The Color of Distance (8 page)

Sometime around noon, rain clouds began building in the skies overhead. Spiral handed her bulging bag of fruit to Juna and left, motioning that she should stay in the tree and wait.

Juna settled herself into a comfortable, secure perch and watched life in the treetops unfold around her. Off in the distance, a bird called over the clamor of the jungle, letting out a long, mournful hoot with a rising note on the end. Back at the base, they called them pooo-eet birds, after the sound of their call. Closer by, a troop of squirrel-sized lizards glided from branch to branch. Long loose flaps of skin between their front and back legs billowed out like sails. The lizards hung from the branches by their tails, eating plump purple fruit, red juice staining their lips. As Juna watched, a baby lizard’s head poked out of its mother’s pouch. It nibbled at the bottom of the fruit while its mother ate the top, pausing occasionally to peer wide-eyed at the world around it.

These lizards were marsupials, like the large grazing reptiles the Survey team had found on the great central savanna on the other side of the mountains. These were the first marsupial lizards recorded in the jungle. She wondered if they followed the same reproductive pattern as the savanna reptiles. Juna’s fingers flexed. If she had her computer, she could record their picture for the Survey. Nine months wasn’t long enough to sample more than a tiny fraction of the species on this planet. With so little time, each new species was important.

A large black pooo-eet bird landed heavily in the tree, causing the lizards to scatter and regroup on another branch, scolding the bird with high-pitched, liquid notes. The bird pulled branches toward it with the claws on the bend of its wing, and fed greedily on the plum-sized fruit. The bird tossed a fruit into the air and caught it in its enormous red beak. Juna laughed at the bird’s antics. It eyed her suspiciously, then dropped from the branch, spread its broad, stubby wings and flew heavily
oH
into the next tree. It preened itself, then shuffled its wings into place and began letting out mournful pooo-eet calls. This close, the bird’s calls were painfully loud. Juna hefted an overripe fruit, preparing to throw it at the bird and scare it off.

The calling ended with a sudden squawk as the bird went limp and began to fall. Spiral leaped from a nearby tree and caught the bird as it fell, then grabbed a passing branch and swung up onto it. The alien pulled a long, down-tipped dart out of the bird and held it up triumphantly. Then Spiral swung back up to the tree from which it had shot the bird, and retrieved a reed blowgun about a meter long. It gave the blowgun a quick twist, and the long tube collapsed into itself, making a package about as long as Spiral’s hand. The alien stuffed the bird and blowpipe into a bulging bag, and swung easily through the trees [[fo]] where Juna was [[smmg-]] Then it pulled the bird and several limp lizards from its satchel, fuming them to Juna. Spiral turned a brilliant blue and the symbol for inod appeared on its chest.

[[Tfs
fpod
]]food?” Juna asked, nodding to show that she understood. A cool, moist gust of wind shook the treetops, and a few loose drops of rain spattered them. The alien stuffed its prey back into its satchel, and beckoned Juna to follow. There was a great crack of thunder, a brilliant flash of lightning, and then the rain began. It fell as though poured from buckets, pounding against the green canopy with a sound like falling gravel. A stiff wind made the trees sway sickeningly, sending a shower of leaves and debris to the forest floor. To Juna’s immense relief, they climbed down to the ground and walked back to the village instead of crossing through the wet, storm-tossed branches of the canopy. It was a cold, weary trek. Juna was shivering when they reached the village.

Sheets of water cascaded down the inside of the village tree, splashing into the pool at the base of the trunk. Villagers filled water gourds or played, leaping about under the sudden waterfalls, splashing and calling to each other.

Ripple, as Juna had decided to call the sick alien, was seated at the door to their room, watching the other villagers enjoy the rain. Much to Juna’s relief, the sick one’s room was dry and warm. She sat in a miserable shivering huddle, longing for dry clothes and the warmth of a fire. Ripple came up to her, purple with curiosity. The alien felt her skin, then beckoned her to one of the piles of leaves that served as beds. Scooping a hollow in the pile, it gestured that she should lie down. When she did so, Ripple heaped leaves around her. The mound of damp leaves, heated by its own decay, was more warm and comforting than Juna would have believed possible, though she still would have preferred a nice hot fire. She remembered her mother’s village, sitting in a circle of aunts, grandmothers, and cousins around an open hearth, warmed by good food, the tight web of kinship, and the fire itself. Her shivering stopped, and comforted by that distant memory of belonging, she fell into a light doze.

