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Picture by Timothy Morris

Koen met Laura at the door. He looked good.

Not his clothes. Koen's clothes looked like he had slept and cooked in them. Blood, fish scales, and other marine detritus adhered to the cuffs, and was that dog hair? All of that, however, could be remedied by the contents of the garment bag Laura carried.

The rest was all Koen. He had found some way to shower and even shave at the Pick Residence. His eyes and smile were wide, open, delighted to see her.

This. This was why Laura was involved in Mark's crazy nonsense. It would bring her and Koen together, and it would give her a place to go after the dust had settled. A home to be welcomed into.

"It smells wonderful," she said.

"Thank you. I'm keeping the door to the kitchen…um. Closed." Koen did not consciously notice Laura's dilated pupils and up-tilted face, but he was seized with an impulse to kiss her. Fortunately, he had practiced his next line enough that it came out of his mouth even when his higher brain functions were otherwise occupied. "You look great!"

Laura was wearing a navy blue suit coat over a red blouse. Slacks of the same color as the coat. No jewelry aside from the gold enamel pin of the crossed flags of the UN and the PRC. It was the same outfit she wore at any formal occasion, and Koen didn't care about it at all.

"Come in!" he said, resolving to try to kiss her on the way home.

Laura looked around. Koen had told her the Pick Residence resembled a giant bird cage, and she saw that this was so. Several cages, in fact, stacked one atop the other. The black iron trees went right through the ceiling, which was really just the netted floor of the second story. A zippered flap had been opened not too far from the door, and a ladder propped up against the nearest tree.

Koen gestured at it. "You go ahead. I'll, uh, I have to get these clothes off. I mean, change. I'll just change. Very quickly, and come join you."

Laura knew what that meant. For some minutes, she would be alone with General Graa and his guests. She stiffened, pulling the lapels of her coat into alignment. "I'm ready," she said. "Who is here?"

"Oh, just Graa and his friend Toxoplasmotic Fling. She's a sort of priest, I think. You'll like her. And Secretary and the rest of the Pick staff are helping me with table service."

"What about the psychic?"

Koen's elated, distracted expression grew heavier. "Yes. Metruian Glimmering Promise. She arrived early. She said that we shouldn't have been surprised. She's…" He grimaced at the bag of clothes in his hands. "I promise I'll get changed as fast as I can."

"You're sweet." Laura allowed herself to put her hand on his arm. The upper arm, where the plesiosaur blood hadn't splashed. "But this is my job." She had dealt before with missionaries, faith healers, astrologers, match-makers, and one very drunk shaman. "I know General Graa already and I know how to talk to religious people. The psychic should be even softer."

***

"You there! Glabrous biped! Stop where you are, put your hands up, and open your mind!"

One one earth, octopuses were raised by their stepmothers.

Cephalopod reproduction has the unfortunate characteristic of semelparity. The first time an octopus breeds is also the end of its life. Male octopuses die after they transfer their spermatophores into a female's mantel, and females survive only long enough for their eggs to hatch.1 Birth is death.

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This life strategy places limits on the development of civilization. How can the young learn the wisdom of the elders if the generations don't overlap? One solution would be a mutation that stops the process of senescence that kill adults once their reproductive job is done, but that isn't the mutation that happened to occur on this version of earth.

Instead, some octopuses grew up sterile. Of every clutch of eggs, two or three females lack the ability to store sperm. When their sisters and brothers breed and die, they live on to tutor the next generation. This gave them a certain outlook on life and education.

Laura paused at the edge of the circle of the dinner party with her hands at shoulder height. "I beg your pardon?"

And the octopus was on her. Four pairs of plastic-encased legs strode across the floor and a plexiglass helmet clunked against Laura's forehead. Tentacles seized her wrists, elbows, shoulders and stretched.

"Is this all you can do?" demanded Glimmering Promise, Maj. Gen. Retr. "Is this as far as your bones will stretch, or all you holding out on me, you inflexible damned vertebrate? Look me in the eyes!"

Promise's eyes were smoother and lighter in color than the burgundy, knobbly skin visible through her helmet. Her pupils were straight horizontal slashes.

"Changing color, are you? A stroppy move, but watch this! I'll show you how we used to do things in the academy!" Her skin exploded in a kaleidoscopic display of red and white stripes. Nodules of flesh grew into points and melted into smoothness. Fractal patterns unfolded and spun. Laura's eyes crossed.

A beak snapped inside the helmet, just centimeters from Laura's nose.

A bird cried. "Your report?" asked General Graa.

The weight on Laura's shoulders vanished as Glimmering Promise released her and stepped back.

"Possibilities are murky," the psychic said. "But utility is clear, if only we can get that shell off you. Speak up, girl!" A tentacle poked her shoulder. "You slap your own arms, don't you? Admit it!"

"I…Clarify?"

"You slap your own arms. But once you stop, the world will be your oyster."

Laura stood, most of her brain working on the problem of how to respond appropriately.

The clear, water-filled helmet rose on eight plastic columns until it towered over Laura's head. "Well? Raised by your brothers, were you? Tell me your name, girl!"

"Laura," said Laura.

"A tree symbolizing victory. You chose that name for yourself, didn't you?" Patterns rose and fell on Promise's skin. "Ha ha. I know children. What did your great aunt call you, young sophont?"

Laura switched to Chinese. "She called me Zhang Hongxia."2

Spikes protruded over Promise's eyes. Webs of white danced over her skin. "'The Sunset Clouds Archer.' Sacrifice. Eventual victory. Yes. You sacrifice yourself every day, don't you? But for what? That was a question, young Zhang!"

"I…" Laura summoned her will. She was being interrogated, and she knew what responses to give. "I sacrifice myself for humanity."

"The continuance of your species," Promise repeated, tugging thoughtfully on Laura's wrists. "And what do your arms say about that?"

Laura wished Koen were here and translating for her. "Clarify?"

"Your arms, young Zhang, your arms!"

"She's telling you," said Fling, "to listen to your body."

"Oh. Thank you." What did her body say about sacrificing herself for humanity? Laura licked her lips, thinking of what the proper response must be.

"Don't be timid," urged Fling. "Tell the truth."

"That will be more amusing," agreed General Graa.

The truth? "I feel a little scared," said Laura.

"More!" demanded Promise. The tension on her wrists increased.

"And tired."

"Aha! Good." Promise's arms uncoiled from Laura's and she took a step back. "Now I see between your arms. Or I feel your joints, eh, vertebrate? Ha ha. You're no crab."

Laura stared at the Metruian until General Graa spoke. "That's a compliment."

"Oh," said Laura. "Thank you."

1 Those curious about how semelparity could evolve are directed to Young, T.P. (1981). "A general model of comparative fecundity for semelparous and iteroparous life histories". American Naturalist. 118: 27–36. doi:10.1086/283798

2 Actually Laura had no great aunt and if she did, the woman would have called her "grand-niece." But Laura had figured out what Promise was driving at.