PHOENIX (...part one...) * Nint stood east of Downport, where shuttles brought tourists and trade from one or another of the Earths. More than a small share of the interstellar vessels came down from Terra-Sol, Tēé-á Bor, and Itess. A few, as if mistaken, made their resentfully-necessary journeys from the isolationist planet of Bora Ziti: The One True Earth as its natives claimed, sniffing in disdain at anyone from the eight provincial and imposter worlds. Diplomacy brought them. Interest did not. It was the Terrans who came in the greatest numbers: invariably drawn from Earth to Earth by the promise of seeing a phoenix or two. They always came for the birds, the immolation of birds, and the exuberant hatchings of bird ash, though a few—like Diana Linde—showed some interests in the anthropological sciences, linguistics, or comparative human genomics. Of the eight foreign Earths, Terra-Sol bore the most similarities to a recognizable, local norm. The human natives of Terra-Sol seemed to have always known the phoenix species, though the breed itself never lived on their planet. It existed, they said, in their old mythologies as fantastic, golden firebirds, and in the most primordial days, as long-legged wading birds along a river called the Nile. True, biological phoenixes lived only here. They were—quite simply—birds: and—at most—a symbol on the Ensign of Nint stamped on all official documents. Only the Terrans expressed any measure of fawning obsession over them, and their notorious ornithophilia was a friendly joke whispered among locals. Diana Linde was not an ornithophile, but she arrived amid a gaggle of them. She arrived on a riverboat from Downport and stepped from ship to shore amid laughing tourists in heavy-fabric trousers, garish tunics, and bright-colored shoes with rubberized soles. They walked—as tradition dictated—through a gauntlet of shore guardians, gawking at the silent men in their traditional dragon-scale armor and extravagant, feathered masks. Guélán knew more than a few shore guardians, and recognized Avéön among them. It was a comfort to see him, rigid and handsome in his leather armor, like scales, and his mask like the mating display of some fanciful, upland raptor. His hair fell, like a cascade of lacquered honey between his shoulders and near to the small of his back. If Avéön recognized Guélán friendly scrutiny, he didn’t let on—wouldn’t let on for as long as he wore the feathered mask and stood at formal attention for the benefit of offworlder tourists. Some paused in their movement through the gauntlet of guardians to capture their images. Tourists to Nint were always taking holographs, always showing off their new gadgets, aware—as tourists always were—that Nint was an atavistic city-state: a stage drama for their benefit, as they were likely to judge. Nint, in their collective mind, was a stage set, a performance. The weavers (like Guélán, like Öár and like Vïen) and the shore guardians (like Avéön) were performers: a live-action glimpse back at the way things were before the humans of Earth met the humans from another. They found some amazement in that there was a world where, once upon a time, sewing and poetry were one and the same, and where common birds enjoyed lives of pyrotechnic immortality. Earth—this Earth—was a fairy tale to them, something more that what a grandmother’s voice might shape. Diana Linde moved with the small crowd, distinguishing herself by the cool and precise measure in which she took in the environment without breaking stride, without gawking at the shore guardians, or standing too near them, posing for inelegant snapshots. She carried one bag from a shoulder strap. A larger piece of luggage followed her like a faithful pet, assiduously avoiding other pieces of ambulatory luggage, trailing along with their owners or waiting patiently as they posed for obnoxious photographs. She wore a long, gray skirt, a billow-sleeved blouse, more local in cut than anything the other Terrans wore, and when she saw Guélán and Öár, she smiled in the way Terran diplomats were trained to smile. “It’s been a long time,” she said, in greeting, clasping Öár’s hand, and then Guélán’s. “A lot has changed, but the two of you still look the same. Better, in fact…more comfortable.” There was laughter in her voice: a spoken memory, perhaps, of the younger, shy weavers overwhelmed by the size the noise, and the commercial treacheries of a city called New York. “We are the same,” Öár said, taking the vocal lead with her, as he’d always done. It was easier when Öár spoke first. “But you’re different. You’re the Terran consul to Itess. This is no small achievement, and on behalf of the Weaver’s Guild, welcome to Dma. Welcome to Nint.” Dma, he’d said. Earth as any local might recognize the name. There were whole, compacted layers of meaning in Öár’s chosen words and the placement of his accent, and Guélán nearly flinched at the implications: the anger he felt, almost