Ascending - James Alan Gardner [17]
The woman said nothing for several seconds—she simply gazed at me with wide-open eyes. Her body pressed tight against Uclod’s back, as if she were trying to hide behind him…which was like a full-sized bear taking cover behind a woodchuck. She placed her hands on Uclod’s shoulders and gripped him tensely, balling up the cloth of his shirt in her fingers.
Still she did not speak. Uclod reached up, placing his hands gently over hers. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Everything’s fine. This is a friend.”
The woman did not move. She kept staring at me with her mouth shut, her eyes unblinking. At last, I lowered my voice and asked Uclod, “What is wrong with her? Is she simply crazed, or is there something chemically wrong with her brain?”
“There’s nothing wrong at all,” the little man said. He moved to one side so he could put his arm around the woman’s back and propel her a shuffle-step forward. “Honey?” he addressed her in a soft low voice. “Honey, this is Oar.”
“Oar?” the giant woman whispered. “Oar?”
“Yes,” I told her. “An oar is an implement used to propel boats.”
“But…” She closed her mouth so quickly, it made a clopping sound.
“I know,” Uclod said, “we were told Oar had died. The reports must have been wrong.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “I have never truly been dead. Not even once. You should not fear I am a moldering corpse, risen from the grave to ravage mortal souls.”
My words of reassurance showed no sign of comforting her. Uclod had to nudge her forward another step and ask, “Are you going to say hello to Oar, honey?”
“Hello, Oar,” the woman said softly. There was something odd about her voice—as if it was actually quite low but she was forcing it higher, like a male pretending to be female. I wondered if this person might truly be a man, despite the wallabies looming under her shirt; perhaps some types of alien men had prominent wallabies. Then again, perhaps some types of alien women had low voices they forced higher for foolish alien reasons…and it was all very boring to think about, so I stopped immediately.
I am excellent at putting a stop to moments of introspection.
“Well done,” Uclod told the woman beside him, apparently believing that saying hello took great courage. “Oar, this is my wife, U. C. Lajoolie.”
The woman half-whispered, “A lajoolie is a small glass bottle used for holding paprikaab.”
Uclod gave her a smiling squeeze. “Isn’t that nice, Oar? Lajoolie told you what her name means.”
I said, “I do not know what paprikaab is.”
When Lajoolie did not answer, Uclod leaned his head toward me. “Damned if I know either. The little woman comes from a different planet than me—she’s a Tye-Tye, I’m a Freep. We’re newlyweds, and still kind of sketchy about each other’s cultures.”
“Oh,” I said. Then I stared straight into the woman’s eyes and spoke with the clear enunciation one uses to address the mentally unfit. “I am most glad a lajoolie is a glass bottle. I am sure it is very pretty.”
The big woman stared at me in silence for a moment. Then she touched my arm and gave a timid smile.
Scanning Starbiter’s Bridge
“Okay, great!” Uclod said in the over-hearty way of males who wish to pretend all problems have been solved forever. “Enough blathering—it’s time for work. Sooner or later, the navy will show up…and by then, we want to be gone.”
He moved a tiny distance away from Lajoolie, who still had an arm wrapped tightly around him. This led to a dainty tug-of-war between the two…not that the woman was truly trying to keep hold of the little man, but even her unthinking strength was enough that