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2. WELCOME TO OUR HOUSE; Greenies, Orangies, and Meatballs.

I noticed the overcast this morning. I thought it was just early morning twilight darkness. I looked at my clock and wondered if it was right. A twenty-four hour clock doesn't work here. But I use it... used it... to keep track of my hours on shift. We worked from Sunstarrise to Sunstarset. I kept track if we went up on the shuttle and unloaded, hours figuring into payday. You lose track of time in space. Not that I didn't trust the company, but... I didn't trust the company.

Coming out I saw the overcast. But the cloud mass was... turbulent, moving in a roiling fashion, not just blowing across the sky, but... kind of... tumbling in place, turbulent. Weird. There were gusty winds here on the ground. I squinted to keep grit out of my eyes. I went back inside, stood looking around at the darkness, found my way back to my bunk with my pen light. Lit my cut-the-stink candle to see by. Blew it out. Smelled the sweetness in the dark.

It's never been overcast before. Every day has been a clear-sky sunny day since we came down. No clouds. Not one. We talked about it.

We took breaks during the two hottest hours of the day. I think they do too, the green people. I'd climb on a mound of rip rap and look around. I'd see them moving about the desert in the morning, in the evening, moving around the base of the hive; but not in the high heat of noonday. It's just too hot to breathe out there. You have to have shelter; shade. Captain Briggs ordered it and we were glad to obey.

The desert offers no shelter. Saguaro cacti... or what looks like saguaro... I've seen pictures... are big, but the Sunstar seems to move too fast. You no sooner get in the shade than the shade moves. And the sand in the new shady spot is hot from where the sunstar shone on it seconds before. Briggs told us how many hours are in the day, daylight and dark, but I forget. Less than planet Earth. Twenty-one? The barracks pod is insulated, and has... had... air conditioning, efficient, but spoils you for having to come back outside. Not any more. And no windows to open. It's a sealed pod, emergency quarters if needed in space, a cargo bay if you've got a full load but more ore is available. Mo' money! Mo' money! Mo' money!. Without batteries... it's just a box, a hotbox.

We'd hear things moving around at night, rapid footsteps, snarly growls, loud smacks! Scary sh...stuff. Briggs walked around the perimeter of the camp and came and got us, brought us out there and showed us tracks of some long-toed, long-tailed lizard or something. Feet big as your hand! A tail that dragged behind. We didn't do much stargazing. Ya got in; ya stayed in, at night. The heat hasn't been much less outside at night any way. And morning came soon.

Going back to work in the afternoon was tolerable, so dry; so dry.

I think we were on the ground twenty-five days, mining. I've lost track of how many days since they left. Briggs must have had a tale from Patrick, the little prick.

I'm afraid. I... don't like being afraid.

Tinunh shifts the box to her left hand underneath, waves her right hand at light-emitting strips low along the passage walls, something applied like paint I think, to the red sandstone. The strip glows brighter ahead and behind us for a distance when she does it. I wave my hand near it. It brightens. Motion activated. We can see our footsteps, the footworn floor of the ramp, horizontal grooves for traction. The walls are pockmarked as of a tool that cut the stone. The walls arch overhead. It's... a little... claustrophobic. You could drive the small dozer through it without scraping the sides... but... still. The air moves from behind me, just a slight breeze. I breathe.

The slope is gentle but obviously going up. Ahead I see a lighter place. We come out into a rounded chamber, a cut cave, big, forty yards maybe, circular. There are several openings at intervals along the far wall. People... they... are standing around, buzzing with each other. The voices go quiet. I look around. They're all looking at me. Others, seem to say goodnight, turn in opposite directions, go into and ascend the ramps.

I count seven ramps around the chamber, at regular intervals, eight with this one. A... an... octochamber.

The one directly opposite the one we just came through is larger, level, goes far. I can see people way down there. The others look just big enough for maybe three or four of them to walk side by side, literally shoulder to shoulder, and ramp up.

