Читать книгу Fantastic Stories Presents: Science Fiction Super Pack #1 - Edmond Hamilton - Страница 13

LINGUA FRANCA

by Carole McDonnell

Mist removed two large coins from the blue money box on the counter and walked outside her shop. Closing the door, she reached for the ideograph placard which read, “Closed, but unlocked. Take what you need and leave your payment in the coin box.” The signboard in place, she stuffed the “D” volume of her inter-planetary Webster’s Dictionary into her quilted backpack, strapped it on her back and walked into the dusty bustle of the open-air market.

The market still basked in the heat although First Dusk had already come and Second Dusk had begun rolling across the sky. Using her marriage scarf to shield her face from the dusty streets, Mist headed towards the fruit stands where the Federation-approved traders sold exotic foods gathered from across the galaxy.

In the distance, near an Ormat tree, four Federation off-worlders with ear-caps on their heads talked among themselves. One man carried something long and metallic on his shoulders. Another had a metallic box with a glass tube on one side. The only woman among them was looking through a metallic tube at the reddening sky. For several seconds, Mist studied the movement of their lips but could decipher nothing.

The purple warning lights of the market flashed: three slow blinks, then two long ones. Mist felt a cold chill run down her back. A dread unsettled her mind and she glanced nervously at the Town Square stage. Two women with children strapped in chest-sacks raced past her.

I’m getting old, Mist thought as they rushed past. Fifty. Even with children on their chests, they fly past me. But age comes to all of us. The Creator was hard on me. But, at last, I had my child. Only one. And at forty, when most women are past their prime. That child though is a true blessing. Worth a million others. Flowers-in-the-Sun has extended my youth. Before her birth, I was a “ghost,”—a childless woman.

Two more women raced past Mist. She caught a bit of their signed conversation. Their hands spoke of the cutting, about mouth-speech. To her left, two young mothers with small children strapped to their chests were also signing about the implanted children and the encroachment of the mouth-speaking Federation.

“These Earthers are not like the other off-worlders,” one woman signed. “They do not accept us as they find us. Look at them. Not content with fixing our ‘problem,’ now they say they’re ‘fixing’ our air. As if anything was ever wrong with our air. Why do the elders allow it?”

The other pointed in the direction of the Town Square stage and signed, “Today and tomorrow a News Carrier will bring us troubling stories about these meddlers.”

Mist looked up at the Wallaou tree where the nearest lights were strung. The pattern of the warning lights had changed. Now three slow flashes followed one long beam. The News Carrier was already here and would begin soon.

I’m not too old to keep up with news, Mist thought. But Flowers-in-the-Sun has looked sad lately. News will have to wait. Some little surprise from the fruit stand will cheer her up.

When she stopped at the fruit stand of her favorite vendor, something orange caught her eye. The name of the fruit was written in the three regional ideographic dialects in addition to the lingua franca of the Federation: the English language. The “English” letters O-R-A-N-G-E- took up more space than all the ideographs combined.

“Brother,” she addressed the old vendor, “the Earthers actually named a fruit after its color?”

The gray-haired old man whose name was Smoothed Stone smiled back.

“Try it, Sister,” he signed. “It’s good. Your Sweet One has a sweet tooth. She might like it.”

Mist smiled. “Yes, Flowers-in-the-Sun does like these foreign sweets.”

“Only three coins each. Not a lot to pay for fruit from the far side of the universe.”

“She’s probably home from school by now, being spoiled by Ion’s unmarried sisters, or by his brothers’ wives,” Mist answered with fake petulance. “From the day of her birth, Flowers-in-the-Sun has been the family favorite. The girl is too spoiled. Why should I spoil her even more by bringing her expensive foreign fruits?”

Smoothed Stone smiled. “Perhaps because she expects it. And because she still plays and jokes with her elders.”

Mist raised her right eyebrow and clasped her hands in front of her mouth. The old man raised his clasped hands to his mouth too but signed nothing. The old man obviously knew about recent events in her mother-in-law’s house where all the children, except Flowers-in-the-Sun, had been given the ear and throat implants. Lately, her implanted nieces and nephews had stopped signing. Now all they did was mouth-talk among themselves, indulging in “sounds” which the rest of us could neither hear nor understand.

