C, F, L, R

[Note: Today's coping mechanisms include: two little packets of Swedish fish from my parents (thanks guys!), three sips of refrigerator-cold Sprite, and this little bit of writing.]

Zhenae aren’t unattractive, exactly. Some are even beautiful, and like humans, occasionally you find one who is breathtaking. Sometimes people talk about Zhenae looking like slightly less refined humans, or the other way around, but they really look just different — you couldn’t confuse a human with a Zhenae — but within striking distance. It’s the same way they think different, but still close enough that you can communicate with them. They look different, but not too different. And anyhow, I’m thinking now of a Dutch woman from a long time ago and people aren’t really all the same either, no matter what they look like.

There’s a funny story about this. One time I was in my village visiting a Zhenae friend and his daughter was there outside, cooking, but her voice sounded oddly different. I know he has lots of daughters and I thought to myself, "I’ll bet that’s not Betteu", but I didn’t know how to approach the subject. She recognized me, of course: "Good evening, Sandiego! How’s the school?". But one thing I really do love about the Zhenae is their frankness, so I just said to my friend, "That’s not Betteu, is it?" And he laughed, a grinding noise like a whetting stone, and he said "You can’t tell them apart?"

I had this moment of shame, oh no, I’m *that human, that thinks all Zhenae look alike*, and then it was replaced immediately with relief when he said "That’s Djan. They’re twins."

This is the kind of thing I’m thinking about as I sit in the club, letting my mind drift in a pool of whiskey. I’m in my "region" and I am noting with approval the black arm-bands, symbols of the political unrest we’ve been actively fomenting. It’s about a month after I chose my regional Zhenae counterpart for Revolution Committee, and judging by the arm-bands, he’s been doing well. Each flashing light picks out some arm-bands, tied between the first and second arm joints (just north of a bicep on a human). The black of the bands are pleasing to the human eye against the dark-green Zhenae color.

I’m at this club with a few Zhenae friends, one of whom is female and very, very into me. This wouldn’t normally be a problem — I’ve gotten very good at blowing off Zhenae in general and women in particular — but this is one of my closest friends, one of the few people on this planet who makes anything like sense to me. The truth is that I would be interested in her. That "would" encompasses a lot of things — if this whole disaster with Morgan weren’t still reverberating through my psyche, or even if I weren’t actively trying to overthrow her planet’s government. I’ve tried explaining this to her, once, when she called me on the phone. "I just can’t right now," I told her in Sumi, conscious of how little credit I had for this phone call, wishing in vain that she could understand English, or at least enough English for me to let her down gently. "I just can’t right now." was the best I could do. She responded, just one short sentence in a voice so small: "I understood."

So here we were again, at a club, and she’s pulling me to dance, and dancing close, and she’s brought her A game, she’s pulling my head down to her diminutive frame, into spaces near her ears that a platonic friend of any species should not be entering, and I’m keeping my hands clasped together behind her back and trying to stay away from any zone that could be erogenous. My own stubborn human biology isn’t cooperating. I can’t let anything happen, it wouldn’t be good. I’m usually better at self-control than this. Wait: all I need to do, I think to myself, is to outlast the whiskey. So I pull away from her and go to sit down. A few songs later she follows me, takes up a position kneeling between my legs. The implications are not lost on me, and I need her to stop.

I’m not sure exactly what I said to her this time, but she just hung her head, and I waited for her to pull herself together again while thinking about the juggling act I was trying to pull here — how nice it feels to be wanted, and how you can’t just queue up girlfriends like songs on a playlist, and how I would like her friendship but it is becoming increasingly clear to me that I can’t even have that if she is going to get over me. Is this what Morgan felt like? At first she told me she wanted to be friends, and I even tried to do that out of some eulogy for an emotion I used to have, but all I got was dead air.

Whatever. I’ll be happier when I’m off this rock and the only communication I have with her is the conversations we have at reunions about how great the life is that I am living without her. (I’m not bitter.)

My Zhenae friend pulls me up to dance again, and this time when we get onto the dance floor, she lets the seduction aside and just leans into my chest and sobs. This is more familiar ground for me, consoling a friend, and I’m much better at it, so I just hold her and wait it out, even as (in the back of my mind) I’m wondering if this is authentic, her actual response to pain, or whether maybe this is just what she learned from some movie, how she thinks Earther romance normally works. It’s not a good thought — unworthy of me — one more example of how being a Missionary is just making me more speciesist..

Uncategorized fiction

[Note: my fridge is doing nicely since I can't cook at the moment. Also, I read a review of Cory Doctorow's newest book; sounds wonderful, doesn't it?]

In all honesty, my little Sumi training manual is an amusement, a project I work on when I’m too angry to work on anything else. It’s a little soothing to compose Sumi triplets to explain technical concepts, and with a little poetic license some of those triplets are just the synthesized names for Earther technical words which don’t have indigenous equivalent. Mental exercise, which I hardly get any more. Mostly it’s just waiting. Example: fuel cells for my stove are sold out everywhere within a hundred kilometers. I’m promised that more will be delivered "by the end of this week, and if not, surely by the end of the next one." I therefore took the liberty of acquiring a handheld convection coil, runs off the power grid, when I was in Highest Gardens today, which (I will admit) does a pretty good job of heating my bath water. That should at least make the waiting a little easier.

