Migration (24 page)

The alien looked embarrassed. At least, that was how Mac interpreted the irregular pink blotches along his cheekbones.
One never knew,
she reminded herself. “Irrelevant,” he barked. “It’s time to take a break. Have supper. You ready to make some
poodle,
Kay?” To Mac, “This will be such a treat.”

Kay’s upper eyestalks had developed a droop.
The beers or time of night,
Mac judged. Now they shot erect. “Is this the right time? I thought we were going to save it.”

“Idiot! Save it for what? What better time than now? With what our new friend, Mac, will share at the Gathering about our enemy—not to mention your success with the canoe? Tomorrow will be soon enough for more words, words, words, words!” Fourteen bounced on the couch with each repetition. Mac, listening to the creaks of protest, hoped the old furniture survived the alien’s gusto. “Tonight, we party! We must have
poodle!
”

Kay patted his middle, having tucked away his
douscent
. “I am a little hungry,” he admitted. “And I promised Mac a memorable supper.”

So much for Human/alien relations,
Mac decided, stopping her swing. “You really don’t have to go to any trouble for me,” she said cautiously. “Save your supplies.”

“Idiot!” Mac supposed it was a positive sign that Fourteen now freely applied the term to her. “It is our duty to share with you the best of what we have brought.” His beady eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “Or are you not familiar with
poodle
?”

Kay stood, smoothing his caftan and straightening the mass of hair tumbling over his face. “You insult our host, Fourteen. Mac is an intelligent, cultured being. Of course she’s had
poodle
before—no doubt prepared by the finest Human chefs. I will have to make an extraordinary effort to compare. Extraordinary.” With that, he strode into the cabin and Mac could hear his determined footsteps heading for the kitchen, presumably to be “extraordinary.”

Mac glanced at Fourteen, who was looking insufferably pleased with himself.

Given her past experience with non-Human sustenance?

“Humans didn’t invent outdoor cooking, you know.”

Plomp
. Mac’s stone hit a ripple and sank. “We were searing our meat on grills long before the first transect,” she countered.

Fourteen took aim and launched his own pebble into the cove.
Tic . . . tic . . . tic . . . plop
. “Five!”

“You can’t count the initial toss as a skip. Four.”

They were sitting on the small stretch of sand that Mac’s father proudly called a beach, having been banished from both the kitchen and the brick barbeque in the clearing behind the cabin.

It seemed “extraordinary cooking” required privacy and concentration.

“Irrelevant.”

Mac found a nice flat stone and tried again. “What’s irrelevant?”
Tic . . . tic . . . plop.
“Three.”

“That your species has a long record of outdoor cooking. You originally obtained that technology from us, the Myg. Your own history tells of our visits.”
Plomp
. “Doesn’t count. That was a defective rock.”

Mac snorted. “Let me guess. There was a brochure at the consulate.”

Another of those sly looks. “Don’t you believe your own mythos? That aliens have been here before?”

“Oh, those guys. They were looking for virgins in cornfields.”
Tic . . . tic . . . tic . . . tic . . .
Mac lost count and whooped triumphantly. “Beat that, Fourteen!”

The alien made a show of shading his eyes and looking outward. “Beat what? I was watching this small creature dig in the sand. What do you call it?”

Mac gently bumped her shoulder into the alien’s. “A beetle, and I win.”

“Are there virgins in your fields?”

“All the time. We call them heifers.”

Laughing, Fourteen wiggled his bare toes. They were wider at base than tip, so they looked more like miniature fingers than the Human version. Mac noticed he used them quite readily to sift the sand for skipping stones. “You are joking with me again, Mac.”

“Maybe so,” she said peacefully, resting back on her hands. “Tell me, Fourteen. What do you think of Earth? Of this place?”

He joined her in gazing out at the lake. The sun was about to set, its last rays seeming to calm every ripple. Near the shore, the dark water was already glass-smooth, except where water striders—and skipping stones—briefly disturbed it. A series of expanding rings marked the rising of a fish. Black flies skimmed the beach; midges danced in self-obsessed clouds.

As if on cue, the loon gave its throbbing cry. It echoed from the trees on the opposite shore, then faded to a waiting hush.

“You don’t want to know what I think of it,” Fourteen said in a strange, low voice.

Mac turned to look at him. There was moisture along his thick eyelids. Noticing her attention, he brought up his hands, as if to hide it.

“There’s an answer to the Dhryn,” she promised him.

“I believe we will find it. I believe we’ll save our worlds—yours, mine, all of them.” Hesitantly, unsure if the gesture would be welcomed by a Myg, Mac put her arm around his broad shoulders.

Fourteen’s hands didn’t budge, but she heard a muffled: “No external genitalia.”

“No one’s perfect,” she laughed, then squeezed his shoulders lightly before letting go. “Shall we go and see if the
poodle
is ready?”

The hands came down as Fourteen shook his head. “Waste of time. Wait until Kay calls us. If we go too soon, he’ll have us skinning the creature.” A sniff. “Trisulians don’t mind that sort of thing, but I certainly do.” He seemed to perk up. “At least he bought it already dead. If you don’t, they make so much noise—well, puts me off the meal, Mac, let me tell you. Then there’s all the jumping around you get with live
poodles
. It’s a mystery to me why Humans didn’t properly domesticate this food beast.”

