The Wait is Longer Than You Think Read online

  May 1, 2018 Volume 8 No 7

  The Wait is Longer Than You Think

  by Adrian Simmons

  1.

  John stood and gunned up his courage. “We need to talk.”

  Colophinanoc’s manipulator digits didn’t stop their movement, their rhythmic squirming in and out and around the small basket he made. The eyes, the two at the top, swiveled toward John, the antennae dropped back—something John had learned was one of a dozen shows of minor annoyance.

  “About what? Is there something wrong with the nets, the shelter, or the gardens?”

  “Nothing like that,” John said. The problem was more vague but so very important. “We just… I need… humans are troop animals, we rely on each other. Too much solitude is not healthy for us.”

  “You are not solitary, your dorm is not five meters from mine, and we are within ten meters of each other almost all the time.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. You need to talk more to me.” He was far past the point of embarrassment; it felt good to finally just say it. “I need to talk more to you.”

  The vermicular manipulation digits stopped their work at the basket. “About what?”

  This was the hardest part. In his head, over weeks and months, John had prepared dozens of answers. Here at last what came out of his mouth was: “Anything.”

  Colophinanoc’s antennae lashed and flickered: confusion, perturbation. Also, from the twist at their bases, John suspected he was a little a little hungry. “I take time to speak and interact with you.”

  John fought down panic. “Yes, and I appreciate it. But, for my long-term mental health, I need more.”

  “How much more?” The other eyes, the mid-line ones, looked from the basket to his face. Another bad sign.

  Pestering, that was what John was doing. That’s how a Kinri would view it. Like a little yappy dog or a Cygnus Crawler that can’t keep its tentacles to itself.

  “About two or three times more.”

  The segmented fingers stumbled at the weave.

  Before things could get worse John suggested, “Kirni go through a social phase, when they are hatchlings. I need about that much.”

  “Juvenile Kinri band together because adult Kinri are fundamentally solitary creatures.” Colophinanoc stood suddenly, always surprising how fast given the bulk of his oblong dome-shaped body. He half turned away. “What you are asking is not easy for an adult to do.”

  John’s fear surged then morphed into anger. Colophinanoc had to make it difficult. He exhaled, willed himself to stick to the strategy, stick to what he had planned. Which was to give his alien comrade a choice. A false one. “Well…the AI can fulfill some of the need.”

  Colophinanoc turned back, antennae down, all eyes on him. “You spend too much time with the AI, you should not run down the batteries and you should be working.”

  “You are right, and you must understand that my need for interaction will overcome the need to work and I will waste time and the AI’s battery power. That’s why we need to talk.”

  Kinri were not anti-social. It wasn’t like if one fell and hurt itself, another or multiple others, wouldn’t help it. They held doors open for each other, that kind of thing. But they were fundamentally solitary. John had been bringing reed-like plants for a week to the shelter--a week in which Colophinanoc had made baskets, mats, roofing and wall material, all pretty much without a word.

  John had the numbers, the dry simple damnable numbers, committed to memory. Thirty seven standard hours in a Xephon day; fifteen days in a Xephon week; three weeks in a Xephon month (measured against the phases of the largest of the three moons); and eleven months per a Xephon year.

  They had been marooned on Xephon for eight weeks, local time, almost six months earth-standard. John had hoped he’d last until week ten before he started begging.

  Colophinanoc found his place in the basket weaving. “What do I need to talk about?”

  Somewhere in John’s back muscles relaxed. He let himself think, dream for an instant that this was going to work. “Tell me what you were doing six cycles before the Marblehead left Pirus Three.”

  Colophinanoc’s minor mandibles moved, like they were chewing on a thought. John knew what that thought was: What difference did it make what I was doing six cycles before the ship left? It drew in a large and very human-like breath: a sigh of resignation.

  “All three levels of consciousness were obtained at 600 hours, and because I needed to get to the knot cluster posted by 10:00 I opted to clean myself before eating.”