Even Revolutionary Committee stuff is simmering, proceeding mainly based on obstinancy and patience. In all honesty — which, as I’m sure you’ve heard, is hard to find on this planet — it’s probably that which is making it so hard for me to focus. I was at a meeting last night with Jamie and one of the administrative staff at my school, a sage little Zhenae named Utkeu. I had been hoping to talk him around to our side, provide some kind of memetic strategy for the kinds of public messages we needed to make, so we all went out for drinks and grilled skitters. I was plying Utkeu with a line of reasoning about the need for change.

"The corruption part is the worst," I’d said. "No Zhenae wants need to change because the whole system, straight up to the Planetary Counsel, is just as bad. And even the Zhenae who denounce corruption still perform it themselves, when they can."

"True," said Utkeu, deigning not to notice that my awkward phrasing had included him as potentially corrupt. "It is a problem with deepest roots. Hope that they will wither and be replaced."

"That’s the thing," Jamie said. Jamie’s Sumi is serviceable, but with very English sentence constructions. "The tree is sick. Don’t you want to replace it?"

"Replace? With an axe?" Utkeu did the Zhenae equivalent of a snort at a funny joke. "Not wise. Its fruit may be poison, but its branches still provide shade.. and shelter. Zhen is a peaceful planet."

"Very peaceful." I said, with a glance at Jamie. "But I ask myself, if this were my world, would there not come a day when I thought peace was no longer enough?"

"No longer enough," Utkeu repeated. "No longer really enough. I understand what you say. But this tree is very big, very heavy. If it were to fall, it would crush. Pups are like you, too young to remember. There were many stories during the Zhenae struggle for independence. Some things happen to a family before one’s eyes, and they never really see correctly again." A pause, and then Utkeu fixed me with a suspicious stare. "We are just talking, correct? Hypotheses?" We’d agreed beforehand not to say anything incriminating, just feel him out, but Utkeu was dancing dangerously close to a true question, and if he asked it, I didn’t know if I could bring myself to lie to him.

"We are Missionaries," I dodged. "We are not political. We ask to understand better." I chewed on my skitter, not trusting myself to make eye contact, but I could sense his unease bordering on anger.

"Children should be careful when playing with sharp tools," he said softly. "Have the best night." And then he walked off.

I’m dwelling now on this conversation. Utkeu’s not stupid. Is this just a cultural misunderstanding? He can’t really be willing to spend his life in a broken system with no possibility for getting better, can he?

My faith is what helps me in times like this. My being on this planet, or coming at the same time as Jamie, or the whole affair with Morgan — these coincidences are all part of a greater plan. I can feel that in my bones. We’re going to be the agents of progress. All we need to do is apply a gentle pressure in a few tender areas, and we’ll see if this place doesn’t squeal. I think Utkeu will be pleased once the dust clears, pleased to see the same potential, the same wide-open canvas that we’re used to having on Earth.

Uncategorized fiction

Being on Zhen for so long, I’ve started to crave just a little bit of truth every now and then, the same way I crave broccoli or hamburgers or competent dentistry. It’s just one more commodity that’s hard to come by (although I hear sometimes they have it in the bigger cities). As a Missionary here you become familiar with many different shades of lying, which plays a critical if unhappy role here. And as with any linguistic skill, learning how to participate can greatly speed your integration and help you function effectively. Let’s briefly summarize.

First and foremost there’s the empty promise. This is a pretty common form of lying found on Zhen, and it’s sort of the equivalent of the Earther "white lie", an innocent-seeming lie that spares someone’s feelings. If a pup asks you if you brought them candy, you can tell them that you forgot but certainly you will bring them some next time. It’s fine if you don’t bring them any next time either, because maybe they’ll forget by then, and if they don’t, you can promise them earnestly to bring some the time after that. Every Missionary is familiar with hearing "We’ll talk about it tomorrow", which becomes the day after, or next week..

Then you have the half-truth, which you’re probably already familiar with. Someone asks you, "Did you buy that on Earth?" and you can say "No", which can mean "No, I did not buy that on Earth", "No, it isn’t mine", or "It is mine and it came from Earth but no I did not buy it". Depending on context, the questioner may be left with the idea that such things are available on Zhen, maybe even made locally. To be totally truthful, you might say something like "No, the Mission gave it to me" or "I borrowed it from Jamie". It takes a certain skill to be able to listen for half-truths. It helps to pose open-ended questions: "Where did you get that?"

Subtly different is the half-lie, hiding something you don’t want to reveal in something that someone already knows. An example: I can tell you that my last girlfriend was Morgan and that will still be true even if Lara 2 and I exchange vows at the Mission’s chapel. Obviously everyone already knows about Morgan, but I can still manage to keep the marriage thing with Lara 2 secret as long as you don’t ask the right questions.

But the real master-levels of mishonesty come in when you start letting people think things. There are lots of finer-grained levels than that, but you can start with joking and implications. You can get really good at it, really subtle. The idea is that the best lie is the one that the listener comes up with himself. You might be asking yourself if Lara 2 and I really did get married without telling anyone. Or maybe you’re telling yourself that it’s obviously just an example and Lara 2 and I are certainly not married nor even likely to get married. If I pushed a little harder in either direction, I bet I could get you to settle on one or the other.

