Angry Young Spaceman (8 page)

The laughter stopped suddenly at this point and I still don’t know why. Were they at first amused by my awkwardness, but then shocked and moved to pity at this proof of how extreme my clumsiness was?

I handed the correct amount of beeds to the cashier (there was a read-out, luckily) but before I could go crawling for the dropped balls (now rolling away) the female behind me in line picked them up.

I put out my hand and smiled, trying like hell to remember Octavian for thank-you. She had them sticking to the suckers on her tentacle. She looked at my hand for a second, and then put them on the counter! She actually swerved around my filthy human hand to do it!

I scooped up the two beeds and looked at her, dumb-struck. She had dipped her tentacle into her purse and came out with beeds running along its length, one for each sucker. Then she sort of twined it with the cashier’s tentacle for a second and the cashier deposited the money into the cashbox. All I could think was: she wouldn’t
drop
something into my hand, but
twining
with a stranger was just fine.

Then she pushed by me to leave. After I stared a few daggers into her back I checked my aggrometer — surprisingly, a few notches below the red zone.

I got my double-barrelled cucumber and turned to leave, and some budding comedian spits out “Hokay-thank-you-come-again” to the merriment of all assembled. This cut me free — I felt the giddy light-headedness of white rage. Balloonhead, as you call it. I swayed there for a second, looked at my double-barrelled cucumber and reminded myself of a few things: Octavian atmosphere made a fastball punch into a lob. Octavian boneless physiology made a lob punch rather ineffective. Which, as you know, is one of the reasons I chose Octavia in the first place.

By this time, the people in the store had gone about their business — having tired of staring at the freak clutching the cuke — and my aggrometer needle had stopped rising and started sinking.

And that was just the beginning.

So a few steps from the store this cop comes up to me and says, or rather gestures, that I should come with him. I had this sudden paranoid flash that I had broken a law by dropping a beed, like how it was illegal on some planets to desecrate the flag, and that I had been reported. Of course I hadn’t thought to even register with the Earth consulate, even though I had had plenty of time. (And no, I still haven’t.) So we get to this little police booth — the rather sinister crest above the door involves several snaky looking creatures — and go inside.

There’s a fat Octavian inside there, looking mighty pleased with himself. That’s when he welcomes me and asks me about being a criminal.

Before I can say anything he busts out laughing, a few bubbles even coming from his nostrils. “Joke, that I thought of!”

“How proud you must be!” is what came to mind, but dry wit doesn’t suit this atmosphere. Doesn’t suit it at all. Instead I said, “That is a very funny joke,” in a tone that
sarcasm
doesn’t begin to describe.

Nauseatingly, this puffed him up even more, and he immediately said something in Octavian (except for “criminal” “joke” “very funny”) to the guy who had brought me in. I watched the little guy’s face and his nervous smile and noticed he only had one little snake pin on his collar to fat-boy’s five.

“Und’s English, very good!” the little guy said, more to his beaming boss who didn’t even refute it — quite unusual, most Octavians I’d met were very modest. I gathered that I had been arrested to give Und an English lesson.

“What are the snakes for?” I asked, determined to get something out of this.

He looked at me, his mouth slightly agape. “Snakesfor?” he repeated, the crest above his eyes furrowing. The little guy said something quickly in Octavian and my host dismissed him with an undulate of his tentacle.

I pointed to the silver pin on his collar once the underling had left. “Snake,” I simplified. “Why?”

“Ah,” he started. “Me, Mr. Und.” He counted the pins. “One two three four five. Five very good! He, Mr. Plon. One. One not good.” He laughed.

Yeah yeah, I thought. Rank-proud fuck. “No, I mean...” I pointed to the snakes on the police crest on his chest.

He laughed again. “I see! I see!”

His eyes narrowed with the effort. “Before,” he finally said, waving a tentacle over his shoulder. “Snakesfor... help Octavia.”

I couldn’t be bothered pressing for details. “I see,” I said, forcing a satisfied smile. Then I stuck out my hand and said “Glad to meet you. Good-bye.”

