Promise

"I am off now," Joffrey said, and a second later he was already gone, leaving her alone on this damned planet among all those strange, hairy beings. They called themselves Xuliphr, just like their world. What was she supposed to make of an alien race carrying the same name as its planet? Roxanne looked around. The day before she had cleaned everything, and clearing away the breakfast table would not take all day. She had to do something so she would not feel trapped. At home she would have met Elsa in a nice cafe, but here there were no places like that, nor any real neighbours. Only aliens.

"We have to integrate," Joffrey had said, but it was easy for him to talk. He had his work. Roxanne did not understand why they had to live here among the strangers, but Joffrey had said it would make a good impression at his job. And Roxanne wanted him finally to have a career. She could still hear her father's words: "Nothing will ever come of that nigger."

Roxanne brushed the thought aside and sank into the cushions of the red sofa in the living room. In the middle of the table in front of her stood a native potted plant with red leaves, giving off its peculiar smell. Joffrey had brought her the plant.

At least he had thought of something. Men were normally incapable of bringing flowers to their wives unless they had a guilty conscience. But why should Joffrey have a guilty conscience here on Xuliphr? None of the women in his office looked as good as Roxanne with her blond curls and genetically perfected blue eyes. Besides, he did not have the nerve to cheat on her. Joffrey knew he had only got this job because she had persuaded her father to use his influence.

Roxanne closed her eyes and checked her current messages on her ViPad. The implant connected her everywhere, but there was only one message from her husband. Who else would write to her here beyond civilisation? Elsa was light-years away.

Hello darling, Joffrey wrote, let us talk about everything again tonight. If my dark complexion bothers you for the children, we can probably have them genetically bleached and raise their intelligence, if your father gives us the money. Please do not contact our neighbour alone. You could be misunderstood, and cultural misunderstandings can be dangerous here. Starting tomorrow, we will have a trainer for cultural integration.

Go to hell, Roxanne thought and ended the ViPad session. She opened her eyes and her gaze fell back on the plant: "Promise". Plants here all had odd names; others were called "Challenge" or "Peace".

Joffrey had said it was his promise that they would really get started here on Xuliphr. Roxanne agreed with that. A little more ambition would do him good.

But she was not going to sit around here like an idiot. Roxanne tucked "Promise" under her arm and went to the door. She could no longer stand the smell of the plant and stepped out into the street, where she breathed in the disgusting stinking air, which smelled even more penetrating than the plant.

Roxanne would not have been Roxanne if she had simply let the situation unsettle her. She decided to ingratiate herself with the neighbours.

The Xuliphr were two-sexed, like humans. Xuliphr men mostly had several women in their so-called harem; that was really what people called it. Roxanne shuddered with disgust.

The next house was not far away. An older Xuliphr lived there, with a face that almost looked pleasant to human eyes. Most Xuliphr had something more like grimaces, but this one had seemed more human to Roxanne.

Roxanne rang the doorbell. A deep tone sounded. Twenty-one, twenty-two. Nothing happened. She waited. She shifted restlessly from one foot to the other. Patience was not her strength. Just as she was about to leave again, the door opened. There he stood before her in person.

"Ah," said the Xuliphr, "greetings, honoured Earth woman." He spoke the colonial language fluently, even if it sounded a little stilted.

"You speak our language?" Roxanne asked. One should not confuse foreigners with complicated sentence structures.

"Yes, I think so. What brings you to my door?" He examined the flower in her hand with interest. She could see a slight flutter of his nostrils. One moment she was still fascinated; the next, a chill ran down her spine.

Roxanne swallowed and held out the flower to him. "I wanted to bring over a gift so we can get to know each other better."

The Xuliphr took a step back and scratched his head in a very human gesture. "Get to know each other? That is an interesting proposal. But do you know what you are trying to give me?"

"Promise," she replied like a shot.

"Now you truly surprise me, of course in a positive sense. I do not know whether this conforms to the Book. Do you not also have a man, even if he still appears to be young?"

"You can say that again," Roxanne replied.

"So he is rather a pre-man, as we would put it?" the Xuliphr asked intently.

Roxanne nodded, then remembered that the Xuliphr could not understand such a gesture. "Yes, that is how it is. We do not have children yet, and in the next three years we cannot have any either. Joffrey cannot do that, you see." She held the plant out to him again, but he took another step backward. "Then I must reconsider your proposal. Our fruits do not fit together."

What nonsense is he talking, Roxanne thought, and simply followed him. That was how she entered the home of a Xuliphr for the first time. It would not be the last.

"Until now I thought your companion was a, you say, 'man'," the Xuliphr remarked.

"Yes, of course." These foreigners were quite amusing.

"And yet you bring me a 'Promise'."

"No, I do not want to promise anything, it is only a gesture." She was beginning to feel slightly annoyed.

"A gesture, yes, of course. I feel honoured. But what does your 'man' say about it?"

"What is he supposed to say? Where we come from, it is customary when one arrives in a new place to give something to the neighbours."

"Yes, I understand, but something like this, a 'Promise'?"

"And?" she pressed impatiently.

"I will ask my eldest wife what she thinks. She helped work on the 'Book'." The "Book"? There was probably some pre-enlightenment religion here saying, do not accept gifts from women from other worlds, or something like that. Roxanne had to think of Pastor Jenkins from the aligned church. Before her departure he had warned her of the dangers to her soul.

"Where can I put it, I mean the flower?" The pot was slowly getting heavy. "You can accept the gift." Roxanne took another step forward.