It’s at this level, of course, where most of our memetics work takes place.

This is the kind of thing I’m thinking about when I’m doing work for Revolution Committee. I’m kicking it in Highest Gardens (my regional capital) at a bar "interviewing" local partners to help with the effort. Each is trying to convince me that he is most committed to the development of his species, most well-connected, most deserving of the per-diem that Revolution Committee is willing to provide for qualified assistance. I am trying to sort out the truths, the real truths, from the things they are saying (and not saying). Of the three Zhenae genders, all the candidates are "male". Periodically street vendors will walk in and try to sell us things. I am tired, hungry, and sober.

"… with more patience and purpose than you will ever know. Purity-force-united. Thank you." That’s the last Zhenae proposal. Vaguely threatening, kind of gravelly of voice, but mostly just angry and sad. As an Earther he didn’t strike me as a Ché or a Fidel or even a Facundo. None of them did yet. But I’m an Education Missionary and that means that at times like these I think, "Maybe I can tease it out of them". So, class, time for an exercise.

"Can you each please interpret me this sentence, one at a time?" I asked, passing them a Sumi triplet I’d constructed for this occasion. The words on it translated as: "Intention (or Deity)-problem-given".

"God gives me problems to solve." That was the gravelly-one, who happened to be closest to me. Literal translation. Not compelling. For an Indigenous Partner, I needed someone inspiring. I noted his response and looked to the next Zhenae.

"Problems, because God wants solutions." That was the skinny one with poor hygeine (by Zhenae standards). He wouldn’t be attractive to his peer group, so that ruled him out, but I was glad all the same to see a little bit of originality and critical thinking.

"God gives me problems with the intent that I solve them. No, wait." This was the one with the thick tentacles — young, probably attractive in the native culture, and now demonstrating some kind of problem-solving abilities. "He who discovers a problem is intended to solve it." He looked at me. "It’s that, isn’t it?"

I made some more notes on my clipboard and tried not to smile. "Thank you. I have your contact information, and I will let you know of our findings as soon as possible." I made a "thanks-that-will-be-all" gesture and they started to turn out of the bar. Only the last one stayed. He tried to make eye contact with me. "Yes?" I said.

"Please," he started, then made a motion analogous to a curtsy. "I was wondering, on your planet, are you an appropriate gender for me to marry?"

I hoped Jamie and Morgan were having better luck.

Uncategorized fiction

We worked fast over the next week, while we were still together for Medical Week. We submitted to the tests and to the samples with the normal amount of distaste, but our real work was elsewhere. For once we pored over the Mission literature, indulged the bureaucratically-designed manuals on Behavioral Change Techniques and Memetic Design. We were in a hurry — Jamie and I agreed that the coming election in a few months would be our best target. We wanted Zhenae to want a change badly enough to vote it into office. But if that didn’t work?

We were going to start a revolution.

"Where’d you come up with this idea, Jamie?"

"I think it was the first time I was peeing in a latrine, flashlight in my teeth, while Zhenae pups climbed all over the walls trying to figure out the intricacies of my biology."

The idea was brilliant in its simplicity. Item one, Zhen was stuck in some kind of stasis. Item two, the tendency of Creation was towards progress. Item three, we were tired of being stuck on this useless planet. So when Jamie had one more painful discussion with her boyfriend back home, that had sparked something in her — and now we meant to spark it planetwide. If that meant hard work, well, that was fine; that’s why we had come in the first place. We were no strangers to hard work. It was Thursday, after all — somehow it was always Thursday on Zhen.

We passed the week developing materials to encourage civic action. The hardest part was the virality. It wasn’t enough to just convince one Zhenae to vote differently. Even if we convinced everyone we knew, it would never be enough. We needed to convince them to speak out, to convince their friends too. It was tricky to capture existing Zhenae sentiment — "things need to change" — and turn that into the message we wanted — "and I need to change them". You can’t press too much when you’re bending memes — they can press back, and then things get ugly.

And of course you don’t want to destroy indigenous economies of freedom-fighters and civil unrest. And the literature we were working off of was terrible. Sometimes I knew more on the subject than the nebulous Mission authors.

So it was hard work. I expected that. What I didn’t expect was Morgan.

The door banged in and I looked up, half afraid that we’d been discovered already. Jamie was at a bookshelf, looking over her shoulder back at where the bang had come from, where Morgan stood in shade, and behind her, sunlight, and behind that, a thick wall to keep the riff-raff out. I started but I regained my composure quickly — vanilla again by the time Morgan was sitting at my table, looking over my notes. I wanted to say something tetchy, but I knew better, so much better.

"Hi Morgan," I said. "Something the matter?"

"You’re up to something," she said. Blue eyes locked on mine. "You and Jamie.. something’s different. You’re taking Medical seriously. You haven’t been at the bar or in the House or anything. What’s going on?"

I’d have told her, of course, but for Jamie, who was really on the hook here — her idea. So I looked past Morgan at her, ignored Morgan’s stare.

