The Color of Distance (51 page)

“You came very quickly. I sent the message about the new creatures only yesterday. They arrived two days ago. They’re staying on a great floating island off the coast.”

“They’re early. I didn’t expect them for another year, at least,” Juna said. A welter of conflicting emotions warred within her. She wanted to shuck her pack and race through the trees to see her people—and yet she also wanted to take Moki and hide in the mountains until the humans left. Juna thought of her alien skin, bald head, altered body, and she felt suddenly afraid. What would the humans think of her, looking like this? More importantly, what was she going to do to help her people and the Tendu achieve harmony? She had been so busy worrying about Moki and writing reports and field notes that she hadn’t thought about what she would do when the humans arrived. She wasn’t ready for this. If only she had more time!

Moki touched her arm. She reached down to embrace him, sudden tears welling in her eyes. She had longed for this day. Now, she wanted to turn back the clock. She wasn’t ready, and neither was Moki.

“We need to rest and talk before we go to meet the new creatures,” Ukatonen said.

They were shown to an empty guest room. Juna eased off her pack with a sigh of relief and sat down. Moki busied himself with unpacking their things, and directing the tinka who came bearing armloads of bedding and refreshments. He was trying to bury his grief in busywork. This was going to be very hard. She got up and touched her bami on the arm. They linked automatically, sliding inside each other. She was awash in Moki’s fear and grief, and her own sadness and guilt. They drifted inside each other’s pain for a long while, then slid out of the link.

“Oh, Moki. I—”

“There was nothing that you could do to change any of this,” he toil her. “It was all set in motion when you decided to save my life.”

“Should I have left you to die?”

Moki looked away. “No. Yes. I—I don’t know.”

Ukatonen touched them both on the shoulder. “It is pointless t; worry whether your decision was correct. You both must live with the consequences of your choices. We don’t have time for regrets and recriminations. Your people are there, Eerin. What should we do?”

“Go and meet them. Talk to them about the Tendu.”

“We need to discuss the damage they did the last time they were here,” Anitonen reminded her.

Juna inclined her head in a nod, and flickered agreement. “We should bring Lalito with us.”

“Yes. It’s late. We’re tired. It would be best to wait until tomorrow.’ Ukatonen suggested.

Juna looked away. “Yes. It would.” She felt oddly relieved to be putting off her meeting with the Survey.

Ukatonen touched her on the knee. “I’m sorry to make you wait. I know how much you want to see your people.”

Juna smiled. “It’s all right, en. I want to spend one more night with my friends before I go back to my people.”

It was a quiet night, full of reminiscences and bittersweet laughter. The four of them linked, sharing the nostalgia they felt. Ukatonen and Anitonen slipped out of the link first, leaving Juna alone with Moki, his sadness tempered now by the gentle peace of the evening. At last they moved together into an emotional equilibrium, lingering in the link, savoring the harmony they shared.

The Survey base rode at anchor, large and incongruous in the small bay. It was a large, flat rectangle, the color of a bereaved bami, and covered by a huge clear dome. Juna winced inwardly at the inauspicious color of the ship. She hoped it wasn’t an omen.

Anitonen touched her arm. “Look, there are new creatures moving around on it.”

Juna nodded. Several people were working on the deck. One, in an unsealed e-suit, stood on the observation deck with what appeared to be a pair of binoculars. She really should radio first, but the beacon was clear around the point from where they were, and she wanted to get this over with.

“I’m going down to the beach and let them know that I’m here.” Juna touched Moki on the arm. Their eyes met for a moment. “I’ll come back,” she promised.

Juna climbed to the ground and walked down the path to the edge of the cliff. She stood where she was plainly visible from the base, turned a bright yellow and orange, and swung her arms over her head. It would look odd to the Tendu watching from the trees, but it attracted the human’s attention. The lookout glanced up at the movement, startled, and put his binoculars to. his face. The lenses caught the bright morning sun and flashed back at her. She waved her arms once more, and then walked down the zigzag trail to the beach. An excited crowd gathered on the observation deck, pointing at her.

