Kit restrained himself from adding And started eating us out of house and home. “And once we’d given him something to eat, he was able to start showing us the way back to where he belonged,” Kit said.
The little one who had Kit by the waist looked up at him again. They moult while they’re growing, these people, Kit thought, seeing feathers still in their narrow cylindrical casings scattered all through the downier feathers they were replacing on the youngster’s head and shoulders. Under his feather-coat the little boy was thin and gangly, and Kit found himself thinking back to when he was small and skinny and getting picked on a lot, and Ponch was the only friend he had—before wizardry, before Nita, before any of the other people he knew now who accepted him for exactly what he was.
“Thank you for finding him,” the little boy said. “He was sad and he was hungry and I was afraid he might starve.”
“No, he seemed to have been doing all right,” Kit said. “Sibiks seem pretty good at finding food. In fact I may have overfed him a little.”
One of the eyes on the back of the sibik—all of them having been squeezed shut until now—opened and regarded Kit. “Cracker,” the sibik said.
“What’s ‘cracker’?” the little boy said.
“Something he’s not going to get any more of, I’d say,” Ronan said. “Special food from a planet two thousand light years away.”
The parents-or-guardians looked impressed. The little boy looked suspicious. “It won’t make him sick, will it?”
“No, it’s all right for him,” Kit said. “I checked.”
“And having said as much, we should probably get back,” Ronan said, “because our pet-feeding duties are strictly unofficial.”
“Interveners for the One,” the tallest of the three adult Tevaralti said, “we’re deeply in your debt. Thank you for being so kind, for helping our child!”
Kit nodded to them as the youngster unwound himself from him, and the sibik threw him one last glance, closed its single open eye, and cuddled down into the boy’s shoulder again. “It’s our pleasure, cousins,” he said. He was about to say “Go well,” but then it occurred to him that this was possibly not the best idea: these people weren’t going anywhere.
Ronan turned away: Kit started to follow him. But the Tevaralti beside the tall one, a fluffier-feathered one in a long netlike garment, reached out to stop him. “Intervener— I’m guessing you don’t understand what’s going on.” The voice was distressed. “You’ve come a long way to help, we know you have.”
“Uh, yes,” Kit said.
The shorter parent looked regretful. “We can’t go, though. It’s not right for us. These others of our people, they feel that it is right, right for them anyway. But it’s not how we feel. We have to be of one mind, and we’re not… We’re just not.” There was terrible sorrow layered under the words, and a sense that there was nothing to be done about the problem… and the cold frightened certainty that there wouldn’t be much longer for it to be a problem.
Kit could think of about a hundred things he wanted to say to that at the moment: but none of them were a wizard’s business to let out of his mouth in such a situation. Finally, “I’m sorry,” was all he could find to say. “But I hope everything works out all right for you.”
The three parents-or-guardians bowed their heads to him. Kit turned away, feeling forlorn, knowing the hope was an empty one. He caught a last glimpse of the little Tevaralti boy hugging his sibik to him as his parents shepherded him away: then they vanished into the crowd.
Kit and Ronan made their way out into the grassland again, toward where the stone circle stood up alone against the northern horizon like fingers reaching up from the ground into the twilight. It was some while before Ronan said anything, which suited Kit. He was feeling extremely unsettled.
“That’s the first explanation I’ve really heard about from any of those people about what’s going on with them,” Ronan muttered at last, “and maybe it’s just that my interplanetary people skills are shite, but I still don’t get it.”
Kit sighed. “Neither do I.”
They walked on into the growing twilight. Inside the stone circle ahead of them, a light came on, spilling shadows out across the grassland from the stones: Cheleb had brought out one of the electric campfires. “I guess they have to do what they think is right for them,” Ronan said. “But it doesn’t make it suck any less, from where I’m standing.”
Kit shook his head. “Nope.”
They reached the circle of stones, and for a moment Kit just put a hand out and leaned on the nearest one, breathing out. He suddenly felt very tired in a way that didn’t have anything to do with a full day of gate monitoring.
