The Color of Distance (55 page)

“I should get back before they ruin dinner.” She peered at Juna. “Are you going to be all right?”

Juna nodded. “Thanks, Alison, I’ll be fine. Go on. I’m so glad you’re here!”

Alison gave her arm an affectionate squeeze, then headed for the galley.

“I’m sorry to hear about your brother,” Laurie said.

Juna managed a brief thank-you. It had been an emotional day. She was worn out, and there was still that language session with Dr. Tanguay.

“I think I want to go back to my quarters now.”

Juna felt a rush of relief as the lock door closed behind her. It was good to be alone. She stripped out of her suit and headed for the shower. The hot water felt wonderful against her tight, dry skin. Dad was right, they needed her back home—but she wouldn’t be home for months, perhaps as long as a year. And the Tendu needed her too. Juna sighed, got out, dried off, and ordered dinner. That done, she poured herself a glass of water, and stood sipping it, looking around the sterile cubicle. Her gaze fell on her computer. She should read her mail.

After the first three offers for her memoirs, she switched her mail scan to personal correspondence only, and caught up with her friends while she ate another of Alison’s glorious meals. Couscous this time, with fresh vegetables and chunks of lamb. The spices and the heat burned her aching throat, but it was so good to eat a hot meal again that she didn’t care.

Dr. Tanguay came by for her lesson. Juna stripped down to her briefs and began testing her knowledge of skin speech. As long as Juna spoke slowly, in large, simple, informal patterns, Dr. Tanguay could understand most of what she said. The translation device proved to be a large graphic slate, crammed to the gills with linguistic software. It was slow but workable. It disturbed Juna to realize how easily she could be replaced. It was hard to get used to the idea that she was going to have to share the Tendu with people who would never understand them as well as she did.

Her voice gave out after about half an hour, and they called a halt, agreeing to get together after the staff meeting tomorrow for another lesson. Juna drank a liter of water; the air in the room sucked the moisture out of her. She found the environmental controls and turned the humidity up as high as it would go. Then she crawled into bed. It was good to sleep in a real bed again? She was so tired that she fell asleep before she could repair her tired, aching throat.

She woke in the middle of the night in agony, her skin tight and aching, her throat burning with dryness. She stumbled into the shower stall and turned on the water, then crouched there, mouth open, letting the warm water stream down her throat. The warmth and moisture eased the dryness of her skin, and she felt better, except for a tight ache in the skin over her elbows and knees. She would have to speak to the medical staff about the humidity tomorrow. Surely something could be done to make the room more comfortable.

She climbed into bed again without drying off, letting the moisture from her body seep into the sheets so that the bed would be moist and comfortable. It would be a mess in the morning, but at the moment she didn’t care. She had spent years dreaming of cool, dry, clean sheets, and now all she wanted was to burrow into the rotting wet warmth of a Tendu bed.

Anitonen watched as the humans’ raft took Eerin away. Eerin waved, and Moki replied with a flash of brilliant colors, fading quickly back to deep grey. Anitonen glanced back at the floating island. New creatures moved over it like niku over a rotting log.

She missed Eerin already. Eerin had acted so differently when she was with the other new creatures. Her skin was strangely still while she made the mouth noises that passed as communication among the
humans.
Only when she translated what
Dr. Bremen
had said did her skin come alive. It felt like Eerin was gone even before she walked out of the jungle and got on the new creatures’ raft.

Moki was taking this hard. A ripple of regret passed over Anitonen’s skin, and she touched his shoulder reassuringly. He shrugged off her touch, his eyes never leaving the floating island. Orphaned bami his age almost never recovered from the loss of their sitik. Even with the kindest of care, they wasted away and died, or vanished into the forest, never to be seen again. Moki was exceptionally intelligent and fiercely determined, but the same determination that drove him to follow them through the jungle worked against him now as he clung to his sitik.

Anitonen laid a hand on his shoulder. He turned to look at her. “Eerin isn’t dead, Moki. You’ll see her tomorrow,” she told him.

Moki turned to look at the ship again without responding.

Ukatonen touched Anitonen on the shoulder. “Go on, we’ll sit here together for a while.”

