by Carol Emshwiller

Carol Emshwiller tells us that “PS Publishers in England is doing a sort of ‘Ace double’ collection of my short stories. One side will be my antiwar stories and the other my regular tales.” In her latest story for Asimov’s, Carol explores the divide between the alien and the human and in the process spins a deeply disturbing tale about who, exactly, is . . .

We knew they were on their way long before they got here. Several years ago we saw the speck moving toward us. We said, Oh, no, not more smart people . . . if people they are . . . if smart . . . (but they do have to be fairly intelligent to get here in the first place) . . . but we’re already full up. There are limits to how big a population a world can hold comfortably, and so that everybody has fun.

We were watching from the trees when they landed. They took us for creatures both ignorant and wild. We played into that role, howling and jumping up and down. Our hooting was really our laughing. They looked so funny we couldn’t help it so we hooted to cover it up.

Then we glided out from the trees and moved closer to the clearing where they had set up camp. That was a clearing we had prepared for them ahead of time. Plenty long enough for their lander. From our experiences with space flight we knew the exact dimensions they would need. We also knew they’d like it near a stream. We picked a little stream, not suitable for navigation. We didn’t realize until they’d landed and we saw who they were, that they’d need a path before they could reach the water.

We pretended to get tamer and tamer. We pretended to accept their gifts of beads and bracelets. Couldn’t they see those would just hold us down?

And they brought what they call dogs. They use them for all sorts of things, including warning them that we’re about to glide in.

We started imitating their dogs, they love them so much, and we wanted to seem just a little bit more intelligent than the dogs are. The creatures began to love us, too. Pretty soon they let us lean over their shoulders and we could see how all their machines were made. We didn’t disable any of those things till later.

Now we tell each other, “Bad dog, no!” Or, “Good dog,” and a few pats. I saw one of us give her mate a snack saying, “Good dog.” They laughed so hard they fell off their branch.

It helps that we have fur and they have none because they seem to consider furry creatures more animal. They think simply wearing clothes makes them more civilized than we are. But when have we ever needed clothes?

I don’t think they have any idea . . . and we’re glad they don’t . . . that we already had space flight and gave it up a long time ago, since this is the best of all possible worlds. We’ve already checked out a lot of other planets, so we know. And after all, we were made for this world. And even for our anomalous moon.

On some worlds, the natives lie around and complain all day (no matter how long the day), that their world is getting more and more crowded, or hotter and hotter, or full of dust and smoke. . . . Those various natives kept saying, “It didn’t used to be this bad,” and yet they don’t do anything about it, or not enough. Actually, there’s hardly any world that couldn’t be a paradise if the natives bothered to make it so.

Until now, we’ve never seen intelligent creatures with neither fur nor feathers nor scales. These creatures are hard to look at. It’s as if they have some form of mange. At first we thought they’d infect us with hairlessness.

You can see their veins.

We’re teaching these Uglys a pidgin language we invented just for them. We don’t want them delving too deeply into our lives. On the other hand, we pretend to learn their language very slowly. I’m a trained linguist and am fluent in many alien languages, but in their presence I’ve limited myself to twenty-five words and a few simple phrases.

They’re jealous of our gliding. They hack themselves around in the underbrush looking up at us in the canopy. They gasp, and, “Wow,” and, “Oh my God.” Half the time our younger ones are swooping around just for them.

They wonder that there are no paths. When have we ever needed paths?

They wonder at the length of our arms and at our arm flaps—at the skirt of skin across from knee to knee. That’s not just for beauty, but all the better for gliding.

The forest around them is filling up with their paths. Now, what with their little land planes disabled, they can’t go far. They didn’t ask us if we wanted paths or not. They think we’re too ignorant to have planted and nurtured the forest on purpose. Too ignorant to have laid out bushes with thorns and fish berry plants all over the forest floor.

* * * *

As they were settling in and wondering what was safe to eat . . . (They had to settle in. We had disabled their lander) . . . we pretended to eat all sorts of things we wouldn’t normally touch. We didn’t want them taking any of our favorite foods. We picked safe things—we didn’t want to poison them. We found them food we don’t bother with. Coarse things that take a long time to chew, and things full of lots of little bones so you spend more time spitting out than taking in. They were food jokes. We watched them testing and eating all those tough and gristly things. Our little ones were laughing right in front of them, but those creatures don’t recognize a laugh when they see one even though our laugh is much like theirs. They probably thought the little ones had hiccups.

So we were laughing more than ever, while they, on the other hand, forced to stay on a planet full of thorns and forced to eat all those unpleasant things, were laughing less and less.

They have ears, but not to speak of, so you can’t look there for signs of rage.