  “Did you use water?”

  “Yes.”

  John knew he was pushing it. “Air dry or towel?”

  The Kinri hunkered down a bit and John’s back tightened.

  “Towel.”

  “Tell me about the pre-launch meeting.”

  “The six representatives of the sub-knots of Ctlinatlit District met to decide on the re-allocation of cooling lubricants for the communal metal manipulating units.”

  “Drop forges or lathe?”

  “Drop forges.”

  “Okay. Drop forges. Go on.”

  It was a good start. Later John could ask about the six knots and how they related to each other and many other things. He had hundreds of other things to ask that he had pieced together in the three and a half months they had been marooned on Xephon.

  The afternoon rains came, as they always did. A gentle rain that would last until right before sundown then the long eighteen-hour night and the only sound would be the bugs and the lapping of Crashdown Lake.

  John sighed, resigned and oddly content.

  Five years, three months to go—Xephon time. Eleven standard earth years.

  2.

  “Anyway, then Nanooni, he looks right at the kid and says, ‘ribbed’!”

  Colophinanoc regarded him with the top eyes--the mid-lines watched the water. “This leads to a challenge?”

  “No. Socially awkward.” John knew he should be watching the lake, but he wanted the Kinri to really get it. “Like discovering you’ve left a chunk of carapace cuticle hanging from your genital hump.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah, so there we were--” He looked over. “Can you get us a little closer to the fan tree?”

  Colophinanoc’s long mobility legs hung over the edge of the small boat and barely made ripples as he changed course. This operation had to be done just right. Scare he fish too much and they’d bolt to the deeper part of the Crashdown lake.

  John, in the prow, gathered up the net, folding it carefully and making sure the stone weights were spaced just so. The conversations had to go just so, too. He’d been cautious about how much chatter he engaged in on the lake; Colophinanoc was a captive audience. It was crucial that Colophinanoc didn’t feel like a captive audience.

  If that happened, Colophinanoc would surely suggest that they leave off the fishing boat and work on the traps—which they did separately. It had not taken long for Colophinanoc to come up with a dozen or more tasks that they did separately.

  He waited; watched the sunken fan tree where they had herded the fish. In his impatience, the words came to fast. He couldn’t wait anymore. “Yeah, so there we are, Sully and I, trying not to bust out laughing at Nanooni and—” the slightest shiver runs through the reed boat, Colophinanoc shifting, Colophinanoc getting sick of him.

  John dropped it, standing in the silence for a long time. Then: “I think we need to rebuild the east wall.”

  “Again? Why?”

  Because tasks, jobs, concrete things were the best way to get back on the alien’s good side. But even knowing that, it still took maneuvering. “I think we’ve been getting more
rain this season. Got some rotten spots, and those attract the borers, which just tear it up that much more.”

  “Have we gotten more rain?”

  A fish! A glimmer of silver in the murk of the fan tree’s limbs. Then another, then a storm of them. With a twist of the hips that fed into the twist of his shoulders John let the net fly out into a perfect circle on impact with the lake. It was a trick learned, a skill he had practiced, over the long days, like Colophinanoc’s silent rowing.

  John let it sink for a bit, then started hauling it back. “Yeah. A few extra minutes per day, a few extra days per season—it adds up.”

  The top eyes swiveled to look back at their composite shelter. The east wall wouldn’t be visible from here, but later John was sure Colophinanoc would inspect it. And the kinri would find the bad spots, because John has very carefully worked bad spots in, even going as far as putting eggs from a borer bug nest into it.

  He hauled the net in, bursting with a wriggling silver bounty—as always.

  The survival shelter packed into the escape pod measures five by five meters, lifts up about three meters, and can be guyed out by spikes, or sandbags, and/or the pneumatic ribs. Insects, or Xephon’s equivalent of them—more like a shelled jellyfish—were pretty much the only threat. They probably could reduce the lifespan of the shelter down to four Xephon years. So John and Colophinanoc had built a second shelter around it.

