Under Twin Suns by Andrew J. Offutt

Author:Andrew J. Offutt [Offutt, Andrew J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Adult
ISBN: 9780867212044
Publisher: Playboy Paperbacks
Published: 1982-11-01T07:00:00+00:00

Several floors above, a dark man and woman from Ghanj were enjoying an entirely new experience. They were entertaining in their own parlor, as it were; that portion of their noble employer’s suite that provided their quarters. Sipping excellent wine, they were visiting with a guest: one of those orange beings from the planet Jarpi.

This was not the first Jarp Shaf and Mauvri had ever seen, but this was the closest they had ever been to one except in passing (on the streets of Komodi, during last year’s Fair), and the first they had ever talked with.

This one was really very nice, and was already a person to the two Ghanjis, rather than “a Jarp.” It told wonderful stories about adventures along the spaceways and on other planets where they had never been and presumably never would be.

It was also a very interesting looking being-person, Mauvri thought. Alien, different and, now that she knew Cinnabar, exotically attractive.

It really was orange. Not deeply brown as she and Shaf were, or tan or beige or “red” or coppery or bronze or the “yellow” of Saipese—which she had seen only on Jorinne, during the last year’s Fair. And its hair was a genuine, almost dazzling red. Those great big eyes were round, rounder by far than those ancient people of Homeworld some Asians had used to call “round-eyes.” They were set in a sort of heart-shape of a face, a smoothly rounded wedge. From a broad forehead, the face narrowed steadily to end in a little chin that was almost pointed. The nose was not even slightly down-tipped as most Galactics’ were, and was a bit broad of septum and nostrilar flare.

All in all, Mauvri thought, Cinnabar had a rather sweet-faced look.

No Jarp spoke Erts because no Jarp could. The poor things’ long, pointed tongues and small mouths made human speech impossible. Jarps trilled and warbled. That was their language. Otherwise they wore the translation helmets. A system of straps and hardware called a translahelm. Except for the very, very few who could somehow afford to have implants. Or who had been provided with implants by some wealthy master.

Yes—master.

Shaf asked about that and then acted embarrassed. Cinnabar assured them it did not mind talking of Jarpi, and Jarps. Yes, it had been a slave once, and it had been called Raunchy. It served as name. (Cinnabar did not say how it had come to be free, and they were too polite to ask.)

Occasionally groping for terms, Cinnabar explained the Jarps of planet Jarpi. It tried to explain as if objectively, from the human viewpoint.

A normal Galactic female possessed two sex-controlling chromosomes; she was “constructed” as 46, XX. It was the double-X that made her female; that made Mauvri female. Assuming that Shaf was a normal Galactic male, his chromosomal pattern was 46, XY. The Y factor made him male. The chromosome designated as Y had instructed him, between his second and third months as a fetus, to form two testicles rather than two ovaries.

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