Mist made a quick mental assessment of all the servants in her mother-in-law’s household and tried to figure out which was the old man’s liaison. She would have liked to know. An ally—even a servant- was always helpful. She would also have liked to gossip with him about the situation at home. But Ion’s family was extensive and prominent. To sign the family’s dirty laundry in public would not help her already troubled reputation. Nevertheless Mist knew she had an ally and that the old man understood her.

She picked up two oranges and tried to fit them both in her back-pack. But the dictionary filled the bag and only a small space remained. Mist was not about to be seen walking through the town square carrying something in her hand, like those women one couldn’t converse with in the streets because they had no servants to carry their ling-carts on shopping days. “I’ll take this fruit with a color as a name,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll get another.”

“The fruit is segmented,” he signed, as if reading her mind. “It will serve many.” Then he smiled and stretched out his hand for the payment.

Mist felt around in her dress pocket. Then she winked and smiling, gave Smoothed Stone two small coins instead of the three he had asked for.

Smoothed Stone took the coins and smiled conspiratorially. “You always were a girl with an eye for a bargain, Sister.”

Mist shrugged. “I might be married to someone outside the trader caste but I haven’t lost my skills.”

When she returned home to Ion’s family’s compound, she was greeted by Ion’s mother and by Flowers-in-the-Sun.

“Daughter Mine,” Ion’s mother, Shadow-of-Light-Turning said, “Flowers-in-the-Sun has been telling me about her day.”

“What about your other grandchildren?” Mist asked. “Don’t they have news also?”

“They keep to themselves,” Shadow-of-Light-Turning responded. “They’re practicing mouth-to-ear.”

“I don’t see why they have to practice mouth-to-ear,” Mist answered. “We can’t hear them anyway. Are they hiding things from each other now?”

Shadow-of-Light-Turning made the gesture which meant Mist was being argumentative and unreasonable as usual. “My dying wish is that my granddaughter will not be poor and isolated as her mother is,” she signed, casting a disgusted glance at Mist’s blue marriage scarf. “Can’t you wear the scarf of our caste?” Shadow-of-Light-Turning asked. Although Mist had used the green embroidery thread of the science cast throughout the scarf, her husband’s mother was still not appeased. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for being so strong-willed? And look at your daughter! The girl has no bracelets on her arms, no caste-cap, no jewelry around her calves, no gems around her neck and ankles. When I see her coming home from school, capless, like an outcaste child, I cannot bear the shame.”

This woman has nothing else on her mind, Mist thought and signed, “She has not decided yet what caste-cap to wear.”

Her husband’s mother didn’t say the obvious, that a child should not have to choose her caste.

Ninety-eight people lived in the family compound, including servants—none of whom belonged to Ion. As a mere superintendent of standards and weights in the agricultural department, and that only because of his mother’s influence, Ion was not well paid. His family had tolerated his love-match marriage to a woman not of his work caste, but his co-workers had not. Neither the traders nor the scientists he worked with considered Ion truly qualified for the inter-caste job –in this case a position which was both scientific and trade-related. And neither did the sub-caste of regulators consider him part of their network. He found peace and acceptance, however, among his family.

Mist, on the other hand, was accepted by the other traders. (Traders, being expedient, valued networks and friendships.) But grudgingly tolerated by her mother-in-law’s household who continually reminded her that Ion had given up an advantageous marriage to a woman of the science caste to marry her.

It didn’t help matters that because of the initial upheaval in both families, both Ion and Mist flatly refused to accept monies or gifts from their relatives. Such were the dangers of love-matches.

Shadow-of-Light-Turning finished listing Mist’s many flaws and walked away without the requisite gesture of respect. Mist and Flowers-in-the-Sun exchanged knowing glances and Mist thought to herself, My little sunshine. My only female ally among my enemies. A minute later, the green entry lights of the family compound gates flashed: three long beams, two quick ones, then six quick ones. Ion’s pattern: he was home. Waiting to surprise Ion when he entered their area of the house, Mist stood by the door of their family apartment holding the “orange” in her outstretched cupped hands.

But Ion did not immediately come up to their apartment. When he finally arrived upstairs, he told Mist his mother had intercepted him.

“She believes Flowers-in-the Sun should get the implants,” he signed, then after a pause, he added, “And I agree with her.”

Mist could not answer him: the “orange” was in her hand. But she glared into his dark eyes until he turned his face away.

