The sun rose, and the sky separated from the Pacific Ocean.
The water stayed dark, but the air above lightened and developed clouds. They shone pink and hazy, stitched by the gleaming contrails of jets. Golden Hour, thought Mike Loew, and shoved the sippy lip of the go-cup into his mouth for another desperate sip of coffee. His body still thought it was 10pm. His brain thought he should be in Hollywood. In his heart, Mike was very worried about what the salt and sand would do to his shoes. “Um,” he said. “Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?” It was an inane question to ask. Of course they were in the right place. Mike’s charges had woken him up an hour before dawn, fed these coordinates directly into the rental van’s AI, then dashed straight into the water as soon as the vehicle had parked. All that was visible now of the visitors were the little robot interpreters hovering over four ominous shadows below the waves. Mike tried to think of other ways to politely phrase, “What the fuck do a bunch of non-human film critics have to do at the beach at dawn?” “Certainly,” said one of the interpreters in the chirpy voice Mike had chosen for Sessile Probings, the non-human in charge. The official name of Sessile’s species was “Individuals Locked in Mutual Tensegrity,” but Mike privately called him a slime-fish. “We have to wait an hour to get the tide,” said Sessile. “However, Octopus Iceberg was bored at the hotel.” Mike glanced at a passing jogger, trying to force his brain to work. “Okay, so you wanted a morning swim before we drive up to Hollywood? I just need to know how far I should push back the meetings I’ve lined up for us.” Meetings with people who would never have given Mike the time of day back when he was trying to break into the industry. When he’d been the sort of idiot who thought you got a movie made by telling a good story. Mike was a government functionary now, and much wiser. Or at least, he had thought he was wiser until this morning. He raised his go-cup and found it empty. “We do not swim,” said Sessile. “We study film.” Yes! Mike wanted to shout. That’s why I pulled strings to get myself assigned to you. He closed his eyes. They’d told him about this in Beijing. Interpreters weren’t perfect. You needed to speak clearly and stay aware of alternate meanings. “I am confused,” he said. “Please restate.” “Currently, I am studying this film on this rock.” Mike tightened his grip on on his cup. He stared out over the water, a horrible realization swelling in his gut. “Sessile, what do you mean when you say ‘film?'” “I will show you.” Shadows moved against the sand, and Sessile rose from the waves. Sunlight glared off the spun glass globe of Sessile’s primary shell. Then the slime-fish rose to his full height and the sun was behind him, haloing the bloated head within. Sessile’s eel-like tail thrashed embedded in the column of slime that supported his fish-bowl head. The slime hardened as Mike watched, its surface turning gray and cracked as water wept out of it. Rods pushed out of the mass, dangling snotty strands. Webs of mucus tightened, and these extruded limbs flexed. A cluster of these limbs cradled a flat, smooth rock, about the size of a plate. It was also slimy. Everything within a foot of Sessile was slimy. The non-human’s head pulsed within its spiked and blistered globe. Bubbles of air farted out of the depths of the tower of mucus. “Look at this, Mike,” the interpreter chirped. “I found a model film. This is a good example of a film.” Mike wanted to fall to his knees and shake his empty coffee cup at the sky. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work! He was supposed to be in a Hollywood board room in an hour, facilitating deals and making connections. They had to respect him now! He was bringing them film critics from alternate Earths! Not…not marine biologists! “I think,” he said, “that there has been a translation error.” The training turned out to be worth the jetlag. Upon further discussion, Mike and Sessile managed to establish that a film was a series of sounds and images that told a story when projected in front of a human’s eyeballs. A biofilm, however, was a colony of bacteria that coordinated their behavior in order to change their environment. They secreted a number of fascinating compounds. Mike nodded and looked down at his salt-stained shoes. “Good,” he mumbled. “Good. I’m glad we established that.” Sessile had finished excreting his land-body. He tottered forward on a pair of spindly puppet-legs, a fishy eye bulging behind a lens-blister on his shell. “Mike, does the shape of the front of your head indicate that you are emotionally troubled?” “No,” said Mike. “No, I’m just fine. Please don’t try to give me a hug.” “I won’t hug you because it will be disgusting. But please wait a moment. I will call Octopus Iceberg. He studied the psychophysiology of mammals.” Another monster loomed out of the depths, this one a plexiglass globe perched on top of a ring of articulated metal tentacles. Floating within the globe, veiled in fluttering jellyfish gowns, was an octopus. Mike wasn’t a biologist or paleontologist, so he didn’t know how octopi had conquered Iceberg’s version of Earth, but the Convention of Sapient Species had much weirder members. At least he knew the two of them shared a love of audiovisual story-telling. Or so he had thought. “Octopus Iceberg, I believe our native guide is upset,” said Sessile. Metal tentacles tip-toed over the sand. Segmented suckers opened like camera shutters. Colors and textures flickered across the skin of the octopus. “Yes,” said its interpreter. “He has a mental state of frustration.” “It’s just I worked hard to get this job because I thought we worked in the same industry,” said Mike. The non-humans looked at each other. “But you are a government official and we study film.” Mike squeezed his eyes shut. “Biofilm! Interpreter, translate that word as ‘biofilm.'” “There is a very important difference,” Sessile told Iceberg. “This ‘film’ is a tradition of human performance art that Human Mike hopes to participate in.” “I understand. Human Mike, don’t be ashamed of making bad films. It is very important that you are helping science.” “I didn’t give up because I couldn’t make a good movie,” Mike told the inside of his eyelids. Who cared what he told a bunch of marine biologists? It might as well be the truth. “I gave up because Hollywood is a corrupt pit where real art goes to die.” There was some confusion while their interpreters