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 brown cheeks. Its tiny feet kicked at the air. Mist wondered if an infection had set in. She almost hoped it had. Perhaps if there was rampant infection, the women of the council would stop the procedure for medical reasons. Not that she wanted the baby to suffer, but one or two deaths here and there might not be such a bad thing after all.
The green lights flashed, indicating that the train was on its way. Beside them, Mist noticed, were “speakers” attached to the eaves of the train station. The Earthers had touted bi-lingualism and had convinced many elders of many towns to create some kind of communication system that ears could respond to. But lately, Mist told herself, the ‘speakers’ were proliferating to a dangerous degree. She thought of the long tube and of the off-worlders “fixing the air.” If the dense air makes things loud, aren't there technical problems with having speakers and other sound-based technologies? She asked herself. She grew nervous. What are they going to do with our atmosphere?
Mist pondered again the Earther’s words. Teach our thousand-year-old culture? She thought. Those Earthers think highly of themselves, don’t they? Our families have roamed the starry seas for centuries. Others accepted us, but they saw our gifts, not our lack. But these Federation Earthers are used to seeing things their way so they change everyone else’s way of seeing.
Her downcast eyes saw four flowers blooming in a small shaded corner near the tracks. She thought of Flowers-in-the-Sun.
My child, my life, she thought. You are living in a time when another planet’s sun overshadows yours. I am hopeful you will change your mind about the cutting.
She reminded herself that she and Flowers-in-the-Sun would both be revitalized by their visit to the Mother-Infant festival later in the week.
Arriving home, she found Flowers-in-the-Sun in the family gathering room surrounded by her aunts. Flowers-in-the-Sun had been implanted. When Mist entered her apartment, the aunts and cousins rose almost as one and formed a barrier between her and her daughter. The Earth doctor and a woman of the medical caste stood beside the sedated patient. Their lips were moving and they were giving Ion a small bottle of tiny balls with writing on it.
Shadow-of-light-Turning looked immensely pleased. “Can’t you see?” her mother-in-law signed. “Your daughter is no longer being isolated by her cousins.”
Ion’s face was turned toward the ground and not once did he lift his eyes to look at her. Not even as she sank into a chair near the door, too shocked and amazed at the conspiracy and betrayal to speak.
Her old self might have spoken. She had been a warrior woman once. The chief of barterers, the villages had nicknamed her. Now, she could hardly lift her hand to argue. Her emotional and physical strength failed her. She looked up at Ion and thought, what use is fighting if my family, my husband, and my village won’t fight for me? What was the use of fighting what could not be undone? She felt old, like a living ghost.
A day or two later, after she had taken enough of the little white pills, Flowers-in-the-Sun began to smile in that sweet way she always had. Seemingly gone was the sadness that had accompanied her when the cousins ignored her. Seeing her daughter’s happiness, Mist’s anger melted into resignation and grief and lost its edge. And yet she felt old. But she was not truly old; not yet.
That happened at the end of the month, when Flowers-in-the-Sun was fully healed and Mist took her and a niece to the Mother-Infant festival.
Mist was one who always tried to mind her own business and so she did not ask her niece why her mother had not accompanied her to the festival. Besides, few of Mist’s sisters-in-laws had attended the festival this year. No doubt the lack of interest in celebrating children was caused by the increasing tension caused by children ignoring their elders. Mist wished her mother-in-law would call a family meeting about it. As it was now, a brooding “silence” hovered in the house.
Mist, her daughter and her niece disembarked from the train
