Chapter Three
Weeks after escaping from the would-be assassin, the Sibyl’s small shuttle floated lightly down through clouds on a course that spiraled toward the surface of Poxt. As the cottony white vapors parted, they got their first look at the main continent of the ottle planet.
“Blue Stars, look at all the trees!” Shona exclaimed, leaning forward against the impact straps. “I have never seen forests like that in my life.” Gershom reached back through the division beside the co-pilot’s couch for her hand, and squeezed it. Shona squeezed back appreciatively.
“It’s beautiful,” Lani breathed. Alexander was strapped in with her in the seat next to Shona. He crowed.
“I have never seen it from above,” Chirwl said, clutching the top of Shona’s chair with his sharp talons. “When I left home this many ago I was hidden in a place aft to shelter from the machine I was not familiar with riding in.”
Ivo, in the shuttle’s command seat, grunted. “You sure get a good view now.”
The green canopy of the jungle below seemed to reach up toward them. By straining her eyes, Shona could see less distinct patches of other colors: brilliant scarlet, deep gold, and a stunning electric blue, plus strips of white along the natural gaps through which wide rivers ran. The white continued out over a wide delta, and spread along the shore of the landmass, flanked on one side by the jungle greens and on the other by aquamarine waters. Shona lost sight of the continent as the shuttle shot southward and dropped another ten thousand feet, covering ocean and islands and ice cap. By the time they looped around again, the continent was much closer. The brightly colored patches became distinctive groves of trees, each with its own texture and height.
“Where do we land, Chirwl?” Shona asked. She had the ottle on her shoulders in his sleeping pouch, which doubled as a backpack so she could carry the short-legged alien.
“I would not know,” Chirwl said, awed by the sight of his home planet. “I don’t know have references from up here distance.”
“I’m on beacon,” Ivo said. “They got landing instructions on automatic. It’s ‘drive by automatic.’ No real navigators gotta visit here.”
“No one but ottles, scientists, and a diplomatic colony,” Gershom noted. “Maybe they’ll be eager to see a trader. I won’t mind if we can’t make any deals while we’re here, but it would be nice.”
“Huh,” said Ivo, as the shuttle dropped beneath the canopy of leaves. “The day you don’t look for business …” He glanced at the huge branches which were spread far enough apart to allow the shuttle to pass between them, but were so heavily overgrown with leaves and vines that sunlight was cut by more than half. He shrugged toward clusters of head-sized red globes hanging close to the enormous tree boles. “They’re not going to want dried fruit, not with their own sources for fresh. What else we got? Electronic parts?”
“Everyone always needs replacement parts,” Shona said optimistically.
They passed over a barrel-shaped object topped with a flashing yellow light, and twin rows of bright blue lights whose flashing chased toward the west.
“That’s the beacon,” Gershom said. Ivo nodded and flicked switches. The nose of the craft eased down until the landing wheels were bumping over the uneven surface of a narrow field. “Where to from here?”
The ottle was bouncing up and down in his pouch. “From here I know,” he said, almost babbling with joy. “Do as this, please. See the black and red mark arrows upon the wall of the tree at the end of this path? Follow there, then turn.”
Ivo grunted, pushing levers and solenoids. The shuttle rumbled and coughed when its jets shut off and the land engines came to life. Driving her like a truck, the pilot wheeled the shuttle toward planetary north. The road, hewn out of raw forest along a wide, slow-flowing river, led to an irregular-shaped clearing where other small craft were tied down under heavy tarpaulins and portable hangars.
“Stop here! Stop, stop,” Chirwl chattered. The shuttle lurched to a halt next to a narrow clearing large enough to house it. Looming over them was a rough-barked tree taller and deeper than the Sibyl herself.
Shona stared out the window at it.
“That’s one mucking great tree,” she said in admiration. “Does your family live there, Chirwl?”
“Not there, but another close, nearby one tree that is missing, on the side of the river opposite from this one.” A small, sable-furred paw came over her shoulder and pointed a sharp talon downward toward a gap in the dense canopy. “From here we must walk to there.”
* * *
“They’re all mucking great trees,” Gershom said, getting out of the shuttle and stretching his legs. Shona handed him Alex and followed down the steps, steadying herself on the ladder with one hand on the rail and the other holding the strap of her backpack containing the excited ottle. Lani scrambled down in two long-legged jumps, and stood looking around her in sheer delight.