  “One more cast?” John suggested.

  “Yes.”

  Folding the nets for a throw John dared a question, “If it comes to it, how many bundles of reeds do we need to re-build the east wall?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Standard arrangement? I gather, you weave?”

  “That is the most efficient way. If it comes to it.”

  Things were going well. He didn’t want to push too hard… but he didn’t want to miss an opportunity, either. “Think we should move the sour-root harvest up, or maybe the red-berry planting back?”

  “Red-berry back. Sour-root will stay good for quite a while.”

  They discussed it—as John knew they would. Something real and tangible, that was the kind of thing that Colophinanoc could discuss, and John could take the discussion to strange places and “what ifs” and various other things which would be annoying, but bearable, to the kinri.

  He only hauled in half a net-full at the crossbar-and-buttress tree they had sunk here years go. They rowed the boat back and beached it on top of the area where John had buried wood-gnawing beetles.

  It was a trick he’d learned.

  3.

  “It isn’t a sound,” Frank said, “so much as a smell: A gamey odor, that raises the hairs on the back of your neck.”

  John paused outside the shelter, stopping along the track he had worn. “Dammit,” he said. “Should we try the south door?”

  On the tablet screen Emo Frodo pushed into view. “South?” he said. “Always bad luck.”

  For a while Frank had been Francine, but that had just made John incredibly horny. And although Colophinanoc wouldn’t care if he caught him masturbating, getting caught masturbating to an AI wasn’t something John was willing to endure. That the kinri was watching him pace and play make-believe was bad enough, but John had quietly convinced himself that maybe Colophinanoc was learning something about human interaction.

  Whatever, Colophinanoc was one thing, but getting through the impending crap-sandwich Frank had set up for him was another. “South door, then.”

  “If you insist,” Emo Frodo said with a shrug, reaching for the handle, “but mark my words…”

  “Not you,” John snapped. “Sir Farts-A-Lot is our door-opener.”

  “By the eternal winds of the great gorge of Brahamanat!” the knight said, shoving Emo Frodo aside. “It shall be done!”

  On the screen the warrior grunted as he rammed into the doorwith his shoulder and it gave in. Beyond a gang of orcs looked up from their poker game. The princess looked up too, before tilting back her crown and throwing her cards down. “I fold, you sons of bitches!” she shouted.

  Things moved quickly, each character shouting battle cries or pithy quips. Left to their own, John knew they’d get slaughtered—again. He had to allocate!

  “Get Sir-Farts-A-Lot to the Chieftain. Big Wang does the grasshopper jump to the archer, and Emo Frodo, you duck under the table and kneecap that little guy.”

  “What about Hermionie Bangher?” Frank asked.

  “Lightning bolt! Always lightning bolt!”

  Hermione skidded to a halt. She faced the screen, took the cigar out of her mouth and said, “Such a tone! Technically, I am Frank’s character.”

  “You want to be a corpse with a wealth of unused charges?” John pointed out. “Lightning bolt!”

  A message popped up on the screen-- twenty seconds! Where had the time gone?

  Watching the four adventurers act like middle-school cut-ups and arguing with Frank, that’s where.

  The big fighter only got three steps into the room before an orc spear caught him in the chest. Emo Frodo took two steps and then Hermione’s lightning bolt hit him right in the back.

  “What the fuck was that, Frank?”

  The ten-second warning!

  “Hermione’s still suckin’ wind from the ignoble retreat from the lair of the lizard folk,” Frank pointed out.

  “Dammit!”

  Big Wang landed on the table next to the archer, leveling him with a blurry-fast kick to the gut.

  Another message: Zero.

  The screen darkened. “Gotta shut it down, buddy,” Frank said. “See you next week.”

  “Extension! Time extension!”

  The toad-cold grip of Colophinanoc’s ropey fingers wrapped around his wrist. “Do not damage the AI.”