Tinunh turns toward the far left. They cross along the wall to an opening there. The ramp in it slopes up a bit steeper, I think, cuts back toward the front of the mountain where we came in. I doubt my sense of direction, assure myself I'm right. I need to know how to get back out of here if...

We've come up, I estimate, about ten feet higher, like to a second floor. We come out into a long, straight corridor, left and right, as wide or wider than the big ramp we started out in. It's eight feet wide, at least; less claustrophobic. I look left and right. Directly across the hall a passage slopes down, going about fifty feet out. I see an opening to the outside, flashes of lightning, hear thunder constant! That center divider, spindle door thingie, is open down in there a ways. It's probably one of those dark openings I saw from the outside. There are smaller ones and bigger ones around on the face of the cliff. Rain blows in down there, splatters on a couple of white chairs, flows off the floor to spill through small opens at floor level, off the face of the cliff.

Lightning and thunder are constant, like a firefight of many guns, like an artillery barrage!

People are coming out of other openings on the inside wall, going or coming down the hall and disappearing into the inner and outer walls through spindle doors like the one I saw downstairs... or... should I say... downramp. Everything's ramps in here.

I steady my right hip to look up another ramp, beside the one we've come up, going on up to a third floor I assume. I never counted the floors before, from the outside. The... dark openings seem kind of... random, not equidistant, but... on the same level as others.

Tinunh turns left. Balancing the box, she opens the first door on the right, right beside the ramp to the outside, a thick wooden spindle door. We go in. There's a smell, clean... but strong, a sweet, honeyish smell.

Some of the men who had gotten close to one of... these... speculated that they were big insects, bees or something, because of the honey smell, the pale green skin, the unfounded speculation of segmented arms and legs. I smelled it when... the girls came and talked to me. I liked the smell out in the desert. Then the big red rock with holes in the cliff face; that's where the 'hive' description came from, the 'honeycomb' of holes, openings, small round-cornered, dark holes in the face of the red sandstone cliff, some a little larger than others, and all of... them... 'swarming' out in the morning, in at night. They were just walking, but... anyway. I don't like how strong it is. I breathe through my mouth. Soon I'm inhaling through my nose again. It's not as bad. I'm dizzy. My heart's racing. I'm afraid again.

The light comes up as they move about the room, that stuff on the walls. It's low, nearer the floor in this room.

I see hollows carved in the stone wall to my left, filled with straw, or... something like it, colorful blankets, dark red, orange, black. Eenuh points to the one, at the left, toward the wall which would be along the corridor outside, talking to Tinunh. Tinunh sets my box of things in it. She starts pulling blankets out of it. They're knit, with intricate designs, like the natives of the American southwest weave. Straw falls on the floor. Tinunh gestures to it, looking at me, smiling, a grin.

I go to that hollow, set my sleeping bag and pillow in it, lean my guitar in the corner, drop my laundry bag on the floor. I look around, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. All the walls are shelves, hollows about four feet long, about twelve inches deep, twelve high, some low, floor level, some starting about three feet off the floor and alternating up to near where the wall curves into the ceiling. The back wall of the... bed-hollow has shelves. There are some rocks, and things on it. I can't see well in the dark. The piece of lithium ore Tinunh picked up a long time ago is there. This must be her place, her bed. There's another one in the same wall, more toward the center, and a dark corner with what looks like a rack hung with clothing, and a dark door, open, like a hinged door, hinged on the right, standing open into the room, rounded top, rounded doorway in that corner, dark space.

Eenunh comes close behind me, on my left, reaches into the box, pulls out a book. It's "To Kill A Mockingbird". She holds it in her left hand, her right shoulder brushing mine as she points at the letters with her right hand index finger. A chill runs up between my shoulder blades.

I pronounce the title. She points at individual letters. I pronounce them. She sweeps her finger across them and I say the words again. Her buzzing voice seems to repeat them, roughly. She looks at the illustration on the cover.