as compressed waves of heat bleeding out of Öár’s flesh. “Dma,” Diana said: as if tasting the name and probing its implicit meaning with the tip of her tongue. “Am I to assume that you’re keeping my presence here on a professional and official level? Or that you’re distancing yourselves from Terra Sol, and your memories of what happened there?” Guélán shrugged. “We are weavers,” he said, quietly. “A cultural treasure,” Diana said. “I know that. And I understand that. And, I suppose, I have to say—one more time—that I’m sorry for what happened. I didn’t know that my superiors, at the time, were going to do what they did; I certainly don’t agree with it, and as a Terra Sol representative of the IntraHuman Consul, I can also say that the perpetrators of that crime have been brought to full justice.” Öár nodded. “We saw the arrest reports and the trial transcripts; it was, as I understand it, big news on all nine Earths.” Guélán felt himself lean forward, feeling—of a sudden—a bit too blond, too pale, and too weak: not nearly as handsome as Öár and not nearly as brave. He was afraid, quite profoundly, that Öár was close to pushing a dark, personal issue. “We…I don’t blame you for any of what happened. You were as much a victim as we were, but here…on Dma, and especially in Nint, a weaver has particular responsibilities as well as a particular status, and it’s easier…I think—” “It’s okay,” Diana said, interrupting. “I understand, and ultimately, I agree with your reasoning, and the anger fueling it.” “Do you?” Öár challenged. “Yes,” Diana replied. “More I can say. And I can say another thing as well: I want to be here under different circumstances…maybe as a tourist, here to see a phoenix or to image-capture myself standing next to a guy wearing a feathered mask and carrying a guardian’s staff, but I can’t do that. Not now. I’m sure that your pérá gave you the very precise reasons for my visit, and the things I request of you, and I think that my presence here—at least in my mind—is a way of showing you a little bit of what I feel and know but can’t actually say.” Öár nodded, and Guélán felt the gesture. “It’s crowded here,” Öár said in brisk, clipped tones. “We’ll take you to your room.” Diana nodded in turn, spreading her hands—palm up—in an eloquent display of local gratitude. “A room in a Weaver’s Guild hostel isn’t exactly on the list of accessible accommodations for offworlders, and I’d be honored to have so familiar—and kind—an escort.” She spoke, Guélán heard, in the local tongue. Her accent was soft and clipped the sonorous endings of each word in odd, jarring ways. She spoke well, despite her clumsy inflection. Her words were enough—apparently—to cool the incendiary resentments Öár harbored, and they tugged something—as well—within Guélán deepest cockles. Gratitude, of a species he scarcely felt, lumped itself in his throat, and he reached forward, pale fingers tasting the fabric of her blouse as he touched Diana’s shoulder. “You’ve learned our language,” he said, surprised and unexpectedly flattered. The Terra-Sol consul to Itess had no reason to learn Dma’iim. She met his gaze and he saw himself reflected—twice—in her tea-black gaze. Her eyes were as dark as Öár’s. Her skin, like Öár’s was dark brown, though perhaps a quarter shade darker: less nutty in color: more toasted. She was an impressive figure in her near-local blouse and ankle-long skirt, and now—amid diminishing crowds of tourists and phoenix-seekers—he saw the diplomatic symbolism embedded in her sartorial choice and words in the local tongue. “Welcome to Dma,” he said, fingers clenching gently as the softest of smiles stretched the corners of his lips. “Thank you,” Diana said, dropping her gaze as any local might. * * * “I wasn’t expecting this,” Öár said, fingering the rim of a teacup, watching moonlight, lantern-light, or his own dark reflection in the shimmering, darker, liquid. The night seemed unusually tense: restive in a way that Guélán seldom experienced. He’d spent the day with Öár and with Diana, listening to the things she had to say and saying things to her. Official and diplomatic things. Emotionless things. He’d erected a wall between himself and the dark-skinned Earth woman, and felt some strange hybrid of guilt and fear as he added to that wall, stacking one layer of cold and inflexible emotions on top of another. The overall feeling was a nameless thing, beyond his ability to write or weave a marker for it. He didn’t know its orthography. He didn’t know its diacritical grammar. I understand what you must be feeling, Diana had said at mid-day meal. And that’s why I’m here. I’ve shared in the experience you’ve both endured: that particular rape, and so I feel that it’s only right that I come here, now, and offer what closure I can. That was such a Terran way of speaking, as if emotions and doors had something in common. And maybe they did, on another Earth, among other sorts of humans. But here, on Dma, emotions