chewed on the cultural context behind that explanation, which evolved into a longer diatribe about the industry in general. “It’s just so cynical,” Mike found himself saying. “There’s this old boy’s club giving awards to each other. Calculated grabs for attention. Public personas instead of actual people. Just…” he waved his hands, “just lies. But everyone has to act like they believe, or else they get pushed out. Nobody is willing to stand up and say what they really think.” The octopus and slime-fish looked at him. “I am still confused,” said Sessile. “So, are there images paired with sounds?” Mike groaned and clawed at his pocket. “Look. I’ll show you. Here’s the most critically acclaimed film of the past year.” He had it downloaded on his phone, and he watched it compulsively. It always depressed him. “Look at this!” Mike said, thrusting the phone at the biologists. “That brown color palette. Those fake accents. It’s not a movie at all, it’s just a sign that says ‘this is intellectual.'” “Yes,” said Sessile. “It seems completely incomprehensible. But only the most advanced art can resonate outside of its cultural background.” “No, wait, I think I might like it,” said Iceberg. “The problem is that the quality of the display device is poor. Wait a moment.” A message popped up on Mike’s phone. “New device connected,” followed by a long string of numbers and letters. “I have connected my armor to your communication device.” “You can watch movies on your exo-suit?” asked Mike. “Of course. The entire inner surface is covered with visual displays.” “Octopus Iceberg’s species sees with their skin and also eyes,” explained Sessile. “Sure, why not?” Mike pressed “play.” Iceberg’s skin prickled. Browns and grays marched across his body. “It is pleasant and soothing,” he said. “However, this effect is only effective when you are watching a movie with all eight arms.” Mike shook his head in despair. “What about the population?” asked Sessile. “The population only has two arms.” “I don’t understand. I mean what movies do most humans like to watch?” “Oh, the public, you mean? They watch absolute garbage. Uh…look.” Mike found last season’s highlight reel from a reality show and cast it to Iceberg’s suit. His tentacles stiffened. The fishbowl helmet sparkled with refracted images and his skin flashed red, white, and purple. “Inarticulate joy,” said the interpreter. Sessile’s scarecrow body jerked, sending mucus flying. “Octopus Iceberg! Are you okay?” Iceberg’s skin shivered. “This is the product of great and noble talent,” whispered the interpreter. Mike looked at his phone to make sure he hadn’t selected the wrong video. “What? No! It’s just sex and shouting.” “This art encompasses the essence of human existence.” Sessile connected to Mike’s phone and his glass shell swam with images. “I understand your idea. This shows the purest form of interaction. Bacterial communities coordinate in a very similar way.” Mike floundered. Every diplomatic instinct he possessed was saying “Just nod and smile and agree.” But he couldn’t. Not after he’d bared my soul to these non-humans. These beings who he had thought were people. “No!” He stomped his expensive shoe on the sand. A cigarette butt went flying. “No, God damn it! This stuff is garbage! It’s stupid, Sessile.” “We will teach you to appreciate it,” said the slime-fish. “Yes,” said the octopus. “All that is needed for this film is proper analysis.”
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Here’s scenario I spun a while back on the Constructed Languages list serve:
Philip of Macedon isn’t assassinated. As Hegemon of the League of Corinth, he invades the Achaemenid Empire. Under the command of Alexander, the invasion is successful. Philip then does what’s worked for him before: redistribute seized land and wealth (esp. gold) to his favored men. Of course to keep his allies sweet, Philip has to seize more gold and land and so on. His empire must always expand. Because of the nature of his cavalry/phalanx army, expansion works best in flat areas with lots of gold. That means Egypt is next after Persia, then Iberia. Italy is neither flat nor wealthy, and so Philip ignores it except to use the southern tip as a staging area for the Iberian campaign. In the long run, this will have the amusing result of Hellenic languages spoken everywhere but northern Italy, where there is a strange Indo-European isolate, somewhat similar to the Celtic languages… Anyway, upon Philip’s eventual death, Alexander inherits an empire including OTL Turkey and Iran, northern Egypt, Albania and Croatia (at least the coasts) Crete, Corsica, Sardinia, southern Italy, southern France, and most of Iberia. This will be the core Hellenic Empire, and the future home of the Hellenic Language Family. There are also Greek outposts scattered across the northern coast of Africa and the Atlantic coasts of Africa and Iberia. The empire is run according to Aristotelian principles, where the basic political unit is the polis and the citizen is a land-holding man who can equip a cavalry officer and infantry brigade. Different poli are run differently, but generally have three counterbalancing groups of hereditary royals, rotating generals, and elders voted in by the wealthy families. The economic system is mostly concerned with the manufacture and hording of treasure. The people on top speak Athenian Greek in public and Macedonian or Thesselian at home. Thracian, Illyrian, and Paeonian mercenaries are all over the place, and most scribes and low-level bureaucrats speak Persian or Egyptian (there’s quite a bit of competition there). Non-Greeks are generally slaves. Over time, these slaves are more likely to be owned by the polis, rather than individual citizens, and rented out for whatever purpose. It’s not a stable system. Problems in the 100s BC include black-market gold, ambitious local governors, wealth concentration (in the form of gold and slaves), revolting slaves, and the Phoenicians, who are sitting the rest of the Mediterranean’s wealth. There is a push to conquer the lands around the Danube and Alps, but for now, the lack of a stable land route between Anatolia and Iberia divides the empire culturally into east and west, with the east further divided into Persian-influenced Anatolia, Egyptian-Influenced Africa, and Core Greece. It seems like the only thing that will keep the empire together would be a common enemy. I had cancer. Don’t worry. I just got the results from my four-year CT scan checkup and I’m fine.
