Instead, I felt a sharp tingling sensation that traveled through my digits to my upper limbs, and then up my body until it reached my jaw.
The pain was almost as intense as the original injury. I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the wall. I would not scream. I would die with dignity.
The vibrations stopped and the wall exploded with the colors of life.
“I don’t understand,” I said in a perfect tirade of spoken words, smells, and color. With that speech came full understanding.
The wall had cured me. It had performed a cost analysis and had determined it would prove more cost effective to cure me.
I was blessed. If few had been injured, even fewer had ever been cured.
I bowed low and thanked the wall profusely. The wall, as always, remained cold and nonfunctional after dispensing its verdict. I would never know why it had gifted me with healing and life, but I accepted this blessing as an opportunity to correct my errors of omission.
We had not yet signed a contract. My fellow teammates had decided to withhold even the three site names while they contemplated this latest development. By the time I arrived for our private meeting, they were considering abandoning Earth and forfeiting our option payment.
“It’s bad enough that they are idiots,” Vaaishya dy Keem Briice said. “But they attempted to kill us. If they had planned better, we would all be dead.”
“What if they wait until all our factories are built and then destroy them?” Vaiishya dy Baase Roitz asked. “The potential losses could be devastating.”
“They are not idiots,” Vaaishya dy Ziam Toolan oozed the scent of repulsion. “They are madmen. We could never trust them.”
Toolan turned to me. “Why didn’t you recognize this? It is your duty to facilitate communication. Should you not have led them to reveal their insanity?”
I waited for the sound and scent to die down before speaking. “I have had a learning experience,” I said. “I spent some short time as their captive and I learned that some of our original beliefs about their communication were incorrect.”
The room filled with silence louder than any I had ever experienced in my life. “I confessed my failing to the wall just a short time ago and waited for termination. Instead, the wall healed me so I could stand before you now, able to communicate normally. The wall would not have spared me if I didn’t still have something to contribute.”
“The wall spared you because it would take too long to send another Tween!” Roitz said. He turned yellow and emitted the scent of contempt.
No one else said a word. They all sat there with their smooth faces and perfectly still limbs, secreting scents of dissatisfaction and turning yellow with displeasure. They all agreed with Briice.
“We should meet with the humans tomorrow and discuss our concerns,” I said. “I will facilitate the conversation.”
With that statement, I left the room and did not return. I spent the rest of the day and most of the night using the Earth viewing machines to study everything I could find about humans… with the sound off.
I saw patterns.
The humans sat stone-faced and motionless at our table the next morning. They said all the right words. They disclosed all the right details. They performed all the proper rituals.
But I was not fooled. Not anymore.
I saw patterns. Layers and layers of patterns.
The woman beside me wore a silk suit that fit her perfectly and shoes made of fine leather. The man across from me wore an equally well-fitting suit and shoes made of crocodile skin. Behind us, the escorts wore ill-fitting uniforms made of inferior cloth and their shoes were identical, black, and of inferior quality when compared to those shoes around me.
Even their clothing was a form of communication! It shouted their caste standing.
The human representatives sat stone-faced, without any of the gestures I’d seen during captivity, and I realized then that this was more for their benefit than our own. Without gestures and expressions, it was easier to lie.
They were sorry to announce Feerow’s death, which they all felt deeply. They had arrested my captors and they would be punished. They were still looking for those who had bombed our shuttle and would not stop until they, too, were punished. Nothing like this could ever happen again. The factories would be secure. There was no reason to deviate from our original plans.
My brethren looked to me for guidance and I led them, brilliantly, to a conclusion in which Earth government agreed to compensate us for any damage that might occur at any of the factories due to similar events in the future. They also agreed to provide their own security forces to guard our plants for the next fifty of their cycles.
Briice named the three sites. Siberia. China. Pakistan. All three offered isolated areas and a population eager and willing to work seven days out of seven.
I noticed the tightness of shoulders among the losing representatives and the relaxed limbs of those humans who represented the three sites selected. I also recognized, for the first time, the difference between polite smiles and genuine smiles of joy.
At the end of the day, I gathered with my brethren in blueness and pleasant scents while we congratulated one another upon overcoming the impossible.
“You facilitated well,” Briice said. “I had not expected to change my mind.”
“The humans were willing to sacrifice much for this,” I replied.
“How could you tell?” Tooland asked.
By the jaw muscles that twitched on one representative, and the way two of them flinched when various counterproposals were offered,
“Body language.” I turned a deeper shade of blue and emitted the scent of satisfaction. “I learned that their language is far richer than we’d ever imagined.”
Roitz flashed purple. “The muties? Well, you are the Tween. If you say they are rich, then they must be so. I do not see it.”
Because they did not wish you to see it.
In the morning, I stood in front of the wall of judgment and I could not stop myself from turning a rich shade of blue. I had done well. I had learned much. Surely the wall would recognize my value and reward me with a new position whose duties would occupy me for many years to come.
My name is Tween dy Kula Niiam and I can justify my existence. lam a Tween. I facilitate communication. I have years of experience and adapt quickly to new situations.
The wall flashed life colors, as I had expected, and rewarded me with the immortality that I had always wanted so very much. I thought my life was perfect. But then it gave me my new assignment, which was to last until completed. It would take longer than eternity to complete this task.
I turned dark green and almost brown. I could not restrain myself. This time, the always-silent wall broke its usual silence about assignments and offered me insight.
The reward for a job well done is more challenging work.
An old proverb. One I should have remembered.
I watched most of my brethren leave. Soon, a new crew would arrive to construct the factories and hire employees. Another crew would arrive not long thereafter to provide continual oversight.
I would not be at those factories. I was to walk among the humans and convert them to the way of truth, light, and profit margins.
I will live forever and I must spend that eternity among the heathen humans, attempting to save them from themselves.
How I envy Feerow!
ANAKOINOSIS
by Tobias S. Buckell
DAYS AGO MY AEROKRAT left me at the edge of the forest. Now I ran back toward the break in the thick, tall woods, hoping to find him again. I wanted to return to his safety and bondage.