"A generally unrecognized contributor to the worldview of the Krulirim," dictated Swelk, "is the symmetry of the Krul body shape." Outside her cabin a raucous comment, followed by bellows of laughter, defeated the computer's attempt to parse her words. She repeated the sentence. Immersion in her longtime studies was a distraction from brooding about the work she should have been doing—and from which she was so inexplicably barred.
Her latched door quivered from the impact of something heavy—or rather, someone, because he spoke. The complaint was drunken, slurred and indistinct, but the word "freak" was clear enough.
"The Krul body is commonly described as triform, as most of its components occur in threes. Within the largely spherical central mass, internal organs are triplicated. Three limbs, spaced equidistantly around the torso, are equally adapted for locomotion and manipulation. Each limb ends in a three-part extremity, which in turn bears three digits. Limbs, extremities, and digits are all opposable, providing three progressively finer levels of physical control. Sensory stalks near the top of the central mass are also triplicated, providing multiperspective audio and video imagery at all points in a full circle around the Krul.
"Despite the understandable descriptive focus on triplication, the effective symmetry of the Krul form, which favors no specific direction, is radial. So complete is this effective radial symmetry that a Krul observer does not and cannot locate a physical object solely by reference to her body. Distance from the observer may be so defined, but the second geometric parameter needed to localize an object within a plane requires a reference external to the body. The magnetic sense of the Krul provides this external reference, by defining a line between her and the nearest magnetic pole. An angle with respect to this line of external reference can then be combined with the bodycentric radial distance. . . ."
Nonreaction sometimes discouraged those outside. Not this time. Impacts continued to rattle her door, and yelling to scramble her dictation. The frequency of the interruptions showed it was once more open season on misfits. How would those outside react, Swelk wondered, if told their successful adaptation to life on a spaceship showed they were freaks? Most Krulirim could not function outside a planetary-scale magnetic field—the inconstancy of the shipboard artificial field, its orientation noticeably changing with every few steps taken, induced nausea and confusion.
Not well at all, she decided. She checkpointed the computer and tucked it into a pocket. Any work she got done today would have to be accomplished someplace more secluded. The same was likely true of any sleep she might hope for. Taking a deep breath, she flung open the door to run the gauntlet to somewhere hopefully quieter.
"Swelkie, you monstrosity. Weirdo. Abomination." Taking tones of voice into account, the taunts ranged from condescending affection, as one might address an ugly but familiar pet, to open hostility. The captain presumably intended no permanent harm to befall Swelk—she remained an occasional resource to the project from which she was so aggravatingly excluded, not to mention a paying passenger—but the crew, to whom her quasi-confinement had been entrusted, did not necessarily understand the intended limits to their abuse. The scientist within her recognized with cool detachment that they might lack the self-restraint to overcome ages of social conditioning and temper their mistreatments.
"Hello, Froll. How's it going, Brelf?" She was unable to extend all her placative greetings before the harassment began. It's not personal, it's not personal, she told herself silently. She dodged a flung partially eaten piece of fruit, only to trip over something thrust between her limbs. A delighted roar greeted the splat of her graceless landing, followed by gales of laughter as Brelf, ever the ringleader, dumped on her a cup of something pungent. The cackling intensified as Swelk slipped in a pool of the liquid while trying to stand up.
"So where are you going, beautiful?" Brelf's witticism set them all off to tittering.
"To clean up, I think." Her uncomplaining acceptance of their pranks seemed to satisfy them; they did nothing more as she struggled, with more care this time, to an erect position. They let her pass, content to guffaw at her clumsy progress down the corridor, her lame limb trembling, before returning to whatever drunken game of chance the sorry fact of her existence had so unjustly distracted them from.
Her lame limb trembling. My curse in a phrase, thought Swelk, limping to a quieter part of the ship. And if my disability weren't enough, they blame me for adding perhaps two three-cubes of years to this voyage. That reckoning was in Krulchuk years, of course, not ship's time, but whether a starfarer ever saw family and friends again depended on the passage of time on the home world. Most people did not leave home.
"Swelk!"
She pulled herself to full height, bearing most of her weight on the good limbs, aware that she still dripped soup. "Yes, Captain."
"My officers and I are too busy to deal right now with passengers. Why are you out of your quarters?"
Translation: too busy to deal with her. The shreds of wet vegetable sticking to her body were suddenly an asset. "A mishap, sir. I came forward for cleaning supplies from ship's stores."
"Very well." Captain Grelben leaned slightly. Balanced effortlessly on two limbs, he pointed down the hall with the third. "Find your supplies, get cleaned up, and return to your cabin." Dropping to all threes, he strode away. He disappeared into the officers' lounge, through whose briefly open door could be seen not only several officers but also the ship's other passengers. They were using the translation and cultural interpretation program she had trained, the expert-system software whose operations she had been too naively trusting to keep to herself.
In the blissful quiet of the storeroom, Swelk surrendered to anger and fear. Her body shook; her weak limb threatened to collapse of its own accord. She lowered herself, wearily, to the deck. The hard lump in her pocket reminded her that she'd come here to continue on her treatise, but she was no longer in the mood. It was not supposed to be this way.
It was not fair. It was not right. But when had Swelk's life ever been either?