Semiosis Read online

  Four days into the wait, with nothing to do, I picked the big silver beads.

  “They’ll look good on you,” Roland said with his usual smirk when he saw me putting them in my backpack.

  “I think I’ll use them to bribe a girl to sleep with me,” I said. “We can’t all rely on pheromones. Do you know how us Bead boys celebrate the first time? We sneak out in the woods and cook and eat a fippokat.”

  I thought he’d be shocked, but he just kept smiling.

  “They’re tasty,” I added.

  “I’m glad you had a chance to find out. A lot of women like you, you know. I see how they look at you. They’re just waiting for you to put on a few years.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was kidding, but I wouldn’t let him get to me. I hadn’t had much luck with girls and he probably knew that. Sometimes I’d see him sitting with a smile on his face for no good reason, and then he’d glance at me and the smile would get big and smug. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to pick a fight and I couldn’t figure out how to annoy him. Greenies are such Parents.

  And we had six more days to wait.

  But what we found the next morning made us decide to leave. Marie went to dig a new gift center hole near what was left of Stevland, hoping the roots were alive, and she found a trap.

  “Come and look,” she said, “and watch your step!” Slowly, we gathered around. She had pulled back a cloth covered with dead weeds and ashes to hide the opening big enough that even Kung could have fallen into face-first. Stakes stuck up from the bottom. I shuddered, trying not to imagine them in me.

  “Maybe Jersey did this,” Roland said.

  “No,” Marie said quietly, as if it were a reasonable idea.

  “Is it dyed after it was woven?” I said, hoping it wasn’t. Cedar checked and shook her head. I said, “This must be to protect Stevland against eagles or something, right? Eagles or something.”

  “Maybe, or maybe it’s for hunting,” Marie said. “Maybe there are more.”

  Kung poked at the ground around Stevland and found another hole. I would never have noticed it. Suddenly I was afraid to move my feet. I looked down, trying to guess where it might be safe to step, but I couldn’t know.

  Marie sighed really loud. “Let’s leave. We know where it’s safe to walk, but in an emergency, we won’t have time to check where we run. And there might be other kinds of traps. Vote?”

  “We don’t need to vote,” Cedar said. “It’s unanimous.”

  We stood for a minute without moving, staring at the ground.

  “I wanted to meet them,” I said, but I wasn’t complaining. We had to go.

  “We might not be the target,” Roland said.

  Cedar picked up the cloth and shook it off. “That doesn’t mean we won’t get hurt.”

  “This is a disappointment.” Marie sighed. “But Tatiana approves of prudence. She’ll understand.”

  “So will Stevland,” Cedar said. I couldn’t tell if she was challenging Marie.

  “Are we still going to leave gifts for the Glassmakers?” I said.

  “Why, yes,” Marie said in a way that made me feel intelligent.

  “Too much we don’t know,” Kung said, shaking his head, and his braids moved in waves. He walked to the hearth, watching where he put his feet, and picked up a heat-cracked rock. He held it like a hand axe. “Hmh. Might be a good weapon.”

  “No,” Marie said. She walked, slowly and carefully, to the fresh soil around the houses. She took a big rock, whacked it against a foundation stone a few times, and came back to Kung. “This has a sharper edge. Everyone, gather up your possessions, but let’s travel light and fast. Leave behind what you can. Roland, bring the kat. Nye, leave some flutes and anything else they might like. Cedar, am I forgetting anything?”

  Kung stared at his new weapon. Cedar stared at Marie, surprised to be suddenly treated as number two. I was thinking that Marie really knew how to beat a hasty retreat, just what we needed now, and I wanted to leave only a little bit more than I still wanted to stay. But I’d have to meet Glassmakers some other time. I hoped they were safe.

  “We should leave a message,” Cedar said, still looking surprised.

  “Great idea. What?” Marie asked. We discussed it and reached a decision without arguing. With flutes and gifts and a few additional sticks, we wrote in Glassmade: “We desire-you friendship,” using the flutes for the word “you.” I kept one flute, a small one of patterned locustwood, my favorite.

