Moki felt a strange welter of emotions. This was so strange, so un-Tendu, yet it moved him deeply.
“Thank you, Isoisi,” he said. “I love you too.”
Ukatonen watched as the gangly chick broke free of its shell and wobbled toward the warmth of the brood lamp. It tried to settle itself under the brooder and fell backwards on its rump. It sat there for a second, blinking in confusion at the world, and then set about preening its dirty grey feathers.
“Congratulations, Ukatonen,” Dr. Lindberl said. “You’ve rrought back another species.” He was a short, squat man, with a wide mouth and a couple of moles on his chin.
Ukatonen shrugged. “The DNA was old, but there was i lot of it,” he said. “Once I’d gotten a big enough sample, the rest was easy. What I don’t understand is why you wanted to resurrect this particular creature.”
Dr. Lindberl’s wide-mouthed grin stretched across his face. “They sure are ugly, ain’t they?” he drawled.
Ukatonen nodded.
“And clumsy and stupid on top of that. But they’re a symbol, Ukatonen, a very powerful symbol. We can use these birds to raise money to help restore thousands of acres of habitat. Hell, we might even manage to wipe out all of the exotics on Reunion, and put them back where they belong. The rats’ll be the hardest to get rid of.” Dr. Lindberl shook his head. “Rats’ve killed almost as many species as we have. But we helped them get where they could do the damage. Frankly, I wouldn’t miss ol’ Rattus norvegicus one bit if it was wiped off the face of the Earth tomorrow.”
“Surely they must have an ecological niche,” Ukatonen said.
“Course they do. They’re vermin. They killed half of the people in Europe during the Black Plague, and a goodly number more during the Slump. Actually, it was the disease that did them in, but the plague was carried in the fleas on the rats.” He paused. “Technically you’re right. They’re a major food source for a lot of predators. Even so, I wouldn’t miss rats much at all. Not many people would.”
“There are animals my people would not miss either, but we keep them in the world.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Dr. Lindberl conceded. “After all, the rattlesnake is the symbol of the Republic of Texas, sort of the state bird, but there ain’t no one in Texas that would want one living under his house, even if they do eat rats. That’s about the only useful thing a rattlesnake does.”
“Why is a snake the state bird?” Ukatonen asked. “Does it have feathers?”
Dr. Lindberl grinned broadly. “That was by way of bein’ a joke, son.”
“Ah.”
They stood silent for a while, watching the chick preening its feathers under the brooder.
“So what’re you gonna do next?” Lindberl asked. “This’s a pretty difficult thing to follow up on, you know.”
“I’m going to travel for the next few months. I want to see some more of the world, at least as much of it as my security escort will let me.”
“Where’re you goin’?”
“I’m not sure yet. I want to see some more of the ecological restoration projects, actually spend time there, and see what people are doing. I’ve tried doing book research, but it’s better for me to go and see places. The books are too static to hold my attention. I’m used to words that move.”
“What are you tryin’ to find out?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Ukatonen confessed. “I’m trying to learn more about how humans think. I want to see the world through your eyes.”
“That’s a mighty big project,” Dr. Lindberl said.
“I know,” Ukatonen agreed.
“Well, in order to further your research, I propose that we go on out and get sloppy drunk.”
“Why is it that your people drink so much alcohol?” Ukatonen inquired. “Surely you must have better eu-phorics.”
’Tradition, I suppose. What do the Tendu do to get mgh?”
There are a number of substances we use. Most would -ot be compatible with your physiology.”
“You miss them much?”
“Sometimes. But if I want to, I can synthesize their ef-r:ts through my allu.”
Lindberl’s sandy eyebrows shot up. “You can do that?[[ ’;n. you all are pretty cheap drunks. Why take drugs at . then?”
It’s less work,” Ukatonen explained. “You cannot get
nigh, because it takes a certain focus to synthesize the]]
“Well then, why don’t we go celebrate? I can get drunk and you can get— What do you call it?”
“Gun-a.”
“Well, then, let’s go out and get good and gun-a. It isn’t every day we resurrect the dodo.”
Ukatonen leaned back in his chair and admired the rainbow halos surrounding the lights. The halos pulsed in time to the music, which was too loud, but complex enough to be good anyway. Ignoring his security escort’s obvious dismay, Ukatonen got up and started dancing to it, skin speech and pictures cascading over his skin in time to the music. The humans drew back to watch him.
One of the musicians spotted him on the dance floor, and his eyes widened. He motioned to the other humans in the band, and they all turned to watch the enkar dance, shifting the music in response to his pictures. Then one of the musicians set aside his instrument, came down, and invited Ukatonen onto the stage. Half-blinded by the lights, Ukatonen performed the bird chant in time to the music. The song ended, and the audience went wild.
The lead musician picked up a golden, curved instrument with a complex mechanism on the front.
“Let’s jam,” he said, and started to play something sweet and slow and haunting on his mellow, rich instrument. Puzzled, Ukatonen stood watching. Under the red lights the man’s dark sweat-sheened skin shone like the surface of a vat of deep purple grape juice.
“He wants you to do the picture thing along with the music, man,” one of the other musicians whispered to him.
Ukatonen nodded, drew himself up as for a quarbirri, closed his eyes, and listened. Slowly, he let his skin change to a dark and bruised purple, like the night sky over a large city. Red and blue patches of color flared on his skin, sliding over his body like the blaring notes sliding out of the gleaming musical instrument.
Point by point, brilliant lights appeared on his skin, moving in time to the hot, slow music. Sometimes his skin became the night sky seen through leaves. Then it shifted through the glowing phosphorescence of the warm seas of Tiangi, and then the harsh, static brilliance of stars in space, writ large on his skin.
The music drew to a close, and Ukatonen’s skin flared and died with the sound of the final note.
There was silence for a moment; then the audience cut loose with cheers and whistles, and shouts of “More! More!”
The musicians waited until the applause died down. Then the horn player stepped up to the microphone.
“Do you want us to do one more?” he asked.
The audience’s response was so loud that for a moment Ukatonen thought the roof was falling in.
“You ready?” the musician asked.
Ukatonen nodded.
“It’s your turn, then. You lead, we’ll follow.”
“I’ll do a piece from one of our quarbirri, then. It tells the story of a bami who was separated from her sitik on a trading voyage, and how she found him again,” he told me waiting audience.
He turned away from the mike, “Watch my back,” he told the musicians, “I’ll mirror what I’m doing on the front of my body.” It was an old quarbirri technique, but it should work just as well with these human musicians and their alien instruments.
Ukatonen walked to the front of the stage, feeling the heat of the lights on his skin. The synthesized drugs had •vorn off, the lights had lost their halos. Through the glare, le could dimly make out the audience sitting at their tables with their drinks, waiting for him to begin. Looking :ut at the crowd, he felt suddenly afraid.