Angry Young Spaceman (11 page)

I had nodded, smiling, feeling like an ass.

“Very old fashioned,” Mr. Zik had said with his hiss-laugh. With incredibly casual speed, he passed it through a series of tentacles to hand it off to me.

I fingered it, thinking about how Mr. Zik was so apologetic for every difference between here and Earth, as if I didn’t come here expecting it, wanting it. Even having to fumble in the darkness, because the apartment lights had to be activated by a wall switch, was a novelty.

Outside it was twilight, but not as dark as the apartment hall. The atmosphere was a green-blue, and for some reason the motion-ripples were more visible than at any other time of day. All moving things radiated.

I walked along the road away from the town. A saucer passed by overhead, so close that the wake swept some road debris into my hair. The saucer was trailing a round disk full of some kind of vegetable. I brushed the debris out — just some coral sand and weeds — feeling ambivalent about the close call. But when I saw a path winding away from the road, I was glad of it.

Just as I left, another saucer whipped by. This one — maybe because it was a fancy model with tinted windows — whipped up my ire as well as the debris. But how-close-is-too-close is a cultural norm, I told myself, and my anger dissipated with the hydrothruster’s bubbles.

Most people assume that, because I was a pug, the first thing I want to do when angered is duke it out. Most pugs I know are less rash than your average person. If anything, I’ve learned to focus my anger and choose where to channel it.

In a way, that’s what pug is about — the choice. Most people never even consider that there’s a way to react to injustice other than retaining a vengeance vendor; that they can do something more direct about their situation than hire someone to slander-by-the-hour. It’s a rare animal that’s more misunderstood and misrepresented than the pug.

The path led between two fields of the cucumbers Plangyo was known for. “Agnay,” the Octavian for it, came unbidden to my mind. I had been rather pleased by the speed with which I was learning vocabulary. Mr. Zik had given me a children’s book and then a collection of Octavian songs to translate.

I was humming one of them, the one about the splendours of the Kyung hot springs, when a flash of ripple caught my eye. Out in the field, an old Octavian woman raised herself on her tentacles and stared at me. I thought suddenly —

Holy, this old woman is still working while the privileged offworlder has the leisure to stroll around her town —

My guilt blurp was cut short. Her mouth, revealing the few grey teeth she had in her wrinkled head, let loose a nasty cackle, and she grabbed a person working a row over with her tentacle and jerked her up.

“Koogeem!” she laughed, pointing at me with a jab. The other person, an old lady with a blue head-covering and a cucumber still in her tentacle, stared dazed at me. The first woman started singing the song I had been singing, more for her friend’s benefit than mine, until the friend started to smile.

I smiled at them weakly. The woman sung more of the song with a bray to her voice that translated easily. My smile disappeared. The other worker went back to her picking and the original lady kept staring at me and calling things at my back I didn’t understand.

Yeah, we offworlders sure are funny, I thought sadly, staring at the ground as I walked.

The path had been made by something with heavy treads, and my light footfalls didn’t leave prints despite the soft surface. I heard a light bubbling behind me but I didn’t want to look in case that hag was still staring at me. But instead of it coming from somewhere in the fields, as I had assumed, it was a small vehicle on treads that was suddenly behind me. I let it squeeze by me with its cart of grey cukes and the old man operating it didn’t look at me, but called out his thanks in Octavian.

I was surprised and, for some reason, touched.

Watching him move off to the transport saucer, I noticed a quick dip in the path caused a cucumber to float off the cart and fall to the ground. When I got to it, I picked it up. The skin was a little sticky.

The transport saucer was set off to the side of the path, and at first I thought that it had set down on the cuke field. But as I got closer, I saw that there was an area cleared for the huge round ship — of course there was. For some reason, though, I had a stupid notion that massive saucers set down wherever they liked, that if they could destroy something in the process it was all the better. But that was probably because I had only seen saucers of this size in war clips.

Now I was well under the lip of the saucer, and I looked up at the angular Octavian characters stencilled there — it looked like a serial number. The landing ramp was down and the conveyer belt was dragging up loose cukes. I wondered why they didn’t have boxes and then, looking at the rounded hull, realized why. The old man was putting tentaclefulls of suckered cucumbers onto the belt when I approached him.

