Brenda Kalt’s work has appeared in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, Cosmos, and Flash Fiction Online. This is her first appearance in Galaxy’s Edge.
The jungle west of the former Fort Lauderdale hosted a mixture of garden plants gone wild and swamp vegetation from the reawakened Everglades. Near the edge of the growth, six hotels and their supporting outbuildings and transit platforms occupied clearings that the alien Krith had carved out. There was plenty of space for expansion, as the entire peninsula of Florida was reserved for Krith and other species under the Use Treaty of 2045.
At 1900 on the day they arrived, Sarah Berthode and nine other newly-employed humans trekked from their dormitory to the Workers’ Entrance of the Nice Hotel for Curious Travelers. A short man with thinning black hair stared at each of them in turn, pausing at Sarah. Without a word he pointed across the hotel plaza and led them to a damp, overgrown dirt path.
Walking single file down the path, Sarah tried to make conversation with the man behind her. “I’m a post-doc at—”
“Quiet!” the leader said over his shoulder.
A ten-minute walk through jungle brought them to a building scarcely more than a hut. Its moldy, corrugated plastic siding bore no relation to the multicolored swoops and arches of the hotel complex. The leader stared at a camera beside the door; when the door opened, he gestured inside.
Sarah followed the group. Surely this wasn’t the office of the Human-Krith Liaison. A metal desk, chair, and table crowded the back of the single room. Shelves, lining every wall, were two and three rows deep in small machines and unrecognizable objects.
Their guide let the door lock behind him and pushed through the crowd to the desk. Leaning against it, he said, “Good evening, I’m Hakam Abdulov. I remind you of your oaths to your respective countries and the United Nations.”
Sarah raised her hand. “Uh, I’m collecting—”
“Did you or did you not take oath 14-C?”
“I did. But—”
“Stop right there. I talk, and I tell you when you can talk. I’m authorized to deal with anyone who violates 14-C. If you do, you’re on your way home tomorrow, or worse.”
Sarah opened her mouth again, but her roommate, Chandani Patel, poked her in the ribs.
Sarah shut up.
Hakam waved a hand at the shelves. “This is the headquarters of the Human Service in the Alien Recreation Area. More to the point, it’s where I collect the things you bring me after you’ve cleaned the aliens’ suites.”
Chandani raised her hand, and he nodded at her.
“Is there anything particular we should look for?”
“Everything’s valuable, if we haven’t seen it. At first, you bring me everything. Later, as you become familiar with what’s in here, you can skip the duplicates.” He picked up what looked like a silver beach ball with one end sliced off. “This is the Krith equivalent of a wastebasket. Stuff that goes in here vanishes about fifteen minutes later. We think it’s related to their transit technology. This one no longer works, but you’ll see a wastebasket in every suite you clean. If you see something in it, get it out and fold it up in your coverall.” He began distributing sets of tongs. “Don’t poke your hand into the wastebasket because it might vanish too.”
Sarah accepted her tongs and raised her hand. Hakam nodded. “Hakam, can I speak to you privately?”
“After I finish.”
The briefing moved on to how to please the Krith supervisors. When it concluded, Sarah waited until she and Hakam were alone.
“I’m supposed to be collecting words for the University of Chicago. I know all fifty-six words of Krith that we have, plus the few that have come in from other languages. I don’t know anything about taking technology.”
Hakam rubbed his palm over his face and neck. “Who let you in here?”
“My dissertation advisor went to a lot of meetings in Washington, but he never told me what they were about. He died two weeks ago, and the university told me I could get a post-doc to be a cleaner at a Krith hotel for a year. I’ve been cramming the legalities of the Use Act, and I took the oath of secrecy, but that’s it. I don’t know anything else.”
Hakam swore. “Listen. You just got bundled with a group of top-level secret agents. Every one of them is primed to spot alien technology we can use and get it out from under the noses of the Krith. You might as well go home now.”
Go home? To no job, and no prospects for one? “I can be quiet. I can clean.” She turned her head to display the microrecorder behind her ear. “My research won’t interfere with your work. I’ll hear any words that slip through the Kriths’ translation boxes. They have to talk sometime.”
“Fuck all. Go be a cleaning woman and try not to get yourself killed. Bring me any trash you can.”