I remember, though, when I’d drink coffee and still feel tired. I had stopped doing my podcast, my art. I couldn’t muster the energy to play with my children or go on dates with my wife. Guests would come over and leave while I shivered with a sudden attack of chills. I wondered if I maybe I should give up on writing. It was like lights going dark, one by one. Let me take you deeper. Sometimes, my gut would clench as if someone had punched me. When I went to a gastroenterologist, she used a stomach probe that felt exactly like what it was: a tiny pair of scissors. That snip my core. And the gastro nasal tube, tugging at my gag reflex every time I moved. I still can’t describe my colonoscopies in any detail or it would ruin my day. I have flashbacks so intense I have to stop and make sure there’s nothing inside me. Just now, I had to take a break. Look up from my computer. Wiggle my toes in my shoes and rub my thumbs across the tips of my fingers. I’m sitting with my laptop in a mall, not lying on a hospital bed. But for a minute, I felt as if I was. Something in me was convinced my life was in danger. As when I read a good book, I felt gripped. I was transported. At the beginning, it was like a hole had been punched in the floor. If I wasn’t careful, I’d fall into it. I remember how it felt to have a colostomy bag. I’d feel my gut pressed against my belt and think about the diets I tried before I knew about the tumor blocking my large intestine. I’d drink weak coffee, feel tired. I remember how it felt to be sick, and find myself transported again. It can be hard to distinguish between thinking about something and experiencing it. When enough sensory switches are flipped, we become convinced at some level that we’re somewhere else. It makes sense why the brain should work this way, of course. If we gave the same weight to thoughts as we did to feelings, we’d be bombarded by a million inconsistent impulses. Assigning priority based on feelings gives us a better chance of learning from our mistakes. In this case, though, there is no lesson. Only a force that drags me out of my life and back into pain. So I have to get to work with my conscious mind. I have to soothe my limbic system as if it’s a spooked horse. I rub my fingers, I wiggle my toes, I take valerian pills. I imagine my body is being filled with glowing liquid, I compose haikus. Haikus are nice because they force me to count, which is something emotions can’t do, and they help me focus on the beauty in my surroundings. If I can see a mountain gathering a cloak of clouds around her shoulders, why, I must not be in the hospital. But what about when I was in the hospital? I didn’t need help focusing on my senses then, oh no. My senses were all telling me, quite correctly, that I was in trouble. All those little pinches and tugs from the tubes in me. The crackle of plastic under my blankets. The footboard pressing into my soles. The deep displacement inside me. The fear that I would never recover. That’s when I would read. That’s why, when I think back to the hospital, I don’t only remember the pinching and wrongness. I remember the way the low-gravity horses ran on air in Karl Schroeder’s Queen of Candesce. Neal Stephenson’s “hideous swarm of giant war-oboes” in The Confusion. Sam Vimes trapped underground, screaming a bed-time story to his son. I got out my kindle and made notes on my manuscript. Imagine what life would be like if we didn’t get traumatized. Do that, and you’re imagining being unable to imagine. Trauma is how, and why, mere words can carry someone not only into terror but out of it as well. Thank goodness we can do that. Thank goodness we have brains that can be tricked into believing they reside in other skulls. What good writers do is the reverse of flashing back. We have an idea. We follow a chain of reasoning from that idea to a situation or character. We search for sensory impressions to convey the feeling of being there. Rather than falling into that hole in the floor, we build a trap-door over it. We go spelunking. We find people lying in their uncomfortable hospital beds, unsure if they will ever recover, if they will ever stop hurting, and we pull them out of there. So here I am, crying in the damn mall as I type this. But at least I can get to the end of this essay. This is like my fourth try in three years. I would start, realize halfway down how deep this hole goes, and fall into it. Now, though, I brought tools with me. Writing tools, you might say, or mental health tools. Tools for building doors over holes, controlling my descent into them, and climbing back out again. Climbing out, God willing, with something that will transport someone who needs it. originally posted on the SFWA site You thought I was kidding about writing this story?
