The Color of Distance

Chapter 15

It is time to begin the tinka’s transformation,” Ukatonen declared, the evening following their arrival in Narmolom.

Anito straightened, ears wide. She hadn’t expected the transformation to take place so soon.

The tinka held out its arms, ears wide and quivering with excitement.

Ukatonen held his arms out to Eerin and lifted his ears inquisitively. “Eerin?” he offered.

Eerin flared orange when she realized what he was asking.

“Please,” she pleaded. “Is it absolutely necessary?”

Ukatonen nodded. “Do you wish to change your mind about the adoption?”

The tinka looked anxiously at Eerin. Anito suppressed a flash of hope. Perhaps the new creature would back out now. It would be tragic for the tinka, of course, but it would be the new creature’s fault for encouraging it in the first place.

The adoption still felt terribly wrong to Anito, but she couldn’t prevent it without the support of the other villagers. Protesting a decision made by the enkar who was to choose Narmolon’s new chief was unthinkable, especially for those elders who wanted to be chief. Besides, everyone was busy preparing for the journey downriver. They didn’t have time for this.

Anito hesitated for another reason. If an enkar’s formal decision was wrong, he or she paid for it with their life. If Anito managed to prove that Ukatonen’s decision was wrong, then he would be forced to take his own life. There had been too much death already. Anito couldn’t bring herself to initiate a fight that might lead to Ukatonen’s death.

“No,” Eerin said. “I don’t want to change my mind about adopting the tinka, but I don’t wish to link unless I have to.”

“I understand,” Ukatonen told her. “Do you understand that if you adopt this tinka, you will need to link with it?”

“Yes,” Eerin replied, “but I don’t want to link unless it’s necessary. Is it necessary for me to link now?”

“Yes, it is. Will you join the link?”

“Yes, en.”

“All right then,” he said holding out his arms. “Anito, will you join us?”

Anito flickered acknowledgment and joined spurs with them. Fear sang through Eerin, like the vibrations in a tightrope that has been plucked. The tinka grasped Ukatonen’s arm eagerly, and reached for Eerin. The new creature suppressed her fear and grasped the tinka’s arm. They descended into the link. Ukatonen reached out to soothe Eerin. When she was calm, his presence moved through the tinka, exploring its immature body. Anito noticed the beginnings of deterioration in the joints, in the immune system, and in its vital organs. Had the tinka stayed in Lyanan, it would almost certainly have lost its place in the village to a younger, stronger tinka in less than a year.

Ukatonen’s presence hovered momentarily around the tinka’s tiny, undeveloped sexual organs, exploring. The tinka was male, another strike against it, particularly in a village where food would be in short supply for the next few years. Unripe eggs laid by female bami were a source of critical nutrients for the developing tadpoles. As a result, female tinka were more sought after as bami than male tinka. Clearly the tinka’s desperation had made him stake his life on Eerin’s acceptance.

Ukatonen continued his exploration of the tinka’s body. It was healing well. Ukatonen worked on the almost-healed wounds, breaking up bits of scar tissue and clearing away the last bits of the fine thread that Juna used to close the tinka’s wounds. It was only a formality. The tinka didn’t need healing. His own body was strong enough to mend well. That was a good sign.

Ukatonen reached out to Eerin, joining her with the tinka, binding the tinka’s presence to Eerin’s, so that his body would recognize her as his sitik. Eerin let it happen, though Anito could still feel the flutter of suppressed fear. Anito felt the tinka reach out, enfolding Eerin, calming her, merging with her.

A tart wave of satisfaction indicated that Ukatonen was ready to begin the transformation. He released a bright, sweet flood of transformation hormones. It was the flavor of life, of hope. A wave of powerful nostalgia swept over Anito. She remembered awakening from her own transformation with that taste in her mouth. She half-expected to open her eyes and find Ilto hovering solicitously over her.

She remembered how her first real thoughts had bubbled up from her brain. They were clear and sharp, unlike the hazy, frightened memories she had of being a tinka, and the muddy sensations of a narey. At first she had thought that an elder was somehow speaking to her inside her head, but then she felt her own awe and fear and wonder and realized that she was the source of that voice.

Ukatonen triggered the changes that would cause the neurons in the tinka’s brain to replicate and branch, make the small body begin to grow. He also made the tinka capable of skin speech.