Anitonen nodded and swung off into the trees. She settled on a high branch and looked out at the humans’ island, watching the new creatures come and go. How was she going to fit all of these strangers into her world?

Anitonen shook her head. First she had to deal with the problem of Lyanan. Their resentment of the humans had softened, thanks to Eerin’s patience, hard work, and skill, but it could flare again if the negotiations went badly.

She needed to find some form of exchange that would satisfy both humans and Tendu. It needed to be valuable and easily divided, so that it could be used to help excuse the obligations that Lyanan had incurred while they were replanting the forest. It also had to be something that the humans were willing to trade.

Eerin had explained that there were very strict limits on what the humans would give to the Tendu. The humans couldn’t give the Tendu anything that they didn’t already have or use. This seemed like a strange rule to Anitonen. Why trade for something that the other person already had? Eerin had explained that the humans were afraid that the Tendu might hurt themselves with the gifts that they gave them. Too many new things might make the Tendu change too fast. Anitonen shook her head. Why should the humans worry about what the Tendu might do with their trade goods? That was the enkar’s concern. If the enkar didn’t like the way things were going, it was up to them to stop it.

It wasn’t going to be easy to find trade goods that would settle the issue. She shook her head again, rippling frustration, and set off to find Lalito. They needed to discuss what Lyanan wanted to get out of the negotiations.

The humans arrived for the meeting shortly before noon the next day. Anitonen watched with Ukatonen and Moki as the humans headed toward the beach in their strange self-propelled rafts. As they drew closer, Anitonen saw Eerin sitting in the bow of the first raft. Her body was covered with
clothing.
How was she going to be able to talk when she was all covered up? Moki scrambled down the tree and out onto the cliffs, eager to greet his sitik. Anitonen lifted her ears inquiringly at Ukatonen.

“I told him he could escort the humans to the meeting. He’ll get to see Eerin, and be quieter during the negotiations.”

“Shouldn’t you keep Moki away from her?”

“It would be like keeping the ocean away from the beach. Those two need each other too much.”

“But you’re supposed to become Moki’s sitik now.”

Ukatonen shook his head and looked away. “Moki won’t accept me,” he said, grey with sadness. “Some other solution must be found.”

“What other solution is there?” Anitonen asked.

Ukatonen shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Anitonen looked at him. He had rendered the judgment that Juna should be allowed to adopt Moki. If Moki died, so would he. Someday she might face a similar threat. For a moment she longed to be back in Narmolom, where life was simple. But her people needed her here.

The humans reached the top of the cliff. Eerin carried Moki on her shoulders. He was radiantly turquoise with happiness. Eerin seemed pleased as well, though it was hard to tell through all that alien clothing The other humans paused just outside the forest while Eerin stepped behind a bush. Anitonen"rippled relief as Eerin emerged, naked and familiar, her clothing in a bundle under her arm.

Anitonen and Ukatonen followed the humans through the forest. A few humans glanced up as branches bowed and rustled, but none of them appeared to see the two enkar. They were too busy trying to look at everything, and as a result, they saw very little.

At last they neared the river bank, where the meeting was to take place. They hurried ahead, and were waiting with Lalito and the other Tendu on the soft, damp sand when the humans arrived.

Moki came in first, head high, obviously proud to be entrusted with the duty of escorting his sitik and the other humans through the forest to this meeting.

“Greetings to the people of Lyanan, and to the enkar who have kindly agreed to attend this meeting,” Eerin said in flawless formal skin speech. “May I present
Dr. Bremen,
the chief elder of the humans who have come here.
Dr. Wu,
whose atwa is learning about the Tendu;
Dr. Tanguay,
who has the same atwa;
Dr. Nazariefj,
whose atwa is learning about the Tendu’s world; and
Captain Edison,
whose atwa is the floating island.”

It was a fine introduction. Eerin’s time among the enkar had not been wasted. Anitonen suppressed a flare of pride and stepped forward to reply.

