinka, and the necessity for it. But Moki was her bami; she felt toward him the way she would feel toward a child of her own. She couldn’t be impartial about Moki.

“We are hosting a small meal in my room. The food is poor, but it is the best we have. Please come and be welcome.”

“Thank you,” Juna replied. “I am sure whatever you have is enough,” she said, giving the polite, formulaic response. She was hungry, and she had grown used to long, formal banquets. At least the food was always plentiful and good.

Lalito kept her word, mentioning nothing about the work they would be doing tomorrow. Juna sensed the villagers’ eyes upon her, watching her and Moki curiously. Conscious of the attention being paid to them, they were both scrupulously polite. Out the coiner of her eye, Juna noticed the villagers discussing her and her bami. She couldn’t make out their words, but they were colored with surprise and amazement.

“You have learned a great deal since we saw you last,” one of the elders remarked.

“Thank you, kene,” Juna replied, suppressing a flicker of pride. “I have had excellent teachers.”

“And they have had an excellent student,” Ukatonen said. “She learns more every day. Before we left Narmolom, Eerin was studying the atwas of that village. She has just finished learning the Bramera atwa.”

Surprise and amazement flickered over the villagers’ skin.

“Is Eerin going to become an elder at Narmolom?” Lalito asked.

“No. Anito will be leaving Narmolom after mating season to become an enkar. Eerin will be coming with her.”

“But Anito’s so young! How sad for her. What about Moki?” Lalito asked.

“Moki will come with us,” Juna said, fighting back a flare of impatience.

“Won’t he feel out of place among so many enkar?”

“He will be welcome among us. We see so few bami,” Ukatonen said. “And we have no choice. Anito is making a great sacrifice on your behalf, and on behalf of all Tendu. The new creatures will bring great changes, and we must be ready to meet them. The enkar need Anito’s experience with the new creatures.”

“Why not just tell them to go away? Why should we change?”

“When the world changes, those animals who cannot adapt, die. The new creatures are coming. They bring change. We must learn what those changes may be, and try to understand them, or we will lose ourselves,” Ukatonen told them.

“Most of the changes will be gradual and carefully thought out,” Juna said. “My people mean no harm.”

“But even when you mean no harm, you still bring new ideas, and new ideas cause change,” Ukatonen pointed out.

Juna looked away, remembering the mass suicides of the beautiful, delicate Sawakirans, and all the destruction brought about when one culture contacted another. Ukatonen was right. So was the Survey, but their restrictive rules about alien contact were useless. Once two cultures came into contact with each other, change was inevitable. She wondered what change she had already caused in her time here. Already she had cost Anito a secure future, but balancing that, in her own mind at least, was the fact that she had saved Moki’s life. She had taught them her alphabet, and shown them a better way to cultivate the soil. These things were mere novelties, but sooner or later something the humans did or said would cause a deep, permanent change in the Tendu. This was not the place to talk about it, however. She needed to discuss it with Ukatonen when they were alone.

“You are right, en, but my people come in friendship. We also want these changes to take place slowly. We want to create harmony between our people,” Juna said. “It is a complex problem. It will take much time and discussion to resolve.”

Ukatonen leaned back with a ripple of contentment. “That was a delicious feast,” he said, stretching to show his bulging belly. “You have gone to a great deal of trouble for us. We appreciate it.”

“It was no trouble at all,” Lalito protested. “I hope this meager meal didn’t leave you unsatisfied.”

Juna, recognizing the formulaic argument signaling the end of a feast, helped herself to another couple of handfuls of the fresh fish tossed with seaweed, and picked up some fruit to eat later. Moki followed her lead. Ukatonen was winding things up early; clearly he wanted to continue the conversation in private. She smiled, surveying the heaped remains of the feast. The tinka would eat well tonight.

At last, the polite words of departure completed, Ukatonen, Juna, and Moki climbed up to their guest room.

“Please explain how you think your people will change things for the Tendu,” Ukatonen asked her when they were settled.

“I don’t know. Meeting new people is not my atwa. I am supposed to study how living things work. It was an accident that I was lost, and luck that you found me.”

“Perhaps, but you know the Tendu better than anyone among your people. I trust that knowledge. Tell me the best that you can.”

Juna explained about the Sawakirans, and the Survey’s rules for alien contact. She confessed to humanity’s shameful history of colonialization, the extermination and enslavement of native peoples, and the gradual realization of how impoverished it left them culturally. She explained the First People’s movement, and the New Tribalism of the twenty-second century, and how that led to the Survey’s alien contact protocols. It was late when she finished explaining all this to Ukatonen.

“Well,” said Ukatonen, “it is good that your people have thought a great deal about how not to hurt the people they meet, even though they haven’t had any practice at this; but haven’t they worried about what our people can do to theirs?”

Juna shook her head. “My people didn’t know that the Tendu even existed. How could we worry about that?”

“I don’t know. But this contact affects us both. You should think about what this means to your people. The Tendu could change you as much as you change us. Let the enkar worry about the Tendu. That is our atwa. Your atwa should be to care for your people in this meeting.”

“Yes, but when my people come, things will change. I will go home.”

Tears rose in Juna’s eyes, as memories swept over her. She thought of her father, waiting for her on the porch of their house, the filtered sunlight milky and bright. The tears stung and she altered the skin of her face. That broke the train of memories, and she was able to get herself under control. Moki came up and clung to her.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I miss my people.”

Ukatonen nodded and brushed her shoulder affectionately. She smiled, hugging Moki briefly, and then releasing him.

“What about me?” Moki said. “What will happen to me when you go?”

“Then I will take over raising you, Moki. You know that. You agreed to this arrangement when you were a tinka,” Ukatonen told him.

Moki looked away, the color of a rainy sky. Juna felt torn; her need for home and her love for her adopted child warred within her. She touched Moki on the shoulder. He pulled away, red lightning bolts of rage dancing across the greyness of his sadness. He looked like a miniature storm cloud. Then he calmed himself, and turned to face her.

“It’s years yet, Moki. Perhaps a solution will work itself out,” Juna soothed, hiding her doubts. “There’s nothing that we can do about it now.”

Moki came to her, his skin a muddy whirl of conflicting emotions. She held him, taking comfort in the familiar, damp scent of his skin.

“Well, it’s late, and we should get some sleep,” Ukatonen said. “Lalito will have a great deal for us to do tomorrow. We’ll talk more about this some other time.”

Lalito did, indeed, keep them very busy. They spent the next month culling weed trees, gathering and washing seaweed to use as fertilizer, and planting new species that required shade in order to germinate. It was physically demanding, but Juna was treated more like a co-worker, and less like a slave. She and Moki worked with other elders and their bami, and socialized with them at meals and during breaks. The villagers became individuals, having status and relationships with other people in the village. Juna and Moki struck up a firm friendship with Arato and her bami, Ini. Ini had been one of the two bami in the digging race. Arato seemed to feel a debt to Juna, and helped introduce her to the other villagers. Soon she and Moki were teaching the elders and their bami written Standard. The lyali-Tendu and the villagers of Narmolom had treated written Standard as a novelty, quickly losing interest. The people of Lyanan, however, were even more determined than the enkar to master this alien language. At first they came out of a sense of self-protection. Then their natural curiosity took over, and the villagers began peppering Juna with questions about her people.