"We’re blowing this popsicle stand." Morgan turned in her chair to face Jamie. "See, civil unrest can cause the Mission to withdraw. You heard about the D-Range, right? All we need is a little bit of rioting. That could happen at the upcoming elections. And if it doesn’t, well, maybe we can help ‘em out a little bit. Then we can go home." Best case scenario. I’d settle for a planet-wide spirit of civic pride and optimism, but if we hit the jackpot, we’d go home.

"I’m in." Morgan turned back to me, but she was looking at my notebooks. "These are good ideas but you need broader support. I can translate this stuff into the Swollen Language and get it around the Outer Islands. For the election to even be contested, you need those votes." Then she leaned back and looked at me, with Jamie behind her also studying me.

"Can we trust her?" I said, sounding plaintive and hating it. It was a stupid question, because Jamie probably trusted her already. Could I trust her?

"I want to go home too," she said. "Face-facts-forward, Sandiego. Anything else is sentiment. I don’t have time for sentiment." We were Missionaries. That meant we were practically family. There was only one reason I couldn’t trust her — because she’d hurt me, personally. But that was already months ago.

"The Outer Islands would be a big help," said Jamie. Which meant: this is still my ship, and I think we should do it, but I’m leaving this up to your fragile emotional state. I slapped my forehead a few times. I didn’t shatter. Vanilla, I told myself. No problem.

"Fine." I spun my notebooks to face her. "I’m done with Medical tomorrow, so I’m leaving Saturday. Here’s what I’ve got. You want to start translating now or should I beam you a copy?"

"Beam me a copy," she said, as her eyes ran across my slogans and demographic projections. "But I’ll start translating now. You go to the bar. People will start to notice."

"Notice what?"

"You’re sober. That makes us uneasy. So cut it out."

Uncategorized fiction

I sighed for not the first time and leaned my head against the bulkhead. I was (finally) in the Chameleon back to the Mission after wrangling my way through a knot of Zhenae loaders. I told myself the economics equivalent of fairy tales about how things were going to change on this planet — supply curves and behavioral change therapy on a planetary scale. Unions. Labor markets. Social Darwinism. Yeah right. Lara 2 was sitting across from me and she was giving me a look that I was afraid I knew how to interpret.

It was Medical Week and we ourselves were traveling in a clump to get back to the Mission. I leaned into Jamie a little bit, drawing a little bit of strength from the physical contact. Capital City was partly swampy with a 40% chance of exasperation. I was beginning, not for the first time, to tire of this planet. We were here to make a difference, but differences were in short supply. My current M.O. was to imagine the changes that might, somehow, make themselves.

The Chameleon clunked into operation — the whine and clunk, whine and clunk, of servos gripping their way up the mountainside. Suddenly the noises stopped and the Chameleon went dark. We were stopped, maybe an engine failure. The emergency lights came back on and the sound of clumping commenced — Zhenae clambering around the Chameleon to debug. I needed a drink.

"Whew!" Lara 2 said cheerily. "A break. My stomach is doing flip-flops!"

"It’s probably glueworms. Have I told you about my glueworm? I named him Fred. I talk to him sometimes." I stared out the window, but there was nothing to see but flat mountain face. "I was going to name him Joseph for a while, but somehow I decided to go with Fred. Probably the glueworm talking. I kept meaning to get it checked out but never had the time. You know, one more inconvenience I’d take care of when school calmed down. That’s why I’m glad to be here for Medical." I tried to smile but I didn’t really remember how. Instead I sketched a Zhenae gesture of gratitude, tried to make my shoulders emote the way a Zhenae’s tentacles would.

Lara 2 smiled uneasily, her hands posed on her abdomen. Silence descended again inside. A few minutes passed. Zhenae voices could be heard swearing expressively. The engine coughed and banged, then started up again. Clumping noises took the driver back to the cockpit, and we started moving again. Government subsidies? Executive powers? Planned economies? Yeah right.

—

So I turned up at the bar. Morgan and company were just leaving to see what nightlife was available here on the hill. Lara 1 was getting another beer, so I got one too.

"How are you doing, Sandiego?" Lara 1 asked.

"Focus-soft-vanilla," I said in Sumglish. She nodded, but I tried to translate anyway: "Concentrating on trying not to look like I’m concentrating on getting by. I’ve suffered worse. You?"

"Glad to be away from post. You know I haven’t even been in Capital City yet? I mean, I’ve passed through but never really seen it."

"You’re not missing much. You’ve seen it, it looks like skitter droppings. And the Zhenae here will outright harass you. Keep a thick skin."

"Yeah." She looked up at the sky. "Not to be rude or anything, but I prefer Grace’s Action. Everything’s much more calm and orderly."

"You can outright say it: this place sucks. No offense taken."

"It does." She smiled into her beer. "Do you spend a lot of time here?"

"Only when necessary."

"Well, it’s necessary now. You’re doing fine, by the way." Which was a relief: I didn’t look like I was barely keeping it together. She rose. "I better keep an eye on Morgan."

"Go with God," I said. I watched her walk away, then finished my beer. I was doing fine. Better all the time, in fact. I rested my head in my hands, took a deep breath, relished in the fact that I was alone. No one to pretend for. Lara 1 had left half of her beer on the table so I did the responsible thing and finished that too. I started to let my spinal chord unknot and leaned back into my chair. I could let my body go, let show what I was feeling, for a few minutes. And I was feeling fine. Lara 1 had said so. Of course, I was alone now, but that was fine. Alone was great.