She passes the book to her right hand, reaches into the box, lifts the food packets, gathers them all in her left hand.

Tinunh has moved into a passage, a small hallway, sloping down from the far right corner, straight across the room from the spindle door. The ramp lights brightly, or... brighter... with her movement. Eenunh crosses behind me, tugs at my shirt. I turn to look over my right shoulder, see her head toss, toward the ramp. She says something. It is a short passage, ten feet maybe, sloping down. It opens into a long room, white floor, twenty-five by fifteen feet maybe, with furniture, four big, roundish, soft looking white... like tilted lily pads, set out away from the walls; a low, square, wooden central table, same dark wood as the spindle-doors.

The lightning and thunder are constant! Loud! Boom! Baboom! Baboom! Baboom! The room flashes like a strobe with the white lightning coming in a round hole, a window I guess, that slopes out about eight or ten feet to the face of the cliff! I see a couple long... sticks, and a spindle door down about half the distance.

A hall continues on this side of the room, right corner, a ramp going eight or ten feet further down into darkness, beside the long round opening. I look down the... window hole, open to the blowing weather outside. The flashing light is too bright to look at! The thunder is annoyingly loud and constant! Eenunh goes down that right side ramp, out toward the face of the cliff, opens and closes a door. It must open on the balcony down at the end of the hall I saw when we came out on the second floor corridor.

The honey smell is less strong here. From the lightning I see there must be a window tunnel at the other end of the room too! The thunder never stops. It sounds like some big machine industrial process, hammering, hammering, relentless!

I say, "Do something!" with no real hope of communicating. Eenunh just looks at me, goes on across the room by the wall behind the lily-pad chairs, comes between them, lays the book and three food packets on the central table.

Off the far end of the living room is another opening back into the mountain. Open behind a low wall, it looks like a kitchen, counters all around. Open shelves, stuff on them, like... china, food containers, gray stone cannisters, mugs. Tinunh is setting white plates on a white table there. This should be interesting.

Eenunh comes back across the room by me, smiles, touches my arm, moves to the window opening, the long opening out toward the cliff face. She lifts two sticks of wood, pushing one, pulling the other, kind of jerking and pulling in opposite directions, then in a smooth move, and closes a spindle-door in that 'window'. She moves to the other end of the room and starts to close the other. There's some difficulty. Oh. One of the sticks is... detached, comes out in her hand. She turns and calls to Tinunh. Tinunh comes, hops easily to land on her feet, up into the opening, reaches for the stick, disappears there. The light dims. The sound is muffled but still relentless. Tinunh hops back out and goes back to the kitchen. I'm watching like I'm afraid I'll miss something. FOMO; fear of missing out? Hardly. I just don't know what the hell I've gotten myself into. What if they sting me, paralyze me, lay their eggs in me and the eggs hatch out and eat me!? I laugh to myself, but out loud. Eenunh grins at me; perfect white teeth, flickering golden irises. She's... very pretty, very... calm, serene. I begin to... trust... to relax. The quieter space, the muted thunder, blocked lightning, is more comfortable.

I become aware I'm moving back and forth, a few steps here, and that few steps back. I reach to the back of my neck repeatedly. I'm nervous as hell, twitchy, breathing heavy. I calm myself. I have to deliberately breathe. I'm dizzy.

Eenunh picks up the food packets and goes up a ramp into the 'kitchen'. As I come up she is studying the slide at the top of the packets which opens them, takes it in her fingers and slides it. She points me to a chair at the left end of the table,away from the sink. Tinunh is busy with something, gray canisters, by the sink. There's a sink! Levers, a spout, a faucet, two sinks, white surfaced, divided by a red sandstone... divider. White counter tops, white sink. Eenunh takes a white platter off an open shelf full of white plates and platters and other vessels, gray stone mugs, lays it on the table, opens and sniffs each packet, squeezes out a reasonable serving of mashed potatoes, one of sweet potatoes, and one of fruit.

