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  It was mid-day and a colliding scrum of vague moons were already advancing above the horizon. Claude Enquito looked up from the screen where figures and glyphs proclaimed a stultifying mass of information about local minerals. He tried not to be downhearted about his position, being wise enough to realise that with time, familiarity might plane the edges from his feeling of alienation. People had to get used to him as much as he had to get used to them - and their location. However, there were times in the day when he would have liked to sit back, sip something hot and sweet in the company of like minds and gossip about inconsequential things. None of the human population of Leeleefam seemed disposed to idle chatter. They had evolved their own identity here, for which the first suzerain could probably claim responsibility, and it seemed a sombre and joyless one to Claude, who was used to the frivolity of Abbey Five. He regarded through narrow eyes the small glass ornament which sat on his desk-top; a gift from his new colleagues. Rather like he found them, he thought it a singularly cold and uninteresting thing. Its novelty was in the fact that had been donated by the local Leelees, the natives (a term all employees of Seven Worlds Enterprises were discouraged from implementing in daily speech). Claude had accepted it with forced gratitude on the day of his arrival and it had sat, gathering dust, beside his console ever since; an uninspiring and shapeless lump. What it was supposed to represent, he could not tell. However, something about its shape disturbed him if he looked at it too long; an aversion which Claude thought merely mirrored his current discontent.

  Ively Guldron swept into the office, disturbing Claude’s reverie, trailing domestic staff guiding a floating trolley of food. ‘I would like to join you for lunch,’ Guldron said, which Claude wearily thought was the price to pay for yearning company.

  ‘By all means. Put your feet up,’ he said and Guldron sniffed the slightest of sniffs before perching on the edge of a seat. The food, like the people of this complex, was dull and did little to stimulate the senses, concentrating more on the no-nonsense business of correct nutrition. Claude knew that Guldron wouldn’t have joined him if there wasn’t something on her mind. He had the feeling that a meal interrupting the flow of a day’s work could never be consumed with pleasure by the woman. He was right. She had barely taken one careful nibble of food before coming to the point.

  ‘The Leelees have requested an audience with you,’ she said. He stared, dumbly, unsure of what reaction to exhibit.

  She chewed, swallowed and shook her head briefly, creasing her brows. ‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s quite in order. Usually, they don’t want to come near us, apart from on salary day, but it seems to be some kind of custom with them to make a formal welcome to a new suzerain. Bizarre title, I’m sure you’ll agree, but we had to have something they’d like and it’s the only word in human language having approximately the same meaning to each of us.’

  ‘Manager would be rather mundane, I agree,’ Claude said.

  ‘You don’t understand. It’s nothing to do with the sound of the word, but the way your face works when you say it. These people are aliens, Claude, and I mean, aliens. It’s no use trying to anthropomorphise them. It simply won’t work. You probably have more in common with a dog.’

  He wondered whether the implied metaphor was deliberate, but her mind seemed on other things. ‘So, when do I see them?’

  ‘Oh, I arranged it for this afternoon. Might as well get the whole thing out of the way, because we have work to do for the ores shipment next week. You have robes, you know. You’d better put them on. Leelees like that kind of thing and we aim to please them whenever possible. They were always trying to badger your predecessor. He learned the knack of dealing with them quickly.’

  Hint or criticism? Claude wondered.

  ‘I suppose we must be like gods to them or something,’ Guldron continued.

  Claude couldn’t repress an inward wince. She smiled smugly. ‘However, they’re good workers and not much trouble, so we indulge them occasionally.’

  That was her summary of an entire culture; alien as she had mentioned and doubtless richer in strangeness and possible new lessons for the human race than could be imagined. The representatives of S.W.E. kept the natives happy with the least possible inconvenience to themselves, and regarded them as exotic animals, albeit a rare species to be preserved and, undeniably, rather useful.

  Claude Enquito waited to receive his visitors in a skylit room, decorated with exuberant examples of local flora. He was nervous. Guldron came to wait with him, sighing and tapping her foot to show that she had more pressing business awaiting her elsewhere. ‘I’ve not had much experience of this kind of thing,’ Claude said.

  Ively Guldron shrugged as if to say there was nothing to it. She was looking out of the window. ‘Ah, wonderful, at last. Here they come.’

  Claude went to stand beside her. A troupe of perhaps twenty Leelees was being escorted up the paved walkway to the palace. As most intelligent species that humanity had fallen across in its travels, superficially the Leelees appeared very manlike, having similar facial features, four limbs and a vertical spine. They were chatting animatedly together, their hands and faces writhing and flitting and flickering so fast, they became a blur. As a contrast, the escorting humans bore the countenances of statues.

  ‘See the big eartha?’ Guldron asked Claude. ‘That’s Zozozo, whom we presume to be the leader of the local community. An impressive lump, eh?’

  Claude was surprised at Ively’s attempt at humour, the first he’d experienced here. He had to agree with her though. The leading Leelee was striding purposefully ahead of the others, well over six feet high, heavy-limbed, wide, and sporting a wild costume of artful rags that fluttered behind like sails. Leelees were comprised of three sexes, of which the earthas were the nearest to female, being the bearers of young. The rest of Zozozo’s group was comprised of energetic wafts, biologically the intermediary between the seed-bearing flyers and the mammoth, fertile earthas. Claude had only seen Leelees from a distance before.