“Ah, but not all alike,” Chirwl said, inhaling and exhaling in huge, happy gulps that blew gusts down Shona’s neck. “Smell the air, how delicious!”
Shona leaned back, drew in a deep breath, and expelled it in a colossal sneeze. The cool, moist air was full of feathery green scents that tickled her nose.
“Fresh,” she said, laughing.
“I must touch the ground,” Chirwl insisted. Shona pulled the backpack off her shoulders. The ottle bounded out of the leather sack and rolled head over tail into the wiry vegetation. Lani giggled as the small alien cut capers, burrowing through the undergrowth and scratching his back by rubbing up against bushes and trees. He turned a half-somersault and lay on his back ecstatically wriggling all four feet in the air.
“I’ve missed this,” Shona said, holding out her arms and spinning in a slow circle with her head thrown back. “Trees, vines, air, clouds—am I turning into a groundbounder in my old age?”
“Not a chance,” Gershom said, collecting her in a big three-way hug with Alexander, “because I feel the same way. And no one would ever accuse me of being a landlubber.”
“It’s the atmosphere,” said Kai. “I feel a sensation of well-being in this heady atmosphere. Something around here must naturally generate a load of negative ions.”
“Oh, no.” Chirwl stopped in the middle of rolling over in the grass. “All is positive here, for life and joy and thought.”
“It’s all in the mental attitude,” Shona said, grinning. “There’s no sense in correcting him, Kai. He is right, thesaurusly speaking.”
Sometimes it seemed to Shona that Chirwl didn’t understand the human language at all, and sometimes he taught her something new about it that she had never considered. She sighed. She was going to miss him dreadfully, but she had to let him carry on with his life. They’d had seven years together. She could cherish the memories, although it wouldn’t be the same. Chirwl must have shared her feelings. He’d said a woeful, lingering goodbye to all of Shona’s animals. Harry pretended not to care when Chirwl came to pet him, turning an offended, fox-colored back on the ottle. Saffie, however, understood the seriousness of the occasion, and emitted sad little whines as Shona carried Chirwl and his pouch out of the lab module for the last time.
Ivo hauled Chirwl’s heavy carryall to the door of the shuttle and tossed it to the ground, climbing down after it. With a grunt and one mighty effort he clasped the straps and shouldered the bag. The weight overbalanced to one side, sending him staggering.
“What’s in here?” Ivo complained to the ottle. “You live in trees, so you don’t need bricks.”
“It’s cat food,” Shona said, with a grin. At Chirwl’s request, Shona had gone on an eclectic shopping spree in the shipyard’s satellite town and returned with some surprising choices. “Twenty-kilo bags. Foreign delicacies for the home folks. Chirwl likes the same flavor Harry eats, and figures his family will enjoy it, too. There’s other presents, but mostly it’s kitty kibble.” Ivo shot the ottle a look of disgust.
“You eat good human-type food, too. Why didn’t you bring some of that?”
“Ah, but it does not keep so well as my friend Harry’s food, and nutri is not of interest.”
“You can say that again,” Shona remarked.
“Why?” Chirwl wanted to know.
“I hope there’s nothing breakable in there,” Gershom said, as Ivo dropped the bag heavily to the ground and hoisted it into a better position on his back.
“Small, soft things only, except for my thesis, which is in many parts that cannot be broken.”
“If we’re not as close as you say, I’m dropping it in the river,” Ivo threatened, his black brows drawn into a V over a set face.
“Close! This way, this way,” Chirwl said impatiently, scooting up the nearest tree bole and waving a paw toward a narrow path that led back into the forest and away from the reed bank. Reluctantly Shona broke free of her husband’s embrace and picked the ottle up.
“We can go faster if I carry you.” The ottle wiggled into the pouch, and Shona slung it on her back. “Where to?”
At Chirwl’s direction, Shona squeezed in beside the gigantic bole of a tree whose striated bark was so thick she could have put her arm into it up to the shoulder. With difficulty, the men followed. Lani, bringing up the rear, slipped in after them as silently and effortlessly as a wood nymph.
