Being Alien (12 page)

By the time she got back, dressed in baggy green pants and a cotton sweater, I’d done the dishes. When I let her in, she smiled very slightly and went over to my computer, looked at the printouts of the library holdings on Japan.

‘‘You think Japan had the answer?"

‘‘Maybe. But the high tech you crave always changes your society, looks like."

“You should also study the Hopi Indians. They didn’t want to modernize, just survive as Hopi."

I thought about Yangchenla’s people, some who wanted to be part of Karst’s multispecies urban culture, others who wanted to follow their yaks. Less than 500 Tibetans, almost all originally from one village, and they couldn’t agree. Three non-villagers, maybe Indians, maybe Chinese, had been visiting when the Federation ship crashed, but that didn’t explain Yangchenla craving for Federation position. She was purely village stock. I said, “Humans are weird.”

“You’re human.”

“Yeah, and I’m weird, too. We should be, careful about what we say. People might think we’re crazy, not just playing a game about this alien stuff.” I pointed to my ear and to the walls.

‘‘But your friends are coming.”

“Yeah, we’ll go take a walk with them.”

About that time, I heard a knock, just one fist blow, on the door. Marianne stepped farther into the room, by one of the sliding glass doors as I checked out the peephole.

Barcons. I pulled the chain stob out of the slot and opened the door to two of them dressed in jeans, plaid shirts, and Nikes, the smallest female, still over six feet tall, and her mate, not the first ones I’d met.

The female looked at Marianne and said, “I’d like to thank you for your help the other night, and to apologize for embarrassing you.”

Marianne said, “I dislike bigots.” I looked at her closer and saw that she was paler than usual.

“We’d like to take you on a picnic,” the male said.

As we left the house, the male sidled up to me and whispered in Karst One, “Change the bed coverings. I can smell them from here.”

I turned around and locked the door. They had an old two-door green Nash, funky-looking and rigged to bum gasoline. Marianne shivered slightly as she got in.

“Don’t be afraid of us,” the female Barcon said.

“Why not?” Marianne said, shifting her hands to her knees, squeezing them.

“Because it makes us nervous,” the male said.

“What are your names?”

“Jackie and Sum,” the female said. “I’m in the Jack job. He’s the S’um, or Sam.”

Shit, I thought, the first non-humans she meets knowing they’re aliens would have to be Barcons. Reann looked over at me as if asking does it get any weirder than this?

S’um said, “We tend not to get too close to other species, sapient or not, but don’t be afraid of this.”

“I taught her
vr’ech
and
uhyalla.”

“We don’t get close to
vr’yalla.
Our species has
vr’ech
parasites that destroy brain tissue and ride the emptied bodies,” the Jack said, jaws trembling slightly. Marianne drew back as far as she could from the front seat.

S’um spoke to Jackie in Barq. Then he said to Marianne, “We will take good care of you, your reproductions. We’re excellent physicians, can fix or cure most anything, learned from getting parasites."

We stopped at a light. When it changed, S’um hit the gas and the little Nash leaped.

“I thought I heard a big motor,” Marianne said. “Eight cylinders. Very surprising in such a small old car."

"We’ve restored it,” Jackie said.

“Good mechanics, too, but we’re not known for that,” S’um said.

“It wastes a lot of gas,” Marianne said.

“We only use it on special occasions. It beats the heat. Alex doesn’t know about it either.”

“Is Alex a problem for you?” Marianne asked.

“He is resident here, but unorthodox.”

I remembered another Analytics
yalla
describing Karriaagzh by a Karst word that meant “unorthodox.” We pulled into the Tilden parking lot. The two Barcons got out first, then pushed the seats forward so we could get out. S’um pulled out a backpack and put it on. Marianne looked down at her feet—she had thongs on.

Jackie said, “Well, we won’t walk far. But you did want to ask questions, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You want to be more than Support?” Jackie asked.

I realized the Barcons had bugged my apartment or listened to us through my skull computer’s link to my auditory centers.

“What’s Support?” Marianne asked.

“Support is not officer or investigator. Helpers. Married women who tend Karst businesses, raise children.”

“Do I have
any
bargaining power in this?”

“Tom’s first mate was unsuitable. He didn’t operate at maximum efficiency because of worries,” S’um said. The two Barcons discussed us in Barq. I heard fragments of my Academy name, “Red Clay,” and “Marianne” bouncing around in their speech, phonemes English rather than their own.

“Your
first
mate?” Marianne said to me.

“Yeah, Yangchenla. Tibetan ancestors. We were too different from each other.’’

Marianne laughed.

“Marianne, stop it. We were very different.”

“And you and I aren’t?”

“We’re both from the same country, same century.”

S’um interrupted, “Marianne needs work in linguistics?”

“Yes,” Marianne said, “Marianne needs work in linguistics. If Marianne is to bring a social group, then Marianne’s sister needs weaving work and her husband needs music gigs.”

“So perfect,” S’um said. “No hidden agendas?”

Marianne asked, “Must I bear children?”

“You can if you wish, two without discussion.’’

“No hidden agendas, then.” Marianne said. She sighed the kind of sigh you twist with your tongue, changed its pitch. “But I haven’t discussed this with Molly and Sam.’’

I thought this was too easy. If they could promise Marianne an Institute position, then why couldn’t Yangchenla’s brother have gone to the Academy? We sat down and the Barcons began pulling squat cans—bare metal, no labels—out of their pack. S’um handed two with
zip
top lids to Marianne and me. S’um said, “We always eat out of cans."

Marianne said, “Because they’re sterile.”