She opens a large square lid in a counter under the shelves on the back wall. The lid looks loose, just leans against the back wall. I can see a warm yellow light from inside. In a moment I feel and smell a steamy heat. Tinunh sets in three gray stone cannisters, loosens the screw on lids. Eenunh places the platter in and closes the lid. She slidelocks the bags and, opening another lid, closer to me, right beside the first, emitting soft white light, she puts them inside the space there. I reach my hand toward it and feel cold air falling off the counter edge. She closes the lid. I wonder what the technology is but know I'll just have to wonder. Trying to ask and comprehend an explanation of something like that would be impossible with the language barrier. Explaining that the fruit would be better served cold is impossible too.

Everything is just carved out of the stony... mountain, counters, shelves, the whole... apartment. Every wall is just shelves, about four feet long, carved into the red sandstone. Every other tier is staggered over the dividers of the one below. I look out to the living room over the low wall. Corners of the rooms are rounded. Wasted space anyway, I think. Space to heat or cool.

Eenunh dons what looks like an off-white canvas glove on her right hand, opens the warmer lid again with her left, lifts out the platter, sets it on the white tabletop. She scrapes the foods off onto a white dinner plate, with a spatulate knife, slides it toward me, sets the platter back on the counter. Tinunh has removed the tall gray stone containers from the warmer, placed them on the table, between two plates for them. They sit. Tinunh twists off the loose lids of the three containers, serves to their plates from them. There are long green... vegetables, I think, long orange ones, steaming, and some round brown things. It all smells very good!

There is conversation. They're both looking at me, golden irises flickering, and talk, and look at each other, silently. Eenunh turns, reaches the shelf, gets a small white plate and hands it to Tinunh. Tinunh slips off her chair with a hop, comes to my right side. With a small spoon she takes a spoonful of each of my foods. I think that was the conversation. She wants to sample my food. I nod. She nods, grins, irises flicker. She returns to her side of the table, grinning, golden eyes shuttering, at me, at her mother. Her mother grins. Perfect white teeth. She's... very pretty, very... symmetrical.

I push my plate toward Eenunh. I think I perceive a lightening of her face, perhaps a reverse 'blush'. She reaches to the shelf for a small plate, uses her small spoon (I see it's a 'spork'! It is both spoon and fork!) to take a sample. They eat the samples. They don't have much reaction that I can read, whether they like them or not. There is conversation, and pointing. I begin to eat the servings of potatoes and fruit. The fruit would have been better served cold. I'll... tell... them that.

Eenunh cuts a piece of her foods and places a sample on my plate! I spork the green thing. It tastes weird! The orange thing tastes weird. Not bad. Just... weird. The brown thing tastes like meat! Fried meat! Eenunh and Tinunh both push the containers closer to me, intending I think that I can have more. I don't want to eat their food. It might be all they have. But the meat is very good. I take a serving of each dish, one green, one orange, two more brown meatbally things, since the canister is full. They're more tasty the second time.

We finish. The sink, with running water. Levers instead of knobs. I see steam rising; hot water! Tinunh does the dishes. This kid. She's about the size of... maybe a seven or eight year old human. Maybe nine. But she seems strong, and diligent. Perhaps her mother is directing her but she just seems to do things. She carried the box an hour from the camp. The musculature of her arms, legs, torso is apparent. So is Eenunh's. I got the sense when she made me come in off the patio that, if I resisted, she could have overpowered me, made me do what she wanted. These are lean creatures. I haven't seen any fat ones.

Suddenly, I'm exhausted. The thunder hammers outside. I hear the flowing, blowing rain. Wind sips and rattles at the window closures. I want to sleep. Eenunh stands to put plates and the serving platter in the sink. She leans in the corner of the counters and looks at me, smiling. I stand and go into the living room, try one of the bean-baggy 'lily chairs', but, finding it comfortable, get up before I fall asleep.