“You sure you’re all right now?” Ronan said. “You really took a hit of some kind back there.”
“Yeah,” Kit said. “But I’m okay. I think I was just picking up something from the sibik because I was holding it. It was really glad to be back…”
“I got that feeling,” Ronan said, grabbing Kit by the shoulder and shaking him. “You make sure you’re all right now, yeah? Get some food in you tonight instead of feeding it to every bloody octopus that comes along.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Kit said. “Gonna stay for the video portion of the evening?”
“No, gotta go,” Ronan said, “I’m taking an extra shift this evening: my daytime shiftmate gave me some extra time to come over here and I’ve got to get back there now. He has to take some time off.” Ronan looked over his shoulder. “All this has been getting to him. I can see why.”
“Yeah,” Kit said. “Okay. Look, text me later if you feel— You know.”
“Like kicking somebody?” Ronan said, amused.
“Like dumping,” Kit said.
Ronan took a big breath, sighed it out. “Yeah,” he said. “Same from your end.”
Kit nodded. “Let’s see how it goes.”
Ronan lifted a hand, a slightly weary wave, and headed back for the short-transit pad. Kit watched him go, then turned inward to go sit on the Stone Throne with Cheleb and give him a more complete shift debriefing before finding some food that no tentacles would now be grabbing for.
A cheerful enough evening ensued, though under the circumstances it took a good while for Kit’s mind and mood to settle. At least part of this is blood sugar, he thought. After all, he hadn’t really had all that much of anything today but coffee and crackers and a croissant, and bearing in mind everything he’d been up to, that wasn’t much.
Kit ducked into his puptent and pulled together a selection of snacks, avoiding the saltines, which really were seriously diminished; he was going to have to take inventory to see what he had left and start rationing them. Instead he fished out the box of Ritz crackers, along with some more of the spray-can cheese and a can of deviled ham and one of deviled chicken (so that he wouldn’t keep hearing his Mama yelling at him in his head, “Man is not meant to live on carbs alone, eat some protein!”). There was also some of the regular, plastic-wrapped sliced yellow cheese that his Mama sniffed at and pronounced “barely worthy of the name”. But Kit liked it, and it was protein, so for the time being he pulled out some slices of that too and decided to see what Cheleb and Djam made of it.
When he got out again, Djam already had his floating holographic screen display up and running, and had laid out some of his own homeworld’s food and drink. His people were essentially vegetarian as far as Kit could tell, and what he set out on a few hovering trays was a batch of strange-shaped fruits and giant berries and drupes patterned in a rainbow of colors, and slabs of processed fruit and vegetable snacks. There was also a large product-labeled jug of something that looked so much like Star Wars “blue milk” that Kit burst out laughing when he saw it. “Did you bring this out on purpose after yesterday? What is it?”
“Sekoldra juice,” Djam said. “Extremely healthy, or so my parents insist.”
“Any truth to rumor?” Cheleb said.
Djam shrugged. “Could
be,” he said, “but I’d be slow to admit it. They run too much of my life as it is. No point in letting them think I agree with their food choices.”
The three of them laughed together, each after his or haes own fashion, and shared some of the blue milk, which Kit took to immediately. It tasted a lot like a Creamsicle might have if you melted it down, and had a slight fizz. “So, ready for more entertainment now?” Cheleb said as they pooled the rest of their various foods and started divvying them up.
“Absolutely. At the very least we can finish up the first trilogy,” Kit said. “…Though as I said, actually it’s the second. But it came out first.”
Cheleb threw haes arms up in a shrug-like gesture. “Temporal discontinuities,” hae said, “story of our lives for wizards. Got some questions before we start, though.”
“Sure, shoot,” Kit said, getting himself comfortable on the cushion he’d brought out to the Stone Throne and reaching for his manual to bring the streaming-video linkage up.
Cheleb gave him a bemused look. “With what? Not armed.”
