Angry Young Spaceman (18 page)

“It is very... shocking?” Mrs. Ahm said, her eyes shining, it seemed to me, psychotically.

“Yes.” I said, the stun wearing off and anger rising. “It is disgusting. I think.”

Mrs. Ahm’s eyes dropped.

Mr. Nekk looked at me, coolly. “It is an Octavian tradition.”

“It is not very modern,” admitted Mrs. Ahm with a shrug.

Yes,
I thought.
Eating smaller and stupider species than you because you can wouldn’t be in the “modern” category.
I thought about Kung’s delicious comment and felt my hands curl up in that familiar way.
They want to be savage? Let’s be savage, then...

I thought about Jinya’s tentacles tearing apart flesh and chewing it, and was overcome by a sick tiredness.

“The wallens were the allies of the monsters, who killed many Octavians. Millions. Sokchu is our day of freedom.”

I checked the time. Still a lot left. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to hear about the history right now, though I was interested, because hearing about how clever their generals were would give me an even worse case of moral indigestion.

Oh, how righteous you are. What’s a little flesh-eating in the face of Earth’s past? At least they’re just eating them, not suffocating them slowly with an alien culture.

The seconds ticked on and nothing was coming to me. My growing embarrassment struggled to stifle my outrage, and, despite outrage being a weightier opponent, embarrassment won. I was surprised, but the brain’s a funny ol’ bean.

“Um, so,” I said. “Mr. Kung, what are you doing this weekend,” I asked. I already knew the answer, so I challenged myself by thinking up responses in Octavian.

“I go drinky,” he said with a small laugh.

“
Me too. I go to an offworlder party.
” Where I hoped to meet people who didn’t eat other people, I thought grimly.

They made appropriate surprised noises at my Octavian. Mr. Nekk made a correction and I thanked him, calling him teacher. It had the impossible pop sound.

Mr. Nekk was shocked. He spoke very quickly to Mrs. Ahm, who basically said
I told you so.

“I... it is not real... language,” Nekk floundered, his vocab coming up short.

“It’s a trick,” I admitted.

“Trick, yes,” said Mr. Nekk. “Not real.” He seemed to be saying it to himself more than me.

I was gratified to have unsettled him, but a little annoyed at myself. I had been keeping my proficiency kind of a secret — it let me eavesdrop easily, for one. And I still hadn’t decided whether I wanted to find out whether, officially, my tricks were real or not.

Mr. Kung continued, having not really followed the rest. “And I go to Artemia.”

I looked at him and he was beaming, a childishly sly look on his face.

I had had enough.

“Your second wife lives in Artemia,” I said slowly. “Are you going to have sex with her?”

His grin dropped so suddenly I swore I heard it thud. He looked at his two colleagues, who averted their eyes.

Class ended early that day.

***

“We also have some hot mulled wine,” the hostess said.

“Oh, I’ll have that,” I said happily.

“I’ll take a beer,” said Matthew, sneering at me.

9/3 said nothing, looking around the kitchen. He realized the woman was looking at him and watched her until her smile started to wilt.

“The wine sounds nice,” said Hugh, and her smile strengthened again with that.

She busied herself and we all stood around her kitchen, looking stupid. Matthew folded his arms, tilted back to look at 9/3’s ass. 9/3 spoke.

“Your decorations are quite tasteful,” he said.

The hostess beamed. Hugh beamed too, for some reason. She gave us our drinks and waved us towards the rest of the party, such as it was. At the moment it consisted of us and the husband and wife who lived here.

“Let us take-a-seat,” I said, when the husband followed his wife into the kitchen. I realized too late that I was still speaking slowly and put my head in my hands.

Matthew, naturally, couldn’t leave it alone. “Oh Kay Tee Cha.”

“IguessIcantalkasfastasIlikewithyoujerks,” I said.

Matthew cupped his ear. “Uh... can you repeat?”

We sat down on the couch, 9/3’s female android body’s legs crossing smoothly. I wondered if he had practiced that.

“I hate this first-nerds-at-the-party thing,” griped Matthew.

“I scheduled the trip so as to allow for a one hour margin of error,” 9/3 responded.