Juna reached the beach, and waited while they launched a boat, bearing two people in environment suits. They landed the boat about 150 meters down the beach. One of them stepped out of the beached boat, carrying a computer collapsed into the shape of a smooth white sphere. The Alien Contact people theorized it was the least threatening shape for contact purposes since it had no sharp edges.

Juna smiled. Ukatonen had used a stone about that size and shape to bash in the head of a tiakan last week. The AC people meant well, but they were all theory and no practice.

Juna glanced up at the trees, making sure that the Tendu had a clear view, and flushed blue to reassure them. The human trudged up the beach in his baggy white e-suit. Juna smiled, remembering the thousands of hours she had logged in those hellish suits.

He stopped about ten meters away from her and slowly set the computer down in the sand, then stood, arms held out from his body, palms forward, fingers spread.

Juna recognized the pose, and fought back a sudden laugh. This was the standard Alien Contact protocol that she had learned in the Survey. He didn’t recognize her. She looked down at herself, seeing her elongated hands and feet, her hairless alien skin that covered her nipples and her navel, and flickered with silent blue and green laughter.

I probably wouldn’t recognize myself if I saw me in the mirror right now,
she thought.

The human was standing there, in that goofy low-threat pose, looking like a large, dumpy penguin. It was too much to resist. She stepped forward hesitantly, peering at the man in front of her as though she had never seen someone in an e-suit before. She paused about three meters away, and squatted on the sand. She could see his face framed by the recording instrumentation of the suit. He looked vaguely familiar to her. but she couldn’t place him.

He smoothed the sand in front of him and set down a bright, shiny gold sphere. Juna rippled in amusement. What would the Tendu have made of something shaped like a lizard egg, the color of someone in heat?

She moved forward to pick up the sphere and made a great show of examining it, smelling it, shaking it to see if it rattled, rubbing it on her skin, and tasting it. Then she put it back down on the sand in front of her.

“I believe the correct line is ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’ ” she croaked, her voice husky and hoarse from disuse. “I’m Juna Saari. The real Tendu are up there in the trees, watching us.”

“Oh shit!” he exclaimed, staggering back. Even through his helmet, the look of surprise on his face was very satisfying.

“Well, that’s one that won’t go down in the history books,” Juna said.

“I’m very sorry,” he said, recovering himself. “I’m Dr. Daniel Bremen, expedition head with the
Unity Dow
Mara. I’m honored to meet you. ”

“No wonder you looked familiar. I’ve seen your Tri-V shows.”

“I’m glad you liked them. It’s always a pleasure to meet a fan in an out-of-the-way place.”

Actually, Juna disliked Bremen’s shows. They oversimplified many important concepts, and ignored others entirely, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. She needed to work with him to build bridges with the Tendu. She wondered how a Tri-V celeb had wound up heading the expedition.

“Before I did the
Universalities
series for Edu-Net, I was the head of Alien Contact Studies Department at UCLA,” he explained, as if anticipating her question. “The Survey felt that my celebrity status would help make this trip more accessible to a wider audience.”

It made sense. The Survey was chronically short on funding. They wanted someone along who could make the most of this historic event.

“I wasn’t expecting the Survey to get here so soon,” Juna said.

“The Tendu are an important discovery. They inhabit a biological treasure house. Some of the new proteins and complex organic molecules are opening up whole new possibilities in medical and chemical research. So far, we’ve derived two new antibiotics effective against resistant diseases and a nonaddictive painkiller more effective than morphine, from materials collected during the first mission. And then there’s you.”

“Me?” Juna asked, suddenly wary.

“You’re the only human known to have survived continued exposure to a life-bearing alien planet. If we could find out how you survived, it might open up whole new worlds to colonization. The best doctors in the Survey are falling all over themselves to study you.”

“I’m sure they are,” Juna said dryly. She dreaded the prospect of being a research subject.

“After we’ve made contact with the aliens, we’ll return to the base for a briefing. If I’d known that it was you out on the beach, I’d have brought your debriefing team. As it is, I’m sure that they’ll be waiting aboard ship. They’re very eager to talk to you.”