“Remark your way well,” Chirwl warned them as they set out into the thick undergrowth. “I shall teach you as young ones of my kind have always been taught. This ancient tree is the oldest heart-tree for this zone region. When Poxt cooled many eons back ago we left the original places where rivers began to be too icy. Now those lie under leagues of snow and no ottle goes there. It is too bad, for much philosophy was thought there, and many among us would be gratefully glad to read the musings of our ancestors.”
“Does anyone live up there now?” Shona asked, peering up into the dense branches. “In the tree, not the arctic region.”
“No. It is like a historical house residential shrine.”
“Are all the heart-trees this big?” Gershom asked. “I’ve seen smaller space stations.”
“No, most are younger,” the ottle said, “so they do have not grown as tall.”
Beyond the ancient treestead, the brush on the floor of the forest thinned and grew in scattered clumps no more than knee-high. Shona, with Chirwl still in her arms, was able to pick her way on the spongy jungle floor. Gershom and Lani trotted up swiftly to walk alongside them. The crew spread out behind, Ivo and Gershom with their hands on unbuckled hip holsters. Kai trotted along at the same gait as if he were still in the corridors of the Sibyl, his mind elsewhere. Eblich remained on the ship. He might have enjoyed the scenery more than Kai, but he had admitted in his taciturn fashion that he’d already said his farewells to Chirwl, and more would be painful. Besides, someone had to keep the Sibyl in orbit.
“Mama, whatzat?” Alex shouted, seeing an avian with scarlet plumage whiz by overhead.
“A bird, honey. I don’t know what kind. See, there’s a reptile,” Shona said, pointing out a skinny, lizard-like form clinging to a branch. “Or should I say, a reptiloid?”
Clusters of colorful, long-tailed birds like bright flowers swirled around the heads of the hikers and flew away, calling out their surprise in hoarse, mocking voices. Alex reached up to grab for one and was disappointed when his hand came back empty.
“Pretty,” he said.
Chirwl trilled excitedly. “Ah! Now, here is the tree in which I and my siblings played at racing with youngsters from many clans. And this is the one where several of us swore a pact never to tell falsehoods. The place of burning still shows.” Shona noticed a blackened patch on the top of one thick, outspread branch.
“Burning?” she asked. “You have to take vows over fire?”
“Oh, no, for but a youthful childhood escapade,” Chirwl said, a little sheepishly. “We took fire from one of the cookings, and over the flames one must hold one’s paw while telling the words. If one is not quick, then fur will scorch. A test of memory it was as well as daring. And there is the heart-tree where the male-generative one who fostered me and my siblings lived in youth. The young tree that was growing up beside that place is gone. I thought it weak when I knew it.”
“I don’t see how you can tell all these trees apart,” Gershom remarked.
“I have always thought that same confusion over buildings,” Chirwl said. “Most because those smell so much the same as another. Trees do not smell alike. They have each their own perfume aroma.”
“Really?” Shona asked, breathing deeply. To her, the trunks had a single, peaty, rich scent. Chirwl’s keener senses could obviously detect something she couldn’t.
“Your tree better not be far,” Ivo said grouchily. He swung the heavy bag of cat food to the ground and stretched his back.
“It is not,” Chirwl said, whistling happily. His whiskers tickled Shona’s ear as he leaned closer to give directions. “Forward is the feed stream to the great river. Toward the purple flowering trees lies the bridge we are to be crossing.”
A ribbon of deep blue sky opened up ahead. They felt a quickening and a warming of the light breeze. The fingers of the wind combed through Shona’s short hair, and she smiled.
“See the river gap,” Chirwl said excitedly. “We are on target for the bridge, since over your clothes you will not like to swim.”
“I would,” Lani said promptly.
“Maybe later, honey, after we’ve met Chirwl’s folks,” Shona said hastily. “I see it.”
The inevitable thick brush that clusters along a river bank was interrupted very briefly by a Jacob’s ladder of wire and planks anchored to the ground and to one of the larger trees nearby by means of knotted cable as thick as a man’s wrist. The narrow span disappeared behind the undergrowth, but through small gaps they could glimpse sections of it suspended over the deep river cut. In the distance, the river’s roar was audible, a soothing wash of white noise and chuckling gurgles.
As they drew closer to the river, its voice was overpowered by a loud buzzing. Ivo, stumping ahead, jumped in surprise when the clump of weeds he kicked emitted a cloud of black flies.