He looked up at me holding out the errant vegetable to him. He looked at the loaded belt, then back at me. I smiled, lifting the cuke a little to indicate he should take it, suddenly wondering if I was making a rude gesture. His blank stare didn’t help. The noise of the belt was a little unnerving.

I pointed back to the path. He smiled suddenly, his weathered cheeks bunching.

“No,” he said, waving his tentacles. He pointed at me, then mimed eating.

“OK!” I said, bowing to him.

“OK!” he said, then said something else.

Listening to the river of words rush by, I grabbed the word “big” but nothing else. I dumbly nodded and stuttered out a thank-you.

I walked home. I tossed the cucumber up in the air as I did, sort of juggling it, but it floated down so gradually that it forced me to slow down. I let myself into my apartment with the key-card I had not lost and went into the kitchen. I had already had supper but I cut the cuke up anyway. I didn’t have any of the sauce they usually served the cucumber in, so I sprinkled some salt on it. It was a little bitter.

***

Octavian schools have architecture very similar to schools on Earth, angular and square, so I was often lulled into a false sense of familiarity. Then when the little tune for the next class would play, I’d get up from my desk, walk down the hall and turn for the stairs — and find none. The ramp made perfect sense in a school of tentacled kids but it still surprised me daily for several weeks.

I’d pause there at the bottom of the ramp and let it sink in that this was another planet because the alien children capering around me wasn’t enough. Then I’d angle my feet slightly and walk up, making sure I didn’t step on any tentacles. It wasn’t until I was in the capital city of Artemia that I saw stairs again, a thin strip beside the wide ramp — a pleasing reversal of the Earth bias for bipeds.

Today I noticed it especially because I had to climb two flights of ramps. Usually my classes were with the younger grades on the second floor, but this afternoon I was in for something different.

I almost knocked — then I felt stupid. The teacher doesn’t knock. Even if he’s twenty years younger than his pupils. I slid open the door.

I walked in to the room, where three teachers sat, two men and a woman. They were mostly chatting to each other, and not staring expectantly at the door, which was a relief. “Hello,” I said with a smile.

Everyone said hello back, except for a thin old man, who rose. “We extend our greetings and thanks to you,” he said clearly.

This got a laugh, and I made an impressed face. “I appreciate that.”

One or two nodded, and the thin old man translated for those who didn’t: “Ajgjlhru appreciate ladrlejkj; I
appreciate
that.”

I tried to take a seat at the side of the table, but was waved to the head by the attractive young woman. A stout male pulled out the chair for me, and this was also funny. Octavians simply slid onto the chair and perched there, so this was a human gesture.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I saw in movie,” said the stout teacher.

“It’s very polite,” I said. “Very good.”

“Sank you,” he said, practically glowing.

Most of the exchanges during these workshops were held over a hum of constant murmuring as they discussed amongst themselves what the hell I was saying, mixed with a good deal of chuckling.

“My name is Sam Breen,” I said, prompting one or two people to start their recorders. I blinked as the camera scanned me. “I am from Earth.”

“What area of Earth are you from?” said the thin old guy, lifting his tentacle in a questioning way.

“What part of Earth am I from?” I said. “Well, I’m from a place called Toronto.”

There was a mumbling as people absorbed this. The young teacher asked me if “area” was incorrect, and the thin old man looked at her suddenly.

“No, area is correct,” I said, impressed by her sharpness. “
What part
is just... more usual.”

“More common,” the thin old man said to the group, reasserting himself. “Plart is difficult for Octavians to say.”

I nodded. “I understand. OK, for every question I answer I’m going to ask you a question. OK, could you tell me your name and your hobbies?” I asked the old thin guy, mentally registering that I was saying OK way too much.

He cleared his throat. “My name is Mr. Nekk.” He placed a withered tentacle on his chest as he said this. “My hobbies are reading English blooks and exploring the caverns of Octavia.”

I nodded, deciding against putting him on the spot by asking what book. I expected that with his eagerness I’d find out soon enough.

The young teacher who had asked about “area” asked about my age with a smile.

“I am twenty-three,” I said.

“That’s very good,” she said. “Young teachers are good. The students like you very much, I think.” The others nodded.