  Zozozo was not terrifying to look at. She was awesome yes, simply because of her size, but on the whole she resembled nothing other than a large, fat woman. Claude, however, was terribly afraid. There are no words to convey the primal fear brought forth in the human psyche by having to face a creature essentially un-human. Having lived a far from cosmopolitan life in the cosy little governmental complex on Abbey Five, Claude had not had direct contact with a non-human before. As he quailed, Guldron swept briskly forward, smiling and nodding, saying, ‘Hello, hello, hello.’

  ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ intoned Zozozo gravely. She executed a series of alarming grimaces, then bent primly from the waist in a formal bow.

  Claude was wondering whether he would faint. Bright waftish eyes surveyed him with interest, faces peeking round the imposing bulk of their queen, all blinking, twitching and wrenching their features into impossible expressions. Zozozo had queerly grey skin, which appeared smooth, perhaps finely furred. Behind her, the wafts had flushed a deep buttercup colour with excitement.

  ‘Zozozo, may I present Claude Enquito, the new suzerain of our establishment here in Leeleefam,’ Guldron said, enunciating carefully.

  The Leelee queen emitted a sound which may have been laughter and waved her arms swiftly in a series of meaningful gestures. ‘Zoozoorain, yes, gooood!’ she exclaimed, exposing her teeth until it seemed her lips were inside out. The teeth themselves were alarming; spadelike and irregular as if used to tearing fibres completely different from those familiar to human mouths.

  Guldron threw Claude a private glance.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said.

  The Leelees appeared to consider his words, then Zozozo threw up an arm with the half-intelligible remark, ‘Too steef, too steef, skeen too night night. Feel go eenside!’ She thumped her chest and roared with delight. ‘Out heer! Out heer!’

  Claude realised she had been addressing him. He peered at Guldron in mute appeal.

  ‘Zozozo feels th
e colour of your skin is caused by a stiffness of emotion boiling inside you. She advises you to let it out.’

  ‘Satan’s teeth!’ Claude responded, weakly.

  Zozozo had shuffled forward and, leaning towards Claude, muttered confidentially, her face juggling a chaotic multitude of expressions, ‘Special special for you. Heeer.’ She gestured behind her and, amidst a buzz of twittering, the wafts ejected a seemingly protesting figure from their ranks. ‘Say hello, hello, hello!’ Zozozo commanded and with a motherly thrust, propelled the unfortunate waft in the direction of the self-consciously contained human beings before her.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ said the waft.

  ‘Happeee!’ cried the Leelee queen and, uttering another bellow, arranged her troupe about her and marched out without another word.

  Silence surged in to fill the space left by the Leelees. Claude leaned weakly on a table.

  Guldron stood stiffly to attention, arms straight by her sides, fists clenched, nostrils flaring. ‘Never before!’ she said.

  The waft looked from one to the other of them; its skin colour had faded to a tentative cream. It was impossible to read the expression on its face. Several untranslateable flickers convulsed its features but, other than that, it remained silent.

  ‘Guldron, would you tell me what the hell has just happened please?’ Claude said. ‘I feel like I’ve been standing face-first into a hurricane.’

  Guldron had repossessed herself. Claude could see her temperature gauge sweeping sleekly back to normal. ‘What has just happened, Claude, is that Zozozo has presented you with a... with a gift. This waft.’

  Both humans stared at the gift in a moment of mutual dissatisfaction.

  ‘Naturally, our language caused them a bit of a problem at first,’ Ively Guldron said. ‘Took them a year or so to get the hang of the basics. We arranged to have teachers sent in, linguists from Wipple College.’ Taking control, Guldron had seen to it that the waft had been taken off somewhere and entertained until they could decide what to do with it.

  Claude was still feeling shaken. ‘Pity you couldn’t instil a little diplomacy along with the lingo!’

  Guldron laughed. ‘My dear suzerain - that was diplomacy. At least, diplomacy Leelee-style. They always speak their minds. Artifice is unknown to them. Likewise, tact! Zozozo couldn’t comprehend in a million years the social graces of human culture and even if she could, she’d think it ridiculous. These people wear their hearts on their faces, so to speak. In a word, they are honest.’

  ‘That, more than anything, proclaims them truly alien!’ Claude decided and went to pour himself a large drink.

  ‘Perhaps you can understand now why we discourage intercourse with the Leelees,’ Guldron said, an image of correct behaviour.

  ‘And conversation too, I trust!’

  Guldron didn’t even twitch. ‘We can’t risk offending Zozozo. Well, not offending, exactly, that’s not the word, because I don’t believe you can offend a Leelee. They are susceptible to disappointment, however, and that affects their work. We have that big order coming up...’ She shook her head, bared her teeth and tapped them with a bony finger. ‘You’ll have to play the game a while, Claude.’

  ‘Meaning what exactly?’

