Free The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson

warmed by good food, the tight web of kinship, and the fire itself. Her shivering stopped, and comforted by that distant memory of belonging, she fell into a light doze.
    A touch on her shoulder awakened Juna. It was Spiral. Ripple and several other aliens sat on the edge of the raised ledge. Mounds of meat, fruit, greens, and honeycomb were laid out on leaves. They were waiting for her to join them. Juna got up, picking bits of decayed leaves off her damp skin. Spiral handed her a water gourd, and she washed herself off before sitting down to eat.
    There was enough food for fifteen people or more, instead of the six or seven aliens in attendance. Meat from Spiral’s recent kill as well as several other kinds of meat, some familiar and some new, had been neatly sliced and arranged in patterns on a large polished shell platter. Three large baskets heaped with fruit, and another leaf piled with dripping honeycomb were set out with the meat. Sheets of leathery-looking dried seaweed, smelling of salt and iodine, two baskets heaped with mixed greens, and a large gourd bowl filled with a starchy brown mush completed the feast.
    The sick alien picked up a sheet of the dried seaweed. Reaching into the bowl of mush, it scooped up a gobbet of it and put it on the seaweed, folding it into a neat package. Ripple passed the completed packets to the guests. The guests waited until everyone had one, then began eating.
    Juna bit into her package of mush. It was sour and faintly bready, like her mother’s injera, but there was also a sharp cheddar cheese taste, with a hint of iodine and a salty tang like soy sauce. It would, she thought with a sudden surge of homesickness, go well with her father’s Burgundy. She closed her eyes, feeling tears prickle as she remembered her home, with its neat rows of vines filing off into the distance. Would she ever see it again?
    She opened her eyes. The aliens were looking at her, purple with curiosity. She blinked back tears and took another bite, concentrating only on the taste. It was delicious. She flushed turquoise, and nodded to show the aliens how good she thought it was. They relaxed, and began talking among themselves, handing her other foods to try.
    Juna finished first. She was full, but the aliens kept pushing more food on her. They continued to gorge until their flat bellies bulged. Instead of water, they washed their food down with large gourds of sweet fruit juice. They chewed on great chunks of honeycomb, spitting out the chewed and sucked comb. Brilliantly colored bees settled on the chewed combs and began eating the wax.
    At last the aliens were full. They leaned back, stroking their distended bellies, letting out a chorus of loud rumbling belches that sounded almost human. Juna laughed. The aliens looked at her, ears raised in curiosity.
    Embarrassed, Juna blushed brown. Blue and green ripples burst across the aliens’ skin and they belched again. Juna’s embarrassment deepened, and there were more ripples from the aliens. Spiral touched her arm, and turned a dark blue. A pattern rippled across Spiral’s chest. The other aliens’ ripples died away. One by one, they touched Juna’s arm, in apparent apology. Juna nodded at Spiral, and then belched. The aliens rippled again, and Juna laughed with them.
    After that, the aliens relaxed, flashing symbols among themselves and occasionally to her, though she couldn’t understand them. She decided to try communicating with them in their own language. Picking up one of the large leaves that they had used as dinner plates, she reached up and rubbed her finger across the ceiling to pick up some of the glowing blue fungus on her finger. Then she smeared three lines of the glowing blue substance across the leaf. The seated aliens watched her as she touched Spiral on the arm. Holding the leaf so that the lines were horizontal, she nodded, then turned the leaf so that the lines were vertical, and shook her head. She repeated this several times,