“‘Margin of error,’” snorted Matthew. “Whattaya gotta talk like a machine for if you’ve got a human brain? Or that is, you claim to have a human brain,” he wisecracked, taking a swig of beer and staring at 9/3’s (admittedly fabulous) breasts.

Hugh’s nostrils flared. 9/3 started scratching the back of his head, which was unusual.

They didn’t seem ready to deal with Matthew’s obnoxiousness, so I took up the slack. “Ah, shaddap. You were the one who—” I started.

“Whatever, wineboy. Enjoy your delicate bouquet,” Matthew said, waving his hand and looking towards the door.

I was, actually, quite enjoying the cinnamonny drink. The steam curled and twined towards the ceiling like a ghost’s DNA chain. I hadn’t seen steam for months.

I heard the hinge squeak open but I didn’t look until 9/3 said, “Matthew.”

Matthew, focused on sucking all the yeasty goodness from his bottle of Neb Beer, eventually looked over.

9/3’s head swivelled right around so that we could see that he had opened a hatch in the back. The top half of 9/3’s head was a glassed-in box, within which was an unmistakably human brain.

“Aw, shit,” said Matthew, looking away.

I stared. When was the next time I was going to get to look inside a roboman’s head? The lower half of the head was packed with multi-coloured wires. And through the glass box they led into, I could see the glowing lights I knew to be 9/3’s eyes.

He spun his head around and looked at Matthew. 9/3’s laughter had an echoey hollowness that disappeared when he clicked his panel shut.

“It’s so
big
,” said Hugh, with a strange look on his face.

9/3 shrugged. “It has the same mass as an average human brain. There is slight swelling due to the wire implants. Of course, it is much bigger than Matthew’s, because of the amount of cells he has killed with beer. Ha ha.”

We all laughed at this, and it was good timing because the hostess was just answering the door.

So it sounded like a little bit of a party, anyway, when the three people came in. Two guys and one, much to my surprise, rather pretty Earthling. While the hostess fussed over them, I muttered
now we’re cookin’ with gas
to Matthew and got an
Amen brother
back.

She made a beeline for Hugh, naturally.

“Are you Hugh?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” he said, looking mildly surprised.

“Introducing the galaxy-renowned Hugh Davidson!” said Matthew, rolling his eyes, as pissed as me.

“We’re from the same planet!” she said excitedly.

He seemed to push back into the couch. “You’re Christina?”

She nodded. He smiled weakly.

“You’re from the moon?” said Matthew, insultingly dubious. She was attractive, sure, but it wasn’t the kind of delicate-creature-beauty one found in female lunarians.

She shook her head.

“Christina teaches the Unarmoured,” said Hugh.

Ah.

“Hugh teaches the Armoured,” said Christina to one of her companions, a perfectly white bullethead android. He made a gesture with his shoulder too delicate to be called
shrug,
and said in a soft, cultured voice, “My condolences.”

Hugh gaped.

“Sid is one of my students,” she said. “He’s riding an android for the night.” I liked the way that she put that, disliked the way she patted the android’s shoulder.

“Being a cloud of nerve endings,” he pronounced, “does not suit travel.”

“So what’s it like, teaching the Armoured?” she asked, sitting down.

I rose immediately and walked into the kitchen. I didn’t want to hear Hugh answer that any more than I would want to watch him walk over broken glass.

Our two hosts were sitting at the table together, chatting happily. They sprung up as I entered, guilty in their solitude.

“Thanks so much for inviting us all,” I said.

“Oh, it’s our pleasure,” she said, him nodding along. He was a stocky Earthling with short grey hair on a lumpy head.

“Do you entertain much?” I probed.

She looked at her husband. “A few times a year. It gets lonely out here.”

I nodded. It had been a bit of a walk from the rocket we had rented, and we had remarked on the bleakness as we crunched our way, fully spacesuited, to the domehome.

“This is really good wine,” I exaggerated. She immediately lifted the angular carafe and filled my glass. “Cinnamonny. And you worked on Squidollia last year?”

“Yes, for the last two years actually. We liked it there.” She looked at her husband, who nodded confirmation. “We met Matthew when we went back to visit.”

“Kids like him,” the husband said, grinning unjealously.

“Young teachers very good,” I said, and they chuckled.

