"When I'd recovered a little, I had to do some media interviews. I told lies, of course, but I couldn't go along with the big lie. I refused to confirm that the Communities had injured me. I pretended not to remember what had happened. I said I had been in such bad shape that I didn't have any idea what was going on most of the time, and that I was just grateful to be free and healing. I hoped that was enough to keep my human ex-captors content. It seemed to be.

"The reporters wanted to know what I was going to do, now that I was free.

"I told them I would go to school as soon as I could. I would get an education, then a job so that I could begin to pay my uncles back for all they had done for me.

"That's pretty much what I did. And while I was in school, I realized what work I was best fitted to do. So here I am. I was not only the first to leave the Mojave Bubble, but the first to come back to offer to work for the Communities. I had a small part in helping them connect with some of the lawyers andpoliticians I mentioned earlier."

"Did you tell your story to the weeds when you came back here?" Thera Collier asked suspiciously.

"Prison and torture and everything?"

Noah nodded. "I did. Some Communities asked and I told them. Most didn't ask. They have problems enough among themselves. What humans do to other humans outside their bubbles is usually not that important to them."

"Did they trust you?" Thera asked. "Do the weeds trust you?"

Noah smiled unhappily. "At least as much as you do, Ms. Collier."

Thera gave a short bark of laughter, and Noah realized the woman had not understood. She thought Noah was only being sarcastic.

"I mean they trust me to do my job," Noah said. "They trust me to help would-be employers learn to live with a human being without hurting the human and to help human employees learn to live with the Communities and fulfill their responsibilities. You trust me to do that too. That's why you're here." That was all true enough, but there were also some Communities-her employer and a few others-who did seem to trust her. And she trusted them. She had never dared to tell anyone that she thought of these as friends.

Even without that admission, Thera gave her a look that seemed to be made up of equal parts pity and contempt.

"Why did the aliens take you back," James Adio demanded. "You could have been bringing in a gun or a bomb or something. You could have been coming back to get even with them for what they'd done to you."

Noah shook her head. "They would have detected any weapon I could bring in. They let me come back because they knew me and they knew I could be useful to them. I knew I could be useful to us, too. They want more of us. Maybe they even need more of us. Better for everyone if they hire us and pay us instead of snatching us. They can take mineral ores from deeper in the ground than we can reach, and refine them. They've agreed to restrictions on what they take and where they take it. They pay a handsome percentage of their profit to the government in fees and taxes. With all that, they still have plenty of money to hire us."

She changed the subject suddenly. "Once you're in the bubble, learn the language. Make it clear to your employers that you want to learn. Have you all mastered the basic signs?" She looked them over, not liking the silence. Finally she asked, "Has anyone mastered the basic signs?"

Rune Johnsen and Michelle Ota both said, "I have."

Sorrel Trent said, "I learned some of it, but it's hard to remember."

The others said nothing. James Adio began to look defensive. "They come to our world and we have to learn their language," he muttered.

"I'm sure they would learn ours if they could, Mr. Adio," Noah said wearily. "In fact, here at Mojave, they can read English, and even write it-with difficulty. But since they can't hear at all, they never developed a spoken language of any kind. They can only converse with us in the gesture and touch language that some of us and some of them have developed. It takes some getting used to since they have no limbs in common with us. That's why you need to learn it from them, see for yourself how they move and feel the touch-signs on your skin when you're enfolded. But once you learn it, you'll see that it works well for both species."

"They could use computers to speak for them," Thera Collier said. "If their technology isn't up to it, they could buy some of ours."

Noah did not bother to look at her. "Most of you won't be required to learn more than the basic signs," she said. "If you have some urgent need that the basics don't cover, you can write notes. Print in block capital letters. That will usually work. But if you want to move up a paygrade or two and be given work that might actually interest you, learn the language."

"How do you learn," Michelle Ota asked. "Are there classes?"

"No classes. Your employers will teach you if they want you to know-or if you ask. Language lessons are the one thing you can ask for that you can be sure of getting. They're also one of the fewthings that will get your pay reduced if you're told to learn and you don't. That will be in the contract.

