Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

Three days later, and the morning of the day we're invited to Hajarean's 'get-together,' a ship docks in harbour carrying news. It's an independent marketeer, arriving from Taka'utuk. Chirasel is the first back to the boarding house with a copy of the printed newssheet. From her flushed face it looks like she ran all the way.

I wake up, bizarrely, to the sound of football being played in the courtyard. It's mid-morning, I can tell from where the slatted sunlight strikes the bedroom wall. Not too hot for football yet, then.

"Well, girls---" Hajarean starts. "Watch it," Sam warns. She's nearly asleep. "Hehehe. I need to head back up the hill. If I'm much later I'm going to be early." "Okay," I say. "I'm glad we caught up with you at last. It's been great talking, catching up on things---" "Oh, I hope this isn't it!" Hajarean objects. "I don't know what we're doing, long term. I don't think we planned on staying here for good." "Well, as long as you are here, you must come up for a proper visit. I promise I'll be more welcoming this time." "That's good to know," I say. Smile.

"Still, at least you're human. I don't even get to be that any more." I've dried myself up and Hajarean's returned to the other chair. "Who says you're not human?" he asks. I stare at him. "Uh... these?" I reply, sweeping back my hair behind my ears and showing them to him in turn. "Kind of a dead givaway, those, aren't they?" "And that makes you nonhuman, does it?" "Wha---" I flounder. I don't know what to say. "What are you getting at?"

"So... I can't help noticing..." Hajarean begins. "Oh no---" "You're both girls now," he observes. "Oh damn, you noticed," I joke, and lean right forward to bury my head in my arms. I'm sitting cross-legged on the big comfy chair and I think, suddenly, that my old hips wouldn't let me do that. "It's a little hard to miss." He chuckles. "How is that working out for you both?" I sit up straight again and sigh. "Sam's finding it hard. You know how Lee was such a lad..." Hajarean nods. "She'd go back to being male again like a shot, if she could."

It takes a couple of hours to bring Hajarean up to date. He sipped his tea and listened, and asked questions here and there to prod me on. He was especially interested in any details I could relate about life aboard a Neri familyship. I think it's one world he hasn't been able to penetrate and learn much about. So I talk about the social life, the music, the dancing, the thrill of hunting with dolphins and feeling part of a beautiful, deadly sea monster. Finally I tell him of the attack, of being abandoned on the atoll and making our own escape from the slavers and our flight here.

I'm woken by knocking on the front door downstairs. It must be late. Not too late, as I can still hear people in the streets and music and the occasional slight turbulence from nearby taverns. I look across and see Ateis still sleeping in the child's bed nearby, and Asuti in the second full-size bed with the baby. I remember now, I'd said they could come in with me in the hope that Sam and Beni coming home wouldn't wake them. I can hear Jalsone going to answer the door. *Is Sam back yet?* I wonder. I think I would have woken at the sound, unless she was supernaturally quiet about it.

Jeoda wakes up in the evening. The sun sets and the city cools and expands and comes alive. I watch from my bedroom window as the lamps come on one by one; red, blue, purple, green, pink. The sky is darkening blue, striated with pink clouds at high altitude. The door behind me opens. "Sure you don't want to come?" Sam asks. "No, I'm fine babysitting." I was never one for going out pubbing or clubbing or whatever before, and that hasn't really changed when I'm not being paid to play music, which I haven't been since Denhall. "Jalsone can do that."

"He's lying," Sam says, as we walk back down the hill through already-baking streets. I'm already beginning to wish we'd accepted the offer of the carriage. Going downhill is surprisingly hard work and the heat of the day is really starting to kick in. It makes me long to be out over the water, but then most things do, when I'm ashore. "What do you mean, he's lying?" "What do you think I mean? That was Simon, and he lied to us, to our faces. Couldn't you tell?" "Why would he do that?"

We take a couple more days to settle into our new lodgings and rest before we feel ready to go up the hill and try to get in to see Lord Hajarean. Gyrefalcon. Possibly our friend Simon. I'd wanted to write him a letter, in English. Sam had objected, saying all the things that could go wrong with that, that would mean a no-show didn't necessarily tell us anything. Some flunky opening it and seeing a meaningless scrawl, for instance. Sam wanted it face to face. She wanted to see his reaction when we said something in English. "What are you worried about?" I'd asked. "I'm not worried."