21st Century Science Fiction (30 page)

He lay awake for hours, staring into the sweltering darkness.

• • • •

In the morning, he discovered that his shaver and some other things had vanished in the move. When he complained at the front desk, he got nothing but effusive, meaningless praise—oh yes, the most wonderful guest must be correct, our criminal staff is surely at fault—and a bill for the previous night’s stay.

“Three hundred eighty-three!”

“The usual
Fthshpk
rate for our highest-quality suite is five hundred sixty-one. This most inadequate establishment has already offered a substantial reduction, out of respect for the highly esteemed guest and the unfortunate circumstances.”

“Highest-quality suite? Too hot! Too dark! Too low!”

“Ah. Yes. The most excellent guest has unique tastes. Alas, this poor room is considered the most preferential in the hotel. The heat and light are praised by our other, sadly unenlightened, customers. These most lowly ones find it comforting.”

“I not have so much money. You take interstellar credit? Bank draft?”

The clerk’s gills stopped pulsing and it drew back a step, going
tk’tk’tk
. “Surely this humble one has misheard the most honored guest, for to offer credit during
Fthshpk
would be a most grave insult.”

Walker licked his lips. Though the lobby was sweltering hot, suddenly he felt chilled. “Can pay after holiday?” He would have to find some other source of local currency.

Tk’tk’tk
. “If the most honored visitor will please be patient. . . .” The clerk vanished.

Walker talked with the front desk manager, the chief hotelier, and the
thkfsh
, whatever that was, but behind the miasma of extravagant politeness was a cold hard wall of fact: he would pay for the room, he would pay in cash, and he would pay now.

“This establishment extends its most sincere apologies for the honored guest’s unfortunate situation,” said the
thkfsh
, which was dark yellow with green spine-tips and eyes. “However, even in this most humble city, payment for services rendered is required by both custom and law.”

Walker had already suffered from the best the city had to offer—he was terrified of what he might find in the local jail. “I no have enough money. What can I do?”

“Perhaps the most honored guest would consider temporarily lending some personal possessions to the hotel?”

Walker remembered how he had sold his voice recorder. “Lend? For indefinite period?”

Tk’tk’tk
. “The honored guest is most direct and forthright.”

Walker thought about what they might want that he could spare. Not his phone, or his reader. “Interest in clothes? Shoes?”

“The highly perceptive guest will no doubt have noticed that the benighted residents of this city have not yet learned to cover themselves in this way.”

Walker sighed, and opened his briefcase. Mostly papers, worthless or confidential or both. “Paper fastening device,” he said, holding up his stapler. “Earth technology. Nothing like it for sixty-five light years.”

“Surely such an item is unique and irreplaceable,” said the
thkfsh
. “To accept the loan of this fine device would bring shame upon this humble establishment. However, the traveling-box . . .”

“Not understanding.”

The
thkfsh
touched the scuffed leather of Walker’s briefcase. “This traveling-box. It is most finely made.”

Walker’s chest tightened. “This humble object . . . only a box. Not worth anything.”

“The surface has a most unusual and sublime flavor. And the texture is unlike anything this unworthy one has touched.”

Desperately, Walker dug under papers for something, anything else. He found a pocket umbrella. “This, folding rain-shield. Most useful. Same technology used in expanding solar panels.”

“The honored visitor’s government would surely object to the loan of such sensitive technology. But the traveling-box is, as the visitor says, only a box. Its value and interest to such a humble one as myself are far greater than its value to the exalted guest.”

Walker’s fingernails bit into his palms. “Box has . . . personal value. Egg-parent’s egg-parent used it.”

“How delightful! For the temporary loan of such a fine and significant object, this establishment might be willing to forgive the most worthy visitor’s entire debt.”

It’s only a briefcase, Walker thought. It’s not worth going to jail for. But his eyes stung as he emptied it out and placed its contents in a cheap extruded carry-bag.

• • • •

Unshaven, red-eyed, Walker left the hotel carrying all his remaining possessions: a suitcase full of clothes and the carry-bag. He had less than a hundred in cash in his pockets, and no place to spend the night.