He retreated still farther. "Put the 'Promise' on the floor for now." Hastily he turned and left her standing there. Roxanne put the plant on the floor and breathed a sigh of relief. Her gaze fixed on the passage through which the Xuliphr had disappeared. A pleasant scent of mango drifted from there.

Roxanne used the opportunity to check her messages on the ViPad. Again only Joffrey had written, announcing that he would bring the cultural trainer for dinner. Why did he mention her so often? Was she pretty? Now he was simply bringing her home without asking first.

"Are you certain?" the Xuliphr pulled her from her thoughts. "I do not wish to offend your 'man'. My eldest wife says that in your culture even 'pre-men' already lay claim to women."

"What? Of course I am certain. I mean, absolutely. My 'pre-man' will not object." To whatever this is, she added in thought, and cut the ViPad's connection to the network.

"I do not have a good feeling about accepting 'Promise' from you," the Xuliphr said. "My eldest wife is concerned whether all this can work. We do not want trouble with your ambassador. And we are on the territory of Earth here. The 'Book' has full validity."

Roxanne slowly grew angry. Again this ominous "Book". "Of course it works."

"Very well," he said. "I accept the 'Promise'. We will have much to discuss in the coming days; after all, this is an entirely new situation. But first I would like to drink a tea made from the leaves with you."

Roxanne breathed a sigh of relief. Done! He wanted to move on to the pleasant part.

They went into the rear room, where his eldest wife, who was obviously not especially old, was sitting. She prepared them a tea from the leaves of "Promise".

"And how do you like it here on Xuliphr, honourable woman?" the wife asked.

"Well, quite well. But at home we do not have anything like this: every man has only one wife. Men and women have equal rights."

"But my women are with me voluntarily. It is an honour that they chose me. I have even had to turn some away," the Xuliphr explained.

"That is simply unethical." Roxanne heard Pastor Jenkins's words in her mind.

They left it at that and drank their tea in silence. Finally Roxanne said goodbye. She was in a hurry to get home. Joffrey had announced a visitor: a strange woman in her territory.

When she saw the trainer an hour later, she became angry, because the woman was exceptionally pretty: long legs and red hair, like a witch. Damn it, Joffrey was cheating on her. That explained why he had brought her a plant.

He greeted her with the expression of an innocent angel. "Hello darling, how was your day?" His voice sounded warm and coaxing; guilty conscience, clearly!

"What?" Roxanne thought better of it. "How lovely that you brought company," she cooed.

"This is Ms Angelica. She will do the cultural briefing with us tomorrow."

"Cultural briefing? Oh, yes, of course."

The two women greeted each other, measuring one another with their eyes. Before they could drift into meaningless small talk, Joffrey looked around the room. "Where is the plant I..."

"That stinking thing? I gave it to our neighbour." There was no surprise in his eyes, rather resignation. Did he know she had seen through him and his guilty conscience? "I thought it was a good idea, to establish good neighbourly relations right away..."

"Risky," the trainer murmured.

"Excuse me?" Roxanne spun toward the woman like a fury.

"Something like that is risky. Flowers have a special meaning here on Xuliphr, legally as well. What kind of flower was it?"

"Legally, don't make me laugh. The local customs have no relevance for us! I read that." More precisely, her friend Elsa had read it to her before she left Earth.

"It was a flower with red leaves," Joffrey put in.

Ms Angelica raised an eyebrow. "And how do you like it here?" Roxanne noticed a twitch at the corner of her mouth.

"Well, in any case I do not think it is right that the women here are kept in a 'harem'."

"You know, 'harem' is also a poor translation. You did not inform yourself too deeply about the Xuliphr before coming here, did you?"

That was an insult. "You..."

"You know, that was not meant as a reproach, but the Xuliphr are both in the course of their lives, first women, then men. And during their honourable period, which by the way means fertile, they live in the so-called harem with a procreative male. Not all Xuliphr reach male honourability, which is why they are especially revered."

"Oh," Roxanne replied, "then I probably accused our neighbour unjustly."

"And what was the flower?" the trainer asked.

"The seller called it 'Promise'," Joffrey said.

The cultural trainer looked seriously at Roxanne. "Were you offered a tea made from it, and did you drink it?"

"Yes. Was that bad?" Roxanne felt like a child who had eaten the wrong sweets.

"Wait," said the trainer, closing her eyes. "I need to check something briefly."

"What have you done this time?" Joffrey asked.

"Me?" Roxanne stretched the word. He left her sitting here, cheated on her with this woman, and she was supposed to have done something?

"Okay, this is how we will do it," the trainer said after opening her eyes again.

"How will we do what?" Joffrey asked.

"My assistant will bring the divorce papers for the two of you over in a moment, and then..."

"Divorce papers?" Joffrey and Roxanne cried almost in unison.

"Yes, that is the legal view. In order to enter a Xuliphr harem, you must first be divorced from your husband. It will make good publicity: a human woman entering a Xuliphr harem to become an honourable woman. That is something, isn't it?"

"Wait a moment, I am not going..."

"You have no choice. You formed a contract through the 'Promise'; that is what it says in the legal text the Xuliphr call the 'Book'. You drank the tea, so the contract is legally valid."

"But there must be a way out?"

The trainer shook her head and turned to Joffrey. "You know, now that you will soon be divorced, I accept your invitation to dinner the day after tomorrow. I love ice cream with hot raspberries."