"Josh, you have to understand," his dad said calmly. "The Toolecks are a very efficient race. They discovered advanced biology and medicine comparatively early in their development and lagged behind in . . . hard sciences like physics and engineering. So they had a population problem well before Terra, developmentally. And the way they solved it was by—"
"Growing worms!" Josh said. "Worms you eat! We've been eating worm meat."
"It tastes the same, Josh," his dad said patiently as his mother could be heard vomiting in the bathroom.
"It's worms!"
"Josh," his dad said, with a hint less patience and possibly some trepidation since his wife had quit throwing up and was probably going to be emerging from the bathroom, soon, with less than friendly intentions, "Nari doesn't import any food worth talking about from Terra. Most of it comes from Tooleck or Nalo or Jootan and, Josh, you really don't want me explaining Nalo food to you. So you're going to have to get used to it. Worm meat tastes just like chicken or pork. It's that or starve."
"I'm gonna starve, then," Josh said, his eyes wide. "I'm going to waste away and die. At least there's ollien and keatle."
"Right," Steve said, nodding his head sagely. "Wheat and corn syrup. It's got a lot of nutrition in it, too. Good for you. Helps you . . . grow. You'll do fine."
"Iravo!" Josh said, suddenly. "That's worm meat!" He clapped a hand over his mouth and headed for the bathroom. "Mom!" he said in a muffled tone, pounding on the door. "Mom! Lemme in! Quick!"
Josh picked at his ollien and glared at the iravo. The problem was, it was good. He picked up a piece and looked at it, frowning.
His dad was being really quiet this morning and they'd ordered breakfast in the room. His mom was apparently dieting again since she'd ordered nothing. She'd gone to visit Neorak with his father on a project and lost nearly twenty kilos. The Neorakans use really complicated eating utensils and she'd blamed it on those. Of course, he'd heard that Neorakan noodles were really dried worms. But he'd put it down to a rumor until yesterday.
He bit a piece of the iravo off and chewed on it, thoughtfully, suppressing an automatic gag reaction.
"It's not that bad, Mom," he said, swallowing and suppressing the gag reaction again. "And the ollien is okay. Try it with the keatle syrup."
"I don't . . . maybe a little of the iravo." After Josh was firmly asleep Jala had insisted on a precise briefing on local foodstuffs. After which her stomach was empty of not only dinner and breakfast but everything she'd eaten for the last year. Which meant she was very hungry and likely to starve to death. And she'd thought Neorak was bad.
"What's on the schedule for today?" she asked weakly, picking at a piece of iravo.
"I arranged a tour of the Tooleck temples," Steve said. "They're amazing architecture and have some tricky foundation problems in places. . . ."
Josh had to admit that "amazing" was the word for Simonan Temple. It was the last of four they were visiting and it was . . . well . . . awesome.
The temples were made from a volcanic glass that was found only on Tooleck. The glass had very high strength properties, as he'd been told three times so far, and was easily workable. The temple was almost seventy meters to the ceiling of the nave, with flying buttresses of colored glass, and the weak sun gleamed through the walls and ceiling. All of the glass was colored so that throughout the day and year the colors blended and shifted. The effect was something like walking through a rainbow and Josh had never felt the way he did now, just walking down the aisle from one strange hue to the next.
"Look here, Josh," his dad said excitedly, pointing up to a spot near where the bell tower joined with the south wall. "See that?"
"It looks like it's . . . welded," Josh said. There was a thicker spot on the wall.
"It is," his dad said, grinning. "This thing almost came apart about two thousand years ago. That was before the Tooleck were space travelers and right after the temple was built. They built it on bad soil and the south tower, which weighs right at fourteen thousand kips, started to sink. It took them nearly a hundred years to figure out a way to stabilize it. Told you they were lagging in engineering research. All they had to do was backfill it first. Maybe pile it. They ended up grouting it but they had to restabilize it about two centuries ago. Now there's a grav generator in it to reduce the weight."
"So, you're saying that it could fall over any time the power went out?" Josh said.
"Well . . ." Steve paused with an abstracted look on his face. "Hopefully not today."
The Tooleck buried their dead in glass catacombs that were up to ten stories high. The ones around the temple were smaller and old, but you could see the dessicated bodies in them. Each of the cubicles had an inscription on the front, and his dad dragged him over to one that had a special plate set on the ground in front of it.
"This is the Tooleck poet Gobasan," his dad said excitedly. "He did some of the best poetry and stories ever written. The metal plate's because so many people come to visit his tomb. They wore out the stone and that must have been tough because it's a high olivine dolomite. . . ."
Josh peered at the inscription and brought up a translation meme.
" 'At last the talons are gone from my digits'?" he translated aloud, confused.
"Uhm . . . he was really tired of writing," his dad said sheepishly. "He said there was a monster on his back every day that made him write and the only place he would find peace was the grave."
"Well, if he had to do it by hand I can understand," Josh said.
After two days in Tooleck they were back on the road. Or, at least, back in the spaceport.
From Tooleck to Nari they were taking Nari Spacelines. Josh had expected the ship to be piloted by Nari but instead, as they were being given their take-off instructions, it was clear from the accent that the pilot was a Tooleck. The stewards were Tooleck as well and one Nalo, a really cute female one in a tunic and high-cut skirt.
His mom and dad were in the same compartment, this time, but they were sitting across the aisle from him. Seated next to him, taking up two couches, was another Sjoglun. Josh hoped that he wasn't carrying Purple Spotted Fever but he resolved not to bring it up this time.
The ship left the spaceport on time and climbed into space rapidly. Josh didn't even get a glimpse of the planet this time and in ten minutes the pilot announced they were jumping to hyperspace.
He was pushed gently back in his chair and watched the stars start to blue-shift ahead and then the ship slowed down and the stars shifted back to normal. It sped up again and started to rumble alarmingly and then slowed back down.
They did this two more times and then the announcer clicked.
"Ladies, gentlemen, neuters and ?T*Reen," the captain said in a bored tone. "I'm afraid we're going to have to check in at the nearest spacedock, what? Seems the hyperdrive has developed a bit of a tick."
The announcement was repeated in what Josh assumed was Nari.
