Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 139 by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke [Clarke, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: best editor short form, chinese, clarkesworld, Hugo Nominee, magazine, novelette, science fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, science fiction magazine, short stories, short story
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2018-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

Translated and published in partnership with Storycom.

About the Author

Jiang Bo’s first story, “The Last Game,” was published in 2003, and to date he has published over forty short stories and several novels. He has been won multiple Yinhe (Galaxy) and Chinese Nebula awards, including, most recently, a Galaxy award for his novel, Chasing Shadow and Light.

The Baby Eaters

Ian McHugh

Meychezhek is big, even among badhar-krithkinee, a circumstance exacerbated by the fact that I’m both already nervous and kneeling in anticipation of her entrance.

Her skin is purple-black, more textured than human skin. Her head crest, flattened now, is white, banded with orange. Her eyes are red-shot yellow, horizontally slit. When she smiles, her teeth are noticeably stained. Meychezhek acquired an addiction to coffee during her times as an ambassador on Friendship and Perunu-Zambezi.

The smile is a human expression, meant to put me at ease, but her fangs are intimidating.

I bow—correctly, I hope—and she kneels.

Krithkinee don’t sit. They bend in the same places as humans but the proportions are different. Shin bones shorter, feet longer—pivots for burst sprinting. The extra pair of arms raises the center of gravity. The body leans forward, balanced by the short tail. Feet and fighting arms have triple talons, one opposed. The four fingers of the inner manipulative arms have retractable claws.

Meychezhek signals for me to be at ease and I relax my pose fractionally. My pulse races.

“Thank you, Dhar, for welcoming me into your home.” My Babel implant turns Euraf English into crude but passable Junkhin before the words reach my mouth. It never stops being disconcerting, to speak a language you don’t fluently understand, nor the sense of your muscles moving contrary to the brain’s commands.

“You are honored,” Meychezhek replies, accepting what is due to her rank. A dhar is part military officer, part civil administrator, and part feudal lord—a Japanese daimyo in the era of the shoguns, combined with an Indian civil service mandarin.

Our solicitation of an invitation to trade had followed the correct form: approaching the provincial dhar with an appropriately personalized gift, in this case, an antique coffee set, unsuitable for krithkinee mouths but Meychezhek is a collector. Given the modest scale of our enterprise, we’d expected her to defer to a subordinate lord. A further round of gifts would follow, and possibly a second deferral, depending on the status of the lower ranked lord, the social and commercial advantage for them, and the particulars of their patronage relationship with Meychezhek.

What we didn’t anticipate was that the dhar would accede directly to the solicitation and offer to host me herself.

“The commendations from your peers are impressive,” Meychezhek says. “You are highly esteemed.”

Again, there’s the disconcerting awareness that the words my ears hear aren’t the same as those my brain receives. If I concentrate, I can hear both.

Meychezhek’s statement is both a compliment and a challenge. I’m confused, though. “Forgive me, Dhar. The commendations of my peers?”

“At the university.”

“I . . . ” I haven’t studied or worked at university in a decade. I’m surprised enough that it’s an effort to avert my gaze.

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