Where else indeed. “Is there any ritual or preparation required?”
“No. We just do it.” She moved closer, brought the tip of an arm into place, and touched his arm tip.
Just like that, he slept.
He woke as the light returned, still touching her. He must have slept several hours; he did feel refreshed.
“Now I leave you to your feeding and exercises,” she said. “I will return later for more instruction.”
“As you prefer,” he agreed.
She moved away. He admired the finesse of her rippling body as she traveled, seeming to flow effortlessly across the packed sand, with a sound like music. He was not nearly there yet; his motions were jerky and sometimes out of control; he tended to angle his tubelets at different slants, so that one arm would move faster than another, and he would find himself in a slow spin. So he worked on that, not merely moving, but moving smoothly. He also practiced lifting individual arms, in the manner of human arms. He knew that the starfish would not have been able to build spaceships without being able to use their arms to handle objects.
He noticed small fish swimming in the area. They were not Earth fish, but they were certainly fish-like, with sleek, flat bodies, fins, and propulsive tails. He remembered how some Earth mammals had returned to the sea and become superficially fish-like: the dolphins and whales. And how some were still in transition, like the seals, with flippers. And some birds: penguins might seem clumsy on land, but in the water they were meteoric swimmers.
Which brought him back to the starfish. They superficially resembled Earthly starfish, except that they were larger, but were not at all like them in nature or detail. Their form must have been convenient for navigating the sea floor. Yet they must be able to do more than merely traverse sandy seascapes.
For example, how did they eat before they had machines to color their water? Could they catch fish?
He lifted an arm and used its upper musculature to strike at a passing fish. The underside smacked into the side of the fish and held, to his surprise. There were stickers along with the tube jets. He had, in his fashion, speared a fish.
He brought the struggling creature down to his central body, and to a hole he found there. It wasn’t exactly a mouth, but an aperture. So why did his body want the fish there? He held it close, and something white emerged from the hole. It touched the fish.
The fish made a valiant struggle to escape, as if in pain, but then abruptly went limp. What had happened? Now he saw that its body was actually dissolving where the white touched it, as if eaten away by acid.
Acid! Stomach biological juices. Part of his stomach had emerged from the hole, and was digesting the fish outside his body. That was how the starfish ate something solid, in contrast to drinking nutritious drinks as before. Now he knew.
Actually the fish was delicious. When he finished it, all except the bones, he went after another. Those arm stickers were weapons, spearing and holding game until it could be assimilated. They might be weapons against creatures that preyed on starfish, too. It surely had not been an accident that starfish had come to dominate their planet. They were likely formidable fighting creatures when they had to be.
Yet Aliena’s touch had been nothing but bliss. So the weapons could be masked, like the retractable claws of cats.
Aliena returned, gliding smoothly across the sand. “I see you are learning to hunt,” she said.
“Yes. I don’t want to survive just on colored drinks.”
“I was going to teach you that. You are a good student.”
“I think it’s mostly my host body. It knows how to do these things, and I am learning from it.”
“That is true. But it can still take time to really understand it, and the culture is worse.”
This interested him. “I understand that you were in a human host, but had to leave it. That must have been difficult.” The Smythes had told Lida and him that, but he preferred to confirm it.
“It was, but I don’t need to burden you with that history.”
“Please. I want to know. It surely will help me relate to my situation.”
She flashed a lighter pink, evidently her signal of agreement. He had not realized that starfish could change shades of color to signal states of mind, but it came to him as he saw it. He could do it too, once he learned the trick of it. “Simply put, I was the first starfish brain transplant to a human body, and we did not know all the details. I was assigned two close personal human guards, and my nature was concealed from the general Earth populace. I learned much, but not enough. It was not until an unexpected storm removed my handlers and brought Brom into my life that I truly learned to function as a human being. I learned love from him, something it was not easy for me to do. I married him, and bore his child, Maple. Then I had to leave him, and discovered the negative side of emotion. It was as awful in that aspect, as it had been wonderful when it was positive. Had I been more careful, and paid better attention to my situation, I might have avoided the immune rejection that took me out, and saved myself much grief. But I was willful, and had a temper—the nether side of learning emotion.” Now she flashed a darker hue. “But to avoid it I would have had to sacrifice my child before she was born. If I had it to do over, I think I still would not do that. It was, in its fashion, a choice between my husband and my child. As a starfish I could have made that choice rationally, but I had become too human. So I don’t know what I really have learned. Star is doing a better job than I would have.”
“I don’t think I could have made that choice either,” Quincy said, moved.
“At least it set me up to help you adapt to your new host. I know how difficult it can be, emotionally, which is not something other starfish appreciate.”
“I am glad you are here for me, though sorry about the way you came to it. I will do my best to fulfill whatever role I am assigned, but am sure I will succeed better with your help.”