Harsh sunlight speared into his eyes from a flat blue sky. Even at this hour of the morning, the heat was already enough to make sweat spring from his skin. And the streets swarmed with aliens—more of them, in greater variety, and more excited than he had ever seen before.

A group of five red-and-black laborers, each over two and a half meters tall, waded through the crowd singing—or at least chattering rhythmically in unison. A swarm of black juveniles crawled over them in the opposite direction, flinging handfuls of glittering green rings into the air. All around, aliens large and small spun in circles, waving their hands in the air. Some pounded drums or wheedled on high-pitched flutes.

A yellow merchant with black spines grabbed Walker’s elbows and began spinning the two of them around, colliding with walls and with other members of the crowd. The merchant chattered happily as they spun, but its words were lost in the maelstrom of sound that surrounded them. “Let go! Let go!” Walker shouted, clutching his suitcase and his bag as he tried to squirm away, but the merchant couldn’t hear—or wasn’t listening—and its chitinous hands were terribly strong.

Finally Walker managed to twist out of the merchant’s grasp, only to spin away and collide with one of the hulking laborers. Its unyielding spines tore Walker’s jacket.

The laborer stopped chanting and turned to face Walker. It grasped his shoulders, turned him side to side. “What are you?” it shouted. Its breath was fetid.

“Visitor from Earth,” Walker shouted back, barely able to hear himself.

The laborer called to its companions, which had moved on through the crowd. They fought their way back, and the five of them stood around him, completely blocking the light.

“This one is a visitor from
h’th
,” said the first laborer.

One of the others grabbed a handful of green rings from a passing juvenile, scattered them over Walker’s head and shoulders. They watched him expectantly.

“Thank you?” he said. But that didn’t seem to be what they wanted.

The first laborer cuffed Walker on the shoulder, sending him reeling into one of the others. “The visitor is not very polite,” it said. The aliens loomed close around him.

“This-most-humble-one-begs-the-honored-one’s-forgiveness,” Walker chattered out, clutching the carry-bag to his chest, wishing for the lost solidity of his grandfather’s briefcase. But the laborers ignored his apology and began to twirl him around, shouting in unison.

After a few dozen spins he made out the words of the chant: “Rings, dance! Rings, dance!” Desperately, not at all sure he was doing the right thing, he tried to dance in circles as he had seen some of the aliens do.

The laborers pulled the bag from Walker’s hands and began to stomp their feet. “Rings, dance! Rings, dance!” Walker waved his arms in the air as he spun, chanting along with them. His breath came in short pants, destroying his pronunciation.

He twirled, gasping “rings, dance,” until he felt the hot sun on his head, and twirled a while longer until he understood what that sun meant: the laborers, and their shade, had deserted him. He was spinning for no reason, in the middle of a crowd that took no notice. He stopped turning and dropped his arms, weaving with dizziness and relief. But the relief lasted only a moment—sudden panic seized him as he realized his arms were empty.

There was the carry-bag, just a meter away, lying in the dirt surrounded by chitinous alien feet. He plowed through the crowd and grabbed it before it got too badly stomped.

But though he searched for an hour, he never found the suitcase.

• • • •

Walker leaned, panting, against the outside wall of Amber Stone’s factory. He had fought through the surging streets for hours, hugging the bag to his chest under his tightly buttoned jacket, to reach this point. Again and again he had been sprinkled with green rings and had danced in circles, feeling ridiculous, but not wanting to find out what might happen if he refused. He was hot and sweaty and filthy.

The still-damp pheromone line drawn across the office’s labia read CLOSED FOR
FTHSHPK
.

Walker covered his face with his hands. Sobs thick as glue clogged the back of his throat, and he stood with shoulders heaving, not allowing himself to make a sound. The holiday crowd streamed past like a river of blackberry vines.

Eventually he recovered his composure and blew his nose, patting his waist as he pocketed the sodden handkerchief. His money belt, with the two hard little rectangles of his passport and return ticket, was still in place. All he had to do was walk to the transit gate, and he could return home—with nothing to show for his appallingly expensive trip. But he still had his papers, his phone, and his reader, and his one prospective customer. It was everything he needed to succeed, as long as he didn’t give up.

