IN the reality that contained his physical being, Jorl slumped in a favorite chair with face slack, hands folded loosely in his lap, and trunk hanging limp. Anyone familiar with Speakers would recognize the signs and conclude that his awareness occupied a very different reality, one of his own making. In a venue crafted of his imagination he had left Barsk far behind and instead stood on the planet Dawn, in a replica of Senator Welv’s office, a space of rounded stone walls painted in shades of umber and rust and sand. He wore the same clothing as back on Barsk, an open vest of blue-green atop loose-fitting, black slacks. He’d clothed Welv in the grab he’d found in his colleague’s memory, the typical Prairie Dog sleeveless robe he had donned that morning. The robe flowed down to mid-calf, decorated with innumerable pleats as befit both his age and status as senior member of the Committee of Information, its color the same light grey as the senator’s fur. Jorl’s own wrinkled skin shared the same color, albeit several shades darker.
They had been talking since mid-morning and both were growing hungry for lunch. Much had been discussed, but little resolved, and they’d come around again to the heart of the matter.
Welv held up a hand. “You have a scholar’s imagination, my friend, and I value it at least as much as the unique cultural perspective you have brought to our committee. But what you propose goes beyond the possibilities of creativity.”
“This isn’t some idle fancy that I found in a dream,” said Jorl. “If the committee will just—”
The senior senator cut him off. “I have not discussed this matter with the other members of our Committee.” He skittered from from one side of the nefshon construct of his office to the other, pausing to run his fingers along the frames of various medical diplomas and certificates from his time as a physician before joining the senate, as if testing the accuracy of Jorl’s mindscape. Seemingly satisfied, Welv eventually arrived back in front of the Fant and continued as if he hadn’t paused at all. “Doing so would only stir up pointless speculation and debate. We have no precedent and no policy for what you propose.” He paused, glanced up at the junior senator, and scowled. “Do sit down, Jorl. Or would you give me a stiff neck to go with the indigestion your words have already brought?”
Jorl obliged, making use of his replica of a large wooden chair the Cynomy maintained in his real office for visitors of races as large as Fant. He received an appreciative nod from Welv and lifted his trunk to signal the elderly senator to refrain from further comment.
“There is precedent,” he said. “Or, more accurately, anti-precedent.”
Welv waved the objection away. “Irrelevant, the details of the Compact your people formed with the rest of the Alliance explicitly prevents any non-Fant from setting foot on Barsk.”
“And I’m not suggesting that any do so. Rather that Fant set foot upon other worlds. With only a handful of exceptions, we’ve been absent from the experience of the rest of the Alliance. After eight hundred years we’ve ceased to be real people and instead become folklore—hideous, hairless monsters used to frighten children. ‘Eat your sprouts or a Lox will come for you while you sleep and spirit you away. Behave or a pair of Elephs will run their trunks over your fur every time your eyes close.’ We’ve gone over this before and we both agree that it’s past time to reintegrate Fant into the day-to-day events of the Alliance, but that can’t happen when the other races barely have any awareness of our existence.”
“I don’t disagree but—”
Jorl ignored him and plunged on. “A thousand years ago, Fant lived and worked upon dozens of mixed worlds, right alongside everyone else. It was only by action of the senate that they were transported to Barsk. It took two hundred years to build up the political will to banish an entire race, but it was done. That’s your precedent, Welv. I’m not suggesting anything quite so drastic, rather—”
The aged Prairie Dog again interrupted his colleague. “All you’re suggesting is to create entire neighborhoods upon dozens of worlds where Fant can emigrate, their relocation at the expense of Alliance citizens, taking jobs from non-Fant, their children occupying desks in the same schools as whatever Urs or Nonyx or Lam children attend already, frequent the same restaurants as Brady and Bos, work side by side with Ailuros and Lutr.”
“You have a clear grasp on the concept of equality.”
Welv replied with a high-pitched chirp and a disapproving glare from old to young that transcended race. Jorl sighed, inclining his head at the rebuke, his ears dipping forward. Neither spoke for a long moment, and then the Cynomy continued on as if the Lox had never resorted to sarcasm.