* * *
The next morning showed no evidence of secret-agent activity as the ten assembled in front of a series of training suites. The alien furniture in the suites ranged from large lumps rising from the floor to elevated platforms in various shapes. A pool occupied a corner of one room. The Krith supervisor, a humanoid two meters tall with leathery gray skin bagging around its elbows, pulled a table with black drums and hoses. The table did not have legs, and it did not settle to the ground.
The supervisor divided the humans into teams, and Sarah found herself paired with Chandani.
“Put on your coveralls.” The supervisor demonstrated. “The disinfectant we’ll be dealing with today is lethal to carbon-based life. All carbon-based life, including you and me. It glows pink in human-octave light, but if you see the color without your visor, you’re already dying. It disintegrates after being in the air for forty-eight minutes. One or two out of every crew think they can ignore it, and they die.”
The coveralls looked like limp rubber bags with gas masks and visors, but they stretched to match the wearer’s arms and legs. A translation box hung from the neck of each suit.
“Use the communicators only when necessary; chatter disturbs me. Pick up a drum of disinfectant and a hose. Come with me.”
Sarah pulled a drum the size of a five-gallon bucket to her and grabbed a hose. The drum rested on a circle of silver metal, and she didn’t have to use force to lift it.
A crash came from the rear of the group, and Sarah turned. A drum had rolled to the wall, and one of the last pair of humans was holding the silver circle.
The supervisor said something that the translator passed through unchanged.
A word! So early! Sarah heard it as scrapehisshiss. The microrecorder might have gotten more.
The supervisor retrieved the metal circle from the unfortunate team. “You two are dismissed. Go to your dormitory until tonight’s link to Washington.”
“It was an accident. I was pulling the drum toward me—”
“Accidents in dealing with disinfectant are usually fatal. You are lucky. Go home.”
Sarah wondered if the humans had been trying to steal the metal ring. Maybe Hakam would know.
When the two dispirited humans had stripped off their coveralls and left, the supervisor began drilling the others in spraying the disinfectant.
“Start at the top, including the ceiling. Every bit of the room should be pink, walls and furniture. When you leave the room, spray your footprints behind you.”
Sarah and Chandani went to work. Sarah did the spraying while Chandani looked around the room. When they had finished, they listened to more instructions while they waited for the disinfectant to neutralize.
“In your daily work, when you finish disinfecting one suite, you will go on to your next assignment. By the time you have finished disinfecting the last suite, the first one will be ready for you to lubricate.”
Sarah kept spraying, and Chandani kept looking around.
* * *
That night, as Chandani lay on her dormitory bed playing with the tongs, Sarah asked her why she hadn’t sprayed the disinfectant.
“My work is obtaining technology. I am not a cleaner.”
“But working as cleaners is our cover! If the supervisor sees you not doing anything, it’ll send you home.”
“All it cares about is the work getting done. While you’re disinfecting the damned alien rooms and collecting words, I’ll go through the trash. Maybe I’ll steal a translation box.” Chandani snapped the tongs at Sarah’s nose.
Sarah defended her profession. “Understanding a language—whatever language—is key to understanding a person’s thinking. At the University of Chicago we’re concentrating on Krith morphology—the internal structure of the Krith words we know.”
“Hmph. I understand English, Hindi, and Bengali, not in that order. A few useful words in other languages.”
“That’s just it—useful words. Most of the words we have from the Krith are things that their translator boxes couldn’t handle, so they have no corresponding terms in Earth languages. The only ones we’ve been able to translate came from when the two Krith argued with each other before signing the Use Treaty. My dream is to learn some Krith terms for common things and begin to get a handle on syntax.”
“Hmph.” Chandani reached for her pajamas.
As Sarah was pulling on her nightshirt, she remembered a question. “How are we going to get the tongs into the room?”
“We bring them to work under our clothes and transfer them to the coveralls when we’re putting them on. The rubber suits stretch enough to fold over the tongs and seal them at the side of the leg. Or don’t you remember what Hakam said?”
“It didn’t make sense at the time.”
“I’ll bet a lot of things don’t make sense to you.”
This was going to be a long year.
* * *
Sarah and Chandani worked with the others for three ten-day cycles. Their rest day was the tenth, and each time Sarah slept through most of it. Chandani, less tired, listened to music that occasionally leaked out of her headphones.