Just once they ate one of us. (They felt the lack of protein.) That was not so funny. Especially to my family. I was her great uncle. She was still in her baby fat. They roasted her over a fire. They’d probably still be trying to eat our young tender ones if we hadn’t . . . well, shown them exactly how it feels. None of them is young and tender. Which one to pick was a hard choice. We wanted all their pilots and navigators saved in case we wanted them off our planet. We decided on one of the dog handlers since there are two. We didn’t eat him, just left him where they’d find him, beside the path to the stream, spitted and roasted just as they had done to Jally.

But their eating Jally was partly our own fault because of the kind of food we’d shown them. After that we decided we had to let them have fish berries. Lots of protein and they slip down easily. We hated to see them eating up our supply after we’d spent so much time coaxing out the eggs but they did need better nourishment.

We noticed they took one of us, instead of one of their dogs. Even though we’re, clearly, smarter than dogs. Of course the dogs are not easily replaceable, and I suppose they think we are.

* * * *

Connie? Donnie? I call her Dearie. I do like her color, though she only has that little bit of it on the top of her head. She’d look a lot better if she had fur on her chin and cheeks as the males do. I can see blue veins on her forehead. Arms! Even worse. She, and all of them, are anatomy lessons for our young ones. She’s my counterpart, a linguist.

We’ve wondered all this time how it would be to mate with them, so I’m trying to be nice and not joke too much. Since I’m the main one chosen to study them, I’m also the logical one to study their sex tactics.

If sex doesn’t work out with me, there’s one of them I’d like Dearie to mate with. It would be fun and funny if she did because he’s the ugliest and the oldest. He’s even furless on the top of his head where most of them have at least some fur. Since she’s pretty, according to her own kind . . . they all say so . . . that would be a good joke. He’s Jake. I call him Joke. He thinks I can’t say it properly. He’s their captain.

My chances with Dearie are pretty good because we hear them say, about us, and over and over, how beautiful we are! How graceful. How wild and natural. How good natured. (That’s because we didn’t want them saying, Bad dog, to us.)

* * * *

They told us, “We can help you with your enemies,” as if we still had any. What kind of a world do they think this is? I mean we have space flight. It makes us wonder about where they came from. What kind of a planet is that? With space flight and enemies? Where were their priorities? We knew right then it wasn’t us that wasn’t civilized.

They did come with a lot of weapons. They never go anywhere without a pistol and some kind of blinding spray. And, of course, machetes to hack themselves around.

I don’t know why or how they ever got started, grew up and thrived and ate and killed without good teeth. Also without fur. Makes us wonder. Without their weapons I don’t think they could have survived very long on any planet.

We’ve been careful not to show them our teeth.

To test things out as to sex, I take Dearie into the forest, just the two of us. She started out with her sketchbook, camera, and recorder. (I’ve got my chip. If I had to carry around all those things, I’d not be able to glide.) Even though she has a camera, she loves to draw: trees and bugs and especially us. I once asked, “Why, when also cameras?” Back on her planet, she’s an artist. I was glad to hear they still practice ancient arts.

She brought her machete but she gets worn out trying to make herself a path. There’s frustration in the set of her mouth. I tell her, “Sit.” (That’s what they always say to their dogs and to us, too.) I say, “Stay. Rest.” I give her some fish berries. These are bigger and sweeter than the ones we usually let them have. Then, “Come,” I say. “Do as if baby on back.” (By now I let myself use over fifty words and several phrases.) She does, and I try to glide with her as we do with our little ones. That turns out to be impossible. I had no idea they were so heavy. Even though she’s smaller and looks thinner than I, she must weigh four times as much. That changes my mind about a lot of things. Easier if I rode on her back. I can’t help laughing at the thought.

She laughs, too. She understands how silly it all is. This is the first time I’ve laughed with one of them.

“You’re made like a bird,” she says. “Hollow bones, I’ll bet.” She pats my shoulder. Rubs the top of my head. I let her pat and stroke. It’s what they do to their dogs but never to each other. A bad sign for my chances to check on their mating ploys because, much as they love them, they don’t mate with their dogs.

I don’t think she has any idea that I’m wooing her. So, all right then, maybe I’ll talk up Captain Joke. We could learn things from those two. Still, having breasts that are large and furless is a nice idea and attracts us. We all . . . I mean all us males like it. Though we haven’t squeezed them yet. Not even by mistake. Too bad they cover them up with clothes. Are these creatures ever naked? We haven’t seen it, so maybe not. They must bathe in their lander. Perhaps they’re even as ugly to each other as they are to us. Maybe that’s why they love their dogs so, because they see the beauty of fur.