With that, Ukatonen was done; a new bami was created, a new future begun. Ukatonen released the sweetness of his own joy into the link between the four of them. Anito responded in kind, her doubts about the tinka’s adoption swept away in the joy of the moment. Together they soared higher and higher, each feeding off the other’s joy. Eerin was carried along, her fear washed away by their shared exultation. Then Ukatonen broke the link. Eerin was so drained by the experience that she hardly noticed when they eased her into bed. Then Anito slid gratefully into her own bed and fell asleep.

When she arose the next morning, Anito ate, drank, and washed, then went over to the bed where the new bami lay, and sank a spur into his arm to check his progress. He was doing well. If everything proceeded smoothly, he would be ready to awaken in another couple of days. She left the bami to sleep, and went to see what was happening outside. It was raining hard, streams of rain pouring down the inside of the trunk. The village bustled with preparations for the annual migration to the coast. Tinka and bami hurried up and down the tree, ferrying gourds and baskets to the upper storerooms where they would be safe from the coming flood.

Anito followed the stream to the broad beach where the villagers were making the final preparations for the long, hard trip downriver. Ukatonen and Eerin were helping Ninto and Baha tighten the lashings on their raft. With a faint ripple of regret Anito took the braided rope that Ukatonen handed her. She owed a considerable number of obligations to Ninto and the other villagers who helped gather the materials for this raft while she was traveling back from Lyanan. Without their help, she would have been stuck here alone during flood season, unable to trade downriver. That would have left her with nothing to trade to the mountain people during the dry season. She needed to trade [[w« .1]] this trip so that she could settle her debts before Ukatonen took her away to become an enkar.

They had very little time. In another couple of days this beach would be under water, and the villagers would be setting out on migration. Fortunately, Eerin was clever with her hands and had rigged up a device that enabled them to tighten the lashings more quickly and tightly than they could have managed by hand. With Eerin’s help they finished the raft before nightfall. That gave Anito an extra day to gather some much-needed trade goods.

Most of her trading stock came from Ilto’s stores, plus a few small things that she had made or picked up while traveling. There were several large rolls of waxed sinew thread, enough to make some fish nets while they rafted downriver. She also had several stonewood fish traps, and a box full of carved bone fishhooks. Ilto’s supplies yielded several large gourds of preserved fruit, two dozen pots of honey from his na trees, and eight gourds of beeswax. There was a large waterproof basket filled with dried grass, and several bundles of cured reeds. It wasn’t much, but if she traded carefully, it might be enough to pay off the obligations she’d incurred.

Late the next afternoon, Anito and the others finished securing their trade goods on the raft. When they were done, they went back to check on the new bami. His mottled skin had faded to the even pale green of a healthy bami, and he slept peacefully, his breathing even and deep. Ukatonen linked briefly with the bami.

“He’s ready to wake,” the enkar announced, rippling with satisfaction.

“I’ll go tell the rest of the villagers to prepare. We can introduce him at the leavetaking banquet tonight,” Ninto said.

Ukatonen flickered agreement, and Ninto left. Eerin was sitting off in a corner, playing with her talking stone. Ukatonen regarded the sleeping bami pensively. “How should the bami be awakened?” he asked. “Eerin will need our help to do it properly.”

“I don’t know, en,” Anito said feeling angry at him for asking. It was his decision that brought them to this impasse; he was the one who should come up with a solution. “Why are you asking me? I’ve never wakened a bami before.”

Ukatonen looked at her. “You’re going to become an enkar, kene. You will have to answer harder questions than this one. It is time you started learning how.”

Anito looked down at the floor. Sadness washed over her as she thought of leaving Narmolom for the isolated life of an enkar.

“Yes, en,” she said. She wanted to ask how long she had before he took her away from Narmolom, but she was afraid of the answer.

Irritation forked across Ukatonen’s chest. “You are a young elder now, learning to make important decisions. There are good reasons for me to ask you how to do this. This is your village; you know the people here better than I do. This also affects your atwa. Now, I ask you again, how should we waken the bami?”

“I think,” Anito said, “that we should ask Eerin about this. It is her bami. She should help decide.”

Ukatonen flickered agreement. He chittered to draw Eerin’s attention, then beckoned her over io join the conversation.

She looked puzzled when Anito asked her about waking the bami. “I don’t understand. Is there something special about this?”

Anito restrained a flash of impatience at Eerin’s ignorance.

“Wakening a bami for the first time is important,” Ukatonen explained. “It is when you bond with each other. It is the best memory most of us have. There is nothing else like that moment.”

“How is it done?” Eerin asked.

“The bami will not awaken until you link with him. That first link is very important. It is then that the bond forms between a bami and its sitik. They learn to know each other in that link. The bond created by that link remains until the sitik dies or leaves the village,” Ukatonen said.