“Hey!” he yelled, backing off. He swatted at the droning mass with Chirwl’s bag. “They sting! Get them off!”
“I did forget to tell,” Chirwl called apologetically. “Seek the low-lying, lozenge-shaped leaf and rub it on your person. That will drive them away.”
Shona scanned the ground for a plant with diamond-shaped leaves or petals. “There!” she said, stooping for a handful of white-furred green stems. “We’d better all use it.” She put the ottle down and rubbed the weeds between her palms.
When crushed, the leaf emitted a lemony, spicy fragrance that was pleasant to human nostrils but drove the flies away at once. The spacers daubed themselves with liberal quantities of the natural insect-repellent, and stepped through the hovering mass of offended flies. Shona, carrying Chirwl, led the way onto the bridge, and halted in the center to look up and down the river.
The banks on both sides were unbroken expanses of dappled green down to the brown earth of the waterline. Even the break they’d spotted when parking the shuttle was invisible. Small eddies in the river’s current showed where water creatures had dived for safety when the humans appeared. Avians swooped over the surface, snatching up insects and dipping for fish. The single, triumphant call of a bird echoed from far away. Shona sighed.
“It’s so … untouched,” she said. “On any planet where we’ve settled I’m used to seeing piers, water mills, or power plants sticking out into any body of water.”
“This colonist group promised us to be very subtle,” Chirwl said. “At first they cut many trees, but then found that we were here living above their heads. It was they stop, for now they knew this was not only their habitat, but ours, too.”
Nothing disturbed the quiet except for the rushing water and their breathing. Lani rocked back and forth on the guy wires, her gaze drifting contentedly from one cluster of green to another.
“Like home,” she said simply.
Shona searched her face for signs of sadness. Lani’s last days on her native planet of Karela had not been happy ones. The girl, sensing her foster mother’s eyes on her, turned and gave her a sweet, poignant smile with a little shrug of her shoulders to say she was all right. Shona moved close and gave her a quick hug.
“It’s so peaceful here, isn’t it?” Shona remarked, taking a deep breath of the fragrant air.
“Yes,” Chirwl said. “It is conducive to long life. There is a philosophy that such an atmosphere in one might live forever. An ottle who disagrees with that thought believes that there is no correlation, but refuses to live with great noises to test his theory. He wishes to live as long as any can.”
“Well, would you find it necessary to try a theory like that?” Kai said, shaking his head. “After all, a theory’s not proof. Why risk your life on the chance that a notion’s true?”
“Ah, but the true philosopher’s thoughts is his try.”
Though she was reluctant to stir, Shona thought she had better break up what might turn into a long session. “Chirwl, where does your mate live from here?”
“Shnomri lives in the tree under which we will be passing,” Chirwl said, disappointed at having to stop such a stimulating discussion. “But I will not call upon that ottle until after I have said greetings to home. We shall go further on along this trail eight more trunks. In my heart-tree is where Wla lives. That ottle only is from my clan. As you do not, we do not mix close biology, too.”
“You mean you avoid inbreeding,” Shona said. She turned her head as far as she could to meet Chirwl’s eyes. “You mean you have two mates?”
Chirwl, usually the most voluble of creatures, actually stopped talking, abashed. “It is not a discussion to be with others mostly. Of importance, but yes only to those involved in the trining.”
“Trining—? Oh, like pairing.” As long as he was discussing the topic, which she could never get him to do before, Shona intended to keep going until he clammed up. “Well, tell me about them.”
“Wla, of my tree, is very young. Shnomri, of a-tree-much-nearer-the-river, is of my equal in philosophy, and it is for that ottle’s sake which I take to space to meet you and other humans. My thesis is now at a point when I may set it before the seniors of thought, to have them discuss and judge if my think is good.”
“Well, it’s original, anyway,” Shona commented. “That’s got to count for something. I’ve got internal bioscans of you, and there’s no place to put babies. Do both of your mates bear the young?”
“Not both. Only the receptive one, who is Wla. I am for biogenetic donation, so there is no need for the uterine sack inside myself. Shnomri is also for biogenetic donation, of ova, which is why Shnomri comes from elsewhere. To you, that one almost is male and female at once. Since Wla and I come from the same place, I am the least of importance in the trine, so it is not important that I am not there to discuss the upbringing of young until now. Wla will have been representing the clan.”
