Mist thought of her nieces and nephews huddled together in their groups, doing mouth-to-ears hiding their conversations. She remembered the family’s excuses: Children must explore and discover. They’re practicing using those implant things right. Children play endlessly with their toys until the novelty wears off. They then outgrow them. Mist had always thought her husband’s brothers’ wives were foolish women with no foresight. These latest events only proved their short-sightedness.
“And many other new things have happened,” the News Carrier continued. “Now the young married youth move from the family house. They live by themselves. ‘Husband and wife family house,’ they call it. Who has seen such a thing? But worse things happen: They disappear and are not seen then they suddenly re-appear for an afternoon. To ‘visit’ they call it. They come when they want something. And many want to create speaking temples in order to worship the Creator. The world has crashed around us.” The News Carrier went on to list all the alarming troubles caused by cutting. She ended with the warning, “One law falls and all others fall with it.”
Mist’s eyes met those of another woman in the crowd. Both women exchanged glances and then glanced backwards at the off-worlders in the distance with their strange metallic equipment. Mist and the woman shook their heads.
“Surely the News Carrier is stretching stories,” the woman signed. Mist hoped the woman was right. Surely, these were only tales.
After the town meeting, she returned to her book shop. Many Earthers were coming in and out, marveling at the “primitive” lifestyle of the “locals,” buying dictionaries and planetary histories. In the old days, she did not mind them. But now she grew impatient with them. They made her sad. Even stranger, they made her tired. The more Earthers she saw in the market place, holding their ears, like princes holding their noses, the more fatigued she felt. If the Earthers don’t like it here, she thought, why do they walk among us? Mist spent the rest of the day suspiciously reading their lips and feeling unusually tired and later when she left her shop, she locked the door securely behind her and carried the key home with her.
Returning home, she saw more Earthers, two men and a woman, standing in the train station. She watched them for a while, standing there with those two ear-caps sticking out on the sides of their heads. She had thought them funny when she first saw them. But now she considered them offensive, small intrusive weapons against her culture.
Several Aqueduct families were to the left and right of her. From their shells and floral holiday dress, she knew they were awaiting the Festival train which would take them to Living-Water-White Light, the town where the largest Mother-Infant parade occurred.
One young woman in the tribal cloak of the people of the Solitary Hills wore a baby carrier across her chest. The baby’s face was buried in its mother’s holiday cloak, a cloak trimmed and edged with “gold,” the signifier of a new mother.
Her first time in the festival, Mist thought. I remember when I was newly-married, childless and young and so wanted to join all the mothers in the parade. I waited so long. And then Flowers-in-the-Sun came. What a joy that was. To be a mother at last.
The woman’s face was turned in the other direction and Mist could not gesture a greeting. The baby was twisting and shaking in its carrier, obviously uncomfortable and agitated. Mist watched the woman from Solitary Hills take the child from its little pouch in order to comfort it. As the woman lifted the baby, Mist saw the tell-tale patterned tattoos on the baby’s neck. No wonder she can wear “gold,” Mist thought. Her family is one of the mutilated. Then, startled, Mist realized that the people surrounding her all had the tattoos. Tears stung her eyes. She glanced at the Earthers speaking among themselves at the far end of the track.
How smug they are! she thought. And she wanted to tell them so. What will I say to them? Will they even listen to me if I tell them they are destroying my culture?
Mist had seen ideographs which told the stories and histories of the Earthers. A warlike lot, to be sure, bent on their own glory, “paying lip-service”—she loved that English phrase—to Cultural Respect but not really caring about it. She walked towards the Earthers.
“Coming to see our festival?” she signed when she reached the woman Earther.
The woman Earther turned to look questioningly at a male Earther to her right.
Very rude, Mist said to herself. Even if she doesn’t know our language, she should know that turning away the face is not done. That’s basic body language.
The male Earther, who had black hair and dark brown skin like Mist’s people, reached into a sack and picked up a book of ideographs. He signed, “Do again. Sign again.”
He had not preceded his conversation with the “Please” sign which made his conversation seem abrupt and pushy. But Mist reminded herself that linguistic etiquette was complicated.
“Watch me,” she signed. “Sign ‘Please.’ Or bow twice whenever you tell anyone to do something. So you don’t offend people.” She signed slowly, word by word until he bowed twice and she knew he understood her.
“What’s your name?” the dark-skinned Earther asked. “Mine is Ray.” He finger-spelled the English name then signed ‘Sunlight Beam.’
“‘Sunlight Beam?’” Mist answered. “You must have been a blessing to your mother?”
Raymond grinned surreptitiously at the Earth woman then bowed twice to Mist. “Tell me the question you asked our woman friend.”
“I asked if she was going to our Mother-Infant festival,” Mist answered. “It happens every year at this time. It is our greatest festival and it lasts the whole month. If you go there, you will understand our culture and see our heart.”
Sunlight Beam answered, “We don’t usually go into your towns unless we have to. Business or something. Your towns are very loud, you know. You don’t know it. But they are. Maybe that’s why you people ended up with atrophied eardrums and vocal cords. The air density causes any kind of sound to—”
How dare he judge my planet with those stupid hearing things of his! Mist thought and interrupted his analysis of her culture with the purposely impolite remark. “We have heard that your towns are very ugly, lacking color.”
Sunlight Beam made a gesture with his shoulder which Mist interpreted as ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t care’ or ‘Your thoughts don’t matter.’ “Towns are towns,” he signed.
“Then what are you doing here?” Mist asked and bowed twice to indicate she was merely being curious not intrusive or rude.
“Waiting for the train to the coast?” Sunlight Beam answered. “We have a community there. And a school for bilingual education. You speak English?”
“I heard about your school,” Mist finger-spelled in English. “Lingua Franca good. Cutting? Not good. Cut people there all-you? Implants put in?”
Sunlight Beam made the same shoulder gesture again. “I just teach you people our ways,” he signed. “Funny, but you people are the only humanoids we’ve met who don’t really use their ears. In all the galaxy.”
Mist could not quite figure out if he meant to praise their uniqueness or if he thought they were freaks. Either way, she found the Earther rude. Turning, she walked away without giving him the customary goodbye gesture. What would such a gesture mean to rude Earthers anyway? Had he really said that he was teaching her people his ways?
She walked back to where she had been previously standing and studied the “implanted baby” who was holding its small hands in a clenched fist. Tears streamed down its little