A/N: I am quite possibly the only person to have written Leeran fic. I'm pretty likely the only one to have written Leeran fic with sex involved, however tangentially. Rated T.
The Infestation of Ga Gut Hum
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“Experience is cheap if that’s the company you keep, and before you know that it’s free you’ve had it.” –Aimee Mann, I’ve Had It
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Since first contact was made with the Skrit Na eighteen round-the-suns ago, the Leeran language has increased exponentially. A language of barely fifty words evolved into a hundred and fifty, and then seven hundred, and now nearly one thousand five hundred. Most Leerans don’t know more than the basic fifty, but Ga Gut Hum is studious, a young entrepreneur with hopes of meeting all the various new races and trading with them, making his fortune off the jem hut weed he tends diligently. His is of fine quality, thick and sturdy, and when brought to the surface and dried, can be used to line the insides of spacecraft and provide certain extra protection against the elements. Ga Gut Hum takes great pride in his product, a product that very soon will be brought to the surface and traded for, once he commits all this business language to memory.
It frustrates him how many words there are, how many of them are imported multisyllabic beasts that struggle to leave his fatty, flat tongue, but he must remind himself that his race is extensively gifted with their psychic abilities, and that his clients will need everything detailed for them. He cannot simply expect his customers to know context, as he can with his fellow Leerans. Instead, he must learn all these words his planet has adopted from its visitors, and fully expect to laboriously answer questions and provide background information verbally, rather than simply knowing it in the passive way the market works on the Leeran world.
Many of the Leerans resent first contact, believing that the proliferation of language and verbalization is degrading the Leeran culture. These Leeran traditionalists believe that Leerans should not lower themselves to learning aural and visual cues to communicate with the outside world, as it isn’t a Leeran’s responsibility to compensate for an alien’s disability. But Ga Gut Hum knows the truth; Leera, with its barren continent, can only progress so far without dry materials imported from other planets. If they ever want to explore the stars, Leerans will have to learn to speak fluently and to smile.
Ga Gut Hum very much wants to explore the stars.
He is practicing his body language by contorting his face into various expressions and assessing his reflection when his bubble-mate, Hub Ho Tim, returns from his work as a fan repair-worker. <Cha Ma Mib entail you, Ga Gut Hum,> he burbles, stringing together a phrase of classical Leeran words. Though he and Ga Gut Hum converse often, they rarely speak more than their obligatory greetings.
<Cha Ma Mib smile upon you, Hub Ho Tim,> Ga Gut Hum replies, throwing in a new word he’s learned in his vocabulary studies.
Hub Ho Tim rankles at the new word’s intrusion. Why should Cha Ma Mib smile? He can tell from Ga Gut Hum’s thoughts that it is a benevolent greeting, but Cha Ma Mib is no creature, not bound by physical characteristics. The best one can hope for is to be a part of Cha Ma Mib, and from what Hub Ho Tim knows of “smile upon”, it requires both a smiler and one to be smiled at. Ridiculous off-worlders, land-creatures, infecting good Leerans with their simple-mindedness and misconceptions.
But Ga Gut Hum simply thinks that if the Leerans are to expand, they must make their culture accessible to simpler creatures. Creatures who understand smiles, and not the vast metaphysical concepts of self and autonomy within integration that so easily come to a psychic species.
He does not blame Hub Ho Tim, though Ga Gut Hum’s vested interest in interplanetary affairs has strained their relationship some. Hub Ho Tim is quite content as a repair-worker, as there will always be fans to repair, and that is something exclusive to Leerans. It won’t require the patience required to deal with inferior, closed-mind races. It won’t propagate the desecration of proud Leeran tradition.
Surely they’ll cease living together within another round-the-sun, as Leerans tend to do when their personalities diverge. There is no point is spending so much time around someone who dislikes you, especially when it is so evident. Leeran relationships are brief, ending once the initial attraction or enjoyment fizzles out. That is the way it always has been, and it is one thing Ga Gut Hum does not predict will change.
Not every change Ga Gut Hum predicts is positive. For as many material goods and as much excitement and knowledge the off-worlders bring, they are dreadfully uncivilized. Ga Gut Hum has been shocked to learn of some of their social mores, and more shocked once he was educated enough to understand them. What primitive species would have a concept of “shame”? Why do shameful things? Shouldn’t one be at their most upstanding always, as it can be presumed that no “secret” is safe? How silly, yet how terrifyingly arrogant of these other races, to assume that some things are not public.