I didn’t even squeeze her breasts when I had the chance.

Maybe next time.

* * * *

I spend many an afternoon being interviewed by her. She, thinking she’s teaching her language to me (I already know it) and me teaching her our pidgin. By now we’ve often laughed together. There’s always lots to laugh about with so many language mistakes. She said the river ran, which is all right in her language, and I said, well cooked smells, which is all right in mine.

She likes me, but as what? Pretty smart pet?

I talk up Captain Joke but I don’t need to. She’s already in love with him. I can see why. He’s a kind creature and, though he gives the orders, he does it with grace and good humor. He often looks worried, but he never gets angry. These people have qualities worth preserving. Serious as Joke always is, he is probably worth saving. I always say, laughing isn’t everything, though some of us seem to think so.

They keep saying, “What huge trees. What a dense and high canopy.” And we keep saying, “There’s a reason for that.” We also say, “You must do something about your lander.” Still they haven’t done anything. They don’t think we’re smart enough to say anything about such things as landers.

You’d think they’d be asking about the Eye. It isn’t as if we haven’t taught them the words for it: “Moon of day. Eye of Night.” Our anomaly.

We laugh that they don’t ask, “What Eye?” And, “What Moon of Day?” And though, to us, and we’re brought up that way, everything is a laughing matter, this is not.

* * * *

Our downy underwear fur has started to grow. We puff out. Looks like their dogs are doing that, too. Just as our fur grows, little by little, the Uglies add more clothes. They’ve put on jackets, but I can often still see down the females’ necks into the tops of their breasts.

So far they’ve been living in their lander. (They’ve piped water from the stream all the way to it). They should move it into the forest even if they have to push it. What do they think those trees are for? Instead they’re building useless houses and sawing up firewood. Houses with steps up. They already have stairways everywhere, into their disabled fliers, into their disabled lander. We do see how necessary stairs are for their kind of disability.

I help build Dearie’s house. I do most of the roof because I can glide, but she’s up there working beside me. I’m glad to see she’s not afraid of heights though some of the others are.

She may suspect we’re smarter than we pretend to be. I have, on several occasions, seen what I take as admiration on her face.

Even though it’s awfully hard to like the looks of hairless creatures, she’s beginning to look pretty good to me: Odd and exotic, and then there’s those big naked comical breasts.

By now all our other males are paired off with females for the season. That leaves it up to me to find out about sex and breasts and let the others know.

They kiss their dogs so they do know about kissing. I’ll start with a kiss. It will be strange what with their odd teeth. I wonder if I can lock on.

Dearie’s new house is full of mating bugs. I hate to think of how it’ll be after the eggs hatch, but now it’s pleasant and musical. They sing to each other in perfect fifths and thirds so that everything vibrates in sync with their song.

We’re in the almost finished house. (This will just be a test. I don’t know how far I’ll go.) I put my arms around her. I keep my teeth covered and kiss a slow and careful kiss. It’s not the kind she kisses at her dog.

She pushes back, shocked. By her forehead I see how startled she is. But she isn’t angry, just puzzled. Says, “What’s this about? What does it mean?”

She checks her ear to make sure her recorder is on, then looks around for her sketchbook. It’s on the table. She reaches for it but I’m still holding her.

Her dog starts barking and trying to get between us.

I can’t help laughing. I laugh so much I let her go. I can’t go on with it.

“You can’t draw it,” I say. “And it’s not to be recorded either.”

I wish I had started with her breasts. At least I would have seen what they were like.

It takes her a little while to think about it, and then she laughs, too. Says, “Is this another joke?”

She knows us so well she knows it could be.

“I didn’t want it to be, but it got to be one.”

Now she she checks her ear to see that her recorder is on, but it always is. I have a feeling she’s trying to avoid the whole situation. I don’t think she knows what to do.

There’s a gold and green beetle, big as her hand, on the wall behind her, singing. I point him out. I say, that’s his love song.

She films the bug. I can see his love song doesn’t have any effect on her.

I know they can love because I see how they are with their dogs, though I don’t see any of that with each other. The males tap each other now and then and the females hug sometimes, but it’s the dogs that get the most loving attention. And all the time, too.

Odd, Dearie is in love with Joke and yet doesn’t ever show it or say anything about it. I can smell it. Perhaps it’s the wrong time of year for these creatures though some of them have paired up, but if there’s ever mating, it must take place in the lander.

We’ve always wanted bugs around us that tweet and twitter and harmonize—that glisten and glow. They’re mating this time of year so their eggs will last through the Eye though they themselves won’t. We respond as if they called to us, so most of us have gone into the forest by now. But I have no mate of my own. It was my choice to stay with the Uglies and keep researching though the bugs make me yearn as they do all of us.