were one thing and doors were something else all-together. One closed. The other did not. “I thought my feelings were gone away and that I was safe,” Öár said. “But they’re back, and you don’t know if they were ever gone.” His own voice, Guélán thought, was an echo born in Öár ’s mind. “You feel it, too?” Guélán nodded. “I feel it, too…” They sat—face to face—at a small table in a small courtyard. There were tourists beyond the outer wall, ornithophiles on their laughing, drunken phoenix-quests, and there were phoenixes, gone featherless and immobile and perfectly invisible to those unaware of immanence and what to look for. It might have been amusing to think of the common Terran reaction to a phoenix gone immanent, but Guélán’s thoughts were too dark and too focused on the one thing that most Terrans were capable of: the one thing Diana came to close and to apologize for… …again. Though I’m posted on Itess, I’m still interested in the various consular dealings between Dma and Terra-Sol. Because of my association with you, my colleagues and superiors feel that I should be the one here…now. I agree with them, and so I’m here. Now. Because of recent developments. “I don’t want to see what she has to show us,” Öár said. “I don’t want to hear what else she has to say about those things.” An easterly breeze wafted over the courtyard wall, carrying a tangy, peppery scent from the grasslands beyond the township limits. Guélán closed his eyes as the soft wind tickled through his hair, playing strands of it across his brow. It tickled his eyelashes and he brushed the wind-stirred strands aside and opened his eyes to drink in the sight of Öár, shadowed and in shadowy thoughts. “I’m going to the river,” Guélán said, reaching forward and clasping Öár’s fingers as gently as he could. “I’m going to bathe.” Öár nodded. “Will you come with me. Will you bathe with me?” Öár nodded. “Yes,” he said softly, and then, more firmly: “Yes.” Guélán smiled and sipped at his cooling tea. “Vïen will be back, two days after Diana leaves,” Öár said. “Yes.” “This will be over.” “I hope so.” “We should bathe again. With Vïen, when he returns.” “We should.” —But there were days, yet, until that time, and tomorrow… (…after a river-bath and desperate love-play…) …they were to sit with Diana in the most important of personal meetings. I’ve brought a tapestry with me. Local craftsmanship and woven in the local language. Your dialect. There are no practicing weavers on Terra-Sol, and yet the tapestry was created there. I’ll need for you to read it, and help me to determine what to do with it. It was Guélán who’d asked about the weaver, the artisan. A Terran, Diana had said. It was Öár who’d rankled, visibly. Weave is a protected language. A planetary treasure. It isn’t taught to outsiders. It’s…a personal thing. Diana had closed her eyes and nodded. She’d said how disturbing the ramifications were: of a Dma tapestry woven…spoken on Terra. There were diplomatic entanglements, issues of social rights. It was, as Guélán thought, a basket of asps, and he felt no urge to reach into it. And now, seated with Öár and drinking tea in a small, dim courtyard, he wondered just which asp just slithered out and was poised to bite him first. He would learn that, tomorrow. And Öár would, too. **…end of part one…** This story began, as most stories do, long ago: It began as a response to things I’d been reading, particularly an intriguing anthology of stories (The Secret History of Science Fiction edited by James Patrick Kelly.) The anthology in question featured science fictional stories that do not fall within the traditional boundaries of the genre. They were science fiction stories simply because the writers themselves said so. Well, admittedly, there were time travelers, strange penal systems, odd bits of super-technology, space stations, and even the dreaded World War Three, but most of the stories focused on the mainstays of mainstream fiction: crime and divorce, infidelity, coming of age, and…well…a few surprising combinations of crime, divorce, infidelity, and…um…silver, shape-shifty, twinkly stuff. This story is not an immediate, or even conscious response to those stories of growing up, getting divorced, or getting stuck in a snow storm, but it’s focus is similar. It’s science fiction. Anyone reading it can tell you that, but it’s not an adventure…at least in these first few pages, nobody gets shot by the evil alien while attempting to heroically save the midriff-bearing space princess with her heaving cleavage. As with many “literary” forms of fiction, most of the action is internal, or expressed through dialogue of a distinctly mundane nature, but since this is a science fictional story, I’m rather taken by the idea that 9 different planets called Earth can be considered mundane…but I suppose it would be if you lived on one of them. As always, thank you for reading, viewing, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.