“I don’t know how to do that,” Eerin said.

Ukatonen held out his arms, spurs up. “We will show you what you need to know.”

Anito clasped one hand to Ukatonen’s arm, so that their spurs were lined up. Then she held out her free arm to Eerin.

Eerin hesitated a moment, then reached out to join the link. Despite her outward show of determination, Eerin’s blood sang hot with fear. Anito wondered why Eerin tried to hide how afraid she was. They could taste the fear in her blood as soon as they linked.

Anito expected Ukatonen to act, but he waited until Eerin’s fear began to ebb. Slowly, so slowly that Anito didn’t realize what was happening until several minutes had passed, Ukatonen began to feed calmness into Eerin’s body. Eerin remained completely unaware of what Ukatonen was doing.

At last Eerin was deeply entranced. Ukatonen began sliding more mood-altering chemicals into her system, stimulating feelings of harmony, awe, and wonder. Anito’s own mood shifted with the changes in Eerin’s mood. Ukatonen filtered most of Anito’s feelings out of the link, letting Eerin’s mood build with only subtle nudging from him. Anito breathed deeply, and focused on creating a well of calmness in herself, damping down her emotional resonance.

Doing so went against all of her instincts. The harmony created by linking was based on the interplay and gradual building of shared emotions into a whole that was greater and more profound than individual experience. This was much more difficult. It took a tremendous amount of control to work like this. Eerin’s mood built slowly into ecstasy. Slowly Ukatonen released his control, letting his emotions melt into Eerin’s. Anito matched Ukatonen’s release, gently letting her emotions leak into the link until the three of them achieved emotional unison.

They rested in harmony for a while, letting Eerin get used to the feeling. Then Ukatonen’s presence nudged Anito toward Eerin. He wanted her to do something. She flavored the link with a mild interrogative. Ukatonen sent back the flavor of first awakening. Anito acknowledged Ukatonen’s request, and let Ukatonen guide her and Eerin together, into the deep harmony that preceded an awakening. Eerin’s alien flavor grew strong in her allu-a. Anito felt it color her presence, felt her own presence merging with Eerin’s, found herself sensing alien flavors, smells, and feelings. She realized that the new creature was sexually receptive. The link aroused Eerin. Anito instinctively matched Eerin’s sexual arousal, and felt Eerin pull back in sudden fear. Caught up in the link, Anito mirrored that fear. Ukatonen, monitoring, broke the link before the resonances of fear and arousal built further.

Ukatonen’s skin blazed a brilliant, erotic gold as he emerged from the link. Anito felt a strange urgency. The skin along the small of her back tingled and itched. Looking down, she realized that she was glowing gold as well. The new creature had brought them into heat, months out of the proper season. Eerin’s skin shaded from gold to an alarmed orange. Anito looked away, shamed by her own lack of control.

Ukatonen touched Anito’s shoulder. She glanced up. He held his arms out, spurs upward. His nearness made her head swim. She turned her back to him and presented herself. Her skin felt hot and dry. A mating croon escaped from her throat.

“Not now, little one,” Ukatonen said, the words nearly unreadable in the brilliant blaze of his skin. “Link with me. I will make this stop.”

She held out her wrists. Her skin was covered with tiny raised bumps. The touch of his hands as they closed around her arms was so intense that another croon escaped her lips. Then they linked, and coolness flooded her body like water from a mountain stream. The urgency ceased as suddenly as it began; her skin relaxed into smoothness, and she no longer felt the urge to croon.

Ukatonen broke the link. Anito opened her eyes, turning lavender with relief as she realized that she was no longer in heat. She looked up at Ukatonen. His skin was back to normal as well. A slow ripple of amusement flowed over him.

“That was remarkable,” the enkar said. “What did you think of it?”

Anito looked away. “Please excuse me, en. I did not mean to behave so—”

Ukatonen gently turned her head toward him. “Don’t be ashamed, kene. My control hasn’t been broken like that since long before I became an enkar. Unless there is something wrong with Eerin, the new creatures are always in heat. It wasn’t your fault. You behaved with admirable control, especially for one so young.” A faint ripple of regret passed over him, quickly subdued. “It was good, in some ways. Now you’ll know what to expect during mating season, and perhaps you won’t be as frightened and ashamed by your lack of control when it happens to you at the proper time.”