I was just about to start feeling sorry for myself when Jamie came out. She saw I was alone at a table and half-fell into the chair opposite me.

"Sandiego? Can I ask you a question?" Jamie said.

"Sure, what’s up?"

"How broad do you think our mandate is?"

"Well, I mean, doctrine being that God’s will is progress and the improvement of many, I think we could say that our mandate is to do that which hastens or encourages the tendency of Creation’s upwards movement. Obviously we have different programs and different focuses –"

"No, Sandiego, I mean," she looked at me. Iron underscored her eyes. There was ferocity in her pose, and she almost wasn’t even looking at me. Her knuckles were white. This wasn’t like Jamie. To be honest, I quailed. "How broad. Do you think. Our mandate is? You know, on this planet?"

Then I realized what she must have been saying, or rather what she wasn’t saying. "Good Lord," I breathed. "I think you might be a genius."

Uncategorized fiction

[I think Sandiego is a much better name than Santiago, don't you? Sure you do.]

Dear Diary!

We made our way back to Mountain Reflex the next day, and it was much quieter this time. Ran into Bennett and Amanda, and of course Cherry Drop, at the Transit House and decided to splurge on a fancy-ish offworld dinner. There are only a couple fancy restaurants in Mountain Reflex, and Cherry Drop’s already jaded of all of them, but we outnumbered her so we went to the Steak House. Correspondingly, we ordered steak. For a beverage, I ordered juice — hold the sachet.

Cherry Drop was ranting about Las Vegas or some other attraction on Earth when Amanda caught my eye. "Cherry Drop says you stayed at her place last time you were here."

Uh-oh, I thought. "Yeah."

"She says you were in a bad state. That –" (her voice dropped) "– you kept talking about the meaning of love and stuff like that."

Thanks, Cherry Drop, I thought to myself. Still, it could have been worse. And why had Amanda’s voice gone quiet like that? Was she trying to preserve my dignity (to what effect?), or did she want to talk more personally about that particular subject? I didn’t really think I could handle that conversation, so I dodged. "God is love," I said, "Statistically speaking." Amanda looked momentarily forlorn, but there wasn’t really much I could do for her, so I let it go.

I had hoped to bounce back to my post via a circuitous short-hop route instead of just taking the shuttle, but the short-hoppers were full and I ended up biting the bullet and just taking the shuttle with Jamie and Bennett. They were in a sleeper car, whereas I was in "first class". I found my seat across from a bunch of offworlder tourists speaking what I assumed was German, with the most attractive among them throwing up into a bag. Amateurs, I thought, as I threw my stuff onto a luggage rack a little ways away. I dropped my bag on my seat and left to hang out with Jamie and Bennett until the shuttle started moving and they started to check tickets.

"Do you want any sleeping pills, Sandiego?" Jamie asked me.

"No thanks — I guess I gotta draw the line somewhere." However, note to self: you can stay awake if you want to when on the effect of this particular medication, but you will have no memory whatsoever of what happened.

Not too much longer I stepped across a Zhenae with sen appendages in a posture of boredom, and seated myself across from the tourists. One of them started up a conversation with me. His name was Sebastian and his attractive vomiting friend was named Silki, and as I had guessed, they were German. They were visiting Zhen to see the marriage of one of their friends, who had fallen in love with a Zhenae. "He’s one of us," Sebastian said, "We’re Christfellows."

And they were. They were all so young — 19 and 20, barely out of school, and young, fresh, and optimistic. By contrast I was covered in Zhenae soil, weathered, and in a tailspin.

"I just can’t get over how young you are," I said, enunciating clearly — Sebastian’s English was pretty good but Silki’s was a little less fluid. "All I can think about is the mistakes I’ve been making lately."

"Such as?" Sebastian prompted.

This gave me pause. "Well, I licked my friend’s neck at the party the other night. While he was flirting with a woman." But then I didn’t really have anything else. Praise be, I’m not quite broken or jaded enough yet to think of falling in love as a mistake, and nothing that came afterwards has really been my fault. Well, obviously the alcohol abuse. But like I told Jamie and Buddy the next day, I don’t regret any of it.

We played cards for the rest of the night. Somehow I managed to sleep sitting up. The next morning, somehow I didn’t talk to the Germans at all until Sebastian bid me farewell with a "God bless you". Normally I find that sort of thing trying, but this time I surprised myself with an honest grin and a sincere thank you.

I’m finally back at post now most of a day later. You know how travel on Zhen is, at its finest, boring? Well, today it wasn’t. I’m really exhausted. There’s been some interesting news surrounding the upcoming election but it’ll have to wait. I’m too cynical to think that I’ll get my wish about real change on this planet, but you never know, right?

Sincerely, ever your friend,

Sandiego

Uncategorized fiction

["Santiago"? I wanted a name that sounded, well, unhinged. At least you're not getting another Narrator named "Narrator".]

