Cultural Exchange - part 2

Prose, including snippets (mini-memoirs).
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sasha
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Cultural Exchange - part 2

Post by sasha » February 17th, 2019, 3:47 pm

viewtopic.php?f=98&t=32136 <--- from part 1



When Secretary K’Tahl stepped outside the Hahnn compound, enough time had elapsed since the sun disappeared below the horizon for stars to emerge from the blackness overhead (as well as three of this world’s sister planets); but not enough for the blackness to reach all the way to that horizon. A narrow golden band still outlined the distant hills, merging gradually into crimson before fading into the purple-black of the ever encroaching night sky. On the opposite horizon, the planet’s lone satellite had just risen, looming at eye level as large as the sun that had sunk out of sight. She regarded its irregular features for a moment before looking longingly overhead, wishing her own sun was visible from this hemisphere, but fascinated enough by the very strangeness of the stellar arrangements to counter longing’s tendency to curdle into melancholy.

She was still a bit groggy from oncoming stasis, despite the gneffti root she had nibbled earlier. Its stimulant properties didn’t survive transport well, and only partly mitigated the soporific effects brought on by darkness. But since Hahnn regulations were very strict about importing any kind of seeds for cultivation on alien worlds, she would have to settle for the freeze-dried variety until proper containment orchards could be built.

The sound of a motorized ground vehicle drew her attention towards the village, a few of whose street lights were visible from the Hahnn compound. The headlights of a transport snaked alongside them, growing larger and brighter as it approached. They disappeared briefly as the vehicle reached the base of the hill atop which the compound sat, their glow casting the brow of the roadway in silhouette. Finally, a panel truck rolled into view, and slowed to a stop several dozen yards away. Once the engine and lights were cut, it lay unseen and unheard in the darkness.

“Good evening, Madame Secretary!” came a familiar voice from the dark. “What a lovely night!”

“Councilman Taylor, I believe?” she returned the hail. The organs she employed to approximate their speech lacked the power of projection human vocal organs possessed, and she found the effort tiring.

“Yes, Madam – and Councilman O’Connor is here, too.”

The crisp sounds of metallic doors opening and slamming shut punctuated the dark, followed by the crunch of footsteps on gravel. She could just discern two featureless black forms approaching. Not until they were upon her could she resolve which was which.

“Good evening, Madame!” O’Connor exclaimed, and laughed. “Ready for a little road trip?” The Secretary noticed a distinct difference in their bearing from their exchange several days ago. Where they had comported themselves with a carefully cultivated formal civility in her office, there was a breezy, familiar, almost playful air about them now. It set her on alert – not because she felt any threat from them, but because it was unlike anything she was accustomed to in her dealings with them. It felt overwhelmingly welcoming, and she simply didn’t know what to make of it. She felt she should modify her own behavior accordingly – but had no idea how.

“Full moon tonight,” Taylor said. “And the weather’s cooperating.”

“They were out last night,” O’Connor said. “I expect they will be tonight, too.”

“Hope so,” Taylor replied. “Still, it ought to be a good night.”

The Secretary realized they were addressing one another and not her, and was baffled by the cryptic, colloquial references to the shared culture in which they were obviously deeply immersed. It left her feeling a little less competent, a little less assured, a little less than completely in command of her situation, and it was not a comfortable feeling. In her office, in her little bubble of Hahnn, they were alien beings paying her a visit - but out here, she was the alien in their world. She would have to relinquish some control to them. Although she trusted them implicitly, it had the bitter taste of uncertainty. Of… surrender.

“Shall we get started, Madam?” Taylor suggested. “The site is a little over a half hour away – conditions should be nearly ideal by then.”

Without waiting for an answer, he and O’Connor were returning to the vehicle. She felt she had little choice but to follow their lead.

“We must apologize for the conditions of your transport,” O’Connor spoke over her shoulder. “Because you are so lar-- because we are so much smaller than you, it would be impossible for you to fit in the passenger compartment.” She sighed.”You’ll have to ride in the cargo bay. We’ve added a few amenities to make it as comfortable for you as possible, but it’s still a bit primitive. We hope this will not be too burdensome.”

They led the way through the ever deepening darkness to the van, and pulled open the rear doors. A small light came on in the interior, casting their shadows onto the gravel path. The Secretary peered inside. Her mandibles involuntarily snapped shut once in dismay.

