And she did. She projected pure emotion, tied tenuously to facts: the triumph of heroes of her clan who had died beautiful deaths, the pride of her mother, dying that she might live, the joy of the child that would receive life when she was dead. The visitor stopped holding her, but she kept the flow of emotion pouring into him: she relived the euphoria of her deathflight, and felt again an eager anticipation of her death.
When her desire for death became unbearable, she left him.
The next day and the day after, Alex Zamyatin went out into the city despite the heat. It was much too large a city for one man to cover in a day. On the third day, he found her.
It was early, an hour or two past dawn, and the city was rosy with light. She lay, wings spread, in the shadows at the edge of a plaza. She’d been dead for some time.
Her wings, dry as parchment, were loosely outstretched, covering most of her body and the ground around it. One arm lay hidden under her; the other reached forward, her hand near her face, fingers curved slightly inward — the same sleepy pose she had taken in the tent.
Her face was peaceful, what he could see of it. Membranes obscured her large, luminous eyes. She looked, deceptively, as though she were breathing. He could almost see a slight rise and fall of her chest.
He knelt beside her, reached out a hand. Not to move her; she was perfect, careless, spent. He touched the downy leather of her wing, surprised against his will by its coolness. Her flesh, waxy under his fingertips, was colder than he could have anticipated. Dead.
He stroked her wing again, involuntarily. It was difficult to stop, he felt such joy.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
“Contact” is an early story, started in 1976, and finished at the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and later at the monthly workshops that Kate Wilhelm and Damon Knight held in Eugene. It’s a story with a learning curve: I intentionally worked against my own stylistic preferences, and focused on exploring a number of issues that continue to hold my interest.
I’m afraid that it looks small when juxtaposed with its ambitions, but it’s one of those stories where the writer’s reach exceeds her grasp. Learning to do that — upping the ante — is exactly what Clarion is for.
The story was bought by Jim Baen, for his Destinies anthology series. It was one of a bunch of purchases that he later decided didn’t fit his evolving concept of the series, and eventually spun out into a separate anthology, called Proteus, for God knows what reason. Sort of a Salon des Refusées of Destinies, Proteus included stories by Michael Swanwick, George Alec Effinger, and Charles Sheffield. These were mostly character-centered stories by writers with literary ambition, defining rather clearly the aesthetic that Baen did not want, and I was pleased that my story was included.
What Are Friends For?
The day the new thropo hits Pomona, me and the guys lay a cherry bomb on him, just to show we’re glad he came.
Then when he comes down from the palm tree (heyzus, can those snakeheads jump), we tell him it’s a, uh, local custom.
“Most hospitable,” he says. “Must show you a few of our customs some day.” The tentacles where his head should be are wriggling like crazy. He looks like a clothespin wearing a nest of snakes, and he sounds like a mucken 3V announcer.
He sits down next to us on the curb and starts asking us what we do, where we live, all the old jakweb.
We got a couple hours to kill before we hit the condo we been casing, so we scag him around a while. I say I test birth control shots. Chico says he’s an assistant breather for DivAirQual. You know.
The thropo swallows everything. Doesn’t blink an eye. (And he’s got a few extra eyes to blink.) His tentacles quiet down while he listens. After a while the joke bennies and we burn it. Then we just sit around for a couple minutes and look at each other. Finally the thropo gets up and he shakes himself like a dog and he says, “Well, you young people seem to have a very high collective imagination index. Just the sort of thing I’ve been looking for. Have a pleasant afternoon.” Then he walks off.
Later on, after we finish the job (which goes off smooth as high grade hash), we catch him down to Paco’s store on the corner. He’s over by the magazine rack, checking out the skinnies, taking notes on a little pocket corder. I don’t get what he’s saying, but he looks pretty worked up for a snakehead.
Allie pokes me in the back. “Hey,” she says, “you think they go for that kind of stuff? I thought they laid eggs or something.”
“I dunno,” I say. “Maybe he’s just finding out what he’s missing.”
“We ought to get old Margie on his ass,” says Chico. “She’d teach him a thing or two.”
“Shit,” says Allie, “even Margie wouldn’t do it with a snakehead.”
Then he sees us, and all his little tentacles wave. We kind of look at each other. Then we figure what the hell and go over. “A most unusual concept,” says the thropo as we get closer. “Portraying the distribution of genetic information in a social context to stimulate the economy.”
We look at each other again. “You want stimulating, you should see the live shows down on South Garey,” says Allie.
“That would be most instructive,” says the thropo. “Perhaps you would all like to accompany me?”
“Shit, man,” says Chico, “it costs ten bucks to get in.”
“My discretionary fund was intended for such contingencies,” says the thropo. We just look at him, and he says, “My treat.”
So pretty soon we’re sitting in the Pink Flamenco on South Garey, around these tables with bug candles on them, and I’m thinking that this is a pretty screwy thing to be doing, going to a skinshow with a snakehead. The other thropos, they come sniffing around, ask you a few questions, and you give them all the wrong answers. After a while they go away, whether we fool them or not.
But fuck ’em, I say, with their questions and their clinics and their rules and regulations. Sign up here, look over there, pee into this, cough, and let’s have a sample of your blood. I don’t see where that gets anybody. And it was the same with the government, before the invasion. I mean, a lot of people were really racked out when the snakeheads took over, and a lot of other people said it was a good thing, but to me it’s all politics, and whether it’s snakeheads or shitheads don’t make much difference. So when they send their thropos around asking a lot of dumbass questions like a bunch of snakey little missionaries, I like to give them a hard time. And I don’t really understand what I’m doing at the old Flamenco with the new thropo, if you see what I mean.
Just as I’m thinking all this, the show starts. The same tired old farts doing the same tired old numbers they was doing when me and Allie used to sneak in as kids. So we’re whistling and yelling and throwing condoms and popcorn at the stage. Then I look over at the thropo, who is sitting next to me, and see that he’s taking notes again on his corder.
“What do you use all that stuff for anyway,” I say.
“Well,” says the thropo, “most of it goes straight into the central processor for reduction and comparative analysis. Be used later in your species evaluation.”
“Oh,” I say. The double-jointed brother-and-sister act is on stage now, so I return my attention to the show. The thropo goes on snuffling into his corder.