Amy Thomson - Through Alien Eyes

He sat there, pondering this until the light began to dim for evening. He got up and swung home with a heavy heart. Eerin was waiting for him on the darkened porch. “Moki thought you might be upset about the enkar coming,” she said as he reached the top step.

Ukatonen shrugged. “I’m— so different now. What are they going to think of me, like this?”

“You have much to teach them, en. And not all of it will be about humans.”

Ukatonen looked at her for a long moment. “They do not want to learn what I have to teach, Eerin.”

“Nevertheless, it’s an important lesson and one they should learn. How many wise and intelligent enkar die because a judgment goes awry for reasons they cannot control? How many maimed Tendu feel that they have to die because they are not perfect? The enkar need to learn to forgive themselves, en. Each one that dies is a loss, not just for themselves, but for the Tendu as a species. There are many lessons your people could learn by allowing the disabled to live. Lessons of patience, struggle, and strength.”

“Those are human lessons, Eerin,” he said. “I don’t think the Tendu can learn them.”

He turned and went inside, climbed up the stairs to his room, and shut the door. Despite all they’d been through together, Eerin didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, what he was going through.

Juna drove Ukatonen to the shuttle station two days later. He was heading back down to a research station in Australia, ostensibly to do some restoration work. She had pushed him too far, and he was running away. Not that she could blame him. The news about the upcoming visit from the enkar had nearly unravelled all the progress he had made since his injury.

“You don’t have to go, Ukatonen,” she said as a member of his security escort opened the door of the truck.

“I have to go,” he said. “They need me down there, and besides, it’ll give me time to think things over.” He brushed her shoulder affectionately. “I know you want to help, but I need to do this my own way.”

“All right, en, but remember, if you need us, we’re here.”

Ukatonen turned a clear pale blue. “I know. And I’m grateful.” He enfolded her in a long-armed hug. “Thank you. And please thank Toivo and Moki and the rest of the family for me.”

“I will.”

He withdrew from Eerin’s embrace and picked up his bag; then, accompanied by his guards, he headed down the passageway to catch the shuttle.

Stan Akuka met him at the airport. “How’re you doin’ mate?” he asked. “We heard you were hurt. You okay?”

“I suppose,” Ukatonen allowed.

“They’re looking forward to seeing you up at the station. There’s a bunch of me mates up there waiting to meet you, as well. You look like you could do with a bit of a party.”

Ukatonen nodded.

“Cmon then,” Stan said. “Let’s go.”

He stayed at the research station for a day or two. Then, he moved out into the bush with the Aboriginals, much to the dismay of the researchers and his security escorts. The Aboriginals lived more like the Tendu than any other humans he had encountered. They taught him about the jungle, showing him medicinal plants, and relating stories about the animals— where they lived, and what they ate. They admired his skill at hunting, and his ability to climb trees. He admired the Aboriginals’ quiet patience, and their sense of humor.

In the evenings, they told stories, and sang songs, and danced. He would perform a quarbirri, accompanied by the somber drone of the didgeridoo, drums, rattles, and flutes. The Aboriginals watched in silent appreciation.

Sometimes he would link with one or two of the Aboriginals that he especially liked. He found, to his surprise, that his injury made him pay more attention to the others in the link. He learned more about the Aboriginals’ internal life than he would have if his presence had dominated the link. Working with them, he learned die advantage of quiet attention and patience. It was a lesson he thought he had learned many centuries ago. He had not expected to have to learn it over again.

Living with these dark, silent people was more like living in a Tendu village than like living among humans. Many of the men and women he talked to were college-educated. Some even had advanced degrees in various disciplines. But at some point they had set down their “white” occupations, as they called them, and returned to the bush, some for a few months or weeks, some for the rest of their lives. He understood, but he didn’t think he could explain it to someone who was not an Aboriginal or a Tendu. Eerin might understand, perhaps. She knew what it was like to live this way, but for her, the bush was not really home, not like it was for him, or for these people.

He mentioned this to Stan one night, as the fire died down to embers. Stan nodded. “You either have the spirit in your heart, or you don’t. If you don’t, it’s meaningless.”

’Tell me about the whites. I still don’t know the story of what they did.”

“They came here and drove us off the land,” Stan said. “They hunted us like animals, made us slaves. They took children away from their families and sent them to mission schools. They nearly ended’the Dreamtime for us.”

“Why did they do it?” Ukatonen asked.

“If I understood that, I guess I’d be white too,” Stan said. “They wanted our land. We were different. We were in the way. But we survived. Despite all they did to try to change us, we survived. We remembered the old songs, not all of them, but enough. Eventually, they let us alone again, and we were able to rebuild. Sometimes it’s still hard. Those of us with degrees, it tore us apart sometimes, the gap between the white world and the real world. Some of us die trying to fill that gap. Others just seem to learn to live with a white soul and a black one. A few, like me, go walkabout and never really return. A lot more stay white. But there’s always a new generation of us here in the bush. There’s always enough to keep the song lines active.”

Ukatonen was silent for a while, then finally asked the question that had been weighing on his spirit since that afternoon on the zeppelin.

“Do you think that humans can do to us what they did to you?”

“If they can, they will,” Stan said. “There will always be those who understand, those who care. But there will also be the greedy ones. Both of them are dangerous, because both of them bring change. Those people who built the mission schools cared enough to want to take us out of the bush where we were happy, and try to make us white. You must not let them do the same to your people.”

“How do we stop them?” Ukatonen asked.

“If we knew that, this would still be our land. I’m sorry, Ukatonen. That is something your people will have to figure out for yourselves. We’d like to help, but remember, we lost the fight.”

“I like them,” Ukatonen confessed. “They’re so alive. There is so much my people could learn from them. So much we could learn from each other. But— ” He shook his head.

“They’ve made a right mess of the planet, though,” Stan noted.

“I don’t want that to happen to Tiangi.”

“Well, what are you goin’ to do to stop it?”

Ukatonen shook his head and stared into the glowing red embers of the fire, lost in thought. After a while he heard Stan get up and walk off to his bark shelter.

Stan’s question haunted him for three days. Finally he started gathering his things together.

“You goin’, then?” Stan asked.

Ukatonen nodded.

“Have you figured out what you’re goin’ to do?”

“No,” Ukatonen said, “but I do know that I have to stop running away from the problem. I’ve got a couple of my people coming here to Earth. Maybe they can help me figure out what to do.”