“Sorry,” Kit said. He’d dropped into English for the moment. “It’s an idiom. Ask away.” He started pulling up the streaming-video settings on his manual so that Djam could screen the content from them as they had yesterday.
“Humanoid people we saw in first two entertainments yesterday,” Cheleb said, “main characters; some localized hominomorphism there perhaps? Guessing they’re based on some of your species’ major physical/gender arrangements.”
“Safe guess,” Kit said. He guessed that this was more of Cheleb’s ongoing inquiry into the biology of every species hae ran into. It had something to do with haes specialty, which was life-science based, Kit knew; but the small amount of research he’d done on it so far had just confused him.
“So,” Cheleb said. “Those were all ‘he’?”
“Well, not all. A lot of them.”
“But the Wookiee was one?” Djam said. He had taken an interest in the character and had started casually referring to him as his “counterpart.”
“Uh, he’s a male, yeah. Everybody calls him ‘he’, anyway.”
“And person we saw in white clothes all the time,” Cheleb said, “small one with hair like wheels in the first entertainment, arguing with vested fellow all the time—that was a ‘she’?”
“That’s right,” Kit said, wondering where this was going.
“Your errantry-partner also,” Cheleb said, “similarly a ‘she’?”
“Uh, yeah,” Kit said.
“Aha!” Cheleb said. “Thought so. Reminds me; meant to ask you. Conducted traditional fertility-confirmation ritual as yet?”
Kit stared at him, taken aback. “Sorry?”
“Impregnation,” Cheleb said. “You’re ‘he’, that one’s ‘she’, both well past latency now according to Knowledgebase, both of you entering prime fertility period, when does impregnation ritual happen?”
“Uh,” Kit said, as his brain more or less whited out. Immediately after that came the thought, I have got to keep Neets away from here somehow till I get this guy settled or we are going to have such a demonstration of Callahan’s Unfavorable Instigation...!
“Researched your species/culture in Knowledge last night,” said Cheleb with considerable relish, and exuding that particular kind of satisfaction that comes of having done your homework and of being absolutely ready to give a report on it. “Many highly nuanced traditions and rituals for such a simple sex/gender setup, most creative from culture to culture, all delightfully inventive.”
“What?”
“And all interleaving to greater or lesser extent with Earth-human fertilization procedure,” Cheleb said. “Some ambiguities in Knowledge material. Perhaps explain how works? Just highlights of course.”
“Uh,” Kit said again, as his brain threatened to overload again at the very thought of where even to begin such an explanation. And one not aimed at a three-year-old whom you could foist off with a vaguely third-person “when two people love each other very much” explanation, either, but a curious fellow wizard who was going to want the details from an intelligent adult of another species. Just the highlights! All of a sudden the inside of Kit’s head sounded like the outline for a sex-ed course. Sperm, ova, gametes, zygotes, developmental stages, gestation, labor, childbirth, no, nope, no way! I have got to get him off this line of inquiry. Otherwise there’s going to be so much trouble.
And at the same time, backing completely away from the whole concept seemed somehow like cowardice. Also, Kit suspected it might just make Cheleb more eager to find out what was really going on. There has to be a way I can spoof haem into thinking hae’s found out everything he needs to. But somehow I’ve also got to do it without haem realizing hae’s being spoofed… and without fibbing. Lying in the Speech was, after all, even when possible, very, very unwise.
Yet Kit knew that if you were careful, it was possible to tell someone something in the Speech and allow them to draw the wrong conclusions from it… And all the wrong conclusions, I hope. Oh please.
He was well into several interminable seconds’ worth of desperate mental flailing among ineffective possible solutions when, completely without warning, the idea came to him—so quickly that at first Kit mistrusted it. But a moment later he found himself having to actually had to hold his face still to keep his jaw from dropping at how good the idea was. It could… It could just work.
Kit took a deep breath and said, “Well… let me tell you.”