  It took no time to pack up our stuff, since we didn’t have much. Most of what we’d brought was food. We repacked enough for a two-day march and put the rest near the message. I took the lead. Kung took the rear, holding the stone axe.

  We had just passed the crest of the path between the rocks and were headed down the far side of the mountain when I saw a footprint in some damp, bare dirt and waved for everyone to stop. Glassmakers have split hooves, but the mark wasn’t clear. Roland took a look. “Deer crab, maybe.” Or maybe not. I couldn’t decide if I felt relieved or disappointed.

  We hiked a few more minutes. The path turned around a boulder. On the other side, there were unmistakable Glassmaker tracks in a patch of dirt. “Several individuals,” Roland said. “Different sizes and depths.”

  “Not long ago,” Cedar said. “The ridges haven’t dried hardly at all.”

  “Headed that way.” Roland pointed up the path, the direction where we were headed. Maybe they had made the traps, but they had to be friendly, just like us. And we were going to meet them!

  Kung looked at the stone in his hand and threw it away. “I won’t fight Glassmakers. Promised.” He looked at Marie. “Make Nye play something. We’re not chasing them, not us, no. Not sneaking.”

  Marie nodded. I took out the flute, had to try twice to take a proper deep breath, and began a cheery song. We’re coming. We aren’t sneaking up on you. I wanted them to hear this in the music. Don’t be afraid. Come and meet us. Finally. Here we are. I hoped it wouldn’t take long because I was too happy to wait. Meet us. Please. And be what we hoped for, be friendly like us. We’re a lot alike.

  Roland scrambled ahead of me on the path and began to march to the music. Cedar and Marie clapped in time, and Kung, completely out of tune, whistled along. Here we come!

  Two hundred meters later, we knew before we followed the path around another boulder that Glassmakers waited on the other side. I saw their shadows. Glassmakers! Roland pointed and grinned and led the way. I followed, still playing the flute but too anxious to play well, to breathe right, to remember the tune, or anything. I was about to meet Glassmakers!

  On the other side of the boulder, Glassmakers blocked the path. For just a moment they looked like a tangle of tree stumps and dead branches. Then I began to see them, their bodies and heads, and their skinny, bent arms and legs. What on Earth would be called insects. Two arms, four legs. All brownish like tree trunks, different shades of brown. Maybe twenty-five of them. Their big eyes sparkled.

  They were pointing spears at us. Spears.

  That wasn’t what I had hoped for at all, but I kept playing, looking and playing at the same time. We stood still and kept clapping and moving to the music, but I barely moved because I felt ready to fall over with excitement. With every note, I could tell that I wasn’t the only one. Kung stopped whistling, and someone was clapping out of beat.

  The Glassmakers didn’t move or make a sound. They were workers and majors, shorter than I expected, much shorter than any of us. But they weren’t dressed fancy like Glassmakers in the murals. They wore plain, tattered blankets draped over their backs, leather gaiters on their legs like us, and baskets strapped to their flanks. A few wore leather hats or collars.

  They smelled like rotting tree fungus, and so intensely I could have gagged.

  Their spears were tipped in stone. Stone, like us. Where was their technology?

  A major wearing a brown-and-green plaid blanket stepped forward.

  Maybe these w
ere explorers. Our explorers didn’t carry much and didn’t dress fancy. They didn’t bathe much. They carried simple tools. I shouldn’t expect them to look magnificent. Or be surprised that there weren’t any females. They probably had better things to do.

  I played one more chorus of the march, stamping my foot to the beat, and the rest of us clapped along. The Glassmaker who had stepped forward stamped one of its front hooves for a few beats. It understood the music! We had already communicated without saying a word. I ended the song, lowered the flute, and waited. I had done my job! It was Marie’s turn.

  She raised her arms, elbows out, palms up, like the Glassmakers in the murals. They didn’t move. I wished they would lower their spears. I realized I was holding my flute like a club. Slowly, I unwrapped my fingers and held it like a pen.

  Marie gestured toward herself. “Marie.” She pointed at us. “Cedar, Nye, Kung, Roland.” Then she pointed at the Glassmaker who had stepped forward.

  Its face didn’t move. It didn’t answer.