“Do the others look differently from you? I mean other sexes, not other ottles. I’ve never met another ottle. Alien Relations brought you to me.”
Chirwl twitched his whiskers. “Not on the outside are differences evident, except receptive ones, who are smaller for better hiding. Poxt can be not-welcoming to those with young to care for. The three leaders, each to represent one gender, make sure all know what protect needs to be taken.”
“You have a triumvirate? Are they a mated trine?”
“Oh, no. Not necessarily, for governing changes as need does. Of ottles, some are with the same mates forever. Some change as they choose, or if peril or disease takes one from their three.”
“I suppose all environments have their dangers. If something happened to one mate, would the remaining ones remarry—I mean, take a new mate?”
“Ah, in a faithful triangle the other two never breed again. It is most tragic.”
“And which sort are you?”
“I like stability. It is what you do that I understand.”
“I think that’s a compliment,” Gershom said.
* * *
Dennison heaved himself painfully up from his cot. He made it to a sitting position before he was quite out of breath. Where was he? He couldn’t remember. He put a hand to his head, feeling for lumps, and felt skin. How odd. Where was his hair? He felt down the crown of his head to the cranium. Ah, there it was. He blinked blearily at the sun coming through the window of the hut. A man with brown hair stood next to the window. He recognized him as Hampton, one of Volk’s most trusted assistants. Volk—! Yes, he remembered now. His notes, were they still hidden? He had to go tell somebody what? He rose and doddered toward the door.
“Oh, no, Ed.” Hampton grabbed his arm and grinned down at him. Down? He was taller than Hampton. At least he had thought so. Dennison tried to straighten his back, but it wouldn’t straighten any higher. He remained looking up sort of sideways, with his head tilted, because his neck hurt too much to turn it forward. “No,” Hampton repeated. “You’re staying right here.”
“I have to go,” Dennison insisted, pushing against the other man’s superior strength. “I have to …” He forgot what it was he had to do. He slumped back onto the cot, and tried hard to think. Hampton went back to stand by the window.
* * *
While they were still hundreds of meters away from the clearing Chirwl had indicated, Shona and the others began to notice sleeping pouches suspended high against the trunks of the great trees. The capacious bags came in every color. Some were scarlet, mocking the huge red fruit they’d already seen, others a fresh and vivid green, some a blue-spruce color, a few a golden yellow-orange, and all the colors in between. Chirwl, who preferred a dark brown pouch, was apparently one of the more conservative ottles.
The walkers had been observed as well. Shona heard a shrill cry from high over their heads. More cries answered it, and the ottles began to emerge. From the first tree, dark, furry bodies came swarming down along channels in the deeply fissured bark to greet them. One or two, still high up, let out musical whistles and chitters to the next trunk along, to let others know that visitors were approaching. Shona saw the glints of sharp white teeth, pink tongues, and bright dark-brown eyes in the sable-furred faces. The ancient forest clearing was cut through at one corner by an old riverbed. The water was only inches deep, but it filled a pool. At the alarm, ottles clambered out of it, shook themselves dry, and hurried to join the throng.
By the time the visitors reached the clearing, they were surrounded by a knee-deep, chattering mob of sleek backs. To her delight, Shona found the ottles were not multiple replicas of Chirwl, but distinguishable by facial or vocal characteristics, like pudgy cheeks or big shoulders or a discernible soprano squeak; on the whole just the same kind of lovable, gregarious creature, but different, too. She’d wondered if when this moment came she would suddenly be disappointed that her friend was not unique in all the galaxy, but as soon as she met more of his kind the fear vanished. Each one had its own distinct personality. Chirwl remained one of a kind.
“Let down, let down!” Chirwl cried, all but clambering over her neck to get out of the pouch. Before he was even on the ground, he was engaged in a spirited conversation with a handful of others who clustered close to see him. Shona let him go, and made her way through the quarter-height throng to Gershom, who stood straight, like a human tree, looking on the scene with amusement. Alex sat in the crook of his arm like a statue, lips parted and eyes wide, staring.
“Siren-like, aren’t they?” Gershom said as Shona joined him and slipped an arm around his waist. He dropped his free arm over her shoulders. “Their voices go right through my head.”
“A young one!” an ottle with a distinct whistle exclaimed from beside their heads. It was clinging to the bark sideways by its needle-sharp claws. It pointed at Alex. “Do let us meeting your young. So seldom meet do we.”