It was pretty much as easy as that, although he made me promise we would go drink ujos, the local poison. When I walked outta there I instantly felt better — I wasn’t gonna have to call up Mr. Zik to get me out of jail, at least, and I knew it would make a good story for you.

Anyway, Plangyo — ah Plangyo. Known primarily for having the best cucumbers (not the double-barrelled one I was buying, but a grey-skinned sister) and very little else. Unless you count me, the only resident offworlder, the right to whom they won in a lottery. They actually won the right for three years of teachers, of which I am the second — Plangyo’s the testing ground for the Octavian English program, which has progressed to the point where every kid is capable of yelling hello.

I had been led to believe that the planet was had been pretty much levelled during the I.G.W. but it turns out that the west side of the planet and the major cities got the brunt of it. Farm towns like these still have a lot of the traditional coral houses, although Mr. Zik says that most people prefer the rounded apartment blocks.

Evidently, one of my predecessors complained about the rounded floors — the Octavian’s suckered tentacles allow them to use a bit of the wall space, as far as gravity will allow — and so I live in the only “flat” building in town. Pretty boring, although it’s about three times the size of your place. Sorry, downtown girl, had to rub that in — no more crouch showers for Sammy-boy!

I’d kill to live in one of the traditional ones. Mushroom shaped, beautifully coloured, and growing right into the ground. Mr. Zik says that poor people live there, because anyone who’s anyone wants to live in the modern and convenient apartment buildings. Phooey.

There’s so much space here, it’s unbelievable. It takes me a solid fifteen minutes to walk from my apartment to the school, and there’s a total of seven houses and one small apartment block on the way. Most of the houses are on huge plots of land, not because they’re shamelessly rich but because they grow food there. It’s wonderful, getting to walk so much — there’s something about walking that lets me think, just like my jetpack flights did on Earth. Must be the movement.

Actually, I think I’ll go for a walk right now. Night isn’t too bad for walking around, because it never really gets pitch black. The mushroom houses look amazing against the deep purple twilight.

Seeya,

Sam

***

“It is Octavian cookie,” said one of the teachers, proffering a bowl of chunky green diamonds. I took one.

“You are handsomebloy,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said. I put away my pad. I had pretty much been writing letters all morning — after I was formally introduced, I was shown to my desk and left alone. Not ignored, in fact people watched me constantly and smiled when I caught them, but no one had talked to me until now.

“What do you teach?” I asked slowly, biting into the cracker. It was very salty, and I had been expecting sweet, so I had to contain a wince.

“Me? I teach... science. Science teacher.” She smiled. “Yes.” She said something to the teacher sitting beside me that got a laugh.

“Your English is very good,” I said. I took another cracker. They weren’t bad now that I knew what to expect.

“Sank you,” she said. “You are very different from Jessica.”

“Who?” I said, thinking even as I did so that the name rung a bell.

“Jessica. She was the last teacher here.”

Ah. I had seen the name on the class schedule across the room. I looked back at it, all written in Octavian except for the past teacher’s name spotting it here and there. I had felt a silly twinge of hurt pride that my name hadn’t been put up in its place.

“She half-human. You all human,” the science teacher said. “You bletter teacher, I sink.”

I smiled, even though it was bullshit. There were plenty of people of mixed species at the orientation and they spoke English as well as me.

“Jessica very good friend me.”

“Where did Jessica live?”

“Same apartment.”

“The whole time?”

The science teacher furrowed her brow. She had the sheen of oil on her tentacles that older Octavian women wore, and her features were made-up in Earthling style. (Octavian faces being already quite humanoid, the make-up mostly consisted of darkening the hairless ridges above the eyes and shading the cheeks so as to de-emphasize the slightly different angle of the cheekbones.)

“Did Jessica complain about the apartment?”

The science teacher shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t... sink I understand.”

Mr. Zik glided into the staffroom, a book curled in one tentacle and a mug in the other.

“Time to go,” he said, taking a sip. “Ready?”

I nodded, but what I was thinking was:
There’s no steam coming from that mug. I won’t be able to stare at the steam curling from my coffee cup for a year.

I had already stood up and put on my jacket on automatically when the science teacher’s awkward stance yanked me out of my odd funk.