Mist put the “orange” in the food closet and walked over to her husband, slowly and deliberately. She forced him to look at her by raising them directly in front of his face. Her hands were so close they almost touched his nose. Then she made the signs which meant, “No. Once again, my opinion does not matter.”

“Your mother has taught you many things,” Ion signed. “Chief of all is how to be an alarmist. The operation will not harm our daughter. Already she is alone, even among her cousins.”

“Because I worry about our daughter, I’m an alarmist?” Mist exclaimed. “Isn’t our heritage important to you?”

Ion made a gesture with his right hand that took in the entire house. “Compare” he signed. “Mother’s house and Mother-in-Law’s house. Do not the compartments of our siblings overflow with riches? Have not both families gotten even richer since their implants? The universe is getting smaller. English is the common language of the Federation universe. And it’s ‘mouth-spoken,’ not signed. Of what use are traders who do not speak the lingua franca? Shouldn’t the thing be done?”

“You sound like your mother.”

“It is the only time I have ever sounded like her.”

Mist nodded. Ion had always stood by her in family quarrels. “But why agree with her now?” she asked.

“My agreement is not with her,” he signed, raising his eyebrow.

It dawned on Mist what Ion was saying. “Flowers-in-the-Sun requested the implants?”

Ion held his wife’s hands tightly and gently pulled them away from his face, towards the ground. He then released her hands, kissed her and signed, “Children come of age.”

Mist pulled her hands from his. “But when she was here with your mother," she told him, “she smiled at me as if she agreed with me. How could she change her mind so quickly?”

“Obviously, she’s been thinking about it for a while. You know how she is. She’s like us and yet not like us. She thinks as we do, but she likes fitting in.” He grinned. “Should not traders learn to ‘accept change’?”

For a moment, Mist was confused. Ion had used the Aqueduct sign which meant “coin” instead of the one which meant “alteration.” Then she remembered the various meanings of the English word ‘change.’ It was an effective bilingual pun which only a student of English would understand. And the joke only proved her point. The Aqueduct people, to whom Ion and Mist belonged, were linguists par excellence.

“You see,” she signed. “Look at your joke. ‘Change’ and ‘change.’ Does this not show that we are good at adapting, that we are an intelligent people, that it’s not necessary to implant and mouth-speak? Has not our culture taught us how to survive in a world of sound-speakers?”

Ion kissed her finger tips. Then he signed, “What can be done? I have given up my birth-livelihood. We have lived by integrity and we have been happy. But we have not been successful in our financial lives. Let our child live her life. Mist, my love, think: Don’t you want Flowers-in-the-Sun to find her place in the world?”

“Our world, yes. Not theirs. Flowers-in-the-Sun was born here, not on Earth.”

“She’s a smart child. She says she wants to show the Federation our knowledge. She says she will use their ways to show them our ways. Can you not see her wisdom in this?”

“But why should she cut her throat?”

With one dismissive gesture, Ion indicated that his wife was being unduly worried. He signed that he had seen enough implanted people. The cutting was a small thing, nothing for her to get so worked up about. He repeated again that he and Mist had been dreamers, that they had sacrificed their lives to love. But the child wanted what the child wanted and shouldn’t children receive what they ask for?

“Dreamers should not sacrifice their children,” he signed. “If we do the cutting now, when she becomes a young woman she will have great skill in mouth-speaking. She will truly be multi-lingual. Be reasonable, my love. Mother Mine says that if you insist on doing things your ways, Flowers-in-the-Sun won’t even fit in with her own family, much less with the rest of our world. Already, the other children leave her out of their mouth-to-ear practice. And yes, she wears no gems, no jewels. We should not harm her any more than we already have.”

Mist threw her arms in the air. “So it’s all about fitting in, is it? These children, mouthing and mouthing and no one can hear them.”

“It’s a new language. Like a new toy. Let them experiment.”

“It makes my heart boil to hear you talk like the others in this house. Don’t you see how strange it is for us, the people on our planet, to laugh-talk-sing through the mouth? In our world, mouths were made for eating only.”

“And for kissing too, I hope,” Ion signed, giving her a coy look. “Or are we going to bed angry?”