I admired the steam from my wine again, relishing its ephemeral ascent. “Did you —” I started tentatively. “I mean, living on Squidollia, it’s got the same water atmosphere as Octavia, did you find you missed the steam?”

They smiled. “It’s the little things you miss,” he clichéd, but somehow it was a considered, even wise, thing coming from his well-worn face.

She said, “Now I miss the feeling of waking up in the morning in Squidollia, and the shock and panic that gives way to the realization of where you are, why you’re breathing water, that you’re going to live after all.”

“That happens to me, too!” I said. “I thought I was just a novice.”

“It’s hard to beat the survival instinct,” he said. “Kathy woke up with a start every day we were there.”

“Oh, but it certainly gets you awake,” she said.

I grinned. “Beats an alarm clock.”

They laughed. His was a hearty one I liked instantly. I liked them both, actually, and it felt mutual. It was odd, because I would never have met them back home, two twice-my-age geezers with no shiny attributes. Now I was so happy to talk with them I felt drugged.

But maybe it was the wine.

The other guy who came in with the Unarmoured andy and the Earthling entered the kitchen and put some bottles in the fridge.

“Still on that yak milk, eh Ewen?” said the host.

“Yep,” said Ewen, leaving the kitchen without making eye contact.

Sparkling conversationalist
, I thought. “Is he a teacher?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes. He started with us. Odd boy. Think he might be sweet on the girl in the overalls.”

“Lucky her,” snorted the host.

“Ewen’s a bit... socially challenged,” she said. “Came out here when we did. We figure he likes teaching because no one really notices what an oddbod he is.”

I nodded. “Yeah, there were a few strange ones in our bunch too. Kind of a last chance thing.”

“He teaches Cottellians. He actually volunteered for a second year with
Cottellians,
” the host said, his voice low amazement. It
was
hard to imagine choosing the dim-witted puffballs out of the whole galaxy of species.

“John figures he’s found a way to copulate with them,” Kathy whispered, covering her mouth with a hand.

“You can’t imagine there’s a lot of interesting conversationalists there,” I said. “Maybe that’s what he likes, though.”

“I can only assume that’s the case,” said Kathy. “Not the most challenging of teaching positions. Unlike John here, getting quizzed by his students on vocabulary and grammar.”

John nodded. “And frankly, I had to fake it on the grammar. My grammar, when I write something, is fine, but it’s totally intuitive — I can’t explain
why
I do something.”

“So are you a writer?” I asked, finishing my wine and setting the glass down. “Is that what you do with your days out here?”

“Well, I’m writing the audio for a video game triptych,” he said. “Nothing terribly interesting, I’m afraid. A friend of mine wrote the game, and Kathy’s sculpting the objects for it.”

“Wow, that sounds really hand-crafted,” I said, impressed. I had never heard of anyone generating a game bit-by-bit.

“Hi,” said the girl with the overalls. “Which way to the yak milk?” Her body tilted with the question, a contrived movement I found annoying and sexy.

She was directed to the fridge, where she fetched a bottle for herself. She fiddled with the cap in anxious fingers, a nervous type, but not moving towards the door. She reminded me of Lisa, somehow.

“You remind me of my friend, somehow,” I said, the wine having weakened the artificial boundary between thinking and verbalizing.

“I find that the longer I’m away, the more likely that anyone human reminds me of someone on Earth,” she said.

“What part?” I said too abruptly, feeling like a junkie. “What part are you from?”

“Chicagotown,” she said.

“Toronto,” I said. “We’re practically neighbours!”

I basked in the warm glow of fellow Earthlings and wine and repressed an urge to ask John and Kathy where they were from. Why not save it for another time?

There was a silence and Christina took a healthy swig of the unhealthy liquor. “Your friend, Hugh,” she started, “isn’t the happiest of guys, is he.”

“Well,” I said, shrugging, “he’s upset that he didn’t get to be with the Unarmoured,” I said to all three listeners.

“Yeah,” she said, a distant look in her eyes. “I just thought it would be interesting,” she said. “I didn’t know there would be other applicants.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, with a broader grin than applied. The impact of the wine was making me think of an Octavian folk rhyme:
Oh trickster wine/ you make my tentacles flail/ you make me fall on my head.

I wondered what it would be like to visit the Unarmoured world on weekends, what her overalls would look like all bunched up beside the bed.