Maneck's snout twitched with sudden interest as Ramon impaled the insect.
Ramon led the alien to a likely-looking spot on the side of the stream and dropped the line. As he fished, Ramon stole glances at Maneck from time to time. The alien stood and watched the water. For all the impatience it sometimes showed about getting on with their task, it seemed perfectly content to stand there, immobile and untiring, for as long as it might take. Halfway across the stream, Ramon glimpsed a flash of blue as a fish leaped from the water, but nothing took his bait. Never the most patient of men, he began to grow restive. To occupy the time, he began to whistle a silly little tune that Elena had taught him early in their time together, before the fighting had grown so bad. He could not remember the words that went with it, but that didn't matter. The song made him think of Elena, her long, dark hair and her quick hands, callused by endless hours in her little vegetable garden. She was a small, dark woman, very pretty, though her face was dotted with the craters left by some childhood disease. Sometimes Ramon would trace the marks with his fingertips, unconsciously, and then Elena would look away. "Stop," she would say, "stop, you remind me of how ugly I am." And then, if he hadn't had too much to drink, he would say, "No, no, they're not so bad, you are very beautiful." But Elena would never believe him.
"What is that sound you are making?" Maneck demanded, shattering Ramon's reverie.
He frowned. "I was whistling, monster. A little song."
"'Whistling,'" the alien repeated. "Is this another language? I do not understand, although I hear a structure, an ordering. Explain the meaning of what you were saying."
"I wasn't saying anything," Ramon said. "It was music. Your people, they don't have music?"
"Music," Maneck said. "Ah. Ordered sound. I comprehend. You derive pleasure from the sequencing of certain patterns. We don't have music, but it is an interesting mathematical function. To order that which is random enhances the flow. You may resume whistling music, man."
Ramon did not accept the alien's invitation. He pulled in his line and threw it in again. The first cast brought up something Ramon had never seen. That wasn't odd - there were new creatures caught in the nets at Diegotown and Swan's Neck every week, so little yet was known about S?o Paulo. This was a bloated, gray bottom dweller whose scales were dotted by white, vaguely pustulant nodules. It hissed at him as he pulled the hook free, and, with a sense of disgust, he threw it back into the water. It vanished with a plop.
"Why did you throw the food away?" Maneck asked.
"It was monstrous," Ramon said. "Like you."
He found another beetle, and they resumed their watch on the river as night slowly gathered around them. The sky above the forest canopy shifted toward the startling violet of the S?o Paulo sunset. Auroras danced green and blue and gold. Watching them, Ramon felt for an instant the profound peace that the open wilderness always gave him. Even captive and enslaved, even with his flesh pierced by the sahael, the immense, dancing sky was beautiful and a thing of comfort.
A few minutes later, Ramon finally caught a fat, white bladefish with vivid scarlet fins. As he hauled it out of the water, he caught sight of Maneck's curiously watching face, and shook his head. "You don't have music and you don't eat real food," he mused. "I think you are a very sad sort of creature. What about sex? Do you have that much, at least? Do you fuck, what about that? Are you a boy or a girl?"
"Boy," the alien said, "girl. These concepts do not apply to us. Sexual reproduction is primitive and inefficient. We have transcended this."
"Too bad," Ramon said. "That's taking transcendence too far! Still, at least I suppose that means I don't have to worry about you sneaking into the lean-to with me tonight, eh?" He grinned at the look of incomprehension on the alien's face, and walked back to camp, Maneck pacing silently at his side. There, he quickly rebuilt the cook fire, and roasted the fish gently, briefly wishing he had some garlic or habanero powder to rub on it. Still, the flesh was warm and succulent, and when he had eaten his fill, and smoked some strips of the fish and wrapped them in