“Be serious. For millennia, we have known that other humans in the universe understood ‘sounds.’ But we accepted it. It was what made us unique to the creator. We never thought there was anything wrong with us until Earthers came along. Why should we change to please these upstarts? Why must, from this day to that forever day, our children, our grandchildren be cut-throats? And simply for money and for fitting in?” She began heading towards the door. “I will speak to the council about this.”

“Mother Mine will not like it if you speak to the elders. She speaks for our family, not you. Know your place, Wife Mine.”

Mist stopped in her tracks. Ion was right. It would not look good at all for her to go over her mother-in-law’s head and talk to the elders. It would only make her seem even stranger than she already seemed, a woman without gem anklets, in a mixed-caste marriage without servants to carry her ling-carts, who allowed her daughter to go capless.

“Don’t you trust your mothering skills?” Ion asked. “Do you not believe our daughter loves us? Mouth-to-ear in front of her parents is not something Flowers-In-the-Sun would do.”

“Who knows what people will do?” Mist signed back. “Look at you: disobeying our Creator’s laws against flesh cutting.”

Ion smiled. “You’re using the more literal interpretation.”

“Since when did you consider that interpretation ‘literal’? ‘No cutting into flesh!’ Period. The ideograph is clear enough. And don’t give me any talk about it meaning no meat and no murder. It says what it says.”

“The Creator understands expedience,” Ion responded.

Mist glared at him. Then she walked downstairs to the family garden.

In the farthest corner near the wall, the implanted nieces and nephews huddled together speaking mouth-to-ear. Sitting near her aunts, Flowers-in-the-Sun looked on.

When her mother entered the garden, she said, “Mother Mine, my cousins cover their mouths to hide their thoughts from us.”

“They’re practicing to control their new voices,” Mist answered. “So they don’t offend the Earthers when they speak.”

“I know what is on your mind,” Flowers-in-the-Sun said. “You have been talking to Father Mine.”

Mist nodded.

“The Earthers don’t speak to us unless they are contracting business,” Flowers-in-the-Sun explained. “They think our life-knowledge is not equal to theirs.”

“They’re right. We don’t know how to kill cultures or cut throats. May we never learn.”

“I want to show them how smart we are,” Flowers-in-the-Sun signed. “I will be a great scientist when I grow up and I will show them how high our knowledge really is. I will—” She stopped short. Across the garden, some of her cousins were laughing at her. She pulled her mother inside the house. “They think it’s funny that everyone knows what I’m saying.”

“They won’t think it’s so funny when they get an infection from getting their throats cut,” Mist answered. “I hear people never really heal from that.” Mist had not really heard that, but she felt no qualms in saying that she had. “So,” she continued, “you want to work in the sciences like your grandmother’s family?”

Although children followed in the caste-careers of their mothers, Mist was untroubled by her daughter’s choice of her father’s caste. “You have the mind for it,” she answered. “And you were not raised in a trading household, but in the house of a science-caste grandmother.” She smiled. “I’ll have to make you a green cap. Perhaps I’ll wear green too, to help you fit in.”

Flowers-in-the-Sun smiled. “Thank you, Mother Mine.”

“Will you study the scientific assessment of standards as your father does? Or will you choose another science?”

Flowers-in-the-sun nodded. “Father has a perfect inter-caste job. It’s the right job for me. I will show the earth traders that we know how to measure the purity of foods, that we are more than receivers of their tainted money.”

Mist stroked her daughter’s hair and her heart overflowed with pride at having such a wise daughter. And as Second Night rolled into First Morning, she found green fabric from which she made a cap for her beloved daughter and a new marriage scarf for herself.

Her husband’s mother smiled approvingly when she saw Mist the next morning. “Will your trader friends accept a trader who wears green?” she asked.

“Those who know me will,” Mist answered, smiling. “The ones who don’t know me will think I’m new to the trading game. It will be interesting to see how this ‘change’ affects a trader’s purse.”

On the way to her shop, Mist saw the four off-worlders again. Again they had their instruments pointed at her beloved sky. As she studied them, she saw a light flashing from the corner of her eye. It came from Smoothed Stone’s fruit stand. He was signaling her.

“Sister,” he said, when she arrived in front of his stand. “How goes your study of the Federation Lingua?”

