A picture of an elephant-sized, armored creature with two tentacles sprouting from a long, beaked snout, and a horn where its head meets its body. [https://64.media.tumblr.com/64e90044cb8b55d336dfa9a76f205595/dc22ac2d55aefeb6-c6/s640x960/c6ca59b9de54067a70bd9d71368ec23a2eac861a.pnj]
Picture by Timothy Morris
Laura hadn't signed up to be an event planner, but here she was.
And here, infuriatingly, Mark wasn't.
Since they'd arrived in the Zogreion, he hadn't left the embassy for more than ninety minutes at a stretch. Now, he'd been gone the whole morning. Worse, he'd been invited as a guest to the home of a powerful nonhuman, which made what he was doing much more important than whatever Laura might need help with. Such as preparing for his cultural performance. Such as figuring out what a "cultural performance" might actually be.
This was what it meant to be an adult. You did things because you must. Did you like or even know what you were doing? Irrelevant. Get it done.
And, if she was honest with herself, if Laura didn't stay busy, she'd go back to obsessing over what she'd said to Koen. And what he hadn't said to her, which was "It's okay you're scared by nonhumans. That doesn't make you unfit for your position as the interface between the United Nation and all of the nonhumans. I will understand you, take your side, and relieve you of some of this burden of pretending, all day, that things are okay.
Instead, Koen had stormed off, made scrambled eggs, babbled about spiders, and stormed off again. Now he was cooking for General Graa, no doubt creating more work that Laura would have to do.
Stop it! Laura rocked in her chair in a way a primatologist would recognize as "frustrating social circumstances and the inability to cope with these."1 Snap out of it!
This is exactly what I was just telling you, she told herself. You work, you don't worry. What is the next thing to do?
She had a contract, signed by all parties. It had taken two weeks of badgering Mark and Nelly and the legal experts back on Earth, with the paperwork expanding every day to fill all of Laura's available schedule.
That left the question of what Mark was actually going to do. Laura had known better than to leave that question to be answered by anyone but herself. She set to work mashing a play-bill together out of Mark's CV, the sorts of team-building exercises he'd done in the embassy, and brochures for whatever political summits, retreats, and conferences she could find on her hard drives. The result would bear no relation to what either the Quotidians or Mark had in mind, but the key insight here is that neither the Quotidians nor Mark had much in mind. One of them wanted a funny human clown, and the other wanted lots of fame and attention without having to learn a new skill. Laura hammered at her laptop until she had something she thought would satisfy these requirements.
The next step…Laura pulled her finger down the bubble-and-arrow diagram scribbled on her notebook. Laura had to find a photographer to take pictures of Mark for promotional materials.
Laura glanced at the curtained window of her office and shuddered. She took a deep breath, squeezing her hands together and said, "Translator, how do I find a photographer to take pictures that match the requirements here?" She tapped her computer screen where it said, "4π sr interior-tomography medical-3D-printing-suitable."
The translator hovered close to the screen, bulbous eye reflecting black and white text.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
"The closest photographer with equipment capable of producing images that match these requirements is
Laura squeezed her hands tighter and breathed deeply. She could invite this photographer-thing to the embassy and at least she wouldn't have to go outside. "All right. Where is this…Judgment?"
"On average, he is three meters away."
A familiar chill gripped the back of Laura's neck. She straightened, listening for the ping of the omnivator door opening to disgorge who-knew-what. Average distance?
She heard no ping. She did, however, hear a tap on her office window.
The sense of dread slid downward to her shoulders.
"How long have I kept the photographer waiting?"
"Soul-is-Judgment son of She-Who-Ties, Library—"
"Call him Judgment Infrasound."
"Judgment Infrasound has arrived on average six minutes ago. He asked in what room you might be found. He asks that you open the window."
Laura thought several things, even as she stood and approached her window. One was that she did not want to open the window of her office and let in another Quotidian. Two, that there was nothing for a photographer to do, because Mark wasn't here. Two-A: it would be rude to just brush off a nonhuman who'd made a house-call like this. Two-B: she had to call Mark. Three, who had sent this photographer to the embassy? It must have been the Quotidian "Freak-show-wrangler." Mix Sty. Two-C: Laura had to call mix Sty. Three, weren't the Quotidians all female?
The window swung inward, but no eye goggled, no jaws clacked or everted. A pair of birds waited on the windowsill. Not exactly birds. They rested on their bellies like lizards, with paddle-shaped legs splayed to the sides and wings folded along their backs. Eyes in arrow-shaped heads twitched up to regard her.
One of the lizard-birds flattened itself against the windowsill and sprang upward like a rubber ball. Its wings unfolded and buzzed as the lower body coiled itself under the delta-V of its head. There, under its gaping jaws, a camera lens glinted.
Another camera-equipped flier joined the first in the air over Laura's head. And another. And more. Lizard-birds streamed through the window in their dozens and spread to fill the room, dancing and swirling, surrounding the human with eyes.
"Good afternoon," said the swarm. "I'm the photographer. Are you Human Mark?"
Laura wanted to tear her hair and scream. This was her fault. She'd wished that someone else would do some work, and they had. Wishes were dangerous.
"No, I'm," Laura swallowed. "Laura. I'm afraid there's been some kind of mix-up with the calendars. Let me just call mix Sty. Just a moment, Honored…Judgment."
"Bucolic Judgment!"
"Bucolic Judgment. Just a moment." She held up a hand. Some of the lizard-birds inspected it, in case it might have bits of food clinging to it.
Laura forced herself to breath. They were all around her. "Let me just make a phone call."
"Clarify? Oh, I see. How technologically advanced (sarcasm)."
Laura did not give in to any of the temptations she felt. Lizard-bugs inspected her hair for tasty parasites and she called Sty mix Sty.
"Sty mix Sty says you are too dry to talk to right now. Good bye."
"What did that accomplish?" asked Judgment. "You respect my time (sarcasm). Where is Human Mark?"
Laura closed her fist around the Translator bug. "Mark is currently out of the embassy," she confessed.
The flying things watched her from all angles at once. Ripples of movement shimmered from one to another. Then they all flew out the window.
1 Spijkerman, René et al. (1994). Causes of Body Rocking in Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes). Animal Welfare. 3. 193-211.