“We are honored to meet you. I hope we can achieve harmony between our two peoples,” Anitonen replied in equally formal skin speech. “May I present Lalito, chief elder of the village of Lyanan, and her bami, Lani. This is Sarito, who is on the village council, and his bami, Ehna. This is the enkar Ukatonen, and his bami, Moki"—Moki flinched at that—"and this is the enkar Garitonen.” She felt silly introducing Ukatonen and Garitonen as enkar, when it was implicit in their names, but Eerin had said that it was a good idea. “I am the enkar Anitonen,” she continued. “My atwa concerns Eerin and the other humans, so I will be guiding these talks toward harmony.”

Anitonen waited while Eerin translated her speech into the noisy sound talk that the new creatures used. It took a long time. Then Dr. Bremen got up and said something.

“Greetings,” Eerin translated for Dr. Bremen. “We are honored to meet you. I hope that we can achieve harmony between our people.”

Lalito stepped forward and delivered a speech about the conditions at Lyanan, describing how her people had suffered from the destruction of the forest. Eerin asked her to pause several times while she translated her words into sound talk for the humans.

When the speech ended, the humans conferred noisily among themselves. It reminded Anitonen of a flock of kidala birds, and she suppressed a ripple of amusement. Then the one called Dr. Wu stood up to speak.

“Eerin has told us of the damage that we caused to your people, and we wish to make reparations. We want to meet our obligations in this matter. As a pledge for reparations, please accept this gift from us.” He gestured, and one of the others brought forward a large coil of rope of very fine quality. It was a handsome gift.

“We thank you for this gift,” Anitonen replied, “and we hope that these talks bring our people into harmony.”

“It is our wish to keep the disruption our people cause to a minimum,” Wu said. “We want to introduce the things that we make very slowly. We are afraid that certain trade goods might cause changes that you would not like, and we don’t want that to happen. Though this limits the ways we can fulfill our obligations to you, I believe harmony can be achieved in this matter. It may take longer, but everyone involved will be happier with the decision. We hope that these agreements will last for many generations. Therefore we need to think everything through very carefully. I ask for your patience and understanding as we bargain.”

Anitonen lifted her ears at this. He sounded like an enkar. Or was that merely Eerin’s translation? She glanced at the others. The villagers seemed impressed, but it was more difficult to tell with her fellow enkar.

Ukatonen saw her inquiring look. “I like this Dr. Wu. He seems wise and reasonable,” he told Anitonen in small, private signs. “Do you think he really is, or does Eerin just make him sound like he is?”

“I don’t know,” Anitonen replied. She turned back to Eerin and the other humans. “We will confer with Lalito and the village council and meet here again tomorrow.”

“One other thing,” Dr. Wu said. “Our people would like to come ashore and explore. Is that possible?”

Anitonen turned to Lalito. “Well?”

Lalito tucked her chin in thought for a few moments. “I don’t want them destroying any more of our forest,” she said, “or killing things like they did last time. I’d want one of the villagers along to keep an eye on them, and we’d need Eerin to come, too, and translate.”

“I want some of the enkar along as well,” Ukatonen said. “I suggest that they send out no more than eight people, and that one of them must be Eerin. We will send along eight Tendu to watch over them.”

The humans agreed to this, and the meeting broke up. Moki came over to Eerin and held his arms out, asking for a link. Eerin shook her head, glancing nervously at the other humans.

“I’m busy now, Moki. Perhaps later.”

“Could you ask to stay a little longer?” Ukatonen proposed. “We need to talk with you about the meeting. And Moki wants to see you. Even if you don’t link with him, a short visit would help him get used to your being away.”

Eerin nodded, then turned and spoke to her people.

“It’s all right,” she told Ukatonen. “They’ll send a
boat
to pick me up later on in the afternoon.”

Garitonen escorted the other humans to the beach. Anitonen could see him trying his human skin speech out on the humans as they walked off through the jungle.

The Tendu waited until they could no longer hear the humans crashing through the leaf litter, and then they followed Lalito back to the village. The villagers had a beautiful meal laid out for the enkar in Lalito’s room. After the ritual apologies and compliments, they sat down to eat. Eerin ate lightly, mostly fruits, greens, and a little raw fish.