The stars wheeled around them as the ship turned and then headed off, presumably back to Tooleck. From time to time the stars would blue-shift then go back to normal as the captain used the malfunctioning hyperdrive to speed up their progress. One time, Josh was sure they almost made it into hyper. Since they were pointed in, as far as he could tell, a random direction, going into hyper would have been a bad thing. They could have ended up anywhere.
Finally, he could see the bulk of a spacedock out the window and they slid into a docking bay.
"Ladies, gentlemen, neuters and ?T*Reen," the captain said. "It will just be a moment while our highly trained maintenance teams check over our warpcore and ensure that it is perfectly functional. Please feel free to move about the cabin but be prepared to resume your seat at any time."
Josh had never been in a hypership dock and he was excited to get a chance to watch the ship engineers go about their business. The bay was, apparently, unpressurized because the beings moving around were in space suits. Again, most of them were Tooleck but there was one that had the distinctive outline of a Nari.
Two Tooleck wearing the blue and gold uniforms of Tooleck Airlines vanished under the ship for a moment and then came into view towing a large silver box on a floater. The box was marked with the red and gold bird-creature of the Nari Spacelines. The top was sealed on but not airtight and a blue glow could be seen around the edges.
"What's happening?" the Sjoglun asked, curious.
"They pulled a box out of the ship," Josh said. "It's glowing."
"Ah, that would be the hypercore," the Sjoglun said, craning over to look out the window.
"Why's it glowing?" Josh asked.
"I don't know, young Terran," the Sjoglun said politely. "I am not a hyper engineer."
"What do you do?" Josh asked as the two Tooleck, watched by Nari wearing the red and gold of Nari Spacelines, started removing the maglinks that held the top on the core.
"I am a seller of bathroom fixtures," the Sjoglun replied. "The Blefrib company makes the finest kunerac in the known galaxy if I may be so bold. And quite inexpensive for the quality we provide."
"Oh," Josh said as the top came off. The reason for the blue glow was immediately apparent; the interior of the box was packed with clear tubes through which a glowing blue substance was flowing. In one spot near the right upper corner two of the globes were glowing extremely brightly as they approached one another and the blue material in one tube was flickering as it came in close proximity to that in the adjacent tube.
The two Tooleck backed rapidly away from the box and apparently spoke by com to the Nari, who pointed at the spot and began gesticulating. The Tooleck began gesticulating back, the one on the far side of the box much more vigorously than the one by the Nari. This went on for some time until the more agitated Tooleck came around the box and grabbed the Nari by an arm, trying to drag it over to the corner. The Nari knocked the hand away with a gesture of what could be clearly read as disdain and began waving its hands again. Finally, it reached into a pouch and pulled out a roll of what appeared to be some sort of tape.
The more agitated Tooleck had apparently had enough, picking up one of the magwrenches and charging the much larger Nari, waving the wrench overhead like a battleaxe.
There was a brief scuffle before the less upset Tooleck managed to get his companion off the Nari. The more aggressive Tooleck was dragged away, still gesticulating and making some motions that Josh felt had more or less universal significance involving the inability of the Nari to find its tail with all ten hands.
A much larger group composed of a mixed group of Tooleck and Nari came out. Some of the Tooleck were in red and gold and some in the colors of Tooleck Spacelines. All of the Nari wore red and gold. More digit waving commenced with some rubbing of helmets and lots of pointing and in the case of one undersized Tooleck in red and gold a certain amount of hopping up and down. Finally, consensus was reached and the Nari approached the glowing box with the roll of tape in its hands.
Sensing something unusual was about to happen by the way the Tooleck were backing away and ducking behind large items of equipment, Josh sensibly ducked, shut his eyes and put his hands over them.
The flash was visible even through his hands.
When he looked back all that was left of the tape-toting Nari was a pair of smoking boots. The three Nari that stayed by the box were all on their backs and the interior of the box was empty of blue stuff. In fact, it was entirely empty except for some scorch marks and a cloud of slightly blue vapor that hung around it in a pall.
The Nari were hauled away on floaters, except for the boots, which were ceremoniously dropped into a clear bag by the small Tooleck wearing red and gold.
The box was hauled away. A blower appeared and sucked up the cloud that was still hanging around despite the vacuum. Then a warpcore marked in blue and gold was rolled into the bay and under the ship. After a bit of clanging from the underside of the ship, the whole group dispersed. The short Tooleck in red and gold appeared to be skipping as he left, dangling the bag with the boots in one hand.
"Ladies, gentlemen, neuters and ?T*Reen," the captain said, "please resume your seats and we'll continue our interrupted travels."
As the ship lifted off, Josh looked away from the window, frowning.
"What's a kunerac?" he asked the Sjoglun.
The Sjoglun had stopped looking out the window some time before and now was sitting rigidly upright, quivering, all his eyestalks stiff and extended.
"Hey, you okay?" Josh asked.
"Fine," the Sjoglun whistled plaintively.
"What's a kunerac?" Josh asked, again.
"What? Oh." The Sjoglun paused and then for the next ten minutes tried to explain Sjoglun waste removal processes, in passing giving Josh the answer to what "Purple Spotted Fever" was.
"Gosh," Josh said, his eyes wide. "No offense but I thought you smelled kind of funny. I'm glad we just have to use the flusher. . . ."
[5: Take the Last Mango]
"Ladies, gentlemen, neuters and ?T*Reen," the captain announced as they were about halfway to Nari. "It will be necessary to make short fuel stop in Terub. We'll only be there for an hour or so. Please prepare for exit from hyperspace."
Josh cocked his ears at the buzz of conversation in the compartment and looked at his Sjoglun companion.
"Terub?" Josh said. "What's so special about Terub?"
"Ah, larva, it's a sad story," the Sjoglun said, sighing out of his spicules. "Terub was once called the Sparata of the East. A beautiful city, I have been there many times. But the local Alyt have been engaged in a civil war for the last two cycles of their sun and it has done much damage to the city, to the planet. I doubt that many more ships will dock there for fuel; I could wish we were not doing so."
"Are we going to be spacejacked?" Josh said. Secret agent Josh Parker . . .
"One would hope not." The Sjoglun sighed. "Nor that we take fire on landing or take-off. But all are possible. We shall have to see what we see. . . ."