He lowered his head conspiratorially close to Cheleb’s. “It just so happens there’s a really important ritual coming up shortly. We call it Valentine’s Day. And a lot of our kind feel it’s really important for two people who’re, you know, interested in each other to give each other special presents then. Otherwise there won’t be any…” He waggled his eyebrows at Cheleb, hoping the gesture would be read correctly. “Satisfaction.” He’d spent a few moments hunting around for a word in the Speech that would both accurately complete the sentence and yet have a completely different meaning from what Cheleb was considering… without seeming to.
“Truly,” Cheleb breathed, fascinated.
Kit grinned. “And we have these special tokens that we exchange…” He jumped up. “Wait, I’ll show you.”
He trotted across the stone circle, waved open the portal in the stone and headed into his puptent, where he spent a few moments digging hurriedly through his supplies until he finally found the little package that he’d thrown in here so casually while packing. Oh I am glad I brought this, so glad so glad so glad…
Kit headed out to the Throne Rock again, plopped himself down next to Cheleb and showed haem the box. “See these?”
And he took Cheleb’s clawed hand, turned it palm-upwards and poured a bunch of candy hearts out into it.
Cheleb poked them with a claw, saw that they had words written on them, and started examining them closely, one by one, reading the English-language sentiments via the Speech. “Oh my,” hae said, actually sounding shocked. “Quite intense.”
Kit was surprised. He’d been hoping for a reaction that would make Cheleb back off a little, but this was beyond what he had in mind. “Um, well,” he said, “this is sort of an important event.” Which was true enough.
But Cheleb’s long eyes went way wider as hae turned the hearts over one by one, gazing at them with some trepidation, as if they might explode if mishandled. “Seriously. Look at these! ‘Be Mine.’” Hae looked at Kit with an expression that suggested hae too was considering the ramifications of Speech-possessives as they applied to other sentient beings, and finding them as daunting as Kit had. And if hae’s projecting those concepts onto English words, Kit thought, that’s hardly my fault, is it? “And this. ‘You’re Cute.’ —And this!” And Cheleb sucked in his breath. “‘Text Me’!”
Kit was about to ask what was so dangerous about that sentiment, and then changed his mind. Don’t make haem tell you! Just go with it.
“
And this one. ‘Be Good!’” Cheleb looked at Kit in a strange combination of approval and nervousness. “Most profound commitment to wizardly principles…!”
“Yeah,” Kit said. “And what these are for is to be… internalized.”
And he picked that heart up from Cheleb’s hand, flipped it up in the air, tilted his head back, caught it in his mouth and crunched it up.
Cheleb’s jaw dropped: not in his usual smile, which didn’t normally involve allowing his slightly forked tongue to hang out. This was astonishment. For his own part, Kit was simply relieved that he’d caught the heart without choking himself.
But Cheleb was still struggling for words. “And all must be internalized before…”
Don’t let haem go any further! Hae might just mean ‘before the use-by date’! Which would be true! “Yes.”
Cheleb’s jaw just worked for a moment. “Amazing,” he said at last. “Unique mindsets of other species never cease to astonish.”
“Cousin, that is so true,” Kit said, and had rarely meant it more.
“When finish internalizing them?” Cheleb said.
Kit concentrated on looking thoughtful. “Might take a while,” he said. “Can’t rush these things, after all— every one of them has to be given proper consideration. They have to be mulled over. The emotional context has to be right. And in a situation like this—” He spread his hands, glancing around them; the gates, the refugees, Thesba. Kit shook his head. “It can’t always happen as fast as you wanted to.” He kept his face very straight, very somber. This was something of a challenge, since he’d reached a point in the conversation where he wasn’t entirely sure what “it” was any more. And maybe that’s just as well!
Cheleb glanced at Kit for permission, picked up the box and poured the rest of the hearts it held into haes hand, reading through every one. After a while hae found one that said LOVE YOU and examined it thoughtfully. “Considering yesterday,” hae said, nodding one of haes sideways nods at the streaming-video display, “strange there isn’t one of these saying ‘I KNOW.’ Seems an omission.”