Wait until you hear this. Of course, once you told me there was a SongLuminant in Tara’s bedroom, I had to check it out. Clive Rivers was hanging out in the lower gardens (he always has an excuse, doesn’t he?) so I took him with me. I figured he’d probably be able to make some good scientific observations.
And what a weird-looking thing it was! All eyes and tentacles. Also, you were right about the Floatfish. It’s kind of too bad. I can only imagine what Tara would get up to with a tentacle-creature, but doing it in front of a Floatfish would be tacky, even for her. “So that’s a SongLuminant,” I said.
“Um, no,” said one of the Floatfish. “It’s a recording device. The SongLuminants can’t exist outside of water.”
“A recording device?” said Clive. “It looks organic.” Did I get the voice right? Clive is a little more nasal. I’ll try again: “A recording device?” I think that’s right. The fish are harder to imitate, though. They make this noise, sort of like bwhip bwup whenever they pause for dramatic effect.
“Aw, come on, Clive. Just because something looks alive doesn’t mean it’s not a form of technology,” I said, kind of annoyed. “Even the humans of the Domha’vei have a lot of organic tech.”
Clive ignored me. I can’t stand being ignored. He inspected the device more closely. “Hmmm, looks like these tentacles are actually atmospheric sniffers that function to monitor energy and chemical phenomena – not unlike the leaves of a Nau’gsh.” He turned to the Brrrrrrrrrrrrvvbh. “Are the SongLuminants fish, like yourselves?”
Two of the Floatfish began to belch enormous amounts of glowing gas. The third didn’t react at all. Its bulging eyes seemed glazed over, like it was in a trance. It was a little spooky.
“The SongLuminants are beings of pure light,” one of them gurgled between belches.
“Impossible,” said Clive. “Under normal circumstances, entropy will cause the energy to disperse. Light can be used to transmit information, but it requires a constant power source. Or do the SongLuminants come with a battery?”
“They come with a song,” said the left-hand fish. “It’s not much of a song, though.”
“You trees have much better songs,” said the right-hand fish to me. They were laughing uproariously, and the whole room stank of seaweed. I was starting to do a slow burn.
“Despite the wide-prevalence of the notion in speculative fiction, the only energy beings actually known to exist are the varying forms of Cu’endhari Nau’gsh,” Clive lectured. “And they can only remain disconnected from their stable matrix – their tree – for an extended period of time because they are composed of nul-energy, an emission from a universe not subject to the same laws of entropy.”
“It wouldn’t be much of a song,” said the right-hand fish, “since the SongLuminant scale has only one note.”
“Re, a drop of golden sun,” sang the left-hand fish in a monotone.
“It happens to be the distinctive tone of another native species, the whistling vent-mollusk. They live at startling depths underwater by converting the energy from geothermal rifts. To regulate their internal temperatures, they literally blow off steam, like a wee clammy teakettle.”
Clive closed his eyes, and then opened them again. He looked exasperated, and at first, I thought he was as sick of the childish antics of the fish as I was. But the expression was all wrong. The expression was that of a man who has just realized he’s an idiot who missed a point a simpleton could’ve guessed.
“They only exist underwater,” Clive said, “because they are using those standing waves to produce stable non-inertial cavitation bubbles. Not SongLuminants, sonoluminescence.”
“Of course,” I said. “A sapling could’ve figured it out.” I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Hey, are humans supposed to be that smart?” asked left-hand fish.
“Not based on the many hours of media analysis we’ve done,” said right-hand fish.
“However, it would seem impractical for them to travel,” said Clive.
“They don’t,” said left-hand fish. “They’re good at delegating. Especially since they are such strong telepaths they can use mind-control on almost every species.”
“That’s why erasure is usually so clean,” offered the other. “The SongLuminants just convince the offending race to destroy itself. It won’t work on the Nau’gsh, though. Lacking a brain or central nervous system, trees are difficult to influence telepathically.”
“But it’s pretty convenient that there are so many humans around who do. Otherwise we’d get stuck burning the forests. That would be tedious.”
“Wait,” said Clive. “By that logic, how can the SongLuminants possibly be telepathic?”
The left-hand fish let out an exasperated gurgle. “Oh come on, you can’t figure that out?”
“Quantum tunneling,” said the right-hand fish smugly.
