I woke up to a sound I hadn’t heard in many years. Sandra was in the kitchen, and she was talking to someone. I detected the gurgle of a coffee machine and the hiss of fat on hot metal. It was a warm, welcoming sound, and it reminded me of being in Chint, where my sleeping room had been directly above the kitchen. I used to wake up to mortars and pestles and kitchen talk. A painful memory sometimes, but not right now.
I just lay there for a moment, listening to her. I thought she would be sad in the morning like she had been the night before. But she sounded relaxed, happy even.
This would be how most of my mornings began on Earth. I woke up to find Sandra (or other humans) already up and awake, and I would join them when I felt ready. Sometimes there was food, always there was drink. There were sleepy hellos and questions about the day.
Like the highly social beings they are, humans share meals and often prepare food for each other, soI took up the practice as well. When eventually Sandra asked me to cook something, she was shocked to learn that I didn’t know how, but that is how most Chintilik are. We don’t need to cook very often, and almost never with fire, since we cook using the heat of the sun mostly.
I dragged myself to the edge of the bed and used one of my crutches to walk out of the room, mostly out of convenience.
Sandra was in front of the stove, her phone in one hand and a flat metal instrument in the other. She looked around when I came in and waved in greeting.
“Good morning,” she said.
I flicked my ear towards her and gathered myself into my chair. There was a box of crickets in front of my seat. Crickets are a common invertebrate from Earth. They can be large or small, but the kind that humans occasionally eat are about three centimeters long and light brown in color. I picked up the box and saw that the crickets were unflavored
“They just got up,” Sandra was saying into the phone. “It’s only 7:30 here, mom; we’re not being lazy. And I’m entitled to a little laziness. I was on a redeye flight yesterday and then Acharya interrogated me about my arrangements with the university for an hour.”
“I didn’t interrogate you,” I protested.
“I know,” Sandra told me, “do you want something to eat?”
“No, thank you.”
She passed me a cup of coffee anyway because that was just what humans did. I took it because it was polite. Sandra stayed on the phone with her mom, chatting about the weather and the zoo.
Then she passed the phone to me.
“Mom wants to say hi,” She said.
I took the phone and held it awkwardly against my ear. It wasn’t the right shape for my head.
“Greeting, Joy,” I said.
“Hello, Acharya,” She said into my ear. “How’s Australia treating you?”
“It’s been pleasant enough. I’m learning about the animals here.”
“That’s good. And Sandra is settling in okay?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Thank you for letting her come with you.”
“Of course,” I said. I didn’t feel comfortable telling Joy just how glad I was that Sandra had joined me. “I think she’ll be invaluable to my work here.”
“And thank you for getting her away from Raymond,” Joy said. “Don’t tell her I said that. I never said anything bad about him, but I’m happy they broke up.”
I glanced at Sandra. She was putting food on a plate. “Sandra decided to come here on her own. I tried not to put pressure on her.”
“I know that,” Joy said to me, “but you must be special to Sandra, and…well, Keith and I are very happy for her, and if she wants to leave the planet eventually, we’ll support her.”
“I understand,” I told her. “Thank you.” I was unsure if she would still feel that way when Sandra actually left Earth. If she left Earth, I reminded myself.
“I’ll let you get on with the rest of your day,” Joy said. “Hand me back to Sandra so I can say goodbye.”
“Thank you,” I said again, “goodbye.”
Sandra took the phone back from me. She said goodbye to her parents and sat down next to me while I checked my report I’d send the night before.
I had a response from the librarian passing on my request to Skaalt.
My ears twitched when I read their response.
“What is it?” Sandra asked.
“The librarian says hello,” I relayed. “They report that the Canteron are beginning to mobilize their fleet again. So it may only be a few months before Earth is attacked.”
She shrugged and took another bite of egg.
“Sandra,” I said.
“Mhmm?”
“The librarian asked this months ago, but I never passed it on. Is there something wrong with drinking the fresh water on Earth?”
Sandra squinted her eyes at me like she thought I was making a joke. “Well, there’s water-borne diseases and parasites. Also chemical contamination and toxins. The only safe water is fresh rainfall or well water from deep underground, and humans don’t always have access to it. Alcohol kills all the diseases, so people drank it instead of water for a long time.”
I stared at her, trying to process the information.
“Same goes for Tea,” Sandra added. “Since the water is boiled to make it, it kills all the microbes.”
“So the water we drink here is—?”
“It’s safe,” Sandra said, “can’t you taste the chlorine they use to make sure it’s clean?”
“No,” I said. “I can’t. What does it taste like?”
“Uh…chemical? Like a pool.”
I blinked at her.
“I thought you knew all this already. I watched you drink tap water in California.”
“Yes…but I didn’t taste anything strange.”
“Hmm,” She touched her cup of coffee thoughtfully. That was also made with boiling water, I thought. I wondered what other normal practices around me held horrors at bay.
“One more piece of news,” I said, “I’ve asked another surveyor to come to Earth.”
“Why? You’re not leaving right?” She sounded worried.
“No,” I assured her. “I asked an old friend to come here and give me their opinion. I’m not sure if he or the Canteron will arrive first.”