Juna felt the link break apart, but remained seated, eyes closed. It was good to be alone inside her skin again. The link made her feel incredibly vulnerable, as though there were no boundaries between herself and the aliens. Even the intense pleasure frightened her. It would be too easy to lose herself in it. Her loins throbbed with sexual heat. Her skin felt warm, as though a lover had been stroking her. She opened her eyes. Her skin was a brilliant, metallic gold. Was this the color of sexual arousal? The aliens were the same shade of gold. Juna fought back a wave of panic. Did this mean they wanted to have sex with her?

Anito looked at her, then back at Ukatonen. Her skin flickered, but the angle was bad and Juna couldn’t see what she was saying. Then Anito turned away from Ukatonen and squatted, back arched tensely. It looked disturbingly reflexive and animalistic, not like something an intelligent alien might do. Juna backed away from the aliens, but they were too caught up with each other to notice. Ukatonen touched Anito’s arm. Anito made a low, crooning noise and turned to look at him. Then they linked, and their skins faded to their usual pale green.

Juna relaxed. Whatever had happened, she sensed that it was over. She remembered her own sympathetic arousal, and colored deeply with shame.

Anito touched her on the arm. “Are you always like that, or is something wrong with you?”

“Like what?”

A patch of bright gold flared briefly on Ukatonen’s shoulder. “Like that,” he said, pointing to the patch of gold.

Juna flushed brown as she realized what they meant. “My people are always a little—” She concentrated and a square of gold appeared on one breast in a sudden flare of warmth. “When we meet someone we like a great deal, we can become very—” A patch of gold flared again; then, remembering Ali, she turned gold all over.

The aliens’ ears spread wide, and they looked at each other, coloring deep fuchsia with amazement. They leaned forward, watching as the gold faded from her skin.

“How is it among the Tendu?” Juna asked.

“We are receptive once a year, although there are times when we mate out of season,” Ukatonen told her. “Nothing gets done at that time, except for mating. If you are receptive all the time, how do your people ever accomplish anything?”

Juna smiled, remembering Padraig and his endless flirtations; the way she had felt during the good times of her marriage; how she had felt kissing Ali. Her skin grew warm, and she knew that she was turning gold again. “Sometimes it is hard, but we manage. I think it’s different for my people, perhaps not so intense and more controllable. Most animals on our planet are like your people, very receptive for a short period, then not at all. My people are different.”

“Is it hard for you to be receptive all the time, when your people are so far away?” Anito asked.

Juna turned a deep grey. “Sometimes.” She looked away, fighting back the sudden tears that welled up in her eyes.

Anito touched her shoulder. “Can we do anything?”

Juna shook her head.

“Are you sure?” Ukatonen asked. “We could make you not receptive.”

Juna shook her head, her skin flaring orange. “No, I can manage.”

“Very well,” Ukatonen said, “but it is improper to be receptive out of season. You must learn to control yourself.”

Juna nodded. “I understand.”

“Good,” Ukatonen said. “Now we must awaken your bami.”

“Will it—will it be like this last link?” Juna asked hesitantly. “I didn’t like being made receptive.”

Ukatonen shook his head. “No, that would be inappropriate. Now that we know you are receptive, we can help you block that out of the link. We have learned enough to guide you through what you must do to awaken your bami. This link will be easier and more pleasant, but it will help if you aren’t frightened.”

Juna gave them a wry smile. “It’s an easy thing to ask for, but not an easy thing to do.”

“I know,” Ukatonen agreed, “but you must remember that whatever you feel in the link, your bami will feel also. Give him fear, and he will be afraid; give him happiness, and a heartfelt welcome, and he will share that with you.”

“When will we start?” Juna asked.

“We must start soon,” Anito said. “Already they are preparing a banquet to welcome your new bami.”

After a quick meal of fruit, honey, and dried meat, they seated themselves beside the bami’s leaf bed. The bami lay there, still and unmoving as a corpse. Only the slightest expansion and contraction of his nostrils told Juna that he was still alive.

She had interfered deeply in the Tendu’s culture in order to save this creature’s life. She might face severe penalties, even the loss of her career. Had she made the right choice? It was too late now to reconsider. She could only live with the consequences of her decision.

She stood up and held her arms out, spurs upward. “I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s wake my bami.”

They formed a circle around the sleeping bami, clasping arms just below the elbow, ready to link.

“The first link with your bami made your bodies familiar with each other,” Ukatonen said. “This link is when you get to know each other emotionally. Try to feel things that will create a strong bond. If you show fear, it will weaken that bond. Avoid feelings of sexual arousal. They will only confuse your bami, and make it hard for us to guide you. Do you understand?”

Juna nodded. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, seeking calmness. She must not let her fear interfere with the awakening of her alien child.

