Yulin Pours the Tea

Their motions are careful and deliberate although this is not a formal tea ceremony. I watch quietly and wait for the offered cup. Yulin had previously explained the preference for the pronoun ‘we’, as the plural nonimitative case of the first person, but ‘they’ and ‘their’ are also acceptable. But it remains hard for me to think of Yulin as anything but ‘her.’ To me Yulin appears to be a young girl, what we used to call a Tween, but she is ancient by some standards. She is perhaps a couple hundred years old. Compared to me, however, she is a child and her appearance emphasizes this. Yulin is small, waifish, and many centuries my junior, technically speaking.

This informal tea is part of my reintegration therapy, as well as a chance for Yulin to discuss some finer points of Murekin culture. So, we will sit for hours and talk and sip tea. I yearn for something stronger, but coffee is outlawed and alcohol is unheard of. Now that was a shock!

Yulin comes to me on each Sixth day, eager for us to speak again. The intent: to provide guidance on integrating into Society. They were to be my confessor, my councilor, and advisor. It wasn’t working.

Assuming a rightful place in this strange society might not be possible for me. I am what the Hive politely calls a ‘throwback.’ Not by choice or temperament, mind you, merely by happenstance. A four-year journey aboard the very first *Nearly-as-Fast-as-Light* Starship had been accidentally extended to over four millennia. I had returned to an odd, odd world indeed. I am the alien here and first contact has been difficult, to say the least. To say the least.

Yulin sits before me, pouring out tea and advice and taking in my concerns and fears. Listening carefully- as a general rule- and asking frequently, “How does that make you feel?” The hesitation at ‘you’ less pronounced as they accommodate to the concept of individuality. My answer?

I feel weird, how could I not? I am the only permanently biological female on an Earth full of Androgynes. Long gone are the men and other women like me; forgotten to history. As is everyone in between those two endpoints. These people think that makes their culture better—superior, in fact—to the “Ancients,” as they call us. Well, as a living Ancient let me tell you they are wrong, wrong, wrong. The reasons are many, in my opinion.

I sit passively and wait for the careful movement of the cup towards me, indicating the therapy session has begun. So much had changed in the thirty-seven centuries since my crew and I had left earth. These are not my people, this is not my world, these are not my rules—and this is certainly not my society.

The old saying, ‘when in Rome’ comes to mind. It has an idiotic outcome when Rome is populated by fools. Yulin has never heard of Rome. Selective edits of human history were apparently part of the package deal that came with the Hive adoption. There is so much they chose to forget, and it will come to haunt them all.

Yulin sets aside the teapot and inclines their head to me. “You know, Marcellus, disconnecting from the Hive is very stressful for us and a strain on Society.” The capital “Ssssss” in Society is particularly sibilant and grating. Every time Yulin uses it, I feel their disdain like a blow. “We do this for you, to try to help you join us. Yet you resist.” They are trying to be polite, but I can see the strain around their eyes.

“Yvette,” I remind Yulin once again. “My first name is Yvette,” I say as I slide the cup closer. “You think it’s hard on you? Yeah, well look at it from my perspective. I am even more disconnected from my society than you are from yours. Can you fathom that? And with a thought you can drop back in. Me, not so much…” I shrug, letting the matter trail off. It would be impolite to continue. The rules of these therapy sessions are unkind. I am supposed to unburden myself of ‘past traumas’ so that I can integrate, but It’s somehow improper to talk about some of them. If you ask me, therapy is as much bull crap in this era as it was in mine.

This is the same sticking point we always have. Yulin thinks I cannot progress until I accept that my culture is dead and gone. In another age, their response might have been, “get over it.” Now and here, however, their well-intended response smacks of pity and distaste. I cannot join their culture until I accept the merciful death of mine. The Hive thinks I will never integrate to it, and although a patient People, I know that patience may be wearing thin. I fear the alternative they might have in their Hivemind if I cannot fit in. Yulin has given sly hints before. I don’t believe they’d kill me outright; they find killing of any kind abhorrent. I suspect I would just be tanked again in my hibernation tube, and our NaFaL ship quarantined or set adrift in space.