The interior was clean, but nearly barren. Small windows on either side gave a limited view outside. A small table had been fastened to one of the side panels. Behind it squatted a modified Hahnn chair, cut low so that she would have enough headroom to avoid stooping. It took her a moment to recognize that it was, in fact, the chair she had occupied when she had first arrived here two revolutions ago.

Her antennae began quivering in puzzlement. “Where did you find that?” she asked.

“The chair? We didn’t - the Adjutant found it in storage,” Taylor replied. “He was very helpful.”

The Secretary made a mental note to remember this when it came time for the Adjutant’s performance evaluation.

With the councilmen’s help, she clambered into the back of the van. She had to drop down on all fives to move into the back, but once seated had enough head clearance to sit without crouching. It occurred to her that being compelled by aliens to occupy a cargo compartment so small she was forced to crawl could be considered a gross diplomatic breach – but to her wry surprise she felt more amusement than offense. She firmly believed, she knew, that these cramped, Spartan quarters were not intended as an insult to her station or dignity. Her hosts had merely done the best they could with limited resources, and had made an honest attempt to minimize her discomfort. It was like receiving a crude hand-made gift from a feckless child.

Taylor showed her how to keep the dome light on (if she so desired), and with a last apology, slammed the doors shut. A moment later the engine coughed back into life, the van lurched a little, and their journey began.

There was little to see outside, even with the dome light off – the road bore through undeveloped countryside devoid of any artificial lights, and the moon, though full, was not yet high enough to clear the treetops. What an odd situation to be in, she thought. She even wondered whether or not to mention the incident in her monthly report to home. “Local governing Secretary on alien world abducted by natives during the night…” It amused her to consider relating the tale on official stationery as a thriller in the fashion of these people…

Except she had no idea how it would end.

The rocking of the van and the relative impotence of preserved gneffti root conspired to lull her into stasis, and she found herself drifting in and out of awareness. In fact she had just entered stage 1 stasis when the van came to a halt and the engine went silent. The sudden change in background ambience was enough to rouse her, and she had managed to reach a state of drowsy consciousness when the rear door of the van opened. Taylor and O’Connor stood expectantly, offering their hands in assistance. With some difficulty, the Secretary managed to drop from her chair to the floor and gracelessly exit the van.

“We do sincerely apologize for the roughness of the accommodations, Madam Secretary,” O’Connor repeated. “But we hope to make it up to you soon.” She took a flashlight from Taylor so he could shrug into a small backpack.

By now the moon had risen enough to illuminate the immediate surroundings, and the Secretary recognized where they stood. The proposed site of the landing field was but a short walk away, down a wooded path to the wetland the Hahnn had selected to drain and bring their starships.

But so different was it now by night! It was interesting enough in daylight, when small feathered flying creatures flitted and called in the forest canopy overhead, and one could see various flowering plants lining the pathway; now there was little to be seen beyond the tiny dancing puddle of light from O’Connor’s torch. But the sounds! From everywhere, from all around them, a semi-musical trilling issued from the darkness. It was composed of a myriad individual voices, each singing almost the same notes; but in aggregate comprised a rough woolen blanket of sound, of complex harmonics and rhythms subtly shifting in and out of phase. It was as hypnotic as the ride from the Hahnn compound had been, but it held her attention. She was far from stasis now.

“Insects,” O’Connor said, incredibly, as though she had read the Secretary’s mind as well as any Hahnn. “Physiologically similar to you, though much much smaller.”

“There must be hundreds of them,” the Secretary replied, even her rough facsimile of a voice unable to conceal her wonder.

“Thousands, Madam,” Taylor gently corrected. “Thousands.”

The path ended at the edge of a small pond, where O’Connor switched off the light. The full moon provided more than enough illumination to show them to be standing on small beach, on either side of which reeds crowded against the shore. The light reflected off the gently undulating water, shattering into pieces, writhing and rippling like intertwining snakes coupling and uncoupling and coupling again. Tiny waves lapped against the beach making tiny wet sounds, while the deep, lazy baying of bullfrogs drifted across the water from the far side of the pond, all in accompaniment to the celebratory cries of the insects.

Then she noticed, in the reeds at the edge of the shore, hundreds of sparkling pinpoints of light, as though the stars themselves had drifted down from the heavens to mill around during their visit. They flickered and swirled, randomly popping into and out of existence, silently swarming in and around and over the shoreline. Some came close enough to be seen as shapes; most remained so distant as to be dimensionless pinpricks.

“Fireflies,” O’Connor whispered. The Secretary had never before heard a human speak in unvocalized tones, and at first didn’t recognize it for what it was. “Beetles with specialized luminiferous organs – or so the entymologists describe them.” She turned to the Secretary. “They’re so much more than that, don’t you think?”

