The Color Xirish
by Emily McIntyre
|
Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
GREEN (Establishment)
When Dex comes into herself, she is sitting in a chair twice the size of her own recliner back at her apartment. She is no longer bound; her hands and feet move freely. In front of her is a huge window, much larger than the window in Crath’s home; the view is murky but even so she can see, hanging from chains, a spaceship like the ones that fly across the sky-screen in her city. Its metal is dull and patchy in places. Something in her rises up when she sees it. She feels an urge to enter it.
Then she realizes she is surrounded by Strum, all shades of rose and celadon and lavender, but none of them is Crath. Where is Crath? she asks. The eyes of everyone are on her; she feels the familiar shrinking as her embarrassment surges. The Cleaners have left the room; with them gone, the air has resumed its clarity.
Crath has been incarcerated, comes the answer from the largest of the Strum. Its willowy form is a little bent, and the feathery appendages on its tentacles have frayed on the ends. Crath kidnapped you and must be punished.
Although not bound now, Dex still feels the restriction of the bonds the Cleaners put around her. What is happening? Why am I here? And who are you?
The expression on the Strum leader’s face shifts, but she doesn’t know how to read it without an emotional screen.
We are the Elders of the Strum. We are responsible for guiding both your species and ours into the future. And you are here, small human, because you are the first success, and because we need you to do something for us.
The first success?
For generations we have attempted to breed hybrids, but you are the first who survived. You have both human and Strum DNA in your body; you are the only one like you.
Dex opens her mouth to answer and then closes it again. She remembers the nook in the wall at the ChildScape where she sat while the other children played together, their emotional screens stacked to the side to allow for roughhousing. They never really noticed her. Their eyes would glide over her as if she were part of the wall. In her heart would well colors of jet / indigo / steel blue as she felt her Otherness around her like a garment.
She grew into a loner and almost never interacted with others now, since her needs were met in her apartment. Her whole life, she has felt the sickness of this tension: aching to be noticed, terrified to be seen. She looks back at the Strum leader. You made me like this?
They nod. Yes, we did. And we have a task for you, now that the drug has cleared your system.
At the mention of Heartmind, Dex feels a spasm of need that leaves her dry-mouthed. Crath says you have been drugging all the humans since the beginning?
It is better, says the Strum. Without the drug, the humans require more work to care for and are less happy.
She shakes her head. Without thinking about it, she knows. It is wrong to do this without consent.
Humans gave their consent when they first came here. Now look, Dex.
Every face in the room swivels to look out the window where the leader points, out at the spaceship suspended there.
Dex feels the same plunging familiarity she did when she first saw it. The leader clarifies: We need you to open the spaceship with your human DNA. With your human hand.
Looking down at her hand, which is clenched in a loose fist in her lap, Dex asks the obvious question. Why?
There is a long gap, as if the Strum is debating answering, and then the thought enters her mind:
We are sickening, we are dying. There will be something in the spaceship we can use to heal ourselves, we are sure of it. There must be; we have tried everything else on this planet.
She eyes the leader. Its emaciated frame, its pale colors, and the flaky rash where the tentacles root into the body. She thought these were signs of age, but perhaps they are signs of illness. What happens after I open the spaceship for you?
We will return you to your apartment and give you the Heartmind again, and you will not see us. You will return to your happy state.
Just moments ago this would have seemed like a wish come true, but now Dex feels a deep unease with the thought. In her apartment she is alone. Apparently Crath visits her to take care of her, but she doesn’t see it. Now, knowing what she knows, she is not certain she finds this at all reassuring. I will be drugged. I will not see you, but you will be all around me. This is how it has always been.
She can feel her emotions projecting to her screen, although she is not pushing them there: chartreuse / fern green / mindaroi>. She is not at ease with these things, even though the hunger for Heartmind burns in her blood by now. Perhaps due to her Strum blood, she can see some colors, but they are all muted and lack the incendiary glow given by Heartmind.
As well, it is not only of herself she thinks. Glancing at the spaceship, she struggles out of the chair and onto her feet. The Strum turn toward her. She waits for their attention and then projects, I will do this for you, but I want to do it differently. I want you to stop giving Heartmind to all the humans and let them make the choice.