“Has he confirmed he’ll come?”
“Not yet,” I said, “but he will.”
And Skaalt did, later that day. I spent the day rewriting the draft report that I had sent out the night before, getting my notes in order for the next expedition, and watching Sandra work.
“Are you okay if I tell Nick where we are?” She asked me in the afternoon.
“Yes,” I said.
“He wants to come over and bring food later.”
“He’s welcome to.”
“Do you want him to?” She was looking at me in that way that made instinctive fear curl along my back.
“Do you?” I asked back.
She shrugged. “Sure. He and I could probably talk in circles about anthropology and political science for hours.”
“Okay then. I need to finish this first, but I’ll be done by this evening.”
“Alright. Also I’m giving him your number so he can bother you instead of me.”
“He has my number.”
“Oh,” she looked at my phone, which had been silent all morning.
I just looked at her.
“He knows if he asks you, you’ll say no?” She said it like a question.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “I’ve been a bit distant since I got here. I’ve made fewer friends.”
“That might just be Australia. The US is culturally super friendly.”
“No, I think I’ve been the problem.” I considered it for the first time. It was hard to admit, but I had been very closed-off since I’d come to Australia. It was partially paranoia about humans and partially being unable to navigate their culture effectively. I always wanted to do and see more, and not being able to was irritating. It was never enough.
“That’s okay,” Sandra said carefully. “There’s always time, and there’s a ton to do around here. And we should definitely look at aboriginal culture while we’re in Australia.”
“I’ve already done some reading on it,” I said, “do you want to see?”
“Yes,” Sandra sat next to me, and a few minutes later I passed her all the papers I had read over the last week and a half on the train and in the city. She took them with an academic’s eye, then took herself out into the back yard to read in the sun.
By the evening, I had caught up on my paperwork. Sandra was napping in her room when someone knocked on the door. I went to check, and found Nick there.
“Hi, Acharya,” He said, “can I come in? Also, have you checked your mail? I think someone sent you something.”
“I haven’t, but I will after I wake Sandra up. She’s taking a nap.”
“She stayed here?” Nick asked, “I thought she would be in a hotel.”
“I let her have the spare room,” I said, “she didn’t have a place lined up.”
Nick set the bags he was carrying down on the counter because the table was covered with papers again. “Makes sense. If you have more humans traveling with you, will you get larger places with more rooms?”
I thought about it, “Yes,” I said. “Though not too many. There’s a limit to even the Galactic Library’s Resources.”
“Now I want to see how you’re paying for everything.”
“I can show you,” I said, “but let me get Sandra first.”
“A’ight.”
I knocked on Sandra’s door.
“I’m awake,” She said, obviously still half-asleep.
“Nick is here,” I said, “you should come out and say hello.”
The door opened, and Sandra appeared, rubbing her eyes. She looked like she had been crying again. “Yeah,” She said, “Just give me a minute to wake up.”
“I need to clean up the table so we can eat. Take your time.” I began to turn away, but she put a hand on my arm.
“Can I have a hug?” She asked.
That was an odd request. Chintilik don’t make a habit of physical contact, and while Earth creatures did, Sandra had always kept me at a reasonable distance by human standards. Of course, human standards were almost suffocating for me. I was used to being alone for months on end. The day before, after not seeing each other for months, the hugs were welcome. Now I wasn’t so sure.
But, not wanting to offend Sandra and thinking of the Librarian instructing me to make friends, I held out my arms to her. Sandra pounced on me, squeezed me tight and buried her face in my shoulder. She was warm and strong and soft. I could also feel her bones through the skin on her back.
“Thank you,” Sandra said into my robe.
“You’re welcome,” I gave the customary reply. “Is there something wrong?”
She shook her head. “Just missing Raymond more than I thought I would.”
I patted her back, mimicking what I’d seen other humans do. It worked, and she pressed even closer. There was a wild bloom of warmth in my chest: a feeling so strange and alien that it scared me, and yet I found myself unable to step away from it. It felt good to hold her.
Nick called from the kitchen. “Hey! Dron! I opened your mail box, and you’ve got mail!”
“You’ve got mail,” Sandra repeated in a monotone. She let go of me, patted my arm, and vanished into the bathroom.
A little rattled, I went back into the kitchen, where Nick had produced a stack of letters from somewhere.
“There are death threats,” he said
“What?” I took the square of paper from him when he offered it. One one side was a generic picture of a tree. On the other was a short, typed paragraph threatening to kill me and mount my head on the wall like a hunting trophy. I read it twice, ears up, then pulled out my phone and took a photograph. I would transcribe the text later and add it to my collection of documents.
“What are you going to do?” Nick asked.
“Do I need to do anything?” I flipped the card into the trash can.
“Do anything about what?” Sandra asked.
“Acharya is getting death threats in the mail.” Nick said.
“And?” Sandra said.
Nick looked at her, confused.
“I’ve been getting them for months,” I said, “and this isn’t the first planet that is hostile to me.”
“Nick, you’ve never gotten death threats online before?” Sandra asked.