“I might have lost your briefcase, Grandpa,” he said aloud in English, “but I’m not going to lose the sale.”

A passing juvenile paused at the odd sound, then continued on with the rest of the crowd.

• • • •

Walker would never have believed he’d be glad to see anything on this planet, but his relief when he entered the Spirit of Life Vegetarian Restaurant was palpable. The city’s tortuous streets had been made even more incomprehensible by the
Fthshpk
crowds, and he had begun to doubt he would ever find it, or that it would be open on the holiday. He had been going in entirely the wrong direction when he had found the address by chance, on the pheromone-map at a nearby intersection.

“How long
Fthshpk?
” he asked the server, once he had eaten. It was the same server as before, brown with white spine-tips; it stood behind the counter, hands folded on its thorax, in a centered and imperturbable stance.

“One day,” it replied. “Though some believe the spirit of
Fthshpk
should be felt in every heart all year long.”

Walker suppressed a shudder at the thought. “Businesses open tomorrow?”

“Most of them, yes. Some trades take an extended holiday.”

“Building supplies?” Walker’s anxiety made him sputter the word.

“They will be open.” The server tilted its shoulders, a posture that seemed to convey amusement. “The most honored visitor is perhaps planning a construction project?”

“No.” He laughed weakly, a sound that startled the server. “Selling, not buying.”

“The visitor is a most intriguing creature.” The server’s shoulders returned to the horizontal. “This humble one wishes to help, but does not know how.”

“This one seeks business customers. The server knows manufacturers? Inventory controllers? Enterprise resource management specialists?”

“The guest’s words are in the
Thfshpfth
language, but alas, this one does not understand them.”

“To apologize. Very specialized business.”

The server lowered itself smoothly, bringing its face down to Walker’s level. Its gills moved like seaweed in a gentle current. “Business problems are not this one’s strength. Is the honored visitor having troubles with family?”

It took Walker a moment to formulate his response. “No. Egg-parent, brood-parent deceased. This one no egglings. Brood-partner . . . departed.” For a moment he forgot who, or what, he was talking to. “This one spent too much time away from nest. Brood-partner found another egg-partner.” He fell silent, lost in memory.

The server stood quietly for a moment, leaving Walker to his thoughts. After a while it spoke: “It is good to share these stories. Undigested stories cause pain.”

“Thanking you.”

“This humble one is known as Shining Sky. If the visitor wishes to share further stories, please return to this establishment and request this one by name.”

• • • •

When Walker left the Spirit of Life, the sun had already set. The
Fthshpk
crowds had thinned, with just a few revelers still dancing and twirling under the yellow-green street lights, so Walker was relatively unimpeded as he walked to hotel after hotel. Alas, they all said, this humble one apologizes most profusely, no room for the most honored visitor. Finally, exhausted, he found a dark space between buildings. Wrapping his jacket around the carry-bag, he placed it under his head—as a pillow, and for security. He would grab a few hours’ sleep and meet with his customer the first thing in the morning.

He slept soundly until dawn, when the first hot light of day struck his face. He squinted and rolled over, then awoke fully at the sensation of the hard alley floor under his head.

The bag was not there.

He sat up, wide-eyed, but his worst fears were confirmed: his jacket and bag were nowhere to be seen. Panicked, he felt at his waist—his passport and return ticket were safe. But his money, his papers, his phone, and his reader were gone.

• • • •

“Ah, human!” said Amber Stone. “Once again the most excellent visitor graces this unworthy establishment.” It was late in the morning. Robbed of street signs, addresses, and maps by the loss of his reader, Walker had wandered the streets for hours in search of the factory. Without the accustomed weight of his briefcase, he felt as though he might blow away on the next breeze.

“You requested I come yesterday,” Walker hissed. “I come, factory closed. Come again today. Very important.” Even without the papers from his briefcase, he could still get a verbal commitment, or at least a strong expression of interest . . . some tiny tidbit of achievement to prove to his company, his father, his grandfather, and himself that he wasn’t a complete loss.