Crossing the Line by Karen Traviss Page B

Bezer’ej even in a year. It spoke to something primeval in him; he wanted to miss the wilderness.
    He let his bee-cam capture it all. It danced close to his head as he leaned out of the open door of the ground transport, because there were no windows. Isenj didn’t appear to like watching the scenery go by. Maybe it was too depressingly monotonous for them.
    Still, they were enough like humans to need light when it got dark, and to make buildings, and to use a language. And that was close enough.
    The isenj did indeed like Eddie. He made sure of it. Eddie listened to them politely and didn’t dismiss them. He relayed what they said and felt, no more, no less. He didn’t stare at them as if they were monsters, and they responded by letting him visit their world and see what they’d built, the first civilian to set foot on Umeh after the Actaeon advance party had landed.
    They even let him file a live piece at the shuttleport to record the moment. It was the first rule of journalism: look after your contacts, and they’d look after you. He applied it with relish.
    Jejeno boiled with isenj. They parted in front of the transport like shoals of fish and closed again behind it, apparently unconcerned and intent on whatever business they were about. As Eddie watched, one of them tripped and fell, and a small depression opened in the living sea for just a second; then it was filled again. He never saw the isenj get up. He never saw any other isenj take any notice either. Maybe he was mistaken.
    He craned his neck as far as he could, until the imagined point in the crowd was far behind him and the ussissi interpreter, Serrimissani, tugged on his sleeve.
    â€œIt happens,” she said. “Concentrate on your task.”
    Eddie wished himself into a state of belief that the fallen isenj had picked itself up and carried on walking, but something told him that was not the case. Forget it. This isn’t Earth. He adjusted his respirator and wondered if he was wasting the bee-cam’s memory on this unchanging vista. Just how much cityscape did people need to see?
    But it was all there was. Viewers needed to know that. On the other hand, it might have been rush hour, or Mardi Gras, and he had no way of knowing if these crowds were a permanent event or not. All he knew was that he felt suffocated.
    He pulled back from the open door and turned to Serrimissani, who looked for all the world like a malevolent Riki-Tiki-Tavi.
    â€œCrowded,” said Eddie. It was a gross understatement. “Where do they grow their food?”
    â€œEverywhere they can,” said the ussissi. Her voice was muffled by the mask she was wearing over her snout. It looked like a piece of clear plastic and reminded Eddie rather too much of the various transparent carnivores of Bezer’ej, sheets of clear film that would fall on you from the sky, or drag you down into water, and digest you. “In buildings. Revolting.”
    â€œVegetables?”
    â€œGrowths. Fungus.”
    She might have meant truffles, Eddie thought, trying to put the visit in the brightest context. He had a feeling she didn’t. He settled for nutritional yeast.
    The buildings pressing in on him gradually changed from low-rises to tower blocks, a fact he took as an indication that he was getting closer to the center of the city. It was a dangerous assumption to make in an alien culture, but building high meant some sort of priority: it certainly wasn’t a matter of getting a prettier view of the landscape.
    The tight-packed crowds moved past him at a more sedate pace, slow enough for isenj to stop and stare in at him, and he waved and then wondered if the gesture had another meaning here. Their piranha-spider faces betrayed nothing. Looking past them, he could recognize nothing in the built environment that suggested shops or offices. There were just façades intricately decorated with symbols and patterns, carved and painted.
    In front of