“It’s... very nice to meet you,” I said, smiling and waving perhaps too enthusiastically. But I would have felt like a jerk underdoing it, since she was the only person who went out of her way to be nice.

Her face lit up and she waved a loose wave.

As we left the room for my first class, I scanned the other teachers. Instead of the intense surveillance I expected — some part of me expected to be caught before I could impersonate a teacher — they were all going about their business. Getting ready for classes themselves, writing stuff down, and in one oldster’s case, drifting off to sleep.

I imitated Mr. Zik’s regal bearing as nearly as I could, staying close in hope that his teacherial aura would encompass me as well. Out in the hallway, a cluster of girls turned to us like sunflowers. One of them, tall, wore a bow on her head. When we turned the corner to the stairs she called out “Hello!” and her comrades giggled and hooted.

I looked back and waved. She buried her face in her tentacles and the giggling intensified.

“You are very plopular, wow,” said Mr. Zik with a smile.

On the ramp to the second floor there were boys playing with a yellow ball that disappeared when they saw us. Mr. Zik said something mild to them and they scattered, flowing down the ramp.

“The science teacher is very nice,” I said.

Mr. Zik nodded. “Yes. Her husband is a news-teller.”

“Oh.”

“Her name is Mrs. Pling.” He slid open the door with a flick of his tentacle.

Pling, Pling, Pling
I repeated to myself as the class saw me and started to froth over like a test beaker. Luckily, Mr. Zik was a stabilising agent.

“Good morning,” he said to the students, a few of which were still running about the room to their desks. One student was cleaning the board, an expectant smile on his face. I heard someone gasp, “Handsomebloy! Oh!”

I smiled and smoothed out my tie. Mr. Zik said something in Octavian. The class laughed. One girl asked Mr. Zik something, plucking at him.

“Ask him,” he said with a smile, pointing at me. She buried her head in a tangle of tentacles and made an embarrassed-alarmed sound:
waah!

The boy cleaning the board handed the brush back to me with four twined tentacles, his eyes wide and grin infectious. “Thank you,” I said, relieved that I didn’t have to mumble through the Octavian translation — in fact, this being English class, I
shouldn’t
speak Octavian.

“This is Sam Breen. He is from Earth. He will blee your teacher.” He nodded to me.

It seemed to me like he had already used all my best material. What else could I say in simple, easy sentences? What the fuck was I thinking? Teaching? Me?

“Hi!” I said, smiling as broadly as human physiognomy would allow.

“Hello!” said forty unreasonably excited children.

If I had my goddamned translator I... I what? What would I say to them, even with a translator? It would be a good prop, I suppose, something official to fiddle with...

Write something on the board
drifted up to my consciousness, perhaps from orientation.

I took off my blazer to buy some time, and the female part of the class made a siren sound like a line graph, rising and falling, against a solid giggle background. A little alarmed by this, but completely without a response, I turned to the board. As I picked up a black marker and wrote my name, I tried to figure out why taking off my blazer had that kind of effect. Octavians didn’t wear pants, just a loose multi-armed shirt to cover their chests, so it was kind of hard to know.

I turned to face them and the class laughed at me. I looked at Mr. Zik, and he was poking at buttons on the side of the board. He nodded to the board, which had changed my handwriting into proper characters — proper Octavian characters, the ones that were closest to the English letters. Then they squirmed back to what I had originally.

“Sorry,” said Mr. Zik. “It is automatic.”

I looked back at the class. “My name is Sam Breen,” I said. “Repeat. Sam,”

“Tham!” they repeated enthusiastically. I guess I
sounded
like a teacher...

“Breen.”

“Bleen.”

Hmm. I looked at Mr. Zik, but he was gazing benignly out at the students.

“Sssssss,” I hissed, failing to keep a faint smile from my lips.

Amidst giggles, they repeated.

“Sssssssam.”

“Sssssssam.”

All right! I gave them the thumbs-up.

“Brrrrrrr,” I said. They repeated, but it came out wrong. “Brrrr,” I repeated, this time wrapping my arms around myself and shivering. They repeated, again poorly, some of them also miming shivering. I realized that I had no idea if Octavians shivered with the cold.