* * *
At the beginning of the fourth cycle, the supervisor called Sarah and Chandani aside. “We have important guests for this suite. New sleeping platforms are being installed. You’ll disinfect and relubricate this suite every morning after the Ninnil leave, as well as cleaning any debris off the floor. If the Ninnil tell me that something is not satisfactory, you will be sent home.”
Chandani nodded, but Sarah asked, “What do Ninnil look like?”
The supervisor flashed a display on the wall; the species resembled brown walrus-sized slugs with tentacles and eyestalks. “New skin forms at the end of each tentacle and migrates to the underside of the body. Sloughed-off skin is the major source of debris in the suite.”
After the first glance, Chandani looked at the floor. Sarah repeated walrus, walrus. She found the completely alien form less disturbing than the humanoid Krith.
The next day Sarah and Chandani arranged their work to finish cleaning the suite just before the Ninnil arrived. Chandani said, “They might discard something from traveling.”
Sarah watched the Ninnil—apparently two adults and two children—approach the room. The larger child was almost the same brown as the adults and half their size; the smaller one was beige.
A Krith attendant—a new one, not the cleaning supervisor—followed the Ninnil into the room and told Sarah and Chandani to work elsewhere. He tiptoed behind the adult Ninnil, leaving as little footprint on the floor as possible. The largest Ninnil said something to the attendant in a language Sarah did not recognize, and the Krith’s translation box replied. Multiple phrases in a strange language! Sarah could publish the two phrases, but without context, the chance of interpreting them was small. She walked to her next suite as slowly as she could, hoping for more of the Ninnil language.
That night Hakam knew about the Ninnil. “The Krith are deferential to them, but we don’t know why.”
“These Ninnil have two small ones with them. I think they’re children,” Sarah said.
“What do they look like?”
“One just looks like a smaller adult, and the other is a meter long and beige.”
“Something’s wrong. Ninnil cubs come in matched pairs.” He looked at the others, most of whom had some artifact. “At least see if you can find out anything.”
Sarah blushed at her empty hands and spent the meeting wondering about the cubs.
* * *
The Ninnil stayed eight days, and during their stay Chandani found two pieces of flexible plastic. Sarah found nothing in the deep cushions on the sleeping platforms, but she learned to identify the platforms by the dandruff.
“The two adults shed dark brown flakes, the big cub sheds light brown, and the little cub sheds almost white.”
Chandani laughed through her communicator. “Are you going to take skin samples to Hakam?”
“Yes.”
Hakam was not interested in Ninnil dandruff. “I’ll send it to New York, but we want technology, not biology.”
The morning the Ninnil left, Sarah and Chandani hovered near their suite. When the rooms were empty, Sarah sprayed the ceiling while Chandani checked the wastebaskets.
Chandani found a long, spike-filled cone leaning in the corner; she could barely fold it into her coverall. “This is too big to hide. I’m taking it to Hakam as soon as the spray neutralizes. Tell the supervisor I twisted my knee.” She looked up and down the hall before sprinting away.
Sarah scowled. Would the supervisor believe the story? If it did not, would Chandani get sent home? There were some advantages to that.
When Sarah sprayed the smaller cub’s sleeping platform, the spray bounced back at her. Sarah felt in the cushions and pulled out a squishy thing. It was another Ninnil, smaller than the smaller cub.
Oh, God, I’ve murdered one.
Sarah laid the cub gently on the floor and knelt beside it. Although it was probably useless, she rubbed the cub’s underside. The skin became transparent, revealing a glowing grid. She touched a square and tiny tentacles waved.
A doll. I’ve got a Ninnil doll.
Sarah giggled and could not stop. She minimized the volume on her communicator, and her visor fogged. Finally she regained control and folded the doll into the abdomen of her coverall. Now she looked pregnant, but an alien wouldn’t expect that. Sarah started spraying just as the supervisor came.
The supervisor looked only at the room. “Where is the other one?”
“She said she twisted her knee. She went back to the dormitory.”
“Finish the room. If she cannot work tomorrow, I will send her to the Human Supervisor for replacement.”
When the disinfectant dried, Sarah opened her suit and tucked the doll into the waistband of her slacks. She still looked pregnant to a human, but the effect was less noticeable.
