Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

a child!” he said. “You will understand when you are older!”
    Wrapped in the warm velvety cloak, Bram felt the waves of soft bristles caress him as Voth crooned to him in the Great Language. The meaning was muzzy but comforting, like a lullaby hummed without the actual words.
    “You’ll see,” said a sleepy little boy.
     
    Dlors was pouring a drink for her new friend, Arthe, when the door rattle made a diffident noise.
    “Stay where you are,” she said. “I’ll get it.”
    She rose from the low orange pouf she had been sitting on and set the pitcher of iced and flavored distillate down on the fragile wooden stand between them. Arthe had made the little five-legged table out of vacuum-poplar; he was handier with edged tools than Bram’s gene fathers had been.
    “If it’s Lan and Elaire, send them away,” Arthe groaned. “He’ll only want to drone on for hours about that mote drama he’s got himself a part in.” The thirtieth-century mote dramas of Jarn Anders that were now being deciphered were the latest fad in the human community. Arthe’s tastes in theater were more conservative, running to the neo-Shakespeare movement.
    “Quiet, they’ll hear you,” Dlors said.
    She went to the door, a wooden oval set in the nacre of the curving wall, and opened it. The tall spindle shape of a Nar was there, its tentacles raised and clustered with their waxy sides out in a mode of nonpresumptive courtesy.
    “Oh … . Voth-shr-voth,” she said. After a moment she
    remembered her manners and held up her hands, palms outward.
    The decapod unpeeled two of its limbs and touched her palms in formal greeting.
    “Good evening, Dlors Hsin-jen Jons,” the being said in mid-Inglex. “May I see Bram?”
    “Yes … of course. I’ll get him. I wasn’t expecting you at this hour.”
    “Forgive me for intruding on your Tenday.” The hidden baritone vibrations were a little muffled by the palisade of tentacles. “There is a place I must take him to this night if you do not mind giving up his presence for a short time.”
    “No … not at all. I mean, he was going to go to bed soon, anyhow. He’s a funny little boy. He can sit in his compartment for hours, playing by himself and making up games. He doesn’t have any near siblings, you know— not here, anyhow, though there’s a sixteenth-sister and some thirty-seconds elsewhere in the Compound.”
    “I will try to have him back in a few hours,” Voth said gravely. “Perhaps he might sleep a little later tomorrow.”
    “I’ll tell you what,” Dlors said brightly. “Why doesn’t he just stay with you tonight. I mean, he’d be going in the morning anyway, and that way there wouldn’t be any problem.”
    The flat petals creased slightly at their midline. “His touch brothers will be pleased.”
    He followed her into the ribbed pearly chamber, mincing along on the stiffened tips of his lower points to match her gait. The Nar had no skeletons, but their hydrostatic support system enabled them to put a knee anywhere.
    “Arthe, this is Voth-shr-voth, little Bram’s mentor,” Dlors blurted. She looked hesitantly from one to the other. “I’ll get Bram,” she said, and hurried out.
    Arthe, sprawled in a fan-back seat, did not offer to rise. He took a sip of his drink as Voth started to unfold. Voth’s partially extended petals closed again, though staying politely flared at the tops.
    “I know of your work as an architect, Arthe Wulter Collin,” the decapod said. “It is of interest.”
    Arthe’s face flushed with pleasure, then tightened again. “It’s not very practical, though, is it?” he said. “Not when you can biosculpt large structures cheaper than you can knock them together out of materials. And can’t get enough of the materials, to boot. No, my real work’s at the ethanol plant. Architecture’s only a hobby.” He took another sip of his drink. “All us humans have hobbies.”
    “The creation of habitats is not merely practical,” Voth said. “We, too, see it as an art. And architecture is a human art. It is encouraged. Arthe Wulter Collin, you should go to your touch brothers and tell them of your need for materials.”
    “Haven’t seen ‘em for years,” Arthe said. He changed the subject. “Come to take the kid someplace, have you?”
    “He has expressed an interest in stellar objects,” Voth said. “The lesser sun sets early at this season, and this will be a good night for viewing.”
    “Stargazing. Ah, well, I