“I’m ready,” she said at last.

She felt herself slip into the link. The bami slept beside her. Ukato-nen’s powerful presence supported and reassured her. She could feel Anito looking on, watching over them. Ukatonen guided her presence into the bami. There was a faint sense of tension and then release, like sliding through the surface of a soap bubble, and she found herself inside the sleeping bami. He felt closed and remote, curled in on himself like a tight knot. Juna hovered in that dark, silent world of touch, taste, and smell, wondering what to do next.

“Welcome him,” Ukatonen had told her, but how?

Juna felt Ukatonen’s presence nudge her. He wanted her to act. She reached out to the sleeping bami, enfolding his inwardly focused presence, sending him feelings of warmth, memories of lying in the sun, feeling the bright sunlight on her skin, seeing its light glow redly through closed eyelids; warmth, security, pleasure. The compact knot of the bami’s consciousness loosened. A wave of approval washed over her from Ukato-nen. She was doing the right thing. Encouraged, Juna allowed herself to remember more: lying warm and snug in bed, feeling safe, enclosed; her mother’s voice singing her to sleep; the candle by the bedside that lit her mother’s dark brown face with a warm glow, the only safety in the terrifying world of the refugee camps.

The loosening knot that was the bami tightened as she remembered the camps.

No, she reminded herself. No fear. Think safety, think welcoming thoughts…

She returned again to the warmth of the sun; her father finding her and her brother in the refugee camp. How solid his arms around her had been. He had taken them home again, where there was always enough to eat, and someone strong to protect them from harm. Juna felt the bami’s presence relax. She remembered the grape harvest on their farm; how the patient horses stood in the milky, filtered sunlight, tails twitching from habit, not from flies. There were no flies on the satellite. She remembered cutting the heavy clusters of grapes, feeling them fall into her basket, smelling their rich, sweet fragrance as she emptied her basket into the cart. Harvesting grapes had always been immensely satisfying. Her work in the vineyard helped provide for her family. It made her feel strong and capable. She remembered leading the horses into the barn, smelling their good warm horse smell, and the smell of the hay. She trusted the horses. They were big and strong and placid. They trusted her in return.

The remembered barn smell triggered memories of her first lover, Paul, a neighbor’s son, with pale skin, green eyes, and black raven’s-wing hair. They had first lain together in the barn…

No sex, she reminded herself sternly, as she sensed the sharp taste of Ukatonen’s concern.

It was hard, though—so many of her happiest memories were with lovers. She thought back to her wedding, joining the group marriage, how good it had felt to be part of this big, strong family. She remembered the love she had felt then, as though her heart were about to burst. She felt that love fill her now. How good, how safe it had been to be welcomed by so many people. She took that love and enfolded the bami in it.

“Welcome, little one,” she thought to the bami. “Welcome and love.”

She remembered the birth of her brother, Toivo. Her mother had held him out to her. He had been so little. She reached out to touch his tiny, perfect hand, and his fingers closed around her finger. There had been so much strength in that small hand. His eyes opened, he looked blurrily at her, and she felt a sudden wave of love for the amazing creature that was her new brother.

She remembered the tinka’s courage. He had been so small and helpless and so determined to follow them. She remembered the grip of her brother’s hand again, so tiny, and so strong.

“Welcome, little one,” she thought again to the bami. She felt the bami uncoil and reach out toward her. She tasted his curiosity, his joy, his amazement. Underneath that she felt the strength and determination that had carried him so far.

“How brave you are,” she thought to the bami, sharing the surge of admiration and pride that accompanied her thoughts. “You’re so strong.”

In the background, she was aware of Ukatonen and Anito’s approval. She moved closer to the bami. Their presences merged like the clasping of hands. She felt the bami’s amazement at his own awareness. Juna had never felt anything like this contact; even the clasp of her brother’s hand, her mother’s love, her father’s strength, the welcoming joy of her marriage, all seemed pale and distant in the midst of this overwhelming rapport.

The bami reached out to her. He felt her love, then reached beyond that, and felt her isolation. She felt his surprise, and then she felt him directing inquisitiveness at her. He was asking her for something.

In reply, Juna allowed her presence to merge even more strongly with her bami’s, trusting him in this moment of bonding.

Feeling his gentle, trusting presence intertwined with hers, she realized that she was no longer alone. She still wanted to be among humans, she longed for a hot bath and a cooked meal, but the sadness and grief she felt because of her isolation was gone. She finally was a part of something on this world.