I go back up the hall ramp to the... bed chamber at the front door. I open the door by its lever, turning it to my left, spin it open... it scrapes, squeaks... and look up and down the corridor. Empty. I step out and look down the ramp to the balcony. Someone has closed the big spindle-door down there. I go back in, close the spindle-door and note there is no lock, no keyhole that I can see. That's a little scary. I remember the menacing males, and... Chesty... the persistent one. His face might be handsome if it wasn't contorted in his displeasure. I wonder how a community of humans would react to me bringing one of these... people into it. Hah! The ones who didn't run away would probably whip out a gun! The Human Phenomenon, for all its centuries, is still a primitive creature.

Eenunh comes up and crosses to the corner at the end of the bed hollows, pushes the door open a little more. It's... a hinged door, hinged on the right, arched across the top. She points inside. I cross over and see clothes hanging on a rack, and inside the door... a bathroom!

There is a white-topped, white-lined sink, to the left, carved in the stone, the honeycomb of shelves in the walls, stuff on them. Eenunh leads me through an opening around a wide central pillar of sandstone. I trip on a raised ridge across the threshold, catch myself.

She points to a shower head! It points into the stall; no curtain necessary. There's a drain in the floor! She steps out the other side of the pillar back into the sink room. I follow, step over the ridged threshold. I'm stunned! I see the levers on the sink, like the one in the kitchen. In a separate alcove on my right, a commode! Carved out of the stone, like in a prison, integral to the wall. The toilet is a toilet, a commode, with water, and a lever to flush! It looks like you could sit there and lean back just a little. I don't know where the water comes from. The lever's just on the wall.

I come out of the bathroom. She is gone. Back down the hall I assume. I retrieve my toiletries from the box, a dirty towel from the sleeping bag roll. I close the door, and undress in the bathroom. Naked I step in the shower. There's an up/down lever to turn the water on and off, higher and lower flows and pressure, and a left right one to adjust hot and cold. It makes perfect sense. I bathe, a luxury I have not had beyond a trickle in the barracks for a month. My tiny bar of soap is hard to hang on to. I keep dropping it. The water pressure is good! I indulge in it, feeling it pummeling my shoulders, my neck, my back. I hope I'm not using too much of their water.

It's weird! It's weird!

I shut off the water, use my hands to wipe water off of me. I open the door, peek out. My towel's not clean. I wrap it around my waist. I close the door, brush my teeth. I shave my cheeks, leave a fringe of beard, shave my throat, my neck. There's no mirror. I use the small one in my shaving kit. I look into my own eyes. I'm a little freaked out here! I stop looking at that guy. He can freak in seconds and be scared as hell, and it shows! I laugh at myself.

I hear Tinunh's voice. I open the door, peep out. She comes and bends to a space in the wall at the end of the bed hollows, open shelves, and comes up with a towel. I say, "Thank you" and she buzzes what sounds like the same words. She grins, eyebrows go up, grin fades, mouth open. She goes back out of the room. I... can easily imagine how strange I must be for her, them. I drop my dirty towel, dry off with the clean one. I dress, same dirty underwear, pants, shirt. My other dirty clothes are in the laundry bag. Socks, underwear, my other pants and other shirt. We went up to the ship once this month to do laundry. In the heat, we sweat through our clothes the first workday back on the surface.

At the bed hollow I unroll my sleeping bag. I lay on it. The straw crunches under me. It's comfortable. I figure I'll just rest my eyes. Oh! It feels so good to lay it all down! I start to doze; jerk awake! Myoclonus. I fall fast asleep. I'm aware when they come to bed, but just barely. They may spend some time in the bathroom, but then into the other bed-hollow, a little quiet conversation, and silence. I... am not... afraid. I drift back to sleep.

I dream of Earth,
blue oceans, from orbit,
blue skies, from the ground,
my mother. I sleep.