“Their English lingua has many words, brother,” she signed back, and wondered why he had called out to her. “But it isn’t particularly complex. Lip-reading, however, is hard. Not as hard-to-decipher as the guttural clucks of the Towans, for instance. But challenging nevertheless. Many unruly vowel sounds. Inconsistent.”

“Very hard to lip-read,” the old man agreed, and yet even as he agreed with her, it seemed as if he had something more urgent to say. “The people of our world have always loved challenges,” he said at last.

“True,” Mist answered. “Their ‘alphabet’ is something of a challenge.” And then as proof of her studies, she slowly finger-spelled in English, “Me not good Lingua talker yet. Go their English School maybe?”

“We Aqueduct people are smart. Whoever heard of going to school to learn languages? Hey, you want them to cut your throat?”

“Not me,” she said and added, “Many people are getting the implants. In many homes. All because the Earthers think it’s best to speak by mouth.”

Smoothed Stone sighed. “Some of them tattoo the implants, embroider them with floral patterns, as if to cover their guilt. Worse: the more brazen among us leave the cut marks untattooed, uncovered, for all to see; braggarts, as if the cutting were an improvement to the Creator’s work. In our youth, if such a thing were told, who would believe it?”

“Did not our Creator forbid flesh-cutting?” Mist signed rhetorically.

“Those who get the implants grow richer and stranger,” the old man continued. “Sad it is, but true: I have seen it said that the Earthers are helping our economy with these implants.”

Mist’s only answer was a facial gesture which meant, “I have so much to say but not here.”

He answered. “And I too. But whether from fear, fatigue, helplessness or grief, one must be quiet.”

Mist nodded. The flickering purple lights along the Wallaou tree indicated that the News Carrier had arrived: six quick flashes and one long one. Just in time she looked up to see her brothers’ wives walking ahead of her.

How richly dressed they were! How round and well-fed their bodies! Living in her husband’s family house, she rarely saw her mother’s family. But she had heard that her mother’s family, too, had chosen implantation and had prospered greatly in doing so. Mist studied her scrawny brown jewelry-less arms jutting out from under her full yellow sleeves. Her dress was made from Yona plant fiber, but her sisters-in-law wore Federation ‘silk’ embroidered with Federation ‘gold.’ Unsure if they had seen but purposely ignored her, she watched as they took seats near the podium. In the days before her marriage, she too would have sat in those places of honor. But now she hid in the back row among the women of the servant caste, dutifully dragging their mistress’ ling-carts from one vendor to another. She hoped no one from her mother’s house would see her.

The News Carrier who wore the wide tribal pants of the people of the land beyond the Two Hills took the high seat in the center square.

“My mothers, my fathers, my sisters, my brothers, my daughters, my sons,” the woman began. Her gestures indicated a Two Hills accent. “Life has changed in our village since the Earthers came with their cutting. I have heard your elders are contemplating mandating this matter. Please warn them not to. Already I have seen”—and here the woman from beyond the Two Hills stared impolitely at Mist’s sisters-in-law—“that already some of your own people are cutting themselves and their children.”

Mist watched to see what her brothers’ wives would do. She well-remembered how they had mocked her when she chose to marry out of the trader clan. Their cruel hands had sawed at her like daggers. Her brother’s wives were not the types to be challenged. But neither would they disagree with a stranger in the town center where everyone could read their business.

The News Carrier approached them and signed “Traitor!” in an angry sweeping gesture.

In response, they stood up. They walked away from the crowd, their gold-threaded blue silk marriage scarves trailing behind them. Mist hid her face when they passed by but she could easily imagine their faces, arrogant and expressionless as if the insult was nothing more than vapor in the air.

The woman from beyond the Two Hills continued, “Already the children of our village no longer dance to the light at our festivals. They insist on ‘Sound-dances,’ preferring ‘music’ to light. They hide their natures, clans, and status. They do not wear their clan colors. Some of our marriageable young girls refuse to wear the courtship tassels. They refuse to give the world knowledge of themselves. It’s a perverse game they play. Yesterday, at the beginning of the Mother-Infant Festival, some children insisted on mouth-singing, even though their parents could not understand a word they said. And when they talk, they hide their conversations, imitating the mouth-speakers' mouth-to-ears talk, what the Earthers call”—this she finger-spelled in English—“‘whispers.’”