A touch on her shoulder awakened Juna. It was Spiral. Ripple and several other aliens sat on the edge of the raised ledge. Mounds of meat, fruit, greens, and honeycomb were laid out on leaves. They were waiting for her to join them. Juna got up, picking bits of decayed leaves off her damp skin. Spiral handed her a water gourd, and she washed herself off before sitting down to eat.

There was enough food for fifteen people or more, instead of the six or seven aliens in attendance. Meat from Spiral’s recent kill as well as several other kinds of meat, some familiar and some new, had been neatly sliced and arranged in patterns on a large polished shell platter. Three large baskets heaped with fruit, and another leaf piled with dripping honeycomb were set out with the meat. Sheets of leathery-looking dried seaweed, smelling of salt and iodine, two baskets heaped with mixed greens, and a large gourd bowl filled with a starchy brown mush completed the feast.

The sick alien picked up a sheet of the dried seaweed. Reaching into the bowl of mush, it scooped up a gobbet of it and put it on the seaweed, folding it into a neat package. Ripple passed the completed packets to the guests. The guests waited until everyone had one, then began eating.

Juna bit into her package of mush. It was sour and faintly bready, like her mother’s injera, but there was also a sharp cheddar cheese taste, with a hint of iodine and a salty tang like soy sauce. It would, she thought with a sudden surge of homesickness, go well with her father’s Burgundy. She closed her eyes, feeling tears prickle as she remembered her home, with its neat rows of vines filing off into the distance. Would she ever see it again?

She opened her eyes. The aliens were looking at her, purple with curiosity. She blinked back tears and took another bite, concentrating only on the taste. It was delicious. She flushed turquoise, and nodded to show the aliens how good she thought it was. They relaxed, and began talking among themselves, handing her other foods to try.

Juna finished first. She was full, but the aliens kept pushing more food on her. They continued to gorge until their flat bellies bulged. Instead of water, they washed their food down with large gourds of sweet fruit juice. They chewed on great chunks of honeycomb, spitting out the chewed and sucked comb. Brilliantly colored bees settled on the chewed combs and began eating the wax.

At last the aliens were full. They leaned back, stroking their distended bellies, letting out a chorus of loud rumbling belches that sounded almost human. Juna laughed. The aliens looked at her, ears raised in curiosity.

Embarrassed, Juna blushed brown. Blue and green ripples burst across the aliens’ skin and they belched again. Juna’s embarrassment deepened, and there were more ripples from the aliens. Spiral touched her arm, and turned a dark blue. A pattern rippled across Spiral’s chest. The other aliens’ ripples died away. One by one, they touched Juna’s arm, in apparent apology. Juna nodded at Spiral, and then belched. The aliens rippled again, and Juna laughed with them.

After that, the aliens relaxed, flashing symbols among themselves and occasionally to her, though she couldn’t understand them. She decided to try communicating with them in their own language. Picking up one of the large leaves that they had used as dinner plates, she reached up and rubbed her finger across the ceiling to pick up some of the glowing blue fungus on her finger. Then she smeared three lines of the glowing blue substance across the leaf. The seated aliens watched her as she touched Spiral on the arm. Holding the leaf so that the lines were horizontal, she nodded, then turned the leaf so that the lines were vertical, and shook her head. She repeated this several times, then Spiral nodded, and flashed an explanation to the other aliens. Their ears went up, and they looked at her, deeply purple. They began talking among themselves in shades of pink and purple.

Juna watched and waited. She had created a stir among the aliens. One of them flushed purple and held out a fruit, its ears raised inquisitively. Juna turned her leaf so that the lines were vertical and shook her head, refusing the fruit. A blue and green ripple of amusement passed across the aliens.

Another alien offered her a gourd of water. She turned the leaf so that the lines were horizontal, and drank a few sips. She offered the gourd to another alien. The horizontal bars of agreement appeared on its chest. She handed it the gourd. The alien took the gourd from her and drank.

