really. Lonely. Hurt or wounded. Shy. And young.
You’re not so old yourself, son.
No, sir. I’m twenty-two, sir.
Sir, I really must protest. The Court Martial —
Lieutenant, if you would just listen, you would hear. We have already begun the Court Martial inquiry. Carry on, Aaron.
Yes, sir.
It started before we touched down. We had to learn about them as best we could before actually greeting them. We had to minimize culture shock—on their part but also, I think, on ours. What we learned, after breaking down their language, which is liquid and full of bubbling sighs and soft glottals—not unlike Earth Polynesian—is that in their folklore they referred to themselves and their world as the Land of the Grievers or the Place of Grieving. For us, though we learned about it early, it became the hardest concept to grasp, for we come from a culture that tries to push grief into the background of our lives, bury it. I was reminded, as I studied the tapes, of a tombstone next to my mother’s. She was buried in a small old country cemetery in Vermont—that’s Earth, sir—where she had lived all of her life. Where I have lived all of mine until she died and I was sent to stay with my father near the spaceport in Florida. The tombstone had been barely readable, but I’d been able to make it out. “It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch.” I carried that phrase with me for years after, a kind of grisly talisman, until I came to this place, L’Lal’lor.
From the beginning the language came easily to me, unlike some of the other anthros who had to struggle with it. All the reports of the histog people and the geols led us to believe that the Henderson’s IV civs were going to be friendly, unwarlike, and unthreatened by us, which meant we could take along only the minimum of military advisers, which we preferred. Their air was breathable, though it would take a bit of getting used to, the oxygen count was a bit thinner than we’d have liked. But given that our guilds have worked in headhunting territories and societies where torture is an art and slogged through planets on which giant carnivores were the closest things to a civilization, Henderson’s IV was not a threat. We needed no heavy artillery to survive.
The first five years, then, we studied their language, folklore, art forms. We listened to tapes of their songs. Since I’m a pretty fair hand on guitar and sitar and other strings—ethno-musicology was my minor at the Academy—I was able to reproduce some of the songs myself. I’ve never liked electronic stuff, which makes me something of a throwback anyway.
But of course what we were really all working toward was the time we could go planetside and face-to-face with the civs.
I was chosen for the first landing because of my ability with the language and my music and my knowledge of death-centered societies. I did my thesis on tomb imagery in seven First Contact civilizations. And maybe I was chosen because I was Dr. Z’s fair-haired boy—oh, I’ve overheard the whispers. But most of what I’ve learned about being an anthro, I’ve learned from her. I’m not ashamed to admit it. She’s a—a genius, sir. And we thought we had a pretty fair handle on things.
We set down the skimmer just outside the only city on the planet, L’Lal’dome. The rest of the eastern side of the island continent is a series of small rural villages surrounded by farms and the west is mostly mountains, though there is a rough ridge of hills to the north of ’Dome.
I can read maps, son.
I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to imply…Well, then we waited.
Following landing plan set by Culture Contact, sir. Sit and wait for the civs so as to appear non-threatening.
Lieutenant, I’ve been in service longer than you’ve been able to wipe your nose.
Yes, sir.
It took the better part of a day, but at last a party was sent from the ’Dome to greet us led by a priestess and a company of archers.
Women, sir.
You’re not so old yourself, son.
No, sir. I’m twenty-two, sir.
Sir, I really must protest. The Court Martial —
Lieutenant, if you would just listen, you would hear. We have already begun the Court Martial inquiry. Carry on, Aaron.
Yes, sir.
It started before we touched down. We had to learn about them as best we could before actually greeting them. We had to minimize culture shock—on their part but also, I think, on ours. What we learned, after breaking down their language, which is liquid and full of bubbling sighs and soft glottals—not unlike Earth Polynesian—is that in their folklore they referred to themselves and their world as the Land of the Grievers or the Place of Grieving. For us, though we learned about it early, it became the hardest concept to grasp, for we come from a culture that tries to push grief into the background of our lives, bury it. I was reminded, as I studied the tapes, of a tombstone next to my mother’s. She was buried in a small old country cemetery in Vermont—that’s Earth, sir—where she had lived all of her life. Where I have lived all of mine until she died and I was sent to stay with my father near the spaceport in Florida. The tombstone had been barely readable, but I’d been able to make it out. “It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch.” I carried that phrase with me for years after, a kind of grisly talisman, until I came to this place, L’Lal’lor.
From the beginning the language came easily to me, unlike some of the other anthros who had to struggle with it. All the reports of the histog people and the geols led us to believe that the Henderson’s IV civs were going to be friendly, unwarlike, and unthreatened by us, which meant we could take along only the minimum of military advisers, which we preferred. Their air was breathable, though it would take a bit of getting used to, the oxygen count was a bit thinner than we’d have liked. But given that our guilds have worked in headhunting territories and societies where torture is an art and slogged through planets on which giant carnivores were the closest things to a civilization, Henderson’s IV was not a threat. We needed no heavy artillery to survive.
The first five years, then, we studied their language, folklore, art forms. We listened to tapes of their songs. Since I’m a pretty fair hand on guitar and sitar and other strings—ethno-musicology was my minor at the Academy—I was able to reproduce some of the songs myself. I’ve never liked electronic stuff, which makes me something of a throwback anyway.
But of course what we were really all working toward was the time we could go planetside and face-to-face with the civs.
I was chosen for the first landing because of my ability with the language and my music and my knowledge of death-centered societies. I did my thesis on tomb imagery in seven First Contact civilizations. And maybe I was chosen because I was Dr. Z’s fair-haired boy—oh, I’ve overheard the whispers. But most of what I’ve learned about being an anthro, I’ve learned from her. I’m not ashamed to admit it. She’s a—a genius, sir. And we thought we had a pretty fair handle on things.
We set down the skimmer just outside the only city on the planet, L’Lal’dome. The rest of the eastern side of the island continent is a series of small rural villages surrounded by farms and the west is mostly mountains, though there is a rough ridge of hills to the north of ’Dome.
I can read maps, son.
I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to imply…Well, then we waited.
Following landing plan set by Culture Contact, sir. Sit and wait for the civs so as to appear non-threatening.
Lieutenant, I’ve been in service longer than you’ve been able to wipe your nose.
Yes, sir.
It took the better part of a day, but at last a party was sent from the ’Dome to greet us led by a priestess and a company of archers.
Women, sir.
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