Shona looked up at Gershom, who set the toddler down. A crowd of admiring ottles formed around him at once, poking inquisitive noses at him from a handspan away.
“Look at him.” Gershom laughed. “His eyes are about to pop out of his head.” Alex sat rapt, his back against his father’s legs, reaching out to pat one ottle after another. He had always loved Chirwl, and seemed delighted to be surrounded by dozens and dozens just like his companion. Each ottle came up to speak with him and, recognizing the need of the young to explore, let him fondle its fur or touch its ears or tail. The joy bubbling inside his small body finally blurted out in one huge, explosive chuckle, and he started to babble at his new friends the few phrases Chirwl had taught him in the ottle tongue. Shona laughed. The whistling ottle leaped up to his post beside her head and stretched out a paw to touch her cheek for attention.
“How smart and how beautiful is your offspring,” it said. “To our admiration he speaks to us, and yet he is very young?”
“He’s known Chirwl since he was born,” Shona explained. “Humans pick up languages very quickly when they are small.”
“Is there documentation of phenomenon this one?” asked another ottle. “It could be yours individually is simply more intelligent and learnable than others.”
“I would hope Alex is as bright as he seems,” Gershom said, a little half grin quirking up the corner of his mouth. “But not only is there documentation, there are classes in many skills taught to very small children.”
“Ahhhh. Most interesting.” The two ottles scampered farther up the tree to discuss the matter.
“I think we might have started a new philosophical argument,” Shona whispered, grinning.
Lani wandered here and there with wide eyes, caressing the trees and plants with familiar fingers. She looked at home at once, happy to be back in a deep-forest environment. Shona felt a twinge, thinking how much the girl must have missed her native planet after the Taylors swept her away to the sterile and cold habitat of a spaceship. At the time, there had been no choice, but now that the girl was growing up, she could soon make her own decision as to where she would live. Shona didn’t want her to spread her wings too soon, but vowed she would be open-minded and encouraging when the girl wanted to talk about her future.
Chirwl shouldered his way back to Shona through the milling throng of ottles. Behind him clustered a trio of creatures, one slightly smaller than the other two, all with visible rough, graying patches in the sable fur around their shoulders and tails. He chittered in his own tongue, then changed smoothly into Standard. “Be this is my very beloved Shona and her one-mate, Gershom. Know my generative ones,” he said, twisting his flexible spine around almost his own length to introduce each. “Chlari, father of the cell, Thio, mother of the cell, and Tsanan, nurturer of myself and my siblings.”
“Chlari, Tsanan.” The name Thio sounded more like a descending whistle than a word. Shona did her best to imitate it. “I’m so very pleased to meet you. I’ve enjoyed traveling with your … offspring. All of us have. We’ll miss him now that he’s come home to stay. He’s been a good companion.”
“He looks well and happy,” Chlari said approvingly. “He must also enjoy traveling with you.”
Tsanan, hunkered next to Chirwl, rubbed cheeks with him, and whispered low in his ear. He replied in a childlike, cooing purr that Shona found endearing. It figured that Tsanan, as the one who cared for the young, would have been Chirwl’s confidant and comforter while he was growing up. They were still close, and Tsanan seemed reluctant to be at any distance from her newly returned charge. Shona sympathized. She couldn’t imagine the wrench she might feel if Alex went away for seven or eight years without ever being able to communicate directly with her, and she hadn’t a clue what a typical ottle life span was. Had Chirwl been away half his natural life, or only a tenth? Less or more? Chlari grunted impatiently and twitched his whiskers. Chirwl and Tsanan reluctantly broke up their tête-a-tête.
“I have refutation for the theory of mine which you denied validity before going,” the old one said. “You must come up to the sleeping place and peruse it.”
“When I know where I shall be placing my bedpouch,” Chirwl said, “we shall exchange notional documents.”
“Eh, you can be taking it now.” Chlari turned his back on his offspring and co-mates, and walked deliberately up the tree, disappearing into the crevices of the bark.
“That ottle is more than glad you are returned in safety,” Tsanan said. “He had said of late that you were no more, that your travels had ended out there amidst in the stars.”
“Didn’t Alien Relations send back reports to you on how he was doing?” Shona asked, shocked.
