Pictured is an Adventurian of from Fellow Tetrapod. Adventurians are large, bipedal therapsids that evolved in what would have been the early Mesozoic after the end-Permian extinction failed to occur. They are shaped rather like kangaroos, with stout tails, robust, clawed hands, and domed skulls. Lips cover their protruding teeth, and decorative osteoderms cover their faces, limbs, and back. [https://64.media.tumblr.com/572dbf54b2386956ced9b4083b83c0d3/efaad7edc9762f0b-54/s640x960/fa30f29d9e61f7219e4dd16b5657fbc12b649803.pnj]
Picture by Timothy Morris
"Dr. Kaliannan, how do you cause hunger?"
"I'm sorry? If you're talking about diet pills, Ms. Severo, I absolutely do not — "
"No, Doctor, I said cause hunger, not suppress it. I would like to enjoy the party."
This was true.
"That's not any healthier than diet pills. The body knows what it needs. Simply do not overeat before the event. Exercise."
"Of course, doctor. Will I see you in the forest?"
***
Proprietress the spider arrived in the forest before Koen did. With his boxes, bags, and collapsed tables, he stepped out of the omnivator and into a clearing covered in cobwebs. The lacy gray sheets had festive lanterns hung from them. Fairy-lights sparkled like trapped fireflies.
As solitary hunters, the ancestors of the Neurospastics might never have been selected toward sapience at all. But catching larger prey required more silk than one spider's body could produce. Cooperation evolved first between egg-sac-mates before broadening into politics.
Humanity's first stumbling steps into the Zogreion's diplomatic society had vibrated hairs on many legs at the Neurospastic embassy. Losing no time, they scuttled forth to help.
Koen understood some of that. On sight of the web-covered tree branches, the second thought that passed through his mind was, That's a lot of silk.1 His third thought was, Someone is taking this event seriously.
"Welcome, Human Koen." A marionette dropped out of a tree like a Halloween decoration. It looked a bit like an artist's mannequin made of rounded blocks of white plastic, dressed in a black apron. After a moment of grotesque confusion, its limbs and head assumed a position of pleasure to see him.
Your father was separated from your mother when he died, wasn't he?
Koen caught himself. There was no reason to think like that. Koen rubbed the place where Mark's curse had lodged, like a hookworm in his myocardial tissue. "Hi," he said.
Proprietress the Neurospastic crossed her wrists under her belly and bowed. "Welcome to your Mid-Autumn Festival."
Koen was halfway through his return bow when he realized it. "You're bowing to me like a sous-chef greeting a chef."
"Yes, chef."
"I'm not a chef. I'm just a cook."
A coquettish wiggle of the shoulders and hips. "Whatever you say, chef. I've done my research."
Koen stood taller, smiling, reacting to the spider's performance despite knowing it was a performance. "You've learned how to flatter people."
"No, chef." The featureless head tilted in a way that suggested a smile. "Flattery, I was born knowing."
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Just as Koen had known that his parents were better off apart? At least, that's what he'd told people. He'd been so angry that his parents had refused to act like adults. He'd been trying to put a career together, doing everything in the museum but dusting the shelves, and his parents were acting out a high-school drama. It was childish. Operatic. Performative. He'd wanted no part of it.
His eye was caught by the white flashes of Proprietress's palms. Her puppet's palms, rather. She was gesturing. "Your kitchen, chef, and staff. The Neurospastic Embassy has been generous. They welcome you, as well. Please, step into their venue."
Your father was —
Koen shook his head and clapped his hands together. "Yes. Show me my equipment and let's unload the omnivator. Or, uh…" He eyed her fingerless hands and the feet which supported no weight. How would marionettes powered by spider-muscles unload anything?
But more figures dropped from the tree branches. They could not actually lift or unfold tables, but they posed and went through the motions while inconspicuous robots did the actual work.
"Huh," said Koen. "Isn't this a lot of trouble to go through? You have enough technology that you don't need to bother."
Proprietress inclined her head as they walked, or rather as Koen walked. The Neurospastic's marionette moved through the air, hips rolling, legs flexing and extending, and feet rocking from heel to toe. It was just that a fraction of a centimeter of air separated her from the ground. "We do, chef. We could use machines to build our homes and feed us. They could live our whole lives for us, if we wanted them to. Isn't it the same with you?"
Koen could not help but be reminded of the Covid lock-downs. At the time, he'd been glad for them. He'd welcomed the excuse to take a break from his family. Enjoy your emotional breakdowns and torrid embarrassments. Come back to me when you're capable of acting like civilized creatures again. When the lock-down lifted, he'd still been angry. And then his father had a heart attack and died while getting out of his car.
If he'd been killed by the coronavirus, at least he would have been part of a global tragedy, but no, he'd been killed by a heart condition that might possibly have been exacerbated by…and so on.
Your father was separated from your mother when he died.
Koen was tired of the story, but the grooves it had worn into his mind were so deep. Once begun, the process of remembering was hard to stop, like opening the cabinet to grab yet another cookie. He went through those motions again and again.
Which was why it wasn't fair to blame Mark. Mark had just reminded Koen of what he already knew: Koen was alone. It was impossible to really connect with other people. Human or not, everyone was an alien intelligence. There was always a door between you and them, and eventually all doors would lock.
Your father was separated.
But Koen had been in this hole many times before. He knew what to do when his brain finally rattled to the end of this track. What you did was you focused on your space, and you worked in it.
Proprietress noticed her guest's preoccupation and did the right thing by distracting him from it. "Here are your ovens and stoves, chef. The refrigerator and freezer." A wave of a molded hand indicated a collection of large cubes, some black and others white. None possessed power cords.
Koen knelt and opened the door in the front of one of the black cubes. Inside, it looked like an oven, complete with racks and a fan. Except when Koen closed one eye and squinted into the crack between the door and the frame, he saw something tangled and slick. Copper-colored coils pulled away, out of his sight.
He straightened.
"Will that, uh, oven? Will it actually heat up?"
"Of course, chef."
"And, uh, how much would the Neurospastic embassy charge for a look at the machinery that runs this device?"
Proprietress angled her upper body toward him, fingers steepled, head tilted at a conspiratorial angle. "We'd suck you dry."
Koen's fears reasserted themselves. "You're not going to…uh. After the party, that is, you're not going to expect… Um, what payment will you expect?"
From the other end of the clearing, another humanoid marionette slid toward them. It was also wearing a black apron. "There are certain financial enzymes we would be eager to inject into your banking system — "
Proprietress swatted playfully at it. "Now, now, Councilor. You're scaring him."
"Is that what that face-shape means?"
Proprietress's assessment wasn't exactly accurate. Koen was surprised, yes. A week ago he would really have been frightened. Now, though, he could find no reason to care. He would be deported one way or another.
He had a place to go: the USA. He had a thing to do: work. Yes.
Koen had a meal to serve. He didn't need to worry about spiders eating the UN or ravens picking its bones clean. He didn't need to worry about Laura.
He would leave her alone.
1 His first thought was "Aaaaagh!"