My Last Post -- for now

By the time you read this, I'll probably be hopping gâ'axao stations (in suspended animation, of course) on my way to Earth, if I'm not there already. We've been having connection problems somewhere in the line, so I typed this up and asked that it be sent as soon as possible.

Anyway, I can't be long at this, so I'll just explain briefly. They're going to be suppressing my memory -- putting some false memories in. As far as anyone on Earth is concerned, I took a very long vacation around the world. And even if I do manage to regain memory, if the Xala decide not to start any serious trade relations with any nation on Earth, they've made sure there's nothing to prove they were ever there. "No verifiable evidence", they call it -- which I presume is their version of plausible denial.

Anyway, I'm sorry I couldn't do more. They tell me that they'll put a yela'kaja on to give some updates and such on whatever news there is. As for me, I'm just going to return to Earth, recuperate from all that crazy food and all the planet-hopping, and be a normal human being again -- at least until they decide to bring me back (if they do).

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.

Stuck in a Tzállö Hospital

Well, I'm feeling better, but once again the Tzállö have me quarantined and "under observation". they won't even clear me to get to the gâ'akaxaoda station. Anyway, I'm stuck here in this hospital sort of place. Of course, a Tzállö hospital is an entirely different experience from an Earth hospital. Obviously, there are no lights except for the ones that were put in my room for my benefit and my headlamp (which still has't drained its batteries! Quite impressive!) And rather than white, most of the walls are dull gray plastic, with very smooth black linoleum. Everything is very cool and smooth with a lot of metallic-looking textures, which I suspect conveys the same concept of sterility for Tzállö that stark white conveys for humans. The doctors wear very smooth clothing that almost looks like latex rather than fabric.

Anyway, I have a private room, as always, though it's smaller than hospital rooms I've seen on Earth. There's also nothing here for entertainment -- no window, no TV -- not even the Tzállö equivalents. The yela'kaja tells me that Tzállö usually entertain themselves in hospitals by reading, though obviously I couldn't read anything in their library -- It'd just be a bunch of raised squares to me. So, I'm stuck talking to the yela'kaja and surfing the Internet through this magical little device. Wish me well! I just hope I can get off this weird dark planet sometime soon.

Don't Eat the Black Sauce

Ah, I haven't been able to post for, what, a week or so? Why is that? Well, first of all, there's some sort of weird interference down in these tunnels that makes it difficult to get my Xala typing machine-thingy to work. Then, of course, you have the fact that I can't activate it around a Tzállö without drawing attention and probably at least seeing their nose and ears twitch a bit in anger (one time one of them just plain screamed at me to turn it off -- hurling some insults that the yela'kaja refused to translate).

But mainly, I've been sick for the past few days. The yela'kaja tells me that its some bug that I got in the tunnels that apparently affects humans more than it does Tzállö, but I don't know. All I know is that I've been in Tzállö hospitals for a few days recovering -- with a lot of that time spent in a Xala stasis chamber while they figured out what to do. I'm still a little woozy from all the drugs, but they tell me that I'm fine.

As for the cause, it may have been a bug, but I kind of think something I ate recently had something to do with it. I've graduated from mushrooms, moss, and insects to some of the meats -- some of which are served with this thick black sauce called kyadwö. Anyway, I didn't know when I was eating it, but afterward it was explained to me that the title ingredient, the kyadwö, is actually the Lazga equivalent of mildew. That's right, a sauce made from mildew. It actually tastes really good -- but I'm quite sure it was part of what made me sick.

Anyway, I'm going to be returning to Jed as soon as I'm good and recovered and they can make sure I don't have any diseases. The yela'kaja said that he thinks the stresses of traveling from planet to planet "contributed to the illness" (I'm still saying it's the sauce) and is going to recommend sending me back to Earth. That's fine with me, but I would like to see Kesata again before I go.

Anyway, the moral of this story: If the Xala make full contact with Earth, and you have an opportunity to go to Lazga -- don't eat the black sauce.

The Alien Symphony

We saw that concert today. The yela'kaja, who has much better hearing than I do, tells me that most of the Tzállö actually stopped clicking or at least slowed down and quieted their patterns during the piece. He told me it's the equivalent of a human closing his eyes while enjoying the music, "Maybe we should do the same. I have not heard much music before, besides the drum dances on Jed." I agreed, of course. It's not like there was much to see. We weren't in the front row by a long shot, more like a kind of balcony seat, and my light could just barely reach the orchestra. So I shut it off and closed my eyes.

Of course, as I've come to expect touring different planets with cultures that evolved completely independent of Earth, it was a very new experience. I could feel the rhythm of the music well, but the scales were really strange to me, like they just threw in a bunch of random in-between notes. But I got used to it, and the generally distinct sound of Tzállö music. I have no idea what the names of the songs are -- the signs are in Fbeki and I didn't ask the yela'kaja to translate. The biggest surprise to me is that the songs actually didn't hit many high notes, and the highest notes I heard were very clear so I'm sure there was none of the ultrasonic sound you hear. I asked my yela'kaja about this and he explained it this way:

The Tzállö don't think of all sound and hearing as equal. What you consider their sense of hearing they divide into two distinct senses: syfko -- which translates into English as echolocation or biosonar -- and ghuufly -- which translates as your concept of hearing. Since too much noise in the ultrasonic range can disrupt syfko, Tzállö universally attempt to avoid sounds in or near that range, to the point of designing their electronic and mechanical devices specifically for noise-reduction in the syfko frequencies. Naturally, then, no Tzállö culture has ever incorporated a significant amount of ultrasonic notes into their music.

