The Color of Distance (63 page)

“I love you, Moki” she drew in skin speech on the damp sand.

Moki nodded. “I love you too,” he replied. “My sitik.”

Eerin brushed his shoulder, and they stood together on the beach, looking out at the grey ocean and sky, waiting for the boat that would take his sitik away.

At last the boat pulled up onto the beach. Eerin put her gear in the boat, and embraced Ukatonen and Anitonen. Then she turned to Moki and stroked his face. That wordless gesture conveyed everything there was to say. Then she climbed into the boat. Moki watched as it headed out to sea, the waves from its wake washing away the words she had written in the sand.

After four days of tests, the doctors released Juna from the infirmary. She headed for the communal
osento
to scrub away the smell of the hospital. It was dinner time, and the baths were deserted. She was grateful for the solitude; she’d had too much clinical poking and prodding lately. A peaceful, quiet bath would soothe her tired spirit and her aching hands and feet.

She took off her clothes, placing them in one of the pink plastic baskets on the shelf, and regarded herself in the mirror. She looked like a gymnast, her body bulging with lean, ropy muscles. She turned, posing and flexing her muscles, laughing with delight at how good she looked. Her hair was still only a thin fuzz on her scalp, and her high, arching eyebrows were barely discernible lines. The lack of eyebrows made her look much younger than her true age. She reached for a towel and washcloth and noticed once again that the faded blue tribal tattoos were gone from her wrists and arms. She frowned. Her mother had taken her to have them done just before everything went wrong. Those tattoos were her last memory of good times spent with her mother. She would have to have them retattooed when she returned to Earth.

She scrubbed herself at one of the low spigots set along one wall, then rinsed off and stepped into the big stone-floored bath with a sigh of pure pleasure. It was wonderful being human again.

She settled deeper into the steaming hot water. Before her transformation, she had avoided the baths. No matter how thoroughly she scrubbed before entering the tub, her skin would still have been alien. She hadn’t wanted to pollute the communal waters with her strangeness.

She let her hands float up to the surface. The water was so hot it made her new fingernails ache, but it eased the bone-deep pain in her hands and feet. She could feel occasional sharp twinges as muscle realigned itself along the shrinking bones of her hands and feet. Her hands had already shrunk by a half a centimeter.

Half a centimeter in four days. It amazed the doctors. They were furious with her for undergoing her retransformation in the middle of the jungle instead of under observation in a safe, clinical environment. Juna didn’t regret her choice. It had given her a chance to say goodbye to her life among the Tendu in a quiet, dignified manner. The doctors would have plenty of chances to observe the Tendu at work: she had already ensured that.

She took a deep breath and slid underwater to lie fetally curled on the rough black stone floor of the bath, letting the hot water embrace her. She turned her awareness inside, trying to feel her life rhythms, as she had before her transformation. If she concentrated, she could sense them, but it was as if they were behind a veil. She surfaced and stretched out, letting the blissfully hot water buoy her up.

Footsteps thudded dully on the floor of the bathhouse. Juna opened her eyes and sat up.

“Hi there. Want someone to scrub your back?”

“Bruce!”

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” Juna said.

“Then I’ll scrub down and join you.”

Juna smiled. “I’d like that.”

He seated himself on a small wooden stool in front of a spigot and began soaping off. Juna climbed out of the bath, picked up a washcloth, and began scrubbing his back, admiring the smooth curve of his well-muscled shoulders. Bruce left off scrubbing and arched his back under her hands like a pleased cat.

“That feels wonderful,” he said. “Don’t stop.”

She moved lower, scrubbing with one hand, and kneading his muscles with the other, all the way down his back. She hesitated as she reached his buttocks. Bruce turned and began scrubbing her arms and shoulders. She lifted her chin and he moved to her upper chest, the rough washcloth sliding slowly over her skin. She straightened slightly, closing her eyes. Bruce let his hands slide lower, soaping her breasts.

Juna felt a rush of heat spread up her loins; her nipples were turning hard. She opened her eyes and stopped his hands. “What if someone comes in?”

“We won’t be disturbed,” he told her, with a mischievous grin. “The baths are ‘closed for maintenance.’ I put the sign up myself. Do you want me to go on?”