“Oh, yes,” Tsanan said, her black eyes gleaming mischievously. “Chlari is not believing them, for there is no logical proof other than their words, which are so limited in scope yet not narrow in meaning. Mere pictures. What are they but inventions of human machines of what may not exist? Thio assures him, but Chlari does not believe hir.”
Tsanan pronounced the final word ‘heer.’ Because the ottle’s pronunciation of Standard words was so flawless, Shona refused to believe it was a mistake of diction. She assumed instead that the term ‘hir’ was the pronoun assigned by the human colony’s linguists to a concept with which they had been previously unacquainted: naming the two different biodonors of tri-gender extraterrestrials.
She was about to ask about possessive pronouns, when a shower of fingertip-sized rounds of wood rained down on them from above. Startled, Shona jumped out of the way and looked up. One pouch in a small cluster of three situated close to a thick main branch was squirming vigorously. More disks, assorted debris, and a fruit core plummeted down, bouncing off the heavy bark to fall amidst the other discards in the wiry grass and bushes at the tree’s base.
“Chlari,” Thio said, shaking hir head.
Chirwl and the other two elders carefully picked through the undergrowth for the fallen disks. Shona, Gershom, and Lani bent to help them. Ottles, with their small personal capsules and the wide world beyond them, kept very few possessions. That which they did not want they simply threw out of the pouches, never to be seen again in the thick undergrowth of the forest below. It was a trait Shona had had to deal with on shipboard, where everything Chirwl discarded ended up in very plain view on the floor.
“Not that one,” Thio said, batting a disk out of Gershom’s palm with a deft paw. “That is not Chlari’s write. Let us.”
Chirwl looked up at Shona with shining eyes as his small, deft paws sorted various oddities into piles. Thio took possession of one stack, and set them in order among the others before hir. “This is good typical of my home time. I am proud to be showing to you everyday life. It is not like yours, so I know you are interested.”
“I am interested, Chirwl,” she said, hunkered beside him with one hand lightly balanced on his sleek back. “You know I’m going to miss you.”
“Perhaps in the future there can be more going,” he said, nodding. “The pouch will not hold young ottles forever. More things to see I would like to know. Can you stay a while long for now?”
“Only a few days,” Gershom said. “Now that the Sibyl’s in working order, I’ve got to get back to work. My clients are clamoring, and the bank is on our backs.”
“Very alliterational,” Chirwl said approvingly. “That is good backward poetry of the beginnings of words rhyming instead of the ends,” he explained to Tsanan. The nurturer nodded, long front teeth clipped over her lower lip in concentration as she handed her last collection of disks to Thio.
“Now I have them all,” Thio announced, and presented a double-pawful to Chirwl.
“Let me take those,” Shona said, holding out her hands. She put them into Chirwl’s pouch.
“Chirwl-lli?” a shy whistle inquired. The throng had receded to a distance to talk amongst themselves, leaving room for another to come forward. Through the parted grasses slipped a new ottle with fur that looked more fluffy than sleek. By her size, Shona could tell she was a nurturer. Although mature, she had a tentative, youthful gait. Her dark eyes were large in her small, well-shaped head, and her sharp teeth very white.
“Wla!” Chirwl exclaimed. He tapped Shona’s ankle with an excited paw. “Encounter one of my proposed co-mates who is Wla, also of my greatly extended family.” Chirwl intertwined his fingers with hers, touched noses and cheeks with her, and they conversed together in their language of staccato whistles, clicks, and chitters. She formed an interrogative sentence in her own language, and he answered in Standard, to which she replied. The two dropped in and out of their native tongue, while exchanging cheek licks and ear rubs like a pair of cats. Shona caught various phrases. “Place of gestation … choice of beginning at once or waiting to see … thesis of natural … Shnomri said, superior genes …” Shona laughed. So typical of Chirwl. Wla glanced up at her in surprise, as if aware of the humans for the first time.
“What is funny?” Chirwl wanted to know.
“You’re both being so … so rational about what is for humans the most emotional of relationships and responsibilities,” she said. “I know we rarely go into marriage or childrearing with such detailed plans worked out ahead of time. We let love or parental instinct take its course most of the time.”
“We only work out the logistics of family life,” Chirwl chided her, “not the love and caring needed to go into between we three for each other and our offspring. I have missed out on many of the conversations, and must be brought up to knowledge on the decisions. It is important.”
