Bruce looked thoughtful for a minute, “You promise you won’t do anything to me?”
“You have my word as an enkar,” Ukatonen reassured him.
“Well, this was going to be my last trip out, anyway. I may never have another chance. Let’s do it.”
They pushed the beds together and sat in a circle. Moki showed Bruce how to hold his arms.
“It’ll sting a little bit when the spurs pierce your skin,” he warned.
Bruce nodded. “Go ahead. I’m ready.”
Moki could feel Bruce’s fear and anxiety as he entered the link. He and Ukatonen waited while Bruce got his bearings. Then Ukatonen slowly and gently began infiltrating the link with calmness and a sense of well-being.
The enkar waited until Bruce was deeply relaxed, then set to work. Moki could feel Ukatonen working on his throat, thickening his new vocal cords, changing the shape of his palate, and enlarging the resonating chambers in his sinuses. He followed Ukatonen’s work closely. Soon he would have to monitor Ukatonen as the enkar worked on himself.
Ukatonen broke the link, and asked Moki to talk.
“Iz bedder,” Moki told him aloud. His voice was smoother-sounding now, less buzzy and more resonant.
Ukatonen nodded, “Now me,” he said, holding out his arms for a link.
“Are you sure, en?”
“You can do this, Moki. Just stay calm and focused.”
Moki gripped Ukatonen’s arms and the two of them plunged into the link. Ukatonen worked swiftly and well on his own sinuses, tongue, and palate. Then, he began altering his vocal cords. This was the dangerous part. Gradually, he reshaped the flaps of tissue, making them longer and wider. He was nearly finished when one of his newly enlarged vocal cords slid across the other, effectively blocking the airway. It opened as he breathed out, but flapped shut again as he inhaled.
Moki immediately began feeding the enkar as much oxygen as he could through his allu, breathing deeply and hard while Ukatonen worked feverishly to reopen his throat. At last Moki intervened, forcing an opening that undid all of Ukatonen’s work but opened the enkar’s airway. Air began flowing back into his lungs. The crisis was over.
Ukatonen rested for a moment. Then he methodically repaired his vocal cords. There was one terrifying moment when the enkar’s throat almost closed again, but much to Mold’s relief Ukatonen managed to stop it without his intervention. After that, everything went smoothly, but it seemed to Moki as though an eternity passed before Ukatonen broke the link.
“You did well, Moki,” Ukatonen told him in skin speech. “I was proud of you for keeping your head.”
Moki shook his head. “Thank you, en. I’m sorry that I made you redo your work.”
“If you hadn’t acted when you did,” Ukatonen said, “I would have died.”
Moki shrugged. “I’m glad we’re done.”
Ukatonen rippled agreement. “We may have to make some small adjustments, but nothing as major as that one.”
“Are you all right?” Bruce asked. “Your breathing went all funny for a couple of moments. I was starting to get worried.”
“Ahm ohkeh,” Ukatonen said aloud. “ ’An oo unner-sand mmmee?”
“I’m okay. Can you understand me?” Bruce repeated.
Ukatonen nodded and tried again. The words were clearer this time.
“That’s pretty good!” Bruce said encouragingly.
“It’s a beginning,” the enkar said in Standard skin speech. “With your help we will improve quickly.”
Moki and Ukatonen had a quick snack of fruit juice and sugar. Then, their reserves replenished, they linked with Bruce. They had him speak while they monitored his lips, tongue, and throat.
“Now you try it,” Bruce said after they broke the link.
“Hello, how are you?” the two Tendu chorused.
Bruce laughed, “You sound exactly like me.”
“Thank you,” Ukatonen said aloud. “You were our”— he paused, searching for the word—“the thing you use to make copies of a shape,” he continued in Standard skin speech.
“Template,” Bruce supplied. “I was your template.”
’Tem— temblate, tempuhlate,” Ukatonen repeated. “You say it now, Moki,” he encouraged in skin speech.
Moki got it on the second try.
“Very good,” Bruce told them. “You need more practice, but by the time of the meeting on Tuesday you should be able to talk well enough to be understood.” He grinned. “I wish I could be there to see the look on Juna’s face when she hears you.”
Juna, Moki, and Ukatonen filed into the meeting room. Juna noticed that Moki looked unusually excited about something, but just as she was about to question him, Don and Jennifer arrived.
“I’m sorry we’re late,” Don said. “It took us a bit longer than I expected to find the necessary reports.”
“That’s all right,” Juna assured him, pleased that for once she and the Tendu were on time and the others a bit late.
“We need to prepare Moki and Ukatonen for life among humanity,” she said when everyone was settled. “The first thing we should do is list the potential problems that they might encounter when we arrive, and then decide which are the most serious.”
“Well,” Don said, “we’ve already dealt with the problem of nudity. I think our next problem is communication. We need to make it easier for people to understand Moki and Ukatonen when they use written Standard skin speech.”
“No, you won’d. Moki and I are learning do speak like you,” Ukatonen said.
“I’m sorry, what did you— ” Juna began, and then stopped as she realized that Ukatonen had just spoken aloud.
Don and Jennifer were staring open-mouthed at the enkar.
“You can talk!” Juna exclaimed. “How— ”
“We linked,” Moki explained, also speaking aloud. Pink lightning flickers of excitement cut across blue and green ripples of laughter on Mold’s skin. He was clearly enjoying his surprise. “Ukadonen changed me; then I helped Ukadonen change. Bruce helped us learn do puh-puhro— ” Juna watched him struggle with a difficult word.
“Bruce showed uz how do zay de words,” Ukatonen explained.
“Moki, Ukatonen, this is amazing. I guess we’ve solved your communication problems.”
“We need help,” Moki said. “We don’d know many words.”
“Perhaps Bruce could continue helping us,” Ukatonen suggested in skin speech. “We enjoyed working with him.”
“That’s a good idea,” Juna said. She was pleased that they’d found something for Bruce to do. She had noticed that he was becoming bored and restless lately. A shared task like this might help their relationship last until they reached Earth. Juna sighed inwardly. She longed for something more permanent than these shipboard relationships.
“…perhaps we might want someone with a little more experience in linguistics or speech therapy,” Dr. Maass was saying. This was no time to be daydreaming, Juna told herself sternly. Her first responsibility was to Moki and Ukatonen.
“That won’t be necessary, Dr. Maass,” Ukatonen replied falling back into skin speech. “All we require is a native speaker of Standard to provide a template for our own speech.”
“There’s no point in worrying about this unless we have a competent speech therapist on board,” Juna pointed out.
“I studied and trained as a speech therapist,” Jennifer said. She lowered her eyes, blushing. “I was planning on using it as a fallback career if I couldn’t find a job in my major. I’d be happy to work with Crewman Bowles and the Tendu to help smooth out any vocal irregularities or other difficulties.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to have someone with some formal training helping out,” Juna said.
“Would you be willing to link with us?” Ukatonen asked. “By feeling how you speak, we can learn faster.”