She leaned forward and kissed him. His hands, slippery with soap, slid over her back, and up her sides. He cupped her breasts in his large, strong hands, pinching her nipples with his fingers. His tongue slid into her mouth. She met it with her own, reaching down to circle his hard cock with her fingers. He reached up and turned on the shower. They stood under the warm water, still kissing as they rinsed the soap off their bodies.

Bruce slid his hand between her legs, stroking her with firm, gentle fingers. Juna gasped and rested her forehead against his shoulder, turning her hips outward, giving his hand better access. She clung to him as she came repeatedly.

“Please,” she said at last. “I’ve got to lie down.”

Bruce spread four bath towels on a dry section of floor, folding the last one to cushion their heads. They lay down. Bruce began kissing his way down her neck to her breasts, sucking her nipples, his hand working in her crotch as she arched again and again in orgasm.

At last she pushed him away. “My turn,” she whispered as she moved down to his crotch, smelling his clean, warm, male smell as she took his penis in her mouth.

After several minutes, he moved away. Juna lay back on the towels, pulled him on top of her, and guided him in, moaning as she felt him slide into her, giving herself up to the ecstasy of sex. It had been so long, so very long. She had forgotten just how good it could be.

Afterwards, they lay together in the hot water of the bath. She stretched and smiled, remembering the feel of his hands on her breasts, wishing that they could have linked so she could share how good it felt.

“What are you thinking?” he whispered.

Juna laughed. “I was just thinking how good it is to have nipples again.”

“I wouldn’t have minded you without them,” he said.

“But it bothered me,” she replied.

“I could have gotten used to it, Juna. I was willing to try.”

She turned to face him. “I spent nearly five years inside an alien skin, Bruce. I didn’t want anyone to have to get used to me. I wanted to be myself again.”

Juna looked away across the dark, rippling expanse of the bath. “It was all right before the Survey came back. I was a Tendu among Tendu. I had forgotten how strange I looked. But when the humans returned, I saw myself through their eyes"—she closed her eyes, remembering—"and I knew that I was different. I had changed in ways that made me no longer fully human. I needed to change back. I needed to be fully human again.” She rested her head against his chest and smiled. “It feels good to be back in my own skin again.”

Juna stepped off the boat and onto the beach, not waiting for the rest of the onshore team. Moki ran to greet her. She picked him up and held him to her.

“It’s good to see you,” she said, in human speech. She hoped he understood her.

“I missed you,” Moki replied in Standard. He took her hand and led her up the path from the beach. “Ukatonen and Anitonen are waiting,” he added in Tendu.

Juna sneezed. Her eyes and nose itched as though she were suffering an attack of hay fever. Anitonen had told her that she would react to the alien proteins of the planet, but that they wouldn’t kill her.
They’d just make me wish I was dead,
she thought wryly. The doctors had issued her an emergency injector kit just in case, though Juna would rather rely on the Tendu if she had any problems. She hurried up the hill behind her bami, sneezing. At last they were in the jungle.

Anitonen and Ukatonen were waiting for her. Juna held out her arms, asking for a link. She sneezed again. Amused ripples of laughter ran over Anitonen’s body.

“You wouldn’t think it was so funny if it was happening to you,” Juna muttered.

Ukatonen took her arm and led her over to a nearby tree. They sat down, and Ukatonen motioned Moki over. “I will show Moki how to ease your discomfort. That way, he can help when it bothers you.”

They linked. Juna felt the itching in her nose and eyes subside as Ukatonen showed Moki how to stop her allergic reaction. When that was done, Moki enfolded her. She was nearly swamped by the intensity of his emotions—wild happiness at seeing her again, and deep grief at her transformation. Without her spurs and allu, she was helpless to block him out. Ukatonen moved to shield her until Moki regained control of himself. As Moki merged with her, Juna felt his relief at linking with her again. She had missed him so much. They spiraled tightly into happiness until Ukatonen broke the link.