“I stand corrected,” Shona said gravely. Gershom winked at her. “Wla, I’m pleased to meet you. Chirwl hasn’t told us much about you, but I’m sure you’re a deep-thinking philosopher, just like him.” Wla let out a shrill giggle and flirted her furry eyelids. She looked up from Shona to Gershom.
“Only two generative ones are you. Was one lost?”
“No, we’re a complete set. Humans have only two kinds of generative ones,” Shona told her. “We combine the functions of ova-donor and nurturer into one like me. Both of us care for our children, but only females are capable of carrying the young and producing milk to feed them.”
Wla chittered with laughter. “Most strange! So much for one to do.”
Abandoned by most of his admirers, Alex let out a squawk of protest and tottered toward his parents, almost falling over a bush. “Mama! Mama, pick me up!”
“I couldn’t agree with you more sometimes,” Shona said, gathering up her noisy offspring. She checked his diaper quickly, and gave him an approving pat on the seat when she discovered it was still clean.
Lani came to join them. Kneeling down silently next to Shona, she held out her arms to take Alex.
“No, thank you, sweetheart. I’ll bear my own burdens for a while. Wla, this is our daughter, Lani,” Shona said. “Also a good friend of Chirwl’s. She comes from a forested planet like yours.”
Ivo gave a bored sigh and let his burden slip noisily into the high grass.
“Ah!” Chirwl exclaimed, diverted. “And presents I have for family, indeed. Wla, where is Shnomri? That ottle must have in the sharing.”
With a quick glance at Shona, Wla responded in a series of whistles and clicks.
Chirwl stopped her. “But to converse in Standard is more polite. Where is Shnomri?”
“Is not coming,” Wla said, tucking her head almost underneath her body.
“What is wrong? Does Shnomri ail?”
Wla glanced up at Shona, blinked her eyes, and ducked swiftly into the nearest bush.
“Did I do something wrong?” Shona asked.
“I think Wla wishes private conversation,” Chirwl replied.
“We like her very much, Chirwl,” Shona said, nodding toward the hidden nurturer. “She’s as cute as a button.”
“Buttons make some sense,” Chirwl said, and disappeared into the undergrowth after his co-mate. The humans heard urgent chittering, including a helpless wail from Wla.
“… does not wish to come out of the pouch … for greet anyone, especially you … the co-mate.”
Chirwl emerged a few moments later, shaking his head. “This is unsuitable in behavior. There is some foolishness that Shnomri wishes not to appear in public. This I do not understand.”
“It is outrageous,” Thio agreed, siding with hir son. “I shall reason with Shnomri.” The ova-donor headed back toward the trees near the river. Shortly, they heard loud remonstration from the pouches hanging over their heads. Thio, hanging from a handy branch two trees away, was arguing with a dark blue-green bag, which retorted in a mellow, determined voice. The bag emitted one final-sounding comment, and Thio, looking affronted, turned head-down into one of the bark channels.
“Disgrace, disgrace, disgrace,” Thio said upon hir return, shaking hir head.
“I don’t mind, Chirwl,” Shona said, seeing that most of the clan was embarrassed by Shnomri’s refusal to appear. “I’m looking forward to visiting the human settlement. Gershom and I should check in with them as soon as possible, to let them know we’re here.”
“The thicket and a wide dell and another narrow copse only divide us,” Tsanan explained, pointing toward the east.
“Is not hard to find,” Wla said, suddenly popping out of the undergrowth. “I will lead you.”
The winsome young female lolloped to the edge of the clearing, bounding over the high grass, and paused coyly with her head bent to one shoulder, waiting. Kai was jostled out of a stimulating discussion with a pack of ottles to join the walk to the other side. Ivo seemed more than ready to get away from the multitude of chattering aliens, and stumped away from his well-wishers. Lani looked up at Shona, suddenly shy, no doubt, at the thought of meeting a crowd of strangers.
“Can I stay here?” she asked.
“Certainly,” Shona said, “if that’s all right?” She glanced at her hosts.
“Of course it is all right,” Tsanan said, sidling up to the girl and patting her knee with a gentle paw. “A pleasure to have her stay.”
“I will rousting out Shnomri in the midst of time,” Thio said firmly.