Ga Gut Hum makes a mental note to ask Chug Chen Ba about the word “shame”, along with the words “crime”, “secret”, “pretense”, “privacy” and “deception”.
As he leaves, Hub Ho Tim gives the requisite <Cha Ma Mib within and of you, Ga Gut Hum>.
Ga Gut Hum finds middle ground, and says <Cha Ma Mib embrace you, Hub Ho Tim>, which is apparently metaphysical enough to sate his soon-to-be-ex bubble-mate.
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The City of Worms, Ga Gut Hum’s home, is a thriving metropolis in the midst of reinvention. While Leeran scientists are perfecting designs for vehicles and temporary dwellings for non-amphibious air-breathers, the more kinetic workers in the city are installing directions. Lights, signs, recognizable landmarks all are decorating the water, walls and sea floor. Ga Gut Hum surveys all this with great pride for his people, who are so accommodating and understanding and eager for progress and interaction.
Large glassy bubbles float about in the water, the personal quarters of Leerans and their current mates and bubble-mates. Some are small and designed only for single Leerans, while others are crowded with families and friends. Others serve simply for communal places, where the Leerans can exchange goods, copulate, and perform the very few acts they cannot accomplish at a distance. Some of the bubbles have been tinted various colors by artistically-minded Leerans, though the Leadership has suggested creating uniform categories of colored bubbles to distinguish communal and personal spaces – for the sake of off-world visitors, of course.
Leeran children play with brightly colored toys and ribbons outside the bubbles. A set of minstrels charges small wages for well-performed joy songs outside the birthing bubble, to bless the wriggling, fat infant with a pleasant first emotion. On the outskirts of the tower, almost near the walls of spiraling yellow worms, deliverers and harvesters bring supplies and tend to their crops. The entire city is circular, with the marketplace having recently relocated to the center and top of the tower, where more delicate aquatic off-worlders may participate without being crushed by the water pressure.
The marketplace is filled with Leerans of all ages and size exchanging goods, as well as a few amphibious off-worlders. As a rule, transactions move quickly, as there is no information disadvantage among Leerans, though some of the off-worlders insist on bickering and trying to charge higher prices than they would be willing to sell for, or overstate the value of their goods. This sort of trickery is new to Leera, and perplexing, so most of these off-worlders find themselves at a loss for consumers.
On his way in, Ga Gut Hum passes some traditionalists placing themselves at the market entrance to protest the new signs and lights, as well as the off-worlders’ presence on the top of the tower, the sacred position of Cha Ma Mib. Ga Gut Hum appreciates the market where it is – where is Cha Ma Mib most alive if not in knowledge, and who adds more knowledge than off-worlders? – and his thoughts invoke a spike of irritation among the protesters.
Ga Gut Hum seeks his partner, and one of his mates, Chug Chen Ba, whose shop has been highly popular with off-worlders since she discovered that her sea-bulb secretions could be used to increase fuel efficiency.
Chug Chen Ba is not highly liked among her peers. Her secretion shop’s success has spawned imitators, imitators with a better product, but her reputation precedes her. Competitors seethe, knowing that she knows her own product to be inferior and yet sells it at such a higher rate to unwitting foreigners. She’s used the off-worlder’s disability to her advantage. Many find this immoral, but Ga Gut Hum recognizes it as a simple evolution of the salesperson. He even finds it attractive. He wishes for her to become his primary mate, so that she may bear his first infants and he may care for them.
Chug Chen Ba’s shop is set slightly apart from the others, so she isn’t constantly being bombarded with jealousy and resentment. Ga Gut Hum finds her busy with a customer, so he waits for her to finish, all the while admiring her deft skill and business savvy. He learns from her each time they’re within proximity of each other – of all the Leerans his age, she’s one of the few to have been off-world, and her success has brought her into contact with so many different species. Simply basking in her presence fills Ga Gut Hum to the brim with new information.
She finds him attractive as well. She appreciates his deep gurgling voice, his beefy throat and thick legs. But mostly, she likes that he approves of her chosen method of business. Ga Gut Hum knows that he should not be so proud to be liked just for embracing her supposed faults, but he feels it makes him special, able to see deeper and more efficiently than others who might have courted her and didn’t.
