trans_9 | There are worse things out tonight than vampires

Zouichi looked a little bemused. "Are you sure you're not confusing a poker face with graceful acceptance?" Because he'd often been told he wasn't the most expressive member of his generation.

Anwei likely wanted the woman who had raised Zouichi rather than his programming team -- his coded components were more or less limited to his autonomic and visual systems.

"Certainly." He hadn't actually caught most of this one while it was running, though it didn't seem like he'd missed out on much. "What would you recommend?"

"You kissed my hand, at our wedding, And did so with superb grace," she smiled. "That was not the gesture of a man maintaining his poker face."

"For films...hmm. I actually worked outwards in my film watching: first I saw the vampire films, then films appropriate to what my age would be when I arrived on Earth, and then a quick skimming of the classics."

"For vampire films, I'd recommend Near Dark, Nosferatu, and Horror of Dracula. For films classics, would you prefer to start with ones that were filmed in Japan? Because I would certainly recommend Floating Weeds, Yojimbo, and Ikiru."

Well, Anwei certainly knew how to say the most embarrassing things he'd ever heard from... anyone, really. Zouichi brought his palm to his face, slumping a little in his chair. "I am sorry about that, by the way -- it was rather uncharacteristic of me."

"I am not particularly attached to vampire films, but I can certainly give them a try." He smiled. "Ah, Kurosawa Akira. I remember one of his films quite fondly, although I didn't quite understand it at the time. It was called 'Yume'."

"It was still done very gracefully," she said softly, not missing his embarrassment. "I'm sorry if it did not make you happy."

Nobody had kissed her before that in - oh, hundreds of days.

"'Yume'" - she pulled out her omnicomm and consulted its translation - "oh yes, I saw part of it. The snow demon was apparently inspired by a film I had seen, 'Kwaidan'. I confess that since I started with vampire films, I probably watched a few too many films in the horror genre."

"Er, no, it's not... I wasn't particularly unhappy. It's just that I don't usually do that sort of thing."

"Kwaidan? Oh yes, I think that was an old movie based on the works of Lafcadio Hearn.

"Actually, I believe the demon in both movies were based on the yuki-onna, a creature that endlessly wanders the snow. In some stories, she's the vengeful ghost of a woman who lost her child in a snowstorm; in others, she takes pity on her would-be victim and marries him, only to be betrayed by him later. She's said to be quite beautiful."

"It was a unique situation," she said, tactfully - or as tactfully as she could manage. Which was obviously not tactful enough.

A good thing Horanckk wasn't here; he delighted in imagining that Anwei could be encouraged to romance people.

"It sounds like you do have a good background in Japanese mythology, at least. I'm glad that you weren't raised to only know fighting."

Zouichi sighed, looking away again. "Perhaps it's best if I explain more fully. In some cultures, it would have been perfectly acceptable behavior. But for someone who grew up in Japan, it was rather... forward of me. That is what I wanted to apologize for."

"I am also unaccustomed to being openly praised. It's just... a little unusual for me. I certainly did not mean to sound ungrateful or rude."

He frowned at her observation. "Well, it's not exactly uncommon knowledge in my area, but, I did enjoy listening to S-- to stories, as a child. Certain people within the project thought it was essential to give us a good basic grounding across subjects. Although I'm sure not everyone saw it as time well spent."

"And in the culture where I was raised, it would be unheard of for me to let an alien kiss my hand," she replied. "I've changed my opinion, since. Your apology is accepted, certainly." And if she didn't really feel an apology was called for, well, she wasn't going to stretch out the reminder of something that clearly embarrassed him. "And I'll confess to perhaps being fast to praise, but many times I've heard of personnel lost or dead and thought Oh, I never told them how well they did this, or how thankful I was that they did that...I'd rather be lavish with praise and stingy with criticism."

"If you enjoyed it, and learned from it, then it was time well spent. And your project people would have felt rather foolish if some vital information was not obvious to you because, say, the phrase 'face like a yuki-onna' meant nothing to you."

He nodded. "Point taken. It is unfair to expect others to observe social norms they are unaware of. I will try to move beyond my... concerns, in the future. And I do appreciate your sentiments. It is refreshing to talk to someone so open about their opinions."

Zouichi smiled at her comment, but his expression was a little complex this time. "I didn't have many missions in which such information proved to be valuable."

In fact, he had exactly 0 missions in which knowledge of folklore would have been relevant.

"However, I did enjoy the lessons, even the irrelevant ones."

"You can't take anything for granted when you are dealing with different species. Their mores and manners are always a mystery. Being open means fewer mistakes." If more embarrassment. But she tried to let that fall on her own head.

She shrugged. "Perhaps we will have a mission where we need to tell stories to get past some peril. If so, your lessons will be very useful. Not all fighting is by bullet and knife, or force and threat; sometimes a gift, a smile, or a kind word, can win the battle just as well."

Well, he wasn't sure about that one; he was sure there must be more retiring species out there who would appreciate more rather than less discretion.

Zouichi sighed. "If that happens, I'm sure there are people aboard the ship far better versed in stories or diplomacy than myself. Someone like you, perhaps? I'd be perfectly happy to avoid that particular spotlight."

He'd made quite a few strides talking to members of the crew since finding himself in that pod chamber, but...

"...I've probably spent more time speaking to people since coming to this ship than I have during the entire rest of my existence."

Members of such retiring species did not become rowdy space mercenaries - or if they did, they left their reticence behind.

"Is that a problem? You could always go back to using the omnicomm," she joked. Then she sobered. "You're doing very well, with talking that is, so far as I have seen."

Zouichi looked mildly exasperated at the mention of the Omnicomm, but let it pass without comment.

