“Excuse me.” I took my pack and went to the privy. It smelled as bad as ever. I went in and sat down, then got out my radio and called the ship.
“Yeah?” the radio said. The voice was deep and a little hoarse. I was talking to Edward Antoine Whirlwind, Ph.D., author of Native American Society on the Reservation andPatterns of Survival in the Late Twentieth Century, formerly the Bellecourt Distinguished Professor at the University of Duluth—he resigned the position when he left Earth—and for many years my colleague in the Department of Cross-cultural Studies.
“This is Lixia,” I told him. “I’m calling from an outhouse, so I’m going to be quick.”
Eddie laughed.
“I needed someplace private.”
“Okay,” Eddie said.
I rested the radio on my knees, then took my medallion off its chain and put it in a slot in the radio.
The little computer in the medallion spoke to the slightly larger computer in the radio. That computer spoke to a computer onboard the ship. It only took a minute. The radio beeped and I pulled the medallion out. Everything the medallion had recorded—everything that had happened to me in the past two days—was now in the information system on the ship.
Directory: First Interstellar Expedition
Subdirectory: Sigma Draconis II
Sub-subdirectory: Field Reports—Soc. Sci.
File Name: Li Lixia
The radio asked. “Is there anything else?”
“No.”
“Okay. Three other people have made contact. No trouble so far. But take care and call again as soon as possible. I ought to have some real information in a couple of days.”
I shut off the radio, packed it, and went out. The rain was coming down hard. I ran to the house.
The next day was clear. Yohai and I went to the garden. The ground was still wet. Drops of water sparkled on the leaves. Yohai taught me to weed. We worked all morning. At noon we rested under the tree. In the other gardens people moved around, talking to one another. But no one came to visit us. Interesting. Once again I had a sense that a point was being made, and Yohai did not want to make it. I bit into a yellow vegetable. It was juicy and bittersweet.
In the evening I sat with Nahusai. Yohai went out, I didn’t know where. I learned more verbs and a lot of prepositions: the curse of every language, but they held all information together. To. From. At. Of. Between.
The next day was my fifth on the planet. The sky was clear again. Yohai and I worked in the garden. I learned the names of various plants. Yohai told me that she was a woman. She wasn’t a mother, though. When she told me this, she seemed unhappy.
“Nahusai?” I asked.
She made the gesture that meant “yes.” “Mother,” she said, then put her hand on her chest. “Mother me.”
Aha. A kinship relationship. My first one. I began to feel I was getting somewhere.
The day after that Yohai took me to the river. It ran between the gardens and the forest. This time of year—midsummer—it was low. The water ran around yellow stones. Yohai waded in and turned over a stone, then grabbed something. “Tsa!”
She handed the thing to me. It was maybe ten centimeters long, green and hard, with eight legs. I held it gingerly. The legs moved. At one end were two long stalks. Were they eyes? Or antennae? They flicked back and forth.
“We eat,” said Yohai.
“Oh, yeah?” I made the gesture that meant uncertainty or confusion.
“You see.” Yohai took the creature and tossed it into a pot. “You here.” She beckoned.
I took off my boots, rolled up my pants, and waded in. She had another creature. It went into the pot. “You.”
I reached into the water and rolled over a rock. Something scurried past my fingertips. I grabbed and missed.
“Damnation.” I found another rock and tried again.
We spent all morning in the river. Yohai caught twenty or so of the creatures. I caught two.
At last she waded out of the river. She stared at me, looking puzzled.
“What am I good for?” I said in English. “An interesting question. I’m very good at learning languages and pretty good at figuring out how other people think. Though I can’t always explain how I know what I know. Is that any help?”
Yohai picked up the pot. The green things were still alive. They crawled over one another, trying to get out.
“Come.” She beckoned.
I picked up my boots. We walked downstream. After a few minutes the gardens were gone, and there were trees all around us. The air smelled of whatever-it-was: the forest aroma, sharp and distinctive, for which I had no name.
There were rapids in the river. Nothing important. The water rippled down over a series of little drops. Here and there I saw a little foam. At the bottom of the last drop was a pool. The water was quiet, deep, and green.
My companion put down the pot she carried. She kicked off her sandals and pulled her tunic over her head. Her body was lovely, dark and sleek. It reminded me of otters and bears and of my own species as well. She was remarkably humanoid. The only striking difference was the fur. The eyes were a bit unusual, of course. The pupils were vertical slits. The irises, which were pale yellow, filled the eyes. I could see no white. Her hands had three fingers and a thumb. Her feet had four toes. Except for this and her flat chest, she looked like our senior pilot, Ivanova.
She pointed at me. “You. Li-sha.”
I undressed.
“Tsa!” She touched my bare shoulder. “What?”
I kept still. She walked around in back of me. “Hu!” I felt the touch of her hand very lightly on one shoulder blade. I shivered. She came around in front and stared at my chest. For a human woman I was pretty flat. Still, my breasts were far more noticeable than hers.
“Mother? You?” she asked.
“No.”
She looked me straight in the eyes. She was frowning. “What you?”
I answered her in English. “I can’t explain, Yohai. Not yet. I don’t know how you say ‘world’ or ‘star’ or ‘friend.’ But there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m not dangerous. I mean no harm.”
Yohai stared at me for another minute, then turned and dove into the pool. She was a terrific swimmer. I saw her glide through the green water as gracefully as a seal.
I dove after her. My foot slipped on the bank, and my dive turned into a belly flop. I came up, coughing and embarrassed. Yohai made a barking noise. A laugh?
I swam to the middle of the river, turned over and floated. The water was cool. There was hardly any current. Far above me a bird soared across the sky. Ah!
After a while I swam to shore. I climbed out and washed my clothes, using a couple of stones—I had learned the technique in California from the aborigines—then hung the clothes on a bush to dry.
Yohai joined me, brushing the water out of her fur. We sat together on the riverbank. Her eyes were half-closed, and her fur glistened in the sunlight. She looked so comfortable! Why couldn’t I relax like that? Maybe I should take another course in yoga.
Yohai roused herself and told me the name of the creatures in the pot.
That evening I learned how to kill and shell the creatures. I didn’t enjoy this. But I did it. Yohai boiled the remains. The result was delicious. I ate too much. Afterward I sat in the doorway. Children played in the street. They seemed to be playing tag. I watched and felt more or less contented, though I could have used an after-dinner drink. Something light and dry. A white wine maybe.
The next morning I paid another long visit to the privy. I called the ship and got Eddie again.
“I have news for you,” he said. “But first, transmit your information.”