“I’m right there with you, Jorl, at least in theory. And if I could envision the means to transform such a vision into accepted policies and viable procedures, I would personally argue the merits with every member of the committee. But it remains—what did you deny naming it? An idle fancy? Tell me how we can accomplish this without inciting civil unrest, riots, even acts of violence? For that matter, where do you expect to acquire the hundreds of Fant you would have emigrate?”
Jorl waved his trunk in confusion. “Where else,” he said. “Barsk, obviously.”
“And have you asked any of your fellow Eleph and Lox if they wish to leave?”
“I left,” said Jorl. “I joined the Patrol, lived in close quarters amongst many other races.”
“Yes, and other Fant have before you. But no more than a handful in all the years your people have been on Barsk. And have you forgotten what you endured from your comrades? You have a wife now. You have a daughter. Would you subject them to such abuse?”
Jorl paused. Somehow, all his thinking and planning to date had been in the abstract. Welv had just swept that all away. Jorl loved Dabni and she loved him. If he asked her to follow him to another world and live among other races she would come. She would endure anything for him, and he for her. Their bond was that strong. But Rina, little Rina. How could he possibly put his daughter in a situation that would bring her pain, subject her to teasing and insults, fear and loathing, all for just being an innocent child?”
Welv mistook his silence for stubbornness. “Do you truly believe you can gather up enough others who would be willing to expose themselves and their families to the daily intolerance of other races? What is their motivation, Jorl? What possible reason could they have to deliberately embrace that kind of abuse?”
Jorl flapped his ears, switching from thoughts of his family back to the abstract and theoretical, and his doubts faded. “They have to, if we’re ever to resolve the situation.”
“Again, I don’t disagree, but it’s one thing to accept the greater good as a thought experiment and something else entirely to ask men and women to throw away everything they know, everything they hold dear, because it will bring about a better galaxy for their children’s children.”
“Funny,” said Jorl, “that argument didn’t stop the senate eight hundred years ago from exiling every Fant from the rest of the Alliance.”
The Prairie Dog grew silent, lowering his eyes while absently fingering the pleats of his robe. “And it was shameful, but would you have us perform a similar act as correction? And even if you could find sufficient Fant who wished to emigrate, where would they go? How do you propose we convince even a single Alliance world to welcome them, let alone the many you would seed with your people?”
“With small steps,” he said, and he willed the addition of a report folder into existence in the illusion of their meeting. “This is a proposal to fund a minor artists traveling consortium. Talented and creative people from several different worlds will travel around to three cities on each of thirty planets and serve as the kernel of a local art festival. Painters, sculptors, musicians, singers. The core group will give lectures and classes while they’re there and then the lot of them will move on to the next city or planet. And once one such group is up and running, another one will be created and sent off to visit a different cluster of worlds, and on and on.”
Welv quirked an eyebrow. “And how does this proposal serve the Fant?”
Jorl didn’t even try to hide his grin. “Barsk is one of the worlds that will contribute artists to the program. One member of each traveling consortium will be an Eleph or Lox.”
“You intend to sneak your people onto Alliance worlds under cover of an arts and culture program? Huh. It might work at that, particularly if we pick the initial cities with care, and put the right public relations spin on it so that other worlds begin to feel like they’re missing out—as opposed to being spared the visit of Fant. Yes, that has promise. But … how will you get your own people, artists from Barsk, to leave their world behind? You have your own eight hundred years of history of isolationism. You’ve spun the imposition of your population on a world none of you asked for into a virtue of being left alone. They’re not going to want to leave, let along bring the fruit of their creative gifts to people they’ve never imagined visiting. Even if this proposal of yours gains momentum, you still need a plan for convincing even a small handful of talented Fant to leave their home. Do you have such a thing?”
“Not yet. But I’ll come up with something. But you’re correct, right now I don’t know how to do it. I only know it has to happen or it’s only a matter of time before we’re on the brink of another crisis where the Alliance wants what only Barsk can provide, where you shatter the Compact because it suits your needs. Actions like these become possible when the people on the other side don’t matter. The other races of the Alliance don’t see Fant as being entitled to rights, or value our feelings, or even see us as people at all.”