Josh was looking out the window curiously as the ship banked to approach the planet. It looked much like most planets he'd seen so far, clouds, land, oceans. But then he saw some bright pinpricks on the surface, lights like he'd never seen.
"What are those?" Josh asked, pointing.
"Kinetic energy weapons," the Sjoglun said unhappily. "Perhaps negamatter bombs. A great battle is raging there."
"Is it near Terub?" Josh asked, his eyes widening.
"Yes."
The ship entered the atmosphere faster than for the landing in Tooleck, and the atmosphere burned at the edge of the flight-shield. Josh knew that as soon as they were down the captain would have to disengage the shield. And while the shield might stop chemical explosives from bombardment rockets, there was no way it was going to protect the ship from a negamatter bomb.
The ship banked sharply and landed at the port, taxiing fast towards the terminal. Josh got a fleeting impression of a city of low buildings in the distance. To the east there were low mountains or high hills and as he watched, one hillside erupted in white fire.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Bombardment rockets." The Sjoglun sighed again.
More explosions suddenly erupted on the edge of the spaceport and Josh watched in a mixture of terror and wonder as a flight of air-ships flashed across the port and laid down a string of bombs. One of them began to spin as it passed out of sight and then dropped towards the ground. There was an actinic white explosion from where it went down.
"Cool," Josh said, momentarily jolted out of terror and into pure wonder.
"The Nastari have the spaceport at the moment," the Sjoglun said. "At least at last report. They are supporters of the legal government. But the rebels have, apparently, gotten close enough to be dropping mortars on the edge. No, I don't think many more ships will be arriving at Terub. . . ."
There was a crowd of people at the gate, waving at the plane, as Tooleck and something that looked like short Nari rolled up in a refueling bot. The bot extended a probe under the wing as the group on it deployed around the ship. The Tooleck, who had the blue and gold markings of a member of Tooleck Spacelines, appeared to be in charge of the guards. One set of guards held back the crowd while the rest appeared to be watching for more serious threats, fingering their plasma guns unhappily.
The refueling was over in what, to Josh, seemed to be record time and the craft reengaged its engines, lifting off the ground and taxiing to the take-off pads. Another set of explosions rocked the edges of the pad to loud shouts from the passengers and then the ship took off into the skies. Josh noticed that it seemed to be maneuvering more than usual, staying low initially until it was over water and then banking sharply upwards and swinging from side to side. He didn't have to ask the Sjoglun what was happening; he'd read enough about evasive maneuvers.
A bolt of plasma went past the window, but that was all that appeared to happen. Before he knew it they were looking at the stars again, undimmed by atmosphere.
"No," the Sjoglun said, "I don't think that I'll be selling many kunerac in Terub for a while. . . ."
[6: It's All In The Translation]
If Nari was supposed to be a hot, dry world, why was it snowing?
Josh contemplated that as he looked out the window at the city of Heteran. The purple sun of Nari was nearing its zenith somewhere above the clouds, but it wasn't visible. There was plenty of light to see by, however, if anyone wanted to. Most of the city consisted of low, circular buildings that looked like dirt igloos. He hadn't been in one yet but his mom had told him that most of the Nari lived underground. He could see why with the wind outside clocking along at something like ninety kilometers per hour and blowing a mixture of snow and dust that left the snow yellow brown where it piled in shallow drifts.
There were some taller buildings, if no megascrapers, and plenty of ground cars with a few aircars zipping around wildly. Some Nari hurried along the streets as well, gripping ropes that were stung from heavy metal lampposts. The street he was looking at was four lanes wide, flanked on either side by wide gutters down which water flowed. Well, ice at the moment. Dirty ice at that, with bits of rind from some fruit, bones and other debris sticking up from it.
The biggest single impression was one of untidy mess. The small yards around the buildings were mostly dirt with some scrubby lichenlike substance growing in places and they were all littered with trash. Trash joined the snow and dust in the wind, blowing down the streets, piling up in the drifts and being lifted up in the occasional dust devil that flickered through the air.
It was an altogether unprepossessing sight. And he was going to be living here for at least two more years.
Dad was gone already. The project he was working on was near the Basadab Spaceport, which was on the other side of the planet. Since there weren't very many facilities for human dependents in Basadab, Dad was going to be working there for three weeks out of the month and then would shuttle back to Heteran for a week. Leaving Josh and his mom alone for the rest of the time.
"Josh, I'm going out to look at a house," Jala said, standing by the room iris. "Order lunch while I'm gone but don't leave the room, okay?"
"Okay," Josh said. He didn't think he was going to be running outside to play any time soon.
He read and memed for a while, checking out the very limited local infonet. Mom had put the usual filter on it and there wasn't much that was interesting. Finally, getting hungry, he tried to access a room service menu, a skill he'd developed to a high art, but couldn't find one.
Prowling around the room he discovered a menu in one of the drawers. It was printed on plascrip and didn't have any link codes at all. He was, apparently, supposed to use the device by the bed called a phone. It didn't even have a vidlink. Odd.
He perused the menu unhappily. There were little flat-pics by each dish with a Galacta name. There was far more writing in Nari, blocks and dots that he couldn't read and which the plant wasn't programmed to translate.
There was a drink he recognized called shaloop. He'd had it a couple of times before and it was okay. After looking at the food on the menu he settled on something that looked like a strip of meat and a side of some yellowish-white things that looked like rice grains. He really hoped they weren't maggots or something. With the still-pic there was no way to tell. The Galacta next to it just said: "Chelo." There were at least a couple of sentences of Nari in addition, presumably explaining what it was to people that would already know.
He walked to the phone with the menu in his hand and considered it carefully. There was a note on it in Galacta.
Eating in the room to dial 315
Physical Service to dial 316
Bed Service to dial 317
Calling Out to dial 1
Calling in to dial 2
Every Other Thing to dial 0
There was a handset with the phone and large speaker. The handset was too big for his hand and the button that had to be pushed was on the wrong side for him. Finally he got the pieces arranged and dialed 315.
"Hello?" he said.
"S'GLOR RESH POOT!" a voice screamed back at him.
"HELLO!" Josh shouted in the phone. "IS THERE ANYONE WHO SPEAKS GALACTA?"