* * * *

I spend the night alone in her almost finished house listening to the bugs. I’m more comfortable in the trees, but this is a better place to hear them singing their sex songs.

We’ve built a work table and shelves and she’s already moved the computer in. She’s left all her drawings, too. I hate to think what will happen to them. If I have a chance, I will save them.

Next morning, here she is, greeting me with her happy hello and her usual eager wave. Good signs she’s not bothered by what happened yesterday. Also good that she wearing long pants today. I don’t have to look at naked, blue veined legs that remind us all of grubs that have not yet seen the light of day.

She comes in, hugging her sketchbook. I take it from her. I will no longer make a pretence at not speaking their language perfectly. I say, “Today let us do as the bugs tell us to do. We have been good friends. We have laughed together.”

She looks at me, shocked at my sudden perfect accent, and tries to take back her sketchbook but I don’t let her. I say, “This is about to be a pleasant day.”

I kiss her, gently, but this time, I kiss as we do to each other, teeth to teeth. How odd she is. I hold her with one hand and with the other pull open her sweater and shirt, stop kissing and look . . . and there they are . . . in all their exaggeration.

I feel them. What a wonder!

In my attempt to kiss them, we fall, I, on top of her.

She tries to push away and yells for help, but, since she’s always the first one out of the lander, there’s nobody around to hear. She surrenders. Or consents? I don’t know which. It’s the dog that goes crazy, grabs my ankle and pulls, but I’m as if deaf to all but the bugs song. I’m humming in harmony with them and wishing she would hum, too.

When I get up, her face is blank. I wish there were more ways to read these people. With their dogs, the tail glued down tight between their legs, with us, the ears back against our head. No ambiguity possible. Now, with her, there’s nothing at all.

Then she breathes as if she’s been holding her breath and begins to shake. Is she, and finally, responding to the bug’s song?

She tries to speak but can’t. She picks up her shirt (several buttons are torn out. I hadn’t realized I was so violent), pulls on her pants, and runs out. Captain Joke is coming out of the lander. She runs to him. They hug and keep hugging. Perhaps I’ve finally brought them together.

She sits on the ground and he kneels next to her. I see him talk and talk. I move toward them and prick my ears forward.

He’s saying, “It’s all right.” And she’s saying, “No it’s not.”

“It is. It’ll be all right.”

“No. It won’t.”

“Come on inside.”

I can tell by the way she clings to him that she doesn’t want to let go and it looks as if he doesn’t want to either.

Though most of the others are paired off, everybody seems to avoid getting close to Captain Joke as if they think his time is too important or as if they think he needs to save all his thoughts and energy for making decisions. Now they’ll pair. I can smell it from here.

He helps her up the steps into the lander, but then comes right out again. She doesn’t.

He runs toward me. I don’t need any big ears to read that he’s going to attack me.

In spite of all their problems, I’ve never seen him angry until now. I think he’s going to take out his pistol, but he doesn’t. There’s no point in trying to fight somebody four, maybe five, times my weight. We do have ways to defend ourselves, but we don’t want to reveal them, and I’m curious. This will all go on to my chip.

He grabs me by the wrist and easily twirls me upside down and back again. To him I weigh nothing. I hear my shoulder pop. When he lets go, my arm hangs, useless. I know what that means. If I can’t glide and grab I’ll be as helpless as these creatures. I’ll not even be able to save myself let alone Dearie and Captain Joke.

I’m in a lot of pain, but I say, as if for him. “I know. Bad dog. No, no, no! But sorry dog. Sorry dog.”

I’m hanging on to my arm trying to keep it from hurting. I make excuses. “It was the bug’s song.” It was, but it also wasn’t. (If I was with my own kind they’d be laughing at me. They’d be saying, Bad dog, no!, too.) I almost say, I’m just an animal, what do I know? But I know better than to say that though I now know I don’t understand these people as well as I thought.

As if to a dog, he says, “Lie down.” I wonder what other torture he has for me. But I do it. I’m resigned and perhaps I deserve whatever he’ll do. But he puts his foot in my armpit, grabs my arm, twists, and pops my shoulder back into its socket. So it wasn’t broken. It doesn’t completely stop hurting, but it’s a lot better.

“Thank you.”

“Get up.”

I do, this time expecting maybe even more help, but as soon as I’m up he knocks me, with one punch, several yards away. Comes and stands over me. “Get up,” he says again.

This time I know better.

But he’s calming down. I can see it on his face. He’s not going to hit me again.

“Don’t ever . . .” he says, “Ever. . . !”