Welv crossed to Jorl’s chair and placed a hand upon the seated Fant’s shoulder. “Jorl, we agree in theory. Do not despair. You’ve served in the senate for barely seven years. It takes time to figure out how to go from theory to practice. Just because I cannot see a way to make this happen does not mean I am abandoning the desire. Let us both reflect on our discussion and meet again in a few days. Perhaps one of us will have gained some new insight that offers fresh possibilities.”
Jorl bowed his head. The fact that a Cynomy would speak to him with such candor, would place a hand upon his shoulder, even here in a seeming born of his own mind, promised that his dream of reuniting Fant with the rest of the galaxy was not impossible. “You’re right. Thank you, Senator. I will look forward to that conversation. Farewell.”
The Prairie Dog nodded. “Until soon.”
With a mental twitch, Jorl let the scene in Welv’s office dissolve. The nefshon constructs of both person and place unraveled, faded, dispersed.
* * *
HE stood in his kitchen, the doors to several cupboards flung wide. Bins half full of several different kinds of leaves—some fresh and supple, others dry and crisp—lay before him. Holding a large wooden bowl in one hand, he scooped and sampled with his other hand and trunk, adding an assortment of grasses as well. Next, from the pantry, he acquired three different varieties of plels, transferred them to a cutting board, and with a paring knife neatly sliced them into thin wedges before placing them in his bowl. To these he added an assortment of chopped nuts common to the islands of his archipelago, as well as a much smaller sampling of spiced nahlet nuts, imported at considerable expense from Sworrub, a mixed world with a predominantly Marmo population. Satisfied at last with the variety and proportions of ingredients, Jorl took up a pair of broad forks and gave the mixture a vigorous tossing. His lunch prepared, he carried the bowl into his study, settled into his favorite chair, and opened a book he’d been reading earlier. His trunk moved from the bowl to his mouth.
He’d barely begun eating when a trio of swift knocks at his front door made him set his bowl aside. He finished chewing what was in his mouth as he crossed to the door, and swallowed as he flung it wide. On his doorstep stood a young girl, barely five years old, dressed in a simple shift of bright yellow, a crudely fashioned crown of flowers sitting between her ears. With a swift motion he bent, scooped her up, and twirled her around into the air. The little girl squealed with delight and proclaimed, “Daddy!”
“Hello, little twig. I wasn’t expecting you today.” He did a slow, spinning dance, swinging her by her outstretched arms until he’d spiraled back into the kitchen, and plopped her onto the counter. “Did you come to join me for lunch?”
Rina’s laughter filled the kitchen and she whipped her trunk side to side in answer. “Mommy said I was reading too much and needed to get out.” She pouted to show her displeasure with the judgment.
A love of the written word was hardly the thing most parents lost sleep over, but in fairness to the child’s mother, Rina’s knack for literacy had emerged early. And because Dabni lived with Tolta and lacked access to a traditional family home with the attendant playmates and child minders, she’d perforce taken her daughter to her bookshop most days. At an age when Jorl had been playing tag, and seek-me, and capture-the-melon with as many as twenty other youths and running wild throughout his boyhood home, Rina had a tiny table in a corner of the bookshop where she held tea parties for her rag doll, Kokab, and read to it, initially from picture books but more recently from texts that would have challenged someone twice her age. Now that she was old enough, she took classes and had playdates with other children in the neighborhood, but even so each day would see her in her spot in the shop, a stack of books close at hand.
Jorl snatched a mouthful of salad with his trunk, chewed thoughtfully, and said, “Did you come to see me thinking I would overrule your mother?”
Her eyes widened and then Rina looked away, perhaps startled that her father had seen through her clever plan so quickly. He bit back a smile at the attempted manipulation, confident and dreading that her skill would improve with age and more compelling issues.
“That’s not going to happen. Your mother has say when it comes to how you spend your time. No, don’t give me that look, we’re not ganging up on you. You won’t find two people in all of Keslo who are as happy as we are that you like reading so much. But balance is important, too. Your books will be waiting for you when you get back. Okay?”
A mumbled “okay” reached him as he helped himself to more of his lunch. If she wanted to stew, he’d let her. He’d nearly finished the salad when she finally lifted her head and asked, “Daddy? Can you help me find a book?”
“Of course, but your mother has better access. Did you ask her?”
