Jeff Kozzi

WARNING!!  This is rough, unedited work, so there may be typos and other gaffs.  Any and all input is encouraged and appreciated to kozzi24@hotmail.com.

Twenty-Two: The Orfezzin

Governor’s Manshun, Kapital, Shelswun, Intergal 16:3:62174

When the human language spread to become the Interworld Standard, humans had used the term "humanoid" to describe aliens with bodies of similar form or pattern. Most other species, having already come to consider humans as a self centered species, objected to the term. The word baseform became the norm, and the word "humanoid" had disappeared from Interworld Standard in all but the most ancient and esoteric of human texts. Orfezzins were baseforms, and, among the oldest continuous members of the Interworld community, had shouted some of the loudest opposition to the term "humanoid."

One particular Orfezzin leaped from rooftop to rooftop across Korojun, his single task dispassionately in mind.

Sentients have ever tended to classify each other, even peoples of the same species classifying each other to emphasize similarities and differences. The term "baseform" was one of the broadest classifications, crossing even anatomical differences between divisions of mammalian or reptilian or avian or insectoid or vegetative or other anatomies. Most simply, the term came to indicate certain things about a species, the base of all forms because nature had proven to prefer the upright, symmetrical form for advanced Sentient life.

The Orfezzin splayed his arms. Flaps of skin billowed and stretched, catching air currents that existed on Shelswun not by nature, but from the heat generated by smelter cities and factories.

"Baseform" implied that the people had symmetrical bodies and walked erect, on two legs. Those legs did not have to be jointed at ankles or knees or hips to define the species as a baseform; and the feet attached to the legs did not have to possess any certain number or arrangement of toes; the classification required only that there be two legs.

The Orfezzin glided, skipping three buildings entirely before landing on the next structure. He landed firmly on the slightly inclined roof. He clutched at the parapet with his three toes. The third, growing from the heel of his foot, provided a strong grip while he surveyed the street below. He leaped, skipped two buildings and ran with his momentum.

Baseform classification did not dictate the arrangement or even the existence of specific organs. The simplest and most common shape dictated that most organs be within a torso above the legs and rise directly over those legs when the creature stood straight. Arms could connect to the torso from the sides or the front or even the back, but the definition of baseform required that there be two arms and only two arms. The arms could be of any length, jointed or prehensile, end in any number of hands or fingers or even tentacles.

Bent at the elbows, the Orfezzin’s lithe arms cocked as he ran. Another leap from the end of the roof hurled him skyward. He spread his arms and legs, stretching his glider membranes taut, becoming a sheet in the gusty little currents, rising to catch the next and higher roof.

The head always peaked a baseforms body, the highest point when the arms were relaxed. The number and arrangement of sensory and other organs could be scattered, and no specific organs were required on the head. Eyes, tentacles, kivors, ears, noses, mouths, horns, hadayrs, hairs, feathers, stalks and antennae could be present or absent without impact on classification as baseform.

The Orfezzin paused on the peak of the building, at seven stories, one of the tallest in Korojun. He scowled beneath the bone plate that covered most of his face in a diamond shape. He missed his homeworld Orfhez, with its clean air and supple trees and rolling brooks. His pointed ears twitched on the side of his head, listening to the street below for potential witnesses. He leaped again, still up higher into Shelswun’s dirty gray air.

Alien species could have tails or other extra features such as the large folds of skins that Orfezzins used to glide and still be considered baseforms. In contrast, to be baseform, the species could only have one pair of legs and one pair of arms connected to the torso, even if those limbs branched out into extra appendages.

The Orfezzin rolled and flipped in the air as aircraft passed by distantly overhead. One craft was lowering to the roof of a distant building, too remote to be of concern for the Orfezzin’s motion or his task. He circled the area again. It was impossible to eliminate all risk of witnesses, not in Korojun or anywhere on Shelswun. The moon was too densely populated. The Orfezzin landed and leaped again, to a lower building. His running leap from that rooftop brought him to the street. He walked the distance of the next building with intent purpose. His eyes no longer peered at passersby.

The term baseform meant little else, save that it was not appropriately applied to non-Sentient creatures. Sentients found other ways to further classify themselves for their whims of association and disassociation, inclusion and exclusion, fuel and fodder for their sneers and petty judgments against one another.

The Orfezzin strode with determined purpose. His long finger jabbed at the buzzer without heed to the Noshinsi children who playfully chased each other on the opposite walkway.

Many other races that were widely spread throughout the Sivil Galaxi stereotyped all Orfezzin as undergalaktiks.

The stereotype, of course, did not hold true to all Orfezzin. It did, however, hold true to the one who listened at the door of Blane Webster’s cubit as someone inside moved about.

Shelswun, a labyrinth of corporations and coalitions and profiteering, was always rife and ready for undergalaktik influence, from the racketeering of vendors to wholesale corruption and illegal, unofficial unions in large manufacturing plants. The corruption extended to the highest levels on Shelswun, where Lexa Scharo, puppeteer of her husband the governor, used Orfezzin undergalaktiks as but one tool in her almost absolute power over the dirty little world.

The Orfezzin smiled when the blonde human woman answered the door. A quick sniff and glance and twist of his ears gave the Orfezzin every indication that the woman was alone, not that the presence of anyone else in the cubit would matter. The Orfezzin bowed, then reached into the pouch of flexible artificial materials strapped to his chest. He removed a small box.

"For you, milady."

The Orfezzin handed the woman the box, bowed again, then strode away with determined haste. He did not look back to see if the woman started after him, and he did not pause to listen for protests she might make. When he reached the next building, the Orfezzin leaped to the frame of a second floor window, swung by his lithe arms and glided to the opposite rooftop. He ran across the ledge then leaped again, skipping one building and rebounding off the next.

The Orfezzin was almost twelve blocks away when the face of the building that held home to Blane Webster and his daughter Veronika exploded.