By the time she’s finished with her customer, before she even greets him, she’s told him of a private spacecraft she’s purchased, and how she plans to go on a brief expedition to expand her field of buyers. They both know he’ll be coming along with her, plying his jem hut weed, before he even states <May Cha Ma Mib smile on you, Chug Chen Ba.>
<May Cha Ma Mib smile upon you and walk by your side, Ga Gut Hum.>
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Within less than half a round-the-sun, he’s prepared to go on his first off-world expedition. His jem hut weed harvest is even more plentiful than he’d anticipated, probably aided by his new devotion to tending it. His mates, knowing the date of his departure, stop by to make final coition.
The ship is small and cramped, and unfortunately built for air-breathers, so he and Chug Chen Ba trade some of the jem hut weed for lotions, to keep them from missing the water too much. Once he is inside the small ship, he realizes that they should have traded some sea-bulbs as well; his skin is dry and harsh by the time he’s configured his seat.
They are both excited, both glad for each other’s company. They both believe by now that they will be primary mates, and that this voyage will bring them enough fortune for him to raise their children comfortably.
The ship creaks uncomfortably under the water pressure at the port of the City of Worms, but Chug Chen Ba is not afraid, and so Ga Gut Hum isn’t either. They pass their undocking time pondering “honesty” together, both somewhat uncomfortable with not being clear on the concept enough to know if Chug Chen Ba’s business model violates it.
Finally, it’s their turn, and their ship gathers speed as it rises up through the water. The entire ship vibrates, and once Chug Chen Ba allows herself to be afraid, Ga Gut Hum is as well. The spiral of worms surrounding their city becomes a yellow smear against the deep blue background of the ocean as they race upwards and upwards.
And then, the sun.
Ga Gut Hum’s eyes burn and water as daylight, unfiltered by cubic tons of water, unfiltered by anything but the glassy shield, pierces into the back of his vision. Spots and colors blot across his periphery. It’s too bright, too painfully, beautifully bright. It must be Cha Ma Mib. The Leadership must be wrong in saying Cha Ma Mib has no body, for surely only so much knowledge and goodness and essence could produce a light so intense it makes his eyes shrivel and ache to look at it.
Chug Chen Ba is amused, having seen the sun before, but who is she to say if Cha Ma Mib has a form? Perhaps it has a form after all, perhaps it both has a form and is an essence in every other form all at once.
As if in antithesis, the blackness of space swallows them as they break through the atmosphere and circle around, putting their planet between them and what might be holy.
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The journey is long and silent, with no greetings and no farewells to issue. They eat the stored, frozen creatures they brought from their ocean and drink juice from their planet’s plants. Since Chug Chen Ba is in her infertile state, they copulate frequently, thinking silent praises to Cha Ma Mib for the invention of pleasure, and it is as natural as breathing. One time, as they sit post-coitus drinking their juice, Chug Chen Ba thinks of the races she’s met who view sex as something intimate, but Ga Gut Hum doesn’t know enough about intimacy to understand what she means.
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Ga Gut Hum has, under Chug Chen Ba’s tutelage, mastered the art of gesticulating with his tentacles, and will soon be fairly competent with facial expressions as well. There is now only the matter of interacting with other races, so that off-worlders learn the visual cues that Leerans have invented for them, as a sympathetic substitute to all the tones they cannot see.
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It is important that they don’t become arrogant, and that they don’t pity those who resent the off-worlders. It wouldn’t do for them to be completely unlikable to their peers when they return. Even a person firmly convinced of their beliefs can become unhappy if they’re disliked enough.
But they both worry that they feed off each others’ enthusiasm, and that without any traditionalists to challenge their views, they’ll soon become completely insufferable. Chug Chen Ba finds it charming that Ga Gut Hum is convinced that it won’t matter as long as they continue being attracted to each other.
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They both become bored, and having turned over every memory they know of in each other’s presence, find nothing to do. Two lifetimes of memories and experiences lie looted and pillaged in both of their heads.
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Eventually, a little over halfway to their destination, they come across a wandering ship and decide it’s a good idea to make communication. Perhaps they can sell some of their wares and reduce the weight the fuel has to propel. Perhaps even more, the approximate quarter round-the-sun they’ve spent un-stimulated will come to an end.
Chug Chen Ba sends a request to link to the ship. They both watch in unnerved anticipation as the other ship accepts the link, and an image comes up on their screen. How bizarre it is to them to speak to a creature and not see its mind! Especially a creature so very unlike their soft, fleshy Leeran bodies – the face on the screen is muscular and covered in natural weaponry.
