Up Against It - M. J. Locke [115]
Last night’s attack had left its mark here. Dirt coated tree bark, leaves, and stones. One upended tree had smashed into another, which leaned against a wall. Conifer needles and giant cones lay about. The cold, damp breeze smelled of cedar bark and upturned earth. Icy dew dripped onto his head. He heard low voices but could see no one.
“This way,” Thondu said, and led the way. The mist cleared. Geoff spotted people sitting on boulders at the base of a giant, gnarled and knotted tree. He scrambled across the rough terrain to them, scraping hands and knees on logs and exposed roots. There, he froze.
He was startled at the violence of his aversion. And the depth of his attraction.
They were monsters, every one. The multiple limbs were just the start. He looked around, trying to make sense of all he saw, heard, smelled. He could only take it in in fragments. Over here were eyestalks with crystalline compound eyes; over there, multiple limbs; dragonfly wings here, bird wings there; giantism … dwarfism … shining carapaces. Over there were diamantine claws, rippling musculature, pelts to put a Kodiak bear to shame. They were not just bizarre; they were all weirdly beautiful. Like something out of a dream. One that might turn any minute into a nightmare. Geoff had to breathe deeply, to keep from screaming and running away.
He had seen such people in wavespace, but it was a different matter to be standing right next to them, breathing their air; feeling their meatness pressing on him. They were too real, and not quite real enough. It was too much to take in. He began to tremble.
“I’m Geoff Agre,” he said, and dashed sweat from his face. To his relief, his voice came out steady. “Vivian said you could help me.”
One of them nodded. “Yes. Welcome.” This one spoke softly to the others, who departed—flying, walking, lumbering—talking casually. A couple of them gave Geoff curious glances.
The one who remained stood and motioned Geoff over. Geoff glanced back at Thondu, who merely shrugged, with an amused look on his face. Geoff stepped forward.
This other one, this person, had very pale skin—surprisingly pale, for an Upsider—and gleaming chesnut brown hair that fell in long thick twines, which moved about the head, graceful and sinuous in this light gravity. The face was inhumanly beautiful: skin like the polished interior of a seashell; full, dusted-rose lips. The eyes were catlike slits an unlikely shade of green. In place of two arms and two legs were three pairs of arms. The top set was where you would expect; the second pair emerged from the spine’s sides at the bottom of the rib cage; the third two extended from the hip joints, where the legs should be. All six hands were twice as large as human hands, and each had ten strikingly long fingers, with at least five joints, maybe six. The overall effect was a blend of insectoid and mammalian.
Most troubling of all, Geoff could not tell whether the person was male or female. It made it hard for Geoff to even know how to think about this person. He could not create a mental picture—his mind kept sliding off the person’s gender. Geoff had to keep correcting himself. He? No. She? No, neither was correct. It? Definitely not. It would mean the person was sexless, and there was something intensely sexed about this person, even if Geoff did not understand exactly how that could be so.
The person’s otherness was so blatant, yet so slippery, a thing, Geoff could not grasp hold. He floundered.
Most Viridians prefer nongendered pronouns, he remembered dimly, from some public service bulletin of years before, when a recent wave of Viridian immigrants arrived Upside. He tried the odd pronouns on for size.
Sie, was it? Or ze? Right. Ze. And hir. These pronouns did not feel right on his tongue. But they were better than any alternative.
The other—ze; Geoff forced himself to say the word in his head: ze, ze, ze—smiled at Geoff. “I am Obyx. Pleased to meet you.” Geoff