The dial rotated, and deep within the device, a circuit flipped from the OFF to the ON position. Electrical current began to flow through a nickle-chromium coil. Nichrom is a poor conductor, and its twisted material knocked many millions of electrons from their paths toward the Earth. Screaming away into space, the subatomic particles smashed into the atoms around them. Those atoms moved, first a little, then more as the relentless rain of energy continued. Under its protective layer of chromium oxide, the Nichrom coil began to grow warm. Somewhere close by, an LCD display changed from 29 to 30. The oven had begun to pre-heat. *** Chull-Kwa Kam, pâtissier for one CIA and agent of the other, buttered the cake pans and thought of Yevgeniya. It was only a matter of time until she found out he was back in Eastern Europe. Her scrum of disaffected Russian coders would soon surely penetrate his secret identity and locate first the catering business that had hired him on, then the kitchen in the culinary school. He had very little time, but there are some things you cannot rush – in both espionage and baking. With an upside-down pan and a single confident cut with his X-acto knife, Chull separated a circle of parchment from its parent sheet. Another. And one more. The small-time mafiosos, what the Bulgarians called Mutri, had demanded a three-layer cake for the wedding at the embassy. Yellow. *** The Republic of Bulgaria and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea might at first glance seem to have nothing in common. Yet Bulgaria was once a People’s Republic as well, and its dictator once enjoyed a warm relationship with his far-eastern Brothers in Comintern. During the Cold War Era, Kim Il Sung visited the Balkan country, where he enjoyed the hot springs at Hisaria. Kim Jong-Il, it is said, very much enjoyed the Bulgarian pickled vegetables known as turshiya. Now, though, the large and stately old building that once held the North Korean embassy to Bulgaria stands empty. After what the locals call “the changes,” relations between the two countries seem to have soured. But have money and supplies truly stopped flowing from the Balkan to the Korean peninsula? “Sour” does not always mean “bad,” as anyone who has eaten turshiya or kimchi can tell you. Tomorrow, the former embassy would host a wedding. *** Paper crackled like self-destructing messages as Chull fitted the circles into the bottoms of the pans. Butter and flower followed them, ensuring the product, when it was finished, would slide out silently and without fuss. Fewer descriptions could be further from Chull’s current surroundings, however. The culinary school’s kitchen was large, loud, and crowded. Chull’s catering business was not the only one using the space, and his adopted team was only one of several crashing, yelling, multilingually-cursing melee of white-suited people. It was a nearly perfect cover, but it wouldn’t hold up to Yevgeniya’s sustained scrutiny. 101, read the display on the oven. Chull sifted together flour and baking powder, remembering the meal he had enjoyed in a restaurant with reproduction wooden cannons guarding its doors, and the powerful rakiya he’d shared with Chorbajiev. Chull had matched his host drink for drink, and at the end, face pressed against the table, the Bulgarian had spoken of a nuclear physicist among the party-goers at tomorrow’s wedding. Asparagus snapped like collarbones as two nearby chefs argued about soccer, each evidently believing the other supported a “fascist club.” “Mr. Kam, you need mixer?” asked one of the staff in an implacable accent. “Yeah, thanks.” The sifted dry ingredients slid to the side, ready, in the proper circumstances, to rise. *** The call came as Chull separated eggs. “Somebody got a bottle?” Chull cast around the counter-tops. “A plastic bottle for water? Hey, you, give me your water.” A college kid held up his half-full bottle, which Chull emptied and inverted. “Hey!” “Watch this,” Chull said and, pressing the button on his earpiece, “hello?” “Privet, sladkiy moy,” chuckled a voice like sour cream. “Or should I say sladur mi?” “Hello, Yevgeniya.” Chull held the plastic bottle over the bowl of broken eggs. Squeezed. “You have come so close to me, and yet so far, moy malen’kiy zheleznyy gorshok. How do they say that in Bulgarian, ah?” “I wouldn’t know.” With a release of his hand, Chull sucked one golden yolk up into the bottle. Another. The college kid didn’t look impressed. Well, screw him. “Oh, but the heat in Bulgaria! On the Sofiskaya Embankment, it is 25 degrees. So lovely! But in Sofia, it is how hot?” Chull glanced at the oven. “Hot enough.” “Too hot!” Yevgeniya laughed. “I am sweating like a pig in this mean little flat with nothing to do but aim lasers through the window of…well, but that is not so important, eh? Come, sladkiy tell me what you plan to wear at the wedding. I shall ensure that our outfits match.” “I’ll be in the kitchen, not in front of the guests.” That laugh again, making Chull think of emulsified butterfat and pure cane sugar. “So shall I, gorshok. We are always cooking something, eh, you and I?” “Who sent you?” Chull asked, harshness masking the voice he wanted to use with her. “If you’re in a position to coordinate…” “I love the sweet talk,” she said. “But whisper your questions into my ear, sladkiy, not a phone. Quickly, for you are in danger. Until we see each other, keep weapon close. As they say here, chao.” The line went dead, and Chull’s guts felt like chilled champagne. Yevgeniya was here in Sofia! But Chull would have been told if the FSB had sent her. Therefore, Yevgeniya was not working for the