They won't care whether you won't or you can't. Either way it's going to cost you."

"Not fair," Piedad said.

Noah shrugged. "It's easier if you have something to do anyway, and easier if you can talk with your employer. You can't bring in radios, televisions, computers, or recordings of any kind. You can bring in a few books-the paper kind-but that's all. Your employers can and will call you at any time, sometimes several times in a day. Your employer might lend you to...relatives who haven't hired one of us yet. They might also ignore you for days at a time, and most of you won't be within shouting distance of another human being." Noah paused, stared down at the table. "For the sake of your sanity, go in with projects that will occupy your minds."

Rune said, "I would like to hear your description of our duties. What I read sounded almost impossibly simple."

"It is simple. It's even pleasant once you're used to it. You will be enfolded by your employer or anyone your employer designates. If both you and the Community enfolding you can communicate, you might be asked to explain or discuss some aspect of our culture that the Community either doesn't understand or wants to hear more about. Some of them read our literature, our history, even our news.

You may be given puzzles to solve. When you're not enfolded, you may be sent on errands-after you've been inside long enough to be able to find your way around. Your employer might sell your contract to another Community, might even send you to one of the other bubbles. They've agreed not to send you out of the country, and they've agreed that when your contract is up, they'll let you leave by way of the Mojave Bubble-since this is where you'll begin. You won't be injured. There'll be no bio-medical experiments, none of the nastier social experiments that captives endured. You'll receive all the food, water, and shelter that you need to keep you healthy. If you get sick or injured, you have the right to see a human physician. I believe there are two human doctors working here at Mojave now." She paused and James Adio spoke up.

"So what will we be, then?" he demanded. "Whores or house pets?"

Thera Collier made a noise that was almost a sob.

Noah smiled humorlessly. "We're neither, of course. But you'll probably feel as though you're both unless you learn the language. We are one interesting and unexpected thing, though." She paused.

"We're an addictive drug." She watched the group and recognized that Rune Johnsen had already known this. And Sorrel Trent had known. The other four were offended and uncertain and shocked.

"This effect proves that humanity and the Communities belong together," Sorrel Trent said. "We're fated to be together. They have so much to teach us."

Everyone ignored her.

"You told us they understood that we were intelligent," Michelle Ota said.

"Of course they understand," Noah said. "But what's important to them is not what they think of our intellect. It's what use we can be to them. That's what they pay us for."

"We're not prostitutes!" Piedad Ruiz said. "We're not! There's no sex in any of this. There can't be.

And there are no drugs either. You said so yourself!"

Noah turned to look at her. Piedad didn't listen particularly well, and she lived in terror of prostitution, drug addiction, disease, anything that might harm her or steal her ability to have the family she hoped for. Her two older sisters were already selling themselves on the streets. She hoped to rescue them and herself by getting work with the Communities.

"No sex," Noah agreed. "And we are the drugs. The Communities feel better when they enfold us.

We feel better too. I guess that's only fair. The ones among them who are having trouble adjusting to this world are calmed and much improved if they can enfold one of us now and then." She thought for a moment. "I've heard that for human beings, petting a cat lowers our blood pressure. For them, enfolding one of us calms them and eases what translates as a kind of intense biological homesickness."

"We ought to sell them some cats," Thera said. "Neutered cats so they'll have to keep buying them."

"Cats and dogs don't like them," Noah said. "As a matter of fact, cats and dogs won't like you afteryou've lived in the bubble for a while. They seem to smell something on you that we can't detect. They panic if you go near them. They bite and scratch if you try to handle them. The effect lasts for a month or two. I generally avoid house pets and even farm animals for a couple of months when I go out."

"Is being enveloped anything like being crawled over by insects?" Piedad asked. "I can't stand having things crawl on me."

"It isn't like any experience you've ever had," Noah said. "I can only tell you that it doesn't hurt and it isn't slimy or disgusting in any way. The only problem likely to be triggered by it is claustrophobia. If any of you had been found to be claustrophobic, you would have been culled by now. For the non-claustrophobic, well, we're lucky they need us. It means jobs for a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise have them."