  “I’m not gonna damage it,” John shot back. “Another five minutes. I’ve been working toward this encounter for weeks.”

  “Put the AI down.”All of Colophinanoc’s eyes were on him; the alien’s body was titled back and down.

  Fuck them both. “I’m not gonna—”

  The first mobility limb lifted up. A Kinri could punch hard.

  “Alright, alright.” He let go and watched as Colophinanoc put the AI back in its case. “See you in a week, Frank. This isn’t over.”

  4.

  Xephon 3 was, as near as the combined opinions of John, Colophinanoc, and AI Citizen #25399 (the first-aid AI didn’t really count) could tell, a lot like earth toward the end of the Devonian period.

  Crashdown Lake was maybe seven meters deep. The lifeboat stuck up from it into the air, maybe four meters. Who knows what the added radiation from the lifeboat’s engines and batteries would have on the life here… probably nothing, but John couldn’t help wondering, and sometimes even dreaming.

  The lake was a good thing: a provider and a protector. It teemed with fish, small ones about the length of his hand and various other things--the shelled fish, which seemed like an odd combination between a fish, a clam, and a jellyfish.

  John was not a biologist by training, he was an yttrium maximization specialist, but how much good was that now? None! And in the three years, local, he had been here he had forgotten the vast amount of it. Except for the time he spent three months boning up on it, which seemed like a lifetime ago, now. He had become a biologist in an amateur fashion, and by now his very thorough survey of the life around Crashdown Lake on Xephon-3 was pretty firmly detailed. He’d used the medi-kits magnifier and, of course, everything had a camera these days.

  Xephon had predatory fish, about thirty centimeters or so long. They hadn’t quite evolved a hinged jaw yet, so outside of a bad hickey there wasn’t much they could do to him. With Colophinanoc’s chitinous plates, they couldn’t do anything to the Kinri.

  On the landward side, there were plenty of plants, a few of them got about as tall as John if he stretched his hands up as far as he could. Most were shorter, knee-high. There were land creatures, the strange shellfish that had c
ome up on land and lost most of their shells. Most. They kind of had an empty clamshell they carried concave side-up and in this they somehow kept their strange jellyfish symbiots—which seemed to, maybe, feast on the abundant spores and floating midges that drifted into them.

  There was no grass, just a kind of plant that grew about mid-shin high then burst out into dozens of thumbnail sized leaves.

  John’s pursuit of amateur biology had started as a necessity; an inventory of what grew where and what was edible and what was a pest; had transitioned into a hobby to give him something to talk about that both he and Colophinanoc had a stake in; and was now getting to be a low-grade obsession.

  5.

  “Well,” John said, “it looks like our boat-beaching structure is doing the trick.”

  He ran his hand over the hull of their third fishing boat. They had spent a day or two collecting the larger plants that grew higher up in the hills and building a frame upon which to lay their boats, saving them from infestation by the wood-gnawing beetle. It had been Colophinanoc’s idea.

  “It does look like it,” Colophinanoc said.

  “So what happened after your accounting cadre was re-assigned to Elnotracon?” John asked. He’d have to figure out how to get wood-gnawer eggs on those boats…

  Colophinanoc took a slow breath through his lateral spirochetes. The Kinri was trying to figure out a way to piece it together in a way that John would find interesting- John could tell, and he appreciated it. The slight backward tilt of the body, the splaying of the antennae, a slight twitch in the heavy manipulator limbs, and of course the telltale sign of Colophinanoc’s fingers wiggling on their multi-segmented joints, as if it were spinning its words into a story.

  “Pinonicy wasn’t too happy about it,” the alien said.

  “But she was six weeks pregnant, right?” John asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But she still hadn’t told anybody who the father was?”

  “No. She went a sperm-bank and found a high-caste donor.”

  “Dammit! Colophinanoc!”

  A sudden tilt forward and the Kinri said: “What? Did I not draw it out enough?”