"S'BLOG NEBBUT . . ." the voice went on for some time as Josh set the speaker down where it wasn't causing his ears to ring.
"GALACTA!" Josh shouted. "FOOD, I NEED FOOD!"
"S'GLOR RESH POOT, MORUPT G'G'LOROAT!"
"CHELO!" Josh shouted. "CHELO, SHALOOP! ROOM 748!"
"CHELO, SHALOOP, S'BLOG EBDET B'B'MOROOP!"
"I guess," Josh said, then thought about his manners. "THANK YOU!"
But the phone was dead.
He tapped his fingers together, wondering worriedly about what he was going to get to eat, then prowled around the room some more.
He'd taken a shower the night before, before his dad left and he could get some explanations of the controls. But there were more things in that room than just human settings. He fiddled with the buttons and taps for a while, carefully. The shower was on a flexible hose that you had to hold up. Right now it was sitting in the bottom of the bathtub, which was huge. Josh pressed the button he'd been shown to get water, then kept going. There was a brown viscous liquid, another yellow viscous one and then one that looked like water but when it hit the material that hadn't drained from the others flashed into steam and gave off a sulphurous smell.
"Ah," Josh said to himself, nodding sagely. "That'd be for Sjoglun. . . ."
His mother came back just as he was finishing the second dish of chelo, the one he'd accidently ordered. The meat was something chopped up and pressed with spices and not bad at all and the yellowish things had turned out to be some sort of grain or at least they looked, and tasted, like. He just wasn't going to ask. It was something to survive on.
"What's that?" Jala said as she walked in the room.
"Chelo," Josh replied. "I don't know what it is and I don't want to; it's good."
"Well, we've found a house," Jala said. "There's a Nari family that lives there but they rent out the lower floor as its own apartment. And they have a sort of small, indoor, pool."
"Great!" Josh said.
"And I found a school," Jala continued, smiling at his grimace. "It caters to . . . sort of interplanetary middle management and some of the same among the Nari. Mostly Nari but lots of children of diplomats and that sort of thing; you should be able to fit in just fine."
"I don't speak Nari, Mom," Josh pointed out.
"All instruction is in Galacta," Jala replied. "And they meme instead of writing; I checked."
The house was one of dozens of identical domes set along a side street. The door was some sort of heavy wood and there was a pull rope by it. When Jala pulled on the rope a Nari answered the door quickly. Josh wasn't sure if it was a he or a she but it waved its claws for the two humans to enter. Josh watched the claws and thought about the vids he'd shown his class. Suddenly they weren't nearly as funny as they had been.
"This is Dr. Reenig," his mother said, gesturing to the Nari. "He owns the house."
"To be pleased to have you in our nest," the Nari said, whistling the words through a breathing slit set over his mandibles. "Come, come."
Behind the door was a small room with high tunnels sloping off to the left and down. Just beyond the room the tunnels split, one curving sharply inward and sloping down at the same rate and the other continuing in the previous curve but sloping more sharply. Both were closed by irises. The Nari took the left-hand corridor, whistling the iris open, and led them down a tunnel lit dimly by irregular globes that glowed with a faint, greenish light.
The walls and ceiling of the curved tunnel weren't dirt but something that looked like plastic or maybe wood with faint, irregular ribbing and occasional oval or circular patterns. The floor was set in tile that seemed to be marble or something similar. The walls were a deep purplish-red but the tile was white turned slightly pink and green by reflection. Josh felt like he was walking down a marble-floored intestine.
The tunnel finally flattened out at a landing with another iris. This gave onto a large room that was more regularly shaped to human eyes. The floor, again, was made of marble tiles, larger ones, each nearly a meter on a side, but the walls were plaster or something similar. The corners of the room were faintly curved instead of being sharply angular but the room was decorated with humans or Oolteck in mind. Instead of the faint glow-bulbs there was sun-paint on the ceiling, currently set to mimic an earthly tone.
Josh poked around the apartment in curiosity as the doctor showed it to his mother again. There were several rooms: two bedrooms, a sitting room or parlor, a very large entry room that connected to a dining room, a living room, a kitchen with mostly human-style fixtures and a fresher room. The apartment was comfortably furnished in human-style float chairs and couches. But he noticed that all the doors were double doors and very high. And beyond the living room was another room containing what looked to be a very large oval jacuzzi or small pool. It was currently dry but there were controls to fill it.
"See, Josh," his mother said, pointing to it as he was contemplating the device. "It's not much of a pool but you can splash around in it. The doctor called it a . . . conera or something."
"Kunerac!" Josh said, startled.
"Yes," Jala replied. "He showed me how to fill it . . ." she continued in a distracted tone, frowning at the controls and then pushing a blue button.
Liquid began to fill the bowl from inlets on the bottom and she knelt to feel the temperature.
"Mom!" Josh shouted. "Don't do that!"
"Why not?" Jala said, pausing.
"Uhmmm . . ." Josh said, trying to figure out how to explain gently. "Uhm . . . you have any of those rayel things? A small one that's not worth much real money?"
"I think so," Jala said, standing up and pulling around her pouch. She frowned dubiously at the metal pieces and then handed one to him.
"Back up," Josh said, fitting action to words, and then flicked the small piece of metal into the "water."
There was a fizzing and popping sound and when they stepped back to the pool the remnants of the rayel had settled to the bottom where it was quickly being dissolved.
"Acid?" Jala asked, sniffing. "Sulphuric acid?!"
"Yeah," Josh replied. "It's a kunerac. They fixed this place so Sjoglun could use it, too." He looked at the plate set in the wall and nodded. "Yep. Blefrib 2000. No expense spared; that's one top-of-the-line kunerac."
"And what is a kunerac?" Jala asked, horrified.
Josh took a few minutes to explain.
After contemplating the explanation for a moment Jala shook her head.
"I'm glad we just use the flusher. . . ."
[7: Remember, One Seventh Of Your Life Is Mondays]
Josh stood in the cold, waiting for the airbus, rubbing his hands together and wishing he had a hat. He'd been warned that if he wasn't standing out front the airbus wouldn't even drop. So he had to stand out here, freezing and contemplating his first day at the Central Heteran Combined School. His mom had picked it out but he'd never been there. It was somewhere in downtown Heteran and that was about all he knew about it.
