The Color Xirish

by Emily McIntyre

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
parts: 1, 2, 3

conclusion

INDIGO (Integrity)

When Dex next surfaces to consciousness, she is deep inside Crath’s physical space. Her back, she finds, is curled into the cavity of Crath’s abdomen, and its tentacles wrap around her legs and her chest, appendages twisting in feathery braids. While her fingers and toes feel a little cold, the rest of her is warm. Her head — she finds when she moves it a little — rests against the smooth lower part of Crath’s face so that the eyelashes probably rest on Dex’s hair.

Off to the side, she sees her emotion screen with its surface dull and neglected, but she can’t remember whether she took it off or if Crath did. She has never been held like this by a human, and it is of course her first time with a Strum. The old Dex, the Dex who didn’t know why she felt so strange in her skin, might have panicked and pushed away the soft tentacles surrounding her, but this Dex, the Dex who woke up with a proposition for the Strum leadership, this Dex just nestles closer in and lets her breathing slow to match the Strum around her. Much slower than a human, but it feels good to her, like slipping into warm water. They sleep again.

She wakes to a touch on her arm. At first she thinks it is Crath, but no: it is the Cleaners again. She is not so terrified of them this time. They do not seem like they will hurt her. Their color, she notices, is a soft mauve which is different from the other Strum she has seen, who are mostly shades of purple, grey, or green. Maybe one must be born that color to become a Cleaner, or maybe one gains that color by becoming a Cleaner. The question is humorous to her; a smile tweaks her lips, which surprises her.

Please come with us, says the Cleaner in her mind.

Below her, Crath stirs and then goes still, like they are prey. At that, Dex feels a strange feeling and does not know its colors, but she does know what she wants to communicate because of it. Looking the Cleaner in its closest eye, she shares, You must also bring Crath with you or I will not cooperate.

The Cleaners confer without including her for a moment, then nod and bind both her and Crath. This time her legs are left free and she is allowed to walk to the big room with the view of the spaceship, with Crath shimmering to her side. It feels surprisingly normal to walk like this, here and with Crath.

This time she does not wait for the Strum leaders to share with her when she enters the room; she’s been ready for quite a while. She approaches the window where everyone stands and she projects her thoughts to them all:

Here is what will happen. We will give the humans a chance. We will show them what a Strum is, and we will give them the chance to stop taking the Heartmind forever and work with you to find the solution to your sickness. It is only right. And then, if they do not choose this, we will give them the Heartmind again, they will probably forget you exist, and I will open the spaceship for you.

Beside her Crath is still, as if to avoid being noticed. Even so, she feels a kind of support that gives her courage.

The Strum leader looks closely at her face as if to learn more about her, then turns their back and faces their counselors. Because she is not included in their thoughts, she cannot really hear them, but she imagines she can sense them like a buzz in her brain.

While she waits, she thinks of the other ninety-nine children from her ChildScape home, playing together, eating from the metal trays that appeared in slots in the walls together, and receiving Heartmind together every morning. When they see Strum in front of them, standing around them and handing them their food and cleaning the streets around them, what will they think? When the Strum leaders present to them the facts as they did to her, what will those humans say? She hopes they will help the Strum but she is not sure.

The Strum confer for some time. Finally the leader turns to face her. They glance down to where she holds Crath’s tentacle but do not linger there, their three eyes instead seeking Dex’s two. We accept your terms, though we do not think you will be pleased with the outcome, they say. We will withhold Heartmind for seven days so that the humans can see us when you make the announcement.

The announcement? She feels a sinking in her belly, a crunching stifling heat in her chest.

The Strum leader turns and faces the window. She cannot see its face.

How did you expect we would introduce ourselves to the humans? Once, when the humans landed here on our planet and sought refuge, they used words with sound to communicate. Through our technology we were able to mute their words and translate them to screens where we interpreted their thoughts. This was a condition of harbor.

The eminence / dark purple / ultra violet building in Dex’s body makes it hard for her to understand the thoughts being projected to her. Slowly her hand is closing, crushing Crath’s tentacle. Crath winces but does not take it away. The leader continues, oblivious to the storm building behind him.

There is no way for us to communicate with humans now, except through you. You who are human can speak to their minds because you have our telepathic abilities. You, Dex, are the hybrid who can accomplish this. So if you want to take away their Heartmind so they can see us, you must be prepared to stand up before them and tell them who we are and why their safety depends on ours.

Now she is on the floor, gasping through the emotions that rip through her body. She is seeing her childhood unfolding before her eyes and her blank adulthood, all three cycles of it. She is feeling the fist twisting in her gut at the thought of being seen by the other humans in her city, really seen, and of speaking to them and telling them that not only there is another species they share their city with, but she — Dex! — is only half human, so they have to trust her on this, and stop taking their Heartmind for a long time to work out a solution to the Strum’s sickness. Crath crouches over her, skin flickering shades of pale lavender and violet, as she breathes.

There is no other way forward. She must allow herself to be seen.

VIOLET (Courage)

Though seven days have passed to allow the humans to be weaned from their Heartmind, Dex has not become comfortable with what she is about to do. The Strum have created a broadcasting system which will allow her to be seen on every screen in the city, even the sky, at once. It is based on the technology they use to project images in the city sky, often fantasy scenes taken perhaps from the spaceship of the human’s Homeworld, lumpy buildings and people wearing dull clothes.

In her apartment, after her Heartmind dose, Dex would often sit at the window and crack it just enough to see to the sky. She would watch the colors play, the light receptors in her eyes sensitized until all the colors would blur together into a single wash of neon that brought the tears to her cheeks. Below her, the streets would fill with humans making silent connection, playing games and trading each other things and killing the time until their next sleep. It never occurred to her that there must be dedicated technicians who kept the sky alive, or that one day she would be the image everyone saw in the sky.

Now she stands before a screen, with wires stuck to the skin of her scalp to amplify her thoughts to the many thousands of people below her. Her fists have been clenched at her side since the moment she woke with a start, held by Crath and yet more alone inside of herself than she has ever been. Crath stands beside her now, the Strum that humans will see, standing next to Dex and covering up the sky with her.

Are you ready for the broadcast? The technician tips its head to one side and waits for Dex to nod, then flips a few switches and steps back. They can all see you, and they will all hear you when you share.

They will all see that her face has lost its color and her eyes gleam with tears.

They will all hear that she has nothing of meaning to say.

They will know she is not a human; neither is she a Strum. She has always known she was nothing, but this is proof.

She looks down. Against the knuckles of her right hand, Crath’s tentacle strokes. You are the first Struman, they share to her privately. This is your gift to us all. When her hand finally unclenches, Dex can see dark half-moons where she dug into the skin of her palm with her fingernails.

I am afraid, she shares.

That is why you are so brave, Dex.

One tear escapes the basket of her lower eyelid and streaks down her cheek. In the monitor, it looks like she has a star-trail from eye to chin. She thinks of the children she grew up with, and how they will see her now. Will they remember her?

I am not brave, she says to Crath, but I think I may be ready. With a long breath, a breath that burns her lungs and scars her thoughts, she straightens her shoulders and looks into the camera: I have something to share with you, whether you want to hear me or not, she says to the entire city of her birth. I have something to show you, even if you don’t believe me.

With a glance at Crath she begins. My fellow humans, we are not alone.

XIRISH (Becoming)

There is a new color, Dex learns when she invents it. It is all the colors and none of them. It is her own color, her own name. It is the thing she is becoming with the shadow in her soul lit to the corners. It is the future and the past and the present, all in one shade that defies description. It is Xirish: Becoming.