Anito slid out of the link. She sat for a minute, recovering from the intensity of the allu-a. Then she opened her eyes. Eerin grasped her bami’s arm, not linked, but touching. The bami opened his eyes, and looked at Eerin, turning a brilliant, happy blue. Eerin reached out with her free hand and touched her bami gently on the shoulder.

“Welcome,” Eerin said in skin speech.

Her bami’s color intensified. His eyes narrowed with concentration; then, slowly, three fuzzy black bars appeared on his chest. He was trying to say “yes.” He tried again.

“Yes. Glad,” he said, the patterns appearing more distinct this time. “Eerin,” he said. “My sitik.”

“Yes,” Eerin told him. “I am your sitik, you are my bami.”

“Good,” he said closing his eyes again.

Eerin looked at Ukatonen and Anito, faintly alarmed. “Is he all right?”

“Yes,” Ukatonen assured her. “Just tired. All bami are like that at first. He needs food. So do we. That was a very intense link. You did well.”

Anito stood. “I’ll go ask Ninto to bring us some food.”

She was glad to have some time to herself to get a little perspective on what had just happened. She had never been part of an awakening, except for her own, but she was sure that this awakening was unusual. She had never been in a link that intense before, even with her own sitik. The new creature had such strange, strong emotions. Their intensity and power frightened Anito.

She paused to rest. Looking around the trunk, she noticed the other villagers watching her, flickering amongst themselves in shades of curiosity and excitement. She continued climbing, not wanting them to know how deeply the awakening had drained her.

Her blood thrummed in her ears by the time she reached Ninto’s room. She made it through the door, and then leaned against the wall, exhausted. Ninto was butchering a huge kuyan carcass with the help of her bami and a couple of tinka. She was covered with blood. Ninto’s ears lifted in alarm as she looked at Anito. She handed her a large gourd of honey and fruit juice.

“Drink,” Ninto told her. “You need it.”

Anito accepted the gourd with a grateful flicker of thanks. She drank greedily, juice dribbling out of the edges of the gourd.

“It was difficult?” Ninto asked. “There was trouble with the bami?”

Anito began to shake her head, then stopped herself. “No, not difficult, just very strange and intense. The bami is fine. He’s already speaking.”

“That’s good,” Ninto said, coloring with relief. “I have food ready. Rest a bit and eat. Then I’ll help you carry it up.”

Anito flickered assent and gratitude.

“Besides,” Ninto added, “I can hardly wait to see the new bami.”

Anito rippled amusement. “Neither can the rest of the village. I hope they didn’t notice how tired I was.”

“You looked fine until you came in. Here.” Ninto tossed her a ripe green and yellow banya fruit and a leaf-wrapped package of kayu. “Eat. Rest.”

Anito squatted against the wall, and bit into the banya, tasting first the tart, almost-bitter peel and then the intensely sweet inner pulp. It was wonderful. She finished the banya, spitting the seeds into her hand to scatter later along their voyage. There were never enough banya vines. She felt the sweetness of the juice and the fruit rushing into her blood, giving her energy. She peeled open the packet of kayu. The starchy seeds had been plumped with taira blood and flavored with crumbles of seaweed and chopped meat. Anito turned turquoise with pleasure at its delicious taste. She finished it quickly, licking up a few stray grains from the leaf wrapper, wishing there was more.

Ninto rippled with amusement. “There’s more kayu in the food basket, greedy one. You can have some when we take it up to feed the others.”

Anito picked up a basket of food and slung it over her shoulder. “In that case, let’s go. They must be very hungry.”

As Anito, Ninto, and several tinka descended to Anito’s room, the villagers began hauling out baskets of food and leaves in preparation for the feast of welcoming and leavetaking. By the time they were ready, the banquet would be too.

One of the villagers’ bami, noticing Anito’s gaze, flickered “Congratulations” at her in big, exuberant patterns. She looked more closely. It was Pani. Pani’s happiness was understandable. It meant that she would no longer be the youngest bami in the village. Someone would be her junior in status. Anito felt a flash of anger. She wasn’t the one who should be congratulated. Eerin and Ukatonen were responsible for the new bami. She would have to make that clear to the other villagers.

Ukatonen and Eerin eagerly greeted the arrival of the food. They woke the sleeping bami. He ate and drank greedily. Anito rippled with amusement at his eagerness.

“I remember how good that first food tasted,” she remarked. The other Tendu flickered agreement tinged with nostalgia, remembering their own transformations.

“I was hungry all the time,” Ninto said. “My sitik was always complaining about how much hunting we had to do.”

