Strongpincer swims until he’s ready to pass out, then listens. Nobody’s following him. The sounds of fighting are dying down. He lets himself sink to the bottom and finds a sheltered spot to rest. The bottom here is silty, and Strongpincer digs in until only his feelers stick out of the dirt. He wonders if any of the others are safe. There’s a big rock slab a few cables away where he remembers agreeing to meet, but nobody’s meeting anywhere until the militia leave.
Volunteering to guide the Sholen around didn’t get Rob out of his share of the cleanup work before their arrival. Since he was the imaging and video specialist, Dr. Sen gave him the task of going through all the visual data stored in the station network and removing all the frames that showed living or dead Ilmatarans.
The Sholen weren’t as far ahead of humans in computer technology as in other areas, but they weren’t behind either, and Rob had to assume whoever they were sending would be familiar with Terran systems. So he couldn’t just delete the images, he had to replace them. He dug up some of his early files, from when he’d first arrived on Ilmatar and was still learning the ropes. There were plenty of shots of silt, lens covers, his fingers, and black water to use as filler.
Of course, the researchers didn’t want to lose their images, so he had to store everything he cut out on a disk, heavily encrypted and labeled ANIME PORN. For verisimilitude he copied in a few videos from his private collection.
Since he spent the whole day on the station network, he was one of the first to see the new feed go up, entitled: “Ways the Sholen Can Go Fuck Themselves.” He watched the list grow as the day went on.
DGraves: Immediately.
JPalashnik: Far from here.
GWeiss: Sideways.
Fouchard: With an Aenocampus.
PAdler: Sideways, with an Aenocampus.
Sergei: Senseless.
HIshikawa: Is that a comment, or a suggestion for the Sholen? Sergei: Suggestion.
APonti: Responsibly.
SamIam: In a house, with a mouse, in a box, with a fox, in a car, in a tree, on a train, in the dark, with a goat, on a boat…
RaduZ: In accordance with all interstellar treaty agreements. APonti: That rules out Fouchard’s idea, then.
Anonymous: Any way they like, if I get to watch! NKyle: If you ask nicely, they might let you do that anyway. Anon: Or let you join in.
PAdler: From what I understand, the problem is likely to be keeping them from doing it right in front of everybody.
APonti: Unless they’re both male, or both female.
GWeiss: That doesn’t stop some of us.
PAdler: That wouldn’t be a problem for Sholen. Their sex roles are based more on status than on physical gender. And yes, public display is apparently an important element.
GGdG: Six ways to Sunday!
MadameX: With whoever started this stupid stream.
DGraves: That would be me. If you don’t like it, don’t play.
Ilmatar: Having consulted several journal articles on Sholen reproduction, I would like to suggest 1: The “Missionary” position; 2: The “Lotus” position; or 3: The “Screaming Wombat” position.
Anonymous: Your Screaming Wombat Kung Fu is no match for the Drunken Monkey!
VSen: I certainly hope this discussion is closed and completely erased by the time our guests arrive, which by my clock is in only 26 hours from now.
Rob took a break from his work and ate dinner; it was weird but kind of pleasant to be eating with everyone else. He glimpsed Alicia, but she was hurrying off to the dive room for another shift outside and could spare him only a smile and a wave.
By the time the eve ning shift was coming to an end, Rob realized he felt gritty and tired. He had been awake for more than thirty hours without a rest, so he decided to go to bed at 1600 along with everyone else.Alicia was in his room.
“I was wondering if you were going to sleep at all,” she said.
“If there was more coffee, I could probably keep going.”
“I am all sore and tired from moving things outside, and Iexpect you must be stiff from sitting at a table. Would you like to trade massages?”
“Um, sure. Wait. I’m not very good at the subtle social cues thing—”
“I have noticed.”
“—so before we start, I want to know: by massage do you mean actually rubbing each other’s sore muscles, or do you mean having sex?”
There was a long pause, during which Rob wondered if he had just done the equivalent of shoving his head into a wood chipper. But then she smiled. “Muscle rubbing first, then sex.”
Rob’s massage technique was based on brute force and what he could remember from being on the swim team in high school, but evidently that was what Alicia needed because her groans and grunts had a contented sound. He worked his way from her calves to her forearms, kneading and rubbing until his own arms ached. Her bare skin was still slightly chilly to the touch from being out in the cold water, but under his hands she turned pink and warm again. Like just about everyone at Hitode, she was in terrific shape, with muscles as hard as wood and less body fat than the average famine victim.
When he couldn’t make his fingers work anymore, he tapped her shoulder. “My turn.”
She made a disappointed sound, but dutifully perched on the back of his thighs and began working on his stiff neck and shoulders. If they did have sex together, he never noticed it because he promptly fell asleep.
Longpincer’s apprentice shows no surprise when Broadtail arrives at the boundaries of Bitterwater and pings to signal the house. Apparently everyone at Bitterwater is accustomed to half-starved outlaw scholars showing up without warning.
The apprentice takes Broadtail to Longpincer straight away. The master is at work on his pipes, commanding a group of tenants and apprentices who are installing a curious gadget in one of the main channels. It seems like a circulator turbine, but the axle is linked to a bundle of twisted ropevine, which is in turn anchored solidly to a heavy stone.“Broadtail! I don’t remember getting word of your coming.
But you are welcome all the same,” says Longpincer. “I am an outlaw, Longpincer,” says Broadtail. “I am exiled from Continuous Abundance for killing a landowner on common ground.”
Longpincer considers this. “Describe the crime.”
“I remember a dispute in the commonhouse over nets. The leader of the other faction tries to recruit me to his side. We argue. I am tired and hungry. He refuses to leave. I believe myself to be on my own land and fight him. I kill him, and then learn we are on neutral ground.”
“A sad mistake. I am certainly surprised, but I repeat that you are welcome here. At Bitterwater you are under my protection.”
“Thank you,” says Broadtail. Longpincer is a stickler for the old forms, and when he calls someone his guest he means it.
Broadtail can relax for the first time since the trial. He is no longer an outlaw, he is the guest of a sovereign landowner.
Within Longpincer’s boundary stones he is safe.
Longpincer pings at Broadtail. “Enough chatting—get to the house and eat something at once. You sound all hollow! I expect us to speak a great deal after this task is done.” Longpincer turns his attention to one of the hired workers. “You wild child! Feel that pipe joint! Half the flow is going out through the seam. Put it together properly.”
Rob slept nine hours, ate a huge meal, and worked another shift packing up Henri Kerlerec’s belongings so that Una Karlssen could switch into Henri’s old room. That way the two aliens could have adjacent quarters.