Serial, Kherishdar's Exception, Episode 18: Doors

The colony world’s afternoon aged into a cool evening when I finally decided I was done. I packed the device with a selection of Lenore’s books and let myself out of her office. Where I stopped, curious, staring at the door. It had a door. Did aunera treat spaces the same way we did? We don’t put doors on our rooms unless they’re meant to keep people out, and this makes a statement about the sorts of activities we think require privacy—or concentration. Did Lenore’s office have a door for the latter reason? If so, I could leave it unlocked or ajar. But if it was a privacy matter… or did that obtain when Lenore was gone?

The noise I made when I decided to shut it brought the colony administrator from his space down the hall. Seeing me, he advanced and I halted abruptly. What interaction I’d had thus far had not yet given me a sense for how aunera handled personal space, and I didn’t want to accidentally step into him. He stopped at least an arm’s length away though, and gave a truncated… bow? Maybe? He looked flustered, as if he wasn’t sure what to do. Which was fine, as I didn’t either. I wondered if he worried that I was looking at him and seeing an animal mimicking a person’s proprieties. Which was fair, since I wondered if I was looking at him and waiting for him to lapse into a trained animal’s mimicry. Had Emma been correct about that?

“Osulkedi,” he said, and paused when he realized I didn’t have the device out. Before I could reach for it, he brought one out of his pocket—so small!—and held it up between us. Continuing in his tongue, he spoke, and it rendered his speech in extremely basic Ai-Naidari. As spoken by a female voice. I stared at it, disoriented, and lost the first half of his commentary.

“Excuse me?” I said. Which is very polite. With Ajan, I would have just said ihh, which is like your ‘huh’… a request for a repetition, or for explanation of something you completely missed. Which neatly described the entirety of my interactions with aunera so far. A persistent sense of having missed everything important.

“Did you have a pleasant day?” he asked again. “Is there anything you need from us before you go?”

“No,” I said. “Thank you. You have been very helpful.”

“Good, good, I’m glad to hear that. Will you be back later?”

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“Great. We look forward to it. It’s great to have you here.”

“Thank you,” I said, because… what else could I say to such earnest good will? He was looking at me intently, which made me realize how few aunera did. I found it comforting, except where it gave me to wonder why so few aunera met our eyes for long enough to be polite. “Tomorrow, then.”

We both hesitated, neither of us knowing which of us had the right to end the conversation. An Ai-Naidari administrator of a colony would have ranked me… but an aunerai never could. On his end… who knew what he thought of me?

Apparently, by his standards I also ranked him, because he let me conclude the conversation and bowed, putting his device away. I tried a nod and left.

All our lives, we are taught social behaviors. It’s not haphazard, the way I have discovered it is with most of you. We learn the rules of courtesy as rigorously as we learn mathematics, or language. No Ai-Naidari would have been confused on how to conduct a conversation, unless the situation was deeply broken. (We have words for that too. Things like ethek, describing times when the rules don’t apply, and of course we find that unsettling.) To be confronted with so many situations where I couldn’t make any sense of what to do next…

It should have been frightening. To find it puzzling and fascinating was… probably why Thirukedi had sent me to this task. 

Walking to the Ai-Naidari side of the colony was still a relief, even if the air smelled strange and the world-weight dragged at my knees and made my robes press down on my shoulders and arms. The sky was still beautiful, a cool deep lavender that would have delighted Farren and sent him scrambling for his little sketchbook full of bits of beauty. Once I crossed over, the faint sounds of conversation in a language I understood mingled with the occasional trill of alien insects and the rare cry of what I assumed to be nocturnal birds. I passed beneath the linked trees of a garden, taking the long way to the teahouse, and yes, that has a name too: ojesine. Wandering, to settle your busy thoughts. (There’s a different word for wandering in order to come up with new ideas, though. I’m surprised how few of your words for walks clearly define the mental state that inspires them.)

The proprietor of the tea-house served me a warm bowl of tea, and unlike our chef at home did not award me any chiding looks for choosing a light meal. I ate it absently, paging through Lenore’s notebooks. There was a great deal of work to be done here. A lifetime’s work.

She would probably have agreed. For once, I felt no resentment, thinking of her.

When at last I felt ready to retire for the evening, I gathered the books and paused beside the stairs to consider the proprietor. Sensing my gaze, she lifted her eyes. “Osulkedi?”

“Why do we close doors, do you suppose?” I asked her. Because a tea-house has many doors, far more than any house.

“Why, to protect others from distress, of course?” She looked puzzled. “What else?”

I went up to my room, wondering. Did the aunera close doors to protect themselves? Or to protect others? Perhaps there would be a clue in their language. Or, I supposed, I could ask. But what would be the fun in that?