I watch Yulin to see what they will do next. They stare at me, and smiling, their pupils contract, indicating they have indeed separated their mind from the HiveNet. They are cut off from their cohort. Now, our sessions must be intimate as I am not part of the HiveNet. Plus, while I still hold a concept of privacy. I am not stupid enough to think the Hive won’t access what Yulin uncovers. I stare at them.

Yulin’s skin, a shiny grayish-bronze is a stark contrast against the sharp white of their Shiftth- a uniform of sorts. It reminds me of the stark dress of the old Maoists, but in blindingly crisp white. The Shiftth is an even starker contrast against my own black skin. This is another thing they don’t have…variation in skin color.

I tell myself it is not their fault they decided the only way to socially engineer out all the ‘Isms’ was to genetically engineer away all variations in human mind and appearance. That feels, somehow, overtly racist, although it was clearly not the intent. Still, it appalls me. I vow to never tell Yulin this.

They have treated me fair enough, I suppose, yet I can sense their disgust over my differences. It is ironic: they rebuilt society, made it sexless and a uniform color- yet centuries later they quail at my femininity and my skin tone. It tells me that their “Ism-be-gone” potions and Genetic engineering didn’t work as well as they thought. I keep this to myself, unwilling for it to later upload when they reconnect. Yulin has told me that my biological differences are part of the reason they will not allow the rest of my crew out of hibernation until I am integrated. I suppose I am an experiment of sorts. I shall be proof of concept: that an Ancient, despite obvious horrific differences, can be fully absorbed into their so-called Enlightened Age. Our differences are the hurdle to overcome.

My crew and I are all clearly physically male or female and of different “races.” The irony here breaks my heart. I miss my crew and miss those differences. I miss my husband so desperately, but his gender and white skin frighten the Murekins. Soon, Yulin and I are arguing those points again. They enjoy reminding me that their people banished the Y-chromosome and blended themselves into androgyny and uniformity to decrease aggression and ensure peace. They judge my time (and me) against the relative peace of their age. “The Y-chromosome is extinct,” Yulin says. “We’ve no need of that type of human anymore.” That sentence rings of an era in mid-twentieth century world history; it harkens to the twisted thinking of a particular Austrian man who felt similarly and acted upon it. Now it is my turn to be disgusted. My face feels hot and I try not to let it betray my emotions. They continue, “We live in peace and harmony. There is no aggression, there is no war.”

To them, it was an unmitigated success.

To me, it is all dangerously foolish.

But it would be more foolish to try to argue with them. Their people cannot change and they will perish. We speak again of my journey. Part of my nearly four-millennium trek across space was spent encountering and avoiding species that did not put away war and female (or male!) aggression. In some of our encounters, it was the female of a given species that was vastly more aggressive. The last leg of our travels was spent evading one such race, and I am not entirely sure we succeeded.

Impatiently, I blurt out, “I don’t think you understand. Tourism isn’t the reason we were wandering about the galaxy all that time. We weren’t vacationing. We weren’t roaming. We were running for our lives. You may have destroyed males and aggression on earth, but earth is only one world. We ran from a species that does practice hatred, empire, war, and destruction. I can’t guarantee we lost them.”

Yulin clicks her tongue at me in a patronizing way. They are pleasant enough as they remind me yet again how they rose up from the ruins of the Last Great War and created a genderless, colorless, egalitarian society. They claim that unifying the genders, sexes and races has bettered humanity. They even have a saying, uttered like a prayer—though they don’t believe in God, “Unification is our Strength.” It seems a perversion of a phrase common in my time regarding diversity.

I see these people as bland, uncreative, uniform and unable to adapt. Thus, we are at stalemate. It is a stalemate that will be broken by outside forces.

“Earth may have stopped making men and women and violence,” I inform Yulin, “but the enemy has not. Their Armada is on its way, bringing war. You people are not prepared.”

“We will greet them with compassion, and with love,” Yulin intones, smilingly.

I shudder in horror.

The enemy has neither of those.