We burst onto the scene fashionably late, me, Buddy and Cherry Drop, late by about a day and a half, but that meant the party was in full swing already. The Mission house was more-than-full; people were already provisioning couches, sofas, floor space. It was Iago’s going away party, so he was in evidence, as were Wheaton, Jamie, Laras 1 and 2, Lily, Bauer, Sonja, etc.

My priorities were drink, food, and shower. Drink was well under the control of Jamie and Buddy — it was unanimously decided that it would have to be a sachet night. I sought food; I returned with a plastic bag full of omelette, salad, and meat. With the immediate needs taken care of, I needed to wash off the burnt-celery smell of being too long in a closed space with Zhenae. I needed to do it soon, because if experience was any indication, before too much longer I wouldn’t be safe standing in a shower.

A few sachets later, I found myself weaving through the kitchen, where Buddy and Lily were arguing over which Missionary cluster could outdrink the other. They were settling the argument with sachets. They locked eyes and tilted back as I wandered out to the porch.

I sat down next to Sonja and was starting to size her up when the door in the front wall opened and in walked Neena and her friend Cass. Neena looked delicious, and I had a vivid memory of the way she’d looked at me in Low-at-the-River, back when I had a reason to be polite, dignified, restrained. That was a lifetime ago, before the mess in Capital City, before the meltdown in Mountain Reflex. I guess it had been a week.

I tried to play it cool, stared at my glass (sachet and juice). Neena’s no fool though, and I’m sure she noticed, but then she and her friend were gliding past to the kitchen. I tried to flirt with Sonja but my heart wasn’t in it and when she turned her head to talk to someone else I decided to go to the kitchen too. Buddy and Lily were still there conversing. "Don’t one or both of you have a boyfriend?" I slurred. For once I was reading the situation completely correctly. Then I put my arms around Buddy and licked his neck.

"He just licked my neck, didn’t he?"

"Yep, he just licked your neck."

I giggled, then I licked it again for good measure and then I guess I must have left because I staggered into Lara 1, who wanted to Talk. Specifically:

"We need to Talk," she said. "Listen: she doesn’t know what she wants." Followed by fifteen minutes of sloppy conversation that really doesn’t further our story. Highlights: I told her what happened in Mountain Reflex, she told me that appearances notwithstanding, Morgan still cared very deeply about me, I swore her (Lara 1) my undying allegiance, she told me I was a good guy, I asked her not to repeat what happened in Mountain Reflex, she swore she wouldn’t, I complained that the whole thing had just come out of nowhere and then suddenly I caught a look at her profile and she looked so old, aged, sallow, sunken where she used to look lean. Maybe it’s all the travelling, maybe she’d just gotten off the bus too. Then she lay her head back (we were seated at this point) and closed her eyes.

"Hard-dream-sleep," I said, using the Sumi salutation. I got up and turned to leave, and suddenly there was Neena.

Thinking back now I wonder how much of the conversation she’d heard. She’s sharp, though, and I’m sure she worked it all out one way or the other. At the time, though, it didn’t occur to me to wonder. I could only say: "Hi".

The next few minutes are a little foggy. I have no idea what I said, if I managed to accomplish anything with the tatters of charm or wit I had left. I’m sure both her and her friend, standing behind and off to the side, could read just how entranced I was with her. So maybe it was just my sincerity. Like: I was sincerely astonished by how fresh she looked. I was sincerely interested in the dress she was wearing. I was sincerely attracted to her lips, her eyes, her skin.

I don’t really understand how she did it. In principle she’d just gotten off a bus too, but she wasn’t rumpled, or sticky, anything. It’s a woman thing, I guess. You know how some women, they make beauty completely natural? Like "disheveled" is just a river in Egypt. Case in point: Neena didn’t smell like burnt celery.

Instead she smelled like cinnamon.

—

The next morning Jamie, Buddy, Wheaton and I were up bright and early again on another adventure. Wheaton was going to take us over the border into a neighboring state. Strictly speaking this would be legal in certain circumstances, which didn’t apply, so it might have been illegal, but according to other regulations it was probably legal but anyhow definitely against policy. Well, Jamie’s a big fan of adventure and the last week had taught me the hard way that Jamie’s vacations are generally better than mine, so just stick with her and everything’ll work out.

Half a bus-ride later I got a message from Neena, a scathingly funny indictment of how I was "chain-smoking" rebounds, "lighting one from the ashes of the last". Yep, she’s sharp as tacks. "Ouch," I said to myself, then snickered, then I grimaced, and finally I deleted it and napped until we got to the next town, where we were to descend and switch to motos. We rode across hot sand and dry riverbeds, past scrub and occasional herds of animals. Eventually we got to the border, stopped at a government building with a flag out front, basically the same Zhenae color scheme but subtly different. We paid a "crossing fee" bribe that was actually probably a legitimate fee, although it might have been a legitimate bribe. Either way a few minutes later we were under a sincerely woven thatch hut drinking a local fermented grain product, plus some standard Zhenae beer just to be on the safe side.

"This is really cool," I said, marvelling at how lucky I was to be here, on this planet, steeping in the local color (and flavor). "Thanks for this, Wheaton."

"It’s my pleasure," he said, though of course his face was as neutral as always. "I really enjoy when I can show off the bounty of my post."