Jackie pulled out a can opener and a Bic lighter, flamed a third can’s lid and the opener, then opened it. S’um put a fourth can in something that looked like a thermos, turned a knob. Marianne pulled back the top of the can and sniffed. She asked, “What is this?”

Jackie said, “Complete human diet.”

I pulled back the lid of mine and saw chunks of meat and lumps of white—noodles, dumplings, potatoes?—embedded in a glossy brown gravy. “I need a spoon,” I said.

Jackie gave me a spoon, handle forward, then gave Marianne one. “Would you like them warmed?’’

“Yes, please,” Marianne said, S’um took his can out of the heater and slid hers in. He wrapped it in a dish towel when he took it out. As she took her first bite, I handed him mine.

“It’s Campbell’s Chunky Beef.” Marianne said.

“Supplemented to be completely nutritious,” Jackie told her. “We would like to meet Molly and Samuel Turner. Can we come to your house?"

Marianne said, “I suppose. Will you tell then you’re
uhyalla,
aliens, whatever?’’

“We shouldn’t until we clear your agenda with Karst,” Jackie said, picking up the cans with tongs and putting them and the can heater in the pack. She handed each of us a square of foil and said, “Wrap your spoons in these please.”

We did, and she put them in a larger foil pouch. Marianne said, “Do you need to be that sterile here?”

“We don’t want to get into lethal habits.”

“Okay.” She looked back at me. “When you come over, bring Tom.”

“You trust Tom. Wonderful,” Sum said. We went walking back down toward the car, weird little quail with solitary feathers bobbing over their eyes flushing out from the brush as we passed.

We left the Barcons’ car parked in my apartment parking place and walked down to Marianne’s. In bright light, the Barcons looked even more alien.

Reeann opened the door and said, “I forgot. Molly and Sam went to the city to discuss a wall-hanging commission. But they should be back soon.”

“May we see the house, then?” S’um asked.

I was curious myself because all I’d seen had been the foyer with the staircase going up behind Molly and her husband when I dropped by before.

“Sure. It’s an integral urban home from the early nineties. We compost our wastes and have a garden and fish pond outback.’’

“We do much the same,” Jackie said.

“The Clivus Multrum is a very efficient design. “You use a Clivus Multrum?”

“We copied it on our planets,” the male said. “We’ll owe much for the design use when contact is made.’’

“The kitchen’s in back,” Marianne said, sliding two paper-covered panels into wall pockets. The back of the kitchen was an attached greenhouse, full of black barrels and red clay pots with tomato vines sprawling out of them, mint, parsley. I saw three bins by the sink—metal, paper, organics. By the stove, a small metal can labeled meat scraps.

“We recycle meat scraps through chickens,” Marianne said.

The Barcons wiggled their noses and touched each other, showing more excitement than I’d ever seen from Barcons, chattering away in Barq. The male said, “Less outside system penetration this way?”

“Less waste. We’ve got a solar hot water heater, passive solar with the black barrels and a blower system that stores heat in the basement in rocks.”

“Where does the water come from?” the female asked.

“From the Berkeley main water line, but I recycle water through the plants and then catch condensation from the greenhouse panes.” She walked into the greenhouse arid pointed to a trough and tubes. We collect it and run it out to the garden.”

S’um looked at the sink, then went around back. From the sink drain, we heard his voice, “Do you only use your own composted shit manures on the garden?”

“Visitors can contribute.”

He said something in Barq and Jackie put the stopper back in the drain. After a while, he came out. “Our parasites won’t affect you,” he said as he washed his hands, “We compost most carefully,” he said, “and I’m sure you do, too, in a city.”

“Do you want to see the solar hot water heater on the roof?” Marianne asked.

“Can it run full boil?” Jackie asked.

"I know of one design that can, if you have, sunlight enough.”

“We’d like to see that design,” S’um said.

“I never knew you all used composting toilets,” I said to the Barcons.

“Mandatory to sterilize urine and shit,” he said, “before they leave the home space.’’

“Would you like tea?” Marianne said. “We could make some from fresh mint, each gathering our own.”

“You are quick to be understanding,” the female said. “Our security habits make most
vr’ech
nervous.”

“I hope I’m
uhyalla
to you now.”

“You have a good ear,” Sum said. The female said something to him in their language. He added, “But then you are a native linguist.’’

They shambled out through the greenhouse door to the garden after her. While they gathered mint, I went into the living room where I saw a harpsichord. I’d read about them on Karst, in books smuggled there from Berkeley.

I stood and looked at it, touched one of the keys gently, an odd sound; though I’d thought I’d heard it before. Not live, on tape, over the radio.

The door opened, and Sam Turner came in. He looked at me and said, “The tracker who wanted to paste a note to the burglars on our door, ‘Hey, they’re not home at all.’”

“Do you play this?’’

“Yeah, does it surprise you? He came over, his hand like a blade in the air twisting to get me to move stepped aside, and he sat down and began to play Bach, something I’d recognized from PBS radio stations. One brushy eyebrow arched up as his thin, long fingers flexed across the keyboard, keys black and white in reverse of a piano.

S’um came in. Beside Sam, the Barcon looked extremely alien—multi-jointed jaws, skin texture minutely pebbled, nose bulbous where even most blacks’ noses are thin, tight below the eyes. Sam looked up and asked, “What are you?”

S’um looked at me. Jackie and Marianne came in from the kitchen. “Where’s Molly?” Marianne asked.

“She stopped by Fiberous Distractions. Who are these people? CIA, FBI?” He reached slowly under the harpsichord strings.

“We’re hard to kill. And I thought there was a metal block on the sounding board,” S’um said.

“Cracker, do you have anything to do with these people being here?” Sam began to play jittery Bach, spider music.