A blue and white bus dropped out of the air just as he was considering dashing back in to warm up and the Nari driving it dropped the force-screen over the door and gobbled something at him. Josh hurried to board and looked around at the students in the bus.
They were mostly Nari, young ones ranging from dog sized to bigger than he was. There were a couple of Tooleck, a Nalo male that looked like he was older than Josh, a Sjoglun that must have been pretty young because he was not much larger than a human adult and three or four Terrans. One of them, sitting right at the back of the bus, was a really pretty blonde girl about his own age.
He took the first available seat, sitting next to one of the smaller Nari, and looked out the window as the bus lifted rapidly into the air.
Josh decided, immediately, that the driver was insane. The airbus, its engine screaming, lifted up to about six hundred meters, stood on its side and banked to the north, then dropped just as fast and grounded in front of another house. A Nari got on, took a seat, and the bus took off again.
They picked up three more young Nari, Josh straining not to throw up at each climb and drop, then lifted up one more time and, the engines clearly redlined, headed southward.
There were other vehicles in the air but, apparently, no concept of air-control. The bus dodged and weaved, once narrowly missing an airtruck that was being towed by some large flying creatures as the driver kept up a continuous, loud, stream of what was either a running commentary or, more likely, profanity.
Josh held on to the seat, there was not so much as a lap belt, and swore that he was going to find another way to get to school. The flight, however, was short and before he knew it they were dropping through a narrow opening in a force-screen.
The bus dropped to the ground with a crunch and the students began picking themselves up and getting off.
The school was completely shielded by the force-screen, which Josh found odd, and covered about three hectares. Most of what was visible were the low entry mounds of Nari nests but there were two large above-ground buildings. He had no idea where he should be going.
"Uhm . . ." Josh said, hesitantly, to one of the humans, a teenage male. "I'm in Miss Kakousis' homeroom."
"That building over there." The boy pointed to one of the mounds that was on the east side of the compound, right on the edge by the force-screen. "Take your first left on the tunnel, should be the third iris on the right iirc."
"Thanks," Josh said. "I'm . . . I'm Josh Parker."
"Jeno Szuchs," the boy said. "See you this afternoon, Josh. Isn't Homal the driver a bastard? He does it on purpose, you know. . . ."
Josh went to the indicated mound. There were a number of sophonts around his age, as far as he could tell, going into the same mound. He took the first left and found the third iris. This building, he noticed, had the weird plastic–wood on floor and ceiling. The iris wasn't a regular iris, either; it looked sort of wet, like it was an organism or something. But it opened as he stepped up to it.
The room within was crowded with beings. Most of them were Nari sitting on something that looked like a canted saddle or running around whistling and gobbling at each other. There were some Tooleck and two humans, one boy and one girl. The pretty girl from the bus wasn't in the room, which disappointed him.
The teacher was a human female, a pretty blonde lady. He was surprised by that but pleased; he wasn't sure he was ready for a Nari teacher.
He walked up to her and raised a hand.
"I'm Josh Parker," he said.
"And I'm Miss Alethea Kakousis, Josh," the woman said, smiling. She had long blonde hair that was braided and then wrapped in a bun behind her head and was wearing a flowered dress. "I want you to sit over there behind Doosam," she added, pointing at a Nari. The seat behind him was a rock, but Josh just shrugged that off. There was an empty desk behind the rock but probably one of the humans or Tooleck running around the room used it.
"Thank you," he said, walking to the rock and sitting down.
"Excuse me!" the rock said in gutturally accented Galacta. It shifted under Josh's rump and he jumped up quickly.
"Sorry," Josh said. "She told me to sit behind Doosam," he added, pointing at the Nari.
"I am Doosam," the rock answered. The top of it formed into a human face that looked something like Josh. "Doosam Padro. You're supposed to sit at the desk, bag-of-water."
"Sorry," Josh said again, sitting down at the desk. "I'm new here."
"Yeah, I know," Doosam said. "Terrys always make the same mistake." The face had rotated around to where it was facing Josh and the mouth moved like it was talking but the voice seemed to be coming from somewhere on the side of the rock.
"What are you?" Josh asked, fascinated.
"I'm a Tr'k'k'ikil," the rock answered in a series of clicks. "Humans usually just call us Trekkies."
"Class!" Miss Kakousis said loudly, pinging over the net for order and shutting down several toolies that were being played. "Take your seats, please."
Josh did a quick ping for the datanet and was surprised and pleased that most of the class seemed to have plants or something similar.
The school net pinged for the start as a few more young beings scurried into the room and took their seats. Miss Kakousis did a general ping to take roll and then brought up a hologram.
"We'll continue today with our study of the rise of the early Laek. . . ."
Josh was sweating by the end of class. He'd heard of the Laek before he came to Nari. They were an empire that stretched over most of the local galactic region prior to the Yemnor. They would have spread over the region the Yemnor came from if they hadn't had a big war with the early Sjoglun. It had been a sub-light war; this was before the invention of hyperdrive, way back in antiquity. They were early Nari and all the worlds in the area that had similar inhabitants, like the Atyl, had descended from them. But he'd never even heard of the Sdree, non-Narioids and apparently extinct, that had been an important part of the Laek Empire or Sdreas, Segjerx or Suilak, all of them Laek emperors that Miss Kakousis had mentioned in passing as if everyone in the room knew what she was talking about.
"Your memeports on the Laek Empire's second war with the Sjoglun is due on Julsey," Miss Kakousis ended as the ping for change of class sounded. "I expect not just text but full audio-tridee. . . ."
"Come on," Doosam said, rolling towards the exit. "It's Galacta next."
They didn't even enter the corridor, just went through another of those wet looking irises into the room next to theirs. The teacher there was a Tooleck.
"Josh," the Tooleck said, skittering through the crowd of young beings. "I'm Mr. Mistoki. Good, you've met Doosam. You'll be sitting right in front of him. . . ."
Josh thought that Galacta would be easy but the class was way in advance of anything he'd ever taken on Terra. They were reading something called Sharnash' Adventures on Norham. That was okay; it was about a Tooleck that goes to visit her aunt who lives on some jungle world. But the the spelling they were learning was . . . wrong. A bunch of the Galacta words were spelled differently than he was used to. Finally, he pinged the teacher hesitantly.
