Amy Thomson - The Color of Distance

Everyone in the room cheered. Alison popped the cork on a bottle of champagne. “Ad Astra ’32,” she remarked as she poured. “Your father was hoping there would be something worth celebrating.” The galley staff brought out platters of fruit, cheese, and pastries. Moki reached for a pastry, then hesitated, looking at Juna.

“Go ahead, Moki. You’ll have to get used to human food eventually,” Juna said. “Just eat a little bit, though.”

He bit into the crumbly pastry and chewed carefully, eyes shut.

“Well?” Alison asked.

He flushed turquoise and opened his eyes. “I think I’m going to like your world. The food is good.”

Juna laughed, then sobered. “I hope everything else is as good as that cake.”

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair with a profound sigh of relief. The tragedy she had been dreading for so long had been averted. She was going to get to see her family and keep Moki too. She picked up her glass of champagne, and held it up for a toast.

“To the Tendu, humanity, and the future,” she said, and tossed back her father’s champagne. It had never tasted sweeter.

Juna sat in the place of honor at the farewell banquet given by Lyanan. Ukatonen and Moki flanked her. They would be leaving on the shuttle tomorrow afternoon for the Survey ship Homa Darabi Maru. It was a huge banquet, so big that it had been moved to the forest floor. Dozens of enkar had come to say goodbye to Ukatonen. Naratonen had brought Ninto. Anitonen had spent almost every minute since then with her tareena. Juna looked at the two of them talking intently, and smiled, glad that they had this opportunity to be together. To her right sat most of the top brass of the Unity Dow: Captain Edison, Dr. Bremen, Dr. Wu, and the other department heads. Juna had made sure that the human delegation included the people who had helped her. Dr. Baker, Gerald Nyimbe, and her friends Bruce, Alison, Marguerite, Laurie, Patricia, and Kay sat together watching the proceedings with amazement. Alison had prepared special ration bars and drink boxes full of good wine and fresh juice, so that they had something to eat as well.

When everyone was fed and the food was cleared away, Anitonen rose to speak.

“I want to thank the Tendu of Lyanan for this lavish banquet and for their patience and kind hospitality over the last few months. Without it, we would not have achieved the beginnings of understanding with the humans. We ask you to be patient for a little longer, while we present a new quarbirri.”

The villagers of Lyanan stirred, flickers of excitement passing over them. It was quite an honor to host the performance of a quarbirri performed by the enkar. Their village’s status would rise.

Ukatonen, Anitonen, Ninto, and Naratonen got up and began putting on rattles and testing musical instruments. They were joined by several other enkar. Wu and the other humans began groping for their recorders. Juna turned to Moki.

“What is this?” she scrawled on her translator.

Moki rippled laughter. “You’ll see,” he told her.

The villagers started beating drums and shaking rattles. Ukatonen lay down in the middle of the impromptu stage. One of the elders blew on a conch shell, signaling the beginning of the performance.

Anitonen came in from behind the musicians. She saw Ukatonen and stopped, turning deep purple with curiosity. She mimed descending. Ninto and Naratonen followed her. They circled around Ukatonen handling his limbs, exclaiming in excitement at his strange appearance.

Juna laughed, suddenly realizing what this quarbirri was about. It was the story of her arrival among the Tendu. She glanced at the other humans, wondering how long it would take for them to figure it out.

She sat back, reminiscing, as the graceful Tendu moved through the narrative. She heard a burst of surprised laughter from the Survey crew during the digging race. They had finally realized what the story was about.

The quarbirri moved on through her adoption of Moki, her trip down the river, her time in Narmolom, and then through Anitonen’s and Ninto’s training to become enkar, and the return of the humans. As the story wound to a close, the Tendu began describing the things they had learned from her. They speculated on the changes that might occur as their people learned more about the humans. There was hope, but also caution in their storytelling. Juna smiled. The Tendu would do all right.

The quarbirri closed with a tightly interwoven knot of bodies. Pulses of color passed from one body to the next in perfect synchrony. It symbolized humans and Tendu linking together, achieving harmony. It was a very difficult technical feat. The Tendu in the audience rippled wildly in approval, and the humans joined in with enthusiastic applause. Juna watched through eyes blurry with tears, deeply honored to be the subject of a quarbirri.

When the applause died, she rose. “Thank you,” she said, aloud and on her graphics tablet. “I am honored by this quarbirri. I hope that we can negotiate the opportunity to show it to my people. They would learn much from it.”

Anitonen stood. “On behalf of everyone who helped create this quarbirri, I give it to your people as a gift that we both can share.”

Juna spent the night in the heart of the giant na tree with Moki and the others. She lay awake a long time listening to the familiar night sounds of the village: the rustling as one of the Tendu stirred in his sleep, the faint humming of the tilan bees in the walls, and the occasional creaking sounds of the giant tree shifting in the wind. It would be a long time, if ever, before Juna would hear them again. She was glad that she was going home, but she would miss this world, with its complex, cathedral-like forests and beautiful people.

She thought about Moki and Ukatonen. How would they manage? What would they think of Earth and its colonies? How would her family feel about them? The futtire was full of questions, but tonight was for thinking about the past. She banished her worries and let the sounds of the great tree lull her to sleep.

The next morning a crowd of Tendu followed them to the beach to see them off. As the launch headed toward them, its wake an arc of white foam, Juna turned to Anitonen.

“Are you sorry you rescued me?” she asked. “You lost so much. Your village, your whole future.”

Anitonen touched Juna on the shoulder. “I lost one future, but I gained another one. I think it balances.”

“I’ll miss you. I’ll miss the Tendu.”

“You’ll come back. We’ll see each other again,” Anitonen assured her. “Our people need you too much for you to stay away.”

Juna nodded. The boat was nearly at the beach. She stepped forward to help land the boat, then said her formal goodbyes to Lalito, the village council, Ninto, and the enkar. Then she was back to Anitonen. She found she had no words. She held out her arms instead.

They linked, a link that tasted of the sadness of farewells and hopes for the future, reaching a sad, nostalgic harmony. When it was over, she touched Anitonen on the shoulder in a wordless farewell, and then climbed into the waiting boat. Ukatonen and Moki followed her. As they pulled away they flickered goodbyes to the Tendu watching on the shore. Juna kept looking back until the Tendu on the shore had faded into the distance, and all she could see was a pale strip of sand and the endless forest stretching to the horizon.

Allu-a—The communion between two or more Tendu involving a deep sharing of physiological state.

Allu—Fleshy red spurs located on the inside of the forearm, and their associated organs, used by the Tendu for allu-a.