They don’t recognize the species of the bladed creature, but it responds to the halting mash of imported Galard and Skrit and Leeran language that Chug Chen Ba offers it. The words are awkward on a tongue that has not even spoken greetings in so long, awkward in a context so different than the usual practicing by rote she learned them in, awkward to be spoken without the accompanying telepathic images. “We are Leeran merchants. We contact your ship to sell ship supplies.”
“We know not your race, Leeran. Are you armed?” It responds in Galard. They both understand, and while puzzled at the question, see no need to refuse an answer.
“The ship has two standard-issue Skrit Na cannons. We do not intend to use them.”
“You come to sell wares? What wares?”
Ga Gut Hum puffs up in pride, a visual cue he’s practiced. “We sell the finest jem hut weed and sea-bulb secretions. It can be used to protect and enhance your ships.”
The bladed creature nods. “We have purchased jem hut weed from traders before. It is highly valued among our species. We would desire great quantities.”
Ga Gut Hum is merely excited at the idea of a sale, but Chug Chen Ba, while proud of him, feels the sting of uncertainty. Why would a species require great quantities of insulation for their space ships? Are they merely reaching space capabilities? Ga Gut Hum thinks of how exciting it is, to contact another race taking the infant steps of space travel.
“We would be willing to trade Hork-Bajir blood for your jem hut weed. Hork-Bajir blood has a natural healing capability. It might be possible, with the correct research, to use it for medicine. We would be willing to pay the generous price of a unit of Hork-Bajir blood per unit of jem hut weed.”
Ga Gut Hum nearly accepts, but Chug Chen Ba interrupts before he can think of the sounds to verbalize his thoughts. “We will accept one and a half units of Hork-Bajir blood per unit of jem hut weed.”
At first he is confused, as he knows both of them find the original price fair, but he soon sees that she is bartering. Of course! Like the off-worlders in the marketplace, overstating the value of their goods because they assume the buyers will believe that price. He radiates pride for her intelligence.
The alien is surprisingly unperturbed by the change in price, and simply agrees. “We will board your ship and complete the transaction there.”
The screen goes blank. The two Leerans rapidly exchange the notes of what they noticed with each other, each giddy with satisfaction. Ga Gut Hum lumbers back to the storage area of the ship, selecting the jem hut weed most likely to go bad before they reach their destination.
An instant before the ship rocks to the side, he feels his mate’s terror.
The shock lifts Ga Gut Hum off his feet, and he lands on his stomach. His weak tentacles, more suited to water than air, struggle with his weight to get back up and rush back to the hull. An alarm echoes throughout the chamber. All but the emergency lights are knocked out. As he finally hoists himself up, he turns to see pieces of a ship – his ship – floating dismembered outside the window. He sees a sparking control panel, and Chug Chen Ba laying limp atop it, purple blood leaking from where her soft head crashed into the deck.
Very suddenly, Ga Gut Hum realizes he is alone.
All his life, Ga Gut Hum was surrounded by others, by the thoughts and voices of Leerans and later, the multicultural voices of both Leerans and off-worlders. Even with only Chug Chen Ba on this tiny ship, he always had her perception and experience and perfect efficiency running commentary on every non-happening of their waking hours. And now, he is alone, entirely alone.
The essence of Cha Ma Mib, the free exchange of knowledge and community between Leerans, is empty, neither form nor formless, but simply nothingness.
Another shot from the ship destroys the other Skrit cannon. Ga Gut Hum is once again bowled over, but wisely protects his head this time – if Chug Chen Ba cannot be anymore, she can at least impart some last practical wisdom to him. He pulls himself up to the deck, next to the empty body of his primary mate, and looks out the window shield to try and survey the damage, try and recognize which pieces of the ship are missing. But the metal floating before his windshield is burned and twisted beyond recognition, and beyond it are the stars. Ga Gut Hum can’t see the metal for all those treacherous stars he so wanted to explore.
"Cha Ma Mib entail you, Chug Chen Ba. Cha Ma Mib smile upon and embrace you, Chug Chen Ba," he says aloud to her body, grateful that she is not alive to know that he is only doing it for the ritual of parting, that he knows Cha Ma Mib is of and within many great things and many great beings, but is not of and within this tiny lonely ship in space or its inhabitants. How deeply inadequate the words of farewell are to describe one Leeran isolating another. How strange it is, that alone and without the essence of Cha Ma Mib, he suddenly understands the concept of deception. Deception is the promises of space, and all its myriad stars, being replaced with untimely death.
Ga Gut Hum is still looking at the stars when the attacking ship docks to take him prisoner.
