food.
I could no longer sense the aware one. I was in a new place, on my own. I no longer even thought of the aware one. I knew my purpose. I fruited and fed, and fed and fruited, and when the creatures brought poison into the flat land I crept into one of them and traveled to more food. There was no end to it. There were fewer and fewer creatures, and poison in the flat lands behind me; but they could not keep me from the food.
Now the warm is over and the cold is coming, but I will not sleep. I have found a place in a nest of the creatures, full of moisture, full of food, and I will keep myself aware there for the cold. When the warm comes again, I will try to get back across the hard stony thing to the place where I was born to find the other, to share the nourishment I’ve found.
I am of the aware one; I am the aware one. There was only one: now there are two, and with the nourishment I have found we will feed and multiply, and be the caretakers of this wonderful new world—and all the creatures in it.
FIRST CONTRACT
by Linda J. Dunn
I repeat these words every morning while facing the judgment wall and wait to learn if I continue my duties or expire. I stand still and calm, keeping my skin color a reverent shade of pale blue, and oozing the sweet scent of dedication. When the wall flashes life colors, I bow three times and back out of the room.
I have performed this sacred ritual every morning of my life. The difference now is that I know I will not die as long as I am assigned to the negotiating team on Earth. Our work is important. We cannot pause to wait for our home world to send a replacement.
Once the contract is signed, a new team will arrive to oversee the construction of the three factories and sublight delivery systems. They will hire humans at a fraction of what we pay our lowest caste laborers on any of our colony worlds.
Then I shall return home and once again face the possibility that the judgment wall will find me no longer useful.
This will not happen, though. Not to me. I am efficient, meticulous, and highly useful. I shall merit at least one life extension for my work on Earth, and I would not be surprised to be granted immortality. Such a reward is rare, but I have done very well.
I was thinking about this when the shuttle arrived to take us to our meeting with the humans. I sat down in the first seat behind our human escorts and turned a happy shade of blue. Vaaishya dy Muwa Feerow sat down beside me and emitted the pleasant odor of success.
“Today, we will sign the contracts and our work here will be done.” He punctuated his statement with the rich aroma of satisfaction.
“I pity the vaaishya who must stay behind to assist the new team overseeing construction and management.” I turned a sickly shade of yellow to convey my thoughts about that particular task.
“Pray it will not fall upon my shoulders.” Feerow turned a matching shade of yellow and the richness faded into the tangy scent of concern.
“They are all idiot savants,” Feerow added, “except for those who are not. Some are merely idiots.”
We flashed laughing shades of purple and filled the shuttle with the thick aroma of humor. Our Earth escorts at the front and back of the shuttle stood watching, deaf to most of our conversation.
Poor idiots. They lacked two of the basic components of language. Their bodies could turn only one color and that was a reddish tone that indicated embarrassment. As for scents, they could only emit one and that was a most unpleasant odor that none of us wished to encounter again.
How tragic that the first oxygen-breathing, intelligent life-form we encountered was two-thirds mute!
The first Tween to encounter humans was terminated by the judgment wall. So were the next three Tween representatives to Earth. I was warned that all had gone mad from their efforts to learn so many different languages, each of which were splintered into numerous dialects.
I am the fourth Tween, but I do not fear insanity. After the deaths of the other Tweens, the Earth representatives selected their best communicators. They speak one common language clearly, consistently, and without any of the neurological problems that afflicted the first group of human negotiators.
Those humans, according to the notes left behind by my predecessors, were subject to fits that caused their faces to twist in odds ways and their limbs to flail about while they were speaking.
Feerow must have been thinking along the same lines. He said, “Have you ever paused to think about the problems our brethren will face after we sign this contract? The humans have so many strange customs and they only expect to work five days out of every seven. I cannot comprehend a species that can set aside their work like it is something other than part of themselves.”
He turned yellow-almost-green and added, “I would rather expire than live among these people. I pray I will not be selected.”
“Blessed is our judgment wall,” I said, “and perfect in its choices.”
Feerow turned blue again and emitted the scent of contentness. “Yes. Thank you for reassuring me. Perfect is our system, unlike the chaos of Earth.”
I nodded and then the impossible happened. I heard the screeching of the shuttlels brakes, the crunch of metal hitting metal, and a loud whooshing sound that I could not identify. Airbags exploded and we struggled to free ourselves and see what had happened.
I smelled smoke. When I escaped the airbag and stood up, I saw fire at the front of the bus. Our human escorts rushed forward into the flames and I, being wiser than they, ran toward the emergency exit at the back of the shuttle.
My fellow team members all did the same and I feared I would be the last to escape, if I escaped at all.
“The window!” Feerow shouted. I was closer to the window than he was and thus I stood on the seat and pushed my body through the shattered window while he faced the approaching flames.
I fell and hit my head. I could hear people screaming, and over all the noise someone shouted, “Get them away from here!”
Rough, human hands grabbed me and I saw blurry images that I knew were not our guards. They dragged me toward soft grass. A moment later, I saw someone carrying Feerow and, as they reached the grass, the shuttle exploded.
People screamed and I heard a man’s voice clearly, “A bomb! Get the hell out of here. There may be another one.”
Hands touched me again and I was too groggy and confused to respond.
“I don’t think we should—” Whatever the woman was going to say was interrupted by a different man’s voice.
“It’s a gift. Fate. We’ve got to take them.”
“We’ll never get away with this,” a woman said. “The police will think we did it.”
“Shut up, Amy, and follow me,” the first one said.
They pulled me upright and I heard someone ask, “Where are you taking them?”
“To a hospital,” the man said. “She’s a nurse. Clear a path for us, please.”
So I was safe. I thought I would wake up in a hospital and all would be well.
Except they didn’t take us to a hospital. I barely remembered the jostling ride down unfamiliar streets into a part of the city that must have been undergoing major construction. I could think of no other reason why the building’s doors and windows would be covered with wood.
I lost consciousness sometime during the ride, and I woke up in a small, dimly lit room.
“About time you came around.” A male human of dark complexion loomed over me. “It’s been an hour. You are our prisoner and you will remain here until your government agrees to go away and leave Earth alone.”
I struggled to sit upright and realized that I was injured. My head ached and my extremities burned like I was