Anyway, after the concert I was allowed on the stage to look at the different instruments. The general types that humans have are there: wind, string, brass, percussion. But they're all just a bit different. A few of the Tzállö musicians stayed around to show me how their instruments work. They have a couple of different instruments that look kind of like flutes or clarinets, a bunch of instruments that are apparently played like brass instruments -- which a Tzállö's big lips come in handy for -- a didgeridoo-like instrument with about three keys for different pitches (it's called a ghuubhuu), a few big drums and a couple of mallet instruments that work like xylophones and marimbas (though the arrangement of the bars isn't recognizable at all).

So, I guess this'll be the thing that'll bring me back to this planet if I get the chance to come. Kesatans have good food, Tzállö have good music. Not sure if its worth the quarantine, though.

Protected Fossils and Windowless Train Cars

Well, I've finally been cleared to ride the train. Apparently there were a lot of medical tests and such they had to do before I left the first city, but now after a few doctor visits and some navigating through the tunnels I'm sitting in a windowless subway car with a bunch of Tzállö pointing their ears at me -- I think their trying to get a better look at my little "computer". The yela'kaja was telling me they have difficulty seeing force-field screens.

The train station seems a lot like a subway station, except the platform is a lot smaller and what little graffiti I see is engraved instead of spray painted. Oh, and of course there's the fact that it's completely dark except for my own light and all the signs are engraved in Fbeki with the time and destination of various trains as they arrive are displayed with little mechanical squares that move in and out.

One of the squares on the middle display seemed kinda stuck halfway, which the yela'kaja complained about at the time. Before he went off cursing the incompetence of the Tzállö in Xala, he said something like, "I got here two days before you did and had to sgêkajec two languages. It's hard enough for me to read the signs without them malfunctioning ..." I'm really not sure what he's talking about, but I think I'll wait until he cools off.

On the way onto the platform, I saw a random force-field screen on a side wall. It was sort of a strange sight, since I hadn't seen any Xala force-fields other than on my own little writing device until that point, so I asked about it and, surprisingly, the yela'kaja immediately signaled to a guard and said something in Fbeki. The next thing I knew, the guard passed his hand over a control crystal on the big square field generator or whatever you call it and there was a fossil of some sort of ancient animal there. I'm not sure what it was exactly, or whether it was mammal or reptile or what, but it had a long tail sort of curved around, some decent claws, and it looked like it had eye sockets--which seems strange when the only creature you know of on the planet has no eye sockets and nothing to put in them. The guard didn't know much about it.

The yela'kaja explained to me later that the Tzállö have a custom of incorporation any fossils they find when digging a tunnel into the actual structure--after it's cataloged and studied a bit and moved into a better spot. He tells me that since Xala forcefields can be made transparent to Tzállö echolocation (though this one apparently wasn't transparent to light), it was a natural move to put up electrified force fields to keep too many passers-by from touching them. "It keeps the oils of Tzállö fingers from damaging the old rock. The same system is currently used for older works of art where some of the original textures have been lost for too long to repair. The newer works you saw in the gallery are specially treated to prevent such degradation, and regularly inspected and repaired when everyday damage occurs." I think someone asked about that on the last post -- there's your answer.

Anyway, the force-field went back up pretty quickly once my train came in, and now I'm sitting here, with no indication of how fast we're going with a bunch of Tzállö looking at me. It's really quiet here, too. The yela'kaja has an explanation for that, too. "The Tzállö have found many ways to reduce or block the sounds in their machinery, as certain electronic and mechanical devices can emit ultrasonic or near-ultrasonic frequencies that sometimes disrupt their echolocation systems." He went on to talk to me about how the initial startup of Xala force-fields bothers them, which I already know first hand -- nearly got me busted lip. He also said that if Earth were to enter the Trade network, then from his research he would suggest that any Tzállö visitors be kept away from active TV screens. Not sure why, but I figure it has something to do with sound.

Welcome, and Please Touch the Sculptures

We went on a little art tour today. The yela'kaja heard how I seemed to like Kesatan art, but Lazga art is entirely different. Kesatan art was all bright colors, mimicking their language -- but Lazga can't see color, or even light. Their art galleries are as dark as any other place in the tunnels, and rather than arranging their art where it would get the best light the way artists on Earth and Kesata do, I'm told that the art and the gallery itself are designed for very good acoustic properties, allowing a Tzállö to pick out individual pieces easily with minimal noise in the background.

The arrangement is actually good for me, too, since getting good echolocation acoustics also seems to involve putting stuff in big wide rooms with enough space that various sculptures and pedestals don't block each other, and with my light as good as it is, it lights up a decent portion of the room with almost none of the little exhibits in the shadows. And I don't know about up in ultrasonic, but it's very quiet in the range I can hear. I get a weird feeling sometimes when one of the Tzállö is nearby or if they "look" at me, which I'm told might be a reaction to their clicking that I can't actually hear but can still register somehow.

It's actually kind of interesting what's in the gallery. With my little lamp I see lots of sculptures and such, but also big canvasses with textures on them. You're allowed to touch just about everything in a Tzállö gallery, and they encourage me to do it. Everything has textures and different materials to it. Some of the statues use real hair or fur for a realistic feel, and some of these canvases use lots of different materials that are simply intended to be felt. I've been told that Tzállö fingers are a bit more sensitive than mine, and that I might not even be able to feel some of the subtle differences in the textures.

They have some other interesting things, too. Some places there are thousands of little pins that move to make a Tzállö face that begins giving a lecture in Fbeki about the pieces around it, and one little room where I saw five Tzállö wearing this big contraption on their noses and ears that distorts their echolocation patterns to show them virtual images (naturally, it was useless for me to try that one).

Anyway, we're going to a concert sometime on the itinerary. I figure that a race that has so much of its world defined by sound should have good music. I like the art too, but it's a lot harder to relate to the "visual" arts of a race that can't even see.