"It’s just so surprising, man," said Buddy, his eyes tracking a skitter, "How peaceful Zhen is. Like, the Mission just withdrew from Nairv. The D-Range just declared martial law. All the Sumi colonies, really, none of them are really stable."

"I wonder why Zhen’s different," Jamie said.

"Too many racial groups," said Wheaton. "There’s no unity. Without unity, there can be no war."

There was silence for a minute. "That’s totally Newspeak," commented Buddy, turning it over. "But I like it."

"It’s gonna be interesting when the next brood-group shows up in a few months. I wonder if they’re gonna be professional like ours, or party people like the others."

"Is our brood-group really more professional than others? I mean, you’ve seen a few," asked Jamie of Wheaton.

"No, but yours is more mentally unhinged," he responded with a significant glance in my direction.

"No, that’s just Santiago," Jamie replied. Then suddenly they were all three looking at me. "It just came out of nowhere," said Wheaton.

"If you please," I replied loftily. "I maintain that my behavior in Mountain Reflex was rational and carefully plotted."

"I think you mean erratic and carefully rationalized."

"Come on," I continued. "Ever drink too much at a party? Felt like crap? Made yourself throw up? That’s what I did, just with emotions. Puke and rally. Completely reasonable. Hinged, I’m super mentally hinged. Oh, shit," I said. "I just remembered I licked your neck last night."

"Dude," Buddy said. "You totally did."

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[Retcon: Zhenae is now spelled differently, so as to be pronounced in English. I'm also thinking about the changing the human language to not be English, like let's say "Panlac". This chapter's a little weaker; it's just to get towards the next chapter, which is considerably juicier.]

The less said about that night before we left, the better. I woke up on Cherry Drop’s couch, which implies that I must have peeled myself off Cherry Drop’s bathroom floor at some point. It was late o’clock local time and Cherry Drop was asleep so I took a shower, then I occupied myself submerging into the past few days’ information backlog. Tracking the signal in the noise is something of a way of life for us, you could say. I contributed a little signal, a little noise while I was at it. I couldn’t sleep.

Praying for us is like looking at a walkthrough — a little like cheating. If God wanted us to do exactly what He wanted, why did He give us free will? I was desperate for direction, though, so I gave it a shot, and got nothing but stony silence. I couldn’t tell if that was disappointment with my conduct or just a steadfast refusal to give advice. Either way, I was left to my own devices for a few hours.

We got up too early, so we could catch the bus to Grace’s Action, sneaking out of town like bandits to continue the party somewhere else. Buddy met up with us at the bus station. Cherry Drop was talking to a Zhenae. Cherry Drop’s Sumi is hilarious — it’s like a fruitcake, littered with raisins of delicious chewy English slang. "You are travelling? So, we also travel. You travel, like, where? Wow, cool!" Buddy found a Little Egg Person for breakfast, but I didn’t feel much like eating. Then it was time to board.

So it was that we escaped under the cover of darkness. The first leg of the trip was difficult, because I was afraid I was gonna throw up, but I closed my eyes steadfast and I managed to make it through. Cherry Drop showed me and Buddy the picture she took of me passed out on her bathroom floor — OK, it’s true she was there when I needed her to be, but that woman seriously does not care about other people. Buddy broke out some of his offworld candy and I feel like that replenished me somehow. I felt even more better when we stopped for a brief layover at Grace’s Point (which, yeah, confusing, but it’s Grace’s Point and then Grace’s Action) and grabbed a River drink. The Zhenae in front of us got ice cream, which prompted Cherry Drop to get some too.

That same Zhenae had studied English, which I found out when Cherry Drop let loose a "Shit!" and she fired us a dirty look. We struck up a conversation at the next police checkpoint, when the bribe-taking process started to take a little too long.

"What are they doing?" Buddy asked. (You have to admire his deftness. We were on vacation, but you never really stop being an offworlder or even a Missionary.)

"It’s a checkpoint," the Zhenae said. "They are taking their money."

"What money?"

"He wants a bribe to pass. Zhenae are a corrupt, dishonest people." She was shaking her head in disgust. "We have resources for improve our world, but the corruption prevents. The policies of dictators supported by Sumi."

Ah, right, that’s why she’s speaking English. The Zhenae hate their former masters, much though they all speak their language. It’s too late to cry over that particular spilled blood, but they do it all the same. At least she’s man enough to admit that it was Zhenae manning that checkpoint.

When we got into Grace’s Action, it was dusk, nearly dark again already. Grace’s Action was lit up like a Roman candle. You take for granted the absence of light pollution back home, but it’s alive and well on Zhen, just like the promiscuous advertising in Capital City. This is the kind of thing the Zhenae was talking about. People live on this planet, and it seems to work well enough, but it really could do a lot better, if only.. what? No idea, really. I don’t think blaming the Sumi or even themselves is the way to go, but how do you communicate that in awkward bus-ride half-interactions?

"How can you change it?" I asked. Silently: take some action.

"How?" she repeated, tasting the word. "Uncertain. The Sumi need to leave us alone."

I counted to ten, as I had taught myself to do in training. I considered my options — couldn’t browbeat her, couldn’t get mad. And anyhow, who was I to say she was wrong? I was just tired of stasis, an entire population doing isometrics on this planet.