Clive touched me lightly on the arm. “I suppose that we should tell Tara about this.”
“I suppose,” I said, “since the fate of my subspecies seems to be lumped in with the Cu’enashti. It would be nice, for once, to have the luxury of telling Ashtara to get uprooted.”
“I tried,” Clive sighed. “But the coup d’état failed, and then Molly went berserk.”
“Was Molly your girlfriend?”
“Hell no! Any man who would boink a member of the telepathic division would need his head examined. Of course, any man who would get involved with Suzanna or Tara probably needs his head examined, too. Come to think of it, I’ve had my head examined on numerous occasions, and the conclusion is always that I’m mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”
“Let’s fuck, then.”
“Wha…what?” Ha! I finally had his undivided attention.
“Let’s have sex. It will kill some time. Let’s not tell Tara right away. Let’s make them sweat it out a bit.”
“I don’t know that the knowledge will make a damn bit of difference anyway.” I could see that he was thinking about it, but he still hadn’t made his move. “Except if Ash…”
“What’s wrong? Don’t you think I’m hot?”
He turned to me with a smile, suddenly resolute. “Claris, you are exquisite. Even though somewhat small-breasted, there is a charm in your doll-like frame, a charm which includes how much I find it unlikely you will either betray me or talk nonsense about settling down to have a family. It just seems so sudden.”
“Sudden is good,” I said. “Spontaneity is what freedom is all about.”
“I sense a difference in political opinion. Nevertheless, a liaison between us would be bound to irk Tara.”
“My thinking exactly.”
“Spite does seem to have some hidden erotic potential,” he mused.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the room. He’s attractive, but he needs to loosen up in a big way. Also, I was really getting sick of the smell of fish farts.
I had an idea. I led him down the south lawn to the rose garden. I knew just the place – Tara’s little hidey-hole. It had been there since we were girls, but when she came back to Dolparessa from Vuernaco, she filled it up with all of the psychoactive plants she’d been growing on Volparnu. It would be personally satisfying to screw Tara’s ex in her secret special spot, but I had another reason, too. I wanted to see if Clive would be a little more fun after lying in a field of jimson weed for half an hour.
Except that Tara was already there with BJ. “Crap,” I said. “Well, we might as well watch.” I already knew what we were going to see, though. Blackjack with that look on his face, going at it like his life depended on it, like a quick and dirty tumble in the grass was the most significant moment of his life.
That’s because his life did depend upon it, and it was the most significant moment of his life. The Cu’enashti are absolutely ridiculous. It’s an embarrassment to be related to them.
“No thanks,” said Clive, jamming his hands into his pockets and walking briskly back over the lawn. I could tell he was pissed. I ran after him. “Hey, do you still love her?”
“No.”
“Then why are you mad?”
“Because Blackjack is basically Whirljack, and it reminds me of the time Tara cheated on me.”
This was news to me. “When did that happen?”
He turned to face me. “You don’t know? From what I understand, there were several thousand witnesses.”
“Wait. You’re talking about the festival. You’re not supposed to talk about the festival. Festival lovers are sacred.”
“I don’t believe in God. Especially not after my woman fucked another man at a public event.”
I ran my hands through my hair. I couldn’t believe his stupidity. “The Nau’gsh Festival is a fertility festival,” I said. “People get laid. But you didn’t go. Why didn’t you go?”
“And spend three days at what amounts to an orgy of sex and drugs? I would never be involved in something so…”
He stopped. He stopped before he said anything else, because I was really starting to get angry. The Nau’gsh Festival was the most sacred moment of the year to all Cu’endhari, and it was obvious he couldn’t understand it.
“It’s just sex. How uptight are you? Are you going to lay this head game on me?”
“It’s different,” said Clive. “Tara and I had made certain commitments, and at her instigation. Promiscuity and infidelity are not the same. I thought deeply about killing her then. I wanted to, but it would’ve entailed too many political complications.”
“And you’re still waiting for your revenge,” I said. “Whoa, remind me never to cross you.”
He took my hand. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll go to my flat. Then I’ll take you out for ice cream.”
Yeah, he did – and he ended up wearing it, too – but it looks like something is happening in Tara’s room again. I’d better go find out, just in case the universe is coming to an end or something.