  ‘Let the Leelee hang around. They don’t generally get in the way, but they’re rather curious, like children. Give it a few toys and it’ll be happy for weeks. OK?’

  ‘Guldron, I won’t feel comfortable with that weird thing hanging round me.’

  Guldron smothered exasperation. ‘Look, Claude, it is a kind of honour, after all. Zozozo is concerned for you. The Leelees change colouring all the time; it exhibits moods in them. She doesn’t understand we don’t do that. They’ve never seen a human as dark as you before; therefore, she thinks you’re worried.

  ‘Wonderful. She’s right. At this moment, I am worried.’

  That evening Ively Guldron invited Claude over for dinner. When he got there the waft had been placed on display ready for him, perched on a stool by the glass-topped table. It was chattering away, grimacing, apparently to itself; a thin, waif-like creature, pale lemon of skin, with thick golden hair, strangely streaked with black. Claude thought that it looked like an abused infant and recoiled at the door, which had already slid shut behind him. The waft turned its heart-shaped face towards him, which for several seconds became unusually void of expression.

  ‘Well, come in,’ Guldron said. She was relaxing on an air-filled lounger, drink in hand, keeping an eye on her staff as they set the table for the meal. Claude had never met with Ively Guldron out of work hours before, and was surprised by what appeared to be a relaxed mien. He edged towards her, unable to take his eyes off the waft. Like Zozozo the creature emanated a profoundly disturbing aura.

  ‘Perhaps the Leelees think it’s time we understood them a little better,’ Guldron said. ‘Is that so, Vava?’

  The waft flicked its glance away from Claude, its skin deepening a shade, and said to her, ‘You understand us. We don’t understand you.’

  ‘Good command of our language, eh, Claude?’

  ‘Your faces never say anything,’ said the waft. ‘You are disabled in that way.’ With that observation, it resumed concentration on its own fingers, which were conversing to each other rapidly and silently.

  Ively appeared to dismiss the creature from her attention, producing a sheaf of print-outs. ‘Fetch the suzerain something to drink,’ she instructed one of her maids. ‘Claude, come here. There’s something we should discuss.’

  So much for the social evening, Claude thought. He stared blindly at the papers Guldron was stabbing at with urgent fingers. Her words didn’t penetrate his mind. The drink he’d been offered was low on alcohol and unpleasantly sweet. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the waft watching them intently.

  ‘So you see,’ Guldron was concluding. ‘We have to be ready for the next phase in three days at the latest, otherwise the whole procedure could be held up for weeks. What do you think?’

  ‘Er...’

  ‘He thinks he would rather be at home now with something stronger in his glass,’ the waft announced.

  There was a moment’s icy silence.

  ‘Perhaps we should eat,’ Guldron said.

  The meal was usual Leeleefam fare. Claude didn’t have much of an appetite. He was beginning to think seriously about applying for a transfer. Promotion or not, he’d be happier going back to Abbey Five with less status, less money but blissful normality around him.

  Guldron continued to talk about shipments, thinking out loud more than trying to have a discussion.

  ‘This food’s not right,’ the waft said, breaking into Guldron’s diatribe; its skin now displayed a distinctly mustardy shade.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ Guldron asked sharply, impatiently.

  ‘It’s just not interesting. It doesn’t taste of anything. Can I have something else?’

  ‘It’s all we have. This is what humans eat, Vava, and it certainly won’t poison you, and so unless you want to feel hungry in the night, I suggest you eat it too.’

  The waft exhibited an array of private grimaces and then picked at the food.

  Claude experienced an unmistakeable warming towards the little creature. It was childlike; small and ingenuous. Perhaps if he just looked on it as a rather odd child, he wouldn’t feel so discomforted.

  ‘Why did Zozozo leave you with us?’ he asked it.

  ‘To make you glow. You people never do, but you must be worse than the others.’

  ‘Why?’

  The creature wriggled, which Claude interpreted as the equivalent of a shrug. ‘Zozozo thinks so. She’s always right.’

  Guldron was staring at Claude over the table, her look implying what ridiculous creatures these Leelees were. Claude couldn’t wait to leave.

  Claude walked back home through the soft multiple moonlight with the waft zipping this way and that across the lawn in front of him. Ively Guldron had insisted he tak
e it with him. After an evening in Vava’s company, Claude didn’t feel quite so alarmed about it. In fact he was beginning to think he had more in common with the waft than he did with Guldron. Soft, mournful cries, the night-song of the flyers, came to his ears from beyond the complex. Of all the Leelees, the flyers were the most peculiar to behold, and the least seen. Pale and limber, they kept to their tree-top villages, never flying exactly, as they had no wings, but leaping gracefully from branch to branch in an almost simian way. The waft uttered fluting sounds back occasionally, but was clearly far from interested in answering the calls.

  After a short walk through the low colonnades of the outer palace structure, they reached Claude’s own apartments. Soft lights blossomed about the eaves when their mechanisms sensed his approach. There was nobody else about; security was not a problem in Leeleefam.

  Once inside, Claude went straight to his drinks cabinet to satisfy the craving he’d suffered all evening.

  The waft walked round his living-room, looking with interest at his possessions.