We got to the Mission House in Grace’s Action with no great fuss. Travel on Zhen is either boring, or terribly, terribly interesting, so all told I guess we lucked out.

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The GPS trail would probably tell the story better than I could. I’ve seen it overlaid on a map of Capital City, and it doubles back in lines and knots, tangles like my hair on a sweaty day. Also like my hair, I’m perversely proud of it. It’s a scar on my informational life like the ones on my corporeal one. But GPS tracks don’t tell the whole story, so I’ll have to see what I can do to fill in the rest.

I caught the early Chameleon down to the lower level of Capital City. I had a long trip before I got to Up Station. I wanted to make sure I had my ticket as soon as possible, since I wanted to take the shuttle with two other Missionaries next month (which turned out to be a bad idea, but that’s another story). I caught a taxi going south.

"The Station."

"Traveler’s Station?"

"Uh, maybe.. for the shuttle."

And off we went, the driver weaving through the light-but-manic traffic with the polished ease of long practice. On the GPS map, this is the first set of smooth curves as we swerved over to the sidewalk to canvass other passengers and dodging the big-porters and fat-porters carrying their numinous cargoes. We picked one up for Central Post, and one for the Palace of Justice. Try not to judge that last one. She’s probably not actually going to the Palace of Justice, it just makes a convenient landmark. Meanwhile I was untangling my emotional mess with the same practiced ease that I was untangling my hair. Start at the top; what’s the problem? Run your fingers through until you find it, a knot. Then, what’s causing all this fuss? Tease individual threads out, one at a time, resolving each one into an atomic, indivisible factor and cancelling it from the equation. Eventually the knot just disappears; it’s just yourself, in an inconvenient configuration. It’s the same with emotional stuff, but it takes longer and it hurts more.

I worked on that for a while — the hair, the meditation — as we made our way through the intersections and traffic circles. We let the guy off at Central Post. We passed fruit stands and hardware vendors and billboards written in Sumi or, puzzlingly, in English. "Study in Ukraine!" Advertising is advertising, of course, but you get trained in letting it roll off your psyche like water. And it’s hot, it’s always hot in Capital City, but the taxi windows were open and when we got up to speed, the breeze just carried the heat away. On balance, it was all very pleasant. That’s when we got hit by the first big-porter.

It just swept in from the right, trying to merge with us at the cobblestone intersection. The hoverpad slammed into the driver’s-side door. No religion has a prayer to cancel inertia; ours has come close but we’re still not yet there. So the whole car skewed off the road and into a bar, which was convenient enough because it gave me something to do while I waited for the Police to show up and assign blame.

Three bulbs of wine and a box of Hello Cookies later I was free to go so I picked up where I left off. I could have taken a moto if I thought it would have made a difference, but I figured to do the taxi thing again since I was increasingly unconfident in my ability to remain from falling off of a moto. Hailed a taxi again, specified Voyager Station directly this time, and off we went.

It’s good that I didn’t take the moto, because the second big-porter would have probably taken me right off the thing, and wearing a helmet is about as effective as wearing a head of cabbage in that sort of situation. Not a pleasant way to go. Instead, the front half of the taxi crumpled up like a whiskey sachet and me and the other passengers in the back got thrown around like livestock. The driver was hurt really badly, crying in pain and praying in Sumi and another language I didn’t recognize, I guess his tribe’s. There was a lot of blood and I didn’t really know what to do. We have Health missionaries who are former nurses or doctors. Me, I’m in Education. I can’t do much beyond call for help in mediocre Sumi. And even that wasn’t really necessary; other Zhenais were already scrambling to tear the vehicle open, stop the bleeding, sending for professional medical assistance. The Church of the Universal Stochastic encourages to find the signal in the noise, and two accidents in one travel was probably a Hint. But it could have been a challenge, too, a gauntlet that I needed to run to show how badly I wanted this.

We fool ourselves into believing all kinds of things.

Soon enough I was on my last taxi, the one that broke down a few hundred meters from Up Station. I was dirty now with the effort of even this little bit of travel, and my hair didn’t seem any less tangled than when I had started. I was dizzy and sore and I was thinking about going to a White Market to get some soy sauce or something to make myself feel better. I was trying to ignore the telltale taste of glueworm in the back of my throat and I am sure the Zhenais at the train station thought I was a sight.

"Bedroom for May shuttle. Supplication."

"It’s possible. Five thousand Sum."

"Here." I paid with a crisp new bill, and he gave me my reservation slip. "Gratitude."

"Trust."

We’re all unique quantum events but at that moment, stuck in the middle of Capital City having accomplished what I thought I wanted, I felt more utterly unique than I ever wanted. Ever feel alone in your own head? It was like that. I had a bad feeling that I’d find myself at the end of the night in a dark corner at the bottom of the bottle of soy sauce. It’s been like that for most of my life. The moral of the story is that sometimes you get exactly what you ask for — and it usually turns out to be not what you wanted at all. But that’s why I came here, to make that kind of mistake, to throw away the prudence and put my faith in the randomness of experience.

I’d had enough for one day, so I decided to go back to the Mission.

Decided I’d walk it, though.

Uncategorized fiction