Russian intelligence apparatus. She had finally gone rogue, and she thought Chull was in danger. *** Electricity flowed through a coil of magnetic wire, generating torque powerful enough to liquify a lump of butter the size of a man’s fist. Chull poured sugar into the mixer, and waves of sweetened fat frothed. With the addition of flour and egg yolks, the mixture turned thick and sulfurous yellow, and with milk it gained density. Chull remembered the centrifuges in a hidden lab in Iran, and added the remaining flour. *** The problem was not the embassy itself, or even that the North Koreans were renting it out as a wedding venue. DPRNK embassies were famous for their nonexistent budgets; diplomats were left to find their own source of income or else starve. Well and good, but how much of the wedding money was actually going into the ambassador’s lunch budget, and how much was being converted to bitcoin and funneled into the North’s nuclear program? “Give me some vanilla,” he shouted at a passing college kid. “Vanilla.” Who was Yevgeniya working for, and how far did their interests align with those of Uncle Sam? How far could Chull trust that warning of danger? Chull whisked eggs, churning up a foam of trapped air and long-chain proteins, white as the wake of an aircraft carrier in the Sea of Japan. Now, as the net of the embargo tightened around the DPRK and Kim Jong-Un found his foreign revenue streams cut off, what tricks might he pull here in Bulgaria? And if those tricks were threatened, what might he do to protect them? A quarter of the foam went directly into the batter along with the vanilla, but now came the tricky part. With a wide wooden paddle, Chull folded the remaining egg whites into the batter, balancing smoothness of consistency with the need to keep the bubbles in the foam un-popped. He let his phone ring until he was satisfied. “Kam, are you on the telephone? All right? Kam, there is a problem.” “Yes, Chorbajiev?” Chull poured batter into one pan after another. The oven display read 163. “The physicist is dead, Kam,” said the Bulgarian agent. “Heart attack. His…his…how is the word. Pacemaker. It made a short circuit.” “Let me guess,” said Chull. “It’s a new model? With wifi?” “Had it put in America,” said Chorbajiev. “The idiot. Taka. This is Yevgeniya, right?” “I…” received a call from her. Chull couldn’t bring himself to say it. God damn it, but he wanted to see her. “I don’t know. Maybe.” “Maybe. Maybe. Is that all you can give me?” “Well,” said Chull, looking down, “the cakes are almost ready. Just going into the oven.” “Hold on, I will come before before they are finished.” *** While egg proteins denatured and baking powder, milk, and heat reacted, Chull mixed icing and thought. A fried physicist. A Russian secret agent separated from her agency. His Bulgarian contact, pickled in grape brandy. Secret plans, rising in the geopolitical heat. The chef orbited around to Chull’s station. “Mr. Kam,” he said. “Is there anything you need? An ingredient you’re missing?” Chull shook his head. “Thanks, sir, but no. I have everything I need.” *** The tops of the cakes were golden brown. At the next station over, a saucier wept, a phone pressed between shoulder and ear. “Hey!” said the chef, “Get that phone out of my kitchen.” The saucier burbled something in Turkish about his girlfriend. “Out!” “The Korean guy gets a phone.” “I’m American,” said Chull, “and they’re paying me to be here. You, they’re taking money from. Hang up and get me piece of straw.” “Eh?” said the now single saucier, “A drinking straw?” “No a piece of straw. A little stick. To test the cakes. Uh, shish?” Chull mimed skewering something. The skewer was just sliding into the first cake when Chorbajiev appeared at Chull’s side. “They aren’t going to like you in here,” said Chull. “I will only be quick,” said the Bulgarian agent. “Now tell me the truth. Has Yevgeniya called you, Kam?” “No.” He withdrew the little wooden skewer. Dry and steaming. “Perfect,” said Chull. “I’ll chill them and they’ll be ready for me to deliver at 10 tomorrow.” A gun pressed into his spine. “No, my friend,” said Chorbajiev. “I will deliver the cake. You are uninvited to the wedding.” Chull let out a breath. “You’re making a mistake.” “Shut up. It was mistake to lie to me, Kam.” The gun pressed harder. “Don’t make noise. You only stay here until I leave. Go back to hotel and tell your bosses that Yevgeniya broke your cover. You allowed this because you are stupid American obsessed with sex.” Chull inserted the tester into the next cake. “How did you know about Yevgeniya, Chorbajiev?” “Not important. Just stay out of the wedding.” “Because the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior didn’t tell you,” said Chull under the clatter of the kitchen. “Zhenya’s boys could run rings around them. No, you’re working for somebody far more competent.” Chorbajiev jerked in surprise. The gun pressed just a little less forcefully into the back of Chull’s whites. “No,” said the traitor, “I’m – ” Chull twisted, whirled, and stabbed the wooden tester into the back of Chorbajiev’s hand. The gun clattered to the floor and Chull kicked it away while the Bulgarian double-agent clamped his hand between his thighs, eyes bugging with the effort not to scream. “Oops,” said Chull. “Butter fingers.” “Hey,” called the chef, “is your friend okay.” “He burned himself,” said Chull. “Don’t worry, I’ll get him out of the kitchen. Too many cooks, and all that.” With special thanks to Argumate, Melissa Walshe, Kim Moravec, and Martha Stewart “People need a way to stave off the constant possibility that common understanding may break down.”