“I grew almost a full hand-span in the first month,” Ukatonen said, biting into a banya fruit. “But it was a week before I made any words. I was afraid to try.”

“I thought that the transformation was complete,” Eerin said, interrupting the flow of nostalgia. “Is he going to change any more?”

The bami, whose eyes had never left Eerin, turned a pale, worried orangeish-pink, and looked from Ukatonen to Anito.

Anito’s ears tightened, and she suppressed a surge of impatience at Eerin’s ignorance. “The transformation is complete,” she explained, “but your bami will grow three or four-hand spans in the next year. He’ll be hungry all the time. You’ll be busy keeping him fed.”

“But I don’t know enough!” Eerin exclaimed. “I can’t hunt, and I don’t know what to eat.”

“It’s time that you learned,” Ukatonen told her. “I’ll help you when I can, and Anito will too. You are her atwa, and she must care for you. But,” he added, noting Anito’s flare of protest, “you must also learn to take care of your own responsibilities, Eerin. You are no ordinary atwa. You are like the Tendu. You can think for yourself. There is a limit to what Anito should do for you.”

“I understand most of what you say, en, but I still don’t understand what an atwa is. I cannot agree to something I don’t understand.”

Ukatonen ducked his chin in thought. Both he and Anito had tried to explain it to her, and had failed. “What do you know about atwas?” he asked.

“I know that every Tendu has one or belongs to one. I know that many plants and animals are part of an atwa. I know that there are many rules about them, that plants and animals can’t be harvested sometimes because of these rules.”

Ukatonen nodded. “Every elder chooses a part of the world to look after. That part of the world is their atwa. They make sure that their part of the world is in harmony and balance with all of the other parts. Your people are a new part of the world. Anito has been chosen to look after your new atwa. She must bring your people into balance with the world. Do you understand?”

“I think I understand more, en, but not all. I’m not a plant, or animal. I’m a person. What I want, what my people want, must be listened to.”

Anito spread her ears in amazement. “What you say is impossible! You eat, you drink, you shit. How can you say that you’re not an animal?”

“Yes,” Eerin told her, “I am an animal, my people are animals, but we are different from other animals. We change the world we live in. We make things.”

Anito’s ears spread even wider. The new creature seemed to believe that it was separate from the world it lived in.

“Other animals change the world too,” Ukatonen said. “Even plants make changes in their world.”

“But your people and my people are different from other animals. We decide how to change the world. Besides, your world is no longer alone. Your world and my world will touch, will change each other. Our two worlds are very different.”

“All the more reason that someone should watch over you, to guide the changes.”

Eerin shook her head. “It isn’t that simple. It isn’t something that one person can do alone.”

“Anito will be the first of many. I hope that your bami will choose your people as his atwa when he becomes an elder.”

Anito leaned forward. “How do your people keep the world in balance?”

Eerin shook her head again. “I’m not sure that I can explain. My people and yours are very, very different.”

Just then a booming beat was sounded on the buttress of the tree, announcing the beginning of the banquet. Ninto came in with an armload of headdresses. Anito helped her drape them over Eerin and the new bami. Taking a headdress of flowers with trailing streamers of iridescent blue beetles, she arranged it on the new creature’s head. The poison stripes on Anito’s back tightened as she looked into Eerin’s strange, deep-set eyes, with their small brown irises and round pupils. She remembered the odd emotions Eerin made her feel during the awakening. Could she ever bring such a creature as this into harmony with the world? She glanced down at Eerin’s new bami. Everywhere the creature went, wrong-ness happened. Perhaps it would be best if the new creature died before her people came back. Maybe then her people would leave Anito’s alone, and she could go back to being a simple village elder.

“Thank you,” Eerin said as Anito finished adjusting her headdress.

Anito looked away. Eerin had torn her life apart, but in spite of that, there was something about the new creature that made Anito care about her. It would all be so much easier if she didn’t.

Juna followed Ukatonen and Anito up the tree toward the banquet. It was raining hard. Her headdress was already heavy and soggy. She tried not to think about the strings of insects brushing the back of her neck. She thought she could feel one of them moving, and she shuddered, making the headdress slip backward slightly. It took all her self-control to keep from ripping the thing off.

Bugs had never been Juna’s strong suit. As a biologist, she preferred the larger animals, especially mammals. Juna sighed. She was on the wrong planet. The closest things to mammals on this planet were the warm-blooded marsupial birds on the northern continent. She smiled, remembering the big, stupid grazers covered with spotted fluffy down. Except for their nasty habit of vomiting all over anything that threatened them, they were silly and adorable, especially when the baby stuck its head out of the mother’s backward-facing pouch and peered between its mother’s hind legs.