  “We are very glad to meet you,” she said slowly. They wouldn’t understand, of course, but we had no idea how to pronounce Glassmade. The major in the plaid blanket still didn’t react.

  “We have come from the stars, too,” she said, “and we are pleased to share this planet with you. There is much that I hope we can learn from each other.”

  The fippokat began to climb out of Roland’s pack. He reached over his shoulder and took it in his arms. “What do you think, friend?” he murmured, and nuzzled it like a mother kat.

  The Glassmakers’ bulging eyes were on the sides of their heads and had no pupils, so I couldn’t tell what they were looking at. And their faces never moved, so I couldn’t tell what they were thinking. Were they friendly? One of them whistled something that ended in a snapping sound.

  Plaid Blanket gestured at the path behind us and took a step forward, then repeated the action, gesturing more. “Shall we go back?” Marie said. I nodded. I think the others did. She turned around and took a few steps, looking over her shoulder. The Glassmaker took a step forward. “Let’s go, then.”

  Kung took the lead, and we followed him, Marie last. Hooves thumped behind us.

  The walk back seemed longer than the trip there, although it was all downhill and fast and easy walking. I wondered if I should play more music. I looked over my shoulder a lot. A line of Glassmakers was following us down the mountain. A few majors gestured and spoke, and often I could heard them speak, squeaks and chatters and a noise like “chek” or “shuk” or “cheek,” harsh and unmusical. I couldn’t make those noises. They probably couldn’t make mine. But we could learn to listen. We would all have to, and we all wanted to. That’s why we were there.

  Back at the terrace, we lined up behind the message we had left. “I hope they can read,” Marie murmured. They formed a circle around us, and Plaid Blanket squeaked and chekked and pointed at the message. The damp air from the waterfall made their putrid smell seem worse.

  Marie stepped forward. Plaid Blanket’s head swiveled. She reached down and picked up a tulip bulb from the food we had left behind. Stevland said they ate tulip bulbs. She held it out. “Tulip,” she said. It stared at her hand, moving its head to study it, and shuffled a few nervous steps. Slowly, it reached out a skinny arm with two elbows and four long fingers. Marie stood still, smiling wide but with lips closed. No teeth, nothing threatening.

  It touched the bulb, but instead of taking it, its fingers slid around it to hold her hand. They say Sylvia had dreamed of this, standing hand in hand with a Glassmaker. I had dreamed of it as a child. Pacifists and Glassmakers, friends at last!

  The Glassmaker said something that sounded like a damp stick breaking and jerked Marie’s arm so hard she fell down. Kung grunted, and other Glassmakers stood stiff as if we might begin fighting, but we had to be friendly, so we just stood there, and I didn’t know what to do anyway. Marie looked up from the ground.

  “What was that for?” she said.

  The major didn’t answer.

  She got up and gave it a look that could have scorched its hair. They stared at each other.

  It put both hands on its spear.

  “Let’s try this again.” The real Marie had surfaced. She bent down and picked up the tulip bulb and held it out. “This is a tulip. Tulip. This is for you. A gift. Take it.” She held it by its pointed bud end rather than flat in her palm. “Go on,” she said a bit nicer. “I won’t hurt you.”

  It took a few nervous steps, head bobbing. She set the bulb on the ground close to its feet, then turned and pointed to the words on the ground. “We desire-you friendship.” She picked up a flute and handed it to me. “Nye, play something short and friendly.”

  Friendly. I could do that. I played a few bars of the children’s welcoming song for babies, repeated them, then, thinking of their noises, played it with harsh squeaky notes. I held the flute out toward Marie. She took it and held it out in the same manner toward the leader. It gestured toward another major, who came forward and took it. It blew in the mouthpiece, but not the right way, and no sound came out. It looked at me and squeaked sort of like the tune I had played.

  I picked up another flute and blew into it, showing the proper angle. It tried again, finally got a tweet, and did it again. It handed back the flute.

  “Thank you, Nye,” Marie said pointedly.

  “Good idea, Marie,” I answered. We had communicated! But they should have known what flutes were. They were in the murals.