Mist thought of her nieces and nephews huddled together in their groups, doing mouth-to-ears hiding their conversations. She remembered the family’s excuses: Children must explore and discover. They’re practicing using those implant things right. Children play endlessly with their toys until the novelty wears off. They then outgrow them. Mist had always thought her husband’s brothers’ wives were foolish women with no foresight. These latest events only proved their short-sightedness.

“And many other new things have happened,” the News Carrier continued. “Now the young married youth move from the family house. They live by themselves. ‘Husband and wife family house,’ they call it. Who has seen such a thing? But worse things happen: They disappear and are not seen then they suddenly re-appear for an afternoon. To ‘visit’ they call it. They come when they want something. And many want to create speaking temples in order to worship the Creator. The world has crashed around us.” The News Carrier went on to list all the alarming troubles caused by cutting. She ended with the warning, “One law falls and all others fall with it.”

Mist’s eyes met those of another woman in the crowd. Both women exchanged glances and then glanced backwards at the off-worlders in the distance with their strange metallic equipment. Mist and the woman shook their heads.

“Surely the News Carrier is stretching stories,” the woman signed. Mist hoped the woman was right. Surely, these were only tales.

After the town meeting, she returned to her book shop. Many Earthers were coming in and out, marveling at the “primitive” lifestyle of the “locals,” buying dictionaries and planetary histories. In the old days, she did not mind them. But now she grew impatient with them. They made her sad. Even stranger, they made her tired. The more Earthers she saw in the market place, holding their ears, like princes holding their noses, the more fatigued she felt. If the Earthers don’t like it here, she thought, why do they walk among us? Mist spent the rest of the day suspiciously reading their lips and feeling unusually tired and later when she left her shop, she locked the door securely behind her and carried the key home with her.

Returning home, she saw more Earthers, two men and a woman, standing in the train station. She watched them for a while, standing there with those two ear-caps sticking out on the sides of their heads. She had thought them funny when she first saw them. But now she considered them offensive, small intrusive weapons against her culture.

Several Aqueduct families were to the left and right of her. From their shells and floral holiday dress, she knew they were awaiting the Festival train which would take them to Living-Water-White Light, the town where the largest Mother-Infant parade occurred.

One young woman in the tribal cloak of the people of the Solitary Hills wore a baby carrier across her chest. The baby’s face was buried in its mother’s holiday cloak, a cloak trimmed and edged with “gold,” the signifier of a new mother.

Her first time in the festival, Mist thought. I remember when I was newly-married, childless and young and so wanted to join all the mothers in the parade. I waited so long. And then Flowers-in-the-Sun came. What a joy that was. To be a mother at last.

The woman’s face was turned in the other direction and Mist could not gesture a greeting. The baby was twisting and shaking in its carrier, obviously uncomfortable and agitated. Mist watched the woman from Solitary Hills take the child from its little pouch in order to comfort it. As the woman lifted the baby, Mist saw the tell-tale patterned tattoos on the baby’s neck. No wonder she can wear “gold,” Mist thought. Her family is one of the mutilated. Then, startled, Mist realized that the people surrounding her all had the tattoos. Tears stung her eyes. She glanced at the Earthers speaking among themselves at the far end of the track.

How smug they are! she thought. And she wanted to tell them so. What will I say to them? Will they even listen to me if I tell them they are destroying my culture?

Mist had seen ideographs which told the stories and histories of the Earthers. A warlike lot, to be sure, bent on their own glory, “paying lip-service”—she loved that English phrase—to Cultural Respect but not really caring about it. She walked towards the Earthers.

“Coming to see our festival?” she signed when she reached the woman Earther.

The woman Earther turned to look questioningly at a male Earther to her right.

Very rude, Mist said to herself. Even if she doesn’t know our language, she should know that turning away the face is not done. That’s basic body language.

The male Earther, who had black hair and dark brown skin like Mist’s people, reached into a sack and picked up a book of ideographs. He signed, “Do again. Sign again.”

He had not preceded his conversation with the “Please” sign which made his conversation seem abrupt and pushy. But Mist reminded herself that linguistic etiquette was complicated.

“Watch me,” she signed. “Sign ‘Please.’ Or bow twice whenever you tell anyone to do something. So you don’t offend people.” She signed slowly, word by word until he bowed twice and she knew he understood her.