Her attempts at communication became a game. The aliens offered her things, and she would accept or refuse them. Juna learned the symbols for several kinds of food, the symbol for basket, and what was probably a verb for
show
or
offer,
or perhaps
try.
She wrote approximations of these symbols on leaves with the glowing blue fungus, much to the amusement of the aliens.

Then a complex pattern appeared on Ripple’s chest, and the alien held out its wrists, bright red spurs pointing upward. Juna panicked for a moment, thinking that it was asking her to join spurs, but it ignored her, looking instead at the other aliens. It was asking something of them. The aliens turned a soft, misty grey. One by one horizontal bars flickered across their chests as they agreed.

Spiral touched Juna lightly on the shoulder, and pointed to Juna’s bed of leaves. It indicated that she should lie down and sleep. Then it left her and joined the other aliens. The game was over; she had been dismissed. Juna watched as the aliens linked arms in a large circle, and abandoned themselves to their strange communion. It reminded her of the two aliens healing the lizard in the forest, only there was a ritual solemnity to it.

Juna yawned. The huge meal on top of a long, stressful day had made her sleepy. She burrowed deeper into the warm, moist pile of leaves and slid down into sleep.

The next morning Spiral nudged Juna awake, beckoning for her to follow. Juna followed the alien down the inside of the trunk to the pool at the tree’s base. Spiral dove in. Juna, eager to rid her skin of the rotting leaves from her bed, plunged in too. The tepid water felt wonderful. Curious, she dove for the bottom. The pool was surprisingly deep, at least three and a half or four meters. The bottom was soft mud. Something wriggled under her questing fingers. Startled, Juna shot toward the surface, emerging with a splash that drew curious stares from the aliens seated around the pool. She swam to the edge of the pool and sat on a low ledge.

Spiral emerged a few moments later, carrying a fat, wriggling burden. Juna thought it was a fish. When Spiral handed it to her she realized that it was an enormous tadpole. It was the size of a large house cat, mud-brown, with an oily, iridescent sheen. Its tail was horizontally flattened like a dolphin’s and its eyes were large and golden, with vertical catlike irises. The hind legs were strong and well-developed. Beneath the translucent skin, the small dark lump of its heart pulsed slowly and steadily behind its gills. It was soft, slippery, and cool, like the mud at the bottom of a lake.

Juna wondered what species it was, and how closely related it was to the aliens. She wished again for her computer, so that she could catalogue the tadpole. So much knowledge was slipping through her fingers without it.

The tadpole wriggled wildly, slipped out of her grasp, and fell back into the pool with a soft plop. Spiral shot after it, caught it with both hands, and stuck a wrist spur into it. It ceased wriggling and lay motionless. Spiral handed it to Juna, and dove into the depths of the pool.

A small, dark green alien climbed down to the edge of the pool, carrying a bulging satchel. Juna watched curiously. There were at least a couple dozen of these smaller aliens in the village. They were darker in color and lacked the red stripes that ran along the back of the others. Juna had never seen them change color. The larger aliens ignored them. They moved quietly in the background, cleaning up, helping prepare meals, and carrying things. They puzzled Juna. If they were juveniles, where were their parents? If they weren’t juveniles, what were they? A related, less intelligent species? A neuter form, like worker bees?

The small alien pulled handfuls of food scraps out of its satchel, tossing them into the pool. The calm surface churned and boiled as hungry tadpoles gobbled the food scraps. They devoured it all—meat, fruit, vegetables, even the huge, tough leaves that the aliens used as plates. Juna opened the mouth of the limp tadpole in her lap, revealing sharp, predatory-looking teeth in front, and flat, powerful molars in back. They certainly had the dental equipment to eat almost anything.

There was a sudden surge in the water as Spiral caught a feeding tadpole. The alien stung it with a wrist spur and flung it toward Juna. Spiral watched her until she had hold of it, then dove again, emerging with another tadpole in its grasp. It caught nearly a dozen tadpoles, then climbed out and began butchering them with a wooden knife. The alien flung the offal into the pool, where it was eaten as soon as it hit the water. Juna was shocked that the aliens would eat tadpoles, then reminded herself that some humans ate monkey meat. The tadpoles must be some sort of related species. Perhaps the worker species was trading some of its voung for the protection afforded by the aliens. She shook her head; it was a nice theory, but it didn’t feel right to her. Clearly she was missing some important piece of the puzzle.