"Yes, Josh?" Mr. Mistoki said.
"Sir," Josh said. "Medakalbol. It's not spelled the way—"
"Ah, a Terran," Mr. Mistoki said, waving all five eyes. "Well, Mr. Parker, this is how it is supposed to be spelled, the Queen's Galacta, don't you know, not Terran."
"But Terrans do speak Galacta!" Josh replied. "And write it!"
"Not properly," Mr. Mistoki said with a sniff. "I am aware that you've been improperly taught up until now, young Terran, but try to keep up. . . ."
"So when I'm doing this memeport for Miss Kakousis, do I spell in Terran or Tooleck?" Josh said, throwing up his arms in exasperation.
"Either," Doosam said. "Both. Miss Kakousis and Mr. Mistoki have been arguing about it as long as I've been in school here. But Miss Kakousis won't take points off for either spelling."
They were headed to recess, following a crowded tunnel downward, with Doosam trying not to run over people's feet, talons and tentacles.
"I was expecting Nari teachers," Josh said. "Not Tooleck, Terrans, Nalo . . . "
"Wait until you get to Miss Hissberger," Doosam said balefully. "She's a Jootan and limestone is she mean! We've got her for math and she's just brutal. Thinks everyone in the Galaxy is lower than the Jootan. Real Zimbot."
"Wow!" Josh said. "I didn't think there were any more Zimbot!"
"Oh, I don't mean she's a really real Zimbot," Doosam replied. "I mean, she's not going to drag the Adoo students off to the mines or sprinkle them with salt. But . . . well . . . you'll learn."
The tunnel leveled out and through a big open iris Josh could see a large room. It was filled with kids and had some sort of big fungi lining one side.
"Is this the lunchroom?" he asked, worried.
"No, of course not!" Doosam said. "This is the gym!"
Kids were running around in circles or talking or sitting on some of the fungus. At one end a game of dyup ball was just starting with the two sides picking players.
"Let's go play dyup!" Doosam said, rolling quickly across the gym floor. "If we hurry we can get there before they're done picking."
"Don't they play null-grav around here?" Josh asked, frowning. He'd played dyup before but Terra tended to have more null-grav teams while it seemed like the rest of the galaxy played dyup.
"There's a lot of Terrys in Heteran and some of the other schools play null-grav, but we play dyup at Central," Doosam said as they reached the group
"Hi Doosam," a Tooleck said as the rock rolled to a stop. "I take Doosam!"
"I'll take Denpas," the other team captain, a Nari, said.
Josh tried to look alert, happy and the best dyup player ever to be born or whelped or whatever. No luck. All the other kids gathered around, and even one female human, got picked until it was down to just him, standing all alone.
"You've got seven, I've got eight," the Tooleck said. "I'll get rid of Fidbut."
But Doosam had been talking to the Nari and the local lifted his banana shaped black head and shot out a labial extension.
"I'll take the Terry," he spat, then lifted the oblong dyup flyer and lofted it into the air. "Go!"
Dyup is a simple game with simple rules. The dyup ball is caught by a player and then thrown to another player on his, her, its or V!Tup team, who then passes the ball to the next player on the team and so on and so forth until it gets to the end of the field and tossed through a small gate called a shuttle. Players who have the ball cannot run with the ball or be touched except under certain circumstances. Attempts to pass the ball can, of course, be intercepted by the other team.
There are a few complexities.
The first of these is that the dyup ball has an anti-gravity lift and drive device that is misweighted so that it constantly spins within the ball and sends it in random directions. Thus if tossed upward it may come directly down upon the head of the tosser. If thrown to another player it may curve in any direction. It never goes more than seven meters above the playing field but other than that it will go in any direction randomly. If a player touches it and cannot catch it and it thereafter strikes the ground out of bounds it passes to the other team, assuming anyone can get a hand on it at all.
Humans are limited to catching the ball only with their right arm. If they touch it with their left arm or hand the ball turns over to the other side. They can clutch it to their body but it cannot touch the head or the right leg. It can be bounced with the left leg but only if the player is not standing in one of the seven rings. There are similar rules for other species.
This then brings us to the question of the seven rings.
There are seven rings in the dyup field, Udhas, Snup, Thawasaf, Bebas, Nihad, Idaya and George. They are placed equidistantly down the field in two sets of three with the Udhas being in the center.
A player who catches the dyup ball while standing in the Udhas ring is immune to being tackled but only if they caught it while standing in the Udhas ring. Furthermore they can only throw the ball Jnorbong, or in the opposite direction from their own goal in a 45 degree area towards the edge of the field in the direction of the Bebas or George ring towards one of their own team's players and players from other teams are not permitted to move to intercept the throw unless the ball touches the ground.
A player who catches the ball in the Snup ring or catches it and can make it to the Snup ring in one bound is then permitted to pass the ball, unhindered, to one other player who then gets three bounds before the game begins again. The first player cannot, however, move out of the Snup ring, and the player who now has the ball gets only three more bounds before having to stop and is liable to be tackled by players from the opposite side during those three bounds. Bounds are limited to a distance of slightly less than two meters and are called "Rhmer." All Rhmer must be Jnorbong.
Players who catch the ball in the Thawasaf ring or catch it and can make it to the Thwasaf ring in one Rhmer are then permitted to run to their goal but they must first round either the Bebas or Nihad ring, depending upon which is in the opposite direction of their goal and if they were outside the Thawasaf ring they have to make it into the ring in that one bound before running to the other rings. However, they are then liable to be tackled during the run. They are not permitted to pass unless they are in contact with a player from the opposite team.
A player who catches the ball in the Bebas ring or catches it and can make it to the Bebas ring in one Rhmer is permitted to throw the ball to a player from the opposite team who then changes sides and is permitted three bounds (or seconds) while play stops, after which the play resumes and the player is liable to be tackled.
A player who catches the ball in the Nihad ring or catches it and can make it to the Nihad ring in one Rhmer automatically passes to the opposite team and is liable to be tackled. Players can throw from the Nihad ring but only Jnorbong if their current goal is on the Nihad end of the field. (Called the Radkas.)