Aha!
Mac hid her smile by reaching forward to collect a handful of stones.
A game was afoot.
She had to admit, these two had come prepared to do their part enhancing Human/alien relations.

“First to seven wins,” she challenged.

“So. This is
poodle
.” Mac swallowed. “Sorry to refute your lovely compliments, Kay, but I can’t say I’ve ever had it.”

Two purple eyeballs, atop their stalks, and two beady eyes, within their fleshy lids, were locked on Mac.

The table was beautifully spread. Kay must have gone through every cupboard to find serving platters, fluted glasses, and a wide, if inexplicable, array of cutlery. There had even been a candle, although tying twenty birthday-cake candles in a bundle had produced more momentary conflagration than light for dining. Once the fire was put out, leaving only a minor and hardly unique scorch mark on the tabletop, they’d settled to enjoy their repast.

Repast was the word,
Mac decided, admiring Kay’s ingenuity. Her mammalian anatomy might be a tad rusty, but even she conceded a resemblance between the mass of meat and bone in the center of the table and a small dog.
If you pressed the animal flat and took other severe liberties with its skeletal structure
. Four legs, similar in size but not quite, jutted proudly into the air at forty-five degree angles. Where there logically would be paws, Kay had affixed ones of foil.
A nice decorative touch,
Mac thought.

There was no head. Perhaps that had been too tricky to reproduce. But there was a distinct tail, with a white pompom of what looked suspiciously like cushion stuffing at its tip. Complete with pink ribbon.

Other dishes held an array of vegetables and fruits. Some, Mac recognized, some she didn’t—marking the latter down as to-be-avoided, tactfully, of course.

It was a work of, if not art, then artistic determination. Mac did her best to look dismayed instead of about to laugh. Personally, she had no problem eating anything if hungry enough—being a biologist studying a carnivore who ate the same way tended to instill a certain “fits in my mouth” mentality.

Her great-aunt, though, would have needed her new heart immediately, not next year.

“Let me carve you the first piece.”

“That’s not really necessary, Kay,” Mac said, her voice sounding appropriately strained even to her.
If she didn’t laugh soon, she’d choke
. “You go ahead.”

Fourteen leaned over the table. “No, no, Mac. This is our thanks to you. Our treat. You must go first.”

“Oh.”

Kay took the sound as a “yes” and began sawing away at the carcass with the largest knife the kitchen boasted. He was careful to keep his facial hair away from the food.

The “poodle” had a crispy skin that parted with a puff of steam and clear fluid. Mac sniffed surreptitiously but couldn’t smell anything over the nearby plate of yellow-spotted pickle-things.

Kay carefully freed a large piece of meat, laying it on a plate with great ceremony. He passed it to Fourteen, who placed it in front of her.

They waited, staring at her again.

Mac gazed at the offering and pressed her lips tightly together.
It was that or grin
. “I didn’t realize poodle meat was white,” she managed to say.

“It is ‘the other white meat,’ ” Fourteen quoted proudly. “As proclaimed by one of your famous twentieth century authors.”

Before she lost all self-control, Mac took her knife and fork in hand. Moving very slowly, conscious of her rapt audience, she pushed the tines of the fork into the meat at one end and even more slowly cut a morsel free with her knife.

Mac lifted the morsel to her lips and paused, looking at her guests.

Kay’s eyestalks were bent forward as if that helped him see her better.

Fourteen was quivering, as if he wanted to bounce but knew that might be hard to explain at supper.

Mac smiled to herself and plopped the meat into her mouth, chewing vigorously. As she cut a second piece, she commented: “Tastes like chicken.”

Absolute silence.

“Mind?” Mac reached over and violently yanked one of the legs free. She tore off a bite with her teeth, chewed and swallowed, then glanced up at the others. “That would be because it is chicken,” she told them. “Or rather several. Nicely done, Kay.”

“What do you mean, Mac?” that worthy blustered. “I bought this before we came. From a certified poodle dealer recommended by the consular staff!”

Mac gestured a denial with her drumstick. “Chicken.”

“Idiot!” shouted Fourteen. “You should have checked before telling me you had obtained this rare delicacy. Mac, I am mortified.”

“Because it didn’t work?” she grinned.

Both managed to look crestfallen, Kay by drooping eyestalks, Fourteen by sagging in his chair.

“Don’t worry,” Mac assured them. “You would have fooled quite a few Humans with this—and any non-Human you wished. I have some expertise, you know.”

Fourteen’s sigh was heart-wrenching. “ ‘Aliens Eat Poodles’ was number three on the Human-Alien Mythos list. I knew we should have picked something else.”

“There’s a list?” she asked dubiously. “You aren’t still trying to trick me, are you?”

“There’s a list, Mac.” Kay began carving meat for himself and Fourteen. “The consulate maintains an impressive collection of anecdotal and verified instances of Human presumptions about the non-Human. The funnier and more preposterous of those is put into a list. Any visitor to your system gets a copy. It’s partly for humor’s sake—”

“And partly to improve understanding,” Fourteen finished, taking his plate. “How better to learn to tolerate an unfamiliar culture than by knowing its intolerance about yours?”

Mac did her best to wrap her mind around the logic or its lack, then shook her head. “That list can’t flatter humanity,” she said.