Juna wondered why the debriefing team hadn’t come with him anyway. Had Bremer* pulled rank on them? If so, she was relieved that he’d come alone. She wasn’t ready for an intense grilling.

“Can I get a decent meal and a hot bath before the debriefing? It’s been four and a half years since I’ve had either,” she said.

“I’ll talk to the base commander and make sure that they’re ready for you. But first, could you show me the aliens?” he asked eagerly.

“Of course, Dr. Bremen. This way.”

The cool gloom of the jungle felt good after standing for so long under the brilliant sun.

“Wait here. I’ll go get the Tendu,” she said, then turned and scrambled up the tree. Bremen stared after her, amazed. Ukatonen, Anitonen, and Lalito met her as she reached the middle level of the canopy. Moki followed behind them hesitantly, his skin grey with grief.

“Well?” Anitonen asked her.

“They’ve only sent one person.
Dr. Bremen
is his name. He wants to meet you. Then I have to go out to the big raft and talk to my people.”

They climbed down the tree, where Bremen waited.

“You climb like a monkey, Dr. Saari,” he said.

“I’ve had to live in the trees for the last four years. I got a lot of practice.” She gestured at the aliens. “This is Ukatonen and Anitonen. They’re enkar. You’ve read about them in my notes, I assume.”

Bremen nodded.

“And this is Lalito, the chief elder of the village of Lyanan.”

Bremen frowned. “Yes, I read about how badly treated you were by her village.”

“That was a long time ago,” Juna reassured him. “Since then, my relationship with the villagers has significantly improved.”

“Please translate this for me,” Bremen said. “ ‘I bring peaceful greetings from all of mankind to your people. I hope our two peoples will grow and prosper together. Thank you for taking such good care of Dr. Saari for us.’ ”

Juna translated his message into Tendu skin speech. She made her words big, so that any villagers watching the talks from concealment could see what she was saying.

Anitonen stepped forward and shook Bremen’s hand, human-style. “
Greetings, Dr. Bremen,”
Anitonen spelled out in Standard. “We
look forward to negotiating with your people.”

Dr. Bremen’s eyebrows lifted inside his helmet.

“Both Anitonen and Ukatonen are reasonably fluent in written Standard,” Juna explained. “I thought it might prove useful during our discussions.”

Moki slipped between-the two enkar, and leaned against Juna, putting an arm around her hips. Juna thought she saw a flicker of shock cross Bremen’s features, quickly hidden. She laid her arm around Moki’s shoulders.

“And this is Moki, my bami,”
she spelled out in Standard. “
He understands written Standard too.”

“Your adopted child,” Bremen said, his face carefully neutral.

“Yes,” Juna said. “I saved his life.”

“I remember that from your journal. It was very moving. It broke every alien contact protocol in the book, though.”

Juna shrugged. “I think Moki will become an important link between our two peoples. He’s already more fluent in skin speech Standard than any of the other Tendu.”

Ukatonen touched her shoulder. “We should set a formal time for us to begin negotiations,” he said in Tendu. “Lyanan has been waiting a long time for reparations. They are obligated to many others for helping repair the damage caused by your people.”

“Perhaps we could start tomorrow. That will give me time to meet the other humans and talk to them,” Juna replied in skin speech.

“What are you saying?” Dr. Bremen asked her. “I only understand a little Tendu.”

“Ukatonen wants to begin discussing the reparations owed to Lyanan for the damage the Survey did to their forest. I suggested that we begin preliminary talks tomorrow. That will give us time for a briefing.”

Bremen radioed the ship, and received an agreement to proceed with the talks. “Very well, then. What time?”

They agreed to meet by the top of the cliff path at noon, and then it was time to go.

Moki looked at her expectantly. She embraced him. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she reassured him. “Go with Ukatonen and be good.”

Moki nodded and held out his arms for allu-a. Torn, Juna glanced up at Dr. Bremen. She was sure that they already suspected her of going native. Linking with Moki would only confirm that.