A player who catches the ball in the Idaya ring or catches it and can make it to the Idaya ring in one Rhmer also passes to the other team but cannot be tackled, and can only throw the ball Jnorbong[1].
A player who has had the ball turned over due to passes from the Thawasaf or Bebas ring can attempt to make it to the Nihad ring or the Idaya ring. If they enter the Nihad or Idaya ring before they are tackled and within their regulation Rhmer they are immune to being tackled and can throw the ball Jnorbong without attempts to intercept however they also automatically switch to the opposite team but only after their throw[2].
The rings take up about half the total area of the field.
Failure to throw Jnorbong, touching the ball with illegal extremities, excess Rhmer or leaving the field with the ball, even if traveling Jnorbong, are grounds to turn over the ball to the other team.
There is no tripping.
That, with some minor additional rules that run to some four hundred and twenty-three million words for competition play, is dyup[3].
In this game, when thrown, the ball traveled upwards very quickly and then down even faster, striking a Nari player on the head and mildly concussing him. There was a brief scrum while both of the team captains got into a violent argument about whose ball it was now. As the scrum broke apart a Nari had the ball and took a Rhmer to the Snup ring. Both of the team captains immediately changed their argument to whether it was a valid Rmer or not, the captain from the opposite team insisting that levering oneself up counted as half a Rhmer with the other violently opposing that call. Both eventually started rolling around on the ground, punching at one another, while the game proceeded around them.
The Nari, who Josh was pretty sure was from the opposite team, tossed the ball towards him. It curved to the right but Josh snagged it with one hand and a legal knee bounce, then realized that in three bounds he was going to be liable to be tackled so he quickly threw the ball to some spiderlike creature who was immediately piled with bodies. This was technically illegal but the spider creature, when he crawled off the field, wasn't in any position to protest.
During the scrum the ball shot out and upwards, going down the field rapidly with all the young beings that were hale following it in a milling, screaming, crowd. Josh joined in and was quickly tripped by a Nari he was virtually certain was from his own team. The ball was finally tackled by a small Sjorglun while in the Udhas ring. He threw anti-Jnorbong, or so the opposite team's captain contended, at which the two captains got back to their fight.
The ball, which had been tossed towards a Tooleck, shot up into the air and then bounced off the ground, rolling out of bounds. However, before anyone could catch it, it bounded into the air again and went off across the field. It was finally caught by a very small Nari who was carefully standing outside all the rings.
"That's supposed to change to Tforlock's team!" Doosam shouted, rolling towards the Nari.
"I'm on Tforlock's team!" the Nari shouted, struggling to hold the active ball in two of his left pseudoarms.
"No you're not!" Doosam shouted, rolling over and extending two pseudopods to wrestle the ball away. "You're on Hemshots!"
"Am not!" the Nari contended, grabbing the ball with all his arms.
"Foul!" Josh called.
"Not with Nari," Dossam said.
The ball scrabbled loose and went into play again. Josh managed to jump off Doosam and land with it in the Thwasaf ring. He was clear, most of the team having darted down the field in pursuit while he was bending over getting some breath and trying not to throw up breakfast. So he took off down the field, headed for the Nihad ring.
Just as he rounded the Nihad he felt something slam into him and he went to the ground with Doosam on his back.
"Sorry," Doosam said, scooping up the ball. "I got caught in the Nihad."
"You're in the Nihad again," Josh said, pointing to the red painted ring.
"So I am," Doosam said, looking at the wall of bodies headed his way. "Catch!"
Josh had already thrown the ball when he was covered in players.
"Hey!" he yelled from the bottom of the pile. "That was a fair catch!"
"Upfield! Upfield," one of the team captains screamed.
"I'm going to find the bastard that invented this game and kill him," Josh said, trotting in the direction of the ball. Suddenly it hit the ground, bounded into the air, changed course and headed back down towards where Josh was trotting and Doosam was rolling slowly.
As it passed overhead, Josh felt pseudopods wrap around his belt and arm.
"Go get it!" Doosam shouted, suddenly extending up like a megalith and tossing the Terran through the air.
"You're on the opposite team!" Josh yelled.
"No I'm not," Doosam said. "You were in Nihad."
"That's my point!"
Josh managed to snag the ball with one hand. He pulled it into his chest, then had a brief but unpleasant moment of realization that he was about six meters in the air and descending. Rapidly.
He hit with a thud, his impact slightly reduced by a sudden upward bound of the ball just before he hit. He lay there for a moment, seeing stars and catching his breath. He just started to get up when he was tackled by a Nari. He was pretty sure it was the one that tripped him at the beginning of the game.
"Leave me alone!" Josh yelled. "It was a legal catch!"
"You're in the Nihad Ring!" the Nari shouted, pulling at the ball. "It's legal to tackle!"
"It wasn't a Rhmer, I was thrown and farther than a legal Rmer," Josh said. "It counts as a free catch."
"Does not!" the Nari said.
"Does so!"
By this time the ball had wriggled loose and back into play and Josh suddenly found himself in a fight with the little Nari. The Nari's labial extension shot out and punched him in the nose as Josh kicked in the vague area of the groin region. There probably wasn't anything there to kick but it was better than just getting repeatedly pummeled by the labia. The second time it shot out Josh got a hand around it and began shaking it back and forth as the two of them rolled around on the ground. The Nari's arms wrapped around him while Josh held him off with one hand, jerked the labia viciously in the other and kept kicking him in the groin.
"Here, now, what's all this then?" Mr. Mistoki said, pulling the two apart with difficulty.
"He's a cheater!" the Nari said. "It's no fair!"
"He tackled me after a legal catch!" Josh protested, sticking out his tongue and then tasting blood. "My nobe ib bleeding!" Hurt, too.
"Well, recess is about over," Mr. Mistoki said. "Now, you two were just having good fun playing dyup; these things happen. Touch feelers and say you're sorry."
Josh stuck out his hand angrily as the Nari bowed forward.
"You need to bring your sensory organs into contact," Mr. Mistoki said. "Touch heads in your case, Terran."
Josh bowed angrily, and whispered.
"I'm gonna kick your black butt, bug," he said.
"I'm going to feed you to a brooder," the Nari whispered back.
