Bob drank more liquids.
“We are missing each other, I think,” he said. “We don’t understand each other.”
I was excited.
“Yes, we must understand.”
He grabbed my hand.
“Come on, we’re going out.”
Bob took me to the graves. Tiny white crosses spilled out over the hill like strange saplings.
“In just two years since we first came to this planet, look at all the whiffets worked to death.” He swept his arm at them.
I looked at the hill, thinking of all the foreparents there. Many of their memories swirled through me like a storm. They were not lost, their memories were all over the place, in other whiffets working for the aerokratios.
“They are remembered.” I looked up at Bob. “What is your complaint?”
“You are being exploited.” Bob walked around in circles. “It is bad.”
“Why?” I sat on the bare ground. “What else would you have us do now that we are here, an ocean away from our homeland?”
Bob’s lips moved, but nothing came out for several seconds.
“It’s not just you,” Bob said. “That is bad enough. But we are also destroying ourselves.” Bob crouched next to me and put his head in his hands. “Losing our self-sufficiency and innovation. You know, the other day one of the trucks broke, and instead of fixing it they chose to build a wagon pulled by whiffets… it’s easier and quicker than spending time trying to figure out how to fix the truck.” Bob looked at me. “It’ll keep going like that. First we used you to serve tired workers drinks and get into small areas we can’t. They said it was better to relocate the robots into dangerous areas, we needed more help than just the people we’d unfrozen. But soon they will use your labor to replace other things. We’ll be taking away the greenhouses and using whiffets out in the fields to grow crops. And then, when the robots break down, you’ll be doing that work, too.”
A thrill shot up my back. All these new things we would be doing!
“This is wonderful.” I stood up. “You came from the sky and blessed us with all these new things. And now you tell me you will give us more.”
Bob pushed his fingers through his hair.
“You make things worse thinking like that.” He pointed down at the direction of the Hopper. The great legs poked out. Smoke rose from its pipes. The maw gleamed with fire. “We were just passing by this system when our ship’s shield failed. We were moving so fast the interstellar dust just ripped through the hull. Half of the passengers died, and hardly anything of use survived. This was the best place they could find on short notice. The engineers dropped down plan-etside near the best resource-rich area they could find. They think the hopper can manufacture enough of the parts they need.” He pointed up at the sky where aerokratois came from. “They say we can, but I don’t think they’re going to be able to fix the damage. It’s been two years and we’re hardly any closer, and the hopper is beginning to show signs of failure.” Bob poked at the dirt. “They’re many more passengers in storage up there that they’re going to have bring down before more life support systems fail on the ship. That’s why they’re making the roads and buildings: temporary housing.”
More? More aerokratois?
I jumped up.
“This is marvelous!” I wanted to share this new information, to ask if I could leave again, but Bob heard sounds from the tiny machine on his hand and sighed.
“Time to work.”
Bob directed teams of whiffets. We built huts for the aerokratois. It was long, hard work. Others around me, their fur thick, clumping, and ready for anakoinosis, talked with me as we sawed wood and hammered the buildings into shape.
Even though I could talk to other whiffets while I worked, we all knew this did not bring true understanding. For us speech was just a shadow of the truth. Only through constant anakoinosis could we truly be a community, and know what lay in each others’ hearts through the shared memories of our foreparents.
Because we could not understand the aerokratois, we were happily there to work, observe, and struggle to understand them.
And Bob had told me interesting new things.
Bob kept me out of sight. He let me work with other whiffets, but then hid me in his hut at night. He was worried about other areokratois realizing I had returned.
“They might decide to do something to you,” Bob said. “Some of the men are worried that one day the whiffets will start running away.”
“Do not worry,” I said. “We will not leave your side.”
That did not make Bob relax, it made him drink more of his different colored liquids.
It took several days of work before Bob talked to me about leaving again. My fur had thickened considerably, and was full of healthy clumps. Bob and I sat at his table. He turned away my attempts to cook dinner for him, or mix his funny liquids.
I asked Bob if he would let me leave again.
“Won’t you just come back?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Where are you going?” Bob stood up and looked out the window. “How long?”
I was excited.
“Anakoinosis! I will share what I have learned about your ships in the sky and your prediction of more of your kind coming to live among us.”
Bob’s voice sounded like it was cracking. “You will not try to escape, then?”
“I could not do that,” I told him.
He shook his head.
“What is this anakoinosis? The men told me you mean sex,” Bob said. I stared at him blankly. “Reproduction?” Bob continued.
I grabbed his hand.
“I will show you what it is.”
In all my memories, in the last two years, and so many generations of whiffets since the sky broke and aerokratois came among us, I don’t think any of the aerokratois had taken the time to understand what anakoinosis really was.
They were too busy worrying about the Great Repair and how to feed the Hopper with Metal.
Two years was not long to them.
Bob followed me out of his hut.
A small group met on the far side of a hill an hours’ walk away from the lights and buildings. They didn’t know what to think about Bob, but I talked to them gently until they agreed to let him stay.
Bob sat in the grass and watched.
One of the four whiffets still had patchy fur, but he was excited. He had learned how to operate one of the yellow machines by looking in through the windows at the aerokratois while they operated it.
It would have been better to wait until his fur was thick, but he was in a dangerous job. I chose him.
The other three faced each other, a triple act of anakoinosis. I turned away from them and grabbed the arms of the other.
His tattoo was NL-501.
I leaned forward and brushed my cheek against his, hugged him; and felt my skin stir. He smelled of machinery, aerokratois, and dirt.
I slowly began to molt as we held each other tight. The fur on my arms and chest intermingled with his. We rotated, pushing our backs against each other, then rubbed our legs together.
Fur sloughed off, responding to touch, and drifted into a compact ball on the ground. Naked, we both sat next to the new egg and watched it bind itself tight.
The loss of fur made me very hungry, and tired.
I let go of 501 and walked over to Bob, who sat very still.
“Explain this to me.” I could barely hear his voice as I sat next to him. We watched the trio standing over by their own egg.
“This child, when it matures will have both the memories and understandings of my insights with you, and the insights of learning how to operate the yellow machines,” I tell Bob. “That is anakoinosis; true understanding. The egg will be brought to our masters, and they will choose who to bind the children to, as that will let them learn more than I could ever teach them. They know everything that I have known.”