“That is probably true. Now we must take you through another basic lesson: self-defense. There are not dangers here in this controlled environment, but you will not be a complete starfish until you understand it, and you will need it for the final examination.”
“There’s a test?”
“It is a race. The winners will be granted the right to breed. The others will play out their lives in secondary roles.”
“But I’m human! I won’t be breeding as a starfish.”
“If you breed at all, it will be as a starfish, because that is your present body. I bred as a human, when on Earth.”
“Oh, of course. But I have no ambition of that kind. For one thing, I still love Lida.”
“As I love Brom. But we both must get over that, in part because they both must practice their new lives and breed with their new partners. It is part of the larger plan.”
“And just what is that plan?” he asked, obscurely nettled. Maybe it was the bit about their partners breeding. The idea of Lida doing it with someone else still rankled, though he had known from the outset that this was a significant aspect of the deal: she had to maintain the marriage as though nothing had changed, sex and all, while the starfish male emulated him, Quincy. It was the deal that had saved Quincy’s life and put him here in an alien body. So it was a foolish rankle and he needed to get over it. If only he could.
“We starfish colonists need to integrate with human society,” Aliena said, answering his question. “We must show that we appreciate human concerns, so that the two cultures can function amicably together.”
That reminded him of something else. “There are those who think you are just trying to infiltrate us so you can take over our world.”
“There are,” she agreed without irritation. “It is one reason we need to proceed cautiously, and have competent local protection. We would have a similar concern had Earth been the one to send a spaceship to our home world. The concern is ludicrous because the logistics of conquering and governing a foreign world make any such effort virtually impossible.
Cooperation is the only feasible way to associate. Otherwise our considerable effort to come here would be wasted.”
“Why did you come?”
“We do not experience emotion in the way you do, but we do have certain drives that may be similar. Survival is one. Companionship is another. The idea of being alone in the universe, as the only sapient species, appalls us. So we are searching for others, and you are what we have found so far.”
Quincy nodded, which amounted to a slight depression of his central hump. “Human beings are social in nature. One of the worst punishments that can be inflicted on a person is isolation, as in solitary confinement. It can drive a person crazy, literally.”
“We are social too, on the personal and species level. We need to be with others of our kind, or other sapients. The verification of sapient life on Planet Earth was the most significant event of our recent history.”
“Ours too.”
“Just as males and females need each other, despite separate outlooks, sapient species need each other. We must make this association of worlds work.”
“Makes sense to me. Which world is male, and which female?”
She gazed at him blankly, which was a good trick for a starfish with myriad pinpoint eyes.
“Humor,” he said. “So what is the agenda for the day?”
“To start, you learning our mode of communication. You will not find it easy, and may never achieve complete proficiency, but at least you will be able to dialogue with us without the machines.”
“I’ll learn pidgin,” he agreed.
“First you must sing.”
Uh-oh. “I’m not much of a singer.”
“But Gloaming is a fine singer.”
“Gloaming?”
“That is what Lida named the star man. It was from a song she knew.”
“‘In the Gloaming’!” he exclaimed, his whole body lifting slightly off the sand from the force of his jets. “My favorite song. She named him from that.”
“Surely in honor of you,” Aliena agreed. “I know she did not want to give you up entirely.”
Quincy was perversely gratified by this small evidence of Lida’s constancy. But there was an issue. “I’m not a singer. I can’t hold a key. I always wind up low, unless there’s someone else who has perfect pitch to give me a constant reference point. You say this man—Gloaming—really can sing? Even in my body?”
“Yes. His pitch stems from his brain, not your body. Your singing voice is good; with his control it can be great. But our concern now is with you. Sing that song.”
Quincy hesitated. “It’s my favorite to listen to, not to sing alone. I’d ruin it.”
“I will help you. I do have perfect pitch. Every starfish does. But first you must sing it for me so that I can learn it.”
“I’ll try. But this will be embarrassing.”
“To do what you can do, as well as you can, is never embarrassing.”
“We’ll see.” Quincy braced himself, and tried. And got nowhere. “I don’t yet know how to sing in this body,” he said, already embarrassed.
“I had hoped it would translate automatically. Perhaps it will, if I accompany you. Give me the words.”
“I can do that.” He set himself and recited the words.
“Is this the melody?” Aliena sounded a series of notes so pure they were like a violin.
“That’s it! But how did you know?”
“We are compiling a database of human music. That song is listed. I read the notes in the file and rendered them.”
“But you didn’t go anywhere or turn on any machine.”
“I am in touch mentally with the things of the ship. Now we will try again, singing it together.”
“But I still don’t know how to—”
She was already singing, words and tune, perfectly; he had never heard a finer rendition. Inspired by its beauty, he tried to join her—and succeeded. They sang together, and her perfect pitch did indeed keep him on track. It was the best he could remember doing.
“That is a nice song,” she agreed, as they finished. “And fitting. It is not time that separates each of us from our beloved partners, but distance and body. We know they do think of us and love us, as we do them.”
