Free Shadow World by A. C. Crispin, Jannean Elliot Page B

Four human hours.
    Long, but shorter than average."
    Mark shook his head groggily. "Eerin, what are you doing?" The desk console was flashing urgently. The human stumbled over and hit the
    "escape" control.
    "Hin was modifying this setup so the computer would speak faster, but it stopped and made a noise."
    "Oh." Mark blinked stupidly, still trying to come all the way awake. He rubbed his eyes hard, then checked the link's status. "Uh, this is as fast as it will deliver in oral mode, Eerin. I didn't know you could already use a computer. I was going to teach you tomorrow."
    "Tomorrow!" Eerin's shocked tone indicated that Mark might as well have said "next century." "There is much to learn before going home. Hin will not be postponing things for tomorrows. Hin learned to use these tools on the ship."
    "Oh." All that and learning Mizari, too? Damn, but these beings learn fast!
    "What do you think of the computer?"
    "Hin has discovered hin likes the computer's speech." The golden eyes shone. "Machines tell knowledge very efficiently, if not elegantly."
    "What do you mean, not elegantly?"
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    "Without rhythm, measure, and style, gaining knowledge is not as pleasurable for hin."
    Mark stifled a yawn, intrigued despite his weariness. "Can you explain more? About the rhythm and style, I mean?" "Listen." The Elpind activated a file sitting in buffer. "Elspind. Lifecycle," said the computer in a soft, stilted voice. "Each Elpind is born neuter and remains so for the rough equivalent of ten standard years. Hin (the term denoting the neuter state) then enters the Change and emerges as either han (female) or heen (male). The adult mates for life soon after the Change and begins to reproduce the species.
    Death occurs four to six years after the Change."
    "Pause," said Eerin. "Does Mark hear? Without rhythm, there is no flavor. A Telling would--"
    "Wait a minute," Mark broke in. "I'm confused. Eerin, which are you going to become, han or heen?" "Hin does not know."
    "You don't know whether you're going to change into a male or a female?
    Surely you have some idea, sometime before this Change thing, how you'll come out." "No."
    "Well, which do you want to be?" Mark restrained the urge to kiddingly add
    "when you grow up." If Eerin was any example, the hin were, indeed, "grown up." He'd already gathered from Eerin's conversation today that the neuters built, administered, and maintained Elpind society; the han and heen built families.
    "Hin will be happy to be either. Both han and heen are valuable and needed to give life to the people. But"--the Elpind showed signs of impatience--"hin wished to show Mark the difference between the computer's speech and a Telling. Mark will hear the rhythm, the measure, the style."
    "Okay. I'll just sit down, if you don't mind." He sank into the armchair in the corner of the bedroom as Eerin dropped down to the carpet and sat cross-legged, thin knees sticking out like exclamation points. Hin began to rock gently back and forth on hin's bony rump.
    "Hear these words and carry them through your days. The strongest words grow from deepest roots. Understand these words."
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    Even translated into Mizari, Eerin's speech carried a singsong rhythm. Mark found it easy to let his mind follow the flow.
    "El is life and Wo is death, and each completes the other," chanted Eerin.
    "We are Elspind, the people of life, for the life of the people endures even as death swallows us one by one. Our lives are cast like the shadows of the four moons from the ever-shining light of the people. We are born for the rizel. In the rizel, life is taken each from the other and given each to the other, and El walks so far ahead of Wo, there is no catching."
    "Hold on a second. I'm confused again." Mark waved a hand. "What is the rizel?"
    "Hin just told Mark. It is the coming together of han and heen so the people will endure, generation after generation," Eerin answered matter-of-factly.
    "You mean, uh ... sex?"
    "Not gender, but the