Before she could reply, Taylor opened his palm to reveal that he had captured one. Its abdomen glowed greenish-yellow, faintly, but enough to cast shadows in the creases of his hand.

The Secretary’s antennae danced. “It’s lovely,” she said, and was immediately ashamed by the way her harsh, buzzing tone seemed so incongruous in contrast to the delicate beauty before her.

O’Connor fumbled with Taylor’s backpack, from which she withdrew a metallic cylinder and two smaller vessels, one of which she handed to him. “We have another surprise for you, Madam Secretary,” she said. She unscrewed the cap from the cylinder, and the aroma of warm cocoa wafted forth. The Secretary’s antennae quivered with happy surprise. O’Connor filled the two cups, then handed the thermos to the Secretary. “The rest is yours,” she said.

The Secretary accepted the gift with an almost bashful gratitude, and gingerly extended her proboscis into its depths while Taylor and O’Connor lifted their cups and sipped. She drew up a small amount of the sweet, thick nectar into her mouthparts. It was neither too warm nor too cool, and she savored the heavenly libation with delight. Koko, she thought. Magnificent, sacramental koko

They drank in silence for a while, awash in the sounds of the night, the cool moonlight, and the sparkling luminescence of the fireflies, until a meteor flashed by overhead. Taylor spoke first:

“ ‘Be humbled by the Vastness of Cosmos, but be not shamed by your Smallness’,”

he recited.

“ ‘For just as you are within the All, so is the All within you’.”


The Secretary’s antennae jerked spasmodically, and she made an inarticulate little sound with her air sac. “K’rchh!” she exclaimed. “That’s from the Hymns of Yan’tai!”

“One of your greatest poets, Madam,” Taylor affirmed. “Psalm 14, I believe.”

Clutching the thermos, she looked around her – to the tiny, delicate creature in Taylor’s hand, to the sparkling display in the reeds, to the fluid rippling of the moon’s visage in the water, all to the serenade of the night things that sang and croaked and scratched and hummed; and she chanted – aloud – the words of Yan’tai:


“ ‘Be of Learning and Reason,
and Clarity and Purpose of Thought, for they are essential to Wisdom –
but the Wise will always know they are not enough. “


She tried to recall the rest of the verse:


“Fear not the Unknowables, but embrace them –
Embrace their…”


Here she began to stumble:


“Embrace them for their… u’v’rys, because they… because their daghna
essence of betruv’chi… essence of... tchi k’hai, tchi k’ho, alwah ki nach’ra...”



She faltered. “I’m sorry,” she softly buzzed. “I don’t know your words for the rest.”

“That’s all right, Madam Secretary,” Taylor said, gently blowing the firefly from his hand. “Its meaning transcends words.” And when the tiny insect had flashed off into the night, he placed the same hand on the horny shield of exoskeleton covering her forelimb. Though startled, she did not recoil from the touch.

“Can you help us save this place, Madam?” O’Connor asked.

Secretary K’Tahl looked up at the brilliant full moon of this strange, wonderful planet, populated by strange, wonderful people, and suddenly felt that she Understood.

“I’ll try,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”



2016 Sep 20
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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mnaz
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Re: Cultural Exchange - part 2

Post by mnaz » March 23rd, 2019, 12:54 pm

Excellent. (Especially "Psalm 14.") A bit hard to imagine an alien governing official consenting to such a trip, but then maybe that's the point-- it would be even harder to imagine human mega-capitalists making that trip. Well done.

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sasha
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Re: Cultural Exchange - part 2

Post by sasha » March 23rd, 2019, 8:02 pm

Thanks! It does seem a bit of a stretch to think that any government official, much less an alien one, would agree to this. I tried to convey (without too much detail) that she already had a relationship with them, and, as an ad-hoc ambassador of her kind at the local level, was willing to go a little further than a faceless bureaucrat might. Actually, I'd had British colonialism in mind when I first sat down to write this, and had intended it as a humorous look at the paperwork nightmare governing an alien populace might pose - but, as they often do, the story went off in its own direction to end up here instead.

Thanks again for the comments!
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"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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mnaz
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Re: Cultural Exchange - part 2

Post by mnaz » March 24th, 2019, 6:42 pm

I did pick up a British colonialism sort of vibe when I read this, for sure, but mainly an "environmental parable" vibe-- almost like something Ed Abbey might come up with, but not as "eco-warrior" militant. Good stuff.

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