Shock seems to have a strange effect on the Strum, as she finds out. Without sound and with the scent of something soft and green, puffs of powdery slime sparkle through the room, some of it landing on her and leaving her skin slick with Strum. She is not repulsed, as she would have been perhaps a day or three ago. The leader emerges from its cloud to billow in front of her, tentacles trembling. We will not do that, of course. There is nothing to be gained by it.
She is sure she is right. If she had known about the Strum when she was a child, it would have changed things for her. And if she does not force the Strum to reveal themselves now, there might not be another chance. It is wrong to leave things this way, she shares, wishing she could also project the colors of her emotions: cerulean / auburn / flame.
Dex, please help us. If you do not help us, we will die. And then the humans will die, because they know nothing about our planet, and we feed them their meals, care for the little ones, and plant their corpses when they are dead.
She has to breathe for a moment, to endure the emotion that is carried through this mind transmission. But once she has let it pass, she answers, I will open the spaceship for you only if you stop giving the humans Heartmind and let them see how the world really is. She has leverage. She will use it.
I cannot see that happening, answers the leader with a ripple of its tentacles. Flakes of its skin fall slowly to the pale floor and are lost there. Dex looks closely at it. She wants to help. Perhaps this Strum is her ancestor or a relation. But she also thinks of the empty eyes in the streets outside her house and feels resolution in her belly.
I am sorry, she shares.
Cleaners grab her, one for each limb, and bind her again. She is carried through the thick air of corridors, past windows open to the vast dark world outside, and to a door without a window in it. She feels the same scream in her throat that she felt on the elevator but, when she remembers how much it hurt Crath, she holds it in. These creatures are her relatives. She will help them, she just has to get their assent to her plan. They set her gently on the floor, remove the silken bindings from her body, and close the door.
BLUE (Trust)
The surge of baby blue / cornflower / aqua that Dex feels when she sees Crath spread out against the floor of the holding cell surprises her. This is, after all, the person who kidnapped her. So why would she feel this way? There is no window in the room, only the powder blue of the walls and the cobalt lines where floor meets wall and wall meets ceiling. She props herself up not too far from Crath and watches as it lifts its head and opens all three eyes to look at her.
I am sorry, Dex. I was trying to get to you before they did. Crath’s tentacles undulate briefly and then fall still.
I told them I wouldn’t do it, Dex says, unless they stop feeding the Heartmind to the humans.
There is a beat, and then Crath says, Ah, so they have told you of your mixed heritage?
Dex looks down, at where her hand braces against the floor, which is made of some kind of soft compound. The last feather of Crath’s tentacle lies close to her fingers, almost close enough to touch. They have, she answers. I have always felt something was different about me. The other humans, they don’t really notice me very well, and after a time I came to prefer that.
It is the Strum in you, responds Crath. Heartmind makes it impossible for humans to view the wavelength on which our bodies vibrate.
Such a simple answer for a sadness that has plagued Dex for her entire life. She swallows. I want to help the Strum, but I don’t think it’s right for you to keep us ignorant. If our cultures depend on each other, we should know about it.
I know, answers Crath. That is why I tried to tell you first, before the leaders. But here we are.
Mental silence spreads between them; in texture it is soft and welcoming. Dex explores herself. She feels alabaster / celeste / turquoise spreading through her limbs like a different kind of drug. She has never really felt this before. It is a pleasant sensation, very pleasant. She looks closely at Crath, noticing for the first time the pale rash on its body. Are you also sick?
This time there is no answer. Perhaps Crath is asleep; its eyes are closed. After a long wait, Dex reaches out her hand and picks up the tentacle nearest her, and they sit together without moving. The tentacle is heavy for its size and cool to the touch, the feathery appendages tickle Dex’s skin.
Dex examines her insides; Heartmind hunger easing for the softness of this connection, and the weird place inside where fearing being different gives way to a larger, more nuanced awareness. The cool color of the walls is soothing and, after a while, their bodies slump toward each other to curl into a new shape as the human and the Strum fall asleep.
Copyright © 2023 by Emily McIntyre