"There, now," Mr. Mistoki said jovially, "we're all friends. Josh, I understand that body fluid loss in endoskeletal creatures is not all that serious but you are . . . leaking . . . rather . . . profusely. . . ." The Tooleck trailed off and then keeled over backwards, all five eyestalks retracted into his cranial cavity.
"Can't stand the sight of body fluids," Doosam said, rolling up behind them. "You might want to stay away from Malfoo."
"Who?"
"Malfoo, the kid you were fighting. His dad is in the Nari security forces and he can make a lot of trouble for you."
"Oh," Josh said, looking around for the little Nari, but he had disappeared. "He tripped me."
"Yeah, well, he's a migbop if you ask me," Dossam admitted. "But you still need to watch your back around him. Let's off. Art next!"
"Who won?" Josh asked.
"Zero, zero," Doosam muttered unhappily.
"Oh, just like normal. Remember last year when the Galactic Cup was awarded based on which team could do the better macarena?"
"Feel the creative energies of the universe!" the teacher squeaked, waving two forelegs in the air ecstatically. "Let them flow, flow through you up the brush and into the canvas! Let them infuse your pigment with their spectacular scintillating rhythms!"
The teacher was a Grantin, a being that looked something like a large, green, daddy longlegs. Very large. Her body was suspended about two meters above the ground. She was carefully stepping among the students, dropping down from time to time to make a suggestion here, add a dab of paint there. Her lower legs were covered in paint and it was splashed on the underside of her abdomen as well. She looked a bit like a cross between Salvador Dali and Jackson Pollock with a dash of Lovecraft.
Josh was doing his best to paint a space-fighter like they used in the Orion War. But he could never get the reaction control veins to look right and the fuselage was really just a blue and yellow blob. It was supposed to be one of the Toffire fighters that had saved Tooleck during the System battle. But . . . he could never get it to look right.
He didn't like daddy longlegs, or Grantin for that matter, but if he was ever going to get it right he was going to have to ask the teacher for help. However, she'd never been by him and he'd tried pinging her a couple of times with no answer.
"Miss Tchick?" Josh said, raising his hand.
"Y . . . yes?" the teacher said, skittering around on all ten legs and pointing a few eyes in his direction.
"Could you give me a ha . . . a fee . . . could I get some help?" Josh asked.
The teacher looked at him for a moment and then raised herself up with a deeply indrawn breath.
"Very well," she said, skittering over to his easel, her body clearing those of the young beings in-between, the legs carefully placing themselves in open spots.
"I'm trying to do a space fighter—"
"Oh, why must you male mammaloforms always create weapons of war?" the teacher snapped, carefully lowering her body and swiveling six eyes at it. "Your problems is perspective, young Terran. . . ."
"What's perspective?" Josh asked, swiveling around on his stool, brush raised.
The teacher let out a high-pitched shriek and backed away, rapidly.
"Pardon me, Josh," the teacher panted. "Must go . . ." With that she skittered out the door as fast as her legs could carry her.
"Terrified of mammaloforms," Doosam said from near the floor. He had a piece of plascrip held down with four pseudoarms and appeared to be painting . . . a rock . . . with two more. He'd used a lot of gray. "Just can't stand them. Rocks are okay, anything with an exoskeleton, sure, but get her around an endoskeletal and she just goes to pieces."
"You're telling me she has an irrational fear of mammals?" Josh asked.
"Yep. Not enough legs. Too few eyes. Body all the wrong shape. Just . . . gives her the willies. Grantin are like that. She'll be back. But, face it, you're on your own in this class. Not that she grades hard. Just put some color on the paper and when you turn it in, do it at arm's length. But this is as good as it gets. Next period is . . . math."
"You vill take your SEATSSS!"
The Jootan teacher, Miss Hissberger, had apparently teleported to the space behind her desk. One minute the room was empty of teacher, with various young beings running around doing their individual versions of shouting, the next there was this . . . Jootan standing at the end of the room, waving a meter stick in her hand.
"You vill sit down unt you vill be QVIET!" she shouted, slamming the meter stick on the desktop.
She was short for a Jootan, barely a meter and a half, dressed in a black jacket, white shirt and black pants with her brown tail sticking out behind, lashing back and forth angrily. She had beady black eyes that swept the room like a laser as the last of the students settled into quiet, quivering, panic.
"YOU!" she shouted, pointing the meter stick at Josh. "Josh Parker. New to my classss, arrre you?" she purred.
"Yes?" Josh said. It seemed painfully obvious to him as the rest of the students tittered and whistled in humor.
"Vat-ist-der-qvadrratic-eqvation?" she shot out in a staccato.
"I . . ." Josh gulped and shrugged. "I don't know?"
"Vat are they TEACHING on Terra theessse days?" the teacher spat. "Int te old daysss vast taught quadratics on Terra in der second grate! Vere is vaunted Terra now, I ask you, ey? How vill you maintain your soooo superior FLEET? Unlessss you buy it all from der Jootan! Vell, today, you vill be LEARNING der qvadratic eqvation! Unt . . . here it iss!" she ended sharply, spinning around to the board.
"How was school, dear?" Josh's mom called from the living room as the iris closed behind him.
Josh fell to his knees and leaned against the iris, panting and trying not to throw up.
"Fine?" he said, crawling across the entry room towards the fresher.
"Good," his mom replied. "Dinner in an hour or so and you need to get ready for tomorrow. Do your homework."
"Yes, Mother," Josh called weakly, tapping at the door to the fresher instead of whistling and then pulling himself up on the sink. His nose was still a bit bloody, his clothes were ripped and he was nauseated from the flight home. One of the Nari had thrown up during one of the dips and he'd never ever forget the sight of the vomit in midair, everyone eyeing it and wondering where it would come down. As it turned out, it hit the driver in the back of the head, which served him right. Homework? He could barely remember his own name.
And it was only Monday
[1] This assumes that they can figure out which team is theirs.
[2] See prior footnote.
[3] The legal industry occasioned by competition dyup play supports over sixteen million sophonts and generates over sixty billion credits in legal fees per year, so the game cannot be said to be worthless. Without all the lawsuits surrounding it, thousands of young beings would go hungry every night.
John Ringo is the author of many novels, as well as a writer of short stories.
To read more work by John Ringo, visit the Baen Free Library at: http://www.baen.com/library/