She really should catalogue the insects on her headdress when she had a moment. Survival had taken precedence over research for the last few months, but she owed it to her colleagues to start doing some work. It would help to have a large and impressive body of research behind her when the Survey discovered that she had adopted an alien child.

She glanced back at her bami, climbing up the trunk after her. He needed a name. How did the Tendu name their bami? She would have to ask Ukatonen or Anito when they were settled at the banquet. All of the Tendu’s names were composed of a basic name sign. A bami’s name sign was repeated only once. An elder’s name sign was made up of the same pattern repeated twice. Ukatonen’s name pattern was repeated three times. Juna was fairly certain that this was an indicator of rank or status. Her own name sign was repeated only once. She wondered what this meant in terms of status. Was she only an adopted child of Anito’s? Or did it mean nothing because she wasn’t a Tendu?

They reached the top of the trunk. As they emerged into the pouring rain, the assembled villagers set up a loud, celebratory trilling. Juna looked around her: the elders and bami were rippling in glowing colors. For a moment it resembled some weird bioluminescent seascape peopled by troglodytes. She smiled at the image, and flickered thanks back at the villagers.

Anito and Ukatonen sat down. Juna paused, uncertain where she was supposed to sit. Her bami took her hand and led her to a high spot next to them, and sat beside her.

“I help you learn,” he told her, in small patterns on the back of his hand. “You are my sitik.” His words were a bit blurry, but readable. He was learning to control his skin very quickly.

Juna realized that her bami wasn’t a child. He had survived for years, alone and unprotected in the jungle. He had fought to earn his place among the tinka of Lyanan. He had risked everything in a desperate, impossible gamble that had nearly cost him his life. He knew the forest and his people better than she ever would. What could she possibly teach this young alien?

She put her hand next to his, and concentrated to make her words appear there. “I will try to be a good sitik.”

The tinka serving the food looked closely at the new bami, as though trying to learn how he had managed to be chosen. Despite their recent meal, the bami ate a great deal. Juna was also hungry. Linking always made her ravenous, especially for sweet, starchy food. Clearly, linking had its metabolic costs.

The rain let up a little as they finished eating. The prepared food was served in covered baskets, though the fruit was left exposed to the rain. Juna picked at the last soggy bits of bloody meat and greens on her leaf, hoping the banquet would not go on much longer. She was tired. It had been a long and eventful day.

Anito nudged her. When she looked up, she realized that the villagers were watching her expectantly.

“They’re waiting for you to speak,” Anito told her.

“What should I say?”

“Thank them for the banquet, introduce your bami. Make your words big and try to be as formal as you can. Don’t worry, they aren’t expecting much. Anything you do will impress them.”

“Thanks a lot,” Juna muttered aloud as she rose to speak.

She adjusted her dripping headdress and looked around at the waiting aliens, lit by the pale light of glow baskets and the more diffuse wash of light escaping from the trunk of the tree. The aliens regarded her impassively.

“Thank you,” she said, in the most elaborate and formal patterns that she could manage. “Never have I seen such a good banquet. The village of Narmolom has welcomed my bami with great kindness. I think you will find that he is brave and determined; and I hope that you will help him learn.”

Juna sat down. It was a terrible speech, sounding woefully inadequate even to her own inexperienced ears, but the Tendu greeted it with ripples of applause. Ukatonen motioned her new bami to rise and be acknowledged.

“That was a good speech,” he told Juna in small, private patterns.

Juna shook her head. “It was terrible, but they weren’t expecting much.”

“It was good enough,” Ukatonen assured her.

Juna sat back and watched her bami speak.

“My name is *kh,” her bami told them in large, simple patterns. “I thank my sitik, Eerin, for giving me life. I will try to be a good bami, and learn to be in harmony with the village of Narmolom.”

He sat back down. Juna consulted her computer for a verbal analogue of her bami’s name sign. His name was Moki. He had named himself after an antlike insect with a painful bite. Juna smiled. She liked the name. It was easy to say aloud. That might be helpful when the Survey returned. She would need all the help she could get to resolve the problems she had created for herself. She rubbed her forehead. She shouldn’t have adopted him.

Moki touched her shoulder. She looked down at him and smiled. She was no longer alone. Despite everything, she was glad that she had adopted him. Five years was a long time. Perhaps a solution would present itself before the Survey returned. For now, she would try to learn to be a good sitik.