— N.J. Enfield, How We Talk Royal tangs wobbled serenely between the softly undulating tentacles of sea anemones. Bubbles rose in a shimmering curtain. The filter hummed. I watched the tropical fish in their tank and tried to control my breathing. “Waffles?” I said. “The ambassador is running late because of your waffles?” Lucas turned red. “I did ask him to find a source of malt for the batter, yes.” “I don’t know what either of those words mean,” I flung up my hands. “And I don’t care. You stupid boys and your stupid Western Cooking projects!” “He really liked my waffles,” said Lucas, immodestly. I looked back at the fish, which failed to soothe me. “Translator?” I said in Chinese. “Estimated arrival time for Ambassador Wang?” “34 minutes,” answered the bumble-bee-sized robot. “Estimated arrival time for the representative of the Monumental Chamber of Commerce?” “Zero minutes.” The doorbell buzzed. “Miss?” came the voice of the doorman. “There’s a…a giant…uh…a sort of giant…” “Yes, yes, send him up.” I turned to Lucas and said in English. “Okay, so we stall him.” “Oh,” Lucas looked at the floor. “We.” “Yes!” “I was just going to serve you lunch. Orata al cartoccio and mousse au chocolat.” “Translator?” “Sea bream to the paper bag,” supplied the little robot, “and foam at the chocolate.” “Sounds delicious,” I said, “but I need you in your capacity as biologist, Lucas. I don’t even know what a Monumental looks like.” I thought back to the briefing Lucas had sent me the week before. “Some kind of whale? Some kind of hippo?” He wobbled his head. “You’re thinking of the word ‘whippomorpha.’ Yes, the Architects of Stable Monuments evolved from stem-whippomorphs. That’s the clade that includes everything that evolved from the most recent common ancestor of both whales and hippos, but left no descendants on our version of Earth. The Monumental Earth experienced an Ice Age during the Eocene…” I looked at the rising floor readout of the elevator. “Will he be poisoned by fish in a bag and chocolate?” “No.” I thought back to other diplomatic/biological faux pas of the past. “Will his sweat poison us?” “No.” “Will he fit through the door?” “Um,” said Lucas, and the elevator opened. A sound rolled into the lobby of the United Nations Embassy to the Convention of Sapient Species, part scream, part rumble, part didgeridoo. “Let me immediately go away from this very small coffin, otherwise I will put you monkeys in a hole and cover you with a pile of manure!” the translator translated for the representative of the Monumental Chamber of Commerce. The forward half of the representative flopped out of the elevator and hit the floor with a heavy crack. He did not look much like a hippo or a whale. He looked like a sausage riding a scateboard. A sausage with whiskers and ears at one end and a flat beaver-like tail at the other, now visible as the enormous creature paddled into the lobby on four limbs that could have been hooves, hands, or flippers. He was wrapped in some sort of tough, transparent plastic and three pairs of wheels lined his belly, like the castors on an easy chair. He smelled like clay and sea water. Another didgeridoo blare, which the translator rendered as. “I apologize. My calling out was caused by discomfort of the body. I will not let it affect my judgement. I am (untranslatable), who are you?” I introduced myself and Lucas, and said, “Translator, flag name of interlocutor and assign temporary translation as ‘digeridoo.’ Confirm?” “Confirmed.” “I am very happy and ashamed. I go with you see your husband!” trumpeted Didgeridoo. “Clarify?” I asked, making another promise to myself that I would murder our current translation coder as soon as I found someone who could replace him. “I want you to show me your husband.” “Lucas? What’s he talking about? What are the mating habits of Monumentals?” “Um,” he said. “Oh! Polyandrus! High-ranking females have a harem of husbands — usually brothers or first cousins — who they send out to do things for them.” “Translator, flag word ‘husband’ in present Monumental language and reassign translation to ‘underling.'” I wanted for confirmation and addressed our guest. “Should I take you to my underling?” “Yes.” Didgeridoo opened his mouth, displaying peg-like teeth. I assumed that was a sign of impatience. “I know you Nationals are abnormal of custom, but with female strangers, conversation me very much uncomfortable.” “Lucas?” I said. “Right, the public sphere is males doing business with each other in the name of their wives, which means,” he glanced at me, “it might help to tell Didgeridoo that I’m your husband?” Digeridoo’s broad ears swiveled toward Lucas. “Him? This stinky male is your husband?” They flattened against the Monumental’s skull. “I am sorry, I believe your other brothers are more fragrant, but their skills are lower. I am very with pleasure because you have introduced me to your dear wife.” He raised his front flippers and made a motion with them as if doing the breast stroke. “New topic: our meeting. Where is it?” I looked down at the huge, cigar-shaped sophont on the floor, and thought of the conference room with its table and chairs. “Why, our meeting is right here.” The ears jerked back toward me and with a squeal of little wheels, Digeridoo rolled onto his back and squirmed like a playful kitten. “I am very happy because you speak to me. Even if you are not my wife, you respect me.” He rolled back over and panted for a moment before addressing Lucas. “New topic: I will relax. How is it I climb in northeast side furniture?” We looked into the northeastern corner of the room, which was entirely occupied by the fish tank. “Clarification,” I said. “You want to lie down on the couch?” I pointed at the couch next to Didgeridoo. Didgeridoo didn’t track my finger with his ears, but the translator rumble-squeaked something and he gaped, wiggling. “I don’t want to tell you that you are not correct. You stretched your hoof in the direction of a dry object. It doesn’t have roots. I am pointing to the furniture in the northeast corner of the room. It smells like fish. I like it. However, it is very high from the ground. I do not know how to climb in.” “It’s a fish tank,” I said. “It isn’t furniture. It isn’t for sitting in.” When the hell was Wang going to arrive? Waffles! Digeridoo flipped back over onto his back. “I feel very disappointed and not comfortable. I