Amy Thomson: Through Alien Eyes

She smiled. “I forgot because I like you,” she explained.

“I know,” Ukatonen told her. “Thank you. You honor me.”

Giselle met his gaze. “You honor me as well,” she replied.

They finished transplanting and joined the rest of the crew at their weeding. Giselle teamed each of them up with another gardener to show them which plants were weeds. Ukatonen’s partner seemed stiff and embarrassed, mumbling instructions so that Ukatonen had to strain to hear. The earlier pleasure he felt was gone. Instead, he mulled over his partner’s discomfort. What caused it? Could he make the man feel more at ease?

Ukatonen set down his trowel, got up, and walked over to where Giselle knelt, also weeding. He touched her on the shoulder. Giselle sat back on her heels, “Yes, what is it, Ukatonen?”

He squatted beside her, “Why do Moki and I make everyone so uncomfortable? Are we doing something to offend them?” he asked, keeping his words small and private.

“It’s nothing you’re doing, Ukatonen.” Giselle said. “They’re just not used to working with people who have no clothes on.”

“But your people didn’t act like this back on Tiangi.”

“Ukatonen, on Tiangi you were dealing almost entirely with Alien Contact personnel. They’re trained to accept cultural differences. Besides, your nudity probably seemed more natural in your own environment. Here on the ship it’s more noticeable. They’ll get over it eventually.”

Ukatonen thanked Giselle, and returned to his work, deep in thought. Giselle had dismissed the problem, but Ukatonen could not. Their nudity posed a serious barrier to harmony with the humans. Perhaps Eerin could help them come up with a solution.

“How did you like it?” Juna asked as she met Moki and Ukatonen after their gardening shift.

“It was fun!” Moki told her. “I learned a lot. And I got to play with an earthworm!”

“And you?” she asked Ukatonen, whose skin was muted and cloudy.

“Oh, the gardening atwa went well enough,” Ukatonen told her, “but I have discovered a problem. Perhaps you could help me bring harmony to this situation.”

“What is it?”

Ukatonen told her what Giselle had said.

“Well, what do you want to do about it?” Juna asked when he was finished.

“I don’t know. Perhaps it might be better to wear clothes, but we can’t talk if we’re all covered up.”

“You don’t need to wear a lot of clothes, Ukatonen. Maybe we can rig you a pair of shorts.” She glanced at her watch. “We’ve got about three hours before dinner. Let’s go see what the fabricator can spin for us.”

The fabricator took the Tendu’s measurements in a quick flicker of light, and a couple of queries. Juna reassured the fabricator that the measurements were correct. Then, with help and comments from Moki and Ukatonen, she began designing some clothing for them. At last they arrived at a design that made them all happy, a pair of loose shorts with a brief kiltlike skirt over them. It provided modesty and freedom of movement, while leaving the torso bare so that the Tendu could communicate freely.

Juna pressed the button, and the fabricator hummed quietly for about fifteen minutes. Then, with a faintly triumphant-sounding beep, the first pair appeared. She helped Ukatonen put them on. He peered down at the shorts. They needed to be a couple of inches longer, and a bit tighter in the seat, and looser at the waist, but for a first try, it was pretty good. Juna showed him the mirror, and watched as the enkar regarded himself. She had dreaded the idea of Tendu dressed up like humans, but this outfit had a faintly alien air to it that she liked.

“Well?” she asked. “Do you like them? Are they comfortable?”

Ukatonen shrugged. “Will this reassure the humans?”

“It should.”

“Then they’re fine.”

She adjusted the fit on the computer, and then told the fabricator to make another pair. These fit perfectly. Then she made a pair for Moki, who donned them eagerly. He was very proud of them. “Can we make them in different colors, like your clothes?” he asked.

Juna smiled. “Of course we can, but right now it’s time to eat. Let me adjust the fit a bit, and then we’ll go show off your new clothes at dinner.”

The clothing, minimal as it was, made a surprising difference in the crews’ attitude toward the Tendu. People began talking to them. Moki became the center of a cluster of human friends wherever he went. Ukatonen made acquaintances more slowly and tentatively, but Giselle and several other members of the Life Support team befriended him, despite his enkarish reserve.

Moki was extremely excited with his new clothes. He made dozens of them in brilliant colors and patterns until Juna, concerned that he would deplete the fabricator’s fiber supply, put a stop to it.

Ukatonen made only a few pairs, mostly in neutral shades of green. They soon became rumpled, giving him the air of an absent-minded alien professor. Juna smiled at the thought. The stereotype fit him. He tended to ignore everything that wasn’t alive. It would be a problem for him on Earth. She imagined Ukatonen crossing a busy street, oblivious to the lumbering buses, trolleys, and delivery trucks, and winced. One problem was solved, but there was still a lot of work to do.

She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Bruce, padded across the cabin to her computer and entered a reminder to discuss this fresh worry with Don and Jennifer at their next meeting.

She looked over her notes. Her list of things to discuss with them was already several pages long. How could they possibly teach the Tendu everything they needed to know before reaching Earth? She shut down the computer, and slipped back into bed.

Bruce slid his arm around her, and she snuggled against the warmth of his body. The next thing to work on, really, was smoothing out communication between humans and the Tendu. Juna stared up at the ceiling, her mind churning with problems and plans. Her Tendu-enhanced night vision bothered her on wakeful nights. Her cabin seemed too bright to let her rest. She got up and put a towel against the bottom of the door, blocking out the light filtering in from the companionway, and returned to bed, settling against Bruce’s warmth again. The Tendu’s problems would have to wait until morning. She needed some sleep.

Ukatonen lay awake, marveling at how much difference wearing a length of cloth around his hips had made to the humans. But now that the humans were coming up to talk to him, his use of skin speech Standard got in the way. It got in Mold’s way too, though the friendly little bami managed to transcend the problem.

Eerin told him that the humans would get used to their skin speech. But Giselle had said the same thing about clothes, and yet they had made a big difference to the humans. If a small thing like that change made such a difference, surely speaking sound speech would help even more.

But the Tendu’s throats couldn’t make human sounds. It would be easy to alter Mold’s throat. Working on himself would be harder, especially since he would be working on the passage that supplied his lungs with air. A misstep could cost him his life, and Moki needed him. He could not die now.

He tried, softly, to speak human speech, just to see how close he could come. The result sounded like nothing he’d ever heard a human say.

“Are you all right, en?” Moki asked. “What is it?”

“I was trying to make sound speech, like the humans. It would be easier to reach harmony with the humans if we could talk the way they do.”

“I’ve tried to speak like the humans too, but my throat isn’t shaped right,” Moki said. “Can you imagine how surprised Eerin would be to hear us using sound speech?” Glowing laughter rippled over the bami’s body.