Anitonen and the others left to let Lyanan know that the humans had arrived. Realizing that she wasn’t ready to deal with the Survey team just yet, Juna wandered into the sunbreak where Bruce had held her while she cried. The glorious bromeliads that had covered the fallen tree were dying. None of them had set seed. Whatever pollinator it was that fertilized these plants couldn’t find them so close to the ground. Juna felt saddened by the sight. Glancing at her wrist chrono, she saw that she had been keeping the Survey team waiting. She headed back to the top of the cliff path where the others would be waiting for her.

Today she was guiding half a dozen Alien Contact specialists on a visit to the village of Lyanan. It was the first time that any human, except for Juna, had been to Lyanan’s village tree. She led the Survey team along the familiar path, pointing out interesting sights along the way. Her voice sounded very loud in the forest. Birds exploded out of trees, insects and small animals went silent as they passed. All around her she heard the pattering of falling leaves as arboreal animals moved into hiding. It made her feel like an intruder in a once-familiar house.

At last they reached the village tree. Juna smiled at the other humans’ murmurs of astonishment when they saw the massive trunk rising into the canopy. She sat down to wait for the villagers to arrive. The long walk had been hard on her shrinking feet; they throbbed painfully.

As Lalito and several of the elders on the village council climbed down to greet them, Juna rose, activating the computer interface that allowed her to communicate with the Tendu.

“Welcome to Lyanan,” Lalito said in formal patterns. “Please let us escort you inside.”

Juna fumbled with the clumsy interface. “Thank you,” she finally managed to say. “We brought a ladder to help us climb into the village.”

She motioned to the others, and they unpacked the long rope ladder.

Juna smiled as she saw Lalito’s ears lift at the sight of the rope ladder. It was a handsome gift. Not only was it intrinsically valuable, but it also saved the Tendu considerable effort in getting the awkward humans up the tree and into the village.

Lalito thanked Juna with gracious formality, then motioned to some of the bami to hoist the ladder into the canopy. A vine rope was lowered from the branch above them and tied to the rope ladder. In less than ten minutes, the ladder was up and secure.

Juna wadded up the computer and put it back into her pack. “Follow me,” she told the Survey team. “And don’t look down.”

Patricia Tanquay came up behind her, followed by the other A-C specialists. It was a long, painful climb. Juna’s hands and feet pulsated with pain by the time she reached the branch. She limped to the bowl of the crotch and sat down, tucking her hands into her armpits, letting the warmth of her body ease the ache. There was a touch on her shoulder. It was Moki. He held out his arms to link with her. Juna hesitated, but the pain in her hands and feet was too much to bear. They clasped hands. Instantly the pain receded. She felt Moki moving through her, soothing the pain, healing the tiny cuts, blisters, and abrasions she had acquired on the walk to the village. Behind it, held tightly under control, she sensed his anguish. Juna was relieved when Moki broke the link, his work done, hating herself both for the relief that she felt and for the guilt that arose each time she felt his grief at her transformation.

“Thank you, Moki. I feel much better,” she said aloud, hoping he would understand her. She hated using her translator to communicate with her bami.

“It was good to help,” Moki said, touching her shoulder. “We should go now. The others are waiting.”

She followed Moki down into the heart of the tree. The Survey team was seated in the doorway of Lalito’s room, watching the villagers watch them.

“You lived in a village like this?” one of the A-C specialists asked Juna.

“I mostly lived at Narmolom, which is farther inland, but I spent two months every year here at Lyanan.”

“I’m amazed that you didn’t break your neck. I get vertigo just looking out the door.”

“It was hard at first, but I got used to it. I didn’t have much choice,” Juna said. She was tired of explaining things over and over again.

Juna and Lalito escorted the scientists slowly down the inside of the trunk, showing them storerooms, living quarters, and even the hives of the tilan bees. The Survey team took samples of everything they could: bits of food, dead tilan bees, honey, even pieces of fiber left over from basket-weaving. They measured the rooms they visited, the height and diameter of the trunk, and the size of the doorways and balconies. The villagers crowded around, watching everything the humans did. Juna felt like a stranger again as she fumbled with the computer, asking questions and translating answers. The Survey team’s invasive curiosity made her feel deeply ashamed. Finally, unable to take it any longer, she shut down her translator and handed it to Patricia.