“What’s your name?” the dark-skinned Earther asked. “Mine is Ray.” He finger-spelled the English name then signed ‘Sunlight Beam.’

“‘Sunlight Beam?’” Mist answered. “You must have been a blessing to your mother?”

Raymond grinned surreptitiously at the Earth woman then bowed twice to Mist. “Tell me the question you asked our woman friend.”

“I asked if she was going to our Mother-Infant festival,” Mist answered. “It happens every year at this time. It is our greatest festival and it lasts the whole month. If you go there, you will understand our culture and see our heart.”

Sunlight Beam answered, “We don’t usually go into your towns unless we have to. Business or something. Your towns are very loud, you know. You don’t know it. But they are. Maybe that’s why you people ended up with atrophied eardrums and vocal cords. The air density causes any kind of sound to—”

How dare he judge my planet with those stupid hearing things of his! Mist thought and interrupted his analysis of her culture with the purposely impolite remark. “We have heard that your towns are very ugly, lacking color.”

Sunlight Beam made a gesture with his shoulder which Mist interpreted as ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t care’ or ‘Your thoughts don’t matter.’ “Towns are towns,” he signed.

“Then what are you doing here?” Mist asked and bowed twice to indicate she was merely being curious not intrusive or rude.

“Waiting for the train to the coast?” Sunlight Beam answered. “We have a community there. And a school for bilingual education. You speak English?”

“I heard about your school,” Mist finger-spelled in English. “Lingua Franca good. Cutting? Not good. Cut people there all-you? Implants put in?”

Sunlight Beam made the same shoulder gesture again. “I just teach you people our ways,” he signed. “Funny, but you people are the only humanoids we’ve met who don’t really use their ears. In all the galaxy.”

Mist could not quite figure out if he meant to praise their uniqueness or if he thought they were freaks. Either way, she found the Earther rude. Turning, she walked away without giving him the customary goodbye gesture. What would such a gesture mean to rude Earthers anyway? Had he really said that he was teaching her people his ways?

She walked back to where she had been previously standing and studied the “implanted baby” who was holding its small hands in a clenched fist. Tears streamed down its little brown cheeks. Its tiny feet kicked at the air. Mist wondered if an infection had set in. She almost hoped it had. Perhaps if there was rampant infection, the women of the council would stop the procedure for medical reasons. Not that she wanted the baby to suffer, but one or two deaths here and there might not be such a bad thing after all.

The green lights flashed, indicating that the train was on its way. Beside them, Mist noticed, were “speakers” attached to the eaves of the train station. The Earthers had touted bi-lingualism and had convinced many elders of many towns to create some kind of communication system that ears could respond to. But lately, Mist told herself, the ‘speakers’ were proliferating to a dangerous degree. She thought of the long tube and of the off-worlders “fixing the air.” If the dense air makes things loud, aren't there technical problems with having speakers and other sound-based technologies? She asked herself. She grew nervous. What are they going to do with our atmosphere?

Mist pondered again the Earther’s words. Teach our thousand-year-old culture? She thought. Those Earthers think highly of themselves, don’t they? Our families have roamed the starry seas for centuries. Others accepted us, but they saw our gifts, not our lack. But these Federation Earthers are used to seeing things their way so they change everyone else’s way of seeing.

Her downcast eyes saw four flowers blooming in a small shaded corner near the tracks. She thought of Flowers-in-the-Sun.

My child, my life, she thought. You are living in a time when another planet’s sun overshadows yours. I am hopeful you will change your mind about the cutting.

She reminded herself that she and Flowers-in-the-Sun would both be revitalized by their visit to the Mother-Infant festival later in the week.

Arriving home, she found Flowers-in-the-Sun in the family gathering room surrounded by her aunts. Flowers-in-the-Sun had been implanted. When Mist entered her apartment, the aunts and cousins rose almost as one and formed a barrier between her and her daughter. The Earth doctor and a woman of the medical caste stood beside the sedated patient. Their lips were moving and they were giving Ion a small bottle of tiny balls with writing on it.

Shadow-of-light-Turning looked immensely pleased. “Can’t you see?” her mother-in-law signed. “Your daughter is no longer being isolated by her cousins.”

Ion’s face was turned toward the ground and not once did he lift his eyes to look at her. Not even as she sank into a chair near the door, too shocked and amazed at the conspiracy and betrayal to speak.