  Plaid Blanket reached toward Marie. She didn’t flinch, but she blinked hard. It pointed to the strap to her backpack and gestured for her to take it off. She put it on the ground and stepped back. Two workers came forward and took everything out, the underwear, food, a blanket, a comb, a bit of soap wrapped in a leaf, and a Glassmade–Pacifist dictionary. Plaid Blanket and a few other majors picked up every item one by one and spoke a lot among themselves. They sniffed the soap and leafed through the book, but didn’t seem to read anything.

  They looked at the gifts on the ground, too, especially Harry’s carving of a Glassmaker. They sniffed the fruit Stevland had made with Glassmakers in mind, but set it down again. During their chatter and whistles, I whispered to Roland, “What do you think?” He understood fipps, so he might understand Glassmakers.

  “They’re surprised by how much we’re alike, us and them.”

  “Shouldn’t that be good?” Cedar whispered.

  Plaid Blanket called out, “Chek!” at us. By its gestures, it wanted us to take off our packs, and we did. They went through them. The dried meat in Kung’s pack earned a sound like “kongaree!” Roland’s pack included an obsidian mirror, something I don’t think they had ever seen before, and a little ball of lion yarn that they smelled again and again. My pack had nothing interesting. When they were done, they huddled and talked.

  “Knives,” Marie said, and took the thumb-sized stone blade from her belt and set it on the ground. We all did the same. This really excited the Glassmakers. They picked up the blades and knives and studied them and finally stashed them in a worker’s basket. The worker said something. Plaid Blanket called it forward and hit it so hard across the mouth that it bled red blood. It couldn’t have said anything to deserve that. I looked at Roland. He was watching them, holding the kat tight, as if he wanted to protect it. Marie had no expression on her face at all.

  I had seen people get hit in fights, but if both parties throw punches, it’s fair. Roland had to beat up old Qin to take the leadership of the lion pack, but they had rehearsed the fight. We Pacifists watched along with the lions, and when Qin left the field with a fake limp and fake blood on his face, we booed him.

  But the Glassmakers were people, and normal people wouldn’t let themselves be hit for real, and normal people wouldn’t hit someone defenseless. I had pledged to be a diplomat. If a Glassmaker hit me, I couldn’t hit back. But I had never, ever thought before about a Glassmaker hitting me. How could they?

  Th
ey took our food, except for the bamboo fruit, and handed it out. They ate quickly. Not all the workers got something to eat.

  “Look,” Kung murmured. “Teeth in their throat. See them move?” But we didn’t say more. Plaid Blanket didn’t seem to like talking.

  We got our packs back. Then Plaid Blanket ordered us to march down the mountain with them. “As they wish,” Marie said, but we didn’t have a choice. What would they do if we resisted? I gathered up the flutes and couldn’t tell if I was frightened or angry, but I stumbled when I stood up because my legs for a moment had no strength. The Glassmakers weren’t what I expected. Maybe they had destroyed the houses and burned Stevland.

  The path below the waterfall resort was steep and narrow. We hiked single file, mostly silent. Marie insisted on walking with Plaid Blanket and other majors. They spoke occasionally, and she had her dictionary out. The path sometimes got so steep that we had to climb on all fours, but they didn’t offer to help us and they seemed impatient. Sometimes a major would hit or kick a worker, but I couldn’t figure out what for, as if there could be a good reason.

  A cold wind blew through the rocks along the base of the cliffs. Cedar, ahead of me, pulled her clothes tight. Roland began to sing to his fipp, but Plaid Blanket made a gesture, and a worker near Roland clamped its hand over its mouth. Roland stopped singing.

  We hiked for the whole day and hardly stopped to pee, and saw that they peed from the far end of their body, but they never stopped to eat, and when the Sun set, we weren’t even halfway down the mountain. We camped on a wide ledge with nothing more than rocks, shrubs, and vines. We lay down, exhausted, and Kung passed out dried bamboo fruit. I chewed it in tiny, sweet bites to make it last longer. The Glassmakers knelt to sleep, legs tucked under them.

  “Can you understand them?” I whispered to Marie.

  “I don’t think they want me to understand,” Marie said.