Had she not been in alien company for several tendays, what happened next might’ve sent Isabel running – and even so, she had to steel herself through it. To say that Ghuh’loloan opened her mouth wide was an understatement. There was no word Isabel knew that could properly describe what she saw. Not a gape, not a yawn, but an unfolding, an expanding, a hideous extension of empty space. Ghuh’loloan pointed one of her tentacles toward her gullet, and with a smothered shiver, Isabel understood. Ghuh’loloan wanted her to look inside her throat. And so Isabel did, with all the grace she could muster, leaning forward – not into her mouth, of course, there were limits – and spotting an unfamiliar structure at the back. A large, fleshy sack, unconnected to what was presumably Ghuh’loloan’s oesophagus (or equivalent thereof), every bit as yellow as her exterior.
Thankfully, Ghuh’loloan closed her mouth, and Isabel leaned back. ‘Now watch carefully,’ Ghuh’loloan said, pointing at her mouth again. She formed each word that came next with exaggerated precision, as a teacher might speak to a child. ‘Watch – what – is – happening – in – my – throat.’
Isabel could see it, though she wasn’t sure that she wanted to. The oesophagus did not move, but the sack did, expanding to give the words life, contracting to push them out. ‘So you don’t . . . you don’t use that to breathe.’
‘No,’ Ghuh’loloan said, speaking normally now. ‘It is my kurrakibat, a wholly self-contained organ. An airbag, in essence. It pulls in air and it makes sounds. That is all.’
Isabel tried to imagine how she was going to relay this part of her day to Tamsin when she got home, and came up empty. ‘Then how do you breathe?’
‘Through my skin. All over, front to back. And in the same manner, I can detect chemicals in the air around me, and this produces . . . it is difficult to explain. In Hanto, the word is kur’hon.’ She considered. ‘“Air-touch” is a rudimentary translation, but it does not envelop the full meaning.’
‘I understand.’
Ghuh’loloan curled her front tentacles. ‘It is a full-body sensation, and much like smell – or, that is, what I understand of smell – it can be pleasurable or distasteful. It is easier, then, for us to use words like smell or scent in Klip, as the end effect is the same.’
‘I see.’ A question arose in Isabel’s mind, a childish thing she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to. ‘I have . . . I have heard that other species often . . .’ She sucked air through her teeth with an embarrassed smile. ‘I have heard that other species sometimes find the way Humans smell to be . . . unpleasant.’
Ghuh’loloan’s entire body gave way to a mighty laugh. ‘Oh, dear host, do not ask me this!’
Isabel laughed as well. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Do not be,’ Ghuh’loloan said, her skin rippling with mirth. ‘And please do not take offence.’
‘I won’t.’
‘If it is any consolation, I stopped noticing it within a few hours of arriving.’
Isabel groaned. Poor Ghuh’loloan. ‘You got used to us, eh?’
‘Well . . .’ Ghuh’loloan gave a quieter laugh. ‘Stars, this is a horrible thing for a guest to say. But in the interest of cultural exchange: the Human kur’hon in these ships is so overpowering that not only have I become numb to it, but I cannot “smell” much of anything else.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Isabel put her palm to her cheek. ‘On behalf of my species, I apologise.’ She paused. ‘But you could smell – you could—’ She wrapped her lips around the unfamiliar word. ‘Ker-hone.’
‘You are very close. Kur. Our word for both air and vapour. Kurrrrr’hon.’ The Harmagian gave the R a mighty, over-exaggerated trill.
Isabel couldn’t duplicate the sound, but she gave it a valiant attempt. ‘Ker’hon.’ That would have to do. ‘You could . . . you detected the oxygen here.’
‘Yes, it is very strong here, and it’s wonderful. I could stay here all day.’
Isabel had no argument there. The fibre farms were peaceful, and sitting on a bench and discussing differences of biology sounded like a marvellous way to spend an afternoon – provided Ghuh’loloan did not invite her to inspect her innards again. Isabel’s disquiet from the experience was still ebbing away, and she found herself with an impish desire to return the favour. ‘So you were asking about Human birth.’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘Do you know,’ Isabel said with a grin, ‘that during late pregnancy, sometimes you can see the baby’s features pressing through the mother’s skin?’
The Harmagian’s eyestalks gave a slight pull downwards. ‘. . . not the face.’
‘Sometimes the face.’
Ghuh’loloan made a sound of good-humoured revulsion. ‘My dear Isabel, I really do recommend that your species try spawning like normal people do. It is far, far less disturbing.’
Sawyer
The vox snapped on with a loud scratch, waking Sawyer with all the courteousness of being dropped into a pond. ‘One hour to go time,’ Oates announced. ‘Up and at ’em, folks.’
Sawyer processed the message, processed his surroundings, and processed the fact that he felt wholly like shit. ‘Ugh, stars,’ he moaned, rubbing his face with his palms. He was hungover, and how. Len had presented two bottles of Whitedune after dinner the night before, and every memory Sawyer had retained after that point was hazy at best. A bellyful of corrosive kick should’ve been enough to make him sleep through the night, but it turned out that Oates, who had the room next to his, snored with a vigour and volume that could pull even the drunkest punk into a queasy, half-awake limbo for cumulative hours.
And yet, in between the heavy pulses in his temples, he remembered other things. He remembered the table cracking up at his lousy imitation of a Martian accent. He remembered Len jamming on his lap drum and cheering loudly when Sawyer proved he could sing along to ‘Go Away Away’ – the Exodan pop song of the standard – in its entirety. He remembered Dory roaring with laughter and thumping him across the back after he choked on one shot too many and felt it exit his throat by way of his nose. He remembered Muriel saluting him with a raised glass.
They like me, he thought as he threw up in the washbasin. He spat, smiled, and half-laughed at himself. What a great look for his first day. He’d laugh in full about this, at some point, that first job on the Silver Lining when Len got everybody shitfaced the night before. Yeah, that was the kind of story you’d tell fondly a few days down the road.
He washed himself up and found his last clean shirt. It had been four days since they’d left dock and headed into the open. He could make out the Fleet in the distance, just barely – a bright cluster of lights that didn’t match the stars. But he couldn’t see the Oxomoco yet. He didn’t know much about navigation, granted, but he was kind of confused by the direction they were heading. He thought he’d heard that the wreck had been put into orbit in such a way that it and the Fleet were always on opposite sides of the sun, so nobody would have to look at it. If he could still see the Fleet, then . . . then maybe he’d got that wrong. He’d misunderstood. Wouldn’t be the first time.
He headed to the kitchen. No one else was there, but some saintly person had put out a big hot pot of mashed sweet beans, a bowl of fruit, and – best of all – an open box of SoberUps. He availed himself of everything, plus a giant mug of water.