The ship, a crystalline sphere, floated invisible above the water. SehReng turned to Ta’lak. “Si mah?” (Beautiful, isn’t it?”) Ta’lak, zis colleague, agreed, gazing down at the natural harbor of the bustling port of Auckland, New Zealand, the city sparkling in the noonday sun.
“V-tseh!” Ta’lak said, pointing one of zis long turquoise tentacles down toward the beach. The day was hot. A single pale-skinned sailor in uniform stood by the water, with his back to a ship in the harbor. A second man, dark, in tee shirt and shorts, with his back to the city, walked up to the sailor and smiled at him.
“I’mudi,” SehReng said to Ta’lak, indicating the heat patterns snaking between the chests of the two men. The Ten’tsur, whose multiple eyes see ultra-violet and infrared as well as the visible spectrum, knew that those frequencies were invisible to the beings below, who they thought of as “mit-makh,” animals. Highly advanced animals, but animals none the less.
The Ten’tsur also knew that the pale creatures were migratory while the dark ones were the native species of that island. They were scanning the planet, charting its development, but were also interested in individual patterns of behavior, hence their attention to the two animals. The dark one took a step closer to the light one, who returned his gaze for an instant and then turned to look out at the water.
Ta’lak tapped SehReng. “Tsik!” Far below, on the beach, the English sailor struggled to pull into this body the heat that was racing toward the sleek native, a being he considered not just an animal but worse than an animal. To his horror, the barefoot
Maori came up beside him. “Great view, isn’t it?” The sailor went rigid, trying to contain his fear, desire, and rage. When this had happened to him before he always glared and walked away. But today a voice in his head whispered, “John, you are a fruit of this planet, just as he is. Stop fighting it.” He bit the inside of his cheek till he tasted blood. Then something let go in him, and he turned with a frightened smile to face the other man.
“U’chaq in anit?” Ta’lak asked zis partner, as the opalescent fire between the two animals on the beach exploded, not just from their chests but from their lower bodies as well. “Are they giving you any ideas?” SehReng had just asked. Feeling the answer, ze reached to the console, turned on the ship’s recording devices, and turned to Ta’lak, golden amber heat rising up from both of zeir bodies, and then slipped a glistening chartreuse tentacle deep into one of Ta’lak’s wet anterior rha’numay.