“Oh, yes! You understand perfectly.”
“This is my role: to understand the feelings of humans. I am not perfect at it, but I do try. Now sing the song alone.”
He did, finding that now that she had helped him invoke the song connections in his new body, they remained. He sang the full thing.
“You are correct,” she said when he finished. “You have no key.”
“But with you I had it.”
“We will not make you sing alone again.”
“That is best,” he agreed.
“But this will make it difficult for you to speak intelligibly, as our language is musical. You will be ridiculed.”
“Ridiculed? I thought you starfish were long beyond that sort of thing.”
“Our adults are. But you will be with children.”
“Whatever,” he agreed, not really pleased.
“I have compiled a fundamental vocabulary. The first word is Food, as you will always be in need of that. This is the word.” She made a musical riff.
He tried to copy it. She flashed humor or annoyance. “Your descending key rendered that into the word for Defecation.”
“Shit!” he muttered.
“Yes, poop. You will not want to ask for that to eat. Try again.”
He tried again. This time it came out as Vomit.
“You must try to elevate the key,” she said patiently.
The third time it was closer: the term for old stale food, rather than fresh food.
“That may have to do,” Aliena said. “You have other words to learn.”
The rest of that day he spent practicing physical movements and learning a few basic words. He felt like an idiot. But he knew he was stuck with it; he was in their realm, and had to learn their ways.
The next day Quincy attended his first class. This was conducted by Aliena, and consisted of ten small male starfish and Quincy. Evidently there were separate female classes. They formed an attentive circle around her.
She indicated a cage containing something like an oyster. “Food,” she sang.
“Food” they chorused. Then the others glittered in Quincy’s direction, noting his mispronunciation. He still did not have it close enough, despite his practice. His rendition, as it turned out, was closer to Garbage.
They sang the word again, and Quincy had the wit to match the timing of their voices so that he could hold their key. This time he got it almost right. Of course that would not help him when he had to ask alone. Not that he was that keen on live oysters.
Aliena went on to the next word: Pleasure, demonstrated by the touch of the tip of an arm to another. When Aliena touched a person, there was a nice feeling. His version came out closer to Pain. His little classmates would have been amused, had they had any sense of humor. As it was, they merely thought him stupid.
It was a long day.
“But you are improving,” Aliena reassured him that evening.
In time he developed his basic vocabulary. Though he was unable to pronounce the words without a strong tonal accent, he was able to understand them when others spoke them, and that was a considerable help. He could say Yes or No to orient on what he needed. His classmates learned to do most of the talking with him, getting his agreement or disagreement.
The language class continued, as there were hundreds of thousands of words to learn, but Aliena moved Quincy into a different class. This one had larger starfish, about half grown, again all males. The subject was self-defense.
“Here in the spaceship we are not subject to predation,” Aliena told the class of ten stars and Quincy. “But we are trying to emulate our home world as closely as is feasible, so as to properly comprehend our nature. There are also predators in the seas of Earth, and at some poi
nt we hope to visit those seas in our own forms, when the pollution is reduced. Then we will need to be prepared. The study of Earth predators will be a future subject; at this point we will practice against typical starfish-world predators.”
These turned out to be assorted analogues of Earthly creatures Quincy knew. There were large shark-like swimmers that hunted by searching out careless stars and swooping down on them, crunching them in powerful jaws before they could react. There were squid-like ones that would pick up a star in their tentacles and tear it to pieces suitable for consumption. There were vicious little fish like piranhas that would swarm in and overwhelm their prey by sheer numbers.
“But we are not ordinary prey,” Aliena said. “We are able to handle them. We simply need to be prepared.”
She went on to explain about preparation. Starfish had thousands of little spines that would not, in themselves, stop biting, tearing, or mangling, but could emit acidic juices that were formidable repellants. They could coat the spines with colored slime that would not only taste awful to a predator, it would also burn holes in its mouth.
“Why color?” a classmate asked. “Wouldn’t it be more effective to keep it translucent so the predator would not see it until too late?”
“It would not,” Aliena said. “Can any other class member tell us why?”
The others were blank, but Quincy wasn’t, seeing a useful analogy to Earthly defenses. “If the predator does not see the acid before it bites, the acid will burn its mouth, but the star will already have been chewed,” he said in rather fewer words than that. “It is better to warn the predator so that it will not bite, thus saving your life. You don’t need to kill the predator, just warn it away from you.”
“That is true,” Aliena said. “It is even possible to bluff a predator by issuing a poisonous color without the acid.”
“But why do that?” another classmate asked. “Why risk that the predator will bite anyway, and not get burned?”
“Anyone?” Aliena asked.
Again Quincy had it. “Because it takes energy and substance to make sufficient strong acid, and this depletes the body. It can be better to save the acid for when it is really needed, even though this may, at times, be risky. It is a judgment call.”