Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

“I never said they didn’t. I only said it was uncultured not to warn us about it, which it is. Bragg out.” The mission commander broke the connection. He leaned back in his chair, pleased with himself.

Irv Levitt did not blame him. “That hit Tolmasov where he lived. Call a Russian uncultured and then take away his chance to say anything back-”

“Mmhmm.” Bragg steepled his fingertips. “Have to remember to thank Frank for picking up on that-it let me embarrass Tolmasov instead of the other way around. He ought to be about ready to chew nails.” The pilot blinked. “You know what, Irv? I wish I had a cigarette. I quit fifteen years ago, but the urge still comes back sometimes. Sneaks up on me, I guess.”

Irv had a tough time imagining anything sneaking up on Emmett Bragg. Picturing him through a haze of tobacco smoke was much easier. No wonder, Levitt thought with one of those odd bursts of insight that are at once crazy and illuminating. Bragg looked like nothing so much as the original Marlboro Man.

The mission commander got up and stretched. “That was fun, but I’m going back to work now.”

“Off to paint a hammer and sickle under the window?” Irv asked innocently.

Bragg snorted. “You know, I just might. Only trouble is, Sergei’s got hisself-himself-a Yankee star or two under his. Just stayin’ even with that one is nothing to be ashamed of.” He turned serious. “Them and us, we’ve been saying that about each other since the end of the Second World War now, and each usin’ the other to push himself along. And here we both are on Minerva. Not too shabby, is it?”

He was gone before Irv came up with an answer. Even after a year, Bragg had depths that could take him by surprise.

Lamra scratched herself in four places at once. The skin that stretched over her growing buds itched. Sarah pointed a picture-maker at her. It clicked. “Give me a picture of me, please?” Lamra asked. She held out the two hands that were not busy.

“Not that kind of picture-maker,” Sarah said after Lamra had repeated herself two or three times.

Embarrassed, Lamra pushed in her eyestalks. “That’s right. I forgot. The one that lets you give pictures right away voids them out of its bottom. This is the other kind, the one that holds them in.”

“Yes, Lamra.” Pat stooped beside her. That made the mate nervous, the same way she had felt funny when Reatur widened himself to her. The human went on. “Other mates not see that. Some males not see that.”

“I have eyes. Eyes are for seeing with.” Lamra shut all of them at once. Sure enough, the world went away. She opened them and it came back. Both of Sarah’s eyes were pointed at her. “How can you stand only seeing half of things?”

Sarah’s body made the jerky motion that meant the human was not sure what to say. Finally Sarah answered, “Humans like this. No humans different-humans not think what different like.”

“How sad,” Lamra said.

The place where Sarah’s arms and body were joined jerked again. “Some ways you people not think what different like, too.”

Lamra turned a third eyestalk toward the humans-this was the kind of talk she loved, and she got it too seldom. None of the other mates cared about it; even Reatur did not talk that way with her every time he visited the mates’ chambers. It was as if he had to remind himself to take her seriously, while Sarah always seemed to.

“What could be different about us?” Lamra asked. “We’re only people, after all. People are just people, aren’t they?” Sarah did not say anything. “Tell me what’s different about us,” Lamra persisted. “Tell me. Tell me!” In her eagerness to find out what Sarah was talking about, she hopped up and down.

“How you different?” Sarah said at last. Something had changed in the human’s voice. Lamra could hear that, but she did not know enough of humans to be sure what the change meant. Sarah hesitated again, then went on. “Lamra, you know what happens after-after you bud?”

“After I bud, I’m over, of course,” Lamra answered. “Who ever heard of an old mate?”

“Humans not like that. Not male, me-mate.” Sarah pointed at himself-no, herself, Lamra thought through roaring confusion. “I old-old like any other human. Mates-human mates- who, uh, bud not die then. Can live on.”

“Live on?” From her tone, Lamra might have been talking about one of the three moons coming down from the sky and dancing in the fields. She did not so much disbelieve Sarah as find her words beyond comprehension. “Live on?” she repeated. “Who ever heard of an old mate?”

The proverb helped anchor her to the familiar, the here and now. She had never needed such an anchor before-this was much stranger than Reatur’s turning all his eyes on her.

“Who ever heard of humans?” Sarah asked. Lamra had no answer to that. The human-the human mate continued. “Because a thing is, does that mean it must be?” He-no, she- said that several different ways, working hard to get the meaning across to Lamra.

Even so, it was a struggle. “Too hard,” Lamra complained. She hadn’t liked it when Reatur asked that sort of question, either.

“All fight. Question not so hard: You want to have buds, live on after?”

Sarah asked it as if it could only have one possible answer. Lamra did not see it so. “What would I do?” she wailed. “Who ever heard of an old mate?” This time the saying truly reflected how perplexed she was.

“Not want to live on?” Sarah pressed. “Want to die like Biyal, put blood over whole floor?”

Lamra had never really thought about not dying until the human raised the question in her mind. Now that she turned a couple of eyestalks on it, the prospect of spilling her blood out all over the floor did seem unpleasant if another choice was available. “Will you make my buds go away?” she asked. “I don’t think I want you to do that.”

“Not know how,” Sarah said.

“What will you do, then?”

Sarah muttered something to himself-no, herself; Lamra would be a long time getting used to that-in her own language, then dipped her head to the mate in the human motion that meant the same as widening herself. After a moment, the human started talking people talk again. “You know fight question to ask.”

Sarah sounded like Reatur, Lamra thought. The mate realized that was true in a couple of ways-Sarah’s voice was like a male’s. How could she be a mate? That whole tangle of eyestalks would just have to keep. “You didn’t answer me,” Lamra said accusingly.

“Not know good answer.” Sarah’s sigh was just like a person’s. “Try to stop blood when buds fall from you. Not know how now. Not even know if able. Try, if you want.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” Lamra again thought how much Sarah sounded like a male, both in the timbre of her voice and in the complex way her mind worked. That thought helped the mate find a reply at last. “Ask Reatur,” she said. “If Reatur says it’s all fight, then it’s all fight with me, too.”

“Your body,” Sarah said. “Your life.”

“Ask Reatur.”

Sarah threw her hands in the air. Lamra had never seen a human do that and did not know what it meant. All Sarah said, though, was, “All fight. Ask Reatur. Ask Reatur now.” She stood up and started out of the mates’ chambers.

Lamra watched her go. She scratched the itchy skin over her buds again. The notion of not ending when the buds dropped off was still a long way from real to her. For that matter, the time when the buds would drop still seemed a very long way off. To a mate, anything further away than tomorrow seemed a long way off.

Morea came rushing in. Lamra was so lost in her own thoughts that the other mate managed to grab two of her arms and almost pull her over. That roused Lamra. She squealed, straightened up, and tugged back. Morea jerked free. She ran away, squealing herself. Eyestalks wiggling happily, Lamra dashed after her.