Amy Thomson - Through Alien Eyes

“It’s the cargo bay,” Eerin shouted over the noisy machines. “This is where the ships are loaded and unloaded.”

Moki stared down in fascination at the enormous machines, his skin roiling with excitement and awe. Ukato-nen felt small and exposed, like a tinka in a clearing.

He was relieved when they passed through another airlock, then down a long corridor, -and out into a wide, brilliantly lit atrium. It was a huge room, full of humans. Towering over the crowd was an enormous tree. Long streamers of vines and aerial roots trailed from its branches down to the ground. Ukatonen stopped dead, all pretense at nonchalance forgotten. Under the wet-bird smell of the assembled humans, Ukatonen could smell the rich green aliveness of the tree. The rest of the room ceased to exist for him as he headed for the tree, aching to feel bark beneath his hands and feet again.

Analin stood by a pillar off to the side of the room, watching the surging press corps jockey for good camera angles on the riser under the tree. It was nice, for once, not to have to be part of that milling scrum. Instead, she kept her eyes and her head-mounted video camera trained on the double doors where Dr. Saari and the Tendu would enter the room. Analin was more interested in the aliens’ entrance than the press interview. She would have her own exclusive interview with the three of them later.

So she was one of the first to see Juna and the aliens as they came in the door, flanked by their security escort. The group stopped as they came in, giving Analin a moment to look at them.

What surprised her most was how small they were. The Tendu were tiny, barely coming up to the chest of their brawny escort. Their long, gangly limbs looked spidery and fragile. Juna, despite her humanity, seemed to partake of that same fine-boned fragility. She was small, barely five feet tall, but she carried herself with the pride and poise of a queen. Her features were striking, delicate yet determined. She had the narrow, straight nose, wide solemn eyes, and arching eyebrows of an Ethiopian, but her skin was lighter, coffee with a hint of cream.

The Tendu’s skins flared a sudden surprising hot pink as the lights of the assembled cameras flickered explosively over them, recording their images for the NetNews teams. The noise of the crowd swelled as reporters spoke into microphones. But the aliens were looking beyond the reporters.

Analin followed their gaze with her eyes. They were looking at the giant tree behind the riser. In that moment, the Tendu ran for the tree. The security escort moved to stop them, but the aliens were already beyond their reach, racing up into the tree’s massive branches with the quick fluidity of squirrels. The Tendu reached the upper branches and paused a moment, their skins turning the clear, startling blue of a summer sky, and then began leaping and swinging from branch to branch, hot-pink lightning flickering over their brilliant blue bodies.

The still pictures and her comm conversations with the Tendu had not prepared her for their nonhuman grace and agility. In the trees, their awkward gangliness vanished. They were beautiful in motion. She could have watched them for hours.

Dr. Saari strode up to the riser, and with a thunderous clatter plucked the microphone from its stand. She turned off the microphone, and stuck it in her pocket. Then she swung up into the crotch of the giant tree with the same fluid skill as the Tendu, except that her movements had a familiar human quality. She pulled the microphone out of her pocket, switched it on, and tapped it to get the attention of the rapt and wondering press corps.

“Hello,” she said, then waited until most of the cameras and microphones were trained on her. “Hello, I’m Dr. Juna Saari,” she began, “and these are the Tendu. It’s been a long time since Moki and Ukatonen have seen a tree big enough to climb in, so you’ll have to excuse them if they’re a bit distracted.”

At the sound of her voice, Moki and Ukatonen turned a darker, more somber shade of blue, and swung down to settle next to her on a branch, bright pink flickers of lightning still coursing down their bodies. Juna introduced the Tendu, then thanked the crew of the Homa Darabi Maru, Mark Manning, the union, and the Survey for their help in expediting their release from quarantine. Then she handed the microphone to Ukatonen.

“Hello,” he said, then paused in surprise at hearing his own voice magnified by the* public address speakers. “Hello, my name is Ukatonen. I am an enkar of the Three Rivers Council from the planet of Tiangi. I have come to learn more about your people so that we can learn to be in harmony with each other. I hope you will be patient and kind teachers. Thank you.” He spoke simultaneously in human Standard and in the Tendu visual language. How beautiful and strange their language was! The camera lenses whirred and spun as they focused in on him.

He handed the microphone back to Juna. Analin saw him cast a longing look up at the treetops.

Juna shook her head, and handed the microphone to Moki.

“Hello,” he said, clearly repeating what he had heard Juna and Ukatonen say. “I am Moki. Dr. Saari is my sitik. You would say that I am her adopted son. Thank you for letting us out of quarantine and giving us a chance to climb this wonderful tree.”

The reporters began shouting their names. Juna looked momentarily a little overwhelmed and frightened at the sudden clamor. Analin wondered where the Survey’s press flacks were. They should be up there, helping Juna out.

“You,” Juna said, pointing to a woman in purple down near the front. Analin winced as she recognized the enormous trademark beehive of Fay Tsui from one of the Asian music Tri-D channels. Recognizing Tsui first was an insult to all the serious journalists from the major networks. Why the hell wasn’t anybody up there with Juna?

“Dr. Saari, do you have any comment to make about your long stay in quarantine?”

Analin relaxed. At least Tsui asked an intelligent question. Maybe there really was a brain under all that hair.

“Yes, we’re glad to be out.”

Analin smiled. Juna had given them a good response.

“What’s it like being back on Earth?” another reporter shouted.

“I don’t know. I’ll tell you when we get there.” It was an old joke, but it got a laugh.

The press corps shouted more questions at Juna. She fielded them as well as she could, occasionally handing one off to the Tendu. She was handling herself well. If someone had sent her out here alone to make her look like a fool, they had failed. Although Juna was new to this, she had a great deal of grace and poise, and an instinctive ability to dodge difficult questions. None of the reporters managed to bulldoze her into answering a question that she wanted to avoid.

While Juna and Ukatonen were preoccupied with the reporters, the little one, Moki, climbed into the higher branches of the tree, and began swinging from branch to branch. The questions stopped as the cameras started tracking him. Analin smothered a grin. Moki was stealing the show.

Juna used the distraction to bring the press conference to a close. Moki and Ukatonen followed her out of the large hall with many longing looks back at the tree. Their escort fended off the reporters who tried to follow them as they led Juna and the Tendu into a security elevator. At least the security people were doing their jobs. As the doors slid closed, the reporters pulled out their comm units and began filing stories.

Analin got herself a cup of coffee and a pastry at a corridor-side cafe. She watched the reporters hustling by, their comm units pressed to their ears, and smiled. How nice not to have to rush to a deadline, she reflected. She sipped her coffee, savoring the moment. When enough time had passed for Juna to have gotten settled, Analin picked up her comm and dialed her number.