Rina shook her head. “I was going to, but she sent me away before I could. And … it’s not for me.”
“One of your friends from school?”
She shook her head again, exaggerating the gesture so that her ears flapped wildly. “No, it’s for Kokab.”
“Indeed?” Jorl grinned. “And is Kokab taking a more active interest in reading? I thought he was content to be the audience.”
“Daddy!”
Jorl raised both hands and trunk, protesting his innocence. “Sorry, I’ve never seen him hold up a book, let alone read one.”
“You’re being silly. Kokab’s a doll. He can’t read.”
“Of course, I’d forgotten.
“So when he wants something specific, he asks me, and I get it, and read it to him.”
“Riiiight. And what does Kokab want now?”
Rina scrunched up her mouth and eyes. It was a face she tended to make when she was concentrating or trying to remember something. Jorl hoped she’d outgrow it. “I don’t know the word. It’s a science-y word. Something about alleys and eels. Does that sound right?”
“Alley eels?”
“Yeah? Maybe?”
Jorl rolled the sounds around in his mouth for something that came close and might be glossed as “science-y” by his daughter. “Did you mean: alleles?”
“Uh huh. That’s it. I need a book about al-eels. Alleles.”
He frowned. “You’re very smart, honey, but that’s still a bit out of your reach. Who’s been talking to you about genetics?”
“Kokab.”
“Right. Anyone else?”
“No, Daddy. Just Kokab. He says it’s important stuff that I’ll want to know all about someday.”
He turned away, pretending to busy himself with cleaning his salad bowl to hide his frown. Many children had imaginary friends at that age; he himself had enjoyed long chats with a magical creature named Frilbo who had generously taken the blame for any number of broken bits of crockery, before he’d met Arlo and the pair took turns blaming each other for their misdeeds. But Arlo had long since died and his son, Pizlo, heard voices that, while perhaps imaginary were nonetheless prescient. And Rina’s imaginary friend asking for books on genetics was a bit different than her reporting that he liked his tea without sugar.
“Well … Kokab may well be right, but that’s a long way off. And I’m sure he didn’t just volunteer that opinion out of nowhere. Do you know what prompted it?”
“We heard Mommy talking to a customer about it. He said his brother works at a fish farm, and they’re taking some of the kinds of fish that everyone likes and making changes to some of their … alleles? Yes, those things, and getting bigger fish that way.”
Jorl sighed with relief. His daughter’s clever imagination had simply taken something she’d overheard and run away with it, and much like he might have done with Frilbo, she’d made sure to stick Kokab with the blame, should there be any blame to stick. He paused, flashing back on Welv’s words about his own idle fancy. For a moment he was tempted to ask his daughter to ask her doll for a solution. The moment passed, leaving behind a wry smile. Rina sat looking at him, waiting for him to speak.
“Do you think you might like a career at a fishery when you grow?”
“No. We had a field trip to a fish farm two seasons ago. I liked it and had fun, but Kokab says I’ll study other things.”
“That’s very very true, your teachers will introduce you to a wide world of topics. And you have plenty of time, don’t you?”
“Uh huh!”
“Good. I’m glad you see that. Because we’re going to put that book on alleles and all that kind of stuff off for a while.” Rina’s face began to cloud over with disappointment, and he hurried on. “But … your mother’s advice about getting out more applies to me, too. I’ve been cooped up working too much. Why don’t we have an outing together?”
“Really?! Where?”
“Well … if we hurry, I bet we can get to Suliv’s before they run out of toffee. If you think it’ll be okay with your mother for you to have some sweets before dinner.”
Rina’s head bobbled with agreement. “Oh, sure. That’s fine. She said I needed air. Suliv’s has air, so that’s fine.”
“Then that’s the plan.” He scooped her up from the counter, tucking her under one arm like a sack of leaves, which set her to giggling again. He crossed to his apartment’s rear door which led more directly to a stair that would in turn take them to Suliv’s grocery and sundry shop, setting her on her feet as they stepped outside.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, little twig?”
“Can we get an extra sweet? For Kokab?”
Jorl’s grin brought to mind treats he’d wheedled for Frilbo so many years ago. “Of course we can.”