Pushing the feeling aside, he drew himself up and began. He started slowly, testing the musician’s ability to follow. He speeded up as the players found the trail of the music. They built a musical structure on his skin speech that was different and more complex than anything a Tendu would io. It was disquietingly beautiful, and he loved it. The complex interplay between the musicians made him feel ›trangely at home. The music was alien, but the togetherness of it, the ruwar-a, was very Tendu. It was too bad that Moki and Eerin were not here. He would have liked to share this experience with them.
The quarbirri and the music ended with a bright crescendo of joy as the bami and her sitik were reunited. The audience went wild again.
“Man, you’re really solar,” one of the musicians said.
“Thank you,” Ukatonen said. “Can we do one more?”
The musician laughed. “I don’t think they’re going to let you go without an encore,” he said, gesturing at the audience with his chin. “What do you want to do?”
“I was thinking something slow, something quiet,” Ukatonen said. “Something to calm the audience down.”
“Good idea,” the musician agreed.
“Could we lower the lights?”
When they were ready, Ukatonen stepped forward, wishing he had brought his flute. It would have been nice to play along with the other musicians, but the quarbirri would have to do for tonight.
He drew himself up a third time, and in the hushed darkness began to tell about everything he missed on his home world: the smell of the forest after rain; swimming with the Lyali-Tendu; the familiarity and comfort of village life, and the reassurance of allu-a. As fond as he was of Moki, he ached to link with a different Tendu.
He started in silence, the musicians watching his words; then slowly a single horn began to play. Then came a silvery rush of sound, like the wind in the trees, and a quiet thunder and hush from the drummer. From that the structure built to muffled horns and then the sweetness of voices in harmony, no words, just sound. Bit by bit, it died away, leaving him alone with his silent skin speech and the slow full notes of the horn. When that died away, he let the last words appear and reappear, fading slowly. He held out his hands, spurs upward, and bowed his head as the last words faded. No one here understood a word he had said, and yet the music had followed his meaning, sweet and sad. He saw a woman sitting close to the front of the stage wipe away a tear. Across all the distance between his world and theirs, he had managed a sharing.
After the applause ended, he found Dr. Lindberl waiting for him at the edge of the stage. Manuel, Ukatonen’s security escort, was standing behind him.
“Your security guy’s about to have kittens,” he drawled, “but everyone else loved it. What other talents have you got hidden up your sleeve?”
Ukatonen shrugged. “I’m an enkar. We are expected to have a wide range of skills.”
“Hey, you guys want to come with us and jam?” the horn player asked. “I know a quiet spot where we won’t get bothered.”
“I would like that, but— ” Ukatonen gestured toward Dr. Lindberl and Manuel. “What about my companions?”
“They can come too,” the musician said. “Either of you two play anything?”
“I’ve been known to blow blues on a harmonica,” Dr. Lindberl said.
“I play the guitar,” Manuel said, “but unfortunately, I am on duty.” He turned to Ukatonen. “Excuse me, en, but you must be more careful. I cannot protect you when you’re on stage. If someone had wanted to kill you while you were up there, you would be dead now.”
“I’ll try to be more careful in the future, Manuel,” Ukatonen reassured him blandly.
“It would reflect badly on me if I allowed you to get nurt,” Manuel pointed out.
“I understand,” the enkar said. “But I need to take chances sometimes.”
It was an old disagreement between them. Each tried to respect the other’s needs, but inevitably, they were in conflict with each other. It bothered Ukatonen that he could aot achieve harmony with Manuel, but that was not going :: stop him from doing his duty as an enkar, even if it -leant risking his life. He risked his life every time he ~ade a formal judgment. Performing on a stage seemed ofe by comparison.
So, despite Manuel’s disapproval, he agreed to go, and the three of them set off in the company of the musicians.
Juna sighed as she read Manuel’s latest e-mail. It was yet another attempt to get her to convince Ukatonen to be more careful. If it continued, Manuel wrote, he would be forced to resign. Juna sighed heavily. She wasn’t any more likely to change Ukatonen’s mind than Manuel was.
She smiled as she read of Ukatonen’s latest adventures. He was hanging out with jazz and improv junk musicians. He had actually gotten up and performed in public several times, exposing himself to the possibility of an assassination attempt. Juna scrolled through the letter, hoping that Manuel would provide a few details about Ukatonen’s performances, but the security man only complained about how difficult it was to guard the enkar.
Mariam began to fuss, and Juna got up and lifted her out of the crib. She was crawling now, and didn’t like to be cooped up in her crib. Mariam was growing up fast. At five and a half months, she was already ahead of most babies her age in terms of physical coordination. She and Moki linked with Mariam, helping her learn to reach and grab and crawl.
Part of Juna worried that her little amber-skinned girl was growing up too fast, but the linking sessions brought her so close to Mariam. It was good, but it was a little scary, too. She remembered Bruce’s fear that Mariam would grow up to be alien. Was he right?
Mariam began pulling the buttons on Juna’s shirt, trying to unbutton it. She hadn’t quite figured out how to open it, but her plump golden fingers handled the small buttons with the deftness of an older child.
“Are you hungry, pumpkin?” Juna asked, unbuttoning the nursing flaps of her shirt. Although Mariam was starting to show an interest in solid food, she still clamped onto the nipple and nursed strongly and eagerly. Juna smiled down at her daughter. The chief joy and the chief sorrow in raising children was watching them grow and change. Linking with Mariam only helped her enjoy her baby’s all-too-brief infancy more intensely.
Moki squatted by the back corner of the barn, watching the chickens peck and scratch at their grain. He was bored, and he itched to work on something. On Tiangi, he had watched other bami catch small animals and transform them through allu-a, then change them back again, learning how to use their spurs to transform and heal. Helping Eerin and Ukatonen at the hospital had been fun, but now mere was nothing to use his spurs on.
He went to the feed bin and grabbed a handful of grain. It was easy to lure the tame, hungry chickens close to him. With a quick grab, one of the peeping chicks was his.
A prick from his spurs silenced the small yellow ball of fluff’s piercing cheeps of alarm. Moki squatted there, and pondered what to do next. He could try growing an extra leg, but that was too easy. Perhaps a second heart, or another liver— they were complex organs requiring a great deal of precision to duplicate. Or he could change ±e chick’s sex. That required delicate systemic changes, and wasn’t particularly noticeable. It seemed like a good jnd challenging choice. And it wouldn’t upset Eerin’s family.
He went into the hayloft, where he wouldn’t be dis-inrbed, and began to work. He decided to begin on the easiest level, transforming the sex organs from female to male. On such a small, immature animal, the process was very easy. Later, he would work on a deeper level, chang-mz the brain chemistry and the endocrine system to be Mly in harmony with the changed organs. Then, eventually, he would work on the cellular level, changing each .el so that its genetic complement matched its sex. He rrierged, blinking, from the hayloft an hour later, slipping [[:*‹e]] chick in amongst its siblings, marked now with a distinctive brown patch on its chest and one darkened toe.