feel very ashamed.Because you are a woman, please don’t talk to me.” Lucas looked from the quivering belly of the Monumental to me. “I think you intimidate him.” I sighed. “So you talk to him. Tell him I’m sorry we don’t have a suitable place for him to rest, but we would be happy to serve him lunch while we wait for the ambassador.” I resisted tapping my feet while Lucas relayed the message and Digeridoo flipped back over, castors screeching across the floor. “What kind of food did you make fermented for me?” Wrinkled nostrils opened and snuffled between Digeridoo’s ears. “I want to confirm that the food is not your nauseating smell’s source.” I groaned and Lucas sniffed his fingers. “I smell chocolate and baked fish.” Digeridoo flattened his ears and slapped his tail on the floor. “The fish has been fired in a kiln! National, you must clarify that you put the fish in a kiln, and you have smeared the ashes of the fish on your flippers, and now you are talking to me! Don’t you know that my wife writes letters to the Pyramid of the River Delta, which is filled with Gleaming Specks of Mica? No, you must know! You are making a lot of damn pyramids on this damn Salmon Festival!” Lucas looked at me with panic in his eyes. I may not have had time to read up on Monumental Biology, but that was because I had prioritized the spec sheets they had given us and the terms of the contract they were offering. Money and future trade considerations in exchange for the manufacture of millions of devices called, by the translation software, “Toy Pyramids of the Salmon Festival.” Lucas’s fancy fish-in-a-bag lunch had gravely offended the religious sensibilities of our guest. “Uh. No,” I said. “That was…a terrible accident. No baked fish.” Then, before Digeridoo could show me his belly again, “tell him, Lucas.” “It was a mistake?” he said. “And go get the chocolate mousse and the sample toy pyramid.” “Just a moment, sir.” Lucas ducked through the door into the embassy. I smiled awkwardly at Digeridoo, who wriggled awkwardly back at me. “What sample toy pyramid?” called Lucas from the back rooms. “The one we had manufactured on Earth,” I called back. “It’s a decoration for the Monumentals’ equivalent of New Year’s. It’s shaped like a pyramid!” Lucas rushed back into the foyer with three small plastic glasses, spoons, and the toy pyramid, which looked like the Antikathera Mechanism had mated with a Rubix Cube. Digeridoo sniffed, running his whiskers over Lucas’s out-thrust hands. “What is this paste of bitter grass? I will take the toy pyramid of the day of the salmon.” He delicately grabbed the pyramid between his front teeth and rolled over onto his side, curling around the toy and prodding at it with whiskers, tongue, tail, and all four limbs. “I told you to cook something that wouldn’t poison him,” I hissed at Lucas. “I did!” he said. “There’s nothing in his biochemistry that should have a problem with sea bream or chocolate. Nothing in the literature said Monumentals think cooked fish is taboo!” “Maybe it’s only the Monumentals whose wives write letters to the Pyramid of the Mica Delta,” I said. Lucas nodded glumly. “We’re going to need to do a lot more cultural research if we want to make these people’s Christmas ornaments for them.” “I am very satisfied so far,” said Digeridoo. “Just now give me some mud.” “Um,” said Lucas. “Clarify?” “Mud!” hooted Digeridoo. “Dark mud! Silt! Soft mud! Loose mud! [unassigned word]! Clay and water and organic granules! I assume the mud in the room’s northeast corner. Please give me that mud, so that I can test the toy you made for me. Is the toy effective?” “The specifications didn’t say it needed to work in mud,” I said. “No, never mind, don’t roll over.” I looked at the fish tank, and sand that covered its floor. I pictured that sand in the pyramid toy’s many tiny gears. “Lucas, give Digeridoo your mousse. Tell him that’s the mud he wants. And don’t you roll over at me, either.” Lucas sniffed, pulled his lower lip back in, and gave the Monumental his chocolate mousse. “Bitter grass,” mumbled Digeridoo. “I am unhappy because of this smell.” So was I at the squelching noises. “However, it is apparent that the toy operates well in normal conditions,” Digeridoo concluded. “I am very happy because your species meets our lowest standards of manufacture. We will eat, then we will discuss payment.” “Eat?” said Lucas. “Yes!” said Digeridoo. “Food is a negotiation prerequisite condition.” Lucas looked at me. “Translator,” I asked, “when will the ambassador arrive?” “In 10 minutes.” I turned and looked at the fish tank. A blue tang swam by. “Ask him,” I told Lucas, “if he would mind a raw fish.” Earlier this week, I asked for writing prompts, and the inimitable Emil Minchev responded: “Remember Solo? Do the opposite”
Okay, so…IN THE DISTANT FUTURE, IN THIS VERY GALAXY… A wealthy, middle-aged woman named Foong Tandem stays on her comfortable, safe, and well-lit planet, where she joins the Rebellion. She and her partner — a small, hairless, squeaky alien whose language everyone but Tandem can understand — are assigned to accompany a group of highly moral law-enforcers in a mission to prevent a train robbery. The chief of the mission becomes a mentor to Tandem, but in a shoot-out with the robbers, the mentor’s husband is killed. The loss devastates the mentor and Tandem, herself, and continues to be referenced throughout the rest of the story. After a funeral ceremony for the dead husband, Rebel leadership sends Tandem — paired with an attractive older man whom she has never met before — to the glittering and clean campus of a tech startup. There, they recruit an engineer of high-speed space ships, who happily lends our hero her own ship. Tandem, the most careful pilot in the galaxy, gets the ship safely past a white hole. After pausing to take pictures of the local wildlife, she arranges a mutually beneficial arrangement with a fuel-processing plant, ensuring a stable and dependable supply for the Rebellion. There are no damn robots. The climax comes when Tandem’s team runs into those train-robbers again, who, dramatic reveal, are actually Imperial agents! And! Further reveal! The leader of the robbers turns out to be the son of Tandem’s mentor! That’s why the death of the mentor’s husband meant something! Tandem’s mentor switches sides. She can’t bear to lose another family member, and in a heart-wrenching scene, Tandem nearly switches sides as well. But her love-interest convinces her that the cause of the Rebellion is more important even than the bonds of family. What sort of lives can any of them have if the Empire continues to expand? There is a standoff, in which which Tandem’s team wins because of the strong ties of trust and comradeship they have made with each other on the course of the story. The mentor dies on a picturesque cliff, lamenting a galaxy in which such terrible choices must be made. And so, with an Imperial plot exposed and a valuable piece of infrastructure secured for the Rebellion, Tandem and love-interest fly off on their next sensible adventure. “Squeak!” Says the alien. “You got that right, Crispy.” This one is dedicated to Melissa Walshe