"We're the drug of choice, then?" Rune said. And he smiled.

Noah smiled back. "We are. And they have no history of drug taking, no resistance to it, and apparently no moral problems with it. All of a sudden they're hooked. On us."

James Adio said, "Is this some kind of payback for you, Translator? You hook them on us because of what they did to you."

Noah shook her head. "No payback. Just what I said earlier. Jobs. We get to live, and so do they. I don't need payback."

He gave her a long, solemn look. "I would," he said. "I do. I can't have it, but I want it. They invaded us. They took over."

"God, yes," Noah said. "They've taken over big chunks of the Sahara, the Atacama, the Kalahari the Mojave and just about every other hot, dry wasteland they could find. As far as territory goes, they've taken almost nothing that we need."

"They've still got no right to it," Thera said. "It's ours, not theirs."

"They can't leave," Noah said.

Thera nodded. "Maybe not. But they can die!"

Noah ignored this. "Some day maybe a thousand years from now, some of them will leave. They'll build and use ships that are part multigenerational and part sleeper. A few Communities stay awake and keep things running. Everyone else sort of hibernates." This was a vast oversimplification of the aliens'

travel habits, but it was essentially true. "Some of us might even wind up going with them. It would be one way for the human species to get to the stars."

Sorrel Trent said wistfully, "If we honor them, maybe they will take us to heaven with them."

Noah suppressed an urge to hit the woman. To the others, she said, "The next two years will be as easy or as difficult as you decide to make them. Keep in mind that once the contract is signed, the Communities won't let you go because you're angry with them or because you hate them or even because you try to kill them. And by the way, although I'm sure they can be killed, that's only because I believe anything that's alive can die. I've never seen a dead Community, though. I've seen a couple of them have what you might call internal revolution. The entities of those Communities scattered to join other Communities. I'm not sure whether that was death, reproduction, or both." She took a deep breath and let it out. "Even those of us who can talk fluently with the Communities don't understand their physiology that well."

"Finally, I want to tell you a bit of history. When I've done that, I'll escort you in and introduce you to your employers."

"Are we all accepted, then?" Rune Johnsen asked.

"Probably not," Noah said. "There's a final test. When you go in, you will be enfolded, each of you, by a potential employer. When that's over, some of you will be offered a contract and the rest will be given the thanks-for-stopping-by fee that anyone who gets this far and no farther is given."

"I had no idea the...enfolding...would happen so soon," Rune Johnsen said. "Any pointers?"

"About being enfolded?" Noah shook her head. "None. It's a good test. It lets you know whether you can stand the Communities and lets them know whether they really want you."

Piedad Ruiz said, "You were going to tell us something-something from history."

"Yes." Noah leaned back in her chair. "It isn't common knowledge. I looked for references to itwhile I was in school, but I never found any. Only my military captors and the aliens seemed to know about it. The aliens told me before they let me go. My military captors gave me absolute hell for knowing.

"It seems that there was a coordinated nuclear strike at the aliens when it was clear where they were establishing their colonies. The armed forces of several countries had tried and failed to knock them out of the sky before they landed. Everyone knows that. But once the Communities established their bubbles, they tried again. I was already a captive inside the Mojave Bubble when the attack came. I have no idea how that attack was repelled, but I do know this, and my military captors confirmed it with their lines of questioning: the missiles fired at the bubbles never detonated. They should have, but they didn't. And sometime later, exactly half of the missiles that had been fired were returned. They were discovered armed and intact, scattered around Washington DC in the White House-one in the Oval Office-in the capitol, in the Pentagon. In China, half of the missiles fired at the Gobi Bubbles were found scattered around Beijing. London and Paris got one half of their missiles back from the Sahara and Australia. There was panic, confusion, fury. After that, though, the "invaders," the "alien weeds" began to become in many languages, our "guests," our "neighbors," and even our "friends."