Her old self might have spoken. She had been a warrior woman once. The chief of barterers, the villages had nicknamed her. Now, she could hardly lift her hand to argue. Her emotional and physical strength failed her. She looked up at Ion and thought, what use is fighting if my family, my husband, and my village won’t fight for me? What was the use of fighting what could not be undone? She felt old, like a living ghost.

A day or two later, after she had taken enough of the little white pills, Flowers-in-the-Sun began to smile in that sweet way she always had. Seemingly gone was the sadness that had accompanied her when the cousins ignored her. Seeing her daughter’s happiness, Mist’s anger melted into resignation and grief and lost its edge. And yet she felt old. But she was not truly old; not yet.

That happened at the end of the month, when Flowers-in-the-Sun was fully healed and Mist took her and a niece to the Mother-Infant festival.

Mist was one who always tried to mind her own business and so she did not ask her niece why her mother had not accompanied her to the festival. Besides, few of Mist’s sisters-in-laws had attended the festival this year. No doubt the lack of interest in celebrating children was caused by the increasing tension caused by children ignoring their elders. Mist wished her mother-in-law would call a family meeting about it. As it was now, a brooding “silence” hovered in the house.

Mist, her daughter and her niece disembarked from the train at its terminal in the Valley of Living-Water-White-Light. The flashing multicolored lights pulsated in rhythm to the choreographed water fountains. Dancing young girls in ribbons marched gaily beside their mothers who walked regally behind, their clothing proclaiming the number of children they had borne. Mist was dressed in the green science caste colors, shells and flowers. And Shadow-of-Light-Turning had crowned Mist’s plaited hair with a floral wreath and adorned those arms that had once held a child and given a new immortal soul to the Creator with gems and semi-precious stones. Her mother-in-law’s kindness to her was a new thing. And she felt young again. New birth and change were everywhere.

The parade route followed the river valley, meandering through the hilly cliffs. Visiting Earthers stood atop the ridges or near the ridges with their VID-machines in their hands, giggling and recording the festival as if the people on Mist’s planet were some strange backward civilization. She tried to ignore them.

She reached towards Flowers-in-the-Sun. “The procession of the older mothers is about to start. In ten years you’ll be married with your own children and I won’t be able to come to the Mother-Infant festival anymore. You’ll be all grown up.”

Flowers-in-the-Sun looked at the festival-goers and at the Earthers with their VID-recorders. Her eyes pensively stared out at the passing villagers.

“Mother Mine,” she began, then paused.

“What is it, Daughter Mine?” Mist asked, staring at the tattoo on her daughter’s neck. “The implants have healed, have they not? You aren’t in pain, are you?”

“It’s very loud,” Flowers-in-the-Sun signed. “Everywhere. It hurts my ears. We are a very loud people.”

“By whose standard?” Mist asked, annoyed. “I hear the Earthers are fixing our air, making the world less noisy for you implanted ones. I doubt, though, that the air density can be changed.” She extended her hand towards her daughter. “Coming?”

Flowers-in-the-Sun did not take her mother’s hand. She glanced at her cousin, then turned to her mother. “Perhaps,” she signed, “we should not hold hands.”

“We must hold hands,” Mist answered. “It’s part of the festival. The Mothers and Daughters walk the procession together until we reach the town square. Then we do the responsive dance.”

Flowers-in-the-Sun shrugged. “Mother, look around. The Earthers are watching us. And the girls my age aren’t holding their mothers' hands.”

Mist lifted up her eyes and studied the crowd around her. It was true—very true and very strange– the mothers of older children were definitely not holding their children. They weren’t even walking with them. In fact, the mothers all seemed lost, forgotten, childless as they stood on the edge of the road, their backs against the high walls of the cliff. Their lost eyes watched dejectedly as their children chattered on in animated mouth-talk with other children.

In her new green dress and green marriage scarf, Mist stood in the middle of the road glaring at Flowers-in-the-Sun. “Am I to be like those women?” she asked. “Standing on the sidelines like a childless woman, while your life passes me by?”

She grabbed Flowers-in-the-Sun’s hand and the child stared up guiltily into her mother’s eyes and began walking by her mother’s side. But as her mother marched ahead, she looked behind at her cousin, smiled, and whispered something her mother could not hear.