The Things You Can Learn from an Old Yela'kaja

Still stuck in a hospital. Such a pain this all is. I actually feel perfectly fine, but the Tzállö are keeping me in here for another day because of some test result or other. The yela'kaja apparently can't understand Tzállö medicalese nor translate it into English equivalents, so I really have no idea what the problem is.

However, when all you have to talk to is a yela'kaja who was basically ordered specifically to accompany you as a translator, you can learn things. We had a conversation recently -- not about the Tzállö or about their terrible dark planet -- but about yela'kaja, and about Xala in general.

Here's how it started: for some reason the yela'kaja here has nothing better to do than just sit here and keep me company. Now, on the other planets, my yela'kaja were always busy with something or other when I didn't specifically need them to guide me around or act as a translator. Most of the time they would have their own little screen handy and I'd see wierd characters all over it. But this one didn't, so I asked about it.

Me: Do you actually have nothing to do?

Yela'kaja: I am doing my job, looking after you and acting as a translator. That is what I was assigned to do.

Me: Yeah, but every other yela'kaja I've met always had something else to do when I didn't have a specific question or something. Come to think of it, every Xala I've met always looks extremely busy.

Yela'kaja: Well, that was on Jed and Kesata, both planets with lots of Xala everywhere.

Me: I don't understand.

Yela'kaja: Ah, of course. You're an alien -- and a new one at that ...

At that point, he informed me that, by volunteering to work on integrating worlds (his word), the worlds that were still being slowly incorporated into the Trade network, he was pretty much able to work at his own pace -- despite that he had to be moved around quite a bit due to some strange rotational scheme. "The Xala like to run things slowly on these worlds -- too much progress can mean collapse of governments, anti-Xala sentiments, and hostilities if allowed to form could mean war whether the Xala attempt to stay or simply pull out.

Anyway, on with the conversation:

Me: So, you have the lazy guy's job, right?

Yela'kaja: Right now, yes, dealing with you is the easiest job I've had as far as I can remember at the moment. Of course, what I was doing before was giving me some trouble. I was working with a race that I believe you know a little bit about, the Ŋasux [he said that as "NGHAH-sookh"]. You might know them as the Ŋãna

Me: Oh, yeah. So, they pulled you off negotiations with them to deal with me.

Yela'kaja: You might say I had to in order to keep the development of relations from dissolving

He didn't elaborate any more on that. I got the idea that I wasn't to know the details, so we went off on another set of questions regarding the difficulty of his work, and what all the yela'kaja do, when he comes out with this:

Yela'kaja are really among the shortest lived out of all Xala.

I did a double take on that, but he clarified it. Apparently its not the stresses of the job itself, but the sheer physical stress of the transformations -- especially if a given yela'kaja has to transform more than once in it's lifetime. Most Xala will live for well over 200 years, many nearly 300 -- but yela'kaja often only live to around 130, maybe 150 if they're lucky, and more like 90-110 if they're not so lucky. The only caste with a shorter lifespan?

That would be what you call "nurses" -- the roa'gogo. The stresses of laying so many eggs can shorten their lives to less than 80 of your years.

Now, granted, the baseline Xala lifespan is very long compared to us -- but it still must seem crazy to cut your life so short just so the Xala can have a little better communication with an alien race, or not:

The Xala do not wait for natural, physical death, as you and many of the cultures in the trade network do. A Xala is dead when he can no longer serve Jed Êdag and the race as a whole. I have lived for over sixty-four cycles, putting me at around 115 years old in your system -- and I'm already showing my age. This is probably my last transformation, and if I can't be made useful after you leave Lazga, I will be declared tyexala -- a dead being -- and will commit suicide. I think I'll do it right here, by poisonous fungus if I can find some -- I can't do the tyogex tyeg ko' without wings, and the tyogex caxol just won't do -- to painful and too much trouble getting someone to stick me with a poison spur.

Yes, that's all exact. I basically set up my machine to record that directly as it went into my ears and I understood it. I would post more, but this is getting very long, and the Tzállö doctors are coming in to do some more tests. I'll try to get more down on those death rites or whatever they are if I can stomach it. Of course, that's assuming the Tzállö don't kill me with all these tests.