"Half the nuclear missiles were...returned?" Piedad Ruiz whispered.

Noah nodded. "Half, yes."

"What happened to the other half?"

"Apparently, the Communities still have the other half-along with whatever weapons they brought with them and any they've built since they've been here."

Silence. The six looked at one another, then at Noah.

"It was a short, quiet war," Noah said. "We lost."

Thera Collier stared at her bleakly. "But...but there must be something we can do, some way to fight."

Noah stood up, pushed her comfortable chair away. "I don't think so," she said. "Your employers are waiting. Shall we join them?"

The End

Birth Days

GEOFF RYMAN.

Geoff Ryman is a Canadian-born writer who moved to the U.S. at age eleven, and has been living in England since 1973. He began publishing SF stories in the mid-1970s. The first work to establish his international reputation as one of the leading writers of SF was "The Unconquered Country: A Life History" (1984, rev 1986), a novella which won the World Fantasy Award. It is reprinted in Unconquered Countries: Four Novellas (1994). Then Ryman's The Child Garden (1988), won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and confirmed him as a major figure in contemporary SF. Some of his most recent books are not SF.

Was (1992) is the supposed true story of the real-life Dorothy, who was the inspiration for L.

Frank Baum's first Oz book. 253 (1998) is a work of hypertext fiction linking the lives of characters in a subway car. His newer books are Lust (2001), Air (2002), and V.A.O. (2002).

"Birth Days" was published in Interzone, which had a shaky year financially and changed midyear from a monthly to bi-monthly publication. It is a story about the future of male homosexuality told in four parts-from the point of view of the gay protagonist on his birthday at ages 16, 26, 36, and 46. It is very direct with its subject matter, which includes confronting the elimination of homosexuality by choice, and the experience of pregnant men, in the manner of the classic SF of Thomas M. Disch and Samuel R. Delany (in his mature phase, Dhalgren and after). Today's my 16th birthday, so I gave myself a present.

I came out to my Mom.

Sort of. By accident. I left out a mail from Billy, which I could just have left on the machine, but no, I had to go and print it out and leave it on my night table, looking like a huge white flag.

I get up this morning and I kinda half-notice it's not there. I lump into the kitchen and I can see where it went. The letter is in Mom's hand and the look on her face tells me, yup, she's read it. She has these gray lines down either side of her mouth. She holds it up to me, and says, "Can you tell me why you wouldn't have the courage to tell me this directly?"

And I'm thinking how could I be so dumb? Did I do this to myself deliberately? And I'm also thinking wait a second, where do you get off reading my letters?

So I say to her, "Did you like the part where he says my dick is beautiful?"

She says, "Not much, no." She's already looking at me like I'm an alien. And I'm like: Mom, this is what you get for being NeoChristian-your son turns out to be homo. What the Neos call a Darwinian anomaly.

Mom sighs and says, "Well I suppose we're stuck with it now."

Yeah Mom, you kinda are. Aren't you supposed to say something mimsy like, Ron honey you know we still love you? Not my Mom. Oh no. Saying exactly what she thinks is Mom's way of being real, and her being real is more important to her than anything else. Like what I might be feeling.

So I dig back at her. "That's a shame, Mom. A few years later and I would have been embryo-screened and you could have just aborted me."

Mom just sniffs. "That was a cheap shot."

Yeah, it was. NeoChristians are about the only people who don't abort homosexual fetuses.

Everybody else does. What do they call it? Parental choice.

So Mom looks at me with this real tough face and says, "I hope you think you've given yourself a happy birthday." And that's all the conversation we have about it.

My little brother is pretending he isn't there and that he isn't happy. My little brother is shaped like a pineapple. He's fat and he has asthma and he's really good at being sneaky and not playing by the rules.

I was always the big brother who tolerated stuff and tried to help Mom along. Her good little boy. Only now I'm samesex. Which to a NeoChristian Mom is like finding out your son likes dressing up as a baby and being jerked off by animals. Sometimes I think Neo is just a way to find new reasons to hate the same old things.