“Back in the days when it was still of help to wish for a thing,” muttered Jacob Grimm, “a younger brother dragged his elder brother deep into the wild woods in an attempt to work witchcraft.” “Hush,” said Wilhelm, who was kicking at the root of an ancient apple tree. “And don’t use that word.” “I’ll use whatever words I want in the middle of the night and the middle of the woods,” said Jacob. “If the wolves and owls hear me, let them bring the charge of blasphemy before the superintendent.” Wilhelm’s foot struck stone. “Aha!” he said. “The hearthstone. We’ve found the house.” “Did they even have hearthstones? Maybe it’s a sacrificial altar.” “So what if it was? As long as there were people here, I’m satisfied.” Jacob leaned against the tree and looked up at the stars through its gnarled branches. “Now that the wood has been firmly established as dark cold, and wild, we seek to prove it to be haunted as well.” Jacob lifted his lantern, shining it in his brother’s face. “Where’s your word list? You didn’t forget it, did you?” “No, I didn’t forget the damn word list.” Jacob pulled a folded piece of paper out of his coat pocket. “As if the ghosts we have back in Göttingen weren’t good enough.” “They’re not,” said Wilhelm. “They’re too young and weak. There’s nothing in the records to indicate that any people lived on the River Gote even as late as the Caesars.” “I suppose then I should be grateful you didn’t drag me to Rome,” said Jacob. Wilhelm grinned behind his lantern. “Let the cardinals try to command the ghost of Cicero with their incantations. If you’re right about these sound changes, we’re going to make contact with people who were to the Romans as the Romans are to us.” “The root, in fact, from which both our branches grow,” said Jacob, dryly. “I know. You don’t have to convince me. I convinced you that these sound changes were real, if you remember.” Jacob unfolded his paper, although, he didn’t need it. The law that he had discovered was a simple one, and the sound changes it predicted should have been clear to anyone with a knowledge of German, Latin, and Greek. “All right,” Jacob said. “Assuming that this place was once inhabited by the grandparents of the Romans and the Germans, they won’t understand us if we address them as Väter…” He paused, ears pricking. Nothing. Just a hedgehog snuffling in the leaves not far from his foot. “Nor patrēs…” still nothing, “nor yet patéres.” “Yes, yes,” said Wihlem, “but if <p> becomes <b> – ” “It’s the other way around,” snapped Jacob, whose lower back ached abominably. “We’re working backward. The <v> in Vater descends from a <p> in some earlier language, so the ancestors of the Germans, Greek, and Romans probably said something like patḗr...” He held his breath. The wind blew through the apple tree, but no more strongly than usual. “Is that all?” Wilhelm looked around, voiced raised as if berating the spirits of the local dead for their failure to understand. “Try again. Try something else.” “Of course I will,” said Jacob. “Why would ancient people in Germany speak the old European language? They had already split from the ancestors of the southern people by the time they settled here, and their <p> sound had become <f>. To them I would say…” he guessed at a vocative plural “…fadriz.” A new wind stirred the leaves on the ground. It swirled around the brothers and the apple tree, stronger, colder, and unmistakably intent. “I…think we’ve caught someone’s ear,” whispered Jacob. “Try another word. How about ‘kalt?’ Was it gelu? Gelidus?” Jacob shook his head, showing his teeth to the ghostly wind. “No, that’s Latin again. Our forefathers kept the old <k> sound…kaldaz!” Jacob felt like he’d been hit in the face with a snowball. Ice crystals rattled against the paper in his hands. “Damn, but that was a stupid thing to try.” He squinted at the list of words. “I know I wrote the derivation of ‘warm,’ here…” “Thermos,” said Wilhelm. “Thermos, for the love of God!” “That’s Greek. To these ghosts, we must say…” he pursed his lips, “warmaz!” It was like stepping into sunshine. Wilhelm’s lantern steamed. “So,” he said after the shock had worn off. “Would you say that’s a more powerful reaction than we’d get back in Göttingen?” Jacob wiped melting frost off his eyebrows. “God in Heaven, Wilhelm, I think that was more powerful than the priests get in Rome.” He slumped against the tree, peering blearily at his paper. “I think you’re right. Nobody has had knowledge like this before.” The <f> of Apfel came from <p> so, “Aplaz?” The tree did not grow a miraculous apple for him, but the bark did shudder under his touch, as if the powerful, ancient ghosts of this place were trying to rip the tree out of the ground. And if I could find the ancestral European people who understood the word “hébōl,” they might be able to uproot entire orchards. Jacob stumbled backward, shivering now for reasons beyond the weather. “My God, it worked,” Wilhelm said. “Nobody can trace a language back this far. Not the Romans, not the Greeks or the Arabs. Even the Hindoos and the Chinese depend on written records. They can’t…they can’t reconstruct words like this.” He held his hands out to the warm wind. “They could never talk to such old and powerful ghosts as these.” Jacob swallowed and glanced down at the paper trembling in his hands. The <sp> combination should not have changed at all, but the <ch> in German had once been a <k>… “Sprek,” he whispered in the language of the people more than two thousand years dead. “Sprek, fader.” And from the darkness, a voice answered. |
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