“No,” he said. “Have you?”
“A few,” she said. “After I published my master’s thesis, I got a bunch.”
“What the fuck did you write?” Nick asked.
Sandra glanced at me, then looked back at him. “My thesis was titled, ‘The Self and the Other.’ It was an in-depth exploration of the reaction to first contact particularly focused on two groups: conservative and liberal English-speaking Americans from the Midwest United States. That’s where I was living.”
Nick nodded, “yeah, that would piss people off.”
“It did,” Sandra said. “But, hey, if I hadn’t written it, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
They both looked at me. I said, “I read a portion of your thesis before I came to Earth, Sandra, but not all of it.”
“Oh, I know. Nobody reads all the work in a thesis unless they’re really desperate. It’s just that my professor explicitly told me that my work on that project is why I was selected to pick you up.”
I had known all that, of course, but now I realized Sandra must have been thinking through her research while she drove to me. She must have been incredibly nervous and excited. I felt a new level of respect for her and her nerve on that day.”
“What’s your research on?” She asked Nick.
“Ah, modern politics. You should see what internet fringe groups say about interstellar-ization and letting off-worlders onto the planet. When the Canteron thing happened, I got so much data I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“Me too!” Sandra said, “I added a whole section to my dissertation.”
They got into their research, and started discussing it in-depth. Sandra asked me if she was allowed to continue research while traveling with me, so I had to tell her that if she didn’t keep working on her own projects, I would be disappointed.
I picked through the stack of mail while they talked. I’d only been in Sydney for a few days, but I’d already received more mail than most humans in a month. There were three death threats, stacks of offers for museums and universities to speak at them, and a slim envelope from the Sydney Opera House containing two tickets to an upcoming performance. A quick search on the internet revealed that the show, La Bohéme, was first composed over two-hundred years ago in a country called Italy. It was in a human language other than English, and an archaic dialect at that. I wouldn’t understand a word of it.
“What’s that?” Sandra asked as I went to throw the tickets away.
“Tickets to a show.” I showed her, then tossed them into the trash along with the death threat.
Sandra and Nick made twin keens of protest: strange high squeaks of panic.
“Don’t throw them out!” Sandra pulled them back out of the trash can.
“Opera tickets are hard to get!” Nick agreed. “At least think about going.”
“Or sell them online and make money,” Sandra said.
“That would be rude,” I said.
“It’s more rude to just throw them out and waste them.” She looked at the tickets. “Archie, these are balcony seats; you have to go!”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you have to,” Nick said.
“You haven’t done anything high-society yet,” Sandra said, “you’ve got to dress up at least once while you’re on Earth.”
“Wait,” Nick said, “you haven’t done anything fancy? Weren’t you in California? Everything there is fancy.”
Sandra snorted, “California is the opposite of fancy.”
“It’s not my job to experience fine dining or expensive shows,” I said. “I’m here to survey the planet.”
“And opera isn’t a part of that?” Sandra asked like the very idea was scandalous.
“I don’t know what opera is.”
“Opera is a type of stage performance where the actors sing the whole show.” Sandra said, “It takes some serious talent and training to be able to perform it.”
I twitched my ears in acknowledgement.
“And it’s not so expensive,” She said, “These are nice tickets, personal invitations, but the basic ones would be a hundred dollars or so. A ticket to Broadway costs way more than that.”
“What is Broadway?”
“Broadway is a street in New York City, on the East Coast of the United States—” Sandra said.
“You don’t know what Broadway is?!” Nick blurted over her. Now he sounded offended. It was a reaction I was used to, but not usually around entertainment.
I just looked at Nick for a moment, then turned back to Sandra. “And there are theaters on this street?”
“Yes,” She confirmed, looking at Nick for only a moment longer than me. “At least in the United States, it’s the place to be for musical theater and productions of all kinds.”
“And so your argument for keeping these tickets and seeing the show is that…?”
Sandra thought hard for a second, then said. “Theater, and particularly song, is a central part of all human culture and the modern form of it is just as important as ancient ones.”
I considered it. Nick, who had turned red, began unpacking the bags he’d brought on the counter.
Sandra started again, “I know you don’t want humans interfering with what you’re doing too much, and you shouldn’t, but rejecting every invitation is just going to upset people. Seize the opportunity to get a new perspective on Earth and go to the opera.”
“Fine,” I said, “but the two of you are coming with me, and you had better be prepared to explain what the point of it all is. And after we do, we are driving into the wilderness to really look at this country.”
“Well if we’re goin’ into the outback, we can go to Alice Springs,” Nick said. “It doesn’t get more real than that. Maybe we can even do some foraging.”
I perked my ears up at the idea of seeing how humans actually harvested food from their world naturally. “That would be ideal.”
“Ah, I see. You’ll take the opportunity to pick berries, but enjoying a nice show is somehow below you,” Sandra said, and she poked me gently in the side, mimicking the Chintilik gesture of good humor she had only just learned.
I flicked an ear at her, but didn’t comment.
This story is also published on Archive of Our Own, where the story is being published in addition to the blog. To read more, follow me here or on AO3 or Tumblr