“Yes, but you’re older than me,” I said, shaking my head. “I feel like a total — I mean, it is very strange that a teacher is younger than his students.”

“You are... plerfect English teacher,” said the chair-puller. Mr. Nekk tried to elaborate, but the chair-puller continued. “Bleecause... you native speaka.”

Mr. Nekk nodded his agreement and I smiled modestly.

I looked back at the woman who asked me the question, and decided to test her knowledge. “And who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”

She looked blankly at me for a moment and then laid a tentacle on her breasts. I nodded, a little too eagerly, my eyes dipping. She said slowly, as if not sure what I asked her: “My name is Mrs. Ahm.”

She had obviously just guessed at what I had asked her, but that was part of learning a language, too — it was amazing how quickly she inspired excuses.

“My hobbies are exploring caves and taking care of my baby.”

Damn. She was married. Octavians never had children otherwise. Damn damn damn.

Then, as if reading my mind, she asked, “Do you have a girlfriend?” I would later pinpoint this as the point at which my lesson plan went out the window.

“No, I don’t,” I admitted.

“I introduce!” exclaimed the stout guy.

“Do you think that Octavian women are very beautiful?” asked Mrs. Ahm.

“Well...” I started, noticing her proper pronunciation of “b.”

“Octavian women are ugly,” pronounced Mr. Nekk, scratching an earhole that looked like a wound. “Especially in the country. Earth women are...” he strained for a synonym, “more pretty.”

“Prettier,” I corrected, but his glassy eyes didn’t seem to absorb this.

“So you think Earthlings...” Mrs. Ahm said, fixing me with her pure blue eyes.

“No, no. I was just —”

The stout man said something in Octavian and everyone laughed.

“I think,” I said loudly, “that there are ugly women and beautiful women on every planet in the universe.”

“Nebula too?” said the stocky man, but I decided to ignore this xenophobic comment.

“I have seen many very beautiful Octavian women since I have arrived,” I said, looking at Mrs. Ahm.

The stocky man pointed three tentacles at her and asked, “You think she —”

“What is
your
name?” I inquired quickly. Subtle flirtation was apparently impossible.

His tentacles dropped. “My name is Mr. Kung.” He pointed his tentacles at Mrs. Ahm again, less aggressively, and opened his mouth to speak.

“What are your hobbies?” I said.

“Uhh... my hobbly... exploring caves. Do—”

“Exploring caves is very popular in Octavia,” I said to the group at large. Then to Mr. Kung, “Do you have any other hobbies?”

“Other? Uhh...” he floundered, and the others suggested things in Octavian. Mrs. Ahm’s suggestion got a big laugh.

“Uhh... drinky,” Mr. Kung said, miming it. “I like to drinky.”

“Do you like ujos?” I said. This got me big points, and Mr. Kung nodded enthusiastically. “I... love ujos!” he exclaimed. He seemed to have forgotten his earlier question in his enthusiasm.

“Have you tried ujos?” asked Mr. Nekk.

“Yes,” I said, nodding and giving the thumbs-up sign. Even without digits of their own, all Octavian’s recognized this sign. They seemed to want more, so I gave them more. “It’s
very good
rotgut liquor.”

They caught only the emphasis, and happily nodded their agreement.

“Ah... Mr. Sam, I have a question,” began Mrs. Ahm. “Where is your translator?”

“I don’t have a translator,” I said.

This caused a fair amount of consternation. “Why not?” she asked.

“I want to learn Octavian,” I said, gussying up the half-truth as a grand proclamation.

“It is impossible,” said Mrs. Ahm.

“I know it is very difficult. I will study very hard.”

She said something to Mr. Nekk.

“No, it is more than difficult. It is not plossible,” he said. “Because... the language has sounds that only Octavians can make. In our mouth.”

“Oh,” I said.

Mr. Nekk made a sound, a kind of a low bubble sound. “The word for delicious in Octavian is ijofwejo,” he said, the last syllable of which had that sound.

I repeated it as best I could but the group just laughed. “There are sounds in English which are hard for Octavians to say,” I said, instinctively wanting to even the score but feeling petty for it. “Like buh, or puh.”