Aether quickly composed her response as she unfastened her restraints. Peripherally, she observed Qin following her lead.
“We’re grateful for your welcome and will enjoy walking with Skinny and learning of Threck and ‘Seekapock.’” She’d considered including before we leave you but decided it was too early to gauge their response to such a statement. Instead, she inserted synths of Skinny’s uncatalogued words into her response. “Please, what is meaning of this word, Seekapock? And this place name, Eekareth, does it have meaning?”
Skinny took a step out of the pod as Aether stood up and leaned forward. “Yes, meaning! Eekareth is the base. The home of resist. Home that is not home, but visit place. And Seekapock, these are Skinny. These are all who are not Threck.” Skinny pointed at those around him as they spread backward. “These are Seekapock… these… these ones… these… you. Aether and Qin are Seekapock of Orange People of the white egg. Understand?”
“I think I do.” Aether’s arms waved out, curling in to point at herself—the only way to denote “I” in Threck.
Skinny and several others began singing a single, climbing note, like an opera singer reaching a crescendo.
Qin asked in a spooked voice, “What the hell is that? What’s happening?”
Livetrans answered for both of them:
LIVETRANS: [laughter]
Aether felt Qin’s hand on her back as she stepped out of the pod and onto solid ground for the first time in nearly 30 years.
“Thing that is alive?” Aether replied after the merriment subsided.
Skinny laughed again. “Smart thing that is alive… that is not Threck.”
Aether peered around at dozens of curious eyes.
Qin again: “Some have weapons.”
“She says we’re here to learn,” Aether replied from the corner of her mouth. “She wants to teach us. We’re safe, at least for now. Stay calm.”
Aether felt her boots slowly sinking into the muddy soil as one of the Seekapock approached and handed the still-nude Skinny a cloak—initiating a rapid dressing process that lasted all of five seconds. Aether watched with fascination as Skinny’s leg tentacles suddenly curved inward, spreading into a split until she lay flat in the mud, stretched out between the legs of the crowd. She wiggled for a moment, covering her skin in mud, then rose up partially, arms dipping the cloak into a particularly wet patch of mud, as if cleaning it of its dryness. Finally, Skinny opened the square of cloth, slid it over herself, and popped her head up through a wide slit in the middle. Standing fully upright, Skinny now appeared as all Threck did when venturing outside the city walls: skin and cloak coated in mud. She even appeared taller upon dressing (though Aether’s leggy frame had several centimeters on all of them).
“That doesn’t look good,” Qin said an instant before the crowd of heads all twisted in the same direction.
Aether turned to see another Seekapock stomping their way, thick legs rising and curling and landing with dance-like rhythm. It reminded her of Tom and a loopvid he’d made of precisely this style of walking, captured by an observation unit and synced with risco music. And it reminded her of Minnie, cry-laughing as it repeated endlessly on her fone. “I can’t stop watching!”
The approaching stomper had many questions. “What is this? What are these? Why brought here?”
Skinny turned to face the new arrival and stood even taller. “These are new Seekapock—Orange People of the water. They… white egg… and travel the ocean. They speak Threck words.”
Aether noticed layers of raised, overlapping scars covering every visible swatch of the newcomer’s flesh. Even the rubbery folds of eyelid bore the marks of a hundred battles.
Blotchy eyes studied Aether and Qin. “These understand what say I now?”
Aether wasn’t sure if she should answer, and so instead let Skinny continue speaking for her.
“Yes! They understand! This is called Aether and this other is Qin.” Skinny turned to face Aether. “Orange People, it is your pleasure to meet… leader of resist. Aether—” Skinny paused. “Is Aether Orange People leader?” Skinny’s eyes flipped from Aether to Qin and back.
“Yes, I am leader,” Aether replied and queued up Skinny’s mention of the leader’s name. “It is our pleasure to meet Eeahso and to be welcome in this place. Where shall we go to rest and speak more words of each other’s history?”
The crowd laughed again, though Aether had no clue what triggered them. She assumed Livetrans had an incorrect translation in there somewhere.
“This one Aether?” an unamused Eeahso asked, and Skinny confirmed. “They look same. How tell apart?”
Skinny peered at the pair once more before concluding that “Aether is bigger of these.”
Eeahso turned to face Skinny and grabbed her with both arms. “Listen now. We not have days to spend with these… and watch copy Threck words. We have imick at dusk. Distraction only, these, unless they have helping. How you know these not new Threck?”
“This is what I wish to learn,” Skinny said. “All of this.” And Eeahso stomped off, large globs of mud flinging in every direction, much of it landing on heads and even eyes, but with no one appearing to notice or care.
Skinny turned to Aether and raised a single arm toward her. Aether must have recoiled without realizing it. The club hung in mid-air, strings of silver palm cilia slowly waving side to side, like a stadium full of enthusiastic fans.
“Is it respectful that I touch Aether?”
This was an important moment—not only for the potential precedent her response might establish, but for the fact that Skinny had asked. To be concerned with what is respectful, to view “Orange People” as people with customs or preferences, and to care what those are, these were indications of a highly advanced, civilized people. Aether was beginning to see what Minnie loved about them. They might’ve been as far along technologically as the early Romans, but this regard for strangers—not even of the same species—she wondered how the average human would have behaved during the equivalent era.
Aether reviewed her response, previewed Howard the Threck’s associated gesture guide, and played the translation.
“Orange People do exchange limited touches between friends—extremities only. I understand that Seekapock may not appreciate touching of head and especially mouth. This is same with Orange People. May I demonstrate customary greeting?”
Skinny was silent and still for a moment, thinking. Her eyes hid and reappeared twice before, “This I want more than any other thing at this time.”
Aether extended her gloved hand in front of her to shake. Skinny ogled it, glanced up to Aether’s eyes, then down once more. Skinny’s arm twisted counterclockwise so that the cilia-covered palm area faced out, extending it before her in a mirror of Aether’s stance. Aether leaned gently forward, easing her hand to Skinny’s pad until contact was made. Aether wrapped her thumb softly over the club, but did not squeeze. She didn’t know if it would be painful, or even appropriate. As soon as her thumb touched down, several strands of cilia stretched up from the pad and wrapped around the digit, embracing it. Gently, though. It didn’t hurt—more like a hundred little thumb hugs.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Aether said.
“This is pleasure, truly,” Skinny agreed.
Aether released, Skinny followed her lead, and the shake was done.
“Come and follow,” Skinny said, and the crowd of onlookers stepped backward, opening a path. “You will eat what I give you.”
Whereas Livetrans excelled with its verbal interpretation, it could use some help with deducing inflection and inference. She chuckled internally upon reading the last sentence, and walked after Skinny.