"I have certainly been giving it my best effort. It's just a little tiring at times. On Earth, Fuyu is usually the only person available to carry on a conversation with. We understand each other extremely well -- there are rarely misunderstandings, and she's already familiar with what I am." He actually spent a lot of time explaining to the crew what a Synthetic Human was. And usually left conversations under the impression that they still didn't quite understand.

"Oh, that sounds familiar." Anwei stood straight, and her fingers drummed an irregular rhythm on the back of the couch.

"I'm certain that I have spoken to Horanckk ten times more than I have ever spoken to anyone else. And in fact he would often be the one to remind me to go talk to this person or that about something. He sort of forced me to be social. And certainly, no one understood who I am as completely as he did."

He nodded. "Fuyu is more personable than I am in general -- I only wish that it was easier for her to get around on the ship. She often acts as a restraint for me, if she feels I'm acting too brashly. I do hope you can be reunited with Horanckk soon; I'm becoming more and more curious about him."

"You could check with Engineering; perhaps they could make some sort of self-powered framework that would let her move around with you. Or move herself, in case of some emergency." Now there was a breath of nightmare: the Vehicle Bay under fire, and Fuyu trapped because the motorcycle was damaged.

"I hate to say it, but I think I'm handling his absence better because I was stranded on Earth all that time without him. I'm used to missing him, as sad as that sounds. But," her voice caught for a moment, "I also hope we are reunited soon."

"Hmm. I can ask her how she feels about that, but she may not agree." He suspected Fuyu might have some objections to strangers fiddling about with her core. "Another solution might be modifying the XLA's tires to allow them to move around the fleshier portions of the ship more easily."

He nodded; it did sound terribly lonely, especially if the only people you had for company had no idea who you really were. "Were you able to interact with the human inhabitants, at least?"

"Horanckk would often go around in a casing about the size of a small briefcase, with arms and legs that ran off a separate power system. That way if I had to, I could just grab the handle, detach the limbs, and carry him inconspicuously. Modifying the XLA would probably work too - for all I know, someone here could put an antigravity engine in it and Fuyu could fly."

For that matter she could build an antigravity engine by rote - but only as a standalone unit for emergencies. And it probably wouldn't fit on the motorcycle anyway.

"To a certain extent. I had access to enough Earth currency to qualify as 'rich,' and as in many cultures, rich people are allowed to be more eccentric. Most of my interaction was virtual, via their phone and Internet systems; or buffered with the appropriate lawyers and security personnel. What face-to-face contact I had was often with random strangers, on the theory that if I forgot myself and did something like smile too wide, they wouldn't know how to trace me."

"Hmm. Minor modifications would be fine, but putting in something like an antigravity engine sounds like it might require someone to take it apart and put it back together." Which would be expressly against regulations and thus reserved only for extreme contingencies. The technology that went into it wasn't as carefully guarded as the GBE data, but it would still be a problem if it fell into the wrong hands. Plus, did he know anyone in Engineering well enough to trust them for the job? He wasn't sure.

"That sounds... incredibly isolating. You know, something you said reminded me of another story, considerably more recent. I'm not sure it would be appropriate, though."

"I can understand why you might not be happy with that level of modification." She imagined letting one of these random strangers touch Horanckk's code, and shivered inside for a moment. Not unless the need was very great.

Fortunately, under most circumstances Horanckk could protect himself.

"Appropriate to my circumstances, or appropriate overall? I assure you, after years of working with mercenaries, you aren't going to offend me." Far from it. It took physical pain or deep stress to offend her these days; it was easier just to let most slights roll off.

"Yes. But I'll certainly mention it to her."

"Well, I'll let you be the judge, then. There's an urban legend where I come from -- if you wander around the streets on a foggy night, you may meet with a beautiful woman wearing a face mask and holding a pair of scissors. She'll ask you if she's beautiful, and if you say yes, she removes her mask. Underneath is a wide, inhuman slit of a smile; she'll ask you the same question. Depending on your answer, you might end up with the exact same smile."

It was a little gruesome, but most urban legends were. "So perhaps if you slipped in the right place, you might have created a story or two of your own."

"A mask?" she puzzled. "I don't recall...maybe if the beautiful woman was wearing a hat. My species has some pretty wild hats."

Actually, she would expect some myth-echo of her to go around biting off people's faces, not slicing them up with scissors.

"And scissors aren't really something I think of as a useful street weapon. Of course it could just be that someone saw me, and made up the story to go with the smile."

He smiled a little. "I doubt that it refers to you; that would be quite a coincidence. But I think the point of the mask is that it covers her mouth from immediate view."

"Yes, it doesn't exactly stand up to logic, does it? But I suppose few urban legends make sense when you think about them." That didn't stop people from telling them, though. "People make up all kinds of stories about things that frighten them. I'm sure they'd have a field day with the crew."

Himself included, of course.

That was true; she remembered the first time she had sneezed on Earth, her nose reacting to the alien pollen; and the sight of her mouth opening like a trap door in a nearly window reflection. After that, she had been very careful about covering her mouth. "I can be pretty distinctive if I'm not careful."

"Whoever starts telling stories about this crew had better have a throat of steel," she said dryly. "They will talk from now until the stars go out, and never reach the end of it. And all the people in the pods, all their stories too."

He nodded. "Although to your credit, you make a rather convincing human. I believe the thing that most singles you out as nonhuman is your gesturing. You are unusually animate in conversation."

Well, that and the eye thing. He supposed the lack of animatedness was his personal giveaway.

"There are quite a few of us, aren't there?" he mused. "The ship must have had its hands full, clearing out all the media that pertained to each one of us."

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