Near the end of the afternoon the supervisor returned. “I have called the other one. She will be here in a few minutes.”
When Chandani arrived, panting, the supervisor said, “We have lost a scrapescrape. About this big. It looks like a cub.” She held up both hands, half a meter apart. “The Ninnil family is extremely anxious to recover it, since it belongs to their clickscrape.”
Two words. Thank God for the microrecorder. “What’s a clickscrape?”
“A cub in which the rrrclickrrr have not developed normally.”
Develop. Sarah flashed back to her younger brother. Charlie had been born with only one lobe in each lung, and he had died waiting for a juvenile lung transplant.
Sarah recalled herself to the present, then froze as the supervisor questioned Chandani.
“Have you found a scrapescrape?”
That had to be the doll. When the supervisor turned to her, Sarah said, “No. I have not seen a scrapescrape.” She made her voice as firm as she could manage, but Chandani raised an eyebrow.
After obtaining negatives from both women, the supervisor said, “The ksshclick is offering a reward of one hundred million euros in gold for the return of the scrapescrape. Notify me if you see it.”
Sarah went into a daze. She had four words, and how much money was that? The alien tourists in general were rich, but this reward was stunning. She wrapped her arms across her belly. She could endow her own chair at the University—no. A working toy, with controls, was worth too much to Earth.
Chandani lingered after the supervisor left, and Sarah said, “Go back to bed and pamper your knee.”
“That is surely a big reward. Either of us would be rich for life.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You were the last one in the suite.”
“I wonder why.”
“Did you see the whatever-it-was?”
“No. I would have said so.”
“What’s in your stomach?”
“Maybe I’m getting fat.” For a second Sarah thought Chandani was going to tackle her, but Chandani shrugged.
“At least Hakam will be pleased. You finally found something.”
“See you at dinner.”
Chandani left, limping on one leg and then the other, and Sarah returned to work.
* * *
That evening after dinner, Sarah made an excuse to stay in the dining hall. The doll was nestled under her shirt, and she was avoiding Chandani. Hakam would be irritated when Sarah arrived late, but he would be speechless when she showed that the doll still worked. She smiled at the thought.
As Sarah crossed the hotel plaza on her way to headquarters, a Ninnil family on individual legless benches floated toward the transit platform. Sarah watched as luggage reached the platform and disappeared, followed by faint whooshes as air rushed into the space. Then the Ninnil approached the platform. One adult and a large brown cub were in the lead, followed by another adult wearing a translation box and a near-white cub curled into a ball. The adult kept a tentacle over it.
Oh, God. That was her family, including the cub where the rrrclickrrr had not developed normally. Sarah’s thoughts returned to her younger brother. Charlie had loved his stuffed turtle. On impulse, Sarah tapped the large Ninnil on the side and pulled the doll from under her shirt. As she raised the doll above her head, eyestalks swung around and saw it.
The Ninnil snatched the doll with one tentacle and laid it beside the pale cub. The cub twitched, uncurled, and wound around the doll.
Sarah stared at the cub, her initial warmth changing to paralysis. She had given away her prize—Earth’s prize—and she was going to be sent home as soon as the Ninnil reported the exchange. Hakam would be beyond furious.
Instead of returning to the hotel, the Ninnil waved a tentacle, and the cubs and other adult vanished from the platform in succession. The Ninnil fiddled with the translation box until a voice came forth.
Sarah’s translation box had stayed with her coveralls; nevertheless, she caught the Krith word place/location.
Unable to answer, she pointed to the hotel.
The Ninnil’s next speech ended in money/value/exchange.
“Money/value/exchange negative.”
The Ninnil responded with a burst of Krith. Finally it slowed down: “Good thing.”
“Good thing.”
The Ninnil vanished in a whoosh, and Sarah stood still, touching the microrecorder to be sure it was still behind her ear. She was not going to be sent home. Did the Ninnil not care about the theft, or was it in a hurry? Who knew? Thanks to the Ninnil she had an unbelievable bounty of Krith words, maybe enough to start working on syntax.
Sarah walked toward the path to the humans’ meeting. When she reached the path, she realized that there was no point in going now. It would just delay her work, and she would be empty-handed. As usual.
Sarah laughed aloud and jogged toward the dormitory and her computer.
Copyright © 2018 by Brenda Kalt