“A black hole,” he responded absently.
“What?” She hesitated, then gestured with two arms. “Is there something about me personally that requires you to triple the degree of sarcasm in your replies?”
Not for the first time since he had been brought to live among the Myssari, he was ashamed of himself. He looked up at her. “I told the explorers who originally found me wandering on Seraboth that I was a poor representative of my kind. When I fail to confirm it, one of you usually manages to do so.”
Something small and bright blue landed on her sloping left shoulder. It fluttered to the middle, then to the right one. Looking up from where he was seated, Ruslan could see it clearly. Each of its four wings was mottled with yellow and brown streaks that flashed according to how they were struck by sunlight. Alien butterfly camouflage, he told himself, though the creature had single-lensed eyes, a normal mouth, and perfect, tiny nostrils. He had never seen a butterfly anyway. It was a creature that survived only within the extensive depths of recorded human knowledge. Something that had lived on old Earth, the accompanying material insisted. He wondered.
If the Myssari succeeded in locating Earth, would it still have butterflies? He hoped so.
Thoughts of both served to mute his disdain. “I’m sorry. No matter how I feel, I have no right to take it out on you or Bac’cul or Kel’les or anyone else.”
Her voice, already Myssari-soft, fell to a near murmur. “Do not apologize. You have no one else to ‘take it out on.’”
Dark and wrenching, sorrow welled up in him. It had not paid him a visit in more than a year. He thought he was done with it, that he had banished it to the same cold, remote place where he had put away most of his feelings. Frustratingly, it surged up and out now, manifesting itself in tears that streaked his face like flow channels on a dry world. He wiped at them angrily.
Cor’rin stared, fascinated by a phenomenon she had read about but never seen in person. There were a great many questions she wanted to ask about the biological process. Instead, she said nothing. That much, at least, she had learned about humans. Or at least about this human.
Two hands came down to rest on his shoulders while the fingers of the third draped themselves over his right knee.
“I wish I could find a means of improving your life outlook. There is much that is Myssari for an alien to enjoy. Not just the physical beauty of the worlds we have settled, but in our culture as well.”
He sniffed forcefully and rubbed his nose with the back of his left sleeve. “I know that. In my time among your kind, I’ve seen much of it and certainly enjoyed some. It’s just that every once in a while the loneliness takes me by surprise and—it’s overwhelming.” He looked up at her as she removed her hands. “There’s nothing anyone can do to help. It’s like a recurring disease. You work through it until it goes away of its own accord. Then you wait for it to come back when you least expect it.”
“There is something that would help, but unfortunately it’s not possible.”
His curiosity was piqued. “Something none of your analysts or xenologists has already proposed? I would’ve thought they’d tried everything by now.”
“They have. Everything psychological. Everything chemical. There are certain biological remedies that are unfortunately not viable.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“There are—engineering problems. The therapy to which I refer would be akin to trying to build a starship utilizing both Myssari and human components.”
“What?” Realization dawned. “Oh. Oh.” The last of the tears spilled. As they dried he found himself smiling slightly. “I have to ask, Cor’rin: do your thoughts regarding this matter arise out of considerations that are professional or personal?”
“Both.” She continued to stare at him. Having brought up the subject herself, she was plainly not in the least reluctant to discuss it further.
“Well. We agree on one thing. None of your colleagues has so much as broached the possibility. ‘Engineering problems,’ yes, to be sure. But I am flattered that such an outré thought would even occur to you.”
“Why should you be so surprised? Your continued well-being is of great interest to all of us. If you are not well and alert mentally, it diminishes the accuracy and therefore the reliability of your responses to our queries.”
“Certainly, certainly.” He paused a moment. “Tell me, Cor’rin: even though it’s self-evident that this concept cannot advance beyond a hypothetical line of thinking, it must have prompted a mental image or two.”
“That is only natural,” she replied. “For you as well.”
“It surely did.” He shook his head. “But I can’t, even working at the extremes of my imagination, envision how an intermet would come into play.”
“Surely in the course of studying our culture you have had occasion to encounter descriptions of the process?”
“Descriptions into which I can’t conceive of inserting myself… so to speak.”
She rose from where she was sitting. “I have succeeded in getting you to engage the expression called a ‘smile.’ Therefore I count our conversation a success.” Pleased with herself, she started toward the nearest building. “If you ever wish to repeat such a conversation, I am on call to respond to your query no matter what other work I may be doing. We all are. That is how important your satisfaction and well-being are to every member of the science contingent.”
“I know.” His smiled widened. “Don’t worry, Cor’rin. If I want to talk, I’ll let you know. I’m not shy.”
“Less so than a Myssari,” she called back to him. Her head having swiveled 180 degrees, she kept walking toward the building while continuing to stare back at him. She held the gaze for as long as practically possible before her head snapped back around so that she could see where she was going.
With a deep, resigned sigh he once more leaned back against the horizontal tree branches. She had succeeded in snapping him out of his funk. Sorrow had been banished, however temporarily, and he could once more see the sky as blue instead of black. He felt better.
Though whether this was the result of the pseudo-butterfly’s visit or the image of a complex physical impossibility she had left with him he could not say.
“Gather your personal belongings.”
Seated in the midst of frolicking chelabar, Ruslan heard the words only faintly. He was reluctant to comply. Undulating beneath the waves, the school of four-meter-long eel-like chelabar were nearly transparent, a trait that rendered them invisible to most predators. But when they leaped clear of the surface in their exuberant mating displays, cells in their skin that were sensitive to contact with the gaseous nitrogen in the atmosphere reacted to the exposure by strobing several colors of the spectrum. Males leaned heavily toward purple and females to pale orange, while the chelabar intermets flashed all the way over into the ultraviolet.
Even though he could not perceive the latter hue, the totality combined to create an exciting, almost transcendent display. Drifting on the surface of the sea in a thin body masque that both warmed and concealed him, he watched as the gracile, gliding creatures danced in the air above the foam. No land was in sight, no support craft. He was adrift in the center of the south Myssari ocean, alone with the inborn radiance of that world’s remarkable sea life. The only sounds were the lapping of the waves, the splashing of chelabar as they returned to the water from their brief aerial excursions, and the coarse cry of broad-winged simmets and bubble-like aiau.