He’s shaking and he’s gone from red to pale, but It’s over. I do get up. I’m as wobbly as he is. And my shoulder still hurts. I don’t know if I can glide or not.

I had no idea something so fun and ordinary and harmless would cause so much trouble. And even the Captain gets in a rage though he never has before. But maybe he will love her now. Unless I’ve spoiled her some way.

But he did tell her it would be all right.

But she didn’t believe him.

He sits down, for the first time looking worn out and discouraged. I’m sorry to see it. I say so.

“Get out of here and don’t come back.”

Instead I sit beside him. I say, “You need to know some things and there’s only a few days before it happens. I can put back . . . I think you call it the mag-rotor? And you must fly the lander in under the trees.”

“What?”

As with Dearie, I no longer pretend I’m not fluent in their language. “I can put the mag-rotor back.”

This time I don’t see it coming.

I try to talk as he’s hitting. “The eye.” I say. “You have to know. . . .”

I roll over, my face in the fireproof earth we had prepared for them so they wouldn’t set the forest on fire. But that stuff, up my nose, is worse than facing his punches.

I sit up spitting gravel.

“I fear that I’m your only hope.”

He grabs me just as he did before, lifts me and twirls me and slams me down and this time does break my arm. I hear it and then see it. The bone has broken through the skin. I’m bleeding.

I’m nobody’s hope anymore. Not even my own.

I don’t feel the pain right away but it doesn’t take long.

He sits beside me, calming down. I’m gasping and holding on to my arm. I see he’s taking in what I said a moment before.

But I’m in pain. Can’t he see that? I’m sure he could set and wrap my arm as well as anyone even though he’s not their doctor.

He stares at me but doesn’t see me or my pain. He sees nothing but his own thoughts. “So . . . we’re at your mercy, and have been all this time. And I suppose you could have fought back just now and didn’t.”

I groan. If I could get back into the trees I could get something for pain.

“Donnie doesn’t want to see you anymore, ever, and I don’t either.”

That pains me more than I thought it would. Though right now my arm hurts more. My gentle informant is more to me than just an informant.

I say, “What can I do to make it right? I will do whatever needs to be done.”

Now he finally notices the blood and my broken arm.

I say, “Do you people have anything for pain?”

“Come inside the lander.”

But I still sit. “There are important things you have to know. We . . . they, not I . . . were going to let you stay right here. Your lander will be tossed away. There’ll be gravity and tides from the Eye. Even your mother ship could be lost if it doesn’t get out of the way.”

“Come on. We do have things for pain. We’ll talk inside.”

I’ve been losing blood all this time. I’m feeling faint. I get up, but the ground seems to slant sideways toward me and hits me on the head.

Somebody strokes my arm. At first I think I’m back with my mother and then I see the hand that strokes is hairless. Ugly. Blue veined. I pull away, horrified.

And then I remember.

I’m in the lander. Bandaged, sedated, Window beside me looking out at our grand great trees. I hadn’t known the Uglies had such comfortable beds. They have good medical facilities. We—all of us shouldn’t have looked down on them. If we wanted to laugh, it should have been a different kind of laugh.

But there’s the Eye. They have to prepare. I try to jump out of bed but the person holding my hand . . . she’s their doctor . . . holds me down.

“How many days have I been out? We must prepare. You have to move the lander.”

She says, “You’ve only been unconscious for a few hours.”

“Let me speak to Captain Jo . . . Jake.”

* * * *

They decide the best thing to do is to pack up and go off-planet. My kind takes time off from sex and helps them pack. We fix all their little land planes and move them under the trees. Donnie and Captain Jake and three others will ride out the Eye in the canopy with scientific instruments, both ours and theirs. I’ll stay with them. They’ve never seen a planet with such a strange eratic moon. Actually, in all our travels, neither have we.

After they study the Eye, they’ll stick around a while but more as our equals though not quite. We’ll let them see how we live symbiotically with the trees, but we don’t trust them with our science. There’s something important lacking in their cerebrum.

It looks as if my two favorite Uglies, Captain Jake and Donnie won’t be getting together as I’d hoped. Though they do feel love. There’s some kind of taboo going on I don’t understand. And it’s the same with Donnie’s relationship to me. She loves me but thinks any sex between us is forbidden, just as it is with dogs. I can live with that. Except, when the bugs sing and we vibrate with what the Uglies, and we also, call “the music of the spheres” (strange how both languages have the same concept even though they don’t have bugs that harmonize), and even though they’re still the least prepossessing of any aliens we’ve ever seen anywhere . . . I told Donnie to keep hold of that blinding eye spray because I can’t vouch for what I’ll do.